Deb's Lake Livingston Real Estate & Stuff!

What Channel Are You ON? Do You Need One? You bet! Active Rain is changing like a New York minute, faster than a speeding bullet and faster than a fox with a hound on his heels.

I'm one that seems to always )*%%^&*( about any kind of change. It just doesn't settle well with me at first. I have to examine it, analyze it, toss it around, stew on it, simply consider it, disect it, put it back together, whine a bit, argue, attempt to control the issue of change and then I might feel comfortable with it.

Maybe.

It seems to me that right now Active Rain is a bit like a game of chess. They are making me think several moves ahead. The strategy is there if you want to learn and win the game.

I do. I want to win.

We all do.

We all want our efforts in the Rain to benefit us to our highest and best use.

We spend a great deal of time writing "OUR WORDS" AND "OUR WORDS" ARE A PART OF US.

Even if we NEVER RECEIVE A SINGLE COMMENT ON OUR POSTS WITH A STRATEGY WE WILL CLIMB IN THE SEARCH ENGINES.

Sorry for yelling. It's true though.

After spending your precious time writing the words you want to share with the world, you want to make sure that those you want to READ it will get to SEE IT!

My suggestion is that we take the same "careful" time after we've written the post to place it properly. I have been known many times to get in a hurry about this. If I wanted to make sure this post would be found by the Google Bots and placed in my area, I would be sure to mention within this post that I sell Lake Livingston Real Estate.

The Bots would pick that up, compare it to my tags, and then place it in the direction we point them to.

1. We Tag it for you know who.....

I would tag this post:  Lake Livingston Real Estate,Channels,Deb Brooks,tips and strategies

Why do we do this? You are directing Google straight to your intended audience.

2. Visibility would then be set to Public (so the Bots would read it)~Nothing to hide here!

3. And then we come to the biggie. There is a huge strength in numbers. I want this post to be placed with its like kind so the Bots will recognize the content and place it with "like content" and the post is given more strength.

First click on Active Rain Channels. It's new you see! This is going to help you Optimize your post for the Search Engines and within the Active Rain Community. Once you click Channels this is what you will see.

 

Then, choose your channel. If you just click on Active Rain, your post will go into the hundreds of thousands of posts amongst AR itself and dilute your key words. So, click the arrow and let's go shopping.

The Channel that suited this post best is the Training catagory.

But wait~there's more! (LOL)

It is up to you to choose your own catagory wisely. For this TOPIC I chose CHANNELS since that's what I'm talking about.

CHOOSE YOUR TOPIC WISELY. Remember, you want your post to be positioned with the "like kind".

If one of you members OR a consumer types CHANNELS into our search bar...guess who will pop up? Yep, right along with Brad and Bob and Rich and anyone else talking about CHANNELS. All of their KEY WORDS will enhance the KEY WORDS within this post and cause them all to climb on the Search Engines.

HUGE IMPORTANT HINT TO REMEMBER...After deciding on your TOPIC type your letters in VERY SLOWLY. As you are typing in the letters new words will appear that other members have placed into the TOPIC AREA.

THE VERY FIRST WORD THAT APPEARS THAT MATCHES YOUR CHOSEN TOPIC, WHETHER IT BE SINGULAR OR PLURAL HAS THE MOST POSTS.

Choose that one. The top word is always the fullest post slot. Go for it.

Please remember that placing your posts is like a game of chess. Think ahead before you make your move. Make sure you have placed your post properly. This will give you and all others the strength we want to make a difference and blow away the Bots!

Have fun with it. It's a bit like a game!

 

 

Bob Stewart, our very own Social Media Guru, Community Builder and Creative Mind Extraordinaire,suggested to me that I try FIREFOX, a Mozilla browser, instead of my Internet Explorer. Hum...I smiled and said I would but subconsciously my head was shaking back and forth while crossing my arms. Nope, huh uh, no way, not a chance, not me.

I'm a tough egg to crack. From the beginning of time I have been a die-hard Internet Explorer fan. In my mind and my world it ran my entire puter!

My VISTA and my IE have been really knocking heads. I couldn't load Active X, Flash, Java, play any games and of course...the infamous ERROR MESSAGE on Active Rain was driving me nuts. I couldn't even pull up a video or watch YouTube.com.

My emotions were scrambled (pun intended).

As far as I was concerned you could tar and feather me, tie me up over a bonfire or make me wear cement shoes while you dropped me into Lake Livingston but I would NOT MESS UP MY PUTER FOR FIREFOX.

After tweaking and exploring and maximizing and decompressing and loading and unloading programs that still wouldn't work...After spending a small fortune at the "we can fix it store", I cratered. Yep, I did.

I typed in FIREFOX.COM.

I just knew I would hear a tick, tick. tick. "BLAM" and that would be the end of my puter.

I clicked LOAD FIREFOX. Before I could bolt out of the room "voila" it was loaded. I skipped the tutorial (because I only like learning the hard way) and was then looking at a very attractive "user friendly" looking screen. Needless to say I have to admit I was wrong and Bob was right. Active Rain is moving faster and cleaner than ever (gee, I guess it wasn't all their fault), I'm playing my games today with everything working and life is copacetic. Simply by listening to Bob I have wiped out so many of my challenges and for free! I can go back and forth between FIREFOX and INTERNET EXPLORER in the blink of an eye.

So, Come On Baby, Light Your Fire!

Try it today my friends and let Bob and I know how you like it. If you're like us you will love it!

Remember the old commercial that shows an agent pushing a house to the exact location the customer wanted? Within the commercial they made the statement that your agent would "show" you what you wanted and not what the agent wanted to show them. Wasn't that ReMax?

I use to laugh at that and think, "if I could only do that!". In reality this was a fantastic marketing campaign. It worked well. A marketing message is suppose to get the point across that builds trust in the viewer and asks for the "call to action" without putting it in your face...it was good.

What the commercial was implying was the kicker. That the agents would work with you and "listen" to you which would help, not hinder your home buying experience.

Obviously none of us can push the house to the right location but we can learn to provide the very best service to our clients as possible by listening to their needs.

We interact with our clients/customers daily with most of our senses.

Sight, smell, touch, taste (the flavor of success), and hearing.

What is the most important one?

In this case...LISTENING.

 

 

 

Each one of us, no matter what our profession, will benefit from the art of listening.

Practice the art of asking the right questions and voila...close the mouth and LISTEN.

We all talk about pre-qualifying our customer and that requires questions.

Once they are qualified...don't stop asking the questions. Dig deep without asking "inappropriate or too personal" questions. From where they have lived to where they plan to retire. Ask about the homes they've lived in before and what they liked and didn't like about them.

Ask them to categorize their necessities down to their desires for the perfect home.

LISTENING will save you time and occasionally embarrassment with your clients.

 

LISTENING will guarantee that you can be the most effective Professional possible. Use the information wisely.

 

LISTENING will provide you the information to hone your skills and find the RIGHT program or property for your clients!

Once you show them you are truly interested and they feel they have invested a great deal of information in YOU, YOU become more important to THEM.

You will attain loyalty and often times a friend.

 

  

Debra Brooks

Brooks Prime Properties

Lake Livingston Realtor

 

Rainers! Please read and understand! Each dollar is precious to us right? So, what if we continued to work for free? How long would we last?

Please help support AR...

 

I never thought I would be celebrating a milestone on Active Rain such as this one! I've never posted a milestone post before but this got to me! I noticed that I'm bordering (and should be there by morning)...

 

I can remember back when I was at about 10,000 points. I could't believe how I could ever make it grow.

At first it was a simply a goal for the points...

Then I started finding my blogs in Google.

I began to study the greats...

Jason Crouch

Rich Jacobson

Nestor and Katerina

marti Garaughty

Lenn Harley

TLW and Broker Bryant

Neal the real deal Bloom

Sally Cheesman

Brad Andersohn

Melissa Grant

Jeff Dowler

Jeff Turner

Jason Sardi

Lola Audu

Margaret Woda

Midori Miller

Brian Block

Missy Caulk

Bill Gassett

Kristal Kraft

                                                          I opened up my eyes and saw the sign!

And, so many more. All these Top Notch blogger/writers kept me coming back! The more I read the more friends I made. I love it here and want to say thank you to all my pals that have become so important to me!

Here's to you my friends!

 

 

 

 

 

It's a general consensus that we are all watching our marketing and overhead dollars this new year. If you've not yet written your 2009 business plan it's still not too late. Whether you are a lone Wolf or a member of a huge Team your written plan is necessary for success!

First of all what is your goal for the year? What is your required income and how do you plan to get there? Or, do you plan to find a new company or make a personal move this year? All of these "plans" of yours must be written down, analyzed and planned for you to get there successfully.

How are you going to cut costs without losing business? Which areas of your dollars spent are gaining you the most return? Is that magazine you are putting your listings in getting you enough leads to justify the monthly payment?

What and where are your leads coming from? Are the leads viable? Of the closings you have had in the year 2008~where did the leads generate from? Was it word of mouth or from your advertising? Does it pay you to maintain an office? What about the overhead? Did you receive enough traffic generated by the office itself to cover the costs and put money in your pocket?

We are becoming a virtual world. Active Rain is the proof in the pudding. We are making friends we would never have had the opportunity to meet without this huge network of "us".

Use it. Social networking requires nothing of you but your time and sincerity.

Maybe it's time to expand your world and spend less money!

 

1. Analyze.

2. Write it down.

3. Adjust plan accordingly.

4. Keep detailed records.

5. Don't be afraid to try something new.

6. Learn Network Marketing~it's the wave of the future.

 7. Position yourself and stick to it.

And, don't forget to refer to your plan often. Track what is working and what is not and adjust the plan to your successes.  Check and review in writing at a minimum of once a month to track your progress. If it's not working simply do something else!

Out with the old and in with the new! You will find you can become much more effective and spend less money.

Work smart~Not hard.

I've read that our moon this evening is the largest it will be for the entire year of 2009. I got this shot with two of my favorite things in this world...

Our moon and my favorite old Oak tree. It was so beautiful seeing the light shine between the branches and I was hoping my camera could catch the magic.

Not too bad! I hope you like it.                                                                                             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It feels to me as if we have a tremendous year ahead of us...all of us. Don't forget to wish upon a star.

Huntsville, Texas...Lake Livingston moonlight.

Texas is a world unto itself. We have every terrain imaginable from the Piney Woods to dessert to mountains to coastal land. Huntsville Texas is an enigma when it comes to climate. The old saying here is...If you don't like the weather just wait 15 minutes.

You can count on that phrase anytime you are talking about any of the seasons except for summer. Summer is guaranteed to be HOT. Period. Flip flop weather and shorts.

This time of year? I have three active closets with clothing to cover the gambit of "Climate Change". This morning I woke up to ice on my windshield. This moment it's 78 degrees and the sun is shining. And, 15 minutes from now it will probably be cooling quickly with a storm brewing. My closets consist of very heavy clothing, shoes, coats etc...

The next one has moderate clothing that is mostly used for layering. Sweaters, long sleeved T's and tennies and the other is for the 80 degree days! Flip flops, T's and capris.

I can tell you this...

When a client is looking for Real Estate in the Lake Livingston area in Texas, one of their main concerns is closet space!

I understand why!

So, if you don't like our weather...just wait 15 minutes!

Later in the rain, or snow, or scorching heat, or black of night....Deb