A Revenue Enhancement Weblog for Real Estate Professionals from Altera Performance Group

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Do any of these sound familiar:

Tried a newsletter & quit.
Tried a blog and quit.
Started a business book & never finished.
Opened a facebook account but never used it.
Attended a seminar but never used anything you learned.
Met a great contact but never followed up.

Most people start these things with the best of intentions. But when the payoff isn’t immediate they quit. In this 5 minute video, Zig Ziglar does a great job explaining why that approach won’t work and what will.

(Click here if you can’t see the video.)

All Alone

Originally uploaded by alteragroup

Hahns Peak & Steamboat Lake

Click to zoom

From a project we’re working on. You are not alone.

We just released the latest version of our eBook Alterations entitled “Selling Steamboat - 10 ways to think differently about selling real estate in Steamboat.”

It’s free so download it, read it, copy it and give it to a friend in need!

Alterations - Selling Steamboat

The new Altera website has just been born.

www.alteragroup.com

As with any site it’s a work in progress but we’re glad to have it up. There’s free stuff as well as info on our various services.

I hid an easter egg on the site. It’s a secret page that’s not in the normal navigation. Whoever finds it gets a Starbucks on me.

Most real estate professionals I meet are slashers. That is they don’t do just one thing. They’re a real estate broker/investor or real estate broker/retail shop owner etc. Get it - the “/” slash?

Slashers are people who have multiple parallel careers whereas a moonlighter has a side gig they work on after hours. One of the authors gives examples of lawyers turned writers & coaches (including herself), a teacher with a modeling career, a computer programmer who also directs a theater, a lawyer who’s also a Baptist minister, Sanjay Gupta, the CNN health correspondent who also does surgery a few times a month, and the list goes on and on.

This is a rather long video(56min) but if you’re trying to play the slasher game it’s worth a look.

(Click here if you can’t see the video.)

Here’s a 2 minute video from one of my favorite authors, Jeffery Gitomer. His get-real approach to business and sales is extremely refreshing. This should be required reading for all real estate professionals.

(Click here if you can’t see the video.)

If you don’t have any of his books, do yourself a favor and pick up a few. I promise you’ll get a ton out of them.

Pick up a few today!

If you’re on Windows and still running Internet Explorer 6, please upgrade. If not please skip this post. To find out what version you’re running, launch Internet Explorer, click help, then select “About.” If it says version 6 please upgrade.

Why?

Because the internet has moved way beyond what IE6 can handle. You’re not seeing the full picture, kind of like watching black & white TV when you can get color for free. A full 40% of visitors to this blog are still using IE 6. This is too bad because they’re not seeing a lot of cool things that are going on on the web and they’re causing developers to dumb down their apps to accommodate the IE 6 users.

I have choices when it comes to getting my hair cut. I could go to Mountain Cuts for an inexpensive “blow & go” cut by a recent cosmetology grad. It may be a fine service for some but I prefer a little more experience and a higher quality hair cut so I go to Savanna at The Comb Goddess. I pay more and I get more. I pay more and I experience lower risk that it’s going to be screwed up & I’ll look like a fool. Both are hair cuts but they are not the same. They’re not fungible. (Fungible means that there is no difference in value between two or more items. For example, a $20 bill is fungible with any other $20 bill and it’s fungible with roughly $200 Mexican pesos.)
You can’t swap either haircut for the other and have the same result (the guy in the picture doesn’t get this). Savanna delivers additional value and I pay a higher price.

Most if not all of what you do to market a property is not fungible.

How about your real estate marketing? Most if not all of what you do to market a property is not fungible. Point & Shoot digicams won’t capture the same essence of a property as an experienced photographer with a digital SLR. You can’t simply trade one for the other and have the same value.

Writing ad copy 30 minutes before the deadline is not the same as a well crafted message done by a professional copywriter.

Venturing into the online realm with the cheapest web company you can find won’t be the same as investing time, energy and money with an experienced e-business outfit.

Just as we, the consumers, can tell the difference between a bad “bowl cut” and a killer style, we can tell the difference between elegant marketing that tells a compelling story and cookie-cutter-hack-job marketing. They are not the same. They’re not fungible - they don’t have the same value. In a crowded, competitive market, paying more attention to the quality of your marketing and less about the price can make a huge difference. We notice.

Here’s a little clip from the no BS financial guru Larry Winget that really sums things up.

Click the green button to play:

 

 I Love Money [2:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

There is such great opportunity for those who think beyond the Pilot & MLS to provide extreme value to their clients & potential buyers.

Provide value first, do what you say & build your brand.

You can find Larry’s books here: