Yee Haw!

In an effort to spark things up a little in the dead of winter, our broker Kim organized a couple of first quarter sales contests. The first was a Listings Contest and the second was an overall Activity Contest (buyer contracts, listings, continuing ed, open houses, closings, etc.). When she first announced them I was the first to balk. To even qualify for the listings contest you had to get at least 5 listings. No way! And for the activity contest, the big points were in closings and new listing and buyer contracts. I had no really good prospects and was feeling a little discouraged. But Kim had faith in us all, so I just got busy.
WELL...to my own great surprise and delight, not only did I qualify for the contests, I WON both of them! In 3 months I signed up 8 new listings, 3 new buyers and even closed one of the new listings (another one is currently under agreement). What's really cool is EVERYONE in the office jacked up their production during this time. The energy here is electric. If we were able to create something so amazing out of what at the time appeared to be nothing...I can't WAIT to see what we do next!

The Secret of Success

I've started 2010 with a bang; business is better than ever before, and I'm ecstatic. The crazy thing now is people are asking me what the secret is. It wasn't that long ago when I was tracking down top producers, clamoring for the same answers.
I remember calling Sandy Magner up out of the blue. She didn't know me from Adam, but I knew she was one of the most successful agents in the area. Sandy is a great conversationalist. She can sit down for hours in a row and make dozens of cold calls. She also holds open houses like they're going out of style.
Next I asked Donna Gemborys, the queen of Eastham real estate. She sends out thousands of pieces of direct mail annually and has a paid assistant who manages the tedious aspects of the job.
Did they reveal the 'secret' to me? Well, I'm not sure. I'll call up the occasional homeowner if I know I can sell their house, and I do my open houses, but honestly I often sub them out to other agents in my office. And I send out postcards with every new listing and closing, and I'm even starting to 'farm' a couple of neighborhoods. If you were to ask me what I do that brings me the most business I would probably talk about my online presence and my person-to-person connections. But would that be my advice to you?
It's true; if you are phone prospecting for an hour a day, doing 2 open houses every weekend, cranking out a monthly mailing, hiring an assistant, hob-nobbing and blogging your brains out, it will be hard to fail. But I don't know anyone who does all that all the time. Not Sandy, not Donna, and certainly not me.
So then what's the damn secret??
It's actually not that mysterious. It's a lot less sexy than you might hope.
The 'secret' to success as I see it is: find the things that you are good at, that you like to do. And then do them--really DO them, with passion, persistence and vision. When something works, do it even harder. And for pete's sake, when something stops working, STOP DOING IT. Don't judge yourself by someone else's yardstick; chances are you're better than them anyway. Keep raising your own bar.
And blog. Definitely blog.

Spring is Sprung

Last week I saw my first crocuses of Spring 2010-- a big swath of them on 6A in Brewster. A few days later I read in the paper that the right whales are back in Cape Cod. Then last night--my favorite spring sign of all--I heard the peepers in the pond across the street! Woo hoo! I've got forsythia branches forcing in the dining room. Next up: start watching for seagulls over the herring run.

Realtor Gone for the Weekend

Writing from an Amtrak car this morning on my way to NYC for my daughter's gymnastics meet. Funny, the last time I rode a long-distance train I was with the same daughter, except we were in China and had only known each other for a few days.
In this job of real estate, I'm often on the clock when my clients and most normal people are off. This means my job often happens on weekends, holidays and evenings. One of the hardest parts of my job is drawing boundaries. No biz calls after 6, delegate some percent of open houses, etc. But even if clients aren't calling, there's work to be done 24/7 and it's hard sometimes to stop and just be something other than a realtor.
Like, say, a mother.
Yeah, I gotta go now, we're almost at Penn Station. Have a great weekend--see you on Monday!


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