Clear Your Path
 

Imagine this...you leave your driveway and set out to your destination, you have a choice of one of two routes, which both will arrive at the same time.  Choice number one, a road strewn with all sorts of unthinkable junk and debris that will cause serious damage to you and your vehicle while offering a unpleasant, distracting view.  Or route number two, where you could drive on a smooth, newly surfaced road winding through a beautifully scenic area?

Which would you choose?

Of course, you'd take the nicer road. However, our path to success is the road we choose everyday to get us from where we are, to where we want to go. Yet many people drive on junked up roads everyday!

Now, think about it for a moment. If you're home is wreck, your desk is disorganized and cluttered, your inbox and voicemail has hundreds of old messages that still need dealing with, and you have garbage running through your mind, you are destined to crash and burn!

I am blessed with a great staff. Teri, our administrator and I have worked together for probably 15 years. Among her many great qualities, Teri is very efficient.  She writes our employee handbook and recently updated it. Understanding the relationship between a clean workspace and productivity, she has a "clean desk" policy for all employees, which require them to clear their desks before they leave each evening (as a disclosure, I was called into Teri's office last week about my violation of this particular policy and was written up)!

But seriously, there are some easy, most ironical, and most difficult things we can incorporate into our daily habits to achieve success in both our personal and business lives.

• First the four D's rule. Delay it, Delegate it, Dump it or Do it! Never pick up another task or piece of paper without following this rule. Try to avoid "Delay".

• Clean your desk every night before you leave. Throw away 90% of the paper that you've been shuffling around day after day, its trash. How many times have you moved locations and booked up your desk to find the same box years later with paperwork you obviously don't need.

• Make sure your inbox is empty every day. Create a folder for each prospect and drag every email into its folder. You have a delete button and a trash bin...use them. Tip: Sort your emails by "From", it's easier to clean out your inbox.

• Return all voicemails daily. All business calls should be returned promptly. If you cannot always do so, have your message indicate so by saying something like "I return all my business calls between 4pm and 6pm daily."  By the way, I hate it when I ask someone to "call" me and they text me instead; if I wanted a text, I would have sent a text.

• Make a daily task list. Getting it out of your head and on a piece of paper works wonders.  It is one less thing occupying your thoughts. Next time your brain is working overtime and you can't sleep, don't fight it. Get up, empty your head on paper and you'll be able to get back to sleep.

Make a commitment to do the above and your Path to Success may not be perfect, but the ride will be a lot smoother.

Make it your best week. Joe

Make Your Mark on the Web - Create Your Brand with About.Me

Do you have a Website? A Blog? A Facebook or Twitter Account? If so, you are heading in the right direction - you are making your mark on the web.  But there is something missing . . . a brand, your brand, a way to promote yourself, your business, and the sites/tools you use to make your business your own in a nice online package.

In the days of print media, your brand was very evident - your business card, postcards, brochures, and newspaper ads all reflected the same color, logo, and design across the board.  You were able to grab a package that included every type of advertising and pass it along to your buyer or seller just like that.

Nowadays, the majority of our marketing efforts are made online, allowing us to reach out to a vast amount of potential clients.  However, in order to effectively promote yourself online, you need a clean webpage that delivers your personal brand, a message, and provides the links to your websites/pages. Now you can have all of this simply by signing up at About.me, a new online profile service that essentially offers a personally branded webpage that serves as an intelligent online business card, and better yet it is FREE!
 
It is simple to get your page started on About.me and reserve your personal URL.  Just visit the site and follow the steps to add your bio, a background image, and various social networks and website links.

As real estate agents, you rely a lot on personal branding for recognition and success, with About.me you can reach that goal without having to be a web designer or graphic artist to create a great profile.
 With this tool, you can show your clients that you really are innovative, and your personal branding shows it.

Take some time to check out About.me today, you can browse through some of the existing profiles on About.me at this link and you'll quickly feel the urge to create your own. It is time to make your mark, and there is no better way than with a FREE About.me personally branded page.

Check out TPRE's Page at http://about.me/tpre