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e P O W E R! N E W S
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Issue 4 / Volume 2 -- April 2001 Edition
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"The Power Of People Connecting With People Through The Internet"
A powerful resource for real estate professionals looking to maximize their
online business with the Internet Empowered Consumer™ (compliments of Mr.
Internet!)
__C O N T E N T S___________________________________________
* FEEDBACK: 3-Day Advanced Course OVERWHELMING Success! ...
* ePOWER! TIP: Manage Your Virtual Team With Your Own FREE Intranet! ...
* SUCCESS STORY: Quick Agent Sees Fast Results Using Yahoo Auctions To
Market Her Listings! ...
* BITING THE eDUST: SuperSig.com Has Created Their Last Signature...
* ePOWER! STATS: New Gomez Survey Shows Online Consumers Want Control ...
* MAIN ARTICLE: How To Turn Every Page Of Your Web Site Into A Selling
Machine! ...
* PARTING THOUGHTS: Your Canary In The Cave ...
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** FEEDBACK: 3-Day Advanced Course OVERWHELMING Success! ...
Having just completed nearly two back-to-back 3-day advanced Internet
marketing intensive workshops, I am happy to report they far exceeded even
my expectations. Here are just several of the many, many comments I received
from the attendees:
"On a scale of 1 to 10, overall rating 200!"
Holly Kaufman, RE/MAX Masters Realty Inc., West Vancouver, BC
"If you haven't taken the 3 day course, you don't know what you are
doing!"
Mary Helen Gilbert, RE/MAX Associates, Ann Arbor, MI
"This course was more than 100 TIMES the value of what I paid!"
Jack Dice, RE/MAX Supreme Properties, Great Falls, VA
The format of this workshop is *entirely* different from anything I've
ever delivered before, including:
. Target Market "Teams" - attendees were grouped in teams according to a
specific target market (i.e. first-time buyers, affluent sellers, etc.) and
stayed with their team members for the whole three-day period;
. Team Brainstorming - many, many exercises where each team got to
brainstorm marketing ideas (specific to their target market) with some real
*brilliance* showing through!;
. Workshop Intranet - all group efforts, ideas, and solutions from each team
were uploaded (by the team leaders) to a special session Intranet where
every participant now has continued access to the wealth of information
created during the program (which means from every represented target
market!);
. Homework - there was challenging homework to do every evening, with many
people having major "epiphanies" as a result! (NOTE: many attendees were
receiving almost immediate highly-competitive bids from virtual consultants
for projects that would make a major difference in their business --this was
a real "WOW"!)
We also had tons of fun as I had teams competing against each other for
points (usually which ones uploaded their work to the Intranet the quickest
and the value of their creative ideas, etc.). Mr. Internet took out the team
with the most points at the end of the 3-days to a special dinner!
And there was *so* much more. This new workshop represents a major quantum
leap for aggressive intermediate and highly advanced online real estate
professionals. If you are interested in attending future workshops (we are
scheduling now) just send e-mail to mailto:3-day-workshop@russer.com and
we'll notify you as dates and locations firm up.
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** ePOWER! TIP: Manage Your Virtual Team With Your Own FREE Intranet! ...
You can now have the same power as our 3-day workshop members to manage your
virtual (or otherwise) team via a free Intranet from Intranets.com (http://www.intranets.com).
Within just minutes you can have a centralized, Web-based location to store
all your commonly used documents, sync your team member calendars and
contact lists in addition to having the ability to post ideas and conduct
chats among your team.
My company, RUSSER Communications, is completely virtual (I have *no*
employees) and a group of virtual assistants from all over the country help
me run it quite smoothly. We use Intranets.com extensively and plan on using
even more of its capabilities in the near future. If you plan on growing
your business through the use of a virtual team (and, as far as I'm
concerned that's the *only* way to grow your business) then Intranets.com is
a *must see*!
(EDITOR'S NOTE: as of June 2001, Intranets.com is no longer offering a free
version. Suggest you check out
http://www.communityzero.com as an alternative)
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** SUCCESS STORY: Quick Agent Sees Fast Results Using Yahoo Auctions To
Market Her Listings! ...
In the main article of my last newsletter I spoke about how you can use
Yahoo! Auctions to immediately a) generate more leads; b) increase your
listing's marketing exposure; c) compete more powerfully for new listings.
Vicki Lloyd of Regency Real Estate Brokers in Lake Forest, CA, ran with this
idea and here's what she reports:
"I have now had 181 visitors, in the 30 hours it has been active. I sent
an e-mail to my social farm of about 45 friends, past clients, etc. (and so
far, I've had feedback from 10 of them!) By the way, for a 10-day auction
period including upgrading to make it a 'featured listing' cost me a tiny
bit over $10. For a new listing, $1/day for immediate exposure isn't bad at
all!"
You can see what Vicki did by going to
http://page.auctions.yahoo.com/auction/50083688. This is a very simple
yet effect layout. She could have gotten fancy by creating a free Yahoo!
Auction booth as well.
Remember, great ideas are not worth a dime if you don't act on them. A Tip
'O The Hat from Mr. Internet to Vicki for taking immediate action on a
business-building idea!
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** BITING THE eDUST: SuperSig.com Has Created Their Last Signature...
Yet another dot-com casualty, SuperSig.com, the company that made it easy to
create professional looking HTML e-mail signatures is no more as of about a
week ago. This is too bad since they had a good product (that they offered
for free --hmmmmm).
Well, now you know why all these online companies offer everything for free
--it's to get bought before going out of business. Some make it, most don't.
Business will always be subject to basic principles (like making a profit
:o), no matter what the context. This is a good lesson for all of us in that
if we come to depend upon a product or service that is free, how much will
it hurt us if it suddenly goes away...
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** ePOWER! STATS: New Gomez Survey Shows Online Consumers Want Control ...
Gomez.com (http://www.gomez.com) recently
released an executive study entitled: "The State of Online Real Estate: The
Challenge of Getting Consumers to the 'Home' Page". The complete report
includes responses from over 10,000 consumers and 4,000 Real Estate
professionals.
Here are a couple of the more interesting results: . 75% of Internet
consumers surveyed, who plan to buy or sell a home in the future, want at
least 80% control over the next transaction; . 71% of consumers demand a
broad selection of listings, including FSBO properties.
These figures shouldn't be a big surprise to anyone who has studied the
Internet Empowered Consumer™ (IEC™) --however it's nice to now that an
independent 3rd party corroborates what I've been shouting about over the
past few years. :o)
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** MAIN ARTICLE: How To Turn Every Page Of Your Web Site Into A Selling
Machine! ...
How well does your Web site copy really *engage* your visitors? Are you and
your site simply an "information warehouse" that only provides information
upon request or is each page finely crafted and designed to consistently
initiate a relationship-building, transaction-creating dialog?
Very, very few sites emotionally engage their visitors with what I refer to
as a "Call To Interaction". This is a very different and powerful way of
approaching Web copy and it's all laid out for you in my latest "Ask Mr.
Internet!" article. Just go to:
http://www.russer.com/~ami/010315/dmri_01-03-15.html
NOTE: this concept was covered in-depth during the recent 3-day Advanced
Workshops (for RE/MAX & Coldwell Banker). It is not an easy one to master,
but when you do --watch out world!
(reprinted with permission from my April 2001 "Ask Mr. Internet!" REALTOR
Magazine column)
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** PARTING THOUGHTS: Your Canary In The Cave ...
A few days ago, I returned from a very pleasant, restful stay on the
beautiful island of Kauai. You may remember from my last newsletter that I
planned on taking this trip to "get my smile back" after a grueling four
month effort to get a new book out and develop the 3-day Advanced Workshop.
In addition to the caressing tropical milieu of sun, sea, sand and
mountains, this short respite gave me a quiet opportunity to think about why
I lost it (my smile, that is) in the first place.
After a bit of relaxed beachside contemplation it was clear that I had
fallen back into my old "human-doing" ways again. I don't smile much when
I'm too busy "doing". It's more like a determined, focused grimace showing
the strains of "just trying to get things done --d**n it!". Unfortunately,
as productive as it may seem, this is a perfect recipe to get off track from
the "moment" and my true life purpose. And when that happens, I typically
lose that toothy smile of mine. In this way, my smile is like a canary in
the cave, when it falls over, I know something is amiss --a sort of
early-warning system for my spirit.
A friend of mine, who outwardly gives the appearance of a very successful
and together life called to tell me he's a mess and needed a friendly ear.
After listening to all the things that were currently going wrong for him,
usually in the form of a non- stop panoply of complaints, it occurred to me
that chronic complaining was his "canary in the cave". Cleary this was the
clue that something was not quite right with my friend's life.
Canaries were very useful to miners in that they let them know when unseen
danger lie ahead in mine shafts (usually in the form of deadly gas),
indicating that an immediate change of direction was required. Take a moment
right now to think about what your canary looks like. That way, when you see
it "fall over" you know it's time to take appropriate corrective action.
Here's hoping that your canary stays alive and healthy for the rest of your
life!
~ Mr. Internet ~
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Mr. Internet® is a registered trademark of RUSSER Communications,
ePOWER™,Internet Empowered Consumer™, IEC™, and Rules Of
Engagement™, are all trademarks of RUSSER Communications
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ISSN: 1530-5252 - Library Of Congress, Washington D.C., USA
Copyright © 2000, 2001 RUSSER Communications, all rights
reserved. You may forward this newsletter only in its
entirety including this copyright notice.
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