On my Active Rain Blog, I started a series of posts on how to Create a Saleable Asset and Design Your Exit Strategy. Here's what I will be covering in this series: Determining the value of your real estate business The Essential Real Estate Business Systems Real Estate Team Building Systems - an overview Establishing metrics to measure your business health Exit Strategy - from training your replacement to buyout considerations Visit this first post for some ideas on how to determine the value of your real estate business. Join the WBNL Coaching Wanderers Club - The online, virtual coaching... Read more →

On June 12, I posted Reasons to Join the Active Rain Real Estate Network . At that time there were over 36,000 members (professionals from real estate, mortgage, title and related industries). As of today, there are now close to 40,000 members. In fact, a recent press release on Active Rain states: SEATTLE, July 11 /PRNewswire/ -- ActiveRain, the world's largest social networking site for real estate professionals, marked its one-year anniversary today by surpassing 35,000 members and 120,000 posts, and projecting monthly double-digit growth over the next 12 months. For the full report: World's Largest Social Networking Site For... Read more →

I subscribe to and read over 30 blogs. My feed reader changes as I add new and intriguing blogs and delete those that I find have lost their edge, don't udpate often or simply don't interest me any longer. In reviewing why I subscribe to a blog (and why I delete it from my reader) I formulated this list of common features of the blogs I feel are good or great: Author's true voice, honesty, passion and personality shines through the posts The blog is upated frequently with well-written, quality, compelling and interesting content Author is transparent about who is... Read more →

Today's post is about the elements and features of a blog. We will be covering several of these topics later is the series including the blogging software I recommend - Wordpress, Typepad or Blogger. I use Typepad for this blog. Design Options Most of the blogging platforms have a variety of template designs and format options. After deciding on a theme, you’ll want to decide if you want the 1, 2 , or 3 column format. I prefer the 3 column format. So, let’s use my blog as the example to describe the various elements. Starting at the top, you... Read more →

Last week I interviewed Matthew Hardy, developer and designer of a powerful Real Estate software system called Real Estate Success Tracker (REST). You can listen to the call above or download the audio file. Several weeks ago my team and I previewed the unique features and usability of the program through an online demonstration with a team from REST. Simply put, I was impressed. The program is a comprehensive, easy to use tool to follow-up with your sellers, buyers, and sphere of influence as well as track your real estate transactions. The online training and tech support is also outstanding.... Read more →