Yesterday I took an hour long bike ride instead of going to the gym. The sun was shining. The temperature is perfect. We slept last night with all the windows open, luxuriating and enjoying the crisp desert air. I love this time of the year in Arizona. After 5 months of temperatures over 100 most days, the air conditioners got turned off, the convertibles are cruising with the tops down and the kids can go down the slides without getting burned! Sometimes, it’s the little things that make a difference. Life is good!

My husband, Bub, accuses me of being an ostrich and tells me I should be worrying about the collapse of the economy and our way of life as we know it. Hmmmm…I think: Would it serve anyone or anything for me to worry about it? I think not. Now, I don’t want to sound like a stupid Pollyanna who is entirely out of touch with reality, but I know from all the study and work I have done around The Law of Attraction, if I get sucked into the reactionary fear, I do not feel better, do better or get good results.

My truth is: Today, at my house, all is well and life is good. We woke up on this side of the grass and that sure beats the alternative.

When I keep my eye on building from where I am, I make steady progress. While my results may be different than I originally envision or may far exceed my expectations:

I find the conscious choosing of my thoughts>
leads to my expectations and that >
leads to what I get.
ALWAYS!

So many people spend lots of time choosing their wardrobe or their menu items, but totally neglect to choose their thoughts! You have that power each and every moment, each and every day and the use of it can create miraculous results.

I am refusing to participate in gloom and doom. Even if it is just at my house (or just in the room which is my office), life is good! I intend to keep expanding reality and thinking with every article I write and each coaching client I touch so that we can emanate good that gets gooder and gooder!

One of the exercises in this month’s Relax and Attract class is called Virtual Realities. During the day, you envision for 30 seconds a scene that brings you joy, makes you feel good. Talk about an easy way to shift when you are feeling frustrated or scared or depressed….just 30 seconds of get into a scene that brings good feelings, picture all the details, then get out. Try that a few times a day and see what it does to your mood :>) Please RELAX and ATTRACT!!!!! And have some fun this week.

Letting Go

Two weeks ago, I shared some of what I did on my summer vacation. I found stepping back from the busy doingness and choosing which activities truly gave me joy was really, really hard. Much easier to just get up every day and do what presents itself. Manage myself from the to do list and plug away. There is certainly a feeling of getting things done in all that activity, but the challenge I gave myself over the summer was to start to notice what makes my heart sing and creates a feeling of bliss and what is hum-drum living.

I can relate to the quote of wanting to be burned up completely when I die but I don’t want to feel burned out at the end of each day.
So, what’s a person to do????

I spent the summer evaluating as went each activity and if it didn’t fit the heart-singing criteria, I gave some thought to whether I should keep this in my life. I whittled down what I was doing to give me space to have room for new things to be added.

I mentioned Tim Ferriss’s book, The Four Hour Workweek (some thought this was the 4 day workweek because 4 hours seems so ludicrous!). One of my coaching clients gave me feedback by saying there was some good, some useless and some thought-provoking. I thought that was a good assessment. I rarely find an author I BELIVE in 100%, but if they can make me think, I always find that valuable.

And, this made me think:

To tell the truth, I didn’t end the summer with this all tied up in a neat package, but I did make some decisions and have restructured. And, the process, now started will go on.

Some of this involves:

Business Planning for 2009

Now, is the time to be planning. You want to have this in place before the holidays so you can enjoy them . My Awesome Year Plan 2009 will be available shortly for sale. It is a great guide to help you.

Here are other ways to get yourself ready:

1. Join the 3-session Teleconference beginning November 5 for only $99 and you’ll get a free Awesome Year Plan and be led through the steps of getting it done! If you are a procrastinator-this is the way to go-you’ll have a structure and others to support you in getting it done!

RETREAT Dictionary.com NOUN A place of refuge, seclusion, or privacy

2. If you’d like to plan with me in person, there are 2 ways to do that this year:

3. Or, I have 1 more opening for a private coaching client. Call or email me to schedule a 30 minute complimentary call if you think this might be for you.

Tuesday’s Gift from Justin

My friend Justin Zimmerman, the creative force behind Good Morning Real Estate, has offered another goodie! If you are interested in lead generation, this guide has a lot of resources. Go here to download The Ultimate REALTOR Internet Resource Guide.

Tuesday’s Tech Tip-Sending BIG Files

Ever have a big file that you know the recipient may not get or may have problems downloading? My great Virtual Assistant, Annette Leahy shared this resource:

www.wikisend.com - Send files of up to 100 MB… it's free, you don't even have to register! Just upload it and they can go get it. Easy!

Tuesday Congratulations!!!

My very good friend, Frances Flynn Thorsen, has been hired as the Community Manager for Trulia. This is how they welcomed her!

If you aren’t using the Trulia blogs (they are as easy as setting up a quick profile and posting!)or answering questions for consumers there, you are missing out on 5 Million eyeballs a month! More to come…

Making A Difference

WebWomenGivingCircle is reorganizing and we’d love for your input and/or participation. As many of you know, because you helped us get there, the WebWomenGivingCircle has raised approximately $40,000 for CARE. It is our intention to increase this total to $100,000 and we have some good ideas, but we’d like yours. We know the more people that play on our team translates into more fun and bigger results! This is a chance for you to spend just a little time and make a very BIG difference. CARE has put together a short video called ^{The Girl Effect} . It explains better than I can in words what we are up to! On Thursday, October 16 at 5 PM PDT (8 PM EDT) Frances Flynn Thorsen and I will be hosting a conference call to share our vision and invite your participation. If you are interested and would like an invitation to the call, please email me with WWGC in the subject line, and we’ll send you the information.

Make it an EXTRAOrdinary Week…IT IS UP TO YOU!!!

I have been inspired watching my friend, Jennifer Louden, aka The Comfort Queen, as she took a 9-month sabbatical. (if you've never heard of Jennifer, she is the contemporary voice of women's comfort -- a best-selling author, life coach and social commentator who provides women with the information, inspiration, and tools to create lives they love.) What a joyous thing to do, I thought. Inspiration almost always opens some thinking for myself of how would that fit for me. I had put this on hold for the future-maybe just wait until retirement-which I am musing about too...But, something kept gnawing at me to shape it for myself.

Then I woke up last Wednesday and I had it! Don't you love it when that happens? I've been watching Lily have fun now that school is out, with different adventures each day and saw how perfect that was. I remembered summer vacations of childhood that were devoted to having FUN every day!!!! So.....I'm going on Summer Vacation.From the Summer Solstice (June 21) the Autumnal Equinox (September 22nd),I AM CELEBRATING SUMMER VACATION!!!!

During this vacation I will:

I will not:

While, as you see, Tuesday Tips will be on vacation, too, I do intend to Blog as the spirit strikes me. I invite you to bookmark my blog or suscribe here. There are also archives of the past Tuesday Tips here.....plenty that is still relevant. I may also send you information if it seems like something you should know about or that would be of value!

Bliss is the anchor word for my summer vacation.

Right now is a perfect time to strengthen and expand your strategic partner network. Who are strategic partners? They are the people interested in the same client that you are. Your strategic partner network should be one of the foundations of your business and it needs consistent care and feeding to bring you the most business.

Here are 5 Steps To Strategic Partner Success:

1. Start With Your Database. Just as it is a good idea on a regular basis to go through your database and "clean it up," the same exercise is valuable to take a look at with those strategic partners. Hopefully you have these in a database and have a separate category or group for them. If you don't, do that first. If you use Outlook, at the bottom right of every contact card, there is a category. You can create a general category called Strategic Partners or further define into subcategories, such as real estate vendors, farm area merchants, waterfront vendors, etc.

2. Do Some Strategic Thinking. Make a good long list of people you'd like to have as strategic partner. Here is my Team 100 list to help with the brainstorming. You want to choose vendors, businesses and other folks who have:

3. Create A Plan! What a concept, huh? One of my clients did a great job of this by starting with a letter introducing herself, complimenting the prospect and suggesting they get together to discuss ways to mutually grow their businesses. A few days after the letter arrived, she called to set a lunch(or could be coffee or breakfast).

Then her purpose was to find out about their business and to see if there was enough commonality to pursue some joint marketing campaigns or to determine what might be a way to refer actively. If your list consists of people you know well, you could skip the introduction letter and just invite them to meet.

4. Refer. We get by giving! As you develop your relationships, remember to keep your ears open for opportunities to solve someone's problem ( needing something and not knowing a good source!).

The more you refer, the more you are building capital in the bank account that will repay you. In Robert Ciadini's classic book, Influence, he calls this The Law of Reciprocity. He says people have a need to balance the scales when someone has done something nice for them.

5. Use The Tech Connection. Exchange website and blog links with your partners. Think of ways to help each other:

Designing your plan and implementing are the actions that will give your business and influx of great energy and reward you with some business. The most important element is to have fun. Build your dream team and then play the real estate game to win!!!! You might even want to consider playing a Real Estate Game® to energize things! More strategic partners=more referrals and business...Go Have Fun!

Borrowed Wisdom

Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and Editor-in-Chief of WIRED magazine, stated in his interview with Stephen M. R. Covey on The Speed of Trust: “Money was the currency of the old economy; Trust is the currency of the new, global economy.”

"Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself." — Richard Bach

Tech Tip
Add listings once. Advertise instantly on top search sites*.
*All feeds not available in all areas

Point2 Homes Zillow >  Google Base >  Craigslist  >  Backpage  >  Yahoo! Real Estate > Oodle  >  Trulia >  LiveDeal  >  Condo.com >  City Cribs >  Vast  >  Hotpads  >  Cyberhomes  >  HomeScape  >  HouseHunting.ca  >  CLR Search >  Clickable City Directories House.com  >  Worldwide-Realestate-ForSale

. . .and the list keeps on growing

Point2 Agent is the easiest, most cost-effective way to advertise online. Your listings are your best vehicle to brand yourself on the Internet today. Point2 automatically makes sure you are advertised in as many places as possible.

If you don't have your listings in Point2 Agent, what are you waiting for? This link will give you a website that is free for 6 months. Add your listings free today!

Giving Back

Many of you generously have supported the www.WebWomenGivingCircle.com last year with donations to the humanitarian organization, CARE. Those donations help many people and were much appreciated. CARE is on the scene in Myanmar. They say,"We were well-positioned to respond to this emergency, with more than 550 staff who have worked on projects in Myanmar for more than 14 years. To date, we have provided clean water, food and emergency supplies to more than 125,000 people around Yangon and throughout the Irrawaddy Delta......" To read more about what's being done or to make a donation (no matter how small..it all helps) please click here. 

Last Calls

1. June Fossland Forum: Michele Martineau is a brilliant marketer. Her ideas "Elevate Your Business" will help you build more business! These monthly interviews are my gift to you. Remember, they are archived and you can listen any time or download them

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

PDT: 11:00 AM | MDT: Noon
Central: 1:00 PM | EDT: 2:00 PM
Hawaii: 8:00 AM

Register for the Next Forum here

2. Tired of Negative Headlines? Join me with Frances Flynn Thorsen, managing editor of RealTown, Hilary Marsh from NAR and Blanche Evans, Editor of Realty Times and learn how YOU can make a difference.

Join us for this special, FREE No Blogger Left Behind Breakout session on Tuesday, June 17:
2 PM EDT,1 PM CDT,12 Noon MDT,11 AM PDT and Arizona, 8 AM Hawaii

Register here.

Today's markets are competitive. DUH....you may be saying! And, I couldn't agree more. And yet, I am seeing many agents struggle because they are trying harder (or getting frustrated) continuing to do what worked in the wild times we just experienced. I am convinced that there are three keys to staying effective and competitive today.

Three Keys:

1. Your Mindset
2. Your Technology Advantage
3. Your Commitment to Growth

Your Mindset

There are opportunities abundantly available to us. There are people who are seizing these and doing very well. Are you? I find the difference between the majority and the successful is the mindset. Much potential for success resides within you and being consciously aware can give you access to that potential. In my coaching, we look to the "being" first and then the "doing." To do it any other way will leave you feeling frustrated and tired.

I won an award at the WCR DC Meetings for "Five Ways To Increase Your Personal Bandwidth" as the best article in the 2007 Connections Magazine (I shared this honor with my good friend Marilyn Urso). Mindset is much of what I wrote about. You can read it from the link on this page.

Your Technology Advantage

I've had a few new clients hire me that have just gotten into real estate. My practice mostly serves seasoned agents who want to re-invent their businesses, however the enthusiasm and intention I see in some brand new agents is quite inspiring. I'm convinced this is still a good business to be in. I got in back in 1983 when interest rates were at 17% and people were asking me what was I thinking? And yet, I became an award winning agent.

That opportunity exists today for those who are inventing (or re-inventing) their business. Technology has leveled the playing field in many ways and a new agent (or re-invented agent) can thrive.

Here are the Top 10 Technology Tools I'd
recommend as a foundation:

1. Get Educated! The e-PRO Course and the creation of a Technology Plan of Action. Click the link learn more about it and get a $25 discount here

2. A Good Database Program. Outlook is a fine place to start, if you are not ready to jump into a real estate program. As for real estate programs, I am impressed with REST. Tell them I sent you.

3. Capture Expired Listings. TheRedX to help you track and manage an expired system. (This link will save you $150)To hear why you should be working expireds and some great ideas to be more successful, you can listen to the archive of last month's Fossland's Forum.

4. Social Networking! Are you LinkedIn? Twittering? ActiveRaining? Creating a group at RealTown? A Blog is a real differentiator. My fairy Blogmother, Frances Flynn Thorsen and I are teaching a step by step class if you are ready: No Blogger Left Behind.

5. Picture, pictures, pictures! Get a good digital camera or better yet get a Flip Video Ultra It runs about $130 and let's you easily capture and transfer.

6. An AutoResponse System to generate and target the leads you want. ART is my favorite. With my code, 5250 you will get a discount. For some great ideas about using this, listen to the archived interview with Jeff Troyer.

7. A great website. My favorite is Point2Agent. Click here for a free website for 6 months (it is just $9.99 thereafter). They will syndicate your listings to 22 sites and offer handshake listings to expand the number of sites you will be seen on.

8. Great Marketing Materials. The prettiest stuff and best deal around is with www.Imprev.com. Use the code IDJOEANN for a 10% discount.

9. Your own domain name and permanent email address. I probably should have made this number 1!

10. VideoTour Software. Having a great video tour on all listings is becoming a standard. You get lots of advantages using VisualTour.

Your Commitment to Growth

In my e-PRO Workshops I show the Indiana Jones clip from Raiders of the Lost Ark where he is confronted by a sword slinging master who looks like he will make chopped liver out of Indiana. Indiana watches unconcerned and then pulls out his pistol and shoots him. No matter how good you are with the old tools, the old way of doing business, if a someone has a new tool that can blow you away, they will prevail. The better way these days is to grow and use new tools to give you the competitive edge!

Networking & Referrals

I LOVE WCR!!!!!! I have been a part of many organizations and I find the energy and support I find at WCR Meetings is second to none! I just returned from The Mega Networking Summit in St. Charles Missouri. There were hundreds of real estate professionals all intentional on growing themselves and, in the process, their businesses. Thank you, WCR, for the opportunity to meet and learn from other members. So far today, I have accepted 4 LinkedIn requests. This tells me people were listening when my friend and tech trainer extraordinaire Amy Chorew told them they needed to participate in Web 2.0! Are you on board yet? Go to www.LinkedIn.com and get started or join Ac tiveRain or RealTown and start networking.

Many of the speakers (including myself) urged everyone to deepen their networks and systems. We all know it costs 5x more to generate a new client than to get business from an existing client. I did a breakout on Making The Pie Bigger. The notes from that are posted here.

To be successful in 2008, you need to use some more strategies to bring value, service and education to your clients. If you took out to lunch 1 person per week and talked to them about all the ways they could benefit from real estate:

Do you think you'd end up with an additional transaction? I bet this strategy could add 6 more transactions to your production. All for the cost of a lunch (and maybe some additional education for you)!!!

As a side note...if you are interested in knowing more about Web 2.0, my Fossland's Forum this month was on that topic and can be downloaded here.

AND>>>>>>If you haven't already........ do yourself a favor, make plans right now to go to the Influential Women Summit in Boston this summer. You and your business will be glad!

On The Personal Side

How are YOU doing???? Are you paddling as fast as you can upstream to try to make things happen? I have been working on using The Law of Attraction. The concept of going WITH the flow instead of fighting it is very compelling for me. I love being able to relax and trust that I am doing what I need to do to have all the things I want. And I can't tell you how much fun it is to see things show up in ways I'd have never imagined and maybe, even have missed, if I hadn't stop trying so hard.

One of the important components in The Law of Attraction is being attractive. And, yes, while being pretty is good, that's not what I am talking about. What I mean is getting the stuff OUT OF THE WAY that drains my energy and keeps me in a state that attracts little or nothing that I truly want. Clearing the stuckness.....

COACH'S TIP>>>>> This week, spend some time every day being selfish. Not the bad selfish that hurts others, but selfish that nurtures you. Spend some time doing those things you LOVE to do. Spend time with those you love and who make you feel great.
And then on the other side of this:

Others won't give us the respect we want and deserve if we don't give it to ourselves. Take an honest look at how you are treating yourself and, if need be, make some changes. Be very, very selfish this week and watch what happens!

Broker, Owner or Manager?
This one's for you!

Here are 3 good ideas to help you stay on the cutting edge:

1. If you are a WCR Member, there will be a free Mastermind Conference Call on April 16 especially for you that I will be facilitating. More details and sign up are here.

2. Really Awesome Women 2nd Annual Conference begins April 21 in Albuquerque New Mexico. An elite event that is by invitation for Brokers and Owners. Network with the most influential women in real estate today! Email Bernice@RealEstateCoach.com if you qualify and tell her I invited you!

3. I am forming a new Broker-Owner Mastermind Group that will meet for 60-90 minutes monthly beginning May 23. I have 8 more spots available. $85 per month. Email me if you are interested.

Conversations on Success: My New Book

I am excited to be part of a new book called Conversations on Success. Other contributors include Tom Hopkins, Dr. John Gray and Danny Cox. We've all shared ideas and insights on success. If you'd like a copy, you can order at my bookstore. As a just published special, you can buy an autographed copy for $12.95 instead of the published price of $19.95!

April Last Calls & Shameless Promotion

Remember: All of my programs are always 100% satisfaction guaranteed, or a complete refund. No questions asked.

1. LAST CALL>>>>>>>> THE REAL ESTATE GAME® begins April 15 Are you READY to play your best Game and learn new strategies to be the best that you can be? Increase your production in the 2nd quarter??? 20 coaching sessions for only $197! All of the information is here.

2. LAST CALL>>>>>>>> Learn To Blog the EASY WAY!

No Blogger Left Behind Webinar - Go from Blogless to being a SOB (Successful and Obvious Blogger) in 8 weeks!!!!! More details and "a taste" here.

Spring Class Schedule:
Thursdays: April 17 May 1,15, 22,29 June 5, 12, & 19
2 PM EST, 1 PM CST Noon MST, 11 AM PST/AZ, 8 AM Hawaii

All calls are recorded. If you are unable to attend a session you will be able to review the presentation via the Web and/or telephone.

3. RELAX AND ATTRACT MORE Begins April 28

I've been working on increasing the wonderful feeling of Prosperity using The Law of Attraction. I want to share this with you

When: April 28, May 5, 12, & 19
5 PM EST, 4 PM CST, 3 PM MST, 2 PM AZ & PST, 11 AM Hawaii

Only $97 for 4 sessions (there is no less expensive coaching out there)

You'll get: