Ramblings of a Baltimore area Realtor

Are you a new agent?  Or, an experienced agent who is just slightly disenchanted with your current broker and looking for a change?

Why did you choose the Broker you are with now?  So many agents, myself included in that, choose the Broker we took our prelicensing class with.  I chose them because I didn't really do my homework and figured they were all pretty much the same and offered the same opportunities and the same training in the business.  When I got my license in Maryland I affiliated with Champion Realty.  Now, I was very lucky and got into a great office with fantastic opportunities for education and mentoring.  My mentors were fabulous and the education I received as a new agent in Maryland was great.  It really gave me an opportunity to look around and get an idea of what I wanted to do in real estate and how to grow my business. 

I left Champion for a better opportunity at Century 21 H. T. Brown.  Century 21 gave me the opportunity to take my business to the next level and really grow my business.  Having had a chance to look around and talk to other agents and find out what other companies were doing, I found out that they were not all equal.  Not all companies provided mentoring, not all companies offered continuing education or career development opportunities.  All these things are so important when you become an agent.  If you don't specialize you become a commodity like every other agent in the industry.  Does your broker help you determine what it is you are really good at and how to develop that into a niche market?  Century 21 H. T. Brown really helped me do that and helped me become very successful at it.

Now, I have an opportunity to be the kind of Office Manager/Broker that will help other agents grow their businesses and develop their careers and become successful.  I learned from the best and I hope to be able to take the best from where I've been and pass that along to the agents that choose to come to work with me at Advance Realty Anne Arundel.

So, are you looking to make a change?  If you are give me a call or send me an email and I'd be happy to talk to you about what Advance Realty can do for you to grow your business and help you become as successful as you want to be.

June Piper-Brandon, Office Manager, Advance Realty Anne Arundel Inc.

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Who really reads these blogs anyway?

I recently attended an one hour seminar put on by Barbara Oleska from Hobbs and Herder on the 7 Do's and Don'ts of MegaAgent Marketing.  And, even though it was only an hour, it really did make my brain cells work a little and give me cause for thought.

Barbara made some very good points.  What sets us apart from other agents is not really what we do, but rather what we don't do.  You know the old adage that some day we'll be as highly regarded as used car salesmen, it's really something to think about.  Where do you find the homes magazines?  Usually in the supermarket right next to the Auto magazines, or in the newspaper right next to the car ads.  What set's us apart from all the other agents out there who may or may not be as highly skilled or as highly qualified as I am?  It's how I present myself to the public. 

As agents we spend billions of dollars every year fuelling the advertising wheel.  Why do we advertise in the newspapers and magazines?  It's because our sellers expect it, not because it makes our phone ring.  The magazines are filled with page after page of little heads and little houses, that by the time the magazine goes to press the house is sold.  The ad might generate one or two calls but generally speaking it doesn't generate any client loyalty.  A prospective buyer will leaf through the house catalogue looking for a house that meets their requirements and call the number, the duty agent will answer the phone and hopefully get Ms. Buyer's name and phone number and maybe call them back with other houses that might meet their requirements.  But, Ms. Buyer is probably going to continue to leaf through the catalogue, calling any agent who has a house that they might want to look at.  How do you differentiate yourself from every other agent who spends their advertising on the same exact kind of marketing?

Branding.  Specialization.  Setting yourself apart from everyone else by being a specialist at something.  Your phone will ring because  you now set youself apart from every other agent by being a specialist at something, that person must be really successful because they know something special about that, maybe they know something about this too and I'll call them. 

Who are we really marketing to in the magazines?  Who really reads those?  Other agents look to see what everyone else has been doing.  It's not necessarily the buyers.  As a society we have become like sheep and we all do the same thing, hoping to get better results than the other guy who is doing exactly the same thing as everyone else.  

Raise the bar a little by setting yourself apart from everyone else in the industry and make yourself special.  We already know we're special, let's make everyone else think we're special too!!

June Piper-Brandon, Office Manager, Advance Realty Anne Arundel Inc.

Advance Realty is proud to sponsor this free seminar on May 29 offered by Hobbs Herder.  The seminar will be offered twice, once at 1:00 pm and again at 7:00 pm.  The seminar lasts about an hour and is offered by Hobbs and Herder's own Barbara Oleski. 

The seminar will be offered in Advance Realty's training room located at 8640 Ridgely's Choice Dr. in Perry Hall.  Our training room is on the lower level of the Baltimore County Employee's Credit Union. 

This is a free seminar and touches on some of the secrets of marketing used by some of the top agents across the country.  You won't want to miss this one.

Please RSVP to me at junepiperbrandon@advancerealtyusa.com

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Memorial Day.  I spent the weekend with my oldest son, Ryan, who is a member of the 82nd Airborne, 2 Brigate 325th (white falcons).  Ryan will be deploying in the next week or so to join his unit who are already in place in Iraq.  While we were just spending time together I realized that life really is too short.  What would I do if I knew my life would change completely tomorrow?  Really, nothing other than being with your family and friends matters.  My son will be in Iraq until March 2008.  And, all he wanted to do this weekend was spend time with me, he didn't want to go anywhere or do anything, just spend time with his Mom.  Now, Ryan is 21 years old and single. 

This weekend made me realize that we all spend too much time trying to fill our days with things that take us away from our loved ones.  We spend too much time prioritizing our clients and not prioritizing our own lives.  I remember when Ryan was 8 and he used to lay on my bed at night and tell me stories.  But, I don't remember much of what happened between 8 and 21.  I think that's because I spent too much time trying to make everyone else happy and not making time for my family and my friends.  A lot of us chose real estate as a career so that we could spend more time with our families when it counted.  But, I think a lot of us have let real estate run our lives instead of our lives running our careers in real estate. 

I have been involved in the real estate industry for over 21 years.  When I first got into the industry I worked pretty much 9-5 with no evenings or weekends.  I worked in Property Management and then for a Brokerage in the day when there was no such thing as a Buyer's Agent.  But, when I became an Office Coordinator real estate started to run my life.  So, I took some time off when my youngest was born and started back as an agent when he started school.  I didn't want real estate to run my life, I told myself.  But, ultimately, it did.  I am now a new Office Manager (again) and I am recruiting new and experienced agents to join my team and I'm thinking how many of these agents are letting real estate run their lives rather than properly planning their days and times and making quality time for themselves and their families.   

The one thing we so often forget is ourselves and our families.  This career of real estate that we get into so we can spend more quality time with our families often becomes our family and the one's we are closest to and the one's we love are often left on the sidelines while we take that very important phone call, or show just that one house that will result in a contract, but that one house becomes 5 or 6 or more houses.  Today, this Memorial Day, we need to take stalk and remember those that are important to us, the one's we love so that we don't go from 8 to 21 with very few memories of them growing up.

June Piper-Brandon, Office Manager, Advance Realty Anne Arundel Inc.