Because of Active Rain I Have Found 47,148 Kindred Spirits

When I started thinking about this contest, I had a few flashes of brilliance, then I settled on the above title.  As of this writing, that is the number of members here at Active Rain, according to the running tab at the top right part of the screen.  This community is growing very quickly these days.  It is probably a little bit extreme to say that everyone here is just like me, so clearly I was using a clever bit of hyperbole to make you read this post.  Believe me, I had some others that would have probably increased my comments even more, such as:


"Because of Active Rain, I Lost 200 Pounds in Six Months"


 


"Because of Active Rain, I Have a Better Sex Life"


  or possibly my favorite:


"Because of Active Rain, I am Now Bionic"


 



But there really isn't any reason to be openly dishonest, so I decided to keep it a bit simpler. 


I will say that my experience here at AR has been wonderful so far.  I have quickly developed a core group of dedicated readers of my blog (and yes, they dress exactly like the people pictured at right), and I also have the basis for several good friendships already.  As a broker and as someone who learned the ropes a long time ago, I really didn't think there was much more to learn.  However, I seem to learn something new each day when I am here. 


 


Do I have a "childlike sense of wonder"?  Not particularly, but AR is pretty cool and highly addictive if you spend much time on it at all.  Based on addictions that I have seen, I can confidently say that this is a healthy addiction for me.


I appreciate the opportunity to vent about business and life, and to teach and help others to succeed.  I am beginning to find my online voice now, and it makes me happy that people like hearing it. 


 


I really love selling homes, and I hope it shows.  If some of my passion for this business rubs off on fellow agents, either here or in my day-to-day business, then I am succeeding.  Money is nice, but integrity and personal growth are far better to me.


 



Surprisingly, I found out about Active Rain back in December, but all I did was set up my profile then.  What a fool I was!  I didn't start posting until early August.  Just think - I could have been even further ahead of the curve.  The timing really wasn't right at that time anyway.  Most of my posts would probably have been pretty cynical nine months ago.  I won't go into all of the reasons here, but there were lots of changes within my company and it had a short-lived negative affect on me.  At any rate, let's get back to the good stuff now -


As I see it, there are three primary ways to grow my business here:



  • Blog about the local market and consumers will find my posts on Localism or Google (AR pages tend to index very quickly - I have tested this several times)
  • Blog about myself and my thoughts and other real estate professionals will think I am such a great guy that they can't wait to send me some business (right?)
  • Continue to follow good SEO rules and link back to my primary business site, which will make it stronger and bring me more leads

All of these things are great for me, and you should give this some thought as well.  Start thinking outside the box! 


 Just yesterday, I was contacted by a lady who recently moved to Austin after living in San Antonio for over 27 years.  She and her husband went online and found my AR blog.  They need to buy a home next month and they have already chosen to use me based on reading my posts.  That means way more to me than someone calling from a sign or from my regular business site.  What a great gift!


 


I guess my main advice is to BE YOURSELF and it will pay off.  It is already starting to pay dividends for me.  Thanks, Active Rain, and thanks to you for taking a couple of minutes to read my thoughts.  See you in the Rain!


 


 


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