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View this Tuesday’s Jeffrey Gitomer’s Topic – “Closing the Sale”

Have you seen this?

Do you know you can customize it and make it USEFUL?? Like this?

IGoogle would be your internet HomePage – what you go to when you first log in AND it can be customized making it very very useful. IGoogle has gadgets and widgets.

My IGoogle as feeds from Realtor.com, my Twitter and Facebook accounts, weather icons for all my clients all over the United States along with their newspaper feeds (so I know what’s going on there). I also include feeds from Seth Godin, Jeffrey Gitomer, Wall Street Journal/Real Estate, and Google Translator. It’s pretty easy to set up and customize. Many of the feeds are already geared to be on your IGoogle account with their rss feeds – will ask if you want on Igoogle or Google Reader – I like them on my Igoogle so I can breeze through them at a glance.

What you can do with you IGoogle homepage is endless. Definitely put it in your tool box!

You have posted on your blog. It’s all ready to go. Now what?

You need your blog seen. Post on your Twitter, Facebook Business Page, LinkedIn and ActiveRain accounts.

If you haven’t done so yet, you need to sign up for all of them. They are free (on the most part). ALL will point back to your website. And that is a very very good thing.

Once you have set up your Social Media Accounts, you will need the icons and their links inserted on your website, email signature, blog and pretty much anything you send out showing they can find you there and either follow you, join you, link to you or like you. These are people who now will be FOLLOWING YOU and what you write. Oh, sure there will be people you have never met before and out of your area who start following you, but they are just there for the number count. You do not have to acknowledge them – you don’t have to follow back…. they will get lost in your numbers. But there are some who will start following who you will want to follow. Tip: Write a quick thank you note for them following.

I suggest creating an igoogle home page for your computer desktop. This is a WONDERFUL and is an action packed home page in which you can have your Twitter and Facebook feeds go right onto your home page. You are constantly and instantly updated. You can also have these stream into your smart phone, but sometimes you can get a bit overwhelmed by what streams in. FOLLOW influential, knowledgeable people and companies with rss feeds.

Who should you follow on your igoogle home page?

The National and your Local Realtor(r) Association

Jeffrey Gitomer

Seth Godin

ThinkBigWorkSmall

BildaBetterBusiness

Your Coaching Matters

for just a few ideas ….

And any other organization who has good interesting and relevant content.

To follow them, type their name in the Twitter or Facebook search bar. Go to their page, click on “Follow” or “Like”. And that’s it. You’ll be following them and their information will start streaming into your feeds.

If you do land on a site where the information is quite interesting, look for the rss feed. Click on this icon and it will direct you to a page which asks if you want it on your igoogle page or google reader. Opt for your igoogle. Then whenever the content on that (blog posts usually) are updated, it will immediately stream on your igoogle page. I like to rss feed from different news sources especially in the area of where my clients are.  You can also stream locally.

By following several on FaceBook and Twitter, you’ll be up to date with what is going on and have great ideas for your posts. You can also post comments and get into conversations, linking back to your website for even more Search Engine Optimization.

Invite your database to follow you. SUPER easy way to keep them updated. DO NOT POST LISTINGS TO THEM USING YOUR BLOG OR SOCIAL MEDIA!!! That is a SURE way to have them leave you. They want information. If they wanted listings, they can go to your website and search the MLS.

Bad news is all around us – high unemployment, foreclosures and short sales, company and personal sales way down and it’s scary. Darn scary. But we’re in this for the long haul and what should we do about it? Quit and start a new profession or make the one we are in work? When’s the time to throw in the towel and start in a new direction?

March, 2009, I threw in the towel – I was down from 6 full time agent/clients to 1 and she was cutting way back – not to fully let me go, but cutting way back. And I was listening to the news. It scared the daylights out of  me. I only had $X in the bank and that was dwindling – fast. So I took a job. An hourly wage working for someone else.  I was miserable and I knew from the moment I stepped through the doors, it wasn’t for me. I felt like I failed.

A very long long year later, I crawled my way out and restarted my business, Bild a Better Business.

First off, I put on a new attitude (and had a new website built). I will find what I need to make my business work, I will learn what I need to make my business work,  and I will network with positive and successful business people enlisting those who will help my business work. The best change is my attitude – a more positive and “responsible” attitude. I know the work I do is needed and valuable that will benefit anyone who takes advantage of my services.

How did I change my attitude? There were several sources, but one was reading Jeffrey Gitomer and subscribing to his weekly ezine. Today’s article, “I’m not in a slump, the economy is!” sums it up. It’s like my Dad’s kick in the pants or Tom Hank’s, “There’s no crying in baseball!”.

My future is MY responsibility and formed by MY choices and decisions. No one will do my business for me, nor will they give me any handouts. If I fail, it’s me. If I succeed, it’s me. Who knows what the economy will do – we have NO control over that. However, what we CAN control is our reaction to the situation and what we do about it. I choose to work with what I can control, the rest will work itself out. I’m working to succeed.

I am a Jeffrey Gitomer fan – if you haven’t read any of his books, subcribed to his ezine, or even know who he is, your business career does NOT know what it is missing! Do yourself a favor and go to www.Gitomer.com right now.

Jeffrey introduced the “Ace of Sales” a while back. Now, I have been doing my emails using Microsoft Outlook or Gmail. I would send it out and that is about it. Well, I just signed up for the “Ace of Sales” and OH, MY!!! It has bells and whistles I didn’t even know could toot!! The HUGE thing is that you can track who opens your email after it’s sent! How awesome is that? Other web-based companies will do it, but for a whole lot more.

So, if you need to start or supplement your client contact, I STRONGLY suggest signing up for the “Ace of Sales”. If you need assistance to get it up and going OR just to make it work for you, call me …. Let me be the Queen of Diamonds in your “Ace of Sales”!

www.AceofSales.com