Ninja Mom’s Meeting, November 2009

Thank you to everyone that joined in at the last Ninja Mom’s meeting and for all of the wonderful ideas that you shared!  The general topic of the day was: “What have you done outside of the box this year?” which sparked lots of great conversation.

Here are some of the things that we talked about:

For Liz is was taking the leap to hire a coach.  She is working with Garrett Frey (www.ninjacoaching.com) and really loves being more focused and knowing that she is getting her life and business in order.  She is also creating affirmations to reinforce her new habits.

For Barb, she has made the commitment to treat her business like a business.  Things have been very busy for her and she has had a very successful year which is wonderful, but she was finding that all of that without a PLAN was making life a bit nutty.  So she recently hired a part time assistant to help with some of the paper work and wrote down a formal business plan as well as a marketing plan.  Having the assistant has forced her to systematize things and create check lists which has in turn reduced stress because now she can see on paper what is happening when and doesn’t have to have it all racing around in her head.  Barb, also commented that in doing the business plan and figuring out her goals for next year and breaking them down into smaller chunks it really helped to make them feel more attainable.  Barb has also had fantastic success with her housewarming parties.  She has the clients give her the guest list with their emails and physical address so she sends out an online invitation via smilebox (www.smilebox.com) and then a card with the picture of the house on it that she orders through www.sendoutcards.com .  Her budget is usually about $250 a party and she does the food and the clients do the drinks and alcohol.

Vicki’s thing this year has been to start working with a business partner.  A few months ago they started having their Monday morning meeting at different local coffee shops so that they would be visible in the community and in a professional manner. It has been a great way for them to have short interactions with clients and stay in touch with them.  She also had some great comments about intention.  Each Monday as they are having their meeting, Vicki and her partner go through their list of clients and decide what the action items are for each client that week.  They also each pick a client and decide that they will be under contract by the end of the week.  Weather it is a Buyer looking for a house or a Seller with their house still on the market.  The majority of the time those clients are under contract within 10 days!!!  It is true, what you focus on expands!  In fact she said that they stopped doing it for about a month and noticed a significant drop in their sales.  Also, the great thing about setting out the action plan on Monday is that they stay focused and often find that they might have everything done by Wednesday which has allowed them both to take much more time off.

Diane has started doing Buyer classes, specifically for first time Buyers.  In Washington State there is the Washington State Housing and Finance Commission (http://www.wshfc.org/) and they have a certification class that agents can take where you learn about the various down payment assistance programs that are out there.  Once you have taken the course you are able to advertise your classes on their site which has produced some great attendee and closed sales.

Stacey has been using floorplan online and LOVES it!  www.floorplanonline.com  They are a national company so I would highly recommend that you check them out to see if they are in your area. They are less expensive than most photographers and the pictures are as good or better.  You also get the floorplan with room measurements and a complete virtual tour of the home put to music.  Sellers love it and she even sold a house to Buyer’s from out of state who never actually saw the house in person before purchasing it, but were able to see the floorplan and pictures online.  Wow!

We talked a bit about sending out email newsletters to our clients.  Stephanie has been doing it with some great responses from her clients.  She uses a program called Constant Contact for hers.  Stephanie also had some great comments about realizing how connected we are to others right now as Mom’s and to take 10 minutes after school as you are picking up the kids to say hello and chat with a few of the other parents and that taking just a few minutes each day to do that can to a lot to strengthen those relationships.

Sandi taught us all how to create a fan page in Facebook for her clients to become a part of.

Brianna talked about an agent in her office that purchased a $125 flip video camera and has been taking 2 minute videos of himself each day chatting about some thing as it relates to real estate.  He is posting those to youtube as well as his website and has seen a substantial increase in traffic as a result.

Joey has started having dinner parties at her house with clients to help build relationships with them and is having a great time doing it.  She admitted that she really does not cook and so was able to find a chef that will do all of the shopping and come to the house and cook while giving everyone a cooking lesson at the same time. She said that it runs about $50 a couple and is a great interactive party.

Kelly talked more about her happy hour parties that she has been doing with her clients and that the last one was focused on networking. She said that they sent out the invitation to everyone in their database, not just those that she knew owned a business and invited them to just come an connect and bring information about whatever it is that they do.  Not only was it hugely successful, but she found out about a lot of things her clients were doing that she never knew before.

Shelly is on the PTA board and has had some great contacts coming out of that because she is involved with those parents on such a personal level.

Wow!  Thank you ladies for sharing all that you did.  Definitely some great ideas in there and things to implement in the coming year.