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	<title>MLS Listings for CT Real Estate with the CTMLS &#187; Marketing</title>
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	<link>http://ctmls.ctreal.com</link>
	<description>CT REALTORS search helpful tools and learn about CTMLS</description>
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		<title>Be You. Be Unique.</title>
		<link>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/07/04/be-you-be-unique/</link>
		<comments>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/07/04/be-you-be-unique/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Jul 2012 12:00:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brag books]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[business cards]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[clients]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leads]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[personality]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ctmls.ctreal.com/?p=2130</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What sets you apart from other Connecticut real estate professionals? Do you sell more homes? Maybe. Do you have a bigger marketing budget? Maybe. Do you have more connections? Maybe. Think about this question in a deeper way though. What truly makes you unique. What is something that should make a lead go from considering a number of different CT REALTORS® to ultimately choosing you? I&#8217;ll give you a hint, it has nothing to do with volume of sales, marketing budgets or connections. It doesn&#8217;t even have to do with your fancy business cards or your souped up Facebook page. What can ultimately seal the deal and turn a lead into a client? YOU. That&#8217;s right, plain and simple it&#8217;s about you. Sure all of the other things are important and good to share, but ultimately it comes down to does the lead connect with you enough to trust you with one of the biggest decisions they will make in their entire lives. You&#8217;re probably thinking about how badly that stinks right? So it comes down to an intangible that you can&#8217;t fit on a business card or brag about using numbers. The person that is uniquely you isn&#8217;t a slogan or a head shot. The person that is uniquely you is spending time with your family at the beach, visiting friends for a glass of wine at dinner, playing softball on the weekends and chasing after your dog at the dog park. This is the person a lead will connect with and this is the person that a lead will want to work with. I am not suggesting shedding the business suit and the fancy listing presentation packages, these are important. I am suggesting that you shed the stuffy business facade and let your lead see the real you. Ultimately what is uniquely you will seal the deal. More Reading:Gain Insights Into Writing Great Property Descriptions #Failing, It&#8217;s How To Succeed Five Tools To Create A Stellar Listing Presentation What Tim Tebow Taught Me About Selling CT Real Estate]]></description>
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		<title>Why You Shouldn&#8217;t Forget About Foursquare</title>
		<link>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/06/21/why-you-shouldnt-forget-about-foursquare/</link>
		<comments>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/06/21/why-you-shouldnt-forget-about-foursquare/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Jun 2012 12:00:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[check-ins]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Foursquare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mobile]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ctmls.ctreal.com/?p=2102</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You may remember a couple of months ago there was a social network that was exploding. As is the case with most new social networks people thought that you HAD to join otherwise you would lose so much business to the competition that you would never recover. As is the case with most new social networks this talk was greatly exaggerated and most people ignored this emerging tool. The tool I am talking about of course is Foursquare. Foursquare is a social networking tool that allows users to &#8220;check-in&#8221; at local places and get special deals, tips from their friends and others who have been to that spot and play the game by becoming the Mayor of a particular location. All of this is done using their smart phone. That&#8217;s all well and good right, but you don&#8217;t have time for another social network. You don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s going to work. You can think of a thousand other excuses for not using it, right? I am here to tell you, you&#8217;re wrong. You have the time, in fact, once you&#8217;re account is set-up it should take you no longer then 10 seconds each time you stop somewhere to check-in and leave a tip. It is going to work. Setting up your account under your business name will allow people who check-in at area locations to see your tips, with your business name and possibly contact you. Will it have people knocking down your doors? Maybe not, but if you get one client a month from it, won&#8217;t that 10-15 seconds for your check-in be worth it? Ultimately though, why shouldn&#8217;t you forget about Foursquare when you have a million other things going on? It&#8217;s simple, your competition is not on there. That is a critical piece to this puzzle. Your competition hasn&#8217;t even thought about Foursquare and so you&#8217;re the only game in town. It&#8217;s like if you went and bought a newspaper ad and you were the only person in there with CT homes for sale. Start today and you&#8217;ll have a HUGE leg up on the competition. Wait until tomorrow and it might be too late. Are you using Foursquare? Have you had any success with it? Share your feedback in the comments section below.]]></description>
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		<title>7 Points Of Interest Your Clients Want To Know About</title>
		<link>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/06/08/7-points-of-interest-your-clients-want-to-know-about/</link>
		<comments>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/06/08/7-points-of-interest-your-clients-want-to-know-about/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Jun 2012 14:04:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[grocery shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[local expert]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[open spaces]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[public services]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[restaurants]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[schools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shopping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[theaters]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ctmls.ctreal.com/?p=2098</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You&#8217;re the expert in the marketplace, right? Of course you are. You&#8217;ve lived in the town for years. You know the Mayor and the city council people. You have a favorite restaurant and know the best place to watch the 4th of July fireworks. If someone wanted to know why they should live in your town, you&#8217;d be the first person they should go to. Right? So why aren&#8217;t you sharing this information freely with potential clients. There are so many places online where you can share this information. On social networks, on a blog, on other blogs (as a guest writer), on the Chamber of Commerce website, the list goes on and on and on. What are you waiting for? Not sure what your potential Connecticut real estate clients are looking for information on? Here are some things you might think about the next time you&#8217;re pondering how to reach out to potential clients online. 1.) Restaurants 2.) Open spaces 3.) Shopping 4.) Theaters (movies or otherwise) 5.) Schools 6.) Grocery Shopping 7.) Public Services (i.e. the Library) These are all critical elements that your clients want to know about and they don&#8217;t just want to know that there are five great restaurants in your town, they want a locals expert opinion on them. Take your five favorite restaurants in town and write a blog post about them. Create an account on Yelp and review the restaurants in your town. Be creative and give potential clients what they want and they will soon become your client. What do you do demonstrate your local expertise? Share it in the comments below.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Why You Should Be THRILLED About Facebook Timelines</title>
		<link>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/03/27/why-you-should-be-thrilled-about-facebook-timelines/</link>
		<comments>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/03/27/why-you-should-be-thrilled-about-facebook-timelines/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:38:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cover photo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[highlighting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pinning]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[timelines]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ctmls.ctreal.com/?p=1678</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[At the end of this week, all Facebook business pages will be switched over to the new Facebook timelines view. Right now as a page owner you have a choice of whether to stay with the old layout or transition, but on Saturday that switch will be flipped and you will no longer have choice. Before you get teary eyed about losing your precious page layout, I have some good news for you, Facebook timelines are AWESOME!! You may have already been using them for your personal profiles, but timelines for business are even more advanced and exciting. There are so many ways to highlight content and showcase your expertise that you should be chomping at the bit to get on there and start sharing. What&#8217;s so great about Timelines? For starters, your cover photo. This is a very LARGE photo that displays at the top of your timeline. This is a great place to showcase a beautiful listing, a stunning picture of the town you service or change it up from week to week with events going on around your town. Be warned that this cover photo can not be used as a &#8220;sales tool.&#8221; Check the Facebook guidelines for best practices. If you follow these guidelines and put a stunning photo as your cover photo you&#8217;ll have a wonderful foundation for your Facebook timeline. Check out how we&#8217;re using Facebook timelines here. One of the other new features is the ability to &#8220;Pin a story&#8221; to the top of your timeline. Before when you would post something really great, it really only had an impact for a day or two and then it was buried by other stuff. Now you can &#8220;pin&#8221; it to the top of your timeline and it will stay there until you &#8220;un-pin&#8221; it from the top. This is great if you have a particularly compelling story, maybe an open house coming up this weekend or a town even that you want to highlight. Get creative and use this feature to showcase your best content. The piece de resistence is the Highlight feature. This feature allows you to highlight any post that you think is particularly great. This works VERY well for photos and videos. Highlighting a photo album will open it up full screen giving one very LARGE photo with a slideshow of all the rest of the photos stretched across the screen. It looks fantastic when you get the hang of it. This is a great way to capture the attention of someone that is scrolling through your page to discover what you&#8217;re all about. A couple of thoughts on these last two features. Use them sparingly. If EVERYTHING on your page is highlighted or pinned to the top of your Timeline, the impact of these features is diminished. Also, mix up what your showcasing. Don&#8217;t always focus on homes your selling. While you can highlight the properties you have listed from time to time, if that&#8217;s all your highlighting again the features will be diminished. How are you using Facebook timelines? Share your experiences in the comment section below. More Reading:The 7 Musts of Internet Marketing Why Analytics For Your Listings Matter 5 Ways To Instantly Improve Your Blog Video Games: Not Just Fun and Games Anymore 5 Domain Names You Should Own Now]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/03/27/why-you-should-be-thrilled-about-facebook-timelines/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Are You Passionate About CT Real Estate?</title>
		<link>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/03/21/are-you-passionate-about-ct-real-estate/</link>
		<comments>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/03/21/are-you-passionate-about-ct-real-estate/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:20:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Passion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CT real estate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dallas Mavericks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hard work]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mark Cuban]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[passion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shark Tank]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ctmls.ctreal.com/?p=1641</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I have always been one to believe that if you follow your passion in life, the money will come. I spent ten years of my life following my passion of radio and loved every minute of it, but my focus shifted and my goals changed. I still love radio and periodically miss it, but it hasn&#8217;t left a whole in my life like I thought it would. I recently read this article by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban who argues that you shouldn&#8217;t follow your passion. When I first read the title of the blog I almost didn&#8217;t click into it, but I&#8217;ve been watching Mark Cuban was one of the sharks on ABC&#8217;s Shark Tank and I had read a couple of his posts before, so I was hooked in to read the post. What I found was a 200 or so word post that changed the way I thought about passion and what it means to have a passion. My opinion literally changed on a dime. (The power of words I guess) So the question that remains is, are you passionate about CT real estate? There may not be an answer you can give to this question. In fact, after reading the article from above, you might be confused about it. Maybe you thought you were passionate about it, but now you&#8217;re not so sure. Maybe the bigger question is, are you successful at selling real estate? If you are, you&#8217;ve probably developed a passion for it. You&#8217;re good at it. You have helped many clients over the years. Now you have a passion for continuing to thrive and be successful at it. So, what do you think? Are you passionate about CT real estate? Share your thoughts in the comments below.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>7 Lessons To Take From March Madness</title>
		<link>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/03/14/7-lessons-to-take-from-march-madness/</link>
		<comments>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/03/14/7-lessons-to-take-from-march-madness/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:08:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[REALTORS®]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Seven Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[March madness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[positivity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[upsets]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ctmls.ctreal.com/?p=1598</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[March Madness officially kicked off yesterday with two so-called play-in teams tipping off on the men&#8217;s side. Connecticut is well represented in both the men&#8217;s tournament and the women&#8217;s tournament. The UConn women&#8217;s team is a #1 seed and tip off on March 17th. The men are a #9 seed and play their first game tomorrow night at 9:30p. It&#8217;s an exciting time to be a college basketball fan in the state of Connecticut. So what does all of this have to do with CT real estate? This tournament which causes thousands of hours of lost productivity and gets everyone talking is a spectacle. It is a once a year event that even non-sports fans get interested in. It can teach us some lessons about how we buy and sell real estate, how we promote real estate and how we practice real estate. So here are seven lessons that I take away from March Madness that I think will help you in your real estate business. Lesson #1: Competition is key. The athletes that play in these games would never reach the levels that they do without stiff competition and the same could be said for the most productive agents among us. Without competition customer service and real estate marketing would become an after thought. Lesson #2: Anyone can win. One of the most exciting things about March Madness is watching the small 1,000 person school beat out perennial powerhouses when nobody even expected them to be there. The excitement is around the fact that any team can win. This is a great lesson to keep in mind when working to secure a listing or sell a property. Anyone can win at any time. It doesn&#8217;t matter how big or how small your brokerage is, it matters how well you connect with your clients. Lesson #3: Surprises will happen. Just this week top seeded Syracuse found out that they will have to play without their starting center Fab Melo due to an eligibility issue. This could deal a fatal blow to their national championship hopes, but they will soldier on. In the course of working on a deal, surprises may happen to you too, but soldier on and find the strength to get the deal done. Lesson #4: Teamwork is key. Never has a team with just one superstar player won the entire tournament without a great team around him or her. The same holds true for working in real estate. While it may seem like a one person game, those REALTORS® with the best team around them will undoubtedly have the most success. Lesson #5: What the experts say doesn&#8217;t matter. If the talking heads had their way the #1 seeds would all make it to the Final Four because that&#8217;s how they &#8220;picked it&#8221; but that never happens. That&#8217;s why they play the games. The same can be said for those saying that the real estate market is staggering and may take years to come back. Playing your game (selling your property) has nothing to do with what the experts have to say. They could declare the real estate market dead, but if you work hard, find a buyer and close the deal, the experts have no say in that. Lesson #6: Comebacks are possible. In the very first game of this year&#8217;s tourney, BYU was trailing by 25 points only to comeback and win the game. When they were down 25 points they could&#8217;ve packed it in and said it wasn&#8217;t our year, but they fought back and now have the confidence that they can play with anyone. In the CT real estate market you&#8217;ve heard the old adage, it only takes one buyer. This is so true. That&#8217;s why, it doesn&#8217;t matter if your property has been on the market for 10 or 100 days, it just takes one. If you&#8217;re working as hard for your client on day 100 as you were on day 1 that comeback is possible. Lesson #7: Positivity trumps all. Teams that are 15 seeds are all but written off, but it has happened before that a 15 seed has knocked off a #2 seed. It is rare, but it happens. How did these teams that nobody gave a chance to win actually get the W? They were positive that they could win. No matter the hill they had to climb, they stayed positive. Take this lesson to the bank when working with clients. There is nothing that kills momentum and [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Kickstart Your Facebook Page In 30 Minutes This Weekend</title>
		<link>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/03/02/kickstart-your-facebook-page-in-30-minutes-this-weekend/</link>
		<comments>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/03/02/kickstart-your-facebook-page-in-30-minutes-this-weekend/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:34:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[photos]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ctmls.ctreal.com/?p=1532</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You&#8217;ve been struggling to build a vibrant Facebook page haven&#8217;t you? You&#8217;ve been working hard to write a status update everyday and invite your colleagues and clients to like your page, but it just hasn&#8217;t seemed to be growing. Why is that? Is it that people don&#8217;t like you? Is it that you haven&#8217;t provided great service to your clients? Of course not. Growing a Facebook page takes time and sometimes a LOT of time. Despite what many people will tell you you cannot just put a Facebook page up and let it sit there and watch as the likes come in, you have to work for them. In the end, the work will pay off as you&#8217;ll have a strong database of really engaged users on your page that you can then re-market to in the future. One of the biggest things you can do to grow your Facebook page is to share photos. Photos are incredibly engaging and they also get very prominent placement on Facebook news feeds which make posts with photos in them stand out from the rest. This is great news right? You as a REALTOR® take photos of homes all the time&#8230;wait, wait, wait, not so fast. > When I talk about sharing photos on Facebook I am talking about photos that will add value to a client, potential client or former client. As you know, not all of your clients are going to be looking for the same thing so a client who may be looking for split levels isn&#8217;t going to want to see photos of the listing you just got for a ranch. As photos go, listing photos are OFF LIMITS. So what kind of photos can you share on Facebook? That&#8217;s where this weekend comes in. It&#8217;s supposed to be beautifully sunny in the afternoon on Saturday and near 60 degrees throughout the state. So grab your camera, schedule thirty minutes of your time and take off around the town you specialize in and start snapping. In no time, you&#8217;ll have an entire database of photos that you can share on Facebook. What can you take photos of? 1.) Landscapes 2.) Parks (including dog parks) 3.) Store fronts 4.) The downtown 5.) Schools 6.) Government buildings 7.) Athletic fields 8.) Unique entertainment venues 9.) Statues 10.) Public transportation Mostly you want to capture the essence of living in that town and what a client might expect from living there. Think about what you are passionate about in town and take photos of those things. The more you love something, the more your photos will show that. One finally note, don&#8217;t upload all of these photos at once. Spread them out as long as you can. Post 3-4 a week for a couple of months and you&#8217;ll start to see your page grow in just 30 minutes this weekend!! Here&#8217;s another way to see your Facebook page grow, share the link in the comments below so we can all visit and like it. More Reading:5 Things You Can Do During #Frankenstorm To Improve Your Internet Marketing Why Your Social Media Efforts Aren&#8217;t Working 10 Blog Posts You Can Write Today Membership Blog: Sign It! E-mail Signatures What Is An Internet Meme and Why Should You Care?]]></description>
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