William's Places

Before ActiveRain and Now: It’s A Whole New World

I am still kicking myself for not having jumped into the Rain sooner. I had joined ActiveRain in August of 2007, not really knowing what to expect or even what it was about. And, just like so many others here now, I did not become actively involved right away – I did not write a blog post, read other blogs, or comment at all. When I finally did jump into the Rain in January of 2009, it opened up a whole new world for me, a world that had been passing me by. Now, I have to play catch up!

It was the difference between being stuck in a rut and actually knowing there was a way out. I had made up my mind that 2009 was not going to be like 2008 – empty and void, full of disappointments, obstacles and no business. Of course, my zeal to change and get things done became, through my participation in the Rain, tempered and honed into a quest to systematically learn as much as I could about the power of blogging and what it could do for me both personally and professionally. I had no idea ten months ago that ActiveRain would become such an integral part of my life the way that it has.

I now have more support for my business as an agent that I could have possibly imagined. Before ActiveRain, yes, I was encouraged…but only to do business the only way that the people around me knew how. Today, because of what I have learned here in the Rain, I have a multitude of diversified activities in which I can engage in to bring business to myself – some traditional, and many others not so traditional, and when I see something that is working for someone else in another area, I am free to adapt it to my own area and use it to the fullest, and the comments that fellow Rainers, both veteran and newbie alike, have helped to sustain my continuation in those techniques when it seems like I’ve engaged in another exercise in futility…

I now have become more knowledgeable about my area. Before ActiveRain, a market report, to me, was just a boring compilation of meaningless statistics. Today, after the past 8 months of writing them on-line, and an initial push in the beginning of the year to publish a print version, I have narrowed my focus on servicing single-family homes in my market area and can use the facts and statistics about any of the towns in my area to justify price ranges and secure listings.

I now have more realistic expectations of myself as an agent. At the beginning of the year, when I became active in the Rain, I had set a really unrealistic expectation of myself, given the nature of being both a teacher and a real estate agent. Because of what I have learned here in the Rain from so many others who are either in the same situation as I am, or even from those who are “full time” and are facing difficulties and have shared them, I know now not to take the failures as personal faults, but to use them as stepping stones to help me become a better realtor.

I now have tools at my disposal that I don’t have to pay a dime for. Or, if I do, I only have to pay at such a minimal cost. Virtual tours? Thanks to ActiveRain, I was able to get a virtual tour package that doesn’t cost me anything and I can post it to Realtor.com and other places, including my MLS, without paying one red cent . If I want to engage in some really cool photo editing? I learned about Piknik through ActiveRain, thanks to Margaret Woda. If I want to write a blog in color, or change the font so that things are more appealing to my readers? I have Katerina Gasset and Michael Thornton to thank for those tips…right here on ActiveRain. There are som many other things that I have picked up here that are either free or of minimal cost, I just can’t name them all…but I have my being here in the Rain, and being active in the Rain, to thank for that.

Now that I have been in the Rain, and as a result of the things that I have learned here, I expect for ActiveRain to be the foundation for the continued growth of my business as an agent. I am looking forward to the days when people will call me and say, “I want you to sell my house…I’ve been reading your blog on ActiveRain”, or they will e-mail me a message “I was looking for a house in Prospect …”, and when I ask them how they found me, they’ll respond “Oh, we found you on ActiveRain…”

ActiveRain has opened up a whole new world for me…it can only get better from here!