Last Updated on November 18, 2022

For the past 12 years I’ve attended and had the honor to present on a variety of topics at the yearly NAR conference. While I’m there I always try to bring back as many takeaways for our Agent Inner Circle community as I can… but this year was different.

Usually my favorite takeaway comes from a class I attended, a question I’m asked, or maybe even a booth I visit at the expo, however this year my biggest takeaway came from a hurricane.

Last Updated on November 18, 2022

For the past 12 years I’ve attended and had the honor to present on a variety of topics at the yearly NAR conference. While I’m there I always try to bring back as many takeaways for our Agent Inner Circle community as I can… but this year was different.

Usually my favorite takeaway comes from a class I attended, a question I’m asked, or maybe even a booth I visit at the expo, however this year my biggest takeaway came from a hurricane. (Don’t worry, I’m including my other takeaways too.)

An Industry-Wide Commitment

The hurricane I’m referencing isn’t a metaphor, I’m actually talking about Hurricane Nicole that hit Florida during the conference. What was amazing wasn’t the storm itself, it was watching everyone, myself included, scramble to fly in early in order to attend the conference during a hurricane! 

I’ve known for a long time that our industry is filled with dedicated and passionate people, but braving a hurricane to keep pushing our industry forward gives a new perspective on how far many of us will go to support the American Dream of homeownership.

Takeaways from My Sessions

Now that we’ve covered my takeaway from the circumstances, let’s dive into the conference itself and discuss the more practical items you can use in your everyday business.

I had the honor of presenting two sessions at this year’s conference – the first was a session for The Residential Real Estate Council (RRC/CRS), and the second was my main session for NAR, on the key topic of inclusivity.

Don’t Worry, We Aren’t Going to Hack You…

For RRC, my friend Craig Grant and I did a live hacking demo. We showed the audience just how easy it is to compromise their phones over WiFi using a $120 device that’s publicly available on the Internet, and a point and click interface with no coding required.

We then shared a few incredibly simple things the audience could do to protect themselves, but these are all strategies we’ve covered on Agent Inner Circle before. The biggest takeaway wasn’t the solutions themselves. What everyone seemed to take away from that class was that they needed to get rid of the mentality that “it couldn’t happen to me”, and start taking some time to educate themselves and implement these strategies into their business.

The article I linked above is certainly a helpful starting point, but I couldn’t hope to cover the entirety of this topic in one article. That’s why Craig Grant, Juanita McDowell and I created an in depth course for RRC on Data Security that will become a designated certification in 2023. If you’re interested in booking the course, please feel free to reach out.

How To Write Inclusive and Impactful Content

For NAR, I created an entirely new presentation on How to Write Inclusive and Impactful Content, and the biggest takeaway from it was quite different from the live hacking demo. 

I covered our use of language, and how we can ensure that we’re writing content that speaks to everyone, while simultaneously improving the impact the language has. As I hoped, this turned into an incredible conversation among the audience that elevated all of our understanding.

After the session, and over the following days, members of the audience shared many things they took away from the class, but overall I noticed 2 main takeaways:

1. The majority of people in our industry have the best of intentions, but may not understand the full impact of the language they’re using.
2. With a simple strategy for writing objectively and choosing words with empathy, every agent can successfully write property descriptions, ads, or any other content that is both inclusive and impactful. 

I couldn’t hope to cover this entire strategy in a synopsis, but if you’d like an encore presentation as a class or webinar through AIC – please let me know in the comments below.

Sessions I Attended

Beyond presenting, I had the opportunity to attend some awesome sessions and I’ve brought back my best takeaways.

Life Changing Habits

In the opening session for the event, Jay Shetty shared a number of life changing habits he and others have used to reach the level of success and awareness that they have today. During this discussion, he shared his acronym for TIME, which perfectly sums up the core habits he’s built into his everyday life, and those he suggests everyone adopts:

Working with Today’s Hyper Connected Consumer

In my friend Craig Grant’s session on Working with Today’s Hyper Connected Consumer, he covered how and why consumers are changing in their needs, expectations, patience, and loyalty, and what a Real Estate agent can do to ensure they are adapting at the same pace.

What was super interesting to me, is even through all of the changes that Craig went over he summed things up by saying – “at the end of the day, building and maintaining relationships with your clients, friends and family is still the most important thing to connect with the Hyper Connected Consumer.”

For those that follow our blog, or are already successfully using Service For Life! to connect with your sphere of influence, I’m sure this strategy falls in line with what you’re doing.

How to Use Canva for Real Estate

The next takeaway came from my friend Marki Lemons, who did a spectacular job covering Canva. She went over the essentials for working with the tool to build a brand and a number of great templates any agent can use, but my favorite nugget was a bit more conceptual in nature.

Marki included a short note about balancing your professional brand with your personal marketing. This is a great point, and a distinction a lot of agents need to keep in mind. Canva can be an awesome tool for developing a sleek brand, but it doesn’t replace all of your personal marketing touches. As always, wise words from Marki.

The REALTOR® Expo

When it comes to The REALTOR® Expo, it’s always interesting to see if I can find things that are innovative and might change the ways we do business. This year I saw 2 such candidates:

Productive

Productive (productive.app) is a tool which essentially helps with all of the calls you’re already making. It allows you to record and transcribe your calls, automate the creation of notes and tasks from them, and automatically log the records to your existing CRM.

Each one of these items individually may not revolutionize the way you make calls, but as a complete package it streamlines the process for what would otherwise be manual data entry – definitely worth checking out.

Robot Ink Marketing

Robot Ink Marketing lets agents mass produce what look like handwritten letters, cards and even envelopes – but they are actually created by machines!

If you already use Service For Life!, you know that personalized marketing is the most effective marketing, and Robot Ink Marketing’s technology has the ability to take it one step further by putting pen to paper for you!

I had the opportunity to speak with their Founder & CEO about creating an integration between Robot Ink Marketing and Service For Life!, so agents can use our templates to easily create handwritten-style content, so be on the lookout for this integration in 2023!

On To 2023!

The NAR Conference provides a great way to recap the previous year, and an opportunity to set some of your priorities straight for the year ahead. As we move into 2023, know that you are part of a deeply dedicated industry that is focused on innovation, accessibility and inclusion, which makes me believe we are all moving in the right direction.  

Join Alex Camelio and Craig Grant as they present their Business Mastery Series for Real Estate!

This episode covers 3 skills for Taking Control of Your Email.

Upcoming Free Webinars

Make sure to join use for the rest of the 3 Skills in 30 Minutes series where Craig and Alex will share countless invaluable tips!

• 3 Skills in 30 Minutes: Canva on 3/7/22 @ 10am ET

• 3

Join Alex Camelio and Craig Grant as they present their Business Mastery Series for Real Estate!

This episode covers 3 skills for Taking Control of Your Email.

Upcoming Free Webinars

Make sure to join use for the rest of the 3 Skills in 30 Minutes series where Craig and Alex will share countless invaluable tips!

• 3 Skills in 30 Minutes: Canva on 3/7/22 @ 10am ET

• 3 Skills in 30 Minutes: Calendar on 3/14/22 @ 10am ET

• 3 Skills in 30 Minutes: Automating Lead Follow Up on 3/21/22 @ 10am ET

Continue reading Business Mastery Series: Email at Agent Inner Circle.

A few weeks back I had the honor and pleasure of presenting at the 2021 National Association of REALTORS® Rise & Shine Conference in San Diego. This was the first event I’d attended since the start of the pandemic, so it was a little surreal, but I’ve been going to this conference for the last 10 years and I wasn’t going to miss it. As they have every year before, NAR delivered a top tier experience.

A few weeks back I had the honor and pleasure of presenting at the 2021 National Association of REALTORS® Rise & Shine Conference in San Diego. This was the first event I’d attended since the start of the pandemic, so it was a little surreal, but I’ve been going to this conference for the last 10 years and I wasn’t going to miss it. As they have every year before, NAR delivered a top tier experience.

Continue reading 2021 NAR Conference Recap at Agent Inner Circle.

Autumn decorations are in stores, and pumpkin spice has once again made its way onto menus, which can only mean one thing… Halloween is right around the corner and I’m so excited! It’s one of my favorite holidays and presents some incredible and inexpensive opportunities to build stronger relationships with your past clients, friends and family.

Last year, a number of agents in our community saw some incredible

Autumn decorations are in stores, and pumpkin spice has once again made its way onto menus, which can only mean one thing… Halloween is right around the corner and I’m so excited! It’s one of my favorite holidays and presents some incredible and inexpensive opportunities to build stronger relationships with your past clients, friends and family.

Last year, a number of agents in our community saw some incredible results from hosting a Digital Halloween Party, and are already getting ready to do it again.

Continue reading The Great Pumpkin Kit of 2021! at Agent Inner Circle.

This Summer has absolutely flown by… but not without a ton of Free Webinars to help you improve your business. My good friend Craig Grant and I have covered everything from lead generation, to event marketing, to Canva, to saving time, and more, but I know the last few months have been super busy and you might not have been able to catch all of them.

So, I thought it would be helpful to put all

This Summer has absolutely flown by… but not without a ton of Free Webinars to help you improve your business. My good friend Craig Grant and I have covered everything from lead generation, to event marketing, to Canva, to saving time, and more, but I know the last few months have been super busy and you might not have been able to catch all of them.

So, I thought it would be helpful to put all of this Summer’s workshops in one place, so you can catch up on anything you missed or go back and reference the webinars you’ve already attended.

Continue reading Summer Webinar Replays 2021 at Agent Inner Circle.

Does at least 60% of your income come from repeat and referral business? If not, I’ve got some good… and some bad news for you.

The Bad News

First, the bad news… if you’re not generating at least 60% of your business from repeat and referrals, you’re missing out on clients you should have done business with! Why 60%?

According to the 2021 NAR Profile

Does at least 60% of your income come from repeat and referral business? If not, I’ve got some good… and some bad news for you.

The Bad News

First, the bad news… if you’re not generating at least 60% of your business from repeat and referrals, you’re missing out on clients you should have done business with! Why 60%?

According to the 2021 NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 53% of Buyers and 66% of Sellers found their agent because they were referred, or had used them previously.

Continue reading 4 Things Keeping You From 100% Referral Business at Agent Inner Circle.

Are you still leaving voicemails when someone doesn’t pick up your call? Did you know that people actually get frustrated nowadays when they have to check their voicemail? With the rise of email, text, chat, and instant messengers, the concept of even having a voicemail is quickly becoming obsolete. Even some Fortune 500 Companies like JPMorgan Chase and Coca-Cola have ditched their corporate voicemails in favor of the no-voicemail

Are you still leaving voicemails when someone doesn’t pick up your call? Did you know that people actually get frustrated nowadays when they have to check their voicemail? With the rise of email, text, chat, and instant messengers, the concept of even having a voicemail is quickly becoming obsolete. Even some Fortune 500 Companies like JPMorgan Chase and Coca-Cola have ditched their corporate voicemails in favor of the no-voicemail movement. 

Think about it: first, the person leaving the voicemail has probably also followed up with a text or email, so the time listening to and deleting that voicemail is a total waste.

Continue reading Learning to Leave a Great Voicemail at Agent Inner Circle.

Have you received a referral from anyone recently? What did you do to thank them? 

Referrals are the greatest source of business that you can tap into as a real estate agent. I preach about this quite often because it’s not only true of our industry, it’s true of ALL industries. There is no more reliable or consistent way to generate sales than looking to your loyal, pre-sold clients for leads. 

I have

Have you received a referral from anyone recently? What did you do to thank them? 

Referrals are the greatest source of business that you can tap into as a real estate agent. I preach about this quite often because it’s not only true of our industry, it’s true of ALL industries. There is no more reliable or consistent way to generate sales than looking to your loyal, pre-sold clients for leads. 

I have some bad news though… if you fail to follow up and thank them properly, you will miss out on numerous referrals from each and every person already sending you business.

Continue reading Just Say Thank You to Generate New Business at Agent Inner Circle.

I’ve noticed recently that agents are getting frustrated chasing online leads, and many of them are turning to Direct Response Marketing instead… which has me really excited! However, I’ve also noticed that people are making the same classic mistakes with their Direct Response Campaigns and I don’t want you to fall victim. So, I’ve outlined the 7 Deadly Sins that could destroy your Direct Response Marketing Campaign,

I’ve noticed recently that agents are getting frustrated chasing online leads, and many of them are turning to Direct Response Marketing instead… which has me really excited! However, I’ve also noticed that people are making the same classic mistakes with their Direct Response Campaigns and I don’t want you to fall victim. So, I’ve outlined the 7 Deadly Sins that could destroy your Direct Response Marketing Campaign, and ruin any hopes of it significantly growing your business.

Continue reading The 7 Deadly Sins of Direct Marketing at Agent Inner Circle.

Using events to generate business is not a new concept by any means, but most of us haven’t been able to use them as a viable source for leads in quite a while now. With things starting to get back to normal in many places, and people excited to get out into the world and socialize in groups again, it’s a great time to start thinking about events that can generate leads and referrals for your business. 

Using events to generate business is not a new concept by any means, but most of us haven’t been able to use them as a viable source for leads in quite a while now. With things starting to get back to normal in many places, and people excited to get out into the world and socialize in groups again, it’s a great time to start thinking about events that can generate leads and referrals for your business. 

Continue reading Generating Business with Event Marketing at Agent Inner Circle.

Did you know you already have a bunch of leads, sitting in your back pocket, just waiting for you to activate them?

I recently hosted a workshop with my good friend Craig Grant about leads… leads that agents already have, but may not be thinking about and keeping top of mind. We really wanted to get agents brainstorming… leadstorming if you will, so we covered every possible group of

Did you know you already have a bunch of leads, sitting in your back pocket, just waiting for you to activate them?

I recently hosted a workshop with my good friend Craig Grant about leads… leads that agents already have, but may not be thinking about and keeping top of mind. We really wanted to get agents brainstorming… leadstorming if you will, so we covered every possible group of contacts we could collectively think of – and we came out with dozens of possible lead sources. 

Continue reading Leads You Already Have That You’re Not Thinking About at Agent Inner Circle.