Welcome Mat Insures Us no Shortage of Video Info at REBC Denver -

Christian Sterner of Welcome Mat will be sharing video tips at REBC.  The first time I met Christian was at NAR in Las Vegas where he and his associate walked around in orange space man suits.  While watching this video, look over Christian’s shoulder, you will see the suit hanging on the wall.  This is my only clue that this person is really Christian.  I’ve never meet him without him being in the orange space man suit!  I’m just hoping someone at REBC Denver will actually know Christian and verify this is the true Christian Sterner and not an imposter!

You can find Christain at Welcome Mat

P.S. I heard rumors of a rumble at REBC too!  My source didn’t mention Jeff Turner (he’s a peaceful sort of soul), but what I heard it was The New Yorker vs. The South African.  Could this be true?

Land Title Rep., Jim Renshaw Discusses Use of Social Media

The best part of planning REBarCamp just has to be meeting many new and interesting people.  I enjoy hearing from people I don’t know and learning how they are incorporating social media into their lives as well as their business.  Jim Renshaw is one of those people who emailed me about his blog.  Jim has uses his blog to inform his readers about the state of real estate in metro Denver and the many services his company provides.  It’s my pleasure to “virturally” introduce Jim!

Tell us about your company.

Land Title Guarantee Company is a locally owned Title Company that has been serving the Colorado real estate market for over 40 years.

How long have you been working there?

I’ve been working at Land Title for 6 years.

What services does you company offer in the real estate industry?

Superior title research and professional closings along with marketing assistance to help real estate professionals grow their business. I can do this by being part of a team at Land Title

Are you involved in social media?

Yes – I’m on Facebook, twitter and have an active blog at Jim Renshaw

How do you use social media to leverage your business?

I use social media to enhance or create new relationships.  I’ve found that using social media enables me to get to know my clients better so when we do meet face to face our time can be very productive and enjoyable.

How can your product/service benefit those in the real estate industry?

I look at my role as helping real estate professionals grow their business. It start with our core services of having accurate and timely title research so clients can depend on the information. Professional closing services so buyers, sellers and borrowers leave the closing table with the best possible experience and increasing the chance of referral business in the future. I also provide marketing assistance that varies from farm pack to real estate statistics, postcards, flyers, foreclosure list, home books to name just a few.  I’m also big into education so I like to do classes on everything from understanding title and closings to utilizing social networking with your real estate business.

If you were asked to present a topic at REBC, what would you like to talk about?

If I did present a topic I would do the following using plugins to help with your wordpress blog such as feedburner, Akismet, WP-ContactForm and a few others I like.

How can we contact you?

I can be found on my blog at http://www.JimRenshaw.com

Thanks Jim!  Hope to see you and everyone else at Real Estate Bar Camp Denver, on Friday, May 22, 2009!

Joel McDonald is Winning with Social Media!

REBarCamp continues to grow and attract the top brokers, movers and shakers in the Denver metro area.  On we if we don’t know in person we  certainly have stumbled upon online is Automated Home Finder’s, founder Joel McDonald.  Joel has embraced Social Media like he embraces everything else in life, with a passion!  Enjoy reading his responses,

You surprised me when you told me you  no longer are a licensed real estate broker, but you own a company.  Please tell us what you do these days.

I deactivated my license in 2006 and hired a broker to run our company with the intention of focusing solely on generating business for our agents via online marketing. Our company’s online marketing efforts are responsible for about 80% of our agents’ business.

What made you decide to get into the business and when was that? What were you doing before real estate?

Unless you count my “job” as a paperboy, mowing lawns, or my high school bagboy job, I didn’t do anything other than college before real estate.

I got into real estate right after college in 1994 because I’ve always loved marketing and negotiations, and never really liked the idea of a “W-2 J.O.B”.  Since I bought my first home at 19 and convinced a few college friends to do the same, going into real estate sales seemed to come naturally.  I started as a salesperson in ’94, got a website (after my Dad told me to get with the times) in ’96, started Automated Homefinder in ’98, & started my own Boulder real estate</a> brokerage in ’99, and expanded the company to about 60 agents in 2005.

We first met in person when you invited me to lunch, but we had known each other from Twitter? How long had you been tweeting at that point in time?

I believe I had only been on Twitter for about 3 months at the time we got together back in November.  I had admired your fantastic blog for a couple years prior to that, but never did I imagine we’d become friends considering we’re technically competitors.  (Funny how social media works, huh?)

Social media has become so popular in the real estate industry. Can you tell us what it has done for your business?

Social media has opened doors that would have never have had a chance of even being opened in a “web 1.0 world”.  I have been invited to speak at conferences & radio shows,  I’ve opened up Automated Homefinder in 3 territories outside of Colorado (and am negotiating a few other territories as we speak), and most importantly — I’ve made fantastic connections with some pretty amazing people in my field who would otherwise have been inaccessible.

If you could pick only one aspect of social media, what would that be.  By that I mean you must choose from Active Rain, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and any of the hundreds available, which one would you use and why?

That’s a tough one because all of them are so great, and each has its own strengths.  Honestly, it depends on what hat I have on, so I’ll pick only one for each of the many entrepreneurial hats I wear:

• If I were wearing my “Local business owner in charge of getting more buyers and sellers for my Colorado agents” hat, it would have to be Twitter. Since all of our agents already have a large database of potential buyers and sellers, our biggest need is building rapport with those prospects. Twitter would be the best way to do that, and would probably outweigh any of the other SM tools.

• If I were wearing my “CEO of a company expanding into multiple states” hat, I would choose ActiveRain because the network of real estate professionals I can collaborate with is invaluable.
• If I ever put my Realtor Hat on again, I would probably choose Facebook because that is where my “sphere” of local clients already exists.

Me: Are you coming to REBarCamp Denver?  Would you like to present a topic? If so what would that be?

Joel: I’d be honored to present a topic! Considering I’ll be among so many amazing social media folks, I could focus on one of the two things Automated Homefinder does best – traffic generation strategies (Off-page optimization), or conversion tactics (CRM).

Thank you Joel for your contribution to the REBarCamp blog and your willingness to share your knowledge with us at Camp!  I am looking forward to your session.

Joel can be found on Twitter as @JoelRunner

If you would like to meet Joel in person RSVP and come to Denver’s landmark event on May 22, 2009 to be held at the DPPA.

Justin Smith Plans to Attend RE BarCamp

Metro Denver is lucky to have so many terrific technical people who are willing to share their knowledge.  Justin Smith of Searching Solutions in Castle Rock is planning to be at RE BarCamp Denver.  As he says in the video, he’s “pumped to be able to talk on Search Engine Optimization.  Anyone who has a website or wants one should make a point to hang around Justin.  Watch this video and I’m sure you will agree…

REBarCamp Denver from Justin Smith on Vimeo.

As a professional SEO expert, Justin has a natural ability to take difficult topics and break them down into bite-sized understandable concepts everyone can understand and implement.

Thank you Justin for contributing on this video and agreeing to be a big part of RE BarCamp Denver on May 22. We look forward to hearing and learning from you!

Justin Smith can be found at Searching Solutions.

Please be sure to RSVP for REBC!

Ellen on Twitter

Twitter is the latest phenomenon sweeping not just the country but the world.  If you don’t understand it, relax you aren’t alone.  Most who are truthful admit they didn’t get it at first either.

Ellen obviously has a handle on Twitter now, she’s got 10′s of thousand of FOLLOWERS!

If you are uncertain about Twitter, what it is, what does and how it might effect your business, you need to come to RE BarCamp Denver.  We will be revealing unravelling social media as it pertains to the real estate industry.

RSVP for REBCD Here!