Real Living Real Estate Announces New Social Media Center
Real Living Real Estate, one of the nation’s leading real estate franchisors and a member of the HSF Affiliates LLC family of real estate brokerage franchise networks, recently announced the launch of its Real Living Social Media Center, which distributes fresh and ongoing content to network members’ consumer and professional connections across Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
“We are excited to deliver the new Real Living Social Media Center to our network members and help them share engaging content with their spheres of influence,” said Robert McAdams Jr., president of Real Living Real Estate. “The platform is simple to use and will help our agents increase their visibility and thought leadership locally.”
The Real Living Social Media Center, powered by Back At You Media and free of charge for all Real Living Real Estate network members, helps professionals to create social media content such as listing announcements, text posts, images and links to articles, and to preschedule the material to appear at a later time. It also provides a steady flow of fresh content written and curated by Real Living Real Estate, including national real estate market updates, homeownership trends, brand updates, holiday messaging and more.
Matt Kaufman, director of marketing and technology at Real Living Real Estate, said the Real Living Social Media Center complements agents’ ongoing marketing and communication strategies.
“Our main goal in launching the Real Living Social Media Center is to provide every agent in the network with the tools and expertise to build a strong, credible social presence, regardless of their skills or experience,” he explained. “With a leg up on social media our agents can focus more time on what they love to do – help their clients buy and sell real estate.”
Gino Blefari, CEO of HSF Affiliates, congratulated the network on its implementation of Real Living Social Media Center. “Social media is an integral part of real estate communication—from property marketing to client interaction, branding and beyond,” he said. “The platform will help Real Living agents leverage social media in smart, interactive and effective ways.”
Thoughts on Leadership: The Mindset of a Champion
By Gino Blefari
This week my travels found me first in Las Vegas to speak with HomeServices Lending CEO and president Maureen Sammon and her team at HomeServices Lending’s Elite Producer Event. Next, it was off to Tucson to speak with our Real Living Real Estate network members for the annual Real Living Connection conference.
At each event, I spoke about the importance of a positive mindset for effective leadership and the topic couldn’t be more top of mind than after this past Sunday’s historic Super Bowl LI game.
As all of you know, the Patriots won the Super Bowl in a stunning overtime victory, claiming the Vince Lombardi Trophy I wrote about last week. The game—which many claim was the greatest Super Bowl played—boiled down to tactical errors made by the Atlanta Falcons and decisive execution on the part of the New England Patriots and their on-the-field leader, Tom Brady, and off-the-field leader, Bill Belichick.
In total, the Patriots ran 93 plays during the course of the game while the Falcons ran almost half as much—46 plays. In the fourth quarter alone, when the Patriots truly turned the game around, New England ran 35 plays to Atlanta’s 13. Yet, it wasn’t just play-making that was the active ingredient in a New England championship; it was also a mindset maintained by the entire team that while they might be down on the scoreboard they were far from out.
Famously, Belichick worked his team harder than ever in the days and weeks leading up to the Super Bowl—he even tried to start a “no days off” chant at the Patriots parade in Boston to reflect his leadership philosophy—and the results certainly showed.
“We put in a lot of work,” said Patriots receiver and special teams standout Matthew Slater. “We’re practicing in pads on Super Bowl week. We’re squatting 80% of our maxes on Super Bowl week. I mean, we worked for this. Our bodies were ready. Our minds were ready, and we just kept believing one another.”
To pull off a Super Bowl win, belief was truly the name of the game. Every single player on the New England Patriots had to believe they could come back. The team also had to believe in Tom Brady, who remained calm despite his team’s worst deficit of 28-3 in the third quarter. And Brady’s composure is the mark of not just a good leader but a great one. Any leader can lead through success. That’s easy. But it’s the hard that makes you great, as I say. The true test of a leader is when the chips are down, when this leader is facing the greatest deficit in a Super Bowl game ever and you say something like, “OK, we need two touchdowns, a field goal and two 2-point conversions to take the Super Bowl into overtime,” and without blinking an eye the leader would reply, “I got this.”
So what’s the message? Truer leadership has never been so clearly defined as the New England Patriots rallying together and winning this Super Bowl game. Yet it was no coincidence or no capricious stroke of luck that New England wound up the victors; it was a mix of experience, determination, perseverance and the belief that winning was possible. Brady was once quoted as saying, “If you don’t believe in yourself why is anyone else going to believe in you?” And that’s the truth. Leadership, success, victory … it must start always with you.
GINO BLEFARI is CEO of HSF Affiliates LLC. You can follow Gino on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Thoughts on Leadership: Winning is a Habit
By Gino Blefari
This week my travels find me first in Detroit where I spoke with agents, managers and leadership at Real Living Kee Realty. For each meeting, I like to deliver several principles for success, specific ideas to follow in order to win.
It’s no surprise winning is on my mind because I just received a text from my good friend and former All-Pro wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers as well as five-time Super Bowl champion, Dwight “The Catch” Clark, who’s on his way to Houston for Super Bowl Media Week appearances. Each summer, as soon as pre-season begins, teams have one Wildly Important Goal (WIG) in mind: Make it to the Super Bowl and then, win the Vince Lombardi Trophy. This trophy—a football resting atop a pedestal that measures 22 inches and 7 pounds of sterling silver glory—is only given to the team that has proven to be the very best in the world.
Why is it called the Vince Lombari Trophy, you may ask? Why not Super Bowl Championship Trophy? Well, it’s an interesting story. On Jan. 15, 1967, the first-ever Super Bowl was played between the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League—whose coach at the time was Vince Lombardi—and the Kansas City Chiefs of the AFL. Green Bay won that game handily by a score of 35-10 and would go on to defeat the Oakland Raiders in the Super Bowl the following year, 33-14. After Super Bowl II, Lombardi retired as head coach of the Packers but not before solidifying his legacy as one of the greatest coaches and leaders of all time.
Still, for the next few years—until 1970 to be exact—Super Bowl winners would receive what was called the World Professional Football Championship Trophy. When Lombardi suddenly died of cancer in 1970, the trophy was renamed the Vince Lombardi Trophy before it was awarded to the Baltimore Colts after they beat the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl V.
Some might imagine the trophy bore Lombardi’s namesake because he was the leader responsible for bringing his team to Super Bowl victory in Super Bowl I and II but it’s really so much more than that; the name, the man, the legend known as Vince Lombari is absolutely synonymous with winning.
Lombardi once said, “winning is a habit,” and for him, it truly was.
During his 10-year coaching career, Lombardi’s teams won 96 regular season games, which amounted to a .728 winning percentage. He also had an astounding .840 winning percentage in all the pre-seasons he coached and during post-season, was virtually untouchable with a .900 winning percentage, which included five NFL titles.
So, what’s the message? It’s one I’m sure New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, quarterback Tom Brady, Atlanta Falcons head coach Dan Quinn and quarterback Matt Ryan are repeating over and over leading up to Sunday’s big game; it’s the idea of habitual, unwavering devotedness to a single, achievable goal — a Super Bowl victory. That’s a powerful message we can all take with us, whether we’re attempting to win a listing, a deal or a new client. We must remain focused, steadfast and unflappable in our devotion to win. “Winning is not a sometimes thing,” Lombardi once said. “It’s an all-the-time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do the right thing once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit.”
P.S. If you’re looking for a good read to learn more about Vince Lombardi, I recommend When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi.
GINO BLEFARI is CEO of HSF Affiliates LLC. You can follow Gino on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Bob’s Blog: Introducing … TheRealBlog.com!
By Bob McAdams Jr.
This past year was another great one for us at Real Living Real Estate, with our network members across the country diligently supporting home buyers and sellers, their communities and of course, each other. It’s no secret why Real Living Real Estate consistently achieves such high levels of overall consumer satisfaction; our focus is and always will be on maintaining the best customer experience in the industry.
One of the things I enjoy most about my job is when I can sit down and connect with our network members, whether it be at their office or at a local restaurant, talking and brainstorming about how they can better serve their clients, grow their business and thrive in their marketplaces. I love hearing about our agents’ passion for real estate and look forward to strategizing on new ways to help their businesses grow.
One way to do just that is through social media, which brings together our Real Living Real Estate network under one common screen, one common hashtag (#PowerOfUs) and all of the incredible ideas that can be so easily digested and shared. With that in mind, I proudly present to you a new way for us to connect and inspire each other—TheRealBlog.com—your new online home for updates about Real Living Real Estate as you work to help your clients achieve the American dream.
Happy reading!
BOB MCADAMS is President of Real Living Real Estate. You can follow Bob on Instagram and Twitter.
Thoughts on Leadership: Face-to-Face Leadership
By Gino Blefari
This week my travels find me in Irvine, CA at our HSF Affiliates LLC headquarters for a Sales and Service conference. The conference brought together our sales, service, operations, education and business consulting teams for a collective, three-day event filled with presentations, team-building activities and idea-sharing. As you know, I’m a firm believer in setting Wildly Important Goals (WIGs) and not just setting these WIGS but also limiting them to only the very most important achievements you need to get done. These were our two WIGs for the meeting:
- Increase the collaboration between our sales and service teams relative to working with our affiliates to help them achieve their goals faster than they would in our absence.
- Expand on and improve the way we connect with potential franchisees for whom we share our Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices value proposition and its important tenets of trust, integrity, stability and longevity.
Beyond these two WIGs, it was an important conference for another reason: The face-to-face interaction of business associates who have in many cases worked together for years but haven’t yet had a chance to meet in person.
Trust cannot be formed through a cell phone or computer screen. Trust, a pillar of not only our particular brokerage organization but also a pillar to sustainable success, must be built through genuine connection. This genuine connection, I should add, is found when you can look into someone’s eyes, shake his or her hand and be present in a room to feel the energy and passion this individual has for the work he or she does. That’s real trust. That’s real commitment to a shared goal. Emails and conference calls will never replace what it’s like to sit right beside your colleagues as they explain, illuminate and ultimately, inspire.
Thoughts on #Leadership: Face-to-Face Leadershiphttps://t.co/2tcF2xxtjb
— Gino Blefari (@ginoblefari) January 13, 2017
So, what’s the message? I made it a point to sit through our entire three-day Sales and Service conference to hear every presentation given and proposal offered. In the end, I believe we achieved the two WIGs we set out to accomplish. How? Well, of course it was due in part to the strength of our great sales and service teams but it was also largely because of the face-to-face time we spent together that helped show us just how very strong we are. Business is done with people, not companies. And applying this concept to your own leadership style means the next time someone asks to schedule a conference call or video chat for your meeting, tell him or her you’d rather sit down in your office or grab a coffee instead. Trust me, the future success of whatever business endeavor you’re setting out to achieve will be better off because you did.
GINO BLEFARI is CEO of HSF Affiliates LLC. You can follow Gino on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Thoughts on Leadership: Omaha, Change and an Exchange with the Oracle
By Gino Blefari
Last week my travels found me in Omaha, NE attending the Berkshire Hathaway Energy January 2017 Executive Leadership Conference and related workshops. More than 350 officers and managers from throughout the enterprise attended the three-day event, which included cross-business panel discussions and presentations related to key challenges and opportunities.
Panel discussions centered on managing competitive risk, modernizing assets, reducing our environmental footprint, enhancing cybersecurity plus an overview of political and economic effects on our businesses – all great material.
I also loved the interactive Leading Change Workshop, which leveraged the creative input of participants for greater understanding of the impact of change on people and for leading changes to meet continuous goals.
Still, without question, the highlight of our meetings came Tuesday afternoon when Berkshire Hathaway Energy Chairman and CEO Greg Abel conducted an interview with Warren Buffett. The session lasted about 60 minutes but we could have listened to Mr. Buffett for hours. He seemed all-knowledgeable with important perspectives on every question. At the same time, he was straightforward, witty and positive.
When the interview concluded Mr. Buffett remained for questions from the audience. I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity so I quickly stepped up to the microphone. Admittedly, I was a little nervous but I got the words out — but Mr. Buffett gave me a welcoming smile and carefully answered my question, making eye contact with me the entire time.
The moment was not lost on me and never will be.
What’s the message? Very simple. Leaders, no matter who they are, must take the time for the people they lead. They listen, process and respond with respect and, in the process, enrich and grow their entire organization.
GINO BLEFARI is CEO of HSF Affiliates LLC. You can follow Gino on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
How to Handle Impostors
HSF Affiliates COO Stephen Phillips wrote the following blog post at the end of 2014. We publish it again because we liked it and the messages are as appropriate for the upcoming year as they were two years ago. Happy holidays!
By Stephen Phillips
Like many companies, we have a television in the lobby of our Irvine, California headquarters. At one time it was continuously tuned to a cable news network, but then at some point our receptionist was tired of hearing about nothing but terrorism and pandemics and she switched to HGTV. That makes sense to me. I never watch television news, and I like HGTV.
Recently, I was walking through the lobby when I heard an HGTV promotional spot that stopped me in my tracks. The ad was for a show named Rehab Addict. The star of the show, Nicole Curtis, was talking about what she does in remodeling old houses in the Midwest. She was describing her response to both the successes and the failures, and she said, “I want the good days; I want the bad days.” I was immediately struck by how much wisdom there is in that simple phrase, “I want the good days; I want the bad days.”
How much time, precious irreplaceable time, do we spend trying to foresee the unpredictable future, while trying to sidestep life’s unavoidable difficulties? Isn’t it better to move forward confidently every day without regard to whether the path is perfectly clear? Won’t we ultimately be more successful if we learn to accept that life’s challenges are just as much a part of the program as its blessings?
As I travel around the country talking to affiliates and agents, especially at this time of year, I am usually expected to say something about the residential real estate market and make a prediction about the future. Don’t get me wrong, I love talking about the market, but at the same time, I sometimes wonder what I would do differently, what any of us would really do differently, if we knew with certainty how the market was going to perform in the following twelve months. Would we totally change our approach to the business? Would we put in twice as many hours, or half as many? If it didn’t look so hot, would we pull up stakes and leave town?
Not so long ago, this industry went through a dreadful downturn during which annual unit sales of existing homes dropped 42%, and a well-known national home price index declined 27%. Those were tough years. And yet, here we are. Unit sales have rebounded 28% from the bottom and existing home prices have increased 25% nationwide, while the median price of a newly constructed home in the U.S. recently exceeded $300,000 for the first time.
So how should we approach the uncertainty of a new year? In one of his most famous poems, Rudyard Kipling wrote,
“If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same…Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.”
Will we have triumph or disaster in 2015? Who knows? I certainly don’t. But either way, following the astute advice of an insightful rehabber from Detroit, I say, “Bring it on.”
STEPHEN PHILLIPS is COO for HSF Affiliates LLC, responsible for the daily operations of the company. Find him on Twitter.
Northeast Nebraska Start-Up Firm Joins Real Living Real Estate Brokerage Network
Real Living Real Estate, one of the nation’s leading real estate franchisors and a member of the HSF Affiliates LLC family of real estate brokerage franchise networks, today announced that a Northeast Nebraska-based start-up firm has joined the network operating as Real Living Advantage Real Estate.
“I’m very excited to be part of such an extraordinary team that will be able to leverage a higher level of real estate expertise,” said Sandy Wolfe, managing broker and co-owner of Real Living Advantage Real Estate. “The brand’s commitment to customer service exemplifies the approach Real Living Advantage Real Estate will bring to Norfolk and Northeast Nebraska.”
“It was important for us to maintain our individuality but have the backing of a national franchise,” said Co-owner Jade Lafleur, noting that the brokerage wanted a fresh, national name but also wanted to keep its local, community-focused approach. “As a member of the Real Living network, we’re looking to grow and become No. 1 in our marketplace. Still, we don’t want just a lot of agents; we want the best agents who work to help people and can fit into our positive, friendly environment.”
Ron Thompson, an agent at Real Living Advantage Real Estate, is looking forward to boosting business with the philosophy and services provided by Real Living Real Estate. “Sales and sales success comes from implementing the resources that are available to us,” he said. “Real Living Real Estate is a progressive team of real estate professionals with great ideas and high goals.”
With their affiliation, Real Living Advantage Real Estate agents gain access to a comprehensive and integrated suite of resources aimed at helping real estate agents and their clients successfully navigate the home buying and selling process. “It’s amazing how much Real Living Real Estate offers in terms of tools and services,” said Lafleur. “From the ease of placing pictures in promotional materials to marketing open houses, the technology is professional and engaging.”
Robert McAdams Jr., president of Real Living Real Estate, welcomed Real Living Advantage Real Estate to the network. “Sandy, Jade and their team are well respected in their community and throughout Northeast Nebraska for their quality service and expertise,” he said. “We’re excited they’ve chosen to join us and we value their membership in our brand.”
Added Gino Blefari, CEO of HSF Affiliates, “We’re proud this innovative, new brokerage has joined Real Living Real Estate and we are eager to help the brokerage grow.”
Thoughts on Leadership: Recharge to Renew
By Gino Blefari
This week my travels find me in Northern California, taking a few days off before I get back to work on Friday. (Yes, you read that right!) I know my usual Thursday Thoughts recount how I flew to New York on Monday and was in Arizona on Tuesday but this week, I stayed put and did something that is important, powerful—yet underrated—for all leaders to do: I recharged.
In The Power of Full Engagement, an influential book about leadership by best-selling authors Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, the mindful duo had this to say about sprinters vs. long-distance runners:
“Think for a moment about the look of many long-distance runners: gaunt, sallow, slightly sunken and emotionally flat. Now visualize a sprinter … Sprinters typically look powerful, bursting with energy and eager to push themselves to their limits. The explanation is simple. No matter how intense the demand they face, the finish line is clearly visible 100 or 200 meters down the track. We, too, must learn to live our lives as a series of sprints—fully engaging for a period of time and then fully disengaging and seeking renewal before jumping back into the fray to face whatever challenges confront us.”
How does that relate to the way in which we should lead? Thoughtfully, attentively, fully engaged and ready to win but conscious that in order to keep up this level of intense focus, we must take breaks that allow our minds and bodies to disengage, relax and prepare for our next “sprint.”
So, what’s the message? Be a sprinter. As the busy holiday season approaches, make sure you’re taking time—block it out in your schedule—to recharge and step away from it all before beginning your next sprint. In my time management class, I teach that you should schedule yourself out a year in advance. And what is the first thing I always say you should schedule? Time off. For now, this might mean taking a long stroll through your neighborhood, listening to your favorite band or audio book, walking your dog, enjoying a cup of coffee in solitude and silence. However or whatever “recharge” and time off means to you, be conscious about fitting it in. You’ll find that the quality of work you produce and the service you can provide to your clients when you’re charged up and completely engaged will be so much better because of it.
GINO BLEFARI is CEO of HSF Affiliates LLC. You can follow Gino on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.