New Name - Blog has moved

I have decided to rename my blog because it is not just about real estate or marketing any longer. The new name is Cheryl Said So and the new location is cherylsaidso.blogspot.com

I hope to see you there!

CEO of Bank of America Joins Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRLog (Press Release) - Fortune Hi Tech, a consumer services marketer of Fortune 500 companies announced that Kenneth D. Lewis, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Bank of America has joined Fortune Hi Tech Marketing (FHTM).

Lewis joins Fortune Hi Tech as a business representative simply for the ability to save money on his monthly expenses and earn a residual income from building a team.

When presented with the Fortune business opportunity, Ken was excited about our opportunity saying "it's a no-brainer, we are just replacing the middle man on our own monthly expenses", said Chris Doyle of Fortune.

"During these tough economic times, people from all walks of life are searching for the ability to save money wherever possible and make a few bucks along the way", says Eric Bailey, a Fortune representative from California.

Eric runs a successful Fortune business from home, along with being a former US Postal employee.

About Fortune Hi Tech Marketing
Fortune Hi-Tech is a team of highly motivated and dedicated individuals working together toward a common goal; achieving success with integrity. FHTM has allowed thousands of individuals, regardless of education, experience or current financial situation, to reach their financial goals by becoming FHTM business owners.. Through support, encouragement and guidance, our Independent Representatives work together to become the best possible advocates of our quality, name brand products and services.

With our diversified list of offerings, and invaluable Independent Representatives, FHTM has become a leader in the industry and achieved unmatched success. FHTM will continue breaking barriers and making headlines for years to come.

Lewis Biography
Lewis leads one of the world's largest financial institutions. Bank of America serves more than 59 million customers through more than 6,100 retail banking offices, 18,000 ATMs and the #1 online banking and bill-pay service with more than 29 million active users. The company's wealth management business is the largest in the world, with nearly 20,000 financial advisors managing more than $2 trillion in total client assets. The bank's corporate and investment banking businesses serve business and institutional clients in 150 countries and have relationships with 100 percent of the U.S. Fortune 500 companies and 83 percent of the Global Fortune 500.

FHTM has allowed thousands of individuals, regardless of education, experience or current financial situation, to reach their financial goals by becoming FHTM business owners.

For more information on how to get started with Fortune, contact me or visit www.fhtmus.com/cheryljames

New Name for My Blog?

I think I need to rename this here blog.

When I started it, I had just written my eBook A Flock of Golden Geese (See banner above).

Since then, I have been diverting my attention to other things. I am still a real estate investor but I am also so much more.

I would love to hear any ideas about what the new name should be. I am thinking of "A Blog with No Name".

That Next Stream of Income

I have been frustrated lately with my real estate investing. They say that this is the best market in our lifetime and I don't question that. I believe it to be true.

Because of the negligence of one bank, I recently lost a wholesale deal, a tenant, and at least ten thousand dollars between the two. Damn, that hurts.

So I recently found myself looking for something else. I knew I needed another stream of income and began looking at both internet and network marketing. In the process I have recently joined Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing.

What impressed me about FHTM is that it does not require you to make sales every month or hawk products that nobody has ever heard of or doesn't need. Instead it is all about redirecting money that you are already spending on services such as your cell phone, cable bill, alarm monitoring, etc. These are all big name companies that we are already using including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Dish Network, GE Home Security, etc.

Now I get paid to pay my bills and show others how they can too.

For more information please check out my website at www.fhtmus.com/cheryljames

Twitter Experiment

To Tweet or not to Tweet

I was resisting Twitter for a long time. Then I began following Kristen Darkenwald's www.socialmediarescuelive.com and was finally convinced to join.

She gave away the secret to getting lots of followers without having to pay for an application. Most people will follow you if you follow them. So I decided to try it and the first day I found a well known RE guru and followed all of his followers, 289 to be exact. I now have 124 followers. I intended to go back the next day and un-follow those that did not follow me but Twitter does not make that very easy.

Faced with the unappealing tasks of comparing lists and searching one name at a time, I made a discovery. If you look at your list of those that you are following, there is a drop down menu for options next to each name. If the person is following you, you will have the option to send them a direct message. So, now I just need to go through my list and check each one and remove those that I cannot send a message to.

It is still a daunting task. If anyone knows an easier way please let me know.

A Realtor No More

My MLS Access - R.I.P.

I decided this week to escrow my RE license. My last closing was in December and I kept fooling myself that I was going to start taking action again to find customers and make sales. But truth be told, I never really enjoyed it.

"Buyers are liars and sellers are story tellers."

That is one of the first things that you learn in the business. And while it may not always be true, it sure felt that way to me sometimes.

I sure am going to miss the MLS access and the prospecting tools of Courthouse Retrieval Systems. I also have a current listing that I have to give away. I'm not looking forward to breaking that news to the sellers.

Virgin Filmmaker

Back to work

Had a very nice Fourth of July weekend although it was too cold to swim. I'm also tired of driving. Two days on the road and only one devoted totally to relaxation. Time to get back to work.

I will hopefully have one property sold this week and have three more possibilities in the pipeline. Looking forward to a productive week!

Happy Fourth of July - a bit more personal

I hope everyone enjoys a great, safe, and fun Fourth of July weekend. I know I am looking forward to it.

My Grandmother, who just turned Ninety Four, lives on the shore of Lake Ontario in Upstate New York. She has a tradition of having the entire family over for a 4th of July breakfast consisting of Manhattan clam chowder, taffy tarts, and fruit. Yes, I did say breakfast.

This scrumptious eye opener will be followed by a swim in the dirty, dead-fish waters of the lake. This is what I look forward to the most! Actually, the water is nice. It is just not your typical beach type environment.



The night will be capped off by fireworks, of course!

Have a great weekend,
Cheryl

My Take On Some Free Online Marketing Methods

Who doesn't like a freebie?

I found a couple of free online marketing tools that I just want to share my thoughts on.

The first is Advertyze. Advertyze allows you to send out 50 advertising emails per week absolutely free. They are a taregted email business. However, unless you pay for their service the emails are not targeted for your specific niche. The pricing is decent for upgrading your account, so I think it is at least worth a look. Check it out here.

The second one, and the one I am most excited about is Instant Buzz. Instant Buzz allows you to drive free targeted traffic to your website just by doing what you do anyway; surfing the web.

Within minutes, this simple tool will be sending quality visitors to your site just because you installed the software onto your computer. The ads will appear on the browsers of other Instant Buzz users. So this one also does not provide targeted advertising. The cool thing though is that it is Free, and you are constantly earning credits. You can also earn more ad credits just by telling people about. So right now, I am telling two friends and then they will tell two friends and so on. Just like the old Breck commercials. I don't mind the toolbar either, I do notice it but it is not a bother.

Download it now and get started immediately:
Instant Buzz

My Gizmoz Experience

Establishing Trust

As a real estate investor we must be very people oriented. We find ourselves face to face with sellers and buyers on a daily basis. Whether or not you are able to close the deal often comes down to trust. The key ingredients to establishing trust are your confidence, knowledge, and honesty.

Have you ever googled someone by name in order to find out what kind of person they are before deciding to work with them? The Internet became known as the world wide web because it is all completely interconnected. As we spend more time online, we are creating our own little web that revolves around us and lets others know who we are. By having everything connected you are building a sphere of influence whether you realize it or not. You may have accounts with Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networking sites that may all point to your blog. If you are doing it right, your forum posts also link to other places through your signature. Then there are ezine articles, press releases, and let's not forget YouTube videos. These are all potential avenues to bring future business.

Be mindful of everything you do online. Populate your bios and create links to keep everything interconnected. Be yourself and be respectful, soon all of your 'goofing off' online will actually become productive for you professionally. And remember that nothing speaks more clearly to potential customers than your integrity.

Little known Facebook Secret

Everyone knows that one of the great benefits of Facebook is that it provides another free avenue for advertising. Every time you post a new status it is broadcast out to all of your friends. But what happens when your friends have a large network of friends? You message has a very short shelf-life. As other people post their statuses, yours will disappear off of the page and may not ever be seen by all of your intended targets. This leads to some people re-posting the same message. But that can be a real turn off.

So today I was trying to come up with another solution and discovered that you can send messages to the inbox of a friend list. Now, this probably is not really a secret, but I really don't see people utilizing it. The only catch is that the maximum number of recipients is 20. So today, I made several new lists, each containing twenty of my potential customers. Now I can send my message right to their inbox and they can read it at their convenience.

Motivated Sellers are Key to Your Success

If your phone were to suddenly start ringing off the hook with motivated sellers calls, how would that impact your business? Would you then be able to reach a goal or two that you have set for yourself?

Success in creative real estate investing hinges upon one thing… finding deals. The truth is that all profit is made when you buy. Finding the really good deals can make the difference between being a mediocre investor and being wildly successful.

Finding deals is a result of marketing. If we are not marketing, we are not in business. There are many ways to successfully market your business. There are traditional methods such as direct mail, newspapers, TV, radio, and now the Internet. Then there are also gorilla techniques which tend to be more cost effective. These include bandit signs, door hangers, flyers, vehicle magnets, business cards, and the Internet. Guerilla marketing is really about doing the crazy, unexpected and low cost advertising that gets you noticed. Mobile advertising is a great example of this. I personally have a scrolling LED display that sits in the back window of my car and alternates between my advertising message and clever and humorous one-liners.

The trade off with guerilla marketing is that it tends to be more time consuming. So once you begin to start generating some calls and doing some deals you will want to put someone else to work on your marketing for you. No, I am not talking about hiring a PR firm; I am talking about building your own flock of golden geese (also known as bird dogs). By hiring out the tedious tasks of your everyday marketing, you free up your time to focus on your specialty, negotiating fantastic deals.

Bird Dog - Learn How to Penetrate the Current Real Estate Market!

Bird Dog - Learn How to Penetrate the Current Real Estate Market!

By Donte Mazyck

In today's housing market there is a huge opportunity for new investors also known as real estate bird dogs, property locators or local associates. Whatever name you choose to call yourself allowing yourself to become a real estate bird dog, then you can get the inside scoop of the type of deals to look out for, the different players in the area. If you can find the deals and match them with a buyer, there is a serious opportunity to enter the industry of real estate investing.

New real estate investors or bird dogs that want to become successful should learn the basic rudiments of their niche and understand their role like the hair on their face.

Find their Buyers:

The only way to become successful at real estate as a business you have to determine the best types of deals. Most people start out the real estate world as a bird dog to learn a system to figure out how to take what they learned and apply it to their own venture. The more buyers you have lined up the more money you can make. You can have the best deal in the world but if you don't have the cash or buyer lined up that perfect deal can slide between your fingers. Your goal should be to have at least 15-20 buyers to review your deals.

Once you learn who the buyers are you can really make some great cash, but not until you find a deal they might want. If you don't have buyers line up already then you might want to go out and find an investor that has some buyers to make immediate profits. Just let the investor know upfront that you want to work with them so you can learn who the players are to eventually do your own business or at least take what you learned on the road.

Locate some deals:

The second secret ingredient to successful real estate bird dogging is find deals. The hardest part about starting out as a real estate investor on your own without learning the ropes, you will quickly find that you will fail if you don't have a source of leads to sift through for your buyers. You can have all the buyers but without the right deal your buyers will buy from someone else. That is why it is so important to develop a system that provides you with leads when you need to make some cash. There are so many ways to find leads. You can call owners from the newspaper, call owners with for sign signs in their yards, or place your own ad in the newspaper. Another way you can find good leads is by going to the internet. The internet is the largest source right now for a good source of leads. Once you find a great way to produce leads you will be on your way to making some huge profits.

Present Information to Buyers

You don't want to ruin your chances of selling your best lead to one of your best buyers by not providing the most information possible. A good bird dog or property locator will provide as much information as they can so they won't waste their time or their buyers time. Your investor buyer will want some of the information listed:

1. The property address
2. Basic condition from the outside or even better if you have information on the inside
3. The asking price
4. Do you think the property is worth the asking
5. The owners contact information
6. Pictures outside ok, but preferably inside too
7. Pictures of surrounding houses
8. Internet access
9. Email account
10. Accessible phone line

If you provide all of this information you will take your profits from $500-$1,500. Learn the techniques listed in this article and you are sure to be on your way to earning some serious cash in your beginning bird dog or property locator career. There are plenty of books and training you can receive for free. You can find some books at the library or contact an investor and ask for some training, if you are willing to be their bird dog, then you might get some free training.

Donte Mazyck is the acquisitions manager for BofC trains real estate bird dogs and property locators to become BofC's joint venture partner in selected cities. BofC offers free training for a bird dog and property locator for each city. The current real estate market is in a slump and this is the bird opportunity for a bird dog, new investor or property locator to get into the business. BofC offers free cutting edge training for those that want to penetrate the real estate market. BofC also offers leads for sellers for bird dogs and property locators to eventually become joint venture partners.

Bird dogs and real estate investors can get more information and start up by going to http://www.buyersofcharlotte.com/sqz/bird_dog.htm We look for bird dogs to work one particular city since we are located in a different city and it's more feasible for us to train local associates to handle deals in their prospective market.

For strictly bird dog opportunities which doesn't include more money or joint venture opportunities, you can go to http://www.buyersofcharlotte.com/extra-cash.htm for the basic start up without the free training. This opportunity is for the truly part time bird dog.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Donte_Mazyck

http://EzineArticles.com/?Bird-Dog---Learn-How-to-Penetrate-the-Current-Real-Estate-Market!&id=2386772