Monthly Archives: May 2023

Does Your Real Estate Investment Club Do it For You?

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First let’s decide if we are looking for a real estate investment club, group, or association.

In many cities, you may just have to take what you can get. But if you have a choice you may find there might be a difference and you probably need to check out each group in your city that offers the most. But given the choice would you want to go to an Attorney that was a member of the “Lawyers Club” or would want one that was a member of the “Missouri Bar Association.”

The word club tends to come across as people who share a hobby and do you want to invest in real estate as a hobby or invest in real estate as a business. Then when you look at group, it seems to give you a feel of a loosely associated bunch of people, so if you want to foster change in legislation for example, would loosely associated people be able to do that. Association on the other hand means a group of organized people, who share a full time goal, and work together for the betterment of all involved.

So what should you look for in a group:
1. Look for an association that meets at least monthly if not more. This gives you a time to attend, meet people, have people meet you, ask questions, learn, network. If you have a choice this is the ideal situation. Now if the group only meets online or virtually, you might try to work with this group and see if you can’t find a way to get the people at the virtual meeting to attend a live networking events in town – be sure to work with the leader of the virtual group.

2. Look for a association that has meetings that offer both networking time and speaker time. You want a chance to learn from the speaker as well as time to talk to other people at the event. You also want a group that actually networks, this means that people are going around the room and talking to a lot of different people, not just breaking up into their own little cliques for the duration.

3. Also look for a realestate association that has an active online presence that offers extra stuff like:
a. Webinars for bonus training opportunities. This allows you to squeeze in one or two extra training events – usually on your time as they are recorded and you can listed to whenever you want to if you can’t make the live version of it.
b. Online networking opportunities through an active message board. This means you have a place to go and ask a question to the group and get multiple responses in between meeting times.
c. Recording of the speakers at meetings. So while I know you are going to attend every meeting, you might miss something and having the ability to go back and replay a part or all of a meeting is very beneficial.

4. Look for a real estate investing association that stays up to date with what is happening with local and national regulations. You want to find an association that brings you information about rules and regulations, local trends, and market data.

Again, you have to take what you can get. So if you can’t find an association in your area that offers all of these things, you might get involved with the only one you have and help them offer these things. It may just be that they want to offer these things but don’t have the willing and able bodies to provide these things. And if you have to start your own group National REIA ( http://www.nationalreia.com/ ) will help you provide all of these things.

This article is a part of a series of articles to help new people and experienced people figure out how to utilize their REIA group and build their investing team. Please watch for our previous or upcoming articles:
1. Where to find a real estate investment club.
2. What to look for in a real estate investment club.
3. What to take with you to a real estate investment club meeting.
4. Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.
5. Networking at the real estate investment club meeting.
6. Learning at the real estate investment club meeting.
7. Follow up after the real estate investment club meeting.
8. Beyond the real estate investment club meeting.

Fitness Tips for the Holiday Season

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It’s well known that exercise and a balanced diet will keep a person healthy and fit. Unfortunately, as fun as the holidays are, the season from Halloween to New Years gives us plenty of opportunities to forfeit the proper execution of exercise and diet. Parties, relatives in town, and elaborate meals of celebration all lead to a different schedule and way of eating. In preparation for this time of year, I thought it appropriate to share some helpful tips on managing your healthy habits during such a traditionally unhealthy time of year.

1. Beware of sweets!
There is an abundance of cookies, cakes and other sugary snacks at home and work during the holidays. We all crave something sweet now and again but with so many counter-productive treats sitting within arm’s reach, you need to make a conscious effort to control that urge. Try fulfilling that sweet tooth with fruit!

2. Get enough sleep!
Add holiday shopping and parties onto your already busy schedule and sleep is even harder to come by. Help yourself (and those who will be around you) by having a solid time management system. This means you might have to set up your own curfew for late night parties or do more shopping online, but getting as close to eight hours of sleep a night as you can is important for your fitness and overall health.

3. Hydrate!
Cooler weather means dryer weather and we become dehydrated far faster. Make sure to drink plenty of water (especially if you’ve been drinking alcohol).

4. Stay away from the break room!
Co-workers have a tendency to bring in baked goods to share during the holidays. The longer you hang out in the break room and graze the goodies, the more times just “half a cookie” will add up. Do yourself the favor and just avoid being around them at all. Or if you must, already have a healthy snack in hand to keep your taste buds distracted!

5. Stay consistent with your workout routine!
Again, our schedules can get overwhelmed over the holidays with parties and other special activities. It’s vital you keep as close to your normal workouts as possible to keep your body in a regular state. Keeping your endorphins pumped up will keep your mood positive and help get through the stress of the season that could otherwise lead to poor choices.

6. Watch your alcohol intake!
Don’t let all the holiday parties be an excuse to drink more than you usually do. A drink or two spread out over a couple hours is OK for an adult of legal age, but be careful not to get caught up in the holiday spirit in a way that’s going to mess with the other items on this list (good sleep, hydration, healthy eating, consistent workouts).

7. Portion control!
The sight of a buffet style meal has the ability to throw our plate loading skills into overdrive. Be careful to keep healthy portion sizes even if there are triple the amount of choices to choose from.

8. Careful about couch time!
Without question, some of the greatest sporting events are held in the Fall and Winter. If you aren’t one of the lucky ones in attendance you will likely end up watching from the couch or at a sports bar. Consider watching your favorite team while walking on the treadmill or if you end up at a bar, skipping the beers for water and wings for salad. Remember the key is to stay consistent with your regular routine and not over indulge with food or excessive lounging.

9. Wash your hands!
The only thing worse than feeling stressed during the holidays is to get sick in the middle of this time of year. Make sure you wash your hands often… it doesn’t make you weird, it keeps you healthy.

10. Take advantage of the time of year!
Fitness centers and gyms know how to capitalize on the New Year’s goals people will be making, you should too! Check into different places and programs to find the best deals of the year.

Online Marketing Tips – How To Increase Your Success Rate

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Internet marketing is not a field that will be going away any time soon.

Internet marketing is not a field that will be going away, any time soon. The benefits available to any company that courts business online have been well-proven. Yet a successful internet marketing strategy is not hard to put together; a business owner can gather plenty of helpful advice on the subject without spending any money. Here are just a few internet marketing tips that just might make a difference in your life.

To promote your product efficiently, you should help your potential customers realize that they need it. Expose their material and emotional problems, and explain how your product could help them and make their lives easier or happier. This is a very simple method but it has been the core of advertisement for decades.

TIP! If at all possible, network with influential people in your niche to improve your credibility. If you can get a respected person in your niche to endorse your product, your sales will rise overnight.

One of the best things that you can do for your site is to market your product in forums. This can increase the visibility that you have and will not cost any money towards your budget. Also, you can use forums to gauge the customer’s likes and dislikes for your services and what you need to improve.

A great Internet marketing idea is to set up a contest in which you give a great prize to anyone who can find five or more misspelled words in any of your content. This is a clever way to get people to read all your copy, and it should increase sales.

TIP! Work on your headlines. People will read your content, if you advertise a quick solution to one of their problems or tell them they can find out how to get a free product.

Use local listings to your benefit. You can use sites like Yahoo, and Google as well as many other directories to create a way to find local shoppers for your business. You will be able to provide information about where you are located, the contact information, and the website address to draw in new customers.

Do not ever allow your site to have pop-up advertisements of any sort. Consumers hate pop-up advertisements so much that it has actually become a legitimate business to make them disappear. Even if you are absolutely desperate to show off something they have not looked at yet, do not allow yourself to do it. It will only make the customer want to leave and not return.

TIP! Work on your mission statement as an internet marketer until you are able to sum up exactly what you stand for in a few short sentences. This statement should correctly reflect what your business is about, who you are, and also what you hope to achieve in the business world.

For your online business try the “bill me later” option. Many customers like to pay right away. But there’s other’s who want to pay over a period of time. See if this option works for generating more sales and traffic to your website. You can do a trial period to determine if this works for you.

Reciprocal linking is one of the most respected internet marketing strategies, but it still pays off for the diligent webmaster. The process of trading links with a related website raises both websites’ position on search engine indexes. It also drives interested visitors directly to a website, and an interested visitor is always a potential customer.

TIP! When it comes to internet marketing, one way to keep your visitors interested in your website is to add a trivia question to your banner. Tell them that whoever answers the question will get a prize.

Don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth. Provide incentives for your customers to spread the word and refer their friends to your site using a coupon or promo code. If, for example, you tell clients that they will receive a discount, free gift, or valuable coupon for referring four friends to your site, you can effectively transform one conversion into five sales and so on.

Internet marketing can be a very cost- effective way of advertising. Television and radio advertisements can cost thousands of dollars for mere seconds, and although this method of advertisement reaches a broad audience, it can be expensive. Marketing on-line also reaches a broad audience, but for a fraction of the cost.

TIP! To track how visitors get to your site, use the free Google Analytics program. This program lets you see what keywords are bringing people to your site, and what search engines they’re coming from.

It can seem like every business needs an internet marketing strategy. This is good for increased exposure and a wider potential customer base. Ideas like the ones that have been shared in this article, can help any business, leverage its internet marketing efforts and share in the vast potential profits available online.