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How to Create a Seller Safety Plan


An informed strategy based on RDM will help you cover all your bases and face uncertainty powered by information and adaptation. There is no uncertainty when you include ThriveDx in your plans for the future. Check out our classes so you can upskill and give yourself and your community a 

A lot of real estate press focuses on your safety, but what about your sellers?  You and your sellers need to stay safe during showings – no exceptions. By sharing your concerns for seller safety, you can boost your reputation and the industry’s. 

Here we go!



Medications

A medicine cabinet can be a jackpot for the wrong type of open house guest. Prescription medication can be easily stolen, as bathrooms are not generally locked during a showing. 

Ask your sellers to put medications in their handbags to keep everyone safe. 

Knife blocks 

A kitchen is the heart of a home. A knife block may seem innocent enough to leave out. However, a potential thief may incorporate the knife block into their robbery plans. There isn’t really anything you can do as a real estate agent if a guest with a knife wants to leave with a priceless painting or a new television.

Photos 

Family photos may be displayed if the sellers are still living on the property. It can be cute to see the whole family in matching outfits; it can also be dangerous. 

Remove all photos to protect the identity and privacy of children currently living in the home. 

Private tours

Getting a glimpse into someone’s home is something criminals love to do. They can take the open invitation a For Sale sign can give to case the property. Advise sellers to refuse anyone who asks for an on-the-spot private tour. You never know. 

Craigslist scams

A popular scam is to post a home for sale on Craigslist with someone posing as the owner. The pictures can be uploaded or posted from an open house. Victims are asked to wire a downpayment or rental payment to the scammer.

Watch out for guests taking excessive photos of the property. They may be trying to pretend they live there. 

Locks

Every lock should be double checked following a showing or an open house. Don’t forget window locks! A crook can discreetly unlock a window and come back later.



Protect sellers

One of the first things you can do to protect your sellers, and yourself, for that matter, is talk to every seller about who they are allowing into their homes.

So much goes into making a showing and open house safe. You have so much to do as a real estate agent. Focus on your connections, not your marketing by grabbing your book of templates to repeat your success every time you write. 

A Miami Copywriter Explains SEO Keywords

The goal of SEO is not more traffic, but higher quality traffic. Keywords are what browsers type in when they know what they want to research. Each piece of information a business puts out should keep conversion goals in mind. Using popular, irrelevant keywords does not move your business forward. No one will happen upon your site expecting something that is not delivered but stay anyways because your website is pretty. Do not engage in false advertising. Your reputation may not survive.

Overview of keywords

Shorter keywords have higher volume but low conversion. They are like someone looking at croissants through a bakery shop window. A long tail keyword is someone coming inside and asking if the establishment serves warm pistachio croissants. These delights are not for everyone, but they may be exactly what your niche wants from you. Try to pepper your content with specific keywords to constantly renew trust and gain high-quality traffic.  

Short tail keyword: croissants

Long tail keywords: warm pistachio croissants near me 

Niches and long tails

A niche is a group of very particular interests that must be narrowly targeted to be successful. Long tail keywords have more words than short tails to specify what is desired. Potential consumers get more specific as they get closer to the point of purchase. This is where many get caught up in vanity metrics. Higher traffic does not always result in high-quality leads. A niche knows what it wants and it wants you to provide it. Once someone has done their research, they are more likely to buy. 

The truth about long tail keywords and niches 

Weaker or inferior products may never sell no matter how much exposure they are given with long tails. Niches inspire the existing market to branch out because small sales can lead up to big profits. Small discoveries can be made if the filters and recommendation platforms do their job, but not always. Breaking down a niche to reduce the ad spend does not always work. Long tails can create exposure for a product or service in demand.

Keywords in action

Broad match: the most basic use of a word and its plural: umbrella, umbrellas

Broad match examples: printed umbrellas, rain umbrella, vintage parasols and designer umbrellas

Phrase match: a broad match keyword with close variations, with extra words before or after

Phrase match examples: designer umbrellas 1980s, how to find designer umbrellas from the 1980s, how much are designer umbrellas from the 1980s worth, finding 1980s designer umbrella near me

Exact match is highly targeted and makes no room for additional words but does allow for misspellings. 

Example: designer umbrellas 1980s, designer umbrellas 1980s

SEO is not the same as free marketing. Take advantage of Google’s organic search to make sure your keywords are on point and stronger than your competition. Allow Siren to do this for you so you can spend more time selling. 

Resolution: One bite at a time

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One mistake that rookie writers make is to cut straight to the resolution after the climax. Clean breaks in a story are not realistic. Humans crave closure after big events. It is not enough to break up with someone; the status quo is that a person needs closure to heal their broken heart. Humans have made closure an essential on the way to happiness. American endings harp on closure. Decide whether you want your conclusion to be genuine or popular, not unlike Cady Heron’s fate.

Not all endings can be European
The resolution in Mean Girls is when Girl World, the shared reality of all teenage girls within the same vicinity, is restored without a social hierarchy. The North Shore girls are all supposed to get along in theory. While wildly implausible, Americans do not appreciate what is called a European ending. Characterized as a more realistic ending than the saccharine ones of Hollywood. American ends must leave everyone smiling and a little sad the journey is over now.

The limit does exist
If Mean Girls had a European finish, the social hierarchy would still exist, maybe not as intensely. Cady would certainly not act as Aaron Samuel’s hometown beard as he navigated Northwestern: college boys do not date high school girls after Thanksgiving. Make sure your ending has common sense involved. Secondary schools thrive on the social caste system and would mostly be lost without it.

Takeaway
Your protagonist cannot have their cake and eat it too. They must fully change or not at all for an American ending. A European ending is more balanced, but not as popular.

Climax: Ch-cha-changes

change-948017_1920Climax: Ch-cha-changes

The essence of a story is transformation. Conflict occurs when the protagonist is not ready for a life-altering change. Act 1, or the beginning of your memoir, is about the seeds of innovation being planted. In the movie Mean Girls Cady Heron, the protagonist develops from a humble outsider to the regent queen bee of the Plastics. The crisis is the discovery of North Shore’s burn book, and the climax will be Cady’s decision on how she will proceed with her social life.

As within so without
All climaxes are internal and external. The protagonist must go within to affect the without. Cady has to choose between returning to her true, albeit unpopular, self or sacrifice herself to teenage darkness by being the ultimate mean girl. Cady’s internal climax, the choice between nerd or teen queen, is embodied when Janis Ian, her genuine female friend she has abandoned in her quest for popularity, outs her during the fallout of the Burn Book.

‘Cuse me as I learn to be human
Cady somewhat unrealistically chooses to reclaim her organic self. She has to compete as a Mathlete and show herself as a “nerd” rather than a “cool girl”. The once queen bee transforms not from a nerd to a cool girl, but from an unsocialized girl to a fully socialized teenage girl who has a good and bad side, which is not always balanced.

Takeaway
A story is only meaningful when a person revises their life views. People fear change because initially they are worse off than when they were ignorant. Transformations take quite a bit of bravery, something that the average person is terrified that they may not have.

Writing Your Memoir: Let’s Get Complicated

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Rookie writers may not understand the difference between being dramatic and being interesting. Stories thrive on conflict and the perception might be that more problems add excitement to the story. Too much conflict exhausts the reader and dilutes the potency of your tale. Complications, rising and minor, can serve to build tension and sympathy for the protagonist if not overused.

Blood on the pages

Conflict is the essence of every story. As humans, we seek to maintain a middle ground between content and stressed. No one watches reality shows to see kumbaya moments. Humans crave emotional or literal blood, as long as it is not happening to them. Complications must start off small and then continue to build all while remaining realistic. Keep in mind predictable is not the same thing as organic.

Forget the obvious

Mistaking a love interest hugging a woman that will eventually turn out to be his sister or cousin is tedious. In order to develop a sense of credence, the complications should not be rushed or be overwhelming in numbers. Examples of complications, not conflict, include waking up late, missing the bus, and getting to work late all on the day you have the biggest presentation of your life. True conflict is whether you can deliver your best despite a series of minor obstacles that have shaken every fiber of your being.

Triumph and setbacks

Minor conflicts must strike a balance between small triumphs and discouraging setbacks. Maybe when you miss the bus, you manage to get the neighbor you have been lusting over to give you a ride. This is a perfect solution until the dog that your are pet sitting escapes, causing your neighbor and you to chase the yapping creature frantically before the notorious cat that lives in the park kidnaps him in hopes of world domination. Once you catch the pooch in the nick of time, you have a triumph in relation to the setback of him escaping.

Gray is the new maybe

The best complications and conflicts have no right answers. You could have left the dog alone and continued on your way. It may have been disappointing to the readers, but if you made a concession like getting the neighbor to promise that they would retrieve the canine after dropping you off it would be feasible. Having a gray area rather than stark black and white allows the readers to have an emotional reaction to your choice. This reaction is always desirable; you want people talking about your memoir.

Takeaway

Avoid overly predictable situations. Readers should not roll their eyes because your story is just a repeat of everything else. They should cheer you on as the complications add tension to the story and allows them to emotionally invest in your triumph.

I Will Not Fear the Business Plan Part One: Audience

No matter what stage a business is in, a business plan is a must. Startups especially must have one. A business plan, hereafter referred to as BP, is a financial document with a narrative. I like to think of it as a persuasive essay and math worksheets hybrid. When a new business is in the planning stages, it can be too easy to throw money at everything and hoping everything works out. That mentality is a surefire way to fail.

A BP asks you to answer the hard questions about your business. For example, who is your target audience? Your product/service may not exactly appeal to who you may think. A few years ago a cereal bar opened next to the University of Miami, over 500 different types of cereal and quite a few toppings were offered. College kids and cereal should have been a home run, but it fell short. I went in there one day and all I saw were young children delighted at the idea of Capt Crunch and Coco Pebbles in the same bowl as strawberry milk.

The owners tried to capitalize on this surprise audience too late in the game and closed within six months. If they had been open to other audiences, they could have done quite well. This business exemplifies the value of a BP for truly contemplating who your audience(s) could be and who might be interested as well.

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When you open a business, there should be some room as to who your target audience is. Your marketing efforts should be directed to who you feel will be a stronger presence, but keep in mind that who you want to respond and who actually responds are two different beasts.

What is the Best Sugar Reducer on the Market?

White Mulberry

What is the Best Sugar Reducer on the Market?

Limitless Abilities

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We at Limitless Abilities offer you the highest quality product. No doubt, you have done some research on this amazing product, but you should be aware of competitors selling lower grade products that may not produce results. Given the surge in popularity, many see this as an opportunity to cash in without regard to quality. There are many factors to consider when deciding which company is the best.

Read More

Stop What You Are Doing and Write Your Memoir

Humans write to communicate and connect. The memoir is the perfect way to do both. Most assume that if they are not a celebrity or they have not survived a national tragedy, then their words will not be valued. Siren Publications is here to tell you that is incorrect. We lead lives of loves, disappointments and triumphs in which others may relate. The stories we tell ourselves every day internally help shape the world and ourselves. Memoirs are the best form of therapy and the best part is that it is free! Writing down your life story makes it possible to see where the ego gets in the way of progress. We replay moments in our head and more importantly apply them to other events, singular and ongoing. If we give one thought, memory or assumption such a power subconsciously, then we must take back that energy back. There is a notion that the authority in telling our story is in the actual act of writing. After all, the power in our lives comes from living. However, the power in our lives does not come from living it, but in the reflection of it all. The power in writing comes from revision and the power of living fuels reflection. Read More