Looming Deadline
I’ve learned a valuable lesson over the past couple of months, and I may have mentioned this before, but I feel the need to share again.
I am not cut out to take on a project large enough to require more than just me to complete it.
Besides that, I’m rotten at estimating timelines, apparently. At least I’m not the only one, though, so I’m trying not to take it too personally.
Six days until I said my project would be done. At this point, I don’t even care if I get paid. I just want it handed over to the clients so I can take a deep breath.
And never do this ever again.
Filed under Business | Comment (0)Simple Question
How do you tell a client that their project won’t be completed when promised - for the second or third time?
Filed under Business | Comment (0)The Definition of Insanity
My personal definition of “insanity” for the last week is one person filling three positions that the usual three people don’t completley manage to stay on top of during a regular week.
Thus, Nicki was overwhelmed. (And no, I don’t usually talk about myself in the third person - I’ll stop now.)
But I did live through it, and I don’t even think that there were any major hiccups. Sure, I may not have gotten everything completed, but I did manage to A) pay all the bills, B) get everyone paid, and C) not completely lose my mind.
Mission accomplished.
Filed under Business, Misc | Comment (0)Momentum
When my head gets going in a certain direction it feels like trying to stop a freight train when it’s time to focus on something new. The new ideas keep coming, but only for that initial direction.
For an example, lets use Squidoo. I’m not exactly obsessed, but I spent several days trying to come up with new ideas, trying to focus on what I’m good at, that any other ideas seem to go directly back to that. Now I need to focus on my upcoming job, my personal budget, and it’s hard.
I wish I could insert firewalls in my brain at will. Okay, it’s time to focus on business cards. Slam that firewall into place, and all thoughts on Squidoo will cease, and I can work on the best way to represent a buyer’s agent in a way that a buyer’s agent has never been represented before on a piece of 2×3 paper.
Filed under Business, Misc | Comment (0)MLS 5.0
I first heard about the MLS 5.0 publication through an e-mail at work. It looked interesting, and as I’ve been doing with so many things lately, I printed it out and took it home to read.
First I would like to say that this is an incredibly intimidating e-book verses the ones I’ve found online lately that deal with marketing and customer service, such as Humanize It, by Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon. You know, just for what it’s worth.
So I’ve skipped over it when deciding what to read next. And when some of my regular blogs post about it, I don’t feel so bad about not getting around to it.
And now it’s been summed up for me by Tom and Greg from The Real Estate Bloggers and the Bloodhound Blog, respectively, and now I’ve got motivation to really give it a good read.
The MLS 5.0 Manifesto says:
The MLS of the future will bring a marketing service and benefit to the industry by being the single point of entry for listing data and then, based upon the election of the broker, distribute that information to web portals, newspapers, even radio and television, handheld devices and applications.
But the Bloodhound blog translates it:
It says that Klein’s idealized “MLS of the Future” will be a national monopoly system controlled by real estate brokers and the NAR — to the immediate and permanent detriment of independent MLS systems and vendors, Web 2.0 listings aggregators and — most especially — individual real estate agents.
Perhaps I don’t understand NAR as well as a REALTOR® might. Why is the assumption that NAR would abuse the control - or is it just that any monopoly is bad? I don’t know, and I admit, I’m confused. I’m going to have to read the original e-book, and research this some more.
I do wonder above anything else, though, what does our local Association of REALTORS® think about this?
Filed under Business, real estate | Comments (2)
