Information ~ Questions ~ Denver Real Estate Blog

As part of my never ending effort to stay aware of the world around me, this week I attended a Renewable Energy presentation offered by XCEL Energy.  Allow me to list a few presented facts:

• 11% of the energy sold by XCEL Energy today is renewable
• XCEL’s year 2020 goal is to sell 29% of or their energy product from renewable sources
• There will continue to be increasing state and Federal mandates on implementation of renewable energy.
• Everyone should become familiar with the terms “LEED“, “REC“,and “Green-E“
• The average American home uses 1000 Kilowatt Hours of electricity per month
• Coal and Gas powered electricity plants expend between 2 and 5 cents to generate a Kilowatt Hour (kWh) of Electric Energy
• “Big Wind” (turbine farms) expend 3 to 9 cents to generate a kWh of electric energy.
• “Small Wind” (single user) expend 12 to 25 cents per kWh.
• Solar energy costs vary between 20 and 30 cents per kWh
• The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, located in Golden, Colorado, is conducting research in many ways to generate energy
• Current practical applications being pursued include “wind to hydrogen conversion”, “wind to battery”, and “distributed home generated power”.
• Colorado ranks #5 in solar power capacity
• There is an 8.2 Megawatt (MW) solar facility operating in Alamosa, Colorado; current XCEL requests for proposal’s (RFP’s) to build solar generating facilities are set to produce 75 MW of power, with potential RFP’s slated for an additional 300 MW’s of power.
• The solar generating facility recently installed at Denver International Airport has a 2 MW capacity.
• In the United States today there are 71,000 customers using purchased wind energy, and over 1000 business customer’s.
• A New Mexico company, Hyperion Generation, has a 5 year plan to market a small nuclear power plant (the size of a storage shed or hot tub)  that will generate 25 MW of electric power, or enough for 20,000 American homes and related infrastructure.

The “green collar” jobs that will have to be created in order to move the United States away from the use of coal and oil energy use will tax our available labor pool in 5 to 10 years.  Colorado and the Denver area are well suited to capture an increasing share of business’s that will provide the facilities and infrastructure for renewable energy.

Written by Larry D. McGee, Denver Realtor - Visit Website Sphere: Related Content

Over the past month I have had long private conversations with the associates in my brokerage, and many others outside my company. I continue meeting and speaking with Realtors in the Denver market, but following are what I believe are the consistent themes of those conversations:

1. All of you are questioning at some level the market and your relationship to that market, the real estate business and the long term health of your business.
2. Most of you are struggling at least a bit, and you feel alone.
3. The looming changes forecast for the structure of the industry is both shocking and a bit frightening, but most professionals understand the need and are managing the change
4. Most everyone feels a bit isolated.
5. Everyone is getting push back from their consumer base when discussing real estate.

So here are my suggestions on meeting the market head on and thriving next year:

A. The local Denver market segment priced under $200K has become a seller’s market. As the nation recovers from a systemic shock to the entire economy, the most functional real estate market will be at the lower price range. That will be properties that are purchased by investors for rehab and flip, the flip to first time buyers, and private sellers with enough protected equity to price to compete for a sale to that first time buyer. If, which may very well happen, there is a federal program established to mandate a 4.5% mortgage interest rate, we will see a healthier market from 200 to 400 locally, but jumbo funds will not return at a convenience level until the overall credit markets recover.

B. You are not alone. If you feel that way, call 1, 2 or 3 of your compatriots and have a meet up. At The Berkshire Group, we are having weekly meetings on marketing, dialog, and solutions and investor programs, with more such gatherings to come. These meetings are associate, not management inspired.

C. Much of the real estate industry is discussing or acting on “no office” operating models. The discussion is no longer about the purpose and need for office space, the discussion is turning to company culture, purpose and value delivery.

D. That feeling of isolation. Read and act on “B” above.

E. Sign up and read Inman News. There is at least one topic a day that is of interest to the consumer that owns a home or wants to buy one. Take that topic and share it with 5 people in your consumer base. That means you will have to call on the phone, knock on a door, text message, or in some way initiate a 2-way conversation with a possible buyer, seller, or referral source 5 times every day.

I am off now to call 5 people. There were some interesting things on today’s Inman News to chat about.

Written by Larry D. McGee, Denver Realtor - Visit Website Sphere: Related Content

One of the most amazing things about Barack Obama’s political career is just how short that career is. First elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, he managed not to engage in controversial issues, or at least not very many. He lost a run for United States Congress in 2000, but started campaigning for the United States Senate in July of 2002 and by early 2004 he was competing against 6 other Democrats in pursuit of the not yet vacant seat in the United States Senate. It is important to note that the incumbent Republican, and the most likely Democratic candidate both declined to run, leaving the way open for a contentious primary. Then, his strongest competitor caught a case of domestic abuse, and Mr. Obama found himself the winner of the Democratic primary. The leading Republican was later forced to drop out, continuing the dirty domestic life theme; after which the state Republican Central Committee brought in a ringer from another state to do battle with the Democratic candidate. That was a Republican misstep, and Barack was elected to the United States Senate with 70% of the votes.

So what can we take from this admittedly thumb-nail sketch of Barack Obama’s Senate campaign? The first really important thing is that he did not quit. Defeated in 2000, he was organizing a run for the Senate just 2 years later. Seems simple enough, just don’t quit. He also found some really good help, hiring David Axelrod to organize his campaign for the Senate. Most Realtors® have heard this before, but it bears repeating here, hire really good help. And it is important to note that Barack began organizing his campaign long before he knew for certain that the office would be open; so, start running your race before there are others running. Many a race is won by preempting the competition.

Make sure you have allies, even in a sales business. Naively ignoring relationship building (networking) because it feels like an imposition or is playing politics does not a career make.

Barack Obama is a world class orator; most Realtors® avoid scripts and dialogs. Those people that paid attention to Mr. Obama’s speeches early on realized that he was better with a script than off the cuff, but he improved toward the end because he became familiar with the many various scripts. Projecting authoritative dialogs on demand is a key for success in any people oriented experience like politics or sales. Consider how many votes were likely cast because Barack Obama sounded good. It worked for him, it will work for you. Practice your dialogs1

And, the most important marketing lesson learned so far is – do not be concerned with competition. We are all competing, all of the time, so get on with it. Prepare well, attend to your image, know what to say, and ask often for what you want. It worked for the President-elect; it will probably work for you.

There is a certain consensus that Barack Obama started running for the Presidency as soon as he arrived in Washington. Delivering the keynote speech at the Democratic Convention certainly helped his positioning, and the most obvious Democratic candidate did not enjoy universal popularity. There was no clear front runner for the Republican nomination, and, although the sitting President was suffering a decline in prestige, the national economy was still upright. The lesson to be learned is that chance favors the prepared mind. Making sure you are ready before an opportunity is better than trying to prepare as opportunity is passing by. So, in sales, practice your presentations, be familiar with your market, stay ahead with your training, and don’t get caught with an empty tank. Luck, timing, and circumstance plays a role in all human endeavors, however, if one is not prepared for the favorable circumstance, then one loses the opportunity.

The nitty-gritty of an election is money. Fund raising is critically important to the success of a political campaign. Without accepting any Federal money, Barack Obama’s campaign collected over a quarter of a billion dollars to finance his campaign. How did that happen? The answer is Silicon Valley and the employment of sales networking systems. For the whole story, go to www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/obama-finance , but for our purposes it is enough to know that incremental donations from an enormous group of donors made the big difference, using systems geared for widespread contact and relentless repetition. And, for reasons of ignorance or arrogance, Hillary Clinton simply did not embrace the techie fund raising method, or the tech entrepreneurs that drove the tech bus. Mr. Obama’s youthful advisor’s quickly connected with the moneyed tech folks in Northern California, and the money started rolling in.

You say you are not in fund raising? Duh! How about raising funds for you, a most noble cause indeed? Are you really tech capable? Most Realtors® still have the five page static website they paid someone to throw on the web in 2002. If you are reading this, your tech skills are most likely ahead of the pack, but are you really making money from your efforts? If not, consider why not, and determine what you must do to have people jumping on board your bandwagon, begging you to help them buy or sell real estate.

With the campaigns early link of fund raising and marketing technology, it was a short step to social media. Most of the early tech donors were social media junkies, already communicating on Facebook or Linked-in. Mr. Obama’s experience as a community organizer helped him see quickly the obvious advantage of accessing the on-line community. The Obama campaign gathered many of the very developers of the new media revolution and put them to work providing everything from ring tones to site widgets. Text messaging, Twitter, www.My.BarackObama.com , listserv’s, and affinity groups, everything new media had to offer was put to work in the campaign.

So, how about you? Blog lately? Are you Linked-in? How many people follow you on Twitter? Just as the then new media of television helped John Kennedy win the White House in 1960, Barack Obama employed the new media of social networking to electrify his supporters and virally recruit new ones, while at the same time inviting a flood of money to support the effort.

So there you have it. Simple really, especially in hindsight. To be successful in marketing you must prepare well, network with like minded people, have a plan, engage good help, and take advantage of the latest technology to broaden your opportunity.

Oh, one more thing, you must want to succeed. It is said that Mr. Obama is ambitious. As long as his moral compass is on an even keel, I have no problem with ambition. If you do not have a burning desire to succeed, it is very difficult to do so.

The will to succeed trumps all else.

Written by Larry D. McGee, Denver Realtor - Visit Website Sphere: Related Content

First and foremost, this post is not about politics, and certainly not about the President-Elect’s political point of view, his policies, or the policies of the Democratic Party. The election is over, the results are in, and we shall all sally forth to face whatever will be the daily events that are destined to become part of our collective national history. There are, however, lessons to be learned from Mr. Obama’s campaign that may be instructive to Realtors®, or to any individual or company that would like to realize success from their marketing efforts.

Let us start with the name. Barack Obama. He stopped using his nick name Barry during his first few years of college. While he most probably was not considering the Presidency at that time, he definitely wanted to take advantage of a name that was unique in the culture of American colleges of the time. Like most all of us at that age, he wanted to be at least a little different, to establish his identity.

So, look at your name, or the name of your company. Is it unique, or does it have a heritage? Or is it too common to be memorable. From my company’s name, The Berkshire Group, we get the word “The” signifying that it is the only Berkshire that matters. “Berkshire”, with a strong first syllable and soft second syllable, is both melodic and evokes a sense of England heritage, which is accurate, since County Berkshire is just west of London, England. And of course “Group” to say that there are a number of us, offering the strength and presence that come from numbers. You may not want to change your name, but you certainly may want to create a unique symbol that identifies you as somehow special and unique in a sea of Realtors®.

Barack worked at obtaining a first class education. With a B.A. in political science from Columbia, and a J.D. from Harvard, the soon to be 44^th President punched the right educational tickets to provide a firm basis for a future of high achievement. So, how about you? While a J.D. from Harvard is not absolutely necessary to achieve top line results as a Realtor®, learning more about the vast industry we call real estate cannot hurt. And being President of the Harvard Law Review most likely provided a great boost in self confidence, useful when running for office.

As a Broker for many years, I have observed that a good basic education for real estate sales success is in Psychology or Communication, with a minor in Business. Whatever the formal college basis, it makes very good sense to add training in the specialties. CCIM, CIPS, CRB, CRS, and ALC are all acronyms for serious and focused training in one of the many aspects of real estate. If you are not educationally prepared to be successful, it is much harder to be so. It is also true that few successful sales people achieve that success with a measure of self- confidence. From where do you obtain your conviction, the inner strength that projects your aura of confidence? Always have your well of confidence at hand, because sales and politics call for resolve, authority, and belief in one’s self.

President-elect Obama became involved in community activities, with much apparent success. His commitment and work with community activities created credibility, provided tremendous networking opportunities, and gave him a grass roots understanding of organizational skills that would prove useful during a political campaign. He learned the skill of influencing people to do things because they want to, and not because he wanted them to. And that is a handy skill both in politics and sales.

Become involved with the people you expect to serve. Show up and be passionate about their something, but only if it is also your something. If you do not regularly meet people, demonstrate you care about them and their passions, and become genuinely involved in those passions, it is very difficult to achieve success in sales. And it must be real. Most people can recognize a faker. Your network is the people you meet and care about, and the people they know.

Barack Obama traveled. He had the fortune to develop a world view while growing up, and as a young man traveled to Europe and Kenya. As a United States Senator, he made official trips to Europe and Central Asia. Seeing how people live in other places provides a breadth of understanding that cannot be obtained from books. You certainly do not have to embrace how other people live, or agree with their beliefs and lifestyle, but it is useful in both politics and sales to understand why they believe and live that way.

Where have you been? While it is true that traveling the world is both expensive and difficult, it might be somewhat instructive to at least hop in your car and travel across town. Get out of your comfort zone and your routine and expose yourself to the what, why and how of the daily lives of other folks. Eat food not on the normal diet, look at culture unfamiliar and become comfortable in being with people not like you. Most Realtors® are very good at this, because discrimination is not only illegal, it doesn’t pay very well.

Mr. Obama read. And he wrote. As President of the Law Review, he had to become not only a good reader, but a critical one as well. His first book, Dreams of My Father, was published in 1995. Are you reading? Local events, real estate news, Inman, Seth Godin, Tom Peters, social networking sites, novels, The Economist, National Geographic, something, anything to make your mind work and stay fresh. While you or I may not be ready to write a book, we can all blog. We can write notes to our clients. We can e-mail our friends and social network. If you don’t have the skills, go take a class in creative writing. Do something! Now!

The ancient Greeks first offered that all of us as individuals are a composite of our personal associations, the places we have visited, and that which we have studied, or more simply: people, places, and books. Those bedrock items of humanity are also the basis for a successful career in politics and sales.

Tomorrow, we will take the basics and add the marketing tools that proved to be too much for both Hillary and John to overcome.

Written by Larry D. McGee, Denver Realtor - Visit Website Sphere: Related Content