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cd=400,000. Roman Numerals. 

I have posted on each of my millennial milestones, and with each marker I am more humbled by the impact on my business than the point total. What a trip. 

I discovered Active Rain while researching a scam out of Colorado. I created a profile and little else for about a year. I began blogging in earnest in December of 2008, but by the summer of 2009 my activity began to tail off as the local market tanked and I devoted time to chasing deals. Around that time I met the late legendary Joe Ferrara at the Lucky Striker Social Media Club, and it inspired me to resume more writing. When I spent some quality time with him again at Triple Play in Atlantic City in December, he gave me the thumbs up, which was incredibly gratifying. I never stopped after that. 

Whenever I got a call from a reporter or a referral I’d post on it, but as the points piled up and time went on I tailed off on that practice, not because it doesn’t happen, but because it could consume the content, and the blog isn’t about me. But suffice to say that I have one deal in contract where my first contact with the client had her tell me that an entry I made was as if I were reading her mind, a fact checker called 2 days ago to verify information I gave a reporter on a story to be published soon, and there are probably another half dozen deals in process (under contract) right now that I can attribute to blogging. 

So for me, it is not about the points, features or accolades. It is about business. If you see my cheesy grin on the dashboard that’s me working to feed the kids. According to MLS statistics, I am ranked 18th out of 7,258 agents for closed transactions in 2010, which puts me in the top quarter of the top 1% of a brutally competitive suburban New York market. A huge amount of that business has been either directly sourced or greatly aided by my blogging.

So, if you are new to this Active Rain thing, or just less active than you think you could be and looking for a reason to get inspired, consider this: I started out ranked 8000th in my state the same way you did. I get no shows. I have buyer clients disappear and post their new house on Facebook with a congratulations message from some other agent. I have sellers refuse to price right, clean up, or honor appointments. I get snooty phone calls from unconnected agents who figure I am a nobody because I’m not big in their town. But I am on here consistently, and even when I have nothing to say (rare, I admit), I read. I comment. I post market stats. One day at a time, I build. And two short years later, yes, I have lots of points, but more importantly, thanks to this platform, I am doing business. 

I will at a future point post on another enormous benefit of being here, and that is the relationships I have made with good people all over who mean a great deal. I could write a book on that one too.