Without good communication, you don’t have a business. Whether you’re staying in touch via telephone, face-to-face, IM, text or email; communication is the interpersonal ‘glue’ that holds everything together, cementing the foundations of your team, and sealing every crack to create a seamless and cohesive unit.

The average home turnover is about 11 years, with a range of six to 16 years, depending upon your state. Building relationships from the beginning with your younger clients is key. These are the clients who could be looking to move again in just a few years and also are surrounded by like-minded friends

This intriguing question will be answered this week by a panel of industry experts at RISMedia’s 16th Annual Power Broker Forum, being held from 2:30-4 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 11, 2011, at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA, during the annual NAR Conference in Room 201A. Speakers for “The One Thing Power Brokers Can’t Live Without,” will include: • John Featherston, President & CEO, RISMedia (moderator) • Ed Krafchow, Chairman of the Board, Better Homes and Gardens Mason-McDuffie Real Estate (moderator) • Margaret Kelly, CEO, RE/MAX, LLC • Sherry Chris, President & CEO, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate LLC

You see them all the time when searching the MLS: listings with no photos, just one exterior shot, or photos that are so poorly taken they’re (almost) comical. In an age where buyers lack the attention span to read text, the pictures are more important than ever. Yet many agents don’t seem to have a handle on taking attractive photos. In today’s real estate marketing environment, the photos of the property are the foundation of all other advertising, including: • The MLS Listing • All the websites that are fed from the MLS listing

Generation Y is also known as the Millennial Generation (or Millennials), Generation Next, Net Generation and Echo Boomers. This is me; I am Gen Y, and myself and others in this category just so happen to be the average age of a homebuyer, based on NAR stats I reviewed online recently.

Motivational humorist Darryl Davis has been making real estate audiences laugh, think and improve their listing and sales skills for more than a decade. In this exclusive interview with Real Estate magazine, he shares his thoughts on how brokers and agents can minimize stress and take their game to the next level in 2012. Jake Poinier: What is the biggest challenge brokers and agents are facing in today’s market? Darryl Davis: I would say the high level of stress everyone is feeling. And I think a big part of the stress is caused by the steady drumbeat of negative news over the past few years—foreclosures, short sales, the unemployment rate, etc. It’s taken a considerable toll on everyone.

The research confirms it. It’s all about being mobile. With smartphones always online and always available, you’ve got to be ready to serve 24/7 and that includes serving customers and clients on the run.

As the housing market and the overall U.S. economy continue to falter, a group of real estate industry executives recently took the time to draft a letter to John Boehner, Speaker of the House; Nancy Pelosi, Office of the Democratic Leader; Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

Are you a perfectionist? Do you know someone who is? Have you ever wondered if perfectionism is a help or hindrance on the road to success? In my 15+ years of coaching real estate agents to be at the top of their game, I have seen that perfectionism does more harm than good. In fact there are at least seven ways that perfectionism stops you from success. 1. Perfectionism causes procrastination. Have you ever had a project that you really wanted to get done, but never could quite complete it? If you look carefully at what was going on in your mindset, you probably see that you wanted the project to be completed perfectly.

Executive recruiter Colleen Aylward wanted to figure out how many executives had been displaced by the poor economy over the last few years, but before she got her numbers, she discovered something else even more troubling. “No one actually keeps track of those stats,” says Aylward, president of recruiting firm Devon James and author of Bedlam to Boardroom: How To Get a Derailed Executive Career Back on Track (www.devonjames.com). “When I tried to look it up with the Bureau of Labor Statistics and even talk to some of the bureau’s staff, I couldn’t get a straight answer.”

In business, the squeaky wheel almost always winds up getting the grease. Customers tend to be rewarded for complaining, but that strategy leaves money on the table, according to marketing consultant Betsy Kruger.

In building our Blueprint for 100 Deals, the Team is undoubtedly the most critical architecture to put into place. Each team member will play their role as a vital cog in the machinery of your real estate business. The administrational members of your team will act as the backbone, and the sales agents will be the life blood, which – when working together as a strong cohesive unit – will take you and your ‘Dream Team’ to the top.

Greg Rand (@gsrand), CEO of OwnAmerica and host of Rand on Real Estate on WABC Radio in NY is often asked why he is unshakably confident in a revival of the housing market. Here Greg responds to a caller who asked just that, and then another caller who is curious about the pros and cons of buying a short sale.

(eM+C)—During a recent webinar from Covario, over 100 digital marketers were asked what the main goal of their Facebook page is. The results aren't surprising. In general, driving sales is the No. 1 priority of digital marketers’ social media programs.

If your company is anything like mine, the last few years have been a challenge. Since so many of our company’s products and services have been developed for residential real estate, as your company goes, so goes ours. That allows us to be in a unique position of watching our clients as insiders, while being on the outside. The view hasn’t been pretty. I have lived through every up and down market since 1977, and I have never seen the fear and hopelessness that is present today. The inability of our government agencies to “just quit tinkering” and let things stabilize has been remarkable to me.