When I was 18 and working retail (shortly after deciding I didn’t want to wait the years it would take to become an architect to make a dent in this world), I met a real estate agent. He wasn’t the first real estate agent I had met but he said he saw something in me that would make me a great real estate agent. I’ll never know if he saw actual potential or if there was some sort of incentive for introducing me to his broker but, in the end, his broker wouldn’t have anything to do with an 18-year old seeking real estate credentials.
I eventually found a home with a local brokerage, learned the ropes and found a company that provided internet leads on new homes in the area that allowed me to work from home and work with these prospective buyers to find homes. This is where I spent much of my real estate career and I knew new homes in my area better than most anyone. It didn’t hurt that I had an inside connection; I have a family member who works for the telephone company so any time a builder needed utilities put in, I got the scoop that a new neighborhood was going up and could start working on showing arrangements before many builders even opened their doors for business.
After leaving the internet leads company, I had to forge my own lead generation path and fully immersed myself in technology, which coincidentally, had always been a passion of mine. I learned SEO, SEM, affiliate marketing, how to build websites with WordPress, how to edit HTML and much more. I read about business relationships, etiquette and became a student of bright minds like Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, the Heath Brothers (Made to Stick book), Chris Brogan, Brian Clark and many more.
I built a huge web presence in my market, often dominating multiple top 10 results for local real estate searches and still see sites generating leads in the neighborhood of 50+ every month despite not having been touched since early 2010.
Today, I share how blogging works with thousands of agents at Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate. I show our brokers how to optimize their websites, ways to more effectively use search engine marketing and offer up ideas on how to improve the experience for website visitors. I love to learn from others and I consider the education I’ve received from others over the past 8 years to be easily worth 100x that of a college education.
I’m most passionate about bridging the gap between technology, how to use it in your business and ways to make the experience better for everyone involved. You can find me on Twitter at @joshferris. It’s my sincerest hope that my blog can help you in some way and perhaps offer a turning point to someone at the right time. I’ve had many in my life already and I’ll be forever grateful for everyone who shared them with me.
