Using the Web and social media to sell real estate

Yesterday evening I was about to go to bed when my e-mail box was hit by a promotional message by Tellman Knudson, one of the heaviest list promoters out there. He was trying to sell a new system for making money online, which I haven’t tried, but he was using a very unusual sales pitch to drive it home. The slide of his video kept showing content from a famous book by P.T. Barnum titled “The Art of Money Getting – Golden Rules for Making Money”.

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Tellman mentioned in his video that this book is still very relevant today and that it is well applicable to Internet marketing. I got curious and I searched for a copy online. I didn’t know it before, but it seems to be a classic since you can find a full free copy of the book in the Gutenberg Project.

These are the twenty rules mentioned in the book:

1.Don’t mistake your vocation
2.Select the right location
3.Avoid debt
4.Persevere
5.Whatever you do, do it with all your might
6.Use the best tools
7.Don’t get above your business
8.Learn something useful
9.Let hope predominate, but be not too visionary
10.Do not scatter your powers
11.Be systematic
12.Read the newspapers
13.Beware of “outside operations”
14.Don’t indorse without security
15.Advertise your business
16.“Don’t read the other side”
17.Be polite and kind to your customers
18.Be charitable
19.Don’t blab
20.Preserve your integrity

I have therefore decided to take cue from them for the next twenty days and every day take one and discuss it with you. So we begin with: “Don’t mistake your vocation”.

It is the starting point of any successful venture and I quote directly from PT Barnum: “Unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and best suited to his peculiar genius, he cannot succeed.” This is easier said than done since sometimes we have no clear vision of our vocation and we need to try different avenues until we really find it.

When I began my working career I wanted to deal in technology, electronics and complex machinery, but when I looked at the people who were doing that type of work, I saw they were introverted and generally out of communication with anybody else. So I ended up becoming a computer journalist for the next 30 years.

Then I realized that I wanted some independence, I wanted to be able to track my own future course. Therefore I changed my life all together and I have become an entrepreneur and I like it very much, although it is quite tough at times. I deal with real estate and I take pride at my products, but the other day a friend of mine pointed out that my core knowledge is in content creation. This is very true and I bet this “core” will influence my evolution in 2010 and beyond.

I will not abandon what is working today, actually I will find a way to make it more powerful by doing more what is closer to my core competence.

Roberto Mazzoni