Last week, my wife Bernice held her 2nd Annual Really Awesome Women in Real Estate Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is the first and only real estate conference exclusively for women executives and owners. While many adjectives come to mind to describe just how amazing this group of women are, perhaps this statement from the final day sums it up best: “Over the past 3 1/2 days, I have not heard one negative comment.” This is a rather surprising comment if you have been reading the current media uproar about how devastating the USA real estate market is.

NOTE: if you look closely, you will see a direct correlation between negative news and high ad revenue/readership while positive news is correlated with low ad revenue and declining readership. Interesting tidbit, eh? FYI, the current mortgage rate is at a 40-year historic low.

The conference ended on Wednesday and I had a teleclass scheduled for Thursday afternoon. No problem — the conference would be done, I’d be packed, and the hotel graciously extended the check out time so I could conduct the training from the comfort of our hotel room. (Sandia Resort and Casino is a wonderful place to host a conference in Albuquerque!)

I recall leaving for Albuquerque with some confusion as to the exact time of my call. No problem, I’ll just check my email for the proper time and adjust for the time zone. Done it hundreds of times — piece of cake.

As you can imagine, my time and focus was 100% on the pre-conference preparation and making sure things went smoothly during the conference. On Wednesday afternoon, I checked my email for the Thursday call. Somehow, I looked directly at the 2pm EST confirmed time in my email, and saw 3pm EST. In all, I saw 2pm EST three different times and in all three cases, I continued to see 3pm EST.

Confident in my brilliant power of observation, I subtracted 2 hours to account for the change from Eastern to Mountain time zone. Imagine my surprise when I dialed into my training call one hour late.

While this is not the first time I messed up, it was the most surprising. I went back and looked at my email reminders and there, in multiple places, was the 2pm EST start time. Changing time zones is not normally a challenge for me. Yet, being part of the support team before, during, and after Bernice’s conference reminded me once again how easy it is to make mistakes when I have “conference” brain.

The takeaway here is to confirm and double check the date/time in the local time zone BEFORE arriving at the event. Then, I only have to trust my calendar and not that ever-creative right side of my brain that sees exactly what it wants to see!

Do you have a similar story? Please share it!

Posted by Byron Van Arsdale
Author — 16 Secrets to a Great Conference Call
ConferenceCallTraining.com

I’m not sure how many of you did click on my LinkedIn link in the Calling All Mouse Clicks post yet it WORKED! I just did a Google search on my name, no quotes, and my LinkedIn profile came up as the fourth listing on the first page! It had been on about page 6 previously. Many thanks to everyone for your help!

As promised, here are four lessons learned regarding LinkedIn:

First, fill out the entire profile.
Go for 100% completion. You must make a decision here about how much or how little transparency you are comfortable with. I’ve opted for the more transparency approach. I’m signing my full name when posting online now to, as Randy Jackson of American Idol fame would say, keep it real.

Second, focus on quality of contacts and not the number of contacts.
This is not a popularity contest — it is a business-to-business networking site where people will ask you for introductions to people you know.

Third, post questions and provide answers.
I have answered 2 questions yet not posted a question. Be careful here — posting answers or questions that are nothing more than thinly veiled marketing promotions for your business will not win you any respect. My long time friend, Robert Wickman has been responding to questions and even has a “Best Answer” award! Way to go Robert!

Fourth, tell people what you are doing.
On your profile, just below your name, is a place to respond to the question: What are you working on? I originally thought who would care about that??? Funny thing though is that people do care. LinkedIn, like Facebook, MySpace, etc., allow people to easily stay in contact with you. Again, keep it real. Well, keep it real, keep it short, and keep it appropriate for business. Humor is definitely a plus!

Again, thank you! I’ll post more lessons later.

Posted by Byron Van Arsdale
Author — 6 Principles of Learner Driven Teleclasses
ConferenceCallTraining.com

Sustained success in any business endeavour requires two important things - communication and relationship building skills. This is true when leading conference calls, webinars, and teleclasses. It is also true in any personal situation. The question is: how does the presence of these skills or lack thereof impact your success?

I frequently hear comments about how ineffective, frustrating, and wasteful many conference calls, teleclasses, and webinars are. This got me thinking about something - how do people make judgments about these distance communication leaders? What do they remember about the leader after the event? What do they project, prior to an event, onto the leader with whom they already have experience?

Careers and businesses have always been built upon some intangible things. “Attraction” has become one word to describe this intangible. Whatever word we use, it does play an important role in overall success.

Question:
When thinking about teleclass, webinar, and conference call leaders, do you define the leader by existing skills, the lack of skills, or both?

Thanks for sharing your ideas so that others may grow and succeed. As always, keep your comments Clean, Concise, and Constructive!

Posted by Byron Van Arsdale
Author - 19 Best Practices of Teleclass Leadership
ConferenceCallTraining.com

I had the pleasure of meeting Steve Campbell (real estate agent and Team Leader for the Keller Williams Real Estate office in Everett, Washington) on a flight to Austin. We’ve keep up over the many months and he recently posed a good question to a common frustration!

When facilitating a conference call, how best do I make sure everyone is orderly and not talking at once since they cannot see each other?

First, stop facilitating the call. There is a big distinction between facilitating and leading a call. For Steve, he IS the leader for the office. Give yourself permission to jump in and be a part of the group.

There are three positions to lead a group from: in front of the group, from the middle of the group, and finally, chasing the group trying to catch up with them! Everyone has as different comfort level and it is good to develop your comfort in ALL three positions.

Second, people are RARELY orderly. Steve works with real estate agents that are independent contractors. Real Estate agents live to be independent thinkers and not have anyone tell them what to do. So, we make the second change in mental frame: engage them from the first minute they join the call. The really top agents (Bernice, my wife, works across the country training and coaching the best real estate agents in the business) have a short and practical fuse — make it real, make it worth my time, and make it short. Steve will have to keep them engaged by making the call practical, to the point, and helpful in building their businesses.

Third, the magic weapon — establish a simple etiquette on the call so everyone gets on the same page when working together on the call. Think of this as training the individuals on how to be successful during a conference call. Over time, people will embrace the etiquette as ritual. Once the ritual is established, the participants will start to self-correct when they talk over each other. Yes, you read that right, I said self-correct! As the leader, it is time to stop working so hard. Control (see paragraph above) is both overrated and unworkable.

Did I say this was easy or that Steve would implement these recommendations in one or two calls? No — it will take time, patience, and persistence (remember that he IS trying to herd cats here!).

Thanks for the question Steve and I’m confident you’ll get things sorted out in short order. Have you got a question or a challenge you are facing? Post it as a comment or send it to me directly.

Posted by Byron Van Arsdale
Author — 16 Secrets to a Great Conference Call
ConferenceCallTraining.com

Talk to anyone about being in front of a group and you’ll feel the tension rise immediately. While in Chicago a few weeks back with Bernice as she was speaking at a real estate conference hosted by Fifth Third Bank and Freddie Mac, the helpful woman at the front desk of the Marriott Oakbrook (great place to stay!) asked me: “How do you do that? How do you stand in front of an audience?”

I said it was easy. Just stop thinking about you and focus 100% of your attention on the group. It was obvious that this was too simple of an answer although she said she would try it in an upcoming speech class she would be taking.

Ask around to enough people and you’ll find that people rate the fear of public speaking higher than the fear of death. People perceive the WORST POSSIBLE thing that could happen to them in front of a group and operate as if they might happen.

The place to begin your journey of being a fearless leader is, well, with the illusion (and past experience!) you have of fear!

Question:
What is the worst thing you could imagine happening when leading a conference call, teleclass, or webinar?

As I tell anyone who has been through my training, have some fun with this answer. Fear has deep roots and it may take some out of the box exploration to see your own truth. Keep laughing and keep digging. When you blow through your illusion, speaking to a group will be effortless.

Posted by Byron Van Arsdale
Author — Executive Conference Call Leadership
ConferenceCallTraining.com