For as avid of a reader and podcast listener as I am, I don’t listen to books very often. Audio books are hard for me to get into because I tend to listen and do at the same time, be it commuting, traveling, or working out (yes, I listen to podcasts while I run. Go ahead and giggle). And if something else grabs my attention, be it a neighborhood dog lunging for my apparently delicious tennis shoes or an announcement of a train delay, I can’t just trace back to where I was in an audio book like I can on paper.
However, when Macmillan Audio contacted me about the audio release of Ann Leary’s The Good House, I accepted their offer of a review copy. I did not regret it.
Author Ann Leary
Leary’s novel about a middle-aged New England real estate professional is a darkly funny yet touching portrait of a woman and her community. Hildy Good is an alcoholic who is (sort of) in recovery, dealing with a slow business year and her fair share of interpersonal relationship problems. Her inner monologue skewers everything from townie weirdness to politically-correct educational methods to East Coast WASPiness with a wry sense of humor. Yet Hildy’s own vulnerabilities keep her brash observations from taking over the story. And as the novel delves into the literary worlds of mysteries and thrillers later in the story, Hildy’s voice is a constant–if unreliable–witness.
For how down-to-earth and practical Hildy is, she has a whimsical side. The undercurrent reference to her persecuted female predecessors, whether they are victims in the Salem witch trials or her misunderstood bipolar mother, puts an interesting twist on Hildy’s “mind reading” parlor tricks and her perceived second-class status as a recovering alcoholic. Continue reading »
Back when her life ran smack into the foreclosure crisis, Stephanie Alison Walker started blogging. It didn’t stop offers from evaporating or credit scores from plummeting. It didn’t keep her and her husband out of bankruptcy court. But it did turn out to be a great little love story. 
Walker strung together her blog entries and created a book called Love in the Time of Foreclosure. You ride with her and her husband, Bob, down the rocky path that millions have traveled since the start of the housing crisis. Originally they had put 20% down on a 30-year, fixed-interest loan, with the income to back it up. Then, Bob lost his job and their dream house wasn’t too far behind.
Here at the Book Scan blog, we’ve covered the real estate + romance novel mashup. But Walker’s story isn’t about poofy blouses or forbidden trysts. This memoir is about how to keep a marriage together and romance alive under one of the most stressful situations a couple can go through together. And this isn’t about the perfect couple that can handle any of life’s problems, either. Stephanie and Bob have almost broken up before. What’s to say the end of homeownership might not also be the end of their union? Continue reading »
Real estate is experiencing an evolution where traditional marketing may no longer be effective. REALTOR® and first-time author Michael J. Maher sums up an emerging entrepreneurial philosophy as a move from the “ego era” to the “generosity generation.” Maher lays out this business and life strategy in (7L) The Seven Levels of Communication (AuthorHouse, 2010), a narrative-style novel telling the story of Rick Masters, a fictional salesperson who learns the transforming lessons of selflessness.
Maher spoke with the Weekly Book Scan to talk about 7L, the generosity generation, and the power of word-of-mouth.
Your book starts out with a very intense moment – your own cardiac arrest. How did that event motivate you to write this book?
Maher: Well there’s “motivation,” and then there’s “MOTIVATION” in all caps, bold letters, underlined and italics. There’s never a moment where you really see or think about your legacy more than when your mortality is in front of you.
My father passed away from cancer in 1992. I had the opportunity to hang out with him during the final three years of his life. I learned more in those three years than I had in the previous 19. He was the father of five, and also a coach and a teacher, so he was busy all of the time when I was younger. But at the end of those last three years, he said his one regret was that he had not written his memoirs. They would’ve been very powerful memoirs because he was a very influential and highly respected man in our community. I can just imagine reading those memoirs to my son Max. That thought crossed my mind as they were wheeling me to the surgery room to put in a temporary pace maker — that night in ICU I started writing. I just thought, I’ve got this information in my head, I’ve got this system that is producing business for me, and I need to share it.
Can you describe the main character, Rick Masters? Continue reading »
By Erica Christoffer, Multimedia Web Producer, REALTOR® Magazine
The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, and, of course, the Grateful Dead. Classic bands that transcend time and genre; beloved far and wide by many.
How did they do it? How did they achieve and maintain such an inspiring level of success? There are many lessons these bands can teach real estate professionals and other entrepreneurs.
In the same vein and a great piggy-back to our video interview with “Come Together” author Richard Courtney, this short documentary features David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan at the Gathering of the Vibes Festival last year. It offers a captivating (and musically delicious) inside look at their recent book “Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead.”
The Dead knew how to get in front of people, as is pointed out in the book and this short film. They toured nonstop throughout their career, reaching out to their fans, creating personal connections and lasting relationships. Plus, they had a recognizable brand that they stuck with. Sounds like key elements real estate practitioners can implement in their careers.
Check out the book, check out this video, and share your thoughts: How can you be more like the Grateful Dead of real estate?
Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead mini-documentary from David Meerman Scott on Vimeo.
By Stever Robbins
The best-known books on personal productivity are The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, and Getting Things Done by David Allen. Tim’s book helps people build a financial engine to give them the life they want. David’s book helps achieve a peaceful, Zen-like mind by creating a system that handles everything in your life. The Get-it-Done Guy Book builds skills to make any pursuit less work. You can use it to work less and do more while building the financial engine that revolutionizes your life.
You can also use it to do your existing job faster and better. One step of the Get-it-Done Guy system involves clearing your mind and life of clutter, but it doesn’t address inboxes; it addresses physical clutter and streamlining job demands that can lead to information overwhelm such as having to track several projects at once. Task management has already been presented in Getting Things Done, which is the system I have used for the last several years.
The book’s nine steps build a foundation for streamlining how you get what you want out of work (and life). The material is based on ideas I learned or developed during my years coaching, both coaching tools and techniques to help clients work less and do more.
The Nine Steps
Step 1: Live and work on purpose
If you’re anything like me, a lot of what you call work has very little to do with getting anything important done in life. Like when I compulsively check my social media sites every hour. That kind of thing must go.
Step 2: Stop procrastinating
What is procrastinating except the very art of not doing the very stuff you know is most important? We’ll cover how to nip this in the bud, or at least arrange for someone to kick you into action when you’re delaying. And just in case you’re someone who claims being kicked into action doesn’t work for you, we’ll get out an Ostrich feather and tickle you into action instead. Continue reading »
By Erica Christoffer, Multimedia Web Producer, REALTOR® Magazine
Mark Twain once said, “Always tell the truth, then you don’t have to remember anything.” This is the philosophy behind the book Getting Naked (Wiley; 2010) by teamwork consultant and speaker Patrick Lencioni.
Getting Naked, Lencioni says, is the mantra of being transparent with clients. His fictional story delivers this message through the main character, Jack Bauer, a strategy consultant with a large management consulting firm. Jack’s view of what works in business is turned upside down when his firm merges with another that has a very different approach to serving its clients. For the first time, he sees that providing competence trumps protecting one’s own reputation.
Lencioni, founder and president of The Table Group and nine-time author, gave REALTOR® Magazine’s Weekly Book Scan insight into his motivation for writing Getting Naked, and explained what holds service providers back from being transparent with their clients.
What is the model of Getting Naked in business?
LENCIONI: “Being naked” is being vulnerable, open, and honest. The concept of being naked can really apply to anyone in a service field who has an ongoing relationship with their clients. Getting Naked is a fictional story about two consulting firms, but I largely drew from my experience in management consulting during my first few years out of school. I started out at a company that was not “naked.” The culture was to keep up a front with our clients. Rather than serve their needs, we were encouraged to create a dependency. Continue reading »
By Shane Michael Singh, Editorial Intern, REALTOR® Magazine
If you’re abiding by the new rules of Facebook, Twitter, and social media networking, you may have a few more “friends” and followers than you do in real life—and that’s exactly the problem, says author Tommy Spaulding in his book, It’s Not Just Who You Know (Broadway Books, 2010; $23 hardcover). Spaulding advocates a move from the personal gains of networking to the interpersonal rewards of net-giving, or building relationships that help others, and not just yourself. Calling them “Fifth Floor relationships,” Spaulding writes that deeper connections between individuals and coworkers can build better organizations and businesses.” You never know when the next relationship will be the most important of your life,” writes Spaulding, who uses personal anecdotes throughout the book, such as how a bartender at a small restaurant led to his winning a scholarship. Here’s a peek at some of the points Spaulding emphasizes to move from networking to net-giving.
- Skip the weather and water cooler talk. An integral step in building deeper relationships is moving away from generic talking points and towards something more specific. Do your homework about those you’d like to know better; ask sincere questions and allot them genuine attention. Continue reading »
The following is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of the book “Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust” (Wiley, 2009) by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Looking for insight on how to build a good online reputation through social networks that helps boost your brand? This book offers answers on how a business can gain positive influence (and profit) online.
How Humans Shape the Web
Although the general public’s level of mistrust is at an all-time high, there are individuals and companies who do successfully use the Internet to establish levels of trust in the communities where they operate. In the technology sector, a person such as Robert Scoble (circa Microsoft days) stands out as someone who, by the nature of how he communicated about his formerly faceless company, developed a strong level of trust among his online community. In the United Kingdom, JP Rangaswami is managing director of BT Design for BT Group. His blog, Confused of Calcutta, is often about cricket, music, food, and many things not related to a major telecommunications company; yet, because of his stories and conversational writing tone, we trust Rangaswami and have a positive opinion about BT.
Those who are most familiar with the digital space—we refer to them as ‘‘digital natives’’—have become accustomed to a new level of transparency. They operate under the assumption that everything they do will eventually be known online. Realizing they are unable to hide anything, they choose not to try. Instead, they leverage the way the Web connects us and ties our information together to help turn transparency into an asset for doing business. Continue reading »
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey
Michael Gurian
If you haven’t already, be sure to check out our book review on Leadership and the Sexes. The Weekly Book Scan talked with the book’s author and gender expert Michael Gurian to gain more insights into how the sexes communicate differently.
Do your findings on gender differences among leaders in the workplace apply to other relationships too—such as real estate professionals’ relationships with their customers?
GURIAN: This book is for any male and female interaction at any level. When we looked at the companies that provided quantitative data to us for the book, they were using it at all different levels. It’s not just training CEOs, but they are training everybody to understand the gender differences. There is an immersion in the culture that transfers to a real estate office or even just a single practitioner to get training in it. These are hard-wired gender differences, and understanding men and women better and getting the tools to improve your communication will make you more effective.
Is there a risk that these findings on gender differences can be used as stereotypes in the workplace?
GURIAN: There really needs to be some immersion in it. If the company or individual, does not immerse themselves in understanding it then they will be prone to stereotype. There’s so much popular information out there and you can scan an article and in two minutes and believe you understand men and women. That leads to stereotypes. Continue reading »
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey
QUICK SKIM
If you’re not one of those people who naturally oozes charisma, communications expert Mark Wiskup has good news: Being likeable is learnable. In his book, The It Factor: Be the One People Like, Listen to, and Remember (AMACOM, 2007) Wiskup doles out advice for perfecting your elevator pitch, mastering small talk, giving good compliments, and steering clear of annoying patronizing patter. The advice may not be groundbreaking, but this quick read’s practical scripts and sample scenarios are great refreshers before any client meeting, party, or networking event. Buy the Book
FROM THE BOOK: 5 WAYS TO BE MORE LIKABLE
In real estate, being a “people person” is core to your job. You must forge relationships quickly and earn the trust of those you meet. Say the wrong thing, and you can kiss that first impression goodbye. Wiskup offers these ideas for boosting your likeability factor in almost any situation:
1. Be specific with compliments. Vague, lackluster praise (“I’m really happy to meet with you today”) comes across as insincere, insensitive, and can even leave the other person feeling resentful. Make your compliments stick by being descriptive and showing that you did your homework. Instead of: “Great job on the marketing report. Keep up the good work,” try “Good job on the marketing report. The third-quarter demographic stuff really helped me focus on where the money is for us. I was really impressed with your analysis of the competition.” Continue reading »
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