I’ve been so busy with the set-up of the new team of real estate agents I’ve joined, and unable to make my brain cooperate as it should to write about topics *I* choose … that I just haven’t been here in a while.

Last night I asked myself what I liked best about Real Estate Shows. Whatever it was, I should write about that, just to get me back in the groove.

It’s so simple. I like those tabs.

I love the Shows themselves and making them is like second nature to me now. They’re for listings, yes, but they’re also for sharing personal pictures online as well as showing off my area to newcomers and helping people enjoy our community.

I can sort all of it with handy little tabs and people can find whatever they’re looking for. (And with 90 live Shows, I can find what I’m looking for, too!)

Those tabs make me look GOOD. While my active listings are now on my team’s Real Estate Shows account, my own Real Estate Shows are working for me though my blogs and emails. With a quick embed or link, I can show people my local culture, shopping, neighborhoods and more. Anything I can photograph can become a Show, so I’m limited only by my imagination and travel time.

I AM A LOCAL EXPERT AND I CAN PROVE IT.

And it’s sorted and tabbed for your convenience. :o)

Alan Alda, in his new book, “Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself,” quotes a famous rabbi in explaining what makes a good talk: “What comes from the heart goes to the heart.”

That’s powerful stuff.

It also relates to your Values. There too, if it’s not in your heart, in other words, if you don’t believe it, you cannot own it. And if you don’t own it, you cannot convey it to others through your actions, the most authentic form of communication.

If you try to fake it, you become inauthentic, a phony, hollow. The best you can hope for is that you might be elected to Congress.

If some of your Values are around professionalism, integrity or service then those Values should impact what you bring to the party with your Internet marketing (along with everything else you do).

I heard a speaker at the last Inman Connect Conference in San Francisco. His name is Hugh McCleod. He’s a talented, creative, out-of-the-box, guerrilla-marketing consultant. He’s also a good cartoonist. In talking about effective communication, he said it most profoundly. “A story without love is not worth telling.” That statement lit me up like fireworks on the Fourth.

His simple message, I believe, needs to have a presence in every visual presentation, every narrative, every description, in all aspects of everyone’s marketing program but most particularly on the Internet. The Internet lends itself perfectly to that kind of expression.

Most sellers have lived in their home for some period of time. They’ve created and stored important memories there. If your strongest message about your value to your clients is “I can save you $4,000 on commissions,” please go shoot yourself.

Tell compelling stories, in words and pictures. Communicate love. I think that, today, love is an endangered emotion. Put some back in the world. We need it.

What do you think?