The First Step In Building Is The Foundation

I’ve been working on building an empire.

It’s still in the very early stages, in fact it’s still a long way off from an empire. Right now, it’s more like a small hut in the middle of the wide open plains inhabited by a nomad that’s still trying to figure out fire. I’m still a caveman and I’ve got a long way to go to be the Emperor. But this caveman has bumped into a few other cavemen in his travels that have shown him how to make the basic tools needed for survival. He’s been gathering these tools and practicing them and perfecting them. He hasn’t reinvented the wheel, just learned how useful it can be and learning that two wheels work better than one (try picturing a caveman on a unicycle for just a second).

Ok, I pictured it and I’m still laughing…so give me a minute to settle down.

Blogging is my Bronze Age

I got lucky and discovered the tool of blogging early on in my career as an agent. Thanks to Lani and Benn’s encouragement (and subsequently the entire AG cast) I found something that made sense to me as a life-long nerd and became a tool I knew I had to use. So I began using this new tool of bronze and found that I had the tool, but nothing to use it on. I was blogging to practice my abilities, but there weren’t the grand stories of millions of clients rushing to me that I had dreamed of. I wasn’t discouraged, but I did wonder where it would lead.

I am not about to announce a major breakthrough involving the largest transaction of my life thanks to blogging. On the contrary, there is still no business from blogging. But the foundation has been laid. Just this week, I began getting comments on my blog. Not just from agents and friends (and one from my dad), but from ordinary people in the San Antonio area. It took a long time, but they are out there. They’ve been flirting with my blog for months now; looking, making a few clicks, and disappearing once again. I wrote a post about a street project here (that has been in the news since I moved here) and suddenly, there were visitors who felt the need to chime in. Several comments appeared overnight. It took almost a month of that post being “live,” but they found it. And they’re just the tip of the iceberg. My visitors have increased three fold since that post got noticed. And guess who else noticed? Google. I am now the number one site for the search “281 super street” – ahead of the local news stations who have covered this ad naseum. Plenty of you have reached these heights a million times over, but this is a big step in the evolution of this agent. I’m now “findable.”

Each step takes time, but each step brings me closer.

I’ve had those moments where I felt I was blogging to myself. It took a few months for my site to become relevant, but it is happening. I’ve never been one to be discouraged and knowing that there are those of you out there that are using blogging as a successful tool only makes it easier to keep going. So as I begin to see the use of my tools, I begin to see new ways to use them and my thoughts are turning to crafting new tools.

I want an empire. And I am building it brick by brick. First step is building the foundation. The Iron Age is just around the corner (I will talk about this soon) and I am ready to push further down the path to my own personal goals. Thank you Bronze Age. Thanks for giving me just enough to keep me going and showing me that there is a pay off in the future.

Now someone hand me that axe, I have a monster to slay.

photo courtesy of djweitzner

Start spreading the news...

Keywords: Benn, blog, blogging, clients, comments, foundation, google, Lani, practice, tools, visitors

Topics: Highlights, How to, RE Moments