Karel Murray, is a national speaker and trainer who operates an incredible web-based information service entitled, “Just For A Moment Podcasts”. You really should check out both her site with an incredible array of products and sign up for the regular Just For A Moment Podcasts. Karel worked with us as a contributing author on our book “Ovation – How To Present Like a Pro” and we were honored to work with her on a five-part series on changes in the world of business. We encourage you to listen to these sneak previews of the podcasts we created with her. Thanks Karel for all you do! You can download the podcasts with the following links:

Podcast 1 - The Changing World of Business

Podcast 2 - The Advent of Skill Based Ladder Mastery

Podcast 3 - Leveraging Technology for Success

Podcast 4 - The Building of Relationships Today

Podcast 5 – How Ovation Changes the World of Education

The Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act (RESPA) is the federal law which governs the relationships between settlement service providers in real estate transactions. The Act makes it illegal for settlement service providers to give or receive anything of value in exchange for the referral of business in a real estate transaction. The Act also makes it illegal for settlement service providers to require that a borrower use a particular provider in a real estate transaction and sets forth disclosure guidelines when there is a co-ownership of more than one settlement service provider in a real estate transaction.

The Tucson Association of REALTORS annually hosts a RESPA Roundtable organized by the RESPA Committee where licensees can explore these issues and get answers to the most commonly asked questions. In order to obtain a copy of the frequently asked questions all you need to do is click here or click on the stack of RESPA files to the right.

The questions are divided into categories based on settlement service providers. In order to obtain more information about RESPA and its enforcement you can visit the official RESPA pages at HUD.gov.

When we founded Course Creators we did it with a single mission statement for our students in mind, recraft and present education in a way that our business clients and their professionals would “Get It, Use It and Become More Successful Because of It. We have know for quite sometime now that conveying information is not the same thing as conveying knowledge and that much knowledge is not implemented or acted upon. In their book The Knowing-Doing Gap, Stanford professors, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton document how the inability to implement knowledge has severely limited and hurt specific businesses. They also demonstrate through concrete real world examples how smart companies turn knowledge into action.

There is no doubt that we are living in an age where information is abundant and freely transferable. Previous business models which relied on the competitive edge of having access to proprietary information and which based market differentiation on the holding and dissemination of information have been eroded. There are fewer and smaller differences between what firms, companies and professionals know. As we travel the country creating and presenting for various entities across a broad geographic spectrum we can confirm the observations of Pfeffer and Sutton that increasingly business professionals are falling into one of two groups. The first group locked in the past, staring at obstacles, generating more and more information and the second group which acts on the information and repeatedly is exclaiming, ” Done, did it, next!”

This book will give you lots of justification and examples of why we all need to be implementing strategies and approaches which focus on, foster and encourage action. We think this book contains many ideas and concepts which easily translate into the world of adult education. The present world of business simply demands that we more education from more a knowledge based type of endeavor to more of a practical world of teaching and implementing skill sets that drive professionals forward. Whatever business or profession you are in, The Knowing Doing Gap will make you look at your business differently and help you identify factors that are key to a culture of action and necessary ingredients to success.

Ovation – How to Present Like a Pro
The Reinvention of Adult Education

By Len Elder & Theresa Barnabei

CLICK ON THE BOOK TO ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!

A couple of decades ago, Donald Levi, DREI and REEA member authored the book “How to Teach Adults.” The book has been a staple for REEA members and the principles of GAPE and teaching strategies for quite some time. The book was last printed over 15 years ago.

For the past several months, a collaborative team has been working on the creation of a new book, Ovation – How to Present like a Pro. The book provides the insight and commentary of 24 leaders in the adult real estate education field. It is the ONLY BOOK that:

• Communicates the Art & Science of Presenting from Course Creation to Delivery to Testing
• Contains Practical Teaching Tips Based on Solid Educational Theory
• Collaborates the Viewpoints of National Speakers, Trainers, Presenters and Industry Leaders

TO ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY JUST CLICK ON THE BOOK TO THE RIGHT:

Inside you can find out what:

• REEA Executive Director, Joe McClary, has to say to live instructors about competing with distance education;
• National Speaker, Doug Devitre, has to say about 27 ways to fill classroom seats at a REALTOR® event;
• National Author & Columnist, Julie Garton-Good, has to say about building a niche as a speaker and her system for identifying your best area of expertise;
• NCREEA President, Dana Rhodes, has to say about why he loves teaching pre-licensing
• DREI Management Committee Chair, George Bell, has to say about the importance of credentials in teaching;
• REEA President-Elect, Roseann Farrow, has to say about classroom preparation
• And many, many more

If you are wondering what else is in this book that would be helpful to you as an instructor, speaker, trainer or school owner here are some of the other topics covered in detail in this new and exciting addition to the profession of real estate education:
What’s In This Book for YOU?

• Clearly Explained and Applied Generally Accepted Principles of Education (GAPE)
• Opening Strategies You Can Use For Starting Any Presentation
• 10 Tips that will Immediately Improve Your Performance
• A Step by Step Guide to Presentation Development
• Do’s and Don’ts in the First Five Minutes
• How to Effectively Market & Promote Courses
• Pre-Class Tricks & Tools of the Trade
• Practical Ideas for Course Sponsors
• 10 Steps for Writing Effective Test & Quiz Questions
• Innovative Uses of Social Media and Technology in the Classroom
• Insights on Copyrights & Intellectual Property in Education
• Ideas on How to Create New Courses and Get More Business

A special thanks and a standing ovation to all of the following who contributed to this work and publication of the book. Most of these collaborating authors are members of REEA. All of the authors are outstanding at what they do:

Ryan Adair
Dan Adler
Tony Ray Baker
Mark Barker
Lucy Barraza
George Bell
Cindy Chandler
Amy Chorew
Doug Devitre
Roseann Farrow
Bill Gallagher
Julie Garton-Good
Rhonda Hamilton
Joe McClary
Beverly McCormick
Sharon Montague
Annalisa Moreno
Bruce Moyer
Karel Murray
Dana Rhodes
Marcie Roggow
Philip Schoewe
Sharleen Smith
Marie Spodek
Terry Wilson

The new book was unveiled at the North Carolina Real Estate Educators Association (NCREEA) Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina on September 22, 2011. You can find the book on Amazon.Com.

QR (Quick Response) Codes are rapidly becoming all the rage and we get asked questions about them all of the time. The use of QR codes by real estate agents is being discussed lots of places in articles like one entitled “More Real Estate Agents Using QR Codes to Share Information,” recently published in the Southwest Missourian. A QR Code is a type of matrix barcode or two dimensional code designed to be read by smartphones (such as a Droid or iPhone). The codes consist of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. They are simply an easy way to direct an end user to a specific URL (website location) more easily. Previously, for example in the world of real estate, we would have just put our website (Go to www.BuyAHouse) on a FOR SALE sign. Today we have the ability to put a QR code on the sign and when smart phone users scan the image they can be directly to that site automatically. Because the QR code can take the user to any URL that exists on the internet, we could have chosen to redirect the user to just the listing, a virtual tour, a YouTube video or additional homes for sale (any specific page or URL). A video has even been created regarding how to creatively use QR codes. Here is what we need to know:

1. You can generate a QR code for FREE. Use Google’s URL Shortener. On this site for those with a FREE Google account, you simply cut and paste the URL that you would like the QR code to be linked to. The Google tool will generate a shortened URL and if you click on “Details” it wil provide you with a QR code to that site. Simply copy and paste the QR code into any printed material.

2.The other benefit of utilizing a QR code is that it can be tracked. For example, you can return to Google’s URL Shortener site where you created the code and bey clicking on “Details” you will know how many times and on what dates your QR code was scanned by someone. Free sites like Google’s URL Shortener will track the number of scans, but it will not capture the user’s contact information.

3. In order to have a QR code which when scanned captures the user’s information (such as their email or phone number you will have to choose a proprietary system that enables you to do that. Like most free QR codes, Google’s system does not include that feature. If you would like to know more about what those types of services are and how they work, one of the most successful ones is found at ReadMyRear.Com.

4. To use your smartphone to scan a QR code you will have to download an application for your phone that reads these codes. Which one will work for you will depend on the type of phone that you have. Search the code reader for your phone and download the application.

QR codes are being used in a lot of creative and interesting ways. It will benefit all of us to know more about them and the ways people are using them to create more busines.