February 14, 2007
Hello KW Chattanooga family,
Today has been a fun filled day. We started our day with room service at 6:ooam, we got up around 5:30am so we could have a conference call with our team members in Chattanooga and get to the General Session by 7:15am to get a good seat for the Opening Session. It was a very informative session about Gary Keller’s Vision for 2007 along with Dave Jenks. They discussed where we have been and where we are going. I am sure Robben will share this vision with us all very soon.
After the General Session we broke out into our Breakout Sessions. I attended Marketing and Technology; KWLS, Marketing Tools and Driving Traffic. This session was incredible and very informative. KW unveiled their new website templates for Agents and let me tell you, these new Agent websites will make all of us very happy. KWI has come to agreements with big time vendors to help make these sites incredible and place our listings on a national Realtor website. You might want to take a look at one which is called Trulia.com. Keller Williams listings just went live yesterday and once buyers or sellers search this site they will take you directly to your website. Our new Agent websites will go live in March. Stay tuned for more info from KW soon. After this session we were served an really good lunch. It is impressive that the hotel can serve 9,000 agents a buffet lunch that was so good. We were served tomatoes and mozzarella cheese, pasta, short ribs, chicken, brocolini, rolls and lots of desserts. Even though we are rolling and walking a few miles a day, I know that I will need to go back on my diet starting Monday of course. Once we finished lunch we strolled through the Exhibit Hall to check out all the great vendors that were here, lots of great stuff, both fun and great business tools.
Our last session this afternoon was another General Session: State of the Company and IALC Business Meeting. Robben got in and snagged us front row seats, good job Robben. Mo Anderson and Mark Willis delivered the Ste of the Company address, we certainly have come a long way since last year. Each and everyone of us should be proud of what we have accomplished as a market center and as a company. Our growth as a company continues to grow and we seem to be a very strong company. It is agents like you, that make this company a huge success. Speaking of success, at this meeting they announced The Home Run Market Centers for 2007, these are Market Centers that have come out of the launch phase. I am proud to be associated with the Number 2 Market Center in North America. Chattanooga hit a Home Run, we were not the number 1 who hit the ball out of the ball park and into the parking lot of a stadium. However, we as a market center hit the ball into the upper deck! This is something to be very proud of. I have never been more excited to be a part of a great company with wonderful associates like you all. Our Chattanooga representatives made a lot of noise, you would have been very proud of us. We stayed after for the International ALC meeting which was very informative.
Tonight is the Awards Ceremony, of which I am not attending. I am taking the night off and just getting ready to eat my room service meal that arrived 10 minutes ago. I wanted to finish this blog, being that I am excited to share this information with you. Tomorrow will be another busy day and I look forward to sharing my experience with you. Have a wonderful evening.
February 13, 2007
Hello KW Chattanooga Family. Day One was a great start to the convention. The first few sessions were very informative and Andy and I have already made a list of our Action Items from today foe when we return to Chattanooga. Our first session was a mini Masterminds, our second session was Mega Agent and then Andy attended The Top 13 Success Strategies for Realty Professionals and I attended Positioning for a Changing Market. All the speakers were very informative and dynamic. We will be bringing back a lot of information to make us more successful. It is amazing how many Keller Williams Agents are here in attendance. I met a ton of agents, MCA’s and Team Leaders from all over the country. It is really cool to meet others from all over and hear how different markets are doing and network to hear about all these great agents and their success.
Tonight was the “Red Bash”, which is a huge welcome party with a live band of Keller Williams Agents and they call themselves Bad Escrow. They were fantastic!!!!! The food was really good and we, your fellow Chattanoogans were all dancing and having a great time. After the party a few of us went to the Casino to have a little fun and to drink a little drink. Don’t forget to ask Marie about her Milk and Cookies. Everyone here from Chattanooga are having a great time and wish you were all here to join us in this spectacular learning experience. Remember, next year in Atlanta!
By the way, last night Andy and I attending the Elton John concert, let me tell you it was one of the best concerts I have ever attended. We had Mezzanine Level 2 seats in the back of the auditorium. After picking up our tickets at Will Call, a Caesar’s Representative came up to me and told me he needed to fill the Orchestra Section, he gave us seats in Row 13! They were incredible seats. Looking forward to keeping you up-to-date on the rest of the convention. Hope you all are having a great week.
February 11, 2007
Yesterday afternoon we visited with our friends who moved back to Las Vegas from Chattanooga. While waiting for Orazio to pick us up around 4:30pm and and drove us to their home in Henderson, a beautiful subdivision called Seven Hills, overlooking the lights of Las Vegas. We left their subdivision and witnessed a spectacular view of the lights of Las Vegas and got the tour of their community, their synagogue and headed towards downtown Las Vegas. It turns out the founder of e-bay purchased his own subdivision in their community and has his own security and a huge house overlooking the city. We took the long and scenic route into downtown. We had dinner at a local joint called the Triple George Lounge in the Lady Luck Hotel. The Prime Rib Special was great and the bread was to die for, we had a wonderful time catching up and talking about Andy’s trip to Israel and their trip to Israel this coming summer. We ended up in old Las Vegas, all the lights and everything. We arrived at the Freemont Experience and I was blown away from the magnitude of the environment, the live band on stage and the high ceilings with tons of lights. We had about 1/2 hour until the next show so we strolled Freemont and went into the Sam Binyans Casino to play some blackjack. I found a seat at a table and I pulled out $40 for a one deck blackjack game. Well 15 minutes later I was up $55 and we strolled out to see the light show. This was an old style casino, crowded, low ceiling and a smoke filled room. The show was a country music experience, go figure, we left Chattanooga to hear Country Music in Las Vegas. The show was really high tech and an incredible experience. After the show we went into the Golden Nugget and were shown the largest single piece of Gold! We valued it at yesterday’s gold price by weight to come up with around $650,000. It was really a sight to see. After the Golden Nugget we went into a casino that I can’t even remember the name of. It was a great night with good friends. The drive back toMandalay Bay was a fun drive. We saw all the hotels from the North(old Las Vegas), all the way to the Mandalay Bay. All the lights, traffic and beautiful hotels. Ceasars Palace seemed to go for miles! Hello Chattanooga Associates, Andy and I have officially registered for Family Reunion and have received our badges, wrist id’s,our schedule for the convention and our information package. We are really looking forward to the start of convention tomorrow morning! This morning we awoke to beautiful weather here in Las Vegas, it was around 70 degrees, sun shining and BLUE skies. We strolled over to the Excalibur for a couple of Krispy Kreme Donuts to start out our day. They were good, but not like Chattanooga. We did a little shopping for the family and had brunch with my cousins who live here. I got to meet the newest member of my family, Jacob Martin Cherry who is about 11 weeks old. It was a great morning catching up and getting to hold my new cousin in my arms. He was absolutely precious and was having a great time with us.
We have covered a good amount of ground this morning and we are in our room resting for the evening activities. We are looking forward to dinner at Delmonico’s Steak House, hopefully visiting the volcano at the Mirage and finally watching and listening to Elton John live from Ceaser’s Palace. After tonight’s activities end, we will be in convention mode. We are both looking forward to the sessions. Andy and I both have our schedules spread out and are finalizing our sessions for tomorrow.
It is official, Family Reunion 2008 will be in Atlanta! Stay tuned for further information about our events for the rest of the week. I hope you all are enjoying this blog as much as I am enjoying keeping you informed of our fun and tomorrow we will add educational experience to our fun! Have a Great Day!
February 10, 2007
Yesterday was a long day for the two of us. We left Chattanooga by shuttle to Atlanta on a private wheelchair accessible van, real easy drive. We arrived on time and were herded onto the plane. We felt like cattle being loaded onto a plane. The flight was a little bumpy and long, but a great move “A GOOD YEAR”, and appropriate for those of us in the real estate business. We arrived in Vegas around 4:35pm on our new time. We loaded onto a shuttle bus which took another hour out of our lives, our driver was a little wacky! We arrived at the hotel, checked in and came to our room. We were very hungry by this time, airline food isn’t what it once was in the glory days of air travel. We left our room and went to check out The Burger Bar at Mandalay Bay. We only had to wait about 20 minutes, so we both got a drink. The burgers were spectacular and the onion rings and sweet potato fries were also fantastic. (The Burger Bar is unique since the burgers range in price from $8-$60 for a Japaneese Kobi Beef Burger.) So, after dinner we decided to do a little gambling and some more drinking. Andy is up $10 in poker. We went to sleep around 10:30pm, which was about 1:30am Chattanooga time.
Today we got up and went to breakfast at the Luxur Buffet, much more expensive on the weekend. We walked and rolled through the Luxor to the Excalibur where we played a little skee ball and I whipped Andy’s butt in Air Hockey. We are meeting friends who moved here from Chattanooga in a couple of hours to visit downtown old Vegas and hopefully see some cheap gambling tables. We also decided to purchase tickets for Elton John tomorrow night. We are very excited and look forward to a dinner at Delmonico’s at the Venitian Hotel and then Elton John at Caesar’s; not to mention everyone arriving from Chattanooga KW tomorrow. I met some KWI staff in the elevator and I introduced myself and told them we are looking forward to the convention. Well, gotta roll, I will try to keep all KW family not joining us for this fantastic event up to date on our activities. Please feel free to respond and comment. I look forward to reporting on our educational and fun experiences over the next week.
February 10, 2007
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