MEET BILL PAULING 

Please let me introduce myself. My name is Bill Pauling and I've been in real estate for four years. I possess a GRI and am E-pro Certified. I am the founder and president of two companies; the first is Pauling Homes, Inc., which is the name of my real estate company through which I sell homes. I am also affiliated with Edina Realty in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. The second is TuesdayNetworking.com, which is an online member-based networking service for licensed real estate agents that allows them to exchange information, find prospective buyers and sell listings more effectively. I invite you to visit tuesdaynetworking.com at your leisure. 

SMALL TOWN VALUES, BIG CITY KNOW-HOW 

I’m a native of North Dakota and come from a large family where my parents have a a family-owned company that I was raised in. They exposed me to every facet of running a small business, so I know a little something about healthy competition and am no stranger to hard work.  

I came to Minnesota as a teenager (time spent in Germany during my college days notwithstanding) and love my adopted state. After high school, I attended St. Cloud State University (Go, Huskies!) where I helped to organize and run a campus investment club and graduated with a BA degree in business marketing. 

In fact, during my very first year in business, I sold more than $3 million worth of homes, and over $4 million the following year. In 2006, I did $6 million in sales. I have managed both residential and commercial construction projects. This is my career, not a pastime.

I work closely with both buyers and sellers offering a broad market knowledge and complete representation for buyers – from finding properties that fit your unique profile, to writing purchase agreements and negotiating price, I work with you every step of the way. For sellers, I provide detailed sales brochures, home staging assistance, complete market analysis and advertising. 

REFERRALS ARE THE ‘LIFE BLOOD’ OF MY BUSINESS 

What I strive for in all my sales activities is honesty. I believe actions (and satisfied clients) speak much louder than words. I would enjoy sitting down, getting to know more about you, and listening to what your future dreams or plans for a new home might be. 

MY CLIENT FIRST PHILOSOPHY 

There are many qualities and skills that go into being an excellent real estate professional – integrity, in-depth community and market knowledge, marketing savvy, effective negotiation skills and a high-quality professional network, all of which are hallmarks of how I work. 

That said, in my experience as a Eden Prairie real estate professional, I've also found that providing the very best service is essentially about putting my clients first. This means keeping myself accessible, being a good listener as well as a good communicator, and responding quickly to your needs. 

This "client first" philosophy has always been my approach and it requires me to continually improve my skills and ways of doing business. In addition, I've found that the latest technologies are enabling me to do everything I've always done, only much more quickly and efficiently. They've also helped me to extend the range of services I provide to my clients. 

So when you decide that you'd like to buy or sell a home in the Minnetonka, St. Loius Park, Eden Prairie, Hopkins, Bloomington, Minneapolis, Edina, Plymouth, Golden Valley, Crystal, Robbinsdale, New Hope, Chanhassen, Mound, Wayzata, Orono, Minnetrista, Shorewood, Greenwood, Orono, Deephaven, Shakopee, Victoria areas, please contact me. 

Give me a call, or send me an e-mail. Let’s get together and get better acquainted soon! 

All the best, 

Bill 

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Key for the online entrepreneur: flexibility, research and 'hook'

Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal - by Bill Pauling

Everybody's heard stories about people who became newly-minted millionaires as online entrepreneurs. It seems simple enough: Find an unfulfilled need, design an attractive site, put the word out and you're off to the races. As an infopreneur myself, there's one thing I know for sure: You have to get off to a great start if you are going to win on this racetrack. I've been at it for five months now, and here are a few winning tips I've noted in my first 150 days.

1. Stay flexible: Your site will evolve and change more than you can initially anticipate based on the feedback and requests you get from clients and visitors. Prospects will often ask about your site's capabilities -- can it do this, can it do that? And you will want to incorporate some of their suggestions into its functionality. An info site is of course never static, so it's an ongoing challenge to keep the content fresh and appealing to repeat visitors.

2. Be concise: Successful and swift programming of your site is dependent on your ability to be clear and concise when you instruct your IT manager. Communication styles vary: Some people are verbals, some are visuals and some talk only in 0 and 1 code. So you need to take the time to write out a descriptive outline of what you envision, include visuals and diagrams to avoid time-wasting "I thought you meant this" responders, and list the specific features. Reference other benchmark sites outside your industry to give a feel for styles you like/don't like.

3. Tally traffic: Right from the get-go it's prudent to measure how much traffic your site is generating. Don't wait on setting up this important marketing gauge. Your traffic is the octane of your site! It lets you know how quickly you're making sales progress and how often you have spikes and dips in your hits. If you closely monitor your daily or weekly counts, you'll be better positioned to adjust course accordingly.

To increase my initial traffic, I experimented with free trial memberships. There's nothing better than word-of-mouth promotions, and offering reduced member fees to referrals is one way to further your traffic flow.

4. Distinguish yourself: Both on your home page and in your sales presentations, describe what's new, exciting and different about your online offering. My site gives cross-brokerage networking access to Realtors. This new Web-based application breaks through the old silo mindset that has been a hallmark of brokerages and allows real estate professionals to leverage networking in a more powerful, more time-efficient and more cost-effective way.

The TuesdayNetworking.com forum enables Realtors to advertise pre-listings before they go public, upload detailed buyer needs to the database and get automatic notification of new buy/sell matches. Realtors can stay a step ahead of the market by immediately exchanging info, describing buyer hot buttons, and sourcing listings that otherwise may not come to their attention. Time is a valuable commodity to Realtors, so a searchable e-networking system can only enhance their sales success.

TuesdayNetworking.com also includes an exclusive Community Board to rent properties, advertise estate sales and find ancillary services such as cleaners or movers.

5. Research thoroughly: The No. 1 mistake for many online entrepreneurs is not doing proper market research upfront. I talked to a cross-section of real estate agents before launching my site. I found that other real estate sites are targeted to end-consumers and expect Realtors to pay for listings. Broad-spectrum networking groups like Facebook are not geared to real estate pros and don't offer the same database structure and searchability.

6. Budget more: What may seem like fixed costs at the outset can change quickly. My programming costs doubled over the initial estimate. Upgraded graphic-design layouts also can cause expenses to run high. Ongoing monthly fees are required to run a site. The costs of advertising can be sizable. (In hindsight I'd spend less on traditional approaches like postcards and direct-mail flyers and more on PR). And it's not so easy to finance a non-brick-and- mortar business -- thanks to the dot-com boom that went kaboom several years back -- so you really need a stash of cash all your own.

Based on my experience, I recommend determining a start-up budget and then plan to spend a budget and a half. On average you'll need six months of paying into your online enterprise before you can begin to get a payout. Still, overhead costs for an online enterprise are relatively inexpensive compared to any storefront business.

Estimate your profit flow, but write it initially in pencil, not pen. Measure growth in phases, not on a quarterly basis, to stay fluid.

It's smart to also consider add-on revenue streams like Google ads from businesses interested in reaching your members or site visitors. Insurance agents, mortgage companies, electricians and plumbers are just a few of the service providers that find my Realtors to be a great referral source.

7. Drive fast: As we approach our sixth month, we are already entering Phase 2 in our site development. Based on member requests and broker feedback, TuesdayNetworking functionality has quadrupled. Members can now create their own subset networks within the system. Other new features include active message boards and automatic listing notifications. Phase 2 is more comprehensive, dynamic and exciting! There's never a slow day at the track once you've got your momentum going as an online entrepreneur.

Bill Pauling is a licensed Realtor based in Eden Prairie. He can be reached at bill@tuesdaynetworking.com or (952) 261-9014. TuesdayNetworking.com is a division of Pauling Homes and is anticipated to have a national launch in 2008.