Maybe we were a little spoiled in recent years with market conditions. The ability to list and sell a property in one week — sometimes one day — kept us all excited about real estate. But with our new market, relationships can mean everything.

We built our business on exceptional client service and referrals, and we understand now — more than ever — why these elements are essential to our survival.

As our business began to slow, we've kept afloat in recent months through aggressive lead conversion. When I say aggressive I don’t mean that we were stalking potential buyers or sellers. What we did was take very seriously any and every phone call and we learned the short sale market thoroughly.

But through our transition and re-organization there was one thing that for the first time that got ignored — keeping in touch with our sphere of influence.

In the months ahead, we realized that our business was no longer consistent, that even with the slowing housing market things just seemed a little off. We examined what we had done successfully and what we may have missed, and there we found our mistake.

In an effort to cut marketing costs, we had stopped sending out our monthly marketing cards. Never being phone people, this method had brought us outstanding results and great success. We went back to the drawing table, dusted off the database, ordered marketing cards and put