You can have a 2005 better than you ever dreamed possible. But you will not ever change things for the better unless you first change the way you have done things in the past. Change yourself, change the world.

Here are ten ways to better market yourself and your services.

1. Be technically proactive! Be sure you are technologically ready for whopping changes in digital devices, and services, over the next year.

   • Update your cell phone... you need a picture phone to email home pictures to buyers. Find one that's at least 2.0 mega-pixel, with a flash, and email capability.

   • Get your notebook computer up to date...be sure you get a wireless one... better yet, get an aircard to go with it so you reach the Internet from anywhere, literally!

   • Try a hands-free auto cell phone pedestal mount... talking and driving is out! Realtors® drive so much that it'll catch up to everyone sooner than later. Solution? Have a mic/speaker system and a phone mount professionally installed in your car. Kits for cell phones range from $90 to $250, including the installation.

   • If you're still accessing the Internet over a dial-up connection, it's time to grow up. These web connections are way, way to slow for sending fat listing pages and photos back and forth to your client. They are slow and not professional. You need broadband.

2. Send all your clients something in a box... yes, a box. Right now! Few other agents will do that, which means you will get noticed over the other agents mailing to the same people. In fact, you might just keep that client until they make a move again. Why a box? Because they will open it! If you send them another calendar or NFL schedule, they will likely trash it. But everyone, including you, will open a box.

   It doesn't need something expensive inside, either. Just send them a $2.98 gold watch (after Wal-Mart marks down all the $5.95 ones after Christmas) and a card saying, "It's time to check what your home is worth." Or, "It's time for us to have lunch again," or anything clever having to do with "time." On the card, print the address to the page, on your website, about CMAs, or tell them you'll do the CMA if they'll just call the phone number on the card.

3. Divide up your marketing costs into distinct columns... write down what you did, and spent, in 2004 in each category. Do these columns for each main audience that you target. Know one thing. Like most agents, you have likely been doing the same old stuff marketing-wise for years and you THINK that continuing to do it works best for you. Well, reconsider. You are likely wrong, big time. Nothing stays the same.

   Be different this year! While you've been swimming at the same speed, the current in the river has gotten faster and other agents are shooting past you. Be aware of new guerrilla marketing tasks, that you can undertake, that will give you big exposure in your marketplace. "What is Guerrilla Marketing? It is a body of unconventional ways of pursuing conventional goals. It is a proven method of achieving profits with minimum money," says Jay Conrad Levinson, the Father of Guerrilla Marketing. Learn how.

4. Get visible on the Internet... now, about 75 percent of people look for homes on the Internet, and many contact a Realtor® online who has good visibility there. Even if you lack a website that comes up high on search engines, you can buy some banners and enhanced links on many realty sites visited by thousands of people a month. When people click on these "purchased placements" they go right to your site, no matter how high up it is on the first page of search engine results. Thousands of free links can be gotten, on other sites, that will lead people directly to your site. If you don't know how to do these things, hire a consultant to get you started.

5. Think of wildly different promotions to undertake... in one of your columns for 2005 planning, list all the low cost, or free, marketing things that you can do -- like parking a car, with your realty sign on the door, in front of the grocery store's main entrance. This simple tactic reaches scores of people in just a few hours. Or, offer to print the table napkins or paper menus for six months at the most upscale pizza parlor in your town. Put your contact info, light-hearted picture and the line, "Want Free Pizza for a Year? Call me and I'll tell you how." Or come up with something better.

6. Target your audience where they hang out... consider reaching an upscale market by buying a big ad in the playbill of your local theater. How about you and 12 other agents in your office pool your funds and buy out the whole theater for one night, then every agent invites his/her key clients to the play for free? Dinner beforehand would be nice, too. Wining and dining past clients will pay you back a thousandfold.

7. Have high visibility in big festivals... some small and medium-sized cities promote annual festivals by having huge signs spanning Main Street, or with banners all over town. The signs/banners name all the sponsors. What if you were on those signs saying "Sally Jones, Realty®" or "SallyJonesRealty.com." You'd be amazed at how little you'd have to spend to be there, or on other documents advertising the "big event." Name recognition is extremely important and even though such a second level sponsorship might cost a few thousand dollars, it is almost priceless when it comes to making a strong community impression.

8. If you serve small towns, make your site the community resource... agents who add tons of local information (and links to local information) to their sites can become famous in their city or cities served. Which means that their websites are visited a lot. Which means that the agent's name becomes familiar. Then, when those same website visitors -- used to going to the agent's site and clicking on the link, say, for local movie information -- are ready to buy or sell a home, they are far more likely to call the agent with the super-useful site than some other agent. Don't think that just because you are in a small town you don't need a strong website. Develop a strong one and the community will beat a path to your door.

9. Volunteer, join clubs, serve others... there's inherent value in giving to others, but if you choose a charity where you're working alongside qualified buyers in your target audience, that's all the better. Upscale women's clubs are good, and so are Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis, etc. (I worked a year in "The Hunger Project" alongside celebrities Valerie Harper, Dennis Weaver, Beau Bridges, Barbara Eden, June Lockhart ("Lassie's mom") and similar others in the early '80s. We stood shoulder-to-shoulder repackaging distressed food, from benevolent grocery chains, and sent it out to soup kitchens at local neighborhood levels.)

10. Methodically call past clients and invite each to dine with you... don't fail! Be relentless during the year. Make a list of the clients so you don't miss anyone. Never give up, until it is clear they are sick of you. Staying close to satisfied past clients, for their next sale and for their referrals, is the best, best, best use of your time and money. Better than any other marketing that you can ever do! Mailing them useful stuff is okay, but nowhere near as important as face-to-face contact.