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CRS Sell-A-Bration 2020 Recap

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Above: Creating Listing Abundance. My homies!

I love conferences/conventions. I love the buzz in the air, I love the great mood most everyone seems to dwell in. Mostly, as a speaker, I love that they rarely get cancelled (only mildly self-serving). I also love when hundreds of like-minded, excellence driven, ready to grow agents get together to expand upon what they do and how they do it. Shoutout to the whole team at RRC in Chicago for a job well done, especially Ernie Brown for his tireless work helping me make sure our English Listing Abundance slides matched our Spanish slides (not that either of us spoke Spanish, LOL). Having said all of that, I loved CRS Sell-A-Bration 2020 in Orlando, Florida.

This years SAB version was held a the Omni Champions Gate near Orlando. The venue was okay: not great, not terrible. While being near Orlando, it seemed very isolated even from the strip mall a half a mile away. Sometimes that would be a good thing, but with only two open restaurants (neither THAT great) and a mediocre gift shop it was not a good thing at all. My room was fine. In fact, I had a tremendous view of the conference center’s roof. AND WHILE I’M THINKING OF IT….. worst toilet paper EVER. I have this theory that goes like this: The owner/manager of every hotel should be required to use the towels, pillows and TOILET PAPER of their hotel in their personal residences. Period.

As for the conference itself: awesome. Great classes, fantastic keynote, and the conference center area of the Omni was excellent.

There were two pre-conference all-day courses on Thursday: mine (the new Creating Listing Abundance course- which I authored) and the new Technology class. While I spent no time in the class next door and I’m sure my friend Monica was outstanding, I can tell you that mine was pretty darn fantastic. Outside of a connection problem that was easily corrected, we had zero technical difficulties. As for the audience, they were AWESOME.

Best guess is that we had about 140 in the room, a nice even split between Americans and the visiting Latin American group (mostly from Spain). The front of the room had two large screens to view slides, the middle of the room had two 100″ ish TVs to view slides in Spanish, and an interpreter spoke to those who did not speak English (maybe half of that group). The energy of a group that size is palpable and SOOOOO fun. Thanks to everyone who attended.

By the way, very kind words from Fernando Garcia Erviti, CRS Director for Latin America and Spain, “That was a hell of a class, and my group of 70 Spaniards found that just the course was worth the trip we made across the ocean. Tough on those who living in the area decided to stay home.” Thanks, Fernando! You and our guests were wonderful.

From the instructor’s perspective, the class went without a hitch. My peeps were attentive, engaged, and seemed to have an excellent time. SO, no complaints here. Every class should be like that.

Anxious to teach that class more and more.

Friday I had a breakout session to teach called 60 Tips for Listing Abundance. 60 tips in 60 minutes co-delivered by myself and my good friend Jackie Leavenworth. Jackie and I became CRS instructors on the same day, auditioning back in 2004. We have kicked around the idea of collaborating for a decade. That day, that idea became a reality, and a pretty good one at that. While Jackie and I didn’t really rehearse, I guess we had been rehearsing for a LONG time (maybe from the psychic perspective). It went beyond our expectations. We played off each other naturally and had SO much fun!!! And the reception from our Standing Room Only group of 220+ was awesome. Anyway….. So, so, so much fun.

The keynote was Scott Stratten, author of the book, UNmarketing. Scott was hilarious and informative discussing how the best marketing in the world is relationships. I immediately bought his book and it is great (at least 5 chapters into it). I mention that because a few years ago Mel Robbins was great so I bought HER book and it was not nearly as good as her in person. Scott scores the double win.

On a personal note, I enjoyed seeing so many wonderful friends and colleagues and making many, many more. I has my even year meal with Akino and Shelby. I met people from all of the States as well as Spain, Portugal, Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela and who knows where else…… A great time (and I don’t even drink!).

I’m looking forward to my next conference which is the RE/MAX R4 starting Sunday and Sell-A-Bration 2021 in Nashville.