Perry's Perspective

Perry is the volunteer on this hilarious Gurus Video.

Gurus 2011 Rap from Church Tech Talk on Vimeo.

Perry Thomas is the room service guy in the movie, "The Insider" with Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.  He comes in the room at time 4:03

Why I want to be apart of a Mastermind

So I was having this amazing night shooting another video for Church Tech Talk where we discussed the purpose for why we do the show.  We discussed how the ratings have soured since we went to video and got tickled with the fact we have way more visitors than ever before.  Then I voiced my number one reason why I like to do the show.  It's because I get to get together with Jason Shreve, Dave Harris, Steve Stone, Casey Allen, Nick Hayes, Matt Wheatly, and Jon MaCallon weekly.  That's been going on now for the last 8 years now and there is no end in sight.  I don't want it to.  When I think of who I've become as a man a lot of it has to do with these quality men I hang out with week in and week out.

Steve cited other groups as well, "The Inklings" which included such greats as JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis

Or "The Vagabonds" who included but who were not limited to a US President, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison.
They did a lot of camping together.

I liked how the art of manliness brought it around to the idea that simply stated, "two heads are better than one."
In other words, these men were great because the men they surrounded themselves with were great.  They were apart of some thing greater because they were part of greater Mastermind.  A group of people that together could do far more than any of them could individually.

I agree.  Once I figured that out, the next question became, "who and where is that group?"  It started with 3 other men 8 years ago and has grown to over 15 that typically sit around the table together breaking bread.  And now, thanks to the internet, is now being shared to thousands monthly.  We talked again tonight about how we want to just keep making that table bigger.  It's a remarkable journey.

Lynn loves these guys too.  She's told me that she looks at me and sees the men I've chosen and feels comfort in knowing my favorite guys Love Jesus, love their wives and their children.  She has been consistently supportive of me spending time with them.  I am grateful to them and their wives for sharing them with me to help make me a better man.

Perry's Foray into SEO

The two icons displayed above are about Page rank.  The scale is 1-10 10 being the highest you can get.  Google is a 9.  So far I've tracked our industry and the highest ranking agent I've found is Joe Hayden.  He ranks 4.  The icon on the upper left is the pagerank for At Home in Louisville.  The other icon is a page rank checker.  Simply type in the website you want to check and Voila! It gives you the page rank of that site.

It's spring and Perry has been hanging out with other real estate agents in the office talking about SEO.  So suddenly the value of SEO has gone way way up.  What the heck is that?  SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization.  That is the ability of our site to rank highly in Google searches.  The reason that is so valuable in my world, is because the more people who search our site looking for homes, the more opportunity we have to help people find the house of their dreams.  Also, the more opportunity to sell the clients home his team has listed.

Once the value was established, it then became Perry's job to find out how it works, then spending the time making it happen.  the first step was to increase traffic quickly.  Perry found the way there thru Google PayPerClick.  His son Justin Giddings told him not to do anything till he read, Perry Marshalls book, "PayPerClick".  He borrowed a copy from Brad Long, read it cover to cover.  The biggest take away was learning what Google wants.  If you want to rank highly, give Google what they want.  They want relevance.  What makes Google so successful is hey provide their customers with what they want.  Their customers want relevant search results.  So, if advertising basketballs, don't then send them to a site that talks about dolls.  If done well, Google charges less per click as a reward.

The Pay Per Click Campaign was launched, a new website was created then the goal became about getting better placement in organic searches.  The lesson learned here is cont content content.  Build it and they will come.  Don't stop building content.  Not automated content.  Real organically made content.  Stuff typed by hand one word at a time.  Google's goal is to catch the cheaters.  The temptation becomes to auto populate content, or copy and paste someone else s site.  Bad move.  Goggle will find it and penalize it removing both the copyier and the copyee from search results.  Cheating gains good results fast, but not long term.  The site will end up in worse shape over the long haul.

Asking people who are doing very in SEO typically results in a shrug.  When pressed, they say,"Google it".  Imaging Googling how SEO works.  That's a bit like asking Google how to Google.  But, sure enough, it works.  Perry found SEOMoz, a fantastic blog on SEO.  Twitter is another great resource.  Then it happens suddenly one SEO site links to another, linking is good for SEO too, then link goes to link and there is another article read that has nothing to do with SEO at all.

Perry discovers the frustrating and exhilarating exploits of organic SEO.  I know it's important, but until recently I never knew how powerful it can be in our business,  So now I find myself in a sort of obsession to get pages, links and increase our Google ranking.  One of the first discoveries was I could literally Google SEO and read for the rest of my life on the subject.  So now there is this new frontier for me to learn discover make mistakes on and just crank out an awesome journey on the road of discovery.. Then, I discovered this.

Yes.  I know, right?  A tool to check what our page rank is.  For example, put this url in there.

http://lynnthomashomes.yourkwagent.com/  You'll find it's a page rank 3.  10 is the best.  Google.com gets a 9.  So, a personal goal of 10 right now is a stretch.

The journey is good.  It's definitely where the world is going.  Google isn't going anywhere.

It's January 2011 and Perry Thomas and Scott Panella create the Launch of everything Magical

Perry and Lynn Thomas first met Scott and Meg Panella back in 2005.  It was a short and very long time ago.  Perry was working at Southeast Christian Church, Lynn was a realtor just starting the first Keller Williams office in Louisville, Scott and Meg were real estate agents at another company.

They started with the dream of building a real estate company by agents for agents.  It wasn't a new idea.  Keller Williams was doing it all over the country.  It was just new for Louisville Kentucky.  So, they had to learn it, live it and teach it.  The highlands office grew so fast (up to 85 agents in 7 months) they talked about opening another Keller Williams office in the East End of Louisville.  That's what happened 3 years ago. and thanks to Heidi Fore, Patrice Miles, Brad Long, the Shaffers, Brenda Doll, Angie Maloney and a whole lot of really super talented real estate agents, the office is over a hundred agents strong and the 6th largest real estate francise in Louisville Kentucky.

The conversation Perry and Scott were having was one of rememberance.  They recalled how scared, excited, thrilled, nervous, expectant, hopeful and in prayer they were when they started.  They love the agents they work with and can't imagine any other life that's this abundant and this challenging.  Given the choice, they'd do it all over again.

Skiing Steamboat Co.

The full rundown on our trip to Steamboat is documented in the LynnThomasTeam Blog. It was fantastic and wonderful and I will do it all over again.

This is what I wrote before the trip.

So I'm thinking Friday morning 9:00 rent skis take the gondola up to thunderhead peak and ski down "so what" to make sure the binders are set and there won't be any further problems.
Then take the Thunderhead express lift back up to Thunderhead Peak.  That puts us about 10:00,  From there, ski "spur head" over to the sundown express lift up to "sunshine peak".  Ski to the right on "sundial" and "Tomahawk" and take the Sunshine Express lift back to the top.
Ski down Rendevous way to the Rendevous food court main level for, " the main level provides pasta, stews, salad bar, sandwiches, soups, burgers and potato bar"  Should be about 12:00
Then we ski whatever Lynn wants till 3:00 when we head to Thunderhead Reds for a drink and discover what the evening plans are.  Another run perhaps and call it a day.

Days Gone By

Untitled from Perry Thomas on Vimeo.