#but what i WAS doing today was working on this set of oc/couple templates i got off twitter yesterday which i'll post tomorrow probably

[mattodore]

matthias's face card is so insane here i almost didn't notice that his hair got chewed up by gshade

[fereldanwench]

Hiya Wench! <3

It's me, the chick who always wants you to explain things xD. I have another polite request (won't be upset if you decline, but I have to try).

I had an epiphany about my posts today - I tag for other people, not myself (twitter influence). And I realized I don't even know how to quickly get to some of the older posts.

And then I remembered your page and how it's all neatly organized xD I previously haven't realized all your tags were actually separating your posts into categories and such... I love it. I had some big brain moments today xD

Would you please have any quick tips (perhaps you already do have them on your blog, I just forgot how to display the blog with the template on) for how to get started with your own template and neatly organized posts you can always find? Maybe even some template creators and such?

I used to do HTML & CSS back in the day, but it's been a long while, I don't have that much time to do trial and error anymore, and any actual coding is out of the question for me. It's gotta be user-friendly. (Free would be best, but I'm ready to reward the work done.)

I'm loving it here now and I post A LOT... I'd hate to reach a point where I don't even know what's on my page anymore.

Thanks! <3

Hi, bb! 💙

I've been asked about this a few times, and I honestly never feel I have a good answer for it, haha. I just like organizing and categorizing things, honestly. Best I can do is share my thought process and a couple of handy tools--Hopefully that'll help give you some inspiration!

My tagging habits actually come from ancient Tumblr functionality--Back in the day, the search function didn't exist as it does now (in which it will (theoretically) scan the body and tags in the post), and you could only find posts if they were tagged in a certain way. Sometimes I wanted to post about game stuff, like Dragon Age, but I didn't want my post to appear in the main tag (because of fanwank hell) BUT I also still wanted to be able to find it later because my blog is for me first and foremost.

So I started using "s: dragon age" to gather all things related to Dragon Age (in which "s" in my mind stands for "series") and "g: dao" for posts specifically about Dragon Age Origins, "g: da2" for Dragon Age II/2, and "g: dai" for Dragon Age Inquisition. And if it was a post I did want to go into the main tags, like a GIF set or fanart, I'd use both the default tags (Dragon Age, Dragon Age Inquisition) and my personal ones for my own blog cataloging.

Tumblr search hasn't worked like this in years, but by the time it changed, I was already in this habit for a while so I've just kept doing it. I do change the way I organize stuff from time to time, and there are some tools that make that easier:

Xkit Rewritten This is a life-changer and has a ton of great features to improve your Tumblring experience, but the "Tag Replacer" specifically is awesome if you realize you want to change a tag en mass.

Tumblr Tag List Generator And this is really helpful if you need to do some tag wrangling and figure out what tags you've used. I periodically run my blog through this to catch inevitable typos in tags so I can change them, and see if I can consolidate any similar tags (e.g. catch if I was using both "g: da2" and "g: da ii" so I could figure out which one I liked more.)

As far as the organization itself and how I choose the categories, it's just vibes, haha. It's just how I catalog things in my brain. Which I know is probably unhelpful. Prefixes like "inspo: ###" and "shows: ###" are pretty self-explanatory. "extras: ###" is for the random stuff that doesn't really fit anywhere else, like shitposts and cute animal pics. "topic: ###" is for more serious subjects and discussions, like LGBTQ+ issues. "mine: ###" is for the stuff I've made.

Two things I wish I had done a better job of is 1) organizing other people's OCs by fandom (if you visit me on Pillowfort, you'll notice I use tags like "other's ocs (cp77)" instead of just "other's ocs") and 2) separating my edits tag into a gifs and virtual photography tag. Calling all video game imagery "edits" is also sort of a holdover from Tumblr days of yore, but I wish I had made a distinction there. (I had never even heard the term "virtual photography" until about 2022, though, and I've been on Tumblr since 2010 so yanno. Whatever. This blog in particular is 8 years old, and I'm not sifting through thousands of posts just to amend that.)

And this is a mostly comprehensive list of all the tags I use, if you wanna see the categories and whatnot in action.

With regards to blog templates, I've actually decided to stop focusing on that here because Tumblr has increasingly become a more app-driven userbase, and the pretty blog templates are only visible on desktop. Tumblr also nuked a lot of functionality of the custom pages you can make, which is where I used to keep my tags displayed. I still have a custom theme, but it's pretty bare-bones compared to what I used to do. (Now I get my CSS fix working on my Neocities website, although that is very much still a WIP.)

But there are fortunately still a lot of folks keeping the custom Tumblr themes alive! You can browse some of my personal favorites under my tumblr: themes tag, and @theme-hunter is a fantastic resource to find free user-made templates.

Oh, and because Tumblr is pushing more for a generic and uniform app experience, you do have to opt-in to activate your custom blog. It's this option under your blog settings:

And if you want to view someone's custom blog (if they have one), you'll have use the https://fereldanwench.tumblr.com/ URL. If you want to view the dashboard-like version of their blog, you'll have to use the https://www.tumblr.com/fereldanwench URL.

Hopefully this made sense and can give you some ideas to get started!

[patchdotexe]

really, really long rambling

i forgot how i got onto this tangent but on the car ride home i ended up thinking about Speed The Collapse, or. actually that’s just the first fic in it, i dont think the setting has an overall name. uhhh. WELL it’s the yogscast fic/RP setting i started years ago and evolved into atomiclalna/getfluxd/wellcatchyou. and it evolved into being pretty weird and im thinking about it again so here’s an explanation of all the characters while i think abt writing more STC

(some of this is specifically rp-verse that later got welded into fic canon, to make things extra confusing. especially with Atomic and Digger. fantastic)

Lalna “Lal/Atomic” Coffee is the “main” Lalna. he’s an AU of Flux Buddies that got... really convoluted bc of him originally having a bunch of different rp verses and then i accidentally slammed them together and had to try and reconcile em. he’s an omnidisciplinary scientist but mainly likes rockets, nukes, and blowing things up. and reckless use of thaumcraft, obvs.

he got de-Fluxed in one rpverse with the help of Circuit (a friend’s OC), and then when the verse-fusion happened it got kind of weird because Nano (who also got de-Fluxed in the same rp) stayed Fluxed but Atomic didn’t, so he’s just... kinda weird. but with the like, non-rp verse, i think it ended up being that he just burned all the surface-level Flux off but Nano had progressed so much that it probably would’ve killed xem to do the same, and then once the whole like.. dark realm stuff happened, his Flux resurfaced like how Nano’s got worse. I DUNNO i kinda started writing him before i was even caught up on flux buddies prime while 2.0 was over halfway through so :,)

either way he ended up with intense scarring on his face & hands, on top of miscellaneous scars he had from various near-death experiences, and it kind of became his “identifying feature” both in-universe and out. he’s also a cyborg just to keep himself alive because he’s Very aware that he doesn’t have respawn (unlike pretty much everybody else) and with how reckless he is with his own safety + his expertise with machines it felt like a logical conclusion to him. he’s also very casual about his own injuries bc he can just patch it back up later, no big deal. it grosses Nano out.

Lal’s very scatterbrained, bad at talking to people, and horrendous at taking care of himself. he’s also super disaster gay and was dating both Circuit and Nilesy in the rp verse (as well as like, whatever’s going on between him and Nano in both fic and rp). he sees Xephos and Honeydew as basically his adopted parents, although his relationship with them has faded due to lack of contact; he’s usually very casual about people going in and out of his life, but it started to wear on him and he gets pretty lonely.

he’s very distrustful of other Lalnas because of everything with Hector and MP!Lalna, although he doesn’t go on the attack immediately unless he feels threatened. his memories of YOGLabs (i think the “YOG” was supposed to stand for something but i never actually sorted out what it was) are of working on the respawn system before getting suddenly fired; in actuality, he’s the master clone that got kicked out after Hector proved to Xephos that the Lalnas were too dangerous to keep around. the side-effect of this is he has a weird bug where he ends up with memories of various other Lalnas, and sometimes has trouble keeping track of which Lalna he is without someone being there to ground him. this really doesn’t help with Nano’s mistrust of him

his timeline goes: Voltz -> Yoglabs -> Duncan’s Lab -> Blackrock -> The Apprentice -> Flux Buddies series

Lalnable “Hec” Hector is... complicated. he’s the original Lalna, who according to Xephos went insane and had to be locked up in YOGLabs; several of his breakout attempts failed, only for him to finally bail out successfully and go on the run. his main goal is to bring down YOGLabs, believing that Xephos has put all his morals in the trash in search of power & immortality, with a side hobby of trying to figure out what the hell is up with the Specimens, seriously it shouldn’t be this hard to clone somebody even if they’re full of eldritch goop wtf

all of the Lalnas are trans btw. Hec has voice dysphoria, both bc he has a case of the genders and also bc he hates the idea of being mistaken for another Lalna (although he’s tried to play that in his favour a couple of times. it usually backfires. sup, Tungsten); he feels like the Lalnas are unstable inferior knockoffs, and really doesn’t like seeing reflections of himself walking around. usually this means he goes out of his way to avoid them, but he started directly clashing with Atomic after they ended up in close proximity to each other and he took an interest in Nano.

he’s like... he plays up his edgy side to try and seem intimidating, but he’s honestly pretty pathetic. not that he can’t be dangerous, but he’s just kind of a paranoid guy with a whole lot of brain problems. has a lot in common with Atomic but does Not want to admit it. Hec is also very desensitized to blood and death bc of his work at YOGLabs (Atomic kinda is too but it’s not as prominent), but if he’s actually eaten anybody it’s probably it was probably out of curiosity. WAIT THAT SOUNDS REALLY WEIRD. i do think the like, cannibalism thing is something he got a reputation for without really comitting to it, but the nickname stuck and he’s like “sure, that’s edgy and scares people, i guess” and started going by Hector and then Five makes fun of him

he kinda suffers from badass decay but in an entertaining way bc its more like Lal & Nano learn more about him and are like, okay he’s pretty threatening, but he’s also a Lalna and they’re all idiots

his timeline is: Voltz -> Yoglabs -> Flux Buddies series

Livid Coffee is where shit starts getting REALLY weird and complicated. his deal was established in a rp arc on Atomic’s blog, where like... it was getting close to the end of Flux Buddies 2.0 in-universe, and Hector was testing out the Time Gate with the idea of like, going back in time to YOGLabs, before everything went wrong, and beating the shit out of Xephos. Lal saw something was up, went to go check it out, and got captured; Nano got suspicious once he didn’t return, and Hector has zero foresight or critical thinking skills and kinda panicked. he was only able to get the incomplete Time Gate open for a few minutes at a time while testing it, so he kinda... just. grabbed a Lalna. and sent him on his way back to the base and hoping Nano wouldn’t question it too much or that xe’d think he just had amnesia or something.

unforseen problem: the Lalna that Hector had managed to time-theft was Livid, his past self from when he still worked at YOGLabs.

im gonna be real i still have NO IDEA how this arc goes down in fic, if it does at all, but it does establish a whole lot of important things while also getting REALLY convoluted. i made a lot of decisions in dp that i definitely wouldnt today :,) BUT the gist of it is that Nano easily puts 2+2 together and rushes to rescue Lal only to get captured, and meanwhile Livid learns about everything. about Lalnable, about the failed clones, about getting fired, about how everything ended up the way it is in Lal’s time period. and he freaks out, but realizes he has a chance: he can try to stop all of this. he can go back to his original time period, and tell Xephos to shut the project down, and stop Lalnable from ever existing.

so some pretty cool stuff happens: he stages a rescue mission, rushes back through time while the baddies are distracted by the buddies, and sabotages the Time Gate in YOGLabs Deep Storage so Lalnable isn’t able to get there (which leads to baddies&buddies being scattered through time once they go through). he then runs to talk to Xephos, warn him about everything, because surely he can fix all of this, right?

Xephos listens, but then decides he doesn’t care about the risk and orders Livid to go through with it anyway. when Livid refuses, he’s locked up and his brain is fucked with to try and wipe his memories of the event. he finishes CloneSec on Xephos’s orders, only for everything to click back into place and the betrayal+paranoia causes him to lash out and try to kill Xephos, which gets him rebranded as Lalnable Hector. so it’s a time loop, basically.

as a side note, there’s a backup Livid of sorts-- in case of failure break glass, basically. somewhat literally, bc the clone is hidden in the YOGLabs reflecting pool in a glass box, far away from where anyone would stumble across him. he’s the closest clone to the original (meaning he doesn’t have any physical deviation like the other Lalnas eventually develop over course of experimentation & the master clone template), and has all of Livid’s memories up until the time travel nonsense. he never got to make an appearance outside of the original Livid in Distant Past, but interestingly one of the first times Atomic experienced clone memories in rpverse was something that happened to this guy.

his timeline is: Voltz -> Yoglabs -> Distant Past (fic) -> Hypercubed

while most of the Lalnas were fired or disposed of, with the exception of Hypercubed bc he’s in a frickin box, there was one that Xephos held onto. im gonna be real, im not totally sure how Moonquest fits into everything; honestly im kinda tempted to say it might be a case of a spare Xephos, even, considering he’s not like.. maximum bastard like Yoglabs Xephos is. either way, a single Lalna got picked up by Honeydew & Xephos and they decided to go to space together because why the hell not?

he doesn’t really have a unique nickname yet, because i haven’t done too much with him-- the most Moonquest stuff i wrote was actually an AU, with like. multiple system alien Lalnae, and he never crosses paths with that clusterfuck up there so Atomic only knows about him via clone memories & a very weird encounter with a clone-of-a-clone. who knows what he’s up to nowdays, considering Deep Space Mine never got anywhere.

his timeline is: Voltz -> Yoglabs -> Jaffa Factory -> Moonquest -> Hole Diggers -> Deep Space Mine

AND NOW WHO YOU’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR, THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND: DIGGER

Digger is... he’s something. while all of the other Lalnas listed here (minus original!Livid) are respawn clones, Digger is instead a “shell” clone-- basically just an empty, expendable shell someone can temporarily dump their consciousness into if they want to do something dangerous/stupid or just need to quickly hop somewhere. so, like, basically not a Lalna in the same sense as how the other Lalnas are basically like.. twins but a large number of. he’s also a reject, due to Honeydew screwing around while the shell was being constructed and accidentally mixing in some of his own DNA. because shells have DNA for some reason? they’re weird, they’re like... i think Digs got described as being made of “fake meat particles” once. doesn’t even have a pulse. or like, blood, or viscera, because any damage done to him cracks the shell.

ANYWAY so Digger was initially just a defective shell but the Hole Diggers didn’t get rid of him bc they thought he was funny in concept and also were too lazy to do anything, so he just got parked somewhere in the space station to be forgotten about. then there was a glitch with the sync chambers while Lalna was swapping to a shell, and suddenly Digger was like. aware. he basically got a copy of Lalna’s consciousness downloaded into himself. cue distress and dissociation once he immediately realized he was Stuck in an incorrect shell. THEN Honeydew accidentally blew the space station up to fuck, and Digger-- along with everyone else-- got sucked into a black hole.

ive been kinda vague about where exactly in time&space he ended up, but he basically took over some ruins he found and dug out a huge complex underground base and raids a nearby village for supplies while he was getting his feet. this is how he found a thaumonomicon, and he got himself deep into thaumcraft out of curiosity. he got himself heavily warped, and normally it would be pretty concerning but he’s rather calm about it

ive kinda gone back and forth on how he sees himself, so: he definitely starts out thinking he’s Lalna Prime but in a shell, but then learns about Other Lalnas and his memories are confusing&incomplete so he starts questioning himself and has a big ol crisis. he picks up the nickname “Digger” and ends up developing in his own direction somewhat, becoming his own person despite being a shell. having to accept the fact that he’s permanently a shell has been... difficult, and he tries very hard to ignore it because he feels like he’s super fragile if he thinks about it for too long. by the time he showed up in rp stuff, though (like showyourenergy and the corruption saga) he started owning it as like “yeah!! this is me, i guess!! if you look down on me for it ill shoot you with a very big gun!!”

his opinion on other Lalnas is that he’s TERRIFIED of them. like, pretty much convinced he’s going to get hunted down and killed if the original Moonquest Lalna finds out about him (once he learns that he even exists). that, combined with his warp, means he has paranoia to rival Hec’s; it only gets worse in rpverse when he’s managed to make a Lot of enemies. he does have a very close friend, though, potentially the only person he trusts completely: Drei, aka Specimen Echo 3-B, one of the failed Specimens that Hec created. there’s like this whole thing where Nano & the two surviving Specimens are like, a trio representing various forms of thaumic corruption? Nano is Flux, Five is Taint, and Drei is Warp! so Drei met Digger when he got himself warped to all hell, and they’re basically siblings.

i also rp’d him for like 3 days on here during the jsab corruption saga bc for some reason i doodled a leo!lalna instead of using RR

his timeline goes: [Voltz -> Yoglabs -> Jaffa Factory -> Moonquest] -> Hole Diggers -> ?

[mrlylerouse]

97% of Cold Calling is a Waste of Time

Let’s warm up those cold tactics with some new insights into increasing your lead generation abilities. A good start, is the idea of a hiring a person that is dedicated to making those outbound efforts. Inside Sales Agents , or ISAs, have long been considered a crucial role on successful real estate teams. (ISAs):

Hiring an Inside Sales Agent in Real Estate

As your business grows you can quickly begin to feel stretched. You and your team may have difficulties finding time to prospect or responding fast enough to leads, so your pipeline and conversion rates can suffer. Hiring an ISA ensures a dedicated person is generating and converting leads in the office while you and your agents are running the rest of your business.

This hire allows you and your team members to focus on your core roles, and they are typically charged with uploading all of the contact information and conversation notes into your database. This frees your team up from most admin tasks, so for example, buyers agents don’t have to worry with anything administrative other than writing up a contract.

The ISA role can vary with experience and job expectations. There are countless pay structures and compensation models to match each unique ISA role. However, the first thing you need to do before hiring is calculate the ROI. It doesn’t make sense to hire an ISA for cold-calling purposes if you aren’t generating more deals (i.e. money). Here’s a handy cost breakdown guide for your real estate business:

Again, this is just a model. Lots of real estate businesses employ and pay ISA’s differently. The main objective of this is to ensure positive revenue from hiring an Inside Sales Agent.

  Turn Cold Calling into Smart Prospecting

Let’s flip that terrible stat. Here’s how to turn 97% wastefulness into 80% productivity. Taking a good look at your communication strategies can do some real good for your success rate. It’s critical to be informed about your leads, their interests, and to hit them with timely and relevant information.  Imagine the following message from a real estate agent:

“Hi, my name is Chad and I’m calling to see if you’re interested in buying a house.”

How likely are you to respond with anything else than, “No, I’m not interested.” or with “I’m just looking.” Not only are success rates of cold calls low, but they typically cost your business 60% more. Now, let’s examine a more tailored approach:

“Hi Susie! I noticed you were looking at homes in downtown Charleston, and if you have a free moment this week, I can show you a couple houses of interest. What do you say?”

Two things changed in this scenario. First, the real estate agent is addressing the lead by name. He knows who he is calling. Second, he knows what Susie is looking for. By tailoring your message to the interests and behavior of your leads, you increase your chances of a positive sale. In fact, you’re 51% more likely to achieve your sales numbers and 80% more productive.

  Using a Real Estate CRM for Smart Prospecting

It’s critical to have information about your leads at your fingertips. This means utilizing powerful software and the latest technology to make your prospecting so. Much. more. Effective. In BoomTown’s CRM, you can take your database, and sift and sort into different buckets of leads with similar interests. Then you can easily filter and segment them with your marketing efforts. 

By compiling a list of who the leads are, what areas/price points they’re looking at, and their timeline, you immediately have a “warm” list of leads to call. You know where to start the conversation and your sales effectiveness rises. This means you can easily create tailored messages to large groups of leads for smarter outreach.

Talk about productivity!

  The Power of Texting vs Calling

Just a few years ago, InsideSales.com did a study revealing agents who called newly registered leads within five minutes were more likely to turn them into a closed deal. However, a troubling statistic shows that only 5-10% of people pick up the phone. Even with e-mail, you can only expect a 20% open rate. However, with texting, 90% of people both open and respond to texts within 5 minutes. That is a serious game-changer!

A Multi-Channel Strategy for Prospecting

Using multiple forms of outreach in your marketing efforts can generate much more success in prospecting. The right CRM will let you implement plans that incorporate calls, texts, and emails, and every interaction will be automatically logged in the system so you can stay on top of to-dos and know exactly where each leads stands in the process.

Here’s a sample template for a basic smart prospecting plan:

Call within the first five minutes if possible. This is important since you or your customer team could potentially speak with them while they are still on your site and explain further valuable search tools on the website.

Answer: Ask the most important question.

Doesn’t Answer: Leave a voicemail (scroll down for suggestions).

If the lead does not answer, you can send a text message (scroll down for suggestions) and continue to call at a steady, but subtle rate over the next few weeks.

If you have an email address your lead also needs to be on a drip email plan.

 Touch Phone Call Example Scripts:

This situation would oc

Firstcur if a lead registered on your site or a 3rd party site with at least their name and contact information. This example assumes you have basic information about what they are looking for.

Questions:

Hi, may I speak with [First Name]? How are you today? I received your contact info from your recent registration on my site, and I wanted to follow up with you quickly in case you had any questions about any of the homes you were browsing through. When are you looking to buy? I can set you up for eAlerts so you are the first to find out about new listings that fit your preferences. Even if you don’t want to buy now it’s always good to see what’s out there in your price range. Are you still interested in the [area name] around [price point of the home they were looking at]? If so, are you working with an agent already? I actually have an area expert for the neighborhood you are looking in. He/She can fill you in on the market for that area, can they give you a quick call later?

Answers:

Yes: Sounds good! Is this the best number to reach you? No: Is there a better time for me to reach you? No, don’t call: Would you prefer email? I can arrange them so they only come as often as you like with the listings in your price range and area. No, don’t contact me: I completely understand. Definitely take advantage of the site’s search tools and if you see anything you want more information on in the future, we are here to help!

First touch Voicemail Script:

Hi [first name], this is [your name] calling from [your company name]. I wanted to quickly check-in and make sure you didn’t have any further questions about the properties on our website. If so, I would love to help you get a temp of the area you are looking in. My number is [your number here], and I look forward to speaking with you soon.

First touch Text Script:

If you don’t receive an answer to the first phone call, it’s always a good idea to send a follow-up text.

Hey [first name]! Wanted to quickly follow-up with your visit to [your website name here] to see if you would be interested in chatting with our agent who has worked in that area for awhile. When are you looking to buy?

Next Steps: Continue conversation with more qualifying questions and attempts to schedule a call.

Alternative Tactic: Social Selling

Hands down, people spend the majority of their time on social media — whether it be Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. These channels are windows into who your leads are, what they’re interested in, and even what they’re complaining about. This gives you an unfiltered view into what they need, and an easy opportunity to place yourself at the front of their consideration.

With a quick message or response, you can easily spark a conversation that turns into a $300k home deal.

  Being Effective at Real Estate Lead Generation

Cold calling is a waste of time. Personalized messages are king when it comes to selling. Keep in mind, the homebuyer (or seller) already has a ton of information at their disposal. They don’t need to be sold on what they want — they already know what they want! They want to know that you’re going to provide personalized service for them. Hence, smart prospecting.

The post 97% of Cold Calling is a Waste of Time appeared first on BoomTown!.

from BoomTown! https://ift.tt/2sNt1lb