Podcasts about garden heights

This week Declan and Edward go over Angie Thomas's book The Hate U Give. Exploring the world of Starr Carter after she witnesses the shooting of a childhood friend and the event becomes a national headline.

For this episode, guest host Cindy Aguilera discusses and reads a passage of The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Angie Thomas was born, raised, and still resides in Jackson, Mississippi. She holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Belhaven University. Her debut novel, The Hate U Give, was adapted into a movie starring actress Amandla Stenberg which you can also watch on Netflix. In the book, Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter has to transition from her home in Garden Heights to the fancy prep school she attends called Williamson. She's jolted out of this duality when she witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood friend Khalil at the hands of police. The story then follows Starr as she mourns and has to relive that tragic moment while still trying to be a normal teenager. If you are interested in getting a copy you can go to the CSULB University Library and check out a copy or purchase on Amazon. This special series will continue throughout the month of March and new episodes will drop every Tuesday. Like, comment, and follow us on your favorite platform for more content! Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast… Google Podcasts https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=… Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4HJaqJe… Overcast https://overcast.fm/itunes1488484518/… Soundcloud @daily49er

The Hate U Give follows Starr Carter, a black teenager who leads two separate lives. There is the version of herself for Garden Heights, the predominantly black neighborhood she calls home, and another version of herself that exists at the mostly white prep school she attends in an affluent suburb. After witnessing her childhood friend being killed by a police officer during a traffic stop, Starr's two worlds collide. She is forced to confront the privilege and prejudice of her classmates and has to reevaluate relationships with others and herself. Avery recaps the main plot points and themes around diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility that appear in the movie. 

Three YA authors from Mississippi create memorable young characters who tackle weighty topics--from cult recruitment and teen parenthood to the social struggles of living with Tourette's--in clever, humorous, and heartfelt ways.Panelists:Angie Thomas was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. A former teen rapper, she holds a BFA in creative writing from Belhaven University. Her award-winning, acclaimed debut novel, The Hate U Give, is a #1 New York Times bestseller and major motion picture from Fox 2000, starring Amandla Stenberg and directed by George Tillman, Jr. Angie's second novel, ON THE COME UP, is a #1 New York Times bestseller as well, and a film is in development with Paramount Pictures with Angie acting as a producer and Sanaa Lathan directing. In 2020, Angie released FIND YOUR VOICE: A Guided Journal to Writing Your Truth as a tool to help aspiring writers tell their stories. In 2021, Angie returned to the world of Garden Heights with CONCRETE ROSE, a prequel to THE HATE U GIVE focused on seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter that debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.Heather Truett is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Memphis and serves as the Development Director for The Pinch literary journal. She is #actuallyautistic and passionate about bringing more neurodivergent voices to the publishing table. Heather was born in Kentucky, sharing a hometown with Loretta Lynn, and grew up in South Carolina. She moved from there to Alabama and now resides in Mississippi with her husband, teenage sons, and three cats. She works as a copywriter and as a writing consultant for University students. Kiss and Repeat is her debut novel.Jennifer Moffett is the author of the novel Those Who Prey (a 2021 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Youth Literature nominee) and a forthcoming novel (2022) published by Atheneum/Simon & Schuster. After working in New York for several animated television series, which included Arthur and Disney's Doug, she received an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Mississippi and wrote for regional publications, including Jackson Free Press. Her short stories and poems have appeared in various literary journals, including New Orleans Review and descant, where she is an Associate Fiction Editor. She won the Gary Wilson Short Story Award and published work in Sundress Publications' Not Somewhere Else But Here: A Contemporary Anthology of Women and Place. She teaches creative writing at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, where she is their 2021 Mississippi Humanities Council Instructor of the Year. Learn more at jbmoffett.com. Moderator:Sami Thomason-Fyke (she/her) is a Youth Services Specialist at the Lafayette County and Oxford Public Library. She was formerly a bookseller, events coordinator, and social media coordinator at Square Books in Oxford, MS. You can keep up with her reading recommendations at samisaysread.com. @SamiSaysRead See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Concrete Rose van Angie Thomas Het is tijd voor een old school Radio Savannah! Als vanouds kletsen Lola en Suzanne gezellig met zijn tweetjes over een boek dat een plekje in de spotlight verdient. Deze keer bespreken zij Concrete Rose, de nieuwste roman van YA-superster Angie Thomas. De schrijfster, bekend van haar debuutroman The Hate U Give, duikt in deze roman in het leven van Maverick en zijn ontdekkingstocht naar hoe een goede man te zijn. Wil je meekletsen over Radio Savannah? Volg Savannah Bay op Instagram, Twitter en Facebook en gebruik #RadioSavannah. Voor (lees)tips en fanmail zijn we te bereiken op info@savannahbay.nl . In Concrete Rose neemt schrijfster Angie Thomas de lezer mee naar de wijk Garden Heights en de community waarin zeventien jaar later ook The Hate U Give zich afspeelt. Wanneer de zeventienjarige Maverick Carter vader van een pasgeboren baby blijkt te zijn, staat zijn leven op zijn kop. In zijn zoektocht naar de perfecte balans tussen school, zijn gezin en zijn vrienden, ontdekt Maverick wat het betekent om een echte man te zijn. Concrete Rose is uitgegeven door Lemuria Books in januari 2021. Vind het boek hier in de webshop. De Nederlandse vertaling van Concrete Rose, met de titel De roos uit het beton, verschijnt in mei 2021. De vertaling is gemaakt door Aimee Warmerdam en wordt uitgegeven door Moon uitgevers. Het audiofragment wat je hoorde in de aflevering is hier terug te luisteren. Het boek wordt voorgelezen door Dion Graham. Op zoek naar meer Maverick? Lees in The Hate U Give het verhaal van zijn dochter Starr. Starr Carter woont in een armoedige, zwarte buurt, maar gaat naar een dure witte school. De balans die Starr tussen deze werelden heeft gevonden, wordt overhoop gehaald als haar beste vriend Khalil voor haar ogen wordt doodgeschoten door een politieagent, onschuldig. Verslagen door emoties probeert Starr zichzelf te herpakken in een samenleving vol ongelijkheid, overleven in de twee werelden wordt steeds lastiger en de waarheid spreken krijgt een hoge prijs. Vind het boek hier (NL) en hier (EN) in de webshop.  Benieuwd naar wat anderen vinden van Concrete Rose? - De Time recensie van Cleyvis Natera, "Angie Thomas’ New Prequel to The Hate U Give Challenges the Cult of Masculinity", vind je hier. - In haar recensie voor The New York Times stelt Martha Tesema dat “unlike Starr’s journey, Maverick’s fight is a subtle one. Maverick is struggling with navigating his daily life, all the while wrestling with the performative trap of masculinity and questioning how his actions will affect the legacy he hopes to build”. Lees de hele recensie hier. - Nic Stone schreef voor The Washington Post de recensie “With ‘Concrete Rose,’ Angie Thomas eviscerates stereotypes about Black families”. De recensie vind je hier. Benieuwd naar meer boeken over mannelijkheid? As always, Savannah Bay’s got your back! Wij raden deze titels aan: Mask Off: Masculinity Redefined van JJ Bola What is masculinity? Dominating the world around us, from Trump's twitter outbursts to deadly gun violence, from male suicide rates to incels on Reddit and 4chan, masculinity is perceived to be 'toxic', 'fragile' and 'in crisis'. In Mask Off, JJ Bola exposes masculinity as a performance that men are socially conditioned into. Using examples of non-Western cultural traditions, music and sport, he shines light on historical narratives around manhood, debunking popular myths along the way. He explores how LGBTQ men, men of colour, and male refugees experience masculinity in diverse ways, revealing its fluidity, how it's strengthened and weakened by different political contexts, such as the patriarchy or the far-right, and perceived differently by those around them. At the heart of love and sex, the political stage, competitive sports, gang culture, and mental health issues, lies masculinity: Mask Off is an urgent call to unravel masculin...

Hi, it's Ada. I hope you're taking good care of yourself and doing well. In this episode I will be reviewing The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. So I thought this would perhaps be the fourth, fifth or even sixth episode of the Misty Bloom Book Club. But in light of recent events, I bumped it up to the first episode, The Hate U Give is timely, and it felt irresponsible to stick to my original podcast timetable. The Hate U Give is named after Tupac's Thug Life which I of course, immediately listened to again, but which I can't play here for obvious copyright reasons. However, I do encourage you to listen to it. It is amazing. I mean, Tupac's an incredible musical genius and social revolutionary and I still miss him till this day. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas is hugely popular. You've probably heard of it. It hit the bestseller list, there was a movie made from the book. So yeah, The Hate U Give is a huge commercial success. However, I didn't care to read it when it first came out because I thought it'd be one of those books that was getting all the buzz only because of the subject matter not because of its artistic quality or literary merit. But because of the themes it addresses. I thought it'd be one of those issue books, you know, that deal with a topical issue. And I always feel like issue books are not really for me, because they're never about a story but about an issue, if that makes sense. But hang on and hear me out. I always knew The Hate U Give was about police brutality and racism and American blackness, which are important topics. But I don't care to read about issues in fiction because I hate the burden that the publishing industry places on the shoulders of minority writers to write about issues where white authors get to write about just normal life stuff like falling in love, coming of age, daydreaming, going on a date, there's tons of books about random white dudes, where the author is desperately trying to convince us that these guys are interesting enough that we should spend pages upon pages reading about their wandering reflections on life. So that's the kind of stuff that white authors get to write about. I mean, there's this freaking hugely popular book out there right now. And I think there's an accompanying TV show, too. It's called Normal People by Sally Rooney. I haven't read it. But I think the title is ironic. White authors get to be normal while we battle our societal issues. Most black and minority writers are not afforded the same opportunities to be normal. A book set in Africa, for example, has to be about poverty, war, hunger, the slave trade, you know, the usual. I challenge you to go now on Amazon and look up novels by better known writers of African descent. And you'll see the descriptions publishers use to describe their work are usually either like pre-colonial, or postcolonial even if the book has absolutely jack to do with colonialism. But that's how they see us. I have to say, though, that this is not always the case. But it is extremely common and the current standard, it's like black and minority writers have to pick an issue and make a story around the issue instead of crafting a story and having the characters experience an issue. And that's why I didn't ever plan on reading or watching The Hate U Give. However, a year ago someone whose book tastes I trust said she liked it and so I kind of parked The Hate U Give at the back of my mind to read at some point. And boy am I glad I read it! It is so good. I loved it and I can't wait to have a conversation with you about it. First, I'll tell you what the story is about. It follows 16 year old Starr Carter who lives in Garden Heights, a poor black neighborhood but goes to Williamson, a suburban prep school that's like an hour away. And so Starr straddles two different worlds, has to code switch and navigate a dual identity with being this poor African American kid who goes to a predominantly white school and socializes with rich white kids. She even dates a rich white boy, but poor Starr is constantly hyper aware of not being perceived as hood or ghetto. But anyway, the novel begins at a party in her neighborhood where Starr runs into her childhood best friend, Khalil, a shooting occurs and they leave the party together. On their drive home, they are stopped by a police officer for no reason. And a few minutes into the fake and fraudulent traffic stop, the police officer shoots Khalil, who's unarmed and does absolutely nothing to provoke his own murder. The news picks it up and Khalil's murder becomes national headline news and as frequently happens Khalil is blamed for his own murder. The criminal justice system works overtime to protect the killer cop so Starr and her community rise to protest for justice. So here's what I loved about The Hate U Give. The writing is so smooth, as smooth as jazz. This book runs over 400 pages. And yeah, it was just so easy to read and tells a compelling story. It took me three days and I hated when I had to put it down to work, eat, sleep and do other life stuff. And even though it deals with really topical timely issues, I mean, when is race not topical or timely, but that's a whole other conversation. But the story here, in spite of its gravity also has jocularity and a sense of humor, which made it easy to read. This playfulness does not diminish the importance of the subject matter, but helps the reader breathe in between episodes of tension and casual horror. And I think it also works to demonstrate that we are people that are resilient, and that in spite of all the hardships, there is hope, we will overcome and there are so many reasons to be happy and many opportunities to find joy. And there is a lot of humor in this book. For example, on page 30, it reads, "Black Jesus hangs from the cross in a painting on the hallway wall, and Malcolm X holds a shotgun in a photograph next to him. Nana still complains about those pictures hanging next to each other." So even though the writing feels very easy, casual and ordinary, it is deceptively good. The prose flows really well, the language is accessible, the author manages to really balance slang, Ebonics and standard American English without a hiccup, which I found freaking admirable. It felt effortless. And whenever something feels effortless, I, as a writer know that on the back end, it takes a gargantuan effort to get it to feel that way. And yes, the reverse is also true. Anyway, here's another example on page 33. "It's like a fragile sticker is on my forehead. And instead of taking a chance and saying something that might break me, they'd rather say nothing at all. But the silence is the worst." I feel like the amount of work that Angie Thomas did with this book is quite staggering. And I have to be honest, I'm not the type of writer that's easily impressed by the work of others. But quite frankly, I admire what Angie Thomas has done here. I'd be really interested to know how long it took for her to write and revise this book. If you happen to know, leave me a comment on my social media. Another strength of this book is its ability to capture the human condition. In this book, you will experience the anger that accompanies loss, the pain of tragedy, love's gentle sweetness, and people just going about their everyday business. Let me read you an example from page 37. "We turn onto Marigold Avenue where Garden Heights is waking up. Some ladies wearing floral headscarves come out of the laundromat carrying big baskets of clothes. Mr Rueben unlocks the chains on his restaurant. His nephew Tim, the cook, leans against the wall and wipes sleep from his eyes. Miss Yvette yawns as she goes in her beauty shop." This is such an effective paragraph and I'll tell you why. So the paragraph starts out with the writer saying we turn onto Marigold Avenue where Starr's neighborhood, Garden Heights, is waking up immediately I start to feel sleepy because it's early in the morning in the paragraph and a languid time of day. Also, this paragraph describes Starr's inner city neighborhood. There's a laundromat, there's a guy who's unlocking the chains on his restaurant which suggests it's a neighborhood where it's a little bit unsafe. Restaurants in the suburbs don't have chains on them. And then there is a beauty shop and it's a beauty shop not a salon. And then the author follows up with saying his nephew Tim, the cook, leans against the wall and wipe sleep from his eyes. Guys, I get even sleepier here. Then, the author writes, Miss Yvette yawns as she goes in her beauty shop. And I didn't even realize what was happening as I was reading but I yawned at that moment. So guys, if a writer does not manipulate your emotions or your feelings, I'm sorry, they haven't done their job. This here is an excellent example of a writer making me yawn with just words. Angie Thomas choreographs an early morning transports me into the moment and tricks me into feeling sleepy, so much so that I physically yawn in real life. Hmm. And I read this paragraph around 5:30? 6pm? Not at bedtime or first thing in the morning. It's incredible. I love this book also because it's populated with some very colorful neighborhood characters that have flesh and bone and feel like real people. Like Mr. Lewis, the grumpy widower who grumbles and complains about everything. And then there's Mr. Reuben, who owns the restaurant with the chains on it, remember? And Mr. Reuben is so nice. He remembers his customers' usual orders. He knows all the kids. If a kid comes in with a good report card, they get a free meal. And even if a kid comes in with a bad report card, they still get a free meal as long as they promised to do better. So sweet! I could see all these people in my mind's eye even though the author didn't really describe what they looked like. Their personalities just lifted off the page. Another thing I quite enjoyed about this book is that in many African cultures names are really important, very significant, they are a marker for your destiny, a proclamation of your fate. And I was excited to see this tradition reflected in an African American novel. For example, on page 48, the author writes, "Daddy once told me that King's parents named him after the same gang he later joined. And that's why a name is important. It defines you." Another strong feature of this book is that it was a prophecy for today. There's a line that Starr's father says on page 210. He says this in response to the district attorney. "In the meantime, tell your boys, the mayor and the police chief, to get them fucking tanks out of my neighborhood. Claim folks need to act peaceful but rolling through here like we in a goddamn war." Guys, this book was published in 2017, which means Angie Thomas started writing this book in 2014, 2015, I'm speculating, I don't know. It is 2020 today. And it is a gut wrenching shame that nothing has changed, that right now there are militarized police officers and the military on the streets attacking peaceful unarmed, black protesters. Moving along, I love that this book gave me all the feels, the fullness of human emotion. It made me want to be 16 again and fall in love for the first time like Starr and her boyfriend Chris. It made me want to grow old with someone just like Starr's parents. It reminded me that even the world's violence and diabolical white supremacy cannot keep us from loving and being loved. So guys, there you go. I've told you what I absolutely loved about The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. But before I tell you what I love a little bit less. Here's a quick message from my sponsor don't go anywhere. This episode of the Misty Bloom Book Club is made possible by the support of my novel, OYIBO spelled O-Y-I-B-O It is 1976 when prodigal daughter, Songoli returns her mother's home in a remote south eastern Nigerian village with a wailing toddler on her hip. Not long after, Songoli vanishes again, leaving the fair skinned and dreadlocked child, Adesua, and unanswered questions behind. OYIBO is the haunting chronicle of Adesua's troubled girlhood in the village where she's persecuted for her biracial, dreadlocked appearance. And after a tragedy occurs, the novel falls Adesua's devastating coming of age in the bustling cities of Lagos and ultimately, Brooklyn, New York. Reviewers have described evil as captivating, powerful, and heart wrenching. OYIBO is available on Amazon. Welcome back to the Misty Bloom Book Club. Thanks for staying with me. So I'm going to talk about what I think was less successful about The Hate U Give. But before I jump in, I do want to talk a little bit more about emotion. So here's the thing with emotion. And if you're here for writing tips, you might want to pay particular attention to what I'm about to say. Emotion will save a writer from a multitude of sins. I don't think The Hate U Give is a perfect book by any means. But, I was also reluctant to identify the imperfections of The Hate U Give because of how emotionally gripping this novel is. I was so swept up in the story so much so that even in the moments that I'm going to talk about when it lags, I waited patiently I extended grace because I'd fallen in love with Starr and the other characters. And I knew that in the hands of this writer, Angie freaking Thomas, it won't be long before the beauty returns again. But with that being said, I gotta be honest about a couple things. First, I didn't like the parts of the book where I felt Angie Thomas was explaining African American culture. For example, in the scene where Starr and her parents visit Miss Rosalie, Khalil's grandmother, the writer explains the very uniquely African American ways in which the characters in that scene greet each other. And describes what they're wearing, like the head wraps and whatnot. And Angie Thomas also describes Khalil's grandmother in regal terms. The whole overdone Black Queen narrative - this entire scene made me cringe. And then there was a mac and cheese conversation later in the book, which irked me. I just didn't care for, you know, like trying to explain ourselves to other people. I totally get why it's necessary for a wider mainstream audience. But I just hate that publishers and the reading audience demand this of black and minority writers. And so we have to do it. When I read books by white writers, they don't explain how they greet each other. They don't explain their foods. They don't explain themselves at all. The expectation is that we live in their world and we should know and understand them. And even as readers, when we don't understand certain aspects of white or European culture, the burden is on us to do the work to understand them. But when it's us, we have to help them understand us and that makes me itch. Another flaw of this book is that unlike when the author describes the characters that live in Starr's black neighborhood that I talked about earlier, like Mr. Reuben. When the author describes the non-black or white characters that are Starr's, friends from her prep school, they don't feel quite as three dimensional. They all kind of blended into each especially her two best friends, Hailey and Maya. For the longest time they felt like the same person I couldn't tell them apart for nothing. Until much later in the book when Starr visits Maya's house. Finally, the writing toward the end of The Hate U Give came off to me as chaotic. One could argue that this was done to reflect the agitative nature of the protests, rioting, looting that occurred. But, I would argue that the writing became chaotic way before that. Starting with the Memorial Day Pool party, too many people occupied that scene and the ensuing scenes after. And Angie Thomas devoted attention to every single character's actions and activities whether or not these actions propelled the narrative forward. As a writer, I recognize that Angie Thomas was preparing us for this climactic, breakneck speed conclusion, but it felt like too many things were always happening to too many people at the same time. But that's about it for what I thought was less successful about The Hate U Give. As you can see, I overwhelmingly loved it. So now I'm gonna shift gears and guess what Angie Thomas, the writer is like personality wise and wrap up with my final thoughts. But before I do, there's a quick message from my sponsor. Stay right there. This episode of the Misty Bloom Book Club is made possible by the support of my novel, OYIBO spelled O-Y-I-B-O. It is 1976 when prodigal daughter, Songoli returns her mother's home in a remote south eastern Nigerian village with a wailing toddler on her hip. Not long after, Songoli vanishes again, leaving the fair skinned and dreadlocked child, Adesua, and unanswered questions behind. OYIBO is the haunting chronicle of Adesua's troubled girlhood in the village where she's persecuted for her biracial, dreadlocked appearance. And after a tragedy occurs, the novel falls Adesua's devastating coming of age in the bustling cities of Lagos and ultimately, Brooklyn, New York. Reviewers have described evil as captivating, powerful, and heart wrenching. OYIBO is available on Amazon. . Welcome back to the Misty Bloom Book Club. Thanks for hanging out with me. So let's talk about what I feel Angie Thomas would be like. Personality wise, I feel like Angie Thomas would be bright, fun, the type of person that would be great to go to brunch with and have really good, interesting, thoughtful conversations with over mimosas. I think she'd make for a great conversationalist. But I also think she might be a little reserved and better one on one than in large groups. If you know her, let me know if I'm right on target, or completely missed the mark. Okay, now for my closing thoughts. All I know is I'll be reading Angie Thomas's future work point blank period because I've seen how good she is and what she's capable of. Although I do feel nervous for her because with such a powerful debut, she has set the bar so high and I don't envy her the task of outperforming herself. And I'm also nervous for myself as a reader because my expectations for Angie Thomas are so high now that I'd be disappointed with anything that's not as astonishing as The Hate U Give. For this reason, I wish her all the luck in the world and wish her the best with her writing career. I think Angie Thomas is a force to be reckoned with and that everyone should go read The Hate U Give. Thank you for hanging out with me on this episode of the Misty Bloom Book Club. Don't forget to like, share, leave a comment and subscribe. To find me on social media or to contact me for sponsorship opportunities or if you'd like to become a member of the Misty Bloom Book Club and enjoy all of those wonderful perks go to www.mistybloom.com for all of my information. Be sure to check out my novel OYIBO spelled O-Y-I-B-O exclusively available on Amazon. Until next time, keep reading, stay lit, peace and love Support Misty Bloom Book Club by donating to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/mistybloombookclub Find out more at https://mistybloombookclub.pinecast.co

Hola. Mi nombre es Victor y en esta edición de Viajero de Libros les voy a hablar sobre uno de los libros mas famosos de Angie Thomas, El Odio Que Das. Resumen: En resumen, el libro se basa en su protagonista Starr. Starr es una chica de dieciséis años que vive entre dos mundos: el barrio pobre de gente negra donde nació, y su escuela situada en un elegante barrio residencial blanco. El difícil equilibrio entre ambos desaparece cuando ella es testigo de la muerte a tiros de su mejor amigo, Khalil, a manos de un policía. A partir de ese momento, todo lo que Starr diga acerca de la aterradora noche que cambió su vida podrá ser usado de excusa por unos y como arma por otros. Y lo peor de todo es que, tanto los de un lado como los de otro, la tienen en el punto de mira y amenazan con poner en riesgo su vida. Opinion: Desde que leí la sinopsis de este libro en inglés y vi que está inspirado en el movimiento Black Lives Matter, supe que tendría que leerlo, ya que me parecía una de esas lecturas obligatorias y que contendría infinidad de valores. Además, conforme pasaron los meses, empezó a aumentar la popularidad de este libro y ha acabado convirtiéndose en una de las mayores apuestas juveniles de este año en Estados Unidos. Starr es una chica de dieciséis años que vive entre dos mundos: uno es el de Garden Heighs, el barrio pobre donde viven principalmente negros, que es el lugar donde nació y donde vice con su familia. Es donde su padre tiene una pequeña tienda y donde están sus amigos de la infancia. Garden Heights es su hogar, a pesar de sus tragedias y peligros. El otro mundo es Williamson, un instituto de alta sociedad en los suburbios prácticamente lleno de blancos donde Starr y sus hermanos estudian. Allí tiene sus propios amigos y un novio blanco. La mayoría del tiempo, lleva ambas vidas separadas y en cada una tiene un comportamiento diferente de acuerdo al lugar donde se encuentre. Las partes del libro que muestran el conflicto entre la Starr de Garden Heights y la de Williamson es solo uno de los sub-tramas que en esta novela se muestran. Esa misma trama afecta también a sus padres, a su hermano mayor Seven, y a su querido tio Carlos. Conceptos como hogar, comunidad, el querer sentirse seguro (y la culpabilidad por dejar a otros atrás) y las responsabilidades personales son temas recurrentes que van construyéndose y desarrollándose de una manera bastante acertada en esta historia. Es parte de lo que hace existir a estos personajes, conceptos que entran en conflicto cuando una horrible tragedia les toma por sorpresa. Todo cambiará cuando Starr sea testigo de la violenta muerte de su mejor amigo Khalil por parte de un policía blanco. Su muerte se convierte en noticia nacional, pero todo lo que utilizan para justificar su muerte es que es, como se dice en ingles, un "Thug", o un maleante, lo que abre el camino para la búsqueda de la justicia, con Starr como único testigo. A partir del trágico suceso, Starr se encontrará todavía más presionada entre los dos mundos y tendrá que decidir si contar lo que sucedió aquella noche o callar para siempre. Tome la decisión que tome, sabe que el bando afectado no dudará en hacer lo que sea por proteger sus intereses, aunque sea acabar con su vida. Starr, es un personaje que empieza siendo neutral, pero conforme avanza la historia y tras la muerte de Khalil, se volverá valiente, pero a la vez temerá por su vida y las de los que la rodean. En todo momento podemos sentir la presión que recae sobre ella al estar entre dos mundos completamente distintos, y pese a que ella encaja casi a la perfección en ambos, parece que es imposible que los una. Esta historia es un espejo que nos muestra cómo una persona puede encontrarse entre dos mundos completamente distintos, que si bien lo lógico es que convivieran en paz y armonía, lo hacen con constantes enfrentamientos y abusos de poder por parte de la policía. Además,

  Geographic Farming – how to make REAL money Part 7 – The Best postcard marketing 1 – self selection This is the Get Sellers Calling You marketing podcast for real estate agents and I’m Beatty Carmichael. For simple to do, proven marketing strategies focused exclusively on finding sellers and getting more listings, visit our website at GetSellersCallingYou.com. And now, let’s begin our next session of Get Sellers Calling You.   Caroline: Hi, this is Caroline Springer and welcome to the next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of MasterGrabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Today we are going to be continuing on in our topic of how to make money in geographic farming. This is a series of calls that we’ve had on that. This is actually going to be our last one. We are going to wrap up and talk about postcard marketing. Beatty: We’ve covered all of the other topics. Let’s see, the topics we’ve covered, if I go from memory, we have talked about: How to select a farm and the process to make sure that your selection is dead-on accurate so you make the most money from it. We’ve talked about how to select the mailing list because there are lots of options and opportunities for the types of mailing lists you are looking for (it depends on what you are trying to do). We then talked about 10 different things you can do within a farm that are low cost but allow you to start touching it. We talked about one other thing but I forget what that was and then today we are going to talk about postcard marketing in that farm because that is generally the concept that most people think about when they think of geographic farming and it is a very effective approach to touching and persuading people to choose you. Caroline: Thank you for that. That was a good, little refresher. Just a reminder for those of you who are on our live call, we do have the lines muted and we will open for questions and answers at the end of the call. But yes, thank you Beatty for that refresher. I think this really has been a content rich series on the best ways to make money with geographic farming and I’m excited to continue on with postcard marketing that really works and kind of get into the nitty gritty of some of the differences. I know that maybe some of our listeners have tried different ways so I’m sure they are going to be interested to hear the differences and what you have seen be successful. Beatty: Yes, you know, it’s interesting, I remember when we first started doing geographic farming (this is going back to 2012 / early 2013) and I was inquiring to realtors who were thinking about using us and we were talking about the services we offer, I would always ask them, “Have you ever done geographic farming before?” And I would say probably half or two thirds of the people answered “Yes.” Then I would ask them, “Was it successful for you?” And how many of those people do you think answered yes? Caroline: Oh goodness. Maybe less than half? Beatty: Try maybe less than 10%. So your comment that maybe people have been out there and done postcard marketing before…. What we find is that most people have tried geographic farming and they failed. And they failed because geographic farming is all about process. It’s all about doing the right things, the right way consistently and most people pick a farm and mail a couple of postcards and they spend money and they don’t really have a strategy. They don’t really know what they are doing and, therefore, it fails. This is, I think, our sixth podcast call focused just on this one topic because there are so many opportunities to fail which means there are so many opportunities to succeed. And today, as we talk about the postcard, this is really where the rubber meets the road. The first thing? You’ve got to pick the right farm. Then, the second thing, you’ve got to touch it right. This call would be, I would think, number two in significance in terms of importance in making a geographic farm work. So this is going to be a fun call. Caroline: Well good. I am excited to hear and know I’ve learned a lot and I know our listeners have too. The questions that they have at the end of the call have been really good to hear as well. So just starting off with postcard marketing that works, I think it could be even beneficial, since there are some realtors who haven’t even tried geographic farming, do you want to explain the two difference types of postcards that people typically send? Beatty: Let me rephrase your question. It’s not two types of postcards that people typically send. Most people typically send neither of the two most important types of postcards. So we are going to talk about the two types of postcards that are the ones that you really ought to be sending and what most people have done in the past that just didn’t cut it. I’ve got to tell you. So let me back up and let me Paul Harvey the rest of the story. So that less than 10% of the agents I’ve spoken with when I ask them, “Was geographic farming profitable for you?” and they said “yes,” I always ask them, “What type of postcard marketing did you do?” And 100% of everyone who said that it was successful for them did the same type of postcard. And that is a Just Sold postcard. So if you got nothing else out of this call, if you just wanted to hang up right now, even though we are only a few minutes in, you could say, “I can send out Just Sold postcards and I’ll at least make it profitable.” What I’m going to talk about in these two types of postcards take the Just Sold postcard and leave it in the dust in terms of the results you can get. So you can do Just Sold postcards—most people don’t—but those who did consistently made money, but now we are going to take it leaps and bounds further down the road of how much money you can make from the same farm. The two types of cards I want to talk about today: one is called a direct response card. Internally, we call it our self-selection card. The other is what we call an inside reality card. Basically, the self-selection card that are direct response cards are designed to identify someone who is thinking about selling. Let me ask you a quick question, Caroline. If you were a real estate agent and you could drive down the road in a neighborhood that you are wanting to farm and you would know with relative accuracy which homes were actually going to go on the market in the next six to twelve months, do you think that would give you a leg up in being successful in that farm? Caroline: Absolutely. I think that would be every realtor’s dream. Beatty: Okay, so if you knew who it was, what would you do differently than what you would normally do marketing to that farm? Caroline: I would think those would be the only homes I would be sending cards to and knocking on the door and keeping my face in front of them all the time so that I could be sure that would choose me to list their home. Beatty: Gotcha. So you would up your game in how you touch them? You would touch them more consistently and, what I would like to suggest, more expensively. Your time is worth money. You probably give them more things that cost more money because you know that that is a hot target. That’s one idea. Let me ask you another question. Let’s assume for a moment that you are a really good real estate agent because most of the folks on the call probably at least feel that they are if not in fact that they really are at the top of their game. So let’s assume that you are a top-of-your-game real estate agent. You’ve been selling real estate now for 10 or 15 years. You are in the top 5% or 10% of all agents out there. Let’s assume for a moment that you are going to sell your home. If you were that agent—take the commission money aside; don’t worry about how much money you will make or save from your own commissions—but if you were going to sell your home and you are a top-of-the-game agent, would you choose yourself personally, or do you think you would choose another agent? Caroline: I would absolutely choose myself. Even like you said, commissions aside, I’d be confident that I could do it and that nobody could do it better than me. Beatty: There you go. Okay, so you would be a fool to choose anyone else based on what you know about yourself. So let me ask you a question. If all of those people in the farm were as confident about you and your ability as you are about you and your ability, would they choose anyone else besides you? Caroline: No. If everyone knew what a great agent I was and how hard I work and what a great realtor I am and my marketing and how tirelessly I would work to make sure their home was sold, if they knew that reality was the truth, they wouldn’t hire anybody but me. Beatty: Exactly. So that is inside reality. So now we just kind of defined: What is a direct response card? It identifies those people thinking about selling. What is an inside reality card? Its purpose is to get them to believe about you as you believe about you. Because once they believe about you, they would go nowhere else. So this is why I say these are the two most important cards because they allow you to suck listings out of that farm right up front and long-term start to claim most every listing that starts to come out once we can persuade them. So that’s why these are the two most important cards. Yes, you can start with Just Sold postcards, but if you focus on direct response to identify sellers, you focus on inside reality to persuade them, then at that point you’ve got a game changer that makes your farm really, really profitable. So that’s what I kind of want to go into on this call. And hopefully, we can wrap it all up on this one call. Otherwise, we will continue this call into next week if we get going too long. From there, which card would you like to talk about first? Caroline: Let’s talk about the direct response card. Beatty: Let’s talk about direct response. In marketing there is a concept known as self-selection. Okay. And self-selection is where you use marketing, you send it out to a crowd and you let the people in the crowd select themselves if they are applicable to what you are offering. Does the name self-selection make sense now? Caroline: It does. That was a clear explanation. Beatty: Self-selection is a direct response card that is focused on getting that prospect to select themselves as someone who is thinking about selling. So the question then is, how do you do it? Here is a real basic overview about marketing. There are four steps to marketing and direct response. You have interrupt, engage, educate and offer. Interrupt is a headline. Engage is typically a subhead. Educate is you explain what you are doing. The offer is you give them a chance or opportunity to go get whatever it is that you are talking about. So the way this works in doing this within a postcard environment is there are typically three types of offers. The most important part of all of this, once you get your farm identified, is your offer. Let me see if this makes sense. As a seller, you are thinking about selling your home. And I’m going to send you a postcard about planting beautiful flowers. Does that hold your attention as a seller? Does that cause you as a seller to respond any differently than someone who is not thinking about selling? Caroline: No. I might be interested personally, but not as a seller. Beatty: If I send you another postcard that is talking about how to determine what your home would actually sell for in today’s market, as a seller, does that grab more of your attention than it would if you were not thinking about selling? Caroline: Oh, absolutely. I would very much be interested to know what the value would be. Beatty: So now we have just established what an offer is. An offer is whatever I’m offering you to try to get you to respond. If I offer how to plant pretty flowers, it doesn’t do anything in separating you in self-selection, self-selecting you from everyone else. So what I want to do is take my offer and I want to narrow it down to something that a seller is interested in. Now what do you think a seller is most interested in? What type of offer do you think they are most interested in knowing? Caroline: I think they would be most interested in knowing the value of their home and how much it would sell for or maybe how much the homes around them are selling for. Anything that would guarantee them more money for their home or anything along those lines. I think they would definitely be interested in that. Beatty: Yes, so survey says, “You are pretty close.” That is not the top thing they are interested in but that is definitely on the top of the list. Now the reason I say that is because I have to put this out there. Every time I talk with agents, especially these high-producing agents who have been in the business for years and do a lot of volume. When I ask them, “What does a seller want to know” they’ll respond, “The only thing they want to know is ‘How much is my home worth and how fast can you sell it?’” And I beg to differ. This is where most agents are a little myopic. They get tunnel focused. When you start to look at this from a different perspective, you start to understand something different. Let me suggest a couple of things. Are you more interested in knowing what your home is worth or are you more interested in picking an agent who can get you the most money for your home?” Caroline: Oh definitely in an agent who can get the most money for my home because maybe they could get even more than what the market says it is worth. Beatty: Right. Or, just the opposite, you may pick an agent that gets you less than the market says your home is worth. This is just a simple example that things are not always what they seem to be. You’ve got dig deeper and understand what is it about that seller that really will toot their horn? Just as it relates to self-selection cards and the direct response, “How do you identify sellers,” we’ve done over 21 split A/B marketing tests trying to understand how you can improve that game. I wish we could go into it. We’ve found things that will consistently would get 4X and 5X and 8X higher response rates. Fonts, font colors, headlines, what the card looks like and all kinds of things. When you start to add it all together, then what you have is something that can produce a lot of results. Let’s then reel this back in and I want to talk in terms of three different offers that we have found to be most effective. Let’s talk about ‘How much is your home worth?’ We’ll call it the ‘home valuation’ approach because that is typically what most agents have access to; they have home valuation websites and there are some great companies out there that will mail postcards that say, “Find out what your home is worth. Go to this website.” It’s a great way to do it. They are very effective. And I don’t want anything to come out in this dialogue to make it sounds as if I’m poo pooing that idea because it is very effective. But here is the challenge that we have found. In certain areas, based on the culture of the community you are targeting, we have found where that home valuation approach, “Hey find out what your home is worth, go to this website or call this number” doesn’t generate quality leads. Let me ask you. Are you and your husband thinking about selling your home in the next year? Caroline: No, we are not. We love our house and are planning on staying for a while. Beatty: Okay, great. Would you like to know what your house is worth right now as your most valuable investment that the two of you own? Caroline: Yes, I would like to know. We’ve done some additions and some renovations and I would be interested to know that. You are right, I’m not interested in selling, so I would be a waste for a realtor. Beatty: So you would respond to finding out what your home is worth because you have interest, but you would be a false lead. So this offer, the home valuation, gives what is called a false positive lead. Some are false and some are positive. You have start to filter through them a little bit more. That doesn’t mean it’s bad. It just means you have to be aware. Real quickly. You’ve got to track your responses. If you are doing direct response to apply the self-selection approach, you’ve got to be able to track who is responding. The great thing that the home valuation websites do is that they make it really easy. You don’t have to have any special technology. You just buy your home valuation website service and put your own domain on it. Mine might be YourHomeValuesWithBeattyCarmichael.com. Whatever yours is: vestaviahomevalues.com. Anything like that. It’s just a simple domain. Then people go there and they enter their address. So if I mailed you a postcard, you would enter your address and it would give you generally what your home might be worth. When you enter your address now I know which address was entered. So that tells me that you might have interest in selling, but it’s still a false positive lead. Then as I go deeper into that home valuation website, I can make adjustments. I can say, no I have four bedrooms instead of three. We have three bathrooms instead of one. So you start to make adjustments on improvements you have done and then it starts to update your valuation. Then there is finally a place where you can request a professional competitive market analysis. What is happening in this home valuation website is that it’s taking you into a funnel. The further you go into it, the more likely you are to be thinking about selling. Are you following the logic process on that? Caroline: Yes, I am with you. Beatty: Okay, so that is why the home valuation website can really be a great, simple approach because it brings people into it and it can be real effective. But it’s not the only approach. In our testing, we have found one approach that actually beats everything else hands down. Would you like to guess what that offer is that wins far greater than the home valuation website? Caroline: Can I guess since I know? Beatty: Well, let’s see, do you know? You can guess and if you know, let’s test your internal knowledge of our products. Go ahead. Caroline: I know that with our customers that our most popular and most successful card is a card sending out to potential sellers that you have clients who are ready to purchase a home in a certain amount of time. We call it the ‘I have a client’ card. That would appeal to someone who is actually looking versus me who is interested in the valuation of my home but not interested in having a buyer come knock on my door. Beatty: That’s right. It’s what we call the ‘I have a client’ approach. As we talked on some of the previous podcasts, the whole idea came from a friend of mine. He was telling me that he had a client who wanted to buy on this one street, but he couldn’t find a house that he liked. When you are looking at just one street, you don’t have high turnover rate either because there aren’t that many homes there. So this agent, his name is Rob, he got creative and he wrote a letter. “Dear Homeowner, my name is Rob. I’m a real estate agent with such and such brokerage. I have a client wanting to live on your street and he has been looking for a year or two and I’m trying to help him find a house. If you have interest in selling your house, would you please call me immediately?” It’s just a straight-forward approach. But what it did is it got him a listing. It wasn’t the house that the buyer wanted, but it got him a listing because he shook the bushes and the low-hanging fruit fell out. You can take the same approach with a postcard. We’ve tested a lot of copy and we have copy that we’ve copyrighted. The general idea is that you can send out a postcard that says, “I work with all kinds of buyers and many of them are looking in your area (call the area by name – say they are looking in the Garden Heights community, if that is the neighborhood) and they haven’t found a home yet. I’m trying to help them. If you are thinking about selling, would you contact me immediately because I may be able to get your home sold immediately.” Now you have something that will shake the bushes. It causes those people who are low-hanging fruit to then respond. Since they call you, you now know who they are. You can take that concept, Caroline, and you can expand it. Watch this. Let me test your knowledge on this. When a homeowner is thinking about selling, when are they most likely to call a realtor? When they are six months away from selling and they are just pondering it or when they are ready to put their home on the marketing and actually get it sold? When are they more likely to contact a realtor? Caroline: Well, I’ve heard before the six months. I’ve heard that one before. I could be wrong but that’s what I’m going to go with. I could be wrong. Beatty: Survey says, no, you missed it. Here is what happens. Have you ever gone into a store and the sales rep comes up and says, “Hi. May I help you” and you say, “No thank you, I’m just looking.” Have you ever had that happen? Caroline: Yes, that happens all the time. Beatty: Are you actually in the store looking for something specific? Sometimes? Caroline: Sometimes, yes. Beatty: Have you ever just given that knee-jerk response, “No thank you, I’m just looking.” They walk away and then you chase them down and say, “No, wait, hold on, I’m looking for this item, where can I find it?” Have you ever done that? Caroline: Yes, I have. Beatty: Here is what happens. It’s human nature. We have a knee-jerk response that says, “I don’t want to engage a sales rep because I don’t want to be bothered” even if you have interest, you say, “No thanks.” What we find typically, when someone contacts an agent saying, “I’m thinking about selling my home,” that agent usually gets a signed listing agreement within seven days of that initial phone call. What does that tell you? Does that tell you that that homeowner just decided today, “Hey, I was just thinking about selling, let’s call an agent” and within seven days they have a listing agreement? Or do you think that homeowner has been planning to sell for months and they are now finally getting around to calling the agent because they are finally ready to do something about it? Caroline: Maybe that is the stat that I’ve heard. They’ve been planning and thinking about it for six months but then they don’t call until it is time to list. Beatty: That is exactly right. What happens then when you use the ‘I have a client’ approach and you say, “Call me,” you are only going to get those people who have been thinking about it and are now ready to go on the market. But, you miss everyone else, which is a greater number of potential listings, those people who are thinking about selling six or twelve months down the road. The way that you can then capture, not only the low-hanging fruit—those thinking about those going right now and those thinking about possibly selling in six or twelve months—is by changing the, what we call, the call to action. Rather than “Call me,” what I would put on that to keep it real simple is use a call-capture number. This is a toll-free voicemail number that captures the caller ID. You can simply put on the postcard, “Call this number and hear specifically what my buyers are looking for and then if it matches your home, contact me as soon as you are ready to actually sell.” So now, if that were the approach, do you think that these people who were thinking six or twelve months out would likely call that phone number to see what type of homes his buyers are looking for? Caroline: Absolutely. If it’s a sure thing to call and find people who are looking, I think they definitely would. Beatty: Right. As long as it’s free and as long as I don’t engage a sales rep, I’m more likely to respond. This is what we have found over the years in generating leads. What we are technically doing here is generating seller leads within a geographic farm. You can use a call capture number, put a recording on it, and now you get the caller ID of everyone who is responding. Now you know who is likely thinking about selling because they actually took the effort to respond to see. We do it a little bit differently. Ours is a little bit more accurate, but it accomplishes the same thing. When we send out those types of postcards, we have some special technology we program into our system and we actually send them to a website. That technology that we program will pinpoint with laser accuracy the exact address that they are responding from. Now we can send out postcards that say, “Hey, just go to this website to find out what my buyers are looking for.” As soon as they go there, we now know which address is looking and we notify the agent. The key is if you make the identification a stealthy process, where they don’t know that you will know who they are, you are going to get a lot more people freely responding because they don’t want to engage a sales rep right now. That is the second type of self-selection card you can do using the offer of ‘I have a client.’ Now we have one more. We are almost out of time but let’s go ahead and rap this one up and then we will finish this section. There is one other thing that we have found. Ponder for a moment, Caroline. Let’s say that you and Wes were thinking about putting your home on the market. If you were going to put it on the market in three months, what are some of those things that you might be thinking about in terms of getting it on the market? Tell me the process. If you were going to put your home on the market, what are the things that you are going to do to prepare your home? Caroline: We would evaluate our budget. What can we spend? Maybe we would do some quick little fixes here or there. Maybe we would do is a little renovation that wouldn’t cost too much but would maybe give us a lot more money when we sold the house. We would probably be thinking about that or even switching out fixtures. I know hotspots are bathrooms and kitchens, so anything in there that might make it more appealing, we would do small things like that. Beatty: Okay, perfect. So now, would it be helpful if I’m the realtor for me to tell you specifically the things in your house that you want to invest money in that would get you back a greater sales price in a short amount of time or would you prefer just to guess on your own? Caroline: I would definitely love to know from a professional, because that is what they do all the time. I would love that. Beatty: Then, as a professional, if I were to offer you—someone who is thinking about selling—a list of maybe the top five things that you ought to be doing around your home to get it prepared to go on the market, would that hold interest? Caroline: Absolutely. That is something that I would definitely click on. Beatty: Okay. Now, if you were not thinking about selling your home, would that hold interest? Caroline: No, I don’t think so. Maybe, but definitely not as much so as if I was. Beatty: Okay, great. Now we have another self-selection process. That is giving information to the seller on things they can do to make sure their home is ready to sell for the most amount of money in the shortest amount of time. The way you do this is make a list. As a realtor, if you were to advise a client who wanted to put their home on the market in three months, what are the things they should be focused on right now? Make a list of what those things are and then figure out the most important things: The 20% of things that will produce 80% of the results. From there, call it the ‘Top 7’ or the ‘Top 3’ or the ‘Top 5,’ whatever the top number of x number of things to do to get the most money out of your home when you get it on the market. Now you have this free report. What you can do is mail out a postcard: “If you are thinking about selling and you want to get the most money out of your house, I put together a list of the top 5 things that are most valuable to generate the quickest sale with the highest sales price. Get it now. You can go to my website.” They go to your website and maybe they have a form fill that they fill out so you can identify them. Or “Call this toll-free number to request the form.” They call your call-capture number. You put a message on that that says, “Leave your name and address or email address and I’ll mail it to you.” Or, if you do what we do, “Go to this website.” When they go to the website, our technology pinpoint accurately identifies who they are. Some way, you give them a call to action that then leads them to where they request that information. When they go to that call to action, then you identify them. That’s three ways that you use the direct response approach to identify sellers: What’s your home worth? I have a client and a free report. If you do that in a geographic farm, then what will happen (and we’ll talk about this next week) is, if you have the right culture within a farm already, then you will start identifying sellers right off the bat. We’ve had so many clients that when they just started with that approach in a geographic farm, they would get two or three or four listings within the first month or two—I mean Boom Boom Boom Boom—because those are compelling offers. Then, as you nurture the farm longer, you start to pick up more. The biggest thing in geographic farming that kills most people is that they run out of money before they can successfully complete farming it. This approach, using self-selection, gets you cash right up front because you can start turning in transactions and then it pays for the farm. That is one way that you start making a lot of money. Let’s do the remaining part of this next week and we’ll talk about inside reality cards then. Does that work with you? Caroline: Yes, that works great. This is really good and informational. Now we have a whole different card to talk about. We can talk about that next week. We are out of time. Beatty, thank you so much for your expertise and your time in sharing today. I do think this was a really great call and I’m excited to continue on next week. Before we close out the call do you have anything else that you would like to share? Beatty: I actually do. Obviously. There are a lot of things that you can do. I love what a friend of mine said. He’s a top realtor and one of his slides, when he talks to a seller—because you know sellers in a hot market are thinking ‘should I sell the home myself or should I hire a realtor’—one of his slides says, “If you think hiring a professional is expensive, try hiring an amateur.” This kind of hits the nail on the head because there is so much that goes on. A story that comes to mind is there is this old, very successful businessman. His young, hotshot employee has been with him a few years comes to him and says, “Boss, I’ve got good news and bad news.” He says, “Start with the bad news.” “Okay, what’s the good news?” “I’m starting my own business. I’m going to do the same thing that you’ve done and I’m going to be a competitor against you.” And the old businessman just sort of leaned back in his chair, looked the young buck in the eyes and said, “Well, that’s fine, but just remember two things.” He said, “What’s that?” “I taught you everything you know, but I didn’t teach you everything I know.” There is a lot of content here and this is just scratching the surface. So if it’s overwhelming and you want help then let me encourage you to go to our website: AgentDominator.net. This is where we do all of this stuff for you. You can hire us. You pay us a fee. We provide the professional expertise and the other thing that we do, which is really cool, is that we actually guarantee your sells or we give all of your money back. So there is really no financial risk, it is just a matter of outsourcing and letting us do what we do better and then you do what you do. If you have an interest in that, then it’s AgentDominator.net. Back to you, Caroline. Caroline: What we are going to do is wrap up the call. For those of you who are on with us on the live call, if you have questions that you would like to ask just hold on. As soon as we wrap up, we’ll do a short question and answer time with Beatty. That’s all we have for today. Thank you again and thanks Beatty for sharing. Beatty: Thanks and you have a great day. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please tell others about. Also, be sure to get our step-by-step training on how to double sales and referrals from past clients and sphere of influence. It’s absolutely the easiest way to grow your business fast and it’s completely free. You’ll find it on our website at GetSellersCallingYou.com. Thanks for listening.   P023  

    Transcript Beatty: This is the Get Sellers Calling You marketing podcast for real estate agents and I’m Beatty Carmichael.  For simple to do, proven marketing strategies focused exclusively on finding sellers and getting more listings, visit our website at GetSellersCallingYou.com.  Now, let’s begin our next session of Get Sellers Calling You. Caroline: Hi everyone.  This is Caroline Springer and welcome to the next sessions of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael.  Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and he’s one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field.  Today, we are going to continue with our topic of geographic farming.  Last week we were talking about the 10 low cost ways to touch your geographic farm and we’re going to continue on with that today.  Just a reminder for those of you that are on our live call, we have the lines muted, but will open up for questions and answers with Beatty at the end of the call.  So, welcome, Beatty. Beatty: Well, thank you.  It’s good to be back. Caroline: I’m very excited and interested to continue on, I know this has been a lot of calls in our series on geographic farming has been really informational.  I know I learned a lot and I’m sure that our listeners feel the same way.  Last week we started on 10 low cost ways to touch the farm which I know is something that you’re really passionate about and have a lot of advice and success stories on.  I’m very interested to hear the rest of your suggestions for 10 low cost ways. Beatty: Well good.  I’m kind of excited to share some of them and we talked on 3 of them last week, and so we’ve got about 7 more to go or possibly 8, depending on if I add any new ones that I think about as we go along.  The great thing about all this is that there’s just so many ways to touch your farm successfully that it almost doesn’t matter what you do.  I say almost.  Sometimes it actually does, but in general when you’re doing geographic farming, there’s really 3 things that you do if you want to get listings there.  There may be more than 3 ways, so let me just back up and say, if you are to start geographic farming, what you do to get the most results out of it.  One of the things you want to do, we haven’t talked about this at all, so this is kind of a bonus thing.  Maybe we’ll do a call more specifically around this idea.  If you’re going to do a geographic farm, you ought to be an expert in that locality.  That subdivision, that neighborhood, whatever it is.  If you are not out there actually previewing all of the sales coming on the market, all the listings that are on the market, I mean, and walking through and understanding what each home has, what it’s priced, what you like about it, what you don’t, so you can talk knowledgably about it, then you’re really not an expert in that area.  I want to share a story.  One of our clients, we started working with him in a geographic farm.  He’d just started in this farm.  Never marketed there before.  One of the things that he did, is he did these best practices.  One of those best practices is for every listing that was on the market, he went and visited.  Where he was, you actually contact the homeowner and come out and take a look.  In his environment it was okay.  It was listed by another agent, but he could contact the homeowner and say, hey, I just want to come out and look at your home.  They would always ask why.  He would say because I focus here.  I know every home on the market.  I know what’s going on and I make it a practice to walk through every home.  That way as I have buyers, I can tell them exactly what’s on the market.  I can tell them what’s best for them based on what they want.  When I have a listing, I know exactly what it should be priced at and that’s how I do my business.  They’re always impressed.  He would walk through the home and he would leave a notecard with suggestions.  What he liked.  What he didn’t like.  Things that he would suggest that they do to improve the salability of their home.  Here’s what’s really cool.  He goes out and does that simply to know what’s on the market.  At the same time, we’re mailing postcards into that community and he starts getting listings right off the bat from expireds that didn’t sell.  They were so impressed with him that they gave him the listing and he sold it.  One of the things that you can do, and again, all we’re talking about is touching them.  Making sure you go out and you meet the people.  Make sure that they see you all the time.  Make sure that they trust you.  If you are actually going through and looking at the homes and leaving a little note about things they could do to improve the salability of their home, you know, hey, I think you ought to take out the gold fixtures and put in iron fixtures, anything like that, then that makes you more of the expert.  They start to trust you and you might actually pick up some expired sales along the way.  That’s kind of a free bonus.  But let’s get back to touches in general.  These low cost thing that you can do.  Last week, I think, Caroline, we talked about doing Facebook marketing, doing door knocking, and doing what I call an ice cream give away or a cupcake give away down at the park.  Let’s talk about something else we can do.  We want to add as much value into someone’s life as possible.  One thing you can do is you can give away 2 for 1 coupons.  You can add this into the mix with what you do with door knocking.  You could add this into the mix when you do a cupcake give away.  You could add this into the mix simply by hiring some teenagers to go out and place this on every door in the neighborhood.  The idea is this, if you will get these coupon books.  Caroline, have you and Wes ever gotten these coupon books?  You pay like $15 or $20 and it’s a great big book.  You go through it and you’ve got all these restaurants and other retail places, and they’re 2 for 1 or half off or things like that.  Have you ever gotten one of those coupon books? Caroline: I have and since our son was born, I feel like I’ve definitely frequented it a lot more. Beatty: I’ll bet. Caroline: Having a baby now, having to cut costs, I’ve definitely looked at those recently. Beatty: Let me give you a little secret.  Watch this.  Did you know that every one of those retail stores and restaurants pay money so they could put their coupon in that book.  Did you know that? Caroline: I figured that just because it is free advertising.  There were definitely a few places that we frequented that we didn’t beforehand.  We probably wouldn’t without the coupon.  I figured that, but that’s my confirmation. Beatty: They pay to be in there.  Now, you, as an individual can tap into that.  Let’s say that you wanted to target Garden Heights community, where ever that neighborhood might be.  You go through that coupon book and you say, what’s some nice restaurants near here?  You go, oh, here’s a nice restaurant, let’s call it ABC Café and in that coupon book, they have a 2 for 1 coupon.  Buy one entrée get another one free.  Then, what you can do is you can contact ABC Café and say, hey, I’m a real estate agent.  I’m marketing into Garden Heights neighborhood which is right in the area you serve and I would like to promote your restaurant.  I see you’ve got these 2 for 1 coupons in this booklet.  Will you give me some 2 for 1 coupons or will you give me the ability to create a 2 for 1 coupon with your permission and let me get it out to every homeowner in Garden Heights?  What do you think that restaurant would do?  Do you think they would say yes? Caroline: Absolutely.  It’s free advertising for them. Beatty: That’s right.  It’s totally free.  They don’t even have to pay for it this time.  Now, you can add great value to those homeowners that comes from you by saying, hey, I worked out a special deal and I would like to give you a benefit.  ABC Café will give you 1 entrée for any entrée that you purchase as long as you present them this coupon that shows my name and information.  You have your coupon with your name and photo and stuff and we will call this The Caroline Springer Special.  People go, wow, this is really great.  Thank you, Caroline.  You’ve now added a value to them.  You even put in that little note, whether it’s a door hanger or a letter that you send out or put it on a postcard, say, stick this on your refrigerator until you are ready to use it.  What that does is that it keeps your value, your face, your name, your brand always in front of them, facing them with this great benefit that they get simply because you were there.  Isn’t that a cool way of doing it?  Isn’t that a cool touch? Caroline: I think that’s a great idea.  I know that’s something that myself, as a homeowner, would appreciate and I would definitely remember because I’ve never experienced or had anybody do that for me before.  That’s something that would make a realtor stand out, I think.    Beatty: It definitely would.  You used the perfect term.  We touched on this on one of our calls a while back on sphere of influence, but the question is, when you do a touch, what type of touch is most important?  In other words, are all touches the same or do some touches have greater value?  What this touch does, you said, it’s something of value.  Something that you appreciate and when you can do a touch that your recipient appreciates, what that means is you go up in those little brownie points in their minds.  Not all touches are the same. Just because you do a touch and it shows your name in front of them, that’s great, but if you can do a touch that keeps your name in front of them with appreciation, you get even more bang for the buck. This is something you can do and it’s real easy, real low cost and especially if you just want to get out to the whole neighborhood.  You hire a couple of teenagers and say, I’m going to pay you X number of dollars to get this out to everyone in the neighborhood.  So they hop on their bikes or they hop in their car and they get it out for you because for them, it’s great money.  For you, it’s almost nothing. That’s a low cost touch.  That’s number 4 that we talked about.  Number 5 touch is what I call a BBQ in the park social.  This is similar to what we touched on last week where you have a giveaway.  Like a cupcake or ice cream give away and you do it down at the park.  This is going to be similar to that except it’s more of a BYOB, bring your own beef, okay, beef or hotdogs or whatever and we’re just going to go grill out.  You coordinate a social in the park where everyone just grills out.  They come out for Saturday lunch or Saturday early dinner.  If you want, you could actually put hotdogs and burgers on the grill and give them away.  Do another social event especially if the area you’re targeting has some sort of a park or common area that people can go to.  That would be Number 5.  Similar to that, but different, sometimes you have a neighborhood that doesn’t really have a common area for everyone to congregate in.  Like one of the areas we lived in, we had like 350 homes but yet there were no common areas.  It was just residential, beautifully manicured lawns and everything else.  It was a subdivision, so you had 2 entrances and then all of the inside streets.  What we would do, is we would take a side street that didn’t have a lot of traffic and we would block it off on both ends and we would have a street social.  If you don’t have a common space, create one out of a low traffic road and block it off.  Obviously, you will need to get permission from the police or someplace and announce it throughout the neighborhood.  Put up flyers.  Put up street signs.  Say, hey, we’re doing a band and hotdog social on this street at this time.  Just coordinate something.  Bring in a DJ, bring in a band.  You can get these DJ’s that just play the music and they bring their own speakers and stuff and it doesn’t cost much money.  Bring something for the kids.  Maybe one of those fun photo booths that people can hop in and take funny photos or anything like that.  Make another big deal because here’s what happens.  The more you can coordinate getting the neighbors together, the more it becomes a fun activity that they really appreciate.  The more they appreciate it and you are in the middle of all of it, then the more they appreciate you.  Back to what you’re talking about, Caroline, with the 2 for 1 coupon, it’s something you would appreciate.  It’s the same thing with all these other little touches.   If you can make them appreciate it, then it raises the value that you have in their eyes.  Make sense? Caroline: Absolutely.  I was just thinking how much I wish that somebody would do that for my neighborhood. Beatty: All right, real estate agents.  Listen up.  We will give your address so that those in your area will start to create that social.  I’m teasing.  Wouldn’t that be fun?   You bring your kids.  Let’s take this a step further.  Coordinate these activities.  You have a social on the street.  You have Easter, a big Easter egg hunt over at someone’s house.  For Fourth of July, coordinate the fire truck to come over and bring a bunch of streamers and maybe bring the ice cream truck again.  Have the fire truck and turn on the sirens and what happens is all of the kids in the neighborhood congregate there.  All of the moms come and congregate and a lot of the dads and it’s a perfect opportunity to keep your name in front of them with value and then the other thing that starts to happen when you do this is you become known as the local real estate expert because it’s you that’s coordinating everything.  If there’s not a phone directory in that neighborhood.  Make one.  Go door to door say, hey, I’m putting together a phone directory for everyone.  I think it would be a great idea so you know who your neighbors are.  You know their kids, you know their phone number, their email address and make the community a real community.  You coordinate a director and it will cost you probably a couple of dollars per home, but that directory is carrying your brand.  It stay with them all the time.  They’re always using it.  These are things that the agent that dominated our community, she did all of these things and it was amazing.  She had almost every listing that came on the market in that community because she was always there.  These aren’t tough things to do.  They’re just things that you have to plan and execute on.  Pretty cool idea, isn’t it? Caroline: I love these things. I think there all low cost and really easy too and fun.  It’s not like this is something that anybody would not enjoy this.  I think this is a great idea.  I love all this. Beatty: Cool.  Because it’s fun, most real estate agents are on this profile, that’s the I’s which are the influencers.  On the other profile, they’re called sanguine.  They are people that just like to have fun.  They like to be with people.  These are things that you can really drive on and enjoy the process of being an agent.  It’s really cool.   That’s actually a bonus.  That would be Number 7 if we were counting that one.  Let’s talk about another one I call the Athletic Schedule.  Here in the South, football, SEC football is king.  You go up north a little bit, in to probably the Kentucky area and basketball probably becomes king.  You go a little bit farther north and hockey becomes king.  You go somewhere else and maybe it’s the pro teams.  Where ever you are, in most cases, there’s at least one or two athletic events that are like the big deal.  We’ve all talked about this, but I want to talk about the importance of it.  That’s the athletic calendar that you stick on the refrigerator.  First off, Caroline, do you and Wes, by chance, do you ever stick one of those athletic calendars on your refrigerator? Caroline: We don’t, but we probably aren’t a typical family.  My husband watches a lot more basketball than most.  I do know that we live in the South and that’s a big, big thing so I know lots of people that would. Beatty: Yeah, and lots of people definitely do.  I was talking to a realtor and that she puts out these athletic schedules, in this case, it’s the SEC football schedule.  She says that she gets more business, that’s her Number 1 marketing method in terms of return on investment.  Here’s what happens.  You’ll spend a couple of dollars dropping it in the mail and getting it to that homeowner, printing, mailing and all that stuff, a couple of dollars, but for that couple of dollars it stays on that refrigerator 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all season long.  You can’t put a price tag on that little $2 investment to keep you always in front of someone.  That one thing by itself isn’t going to totally take your business to a new level, but when you put that in the mix with everything else, what’s happening is you’re always in front of them and these are low cost things that you can do.  It’s not much money, but you’re always in front of them and because you’re always in front of them, they always remember you.  Number 1 reason an agent gets a phone call from a homeowner is simply because that homeowner remembered to call them.  If you can stay in front of them so that they remember you, you’ve got the game won.  That’s actually 8 if you add in the bonus thing I just gave you.  This will be Number 9, which is the refrigerator magnet clip.  Let me explain this because I found this really fascinating.  I went to the NAR convention a few years ago.  One of the large mortgage companies were giving away magnet clips that you put on the refrigerator.  Let me ask you, Caroline, is your refrigerator steel where you can put magnets on it or is it stainless steel where magnets don’t hold? Caroline: The front is stainless steel, but the sides are steel.  I can put magnets on the side. Beatty: Great, and do you put magnets on the side? Caroline: I do. Beatty: Okay, I’ll be you do.  Stainless brings in a little bit of a different challenge, but we’ll talk about that.  For the majority of refrigerators out there that most people have, they’re made out of just the regular metal that the magnet will hold to.  What these things are that we picked up are refrigerator magnet clips.  Think about this.  I know in our house, this was always a challenge especially with kids.  Trying to find another magnet to put that other piece of paper on to hang it on the refrigerator.  Do you know what I mean, Caroline? Caroline: Yes, I do. Beatty: What do you do?  You’ve got these little flimsy magnets and you’ve got 2 or 3 pieces of paper stuck underneath them.  They fall off and then you’ve got another list that you try to put up there and it slides out.  Everything falls off because the magnets are typically pretty weak.  What these magnet clips are, is that they will hold really tightly to the refrigerator but now they’ve got like an alligator clip.  You can put pieces of paper there.  You can put several sheets of paper if you want.  You can put an entire notepad.  It will hold it there and it’s not going to drop it.  What I found happened with us is for 3 years, these were my wife’s favorite things on the refrigerator because they held.  They held anything and it didn’t drop it and allowed her to organize all of things on the refrigerator with these.  Imagine now you get those refrigerator magnet clips and you get them branded with your name, photo and phone number on it.  You spend the money one time and year over year it stays on the refrigerator because it adds value.  That’s the key with all of these.  If the touch adds value, then it’s going to drive business to you.  So, that would be Number 9, I think if my list is correct.  Fantastic.  We’re going to be able to get through this entire list on this call and then we’ll be able to move into our next session on this on next week’s call.  I have 3 more things.  They’re all pretty quick.  One is a cool idea.  I think it has its place, but you can take this idea and make it work in almost any place.  I picked up this one from one of the real estate coaches and it’s a branded ice cream scoop.  This coach was sharing how popular it was.  They did it for a real estate agent that sold lake property.  They would come to buy a vacation home at the lake, they would come down, you know at the lake you’re always down there on the Fourth of July, you’re always down there on Memorial Day.  You’re always out and you’re having crowds of people and you’re having party food of which ice cream is part of it.  She created a branded ice cream scoop for her agent who is over there and people loved it.  They held onto it year over year because it was a good scoop but every time they’re scooping out ice cream, they’re seeing that agent’s information.  Maybe it’s an ice cream scoop for you.  Maybe it’s something else that you put in the kitchen.  Maybe it’s a great cutting board.  Maybe it’s a great knife holder.  Maybe it’s anything like that.  Where you can make it really nice and not look too commercially so where that homeowner is going to love it and use it and when they love and use it, you’re always there.  Does that make sense?  If you were to think off the top of your head, Caroline, what things in your kitchen do you think would be low cost that someone could brand and if they gave you something for your kitchen you’d probably hold onto it?  Any ideas? Caroline: I was just trying to think because I don’t know the cost of some of those things, but I’m sure these days, especially if you’re mass ordering, you could get pretty low cost.  Maybe like a pizza cutter, or an ice cream scoop or a knife or a lemon zester.  Just something that people use frequently but not to where they might have their favorite knife.  This would be something that they would still keep.  They wouldn’t just toss it because they already have one they love. Beatty: Right. Caroline: I think that would be a good idea.  Maybe if you cook or your wife cooks or husband cooks, whoever, just ask them what’s something quick and easy that you think could be a good idea that people use frequently, but wouldn’t mind having a second one.  Those are my first thoughts. Beatty: I think all of those are great ideas.  The whole idea is think of what you can do and you can find these things online all over the place that are inexpensive, that you can buy a bunch in volume, get branded to you.  Whether you hand them out en mass or you hand them out periodically as you’re door knocking or anything like that, it’s another touch that adds value.  The last 2 things and then we’ll be able to wrap this up.  By the way, I don’t know if you heard all the crickets in the background.  I was outside on our deck.  I just came back inside because the noise actually got kind of deafening.  It’s kind of fun but deafening, nonetheless.  These are more things you do within the community.  You will recognize that a lot of these low cost things to touch your farm are going to be community things where you’re part of the community and people recognize you as being part of that community.  The Number 10 or 11 or 12 because we added a couple along the way that wasn’t on my list, would be a neighborhood garage sale.  This is something where you promote it.  Find a location or 2 houses next to each other or maybe where their driveways are connected and say, let’s do a garage sale.  Let’s make it a party.  Come over.  We’re going to have a garage sale.  We’re going to invite folks.  Now, you’re helping people get rid of the junk in their house.  You might even say, hey, if you’re thinking about selling your home, this is a perfect time to get rid of a lot of clutter that you need to get rid of so the home is going to show well.  This might mean that you schedule the garage sale at the beginning of the listing season, before people actually get their homes on the market.  Schedule it as an easy way for people to clean out their home and get it ready for going on the market.  As people come and want to participate in the garage sale, just ask them, hey, are you wanting to get rid of stuff or are you guys thinking about putting your home on the market?  You can inquire at that point and find out what’s going on and pick up some extra listings fairly easily.  The final one is similar, but do something that shows your compassion, like maybe a clothes drive for homeless people.  Right now, homelessness is increasing dramatically and it’s becoming more and more of an issue in a lot of communities.  Why not do something compassionate and put out a clothing drive.  Just say, hey, we’re going to do a clothing drive.  Here’s all you need to do.  If you want to participate in it, then simply, maybe give them a yellow flag or yellow sticker that they stick on their front door, put the clothes in a bag and we’ll come by and pick them up.  They’ll be tax deductible because they’re all going to be picked up by, let’s call it The Salvation Army, or anything like that.  You’re coordinating this special drive specifically for the homeless, it becomes a tax deduction.  It becomes another touch that you can maybe hire a bunch of teenagers to go out and put door hangers and stuff in a community.  It’s all branded to you.  You’re involved with it.  If you’ve done the Facebook community page that we talked about, you’re promoting it on that.  Now, what they see is they see you as a compassionate leader within the community, really helping people out and people love to do business with those that they feel they can really trust and that really has their heart in the right place.  Those are the different things that you can do, low cost ways, to touch your farm.  Isn’t it cool? Caroline: I love all of those ideas.  I’m not a realtor and I kind of want to just go do some of those because they sound just like good ideas like a neighborhood garage sale and a clothes drive for the homeless and a big get together.  I love them all.  It’s definitely not something common.  It’s not something people run into every day and they will definitely remember and tuck that realtors name away after they’ve participated in something like that.  Those are great ideas.  I think we are about out of time.  I’m glad we made it through those.  We made it through our 10 plus low cost ways to touch a geographic farm.  We’re about out of time and need to wrap up.  Beatty, thank you so much for your time and expertise.  I think this really was a great call.  I know I already feel all warm and fuzzy thinking about all of these ideas so I’m sure our listeners do to.  Before we close out the call, do you have anything else you’d like to share, Beatty? Beatty: Well, of course, I like to put an unabashed plug for what we do which is AgentDominator.net.  If you want help building your business and doing geographic farming, targeting your personal list and we actually guarantee your sales or we refund your money, then check us out over at AgentDominator.net and we’d love to talk with you.   Caroline: Thank you Beatty, again.  For those of you that are on the live call, if you have questions that you’d like to ask Beatty, just hold on and as soon as we wrap up our recording, we’ll go into a short question and answers time.  That’s all we have for today.  Thank again and thank you, Beatty, for sharing. Beatty: Well, thank you, Caroline.  Have a great day.   P021

The debut novel from Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give , takes its title from an extemporaneous monologue delivered by rap icon Tupac Shakur. In it, he expands his interpretation of gangsta rap’s main trope: the criminal and revolutionary identity he calls ‘thug life’. As he sees it, thug life is a response to the inherent racism and classism of American politics and culture. The novel explores this concept over the course of the plot, which centers on a police shooting witnessed by the protagonist, a young black woman named Starr. The book most resembles the events in Ferguson, Missouri, after the killing of Michael Brown, but the book’s city, Garden Heights, is fictional-- which is to say, this resembles what happens everywhere so much so that we don’t need to imagine a specific city at all. The novel avoids becoming a polemic by situating the bulk of the conflict and driving action in Starr’s interior experience. The story is really about how this particular young woman navigates the

Today we are joined by our bookstagram friends, Anna & Courtney, for a Book vs Movie breakdown of The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. (Transcript)     In today’s episode…   In The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, sixteen-year-old Starr witnesses the murder of her unarmed friend, Khalil, at the hands of a white police officer. In the aftermath, she must balance the expectations of her Black neighborhood, Garden Heights, with her predominantly white private school, Williamson. Starr wants justice for Khalil, but she’s scared that what she might say could bring trouble to her neighborhood or her family. Can Starr overcome her fear and make her voice her most powerful weapon?   These Show Notes use Amazon Affiliate Links for your convenience. If you decide to purchase this book, please consider doing […] The post The Hate U Give: Book vs. Movie appeared first on Nouvelle ELA Teaching Resources.

The Context of White Supremacy hosts the seventh study session on Angie Thomas's historically popular young adult novel, The Hate U Give. Supposedly inspired by the 2009 police slaying of Oscar Grant, Thomas's work "debuted at the top of The New York Times's Young Adult best-seller list, and has drawn ecstatic praise from critics, librarians, book sellers and prominent young-adult novelists," writes The Times's Alexandra Alter. After more than a year, The Hate U Give remains bound to The Times's young adult bestseller list and is being formatted for a major motion picture starring The Hunger Games's Amandla Stenberg. Last week's segment featured the best night of Starr's young life. The black teen straddled a White boy in a limousine before nabbing flapjacks at IHOP to cap the high school prom. While basking in the glory of the evening with her White classmates, Starr informs readers that she didn't think about her dead black friends, Natasha and Khalil at all. After enjoying some "brown sugar," Chris lip-syncs "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" theme song like only a real "White ally" can. After the house is shredded with bullets, Starr and her family move out of Garden Heights for an allegedly safer neighborhood - somewhat like Will Smith's beloved sitcom character. #AntiBlackness INVEST in The COWS - http://paypal.me/GusTRenegade CALL IN NUMBER: 641.715.3640 CODE 564943#