A Difference of Six Words
October 17, 2008
What separates the great agents from the rest of the pack? Is it fancy training, an incredible manager or the latest tech tools? Why does the top 25% of the business earn an average of $200,000 in commissions, while the next 25% segment only earn $46,000 each year? Never mind the bottom half: They’d do better as Starbucks Baristas. Ask agents and they’ll tell you it’s luck, being in the right place at the right time, or even the power of statues buried upside down in the corner of the yard.
We think, however, that it only takes six words to make a huge difference in agent productivity.
Growing Your Hispanic Market
September 28, 2008
Here’s an idea that should appeal to all REALTOR entrepreneurs: Rather than waiting for a pile of money to fall from the sky, why not grow your way out of these tough times? It’s decision time now - and I don’t mean the election: Are you going to just sit there and let your company go bust? You probably don’t have enough cash to keep waiting it out - so pull your head out of the sand, shake off the panic and go do what you do best: Sell homes. Help buyers. Grow your sales.
If you don’t know where all this growth is going to come from, maybe it’s time to look at the growing Hispanic market.
Why do Brokers Hire Sellers?
September 24, 2008
(Podcast Version) Ask any broker today what his “number one” problem with the market conditions, and he’ll tell you either there’s too much inventory or it’s all overpriced. Granted, if sellers want to put their homes on the market, nothing can stop them, with so many “for sale by owner” options out there. But that still leaves the issue of the overpriced homes that are represented by brokers. And that begs the question:
Why are brokers hiring sellers to sell their own homes?
Where is Your Government Bailout?
September 10, 2008
Over the weekend, the United States government tried to correct one mistake with another: Under intense pressure from foreign governments - especially the Chinese government who are the single largest investor in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - Uncle Sam took out its checkbook. With a flourish of the pen, the Treasury nationalized these failing financial behemoths. In the process, it wiped out any remaining common shareholder value, eliminated stockholder control over the company’s operations and fired (but will still pay millions in golden parachutes) one of the most inept management teams in the history of any undertaking.
In yet another stunning example of crisis management, lack of planning, and most of all - lack of leadership control of an organization - a pillar of both the real estate industry and the global economy itself crumbled. If the situation sounds a little too familiar to you, perhaps you’re wondering: Where’s my government bailout?
It’s the Housing Market, not the Stock Market
September 9, 2008
For some months, REALTORS have been fretting that buyers are “sitting on the sidelines” waiting for the market to “hit the bottom.” We constantly hear news reports with interviews of “savvy” sellers who are trying to “time the market just right” to get the most for their home’s sale while getting a “bargain” for their next home. Timing the market - to sell high, and buy cheap - is a strategy for buying and selling stocks or bonds.
But when it comes to housing, it’s the entirely wrong market model. It’s time REALTORS started saying so.
Bang! Internet Marketing is Dead!
August 30, 2008
It’s official. Internet marketing as you know it died today. One of the internet’s largest social network sites finally killed one of the internet’s largest search engines as the “eyeball attractor” for display ad views. Although it got little news, this mighty accomplishment may be the herald of a major shakeup for online commerce.
Consider yourself forewarned: Everything you thought about internet marketing to-date is now old news.
Avoiding the Industry Disaster
August 27, 2008
Just how close is the real estate industry to duplicating the disaster achieved by the airline industry? Contrary to popular belief, neither industry has been challenged by serious technology developments that have created “alternatives” to their essential model. People still fly on planes. Most consumers work with agents. Yet anyone who has had to deal with either industry lately knows that REALTORS are coming dangerously close to recreating the airline industry’s sub-lawyer-sub-car-salesman reputation.
For REALTORS, it shouldn’t take much to avoid that fate. But we must act now.
More Meaningless Marketing
August 21, 2008
When I read this headline this morning, I immediately thought of that Britney Spears song, “Oops! I did it again!” Once again, another real estate company is reporting some “numbers” designed to get people - consumers, agents, Martians - to gasp. Seems like their website has generated some few millions of “leads” to their agents. You know, buyers who go on their website and ask for more information. It’s another orchestrated PR campaign to get the public to say, “Wow! That’s a lot! It must mean they are really good!”
Too bad, then, that it’s just another example of totally meaningless marketing. What’s worse: Generation X and Y know it.
The Future of Real Estate Prospecting
August 19, 2008
Here’s an idea to make any agent’s day: If you’re finally fed up with the poor results and high costs of postcard mailings, newspaper ads and cold calls, and you’ve come to the conclusion that blind mass-email marketing makes you more annoying than maybe it’s time to get LinkedIn.
Or MySpaced. Or RealTowned. Or Facebooked. Or a member of just about any of the hundred or so major social networking sites. No matter how you look at it, the opportunities just add up.
First, look at the research. No, not the online web blather: of course the social network sites are going to “claim” they are the next greatest thing to croutons (which recently replaced sliced bread as the next greatest thing). We mean the consumer research. It looks like this: Baby Boomers are quickly losing ground as the “largest” source of real estate business to the combined numbers of Gen X and Gen Y. With more than 100 million X and Y’ers still in the market - yes, they are, and going to be the driving force for the next 30-40 years - it’s time to start propsecting on their turf.
In the “olden days” prospecting for sellers and buyers meant going to the Boomers’ watering holes: television, radio, newspapers and mailboxes. Yet fully 40% of homes were sold to first-time buyers last year, and the majority fo those were Gen X and Y’ers. Who don’t read newspapers, watch television on their computers, listen to satellite radio or download commercial-free podcasts and don’t ever check their U.S. mailboxes (they receive and pay their bills online, not with stamps!).
Now, if you’re just getting around to social networking, you’re pretty late to the game - by about 3 years. That’s still par for the course for most REALTORS and technology, though, so if you do it after reading this blog post, you’ll likely be ahead of the curve for most of your competition anyway. If we really wanted to turn social networking into real estate’s next money-making frontier, however, we’d get managers to start mandating it for every agent. Yeah, pretty impossible; managers can’t even get them to show up at an office meeting.
No question about it: Social networking will be a key method for contacting future buyers and sellers. A large source of sellers in the next 5 years will be Gen X’ers who are about ready to move up. They only work within friends or vendors who are referred to them through their sphere of influence. They think all REALTOR marketing - and marketing in general - is baloney (and they are mostly right). So you’re only going to get their attention if you can leverage their sphere of influence. That means someone they know knows someone you know who can put in a good word for you. Like LinkedIn’s “Recommend Me” function. Maybe even just an email. But it’s certainly not going to be an air-brushed glam-shot on a postcard that catches their eye…
Making eye contact with Gen Y’ers is going to be even harder. That group of attention-deficit, multi-tasking, wireless networking socially shy first time buyers (and we do love them!) doesn’t pause long enough to read your e-newsletter (who gets email these days? send them an IM!) And since they’re co-dependent purchasers using Mommy and Daddy’s money (ie., Bank of Baby Boomers) you’re going to have a double-deficit to work from when creating relationships. So once again, they’ll want to get to know you - which doesn’t mean your ego-centric website of awards and typed testimonials. It means they’ll check out your “real-ness” on your social networking page, look at who’s connected to you (and do they trust them) and maybe throw a virtual martini at you. And then, maybe just then, they’ll write something on your virtual “wall” and accept a “friend connection” from you and bingo! You’re making friends in cyberspace.
Look, you don’t get to write the rules. So stop writing ads. No, you’re not going to need an avatar and some virtual dollars, or go walking through a 3-D fanstasy world to find future customers: That’s kids stuff and it’s going to remain that way as long as human beings don’t live in bubbles. But as long as the party stays online - and it’s only getting bigger - you’re going to need to work the room. No more going “to the club” to rub elbows with future customers. For the future - starting today - you’re going to have to social network online.
Now, get to it!
What Makes Brokers More Broke?
August 13, 2008
Today I was talking to a broker who uttered, yet again, the tired old cliche that sets my teeth on edge. The one phrase that makes me wish I’d taken the blue pill. That same old phrase that - regardless of the test of time, history, facts - it seems like everyone is doomed to utter it until we finally destroy the real estate industry for good:
“Well, it’s all about the agents.”
Resistance is Futile
July 22, 2008
In the 19th century, the Luddites were a group of workers who refused to accept the introduction of machinery into the process of textiles. So threatened did they feel by the mechanical looms that they often resorted to violence and destruction. At worst, they burned entire factories; at best, they resisted every advance of the industrial revolution with marches, pamphlets and the passage of restrictive laws. Eventually, however, the Luddites came to learn an important lesson:
Resistance is futile.
Pope to REALTORS: No MRE XCUSES
July 21, 2008
What will it take to get REALTORS to modernize their skills? NAR’s 2008 Member Profile indicates only 11% of REALTORS use text messaging (cell phone) with current clients; 4% said they used SMS with past clients; and 5% with prospects. In a report with an “adjusted response rate” of 7.7%, you have to wonder if any REALTORS use text messaging at all. Considering one of our recent postings covered the use of Medieval technology, when I came across this next piece, I thought, maybe someone whose average audience is (only) slightly larger than mine might be able to motivate REALTORS to get with modernity.
Prospecting or Cherry Picking
July 14, 2008
Is it millions or billions that are spent every year trying to generate leads in real estate? I’m not sure, but I can say with some confidence that most of it is a total waste of money. By now, most everybody in the industry has heard that the vast majority of REALTORS treat online leads with disdain: Studies by REALTOR.COM and the California Association of REALTORS have shown how some 50% of consumer inquiries don’t hear from the agent for 1-2 days on average. Why do these agents even bother putting their listings online? Oh, because the seller demands it. Well, maybe the seller should start demanding something else - like responsiveness to buyers - as a condition for granting an agent the right to represent their house.
Five Focus Areas of Evolution for REALTOR Associations
June 30, 2008
It’s time for REALTOR Associations to do something they don’t like to do: Change. Certainly, over the past two decades, I’ve watched a fair amount of “changes” at REALTOR Associations worldwide: Executive Officers have come and gone; Associations have moved to bigger, then smaller, then bigger locations; they have changed their newsletters from print to email. All of these are “changes” but none of them represent the Change I mean when I say it’s time for REALTOR Associations to change.
I mean: It’s time for them to Evolve.
Read more
When Companies Listen to the Customers, it’s Magic
June 25, 2008
Well, I don’t know what took so long, but Microsoft finally seems to have read its emails, listened to its voice mail and talked to its customers. According to a headline over at Engadget, Microsoft is going to support Windows XP until 2013. It’s about time!
Customers worldwide are breathing a sigh of relief as the Redmond Behemoth seems to have remembered a fundamental premise of running a good business: Listen to your customers!
There’s no magic in that premise. Your customers will tell you everything you need to know to be successful. After Microsoft launched Vista, both customers and industry reviewers provided it feedback. As expected, some people hated it (usually those whose computers were manufactured by Henry Ford Senior) and some loved it (those of us who understood that an OS change means, well, some things are actually going to be different). But more and more, especially amongst corporate clients with large installations, lots of proprietary software and sometimes older hardware in the field, the message was simple: Please don’t take Windows XP away. We might get to Vista in the future, but right now, we’re happy (and in a recession, without extra finances) still using XP.
Unfortunately, Microsoft, whose engineers and sales people are rightly enamored with their own products, just wasn’t listening. They were so certain they were right, so sure they could push the change through, that they turned a deaf ear to their clients. Even after giving a little - pushing back the mandatory cut-over date for computer vendors to sell machines with Vista only - Microsoft continued on the path of most resistance. They said: Vista or Nothing!
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- Ten Take-Aways from the NAR Annual Convention
- Why IDX is a Really Bad Idea
- A Difference of Six Words
- An Alternate Theory of the Market Crash
- Do you have the Success you Deserve?
- More Evidence the Bailout is a Handout - and a Lie
- Matthew Ferrara & Company News
- Growing Your Hispanic Market
- The Bailout will Destroy the Housing Industry
- When Companies Should Fail
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