<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:geo="http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#" > <channel> <title>FACEBOOK – REreflections.com</title> <atom:link href="https://rereflections.com/tag/facebook/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <link>https://rereflections.com</link> <description>Reflections on the Real Estate Industry and Real Estate Investing</description> <lastBuildDate>Mon, 28 Mar 2016 08:59:40 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en-US</language> <sy:updatePeriod> hourly </sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency> 1 </sy:updateFrequency> <generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1</generator> <site xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">11312854</site> <item> <title>When Your Social Marketing isn’t Social – or Marketing</title> <link>https://rereflections.com/wne-your-social-marketing-isnt-social-or-marketing/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 24 Mar 2016 02:24:23 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[advertising]]></category> <category><![CDATA[billlublin]]></category> <category><![CDATA[epro]]></category> <category><![CDATA[FACEBOOK]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Instagram]]></category> <category><![CDATA[LINKEDIN]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Pinterest]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Snapchat]]></category> <category><![CDATA[twitter]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://rereflections.com/?p=1331</guid> <description><![CDATA[Back in the stone age (around 2006) social media platforms were new and exciting and exploding into the awareness of individuals and business communities alike. Now, 10 years later, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have become a ubiquitous part of marketing, and an extension to broadcast media like newspapers, TV, and radio stations as people send in crowd-sourced material, and entertainers and personalities use these platforms as extensions of their shows. But even with large corporations co-opting the conversation in some instances, the magic of social platforms is still best found in the conversations that we have and the real relationships we establish online.<p class="more-link-p"><a class="more-link" href="https://rereflections.com/wne-your-social-marketing-isnt-social-or-marketing/">Read more →</a></p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div style="width: 1110px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img data-recalc-dims="1" fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="" src="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/160111-socialmedia.jpg?resize=560%2C401&ssl=1" alt="Why isn't social media magically solving all of our problems cartoon " width="560" height="401" /><p class="wp-caption-text">cartoon courtesy of Tom Fishburn www.marketoonist.com</p></div> <p>Back in the stone age (around 2006) social media platforms were new and exciting and exploding into the awareness of individuals and business communities alike. Now, 10 years later, <a class="zem_slink" title="Faceboo" href="http://www.facebook.com" rel="homepage">Facebook</a>, <a class="zem_slink" title="LinkedIn" href="http://www.linkedin.com/" rel="homepage">LinkedIn</a>, and <a class="zem_slink" title="Twitter" href="http://twitter.com" rel="homepage">Twitter</a> have become a ubiquitous part of marketing, and an extension to broadcast media like newspapers, TV, and radio stations as people send in crowd-sourced material, and entertainers and personalities use these platforms as extensions of their shows. But even with large corporations co-opting the conversation in some instances, the magic of social platforms is still best found in the conversations that we have and the real relationships we establish online.<br /> It may be a little more challenging today to cut through the noise, and the platforms are still shifting as some companies sell or fail and others appear amidst the clutter.</p> <p>Real estate agents, always chasing the elusive magic bullet that makes the job of prospecting easier, and the vendors that want to sell products and services to them see the social spaces as huge billboards or bullhorns for broadcasting listing inventory to the networks of the agent and everyone they know. At least twice in the last month I have had vendors tell me how great it would be if every listing of every agent in our company was to be featured in the social streams of every other agent in the company. They take about how creating thousands of listing ads placed (IMO) exactly where consumers don’t want them, in the stream they use to follow their friends and family or to share with them the details of their perfect lives (or their tough lives).</p> <p>I don’t think anyone has ever woken up in the morning and said “I think I’ll check Facebook (or twitter, or <a class="zem_slink" title="Instagram" href="http://instagram.com" rel="homepage">Instagram</a>, or <a class="zem_slink" title="Pinterest" href="http://pinterest.com" rel="homepage">Pinterest</a> or <a class="zem_slink" title="Snapchat" href="http://snapchat.com" rel="homepage">Snapchat</a>) to see if there’s a property I can buy” – and if I’m right, then what are those non-ad “ads” doing in our Facebook stream? Likewise, I don’t think that any social space is where people go to look for open houses, and yet weekly I see people sharing those events with people that they call friends… but is that something you would do to your friends? Do you call them on Friday or Saturday each week to let them know where you’re holding an Open house? Or do you, at least, text them all? Or email them all? Of course, you don’t – your Momma raised you better than that! So why abuse your digital community? Did they somehow offend you? Or do you think it’s OK because someone, somewhere, told you it was a great marketing idea? Because they were <strong><em>wrong- </em></strong>in a huge way that could cost you real relationships – because these online relationships are real relationships.</p> <p>So if you want to use social spaces, consider using them in a social manner. Talk to your community about what they are interested in, not what about things that serve your business interest. Celebrate their successes with them, share their agony or stress when appropriate, and do so out of real concern, not as some electronic “lip service” – then you will be a valued member of the tribe or group or community, and as a valued member, you will increased your sphere of influence as an individual and a professional.</p> <p>If networking is not necessary, and marketing is your main thrust, then consider advertising in the social channels. Use retargeting – or promoted Tweets, or targeted Facebook ads to reach your desired audience with whatever it is you want to sell. <span style="background-color: #f5f6f5;">It’s far better to be an honest hustler than a false friend, and people will respect you far more. </span></p> ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1331</post-id> </item> <item> <title>Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com and Unwanted Fish Parts</title> <link>https://rereflections.com/zillow-trulia-realtor-com-and-unwanted-fish-parts/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Sun, 10 Aug 2014 14:44:47 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Real Estate]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Syndication]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Syndication & Portals]]></category> <category><![CDATA[FACEBOOK]]></category> <category><![CDATA[MLS]]></category> <category><![CDATA[New York Times]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Real estate broker]]></category> <category><![CDATA[REALTOR.com]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Trulia]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Zillow]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://rereflections.com/?p=1285</guid> <description><![CDATA[The news about the acquisition of Trulia by Zillow seems to have increased focus on Realtor.com's ad campaign emphasizing the importance of data accuracy to the consumer<p class="more-link-p"><a class="more-link" href="https://rereflections.com/zillow-trulia-realtor-com-and-unwanted-fish-parts/">Read more →</a></p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/fish-304097_640.png?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="1291" data-permalink="https://rereflections.com/zillow-trulia-realtor-com-and-unwanted-fish-parts/fish-304097_640/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/fish-304097_640.png?fit=640%2C595&ssl=1" data-orig-size="640,595" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":""}" data-image-title="fish-304097_640" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/fish-304097_640.png?fit=300%2C278&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/fish-304097_640.png?fit=560%2C521&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1291" src="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/fish-304097_640.png?resize=560%2C521&ssl=1" alt="fish with hook" width="560" height="521" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/fish-304097_640.png?w=640&ssl=1 640w, https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/fish-304097_640.png?resize=300%2C278&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/fish-304097_640.png?resize=560%2C520&ssl=1 560w, https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/fish-304097_640.png?resize=260%2C241&ssl=1 260w, https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/fish-304097_640.png?resize=160%2C148&ssl=1 160w" sizes="(max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px" /></a>The news about the acquisition of Trulia by Zillow seems to have increased focus on Realtor.com’s ad campaign emphasizing the importance of data accuracy to the consumer, no small matter if you are truly interested in what property is for sale in your marketplace. And of course, the majority of people discussing it are real estate professionals.</p> <p>In a recent post of Facebook my friend Leslie Ebersole asked an important looking question;</p> <blockquote><p>The most recent NAR-Move ad for Realtor.com emphasizes the importance of data accuracy. But in this selective view of data accuracy it means that Realtor.com (presumably) accurately reflects the data in the MLS. This benefits members of the agents and broker community who belong to the MLS. But what about all the other data in housing? What the neighbor’s houses sold for, trends, FSBOs, houses that are soon to be listed. Aren’t those also important?</p></blockquote> <p>It’s important looking for a couple of reasons. It mentions sources of real estate data beyond the MLS, and invokes in the question the consumer’s interests. But in reality, none of that information is really important to the buyer of real estate. Sold information without being able to interpret that information is knowledge without wisdom, and not truly relevant to a potential purchaser of real estate. FSBOs (For Sale By Owners) end up listing almost 9 out of 10 times, and will, when they are truly committed to the sale of their home, be in the MLS with the rest of the marketplace. Homes that are soon to be listed, like the FSBO are properties that will be exposed through the MLS when they are ready to be shown (and I’ve talked about that before so I don;t want to raise the same arguments again)</p> <p>The only people that need “sold” data, “FSBO” data. “Coming Soon” data, and “defaulting property” data are the portals that are looking to throw “chum” in the water to attract consumer eyeballs. Chum, if you’re not a fisherman, are the unwanted fish parts that are collected and thrown out to attract sharks. And like those unwanted fish parts, these other streams of data are just so much garbage being strewn in the water to hook unwary prey.</p> <p>My brokerage firm advertises on all three portals currently, and like every other agent in the US, I constantly field calls about properties that have inaccurate information on Zillow and Trulia (though I will say the information on my listings was more often inaccurate on Zillow than Trulia – don’t know what will happen with that now – possibly nothing). And even when the information is inaccurate, when a consumer interested in purchasing a property calls me, my advertising dollars have been well spent. Once I have a contact from a consumer, what happens from there on is up to me and the consumer. And that means that their strategy is working – because if the site is has the appearance of accuracy and there is enough chum to get them to the site in the first place, Z&T can get paid by their real customers, the real estate firms and agents that pay to advertise their.</p> <p>The situation is no different than an agent advertising in a well read newspaper in their market that was a journalistic train wreck – if the phone is ringing the advertising is working. But for people who would rather advertise in the New York Times than the New York Daily News Realtor.com does have an edge. One might assume that there are consumers who also want to know that they have the most accurate information, and that Realtor. com might have an edge their as well,<em><strong> if they can get enough consumers to believe the facts!</strong></em></p> <p>Zillow, Trulia, and even Realtor.com are advertising sites. They are not driven to do anything but attract consumer attention. Their motivations are commercial, appropriately so now that they are publicly traded companies with responsibilities to their shareholders. They don’t need to worry about whether the consumer buys or sells real estate because they aren’t in the business of real estate. They are in the business of selling potential buyers and sellers to real estate professionals. As long as they have a large enough number of unique visitors and a large enough number of real estate agents and companies willing to pay them for the email addresses or phone numbers of those visitors, they will stay in business, without changing the consumer experience of the real estate industry in any significant manner. And as long as real estate people have spare time, they will serve as a magnet for discussions by those agents every time they do anything.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1285</post-id> </item> <item> <title>2014 Predictions From a Broken Crystal Ball</title> <link>https://rereflections.com/2014-predictions-from-a-broken-crystal-ball/</link> <comments>https://rereflections.com/2014-predictions-from-a-broken-crystal-ball/#comments</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Jan 2014 16:05:20 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Real Estate]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Syndication]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Wacky stuff]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Business]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Consumer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[FACEBOOK]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Future]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Marketing and Advertising]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Mobile]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Mobile app]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Peter Drucker]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://rereflections.com/?p=1169</guid> <description><![CDATA[Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.- Peter Drucker New Year celebrations are arbitrary. We celebrate all over the world, following celebrations…<p class="more-link-p"><a class="more-link" href="https://rereflections.com/2014-predictions-from-a-broken-crystal-ball/">Read more →</a></p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<blockquote><div id="attachment_1177" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Crystal_ball_1.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1177" data-attachment-id="1177" data-permalink="https://rereflections.com/2014-predictions-from-a-broken-crystal-ball/crystal_ball_1/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Crystal_ball_1.jpg?fit=600%2C838&ssl=1" data-orig-size="600,838" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":""}" data-image-title="Crystal_ball_(1)" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>By User Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff.Beralpo at ru.wikipedia (Transferred from ru.wikipedia) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], from Wikimedia Commons</p> " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Crystal_ball_1.jpg?fit=214%2C300&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Crystal_ball_1.jpg?fit=560%2C782&ssl=1" class="size-full wp-image-1177" alt="By User Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff.Beralpo at ru.wikipedia (Transferred from ru.wikipedia) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], from Wikimedia Commons" src="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Crystal_ball_1.jpg?resize=560%2C782&ssl=1" width="560" height="782" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Crystal_ball_1.jpg?w=600&ssl=1 600w, https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Crystal_ball_1.jpg?resize=214%2C300&ssl=1 214w, https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Crystal_ball_1.jpg?resize=560%2C782&ssl=1 560w, https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Crystal_ball_1.jpg?resize=260%2C363&ssl=1 260w, https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Crystal_ball_1.jpg?resize=160%2C223&ssl=1 160w" sizes="(max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-1177" class="wp-caption-text">By User Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff.Beralpo at ru.wikipedia (Transferred from ru.wikipedia) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], from Wikimedia Commons</p></div> <h4>Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.- Peter Drucker</h4> </blockquote> <p>New Year celebrations are arbitrary. We celebrate all over the world, following celebrations from time zone to time zone, reflecting on the previous year and making wonderful affirmations and setting expectations for the new year as if a line has been crossed and we have moved from the past to the future. But all we ever really get is the present. Not as sexy as its siblings, the present is ubiquitous yet ever changing, though the speed of the change is so gradual that we often mistake the slowly progressing landscape of life for some stationary event bounded by antiquity and futurity.</p> <p>Though I’m as much a fan of reflection and speculation as the next nerd, I have difficulty with the annual prediction frenzy because I see business and technology as a continual process, so this year, I wasn’t going to get involved in telling everyone how I see the future until my friend Tracy Weir (who can be found at <a href="http://www.eighteleven.com" target="_blank">Eight11.com</a>), asked me for some <a href="http://eight11.com/2014predictions" target="_blank">specific projection about business and technology for the year</a>. I sent her off a few thoughts, but never one to use a word when a dozen will do , found myself with a blog post I felt like sharing. And here we are today. These are more ruminations than predictions, but they are the topics I think we need to pay a<span style="letter-spacing: 0.05em; line-height: 1.6875;">ttention to this year.</span></p> <p>2014 will be the year of Mobile and Video – oh wait, that was 2011, 2012, & 2013 also. But those trends will continue to grow and agents will need to be aware of them, making sure that they have some form of video presence and either mobile sites, mobile apps, or responsive web presences. Agents should become knowledgable about the differences between mobile apps, mobile sites and mobile responsive web sites, and how they are viewed by both the consumer and search engines.</p> <p>Most agents don’t have the budget, time or creativity to produce high quality results in video, but since Google loves video, and doesn’t penalize you for being an amateur if you have relevant content,every agent should have some form of video presence in their marketing mix. For the 45% of agents affiliated with franchised real estate firms, some rudimentary video is supplied to most, so they only have to worry about improving their game not getting into it.</p> <p>Some other thoughts about the integration of technology and business this year;</p> <ul> <li><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05em;">Meeting new consumers and making them your clients or customers is key to success in business, and agents will continue to struggle with relevant social media interaction and lead generation. Some will seek lead generation companies, some will rely on the firm they are with and some will work on creating their own new contacts with consumers.</span></li> <li><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05em;">With property search being dominated by Portals, Franchises and large firms and our online interactions becoming an “attention economy” agents will need to concentrate on building a strong digital identity, and paying attention to their digital footprint (their identity , their social channels, and the sum of all their online actions)</span></li> <li><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05em;">As the online conversations continue about IDX, VOWS, MLSs, Portals, and syndication mature, and vendor’s actions force new conversations about Ratings, Reviews, and Surveys, we will need to be specific in understanding the differences in these things, keep conversation about them focused on the industry and not just their individual businesses.</span></li> <li><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05em;">The way property data is shared to and viewed by the consumer will continue to morph and change as the rules for its distribution change and new businesses spring up to take advantage of that, often interposing themselves between the consumer and the real estate professional. Brokers , agents, and the organizations that they belong to and run need to be concerned about not only the quality or their data, but its security and disbursement. </span></li> <li><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05em;">Agents will need to separate the wheat from the chaff in the technology offerings thrown at them by vendors, associations, trainers, and their own companies to avoid having technology impede rather than improve their businesses.</span></li> <li><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05em;">As adoption of various document management platforms increases in the industry, without a unified platform, agents will be faced with new cooperative challenges when agents or brokerages refuse to “join” or utilize document or transaction management platforms that are not being used by their own company.</span></li> <li><span style="letter-spacing: 0.05em;">Marketing through social channels will continue to grow, becoming less effective as it inundates consumers even more. People using their social channels to establish relationships and then become a trusted advisor to that community will continue to flourish, while far larger numbers of people flail their way through Facebook thinking that they have a social media strategy. </span></li> </ul> <p>Of course all of these things only impacts you and you business in the next year if you are creative , analytic, and willing to work on your business as well as working in your business. Your business is derived from your efforts and talent, and not the result of larger trends. People have have outstanding individual successes even in weak markets. As our friend Peter Drucker said, “The only way to predict the future is to create it.”</p> <div class="zemanta-pixie" style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" title="Enhanced by Zemanta" href="http://www.zemanta.com/?px"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" class="zemanta-pixie-img" style="border: none; float: right;" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" src="https://i0.wp.com/img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?w=560" /></a></div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://rereflections.com/2014-predictions-from-a-broken-crystal-ball/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>1</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1169</post-id> </item> <item> <title>The End of the Real Estate Agent</title> <link>https://rereflections.com/the-end-of-the-real-estate-agent/</link> <comments>https://rereflections.com/the-end-of-the-real-estate-agent/#comments</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 01 Aug 2013 20:37:42 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Brokerage Advice]]></category> <category><![CDATA[NAR]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Real Estate]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bill lublin]]></category> <category><![CDATA[billlublin]]></category> <category><![CDATA[disruption]]></category> <category><![CDATA[FACEBOOK]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://rereflections.com/?p=1085</guid> <description><![CDATA[I would bet that if your son or daughter came home from school crying because someone criticized them, you would probably tell them that they shouldn’t be concerned. You might tell them that their value is in what they do…<p class="more-link-p"><a class="more-link" href="https://rereflections.com/the-end-of-the-real-estate-agent/">Read more →</a></p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><c /><br /><a href="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130801-152820.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" src="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130801-152820.jpg?w=560&ssl=1" alt="20130801-152820.jpg" class="alignnone size-full" /></a><br /> I would bet that if your son or daughter came home from school crying because someone criticized them, you would probably tell them that they shouldn’t be concerned. You might tell them that their value is in what they do and how they act, and not in what others tell them about their actions. And you would be totally correct. We are far better off when we are directed by our inner values and our own needs than when we react to the approval or disapproval of others.</p> <p>And yet in the real estate business, we seem to be constantly other-directed.</p> <p>According to freedictionary.com, people that are other-directed are “<em><strong>Directed or guided chiefly by external standards as opposed to one’s own standards or values”.</strong></em> In other words they are busy reacting to the world instead of creating their space and making their mark based on their own values and principals.</p> <p>In a recent post in the Facebook group “Raise the Bar” started with “Key excerpt: “Zillow allows homeowners and homebuyers the ability to search for homes themselves, and not rely on a realtor to provide information.” Thoughts?”</p> <p>I read the article, and my first thought was ” Wow – that article takes up space without really providing new information”, but the conversation had started (which was the purpose of the post by the group’s admin Michael McClure after all) – and the course of the conversation was typical –</p> <ul> <li>Someone outside the real estate industry with little understanding of the actual mechanics of the industry makes a comment and/or prediction about the industry based on their imperfect perception.</li> <li>Someone in the industry picks up the article or video and shares it because they want to be perceived as a source of valuable information to the industry – or because they are an iconoclast, or a newbie, perhaps to start a conversation in a Facebook group, or maybe because they’re having a bad day.</li> <li>Everyone chimes in, reacting from their particular perspective and hilarity ensues (or tempers flare) .</li> <li>No one learns anything, nothing new is brought forward from the conversation, no changes are made in anyone’s business, and everyone goes back to wait for the next thing to react to so the cycle can begin again.</li> </ul> <p>This conversation was no different. Eventually Michael said “I agree that ZTR are NOT going away. Can the same be said of us?” (though he did add a winking smiley face to ameliorate his statement). He had hit a nerve for me. I replied ” I don’t know about you, but I provide valuable service for my clients and customers and I’m not going away until I decide I want to – at which time the company that I have built will still continue to provide value to consumers.”</p> <p>Michael was doing his job as admin of the group. He started a conversation and was keeping that conversation moving. And often, conversations can contribute important criticisms , but sadly, oftentimes the conversation just consists of people standing on the sidelines complaining and bemoaning the fate of the industry.</p> <p>It annoys me that the question of whether the real estate industry is at risk – whether asked irreverently or not – gets asked so often. At conferences, online, in print, everywhere that someone wants to stir the pot or get a reaction. Ad oddly enough, it is often asked by people or publications that are created,nurtured, and fueled by the massive real estate industry whose demise they so eagerly anticipate. Bt it is the reaction of real estate professionals that leads me to ask “Are we so insecure about our value proposition as individuals, companies and an industry that we need to be so instantly reactive to the thoughts of others?”</p> <p>Though I have been accused of defending the status quo in our industry,I am actually an early adopter of most things related to the industry. I actively seek and embrace change when it helps me run my business better. But I don’t think that change means that the world is ending or our industry is going to explode or even implode. In fact, from my observation, our job has remained the same for the 4 decades I’ve been in the business. How we do it has changed, and frankly I think those of us who are successful in the business are doing more business and making more money in today’s industry rather than less.</p> <p>Sometimes it seems that online conversations about the real estate industry are a mashup of fairy tales. Chicken Little (The sky is falling) seems to react to every new business model and every effort to dis-intermediate the real estate agent, and the online real estate community reacts by crying “Wolf” (the furry kind, not the former CEO of R.com) – actions that are essentially non-productive.</p> <p>Being aware of the ideas and thoughts of others is important. We should all read and gather business intelligence. But if we want to analyze changes in the real estate marketplace to determine where the industry is actually going , there are some things we should remember.</p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Change is inevitable and doesn’t mean you’re extinct.</strong></span> The changes brought about by different business models and technology, has created a high volume, high speed real estate industry in today’s world. Active real estate agents do more things more rapidly than their predecessors. Sometimes they do so much so fast that the very speed of the transactions can cause problems if you aren’t careful. Agents need to respond faster and move through the transaction faster today than they did “back in the day”. This is caused in many cases by consumer expectations, but it creates a need for better risk management, and we are seeing the development of more tools to address that from CRMs and company intranets to document management and transaction management software </p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Every new idea is a not necessarily a good one.</strong> </span> I have been going to NAR conventions for almost 30 years. Each year I would walk the trade show floor and see lots of bright new “shiny objects” each one trumpeting why they had the product that would change the world. The following year I would go back to find that last year’s shiny object hadn’t changed the world, and this year wasn’t even in the game. And over a period of time, you would be amazed at how many old ideas find their way back into the marketplace in a pair of new clothes with little real innovation. </p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Disruption is overrated</strong></span> – if disruption was a celebrity, you would assume that it had the best publicist ever. everyone talks about, looks for it, and is in awe of it, but we generally don’t even recognize disruption until after is has passed and been integrated into the larger industry. The printing press didn’t destroy calligraphy, movies didn’t replace books and television didn’t destroy movies. Travel agents and stockbrokers still walk among us, even in the world of Kayak, Tripit and eTrade. Worry less about losing your job and more about doing it better.</p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>The best way to avoid obsolescence is to provide a valuable service in whatever it is you</strong></span><strong> do</strong> As an agent, and as a property manager, and as the owner of a business, I do pretty much the same things I did when I started doing each of those things. I do them a little differently now, I may use different tools to accomplish my goals, and I may have different efficiencies than I did when I started, but basically what I do has remained the same;</p> <p>As an agent I assist my sellers to get the highest price and best terms for their properties, and I assist my buyer to get the lowest price and best terms for the properties they purchase.</p> <p>As a property manager I help my landlords conserve and operate their real estate investments efficiently and safely, providing a good return and helping them to build wealth, while providing clean, safe, and secure housing for their tenants.</p> <p>As owner of a company, I operate a provide a leads rich and collegial environment where real estate agents can build careers in real estate, while operating a financially stable and profitable company that provides high quality service to the consumers we work with.</p> <p>New methods, ideas, processes and business models are interesting, and some of them may actually impact the industry, but far more of them will fail than will succeed. They are not what you should spend your time focusing on. Focus on doing your job well to increase your value proposition to your customer, your clients, your colleagues, your company and your associates. Providing value means having value – and that means you’re here for the long haul… No matter what someone else might predict.</p> <p>What do you think?</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://rereflections.com/the-end-of-the-real-estate-agent/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>9</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1085</post-id> </item> <item> <title>Sex, Lies and the MLS – Why Nobody Does it Better</title> <link>https://rereflections.com/sex-lies-and-the-mls-why-nobody-does-it-better/</link> <comments>https://rereflections.com/sex-lies-and-the-mls-why-nobody-does-it-better/#comments</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Sun, 31 Mar 2013 18:49:26 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[IDX]]></category> <category><![CDATA[MLS]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Real Estate]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Syndication]]></category> <category><![CDATA[FACEBOOK]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Garbage In Garbage Out]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Inigo Montoya]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Multiple Listing Service]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Real estate broker]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://rereflections.com/?p=839</guid> <description><![CDATA[I spent much of my time as a real estate agent working for a small real estate office operated by a would-be never-was attorney who never built a large real estate operation, but had a great deal of real estate…<p class="more-link-p"><a class="more-link" href="https://rereflections.com/sex-lies-and-the-mls-why-nobody-does-it-better/">Read more →</a></p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_843" style="width: 346px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Affaires-Plus-Sex-Lies-and-Mortgage-by-kelly-schykulski.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-843" data-attachment-id="843" data-permalink="https://rereflections.com/sex-lies-and-the-mls-why-nobody-does-it-better/affaires-plus-sex-lies-and-mortgage-by-kelly-schykulski/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Affaires-Plus-Sex-Lies-and-Mortgage-by-kelly-schykulski.jpg?fit=480%2C480&ssl=1" data-orig-size="480,480" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":""}" data-image-title="Affaires Plus – Sex, Lies and Mortgage by kelly schykulski" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Affaires Plus – Sex, Lies and Mortgage by kelly schykulski</p> " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Affaires-Plus-Sex-Lies-and-Mortgage-by-kelly-schykulski.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Affaires-Plus-Sex-Lies-and-Mortgage-by-kelly-schykulski.jpg?fit=480%2C480&ssl=1" class=" wp-image-843 " alt="Affaires Plus - Sex, Lies and Mortgage by kelly schykulski" src="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Affaires-Plus-Sex-Lies-and-Mortgage-by-kelly-schykulski.jpg?resize=336%2C336&ssl=1" width="336" height="336" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-843" class="wp-caption-text">Affaires Plus – Sex, Lies and Mortgage by kelly schykulski</p></div> <p>I spent much of my time as a real estate agent working for a small real estate office operated by a would-be never-was attorney who never built a large real estate operation, but had a great deal of real estate knowledge. I learned a lot about the real estate business from him through conversation since there was no training program. Training and education I obtained on my own. But whenever I needed to solve a problem or understand a situation I found myself in , he would exhort me to see the whole picture, instead of just a portion of it – a practice that everyone could employ to improve their lives.</p> <p>The <a class="zem_slink" title="Multiple listing service" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Multiple Listing Service</a>, an integral part of the <a class="zem_slink" title="Real estate" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">real estate industry</a>, seems to be the target or a lot of fragmentary conversation. People discuss the MLS and third-party real estate advertisers as if they were the same thing. Discussions about who has the most accurate data, what is best for consumers (read “buyers”), pocket listings (properties listed by agents but not yet submitted to the MLS) and MLS regulations swirl around Facebook with the violence of tornadoes or hurricanes. Many of these discussions seem to have that partial vision, so I hoped that this post might serve to add some clarity. I believe that part of the problem is a lack of understanding about the purpose of the mechanisms involved and part is the result of a bad use of words.</p> <p>The real estate market is horribly inefficient. There are literally millions of sellers and buyers using hundreds of thousands companies and agents to buy, sell, and rent real property. The MLS was developed to create greater market efficiency for <a class="zem_slink" title="Real estate broker" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_broker" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">real estate agents</a> through the mutual exchange of information. It made real estate companies and their agents more efficient because all market participants received and acted on relevant market information as soon as it became available.</p> <p>As the MLS developed as a business tool it went from 3×5 cards on a cork board at weekly luncheons to printed cards and books collecting and sorting the information by area and company, to computer databases shared by its members. But its purpose never changed. In fact, the MLS Policies suggested by NAR, and used by most of the 970 MLSs states, <em><strong>“The purpose of multiple listing is the orderly correlation and dissemination of listing information to participants so they may better serve the buying and selling public.”</strong> </em>– seems simple doesn’t it?</p> <p>With the profusion of public facing web sites fueled by IDX feeds from these MLSs, confusion began to reign among the members of the industry. Now part of the conversation centers around the purpose of the various real estate web sites operated by real estate professionals and others.</p> <p><strong>There are only two reasons for any public facing real estate website.</strong></p> <ul> <li> <h5>To gather consumer information for distribution to real estate professionals –</h5> <ul> <li>Whether the site is operated by a brokerage or a “lead generation” company, or an aggregator who sells advertising on their site to agents and companies, reaching the buyers and sellers or real estate is a core purpose of public facing real estate sites.</li> <li>In some instances, the sites gather the information for other associated industries like the mortgage industry want to reach the consumer as early as possible,</li> </ul> </li> <li> <h5>To gather consumer attention to generate advertising revenue</h5> <ul> <li>In today’s <a class="zem_slink" title="Attention economy" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">attention economy</a>, views and clicks translate into millions of dollars. Aside from the obvious sale of this space to real estate professionals and others interested in advertising there, sites gather visitors to places like Yahoo and <a class="zem_slink" title="AOL" href="http://www.aol.com/" target="_blank" rel="homepage">AOl</a> by providing people with real estate information.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <p>The idea that any of these sites are there to benefit the public is just silly. No one enters into a commercial venture without wanting to have it be succesful – which in the world of business means to generate income. I’m not saying that while we are pursuing this primary goal we can’t do a lot of good things, or that we can’t be well motivated, but we should never forget why we go to work and do the things we do there – We do it to earn a living, provide for our families, and keep our business ventures healthy.</p> <p>The second problem we have is a certain confusion about data accuracy. In the movie Princess Bride, <a class="zem_slink" title="Inigo Montoya" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inigo_Montoya" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Inigo Montoya</a> says <em>“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”.</em> In the great MLS accuracy debate, (which I think is more of a red herring than anything else) people keep using the word “accurate” when they mean “complete”.</p> <p>Let’s start with two definitions.</p> <blockquote><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Accurate</strong></span>: <span style="text-decoration: underline;">free from error especially as the result of care</span> <an <em>accurate</em> diagnosis></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Complete</strong></span>: <span style="text-decoration: underline;">having all necessary parts, elements, or steps</span> <a <em>complete</em> diet></p></blockquote> <p>So we can have four-things a set of data that is both accurate and complete, a set that is accurate but not complete, a set that is complete but not accurate, and we can have data that is neither accurate nor complete. But they are not all the same thing. They are very different.</p> <p>Data accuracy is a matter of GIGO (Garbage In Garbage Out) – In other words, since all of our property data relies upon agent input (which is subject to inaccuracies) or <a class="zem_slink" title="Public records" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_records" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">public records</a> created by huge numbers of municipal employees with varying degrees of accuracy, our entire dataset <em><strong>will probably always be inaccurate to some degree</strong></em>. With a million real estate agents responsible for data input, there are a million opportunities for mis-typing, mis-casting information, making inaccurate measurements, etc, etc. So practically, we are eons away from making our data truly accurate.</p> <p>There is some issue of data accuracy for third-party sites because of their need to accumulate data that they don’t own or originate. It has resulted in a willingness to accept any data that they can acquire. That leads to additional inaccuracy resulting from duplicate property data from different sources leading to duplication and contradiction. But since they aren’t selling real estate, its more important for them to have lots of data so they can appear to have a dataset valuable to the consumer. In their world, it is more important to be visible than it is to actually be accurate as long as they don’t end up discouraging consumers from visiting their site as a result. After all they are selling consumer information and advertising – not real estate.</p> <p><strong>Data completeness (which is often referred to erroneously as accuracy) is the second issue.</strong></p> <p>The MLS, without question, has the most complete dataset available to the real estate industry. <a class="zem_slink" title="Data aggregator" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_aggregator" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Data aggregators</a> like AOL, Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com are faced with having less than a complete dataset becuase they are trying to compile a national datasetcompiled from the more complete local datasets. Since they don’t have access to all of them, their national dataset is far less accurate that the <a class="zem_slink" title="Data feed" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_feed" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">data feeds</a> sent locally to the MLS members, who get the complete local dataset from the MLS through their IDX feed . Please note that the difference here is created at least partially by the difference between the local dataset and the attempt to create a national dataset.</p> <p>A second less than complete dataset on public webs sites is created when a real estate company chooses not to advertise some portion of the complete dataset they have received – for example not publishing properties under a certain price point, or not including certain types of homes or certain areas where the company doesn’t choose to do business. But the decision to publish this less than complete dataset is business driven, probably accomplishes what the company wants to accomplish, and is therefore (within reason) accurate as possible, and effective for their business. Is it a good idea or a bad one? That would depend on how you want to run your business. – something which is neither my concern nor the MLS’s.</p> <p>So can we not confuse IDX feed with what we do with the IDX feed? And not confuse the IDX used by brokers with the feeds furnished to the aggregators? Or confuse the MLS with public facing sites using housing data to attract the attention of consumers – using whatever strategy the owner of the site thinks is most propitious? Or worry about how much of the MLS data we are going to find useful in our daily business? Those are just business choices, and <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>not </strong></em></span>a function of the system itself.</p> <p>Whatever your business model , if you are a real estate professional, the MLS is crucial to the facilitation of your business. Public facing web sites, whether operated by you or a third-party, exist as advertising outlets – nothing more or less. If they all disappeared tomorrow, people would still want to gain housing information and we would want to supply. But without the cooperative sharing of data between professionals, the industry would grind to shuddering and painful halt. The exchange of information between professionals is crucial – the exchange of information between the industry and the consumer, not as much. Housing is the ultimate shiny object for consumers, and they will seek that information any way that is available to them from driving around looking for signs to searching any site that promises the information they want. They will be in a number of places depending on the day, the weather, their mood, or the device they are using to reach the data, so reaching them is more about strategies and tactics than it is about creativity.</p> <p>Ok, now let’s get back to those discussions on <a class="zem_slink" title="Facebook" href="http://twitter.com/facebook" target="_blank" rel="twitter">Facebook</a> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f609.png" alt="😉" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /></p> <div class="zemanta-pixie" style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" title="Enhanced by Zemanta" href="http://www.zemanta.com/?px"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" class="zemanta-pixie-img" style="float: right;" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" src="https://i0.wp.com/img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?w=560" /></a></div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://rereflections.com/sex-lies-and-the-mls-why-nobody-does-it-better/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>3</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">839</post-id> </item> <item> <title>Your Web Site Sucks – And Your Mother Dresses You Funny</title> <link>https://rereflections.com/your-web-site-sucks-and-your-mother-dresses-you-funny/</link> <comments>https://rereflections.com/your-web-site-sucks-and-your-mother-dresses-you-funny/#comments</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 11 Mar 2013 10:20:31 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[FACEBOOK]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Facebook features]]></category> <category><![CDATA[HubSpot]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Inbound Marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[New Jersey]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Real Housewives of Orange County]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Trulia]]></category> <category><![CDATA[twitter]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://rereflections.com/?p=793</guid> <description><![CDATA[There are a couple of really contentious Facebook Groups that I probably shouldn’t waste time on. But then again, I probably shouldn’t waste time watching the Real Housewives of Orange County or New Jersey either, so I’ll just chalk them…<p class="more-link-p"><a class="more-link" href="https://rereflections.com/your-web-site-sucks-and-your-mother-dresses-you-funny/">Read more →</a></p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/iStock_000004259573XSmall.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="823" data-permalink="https://rereflections.com/your-web-site-sucks-and-your-mother-dresses-you-funny/istock_000004259573xsmall/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/iStock_000004259573XSmall.jpg?fit=458%2C262&ssl=1" data-orig-size="458,262" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"13","credit":"","camera":"Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1189498842","copyright":"","focal_length":"35","iso":"100","shutter_speed":"0.005","title":""}" data-image-title="iStock_000004259573XSmall" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/iStock_000004259573XSmall.jpg?fit=300%2C171&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/iStock_000004259573XSmall.jpg?fit=458%2C262&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-823" alt="iStock_000004259573XSmall" src="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/iStock_000004259573XSmall.jpg?resize=458%2C262&ssl=1" width="458" height="262" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/iStock_000004259573XSmall.jpg?w=458&ssl=1 458w, https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/iStock_000004259573XSmall.jpg?resize=300%2C171&ssl=1 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 458px) 100vw, 458px" /></a>There are a couple of really contentious <a class="zem_slink" title="Facebook features" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_features" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Facebook Groups</a> that I probably shouldn’t waste time on. But then again, I probably shouldn’t waste time watching <a class="zem_slink" title="The Real Housewives of Orange County" href="http://www.bravotv.com/the-real-housewives-of-orange-county" target="_blank" rel="homepage">the Real Housewives of Orange County</a> or New Jersey either, so I’ll just chalk them all up to guilty pleasure and an excess of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude" target="_blank">schadenfreude</a>.</p> <p>In a couple of recent threads there were almost 400 comments on one of them, generated by a simple question leading to a long and harsh conversation, with secret emails, people bragging about the size of their response, and people blocking each other.</p> <p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/is-there-a-value-to-a-website-screenshot.png?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="816" data-permalink="https://rereflections.com/your-web-site-sucks-and-your-mother-dresses-you-funny/is-there-a-value-to-a-website-screenshot/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/is-there-a-value-to-a-website-screenshot.png?fit=513%2C197&ssl=1" data-orig-size="513,197" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":""}" data-image-title="is there a value to a website screenshot" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/is-there-a-value-to-a-website-screenshot.png?fit=300%2C115&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/is-there-a-value-to-a-website-screenshot.png?fit=513%2C197&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-816" alt="is there a value to a website screenshot" src="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/is-there-a-value-to-a-website-screenshot.png?resize=513%2C197&ssl=1" width="513" height="197" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/is-there-a-value-to-a-website-screenshot.png?w=513&ssl=1 513w, https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/is-there-a-value-to-a-website-screenshot.png?resize=300%2C115&ssl=1 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 513px) 100vw, 513px" /></a></p> <p>An argument erupted between people that think the best web strategy is working a social strategy (blogging, <a class="zem_slink" title="Facebook" href="http://facebook.com" target="_blank" rel="homepage">Facebook</a>, <a class="zem_slink" title="Twitter" href="http://twitter.com/twitter" target="_blank" rel="twitter">Tweeting</a> etc) and people that favor the use of property search and SEO strategies to generate “leads”. Sadly, each camp oversimplified the business, and as a result, each make long passionate arguments about their point of view without realizing that they and the other party were talking past each other rather than to each other, both trying to make the point that they knew what works to improve your online business.</p> <p>What doesn’t work to improve your online business is arguing in Facebook groups or making personal attacks. Too often statements made in these groups are made by people that who are armed with an opinion and an attitude, but don’t have a clue. And they get nasty for reasons that are not readily apparent. No one has ever been convinced of anything because you tell them that you’re great and they’re stupid. It may be that Trolls have decided to leave their traditional dwelling places under bridges and move to real estate Facebook groups, but you don’t have to engage them. Small people with small lives derive great pleasure from making themselves seem more important in public. There is no business benefit in helping them. So let’s talk about why people were so divided over the topic.</p> <p>The divisiveness results, in my opinion, from simplistic thinking. Not simple – which is good, but simplistic. Simplistic, an adjective is defined as;</p> <blockquote><p>1 characterized by extreme simplicity; naive</p> <p>2 oversimplifying complex problems; making unrealistically simple judgments or analyses</p></blockquote> <p>The two sides talk about “leads” or “buyers” as if they were commodity both monolithic and acquired by only one right set of activities. That’s naive. The “leads” we talk about are people. Complex and infinitely diverse, people are any thing but monolithic. No matter how hard we wish, there is no one type of buyer and no one simple and easy path to attract them. Because of this diversity, there are lots of different things that work for salespeople who want to connect with consumers through online activities, and therein lies three simple facts;</p> <ol> <li>There are a variety of strategies that can successfully generate consumer relationships</li> <li>Different strategies attract different types of consumers</li> <li>The execution of the strategy is far more important than the choice of strategy</li> </ol> <p>There have always been salespeople that relied upon referral business generated by the people they interacted with in their community. They were the joiners, the neighborhood volunteers, the PTA Presidents and the Little League coaches. Through their network of relationships, they generated a great deal of business, mostly through word of mouth marketing or direct relationships. And there have always been salepeople that prospected or advertised to meet people who were at some point in the sales cycle, preferably close to action. Years ago these people placed property ads, canvassed homeowners and tenants, held home buyer & seller seminars, used direct mail or handed out flyers , just listed, and just sold cards. Both of them generated business, and each of them was completely convinced that they were doing the best thjing possible for their business.</p> <p>Today those two styles of salespeople look for business differently on the web. The agent who prefers to work by referral or with people that they already have a relationship with are the salespeople that build online relationships through blogging, Facebook, and numerous other social activities, so that they are a trusted member of their online communities, and become the trusted source of real estate information when their friends need them. In today’s world these are the evangelists of Seth Godin’s permission marketing, or <a class="zem_slink" title="HubSpot" href="http://hubspot.com" target="_blank" rel="homepage">Hubspot</a>‘s <a class="zem_slink" title="Inbound marketing" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbound_marketing" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Inbound Marketing</a>. It is a strategy that can be very useful for an established agent with a large sphere of influence, who wants to be sure that they are easily found online by people specifically looking for them.</p> <p>The second type of agent tends to seek an initial contact through property data, relying on SEO and SEM, and “lead generation” sites that introduce them to consumers with whom they have no relationship other than the property data. They fight the fight to be found among the myriad of property data sites by buying keywords, or trying to ran for less competitive but still valuable <a class="zem_slink" title="Long tail" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail" target="_blank" rel="wikipedia">Long Tail</a> keywords relevant to their specific markets. Sometimes they are the proponents of buying placement on Zillow, <a class="zem_slink" title="Trulia" href="http://trulia.com" target="_blank" rel="homepage">Trulia</a> or Realtor.com or using “lead generation” websites or third party companies. For these people, search, not content is king.</p> <p>The two schools argue with a great deal of passion and each has lots of people to quote when they want to make a point. The fact is that either strategy can generate substantial amounts of business if they are executed properly. I have friends who generate most of their business through their social connections, and I know a substantial number of people who do little of that and generate most of their sales opportunities through their property web sites, or by paying or premium placement on an aggregator’s site, or possibly by paying a referral or buying leads from another intermediary.</p> <p>Because of the proliferation of property search sites, and the intense competition for the finite number of consumer eyes, I tend to favor the social strategy for individual agents, since building relationships and connecting with people on line is simple for people who are accustomed to creating relationships in the physical world. The cost is not too great, and the strategy is generally simple and sustainable. That being said, I also think that offering property search as a feature on your social site, or in conjunction with your blog is not a bad thing to do – but the property search is more of an accommodation for the consumer than a draw for their attention.Just like the differing strategies of salespeople in the past, both strategies work and neither program is the “right program” unless its the “right program” for you.</p> <p>Whatever your web strategy is, the return it brings to you should be how you determine whether or not it needs to be tweaked, modified, or abandoned. Some form of measurement or analytic needs to be applied to any strategy before we decide its right for us. SEO strategies are easy to monitor through <a class="zem_slink" title="Google Analytics" href="http://www.google.com/analytics" target="_blank" rel="homepage">Google analytics</a> and the number of inquiries and conversions they generate. Social strategies tend to have be more difficult to analyze except in terms of community size and interaction. If you are blogging and you have lots of visitors to the blog, and your blog is referring business to your business web site, that could be a metric you might use. You can use social scoring tools like <a href="http://www.klout.com" target="_blank">Klout</a>, <a href="http://www.kred.com" target="_blank">Kred</a>, <a href="http://www.peerindex.com" target="_blank">Peerindex </a>and <a href="http://onlineidcalculator.com/" target="_blank">Onlineidcalculator </a>to determine how easy it is for consumers to find you online.</p> <p>Whatever you choose, be sure that your core business skills are strong because a great web presence will not compensate for a lack of skill or a poor work ethic – in the final analysis, it will all come down to the value you provide to your clients, and your execution of the job you were hired for. Whatever you choose, I wish you the best of luck in your efforts.</p> <div class="zemanta-pixie" style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" title="Enhanced by Zemanta" href="http://www.zemanta.com/?px"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" class="zemanta-pixie-img" style="border: none; float: right;" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" src="https://i0.wp.com/img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?w=560" /></a></div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://rereflections.com/your-web-site-sucks-and-your-mother-dresses-you-funny/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>2</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">793</post-id> </item> <item> <title>Chicken Little and the Future of Real Estate</title> <link>https://rereflections.com/chicken-little-and-the-future-of-real-estate/</link> <comments>https://rereflections.com/chicken-little-and-the-future-of-real-estate/#comments</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:14:11 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Brokerage Advice]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Real Estate]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Wacky stuff]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bill lublin]]></category> <category><![CDATA[billlublin]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Chicken Little]]></category> <category><![CDATA[FACEBOOK]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Massachusetts]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Offer Insight]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Real estate broker]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Redfin]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Redfin.com]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://rereflections.com/?p=691</guid> <description><![CDATA[Foxy Loxy : “This is the Voice of Doom speaking! Special bulletin! Flash! The sky is falling! A piece of it just hit you on the head! Now be calm. Don’t get panicky. Run for your life!” – Chicken Little…<p class="more-link-p"><a class="more-link" href="https://rereflections.com/chicken-little-and-the-future-of-real-estate/">Read more →</a></p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<blockquote> <div style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="Chicken Little, 1943" src="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/tumblr_ly43e09NhZ1qhcrb0o1_5001.jpg?resize=500%2C379&ssl=1" width="500" height="379" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Chicken Little, 1943</p></div> <h4>Foxy Loxy : “This is the Voice of Doom speaking! Special bulletin! Flash! The sky is falling! A piece of it just hit you on the head! Now be calm. Don’t get panicky. Run for your life!” – Chicken Little , 1943</h4> </blockquote> <p>Ours is a business that seems to simultaneously embrace and fear the future. Any new business model that gets national attention becomes the topic of passionate conversation about why it will or won’t change the way consumers buy property. Experimentation in the business is not really new,but the appearance of online communities where we can discuss the matter, worrying away at each new idea like a dog gnawing on a bone, allows even minor aberrations to assume the importance of major business shifts.</p> <p>Recently <a class="zem_slink" title="Redfin" href="http://redfin.com" target="_blank" rel="homepage">Redfin</a>, a VC based real estate firm with a reputation for innovation due to an employee based agent model, consumer discounts, agent reviews, a high profile blog and a very smooth web presence, recently announced <a href="http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2013/02/redfin_publishes_thousands_of_real-time_insights_on_what_it_takes_to_win_a_bidding_war.html" target="_blank">the publication of real-time” Offer Insights”</a> , which they describe as “real-time statistics and notes from Redfin agents about thousands of offers submitted on behalf of our clients”. Within 3 days <a href="http://www.massrealestatelawblog.com/2013/02/10/redfin-offer-insights-concerns-raised-over-online-posting-of-contract-negotiation-details/" target="_blank">a blog post from a Massachusetts Attorney</a> specializing in real estate appeared raising the issues of confidentiality and ethics issues that might arise from the program, and a conversation had started on Facebook debating the Pros and Cons of the program.</p> <p>While the conversation talked about transparency and consumer oriented thinking, to me its just more of the same old stuff. One company trying to find a way to drive consumers to their site and their agents as opposed to another. Redfin writes ” <em>We publish Offer Insights throughout Redfin.com, showing nearby deals when you look at an individual property but also highlighting juicy details about pending sales as you browse our map of listings…And if you want more detail about an Offer Insight, you only have to ask, via an online form associated with each Insight. The Redfin agent who wrote the offer will respond to your questions, usually via email, usually within a few hours</em>” Makes a lot more sense now doesn’t it? We’ll give you “juicy details” if you give us a way to contact you. Not so futuristic when its viewed that way – just another way to gain consumer attention. And not salacious at all (Groan!)</p> <p>Redfin, like any other company is motivated , at their core, by a desire to be profitable and grow. And that’s fine, but professionals need not to react to every new thing thing as if the world was ending, and all the rules of the game have changed overnight. We should analyze new business techniques, and to try to understand not only what they are, but what the business reason for them is, and whether there will be any real change in the industry as a result. <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>We should be directed by our core business vision and not become “other-directed” if we wish to succeed in our chosen field. </strong></em></span></p> <p>I don’t see “Offer Insights” as anything approaching “game changer” status. In fact, other than the publicity it might generate, and the potential for inquiries from curious consumers, I don;t see it as a great idea. The “insights” that I have read are anecdotal, subjective, and don’t contain really valuable information. Frankly, except for the potential for bad communication of the facts of the matter, I wouldn’t think of it as a listing agent. With that concern however, I might be more directed in how I advise a seller to respond to an offer from an agent who tells me in advance that they might be sharing the details of a transaction that my seller might wish to be confidential . And I certainly would be extremely careful about my communications to the Redfin agent, possibly denying them information as a result of a concern that it might appear online as an insight of some sort.</p> <p>….So as I took a break from writing this post to actually be in the real estate business today, I got a call from a Redfin agent in my market who has buyers interested in a listing of mine. She asked if we had previous offers on the property, or if there were any other interested parties. My immediate response was to be cautious about what information I made available to her because I was conscious that anything I might say could later be included in an anecdotal memoir that I would have no ability to review for factual content. I told her that I was not comfortable discussing current or previous offers since I did not know how they would be typified in the offers insight program, and I didn’t want to enter into a conversation that might at some point be detrimental to my client. I know it was the first time she heard that, but I wonder if it will be the last….She was a little taken aback since she wasn’t really familiar with the program, though she was very supportive of her company and explained that the CEO of Redfin must be comfortable with potential impact of the program. I explained that though I have the greatest respect for her CEO, his diligent research can’t stop him from making a mistake, and it certainly doesn’t relieve me of my obligations to my clients.</p> <p>I don’t know what the result of Redfin’s new program will be. It may make cooperation with their agents more difficult as co-op agents try to avoid potential ethical or moral dilemmas. It might provide consumers with partially accurate anecdotal information that could help or damage their home buying negotiations. It may drive traffic to their site or litigation to their doors. But I do think that it is less effective as a tool for consumer education than it is positioned to be, and I don’t believe that provides as much guidance as an experienced real estate agent can provide to their buyer clients about the negotiation process.</p> <p>What do you think?</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <div class="zemanta-pixie" style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" title="Enhanced by Zemanta" href="http://www.zemanta.com/?px"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" class="zemanta-pixie-img" style="border: none; float: right;" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" src="https://i0.wp.com/img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?w=560" /></a></div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://rereflections.com/chicken-little-and-the-future-of-real-estate/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>1</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">691</post-id> </item> <item> <title>Houses Don’t Sell Themselves – Ever!</title> <link>https://rereflections.com/houses-dont-sell-themselves-ever/</link> <comments>https://rereflections.com/houses-dont-sell-themselves-ever/#comments</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 21 Jan 2013 02:06:51 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category> <category><![CDATA[bill lublin]]></category> <category><![CDATA[billlublin]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Business]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Buyer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[century 21 advantage gold]]></category> <category><![CDATA[FACEBOOK]]></category> <category><![CDATA[marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Michael]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Michael McClure]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sales]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sales management]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://rereflections.com/?p=634</guid> <description><![CDATA[Ever hear the phrase "the house sold itself"? I think its nonsense - salespeople sell houses, they don't sell themselves. Ever. And buyers are far better off because they do. <p class="more-link-p"><a class="more-link" href="https://rereflections.com/houses-dont-sell-themselves-ever/">Read more →</a></p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I like the Raise the Bar Group on <a class="zem_slink" title="Facebook" href="http://facebook.com" target="_blank" rel="homepage">Facebook</a> most of the time.</p> <p>Its a place where opinions fly freely at the speed of light, some well informed, some not so much. Michael McClure, the group’s admin does his best to ask provocative questions to keep the conversation going, and he recently asked this one:</p> <p><a href="https://rereflections.com/?attachment_id=635" rel="attachment wp-att-635"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="635" data-permalink="https://rereflections.com/houses-dont-sell-themselves-ever/houses-sell-themselves/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/houses-sell-themselves.png?fit=516%2C127&ssl=1" data-orig-size="516,127" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":""}" data-image-title="do houses sell themselves" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/houses-sell-themselves.png?fit=300%2C73&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/houses-sell-themselves.png?fit=516%2C127&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-635" alt="do houses sell themselves" src="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/houses-sell-themselves.png?resize=516%2C127&ssl=1" width="516" height="127" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/houses-sell-themselves.png?w=516&ssl=1 516w, https://i0.wp.com/rereflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/houses-sell-themselves.png?resize=300%2C73&ssl=1 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 516px) 100vw, 516px" /></a></p> <p> </p> <p>My first thought was – ” Houses are inanimate objects. Of course they don’t sell themselves. If you don’t think you sell anything, perhaps you should be looking for a different line of work.” But as I typed that, I reflected that even though the statement is completely true , perhaps it was a little harsh as a response to Michael’s efforts to move the conversation along – and my position might need a deeper explanation.</p> <p>I began my career in real estate as a job hating salesperson. I didn’t think much of salespeople in general. I felt that they were, for the most part, fast talking, manipulative and only focused on making the sale. In short, I had the same view most non-salespeople (and many salespeople) have of the profession. I knew that I would be different, and that I would show them homes until they found the one they wanted, and they would then buy the house without my needing to sell them anything. I would never be pushy or agressive, and my buyers would make their own minds up. As a result I was an unsuccessful salesperson. And when I say I was unsuccessful, I mean that I neither earned a good living nor effectively or efficiently helped buyers to find their dream homes.</p> <p>Luckily, I became a professional salesperson and learned to be extremely successful in both earning a living and helping others. In fact, learning to be a salesperson required my learning a number of skills that helped me grow both professionally and personally. Most people don’t understand what a salesperson is or what they do. I was recently in a conversation about sales with a group of people who that included a large number of non-salespeople, one of whom said during the conversation “Aren’t we all salespeople?” – No, we are not all salespeople, and the only person who would ever say that is someone who doesn’t sell for a living and really doesn’t understand the depth of statement.</p> <p>For us to understand it, we need to start by defining what a salesperson’s job is.</p> <p>The job of a salesperson is not to manipulate, persuade, or induce anyone to do anything that they do not want. <em><strong>The job of a salesperson is to help the customer make a decision in their best interest that they would not have made if the salesperson was not present.</strong></em></p> <p>We do that job by helping buyers accomplish their objectives because they often don’t know how to do that themselves. For example, in most cases buyers shop for features when they really need benefits, and as salespeople we should have greater product knowledge that enables us to help them receive the desired benefits , especially when they are mistaken in the feature set they chose.</p> <p>We do that job by assisting them in understanding financing and negotiations, often by making them more comfortable with the costs involved, the amount they need to spend to achieve their objectives, and by explaining to them how others have coped with the challenges they face.</p> <p>We do that job by helping them to move outside the box they created for themselves when they were thinking about buying a home with little or no real information about how the process works. We help them to see alternatives and options that they wouldn’t think about for themselves. We even help them face the uncomfortable truths that they need to face to make the best choices possible. While we don’t need to be pushy or aggressive, sometimes we do need to be assertive to help people make the best possible decisions.</p> <p>We do that job by helping them to negotiate better when they finally find a home, helping them to understand how to reach their objectives, by providing objective advice when they are emotionally involved in the transaction. And when the over react, or under react, we are there to help them through the process, and to do what is in their best interest. The simple fact is that people who buy residential re-sales are working with a finite number of properties for sale, and an existing inventory of properties, which may not contain the house the built for themselves in their minds at the price they decided would be the right price for them to pay.</p> <p>People don’t, by themselves, always do what is in their best interests. If they did, no one would eat too much , exercise too little, drink to excess or abuse the environment, Coaches wouldn’t exist, and no one would ever need to write or read a self-help book. Left to our own devices we often make choices that seem to be good, but are actually not. Sometimes people make choices because they’re easy, or popular, or because they fit some preconception we have. Home buyers are no different. They <em>need </em>the services a good salesperson provides to help them make the best choice for their needs, which may not be the choice they would make by themselves.</p> <p>Simply put, we do sell houses, they don’t sell themselves. Ever. And our buyers are far better off because we do.</p> <p>Think I’m wrong or think I’m right? I would love to hear from you.</p> <p> </p> <div class="zemanta-pixie" style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" title="Enhanced by Zemanta" href="http://www.zemanta.com/?px"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" class="zemanta-pixie-img" style="border: none; float: right;" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" src="https://i0.wp.com/img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?w=560" /></a></div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://rereflections.com/houses-dont-sell-themselves-ever/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>4</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">634</post-id> </item> <item> <title>Leads Are for Closers</title> <link>https://rereflections.com/leads-are-for-closers/</link> <comments>https://rereflections.com/leads-are-for-closers/#comments</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Sun, 08 Apr 2012 15:17:29 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Real Estate]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Advertising and Marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Business]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Consumer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[FACEBOOK]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Lead generation]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Real estate broker]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Ziprealty]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://rereflections.com/?p=303</guid> <description><![CDATA[These are the new leads. These are the Glengarry leads. And to you they’re gold, and you don’t get them. Why? Because to give them to you would be throwing them away. They’re for closers. – GlenGarry Glen Ross People…<p class="more-link-p"><a class="more-link" href="https://rereflections.com/leads-are-for-closers/">Read more →</a></p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<blockquote> <div class="mceTemp"></div> <p>These are the new leads. These are the Glengarry leads. And to you they’re gold, and you don’t get them. Why? Because to give them to you would be throwing them away. They’re for closers. – GlenGarry Glen Ross</p></blockquote> <div style="width: 370px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/glengarry_glen_ross" target="_blank"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="zemanta-img-inserted zemanta-img-configured" title="Glengarry Glen Ross" src="https://i0.wp.com/content7.flixster.com/photo/37/44/32/3744321_gal.jpg?resize=360%2C202" alt="Glengarry Glen Ross" width="360" height="202" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Glengarry Glen Ross (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)</p></div> <p>People all over the country are talking about syndication and IDX, and who does what for the data , when the core issue that doesn’t get talked about as much is who gets to contact the consumer first – something that is often referred to as lead generation.</p> <p>Using the term lead, by the way, does not mean that I (or anyone) does not care about the consumer, or is not prepared to do what is needed to establish meaningful business relationships. Using the term doesn’t mean that I do not value consumers as human beings. I use the term because we need a term to describe the process of obtaining contact information that a consumer trades for online information every day – on every website from Facebook to Google and back again.</p> <p>When markets contract, customers become crucial. In the real estate business we are always seeking new customers and clients because our repeat sales cycle (the time between purchases) is measured in years. But that causes us to wonder – whose job is it to generate those opportunities?</p> <p>Traditionally, real estate companies were the source of potential business for their agents, and agents affiliated with companies that they perceived as having strong sources of business.</p> <p>Core business was generated by the organization and individual agents worked their own network of family and friends to develop additional sources of business. As new business models developed the company was not concerned financially with the success of the agent, and therefore did not spend time or money in generating business opportunities. In these models, agent compensation was increased by decreasing company services and support. As a result, their agents began to bear the effort and expense of developing new business sources. This has led to a wide variety of business models being developed arround agent compensation with varying levels of support, and therefore varying levels of responsiblity for finding sales opportunities.</p> <p>With the advent of IDX and the syndication of property data, third-party companies sprang up to place themselves between the consumer and the supplier of service adding cost without service to the real estate transaction.Yes, I know that they have slick interfaces that consumers like, but that adds facility, not value in the financial sense for the consumer.</p> <p>From banner ads, to enhanced listings, to the direct sales of customer contact information, a new industry was created by people who usurped the role of the real estate agent <em>and</em> company, seeking to be the first point of contact for the consumer, which they would enable them to sell either advertising of consumer information to the real estate professional necessary to the transaction itself. Some of these models failed when the market receded, but the third-party aggregator – a company that acquires listing information from real estate professionals and organizations, is alive and well and aggressively pursuing the same consumer the real estate professional is pursuing.</p> <p>So in today’s market, where property information is ubiquitous and 1,000s of copies of every listed property competes with each other on all three of these levels for a finite number of consumer eyeballs, we need to answer three question; Who should be generating leads? Why should they be involved in that process? Who benefits from their lead generating efforts?</p> <p>Let’s look at some possible answers;</p> <p><strong>Agents</strong> , to succeed, need new business. Therefore, on some level they should always be involved in creating new business opportunities. Call it prospecting or lead generation, it boils down to the same thing – contacting people to determine if they need your services. In today’s electronic world, much of that needs to come from your personal sphere of influence. The people that view you as a trusted advisor. For agents, I believe it is more effective to build relationships than to compete with companies, franchises and aggregators for consumer eyeballs. This is not to say that individual agents cannot compete with well written blog sites, Web sites that exploit long tail SEO strategies, and focused niche marketing, it is only to point out that they are outnumbered by the competition, and are generally at a disadvantage if they do not do those things.</p> <p><strong>Companies</strong>, to attract agents, benefit from having the ability to provide a “leads rich environment” – companies with RELO departments for example, typically use that source of business to attract new and experienced agents. Ziprealty and Redfin were, in their original iterations, based on the concept that really successful lead generation (or consumer attraction) would, by itself generate business. They both found that having well-trained and motivated agents are important to execute against the opportunities provided by their excellent technology. In addition, providing opportunities to agents generally allows companies to retain more of the gross commission dollar, providing a stable infrastructure, as ell as the resources needed to execute a strong lead generation program.</p> <p><strong>Third party sources</strong> of these opportunities come in several flavors – websites that attract consumers and then sell us placement as an indirect way to obtain leads, or direct lead sales. But all of them are in it for the same reason – to interpose themselves between the consumer looking for services or products, and the individuals and companies that provide those services or sell those products. Oddly enough, they have become our most vicious competitors online because we have given them the currency to do so in the form of listing property information. The question of how good a strategy that is won’t be discussed here – that’s another story for another day.</p> <p><strong>The Future?</strong> A fourth contact point for the consumer was brought to my attention by Matt Case, a Michigan REALTOR who, in a thread in a Facebook group discussed plans by a local association to create a public facing web site. Some MLSs (most notably HAR – the Houston Association of REALTORS) have created terrific public facing web sites that create consumer contact opportunities for their members. While some might argue that the job of the MLS or the Association is not to “level the playing field” between its competing members, I see them as a much more benign third-party than the For Profit aggregators.</p> <p>Given the importance of effective lead generation to the survival of companies and the individual careers of their agents, more and more effort is being focused on that task by those that have weathered the economic storm of the past several years. Probably the most effective solution for the real estate industry and its members is when there is a combination of company and agent generated business opportunities. Companies and agents need to be symbiotic once more as they were in the past. Companies and agents should not abdicate the job of generating business to third parties. It increases costs, makes them work harder to woo the consumer and retain consumer loyalty when they have no previous relationship with us. And direct contact with the consumer makes their success safe from the vagaries of third parties , allowing agents and firms to succeed or fail as a result of their own efforts.</p> <p>Look, in the final analysis, generating all the contacts in the world won’t help if you don’t have the skill and knowledge to help the consumer. But any sales organization needs new contacts regularly – Who do you think should be responsible for generating them?</p> <blockquote><p>Get out there – you got the prospects coming in. You think they came in to get out of the rain? A guy don’t walk on the lot lest he wants to buy. – GlenGarry Glen Ross</p></blockquote> <div class="zemanta-pixie" style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" title="Enhanced by Zemanta" href="http://www.zemanta.com/"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" class="zemanta-pixie-img" style="border: none; float: right;" src="https://i0.wp.com/img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?w=560" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" /></a></div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://rereflections.com/leads-are-for-closers/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>10</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">303</post-id> </item> <item> <title>Is Your Marketing Relevant?</title> <link>https://rereflections.com/is-your-marketing-relevant/</link> <comments>https://rereflections.com/is-your-marketing-relevant/#comments</comments> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:21:39 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category> <category><![CDATA[advertising]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Agent Genius]]></category> <category><![CDATA[FACEBOOK]]></category> <category><![CDATA[marketing]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Real Estate]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Real estate broker]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social network]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Social relation]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://rereflections.com/?p=96</guid> <description><![CDATA[Image by SAN_DRINO via Flickr I’m a fan of silly things – they usually make me smile , but sometimes I end up just scratching my head and wondering why people do silly things when they don’t intend to. And…<p class="more-link-p"><a class="more-link" href="https://rereflections.com/is-your-marketing-relevant/">Read more →</a></p>]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="zemanta-img" style="margin: 1em; display: block;"> <div> <dl class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 170px;"> <dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/8296409@N08/1454922072"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" title="What is going on ?" src="https://i0.wp.com/farm2.static.flickr.com/1133/1454922072_e7b687ea8a_m.jpg?w=560" alt="What is going on ?"></a></dt> <dd class="wp-caption-dd zemanta-img-attribution" style="font-size: 0.8em;">Image by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/8296409@N08/1454922072">SAN_DRINO</a> via Flickr</dd> </dl> </div> </div> <p>I’m a fan of silly things – they usually make me smile , but sometimes I end up just scratching my head and wondering why people do silly things when they don’t intend to. And more and more frequently I see people doing sill things in social spaces.</p> <p>Your community ( or audience, or market) needs to be the prime consideration when you write or say things, so I am stunned by many real estate people who think their audience needs to be interested in the things <em>they</em> want them to be interested in. I reserve ReReflections for the comments on the real estate industry that are so peculiarly mine that I ‘m not sharing them over at <a class="zem_slink" title="Agent Genius" rel="homepage" href="http://agentgenius.com">AgentGenius</a>. My social media thoughts are either published there or at www.smminstitute.com or www.buzzbuilderz.com. My blog posts that might be of interest to consumers find their way to either MovePhilly or C21AgVoices. Not because I want my writings to be hard to find, but because I want to be saying things that are relevant to specific readers.</p> <p>It not a new phenomenon but before the advent of social media, we needed to be present to hear real estate agents say silly things. For example, an agent might tell a client whose listing was expiring “You can’t list your property with someone else – I’ve really spent a lot of time working on it”. Why does the seller care? Their property isn’t sold and their needs are not being met. and they still needed to sell the property. A more relevant tactic would have been to give them a reason to stay listed that made sense. Perhaps a discussion of their pricing and marketing position combined with a comparison of the marketing efforts of the current and prospective real estate companies. It might not have convinced the client to extend the listing, but at least the conversation would have been relevant instead of simply self-centered.</p> <p>Today, poorly informed agents who use social networks to broadcast commercial messages make their lack of thought a public spectacle. The “Facebook listing” is an iconic example of abuse. With listings reiterated in thousands of places through IDX feeds and listing syndication, putting listing information or open house information in a social environment demonstrates not only a lack of concern for the other members of your community, but a lack of respect for your “friends”.</p> <p>By demonstrating lack of relevance in your content, and a disregard for the social context, you demonstrate disrespect for your ‘friends’ that results in a dismissal of your message and a reduction in your online relevance .</p> <p>Recently, I saw an interchange on Facebook that went like this:</p> <p><a id="aptureLink_seyrtU7H9P" style="margin: 0pt auto; padding: 0px 6px; text-align: center; display: block;" href="https://i0.wp.com/apture.s3.amazonaws.com/00000126ab1d891380527c51007f000000000001.agentexample.JPG"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" style="border: 0px none;" title="agentexample" src="https://i0.wp.com/apture.s3.amazonaws.com/00000126ab1d891380527c51007f000000000001.agentexample.JPG?w=560" alt="" ></a></p> <p>When I read this he sounds like a multi-level-marketer talking about “income potential” . No one cares what you make (unless you’re paying their bills) – they care about things that impact them or your relationship with them. Not to mention the fact that the whole response might have been better placed as a message rather than a wall post.</p> <p>And while we’re talking about advertising disguised as social interaction – how about this;</p> <p><a id="aptureLink_lVgJN09Eb3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; display: block; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 6px;" href="https://i0.wp.com/apture.s3.amazonaws.com/00000126b399d8aded32558a007f000000000001.badrecruitingfacebookpost.png"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" style="border: 0px initial initial;" title="badrecruitingfacebookpost" src="https://i0.wp.com/apture.s3.amazonaws.com/00000126b399d8aded32558a007f000000000001.badrecruitingfacebookpost.png?w=560" alt="" ></a></p> <p>Where is the engagement in this blind solicitation? Who could be silly enough to think that this person cares about their career ? This could easily have been lifted from a bus bench billboard – is that what we perceive our social network values?</p> <p>I think that talking about work in social settings can be appropriate , just as it would be in face to face settings. For example, you might say in a social setting that you had a tough time working with sellers to obtain a listing, but you probably wouldn’t whip out a flyer for the property and give it to the guests. If we could just take a moment to think about whether we would do something in person that we’re about to do on-line, it might really improve the quality of our communications, and the bonds we have wth our communties,</p> <div class="zemanta-pixie" style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" title="Reblog this post [with Zemanta]" href="http://reblog.zemanta.com/zemified/0eb831d0-fb57-4df2-a8a1-ba88fd186da1/"><img data-recalc-dims="1" decoding="async" class="zemanta-pixie-img" style="border: medium none; float: right;" src="https://i0.wp.com/img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?w=560" alt="Reblog this post [with Zemanta]"></a><span class="zem-script more-related more-info pretty-attribution"><script src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" type="text/javascript"></script></span></div> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>https://rereflections.com/is-your-marketing-relevant/feed/</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>275</slash:comments> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">96</post-id> </item> </channel> </rss>