A gorilla in real estate's midst

My wife and I read to our youngest two boys each night. Gavin, the 7-year old, tends to picks books from my library rather than the children's that we started 19 years ago with our eldest.

This school year, we tackled Hey Ho Let's Go, Jonathan Livingston Seagull and The Hobbit. Our current read is Chuck Liddell's Iceman, My Fighting Life ... or, more precisely, the abridged version with lots of daddy edits.

Last night, during bedtime reading, we had a guest: Max, the charming new mascot for Homegain.

Max arrived yesterday, sent by his trainer, Louis Cammarosano, HomeGain's GM. Gavin found the creature quite appealing. Perhaps it was the plush orange outer fur. Or maybe it was Max's disarming  smile. Or the cushy inner stuffing that made Max tender to the touch.

Whatever it was, they became instant friends. Max accompanied Gavin to T-ball. Hung with him during dinner. Sat next to him as he played Wii. Later in the evening, we read about Max online. When we were done, Gavin turned to me and asked "Dad, what's Homegain?"

Great brands find their way into our bloodstream. They infuse themselves into our hearts and minds. They embed themselves into our consciousness. Attain ownership of a piece of real estate in our brain.

That process has a starting point. It could be an ad or a commercial that resonates with a need. Or a website that delivers on its promise. It could be an exchange with a sales person that makes your day. Or something as simple as an immediate response to an inquiry.

Sometimes, it's something that can't be explained easily. Like a soft, cuddly Gorilla emblazoned with the logo of an online real estate company.

Last night, I had a front row seat to real estate brand story staring an orange primate who piqued the interest of a little boy. He's awaiting the sequel.

- Davison.

When loyalty is based on indifference.

It's amazing what some companies take for granted.
It's amazing what some companies leave on the table.
It's amazing what some companies don't do to blow their customers away.

It's sad how little most companies invest in building affection with their customers. I could be talking about major real estate brands. I could be talking airlines. I could be talking about phone carriers.

My Verizon bill

After nearly dropping dead from the shock of my January cell-phone bill, I dialed 611 while pacing a trench in my living room.

As it turns out, the culprits were the hordes of Verizon folks who'd switched to AT&T over the holidays, reeking havoc on my free mobile-to-mobile minutes causing my otherwise stable charges to skyrocket. Just like that.

Verizon could have built an alert of some kind that recognizes when we, the loyalists, are on the threshold of a violent overage. But they didn't. They could issue a voucher for it's customers to be used against spiked minutes due to the anomaly of so many customers switching carriers at once. That would have been  mind-blowing. But the company instead chose to do nothing.

According to a summer poll conducted by M:Metrics, roughly two-thirds of people interested in buying the iPhone (the leading driver of a lot of recent carrier-switching) are not currently AT&T customers. Verizon knew this was going to happen. And they did nothing.

And that also blows my mind.

Being stuck is not the same as being loyal

I could leave Verizon. And go where? In a sea of phone carriers, they're all the same. One just as bad as the next. So I'm stuck with what I have.

Corporate folks, as they crunch numbers, tend to view this repeat business as brand loyalty. I disagree. And if the foundation of your business is built on that very same premise, I'd check it for cracks.

Had Verizon checked, it would have noticed that after getting over the shock of the bill, I had to wait over an hour to finally reach a salesperson who took another 40 minutes to investigate why my bill was over $600.

I hung up frustrated, abused, discarded.

What does this have to do with real estate?

Everything. What are you doing right now to mine the richest vein before you -- your existing and past customer base? What meaning are you applying to your brand right now that could translate into genuine loyalty?

Brokers: What are you doing right now, from the top down, to relieve frustration among your customers? To embrace them? To make them feel respected rather than used?

Your brands are stabbed into America's front yard. They know your names but they don't know you. They are hard-pressed to express your value proposition. You are like everyone else. How are you leveraging your differences, your essence, to enhance a sense of loyalty?

AT&T partnered with Apple to create that new bond. Maybe it's working. Who knows. I am already hearing a hue and cry from their newly converted about dropped calls and lousy service. Meanwhile, Verizon does nothing other push that oddball "Can you hear me now?" guy on us while it remains deaf to the gripes of its customers.

So this is my point: In the face of today's market, with all of the issues facing the American homeowner -- from shrinking equity to volatile credit markets to impending foreclosure -- what new bonds are real estate brokers creating? What new offerings or alerts are you presenting to your past customers that could not only bring immediate benefit, relief, information or counsel but that also could assign some new, greater sense of value for you and your brands?

Vendors: In the face of today's struggle to stay afloat, in light of the market and shrinking sales, what are you doing right now to drive new products, services, tools and pricing back to your current broker client base? Are you reengineering your technologies? Are you enhancing your old platforms? Are you working with modern code or are you just sticking to the same old, same old in hopes that your clients just continue writing checks because you've mistakenly confused the futility of finding a better vendor with loyalty?

Can you hear me now?

A new cell-phone carrier will one day emerge with a Zappos-like service ethic, an Apple-like retail experience and a Starwood-like rewards program built to cultivate affection and loyalty. Or not. What interests me is what this would look like in real estate. From consumers within the industry to homeowners outside it, all one has to do is gaze out across the landscape to see the millions of unclaimed, disloyal, stuck hearts looking, yearning and hoping for something they can fall in love with.

Don't wish the cycles would turn; turn them yourself.

- Davison

I am a customer

As I sit working on my iMac, I think back to my old PC. It was a machine. I, its operator. We fought. We disagreed. We hardly communicated. We had a love/hate relationship. I loved it for getting me through the day; I hated it for being so self-centered. It was all about itself. "Talk to the hand" it often said as it froze up.

But I settled for it. After all, it seemed as if it was the best I could do.

Then the hard drive crashed. I lost everything. Work. Personal things. But in some ways I was relieved. I felt I could start over.

That night I watched an Apple commercial. And I saw myself. And I was not a PC. That was never me.  The next day I entered a Mac store. I never realized computing could be like this. I never imaged a retail experience could be like this either.

Over the next few days, I discovered a level of computing I never knew existed. I had never viewed a computer as a work of art. A computer had never beckoned me to compose on it. 

For Mac users, the device makes a statement about who they are. Apple has seen to that. In its relationship with its customers, they have defined them. How they feel. And how they relate to the work experience. Its users are part of a growing culture.

This relationship between brand and consumer eludes most brokers and agents. They either don't understand it or just believe it's impossible to create. They haven't dug deep to learn who their customers are. To learn what makes them tick. And react.

For the most part, real estate just tries to throw a net around everyone.To be all things to all people. Well, the sad part is, that doesn't work. You end up appealing to no one. You are like everyone else. Plain vanilla yogurt.

Mac commercials resonate because they speak the same language as the customer. Brand and customer are on the same side. Real estate doesn't even pretend to do that. 

What you call a listing, is really my home.
What you refer to as a lead is really just a person looking for some information. 
The neighborhood I live in you call a ... farm. 
Once I make a simple inquiry, you incubate me as if I were an egg.
To keep me interested you drip on me rather than shower me with affection.
When you sell my home, I become a notch on your top producer belt.
You market to me as if your personality means more to me than the value of my home.

In the end, many real estate consumers feel like I did before I bought my Mac -- forced to use something suboptimal because there is no other alternative. What an dysfunctional relationship.

It doesn’t have to be like that.

There are going to be those people who read this, look at their 20 sales and say, "I did 20 deals last year -- you know nothing". To that I say, while you think you did 20 deals last year, I believe what you really did is help 20 American families -- moms, dads, sons and daughters -- acquire for themselves a slice of the great American pie. And if you did 20, who’s to say with a little change, you couldn't have done 40?

- Davison

MAC OS Leopard: Sleek, smart and ready for real estate

For those who think Macs are just for artists and musicians think again and again. The release of Mac OS Leopard, loaded with tools like iChat, Cover Flow, Quick Look and .Mac, has tons of relevance for the business user, including those in real estate.

Take the server side applications. Today a brokerage can acquire a Xserve G5 and install it as their in- house server and allow agents to access their docs from anywhere using their own Mac and .Mac account. Files will present themselves in cover flow - a process that provides the user more than just a pretty visual.

With iChat, locating, sharing, grabbing and presenting documents and delivering presentations (using Keynote) and videocasts on properties has been made much more powerful. When I consider the endless possibilities this feature has for showing property, I shudder.

Over a million iPhones have been sold, many to PC users who are getting their first taste of a Mac experience. These phones are purchased at Mac stores where Apple has beautifully redefined the retail experience.

Having used a PC since the early 90's, I always felt that owning one was like owing a circa 1960's VW Bus. Breakdowns were inevitable, the ride was bumpy, and reaching your destination intact was never a sure thing. The Mac ride is insanely different. At times it's downright seductive.

Leopard promises 300 new features. Granted some of it is eye candy. And why not? We stare into these boxes all day long and develop deep relationships with them. Why shouldn't they dress up for us once in a while? We turn them on daily -- it's about time they turned us on once in a while

As for the applications .. with Time Machine, all I can say is I can't wait to lose a document.

-- Davison