Dissolving the bars of your mental cage

I wrote this in October of 07 after watching the Wizard of Oz with my kids. During the flick I found myself comparing Dorothy to the traditional agent and her manifestations - the Scarecrow, Tin man and Lion - to the self-imposed limitations these agents place on themselves. Since I wrote this, so many agents have pushed beyond their self-imposed limitations. They have adapted to new ideas. Built better brands and utilized social tools to the max. This piece honors them but also calls out those those folks who attend sessions that teach these progressive things and leave midway through in a puff of disgust. ...Merry Christmas, Marc

Many have said that when L. Frank Baum first conceived the story, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," a child asked him what the name of his marvelous fairyland was. His eye happened to catch sight of his filing cabinet, which read "O-Z".

This story, published in 1900, chronicles a young girl's adventure in the Land of Oz. Over the years, many, including political scholars, have suggested that the story is an allegory for the political, economic and social events of America during the late 1800s. Most point to both Baum and his illustrator W.W. Denslow's active involvement in politics.

In this formulation, Dorothy serves as a metaphor for the common man. Her trials and tribulations are lessons in the power of self-confidence and positive thinking.

Lions, Tigers and Bears … oh my

Fear grips most of us daily. The Dorothy inside us struggles with insecurities and self-imposed limitations – the lions, tigers and bears that lie hidden along our own yellow brick roads. They emerge often, conjured by imaginations that present themselves as real roadblocks before our desire to reach our personal Emerald City. They are a cyclone of circumstance.

There hardly was a real estate industry during Baum and Denslow's time, but looking back, I suggest that their story is instructive for anyone in the business today.

The Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion

These characters are all parts of Dorothy, her insecurities, her limitations. Her scarecrow is stuck on a post at the edge of the real estate cornfield, confused over which direction to take and unaware of her greatest assets. She is unsuccessful at fending off "interlopers" -- the crows swoop by her field, land on her shoulders, pick at her brain, laugh in her face and steal her straw.

Real estate's Dorothy has a Tin Man galvanized by his own inertia. Caught in mid-chop just as the rain of innovation came down and rusted her solid. The Tin Man keeps Dorothy holding on to a traditional axe while others have moved to power tools. Dorothy's Tin Man is stuck in processes that grind and seize her. All she can do is watch as others flourish.

Dorothy's Cowardly Lion is a whimpering, complaining, antagonistic, sniveling creature. This once almighty King of the Jungle is now suppressed by its own reflection and fears, its lack of comprehension and distrust of outsiders, change and risk.

The Yellow Brick Road

This is our life -- the paths we choose. It meanders through places and exposes us to experiences that are at times forbidding. For the Dorothys within real estate, the road is riddled with wicked witches, flying monkeys, poppy fields and scary apple trees.

Little do these Dorothys realize that everything needed to unravel every riddle lies deep within themselves.

Dissolving the bars of the mental cage

When Dorothy faces the Wizard flanked by her three fears, she soon learns that her Scarecrow always had a brain, that her Tin Man was actually the James Brown of soul, full of heart and passion. And the coward in Dorothy was really a hero after all.

Sometimes we need an adventure to dissolve the bars of our mental cages -- like getting caught up in the cyclone of a housing market slump that takes us from the safe and easy comforts of our personal Kansas to a land where everything is unfamiliar.

The great and powerful Wizard of Oz presented the Scarecrow with his diploma, the Tin Man his testimonials and the Lion his medal. These are the documentations of a lifetime, the things so many Dorothys already possess.

The Dorothys of real estate don't need a wizard to take them home. They just need to close their eyes for a moment, click their glass slippers, drop their fears and believe in themselves.

- Davison
Twitter: 1000wattmarc

Sucking on a Real Estate Binky

Flight 168 touched down at 2:00 a.m., many hours past the time printed on my boarding pass. There’s no do over. No “fly the next time on us” hook up. The airlines dish out bad times and we accept it. 

I sat in the middle seat wedged like a cold cut between two over sized slices of human bread. Each time I leaned forward I had to dislodge myself between two meaty arms on either side that encroached upon my space over the armrests.

The plane sat at the gate for hours while my empty stomach held a press conference. Captain Sprague periodically served up apologies like Tapas. In a variety of small and unfulfilling portions he kept assuring us that we’d be cleared for takeoff “momentarily.” That seemed to pacify everyone.

Sucking on real estate’s binky

Real estate is no different than the airlines or the government or any entity that doesn’t recognize the benefit of being square with its customer. It does the airline no good to tell us we’ll be grounded for three hours while they fix the tire. And real estate has found it's far more advantageous to lull us into certain beliefs by shoving as many real estate binkys into our mouths as possible.

I cite the “now is the right time to buy” binky fueled by the NAR – one of this country’s biggest binky warehouses. They distribute binkys of all kinds to sales agents to pacify us into buying homes, believing all Realtors are saints and spending money we (and, turns our, our banks) don’t have.

Four years ago we sucked on 0% ARMS because “money was cheap” and “The home can only appreciate.” The binky lulled us to sweet dreams of home ownership.

When isn’t it the right time to buy I wonder?

Binkys ‘R Us

I learned about WAMU early Friday morning as I arrived early at a conference. I overheard a presentation from someone advising agents to tell consumers all will right itself by late 2009.

I wondered how those agents would back that statement up. Maybe they won’t need too. Maybe we’ll all be too eager to accept the succor.

I looked through the conference brochure and searched for panels on sensitivity training. Or panels that discuss the difference between a huckster and a real estate professional. Or panels on fundamentals of economics. I looked for panels that taught the people who handle the most delicate of transactions, to drop the economic futurist bit and just do sales. And treat people with dignity.

Not here. Or anywhere. Agents attend these Binkys ‘R Us conferences to get their binky CE points. Jewelry. And cheap advice from other binky salespeople.

I need a new binky

I'm frustrated by the war. Gas prices. A government that shoves rhetorical binkys into our mouths to distract us from the dirty economic diaper in which we sit.

I’m frustrated trying to find ways to explain it all to my children, especially the older ones, who are caught in a midlife crisis. They aren’t yet even 21. 

I'm frustrated that I can't assuage their confusion or my wife’s, who has this sinking feeling that we are all teetering on the edge of collapse like a cliff-side home in Laguna Beach during an El Nino.

I’m frustrated that our industry doesn’t provide something better than a bunch of binky platitudes, binky ad campaigns, and binky conferences that serve to simply pacify all of us rather that dish out cold hard reality. 

Maybe instead of telling us now is the right time to buy how about explaining why it is the right time to buy? How about explaining every nuance of the bailout and what it means for me, your customer? How about placing that information on a spreadsheet, or on your site or have the NAR back it up with fact rather than some air spun ad campaign.

People need more from real estate than just a big binky to suck on. They need the truth. Those who toss the old binky in favor of a new truth binky will be glad they did. The public cannot only handle it , they'll reward you for giving it to them.

- Davison

Bedrock

Abracadabra. Your Web site has vanished.
Your blog: MIA.
HomeGain, Trulia, Zillow, ActiveRain … all gone. As if they  never existed.

You reach for your phone but there's no dial tone.
Your computer -- no Internet activity.
No e-mail. No IM. Dead calm.

Lead generation, TMS, CRM … fond memories.
Lockboxes. Coaches. Trainers. Continuing-ed outfits. Gone.
No more "vendors" profiting inside real estate.

Through the courtesy of Fred's two  feet

It's been water cooler talk. Now it's taken hold in the blogosphere: The notion that real estate would be better served if vendors could be deleted from the process.

We're not just talking about technology vendors. Conference vendors, professional services vendors, training vendors and brokers, too, should be banished -- especially those who attempt to offset the cost of operations by selling things like training, education, Web sites and marketing materials

Utopia? I  hardly think so.

Without vendors, real estate could be a sort of Bedrock filled with Fred Flintstones, Barneys, Wilmas and Bettys. Still door-knocking. Cold-calling. Scratching out deals on paper using wood writing devices filled with lead. Driving documents across town for $5 a gallon. Praying at the altar of the paper gods -- fax and copy machines, postage clerks and file cabinets.

Agents would be viewed by consumers as glorified delivery people. Gatherers. Order takers. Desk-bound. And tied to the apron strings of convention -- the archaeological dig where only the fossils of the past reside. The vendors are doing their part to correct that perception.

A 'yabba-dabba-doo' time

Real estate without vendors. No yadda-dadda-doo time for anyone. A prehistoric landscape void of critical tools. Agents milling wood and hand-carving stone tablets to create yard signs. Slinging paper clip darts from rubber bands to generate leads instead of paying others for Web sites, blogs or e-newsletters. Reading stars for navigation and using smoke signals for communication instead of GPS, smart phones, Twitter, live chats and other overpriced tools produced by predatory vendors.

They would be weaving local market reports with the sinew of opinion rather than fact-driven analytics ported by feeds, applications and reports assembled by vendors who provide great agents the tools to look and sound as great and modern as they are.

These are otherwise equally disturbing stereotypes cast upon vendors and how some believe they look at real estate. 

Personally, I think the real estate bus is big enough for everyone. We all need each other. Because the perception is all around is incorrect. One no better than the other. One united industry.

Agents, disintermediators. Interlopers. Vendors. Outsiders. Them.

Us

- Davison

Building a brand, one note at a time

Sting. Dylan. Neil Young. Waits. Joplin. Good singers. But what really sets them apart is their unique vocal quality. Before their lyrics penetrate you, before their melodies mesmerize you, the sounds of their voices draw you in.

It sets them apart from everyone else.
It's their differentiator.
Their brand.

Your first brand touch point

Your voice is your brand. It needs a unique sound. Especially where it's first "heard" -- online, in the written form. There, it appears like notes on sheet music - tablature - on your Web site, on your blog. It's seeps through every comment you leave, every Twitter update, text and instant message.

It is the very first touch point of your brand.

Though it's inaudible, you're Internet voice speaks volumes about how you think and what you stands for. Like scents, companies have paid considerable attention to their written voice by focusing on its written timbre.

Apple uses a custom Myriad Pro font. They also structure their message using simple, staccato  sentences -- More Power. Thinly  disguised. -- rather than long-winded, descriptive narratives. This is consistent with the simple elegance they place into their product line. 

British Airways crafted their written voice with the use of a customized Mylius font that stands as an immediate identifier. It has become as synonymous with travel as the old Pan Am font. Had I written this post using Mylius, you'd have recognized their voice first in this post, not mine.

The chime of your brand

Attend to your written voice. Don't allow it to lay flat on a page through with long sentences and fat paragraphs that drone on, verse upon verse, never peaking, never arriving, never breaking for the chorus. It creates the impression that you talk more than you listen.   

Your written voice can stutter by virtue of repetition, saying the same thing over and over, drilling the same point home again and again and again and … This reeks of being overzealous. Hard sales vs. a softer and passive voice - the timbre most closely aligned with the Web.

Your written voice can be too loud. It can overwhelm and project off the page through bold fonts, rainbow colors, styles and sizes that scream at the reader and muffle the otherwise beautiful tone of your intent. The first impression of this voice says your brand is scattered. Unclear of it's direction. Creative but without a harness. Almost to the point of being obnoxious.

Your written voice can have an accent. It can ring like a Southern belle. Cut with Euro precision, and generate nuance by virtue of its own personalized ding. Midori Melon Liqueur offers their voice though a custom font and color choice as exotic as their product that differs greatly from its competitors. First impression before ever reading the words on their Website generate a swift desire for a cocktail.

When your written voice rings, your brand chimes.

Dear Ketel One Drinker:

In the film"Get Shorty," Bo (Delroy Lindo) threatens director Harry Zimm, who refuses to cough up a screenplay for Bo to produce. Bo believes he can easily write his own. All it takes are some lines of description, dialog and a few commas. We all know better. It takes far more than that to move an audience. Move a story. Evoke a sense of meaning. Or build a brand.

Your written voice, like its spoken counterpart, if presented properly, can have an even longer lasting effect. Here are a few ideas:

Create a brand-identifying font that is different from the standard Times New Roman, Arial or Verdana everyone else uses. Apply to your website home page, newsletter and blog.

Pay careful attention to where your written voice is placed on the page and how much space it occupies. Ketel One Vodka has.

Be as selective as possible when it comes to the words you use. Every word, every comma could or could not convey the essence of what your brand stands for.

This is the beginning. The starting point of your brand. Ready, set, go!

- Davison

Creating a mist of difference that is identifiably you

Who are "they"?
Why don't "they" get it?
What's not to get?

I'm wondering, why "they" have access to your brake pedal?

They

If "they" have not gotten it by now, "they" are not going to get it tomorrow. If your future is, in any way, tied to their past, let go. Each day, "they" don't get it, your life spark dims. 

Move on.
Find people who get it.
They're looking for you

If you run the place and "they" are employed by you, replace them with those who get it. Or better yet, those who've done it.

 Them

Jack Trout spoke at the Gathering of Eagles earlier this month. He offered his unbiased perception of real estate to brokers that included a very unclear sense of the differences between brands. 

Jack does not get the fact that for eons, the customer was the agent. The differentiators Jack does not see were folded neatly into brochures, postcards and offered prior to a handshake.

What Jack does not get is how these differentiators were individualized based on the agent. Agent A might get a better deal than agent B which was different than agent W. When you have 1000 agents, each with different deals, there's no way a brand can publicly disseminate their differentiator.

Jack gets that.

You

Differentiate or Die.
It's so simple.
And yet some still don't get it.

What's not to get? Technology? Change? Protocol? Cohesive branding initiatives? Creating a mist of difference that is identifiably you? 

Papa John's Pizza. They entered the pizza industry wading in serious competition. They could have chosen to compete on pricing and mired themselves in the muck of Little Caesar's. They could have branded around fast delivery and ended up being perceived as a Dominos clone. They could have gone after variety and ran out of gas chasing after Pizza Hut's customers.

Instead they built their brand around ingredients.
And the quality of what "you" place inside your body.
"You" care about that.

You birthed that brand.

We

"They" who sit in your boardroom, need to differentiate because "we", don't know who "you" really are, what "you" stand for or why "we" should align ourselves with "you".   

"We" gravitate toward things that look different. Things that sound different. That smell different. Things with personality. Things that stand for something. An ideal. A vibe.
 
A hotel chain recently built their brand around a mattress? W Hotels now grace the landscape. You might think the W stands for Wonderland. I say it stands for "We". The customer. Those who now go out of their way to have that W sleep experience.

"We" have not really witnessed what could happen if a new real estate brand emerged with something truly different. Sure we've seen models that offer lower commissions or assisted services but these are not the differentiators "we" care about. Differentiators need to be important. Transcendental. And fill a resounding void in the marketplace.

"They" tend to argue with these concepts.
"They" think they know better.
"They" sit not far from your office. 

As a result, "you" are busy explaining why "your" hands are tied. Why this year won't be better than the last. Why "you" can't exercise change. Why today all "your" troubles seem like they're here to stay.

"They" believe yesterday. And "you" are careening toward tomorrow.      

- Davison

Philosophy is the talk on the cereal box

Dad was in show business. He managed talent.
What I remember most was how he spoke to his clients.
He loved them. He was their biggest fan.   

Philosophy is the talk on the cereal box

One summer night, below street level, in the dressing room of the now historic Folk City, I was offered a major recording contract. A considerable detour for an Ivy Leaguer.   

"Army, School or Work…or Freedom," was the track off the debut album that I slated for the first single release. It was an anthem depicting a philosophy on life's cereal box of options. The choice between the traditional Corn Flakes path versus the Lucky Charms of my alternative musings.

I was convinced the song would resonate with my audience. That it would be the foundation to build a fan base around. The label believed otherwise. They opted for the traditional “hit” -- the formula song. The one that sounded like everyone else’s.   

You can guess how that all worked out.

Choke me in the shallow water

Mother sold real estate in New York. She would often regard herself and her agent peers as unconventional people. "Agents," she would say, "march to a different beat… like artists."

Being unconventional can be a curse marked by dark days when reality won’t pair up with the dream. Mom had her share of those. They occurred between deals that would sometimes last for months. Dad would always brighten her up with his wisdom. I remember how he used to speak to her. "Don’t sweat the small stuff," he would say. He was her biggest fan.

Dad never sweated the small stuff or those things that were out of his hands. Instead, he’d detour around them. He was never one to choke in the shallow waters of complacency.

Religion is a smile on a dog

Dad taught me about detours. He taught me about the religion of alternative movement. School usually took place on the Long Island Expressway. In the thick of standstill traffic while he exited right onto the emergency lane racing for the nearest exit. Sitting, idling, engine running, sweating, complaining -- that was letting the situation control you. Small stuff.

1988. It was 2 a.m. when I entered CBGBs dressing room to meet this band after watching their amazing set of original material. All four sat slumped in the same dingy chairs I sat in years ago. Sweat draining from every pore they spoke about their frustrations over not yet having a major record deal. This was their twentieth show at CBGBs and still no offers.

Idling.
Complaining.
Repeating what doesn't work.

Religion is a funny thing. You need to take it on faith. As you do when trying new things.

As their new manager, I exited them off the crowded highway. We left NYC and toured colleges. Started using something called e-mail instead of postcards. I posted their music on Iuma.com – a pioneer Web site built in the '80s populated by underground Indie bands. Few outside that niche knew anything about IUMA. I would have been one of them had I not chosen to seek alternatives. 

1989. It's late in the day. I've got mail. The sender turned out to be a major label producer who had been listening to the tracks on IUMA. I responded immediately. You could say he was an Internet lead. Two months later the band transacted their record deal.

What I am

Jonathan Washburn of ActiveRain recently wrote a post referring to agents as the talent of the real estate business. My mother insinuated that 30 years earlier. She used the word "unconventional".

I’ve seen how unconventional talent can get caught up in traffic. Eating Corn Flakes. Getting caught up in the crowd. Idling in complacency. Blind to the lanes of alternative opportunity.

There is an entire orchestra pit of real estate talent tuning their instruments for an empty hall. Waiting for the crowd to return. Dad would say that's a death wait. He'd point to the right. To that emergency lane where risk and freedom go hand in hand. He’d say, “Do it. Put yourself in control.  What have you got to lose.”   

He always knew exactly what to say. He loved talent. He was their biggest fan.

I’ll keep singing his anthem.

- Davison

Where’s mom when you need her?

Once upon a time, you “walked in” for real estate services. A pleasant face greeted you. You had questions; helpful people had answers.

It was a simple.
Friendly.
It worked.

You called, someone answered. You were handled. Not routed through some invisible air traffic system waiting for a faceless controller to pick you up a day later with a response.    

The Realtor was once a servant. Performing the heavy lifting and attending to the smallest details. Making sense of things.

The client was afforded the luxury of being serviced. They were unencumbered by the minutia of the process.

When I was young we spent time huddled around the kitchen table. Eating. Talking. Dreaming.

Back then, the only box we all stared into was the Ebinger’s cake box. Pale green with brown crosshatching. We craved its contents - sweet and addictive.   

In these happy golden days of yore, the customer was king -- even though they weren’t “empowered”.

If you think consumers are truly empowered today, you are clinging to fantasy

You enter the local yogurt shop. Pick your Styrofoam cup. Pour your own yogurt. Choose and apply your own toppings. The only visible and meaningful exchange between you and the service person is experienced at the cash register.

Fast food. Self service. 

Today you enter real estate the same way. Pick your Styrofoam website. Pour your own flavor of search. Apply your own data, sign-up, log-in, drag, drop, join, calculate and map out your real estate treat. The only visible and meaningful exchange between you and the service person is experienced at the real estate cash register.

Fast food real estate. Self service.

All this technology. Amazing feats of invention. But if you think leaving it in the hands of the consumer is empowering, you are clinging to fantasy. 

The power I see

Technology can be empowering. But what happens when those who license and present it to the consumer are incapable of adding to it the nuance of expertise, the touch of service?

What happens when they have no aptitude for integrating it into a cohesive experience?

What happens when the professional skims the surface of technology, takes the cheap route and makes technology an Achilles Heel when it should be a strength?

I’ll tell you what happens. You lose control of your business. You end up with a wary consumer that doesn’t know what to do or who to trust. You end up having your entire value proposition eviscerated by outsiders, your carcass picked apart by squawking crows on the trash strewn shoulder of your industry.

How empowering is that?

Technology is amazing. If used right. But if not, if misguided, you end up selling your brand down a dry river bed littered with crappy websites, crappy search and a workforce of spoiled agents that don’t want to work -- or even know what work to do.

Empowerment is not conning oneself itself into believing the consumer wants to do everything themselves. Empowerment sunk when real estate began believing the consumer would have no issue paying top dollar for the privilege of serving themselves.

Where’s mom when you need her?

Today, we all gather round the same dining table. We still dream, eat, talk and wonder about our next home. The box we all stare into is equally alluring as the old Ebinger’s. Its contents just as sweet and addictive. Filled with empowerment and promise.

What would be incredibly empowering is if real estate started leveraging its contents better. Serve it up like mom used to. She knew exactly when and how. And was always there when you needed her.

That’s what real estate needs now more than ever. 

- Davison

Looking for Jericho and finding Mayberry

The explosion assaults your otherwise quiet, habit-filled day. In the distance, a massive mushroom cloud heaves toward the heavens. Seconds later, you buckle from the shockwave. An electromagnetic jolt shocks you back to the Stone Age.   

When you regain consciousness you realize the dust shower now settling on your town was once a nearby metropolitan city. Days pass. Amid the chaos, you learn that these attacks were released on a several dozen major metropolitan cities by the very hands of the newly formed, self appointed government now taking over the country.   

Sit back, grab your bag of peanuts and enjoy the show.

Jericho

On September 20, 2006, CBS debuted Jericho. Twenty-two episodes later, on May 9, the final episode played to what many at CBS believed was a small, insignificant audience.

Networks rarely un-cancel a show. But the program's fan base, a collection of millions of Web-based viewers, launched a resurrection campaign unlike anything the networks have ever seen. In an unprecedented move, CBS executives agreed to gather cast and crew and grant the program seven new episodes.

In an open letter posted on the CBS blog, CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler wrote, “We hope you will rally around the new episodes of Jericho with the same passion and volume you displayed this summer to bring the show back. There is the potential for more Jericho, but we will need your help to recruit new viewers” -- in other words, find people who are willing to sit in their living room at 10 p.m. on Tuesday to watch the show.   

As the walls tumble

Founded in 1923, Nielson’s last update and modification to its ratings system took place in the 1940s -- when TV was black and white, when characters were named Fred and Ethel, when cars ran on leaded gas that cost 10 cents a gallon.

The ratings system's inability to account for change, to account for how today’s audience wants their entertainment, to yield to the new metrics has led to the show's second cancellation.

TiVo, iTunes, XBox Live, Netflix, BitTorrent and the half dozen other venues used by viewers who are too busy, too social, too wrapped up in other things to plant themselves in front of the TV the way their parents once did scream for attention. iTunes reports Jericho as one of its most popular show downloads ever.  And finally, check this.  People are watching. 

Speaking of online participation, Jericho-related forums, Facebook groups and blogs measure into the hundreds with tens of thousands of postings.

All shell and no nuts

This is not about the fate of a small Kansas town set in TV fantasyland. Neither is this a statement for how success must now be served up like fast food - piping hot and instantly.

This is about CBS’s failure to recognize where and how 6-10 million consumers think and want content. This is about a brand that has, even if by accident, touched millions of consumers and destroyed its chance to spearhead a major paradigm shift in television viewing. They stood at the crossroads. Turned their back.

And proved they're all shell and no nuts.

At worst, Jericho could have been viewed as a lost leader. Keeping 6-9 million viewers inside the CBS store seems like a smart investment to me. 

Instead, they chose to cancel their future, remain in the past and pretend the world hasn’t changed. 

Looking for Jericho and finding Mayberry

Outside your office is a Jericho audience. They’re younger and different than you. CBS failed to convert them to their way of participation so my guess is real estate will as well if it continues to do things as it's always has.

The world has changed -- there is a new viewer in town. They’re unlike their parents. They’re not typical Nielsen families. They’re online. They're looking real estate Jericho but instead, finding Mayberry in the form of old Websites produced by Fred for their Ethel customers. 

CBS had something and they let it go. It wasn’t the show. It was diehard viewers that could have become brand loyalists. Now they’re rangers, fighting against the brand.

Real estate has something that it lets go every day. It’s the chance to create brand loyalists.

The lesson here is the blind eye and deaf ear to a burgeoning demographic. It’s brokerages not pressing because due to the fear they have rocking the agent boat. It the concern of doing something new because it’s never been done before.

I know that people are as passionate about real estate as they are about television shows. They want to do much more than just search for a home. They are looking to do it in ways that don’t always confine them to their desktop computers or to older traditional means. 

Now is the time for real estate to go nuts.
To attack old models.
Attack old ideas.

If not now… when?

- Davison

Searching for Web 2.0

Ever search for a word but can't seem to find it?
Or try to recall a fact that won't roll off the tip of your tongue?
Ever need to buy a vowel from Vanna White?

What's missing from the online real estate experience?

As part of a brand analysis for an East Coast brokerage, I drilled 10 pages deep into Google's results for "real estate" in the company's market area. I explored every result. There were 100 Websites in total. Of these 100 sites:

51 belonged to either associations, media companies, builders, funeral homes (not kidding), or listings aggregators;
37 belonged to individual agents, teams or single brokers;
7 belonged to brokerage companies;
3 were ActiveRain blogs;
1 site was a listing blog with an RSS feed;
1 site was a Naymz profile.

While I learned a bit about search-engine positioning, this exercise revealed something far more concerning: the X that marks the spot where real estate Websites, in general, fail.

Promises, promises

Several things crystallized. The most obvious was the mechanical gunfire of platitudes rat-tat-tatting across every broker and agent Website. The bullet holes murdered my ability to decipher and choose. It's like the old game show, "To Tell the Truth." Will the real local expert, market specialist, top producer, #1 expert, yada yada yada please stand up?

Next was the realization that what a Website is or could be has been lost among real estate companies. Most of these sites were more closely related to their bus bench and moving-van-ad cousins. I felt like Charlton Heston landing on the Planet of the Apes wondering how this could be happening amidst all the advances in Web features and design standards.

Finally, there were the promises made but not kept on these sites. Ideas like "Find your Dream Home," held a greater promise than what actually delivered. The lead forms and poorly executed IDX solutions covering tens of thousands of homes - a huge haystack in which I am left to find my dream needle that screamed "gotcha!"

What's missing?

Truth. Honesty. A real voice. Three huge wells to draw ideas from that could carry the Websites from the 1.0 world of cliché.

What is a ""#1 expert"? What does that even mean?
What is a "top producer"? What is it that you produce?
What is a "market specialist"? What is a market anyway? Don't we live in towns and neighborhoods?
And what makes you a "specialist"? How can I come to believe in that?

If you are these things, prove it. If you want to use these terms, bring them to life. Extend the statement and allow the user to experience these things first hand.

100 Web sites, one unfulfilling experience

Inside and across the caverns I hear the shouts of those who would claim this illustrates the failure of Web 2.0 in real estate. But Web 2.0 has not failed real estate; real estate has simply failed to grab hold of its promise. Consider for just a minute those examples of agents and brokerages who have scaled to the top of their local real estate boulder by digging their crampons and cams dug into the 2.0 sensibility. Proof is there. In the pudding.

It's been five years since mashups were introduced to real estate. Three since blogging started generating buzz. During this time hundreds of millions of Web users have been exposed to a new way of experiencing the Internet. And while I believe that there are many social aspects of Web 2.0 that make no sense for real estate, I will argue for the ones that do. I will argue that providing proof of the claims on your site hones in on the basic tenets of branding.

Web 2.0 is a failure if you believe it is.
Web 2.0 is a failure if all you value is the short lived thrill from a lead delivered to your inbox. 
Web 2.0 is a failure if you believe there's no value in a meaningful online conversation.
Web 2.0 is a failure if you believe conducting local business is not about inviting a global marketplace.
Web 2.0 is a failure if you're not patient enough to reap long-term benefits. 
Web 2.0 is a failure if you're not willing to learn new skills and jettison the old real estate marketing playbook. 

I visited 100 Web sites. Save for the ActiveRain profiles, there was nary a trace of any of the great things Web 2.0 offers. That tells me there's a big opportunity waiting for the brokerage company or agent willing to cut through that haystack with a shiny new needle that's different.

- Davison

To be or not to be compliant

New search sites take stage, raising the audible in an opera of compliance and online home listings. The audience recoils form this baffling aria that shatters the glass of logic.

The question of where a listing goes, how it appears, and who touches it reverberates through the hall without intermission.

That is the question

A seller hires an agent. The agent is given one charge: Sell the home. Sell it fast. Sell it clean. To accomplish this, the agent should go Ansel Adams on the home and push that gallery of pictures out to every destination on the Web – even the funky ones that reek of body odor and weed. They too draw a crowd.

The task seems arduous. But that’s not the seller’s concern. It’s what they pay five figures in commission to their agent to accomplish. Get the home viewed and get it sold so they can move on with their life.

If the agent stuck to the playbill, and focused solely on their charge, the question of where listings end up would not be nearly so fraught.

The mortal coil

Sellers don’t understand the toil of agent marketing. They are unaware of the mortal coil of politics that surrounds real estate. The chorus of rules, policies, and possession. And why should they? Sellers aren’t authors. Or songwriters. Their homes are not literary works. Copyright infringement, data protection, discriminatory use is foreign conversation had by those whose grunt and sweat of a weary life that is not theirs.

So when they read about real estate blogs and new stories people and get immersed in the conversation over third party sites like DotHomes scraping data and displaying their homes in new places they never heard of that give offer yet a new audience a chance to buy their home, they give pause and wonder what is so rotten in the real state of Denmark.

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

Brokers want tight control over listing data. Kevin from 3 Oceans intelligently opened up this discussion recently and fielded an assortment of comments on this issue. They are:

Brokers need to keep track of where the information is to make sure it’s displayed properly.

They are concerned about some third world website screwing up the data about the home.

They are concerned about how their brand is portrayed.

To the seller, this position is mired in the heartache of a thousand natural shocks as none have anything to do with the act at hand – the one centered around the premise by which the seller hired the Realtor – to get that house marketed, get it seen and get it sold so they can move on with their life. No discussion regarding data protection was ever brought into that conversation.

So the question must be asked, if the cast of representatives charged with caretaking the needs of sellers are concerned with tracking pictures and info of their clients homes and worried about whether or not they are being displayed properly, shouldn’t they start with their own websites where their visitors right now still have to machete their way through a tangled UI to encounter too many homes without pictures and enough data?

If brokers, charged with caretaking the needs of their sellers, are worried about potential damage to their brands through third party distribution, let’s first cast the spotlight on the destruction of their brands occurring right under their noses by their agents who have beset them with the slings and arrows of brand damaging mangled messaging.

If brokers are concerned about third party sites getting the data wrong, isn’t getting it wrong better than not getting it at all? If a buyer sees a home listed on some obscure sites and likes it, twenty seconds on Google will get the interested party over to the safety of an IDX feed and all will be right with the world.

MLS are, and will likely remain, the core listings utility. Indeed, I believe, contrary to conventional wisdom, they will become increasingly more important and more powerful. They must. But to do so, they must stop wasting time freaking out about the small satellites in their orbit and instead, concentrate on the matter at hand, getting those homes out everywhere for the world audience to see.

To be or not to be compliant

Would it not be nobler to accept new entrants that scrape, borrow and bend rules than to take arms against this sea of troubles and by opposing… end them? Sellers would think so.

Right now, as For Sale signs wither in heat of an anxious market, galactic distribution isn’t a problem, it’s an imperative. Sellers need to get out of their homes and onto the next phase of their lives and they are looking to the Three Tenors of real estate -- the agent, the broker and the MLS -- to do whatever they can to make that happen. Even if it means placing homes on the hood of car 55 at Daytona. Or the index page of some classifieds site run by a couple opium freaks holed up in a Quonset hut on the steppe in Kazakhstan.

In other words, wherever a buyer’s eyeball may come across it.

The seller is not paying to be mired in real estate squabbles. When they hire an agent, when they say they want their home listed, it’s for a reason. That reason is to move on with their life. And the problem in real estate is that most agents leave the listing appointment with the listing rather than the objective – to get their client moving on up and out to that next phase.

For those who step out and realize that compliance to the greater task, the greater value, is not in the possession of data – something no entity can ever really own, but rather, in possession of their client’s desires. Compliance to that is something real estate could own for a lifetime.

To die, to sleep. Perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub.

- Davison

* Through my discourse, I offer the voice of the consumer in an effort to assist, not combat, the industry. The goal is to create dialogue and debate for the greater good. Change and betterment arise from tension. I stand for a better real estate industry. One that welcomes in its customers with a new and better agenda. After all, their payment for services makes it possible for all of us to have careers.