Replaced

Nicole sat across the dinner table from us Friday night. She was not her usual positive self. Something happened. I decided to pry.

Replaced

A former actress, Nicole followed her true calling behind the camera. She did film. Music videos. And stills. The latter is, IMO, her best work of all.

Her son came twelve years ago. A daughter, sever years later. So she ditched LA and set up a photographer's studio here on the Central Coast.

Many of her stills adorn the walls of my home. Family portraits. My kids. Wife. Dogs. Taken at different times over the last ten years.

Nicole closed her studio on Friday. 

I assumed the economy took its toll. Nicole believes it goes deeper than that. "Everyone is a photographer today," she said. "They own digital cameras, enhance them with Photoshop (or picnik) and post them on Flickr. The value of a professional is no longer recognized I suppose."

That hit home. Big time. Especially as it relates to real estate.

Maestro

In 2004, I presented twenty-five very far-out predictions in a speech given for a large Realtor association. Slide nine read as follows: In the future you will no longer "own" any listings. A nice 3-D rendering of a product box was placed below the title. Across the top of the box the word "Maestro" was printed in bold. Underneath, it read: Orchestrate the entire process of selling your home - yourself.

Maestro included: 

• A turnkey blog site that featured your home
• A unique URL based on your home's address
• Map mashups with local data 
• A huge photo library and video player
• Direct syndication to every listings site on the planet

Maestro was real estate marketing in a metaphorical box. It provided the homeowner tools to recreate everything an agent does -- the many photos they should be taking, the compelling copy they should be writing and the web distribution they should be executing. 

The premise behind Maestro fed into the notion that in the future, by virtue of handling all of their own marketing, homeowners would retain ownership of their listing and simply hire agents to coordinate the sale -- i.e. show property, hash out paperwork, etc.

The audience booed. "There's more to selling a home than that," they barked. I knew that. Just like there's more to capturing a moment than saying cheese and properly framing your SureShot. The problem was, four years ago, when homes were selling like hotcakes, I wasn't sure the real estate consumer knew that.

And I'm not so sure that the consumer knows any better today.

Nostradavison

Several predictions from my presentation have now come to pass in real estate. And honestly, most of what I predicted seemed inevitable anyway.

A few, however, veered towards absurd.

Consider:

"Holographic Search" that allowed consumers to walk through a listing projected from a computer while sitting in their own kitchen.

"Caravan" was a device agents provided to their buyers. Think listing alerts meets GPS (I got this idea one evening waiting at a busy restaurant that handed out devices to patrons that lit up when your table was ready).

And of course Maestro.

I know they are borderline silly. They were offered to stimulate conversation. 

But then today my inbox received a press release sent from the U.K. announcing the launch of EstateCreate, a self-publishing website built to help consumers list their home and market it everywhere.

Holy shit.

Blinders

You'll think the product is simple. Regard it as a basic template website. With few bells and whistles. Much like most agent and broker websites are now. You may also shuck this as silly, much like some of my predictions, pay it no mind and think to yourself, well... even if a seller uses this, they'll still need to sign their listing over to an agent for full commission.

Blinders. 

Products like EstateCreate are trying to tap into the gaping holes left in the consumer mindset all the dog branding, bad websites, lack of transparency, poor search experiences, misguided marketing and lack of professionalism created and continues to create.

These are the gaping holes that today's real estate brands continue to avoid filling with better information. Higher standards. These are also the voids that real estate innovators are trying fill with solutions offered to real estate folks who continue to shun the idea of spending a few dollars a month for new technology.

If vendors can't sell their innovations to real estate professionals to help the consumer, my guess is they are going to start targeting the consumers themselves in greater numbers, tapping into their motivations to market, buy and sell their homes.  

Think TurboTax.

I hurt for Nicole. Being taken out by the economy is one thing. But being replaced because the marketplace misunderstands your value proposition is something entirely different. I'm showing Nicole how to change that and save her business. 

- Davison
Twitter: 1000wattmarc

Thinking horizontal in our vertical

John Battelle posted this gem the other day. It captures so neatly the challenges and opportunities facing many in online and "traditional" real estate these days.

Consider this point:

"Every customer interaction is marketing. Every partnership is marketing. Every employee is a marketer.

And all your data, well, that's marketing too."

And, further:

"Joining the conversation economy ... means taking your core assets - the data that drives value and knowledge inside your enterprise - and offering it as fuel for the collective intelligence of all your partners - your channel, your vendors, and, ultimately, your customers."

His thinking here is placed in the context of a discussion with Oren Michaels, CEO of Mashery. Mashery provides a managed solution for companies that want to create APIs. APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) allow publishers (e.g. Trulia) to share their data with others.

Lie down

We've been telling broker clients for some time that their conception of marketing must be obliterated if they intend to survive. That means empowering everyone -- including the executive team -- to become part of the "marketing department." The person formerly known as the marketing director needs to become the managing editor -- and work with IT, sales (i.e. agents), and management to coordinate the extraction and broadcasting of data and knowledge into the marketplace.

For MLSs ... well, we've beaten this dead horse to a pulp, but I'll take one more swing: Stop protecting and start broadcasting. With great care of course. And with the goal of putting information to work for broker and agent subscribers. But, man, unlock the value!

Break glass in case of emergency

There's so much inside most real estate organizations: Data, personality, knowledge. But it sits behind glass, that smudgy barrier of plastic marketing - and, frankly, bullshit - that has stood between real estate and its customer for too long.

It's time to break the glass and create a glorious mess.

Get horizontal as Battelle says. Reach outward. Forget about an API is that makes no sense for you. There are a hundred ways to take the larger point and run with it.

-- Brian Boero

Try the Zappos shoe on for size

My understanding of brand comes from a textbook understanding acquired in school and later honed on Madison Ave.

Put simply, a brand is a face you present to the world backed by a set of principles and promises unique to you. Those principles and promises should be woven through your company's employees, products and services and understood clearly by anyone who comes into contact with them.

Disney built a brand around a promise to deliver wholesome family entertainment. That promise lives in every one of their brand touch points (programming, retail operations, theme parks, etc.).  As a result, the Disney brand has become synonymous with family entertainment the world over.

The benefits this creates for Disney and other successful brands are indisputable. A well-executed brand owns a sizable piece of real estate inside a consumer's mind.

What makes a brand

Pictured here is the Zappos "Culture Book," a copy of which arrived at my house a couple weeks. Inside are excerpts from hundreds of statements written by employees that describe what Zappos means to them.

A common theme ensues from these excerpts. This occurs because at the very root of Zappos lie a set of unwavering principles and promises. Every decision, every action, must answer to them. 

The result is breathtaking. The Zappos pledge is delivered through every pore in the company's body.  They have ensured that the brand means exactly the same thing to everyone touched by it.

The Zappos brand would hardly enjoy the success it has today (millions of customers, rocketing sales, expansion into new categories) if every one of those employees had a different sense of what Zappos means.

This kind of success, unfortunately, is all too rare in real estate, where the lines many brands cast out into the marketplace contain no bait.
 
Assign this line of thinking to any real estate company. What makes Bob's Realty different from Dave's Realty? Personally, I couldn't even begin to tell you. My guess is most people inside these companies can't either. 

In these times, that could mean disaster.

A simple brand test

Last week, while delivering a presentation on branding, I asked each attendee what their personal brand stood for. Most said it was customer service.

So I gave them a simple brand test:

I asked if they could recite the greeting that currently resides on their voice mail. After all, if customer service defines their brand, they should be aware of what their message says -- especially given the fact that they were in the middle of a daylong meeting.

Most could not recall.
Some had a hunch.
One person knew.

I paused, questioning whether they had even built a brand at all.

Are you a brand or just a recognized name known for being around a while?

It's important to ask yourself this question and get clear on the answer because the time and money you are investing in "building your brand" today may in fact be misdirected.

Who are you? What makes you different? What are the principles and promises that define you? What do you do to enforce them?

Nike employees 350 people to oversee their brand. How many have you employed?

If you determine you've gotten off track, you can get back on.

Target did it.
Cadillac did it (pre-meltdown).
You can too.

There are lots of ways to do it today:

The brand Obama does it on Facebook.
Scion does it through its website
JetBlue does it through Twitter
Victoria's Secret reveals it on YouTube
Kodak snaps it through their blog
 
So instead of placing more forms on your website pages, or throwing gobs of cash at SEO, or creating web pages full of platitude graffiti, think about promises, principles and creating a culture that reverences them.

Try the Zappos shoe on for size.

- Davison
Twitter: 1000wattmarc

Dude, where's my brand?

-- Brian Boero

Brokers caught between a rock and a virtual hard place

It began innocently enough. A broker sent me a link hoping to get my thoughts on his new website. When Brian or I get these requests we'll scan the site quickly and, if time permits, respond with some quick observations. Sometimes we're drawn to do more. Especially when the broker's good intentions are nowhere to be found in the results. 

Between a rock and a hard place

Meet Eirik Olsen. He's a broker in the Pacific Northwest caught between the rock of excitement surrounding the launch of his new website and a hard place of concern he now feels as he comes to terms with what he actually has.

We are all too familiar with Eirik's dilemma. As a broker he was handcuffed to a Website product that cost too much and provided too little. And a vendor that bound him to a ball-and-chain contract trusting that their system was so deeply woven into his business he could never leave. 

This problem afflicts many brokers. And most choose to hang onto a dysfunctional vendor relationship because they are fearful of what happens if they move on -- of the possibility that they can't do any better.

Eirik gambled and moved on. He contracted a new vendor. And all seemed fine until he went live. And began to seek opinion outside his corporate cockpit.

I called Eirik after looking at his website. We covered a lot of ground. At the conclusion of our call he voiced concern for all brokers caught in his position. Out of sincere desire that others learn from his mistakes, Eirik volunteered to let us publish a high-level assessment of his new site here. The list of issues below is not exhaustive, but will hopefully help some of you thinking about making a move.

Browser compatibility

This is Eirik's website. For those of you viewing this on a PC, you will miss the very first impression I had viewing it in Safari. It looked like this:

Making a site compatible with Safari isn't rocket science. And Eirik is based in one of the most tech-savvy cities in the country: Seattle. Ouch.

Brand

Eirik's online brand is Green Real Estate Center, a moniker that alludes to environmental education within the context of real estate. I expected the site to contain content about energy efficiency and environmentally friendly materials for the home. I imagined the site would also list green homes for sale and provide lifestyle information.

Those impressions dissipated seconds after I scanned the homepage and found no evidence of any such information. I explained how this creates confusion for the user and leads to distrust caused by discordant branding.       

Other site copy states that this center serves to protect consumers. Yet no where on this site could we find content to support that claim. Unsupported claims are a bad idea in real estate these days.

The RE/MAX branding at the top of the page added to the confusion since RE/MAX has not, to our knowledge, ever branded itself as being environmentally friendly. With the absence of any text stating a unique value proposition that would help explain what Green Real Estate really is, we were left on our own to weed through jargon that seems to do everything but explain what Green Real Estate Center really is.

Search 

How is it that three years since Trulia taught real estate how search should be done, this sort of thing still exists?

The instructional screen that hovers over the default map-based search was disconcerting. Why does search require a tutorial? Adding to the confusion were mysterious terms such as  "Focus Map" or verbiage that reads "Select the Draw Zoom tool, then click and drag to create a rectangle within to focus the map. Why is the map out of focus to begin with?

This search defaults to a map even though most online real estate sites have abandoned the practice for a simpler list display. Here'swhy: Type Seattle into the one search field and hit go. Numerous little house icons appear. The user is required to hover over each one to view the image of the home.

It's not a good idea to play hard to get with the user.

Eirik's search solution has a significant anomaly: No refiners. Other than price there were no fields for beds, baths or square footage.

More ouch. 

Other content

Agent Roster. We found little use for the agent roster other than perhaps viewing photos of 50 people we don't know or particularly care about. The agents all have the option of publishing details about themselves. About half the agents chose not too.

The shining star in this group was George Caudill, whose page should be a beacon for all the other agents. 

Contact Us. Here the user is presented with form, but is given no idea who it goes to or when they might expect a response. To the right of the form is a video from Eirik offering a commitment to full service that is with you every step of the way. The irony was hard to miss. 

Video. I love video. I love it when CEO's make a video and stand behind their brand. But as I pointed out to Eirik, throwing out terms like full service and client protection is great -- provided you explain them in detail and articulate them in terms of benefits to the viewer. His intentions were pure, but very little of what he described sounded special or different than any other broker's commitment. 

Forward! 

Eirik knows how to run a successful brokerage, but something got lost in translation on the web.

But he can fix that. Eirik is going back to square one with his IDX provider. He'll source a few alternative vendors he had not been aware of. He'll reformulate the site content and think through how his company is positioned on the site.

He'll get it right.

Thanks to Eirik for sharing!

-- Marc Davison
Twitter: 1000wattmarc

Barber poles and real estate

What comes to mind when you see a barber pole?

An old geezer running a blade across a leather strap.
A hot towel, thick foam and a close shave.
Clubman.
Checkerboard floors.
A great place to whack a Mafia Don.

The local barbershop was Americana, right up there with the greasy spoon coffee shop and the Rexall drug store -- endeared by all who frequented them.

But over the decades, the love waned. As new competitors grew into the marketplace, these establishments remained still in their own murky waters of services, anchored to old ways and failing to navigate their brands to the new currents of change.

Over time, despite the full array of services they offered, they drifted from the fabric of our culture, replaced by TRESemme, Paul Mitchell, Fantastic Sams, CVS and Starbucks -- "interlopers."

The older institutions suffered at the hands of their own neglect, compounded by their inability to convey the value they offered, the full services they provided and the personal attention they gave. They believed that being moored to an historic tradition is good enough to insure their place in the future. Or perhaps they believed in nothing and let fear of some unknown guide their complacency.

Barber Poles in Real Estate

There's tons of them spinning around Main Street. Red and blue ribbons of full-service, high-end value, and personal attention all buried under the sands of gloriously ineffective marketing.

Today's broker -- you might be a barbershop. You cut hair better than anyone. You service the customer better than anyone. And what you deliver is uncommon. But you've created ambiguity around yourselves, the skills you posses and the benefits derived from them. And that continues to ring the warning signal. Look how easy it was for Zillow to make the marketplace believe its home-value estimates were more accurate than yours. They marketed your intelligence right under the rug.  

A real estate TRESemme is coming

Believe it. And react as if they have already leased a storefront in your town. In some cases, this is already happening.

Believe that as things get tougher, as money gets tighter, people need what you have but will never find it if you and your agents are sharpening your scissors behind closed doors.

Believe that so much has changed in real estate and in the way consumers interact with it that your message, your brand, your entire marketing campaign is likely dangerously antique.

Believe that starting to change those things today is the only way you'll survive over the course of time.

What Davison Realty Group would do

I'd craft a new credo today. Davison Realty: "Preserving and improving the process of residential real estate."

I would then measure every single thing my firm does, every action my agents take, every bit of copy I write, every piece of technology I own and measure it against the yardstick of that statement, make sure it rings true and build brand value around it by market it with precision and skill as if my life depended on it. 

I'd begin with my Web site. If it does not make finding homes or finding the right agent really easy, I would administer changes immediately and not wait another day. Otherwise, my credo is rendered false and my brand has no meaning.

I would take a hard look at my backend system. Does it have lead management? Does it have lead routing? Does it offer my agents the ability to run comparative market analyses on the fly? Does it allow me to distribute incoming inquiries to my agents via text messages and supply them with the tools to respond immediately and properly rather than with canned nonsense?

I'd take a hard look at my physical space. I would evaluate whether my lease, my expense, my machines, and my cubicles inhibit my ability to fulfill my credo or serve my agents who have no particular credo at all. And if not, I would administer changes immediately. Otherwise, my credo is rendered false and my brand will continue to have no meaning.

I'd take a hard look at my agents. I'd find the ones with no credo or the ones who have a credo yet apply no effort to support it -- like the agent who "goes the extra mile" yet hardly lifts a finger to learn about new technology. I would do whatever is in my power to retrain them. Expose them to agents who are thriving because they live, breath and die by their credo, which just so happens to be aligned with mine. If that fails, they need to be let go. Otherwise, my credo is meaningless and my brand will continue to have no meaning.

I'd take a hard look at my marketing department and the copy they have been pumping out. Have their words conveyed my intentions? Have they oversold them or have they failed to touch upon them? Are they written in language that resonates with my market or has it spoken at them? If the copy has failed, I must administer change immediately and align every word with my intention and distribute those words out to new places -- in new ways -- and do everything to render my credo as truthful. And convey meaning.

Lastly, I will perform a complete investigation of my services. If I have to, I will hire a firm to conduct a study. And perform surveys. And determine if what we offer is understood and experienced by those who have used us in the past or those who may require services in the future. I would do everything I can to discover what people want today from a real estate brokerage. Do they still need the hot lather and shave or do they view that as old fashioned and unimportant? I would consider that info to be my holy brand grail and serve as the basic building blocks of what will become tomorrow and secure my position.

This is what I do right now. Today. Otherwise, all that I am would be defined by a credo that would read: Davison Realty, we are the roulette wheel of services and skills. Come, bring your money. Good Luck!

And while that may be acceptable to many barber pole brands that surround me, it's just not good enough for me going forward.

-Davison

Twitter: 1000wattmarc

Brushing the sands off a brand

This was one of my last posts of 07. It's one of the many posts I wrote last year about branding, a subject I have a particular expertise in having worked for 20+ years in show business building personal celebrity brands. I often find myself struggling to understand how real estate people set out to build their brands just posting away, blogging away, Twittering away with no set plan in mind. They may achieve a certain degree of name recognition but they are not building a brand. I think this had a few novel ideas in here brokers might benefit from as they seek to build their brand in 09 ...Marc

I've always wanted to be an archaeologist. Ever since I was a kid. My first discoveries were found beneath the cushions of my grandparent's sofa. Candy wrappers, hardened tissues, playing cards. The occasional utensil was a treat. For a 6 year-old these things were a real find. 

At an early age I learned that a superficial examination of anything reveals little of real value.

Nothing is at it seems. A landscape might hold natural beauty, but it's underneath, sometimes mere inches below the surface, where the real treasure is found.

Today, I like to excavate great companies. I'm fascinated by extremes. I want to know why some companies leave their customers feeling pained, sickened, stressed or empty (AT&T comes to mind) while other companies elicit a feeling something like euphoria (say Katz's Deli in NYC).

Today, I'm standing at the site of Starbucks. My latest dig. I'm trying to figure out why I and millions of others remain loyal despite the abundance of competing cafe's. The coffee is not the best. Their retail shops are starting to look like department stores. Yet something draws us back each day, sometimes more than once. 

This morning my pickax hit paydirt. I leaned in and brushed away the sand. Here's what I discovered: The Starbucks Job Application.  

Allow me to draw your attention to some of the questions on this application:

Have you ever visited a Starbucks Coffee Location? Describe your experience.
What do you like about coffee? 
Why would you like to work for the Starbucks Company?
Describe a specific situation where you have provided excellent customer service in your current position. 

Brokers: When you recruit an agent, do you ever ask these questions? Do you ever ask a recruit if they have used your company, and, if they have, to describe that experience? Do you ever ask what they truly love about real estate? Do you ever require them to scroll back into their past to reveal something special they did that could help you determine if they are suited to extend your brand experience?

Or are you just recruiting for the sake of growing? Are you just recruiting for the sake of saturating a marketplace? Are you just recruiting for the chance to get one deal from anyone with a pulse? Or are you trying to landscape the marketplace with an experience that is bankable?

Agents: Have you ever really sat down and wrote out why you're attracted to the broker or the brand you're looking to call home? Or are you joining a firm just for the split? Or because you get a corner office? Or so you can have the freedom to do whatever you please? Or is there a deeper desire based on something intangible but ripe with meaning?

As my archeologist fingers sift through the chalky soil of wayward brands, I have found that their cultures are built on chaos. They have been bled of meaning in an entropic mercenary swirl.

Starbucks employees start out at less than $10.00 an hour. The work is hard. The hours are hard. Yet they are drawn there and picked based on certain virtues. This is what built their brand -- passion. Passion to serve. Passion to push the Starbucks experience. It's a passion that begins at the top and extends to the newest recruit. Everyone in Starbucks knows why they are there. Interview them as I have. Dig deep and gain an understanding that the foundation of any great company is a solid culture, experience and brand.

Those in real estate who have neglected to create such a foundation should take notice. Stick to what you're doing now, allow yourself to be run by fear and complacency, and in years to come, I and others like me might uncover your artifacts and find little by which to identify you. You will have been lost. Unknown.

Don't let that happen.

- Davison
Twitter: 1000wattmarc

Blazing a trail of ethics, morality and social interaction

If you read us regularly you know I am a huge fan of Zappos. My dedication to this company is born from their dedication to me - their customer - which I have now been for several years. I have purchased dozens upon dozens of shoes and other goods, outfitting my wife, myself and our 4 kids.

My relationship with them began a year before I actually purchased. I used the site to search for products and read the content but was not, like many consumers, always ready to start shopping immediately. While real estate still grapples with how to deal the passive web shopper, trying like heck to corral them with lead generation and capture mechanisms from the first visit, Zappos, hung back. Chillin'. It waited for me and, in the meantime, gave me access to everything. One day, I became a customer.

And then things got great. 

I am also blown away by their CEO, Tony Hsieh - the man - and the clarity with which he guides his company. I don't know him personally. And I don't have too to understand his dedication to the process. I do know this for sure: Every decision he makes must bow at the alter of the Zappos brand promise and answer to the question: How does this increase the level of super service we offer our customers?

I read his blog. I follow him on Twitter and continue to marvel at how he exudes positive thoughts during these challenging times.

Today, Tony published this Blog post correlating the skills he's amassed as a businessman to the game of poker. It's pointless to pull a few quotes. It's best to read this in its entirety but clearly, in his world, being humble, friendly, appreciative and always open to the possibly someone knows more than you are the key takeaways for me.

Zappos is more than a vendor of apparel. In fact, they are more than a company that provides great customer service. Zappos is fast becoming a model of ethics and morality for those looking to blaze a trail forward in the world of online social interaction.

I get it.
I'm grateful for it.  
And I grow as a result.

- Davison 
Twitter: 1000wattmarc

That's what I'm talking about

I lived in Rockland County, NY for 20 years. So the Rand name in real estate is familiar to me. I saw it on yard signs everywhere and understood it to represent a local real estate firm that specialized in Rockland County homes.

And that was it. And for the most part, I think, that's about as deep as it gets for most consumers. Read estate brands known only by their association to inventory, a sales force or an industry.

Now this doesn't only occur in real estate. Take the many cassette tape brands from the 70's: Agfa, Kompact, Universum, TDK, Philips, Orwo Maxim, Laser, Maxell, and Memorex. As a consumer I was hard-pressed to distinguish one from the other and only ever recognized these brands based on their affiliation with their industry. recorded music.

Today, the real estate marketplace suffers from the same ubiquity. It's replete with brand names recognized by their packaging and their association to either inventory and their sales force. 

So when I read this survey my first response was "big deal". Being the most recognized name means diddly if the masses cannot verbalize what you're recognized for. Just ask Rula Lenska, Granted, Alberto VO5 creatively and wisely exploited the meaningless nature of their Russian-born spokesperson and turned it into one of the hottest ad campaigns ever. But unless real estate firms are willing to and can execute a campaign on irony, it probably won't work for them.

If I were a real estate brand, Davison Real Estate would be replacing its Christmas party with a think tank session that tasked the smartest people of my firm to attend with their idea picks and shovels for a full day of creative mining to help locate the message and service vein of differentiation that we could build on for 2009. 

Right now, I could think of dozens of things but rather than offer the standard list of takeaways this time around, I will shine the light on an example of one way this can be accomplished.

The Prudential Rand RandBlog

Spend time on it. Notice how it methodically combines local events, with not so pretty news, hard hitting commentary, and op-ed pieces on the market written by the owners. These posts stand out as honest, informative and editorially segregated from the sales arm of the firm.

The blog is consistent and the contributions seem to be calendared. 

Having spoken to over 30 audiences this year, I know how fearful brokers are when it comes to blogging and how resistant they are to publish the things they know, love and believe in as it pertains to their community.

But this isn't only the most prudent thing you could do today, it's by far the most cost effective way to market your company, communicate your value proposition, leverage your intelligence and give the few folks inside your firm that really know the market a place to share it with the community.

In other words, to move beyond recognition to meaning.

Frankly, I buy the fear thing. I don't buy the concern how much time it takes or the learning curve. I think the only reason more brokers aren't doing this comes down to laziness. Because with over 1,000,000 new articles being generated by consumers on a daily basis filled with comments and opinions about their world, it just doesn't look all that good for a real estate to be silent.

Prudential Rand was once recognized for being in real estate, period. Today, they are working on being known for having a point of view, a voice, and what probably matters most to locals today: A demonstrated commitment to the marketplace and the people who live in it.

The blog needs a little design makeover. Simple things like subscribing it, contacting the company or knowing precisely where they operates are a tad hard to find. But it's nonetheless a good model for brokers looking to blog.

12 years ago, I moved away from Rocklin County and for many years missed home dearly. Of all the publications that I could subscribe too to remain connected, I've chosen a real estate brokerage blog.

- Davison  

A great identity creation case study

See below. If you're short on time, skip to 2:55, where the key take-away lies.

To quote Sol Sender: "No matter how good the logo is, not matter how well-executed, if it doesn't stand for something that means something to people, then it's not going to work." (emphasis mine).

Think about that relative to real estate. Egads.

h/t freshcreation