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

Tour of Duty

This was first published on April 17th, 2007. It was my second blog. Lots has changed since then. Brian Wilson, the subject of this story, returned from Iraq and built Zolve. Like many new ideas launched in '08, Zolve is hanging in there and trying to make it -- Marc

EAST BAGHDAD, Iraq: Forward Operating Base -- Night.

Mortar shells splash in the foreground throwing strobes of light that obliterate the darkness. Bullets ping like castanets off a sign post. Soldiers dart for cover as missiles drop through plumes of smoke.

Captain Brian Robert Wilson sits in the corner of his concrete barrack typing on his computer. His mind, elsewhere. Across the room an unannounced rocket penetrates the concrete roof. A beam of moonlight rides piggyback on the shrapnel pushed through a hole drilled into the cinder. Wilson screams out a soldier's name. Seconds pass. He yells again and she answers as she emerges covered in dust and debris. A few feet to the left and she would have been obliterated.

An Army of One

Farewell at the Wilsons' Fort Collins, Colo., home was a Kleenex moment. On Oct. 13, 2005, father, husband and real estate broker Brian Wilson received a Western Union telegram. As a West Point Graduate, class of '98, he's eligible for recall. The Army doesn't forget.

Wilson and his wife just learned they were pregnant. Their new house was about to close. He had opened his own real estate brokerage just four months earlier. A young man has been called to serve the country. Separated, he defined an Army of One.

Fort Bragg. Time passed, but it didn't stop. Three months later, Captain Wilson left this insane world to find himself thrust into another.

Realtor on a tour of duty

Forward Operating Base was once a center for higher learning. Saddam converted it into a military intelligence base -- i.e., a prison. There was an entire wing dedicated to children. Miniature chains and torture devices lie about rusted and silent. The imagined wails, however, were deafening.

Wilson's mission was civil affairs. Part of his task was to survey local businessmen and learn about the economy. During this time Wilson met two Baghdad real estate brokers. His interview revealed several cultural differences between there and here. MLSs don't exist in Iraq. Pocket listings rule. Brokers represent sellers only and are commissioned 3 percent. They facilitate the closing. All transactions are cash. A process that dates back to the time of Babylon.

Prices are staggering. When Saddam's regime fell, so did his housing restrictions. A boom ensued. 4-bedroom home with view could become 3-bedroom home with crater overnight and it'd still double or triple in value in a year. As Brian put it, "People will always need a place to live. Real estate will always have value, no matter the micro or macro circumstances."

Connection to Sanity

The days are bearable, the nights insufferable. Grown men shouldn't cry themselves to sleep. But then most grown men don't lose friends with the same frequency that I lose keys. Captain Wilson learned to stay low, especially after a colleague his age in the same duty station with a wife and kids, who was also in real estate, met fate. The two shared the very same water-cooler conversations we do about the industry. Only difference is we don't dodge bullets and fail. 

There's a computer in the barrack with Internet access. With the day's events over and the fear of what nighttime horror lay ahead, Captain Wilson dials up and connects to the Web. Here's an excerpt from an e-mail he sent me:

"Over the past year I discovered blogs and podcasts - two things that changed how I thought about real estate. While in my absence, my company sold $98,000,000 in real estate doing it the traditional way, I learned the scope of changes the industry is now just beginning to realize."

It fascinated me to learn about the sites he surfs in his bunker: Inman News, ActiveRain, Transparent Real Estate, FBS Blog , and Rain City Real Estate Guide. These are some of his destinations. They served as his muse for developing the next new real estate idea.

When he returns from his tour of duty, a business plan will accompany him.

Beyond the boundaries of imagination.

During the last 15 months, Wilson's imagination went global. Iraq blue-pilled his perspective.

"Had I not been deployed, I would have never come up with my business plan for an online real estate venture. I would have stayed 'in the weeds' running a traditional brokerage on a daily basis. In the heat of the day, I didn't have or make time for bigger thinking."

Bigger thinking. Many employing it have come from outside real estate. Others, like Captain Wilson, are pure red, white and blue -- Realtor blue. What each have in common is the endless possibilities they see in our industry. Great minds are expanding real estate beyond the boundaries of imagination.

Wilson's message is powerful. If you're in the weeds, find your own private Iraq.

Salute

Stay low, Captain Wilson. Four more weeks. Come home and introduce yourself to your new babies. One day they'll thank you for doing your part to ensure that others never see what you've seen. You've been a great pen pal and I will miss our long-distance missives.

See you at Real Estate Connect in August.

What a brokerage must become tomorrow

The media center for local real estate
The repository of real estate facts and truths
The provider of valued benefits to the community
The trusted source
The one-stop provider for everything real estate
Virtual                                                                                                                                                            Profitable     

What was

In the 1999 release, Homesurfing.net, The insiders guide to buying and selling your home, writer Blanche Evans documented the eight main services brokerages offer for sellers and buyers. They were:

Sellers

1. Fix-up advice prior to showing
2. Calculating the listing price
3. Listing the property in the MLS and on the Internet
4. Assistance with marketing, including signs, brochures, tours, open house parties, and other advertising
5. Providing potential buyers with information on various financing alternatives
6. Negotiating the offer
7. Arranging the closing
8. Troubleshooting the gap between offer and closing

Buyers

1. Pre-qualifying the buyer
2. Matching the buyer's needs and wants against his/her ability to pay
3. Help with search
4. Showing the property
5. Help with the offer
6. Assistance with inspections
7. Help with financing
8. Help with the closing

This was ten years ago.

What is

A quick scan of the Web reveals how obsolete many of these services have become due in part to information and/or services now provided by either people and/or technologies that have made these services and specialties ubiquitous.

From the flurry of decision support content that now reside everywhere to establishing affordability now offered by new entrants like http://www.icanbuy.com, what you did as a broker ten years ago, is no longer special, highly regarded or arguably, valued.

Given what’s transpired in the past few years, the decimation of trust in the marketplace alongside the emergence of new participants that are slicing and dicing real estate, brokers are looking at a grim future questioning both their services and value. And for good reason.

What you can do

Think this through with me.  

Consumers search, find and educate themselves via the web. They can even create marketing material on their home, craft a listing and syndicate it directly to CraigsList. Buyers can search, save, estimate, calculate and through services like N-Play, begin the negotiation on their own.

Granted there are reports that are needed and the coordination of activities that involve the offer that, in time, will be managed by some third party vendor.

Am I predicting doom for a brokerage? On the contrary, I am documenting a clear path towards what kind of website and online service a virtual brokerage must offer going forward. As I see it, if what I just documented is the precise behavior of millions of Americans, why not give them one place to do all of it.

Take Zenbe, a Web 2.0 platform provider that took a similar path. It understood that creating a single destination that organizes all of our email accounts alongside all of our social network accounts would allow us, much like AOL did 2 decades ago and Yahoo did a decade ago, a new 1-stop destination to manage the many things that are important to us all within one framework. 

Knowledge management

Knowledge Management is a practice used to identify, create, represent, distribute and enable adoption of insights and experiences. Practitioners of KM treat inherent knowledge as a component of their business activities as an explicit concern leveraging the organizations explicit and tacit intellectual assets to create positive business results.

Apply this to your brokerage. Whether you have 8 agents or 800 agents, you are a warehouse of intellectual assets that are right now currently fragmented in that many areas. The result is a fragmented brand and confusing value proposition that sits like a rotting outer layer covering what could be a very sweet core.

My guess is most brokers don't even know what they have, where it might be located and, if you could even find it, might not know how to expose it, market it, drive users to it and earn revenue from it.

My guess is you might be too deeply wed to that service legacy that doesn't work anymore and can't see your way out.

Nagual

You could take a trip to the Sonoran desert, eat some peyote and tap the realm of the unknown. Sometimes, I think that's not a totally bad idea. Carlos Castaneda would regard that as the teaching of Mesoamerican shamanism. Joseph Schumpeter would regard that as simple creative destruction.

I call it survival. The most obvious next step for a brokerage. 

And that's my point folks. Pick your poison but right now, you need to find a way to dynamite the deeper recesses of your brokerage mine and find that vein that leads to the diamonds. I know it's lying there under the sediment, under the politics, under what your agents think they want, need and force you to be doing.

Brush it off.
Hold it to the light.
We are talking your future here. 

- Davison

Life during wartime

Part one of a two-part series.

A hubbub of technological euphoria swirls in real estate. It's been here since the early days of agent domain squatters and will likely last well past Real Estate Connect 2008, where talking heads, brokers, innovators, technologists and bloggers sipped from the Pixie Sticks of cool and trendy.

Web 2.0. It's now a bona fide addiction. Connect proved that. The merry band of bloggers and Twitterers mingled, typed and grooved to the orange and green.

For some,  it has become a lifestyle. But this stuff can also be a van loaded with  weapons, packed and ready to go.

Or it can  be a gravesite out by the highway -- a place nobody knows.

And gunfire off in the distance

By the close of Connect, dozens sat in airports Twittering about sitting in the airport. Others madly signed up "friends" on social networks. Bloggers blogged to other bloggers about all the blogging taking place at the conference.

I spent the  weekend sifting though e-mails, accepting and denying invites from people I do  not know.

I wondered  how any of this helps build business.

Of course I get Web 2.0. But with a calm reserve. Enthusiasts might note that my year-old consulting firm has benefitted greatly from our blog, but that would then detract from the years of experience my business partner and I have inside this industry.

And herein lies a balance I feel is often overlooked by the preachers, teachers and believers. The promiscuous social necking and compost heap of useless tweets that steam atop the real estate "conversation" often, for me anyway, have no correlation to terrestrial real estate excellence.

Real estate is in the market equivalent of wartime.

The battle is fought between what's trendy and what's real. Between anecdotal and fact. Between hype and truth. Between profit and loss. With so many Web 2.0 tools and applications now being deployed onto real estate it feels as if practitioners are armed with only a fuse. Bullets of random advice are pinging off your helmets daily. Your efforts ricocheting out of control.

The  explosive power of deeper thinking and real application of these revolutionary  tools is left unharnessed and lost.

Three passports and a couple of  visas

Video, mapping, blogs, vertical social networks -- these Web 2.0 tools are sound. But I wonder how are you applying them? How are you not applying them? Are you caught up in a facile enthusiasm, spending days and nights Twittering about what the most menial things you're doing instead of participating in truly meaningful discussion about the consequential benefit of that activity to your clients?

Are you starting to wonder whether this Web 2.0 stuff, or at least how it's being presented to real estate is
noting short of a way to distract you in the wake of such a slow market?  Are you scratching your head wondering what the heck the bottom line is on all this stuff? Or if there is some sound application to all this that has not yet revealed itself?

If you are you are not alone.

And she was

Real estate had it right all along. Buying a home is different than buying a used car. Or airline tickets. Or shoes. Online, or for that matter, off. While there are things we can and must borrow from those experiences it is its own experience that needs to be polished not molded to become MySpace.

As for the tools and applications and the spirit of Web 2.0,  it is, at this juncture a complement, not a replacement, for the old-fashioned tenets of real estate services that are born out of providing a deep sense of intellectual guidance, service and benefit to the consumer.

As for transparency, well... I think that when it comes to stripping that final coat of cheesy camouflage off of real estate and revealing it's many secrets and truths, that's more about survival than it is about Web 2.0. 

"This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, This ain't no fooling around, No time for dancing, or lovey dovey," or you  ain't got time for that now!"

- Davison

This is part one of a two-part series. Next: A deep, balanced dive into the new tools, what they mean and how to get the most out of them.

The road to killer

This year, as in the  past, I'm moderating several sessions at Real  Estate Connect. If you've not yet registered, take the time to do so -- it's going to be a great show. One of my sessions is titled "Building a killer brokerage in a Web 2.0 world." I'm devoting this article to part of what that conversation will be about.

What is a 'Web 2.0 world'?

We've all read the O'Reilly manifesto. It's deep, comprehensive and defines how millions of people interact online. Most have no sense of what folksonomy, long tail, open source, and Ruby on Rails are or mean. Nevertheless, these things have changed the way they interact with each other forever.

Perhaps it is simple curiosity that propels most people into social engagement on the Web. Or the challenge of figuring out something new. Or maybe it's a desire to be part of a phenomenon.

Real estate people, on the other hand, are more practical. And at times stubborn. Maybe a bit too much for their own good.

But let's face it, some of what's popular about Web 2.0, while arguably cool, is a bit silly. I get Facebook. But then again, I've never written on someone's wall. What's the point in that? And the notion that I have more than 500 friends is a tad dishonest. And Twitter. Yes, I have an account. But the volume of utter nonsense that streams into it is deafening. And for most agents, Twitter's a game that has no measure of return on it.

So what is it about this quirky Web 2.0 that so many are drawn to? What, if any parts of it, can real estate use to build that "killer brokerage"? We're going to dig into this in my session next week, but for now let's get started on …

The road to killer

I've  isolated five elements of Web 2.0 that pertain to this endeavor. Nail these and  you're good to go.

Design: Think curb appeal. Picture that carefully manicured front lawn. And the unencumbered path that points guests to the front door. That's your home page.

Web 2.0 design is an aesthetic that instinctively creates purpose. It distills a sense of invitation to the site. Specific colors transmit activity. Connectivity. Empowerment. Those oranges, greens and blues throw off a ray of fun. Excitement. Youth. It's an appeal that invites and welcomes.

Real estate, however, still clings to a Reagan-era palette tied to logos developed before there was such a thing as research and marketing.

Web 2.0 design is something that can take your worn-out broker brand and pop it with freshness. If you think your marketplace will be confused by a logo and design redo … ask Lennox Scott if it affected his company when he did it 20 years ago. Better yet, I'll do it for  you. He's on the panel.

Navigation: You may understand terms like "MLS." And "exclusive properties." The user, however, does not. What does "exclusive" mean anyway? Does it mean I need to be special to view it?

Web 2.0 navigation  is simple. Like one entry point to search. Not 10.

Like "Contact Me" offering a dozen ways to make contact. Not one form where I get to tell you how to reach me but you still don't tell me how to reach you. A killer navigator guides people down a clean and simple path. A killer brokerage is one that does that online as well as offline.

Copy: This is also simple in the Web 2.0 world. Unencumbered by saccharine odes to the home and ham-handed hucksterism. It's not long and winding, whistling its own Dixie. And it never tries to take ownership of what it can't guarantee. You don't get to tell me you're my "Realtor for life." You don't own that right, just like Apple doesn't own the right to sell connectivity even though most of its products are built to create it. They cannot guarantee connectivity. But they own "Twice as Fast -- Half the Price."

Killer copy. It's short. To the point. And tells it like it is without sap. And it takes ownership of only those things you can own.

Content: Web 2.0 content is original. Meaningful. Opinionated. Fresh. And topical. If your copy is written by others, and cloned over and over on hundreds of sites … well that's simply not killer. I'm sorry but I don't believe that a "Home Buyer's Guide" should be the same for a site in Santa Barbara and for one in Stockton.

Killer is real content. Written by the people in your company. It taps the brains of your agents who know the community better than any technology ever can. And it leverages that knowledge. A killer brokerage deals with issues. And isn't afraid to publish content that is truthful. Like telling sellers they will never sell their home if they price it too high. That's killer.

Conversation: Lets face it: Few of us are mired in endless debate over the merits of Euripides and his progressive portrayal of the intelligent woman versus those of Aeschylus and Sophocles, his counterparts who together made up the trilogy of great tragedians of classical Athens.

Most conversation is simple. Sometimes even trivial. Regardless, people have a dire need to converse. A killer brokerage gets itself in the center of that conversation -- especially if it's about the community. Brokerages have scripted a tragedy of their own these past 10 years by distancing themselves from the conversation by virtue of Web 1.0. The consumer went somewhere else. But they are still conversing. Trulia Voices proves that. A killer brokerage should own the voices of its own community.

A killer brokerage in a Web 2.0 world

A killer brokerage is one that inspires oneness. Internally with its independent agents and externally with its customers. It's a culture.

Picture the Yankees. A team of independent free agents. But when they put on the pinstripes and step out onto the field they become one. Better than many other teams. That's what I mean by killer.

Building that killer brokerage in the Web 2.0 world also means it must be profitable. And it must borrow from the ethos of what lies at the heart of what real etate is  - service, community,  assistance and yes the godfather of all Web 1.0 practices some semblance of lead generation.

There is more to real estate Web 2.0 that some bright colors a cool design and an RSS feed. What that is, what it looks like and who is going to do it is what this session is about.

I will be moderating this panel of killer people that includes: Guy Wolcott of Sawbuck Realty; Henry Shao of Movoto Real Estate; Lennox Scott of John L. Scott Real Estate and Matt Fagioli of Diamond Dwellings.

Come join me. Take part in the conversation. Tell me who your favorite ancient Greek playwright was. And get on the road to killer.

- Davison

A House Divided

Curtain call and lights  grow dim
Tragedy, love all lie  within
Each player takes his  chance to play
And lives to fight  another day
    --The Damned, 1977

Our industry had its heyday. Business boomed. Organization memberships ascended. Buyers flocked. Sellers scored. The economy rocked. Good times rolled.

But that's  over. And the haze of 10 years of real estate's sex, drugs and rock and roll  has lifted.

The hotel room is trashed.
Many of you are burnt out.
Some will never be the same.

And what's left is …

A house divided

Let's not beat around the bush. There are deep issues festering in real estate. I've addressed some of them: The disconnect between the industry and the consumer. The barricades thrown up against discounters and alternative models. The 100-year war for control.

But brewing deep in the pit, at the bottom of it all, is a "War of the Roses" between real estate agents and brokers. A house divided. Michael Douglas on one side. Kathleen Turner on the other.

I've been inside the house. I've worked closely with brokers. I have at times worked even closer with the agents. The indignation is pervasive.

The Cause

l think you should hear  the story, though. lt might matter to you.
    -- Gavin D'Amato, "War  of the Roses"

Here's  how it all looks to me, a guest in the living room:

Brokers:

• The day you agreed to cave on splits you might have made your agents happy financially, but you lost their respect. Your concessions spoke volumes about your inability to provide equal value. From that day on they began to question your existence.
• As technology emerged, you failed to pounce. You outsourced it to vendors. They stepped in. Rubbed your agents' feet and gave them their happy endings.
• Those hunting licenses you awarded through your affiliate programs were often not awarded to the best or the brightest. But your agents didn't know that. And after all that money they spent on things that didn't work, well … they feel you sold them out.
• You've recruited anyone with a pulse. Hence you became big rather than great. You damaged your brand. And shortchanged your best agents. You forced them to build their own brand. Or leave yours to start their own.
• You lost location where it now matters most: online.  Others -- the ones you now buy leads from -- are the local destination of  choice.

There are  more issues. Feel free to continue the list.

Agents:

• Your independence is a termite. It eats away at your broker's legacy. And destroys whatever meaning they attempt to place on their brand -- your brand.
  
  
• You're addicted to things that no longer make sense. Office space. Paper. Newspaper spreads with vanity ads. These cost your broker a fortune -- money they no longer have.
• You lag educationally. This is not about intellect. This is about knowing your industry and buying into the notion that real estate today is as much about technology, branding, marketing and service as it is about sales. And using it.

Brokers,  you have voiced more concerns. Feel free to add them to the list.

The Cure

Brokerages are not going away. They will consolidate. Agents are not going away either. Especially the really good ones. So in everyone's best interest here are some ideas for a truer collaboration:

Brokers:

√ Redo your corporate Web site. From scratch. Ditch the stock photos and confusing user interface. Get mapping. Get data. Rethink search. Focus on find. Make your site the  destination for your marketplace. Build something that adds value to your agents. Something that's an advantage to them,  not an embarrassment.

√ Get out of the cockpit and into your company's cabin. Start partnering with your agents. Form advisory councils amongst those with category savvy and allow them to participate in critical decisions that affect them such as vendor selection, listing partners, etc.

√ Rethink how you charge your agents. They feel ultra-squeezed having to support archaic processes such as cubicle workspace and 10,000-square-foot facilities that sit empty on Main Street.

√ Do something bold. Buy out a competitor. Strike while the iron is cold. Build an internal social network that connect agents with each other where they can communicate about listings, share information and tap into the collective.

Agents:

√ Co-brand with your broker. Especially if you're part of a still-strong brand. It simply makes no sense to be part of a company and not combine your brand with theirs unless the firm you're with is trash. Which then begs the question: Why are you with them?

√ Stop demanding useless things from your broker -- like that office space we talk about above. And buy your own pencils. Free your broker's profit and loss for new line items that matter. Wean yourself off things that no longer work -- that your broker pays for to appease you.

√ Attendance. Your broker needs you to show up at office meetings. Conventions. Award ceremonies. Even vendor presentations. From their top producers down to the newbie agents. This is your opportunity to show some solidarity. Lend your voice. Share your thoughts and help craft a culture -- the rebar of a brand.

A house aligned

Many of these things above are intertwined, and change will not occur unless these issues are exposed and placed on the discussion table.

Ask  yourself how young firms like @properties with a born-on date of 2000 rose to become the number four brokerage in Chicago with five-year, quadruple-digit revenue growth. The company is but one of several incredible examples of what happens when an operation runs with a house aligned.

It can be  done. It must be done.

- 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

A bad market could be an entrepreneur's best friend

Real estate professionals could learn a thing or two by paying attention to another industry that's been turned upside down - the recording industry.

Last year, Paul McCartney distributed his new CD through iTunes and Starbucks; Radiohead netted millions selling their latest album themselves; and Gene Simmons of Kiss fame continous to mint cash licensing content.

During the worst year ever in the music industry -- an industry hit as hard as ours by disinterested consumers, overstocked inventory, technology overload, Internet interlopers and a timeworn value proposition -- some artists flourish.

These artists are not mired in blame. And they aren't sitting around waiting for their market to change. They've moved beyond the mainframe and disengaged from dead-end practices. Amid the woes experienced by many of their peers, they're rocking out. If asked to explain how, I believe they would say that a bad market could be an entrepreneur's best friend.

Sadly, few in the music industry think that way. They're stuck in the past. Stuck with huge executive overhead. Stuck with an overpriced product that's packaged poorly. They excel at doing nothing and complain about everyone out there eating their lunch.

RIP

Over the holidays, I stumbled upon the RE/MAX 2000 obituary on AZCentral.com. According to the article, the Phoenix-based brokerage of 350 agents folded days before Christmas, citing lack of sales and the depressed housing market as the cause.

I can't help but consider the similarities between the music and real estate industries as they drag down highway 2008 with all eyes affixed on their rearview mirrors.

Contrary to the company's statement, I refuse to believe that a depressed market is the reason RE/MAX 2000 folded. Furthermore, I find this excuse irresponsible and insulting to those who own homes in Phoenix, those who are in the market to buy and sell and those who operate real estate offices in the area. As a homeowner, if I read this about one of the larger brokerages in my town, frankly I'd be freaking out right now.

A neater, cleaner, current box

2008 in real estate must be the year everyone stops waiting for yesterday's success formulas to become their tomorrow's gain. The market is indeed challenging but companies have had years of warning and years of opprtunity to prepare for this. If a company folds, there is more to the story than meets the eye.

Company's mired in yesterday's practices will find this market unsymphathetic. Paper-based real estate is over. Stealth lead generation is over. Bidding wars are over. Overpriced homes are over. Unimaginative marketing is done. Confusing map mash-ups are done. Stay stuck in this mindset and yes, the market will take you out.

Slimming and trimming is in. Being a visionary is also. And thinking outside the box … well, as Bill Maher says, let's leave that for the really smart guys. The rest of us should just make the box we have neater, cleaner and current.

2008 should be...

... the year of CEM -- Customer Experience Management. Learn why over 80% of consumers polled by CAR say they will use the same agent again but only 1 out of 5 people actually do. Why is that? Polls, surveys, questionnaires, and focus groups should be a critical play for any brokerage this year. Real estate should not be afraid to talk to its clients. Find out where your weaknesses are. Identify your hidden strengths.

Vendor and product analysis is also critical. The number one question every vendor should be asking themselves is “on what basis do I believe my product works?” Vendors, you need to get cracking on that answer because I think every agent and broker customer has a right to ask you for it before buying anything you're selling.

2008 needs to be the year of crystal vision. Getting real. Your website alone is a life raft at sea. Your blog – another life raft. You need to push your content out, attach that raft to the large ocean liners. You need to work with online companies to push, push, push your content and listings out so they can be seen.

2008 is the year to reduce expenses. Don’t fire smart people, fire stupid processes. Analyze the ROI on that newspaper contract you’ve routinely renewed for the past decade. Scrub your marketing costs. Learn how to use free online social networks. Learn how to blog correctly and efficiently. The web is replete with free software that can enhance your presence and save money.

2008 must be the year we begin to conserve. Reduce the amount of paper you use. Go digital everyone. Agents, get tablet computers. Get e-signature software. Send the copy machine to the Smithsonian. The amount of gas you buy to deliver paper back and forth is criminal. The savings you’re leaving on the table is mind blowing.

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away

Maybe time ran out for RE/MAX 2000. Maybe their yesterday never came back around.
The party hats are off. We've dusted away the new year's confetti. Let's embrace the depressed market. Let's let it serve a greater purpose. Let's take a cold hard look at the problems it is uncovering and start addressing them right now.

Markets come and markets go. The real estate market will rebound itself next month or next year. The greater question worth discussing is what kind of real estate industry will be left -- and who will be working in it.

- Davison

Releasing Real Estate’s pheromones

Sexy sells.
Physical sexy.
Intellectual sexy.

These days, stimulating the mind and the heart from the advertisement all the way through to the experience is hot, hot, hot. It’s what attracts people to products. Loyalty to brands. And it’s building across the luxury spectrum. Hermes, Prada, Ferarri, Burberry are booming while other less sexy brands sit unwanted, like wallflowers at the school dance.

Real estate has pheromones. It seems it just doesn’t know how to release them.

Understanding sexy

In my junior year of college, my advertising class was tasked with fabricating a company and delivering the creative necessary to launch it on TV, radio and print (this was pre-Internet). The idea was to come up with something challenging. Not a Wall Street investment firm or uptown haberdashery. Our professor wanted us to stretch our imaginations.

I invented an airline, Flynite Air. It had no seats and flew only redeye, New York to Florida. Passengers flew like they rode subways. Holding on to straphangers. For the ad campaign, I took the phallic imagery of an airplane and explored it internally. Bodies against bodies to maintain balance. Brandishing cocktails and gyrating against other hot bodies under the disco inferno as they “stood” for what they believed in. That was the TV campaign. And “standing” up for what they believe in (cheap fares) as great men and women throughout history stood for what they believed in for the print ads.

The project earned me more than a good grade and a job referral to a Madison Avenue ad agency. My professor told me I understood sexy.

Sexy stirs the viewer beyond the impulse buy. It beckons them to evaluate the premise. To evaluate their choices. To think. My project created a connection for my professor between imagery and reality. I used people he admired and combined their actions with my premise. In his words, “If Moses could stand on the mountain for 40 days to receive 2 tablets, what’s 2 hours standing to save a few hundred dollars?

Getting jiggy with advertising

Last week Diageo revealed their sexy by inking a deal with international brand builder P. Diddy to develop Ciroc, their premium Vodka. Until last week Ciroc was one of many premium brands (Ketel One, Armadale, Grey Goose, Türi, Belvedere, Zyr, Jewel of Russia Classic, etc.) that distinguish themselves by region, ingredients and process. Interesting elements indeed, but not very sexy.

Ciroc is a lesser-known brand than its counterparts, but Diddy believes that can change. He lives in trendy bars and has witnessed how sexy a cocktail can be when held in an ice-cold glass that sweats in the hard grip of slender, polished fingers. Diddy sees the allure of a glass -- its shape and contour as it nears pouty lips that open gently and take in the frosted rim. Slowly. Lovingly. The throat, bronzed, velvet like, pulsating as it savors every droplet.

Ciroc. To life!

Sexy is a niche not one vodka has filled. P. Diddy will fill it. His jet-setting, hip-hop mogul lifestyle can be lived, vicariously, by the millions who will sip Chiroc neat, over, up. That’s hot. As is the millions in profits Puffy will take if he succeeds.

How does this relate to real estate? Well for starters, like most vodkas, real estate brands are borderline frigid. But they don’t have to be. Stripped down, real estate is actually quite hot. Couples sitting next to each other at night sipping wine searching homes is sexy. Spying on other homes and their values is sexy. Buying property is way hot. Come on, where else in life does anyone spend a million bucks?

What about technology? Isn’t that sexy? With the advent of Web 2.0 and all the super-cool devices now available, from iPhones to tablet computers, I’m wondering why there’s not a brand out there willing to turn on a little Will Smith, unravel their hair, and get jiggy wit their advertising.

In love

The difference between sex and sexy is sex ads require no thought. No pondering. Sexy on the other hand affects the mind. The heart. It compels. It touches. It grips you so hard that 30 years later you’re still in love with the brand. Coca-Cola. 1979. When that little kid offered Mean Joe Greene his Coke, I lost it. And the fact that I remember that 30 years later is exactly what sexy is all about.

Sexy is me getting an email about Apple’s new Leopard operating system, buying it, and having the experience match the promise of the ad. That consummation of promise and experience is love for the brand.

Sexy is my wife and I watching HGTV. The programming bridges our interests. Awakens our imagination. During that time, real estate seems real. We see possibilities and discuss investing. And making home improvements. We watch rooms transform and people dreaming of home ownership at the top of the hour owning a fully decorated one 30 minutes later.

When you’re married for 25 years, that’s very sexy.

Turn offs

But then we wake up. And the morning breath of the other real estate wafts over us. The one filled with this. And I wonder how it’s possible that despite the dozens of incredibly sexy things this business could market around, despite the overwhelming opportunity to truly connect, and consummate, we are still getting nothing but cold showers.

I’m too sexy for my shirt.

Right Said Fred’s hit song I'm Too Sexy was about self-empowerment on the catwalk of life. About drawing on your own animal magnetism to endow yourself with sexiness. It’s about ripping off your shirt and revealing the parts of you that serve to attract others.

This is what great advertising is about. It’s what branding is about. And it’s how you create sexy.

You have the goods. Start with the truth. Tell it. And be original and different. Lure the viewer in using the very things you know they are already attracted to. Ditch the things you know don’t work. Clichés. Empty promises. Animals. Vanity.

Just think, “What would Diddy do?”

The future of the music….er, real estate business

Rolling Stone just ran a special report on the decline of the music business. As you read the excerpts below – various “theories” on the future of music – imagine they are directed at real estate. Substitute songs for listings, MLS and Brokers for Labels. Consumers for ...Consumers.

Theory 1: Ad-Supported Music - Ian Rogers: Yahoo! Music General Manager

“All music will be free - paid for by ads - and any song by any artist will be accessible from anywhere in the world. Imagine a future where you just consume a hell of a lot of music - just hit 'play' on any player, and hear music. There's an ad experience there, and we'll pay the labels a percentage of that ad revenue.”

Theory 2: Peer-to-Peer Goes Legit - Eric Garland, CEO of digital-music research firm Big Champagne

“People will pay a monthly surcharge on their cable bill to download an unlimited supply of tunes. Tens of billions of songs are downloaded for free by people all over the world, representing a huge market - not in changing their behavior, but in creating businesses around that fact.”

Theory 3: Labels Change Their Stripes - Rob Glaser, Head of Real Networks and Rhapsody

“I predict that labels will operate more as managers, earning most of their profits from licensing, touring, and merchandise. The notion of a company that is only in the business of selling recorded music is an artifact of the physical world. In the next year or two, as physical growth continues to lag, the labels' pain will just get so great, they'll move to a more rational approach.”

Theory 4: Consumers Become Retailers - Terry McBride, Founder and CEO of Network Music Group

Social networking will be integrated with commerce. We'll be looking at a space where the consumer is the retailer. Within a text message, an email or an IM, I can say, 'Listen to the new Avril single,' you click on her name, you hear it, you like it, you hit pound-four, and you instantly bought it, but you bought it from me.”

I believe that the equivalents of these great thinkers exist inside real estate. Some are running real estate companies. Others work inside of associations. But most are outside the industry steering the sails of the web companies. Traditional Real Estate will not emerge victorious in the battle for the consumer unless it seriously embraces these thinkers, rather than silently wishing for their demise.

- Davison