I don’t like mission statements, but I’ll give you one for BloodhoundBlog:
Everything you wish were in Realtor magazine but isn’t.
That’s pithy but inadequate, because there’s more here already than Realtor magazine — or the Specialist — would ever take on. We have three lenders to take us inside the mortgage industry. We have two investment experts to brings us hard-core, hands-on advice. We have some of the best writers in the RE.net — who produce some of the best reading in real estate writing, period, weblogged or printed.
And we are nine months old today.
Our traffic grows month-by-month. In addition to the folks who see our work by RSS feed, we are routinely attracting more than 1,000 unique visitors a day on weekdays. We’re slower on weekends, but we’re right on the verge of hitting 30,000 visitors a month. Our readers take in just short of two pages each, on average, so a lot of what we write is getting read. We throw off at least 500 outbound clicks every day, which means that the sites we link to are seeing quite a few Bloodhounds in their kennels.
This is all great, but I want more. We’re building the Russell Shaw Sales Success curriculum, and, by the time we’re done with it, we should have something that will provide tremendous value to Realtors and other sales professionals for a long time to come. I have no expectation that Teri Lussier and I will win the Project Blogger contest, but I plan to make the course material I’m developing available via ebook to any Realtors who hope to join the burgeoning RE.net. Our contributors are becoming steadily better known, and this cannot but produce interesting opportunities for them in the long run.
Even so, I want more. I am very proud of everything we have done so far — and a week’s worth of BloodhoundBlog content is an over-scale pound of meaty reading — but I want to come to the place where a day’s work is of that weighty scale. I know we can do this. There are days when we do it already. There will come a time when we will do it every day.
We are sometimes the first word in a debate, and that can be fun. We are very often the last word. But what I want, now and always, is for BloodhoundBlog to be the best words in the conversation, the most thorough, the most informative, the most cogent, the most persuasive. At our best we are not writers but rhetors, eloquent docents on the path of reasoned discourse.
At our absolute best we are Bloodhounds — unabashedly proud, fiercely independent, tirelessly hardworking — indefatigable hounds on the trail of truth.
Three fingers of Old Bushmills on the rocks: Happy nine-month’s birthday, BloodhoundBlog. The best is yet to come…
Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing
Jonathan Washburn says:
I really like your mission statement! Well said. The only point of contention I have with this article is your belief that you and your mentee have this Project Blogger thing in the bag. You must have overlooked the fact that me and my mentee are one of your competitors…
March 29, 2007 — 3:48 pm
Austin Realtor's Wife says:
Greg- you give yourself away as an O’Reilly fan within the first line (using his favorite term “pithy”)! Awesome! I submit to you that you should forward you blogs that frequently feature 15 letter words- he’d love it!
Also, happy 9 months- congrats on your big fat bloodhound baby :)- I hope the toddler years are just as fun!
March 29, 2007 — 7:23 pm
Todd Carpenter says:
9 months? I’ll drink to that. Heck I’ll drink to Austin Realtor’s Wive’s 1 day aniversary as well. :p
March 29, 2007 — 7:58 pm
Dave Barnes says:
Greg,
How is this blog going to make you money?
Does it/Will it help you land more business in Phoenix?
Do you have lots of advertising on this blog?
,dave
March 29, 2007 — 8:03 pm
Greg Swann says:
> The only point of contention I have with this article is your belief that you and your mentee have this Project Blogger thing in the bag.
To the contrary, I think we’l lose. Not Teri’s fault. She’s already a champion in my estimation. But I have never won a popularity contest in my life, and I never will. We’ll end up with a lot of good content from this contest, and I’ll build an ebook from that that might get a million hits over time. That’s more than enough for me,
March 29, 2007 — 8:30 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Greg- you give yourself away as an O’Reilly fan within the first line
Never seen the show. Not once. Sorry…
> Also, happy 9 months
Thanks. Congrats to you for Real Estate Wives (and Husbands). I have in it my queue to add to our weblog list, but I think Todd is already indexing you fro REMBEX. Good on ya!
March 29, 2007 — 8:33 pm
Greg Swann says:
> How is this blog going to make you money?
So far, I have no idea, nor any concern.
> Does it/Will it help you land more business in Phoenix?
Not to my knowledge. I actually qualify as a protege according the Project Blogger rules: To my knowledge I have never gotten a real estate lead from weblogging — except for referrals from other Realtors. In any case, we’re not doing this to get leads.
> Do you have lots of advertising on this blog?
None, nor will we ever have advertising.
This is not about money, or at least not directly. I do envision that participation in BloodhoundBlog will make our contributors well enough known that other opportunities may open up for them: Freelance writing, book deals, speaking engagements/tours/seminars, television appearances or even TV shows. But even then, that’s not what this is about. For me at least, without presuming to speak for the other contributors, this is about about the ideas. Anything else is a secondary consideration.
March 29, 2007 — 8:44 pm
Brian Brady says:
Happy Birthday Bloodhound. The past three months have been the best education I’ve received in this industry.
March 29, 2007 — 10:11 pm
Kris Berg says:
Congratulations on quite an accomplishment, and thanks for inviting me to the party. It will be fun to look back nine months from now.
March 30, 2007 — 7:22 am
Todd Tarson says:
congrats on being 9 months old.
I sometimes forget that you all are just kids around here. When you get to 12 months, like me, it’s then you see the maturity. Till then you are loud teenagers.
Turn down that music will you!! Who left these lights on?? No you can’t take the car!!
kids…
March 30, 2007 — 8:01 am
Charleston real estate blog says:
Greg, congratulations on a fantastic 9 months, I look forward to reading you and your gang in your terrible two’s and teenage years and all the way to the nursing home (not too soon for that one). Thanks, Howard
March 30, 2007 — 11:51 am
Nigel Swaby says:
Kudos on the nine months Greg. With your layout, writing and passion, I thought for sure you had been around the web for much longer than that!
Congratulations for putting out a quality real estate blog.
March 30, 2007 — 4:29 pm
Rhonda Porter says:
Congrats on nine months…a labor of love! I’m very surprised at what a puppy Bloodhound Blog is.
It’s very inspirational to folks like myself who are just a couple months old with our blogs.
March 30, 2007 — 8:04 pm