by Brian Brady
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
I caught up on some much needed sleep yesterday, after the fifth BloodhoundBlog Unchained Conference, held in Anaheim, CA. It is my hope that my partner Greg Swann celebrates his birthday, in relaxation and Splendor, before pondering the future of these conferences. As the Godfather of the Unchained movement, Greg argued that the title of these conferences be “Unchained” rather than the “Unleashed” title I offered. What Greg knew, and I understand now, is that Unchained suggests that the Bloodhound was never enslaved while unleashed suggests prior submission.
If you missed our show in Anaheim, you missed the proof in the pudding. I’ll give you an overview:
Greg Swann led us off with a demonstration of his Chinese army; software which creates tens of thousands of unique webpages, with granular listing data. Greg showed us how he can close the publishing gap, in less than an hour each week. Greg continually invents new and exciting software, to stay one step ahead of the market competitors, who would try tho chain him.
Scott Schang came to Unchained 2008 on, how he has described it, “his final few bucks”. He took the ideas offered there, implemented them here, and created a business which employs a half-dozen people. He shared his online business plan, his accomplishments and mistakes, and how he overcame market changes to stay relevant in the consumers’ eyes. From borrowed bus fare to accomplished entrepreneur, in 40 months, Scott has a database of willing home buyers, numbering in the five figures—Scott is Unchained.
Brian Summerfield, of the National Association of Realtors, came to take some body blows from the crew. It was his motivation which impressed me; he transparently announced that he came to address us because he wants content for Realtor.org . Mr. Summerfield invites constructive criticism of NAR on its forum. Contact him if you have an opinion to offer.
Bill Lyons, a serial entrepreneur, shared his latest creation for consumers, Revestor.com . Revestor.com offers investors an IDX search with rental data. Home buyers can search listings by net cash flow or capitalization rate. Revestor.com is expected to be released right before Thanksgiving.
Mark Madsen and Tony Sena reflect their Vegas heritage well. Never content to seek the chains of employment, the pair created WannaNetwork.com as a business community alternative to Myspace.com. That site inspired the wildly successful group blog, MortgageDaily.tv where Mark assembles some of the greatest mortgage minds across the country. Mark and Tony attended Unchained 2009, learned some valuable information and made invaluable contacts, to launch their latest venture, Shelter Realty. Their presentation chronicled the steps they took to make this new business a force in the SERPs. Both gentlemen embody the Unchained spirit.
Eric Blackwell knows search engine optimization. When we first met Eric, at Unchained Orlando, he was toiling away for a Louisville brokerage. The contacts he made, along with some salesmanship skills he learned, set Eric up for the challenge of entrepreneurship. Eric overcame a health scare to launch his own SEO consultancy; Eric on Search. Today, Eric helps regional brokerages and high-producing agents, dominate the SERPS in their region. While Eric is certainly the “rock star” of Unchained, he also demonstrated some of the things he learned, to wear the Unchained moniker.
Trudy Smit was an Unchained first-timer and shared her project, Loan Interchange, an online marketing platform for loan origination and secondary notes marketing. Her technology offers notes investors and opportunity to buy and sell, in a centralized location where participants are vetted.
Finally, I led an ill-prepared session on email marketing. I intended to share my video e-mail marketing campaigns, which helped me to achieve a higher conversion rate, but the hotel internet was too slow for a good performance. Good entrepreneurs however, have plans– and contingent plans. Business never pans out the way you think it will so you must anticipate the problems you might have. In a sense, I had chained myself to a presentation which relied upon an inflexible plan. Our Unchained conferences teach lessons to everybody so my takeaway is that you must be prepared for any and all opportunities. If luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity, I was “unlucky” because I was unprepared.
The Unchained philosophy is one of freedom–the freedom to succeed and the freedom to fail. We know that our world and industries are changing rapidly. Old bosses are being replaced by new bosses and the Unchained practitioner will supplant all bosses, to chart her own course, serve her customers, and profit wildly. We hope to continue to give you the tools you need, to profit wildly, and share the experiences of those who implemented the strategies they learned with us.
Born Free and Determined to Stay That Way,
Brian Brady
Mark Madsen says:
Awesome event guys, and a great recap in this post Brian.
I really enjoyed seeing everyone and coming up with a plan for world domination by the end of 2012…. more to come on that in my followup post.
Thanks again for getting this great group of people together and making Unchained happen.
November 14, 2011 — 12:24 pm
Trudy M Smit, CFA says:
It was a pleasure meeting the characters behind the bloodhound blog, which I’ve been reading for a while.
My goal in attending Bloodhound Unchained was to understand & gain insight into the broker/agent’s views & action with respect to generating business online and for that I chose wisely. Your group is successfully doing for themselves what most other firms delegate to outside service providers, frequently with less than stellar results. Bloodhound Unchained is a unique event with a conglomeration of practitioners willing to share both ideas and actual results. Thank you for letting me observe that.
November 14, 2011 — 1:37 pm
Greg Swann says:
Beautiful and inspiring, as is everything you do. To make sure the record stays straight, the original idea behind the Unchained conferences was Brian’s. He’s an extrovert, I’m an introvert. Who’s going to come up with ideas about getting people together?
Here’s more: We talked so much about webinars at our last event, in Phoenix in 2009, that I had wondered if the days of the live show were done. But this conference, BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Anaheim, proves the benefit of putting people in a room together. We’ve played Scenius games with each other by email, but a true Sceinus is face-to-face — and it turns out that I missed the best Scenius of the trip!
Here’s another meme for this Unchained, and another reason for all of us to be grateful to Brian for making it happen: Family reunion. This pack of puppies has grown in many interesting ways since we first came together here, but we still smell like kin to each other. It was wonderful to get us all together, not just to show off what we’ve been doing, but to celebrate who we are.
November 14, 2011 — 1:58 pm
Brian Brady says:
“He’s an extrovert, I’m an introvert.”
“Words and Music”–Eddie Wilson
November 14, 2011 — 3:31 pm
John Wingate says:
Great event!
December 1, 2011 — 12:46 pm