There are 1.3 million members of the National Association of Realtors. Of those, 30,000 descended on Las Vegas for last week’s NAR Convention.
How many of those people, either the larger group or the smaller, know about our world, the world of Web 2.0, real estate weblogging, social networking — the world we think of as being “the conversation”?
Almost none.
BloodhoundBlog is big as real estate weblogs go, and we’re arguably the biggest of the blogs focused on real estate industry issues. We get around 1,200 unique visitors a day on weekdays, a steadily rising number. Many of those “hard clicks” are not Realtors, of course, but we have a large and growing population of RSS and email subscribers. I have no numbers for RSS subscriptions, but the email server demands kicked us from a shared-server account to a quarter-server to a full dual-core server in a little over a year. It would not seem unfair to me to estimate that we are talking to at least 1,200 dues-paying Realtors a day.
It pays to do that math, doesn’t it. We are well-known, highly regarded, deemed influential — and we are talking to fewer than one in 1,000 members of the NAR on any given day. Not everyone reads everything on any given day, but, on the other hand, things get passed around. We might be seen by as many as 50,000 Realtors a month, perhaps as many as a quarter-million in a year’s time.
But even then, for all but a few hundred Realtors, we are noise in the background. The others see what they see, with Debunking Zillow.com and What’s Wrong with zipRealty? being by far the two most popular hard clicks into the weblog.
There is a over-arching message here and in other places we frequent, a message about our world, the world of Web 2.0, real estate weblogging, social networking — the world we think of as being “the conversation.” But who among the attendees of the NAR Convention — much less the NAR membership as a whole — knows anything about it?
This was one of the points Jeff Turner raised in our conversation Friday, and it’s one I hope to take up Sunday night when we take on the NAR Convention in a group discussion of attendees — all of them significant voices in the RE.net.
We are called upon to challenge our own beliefs. We have this conversation, and we have something approaching consensus within it. We believe very strongly that we hold the keys to the kingdom, that marketing that is permission-based, relationship-seeking and ideally viral is the future, where interruption advertising is the shopworn if not utterly tawdry past.
Who doesn’t agree with these propositions?
Practically everybody, it turns out.
No, that’s not completely true. Among wired Realtors, and among wired consumers, the debate is long since over. As much as I love Russell Shaw, I have a better chance of winning the lottery than I have of seeing or hearing a Russell Shaw commercial. I’m XM Radio in the car and DVD or extended cable when I watch TV. I sell to people like me, so I spend a lot of time thinking about how I might find out about our brokerage.
If we stipulate that that population of Realtors who are not already living primarily on repeat and referral business have a very hard way to go in this market, then my take is that the NAR Convention simply left those folks hanging.
Perhaps the 30,000 who came are the ones with the least to worry about. A week in Vegas ain’t cheap, particularly if you’re writing checks at vendor booths.
But there are really only two possible interpretations of the data I’ve cited:
- Either we are completely wrong about the future implications of the Web 2.0 world on real estate marketing
- Or something close to the entire membership of the NAR is completely unprepared for where we are heading
The second proposition is yet another reason to ditch the bums, for all of me, but, still, it’s a daunting thing to think about.
Will delivering pumpkins still work? Magnetic NFL calendars? Recipe cards? Did any of this stuff ever work, or was it just a way of keeping your name in front of people who had no way of researching, comparing, judging and evaluating Realtors?
How will you market yourself in a world of consumers who routinely research, compare, judge and evaluate everythng?
And that’s the better point, because presumably you already have an answer to that question. It’s the 1.3 million Realtors who are not a part of this conversation who have the most to lose.
I am burning up with ideas, more than I can make time to write about. I’m dying to talk about this stuff, so I am beyond delighted to have Sunday’s Studio BHB conversation to look forward to.
But, far beyond that, we all need to be thinking about how this is going to play out. We have a huge first-mover advantage among the wired client base, but we have to anticipate a tsunamic lurch in our direction as the trend of the market becomes obvious. But even then, we have to be good stewards of this community we are building: Web 2.0 is not a new path to the same old sleazy self-promotion, it’s the reintroduction of humanity and dignity to commerce. If we lose sight of that, we will not have destroyed the wired world. That can’t happen. But the wired world can quite happily leave us behind.
If you ask me about the future of weblogging — or the future of Facebook or Myspace or Twitter or whatever — I’ll take a pass. A year from now everything will be different — how I don’t know. But we are pioneers in this thing, this conversation. We can’t control where it grows, but we can have a very strong say in how it grows, if we are willing to assert ourselves.
Consumers will find what they want. That’s a fact beyond dispute. But they will only find members of the National Association of Realtors if we prove ourselves to be worth wanting.
Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing, technology
Russell Shaw says:
This may help you to win the lottery.
http://wm.arizonarepublic.gannett.edgestreams.net/sales/fo.wmv
November 18, 2007 — 1:17 am
Greg Swann says:
> This may help you to win the lottery.
Sorry, but that money is wasted on people like me. I am impervious to advertising, and everything I buy is based on intense fact-based research. The box you are sitting in front of turns everyone who uses it into a buyer like me.
November 18, 2007 — 1:24 am
Russell Shaw says:
Actually, not everyone. If that were true, companies like Redfin would be a smashing success and companies like Re/Max would all be out of business.
And none of my responses are intended to negate the major points you were actually making in this post. But with regard to your response to my comment above, even your success in your business is based on providing value and genuine service to your buyers and sellers – personal service and expertise that has nothing to do with the internet.
I totally agree that not everyone watches news on TV (I only run paid spots on the news, as NO ONE records the news to watch later) and that the percentage of the population that does is shrinking.
November 18, 2007 — 1:39 am
Todd Carpenter says:
>Will delivering pumpkins still work? Magnetic NFL calendars? Recipe cards?
Another way to look at it is that not every agent delivered pumpkins, magnets or recepe cards. I know an agent who walks her prospect farm with her obscenely cute dog, dressed in a sweater, with the agent’s company name on it, and business cards in the “pockets”. I know one that tailgates Broncos games, one that organizes Garage Sales.
My point being, RE.net is just one other thing. In addition, different agents will make different aspects of RE.net work for them in different ways.
November 18, 2007 — 2:40 am
Artur says:
I wondered for a while why San Mateo county, CA is one of the most conservative real estate-wise counties in the whole country. You can find the proof by going to Active Rain to see how few bloggers are in our county. How is it possible? After all San Mateo county is wedged between Silicon Valley and San Francisco, two very innovative and progressive areas. The answer is quite simple, I believe. Doing the real estate business old fashioned way still works here. It doesn’t mean that successful agents don’t use Internet, websites, etc. It is important to be seen as “versed” in new technology, but it is just about irrelevant to obtaining listings in this county. Will it change? Of course it will. It already is changing (quite slowly, however). We have more and more people moving in from outside and replacing the older population. Newcomers didn’t go to high school with local agents, so the “familiarity”, social factor, still so dominant here, becomes less and less important in finding an agent. So, one day, even blogging might start playing a role in San Mateo county!
November 18, 2007 — 4:50 am
Missy Caulk says:
“something close to the entire membership of the NAR is completely unprepared for where we are heading.”
Ahhh, well said. I look forward to the discussion. I always think of “shifts” like bell curves, a few get it at first, and the momentum increases, you hit critical mass at the top, and then the true followers jump on board. Problem is “shift” is happening so fast, will they ever catch up?
Example, I got a email the other day, a law school student and his family had been reading my blog and wanted me to come and talk about listing their home in May 2009. Yes, not typo 2009! I told them I always send my marketing proposal over first for their review, but added “by 2009, some of this will be obsolete and other things added that even I don’t even know. 2009 is a long time off, who knows where we will be.
November 18, 2007 — 5:46 am
Michael Wurzer says:
With reluctance, I think Todd has it right — many clueless of the RE.net will do just fine in the coming years. Relationships still exist off-line and referrals likely will be the number one lead generator for a long time. So why my reluctance? Because I also agree with Greg that the move toward information over advertising is a better way of selling and I hope that it prevails sooner rather than later.
November 18, 2007 — 5:48 am
Greg Swann says:
> If that were true, companies like Redfin would be a smashing success and companies like Re/Max would all be out of business.
Companies like Amazon.com are not a smashing success, but companies like Tower Records and Blockbuster Video are DOA.
> But with regard to your response to my comment above, even your success in your business is based on providing value and genuine service to your buyers and sellers
I have argued since the birth of BloodhoundBlog that personal service real estate will not be disintermediated.
> personal service and expertise that has nothing to do with the internet.
The issue is how will people shop for and select personal service real estate representation in the future — and what is the NAR (not) doing to address this shift in consumer behavior?
November 18, 2007 — 7:48 am
Greg Swann says:
> My point being, RE.net is just one other thing.
For now. Eventually, as with everything else, the internet will become the dominant communications medium.
> In addition, different agents will make different aspects of RE.net work for them in different ways.
Absolutely yes.
November 18, 2007 — 7:49 am
Greg Swann says:
> the “familiarity”, social factor, still so dominant here, becomes less and less important in finding an agent.
I am always amazed when a house lists in our pet neighborhoods and we didn’t hear from the seller. People choose what they choose for their own reasons, but we are objectively so much better than the Realtors we compete against that I expect to at least have a crack at everything. This is our challenge for 2008, to get better at communicating our added value.
November 18, 2007 — 7:49 am
Greg Swann says:
> Problem is “shift” is happening so fast, will they ever catch up?
It’s a concern for me, too.
November 18, 2007 — 7:50 am
Greg Swann says:
> many clueless of the RE.net will do just fine in the coming years.
I agree with this. But it’s a diminishing return.
> Relationships still exist off-line and referrals likely will be the number one lead generator for a long time.
If we argue that consumers will become more sophisticated in every possible way, then they will become more sophisticated about referrals, also. That suggests that a mere relationship, without a remarkable experience, will not be enough to swing the balance going forward.
> So why my reluctance? Because I also agree with Greg that the move toward information over advertising is a better way of selling and I hope that it prevails sooner rather than later.
When the whole world looks like a nail, you do everything with your hammer. Things change much faster in the wired world than anyone can foresee.
November 18, 2007 — 7:50 am
Bob in San Diego says:
The early real estate trainers like Floyd Wickman and Tommy Hopkins would be successful today.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s pumpkins, door knocking, cold calling or the web – distilled down to it’s most basic form, it’s still about one thing:
)(
Getting belly to belly with people on a regular basis, in whatever manner works, whether figuratively or literally.
November 18, 2007 — 9:06 am
Allen Butler says:
I agree with Bob in San Diego 100%. This is a sales business. The whole idea of a sales job is constant contact with people. Can Web 2.0 fill your pipeline with people who are ready, able, and willing to do business. NOT YET. Right now, we are all preaching to the choir. I have no way of knowing for certain, but I would estimate that the many people who visit real estate weblogs are agents themselves. They are either looking for a “golden key” that will help with their business, or they are keeping themselves apprised of industry news.
I agree with Greg that this platform my be the wave of the future, but the future is just not here yet. It will arrive; whether in this exact form or another similar form has yet to be seen. We just have to hang in there and lay the groundwork and the roadway to our own unique brand of information aggregation.
I suppose that the simple question would be, “How many of you are doing a consistent business from leads generated through weblogging?”
Then again, you may wish to change the question to, “Is weblogging SUPPOSED to be a way to generate business?” If it is NOT, then we are all changing jobs to part-time agents/part-time journalists.
November 18, 2007 — 10:23 am
Bob in San Diego says:
I believe that there is an incomplete understanding of the strategy of blogging for business.
November 18, 2007 — 10:31 am
Anonymous says:
> I believe that there is an incomplete understanding of the strategy of blogging for business.
A more precise statement would be that most people have an incomplete STRATEGY for blogging for their business.
Done effectively, blogging can improve your search engine ranking, increase the exposure of your brand and, most importantly, show your potential clients that you are experts at what you do.
But don’t blog about what you do. Blog about what your clients want to read about. Treat it as yet another channel for generating leads.
November 18, 2007 — 10:37 am
Kris Berg says:
Great conversation!
>I suppose that the simple question would be, “How many of you are doing a consistent business from leads generated through weblogging?”
The problem I see here is two-fold. The blogger who will tell you that “almost all of my business comes from my blog” (and there are a few) is probably not closing 50 or more transactions a year. If your business plan is 90% comprised of blogging, then your business will be primarily as a result, and 90% of a little number is a little number. We have not seen the day yet(as so many pointed out) where the audience is sufficient to allow us to ignore the traditional ways of reaching people if we want to close more than a dozen or so transactions a year. At least, it is not for me. My goals are a little loftier.
Problem Two is that (broken record here) it is rarely possible to say “Mr. Smith” was a client that I generated through blogging. This is because Mr. Smith sees all of our other marketing stuff, not the least of which are our yard signs, so the blog is but one cog in the overall business wheel, and it is nearly impossible to run it through the sifter and isolate results.
>Then again, you may wish to change the question to, “Is weblogging SUPPOSED to be a way to generate business?”
IMO, yes, but only in that it enhances other efforts. We are far from having the luxury of our blog being our single marketing strategy. As somebody pointed out (somewhere up there in the comments), it is going to take everyone awhile to catch up, and once they have, they are going to be behind again. I think that the real value of Web 2.0, the breakout success for our business, is going to come with the next generation of homebuyers, because they were born in the Web 2.0 world. My children don’t have a learning curve, and their world is primarily online. Most of my would-be customers, however, have a primarily off-line world. The future is in what we are doing, I have no doubt. It is just the timeline I question.
>If it is NOT, then we are all changing jobs to part-time agents/part-time journalists.
I don’t necessarily agree, Allen. I don’t see my blogging as part-time journalism. I see it as marketing my experience, as continuing education, and even recreation. But, believe me, when I say that I am working in my very full-time capacity as real estate agent with every word I type.
Bob – )( Absolutely!
November 18, 2007 — 10:55 am
Russell Shaw says:
Other than yard signs pretty much all of my “marketing” to buyers is via the internet. Getting to sellers is a very different matter (and I believe it always will be).
To attract buyers one promotes houses. To attract sellers one promotes themselves and one’s effectiveness. From a marketing perspective, a web page or “getting out there” on the net is not as efficient a medium for doing this as a mailing piece or even radio or TV. If simply being well known and well regarded as an effective listing agent was the primary element to get them to choose me, my current production would easily exceed 5,000 units a year. Getting consumers to “find out about you” is not – by itself – what is necessary. But once I meet someone it is a different matter. Now, they will do business with me! But if they never meet me, it seems they are just as willing to do business with some random person they happen to know. The web is never going to change that.
November 18, 2007 — 1:55 pm
Bob in San Diego says:
Can I nominate Russell’s last response in this thread for an O medal?
November 18, 2007 — 2:33 pm
Greg Swann says:
> The web is never going to change that.
Wanna bet?
Everything we do is devised to counter-market against the-way-things-have-always-been-done. You are far more successful than Bloodhound in every conceivable category. Except one: Cost per conversion. There we stomp you and every Realtor we compete against. Assuming the Bloodhound idea will scale, it will scale at the same cost structure, which means our profit per head will also stomp every traditional Realtor.
I think it’s absurd to insist that the wired world is going to change everything except this one thing, and that interruption marketing, which already does not work on wired consumers, will somehow continue to work for listing agents. The farriers didn’t vanish all at once, and there are still a few of them in business. But time does not hold still, and, in the fullness of time, listing agents who are not findable will not be hired.
One of the things that came out of StarPower for me was this: Brinton’s Stars are promoting what I consider to be stale and hackneyed ideas. They might still work, but they won’t work for long. Each one of those people should be using some slice of their marketing budget to counter-market against themselves. It’s a blue-sky investment if I’m wrong and the salvation of everything if I’m right.
November 18, 2007 — 3:01 pm
Bob in San Diego says:
I have no doubt you win the cost per conversion contest, but I would still bet on Russell winning the numbers game.
November 18, 2007 — 3:11 pm
Greg Swann says:
> I would still bet on Russell winning the numbers game.
That’s the way it is now, and it may be that way for a while. But do you understand how many fewer transactions a web-focused real estate practice has to do to match the net profits of an advertising-oriented practice? And in the long run, advertising is dead. The whole world is a nail.
November 18, 2007 — 3:16 pm
Bob in San Diego says:
Greg, for the most part, you are preaching to the choir. I sold out to the web a very long time ago. Ask any agent who is online in San Diego.
Where I agree with Russell on this is with the difference between the mentality of buyers and sellers and how that relates to the web.
A buyer is looking for a product. The seller is looking for a service. It is much easier to step in between consumer and product and extract a buck from the process.
When you are able to reposition the listing agent as the provider of a marketing product as opposed to a marketing service in the minds of the consumer, then you will win the bet. FWIW, I think that is possible, but it won’t be an across the board change, and it won’t be done by those who currently rule the real estate roost.
November 18, 2007 — 3:57 pm
Dave Barnes says:
As a consumer who has purchased and sold houses.
As a consumer who wil buy and sell houses in the future.
Yard signs.
I am 59 years old.
The only TV news I watch is BBC (sorry Russell).
I do watch Food Network and HGTV for about 3 hours a week.
I watch almost no other TV.
We subscribe to and receive 2 newspapers a day.
I immediately trash (oh no, I meant to say recycle) all advertising sections of both the Rocky and the Post. I also trash the Sports section as we “don’t care”.
Thankfully, the Sunday NY Times comes without extra advertising sections.
We subscribe to 15+ magazines.
I rip all the double-sided ads from them BEFORE reading.
The only real-estate-oriented mail I even glance at are those post cards that provide data about my neighborhood. And, then I trash those. So, thanks for the data, but I have no recollections of your service. No data and you go straight to the recycling bin.
I spend 10+ hours in front of my computer and on the “tubes” every day. But, I use Firefox with the Adblock Plus extension and therefore never see adverts.
Yard signs. And, flyers in the box. Outside of kidnapping my daughter, that is the only way you can reach me.
Oh, one other way. Live in my neighborhood (40 square blocks) for 10+ years and have yard signs so I know you are successful and I will probably call you to help sell my house.
Buying a house is a whole other story. I don’t even want to come anywhere near a real-state person on the buying side. When we get ready to move, we will do what did last time–research the location (we walked every block of our current neighborhood twice), select that part (6 linear blocks, 150 houses) that we prefer (demand) and then visit each house for sale and finally select those we would consider.
Then, I plan to hire a bad-assed negotiator (at an hourly rate + small commission) to drive the best possible bargain.
November 18, 2007 — 9:01 pm
Russell Shaw says:
>Yard signs.
Yes, yes, yes. And they have nothing to do with web 2.0 and they are as low tech as it gets. But they work. They work now and they will still be working (baring some law against them) 25 – 50 years from now.
>> The web is never going to change that.
>Wanna bet?
Yes. There are many things the “wired world” is not going to change. That is just one of them. Dental care, eating, exercise, getting enough fluids, having shelter are a few others. The short list I wrote is just a few of many.
>Everything we do is devised to counter-market against the-way-things-have-always-been-done. You are far more successful than Bloodhound in every conceivable category. Except one: Cost per conversion. There we stomp you and every Realtor we compete against. Assuming the Bloodhound idea will scale, it will scale at the same cost structure, which means our profit per head will also stomp every traditional Realtor.
Making more net profit per deal than other agents is a meaningless yardstick. It is a contest I gladly lose everyday and probably always will. For me it isn’t the amount of net per deal but the amount OF net per year. I’ve been told by many people how stupid I am for spending all that money on ads, that my acquisition costs are way too high, etc. Mike Ferry teaches that cold calling is the way to go – as the cost per deal is zero (this assumes a value of zero per hour for one’s time). Brian Buffini teaches that it is all about relationships, that getting referrals is the only way to go. Craig Proctor teaches using low cost ads to drive people to your website is the way to go. There are many ways to get business. Many. Almost all of them have some workability. There is not “one good way” or “one perfect way”. That is precisely the problem with what Ferry, Proctor and Buffini teach. That is the beauty of Starpower. Lots of different people with lots of different personalities doing lots of different things and doing LOTS of business.
>One of the things that came out of StarPower for me was this: Brinton’s Stars are promoting what I consider to be stale and hackneyed ideas. They might still work, but they won’t work for long.
That depends on how we define, “long”. If the length of your current lifetime is an adequate definition, then I am willing to go on record as saying that most of the “stale”, “hackneyed” ideas promoted by the Stars (even most of the vendors) will have enough workability, long enough to be useful for an agent today who is in their 30’s to retire wealthy. Will there be new things later that are better? No doubt. But saying something is better when it has not been demonstrated that it IS scalable makes no sense. Getting referrals is also much less expensive per deal than what I do. But getting referrals is not “a business” in the residential resale world – it is a JOB. My job is running a business. There is a big difference.
November 18, 2007 — 11:44 pm
Greg Swann says:
Hide and watch, Russell. I’ve spent my entire life listening to people tell me what wouldn’t happen, then watching it happen.
November 19, 2007 — 12:05 am
Randal Rust says:
I think the biggest problem here is that everyone is guessing about the future. The future is relatively easy to predict, especially for real estate.
People will always need homes to live in, although the supply and demand of homes will fluctuate.
What changes are the customers. If you want to know the future, go talk to some 18-year-olds and find out what makes them tick. Then you will know how to market your services to the next generation which will be nothing like you have worked with before.
November 19, 2007 — 1:57 pm
Dan Gobis says:
All of you need to step outside of your huge, well deserved may I add, EGOS. I thoroughly enjoy the debate, but as I have seen over many years in the business, this diversity in your visions is exactly what the diverse group of buying consumers need.
I remember looking at some successful real estate agents that were nothing short of crude and offensive, yet they did a good amount of business. Why? Because there are a lot of crude, offensive people that need a place to live and buy property.
You can use bleeding edge technology to sell property.
Proper pricing will stop the bleeding.
November 19, 2007 — 7:02 pm