My eighth grade civics teacher was a big bear of a man named Russell Hazelton. He was a part-time preacher for a hard-line fundamentalist sect, and he was as dapper a dresser as a big man can get to be on two small salaries. The very first day of class he was deliberately about 90 seconds late. He wanted for everyone to be in the room and settled down so he could stalk into the classroom, turn, look us all over with the two ablative lasers he had for eyes and then bellow, “First impressions… are lasting!”
Was he wrong?
I remember every detail of my first impression of Mr. Hazelton to this very day, 35 years later. He knew exactly what he had to do to start his relationship right with our class, to put everyone on notice that he was in charge. He turned out to be a great teacher, smart, funny, engaging. But no one ever even thought about challenging him for dominance. First impressions are lasting.
Frédéric Bastiat was a French economist. One of his most popular arguments concerns the seen and the unseen. It is easy, of course, to notice what is seen, but you have to train your mind to take note of what could be seen, but isn’t.
Yesterday I stirred up a hornets nest, and I told you in advance what you should expect to see in response:
Regardless of what I say here or elsewhere, the incestuously cliquish part of the RE.net will insist that it is talking only to itself.
There were exceptions, thank goodness, but in the main the clique of big-name real estate webloggers behaved exactly as I expected them to, even though I deliberately built them a graceful exit:
If you find you’ve stepped in shit, admit it at once, clean up what you can and move on.
This is what is seen. What is unseen?
That post got 350 hard clicks yesterday, this in addition to the hundreds of people who would have seen it by RSS and email subscription. Amazingly enough, no one wrote in to say, “I like to be talked down to.” “I love being treated like an idiot.” “I wish more salespeople behaved like that.” Obviously, no consumer is ever going to say anything like that, but not even the would-be defenders of Daniel Rothamel’s misguided video were willing to say, “I like it when vendors engage me like a baby trapped in a high-chair. I think it makes a great first impression.”
My parents gifted me with a functioning mind, for which I am beyond grateful. But an unhappy side-effect of their gift is that I always know how people are going to behave. Not just in the aggregate, in their mewling mobs, but as individuals. Yesterday, Cathy asked me how Teri Lussier was reacting to the tempest I had stirred up in the blogger clique. “She’s ruminating,” I said, knowing nothing except for how Teri behaves.
This morning I had email from her, the only inquiry I’ve had about this dumb video:
I saw Daniel’s video via a twitter link he posted. I linked to it because I am assuming that my readers are on the same page as I and would therefore get all the references: to Dylan, to SCTV, to the retro-hip-cool look… All packaged into one message, which I had just explained earlier in my post. If I’m assuming that my little ninety and nine are winking at the same jokes… where’s the insult. They aren’t I? I aren’t them? We aren’t we? That’s the leap my brain isn’t making, but understand I’m not here to argue, I am trying to make that leap.
If I’m assuming my readers will get the same things I get, is that not correct? Then how do I talk to them? Greg, I’m really confused on this one.
Why would you make any assumptions at all about people you haven’t met? You might feel safe making a few small guesses about your “regulars,” but you really know nothing about them, either. You could be wildly wrong.
In fact, in real life, you don’t make assumptions about people you don’t know. This is why you wear your dressy clothes to listing appointments, why you probe for information, why you are unfailingly polite. Your protocol for engaging with strangers is strict and exacting, and you do not vary from it because you know that this is what those strangers are expecting from you — a commodity-quantity salesperson applying for a job.
This is exactly what your weblog is doing, introducing you to vast hordes of strangers about whom you know nothing, and who will not engage you directly until they think they understand exactly what they will be getting in approaching you.
This is not news.
This is what we have been talking about here for a year-and-a-half and what the enblogged globe has been talking about since The Cluetrain Manifesto and before.
Markets are conversations.
Weblogs are built to forge relationships.
And: First impressions are lasting.
If the first impression a potential client has of you and your weblog is Daniel Rothamel’s video, you’re done already. It’s not even just the first impression that matters, since many of your readers are shopping you to decide if they want to reject you. Any false step, online or in person, could be decisive. You don’t engage your clients that way in the real world — making fun of them, talking down to them, insulting them. No one does. There is no one, not even the webloggers who embedded that video on their weblogs, who yearns to be treated that way by a salesperson.
As I said — and as the mewling mob graciously demonstrated — this is not a debatable proposition. People made a dumb mistake, and, in preference to admitting the obvious, they made asses of themselves. A surprise to no one.
But I told them in advance that I am not talking to them. I am talking to all the other people who read BloodhoundBlog, many of them struggling real estate webloggers or wannabloggers. This is a leadership issue, and that’s why I spoke up, knowing in advance the response I would elicit from the mewling mob. Repeating the peroration:
If your objective in reading BloodhoundBlog is to build and improve your business, do not do as they do. Don’t treat people as leads, and, whatever you do, don’t treat them like idiots. Don’t insult them to score points with your buddies. If you find you’ve stepped in shit, admit it at once, clean up what you can and move on. Do whatever you have to do to remember that the people you are most interested in talking to are the ones you will never hear from until they are ready to hear from you. If you blow them off in some misguided idea of pomo “fun,” they will turn instead to someone wise enough to show them respect.
In short, treat your potential clients the way you yourself would want to be treated if you were interviewing a prospective vendor. Now that’s a noble ideal. Where have we heard that before…?
Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing
Michael Wurzer says:
You mention Dylan as a reference for the videos but when I started watching the video I immediately thought of the Common Craft stuff. As I started watching, I thought, hey, this is going to be great, a little education for real estate consumers. But then as the video progressed, I started to cringe because I could see that it was a joke and not really intended to inform. Because I was expecting some knowledge transfer, getting a joke instead was disappointing. After you mentioned Dylan, I saw the connection and the joke made a bit more sense but I still think the Common Craft videos could and should have been the goal as they show how to educate while being funny and without being condescending. That’s my $.02.
December 22, 2007 — 11:09 am
CJ, Broker in NELA, CA says:
I’m ruminating along with Teri.
I have great respect for you, Greg, but to me, the one possible flaw in your premise, is that while your own writing is impeccable, occasionally a BHB contributor will post something that just maybe, possibly, a member of the ninety-and-nine might find insulting.
And to your credit, Greg, you have not censored the work of your contributors.
But still, it doesn’t quite strike me right to type Daniel’s video as “insulting” when Russell’s post titled “Photo snapped of patient’s genitalia during surgery” is right there on BHB’s first page. (Don’t get me wrong, I like Russell!)
And don’t jump all over me. Like I said, I’m just ruminating.
December 22, 2007 — 11:12 am
Greg Swann says:
> After you mentioned Dylan, I saw the connection and the joke made a bit more sense
Check. An important point about the Dylan video, and about post-modernism in general, is that alienating the squares is part of the appeal. It’s also important to emphasize that post-modernism is not about anything that actually matters. People who take it seriously commit suicide.
> but I still think the Common Craft videos could and should have been the goal as they show how to educate while being funny and without being condescending.
Stipulated. But persuasion presupposes the rationality of the audience.
December 22, 2007 — 11:20 am
Greg Swann says:
> occasionally a BHB contributor will post something that just maybe, possibly, a member of the ninety-and-nine might find insulting.
Only occasionally? 😉
I say this all the time, but perhaps I should add it to the About page:
If you have or hope to have a real estate weblog from which you would like to forge relationships with future clients, do not follow the example of BloodhoundBlog. This is not what we are doing here. Many of our contributors have their own client-focused weblogs, and these can be much better models to emulate. BloodhoundBlog is written to be controversial, and — as this post and many others make plain — we don’t — and should not — care whose toes we might step on.
So you know, Cheryl, your remark about not treating people as leads in your response to the Unchained interest list was hugely influential in this controversy. That philosophy is part of who I am, but I had forgotten that particular post.
December 22, 2007 — 11:30 am
Jeanne Breault says:
Holy backfire, batman.
It’s three days before Christmas…I have to postpone my potential rumination until the 26th…
Merry Christmas, all!
December 22, 2007 — 11:37 am
Russell Shaw says:
>But still, it doesn’t quite strike me right to type Daniel’s video as “insulting” when Russell’s post titled “Photo snapped of patient’s genitalia during surgery” is right there on BHB’s first page. (Don’t get me wrong, I like Russell!)
I think it depends on who it is supposed to go to. If Daniel’s video was only to agents, then I believe it is just nothing short of fantastic. If aimed at consumers it would not be effective.
I’m not sure who I insulted with the genitalia post but I hope anyone who (agents with a genitalia tatoo?) felt insulted can get past it. If Greg will admit to not liking my post, as well, can he then also feel okay about not liking Daniel’s post?
Some of my posts are intended to educate. Some mostly to amuse. Some totally to amuse. Some totally to amuse me.
December 22, 2007 — 11:42 am
Greg Swann says:
As a matter of disclosure, I asked Russell to clip back some of the quoted matter from the tattoo post. I thought he had quoted too much to qualify as a fair use. Once I asked Allen Butler to cut some copy from the end of a post that I thought was just a little too salesmaniacal. It wasn’t major big deal, but we’re not trying to sell ourselves to clients here. A couple of different times, I can recall saying to Brian Brady, “Please don’t get me sued.” I will occasionally fix posts, especially for Russell or Jeff Kempe, if MS-Word has screwed them up. Unless I’ve forgotten something, I think that’s the full extent of my assertion of editorial control over contributors. Jeff Brown posted a link to a link to the Daniel Rothamel video. I commented on that post, but that’s all. I know that consumers read this weblog, but we are not selling real estate here — nor loans, nor investments. Shortly we’ll be selling tickets to BloodhoundBlog Unchained, but if you would rather be told what you want to hear than what we think is the truth, save your money. We will always be the unchained dogs you’ve learned to expect.
December 22, 2007 — 12:01 pm
Cathleen Collins says:
I hadn’t planned to comment on any of this… On the one hand, I think Greg’s and Brian’s posts are such brilliant commentaries on the irrational reactions of certain real estate professionals that there was nothing I could add. On the other hand, the detractors were none other than the very characters from whom I would expect such ‘atta-boy high-fives. Brings to mind the images from old high school movies where the jocks are so certain that their prank was sooo funny because, well, they and their buds got it — so who else matters?
But reactions from Teri and now Cheryl, two professionals whom I really respect, impel me to offer my point of view.
Those of us who regularly read the national real estate blogs have already formed pretty solid opinions of authors. This is why I wasn’t surprised to find the indignant posts that reacted to Greg’s. But I was surprised to see Daniel’s video in the first place. I think that Daniel is a gentle and kind man. So I don’t think that he would have produced that video if he thought it would hurt feelings of the very people whom he wants to help. (Aside: in response to some of the straw man arguments I’ve read that try to defend Daniel’s post: no one thinks that sellers should try to sell their houses for more than the market will bear — Greg and I have walked away from more listings than we have accepted, because we don’t want to go through the time and money, nor do we want our clients to go through the inconvenience and false hope, of listing a house for a price that we believe is too high for this market.)
So what is the real confusion for some of the 80%? I think it comes down to a misguided notion that being transparent is the same thing as letting it all hang out.
When Apple started it’s campaign comparing Macs to PC’s our resident marketing guru told Greg that he thought that the ads were terrible because they alienate everyone who relates to John Hodgman. Just Google and you’ll find more articles that consider this campaign as mean-spirited than posts that high-five it. I haven’t checked with Richard to see whether he has changed his opinion considering the apparent success of Apple’s campaign, but even if mean-spirited might have worked for Apple, can the same be implied for Daniel?
This I think is the difference: Apple deliberately set out to exclude. They can’t hope for the entire market, so they aimed to appeal to the PC user who could be persuaded that he would be cooler if he changed to Mac. So if we compare Daniel’s video to the Apple campaign, we’d line up his market’s sellers behind PC, and who would be lined up behind Mac? The buds, of course. Genius.
December 22, 2007 — 12:51 pm
Galen says:
Shouldn’t this be a direct email to said “clique”? I’m guessing a lot of subscribers are getting tired of skimming.
December 22, 2007 — 3:42 pm
Greg Swann says:
> I’m guessing a lot of subscribers are getting tired of skimming.
It’s not the kind of thing that I care about, because I do what I think is the right thing to do, regardless of the consequences. But, in fact, our page views for today are up just over 54% from normal. Yesterday’s number was just shy of 56%. I haven’t looked at time per visit, but I would expect that to be up substantially, too.
December 22, 2007 — 4:16 pm
Teri L says:
>So what is the real confusion for some of the 80%? I think it comes down to a misguided notion that being transparent is the same thing as letting it all hang out.
Okay. Now *that* is beginning to make some sense. Next time I’ll simply email Cathy. 😉
December 22, 2007 — 4:49 pm
Brian Brady says:
Changing direction- the read from Bastiat was excellent. I’m wondering if Michael Mauboussin reads him.
I just finished my monthly investment strategy report from Michael Mauboussin, of Legg Mason, discussing how one might predict the a black swan/fat-tail event:
http://www.leggmason.com/individualinvestors/documents/insights/D4114-FatTailsNonlinearityLMIS.pdf
His three pieces of advice:
1- Avoid the danger of drawing general conclusions from limited samples.
2- Be mindful of diversity breakdowns
3- Watch for the non-linear reaction
Is it just me or did this just happen these past two days?
December 22, 2007 — 5:27 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Is it just me or did this just happen these past two days?
I don’t read the swill that people spew when they get the idea that their anger proves something, but the general proposition is funny to me: “We’ll show him what happens to someone who takes a firm moral stand against an irrational mob!” It’s like nobody ever saw a Jimmy Stewart movie. 😉 Not my motivation, obviously, but it’s the story of Western Civilization, for goodness’ sakes.
December 22, 2007 — 6:30 pm
Smithers says:
OK. I’ll chime in. I’m not a realtor or loan broker, but I am a many-time home owner, having bought/sold several times at this point in my life. Sometimes with a realtor, sometimes without.
I watched the video. I thought it was clever. In fact, I ENJOYED it, especially the deadpan delivery. I did not laugh out loud like I did watching Aaron’s video, but it was not remotely insulting.
Greg – I’m with you on most of your posts, but this time.
Insulting is when realtors tell me that they represent buyers for “free”, since the seller pays. Insulting is when realtors (or loan brokers) tell me that it’s a good time to buy, “so long as I plan to hold on to property for a few years.” Insulting is implicating a lack of manhood as a reason why I don’t buy something.
We all have different skin thickness when it comes to deciding if we are insulted by something.
It is hardly a secret that there are a LOT of houses “for sale” right now that are NOT selling, and won’t sell for the simple reason that the sellers want more money than a ready/willing/able buyer cares to pay.
You think such sellers will crumble and fall to pieces ’cause this guy points out the obvious in a humerous (IMO) video? If they do, too bad for them. Their loss. Maybe this Daniel fellow just did a lot of realtors a huge favor by delivering some sobering news to their clients.
December 22, 2007 — 10:43 pm
Charleston real estate blog says:
Thank you Smithers, your good common sense is always appreciated.
December 23, 2007 — 2:53 am
Jeff Kempe says:
Smithers, you make Greg’s point nearly as well as Greg.
Importantly, you don’t see this video targeting you; it’s for the rubes who don’t already know better. Thus
>You think such sellers will crumble and fall to pieces ’cause this guy points out the obvious in a humerous (IMO) video? If they do, too bad for them.
is definitive insult.
This video is clever and seriously viral if it’s the choir to whom Daniel wishes to preach. It will never reach sellers who actually need to bring their price down.
[I’m reminded of the Nordstrom multi-million dollar rollout seven or eight years ago that was intended to pick up the younger customer. Dubbed “Reinvent Yourself!” it managed instead several thousand torn up credit cards attached to messages like “YOU reinvent yourself. I like who I am.”. Profits and the stock tanked, they ended up firing their CEO before they were able to make a comeback. Sadly for them, they had no one in their executive meetings with the chutzpa to stand up and say “Excuse me, that’s insanely stupid; it’s insulting to our customers.”]
December 23, 2007 — 8:38 am
Greg Tracy says:
The video is only insulting if you take it (and maybe yourself) too seriously. I don’t think it was intended to be a complete listing presentation, it’s just a fun video that says, “don’t over-price”.
Greg, you obviously have an incredible gift for delivering a message through text, and you’ve built a pretty great blog with great contributors. And I respect your opinion (enough to solicit it for own business).
I don’t think the video is so bad- I think it’s entertaining and fun.
I think the same about BHB- I don’t always agree, but that’s not why I visit- I visit to be entertained by discussions about subjects that I am interested in.
There is far too much political correctness and apologizing in the world today, so I’m glad you (Greg) have the stones to state your opinion and not just try to be polite to everyone. That’s what makes you an interesting read.
December 23, 2007 — 11:40 am