by

Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL

Author website

Let’s keep our eye on the ball, folks.

Glenn Kelman is coming to Phoenix. Mind you, he has every reason not to come, now. This accomplished young man could be in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, Boston, or our nation’s capitol. He could be fighting for scraps, during a difficult real estate market…yet…

Glenn Kelman will be at The Heard Museum, in Phoenix, on May 20, 2008. I’ll speculate as to why; Glenn Kelman is truly UNCHAINED. What exactly does that mean?

If you were at the Mesquite library, yesterday, you already know what that means. It means you don’t have to take crap from a boss, a company, or anybody. In fact, the only crap you’ll have to take is from customers- if you do it right, you won’t have to take crap from them, either. You’ll be marketing your craft so well that you’ll interview your customers; not them you. It means you have the right to thrive and the right to fail in this new brave world. It means you are responsible for your destiny. It means that in a sea of chaos, you find order and take action to benefit your business.

Successful people are action based. Why do you think I goaded Greg Swann into this conference? I wanted to bring together action-based people who recognize the real power of social media marketing. I wanted to mobilize the army of individuals to take responsibility for their future and thrive, not just survive, in the future of real estate and mortgage brokerage.

You wanna get ready for the tesseract? Be counted among the ranks of the guerrillas. Action-based people always get results. Think we’re”disrespectful of tradition”? Head over to the bar and take a poke at us. That’ll make you feel better.

Does Greg Swann’s comment about “kicking Inman’s ass” offend you? Head back to the bar and sing “Glory Days“. We want steely-eyed competitors at UNCHAINED. Competitors who saw the beauty of the 2001 World Series. Competitors who defy tradition and stake their claim, like the frontiersman of yesteryear. UNCHAINED competitors.

Do I want to “kick Inman’s ass?” Hell, yeah! Is it out of spite? Hell, no. I think we have something different to say; something of tremendous value. That’s the beauty of the UNCHAINED epiphany (which you’ll hear next Monday morning). I can either sit at the bar and take pokes at them or I can do something about it. I choose the latter. It is that healthy competition, started by a couple of mavericks, that will make Inman Connect more relevant.

How do I know this? I invited Laurie Manny to speak at UNCHAINED and commented that she has been largely (and unfairly) ignored by the powers that be:

Laurie’s a success. I chased her for three reasons:

1- She loves to talk about this stuff.
2- She should be talking about this stuff.
3- Nobody else was smart enough to put her in front of a crowd, TO talk about this stuff.

Laurie’s no theoretician; she’s a roll up your sleeves, action-based, soldier in the trenches.

Look what happened, within 48 hours of that announcement. I will raise the bar of Inman Connect by competing against them.

Who benefits from this healthy competition? You do, of course.

Glenn Kelman is speaking at UNCHAINED. He represents a business model that has drawn the ire of every established trade organization in this country. He was ambushed, as a new CEO, at Inman Connect. A year later, he walked into the shitstorm, at the very same place. He’s going to do it again, on May 20th. That’s a steely-eyed competitor.

Glenn Kelman intends to kick traditional real estate brokers’ asses. Next Tuesday he’ll teach you how to defend yourself.

PS- The tesseract is brought to you by Zillow.com. It is the principle of healthy competition (that they created in the mortgage industry), that they bring to you by sponsoring UNCHAINED. Tesseract is spelled with a Z, in my world. They are hardly immune from criticism yet always inspired to innovate. Thank them at UNCHAINED. If Inman Connect is better this year than it was in the past, thank Zillow.com for sponsoring the event that made it more competitive.