Realestock Blog

What do real estate "marketers" who were in high school or university a just over a decade ago, who became "marketing experts" in real estate and old-school sales guys have in common? The first group, the "marketers", learned their trade in the hottest market ever in the history of real estate. The second group, the sales guys, hasn't had to change a thing for more than a decade, or two (or three or four or even five!). The Internet and information were held close to the vest through the MLS.

Where were today's marketers in the mid-eighties? Many of them were in high school. So - a wise person might ponder - what is their experience in a tough market?

What about the old school sales guys? The last few decades has been - well, the same. In a slow market they looked for leads to be fed to them - watch the classic real estate sales movie "Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross." For the last decade - which has been hotter than hot - every lead was a "Glenn Gary" lead. They didn't even need to pick up a phone. The sales walked right in through the front door. There is more truth to Jack Lemmon's character in that movie today than you can shake a stick at today.

I recently have had the opportunity to watch too many projects and their owners go down, or on the verge of going down with foreclosure and in flames. Some developers who are still hanging on, are under the guise that their "Team" knows how to market.

The reality is that yesterday is gone. Sound's like a Beatles song "Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away ..." and the future? Well, it's "here to stay..." Those who survived will evolve. Those who don't? Survival of the fittest, I suppose. I'm wishing the real estate businesspeople the best - all of them. The reality is that a vast majority will struggle until they fail, and a minority will rise to the challenge and really become the definition of marketers and sales people. Here is ol' Valdo Pareto's 80/20% rule come over and over again.

First, this is not about sales people or marketers. It's about the market. his last weekend, I and my marketing Team were working late Friday night and Saturday to meet the deadline. I had tried, personally, numerous times to reach an internal staff member of the client's marketing team on cell, at the office and by SMS text. NO LUCK! Saturday, when people actually are at home, looking for real estate, driving around, where was the marketer? Saturday morning, we called the office - no answer!

This is a tough market. Projects that hire us use our technology or marketing programs, understand that the market has shifted. Buyers don't walk in the door and say, "yes - I'll take that one ..." any longer. The buyers that were "yes" people are gone (they probably are struggling to make their mortgage payment on a property that was too expensive and had a low interest rate). Who is left? Professionals with money, or first time buyers who have a hard time getting a down payment are left.

To reach those buyers, you'll need professional marketers who have sold in good times and in bad; and not just real estate. You need marketers who "get" technology: the social networks, the search engines, the new market spaces out there. Those marketers have a base, and have the know-how and tools that will have hundreds of thousands or millions of transactions and contacts that have been watching for this precise moment in time - the "buyers market." Unlike the days of old, where local newspapers reigned and a sellers market brought in buyers whether or not a dart hit the target, buyers are now savvy, discerning, global prospects.

We recently ran an email campaign using our 1to1Real technology for a developer, only testing to a list of some five hundred contacts (when we have hundreds of thousands of contacts, once perfected, we could go out to with the right offer and message). Professional marketers never go out and burn their lists - they test their messages, get feedback, analytics, sales data, etc. They perfect their messages and then they sell and succeed. They use the feedback they get to understand whether or not they are having a conversation with the market. With the email campaign I mentioned above, our feedback indicated that the market was very much interested in having a conversation with the developer for whom we were blasting. But here is what I've learned about what developers today don't understand. With the information "noise" out in the market, when a market starts a "conversation" with a developer, any conversation is good. It's what Facebook understands, what Google, Wal Mart, Microsoft, Del Web, and successful brands all over the world understand. I've been a marketer across industry segments now for nearly 30 of my 49 years (yikes!). I've made a living driving billions in sales for clients. I've never said "yes" because it was the easy thing to do or to keep an account. Those I have pushed back at, have always made money if they could take what the market had to say. Sometimes its been hard to stand my ground with clients, but it has always worked out in their favor.

In my organization, when we are pushing hard in a tough market to uncover what works to get qualified buyers - we are watching every analytic we can. We can't guarantee sales, but we can guarantee traffic, quality buyers and qualification of that traffic as leads and potential buyers. And we can lower clients' risk of burning marketing money - or sales money for that matter.

The long and short of it is this: Real estate people have been the worst marketers on the planet. It's been a free ride up to now. Real Estate has had such a phenomenal run of luck and an up market for a decade, they have come to expect easy results. Now they have to learn to expect the unexpected.

Contrast that to competitive markets like handbags, retail, cars, entertainment (the best book I've ever read on this is called the Upside by Adrian Slywotzky - also author the Peter Drucker of the 20^th Century), and you'll find where analytics are the king to beating the competition. You could also read The Blue Ocean Strategy - another fantastic Harvard Press output on marketing without competing. I've got a laundry list of research, of both success and failure stories from reading, experience and trial and error. I have lectured on this research, and I've put into practice in my own organization. I only say this because, more than anything, I don't want to see another developer burn up more cash unnecessarily - ever.

Today, it takes marketing and sales savvy. The hot market is gone. A sales director asked me the other day how I think it "...has sold thousands of homes ... by throwing stuff at the wall?" To which I responded, "Yes, in a hot market, that's exactly how."

It's just hard work, hard facts and analytics to push for sales that will work. No more "glossy" print pages that don't track and no more extravagant marketing spends anywhere else, either, for that matter. It's time for Real Estate people to get Real, and to abandon their old days of myth and misunderstanding.

Cheers

I'm walking in Montreal - looking at the buildings around me - all of which are at once historic and modern. The City is vibrant and alive with activity - no signs of a recession here.

There are bikes sponsored by the city that anyone with a credit card can use for 30 min for free. This is a place that has started to connect to a new model from and ancient history. A place where history has been preserved and upgraded to a modern stability - where the cross-communication between French culture and language to those of English is just a way of life - the natural way of connecting in a multi-cultural structure.

All of this strikes me as I continue to walk through this beautiful city.

With the global economic shake up, organizations the world over have either crumbled or rest on shaky ground. How will they cross the chasm from the old to the new structures of business and communication? How are connections being built to reshape the world after the global economic earthquake that will ensure a more sound business model that is engineered for a future? All this, especially now knowing that the world's economy can be shaken at the core and tear apart the financial fabric and structures we took for granted?

Today, buyer uncertainty is at an all time high. Consumers, investors, and the remaining public that has regrouped (for now), have kept their jobs or kept their financial security somewhat in tact, are now looking for solid position, while wary of the likelihood of an aftershock.

Where does that leave the economics, the structures of business, and consumers after the economic landslide? Where will they find stability to build upon on both sides of the buyer/seller equation?

In a more stable, long-established time where business as usual was the order of the day, sellers sold and buyers bought. Information was peripheral, marketing promises were information to be trusted and counted on. This was the old structure, the historic building of communication for buyers and sellers, the order of the day. It was fine on both sides of the buy/sell model - perhaps even preferred. It was fast and superficial - more like a date than a relationship. It worked. It was functional - if not completely stable, like an old building before an earthquake hit.

The business model was all about creating imagination and image - all that was required for a buyer or investor to "feel good" about, well, buying. Not anymore. Glossy just doesn't cut it. Like a house of cards, the papers and magazines - sellers of information (read: advertisements) - have come crashing down along with the markets. Such is the fate of the traditional model of buyer/seller information pushing.

The marketing media could not hold up to the fundamental change in business as a result of today's shaky economic environment.

The information-era business of today is forming with tough questions and online conversations about the information sellers use to "sell" - what buyers, investors, bankers expect.

Sellers need to be rebuild their models. They need to add more than another web image or magazine ad to their infrastructure. Buyers and bankers are going to demand a deep understanding and solid foundation on which to base their decisions.

This isn't a bad evolution from the economic earthquake. On the contrary, it's a seismic upgrade that will build stronger businesses, better fundamental transactions, and relationships between buyers and sellers - in short, a better information network. Core structures that extend beyond glossy facades and create a sustainable model are the next step in the evolution of a more solid, stable, economic structure. This is the seismic upgrade to the entire structure we depend on - like taking a historic district in a downtown area and making it suitable for living and office spaces again. Old warehouses converted for new uses. This is how our Connected Market Space evolution in commerce and communication today is rebuilding the process of buying and selling in complex markets like real estate, mortgage banking and health care.

We will see more market-based pricing, more of an auction model, open and exposed - rather than one-sided price setting and big commission margins, as in real estate. There will be better two-way communication. Buyers will ask, sellers better have answers-I coined a phrase called "conversation marketing" about 5 years ago. It's here. One-sided storytelling to buyers is over. That might be fine for kindergarten-aged picture books. But today, buyers have graduated and are asking tough questions that go beyond the gloss.

The fundamental shift is a foundation based on a solid "connection" between the buyers and sellers - and the facilitators of the deals (e.g. The bankers). This Connected Market Space is a fundamental seismic upgrade where new foundations are set. And it's about time.

My generation was one of buyers. Sellers and news print media told their version if the story and marketing or PR for profit, not information. It was a structure built long before I was alive.

Einstein once observed in the 1920's "...the media in this country has far too much power to shape public opinion..." a comment during prohibition Einstein made on the restriction of the "public house" - the natural collectives of pubs and local social places where people relaxed with a drink, their guard eased, and their freedom to express and comment open.

History has a funny way of teaching us about re-inventing Life as we know it. While the connections brought about by the internet are not necessarily a "public house," it is a public forum where people more freely talk or ask questions, share opinions openly. What Einstein was referring is what any robust social structure needs - economics, social connections, whose roots depend on open communication.

The media, the corporate lobbies, the legal maneuverings of the last nine decades are the walls that are crumbling in this old, rickety house we call today's economy. The public prohibition on access to information from price to performance and politics is emerging everywhere.

Look at what Napster in the '90's did for Apple and iTunes. What the AT&T breakup in the '80's is doing in the form of Skype today. What Wikipedia did to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The prohibition is broken, the walls are coming down - true connections to a better model are being formed. The "speak easy" of the 1920's was a precipitator of the breaking of prohibition. Then came the Great Depression. Then came "The New Deal".

These are a few examples of the early successes of the Connected Market Space of people re-engineering industry through today's social networks - through communication and technology. In the '20's and '30's a new model took shape and changed the face of the global economy for the next seven decades. Funny how history repeats itself.

Watch how this evolution unfolds in the next decade...

Tim

In 1997 (Wow! Thirteen years ago - time flies when you're thinking), while I was a full time Professor at the University of Victoria - I wrote and published a small paper called Technomics: How Access to Information Will Change Global Business. That was before the term "search engines" was part of common, everyday discourse (and before Google was even a company).

Here we are, way after the turn of the millennium, 2009, and what was my dream in 1997 - The Connected Market Space - has become a reality with our flagship site, Realestock.com.

Realestock is a vertical "space" for global real estate, which enables both information and transaction processing. After 10 years of research and programming development, we have launched Realestock for the global real estate market. With search, auctions, communities, and a transaction tool, Realestock instantly connects real estate buyers with agents and sellers.

The "big dogs" are now ready to get more focused information in the Technomic revolution - take Microsoft's "bing.com" already grabbing market share from behemoth Google. Launched May 28th - Microsoft claims "Bing" to be a "Decision Engine" with buzz phrases like:

• "Bing is a decision engine"
• "Rather than spitting our results with search overload"
• "Results are organized into logical Categories"
• "Simple, Organized and Consistent"
• "Take guesswork out of decisions"
• "Save time and money"

Yes! Finally, someone else gets it! Information is only as good as what you can do with it! Good work Microsoft.

Now, if only you could connect to the transaction, bid on exactly what you want, talk to a real person for assistance (since computers can't do everything yet), and tell the world what you think in a community forum... Oh wait, you can!

The Realestock Connected Market Space for Global Real Estate does all of this and more - where over $1 Billion of real estate has already been "Connected" to buyers and sellers globally.

And, it appears the search engine markets are ready with "Bing" hitting the scene - hat's off Microsoft - competition drives innovation!

The economy is ready for real estate, buyers and sellers alike.

Are you?

Check out Realestock.com and the new Realestock Online Auctions - Get Connected to the sellers globally for the best real estate buyers market in history.

I'd like to hear your comments - what do you think about the Connected Market Space revolution?

PS: Coming soon -- Watch for another impressive and exciting Connected Market Space for Health Care this fall from CMAEON - the creators of the Connected Market Space!

Over the last four days, I've talked about the dangers of developers and sales people "knowing too much" and thus not doing the jobs they should be doing. Yesterday, I spoke about what can happen when a Print Media Expert is hired to do an Online Media Expert's job. Today, I'm going to switch gears a bit, though, and wrap up this week with one of the biggest mistakes I see developers making today.

Mistake #5 - Waiting for the Market to "Come Back". The market is ripe for buyers right now. The main mistake developers make is they are waiting for the "market to come back" while at this very moment discerning buyers are looking hard at where they will buy.

Again, we should return to the previous four I've already described. Developers have been have been trained to believe that "marketing is too expensive to not get results." However, they have little experience at incubating the Connected Market to get their project and leads informed and warmed up to one another. Fostering a lead list, incubating the leads, getting people to know their project, is just logical. This doesn't come about by experimenting with PR or taking on every responsibility that a successful project requires. No, it comes about by getting and staying Connected in the new Connected Market.

People aren't panic buying any longer. They are smart, investigative shoppers. They want information - the information they need to make a decision. They are willing to buy if they feel they will get value in what they are investing in, and if they understand that value to be strong, all in a place they want to live. Value is not the same as price. People will pay more to live where they want to live. The Great developers have always understood the importance of making a home a wonderful place to live, before it ever existed.

For buyers, the web and a logical approach have made finding and investing in a home is now a more financially measurable and sound business decision than ever before. For a few hundred or thousand dollars a month a logical, incubation strategy that builds a buyers base is more than possible, and quite simply a better strategy than dumping tens or hundreds of thousands on a print media campaign

These are the top 5 mistakes a developer makes. Stop making the mistake, get into the Connected Market Space and start incubating the future success of your business today - the sales will come at prices that make Developers glad they are in the business.