Keep your organization ahead of the WAVes of Change happening in 2015!

As we end 2014 now is a great time to sit back and reflect on the best ways to help prepare your organization for the inevitable evolutions and revolutions we may experience next year. Do you sometimes feel like your Board of Directors and key staff are out of touch with what’s really happening in the real estate industry today? Do you sometimes feel a bit isolated and would like to know if other organizations are facing the same challenges you are? Is your organization suffering from stifled and cumbersome decision-making? Here’s what can happen when an organization is out [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:52-07:00December 18th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights, Our Services, Strategic Planning, Technology Evaluation|Comments Off on Keep your organization ahead of the WAVes of Change happening in 2015!

WAV Group Windermere and Long and Foster Sales Excellence Case Study

[ File # csp3602041, License # 1272585 ]Licensed through http://www.canstockphoto.com in accordance with the End User License Agreement (http://www.canstockphoto.com/legal.php)(c) Can Stock Photo Inc. / italianestro The two valves that constitute the heart of consulting are benchmarking and case studies. Benchmarking is measuring an industry norm. Case studies focus on telling the story of new strategies deployed by pioneers for products or tactics. Both provide organizations with insights that sharpen their aim or expand their aspiration. A great example of a benchmark is WAV Group’s report that 4 in 10 real estate professionals have not done a transaction in more [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:55-07:00November 19th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|Comments Off on WAV Group Windermere and Long and Foster Sales Excellence Case Study

Broker Non-Compete with Portals

The great real estate portals of America are trusted partners to brokers. As trusted partners, they are able to collect a lot of information that brokers have held close. For example, portals have access to a broker’s agent roster. They know which agents respond to consumer inquiries the fastest and the best. They even know which agents sell the most number of homes and which ones have the best consumer reviews. Beyond the information portals have about listings and agents, they have collected a massive amount of consumer information including the identity of the consumer. Moreover, with direct consumer email [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:56-07:00October 29th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|Comments Off on Broker Non-Compete with Portals

Tedesco Moves From Tucson to RI State Association

Phil Tedesco is one of those senior level MLS and Association Executives that everyone wants to lead their organization. He has a depth of experience across many large Associations and Mid-sized MLSs that have led him to his new role as the CEO of the Rhode Island State Association of REALTORS® and Statewide MLS. He will be departing his current position at the Tucson Association of REALTORS® at the end of this year. Interestingly enough, the Tucson Association and the Rhode Island State Association (4000 members) have nearly identical membership numbers with Tucson having a slight lead (4700 members) as [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:57-07:00October 14th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category|4 Comments

Brokers and Franchise Remove Barriers to Marketing

Marketing is a key component to success in real estate. I hate stating the obvious, but if you don’t start with it, one can hardly understand the reality of the impact that the cost of marketing has on the adoption and utilization of marketing plans by various segments of real estate professionals. Franchise giant RE/MAX announced an agreement with Imprev for marketing solutions. You can see the program in the video below. In the past, the fee for access to these marketing tools was $299 per year. For the sake of argument, let's presume that the pricing is fair. Judging [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:57-07:00October 14th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Marketing|Comments Off on Brokers and Franchise Remove Barriers to Marketing

Broker Back Office Powered By MLS

MLSs have taken a relentless beating by large brokers over the last year.  The message was clear, help us! Brokers are fighting for their lives in a technology cold war where they see everyone as a co-petitor.  Third party sites are co-petitors in attracting consumers to property search websites. MLS consumer sites are sometimes co-petitors too. Obviously, other brokers are co-petitor's, especially when it comes to the paradox of the MLS services vs. brokerage services. For many brokers today, it is hard to know who is your friend and who is your enemy. It begs the question, “why can’t we [...]

News Corp buys MOVE operators of Realtor.com

And so it goes. Move, the operators of the National Associaton of REALTORS portal called Realtor.com have agreed to sell the company to News Corp in an all-cash deal valued at $950 million. MOVE's board of directors were swift to approve the offer, representing a 36% bump in the value of the company. News Corp owns other real estate assets including The Wall Street Journal ( a popular spot for luxury property advertising) and Australian real estate portal - realestate.com.au (part of the REA Group). REA Group will apparently pay for 20% of MOVE, and News Corp will pay the [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:58-07:00September 30th, 2014|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Press Releases|Comments Off on News Corp buys MOVE operators of Realtor.com

Coldwell Banker Chooses Imprev

Today's real estate firms, franchise or otherwise, need to provide a robust marketing solution for agents that especially support them with digital marketing tools: Video, virtual tours, eMail marketing, and social media marketing. In an announcement today, Coldwell Banker announced a partnership with Imprev to power their digital marketing suite for all of their franchise companies. There are a number of firms that offer marketing solutions, but the two firms that have dominated the selection among franchise organizations in the past years include Marketleader and Imprev. Strangely enough, until a few years ago, Imprev was Marketleader's partner for their marketing [...]

And the Lead Goes Round and Round

I had a rather interesting conversation about lead management and lead sales today. The story went something like this. A broker enhances listings and purchases zip code leads from a portal. The broker believes that there is some form of exclusivity on the leads generated through the system in so far as the lead is only distributed once. In his case, he distributes the leads as they come into one of his agents. To test the system, the broker had a staff member go to the publisher site and generate a lead. The lead came through to the broker as [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:23:59-07:00September 23rd, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Marketing|Comments Off on And the Lead Goes Round and Round

MyOnlineYardSign Attacks MLS IDX Policy

Generally speaking, real estate business media companies write a pretty respectful commentary regarding the well-developed MLS IDX policy. Sure, the policy is a living document and the MLS Policy Committee is an open forum for clarifying the policy and amending it from time to time. But generally, it is a well adopted program that publically exemplifies cooperation among brokerage firms. Today, Travis Saxton of Real Trends promoted a product called MyOnlineYardSign. The product allows real estate agents and brokers to put contact information and the company logo on their photos for free. Watermarking of this type has been around for [...]

Are you living the life of a Customer Servant?

We all know that our businesses are dependent on our customers, yet we don’t always live the dream of providing amazing customer service. It’s easy when you get tired to say “I’ll get up early and do it tomorrow”.   When the phone rings and we don’t answer it we might justify it by saying I need to focus on this CMA I am building. Or worse yet, the phone might ring and we ignore it because we’re talking to one of our friends or having a cup of coffee. While we’re all human and we have our moments of weakness, [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:00-07:00August 25th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, MLS Insights|Comments Off on Are you living the life of a Customer Servant?

We’re Losing the Race for Relevance – How to Stem the Tide

Idea #1 - How to Take Credit for the Industry’s Service Quality Every real estate association I have the pleasure of working with is struggling with how to re-invent themselves. Everybody knows it’s a problem at some level, but yet there has been no fundamental change in the focus, governance or scope of associations in several years. Are we just going to sit by and watch the association business go away?  Should it go away?  Has the value of an association run its course? My fundamental belief is that Associations CAN and DO play an important role in the industry, [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:01-07:00August 25th, 2014|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Reports|Comments Off on We’re Losing the Race for Relevance – How to Stem the Tide