My top favorite pastime is being a professional mentor of high school robotics team where I live, just a short ferry ride from downtown Seattle on Bainbridge Island. It’s a FIRST Robotics Team (4915 Spartronics) that I helped found six years ago. I’m the lead marketing mentor.
When you meet someone for the first time, it is not uncommon for the question to arise “What do you do?” The answer that I should use is, "that we run a research company that informs business strategy in real estate for the capital markets, brokers, MLSs, REALTOR® Associations, and the technology companies that serve them."
I am still stunned by the number of people I meet in the real estate industry, including prospective clients, who really don’t understand what Public Relations is. More importantly, many people often have misconceptions about what PR can do. Most often, PR is confused with activities and outcomes that are entirely in the realm of Advertising.
When I meet the “father of Public Relations,” Edward Bernays, he was in his 90s. I was a USC grad student in the School of Journalism working on my Masters in Public Relations (MPR). A small group of us had gathered at a Public Relations Student Society of America reception at a national conference to meet the living legend. His body may have been feeble, but his brain was still wickedly razor sharp.
We are excited to have David Gumpper on the team here at WAV Group. Since joining our firm, he has been actively supporting our brokerage, MLS, and technology clients with a wide variety of systems audits and systems integrations.
WAV Group is pleased to announce David Gumpper as the latest addition to its growing suite of executive leaders. David Gumpper, former Chief Technology Officer for Michael Saunders & Company and Founder of the Gumpper Group, a strong industry advocate will be leading the company’s Technology Consulting division. David’s depth of experience helping brokerages increase market share uniquely qualifies him to help technology companies, brokerages and MLSs drive success by delivering technology and marketing programs. David is expert at o leading the development of sound technology strategies that position a company well for success and then develop workable and practical [...]
It’s hard to believe that just three years ago next month Kevin Hawkins joined WAV Group to head up our newly established Communications Division, becoming President of WAV Group Communication. He’s helped assemble a list of blue chip clients that include RESO, America’s #1 real estate agent (Ben Caballero of HomesUSA.com), the #1 tech support firm for real estate agents (Florida Realtors® Tech Helpline), #1 real estate marketing technology firm (Imprev), the #1 luxury real estate tech firm (Gabriels Technology Solutions), FinTech’s most innovative mortgage banking and wealth management firm Opes Advisors (now a Division of Flagstar Bank), and many more. Now [...]
WAV Group recently did an audit of a broker’s lead strategy, and it caused a bit of a eureka moment for the broker. We found they needed to stop focusing on buyer lead generation immediately and focus on seller lead generation. As a consulting firm, WAV Group has a full bag of executional tricks for firms to consider when they are setting strategy. The way that these activities are implemented and driven though the culture of an organization is the secret to success. We considered a few of these strategies in our latest study entitled Generate Seller Leads: Don’t Worry About [...]
The number one mistake I’ve most often encountered through the many years I’ve spent working in communications and public relations, is a CEO who calls back a reporter and tries to “wing it.” While I’ve been fortunate enough to work with several exceptionally media savvy CEOs throughout the years, they were the ones that never called back a reporter without being prepared. Russell Wilson, the NFL quarterback for the Seahawks, delivers the best practice for CEOs when it comes to calling back a reporter: “The separation is in the preparation.” CEOs that provide the best interviews for reporters are able [...]
The Annual RE Technology Midyear Party is scheduled for Wednesday, May 14th at a secret location 1 mile from the Omni/Wardman hotels. The limit of people this year is 200, so if you would like to buy tickets or be a sponsor – contact victor@wavgroup.com. The entertainment will be the SuperStar Factory band featuring our favorite Miss Wendy Moten. This sells out fast. Proceeds go to the venue and the band. Many of you have been associated with the WAV Group for many years now. You remember that from 2003 to 2011 we published the annual MidYear Technology review. It [...]
WAV Group is excited to announce that founding partner, Marilyn Wilson has joined the Board of Trustees for the National Small Business Association (NSBA). In its rich, 75-year history, NSBA has made significant strides in advocating for small businesses. From its humble beginnings under founder DeWitt Emery, a small-business owner who aimed simply to make a difference, to today with the broad, national presence as the leading small-business advocacy group, NSBA fights daily for Mr. Emery’s mission to make a difference for America’s small businesses. “I am excited to join such a dynamic group of trustees who guide the Association [...]
I have worked with hundreds of MLSs around the world and been personally involved in over 100 installations and/or conversions and one thing I have discovered over the years is a little-known fact. MLSs don’t know the business rules that are built into their MLS systems to control their data, member access and overall permissions and MLS vendors have never created a way for you to see them! When you consider the complexity of our MLS systems today this is both understandable on one level and really inexcusable on another. Unfortunately, this lack of knowledge usually comes to light when [...]
