Category — Differentiation

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Anyone looking to get a little nip & tuck or a full blown extreme makeover of their website has a lot of options and a lot elements to consider. Here are 5.5 questions to ask before you get started. The questions are designed to give you insight into a web designer’s thinking. The way we see it, there’s plenty of nuts & bolts type questions to ask but the better thinker they are, the better site & experience you’ll get. That’s where these questions come in. Hopefully these questions will help you find someone who will create a unique presence and give you the tools to help your site succeed.

1. How much does a website cost?

If you get an immediate answer or a ball park answer this may not be the shop for you. The problem with this is there’s no way to know how much a site will cost without an understanding of what your needs are and what you want to accomplish with a site. If you get an answer right off the bat, you’ll probably get a templated site that looks like everyone else and does little to differentiate you to visitors. Ideally they’ll want to know a lot about your business and your clients. So look for and expect deep, probing question.

2. What’s your process?

Many small shops don’t have a process & they wing it. Process is important because it means you’re project is more likely to avoid problems and meet your expectations. If they do have a process, look for elements of “communication” as a key area of their process. Things like “review meetings” are a good sign because you’ll be in the loop upstream in time to make corrections if necessary.

3. How will I be able to update my site?

This is a big one in my mind. Most small businesses should be able to easily update their own site with timely information relevant documents and elements that keep the site fresh. All too often however business owners are at the mercy of a web shop’s schedule. The updates don’t happen fast enough, they often have mistakes and the whole process becomes a big hassle. It becomes easier to ignore the site which then quickly becomes stale.

Instead, make sure that you have a clear method of updating and adding to your site. Insist on tools and/or functionality that’s easy to use, and learn how to use them.

4. How long will it take to finish?

The correct answer here is a site is never finished. An acceptable answer might be something like “Phase 1 will be done in 6 weeks.” There’s always room for improvements, tweaks, value-add-ons and other work to consistently make your site a better experience for your visitors. If they’re a blow-n-go shop you may find you’re abandoned 6 months down the road when you’re ready to revise/add to your site.

5. Are most of your solutions CSS or straight HTML based?

This gets a little technical but a CSS based site will give you much more flexibility than an HTML based site. CSS stands for cascading style sheets. With a CSS based site, the formatting elements for the entire site are controlled within a single file. Why should you care? It makes managing and tweaking a site much easier. Say for example you decide 3 weeks after the site launches you don’t like the font color. You can make a single edit to the CSS style sheet and the whole site changes. With an HTML based site the same change requires manually editing each and every page to make the same change. This blog is CSS based and I can change the ENTIRE look by clicking a button. That’s only possible with CSS.

Tech stuff aside, a shop that’s using CSS indicates they’re committed to the best of breed solutions.

5.5 How many other real estate sites have you done?

Conventional wisdom would say “go with a pro” someone who’s done a ton of real estate sites. But I’d challenge that notion. What you want is fresh thinking not been-there-done-that-so-here’s-your-site thinking. A shop that really understands usability, design and experiences but is light on real estate development could be just the ticket for a stunning fresh site. Remember, at the end of the day it’s not about what you think is great, it’s about what your visitors think is great. Sometimes we’re so in the bottle and can’t read the label that we need this outside perspective.

Happy hunting!

Steamboat recently was home to a regional Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament. Who knew there was such a thing? The nature of the game got me thinking about real estate companies. In Rock, Paper, Scissors is there really any strategy in picking one “device” over another? Not really. Often we end up picking a device for our throw that makes us feel good not because it has any greater chance of beating the other player. I tend to pick a rock because it “feels” like it has a better chance of winning but in reality, it doesn’t.

Is the same thing true for real estate companies?

If one takes a close look at Re/Max, Century 21 and Prudential are there really any concrete easily identifiable differences that a typical home buyer or seller will notice and more importantly value?

If one takes a close look at Re/Max, Century 21 and Prudential are there really any concrete easily identifiable differences that a typical home buyer or seller will notice and more importantly value? I don’t see them. They each have a slightly different message and slightly different position but I’m not sure consumers can really tell the difference. I could see how in a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors where Re/Max, Century 21, and Prudential are substituted we’d be faced with the same dilemma. Which to pick because each has about the same value? Which company has the resources and people to sell my home within my time frame and for the highest price? I know the differences between Schwab and Merrill or Mercedes and Kia or even Lowes Hotels and Hilton and I’ll make my decision based on my understanding of those differences.

Does the Re/Max balloon, a marketing idea hatched in 1978, really convey anything to the consumer today?

I see huge opportunities for small real estate companies not saddled by national marketing and branding to create new value by engineering their business in providing superior differences and value compared to the big guys. Does the gold jacket really matter to the consumer today? Does the Re/Max balloon, a marketing idea hatched in 1978, really convey anything to the consumer today? No & No. So I say to the small real estate company - GET BUSY! You have a huge opportunity while the big lumbering real estate companies stumble around.

The difference between marketing, PR, advertising & branding:

Who is Who?

Here we have a collection of screenshots from the websites of several large real estate developments here in Steamboat Springs. Can you identify which website is for which development? Click on an image for a larger size (opens a new browser window).

#1
#2
#3
#4
#5

Don’t feel bad if you can’t identify these projects. The best score I’ve seen so far has only been 1 out of 5.

Click here for the answers

This is what happens when companies play it safe. In their own bubble, who can complain about pretty pictures, views, meadows, animals and wooden structures? But the reality is that playing it safe, staying in the middle, “doing what the boss says” does not do a thing for the people who matter the most - the customer. None of these sites tells a unique story, none of these sites offers any differentiating features and I can imagine the end user quickly getting confused after viewing just a few of these. Why choose Marabou over Alpine Mountain Ranch? What’s the compelling story?

In their own bubble, who can complain about pretty pictures, views, meadows, animals and wooden structures?

With choices for second home buyers approaching infinity, the smart move would be to speak to these people on their terms. Offer solutions to their problems. Tell a story that’s compelling and easy to remember. Think of them not the boss. Offer different versions of the site for different markets (the Dallas version, the Miami version, the San Diego version, the richest neighborhood in Atlanta GA version). It’s far cheaper and more effective than trying to be all things to all people.

Note:

As I write this, I noticed a new Alpine Mountain Ranch ad on the back of the Pilot. If I hadn’t looked closer I would have taken for a Marabou ad. Little blond girl on a horse with her mom (it looks like). “Legacy” is the title. Isn’t this a direct copy of Marabou’s campaign? Come on Tony & Pam - can’t you get more creative than that?

In 1998 it was all about eyeballs. If you had a website that attracted a lot of visitors, you were considered a success - business model & profit be damned. Value to the customer? Who cares. All you needed was eyeballs to get funded. It was a crazy time and of course it didn’t last. But the web didn’t go away. 6 years from the tech melt down, web technologies are better than ever and the key term today is “value.” Websites have become web applications and web applications have become rich experiences. Usability, value and relevancy are all being played out on the web. It’s no longer good enough to have a “brochureware” website online. Your potential and current clients are expecting a lot more in terms of their online experience with your company. They want maps, interactivity, video, context, personal service. Don’t believe me? Take a good look at the graph below.

Century 21 was started in 1971.
Coldwell Banker was started in 1906.
Redfin was started in 2004.

This graph compares daily website traffic of the three companies. Redfin is not national and only serves a few markets and yet its site is getting as much traffic as these national giants. Why? That’s for you to figure out. And you should because they aren’t going away and I’m sure there are more companies like Redfin on the way. I believe a lot of their traction is due to taking a fresh perspective on the real estate business. They’ve created tools that users want, value and are easy to use. They create a rich experience for their users and guess what - those users tell their friends. And so on, and so on… until you have a graph like this:

(Click for a larger image.)

The days of putting up info about yourself are over. It’s all about how you are going to solve problems using a rich experience. If you don’t, that’s fine, but someone else will and that’s what will get talked about and that’s where buyers & sellers will go.

The value of doing the “easy thing” well is so often overlooked by businesses. The “easy thing” could be anything from follow-ups to showing up on time to explaining the value of the Steamboat real estate market in a succinct and compelling way.

We recently called upon the irrigation division of our landscaping company to de-winterize our sprinkler system. They botched every aspect of the job. They didn’t show up for the first appointment & they were late for the rescheduled appointment! They failed to notice that a sprinkler head was malfunctioning and they tracked dirt in the house. But the worst thing was that the new “owners” refused to take any responsibility. They offered a mild apology followed by excuses. Turn on a sprinkler system - this has to be the easiest task of their business. Needless to say they won’t be doing any other work for us.
The easy stuff really matters. We make judgments on future business based on how well you do the easy stuff. If you botch the easy thing - calling us back on time, responding to requests for information, etc - why would we think you can do the harder stuff?

By the same token, if you exceed our expectations with the easy stuff, you’ve just differentiated yourself in a big, positive way. We’re much more likely to call on you for the hard stuff - the real business - and we’re more likely to talk about you to our friends.

Make a list of the top 10 things that are no-brainers for you, then figure out a way to turn these into incredible experiences for your clients & prospects.

Now that the number of licensed brokers in this market has crossed 400, here’s 2 slides about perspective from a presentation I gave a few days ago.

I suspect that most of the newcomers have a very different picture in their head.

People often carry with them business practices from one industry to another. For example someone who worked in the hospitality business and carries a customer satisfaction methodology with them when they go to work for a construction company. Sometimes it works, but sometimes certain business practices in one industry don’t translate well to another. The “call screener” in real estate may be lost in translation.

Call just about any office in town to speak to a broker and you’ll be greeted with, “may I ask who’s calling?” There are plenty of industries where this is needed but does this translate well to real estate? On the surface, call screening may seem like a necessary practice but it’s easy for the caller to misinterpret that phrase as the following:

“We don’t trust that who is calling is worthy of the recipient’s time so could you tell us who you are so we can put you on hold to make that judgement?”

Remember, people are giving you their money & they have a tremendous amount of choice. Why not turn this into an opportunity to deepen your connection with people. Go get a caller-id computer program that identifies the caller as a client, vendor, etc and associates them with someone in your company. Change the script to something like:

“Good morning Dr. Stokes, this is Kelly. Are you calling for David?”

Internally you may accomplish the same as before but you’re differentiating yourself, creating a deeper relationship and providing a richer experience.

I counted 802 ads in yesterday’s Sunday Steamboat Pilot.

I counted 497 ads in the current Homes & Land.

Without reading a single article in the Pilot, you could spend a solid hour reading nothing but ads spending only 4 seconds on each.

The number of communication channels continues to increase.

The number of ads continues to increase.

People’s attention continues to decrease.

It’s getting harder & harder to “buy attention” with traditional advertising.

Click for a bigger picture.

Quick, which broker is from Cleveland and which broker is from Steamboat?

It amazes me as I visit local sites how seldom brokers are selling the sizzle with good pictures of themselves. No offense to Cleveland but Steamboat is a special place and you have a great asset in which to cast yourself.

With over 80% of buyers searching online this is often your only shot at making a great first impression. Pictures are cheap - use this opportunity to sell yourself. Get on a bike, use a photo of you crossing the finish line of a marathon, skiing, fishing - something other than sitting in a studio like the guy in Cleveland.

I even know of one broker whose manager would not allow his GREAT picture on their website because it was too good and didn’t look like all the other mediocre pics. Sigh…

These little details add up - pay attention.