Category — Create Value

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What a great time of year it is!

I thought you might like to know that most of Altera’s photography is available online at full resolution and is free.

Some old skool shutterbugs may frown on this but we think it’s a lot better to get this stuff out there for people to see & use rather than sit locked up on our hard drives.

The pictures are covered under a creative commons license so you can’t sell them directly and if you do use a photo, you have to give attribution to us. So use them how you like for things like a brochure for your business or a greeting card to a friend etc.

So head on over to our account on flickr.com and check it out. We’re adding pics all the time and most are tagged on their mapping tool so you can see where the picture was taken .

Free stuff is fun!

The good news is that Google recently updated their “My Maps” service to allow users to embed a map they created into any web page.
The bad news is that Google recently updated their “My Maps” service to allow users to embed a map they created into any web page.

What this means to you is now you have a very rich mapping tool that you can use to display listings and relevant location based content.

And so does everyone else. Most Steamboat Springs realty websites are devoid of any mapping technology that’s worth a crap. Now there’s no excuse. Here is an example map complete with embeded videos that took me less than 10 minutes to create.

Click on a few of the icons, drag the map around and zoom in & out. All done without writing a line of code. Simple copy & paste. (NOTE: You may not be able to see this in an RSS reader so be sure to visit steamboatstories.com to view the map.)

View Larger Map

Before this upgrade the learning curve to create a map like this was quite steep. I spent hours translating lats & longs, coding & hacking to get a map to look & function like this.

This is an extremely powerful tool that helps give your clients context and information in a way they are increasingly expecting. Head on over to maps.google.com to create yours. You’ll need a Google account which is free.

Happy mapping!

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?

Canaries were once regularly used in coal mining as an early warning system. Toxic gases such as carbon monoxide and methane in the mine would kill the bird before affecting the miners. Because canaries tend to sing much of the time, they provided both a visual and audible cue in this respect.

Is housevalues.com a canary in the real estate coal mine?

Several years ago I got suckered by a TV commercial. We were considering selling our home and a commercial advertising an online service to give us the value of our home caught my attention. I should have known it was too good to be true. I was envisioning a site where I enter my home information and viola I get a value estimate. What a cool service I thought. So I logged on to housevalues.com and was immediately disappointed. What I was told in the commercial was not what I got. Instead of a service built with my needs in mind it was nothing more than a form promising someone would get in touch with me. The dreaded lead-trap. I knew that entering any information here was a prescription for a lifetime of spam. I quietly closed the browser.

So I wasn’t surprised to read this week that housevalues.com just laid off 100 employees and is closing a call center. They call their business “lead generation” and “lead management” but that’s just putting lipstick on a pig – it’s a lead trap. Consumers have been abused by these services for so long, they’re no longer responsive. Funny thing is, the CEO of housevalues.com blames brokers for the trouble by saying brokers aren’t investing in marketing as much. Uh, hello, maybe the data is junk. Most brokers have subscribed to some sort of lead service and the ones I’ve spoken with no longer subscribe because of that very reason – the leads are junk and there’s no value. [Read more →]

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.

From the MLS 6/15/07 - This broker doesn’t care enough to update the pictures in the MLS.

Can you find the For Sale sign in this picture? There actually is one but this broker didn’t care enough to position the sign so it could be seen by traffic.

Do their clients even know or care? The bigger implication is what this does to their reputation. As we, the market, see these obvious screw-ups we make judgments in our mind about competency, value, etc. We say to ourselves, why would I hire a broker who markets this way?

So not only are they doing their clients a disservice, they’re shooting themselves in the foot for future business. The seemingly trivial interactions with the public are in reality a big deal. We notice.

Open the current Homes & Land and you’ll find brokers marketing themselves with phrases like:

“Exceptional Real Estate Service”

“Steamboat’s clear choice for real estate marketing.”

“Steamboat’s premiere real estate brokerage.”

We don’t buy it any more. In an age where we receive over 1100 messages a day we’ve become immune to shallow marketing speak. We listen and more importantly, we pay attention to our friends and independent sources who recommend a product or service. The reviews on Amazon and the ratings on eBay are wildly successful because of this. We, the market, get to decide if you’re worthy, not you.

Instead of opening the thesaurus and looking for a good adjective for the next print ad, your job should be creating real, meaningful testimonials and benchmarks by which to measure and market your business. Your job should be to have the market talk about you in a way that gives insight into who you are and the incredible value you provide. It’s an ongoing process not a onetime exercise. It takes time and an unselfish attitude.

If you’ve been in real estate for any length of time and haven’t been focusing on this, you’ve been wasting your time. If you don’t have a cache of testimonials I suggest you get busy. As the number of brokers in Routt county approaches infinity, the ones who survive are the ones who have earned a fantastic reputation and have the permission to talk about it. And more importantly the market talks about them.

Those who the market talk about (in a good way) win. Any names come to mind?

1. Ignore your website. Don’t update it, keep it stale - 2002 was a good year.
2. Keep doing the same old thing. Innovative thinking is overrated
3. Focus on stationary and what kind of car you drive instead of adding value to clients.
4. Follow up when you feel like it.
5. Put off learning something new till tomorrow.
6. Forget about reinvesting in your business.
7. Keep thinking everything is ok.
8. Continue to use that tired old computer your managing broker gave you.
9. Stay disorganized. You know where everything is.
10. Keep hoping instead of acting. There’s enough to go around.
11. Continue putting off that client satisfaction program.
12. Pick up a remote instead of a book.
13. Continue to rely on the Pilot.
14. Do things that are “good enough.”
15. Focus on today and not worry about tomorrow.
16. Settle.
17. Play another round of golf. (Hey, it’s nice outside!)
18. Ignore your relationships with past clients.
19. Focus your energy where everyone else is focusing their energy.
20. Talk about how great you are.

Funny thing is, your clients, the ones who actually pay you, want just the opposite.

60 Minutes did a great job promoting Redfin last Sunday night and didn’t do much for your business. It was almost a Redfin commercial which is why, I suppose, Redfin has the piece posted on their site. If you missed the piece, you can watch it here.

The takeaway is that other companies are coming into your business trying to capitalize on the fat in your business model. They try to dis-intermediate your value chain by offering a path that either excludes you or severely reduces your role; thus your value.

They try to create a new competitive model that has greater perceived value to the end customer, making you look antiquated and expensive.

It’s Redfin today & someone else tomorrow. Your job should be to reinvent the business yourself. Don’t wait for someone to do it for you. You’re the incumbent, you’ve got the base & you’ve got the lead. E-trade wanted to wipe out Merrill Lynch - they didn’t. But Merrill Lynch had to seriously change their game to stay competitive and is very different today. I encourage you to watch this video to understand what companies like Redfin are doing.