There’s no I in the word REALTOR®
As leaders of Associations and MLSs, it is imperative that every Board member, CEO and Association Executive remember their core goal – to...
Preach to the Converted
Strategically, the very first dollar invested in supporting your business should be spent fixing the leak of lost, repeat, and referral customers. Somehow, that focus on customers is not happening in our industry today.
GDPR Compliance for Email Marketing
Sotheby's International Realty is a company owned brokerage of Realogy's NRT holding company. The firm uses Rezora for digital marketing and they have done an exquisite job of adopting GDPR - Europe's General Data Protection Regulation. As you can plainly recognize from the name of the company which contains "international," Sotheby's International Realty is a brand that markets properties to people who live in the GDPR nations. Sotheby's even translates currency into Euros and properties into multiple languages. These activities are the criteria that distinguish which businesses need to be GDPR compliant. Moreover, I am certain that the company [...]
MLS Policy Needs to Support Price Change History and Parcel Data on Broker Websites
For most people, real estate occupies the greatest percentage of family wealth – far more than investments in stocks or other wealth building accounts. Back in the 40s, my relative’s grandfather and his brother purchased a very modest two-bedroom cinderblock home in a nice neighborhood in St. Petersburg, Florida as a winter getaway. One brother ended up owning the property after his sibling and his wife passed. When the second brother passed, the property was inherited by his daughter, who is now 89 years old. She intends to either leave it to her grandchild or sell it and leave the [...]
Lets Get Our Language Right
In real estate, agents and brokers talk about sales. They talk about how many and how much. Time to get our language right. Instead, let's say..... On behalf of our clients, we have negotiated XXX transactions for $xxxxxx. Stop saying that you sell. Start saying that you negotiate. Reclaim your value. Think about it. Short post.
MLS Improvement Requires Broker Support
There is a progressive MLS leadership group that is fighting on behalf of brokers to make dramatic improvements in data management that needs broker support for their efforts. The group is called MLS Roundtable, made up of eight MLSs representing 300,000 brokers and agents. In an article published this week called Measuring Success for MLS Executives, Kathy Condon, President and CEO of Massachusetts regional MLS PIN scribes an eloquent synopsis of the status of migrating data feeds from the RETS transportation method to RESO Web API. She urges the industry to move forward quickly and responsibility. They need brokers to support the effort by encouraging more MLSs to focus their attention and treasury to RESO Web API adoption.
MoxiWorks to deliver LeadingRE Cloud Data Services Ahead of Big Franchises
In an announcement made to their membership, Leading Real Estate Companies of the World® (LeadingRE) have entered into a definitive agreement with MoxiWorks® to provide LeadingRE Cloud™ to their 565+ brokerage members. The solution is called LeadingRE Cloud. Franchises and networks like LeadingRE have been providing data services for their brokers over decades. No doubt, the most notorious version is the legacy CREST system at Realogy Holdings Corporation®. Keller Williams® CEO, Gary Keller has kicked off a Billion dollar investment in technology. RE/MAX® is in a process to buy a company or outsource to a vendor. Berkshire Hathaway Home Services® has [...]
NAR’s Goldberg Kills Amp and Powers Up Upstream
We’re starting to see the impact of a new leadership team at the National Association of REALTORS® led by Bob Goldberg, a strategic, yet practical leader that is SERIOUS about making the industry function more effectively. He also seems to be critically evaluating every investment in technology and making some bold moves to re-focus efforts. NAR announced yesterday that is shutting down development on its Advanced Multilist Platform, or AMP. AMP was under development for a few years at a burn rate of $6 Million per year. The concept behind AMP was solid – consolidate MLS data into a single [...]
HAR Continues Success With Effective Consumer eMail Campaigns
The Houston Association of REALTORS® has long held the honor of celebrating success at the top of the MLS consumer facing website leaderboard. WAV Group has referenced this center of excellence in countless writings, research reports, and planning sessions. We turn once again to this well operated company to exhibit an example of how they are continuing to progress. One of the keynotes of driving consumer engagement is through email marketing campaigns. Today, RealInsights (the name of the HAR newsletter) is sent to an opt-in list of 800,000 consumers every two weeks! That is a vast consumer reach to promote [...]
Top 5 Ways to Transform Your Office Managers Into Sales Success Coaches
None of the brokers we’ve worked with believe that their office managers are doing what they are supposed to be doing — sales training. Instead, they act more like den mothers. When they could be working on sales coaching or recruiting, office managers are consoling agents who lost big deals, troubleshooting broken printers, or retrieving lost MLS passwords. It’s too easy for office managers to spend the day putting out a series of small fires. Its easy to use all of those daily tasks as excuses for not focusing on the most important roles that managers are responsible for. The [...]
WAV Group DMCA Safe-Harbor Alert
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides some protection to website owners from tiresome litigation when an image or other copyrighted content is found to be on their website. Before December 31st 2017, you should electronically register your designated agent. Even if you filed before using the old paper method, you must refile electronically by Dec. 31, 2017 or your DMCA safe-harbor will no longer be in effect. By now, I think that every website owner has gotten some form of letter from Getty Images or other copyright trolls – and this will continue. In fact, now that the Copyright office [...]
Northwood Realty Launches Training Website for Their Agents
About Northwood Northwood Realty is among the largest independent real estate companies in America. They cover multiple states and their 38 offices are focused mainly on the densely populated areas of Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio. They are a full service firm with 974 agents, offering residential, finance, relocation, and insurance. Northwood is pioneering a program for agent training that introduces an effective model for other brokers to consider. It’s called Northwood Tech Trainers. About Northwood Trainers Northwood deploys five field trainers to support just under 1000 agents. The ratio is effectively one trainer to every 200 agents. The field [...]