Signs, Video, Maps, GeoCoding, Mashups, IDX, RSS, Social Media & Twitter …
Next year is going to bring a lot of changes to the real estate industry, and one of the constant conversations I’m having now is – what would your brokerage look like? Here’s my starter list –
– Awesome signage for listings – signs are part of the foundation of real estate marketing, but I haven’t seen anything like this in my market.
– Video tours, photos, floorplans for all listings – simple to promise and systematize.
– Small brokerage, possibly broker-only, perhaps some higher level education component
– Menu-style commissions – let the consumers and the Realtors negotiate rather than rely on the MLS offering – mimic upfront mortgage brokers
– Embrace transparency
– Go paperless, a la Kris Berg
– Get consumers to use our search tool – and only our search tool
– Encourage associates to participate in the Local, State and National Associations
– No print marketing. Ever. (It’s environmentally friendly and fiscally responsible)
– Work as a team – sort of a hybrid of the white label brokerage.
– Have a company blog – internal and external – to ensure that we’re all reading important stuff. Publish really important stuff as well.
– Stay flexible, adaptable and able to re-invent every quarter, if necessary.
– Publish economic analyses quarterly
This is a start – what would your list look like? What tools would you have in your toolbox?
Having just finished Made to Stick, this statement stuck with me –
“We don’t want to be first, but we sure as hell don’t want to be third.”
fred
December 23, 2008 at 10:08 pm
This is an awesome list of ideas! Thanks for posting. I have been working on changing and re-defining my business model over this past year, implementing some of your ideas already. Now it’s time to start building a team of independent realtors looking for a change.
Paula Henry
December 24, 2008 at 6:16 am
I am always amazed how many brokers continue to limp along without any idea how the real estate business model changed.
They continue to die a slow death and wonder what happened. You offer some great ideas, now only, if we could get them to “act”.