First thing this morning we issued a media advisory announcing the press conference and webcast of our formal launch, which will take place on July 23, 2008 at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco!
To get all the details click here.
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Posted by Jason Steele
As you may know from my last blog post, my family and I are in the market for a new home. I began the research process of finding an agent both on the web via Active Rain and through local referrals from friends and family in our prospective neighborhoods. We chose the agent through active rain as they happened to be much more knowledgeable and in tune with our requirements for finding a new home. The agent set up an automated email from their local MLS that would send us listings as they hit the market. In addition I went to Realtor.com, Zillow & Trulia daily just to make sure I had all of the bases covered so that the perfect house wouldn’t fall through the cracks. About a week ago a very promising home hit the market in our price range and it just seemed too good to be true. The pictures on the MLS site were plentiful, good school system, taxes were in line with our expectations and most of the all the price seemed low for the amount of property/beds/baths. There wasn’t an address listed so I went off to Trulia to see if I could figure out where in the town this home was located and sure enough there was an address. The default view is “map” and the location appeared to be ideal as it bordered a large wooded area. I zoomed in a bit and then hit the “satellite” view and that’s when things really came into focus. There appeared to be a building with 4 large round towers no more than 50 yards behind the woods in the rear of the property.
Posted by Sherry Chris
It never fails … good things happen when you least expect them. When we were offered a 15-second spot twice every hour for 60 days’ rotation on the CBS Superscreen at Times Square, it was too exciting to pass up! 1.5M people look at the huge screen every day! It wasn’t originally part of our extensive launch plan, but we quickly incorporated it. Of course, the challenge became: how do you create a 15-second video announcing the launch of Better Homes and Gardens® Real Estate when you can’t display the name or trademark until July?
Having participated on a number of advisory boards, I learned firsthand the power of putting together a group of talented people who can help build or grow a business. The opportunity to hand-pick an advisory board to help us get this brand up and running was exciting, given the fact that real estate brands typically don’t have individuals who are not directly involved with listing and selling real estate give advice. Nicolai, Wendy, and I put our heads together and collectively came up with a short list of people whom we know and respect and reached out to them. Each has different strengths and strong ideas on how our brand should look and feel. They all agreed to join, and so, our Advisory Board was born … Read the rest of this entry »
A business trip to the West Coast always seems to be more exciting for some reason than trips to other parts of the country, and my trip to California last week was no exception. As I landed in San Francisco armed with a schedule that would exhaust my “Genex” team, I was promptly informed that Market Street and several of the surrounding streets were closed because of a war protest. Of course, that was the area I needed to get to quickly for the first of a series of meetings that day. As it turned out, last Wednesday was the five-year anniversary of the war in Iraq, and where better to protest than downtown San Francisco. Being Canadian, I always defer to the fact that because I can’t vote, I don’t really have a strong opinion one way or the other on political issues. Of course, that is not entirely true, but that is my story and I am sticking to it.
Posted By Wendy Forsythe
Recently I’ve been devoting a fair bit of time to the development of the Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Awards and Recognition program. Agents take their awards very seriously and I’ve often heard complaints from brokers and agents regarding various awards programs. So, after soliciting years of input (either wanted or unwanted!) here’s the chance to start fresh. If only it were that easy!
You might think I am going to write about great technology applications as they relate to “the real estate brand of the future,” and I will… but not in this post. Technology will continue to empower both the consumer and agent by allowing for more transparency and greater efficiencies, and the tools will continue to become more sophisticated in the months and years to come. All of this excites me, but without the right people (as in team) in place, it all falls flat.
Posted by Sherry Chris
You can’t imagine how many people I have spoken with since the October 8th announcement that Realogy was re-launching the Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Brand. Some of the people I spoke with had something to sell or license, some of them were looking for employment opportunities, some wanted to join as franchisees or agents, some wanted to offer advice as to how to launch the brand, and some were just genuinely curious as to how you decide what a brand is going to look like when you literally have a “clean slate.” The last group is why we named our blog “Clean Slate.”
Contributors
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Sherry Chris |
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Nicolai Kolding |
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Wendy Forsythe |
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Scott Schubiger |
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Robert Albanese |
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Jason Steele |
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Kevin Doell |
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Paulette Costa |