Trulia Founder and COO Sami Inkinen joins Sherry Chris to talk about the relationship between technology and real estate brokerage in today’s market.
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(This is one of my longest posts ever! Good for a weekend read…)
When you are building a brand from the ground up, you can’t do it without receiving feedback. What better place to get feedback than at the annual NAR conference where you have a captive audience of some 20,000+ REALTORS® to talk to?
I have been attending this conference for at least the past 15 years. I still remember my very first one. I just couldn’t get enough of it… the amount of information was staggering to me, the number of participants amazed me. I planned each and every session I would attend in advance, circled all of the trade show booths that were of interest, and visited them all. In later years, I began to speak at sessions rather than attend them and, for a few years, did not even make it through the tradeshow doors. Priorities change, and people get busy being busy.
I’ve attended more industry conferences than I can readily count. With my destination-shopper mentality, I tend to grumble a bit under my breath about the less-than-perfect efficiency of these events when I can’t just get what I want and move on. While I believe they are necessary, I also see them as a microcosm for what is both great and frustrating about this industry so many of us call our own.
Last week in Orlando I attended both the REALTORS® Conference & Expo and a session from BloodhoundBlog Unchained. There was no escaping the tremendous amount of excitement, enthusiasm, cooperation, collaboration, and innovation, yet I still flew home daydreaming about what I would do differently. So here are the seven things you would find in this young curmudgeon’s perfect conference:
What an agenda.
This morning at 10:00 a.m. Sherry will be giving a keynote address at the Unchained Orlando Marketing Conference sponsored by the Bloodhound Blog guys. That’s taking place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at the Orlando Airport.
Later in the day, Sherry will running a program, “Building and Managing a Network of Networks,” at the NAR Conference. That presentation takes place from 2:30 – 4:00 in Room W330D in the West building. Sherry’s going to take the audience from the “tried and true” to the entirely new world of social media networking.
To top it off, this evening at the RISMedia PowerBroker dinner, Sherry has the honor of introducing one of the greatest Olympic athletes of all time, 9-time GOLD medalist, Mark Spitz.
Additionally, we’ve got a new spot in the Realogy booth #2816.
As Sherry would say, “Awesome!”
As the “Shoes Keep Dropping,” it is easy to become paralyzed by the media reports, the unknown challenges that lay ahead, the worries around how long these market and economic conditions will last. In fact, it is difficult right now to think of anything else. For the most part, it is the same story everywhere — people are hunkering down for what everyone believes will be a challenging fall and winter.
As I sat in the audience on Sunday (front row, as usual) at the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals convention in Phoenix, an impressive lineup of presenters performed, and I say performed because it was interesting and entertaining. Even the economists were funny and witty in their comments. That was my first clue there was a different attitude happening at this particular conference. Nobody was commenting that the “numbers were down” as far as attendees. People actually seemed upbeat. This is odd, I thought.
I just finished interviewing Tom Wilkins of Better Homes and Gardens Wilkins and Associates. We were talking about his recent donation to the Sherman Theater to support the “Fine Arts Discovery Series,” which brings the arts to kids and their families.
Given today’s economy, small nonprofits like the Sherman must breathe a huge sigh of relief each time a sponsor steps up to contribute.
Tom extends the “all real estate is local” mantra by applying it to hyper-local social responsibility initiatives. Interestingly, his sponsorship results in a “pay it forward” benefit as his brokerage is able to take the free tickets they receive for productions at the Sherman and pass them along to clients and other members in the community. This in turn inspires a whole new set of community members to connect to the theater that Wilkins and Associates supports.
Every organization has values, either stated or unstated. The core business values you establish are crucial in setting the tone as to how your business will operate and prosper. They establish your company’s personality, they speak to what is important to your organization. Core values do not change from time to time to suit various situations, they define your company’s culture, they allow you to hold your team accountable.
In true real estate fashion, the room began to fill with agents just minutes before the announcement was to be made. Truly, the team of Wilkins & Associates Real Estate entered the breakfast meeting with anticipation and, judging by their faces, some anxiety. They hung on every word of their leader, Tom Wilkins, and only exhaled after Sherry Chris our President and CEO, and Wendy Forsythe, our Vice President of Broker Services, presented our company to them for the first time.
Amid the flurry of post-announcement questions, all seemed calm … which made me just a little leery. You see, I alone was to remain in the Poconos for the next several days to personally deliver the tools and systems of the Better Homes and Gardens® Real Estate brand to the agents 120+ agents and management team. I was scheduled to run through seven presentations in three days. Why, you ask, would I have concerns when everything appeared fine on the surface? Because we all know how people usually accept and adapt to change.
“Breakfast with Bloggers” captures the thoughts of the Better Homes and Gardens® Real Estate leadership team as they wrapped up their launch week at the Inman Real Estate Connect in San Francisco. In one jam-packed week, the brand transitioned its first brokerage, launched a consumer Web site and network extranet site, held a press conference, threw a launch party, and managed panel discussions and workshops at a real estate conference. With that all behind us, now the “real” work begins.
Yesterday was launch day for our new brand. We made our debut at Inman Real Estate Connect in San Francisco. We had a great press conference to kick things off. Check out the link to the video of the Webcast that featured Sherry Chris, Alex Perriello, Gayle Butler, and our very first broker, Tom Wilkins.
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Sherry Chris |
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