You may remember that, a few weeks ago, I started an email newsletter called Inside the Zoo. Things are going quite well, which makes me very happy. I’ve sent out 4 editions of Inside the Zoo, and the response has been great. There are now more than 50 folks who have joined me Inside the Zoo.
In the first big development for the Zoomates, I’m adding a new feature for anyone who subscribes– the Inside the Zoo Archives. This way, folks who subscribe can go back and look at past editions and get caught up. It also means that folks have a place to go if they want to reference something I mentioned or shared in one of the emails. I asked the Zoomates what they thought about the idea, and the response was overwhelmingly positive, so I’m glad I could make it happen.
Obviously, if you want access to the Inside the Zoo Archives, you’re gonna have to subscribe. If that sounds good to you, just go here.
If you want to start a debate among baseball purists, bring up the designated hitter.
If you want to start a debate among Realtors, bring up professionalism.
Frankly, I’m sick to death of both discussions.
I really think that, as an industry, we need to move past the whole “we need a higher degree of professionalism in real estate.” It’s a pointless argument that will never be resolved. The only thing that it does is allow us to pat ourselves on the collective back. The discussion certainly doesn’t do anything to improve professionalism. The reality is that the ones even participating in the discussion don’t need to improve their professionalism, anyway.
Don’t even get me started on “increasing the barrier to entry.” That’s another pointless argument. Basically, it is elitism. It screams of– “I didn’t have a high barrier to entry, but I feel really cheated by all the educational/professional training I did undergo that I feel is being wasted in real estate, so we should really make people go through a bunch of training so that I can feel better about myself.”
I know what I’m talking about, because this is exactly how I used to feel.
Then I got over myself and moved on to more important things.
Professionalism doesn’t matter nearly as much as you think
Clients don’t care about your professionalism. Well at least, not in the way that you think they do. Sure, they want you to be honest, truthful, respectful, dependable, etc. They want you to be all of those things. They also assume that you are going to be all of those things. They are going to assume, and then demand, a certain level of competence. Your responsibility is simply to meet and (hopefully) exceed their expectations.
The professionalism of your colleagues has very little bearing on whether or not you are professional and meeting your clients’ expectations. Sure, you might have clients that were burned by a bad apple or two, but hey, welcome to the real world.
I’ve got news for you, not everyone takes their profession as seriously as you do. So what? Screw ‘em. You worrying and complaining about them isn’t suddenly going to transform them into conscientious professionals.
You can talk about increasing the perceived level of professionalism all you want, you can raise the barriers to entry as high as you want, but there is always going to be someone at the bottom of the ladder. If you’re not careful, you might find out that it’s you someday.
We don’t need increased professionalism among Realtors. There are tons of extremely competent, extremely professional, Realtors out there who treat their profession as a career, not just a job. They hold their clients interests above everything else, every time. I know this. I meet them all the time.
Let’s concentrate on things that really matter
Stop worrying about professionalism. It’s a distraction from what really matters.
If you really want to increase professionalism in the industry, it starts with you.
If you do what you do to the best of your abilities, and do it better than your competition, all the “unprofessional” Realtors out there won’t be able to compete with you, and natural selection will take care of the rest.
The few unprofessional Realtors out there really don’t matter to you. Unless they somehow become a majority of the profession, which I don’t see happening, they are simply irrelevant. They obviously don’t care, which means you have no obligation to care about them.
I can’t speak for you, but I’d much rather spend my time talking with and about the vast majority– the really awesome Realtors that I meet all the time who totally rock the real estate industry. It’s time to start talking about them.
We don’t need more professionalism among Realtors. What we need to do is spend more time with the real professionals.
Considering my last post was on January 1st, I figure that writing the next post on February 1st provides the perfect amount symmetry. ;-)
One of the reasons that I haven’t written a blog post in a month is that I began my newest adventure. . .fatherhood. I’m loving every minute of it.
One of the other reasons that I haven’t posted much in a while is that I’ve been thinking about my blogging and other social media efforts a bit differently lately. One of the things that I feel is missing from blogging is a degree of intimacy. It’s missing the kind of thing that I love about doing presentations in front of audiences, or leading sessions at RE Barcamp.
In those settings, I get to know people a little bit, and they get to know me a little bit, too. I like that. It is something that I wish I could get from blogging, but it really isn’t. Blogging is largely anonymous. It is a bit like shouting into a forest. Sometimes, people shout back, but sometimes they don’t. Most of the time, I have no idea who I’m shouting to.
Enter the email newsletter. . .
I’ve wanted to do an email newsletter for a while now. I’ve wanted to do it as a way of capturing some of that intimacy that comes from knowing who I’m conversing with, and speaking directly with them. An email newsletter will allow me to do that.
I’ll know exactly who I’m talking to (and I’ll know that they want to hear from me).
The folks who choose to hear from me will know that they have my undivided, personal attention.
Where the blog is a general session, my email newsletter is more of a breakout-style event.
Why the zoo?
Well, my life can feel like a zoo from time-to-time. I’ve got a lot of stuff going on between real estate, basketball officiating, helping real estate pros with technology, marketing, and media, and of course– being a dad.
The good news is that all of this craziness teaches me a lot of valuable lessons. I want to be able to share those lessons with you.
All this craziness also raises a lot of questions. Where does all this come together? When it does come together, what can we learn from it? Where does it all lead? I want to explore all these questions with you, too.
So, if you want to learn a bit more about me, and hear from me in a more regular, more intimate setting, then just use the sign-up form below, and step inside the zoo.
The best part is, this is the type of zoo where feeding the animals is always encouraged!
One last thing. . .
Most of us know someone who says that they don’t read blogs, or don’t have time to read blogs, or don’t like blogs. You also know that those folks could benefit greatly from being exposed to the information they could find on blogs. Well, I would love it if you would invite folks like them Inside the Zoo. I think they’ll find it much to their liking, and I would be eternally grateful to you, too.
There is something to be said for starting out the New Year fresh.
Yesterday was my last day as Community Manger for Inman News. My journey as Community Manger began over a year ago. It was a wonderful ride.
I learned a ton about all kinds of things. The kinds of things that will continue to serve me well. I had the opportunity to work with some really great people as part of a truly special team. I value tremendously the friendships I have started as a result of being the Community Manager there.
As for the future, it is incredibly bright. I’ve got some things planned, which I’ll be talking a lot more about over the next few weeks. I honestly can’t remember being as excited for an upcoming year as I am when I think about what 2010 has in store.
It was, kinda. Then, it started to fall off my radar. Over the past year, however, Facebook has made a major comeback in my life.
I use Facebook to keep up with my family, my friends, my clients, you name it. I use it to read magazines, blogs, join discussions, learn things. Facebook is really valuable to me, now.
When Facebook first launched the ability to create pages, I did it right away. Honestly, it wasn’t all that valuable. Things have changed a lot since then. Now, I find myself spending a lot of time browsing the pages of which I am a fan. Lots of good stuff.
That lead me to thinking about my own Facebook page. I still use it, but I want to make it more valuable for my fans. I am realistic, I know that not everyone is going to stop by here every day to see what is going on. I know that even folks who have subscribed via RSS aren’t going to read it every day. I know I don’t, so it would be unreasonable of me to expect others to do differently.
I do know that I’m on Facebook, and a lot of the people who read this blog are on Facebook, and I would like to reach them while they are there, so they don’t have to go all over the place, if they don’t want to. I know I have the ability to reach them, I just want to make sure that they want to stick around, once they get there.
So, if you are a fan of The Real Estate Zebra on Facebook, I would love your feedback.
What do you expect?
What do you want to see?
What do you want to do?
How can I help?
If you’re not a fan of my facebook page yet, I would still appreciate your feedback, in hopes that I might be able to gain your attention in the future. If you want to become a fan right now, I would really appreciate that, too.
I met Jeff in person for the first time almost 2 years ago. I blogged about it, at the time. I still remember getting that random phone call, Jeff telling me that he followed me on Twitter, and meeting him for a drink in the lounge at the Treasure Island hotel in Vegas just before NAR 2007. We talked for about 30 minutes or so. It was a great conversation. We talked about real estate, technology, and basketball. Later that night, Kari and I ate dinner with him and some others after the first NAR BloggerCon.
Good times. Good times.
I liked Jeff right away. I could never have known, though, that after those first few tweets back and forth, and that initial conversation in a hotel lounge, we would become great friends. I could never have known that Kari and I would come to care so much for Jeff, Rocky, and his family. I could never have known that almost two years after meeting him, Kari and I would be wishing him a happy birthday like this:
I could never have known any of those things would happen, but they did. For that, I am eternally grateful.
And to think, it all started with a few little tweets. . .
Tots on the Go sells stroller and other baby travel supplies in Midlothian, VA
Kari and I bought a stroller on Sunday.
We’ve been shopping for a stroller for quite a while.
I want to share our stroller-buying story with you. I want to share our stroller-buying story with you because our story illustrates how you can effectively use social media in your business.
The story of two first-time stroller-buyers
This is our first child. Consequently, we have never bought a stroller before. Needless to say, when we started looking at strollers, we started off a bit confused. There are a tremendous number of stroller types available. It was mind-boggling.
We did a lot of internet research on strollers. We did most of this research before we ever walked into a store and actually pushed a stroller. We tried to identify the type of stroller that we needed, and they we checked out what strollers were available to us based on our needs and our budget. We looked at a ton of sites, and eventually identified a store in Richmond that had some of the strollers we had seen online. This store even had a test track so that you could try the strollers on different surfaces. Pretty cool.
Our first trip to the stroller store
The lady at at the stroller store was nice enough. She showed us some different strollers, their features, how they collapsed, and let us take them around the store. One thing that we didn’t like was the way that the salesperson worked. Like I said, she was nice enough, but she didn’t seem to really listen closely to our needs. Consequently, we spent a lot of time looking at one stroller, just to find out that it wouldn’t work with the car seat that we wanted, and we had to look at another stroller, instead.
We left the store only slightly less confused than when we walked in, but at least we had seen some strollers in person, and now had a much more completely picture of what we liked, and what we didn’t. We identified one of the strollers we saw as a potential winner, but wanted to do some more research on it.
Stroller research continues (the search for social proof)
When researching the stroller we had identified, we went looking for reviews. We didn’t particularly want reviews from places like Consumer Reports. We wanted reviews from people who had used or are using the stroller, or who know something about strollers.
In combing through reviews, we realized that it might be good to get reviews from people in our area. People that would use the stroller where we might actually use the stroller. People who were like us and whose experiences might be similar to our own.
In looking for reviews of the stroller that we liked, Kari came across a link to a video review of another stroller. Video reviews are cool, because you can see the stroller, how it looks, how it works, etc. The video review was done by Ellie of Tots on the Go. Not only was this a great video review, but after watching it, we discovered that Tots on the Go is located just outside Richmond, not far from us. BINGO!
Social media helps make the process easier
This is the actual video review that we found during our research:
One of the added benefits of a video review is not only seeing the product, but also seeing the reviewer. In this case, Ellie is the person reviewing the stroller. Ellie is the President of Tots on the Go. Basically, she runs the show. Cool.
What we liked about the video review was that Ellie not only did a great job of demonstrating the product, but she did so in a casual way, the way that we might do it. There obviously wasn’t any editing slight-of-hand being used. It was just her, a camera, and a stroller. We can dig it.
Another thing that we liked was that she identified a lot of the concerns we had about strollers. Specifically, she addressed the need to have something that will travel easily and has ample storage.
The final thing, and perhaps the most important, is that she made it clear she has actually used the stoller. She talks about having put her own kids in it, and how it worked for them. That is valuable stuff.
Another interesting thing that I happened to notice was that on the Youtube video comments, Ellie actually responded to someone’s question about the stroller. This meant that she wasn’t just posting these videos for kicks, she was listening to, and engaging with her customers there. That’s always a positive sign.
At the end of her video, Ellie mentioned their Tots on the Go Facebook Fan Page, and the fact that if we became fans of the page, we could receive a 10% discount. 10% discount for being a Facebook Fan?! DONE!
We had already planned a trip into Richmond, so we figured we would stop by her store and check out this new stroller she reviewed, since it seemed like it would be right up our alley.
Another stroller store trip
Tots on the Go has an interesting store policy. Since they do most of their business all over the country via the Internet, they don’t actually staff their physical location with regular hours. If you want to see the store, you have to make an appointment. Kari and I gave Ellie a call on pretty short notice, and she called back and said she would be happy to meet us.
When we met Ellie at the store, we told her our situation. We mentioned everything we needed, the strollers we had looked at before, and the stroller that she reviewed on the Youtube video. Ellie had both strollers in the store, so that was a major bonus, since it meant we could see them side by side and compare them.
Ellie does her thing
Ellie was awesome, absolutely awesome. The honest, engaging, intelligent person we saw on the Youtube video was exactly the same person who showed us the strollers in the store. One thing that she did that caught our attention, and was incredibly helpful, was that, after listening to what we needed, she immediately told us why each stroller wouldn’t work for us. She didn’t start by trying to show us all the bells and whistles, or dazzle us with features. She immediately identified pitfalls that we weren’t aware of, and made us aware of them.
What she did by helping us eliminate choices was huge for us. Granted, it meant that we had to consider new options, but it quickly allowed us to dismiss strollers that were just going to end up making us unhappy. Ellie listened to what we wanted, and we trusted her recommendations, because it was already obvious to us that she knew her stuff.
Not only did she know her stuff, but she let us find out things for ourselves. She even had her 5 year-old son come in and let us push him around so that we could feel the difference in certain strollers when they had actual weight in them. It also helped reinforce some of the shortcomings of certain strollers. Her son, Anthony, was a real trooper, letting strange people push him around in strollers in his Mom’s parking lot.
Ellie let us take the strollers outside, collapse them, open them, put them in our trunk, take them out, take the wheels off, whatever we needed to do to compare the strollers and make an informed decision, she was there to help us do it.
A satisfying decision
By the time it was all over with, we had spent more than an hour with Ellie and her family on a Sunday afternoon, and we bought a stroller. Since we were already Facebook Fans, we also got 10% off, which is huge when you are buying baby stuff. We also found out all about Ellie’s social media efforts with Tots on the Go. She has the Youtube videos, the Facebook page, a twitter account, and a blog on the website.
Ellie said that she has seen real benefit to her business from all of the social media efforts. As I told her, we found her on Youtube, and between the Youtube video, the Facebook page, and her helpful website, we knew we were in the right place.
All in all, we could not have been more pleased with our experience with Ellie and our stroller decision. Social media was a big part of that. We also know that now our decision has been made, we’ll be able to use social media to interact with others going through the same process, and we can help them, just as Ellie helped us. Needless to say, when we want to buy a stroller, or anything else baby-related, we’ll check with Ellie first to see if she sells it. If not, we’ll ask her who she recommends. Ellie has our trust, for sure.
The lesson for you (and a little homework)
Maybe you don’t sell strollers. Maybe you sell homes. That’s great. I do, too.
What I want you to do is consider our stroller story one more time. This time– replace the word “stroller” with the word “home.” Then, replace Ellie’s name with your own.
After you’ve done that, ask yourself how you can turn my stroller-buying story into your next client’s home-buying story.
My name is Daniel Rothamel. I am a licensed real estate agent in the Commonwealth of Virginia and a member of the National Association of REALTORS. As such, I adhere to a strict code of ethics and all laws with regard to equal housing, which is reflected in the content of this blog.
My broker is Strong Team REALTORS, 86 Joshua Lane, Palmyra, VA 22963; (434) 589-5800. My VA Real Estate License number is 0225 077325.
All of the opinions in this blog are mine, unless otherwise noted.
If you want to start a debate among baseball purists, bring up the designated hitter.
