Applied Creativity 2008

This past Sunday the The New York Times ran an article that was about how brokers now had to get creative to “seduce buyers”.

DUH! – talk about being masters of the obvious!

Of course things need to be done differently we are only in the worst financial crisis of our era.

Some of the tactics sounded interesting and fun and like they achieved their preliminary objective which is to create more awareness.

What wasn’t directly stated was the fact that we are now are competing for fewer buyers than what previously existed and the first thing that needs to be done is catch their attention.Some brokers are hustling for their clients and going above and beyond.For those who are going the extra mile and trying something new and something that you haven’t done before then I applaud you.

A condo or a project needs to stand out from the pack, the more people know about your project the better.

Events, tours are great and necessary but where the game really needs to change is online – and that is where most agents are operating like its 2004 - time to retool, re skill and compete in a new arena.

Do what you’ve always done and today you won’t get what you use to get!

Blood in the Water

Lehman, Merrill, AIG - Wow! What a week!

I remember thinking just a few weeks ago how tough the economic climate was AND was even quoted in the NY Sun about my perception of where the real estate market was going and how tough it was.

BUT if you were to tell me that those 3 financial giants would be "hammered" so hard that they would either "dead" or unrecognizable then I would've thought you were high.

But the unthinkable happened, the market is fundamentally worse now so where does that leave you, your project and your strategy?

What's Plan B look like or is is C or D?

Where is the smart money going to go?

There is blood in the water and the sharks are circling - what are you going to do now?

Marketing Synergy 2.0

How should Websites, Advertising, Blogs and P.R. work together in this connected world?

How do you connect all of the pieces?

Quick Story

I saw this huge development the other day.
Impressive product, priced right, great amenities – the full page ad with a great headline which had an offer which made me want to go online and find out more.
Sounds great huh?

And when I did get online to see it, guess what I found?
Just their same old website/online brochure.
There was NOTHING in relation to their new advertising promotion.
NOTHING, NADA, ZIP, ZERO!

The Ad did its job – everything else was a failure.
The Website should have had at the very least a new page detailing the offer OR an ad to click through on the landing page OR even better a banner on all of their pages.

How about linking their existing site to their own blog?
A blog that is updated regularly and has video?
A blog which has all of the key team members contributing and shares with us why they are doing what they doing and what they love about it and the lifestyle that the new owners are going to have there.

They should be sharing the cool stories which are taking place now as it is going up.
People want more info not less and they are taking more time and becoming more informed.

And where was the P.R?
They had a full page ad in one of the major daily papers and there was no other “pick up” of the project! AND there are a lot of angles on that project that they could promote which leads me to believe that their P.R is either non-existent or lazy.

Outstanding!

The goal of advertising in 2008 is to drive them online!
Sales is a multiple contact sport – the more you “touch” the higher probability that they will remember you and take action AND once they do take action then your components/team better compliment and enhance each other.

Once you get their attention you better know what you are doing – producing a site then thinking your job done is a blue print for failure in sales.

Your project’s online life and strategy needs to be constantly reviewed and updated if you don’t do that then you are your own worst enemy and the architect for marketing and sales mediocrity.

Superior 2.0 strategy is straight forward IF you now how to play this new digital game.

The Truth about your Marketing

People judge you now faster than ever.

They form opinions about you and your project before you ever see them.

In this digital world they judge your project by the website alone.
Prospects will make multi million dollar decisions on what buildings to go see and what to miss based on your digital presence alone NOT on the how good the actual building is.

Sure not all of the time but do you want to gamble on what the percentage is by trying to save on the place/website where they form their first impression? - and where they have their first contact with you?

Do you realize that the paradigm has shifted? The consumer gets to make an opinion before he ever sets foot in your project, before he ever meets your sales person.

So what is your digital presence saying about you? about your projects?

And who is helping you get that piece of your business not only right but head and shoulders better than your competition?

What's their strategy to navigate this brave new 2.0 world?

Olympic Inspiration & Real Estate 2.0

This Ad for Visa by TWBA/Chiat/Day really got me thinking about innovation and in particular how Paradigm Shattering Dick Fosbury was and in my opinion still is.
Watch this if you haven't seen it already.





“The problem with something revolutionary like that was that most of the top athletes had invested so much time in their technique and approach was that they didn’t want to give it up, so they stuck with what they knew,” Fosbury said.

Sounds a lot like how most Real Estate Sales and Marketing Programs are currently conducted.

He said it took a full decade before the flop began to dominate the sport.

I’m hoping we can shift our industry faster than that.

You would have thought that all the other high jumpers and their coaches would have copied him because after all he did win the '68 Gold Medal and break the World Record.

They didn’t - the elite high jumpers and their coaches were too invested in the straddle.
They could not and would not undo all of the years of repetition and the results that they use to get with going with their old style, the Straddle.

Does that look or sound similar to our industry?

It certainly does to me as I see all of these new tools/skills/techniques that so few are using and I keep wondering why.

So what happened next in the High Jump World?
The establishment "attacked" him and his Flop - they were not going to have their paradigm shattered.

Check out this quote:

“Kids imitate champions,” said U.S. Olympic coach Payton Jordan at the time. “If they try to imitate Fosbury, he will wipe out an entire generation of high jumpers because they will all have broken necks.”

Fosbury laughed long and hard when reminded of that quote and then said:

"There were some doctors who felt I was threatening kids’ lives".

His stunning, and almost comical, break with the conventional straddle high jump sparked a revolution in the sport.

Today, the “Fosbury Flop” is the standard technique for high jumpers from high school to the Olympics.

But Fosbury still recalls the debate that raged in the press over his radical approach to the bar.

So what are you doing to shatter the paradigms in your industry, are you trying new approaches or are you happy to continue to do the “Straddle”

Good news for people who love bad news!

Today’s article in the The New York Sun is about how the NYC Condo Market is performing.

And yes I’m quoted heavily in the article and I don’t paint a pretty picture - but we do need to look at the current “landscape” objectively and realistically.

We need to make decisions on how things actually are right now.
Not how we want or need them to be based on what happened previously or where we were hoping the market was going to go.

Looking way back to Zeno and Socrates for a more stoic approach to the market and one that helps me is that “we should try and maintain an attitude of equanimity in the face of life's highs and lows - getting carried away by neither”.

Easier said than done but it is the goal - because according to Zeno " man conquers the world by conquering himself " and we can do that by conquering how we react to all external factors.

(both the good ones as well as the bad)

Focus on what we can control, work hard on those items and leave the rest in the hands of the gods.

The Stockdale Paradox

The "Stockdale Paradox" - was named by Jim Collins in his book "Good to Great" - and he sums it up this way: "You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end - which you can never afford to lose - with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be." This quote is attributed to the famed POW Jim Stockdale.

I thought of this quote in response to the following article by my friend Michael Stoler in today’s New York Sun.
He is absolutely right about what he is saying about the current market and trust me he isn’t the kind of person to mince words.

My experience shows me that most people do not value what they learn for free and make no mistake some people are paying a heavy price and it isn't just the mom's and pop's, the big boys are feeling the pain too.

Right now a lot of us in the Real Estate Industry are getting some pretty expensive “tuition” from this market and the “lessons” are far from over. (The picture BTW is the Tibetan Circle of Punishment - which sums up my view of what the market is doing to some of us)

Hearing the true state of the market is exactly what consumers need to hear from real estate agents and brokers.

Real estate markets go up and they go down.
The scope and size of this financial crisis does bring a new dimension to this particular cycle, but we will get through it and the smart ones will learn from it and the really smart ones will do even better because they were already a head of the curve in the first place.