Search Smarter? Quack Quack Quack

My name is James . . . and . . . I am a Google-holic.

There.  I’ve said it.  That’s supposed to be first step in getting better, isn’t it?  I am sure there is a 12 step program for people like me located right next to the one for the Apple-obsessed!

My symptoms:  I own a Google Chromebook (love it!), a Google Phone (Nexus 4 – love it!), have Google as my home page and use almost all Google products including Google Drive which not only has provided me with safe online storage, but also has enabled me to end my addiction to Microsoft Office (the apps on Drive are completely adequate).  I even own Google tee shirts (several).  The only leap I have not made is to Google+.  Facebook still has more of my users, but the day will come . . .

HOWEVER, as we all know there is a ugly underside to Google.  They are in the target marketing business.  Their revenue comes from selling highly targeted online advertising to companies big and small.

Target marketing becomes more valuable the more refined the target.  For example, a company trying to reach pregnant women in the Northeast who are between 25 and 30 years old might pay $4 parceks to a marketing company who could refine the target down to just ‘women.’  They might pay $6 parceks to a company that could further refine it down to women in the northeast and $10 parceks to one that could ad the age and pregnancy factor in.  (What’s a pracek?  I don’t know:  just a monetary unit I made up).

So to make their marketing more valuable, Google is on a constant quest to gather more and more data about their marketing targets:  you and me.  That’s why all of those wonderful Google products (that I love) function under one account:  they all feed data back to Mother Google about everything you do on each one.  Watch a video on YouTube?  The topic and keywords become part of your targeting profile.  Use Google to search for ‘Two-headed Llamas in Peru’ and suddenly you may see an online add for genuine Peruvian llama wool sweaters.  That’s how this works.

And none of that bothers me.  I’m an adult.  I know how to recognize advertising and I am comfortable with my own response to it.  I don’t consider any of this to be an invasion of my privacy.  I always assume I have none while online.

HOWEVER, there is one bit of Google data gathering that does bug me, and it has to do with search results.  You realize that when you search with Google, the results you get are tailored to the information in the target marketing profile they have created for you, don’t you?  I could search for ‘Two-headed llamas’ at the same moment my friend in Arkansas does and we’d get different results, ordered to appeal to our own individual online behaviors.

The end result of this kind of filtering is that our search results tend to reinforce what we already believe.  If we hate Obama, every search we do is going to further reinforce that.  If we think Ted Cruz is a modern patriot, every search we do will reinforce that.  If we think The Affordable Care Act is the greatest thing since sliced bread, our search results will reflect that.

I don’t believe Google is the cause or even the main cause of our current political polarization, but you do have to wonder about the effect all of this reinforcement is having!

I went to high school back when they taught us how to question, research and THINK.  I learned that it’s usually best to really listen to both sides of an argument before making up my mind.   As we get more and more of our information from online sources served up to us by the likes of Google, we are only hearing one side of an argument: the side we already favor.  It’s a little disturbing, don’t you think?

That’s why today, in a fit of Google-filtered frustration I tried something new.  I am in Mexico and it has been so frustrating to have that location filter added to my search results.  I can search for ‘Two-headed llamas in Peru’ and all of my results will be in Spanish because I am in a Spanish speaking country.  They will also rank from Mexico first and then from other places . . . .when all I really wanted was an article or two from Smithsonian or Nat Geo and a photo.

I did some digging and came up with something called ‘DuckDuckGo.com’ It’s a search engine that does not track online behavior and does not filter results based on past behavior.  DDG makes money by selling premium placement – just like Google – and also by receiving a commission on items purchased through online marketing affiliates like Amazon when the purchase originated with a DDG search.

I tried DuckDuckGo this morning and was pretty pleased with the results – high praise from an admitted Google-holic.  If you’re interested in getting the whole story on any topic, why not give it a try and let me know what you think.  Next time you want to do a search, just type ‘Duckduckgo.com’ in your address bar and search away.  Here’s a short video describing the service:  https://duckduckgo.com/about .

You And Apple

Let’s think about how you market yourself, and let’s think about it by looking at Apple.

How did Apple – the second generation, Steve Jobs led Apple – get so big?   Three Things: (Simplifying a lot)

Positioning, Posturing and Validation

Positioning:  while Microsoft (the competition Apple identified and went after) kept pitching practicality and a computer in every household, Apple went after elite and hip, even artistic.  The ‘Here’s to the Crazy Ones’ commercial is brilliant and effective.  The positioning wasn’t ‘we are just like them only better,’ it was ‘we are completely different and so are you!’

Posturing:  While Microsoft focused on the unseen aspects of personal computing (operating systems and software), Apple controlled hardware as well, which gave them the ability to create a style.  There is no Microsoft style.  There is a Sony style and an HP style . . . and an Apple style.  Apple went after style with class and consistency: all Apple devices look somewhat similar.  I guess there is good style and bad style but I also know that effective styling is a matter of marketing. (I mean, look at what the fashion world has us believing is cool today:  it’s a kind of homeless chic! We’ll pay hundreds for an outfit that makes us look like we live on the streets!) So, Apple used its elite and hip positioning (coupled with consistency of design) to create a style that people were proud to wear.

Validation:  In addition to its hip and cool marketing, and its style,  Apple nurtured an army of users to broadcast loudly how much better their devices worked than Microsoft’s (again, Microsoft made no devices, really, just software).  While Windows syste ms were famous for crashing (remember Vista?) and prone to attack, Apple users went on and on about their never-fail systems.  Whether on Internet postings, Facebook, Twitter, or verbally at the office or the soccer game, Apple users waved their stylish devices and proclaimed them (and themselves) to be superior.

We could go on about this bit of history but let’s stop and think about your business now.

How are you positioning your Help-U-Sell company?  Are you trying to fit in?  Trying to not upset your friends at the Board?  Imagine how that would have worked for Apple!  You have an identity and it is very different from the rest of the pack.  It is SAVINGS.  Just as Steve Jobs knew that everyone wants to think of themselves as cool and hip, Don Taylor (our founder) knew that everyone wants to pay the least possible for good service.  That’s why we are positioned as the company that saves consumers money selling real estate.  Savings begins with a streamlined, broker-centric operation coupled with set fee pricing.

I believe you can undermine the brilliant positioning of Help-U-Sell as the company that SAVES.  I’ve seen it happen over and over when a broker looks at what everyone else is doing and wonders, ‘why not me?’  Here are three underminers that will erode your position:

Having more than three Set Fees.  Of course, in theory, ONE should be sufficient.  But we’ve learned that properties on the low end of the market need special pricing and, sometimes, those at the top do as well.  But five fees?  Or a fee that graduates every $50,000 – $100,000?  That’s just a tired, old-fashioned commission in a very bad disguise.

Hiring agents on commission splits to take listings.  That’s what your competition does, and it does not work at Help-U-Sell.  If your Set Fee Pricing is correct for your market, you cannot afford to split commissions on the Listing Side with anyone.  Once your company is established and you are too busy to do the listing business yourself, an assistant (someone paid a set fee or salary) may start to help on the listing side.  Remember:  your competition pays huge splits to agents to go out and get listings because they rely on agents to market their business.  YOU market your business.  YOU create the leads.  Your commissioned agents are there to help you take care of the leads you have created on the buyer side.

Mixing percentages in with set fee pricing.  Something like:  Our set fee is $5,950 (but if we bring the buyer it’s a flat 3 1/2 % and if it’s sold through the MLS it’s 4%).  Your identity is SAVINGS, and the way you get there is through set fee pricing (and a broker-centric business model).  When you mix in percentage commissions in your pricing you just look like a bait and switch come-on proposition.  The only place percentages belong in your pricing is on their side, when an outside broker brings the buyer.  Then it’s their nonsensical percentage based commission the seller sees on the HUD-1, not yours.

Just as posturing for Apple was about how that company marketed itself, so your posturing is about how you tell your story to consumers.  You are a geographically focused, target marketing business.  You study the broad market, pick neighborhood targets where you anticipate the highest rate of return and market to those specific targets.  Compare that with what the broker down the street does.  Remember s/he delegated the marketing of the company to the agents and expects them to go out and take whatever listing they can get in whatever location.

Your posture is not just where you market, but what you market.  While your competition is advertising ‘charming’ bungalow in ‘immaculate’ condition in ‘park-like’ settings, you’re marketing the fact that you saved John and Mary $8,325 in commissions when they sold their home.  Think about that for a moment. They are marketing for buyers.  You are marketing for sellers (because you know that if you have enough sellers, enough listings, the buyers will flock to you).

Validation:  This is really why I wanted to write this post.  Yesterday I saw Richard Cricchio posted photos of four ‘Sold and Saveds’ on his company’s Facebook page.  Bravo!  ‘Sold and Saveds’, along with our customer testimonials (the ones you ask for at every closing), are how we validate what we do.  If you are not blanketing your marketplace with proof that people use your service, it works and they save, you are cutting your effectiveness (and your bottom-line) greatly.  I was struck by Richard’s ‘sold and saveds’ posting because it was graphic.  I didn’t have to read much of anything to get the message that he’d saved people money.  Others have used Facebook for ‘Sold and Saveds’ (and I applaud them, too), but Richard’s post had great impact.

Recap.  Positioning:  what is your identity?  Posturing:  how do you market that?  Validation (Your silver bullet):  How are you getting people to crow about the good service you provided (and the money you saved them)?

I think it fascinating that while Apple built its success as the anti-Microsoft (just as you will build yours as the anti-6% Realtor), they somehow missed the fact that the BIG competition was Google.  Easy to miss, I think.  At its inception, Google was just a search algorithm cooked up by a couple of grad students.  Who knew that from that, they would someday own the Internet, have the number one browser, and have more devices running their operating system than any other?

Planning for 2014 and Planning in General

We’re just a couple of weeks away from Thanksgiving, which means it’s time to start thinking about what you want to accomplish next year.  It’s a great time to be making a plan because, by all indicators, 2014 should be a good year, a year to grow, to expand.  A few things you might consider in your 2014 plan are:

Adding support staff.  But remember the Golden Rule of Help-U-Sell:  you never add staff until you are so busy you are missing opportunities.  Support staff should enable you to either do more business or take more time for other things.  If, four months after the new hire, you aren’t  doing either or both of those things, the hire was probably in error.

Expanding your geography.  Help-U-Sell is a geographically targeted business, remember?  Your vision is to own the real estate business in your target market and to take ownership one neighborhood at a time.  ASSUMING you have been following a targeted marketing strategy and have begun to  dominate in a neighborhood or two, maybe this is the year you move on to broaden the target, add a few more neighborhoods.

Taking a step up and back.  Perhaps 2014 is the year you not only add a buyers agent or two, but you also add a listing assistant:  someone who can meet with a potential seller, do a listing consultation and take a listing on your behalf.  Before you recoil in horror (nobody can do it as well as me!), let me remind you that Help-U-Sell is built on systems that work, not personality.  Your listing consultation is . . . well, just the facts, and a competent, well trained assistant can do the job as effectively as you, the Broker.  Taking a step back from the listing side of the business should enable you to take a step up to working ON your business, to planning your next expansion, to becoming bigger.

Supercharging your marketing.  How many tentacles do you have reaching out into the lead generation ocean that is the Internet?  Is this the year you step up to premiere status at Trulia and/or Zillow? You should, you know.  Is this the year you start doing Facebook and Google pay-per-click to drive traffic to your optimized website? Of course, if that is your goal, you will need effective lead capture landing pages, too.  Is this the year you electrify your web presence by creating a powerful, search engine friendly blog for your business? I know:  I’m biased, but I think this may be one of the best strategies you could employ to do more in 2014.

There are four ideas that may spur your thinking.  Before we leave the topic of planning for 2014, though, I want you to also rethink the planning process.  For generations we have heard, studied and practiced the 1-3-5 year planning ritual.  The detailed long term plan has always been held up as the be-all and end-all of planning . . . and I think that is a mistake.

Our real estate market shifts regularly and rapidly.  Opportunities fly in (and out), sometimes out of nowhere,  You have to be ready to grab hold of the next big thing while it is fresh and too often, a rigid plan and a stay-the-course attitude can make this difficult.  Here’s my prescription for planning, for 2014 an in general:

1.  Get clear on your BIG objective.  Why do you own this business? What are you trying to accomplish? How will you know when you are there? And what is your exit strategy?  These are big picture things, hardly detailed.

2.  What are the likely milestones you will encounter on this journey?  Typically Help-U-Sell brokers start out all alone, doing everything themselves.  The first milestone is the hiring of an assistant.  Then comes hiring of buyers agents.  Down the road, an expanded target market or a second office may make the list.  What are the 6 – 8 major milestones between you and your BIG ojective, in anticipated chronological order.

3. Now, focus on the first milestone.  What do you need to do today, this week, this month to move you closer to it?

That’s it.  

You now have a plan.  And it is a plan that doesn’t tie you up, that allows for new unanticipated opportunities, for side-trips and even small failures, without taking you off course.

I remember the camping/car trip I took from my home in Atlanta to Washington State’s Olympic National Park in 1973.  My friend and I knew our first big stop would be Estes Park, Colorado and the Rockies.  Each night we planned the next day’s segment.  It might be 250 miles or 1,000, might include side trips, stops and so on.  And we were free to change course during the day, too, so long as we ended up a little closer to Estes Park.  After Estes Park, the next milestone was Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and we proceeded in the same manner, each day taking us closer to the next milestone, each milestone taking us closer to our BIG objective:  Olympic National Park.

I believe that kind of thinking, that kind of planning, is the way to build a lean, rapidly moving, dynamic real estate company.

How To Rank: Be Credible, Relevant and Dynamic (and keep at it!)

2013 has been a breakout year for The Set Fee Real Estate Blog.  My number of visitors has jumped significantly and seems to increase every month.  Last month (October, 2013), was the biggest month I’ve ever had, topping 2,000 visitors.  By comparison, through 2011 and 2012, I mucked along at +/- 500 visitors a month.

The improvement in this site’s stats parallels the return to an increasingly normal real estate market, and while this is not the reason my hits are up, it certainly is a factor.  For more than four years, the notion that a home owner could save on real estate commissions was hardly at the top of anyone’s mind, and of course, that’s what I write about here.  Today, with home equities increasing and buyers buying again, people are interested in getting a good deal when it comes time to sell, so their search phrases are helping them find this blog.

I believe there are a couple of other factors – probably more important factors – in the increase.  First is simple longevity.  I’ve been at this since Fall of 2009.  Mother Google has been crawling my posts for four years and has found new material here almost every week.  She likes that.  There has been a consistency in topic here which also speaks to the search engines.   The focus of this blog is pretty concise.

While January  2013 showed a jump in visitors over what I was experiencing in 2012, I didn’t get my big growth spurt until April . . . and each month since April has been better than the month before.  So what happened in April?

Simple:  Marketing.  I invested $200 in pay-per-click, $100 on Facebook, $100 on Google.  The money was exhausted by mid May, but the effects were dramatic.  The bigger surprise, though, was the ‘halo effect’ of my tiny bit of marketing.  My growth spurt has been sustained.

There have been a handful of blog posts that have drawn A LOT of hits.  They are tightly focused on things consumers want to know and have clear titles that reflect the content.  Far and away the biggest draw has been ‘What Percentage Do Real Estate Agents Charge?‘  It lambastes percentage based commissions and makes a strong case for Set Fee pricing and for Help-U-Sell.

That post is followed rather closely by ‘How Long Must I Wait To Buy After A Short Sale?’ Interesting that both posts have questions as titles.  However, the significant thing is topic:  this is what real estate consumers are interested in today.  By the way, real estate sand is always shifting and I probably ought to update that short sale post.

Another high-ranking post is ‘The Ineffective Realtor (or what to do when your real estate agent sucks).’  Hmmm.  Clearly a large segment of our industry is letting consumers down or at least not living up to expectations (again).

The point is this:  if you are blogging, keep at it.  It takes awhile for the search engines to decide you are credible enough to rank high in search results.  Focus your blog on a topic and don’t stray off in a dozen directions.  Think like your target audience:  what kinds of information are they most likely to be searching for?  And make sure that topic is reflected in both your post and your title.  And, for goodness sake!  Invest a few hundred bucks in marketing!  The results will probably surprise you.

(Footnote:  The case for REALTOR blogging is simply this:  it works.  Only 12% of REALTORS blog and most of them do it poorly and/or inconsistently.  We all have websites, some good, some not so good.  Regardless, they usually have at least one thing in common:  they are static.  They don’t change.  The content is set.  That is not particularly attractive to Google.  She wants to see dynamic content that changes regularly but remains focused on a specific topic.  That’s what a blog is.  Your online lead generation efforts can be greatly enhanced by fronting a good blog.  You use your blog to help consumers find you and to help them understand your unique offering.  You link your blog to your static website for home search and for inquiry generation.  If you want help setting up and maintaining your Help-U-Sell real estate blog, get in touch.)

Beware! Facebook Friend Requests

There has been so much written about Facebook and your privacy.  Many are terrified that strangers may be able to see the photo they took of what they had for dinner last night!  Par for the course:  it seems we alternatively love Facebook and revile it every other Tuesday.

Here’s what I have to tell you about Facebook and your privacy:  it’s not a problem if you will take the time to manage your page and your friends.  It’s very simple and here is a link to a post that will walk you through that process:  LINK.  There have been a few changes to the look and feel of Facebook since that post was written but the basics are still sound.  Truth is:  you can limit what anyone sees of your Facebook profile.

But today there is a new threat.  It seems that Facebook scammers are sending out bulk friend requests hoping to get access to your information and your list of friends.  How they may use this information is up for speculation, but think about it:  would you go on television and tell the world what you had for dinner last night, where you dined and what you spent?  How may times you’ve been married and who your best friend in high school was?  How cute your 2 year old is in her new shoes?  Of course you wouldn’t.  But that’s what you’re doing when you accept friend requests from people you do not know.

Here is a list of tasks for you to do now:

  1. Review your list of Facebook friends.  See anybody you don’t know professionally or personally?  Perhaps you might want to un-friend them.
  2. When you click on ‘Friends’ from your home page notice that there is also a link for ‘Followers.’ Today, people can follow you – which means to read everything you post – whether you accept a friend request or not.  Take a look at your followers:  do you know them?  Maybe you’d be wise to block some or all of them.  Funny: when I checked my followers, I saw people whose friend requests I had refused!
  3. From now on when you receive a friend request from someone you don’t know, first send them a message and ask: How do I know you?  You probably won’t get a response, and so then, refuse the request and block them.
  4. Periodically check your followers.  You are notified when you have a new follower, but you are notified about so many things it is easy to overlook.  I don’t think legitimate followers are a bad thing, especially if you are using Facebook as part of your online business strategy, but maybe you’re bugged by the whole concept.  If so, go into your account settings, click on ‘Followers,’ and turn this feature off entirely.

I don’t think Facebook is the Boogie Man many say it is.  I believe in its ability to keep people connected and in its value as a marketing vehicle.  But I do believe that Facebook users have an obligation (to themselves) to manage their memberships, to take control of who sees what,, and to monitor more than the Newsfeed.

And, oh by the way . . . have you looked at Google + lately?  It’s come a long way.  Still, most of my friends don’t have accounts, but at some point it may become a social networking alternative.  My Spanish school in Oaxaca is actively using Google + Hangouts to teach the language over longdistances using live video feeds.  Impressive!

Here is an infographic from Barracuda Labs I found on ZDnet.com with more on fake Facebook friend requests:

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