Zolve Blog

More and more I’m continuing to realize the power of networking. It doesn’t take much to gain a deep appreciation of all we have at our fingertips here. Take a look at the third paragraph of this post from the guys over at MyTechOpinion. Do you see it there? That’s it, a nod to Zolve! It’s that simple. Aside from the great host of information in the post – Yahoo Pipes is definitely worth looking into – they are helping us get our name out there.

I believe in the idea of treating other the way you want to be treated. If we are respectful of those we work with – and those we work against, so to speak – we can hopefully anticipate a likewise response. When we are networking, we need to help others by promoting what’s great about them. The guys at 1000Watt Blog provide great insight into real estate marketing and branding while maintaining a fresh perspective and keen wit. BloodhoundBlog keeps us up-to-date on much of the real estate blogosphere, and Transparent Real Estate offers strategies to help us navigate our way. There is, of course, a multitude of other great blogger communities.

The point is this: Zolve isn’t about Zolve – it’s about you, and it’s about connecting with others. We help ourselves best when we help others. We are indeed our own community, but in the sense that your hometown is a community within your state, country, continent, etc. You are part of a much bigger picture than Zolve, and we are here to help you connect with the best.

Brian Wilson
Zolve.com

I was pleased to recently read Brian Boero’s comments about the ever-increasing role women are playing in the real esate market, and the potential for incredible growth therein. Yet I also thought it was worth noting how untapped the women’s market seems to be, or at least has been, up to this point, especially considering women make up more than half the population.

If what Boero says is true — and I believe it is — then we need to invest in two ideas: women “drive many home related decisions,” and more single women are buying homes. In fact, according to the latter article, unmarried women spent $550 billion on residential real estate between 2002 and 2003. Whoa! Furthermore, Boreo says the “Realogy brands (indeed, nearly all real estate brands save Real Living) are decidedly male.” (Thanks for the nod, by the way.)

Think about this: “Men make lousy women!” Well, don’t they? If there is such an obvious contrast between men and women, don’t we need to cater to them differently within the real estate market? If someone’s trying to sell a woman a house, I don’t think the selling point is going to be that the property just happens to be on the outskirts of deer country in the middle of deer hunting season. If we really work to cater to the specific needs of women in real estate, we should see a lot more of this. Congrats ladies!

It is very unfortunate that 350 people lost their jobs at Foxtons recently, according to this story at Inman News. What I found most disturbing about this article was the part that mentioned that the company seeks to sell at an auction “4,273 active listings” and lots of lists. The lists include contact data on buyer and seller “leads” and even real estate agents who they have worked with.

It will be very interesting to see what 4,273 discount Foxton listings are worth at auction. I would guess $250 per listing. As mentioned by others, Foxtons listings are anything but standard fare. Can you imagine being the agent who shows up to a Foxton’s listing with your new sign and having to say something like, “Hi, Mr. & Mrs. Seller. My company bought your listing so now I am your agent. Here is my new sign and here is my card.” I sympathize for everyone involved.

Brian

After 10 months of thinking, planning, and hard work, today we launched Zolve.com with over 2,200 members!

We are so excited to receive your feedback on the network so that we can deliver the best user experience in the real estate industry online. You can sign up for a 30-day free trial from the homepage and check out this network for yourself and see the many ways it can help you grow your business.

If you would like to learn more before taking a trial, Drew Meyers from Zillow posted a very detailed review of his site on his www.geekestate.com blog. You can read that by clicking here.

Welcome aboard and we look forward to working hard daily to deliver the best experience possible to grow your business.

Last week, The New York Times wrote an article that went full circle when reporting that Foxton’s was closing its doors after a few years of trying the discount, employee-agents model in the U.K. and Northeast U.S. It was full circle because in July 2003, The New York Times reported, “Shaking up Real Estate, on Both Sides of the Ocean” - an article about U.K.-based Foxton’s $20 million play to cross the Atlantic.

I am not celebrating this; a lot people have lost their jobs who were employed by Foxtons and that is an unfortunate happenstance. I also do not have a bias against discount brokers like Foxton as I explained in my recent post about Redfin. However, I do think that this closure demonstrates something very important about the discount service model.

I think the current field of discount real estate brokerages have the wrong focus. They seem to focus their entire business plan on the 10% of real estate customers who really dislike real estate professionals and do not find any value in their services. This is okay. It is a plan… but it is a bad plan.

These businesses focus completely on what this 10% of customers focus on: cost. The problem with this business model is that someone will ALWAYS come in after you and try to undercut you. They may not survive long and like Foxtons, burn through $20 million in 4 years instead, but while they are doing that, they will beating you on cost for 4 years.

A “discount brokerage” that instead focused its business on VALUE could be very formidable. The brokeage that did this would then be a consideration for the other 90% of customers who make value determinations rather than cost determinations every day. Most peope love to get a good deal but rarely the best deal is the cheapest price. Experience teaches most people that something priced at the bottom is there for a reason. How many times did you buy the cheapet garbage bags at the grocery store after your first batch started tearing and dripping “trash juice” while you hurried it to the garbage can?

Here at Zolve, we have begun demonstrating the site to major influencers in the industry to receive their expert and objective feedback. They have gone very, very well which has been promising. We alway address teh fact that unlike many new websites launching today, ours will not be advertising-driven but instead will be subscription-based. To my pleasant surprise, none of the national brokerage leaders that we have spoken to have objected to the annual membership fee cost because of the value they think it will provide their agents. This experience has reinforced our belief that in the face of value, cost is not a factor.

v/r,
Brian

Last night I was on the couch with my wife and 5 year old son as part of our “family fun night” which included popcorn, sprite, and a superman cartoon movie. There was a scene where Clark Kent learned that he had been given his power from his long-gone parents and finally understood that he wasn’t “a freak” and that he had a higher purpose.

At that moment, a part of my son’s childhood died. See, Jack wears a superman costume everyday - all day. He has beautiful blond hair but wishes everyday that it will turn black because superman’s hair is black. At that moment, he learned the “true origin” of superman and that he would never “turn into superman” even though that is all he had been thinking and dreaming about.

That was a sad moment for him and for his very sentimental mom and dad. In fact, for better or worse, we reassured him that he if wanted it bad enough and kept dreaming about it, he could still become superman one day.

Building this website, this business, has been all-encompassing for me lately. So my mind turned from this thought and made me think about how many entreprenuers have the same superhero dreams for their businesses when they start that exciting & difficult path. When we think about the future, we all think about the big outcomes - the Hail Mary’s.

I know this because this is my third business to start and it has been true very time. I also know that there comes a point in every business when you realize that what it is today is what it will always be. Just like my son’s realization that he will not morph into superman, we eventually realize and accept that we will not change the world or even our local market. It is sad because this realization normally results in falling out of love with the business. When the dream evaporates so does the passion and excitement. The closing of Foxton’s is sad to me on this level because someone’s passion and hopes died with that company.

The good news is that we at Zolve still think we will turn into superman and will change the world or at least the real estate industry for the better. We have a burning passion for providing a platform and a tool that will help great real estate professions be found, connect to other great real estate professionals, and help systemize their business using the power of the internet.

We are working hard to test and debug the site so that our pre-registered charter members who have taken this leap of faith with us to create a special, premier network will be raving, enthusiastic members.

Brian

Our Realtor Magazine advertisement came out yesterday. What does everyone think? Obviously, we went for the “simple and intriguing” look to differentiate ourselves from the other ads in the magazine.

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It is too early to tell whether this ad will be more effective than reaching out to real estate professionals one-by-one on the telephone, at conferences, or on the blogosphere. Then again, it also has the added advantage of banding Zolve as valid to 1.3 million Realtors who may read their Realtor Magazine this month.

Coulda Been a Contender Audio

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I’ve been engaged in several blog discussions in the past couple weeks that have come down to the fundamental question: “Is technology innovation within the scope of a brokerage’s core competency?” It has taken me back to a post I read by Brian Boero of 1000 Watt Consulting Titled, “Redfin: A gift from the venture community to traditional real estate.”

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I met Brian through his partner Marc Davison in his former capacity as a VP at Onboard LLC. Marc and I shared some pretty great email discussions while I was still in Baghdad and he got me really thinking about the role of a real estate brokerage as it relates to technology. I think Redfin is a perfect case study for this discussion.

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Let me begin by disclosing my “party affiliation” and journalistic slant when it comes to Redfin. I am absolutely neutral on whether they are great for the industry or yet another uppercut to the chin. I am a true free-market capitalist at heart, so I believe that anyone, as long as they follow the rules like everyone else, should be able to introduce a business model, take their risks, and let the market decide.

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As a business owner in the very competitive real estate industry, I am prepared for the possibility that a competitor will compete with me for a customer and demonstrate more value. If that happens consistently and I do not adapt, then I will no longer have a viable business. It is the law of the jungle and I love it.

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With respect to Redfin, I really think that they have missed a prime opportunity to become a national player and disruptive influence to the entrenched leading brokerages. They lost this opportunity by taking the easier road in order to reap short-term modest gains instead of taking the harder road which would have positioned them to do something really significant.

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The easier path that I am referring to branding themselves as “cheaper than the other guys with a great website.” It’s easy for obvious reasons. It’s the same reason that many untrained, desperate real estate agents immediately use discounting as their marketing plan. It takes work and it takes time to build a brand based on what you will do for your customer rather than what you won’t do to save them money. It is called creating a value proposition and demonstrating value.

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No matter what the product or service is, people have natural disinclination to the cheapest. It is often-time unfairly assumed that the cheapest is priced this way out of necessity rather than strategy. People don’t buy the cheapest car on the lot unless they have to. People don’t ask for their menu’s to be sorted by price to make it easier to choose the cheapest dish. Ask Hyundai, who is spending millions on a new branding campaign to change its “cheapest in the market” brand that they erroneously staked their company on. Hyundai is by no means a failure; however, they have finally realized that their cars are probably more than their branding has allowed them to price them.

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Another problem with the “cheaper than the next guy” strategy is that there will always be someone who comes along cheaper. You have a company like Iggy’s House that says, “we are going to prove to the world that we could choose the worst name possible and still get business as long as we are the cheapest” and poof, 50% of Redfin’s value proposition disappears in smoke.

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Note: I do not have either of these company’s in my Colorado Springs market, but I would be willing to pay to see a video of these two competing for the same listing against each other. I can just imagine a Redfin agent responding to the customer’s objection with, “yes, Mr. Seller, it is true that listing your home with us will cost you thousands more, but do you realize that Iggy’s House is a ‘quarter-service’ brokerage and we are ‘half-service’ brokerage… What is that extra quarter service worth to you?” That would be rich.

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I suggest that if Redfin would have instead taken the more challenging path and built a brand about value, then today they would already be a significant disrupter: bigger, more credible, and much more profitable. Redfin is by no means failing but I think they would be a battleship today had they chosen the harder right over the easier wrong.

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Comparing them to the leading brokerages, Redfin could have offered a very compelling value proposition. Their value could have been offering industry-leading technology and a different way of doing business which provides the customer with a higher-value level of service. Instead, their pitch is basically, “we’ll pay you to choose us.” …Yuck. If they wanted to charge less, they still could have by marketing higher value than lower cost. The number one agent in my market once told me as a new agent to never advertise on cost but “when you are in their living room, do what it takes to get the listing.” That has always stuck with me.

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To be frank, it’s not too late. Redfin could use some of their VC millions to “mature” their brand very quickly. The fact that they have penetrated so few markets by now would actually be an advantage to them in terms of changing their value proposition, message, and brand. In terms of technology innovation, they are already ahead of the leading brokerages so a internal renaissance now would allow them to stay ahead as they gain critical mass across new markets.

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You may wonder why a Real Living brokerage owner in Colorado Springs and the founder of Zolve would care about Redfin’s current direction. Okay a part of me feels a kinship to my fellow entrepreneurs who put it out there and make it happen. My wife and I are single-handedly working to keeping open a local deli that was opened by a retired couple with their life savings due to this odd compulsion. I hate to visualize Glenn Kelman looking in the mirror five years from now with tears in eyes, lamenting, “I coulda been a contender. I could have been a contender!”

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However, mostly it is out of frustration and good old-fashioned Generation-X anghst. I want something or somebody to shake our industry’s brokerage leaders into action. I am not talking about accepting and adopting new technologies; all of the leaders have open checkbooks and are on that bandwagon. I am talking about innovation and leadership. I have concluded that the only thing that will cause real change will be market-share loss.

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If for some crazy reason, Redfin takes my advice, I only ask in return that they stay out of Colorado Springs. However, if Redfin continues its present course with its current brand & business model, they are welcome to come join us… we have a pretty good Assist-to-Sell that you can give run for their money for that small minority in our city who is willing to trade time for money.

Today Zolve passed the 500 member mark with our pre-registration charter member campaign.

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Over 500 top real estate professionals across the country have said, to being a part of a top-tier professional network.

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Thank you and welcome!

Colonel (retired) Webb Kremer died on Friday, September 14th from cancer. This Vietnam veteran and career army man was the father of my best man and a close friend of the family. He was a great man and raised a great son who is now an FBI agent who risks his life tracking and arresting federal fugatives in the San Deigo area.

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When I learned about the passing, I called my friend that day with the anticipation that I would need to immediately call the airlines for short-term flight arrangments. However, my friend told me that the funeral would not be until November 27th. He anticipated my surprise and explained that this was due to many World War II veterans passing and because of Iraqi War deaths.

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This was a very sobering thought to me since I still know so many people who are in Baghdad right now. I think this realization was further aggravated by a newspaper article that I received from my friend, Marc Davison this week about a young kid from his neighborhood who was the only surviver of a vehicle accident that killed his 7 other squad-mates.

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This squad was returning to base from intense combat. I imagine that they were celebrating over their vehicle intercom system, and on an adrenaline rush only possible from surviving a pitched fight when it happened. To survive combat with terrorists only to not survive a tire blowout is hard for me to grasp. The article quoted the young hero as saying he was grateful and ready to live out whatever special purpose that he is obviously meant for.

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Learning about the 2.5 month wait for an Arlington funeral and about the lost squad of heroes, reminds me to maintain perspective. I do not leave the house anymore and skip a kiss and a hug with my wife and kids. Losing a listing, getting rejected, or forgetting an important deadline does not “stick” with me and give me anxiety like it used to. Finally, these types of things validate my and my wife’s decision to “go for it” with Zolve and invest ourselves fully in building something special, enduring, and good that we can be proud of at the end of the day.

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Brian