by Brian Brady
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
I think a little bit differently about marketing than Greg Swann does. Not much, but we’re of slightly different mindsets. I’m not scared to call a name a lead, a voice on the phone a prospect, a loan applicant a borrower, and a funded loan recipient a client. I KNOW they’re people because I’ve always treated them as people. I don’t need a rip off of a Nike ad to tell me that. Ain’t nuttin’ original about treating people who inquire about your services with respect; Sister Brigid taught me that back in 1972.
Greg and I think a bit differently about vendors, also. While Greg envisions a world without vendors, I see them as a necessary evil. My goal is to maximize the necessary (efficacy) while reducing the evil (money paid). The problem with the whole vendor/practitioner relationship is that practitioners are looking for the little purple pill; the shortcut. That’s what the charlatans prey upon.
We talked about this at Unchained. Mary McKnight taught us how the fish can find your bait, Louis Cammarosano gave us a demonstration about how to cast our nets, Steve Hundley taught us how to hook them, and Ron Cates taught us how to prepare them so that they’re edible. Moreover, David Gibbons taught us where the schools of fish are swimming so that you’re better prepared for the next big expedition.
All of them…”vendors”. Vendors inasmuch as they insert themselves in between the practitioner and the customer and get paid for it. They get paid for it because they deliver hungry people to your restaurant for less money than it would cost to do yourself.
Should Greg’s utopian prayer of zero acquisition cost be a virtue? Of course. We should all strive for utopia. His message, if I’m not mistaken, is that the brave new world is building pressure behind the dammed chokepoints so that the chokepoints have to evaluate their efficacy. The smart ones are evolving their models to increase their efficacy while the irrelevant proclaim that we practitioners are all idiots.
Wanna know how I know this? I watched them call you “glorified delivery people, gatherers and order takers“….unless you submit to their idea of how the customer/practitioner relationship should be. Now, the slight was meant for Greg as retribution for exposing their unoriginal thought but if you examine the content judiciously, you’ll discover that they perceive themselves to be the show- you’re just…a functionary. Kinda like the umpires who think they’re bigger than the players.
They threaten you with a “life relegated to cold calling and door knocking” if they didn’t exist. I submit (though it’s probably Inmanically Incorrect) that it would be well for you to do more of those activities, in this market, rather than to buy the next purple pill peddled by pernicuous pedagogues.
What I’m saying is that agents and originators are the craftsman and that vendors are (literally) tools. It was like that in Fred Flinstone’s day and it will be like that in George Jetson’s. Vendors are levers so pick them carefully. The good ones will help you get what you’ve always wanted; more money in less time. The dimmed watts will try to intimidate you with the threat of extinction.
Will we continue to expose these charlatans for what they are? Ya damn skippy, we will. We’re interested in helping people like us; grunts on the front lines. We want to help you serve more people, make more money, and have more free time. If you’re an agent or originator, we’ll give you the straight poop about vendors. If you’re a vendor, come on in and demonstrate your value- if you have it, we’ll do the selling for you.
P.S.- There are some very bright bulbs on Bloodhound. If you’re a vendor who intends to ridicule our very existence, we’ll out you for the (useless) tools that you are.
Greg Swann says:
> While Greg envisions a world without vendors…
I would add the word “predatory”:
While Greg envisions a world without [predatory] vendors…
A significant number of my posts consist of favorable reviews of vendors. I have raved about Obeo.com, for example, because they gave us our long-cherished dream of virtual remodeling.
I have no objection to paying for value — although in the long run in the Web 2.0 world, prices should trend toward their commodity level. You can see this happening with Trulia.com in relation to Realtor.com. They’re essentially the same product, but Trulia is cheap-and-getting-remarkably-cheaper.
My objection is to:
Ah, but you knew all that.
> We’re interested in helping people like us; grunts on the front lines. We want to help you serve more people, make more money, and have more free time. If you’re an agent or originator, we’ll give you the straight poop about vendors. If you’re a vendor, come on in and demonstrate your value- if you have it, we’ll do the selling for you.
Damned straight, straight down the line.
BloodhoundBlog is six days from being two years old, and this post is a great way to begin the celebration.
June 23, 2008 — 4:48 pm
Mike Farmer says:
Yes, this is a good post; it succinctly expresses everything I believe about vendors. And those who think we would be barefoot and barbaric without “them” are already yesterday’s news.
There are many “thems” out there and they either understand us and meet our needs or they are useless hucksters, suffering from delusions of grandeur.
June 23, 2008 — 5:36 pm
Tom Vanderwell says:
There are many “thems” out there and they either understand us and meet our needs or they are useless hucksters, suffering from delusions of grandeur.
Unfortunately, most of them are useless hucksters. I look forward to the continued weeding out of the hucksters and the thriving of those who provide value. Value to Realtors, value to consumers, value to lenders.
Once again, do the right thing no matter what. Easy to say, hard to do, a motto to live by.
Tom
June 23, 2008 — 5:44 pm
Thomas Johnson says:
Value of vendors is local as well. Here is what I have been working on. The vaunted public facing HAR.com, (a billion hits a month, at those numbers, uniques must be fairly good) has interesting handcuffs. No agent feeds allowed-you have to frame the public site. The HAR IDX does not include sold data at the property level, because TX is a non disclosure state. Sales prices are not for public display. I have identified a vendor that can create a capture page for those that want to know sold data in a given area. I am allergic to spending money, but this idea is rattling around in my brain- use the vendor data linked to aggressive Zestifarming and viola- the data that everyone wants (real comps) offered up to those people in my computer who are interested in my Zestifarm on a regular opt in basis. Seek me out, let me know were my machine can send you what you want, and I will deliver it.
I think this tactic would have at least two years if the TX legislature decided to make sold data public in the next session. If not, I would get a full five years. The vendor sold data/packaging is costly enough that it should discourage too much competition.
June 23, 2008 — 6:16 pm
Brian Brady says:
“BloodhoundBlog is six days from being two years old, and this post is a great way to begin the celebration.”
I forgot about that. What a year in review we have coming up for the weekend of the fourth
June 23, 2008 — 7:05 pm
Tom Vanderwell says:
I was going to turn my computer off for the weekend of the fourth. Now, I think I’ll have to leave it on. I hope my wife doesn’t get mad!
Thanks guys!
Tom
June 23, 2008 — 7:41 pm
Louis Cammarosano says:
Brian
“damned skippy” Is that a philly phrase?-I’ve never heard of it.
@Mike
“they either understand us and meet our needs or they are useless hucksters, suffering from delusions of grandeur.”
Agreed Mike-that goes for ANY vendor, whether it be the seller of leads,the seller of conference passes or instructional DVDs, or the purveyors of software.
Vendors either meet the needs of agents or they get driven from the business.
June 23, 2008 — 7:54 pm
Brian Brady says:
“Vendors either meet the needs of agents or they get driven from the business.”
Damn skippy.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=damn+skippy
June 23, 2008 — 8:19 pm
Mark Eckenrode says:
nice post, brad. i originally came across this conversation of on Mike Farmer’s blog and want to share some thoughts…
many vendors feed from both sides of the fence
“you want a realtor? well, you don’t want to get stuck with one of those that don’t know what they’re doing. only the best ones are verified by our site. come to us…”
“you want clients? you really can’t get good leads because they haven’t been properly screened by us and qualified as a good lead. come to us and we’ll make sure you can succeed”
this is how many of these vendors insert themselves between the agent and the consumer. they’ve created a space for themselves as the middleman… as the client broker.
look, realtors have been doing business for years without these vendors but the more agents buy into this restructured business model they’re cutting themselves off at the knees.
vendors that subscribe to these business practices are nothing more than scavengers in sheep clothing – looking to profit off of the sweat of the real professional.
this happened because many of these vendors were at the forefront of technology before most realtors and have done a good job of cutting their slice of the pie.
does it need to stay this way? oh, hell no.
from my seat, the surest way to fight against vendor predation is for the agent to entrench themselves in a niche market… the vendor can play with the mass public but they’ll never be able to infiltrate a niche market the way a guerrilla realtor can. never.
June 23, 2008 — 8:22 pm
Brad Coy says:
> We’re interested in helping people like us; grunts on the front lines. We want to help you serve more people, make more money, and have more free time. If you’re an agent or originator, we’ll give you the straight poop about vendors. If you’re a vendor, come on in and demonstrate your value- if you have it, we’ll do the selling for you.
Thank you Brian. It feels good to be empowered.
As long and hard as my day is I don’t ever want to be slicked talked to again ever. If that’s to much to ask for then keep dialing for dollars. [I’m not the one]
I have seen agent get majorly screwed by predatory vendors. At the height of the market and with burgeoning technology the ignorance of the masses in our industry were BENT over. With the changing markets and attrition on the rise agents will again get desperate for a purple pill (more bending over.) I long for the day when the silly high dollar “solutions” are non-existent.
I hope that more and more agents, originators, and those we can call partners of the next level of the game are reading, cause I know they are contributing here.
Knowledge is power. Keep bringing it!
June 23, 2008 — 11:38 pm
Bawldguy Talking says:
My son and I have been what some might call overly vigilant when it’s come to vendors. This year we’ve opted for one vendor’s product, not yet installed. Next month we’ll be using another.
It takes us probably too long to weave our way through the process of tasting the different Kool-Aid recipes, but sadly, we have been bent over the bar ourselves. You’d think with the experience I bring to the table, that wouldn’t happen, but we all choose badly at times.
I can confidently say if there’d been a BloodhoundBlog back then, that bar and I wouldn’t be so well acquainted. 🙂
June 24, 2008 — 12:37 am
Susan M says:
Brian,
I know of many real estate agents who have had great success with lead managers. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
I’ll admit it though, it makes me mad when one takes one of my search terms and bumps me down a notch 😉
Many of the lead generators have for lack of better terms, screwed a lot of agents and that, unfortunately has created this mentality that they are all bad.
I am all for paying for help and using GREAT vendors. I’ll use a website developer, get seo help, etc. I am still out to lunch on the whole ‘buying a lead’ concept though.
June 24, 2008 — 4:45 am
Mark Eckenrode says:
predatory vendors in real estate are like spammers in email marketing. they pollute the industry and tend to scream loudest amongst those that are truly valid. thing is, so long as people keep giving them money and clicking their links, they’ll keep doing what they’re doing.
now, in a different direction:
one thing i always do whenever i become emotionally charged and motivated is to reflect the question back onto myself, if only for a perspective shift: how prevalent do you feel this similar attitude exists amongst consumers regarding agents?
June 24, 2008 — 3:30 pm
Brian Brady says:
Good question, Mark. I’ll follow it up with a few:
1) Are agents and/or originators adopting a smug attitude that suggests that a consumer can’t live without them? If so, then the consumer should be as irritated with us as I was with predatory vendors.
2) Will agents/originators who demonstrate value to the consumer, be it guidance, education or advice prevail like the “good” marketing vendors? I think the answer to that is yes.
Good agents and good vendors add value. Jerks presume that we can’t live without them.
June 24, 2008 — 4:05 pm
Brad Coy says:
@Mark
I’m not feeling so emotionally charged about the topic, but I will answer the question anyway.
>how prevalent do you feel this similar attitude exists amongst consumers regarding agents?
Very. It does not take much awareness at all to know you’re getting looked at up and down like a used-car salesman all the time. I’ve sat in the lobby’s of high-rise buildings during open houses with several agents, most of which feed insecurly on every single soul that walks through the door in the most Darwinian manner. (to put it nicely) 🙂
A huge paradigm shift needs to happen in this industry as we all know. I think most posting here are far ahead of the curve. The shake out will be celebrated with a greater understanding of what it means to actually be of service to your clients needs, which have been shifted as well. The negative attitude towards RE professionals has a long way to go to be repaired. That’s why I’m all for breaking the mould all together and furthermore why I read and contribute to BHB.
From the new side-bar up top: “We are committed to an idea of excellence that will flush the bums, the con-men and the crybabies out of the real estate industry.”
I think this means “agents” as well.
I have an idea that
June 24, 2008 — 4:05 pm