There’s always something to howl about.

Month: January 2010 (page 3 of 4)

Vendorsluts, Foundations And Articles Of Faith

Why are we in business?  Why are we doing anything.  A company that is just in business to make a buck is as compelling as a man that’s just alive to eat his next meal.  I heard horror stories–from the guy that paid $20,000 for a web design only to find that the designer retained copyright–to a guy that was unable to cancel a monthly fee after months of trying.   When I started getting beyond “helping people sell stuff,” and getting to the big damn “why” question, I found myself carving a different spot from other folks.  I want to be better (not just different).

BloodHound s have a meme.  There are lots of parts to it, and I don’t know ’em all (and probably don’t agree with everything, either).

So, together with Ian, we came up with a meme.  My company is called Flat Rate Web Jobs, and we are Flatties.

What flatties believe:

We believe in accountability.  Everything we provide has a 100% money back, “no dirty looks” guarantee.

We believe you are in charge of everything.  You own the copyright on all of the work we do for you, and you can use our work however you see fit.

We believe you must measure ROI in social media.  Everything we offer helps you increase your return.

We believe in adding to everything we touch.
We believe you should understand exactly what you’re buying, what your benefits are, and when to next steps will take place.

We believe in small businesses, salespeople and professionals.  It is our honor to serve you.

We believe it’s our duty to put our customer’s interests first.

We don’t believe in fads.  We don’t try to make a quick buck on buzz.

We believe in including more than you thought you paid for, every time.

We believe independent thinkers create the best work.

So, that’s my company.  We currently have a decent array of products we sell.  The point is the “we’ve got your back,” ethos that I love.

The point is that we’re different.  All people are invited to come figure out why–I’m doing a free “hands on” webinar on how you can make boss google around and Read more

Unchaining a Bloodhound Pup

It’s funny, I am almost never at a loss for words. I have an opinion on just about any topic and am usually a passionate conversationalist….but put me in the yard with the Big Dogs and I’m feeling a little puppyish (you’ll find that I like to make up words).

To introduce myself I want to tell you about the path that led me here.  I found BHB right as things started to really get hairy in the third and fourth quarter of 2007.

I have to admit I had trouble understanding much of what I read here about technology, SEO and Greg’s passionate dissertations that seemed like they were written in Greek (come to think of it, maybe it was Latin).

I could not resist being drawn to this incredible community of creative, innovative and free thinking professionals sharing openly their trials and their triumphs as they searched for answers when we really didn’t know exactly what the questions were, or what they would be.  It was a true mastermind of master minds.

When I found out about Bloodhound Unchained in 2008 I spent every cent that I had to buy a plane ticket and book a seedy hotel to be there.  I still remember, the cheapest hotel I could find was about a mile and a half from the Heard Museum.  I grew up on a farm in Michigan and figured “a mile and a half, no problem – i can do that in my sleep!”…and I don’t recall any mention on the announcement for Unchained about Arizona heat.  Even in April it was about 109 degrees!

So I showed up every day, lugging my $300 Fry’s laptop that someone lent me the money for, soaking wet, looking like I swam to the event like that dumb Michael Phelps Subway commercial they keep playing during the football playoff games.

I had already read about, and implemented fully without completely understanding,  long tail SEO strategies posted by Greg on the blog.  I was almost blinded by the innovation in the conference and found solace at a time when everything seems like an uphill battle….we’re talking Everest Read more

What is the Apple “tablet” computer going to look like?

Some semi-informed speculation from the Financial Times:

The name and functions of the new machine are not known, but intense speculation and leaks from component manufacturers and business allies have pointed to a number of expected characteristics.

The consensus is that the tablet will have a large screen, perhaps 10 inches on the diagonal, and run the same operating system as the iPhone and iPod, as opposed to the Mac computers.

That means that it would be able to handle many of the more than 100,000 applications – or apps – that are designed to run on the smaller gadgets. A touchscreen would be a significant feature.

Video game manufacturers expect the device to have strong appeal for their audience.

The iPhone and iPod are already challenging portable products from Sony and other console makers as popular gaming devices.

Among the big unanswered questions are what internet connectivity will come with the tablet and what other forms of entertainment it will provide.

Apple has been in discussions with cable network channels about carrying bundles of video for a monthly fee.

Book and magazine publishers, meanwhile, have been hoping that Apple might enliven their electronic formats.

Time Warner recently showed off a conceptual version of an electronic, full-colour Sports Illustrated magazine that allowed for fast-flipping, zooming and other functions in need of support from new hardware.

Don’t Vook now, but dedicated device makers might want to slash prices on standing inventory — and cancel those reorders. AT&T told us yesterday that they’re going to be in the game, so figure 3/3.5/4G wireless plus Wi-Fi. This is going to rock.

Adding two hounds to the pound: Introducing Harry Bisel and Scott Schang

As promised, I’m adding two new writers to our pack today.

Scott Schang is a long-time contributor to our comments threads. Scott has come to both of the BloodhoundBlog Unchained events held in Phoenix, and he may be the best success story to come of Unchained so far. Scott has devoted his attentions to honing his prospecting and conversion systems, and he’ll be talking to us about that and more.

Harry Bisel has led a rich, full life. A commercial photographer who made the shift into real estate, and then shifted aback out into real estate photography. Harry’s photos are simply breathtaking, awe-inspiring, everything real estate photography should be.

Both of these gentleman have a ton to teach us. I’m delighted to have them writing with us.

What does “information wants to be free” really mean? It doesn’t matter how long you spent making that mudpie, it’s worth nothing to me.

Reflecting on Jeff Brown’s post on economics, which in turn referenced an argument by Malcolm Galdwell, I made a short movie explicating the meme “information wants to be free.”

Cliff’s Notes: When a market good is so redundantly abundant as to be, essentially, ubiquitous and unavoidable, its market price will tend to plummet to zero. It doesn’t matter what the sellers of those goods might want to earn. All that matters, in this context, is what buyers are willing to pay. If the discounted probability of procuring an acceptable alternative is very high, then the price will tend to be very low.

Ordinary information is ubiquitous and unavoidable, and, therefore, the market price it can command is effectively zero. What the sellers or anyone else thinks about that is irrelevant. I have no reason to pay even a penny to you if I can get “just as good” next door for free.

That in turn references the very first post I wrote for BloodhoundBlog:

If almost-as-good is free or nearly free, what is the market value of slightly-better?

The answer? Almost always zero.

In the clip I talk about the difference in the paywalls of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Ironically enough, there comes news this morning that the Times plans to finish off its slow suicide with yet another tilt at a paywall. Much good may it do them.

Here’s the video:

Google’s Challenge to China’s Communist Party

Google’s 2006 decision to enter the Chinese market on the Chinese government’s terms, which include censorship, is often held up as the symbolic moment when its mantra of “Don’t be evil” conflicted  with a hard business reality. In the end, pragmatic capitalism won out over principle, and Google.CN was launched.

Google’s rationalization that censored access to Google was better for the Chinese than no access to Google has always rung hollow to me. “Don’t be evil unless it is going to give competitors an edge in the world’s biggest market” still has “Don’t be evil” in it, but slippery slopes are paved with caveats. With that decision, Google merged off of the high road, joining the rest of the multinationals on the highway to the Chinese market.

Now, the Chinese government has turned its significant cyber warfare skills, honed by years of attacking US government and military networks, on Google in order to track dissidents and critics.

Google has,  surprisingly and righteously, reacted like Ralphie towards the end of A Christmas Story. The company wheeled around on the bully Chinese government and boldly defended itself by publicly stating that the Chinese governement is a hacker, and that censorship is wrong. It looks like they may well take the Google-logo colored exercise balls strewn across their Chinese operation and go home.

Cynics have pointed out that Chinese Internet users don’t engage in a lot of eCommerce so Google may be taking the opportunity to abandon a drain on its resources while repairing some of the PR damage its decision to go into China caused in the first place.

I doubt it. The lure of the sheer size of that market is still very strong. Last year Chinese consumers bought more cars than American consumers, and you don’t hear Microsoft (whose decision to grant the Chinese government access to Windows source code is the genesis of the Chinese cyber warfare program) talking about pulling out.

Chinese consumers are following the American consumer’s trajectory but with the huge booster of digital technology and our map:  Today, they are hooked on the freedom of the automobile the way we were in Read more

Internet Conversion For The Real Estate Solopreneur

Renee Burrows is a real estate agent in Las Vegas whom I respect.  I met Renee through Active Rain and have visited with her and her family when they visit Pacific Beach in the summers.  I’ve watched her develop from an agent who was struggling with the down Vegas market into a transaction machine, putting buyers into homes in the Valley of Fire.

Renee shared her internet conversion system, written when she was building a “team”, behind the Members’ Only wall on Active Rain.  What was interesting to me is that Renee eschewed the “team” approach for a referral-based system.  She reduced her fixed costs and has the flexibility to refer buyers to agents whom “buy-in” to her servicing system.  If business slows down, Renee handles the buyers herself.

I liked the fact that she chose ubiquity by syndicating her blog posts and listings to over 100 sources on the internet.  Renee writes a lot of time-sensitive market reports so I think ubiquity trumps the fear of being penalized by the SERPS for potential duplicate content:

You have to be an internet  marketing generation machine (or have a department) to start having the leads filter in to you!   I have my hands in so many cookie jars:  craigslist, point 2 agent, active rain + outside blog (both syndicated to numerous sources and by numerous I mean 100-200, not 10-20,)  facebook, twitter, print (flyers, business cards, postcards, door knocking, etc.)  Now I don’t own major Las Vegas NV SEO keywords, but I do own quite a bit of long tail real estate (you get higher quality leads this way!)

Marketing to the masses can produce “wasteful” contact and Renee has installed a few “fences” for prospective customers to hop:

Since I have a good number of leads coming in, they come in several ways:  phone and email.  I use a good spam filter to filter out the spam (of course) and it requires a verification code to be entered for me to receive the email in my inbox.  I also use an evoice receptionist that allows me to create separate extensions and it allows up to three phone numbers Read more

Were Pat Robertson and Danny Glover separated at birth?

Click the pix.

The people of Haiti may not have food, clean water, fuel, homes, medical supplies or physical security, but at least they suffer no shortage of venal, vile, self-serving, posturing ghouls feeding on the festering carcasses of the dead and riding high-horseback on the wracked bodies of the living.

We flick around with the remote control, looking for thrilling dramas featuring ravenous, blood-thirsty vampires, not knowing, all the while, that that kind of “entertainment” is best found on the all-news channels.

But derision and contempt will only get you so far. If you cling to the outdated, irrational belief that earthquakes are caused by tectonic forces, put your shoulder beside Tom Vanderwell’s and do something good for people who desperately need your help.

2010 Mortgage Broker Renaissance

Is the business of broking mortgage loans dead?  About two years ago, Morgan Brown predicted our demise on Blown Mortgage.  His conclusion was that the industry would need a scapegoat for the poor lending practices and that “blaming” mortgage brokers was convenient (and not necessarily fair).  His conclusion suggested that the big lenders were trying to gobble up market share to the detriment of the consumer.

Morgan predicted that the brunt of the regulatory changes would be aimed squarely at the mortgage broker; he was correct.  He predicted that the big lenders would tighten up their standards and practices in the wholesale lending channel; he was correct.

That scheme backfired on the big banks. Congress is really pissed that they haven’t been doing more with the TARP funds federal largesse to make loans and they are coming down hard on whom President Obama calls the “fat cat bankers on Wall Street”.

Bawld Guy AxiomLenders Lend

Brady Corollary: Lenders lend unless it’s more profitable to do something else.

Government-subsidies proved that in 2009.  The TARP funds allowed big banks to borrow money at a ridiculously low cost-of funds.  The government guarantee on all agency products indemnified those big banks from losses.  Essentially, the big banks could buy their product  (a dollar) for $1.01 and sell it for $1.05; that’s a 500% markup and a helluva business.  It would be natural for them to “crowd out” mortgage brokers, through poor pricing and horrible service, to benefit their retail lending channel.

Here’s what those big banks didn’t expect:  public outrage over bonus pay and a proposed “windfall profits tax” on their guaranteed profits.  While I hate excessive government interference, you gotta wonder why the bankers thought they could get paid like Gordon Gekko as wards of the Government.  One would think they’d lay low at a GS-15 salary, for a year or two, after they repaid the TARP money.

The profits party is over for bankers and now they have to EARN those bonuses.

Guess what they’re doing?  They’ve turned to mortgage brokers again as a viable loan delivery channel. How do I know this?  The biggest banks (Bank Read more

Let’s have a RE.net birthday party!

I know Teri is really busy today. But busy never stopped this crew from having a party!

Happy Birthday Teri!


 

Work hard-Play hard. Now back to work. This video was created at Animoto. Last year when our last listing sold, I terminated our visual tour account because the video upload for You Tube took forever to render and it cost $30/month. Animoto costs $30/yr. I grabbed the thumbnails from the sidebar for our party hounds. Animoto takes about 20 min to render the embed code, but they send you an email when it is ready and you can start another while you wait. They have freemium option that gives you a 90 sec. clip from your photos. Give it a try

I hope you enjoyed the party. Happy Birthday Teri!

All of the Best Features of Top Producer…for $100

Digital Access Pass…is amazing.  What it’s doing and where it’s going requires a good bit of configuration. But, if you’re E-only, and do more email than other stuff, it’s the way to go. I’ve got no skin in that game, other than my desire to see Ravi get really good at this.

For a basic CRM and a way to have a “gated WordPress Comunity” dap does a lot. It’s not perfect, but it’s got (now) an aweber forms parser and other things that are allowing and extending its functionality.

Dap Ain’t user friendly, quite. It requires a brain to use. It requires a commitment to THINK in advance.

Anyway, here’s an idea I did. I made this for Ravi because he is worth helping, and promoting his stuff is important to me. I want him to win….so his software can help my business.

Some Ideas For Unchained…Or…I’ll kick Your Asymptote.

Perfect never happens, and it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pursue it.

I am better than I was six months ago by a wide margin.  I’ll be better in six months by a wider margin, I hope.  I’m hoping that I improve at an improving rate.  I work hard to do so.  The silly math is that if you improve your efficacy by 1% each day then you double every 68 days or whatever.  Every year then you’d through five cycles and then be 2*2*2*2*2 better.   Nice theory, but it doesn’t happen that way.   Google grains of rice and chessboard.

You CAN however improve a bunch, and have times where you are like Neo.

My focus is on lead generation.  I’m good at it, and getting better.  I’ve learned bigger gains are made in other areas, but lead generation is still what I like because we gravitate to what we’re good at.  But that’s not the only area where we can get good.  Lead gen rocks because I like getting leads that are above average.  Nobody has time to sift through morons, but anyone has time to deal with motivated and interested buyers.  That’s why Search.Twitter.com is such a beautiful breeding ground.

Anyway, here’s a fun idea.

What’s the best customer experience for a loan process?

What’s the best possible customer experience for a Real Estate Sale?

For a contract negotiation?

For a listing?

What wows?  Author # 8 touched on this a while ago.  You create the perfect experience from the buyer’s perspective.

How long they’ll take.

How much they’ll know.

You make it customer focused, high touch and high tech.   And you make it utterly destructive to all of your competition.  Make it so much better than it anything that exists from the knowledge the buyer gets to the resposnsiblity you take.  Widen the gap with things that make people feel better…even if most of the effort isn’t used.

Let’s design the best experience possible.

And then, let’s figure out how to deliver it with modern tools.

After we’ve done that, let’s figure out what the most critical and different elements are. And let’s focus on building an experience with today’s tools that delivers that…level Read more

Using Social Media to Help In Haiti…..

I wasn’t going to put anything up on here, but a very gracious e-mail from Greg Swann encouraged me to lay out my experiences over the last 24 hours and how we can use social media not only to further our businesses but more importantly in dark times like this, we can use them to do good for those who are much less fortunate than us.

For the last 22 hours and 15 minutes (with the exception of a 2 1/2 hour nap around 4:00 this morning,) I’ve been using social media to help in Haiti. Let me explain:

  • As many of you know, my wife and I adopted our two youngest children from Haiti in the summer of 2004. We’ve remained very involved with the orphanage that we adopted them from, God’s Littlest Angels, which is in Petionville Haiti.
  • I’ve been on the board for the orphanage since 2006 and every year since 2003 (with the exception of 2005), at least one of our family has been back down there on a mission trip to help out. My 20 year old has decided to devote her life to third world medical missions, almost certainly in Haiti.
  • Throughout those experiences, I’ve developed a pretty extensive network of people around, literally, the world who have connections to Haiti. Most of those are Facebook Friends.
  • In addition to that, I’ve developed a pretty extensive network of online friends in the real estate and lending communities literally all across the country. If you consider Seattle to Miami to be all across the country, I think I’ve got it covered.

Yesterday, those two worlds met and it’s been truly a mindblowing experience. Let me explain:

  • At 5:15 pm, I got a tweet across tweetdeck that was from @latimes (I use that as one of my news sources). It talked about a massive earthquake in Haiti, near Port Au Prince.
  • I immediately hopped on AIM and talked to God’s Littlest Angels stateside coordinator and confirmed that the orphanage was affected but that the damage appeared minor and everyone was safe.
  • I then spent the next several hours e-mailing, facebooking, twittering and IM’ng with people all Read more

The Physics of Economics Will Not Be Mocked – Just Ask YouTube

Don’t know about you, but I’m sick to death of all the propaganda about Free being the future of ideas. Really? Let’s take that to the extreme. Ideas should be free for the asking? Not in my world. But if you listen to all the utopian crack smokers pontificating while enjoying their afternoon expressos at the local Ivory Tower Starbucks, they’ll tell ya — and I swear I’m not making’ this up — you’ve seen it everywhere — ‘information wants to be free’. Information doesn’t want anything. Duh. Folks who don’t/won’t/can’t come up with new ideas/information — they want information to be free.

Allow me a major, albeit, related detour. I promise it’ll swerve back to the whole concept of Free. I’m reading one of the best books I’ve come across in quite some time. Outliers, written by Malcolm Gladwell. In it, among other things, he gives some astounding examples of what he empirically proves are totally erroneous conclusions based upon false assumptions. These false conclusions are then ‘proven’ by future results. In other words, horrible analysis produced WAY wrong conclusions, which were then proven ‘correct’ years later. Confusing? Here’s an example I lived in real time.

Gladwell talked about this in his book, though he chose youth hockey as an example. Their system mirrors Little League exactly. We all know how Little League works. The kids are kept within their own ages more or less, so as to keep things on as even a keel as possible. When it comes time to pick All-Star teams, performance, merit if you will, is the criteria. It’s been the same since before I was born. It’s also been universally accepted as the best system. Why? They simply point to the kids they chose as ‘the elite’. As they grew older, a percentage became stars in high school. From there, some went to college and thrived at that level. Some eventually became Major League players. How much proof do we need, right? Those not chosen didn’t amount to a hill of beans for the most part.

Wrong, analyst breath. The entire theory is built Read more