Here’s my final evaluation of the StarPower Conference in four short words: I didn’t hate it. The intellectual content of the thing was oversold by a hefty percentage, and virtually everything in the curriculum was an upsell for something else. We were entreated all week to gather “pearls” from the presentations, but the best I was able to come home with are grains of sand from which we will craft pearls of our own. The event was stage-managed with precision and flair, although a little cheerleading goes a long way with me.<\/p>\n
This post is largely a critique. In the coming weeks, I want to detail some of the pearls Cathy and I will be assembling around the gritty sand we brought home. Here I want to enumerate what I considered to be important defects in the StarPower Conference. I don’t know that this will do anyone any good. Most of the companies I take on seem not to spring into action to address my concerns. But I find myself taking an anti-vendor position again and again, and my four days at StarPower served only to reinforce that redoubt.<\/p>\n
However: I think it’s important to note that the StarPower organization is not unique in exhibiting the defects I will catalog, nor does it come even close to being the worst specimen of the milk-the-Realtor industry. I could have wished for a lot more — and more-rigorous — information in exchange for my time and money, but I did not come away empty-handed, and I may yet succumb to one of this week’s incessant upsells.<\/p>\n
First, with a couple of exceptions, StarPower is stuck at about 1999. Web sites, lots of web sites, all of them static, almost all of them templated, most of them mindlessly mimicking the me-me-me meme. There is weblogging, sort of, substantially worse than what I’ve been bitching about<\/a> and yet utterly invisible to Technorati and the Googlesphere. In the StarPower universe, there is no Web 2.0, nor any derivative implications of Web 2.0. I heard the words “long tail” out of my own mouth only. This thing that we do Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here’s my final evaluation of the StarPower Conference in four short words: I didn’t hate it. The intellectual content of the thing was oversold by a hefty percentage, and virtually everything in the curriculum was an upsell for something else. We were entreated all week to gather “pearls” from the presentations, but the best I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-marketing","7":"category-real-estate","9":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1715,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1715\/black-pearls-custom-directional-signs-can-draw-buyers-to-your-listings-and-make-your-listings-seem-to-multiply\/","url_meta":{"origin":1712,"position":0},"title":"Black Pearls: Custom directional signs can draw buyers to your listings — and make your listings seem to multiply","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, here's a Black Pearl made from sandy irritants we picked up at the StarPower Conference. First, one of the Stars is making custom signs featuring photographs of the listed home. I've been writing about custom yard signs for more than a year now, but, so far, I haven't heard\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1753,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1753\/black-pearls-two-practical-uses-for-video-in-real-estate-marketing\/","url_meta":{"origin":1712,"position":1},"title":"Black Pearls: Two practical uses for video in real estate marketing","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 6, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Someday soon I'm going to write a post with a title like \"Why all available real estate video solutions suck eggs.\" Here's the one-word summary as a teaser: Bandwidth. In the mean time, here are two ways of using video in real estate marketing that are actually useful and practical\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1286,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1286\/russell-shaw-at-the-starpower-summit-what-the-hell-are-you-thinking\/","url_meta":{"origin":1712,"position":2},"title":"Russell Shaw at the StarPower Summit: “What the hell are you thinking?”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"As promised, appended below is an audio podcast of Russell Shaw's performance two weeks ago at the StarPower Summit in Phoenix. Russell is talking about pricing homes in a buyer's market, and it might be worthwhile to share this podcast with your listing clients to help them understand the marketplace.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1694,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1694\/first-the-starpower-conference-in-phoenix-then-inman-connect-in-san-francisco-posting-frequency-may-be-down-for-a-little-while\/","url_meta":{"origin":1712,"position":3},"title":"First the Starpower Conference in Phoenix, then Inman Connect in San Francisco: Posting frequency may be down for a little while","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Starting tomorrow and running through Saturday, Cathy and I will be at the Starpower Conference. Russell Shaw is one of the Stars, so he'll be there as well. I may write about some of what transpires there, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if my output is curtailed. Almost\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1705,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1705\/from-the-starpower-conference-reasons-for-optimism-in-the-current-real-estate-climate\/","url_meta":{"origin":1712,"position":4},"title":"From the StarPower Conference: Reasons for optimism in the current real estate climate","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"From Howard Brinton's closing remarks tonight at the StarPower Conference, here are Gregg Neuman's Top Ten Reasons for Optimism:10. 3,600 fewer agents in my market \u00a0\u00a09. Downward pressure on commissions is gone \u00a0\u00a08. Developers\/builders welcoming us again \u00a0\u00a07. Discount brokerages vanishing \u00a0\u00a06. FSBOs are extinct or nearly so \u00a0\u00a05. Foreclosure\/short\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1699,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1699\/testing-the-starpower-premise-is-success-contagious\/","url_meta":{"origin":1712,"position":5},"title":"Testing the StarPower premise: Is success contagious?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 25, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A tuxedoed Russell Shaw holds forth at the newcomer's reception at tonight's opening session of the StarPower Conference. An important principle of the StarPower method is the idea that success is contagious, that highly-motivated Realtors can hoist themselves to the next level not just by learning new skills and techniques,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}