{"id":2025,"date":"2007-10-11T08:39:10","date_gmt":"2007-10-11T15:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=2025"},"modified":"2007-10-11T09:05:09","modified_gmt":"2007-10-11T16:05:09","slug":"third-party-vendors-pick-up-where-the-nar-leaves-off-milking-the-realtors-dry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2025\/third-party-vendors-pick-up-where-the-nar-leaves-off-milking-the-realtors-dry\/","title":{"rendered":"Third-party vendors pick up where the NAR leaves off: Milking the Realtors dry"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Milk the Realtors week on the RE.net — with the shilling appeals for useless new “solutions” getting pretty close to actual sleaze — so I wanted to revisit a couple of themes we’ve hit before. Inherent in the Web 2.0 idea is a de-verticalization of real estate marketing. Big-budget interruption marketing doesn’t work, but intimate viral marketing does. Because of the Web 2.0 revolution, Realtors are free — at last — to control their own marketing — and their own costs.<\/p>\n

“So,” say the shills and wannabe shills, “how can we cash in on that?” And the result is the Web 2.0 industry for Realtors: Vertical-market weblog vendors and vertical-market social marketing schemes.<\/p>\n

Here’s a hint: You don’t need to pay someone money to “network” for referrals and agents to refer business to. All you need to do is network. If you’re paying attention to the RE.net, you already know three agents in every town in North America.<\/p>\n

Here’s another hint: There is no such thing as an interesting<\/i> amalgamation of hyper-local real estate weblogs. A hyper-local weblog is interesting because it’s hyper-local. Combining eight hyper-local weblogs is seven-eighths boring to every possible reader — as boring as the “Neighborhoods” section of the local newspaper, but harder to slog through.<\/p>\n

You don’t<\/i> need vendors to control your marketing, and getting in bed with vendors is potentially disastrous. These are my three simple rules for dealing with technology vendors:<\/a><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Avoid hosted software systems<\/b>
    For dedicated web site vendors, dedicated weblog vendors, dedicated virtual or video tour vendors, dedicated customer relationship management vendors, the money is in the blades — the monthly hosting fees — not the razor, the ostensible product. The initial outlay might be steep enough, but the gravy comes from taking money from you month after month for “services” for which the added incremental costs are almost nothing. Okayfine. Everybody’s gotta eat. The trouble with hosted software systems is not the pricing but, rather, who owns the data and what happens to it when you elect to take your business elsewhere. Is your data yours to take with you? Worse, is your confidential information truly     Read more<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It’s Milk the Realtors week on the RE.net — with the shilling appeals for useless new “solutions” getting pretty close to actual sleaze — so I wanted to revisit a couple of themes we’ve hit before. Inherent in the Web 2.0 idea is a de-verticalization of real estate marketing. Big-budget interruption marketing doesn’t work, but […]<\/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":[3,6,5,19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-marketing","8":"category-real-estate","9":"category-technology","11":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":124,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/124\/apprehending-realtor-20-seven-essential-skills-of-the-21st-century-agent\/","url_meta":{"origin":2025,"position":0},"title":"Apprehending\u00a0Realtor 2.0: Seven essential skills of the 21st century real estate agent . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"[Russell Shaw taught a symposium today in Phoenix on Geographic Farming. Cathy and I were there, and Russell was sweet enough to give a plug to BloodhoundBlog Unchained. At the break, I was swarmed by people wanting more information on Social Media Marketing, especially weblogging -- most regretting that they\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":2234,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2234\/nar-convention-convocation-we-live-in-a-small-world-for-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":2025,"position":1},"title":"NAR Convention convocation: We live in a small world — for now","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"There are 1.3 million members of the National Association of Realtors. Of those, 30,000 descended on Las Vegas for last week's NAR Convention. How many of those people, either the larger group or the smaller, know about our world, the world of Web 2.0, real estate weblogging, social networking --\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":8332,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/8332\/the-goal-of-the-bloodhoundblog-unchained-training-conference-is-to-push-the-bums-out-of-the-real-estate-business\/","url_meta":{"origin":2025,"position":2},"title":"The goal of the BloodhoundBlog Unchained training conference is to push the bums out of the real estate business","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): We publish a national real estate industry weblog called BloodhoundBlog.com. There are 42 contributors from all over the country, each one an expert in his or her own right. Together we talk about real estate marketing and technology, lending and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flourishing"","block_context":{"text":"Flourishing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/flourishing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":97,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/97\/kicking-and-screaming-the-revision-cycle-that-will-lead-to-realtor-20\/","url_meta":{"origin":2025,"position":3},"title":"Kicking and screaming?: The revision cycle that will lead to Realtor 2.0…","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 17, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The Council of Residential Specialists is running a Promotional Materials Contest for CRS designees:Great promotional materials and a solid marketing plan lead to better name recognition, more clients and a better bottom line for your business. They can also lead to great cash prizes and peer recognition when you sign\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":3032,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3032\/the-unchained-epiphany-working-in-the-web-20-world-is-not-mastery-of-technology-but-the-celebration-of-your-own-independence\/","url_meta":{"origin":2025,"position":4},"title":"The unchained epiphany: Working in the Web 2.0 world is not mastery of technology but the celebration of your own independence","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Kicking this back to the top from April 8, 2008. -- GSS \u00a0In comments to Sean Purcell's \"NAR Challenge\", Scott Rogers wonders why the NAR could not teach hi-tech real estate as well as or better than BloodhoundBlog. The short answer is that we're not teaching hi-tech real estate, not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1986,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1986\/the-odysseus-medal-competition-voting-for-the-peoples-choice-award-nominated-posts-is-open\/","url_meta":{"origin":2025,"position":5},"title":"The Odysseus Medal competition — Voting for the People’s Choice Award is open","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This was a great week. It wasn't easy getting to a short list of twenty nominees, and I think it's going to be particularly tough to pick an ultimate winner. I can't imagine it will be any easier for you to vote for the People's Choice Award. What gets a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog Carnivals"","block_context":{"text":"Blog Carnivals","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blog-carnivals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2025","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=2025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}