{"id":3261,"date":"2008-06-23T20:04:40","date_gmt":"2008-06-24T03:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=3261"},"modified":"2008-06-23T21:40:24","modified_gmt":"2008-06-24T04:40:24","slug":"if-you-commit-yourself-to-delivering-a-premium-listing-trying-to-cheap-it-out-will-instruct-you-in-the-previously-unknown-23rd-immutable-law-of-marketing-anti-marketing-is-worse-than-no-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3261\/if-you-commit-yourself-to-delivering-a-premium-listing-trying-to-cheap-it-out-will-instruct-you-in-the-previously-unknown-23rd-immutable-law-of-marketing-anti-marketing-is-worse-than-no-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"If you commit yourself to delivering a premium listing, trying to cheap it out will instruct you in the previously-unknown 23rd Immutable Law of Marketing: Anti-marketing is worse than no marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Idea-by-idea, house-by-house, we are writing the book on the art of listing premium-priced homes for sale<\/a>. The things we do are often beyond useless at lower price points, and we’re not a part of the canapes and cocktails circuit where high-end homes are sold. But for executive homes, luxury homes, historic and architecturally-distinctive homes, the kinds of marketing tools we are perfecting are very effective.<\/p>\n

Effective at what? At selling the house, of course. Everything we do is about selling the house. If we happen to make a strong impression on the neighbors<\/a> or on other people who see the work we are doing, so much the better. Even so, that’s not the point. People should<\/em> be impressed by the commitment we make to selling our listings, but our purpose in making that commitment is to get the house sold.<\/p>\n

Here’s a true fact, apparently known to everyone except real estate agents: Consumers — the people we hope to make our clients — see us as being lazy and cheap. They think we’re overpaid, but it’s probably less that they think our paychecks are too big and more that they don’t see any effort on our part to justify those paychecks. <\/p>\n

A typical listing is a lockbox and a sign. Is there a flyer? Or is there just an empty flyer box? Has the flyer been edited with a ballpoint pen to reflect price reductions? How many photos are there in the MLS listing — and are they any damned good?<\/p>\n

The marginal cost of everything I’ve talked about so far is essentially nothing, amortized over a few dozen listings. The one exigent out-of-pocket cost might be the post for the sign, and I have seen real estate signs nailed to trees. I wish I were joking.<\/p>\n

If consumers see us as being lazy and cheap, it’s only because far too many of us are lazy and cheap when it comes to servicing our clients. It’s comical, actually. The Realtor who pisses away $5,000 acquiring<\/em> a client worth $10,000 in gross commission income can’t bring himself to spend fifty bucks out-of-pocket on<\/em> that client.<\/p>\n

There’s a Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Idea-by-idea, house-by-house, we are writing the book on the art of listing premium-priced homes for sale. The things we do are often beyond useless at lower price points, and we’re not a part of the canapes and cocktails circuit where high-end homes are sold. But for executive homes, luxury homes, historic and architecturally-distinctive homes, the […]<\/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":[24,6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-egoism-in-action","7":"category-marketing","8":"category-real-estate","10":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":503,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/503\/the-bloodhoundblog-valuation-challenge\/","url_meta":{"origin":3261,"position":0},"title":"The BloodhoundBlog Valuation Challenge . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a cute little game for people who think they know a thing or two about real estate... I'm looking at houses for an investor client who is also a close friend of the family. He picked out a house he was interested in, and, as a matter of course,\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":1519,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1519\/new-york-times-works-hard-to-put-the-fizz-in-fsbos\/","url_meta":{"origin":3261,"position":1},"title":"New York Times works hard to put the fizz in FSBOs . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"My own personal experience with For-Sale-By-Owner sellers is pretty limited. I've never farmed them for listings, so I know nothing of that part of their lives. I've called a bunch of them to try to show their homes, but only once have I successfully gotten into one with my buyers.\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":2849,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2849\/dont-blog-your-listings-how-about-this-dont-try-to-pass-sales-call-reluctance-off-as-social-media-marketing-expertise\/","url_meta":{"origin":3261,"position":2},"title":"Don’t blog your listings? How about this? Don’t try to pass sales call reluctance off as social media marketing expertise","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I know, I know -- I owe, I owe. I owe Jeff Brown a discussion of every little last thing we do to launch a new listing with maximum impact. And I owe The Lovely Wife a discussion of the role of self-promotion in real estate weblogging. But... We listed\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":613,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/613\/a-horrifying-thought-experiment-elaborating-on-a-brokerage-business-model-that-could-completely-disintermediate-buyers-agents\/","url_meta":{"origin":3261,"position":3},"title":"A horrifying thought experiment: Elaborating on a brokerage business model that could completely disintermediate buyer’s agents . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 7, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I wrote this this morning, and it's been bugging me all day:Here's a thought: The $99 divorce. It only works where the split is unclouded by children or property. But imagine a $999 FSBO package: The usual MLS-only marketing package with a buy-back guarantee for the buyer. Quoting me: \"From\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":515,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/515\/which-houses-will-sell-local-market-is-slow-but-not-on-life-support\/","url_meta":{"origin":3261,"position":4},"title":"Which houses will sell?: Local market is slow but not on life support . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 6, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"This is me from this morning's Arizona Republic, a kinder, gentler, less incendiary Greg. (Permanent link.) That marks a year of these columns, 52 on the nose. To tell the truth, I expected to get fired a long time ago. But, if they're not going to fire me, I wish\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":269,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/269\/words-words-words-how-evocative-listing-copy-helps-to-sell-homes\/","url_meta":{"origin":3261,"position":5},"title":"Words, words, words: How evocative listing copy helps to sell homes . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 31, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Mike Price at Mike's Corner is kvetching about clumsy Realtor lingo, and while I'm with him on the main point, I have turf of my own to defend. Sez Mike:I've often wondered what consumers think when they are subjected to the same goofy tag lines and incomplete sentences that seem\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3261","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=3261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}