realweenie

Breaking news

We interrupt our regularly scheduled  nonsensical posts to bring you this special announcement.  Chances are you already know about it, unless you live in a cave where there is no internet access if there is such a place.  Active Rain has just announced "Active Blogs" This is a new concept in the real estate industry and certainly on Active Rain where there are many inactive blogs but that is the subject for another post and needs to be written by someone who knows what they are talking about, which for sure isn't me.

According to Active Rain spokes person and all around good guy Jeff Corbett:

" ActiveBlogs allow individual professionals to team up and syndicate multiple types of content from their existing ActiveRain individual accounts to a custom website and url, which delivers innate Search Engine Optimization benefits such as location based Real Area Indexing or ‘Raindexing’. 
The aggregation of continuous, targeted and fresh ‘Raindexed’ content within a single domain from numerous individuals  improves Long-Tail Search Engine Optimization, efficiently and dramatically improving online marketing efforts.

‘ActiveRain recognizes that dynamic content integrated from multiple sources creates the robust experience today’s real estate consumer is looking for,” said Jeff Corbett, ActiveRain’s vice president of Operations and Business Development. “We believe ActiveBlogs provide a foundation to efficiently display this content.” (The highlighting is mine)

At launch, individual ActiveBlogs are priced at $19 per month while multi-author or ‘Team Blogs’ will cost $79.00 per month for hosting.  Personalized branding is possible with numerous template options that may be customized to the administrator’s satisfaction.
 
‘Real estate related professionals deserve products and services pro-actively designed to suit their unique needs,” Corbett said.  ‘No other platform at any price – including free – offers real estate professionals a better value in terms of ease of use, flexibility and seamless movement of content.”

I am still trying to reach Carnac of CT (Linda Davis) so I can find out if this means it will be possible for several people to write crap on one blog and if more crap will mean more business. I am sure she will tell us that if we run crappy businesses a blog won't help.  I think she has my number on her caller ID now so she knows it is me calling and won't pick up. (Smart lady but you all know that) 

I am also going to speculate that both the Agent Genius and the Bloodhound Blog will want to be on this new platform so that they too can enjoy the benefits of "Raindexed" blogs, but will want to be placed as far apart on the network as possible for obvious reasons. Neither Blog was mentioned in Active Brad's post about the new Active Blogs when he gave examples of multiple author blogs. Perhaps this is Brads way of letting them know that they will need to be on Active Rain to get noticed.

When i get the chance I am going to find out if Active Rain will consider selling their "Raindexing" services separately so that I can use it on my St. Paul real estate blog.

As always I have contacted Boing Boing and they will not comment on this new development but an insider told me that they to are looking for ways to "Raindex" their blog and I will be writing more about that in a future post.

The Most Popular Agent Recruitment Tool

Just an observation . . .

Running a real estate company or office seems to be mostly about recruiting.  I guess that makes sense.  Since real estate office make money from the sales their agents make, the more agents, the more sales.

Agents leave the business and more join all the time.  The large companies recruit, recruit, recruit.  Like most agents I get post cards in the mail and spam from real estate companies in my market.

It seems like the brokers all use the same criteria for bringing on new agents.  If the person can get a MN real estate license and then pass the mirror test they are brought on board.

The mirror test is when the broker holds a mirror near the agents mouth and asks them to breath.  If they can fog the mirror they are welcomed aboard by the broker.  Most brokers and managers are too focused on recruiting to bother to spend much time helping new agents get started.  It isn't wise to invest much time in new agents anyway because they are independent contractors, which is different than employees.

Real estate companies gravitate toward recruiting agents who have sales experience, or of course experienced agents.  Sales experience is important but so are computer and people skills.  Many of the managers with the big companies don't have computer skills.  They started in the business before buyers and sellers started using the internet and seem to think agents can do just fine with out having basic computer skills. The goal seems to be to fill offices with as many mirrors fogging licensed individuals as possible so I guess it doesn't matter if they have skills.

I currently am having a transaction with a new agent.  I am representing both the buyer and the seller.  The agent is a buyers agent and it is my listing.  I already explained to the sellers when we got an offer on the property that some blanks needed to be filled in on the contract and some changes needed to me made to take care of the buyer. The buyers agent will get half of the commission but I am doing most of the work for both sides if the transaction.  It is just part of the job.  It would be nice though if the new agents broker got involved, but chances are he or she is too busy recruiting new agents.

Could this Happen with A Real Estate Blog?

Cartoon From Blaugh

Most of us can not be fired but we can be asked to stop writing our blogs. I have been asked, rather often,  if I am worried about it.  Yes I do worry that I will be asked to stop writing my blogs, or maybe I would be asked to delete this one. LOL.  I do have a plan.  I have a brokers license and am ready to go out on my own at any time. 

Is having a blog really that important?  Yes it is from both a business point of view, and becasue I enjoy the freedom.  Freedom is more important to me in my life than money.  If it were not I would be working in a nice secure job with a predictable pay check.  I instead work in a business where the failure rate is very high, and in a down market.

After reading these last two paragraphs I have decided that I am totally stark raving mad and that I should get help soon.  . . . but you knew that already.