Rob Hahn  and Bill Lublin  in the same room is a recipe for discussion…they love to take polar opposite opinions and battle it out…sort of like watching a Tennis Match….with no one winning.

Then Dale Chumbley  piped in with a great story…as usual.

The scoop is yes, it is harder to get the eyeballs of the masses but like the weather, Real Estate is local and sharing information about a local issue is always really well received.

Don’t miss these great leaning opportunities when they happen in your area. Your thoughts?

Toronto becomes more livable, casual and an absolute treat. I feel sorry for some of my friends who have drive the 2-3 hours to cottage country and spend the weekend working on the property and entertaining friends. Not that I don’t enjoy the wonderful Ontario countryside but sometimes it is just a treat to move around this City unimpeded and do some exploring. Just being able to live a few days without the congestion that we have come to expect is almost as good as a Dufflet Chocolate Cake….well…

I guess the big question is…What does that say about how we live the other 330 days of the year???

Your thoughts and comments?

For those of you who have not YELPED before…Yelp  is a website that is a repository of peer reviews, mashed with GPS . It uses the GPS to find you, allows you to search under numerous categories for whatever service you are looking for and once you start narrowing down your search offers up peer reviews to help you make your decisions.

That night we ended up only a few blocks from the Hotel we were staying at, ate in a very non-descript inexpensive Restaurant and had one of the best meals of the trip. We based our choice on the peer reviews and on leaving could have added our own views on the experience to the Yelp  web site with photos.

Now I am a confirmed Yelper. I have downloaded the Yelp app to my Blackberry and have a profile that you can visit, become my friend or leave a review of my work as a REALTOR. Check it out in your area and write some reviews to help build the content that will make it a more valuable tool as time goes by. Get out there and start YELPING !!

“REBAC is the world’s largest organization of real estate professionals focusing on BUYER representation. By providing specialized training and ongoing skill development, REBAC helps its members—and the home buyers who work with them—experience more successful real estate transactions.”

Since last year I have sat on the Advisory Council of REBAC  and in early December 2009 was interviewed for the article attached, both a great honour. Hope you enjoy the read..it will give you a sense of how our business has changed in the past years…to read it easily you may choose the full screen version.

www.DowntownTorontoNews.com

Every morning I get up, head to the front door, pick up my Globe and Mail  and skip happily to the Toronto Section. What happens in the rest of the world and the world economy is important, but nothing engages me like breaking new in Toronto. Sadly, I find myself with the feeling that I am missing a lot of the Toronto goings-on, and head to the Internet going to several sources to keep up to date.

Through some very talented friends at Domus Consulting Group  we have launched a new Internet site called Downtown Toronto News.

It is described as curating the best Twitter feeds in Toronto so you can find out what’s happening – events, shopping deals, sports, even traffic, and of course, Real Estate- at this very moment.  Access Downtown Toronto News at the website, on Twitter at @TorontoDowntown and on Facebook.

I hope that you will check it out and follow us on the site, Twitter and Facebook for the latest in Downtown Toronto News as it breaks. I hope you enjoy it and if you’d like to suggest feeds that should be added just add comments below.

So I have been home a week and trying to make sense of all the information that I gleaned in the four hectic days of meetings in New York City. Instead of the usual “Blow by Blow” and who said what, I will just give you some of my impressions:

First and foremost, the four days were all about Social Media . Like it or not, just the way we used to say that Realtors with Technology will replace Realtors without it, now, Realtors and Brokers who have a Social Media presence will replace those who do not. As one of the speakers said, being a “Geek” is the norm and fashionable. Grandma’s are on Facebook , tweeting  and showing off their new IPhone !

Two years ago, consumers “got” Social Media and some of the Realtors joined in the conversation. Now Brokers, Brands and Associations are scrambling to reign in the herd and jump on the bandwagon. Guidelines  are imperative and education is needed. There will be a race to keep up the demand for more Education and tools.

Corporations are monitoring Web 2.0 . Twitter comments are being seen and reviewed in the Head Office. Customer’s Social Media Clout (Klout.com ) is being measured to gave the level of service provided. Someone with heavy clout is being upgraded in the hopes that they will “Twitter” their great customer service experience.

Traditional Media is in its death throws. Print Classified is dead. Newspaper advertising has become almost strictly Brand based. “The Digital Handshake”  by Paul Chaney . Consumer habits have and are changing faster than we are…

There is lots of new Technology on its way; WordPress  is getting strong momentum and amazing plug-ins and applications for small screen technology are becoming numerous. It is no longer enough to provide the data to the Realtor or their client; it must be formatted in an easy to use, fast and “cool” format.

Lastly, the US market is starting to move and the Real Estate Industry is much more positive there this year. Americans in general however are so focused on their own market and are so positive that they are the best, they don’t realize that there is a lot to learn from the Canadians or International Markets. They keep on referring to International attendees as being from “over the pond”. It’s too bad as they would learn from some of the Canadian experiences: Regulation is not all bad, Interest Deductibility creates entrepreneurs but a nation of debtors…Not-for-profit MLS owned by the Associations…

Inman Connect  and REBarCamps  are more valuable learning experiences and have more leading edge content than the NAR Conferences. Not that a National Association of REALTORS Conference  is not a great educational experience but it more about what is going on today rather than helping us be proactive for the future.

Over the next weeks as complaints on-board grew and my Internet bill reached over $600.00, I again posted my thoughts and was told by the responder that they would “pass it on”. What does “pass it on” mean?

My suggestions to Holland America are:

1. Don’t monitor the “spheres” unless you are prepared to deal with the good and the bad. It doesn’t ring true and Social Media expects transparency.
2. Provide the best Internet service you can at non-usurious prices. Your clients want to communicate with their families telling them what a good time they are having and sending them the photos they have taken on the way. What would be better advertising for Holland America?  Word of mouth trumps corporate TV ads these days.
3. Even though the demographic of “Cruisers” is tilted toward retirees, look at the growth potential in those who are still working and need good access to the Internet.
4. “Value” cruises are no longer a value if you have more and more add-ons. Think of the market share that “Free Internet” would add.
5. When surveying your customers on the services you provide, make sure you include all services. In the four page survey, Internet was not mentioned at all, nor was there free form space for other comments.
6. Make sure that the person running the Internet Service on-board has “people skills”. However, that being said, the poor guy was dealing with complaints every minute, in a no-win situation.
7. Closed circuit television presentations featuring the benefits of your On-Board Online Services, should be an honest representation of what you can deliver. Better to under-promise and over-perform.

Those are my suggestions for Holland America . Please note that it was a great Cruise in all other respects and the ship was filled with hardworking people. We hit some great destinations.  We’ll see in the future if “I’ll pass it on” has any currency. So far, no word.

If you are considering some travel and Internet, here are some tips from the New York Times.

So this morning, I was taking a nice long New Year’s walk…around the deck of a Cruise Ship as we are leaving Antarctica (not a bad life!). I challenged myself, as I routinely do to try to decide on changes that need to be made in my life.

Clarity came to me after a couple of minutes: I think that the whole concept of New year’s resolutions means that last year was not up to snuff. Is there an assumption that each year must be better than the next? Last year was a great year; sure, my weight went up and down, the Real Estate market went up and down, my commitment to exercise went up and down and my bank account went up and down…but then there were lots of great moments with friends and family with some new arrivals…

Remember the movie where Jack Nicholson  walked out of the Psychiatrist’s Office, looked around the waiting room at the other patients, had an “uh-huh” moment and said out loud “what if this is as good as it gets ” (also the name of the movie). The other patients looked at him in horror…

What if this is as good as it gets? What if my five-year plan has me doing exactly what I’m doing today? Is that a bad thing? 

This year, my New year’s resolution is “more of the same please”!

Before I even “go there“…let me first say that I am speaking totally on my own behalf and not in any of the positions that I hold in organized Real Estate. This is just some of my ramblings that come in go in my mind and need a Blog outlet, so please bear with me.

I began in the business 30 years ago and when I say “the business” I am referring to Real Estate or any other service industry. We had all been trained to strive to be the best in our field. Success equates to the sale of property, a satisfied Buyer, Seller or both.

We have sales managers that create a competitive atmosphere in the office, offices that compete with each  other within a Company, Brands that compete with each other and a Government of Canada Competition Bureau that insists that the Seller or Buyer are getting a full choice of competitive options.

When we sit at the offer table with our competitors, we are sometimes successful. Of course, our clients want to work with a winner. In a busy market, a Buyer agent can be out on multiple offers almost nightly to fail and have the client hold them responsible for that failure, even when it was the client that decided that price they were willing to pay, knowing that four offers at the table meant that the buyer has a 25% chance to win the offer process. Go figure!

So Realtors, myself included, measure their own success by the number of sales we do, Offices do the same, Companies do the same, Boards and Associations do the same and our clients expect that a “Successful REALTOR“ and a “Good Market” reflects better on them.

So here is where the problem lies…REALTORS need to focus less on the deal. We provide many services to our clients,marketing, staging, advice, market history, etc. We must focus more on becoming the source of everything to do with home ownership, not just the transaction. The transaction is not the end of our relationships however, few clients ever hear from the Realtor after the deal is done. Becoming to “go-to” home ownership dude is what I aspire to…if I fall down on the job, remind me. Feel free to ask me for anything…within reason.

Recently in the United States, the National Association of REALTORS  created a web site called Houselogic.com . It is a brilliant move because it wants to make NAR and the REALTOR the go-to-place on the web for everything to do with home ownership. I applaud them and hope to offer that kind of service to all my clients.

Looking beyond the sale is what the Service Industries all need to do. I champion Social Media in my business because it allows for these conversations. I look forward to hearing from you with your thoughts and suggestions!

Any thoughts? Comments below?