chris hendricks: Bookstores, Theaters, Newspapers, and Neighborhoods-- The New Urban 'Bland' - 03/26/08 04:53 PM
My bride and I were discussing the changes in our town, in our neighborhood, and in the way kids grow up these days over our coffee this morning as she bemoaned the fact that Bonanza Books is going out of business. Bonanza-- long the independent new and used book store in downtown Walnut Creek-- is a symbol of our small-town past when people actually went downtown and browsed for goods [like books] instead of browsing for them on their laptops. Unlike some other shopping, the used bookstore phenomenon specialized in that feeling of elation at actually finding something worthy of buying. Browsing for a $4 treasure … (5 comments)
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chris hendricks: Does Your Brokerage Need A Customer Advisory Board? - 03/10/08 06:23 PM
Do you really know what your customers think of you or do you only think you know? Are you confident enough to bet a significant stake in your company's future based upon your appraisal of how customers perceive your products and services, your pricing and policies, your value to them? How tuned in to your customers' needs are you really?
For most companies, what they know about how customers truly perceive them is surprisingly less than they think! And for most companies' marketing organizations, the knowledge base isn't complete enough to risk significant changes in their offerings-new products to introduce, major changes … (1 comments)
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chris hendricks: Is The "Supersize Me" Generation Starting A Square Footage Diet? - 03/04/08 05:13 PM
My wife and I are in that age bracket where the thought of scaling down in size to have less to clean and less to maintain is a good thing: we might actually do it one of these days when and if we give up on the dream that our kids will be able to afford to move within a couple of miles of our neighborhood and will visit us frequently with grandchildren. Not likely-- and certainly less likely any time soon!
Still, I read here locally that developers were reducing the average size of a NEW house in our county, houses typically bought by younger … (7 comments)
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chris hendricks: Does "Days On Market" Change The Tools You Use To Market A Property? - 10/30/07 05:42 PM
I was speaking with a REALTOR® friend the other day and she mentioned that the average DOM had risen substantially in her county-- as it has in most counties. With fewer buyers out there ready and able to transact and with sellers not yet reacting quickly enough to the new pricing realities of a "buyer's market" homes are languishing. Properties that would have attracted multiple offers at or above listing price within a week only 18 months ago are now, slowly and quietly, starting to show off those "Price Reduced" sign riders. These usually signal the end of the frenzy and the return of Sunday afternoons watching … (28 comments)
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chris hendricks: The Secret of All Sales Efforts Revealed! - 10/27/07 01:06 AM
I admit, one should never blog in anger. That's why I've invoked my traditional 24-hour rule started years ago with the "send button" to allow cooler heads to prevail and to avoid that seasick feeling that overtakes you moments after hitting it on a message you realize you're probably going to regret [immensely]. But really folks, there are just things that rookie professionals and obnoxious sales people do that drive me nuts: and I should know because over the years, I've screwed up and done them too! Don't fall victim to being "this guy" or "that gal" when you are the selling entity or the person that needs … (3 comments)
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chris hendricks: Dog Versus Man -- Institutional Knowledge, Brokerages, and How We Share - 10/23/07 06:52 PM
People and dogs are different in "oh so many ways" but there are still things we can learn from the so-called lesser creatures. I really started to think about this after listening to Steve Morris talk about the rationale for creating Exit Realty. Mr. Morris positioned that people inevitably need to be convinced first of their own self-interest before deciding to take an action that benefits the group. Once convinced, of course, they would invariably act in that common self-interest-- but not until. Because self-interest was the overriding concern, knowledge often was withheld by those with it from those that could most certainly gain from it-- because … (22 comments)
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chris hendricks: Set Your Office Up With Templates and Save Money, Time, and Headaches! - 10/19/07 12:06 PM
Why more real estate and mortgage professionals DON'T do this is a mystery to me. Rather than having haphazardly created, randomly laid out materials that have little "brand" identification, design pieces that truly represent your company well and then have us "templatize" them in a design gallery on the web so they can be used repeatedly without paying a graphic designer each time you need something changed.
One of the fastest growing trends in our business here is the use of templates to maintain brand integrity while allowing individual agents and originators to customize the details of a marketing piece to … (8 comments)
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chris hendricks: Just Exactly What WOULD You Do For Money? - 10/07/07 01:13 PM
I've been reflecting on this all morning. It's Sunday morning here in the office and I was here all day yesterday as well. There's a marketing project I'm working on to reach out to the newest members of NAR and it's taking longer to get ready than I had hoped when the project started. Part of the delay is because it's hard to find employees that really want to work hard to make extra money these days.
I offered overtime to our staff here to try and get this project off the "to do" list but not a single one was willing to … (20 comments)
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chris hendricks: Visit With Us At The California Association of REALTORS® Expo - 10/06/07 03:56 PM
Anybody heading off to Anaheim next week to the California Association of REALTORS® Conference and Expo should stop by our booth sometime during your trip and say hello. We'll be there, dutifully hosting the trade show booth and offering special incentives and discounts for CAR members and other CAR Expo attendees.
In addition to the NAR Member Benefits® Program discounts that all CAR members are eligible to receive, I heard a rumor there was an iPhone, a LOT of free printing work to help REALTORS® market themselves, some great wines, and a few other things that were going to be given away to attendees!
For … (2 comments)
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chris hendricks: Are The Mommies Ruining Our Kids' Health While They Destroy Property Values? - 10/03/07 01:20 PM
You don't know it yet but this is a discussion about property values, fear, and the advice I didn't take from my Lakewood-area REALTOR® all those years ago. Today is "Walk To School Wednesday" in our neighborhood-- the day when the 'Mommies' of Indian Valley Elementary School either leave the SUVs in the driveway for a day and walk their kids, en masse, up the block to the schoolyard or they carpool the gas guzzlers to a common meeting point at the neighborhood pool and walk the remaining 500 yards. It's the one day throughout the school year when the near solo ride … (15 comments)
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chris hendricks: Client ROI -- Why Is It The 'Thinnest' Deals Are the Most Demanding Customers? - 09/29/07 12:23 AM
I noticed early in my career that the clients who paid the least for whatever was being sold were all-too-often the clients that became the most demanding, the most particular, and the greatest time-wasters in my Rolodex. Why is it there seems to be this inverse relationship between time spent with a client and overall margin of a transaction? The customers that bring the 'thinnest' deals are also the most difficult to make happy!
Case in point: as a favor to a vacationing associate here I started assisting a client with an unusual job-- a small production. The job is nothing fancy-- a specialty product the client hopes will … (27 comments)
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chris hendricks: Your Attitude Amidst Change Dictates Everything! - 09/23/07 01:41 PM
This week found me meeting with a former business associate from the wireless industry to catch up on the last couple of years and to work out the details of a printing project we'll be doing for him and his dealership. The wireless business, for anyone that's been around it, is one that has experienced change on a monumental scale and continues to feel 8.2 Richter scale shifts in its tectonic plate "old boy network" foundation.
I rode that wave for the entire 90's and into this decade only to draw the line at yet another wireless mega-merger where my role would most certainly have ended … (9 comments)
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chris hendricks: Home Mortgage Accelerator Programs - 09/14/07 05:27 PM
The GMAC Accelerator program has started popping onto my professional and personal radar so I'm curious about it (and others like it). The basic premise is to flow all cash you receive into an account that is tied to your mortgage-- effectively reducing the average daily balance of your loan and reducing the volume of interest you pay. By having monies sit in this account (instead of some other bank's account) you're "freeing up" money that would have been paid in interest to be paid instead toward reducing the principal on your loan.
What are the good news and the bad news components … (6 comments)
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chris hendricks: If This Was Free, Would You Use It? - 08/30/07 05:39 PM
I need to know if you would use this! I'm considering making a toolbar available to the real estate community-- at no charge-- that could be downloaded by you from our website and by all of your clients and your prospects [for free] from YOUR website and would place your franchise logo [or another logo that suits you better, perhaps] on your clients' and prospects' desktops as an icon similar to the "Google" logo icon that appears when you download that toolbar. Next to your "brand" a scrolling RSS reader would pass headline announcements from feeds you or each of your users could … (10 comments)
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chris hendricks: What Are You Aiming For? Can You Hit The Mark or Will You 'Rooty Toot Shoot'? - 08/23/07 06:52 PM
What are you aiming for? What do you want? I ask this question of our clients (and I ask it of other folks) a lot! It's amazing how many people are out there wanting something and working toward... er, something... but they're not really sure what that 'something' is... because they've never taken the time to try and define it for themselves.
To demonstrate a point for people that often needed proof to believe, I used to ask sales trainees if they were 'good with their aim' and, of course, being sales types they ALL thought they were fabulous. I'd give them a rubber dart … (7 comments)
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chris hendricks: The Sweet Science -- Boxing Helps Your Direct Mail Win By A Knockout! - 08/22/07 11:29 AM
I've been accused of being "direct" before (truthfully, sometimes 'too direct') and, while I can be subtle and delicate when absolutely necessary I much prefer getting right to the point. For me, it's a 'style' decision. Your direct mail should never be accused of being "too direct" and if it ever is, keep doing it because it's working!
Like a well-thrown punch, good mail has a clear target in sight. A skilled boxer times the punches for effect-- not every swing is a knockout but every delivery has a purpose. There's nothing worse than watching a fighter lose control and flail away at nothing but thin air-- … (4 comments)
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chris hendricks: The Worst Popular Song Ever Used In An Advertisement? Now I Know, Elvis.... - 08/15/07 01:52 PM
Someone will eventually write a book about the obnoxious use of great music (and vice-versa) in cheesy advertising spots-- who knows, maybe me if you all respond with your great suggestions to round out a good list. Good songs used well and great songs used awfully, that's what we need to know!
I understand imagery and the use of emotion in advertising. I get the part where advertisers rope you in by making great associations with things you want to be associated with (I've seen those Coors Light ads with the little chicas that were NEVER around when I was in college!). I … (18 comments)
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chris hendricks: Coyotes Nipping At The Heels - 08/15/07 12:01 PM
I turned 50 in mid-July and just received an invitation to join the AARP, a testament to the data gathering skills of list management firms I'd be proud to have supporting and timing our direct mail offerings here. The annual check up regimen at 50 is, for the as yet uninitiated, a true delight and worthy of a blog all to itself (which I will NOT write-- some memories, I contend, should simply be repressed as deeply as possible). Somewhere between the stress test echocardiogram and the colonoscopy there was time for the prostate, the FOBT, the lipids, sugars, and cholesterols and the annual lecture about better … (5 comments)
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chris hendricks: How To Divorce Your Agent (Breaking Up Is Hard To Do...) - 08/09/07 08:12 PM
I started thinking about divorce this week and I know it's an uncomfortable thing for us to think about-- but it happens to someone pretty much every day. My thoughts weren't about divorce at home (we're hopelessly smitten with each other) but on the job. How do you break it off with a professional that has been "in service" too long? How do you tell your REALTOR®, or your buddy from college that does mortgages, or any other 'relationship professional' that you've grown and moved on without upsetting the friendship and the harmony of the universe? How would you want your … (11 comments)
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chris hendricks: Inman Connect -- Was There A Best Of Show For You? - 08/03/07 03:54 PM
The Inman Connect Show in San Francisco this year seemed to be a blogger's paradise-- especially Day One devoted almost exclusively to the blogging community.
The "good news" for me was that the show was a success-- I was able to move several pending development deals forward that will enable my company to partner more closely with brokers, Realtors® and with companies catering to the real estate and mortgage space. For that reason alone the conference is always a good networking event. In addition though, I was able to reconnect with several MIA friends from days gone by that had remained tangentially associated with the … (3 comments)
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