Mark Eibner: This is Mark Eibner with Broker IPTV. We are coming to you from the 2009 Inman Connect in San Francisco and I am here today with Tom Kunz and Tom is the President and CEO of the C21 International, welcome to the show Tom.
Tom Kunz: Well thank you very much and appreciate being here with you.
Mark Eibner: Just first of what some kind of insight here on Inman Connect this year?
Tom Kunz: Well I know its really been a very, very interesting because it gives you the opportunity to come here and see some of the companies that have been in the business for a long time and then as we saw today here at the show you get to see five or six of brand new start up companies that are just starting out on some of the products that they have and you know you sit in the audience I was sitting here with [Inaudible] with [Inaudible] and we were and I told him I said its interesting because it just get your brain really churning about wow geez you could do this you could do that with this. So I just find it very energetic and very interesting to come here and here are some of the new things that are happening and how can you tie it back into some of the things we already have to you know moving forward you know this industry.
Mark Eibner: Right well I mean C21 very traditional star word, long standing company why don't you explain to us some of the things you are being involved with or want to be involved with as far as moving your brand ahead?
Tom Kunz: Well it's been very interesting; we have really done almost a total make over of the brand, over the last couple of years. I...we came in and changed our model, we came in and changed our servicing model to our franchisees, I brought a new Senior Vice President of Marketing, I brought a new CEO off from MacDonald's Corporation into to talk to you know here is one of the greatest, largest franchisers in the country and so I want to bring this talent into be able to take a look at our brand and say what do we need to do and how could we make it better and in terms of technology or Bev Thorne, our Senior Vice President of Marketing has totally redone our website. I think if you go and take a look at you will see its one of the... probably one of the most forward thinking types of websites that you will see out there. Craig our CEO from... the gentleman who came from MacDonald's you know has really started to innovate with our business consultants in the market place, to start to talk about real business acumen with our franchisees and putting a lot of coaching accountability into... into our franchisees hands. So what we are trying to do is to marry technology with the ability of how to run a success from profitable real estate company.
Mark Eibner: Well I know you guys took a bold initiative, was it last year you announced or beginning of this year in January as far as your TV media advertising where that was going, was being pulled off and put on to the Internet correct?
Tom Kunz: That's absolutely correct. That was one of the things that Bev did. She, she built the website; she built all the support mechanisms in place and then we... as you said we took this step, we are the first in the industry to do it. Of course we... you know we stayed a few [Inaudible] about that but long term I think its going to be great for us we have taken all our TV advertising and we have shifted it to interactive media because that's where we know the customers at and at the end of the day our job is to really drive leads to our franchisees and other agents, so that they can go ahead and do more transactions and so far what we have seen since we have done that is we have reduced our cost per lead by some 60 plus percent and we have seen over 200% increase in the amount of leads that we are generating, so its... its been very, very good for us so far.
Mark Eibner: Three times more sales if you are making the moves in the right direction I appreciate your time today.
Tom Kunz: Well thank you very much Mark I appreciate being here with you.
Mark Eibner: You bet.
Tom Kunz: Thank you.
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