Category Archives: Tactical Planning

What Should Brokerages Be Thinking About Multiculturalism in 2013?

The events surrounding the very positive multicultural experiences of last summer’s Olympics in London have given this subject a whole new “impact” factor in both marketing and business circles. In fact, the impact of these events on marketing business in the US is so far-reaching that retail giant Wal-Mart has completely reorganized the role that [...]

We Have to Talk

It is with the greatest of apologies that this piece has been entitled as it is, for the vast majority of American men, probably the least favorite combination of words in the English Language; “We Have to Talk.” The decision to use this phrase was not taken lightly, but given the current industry circumstances there [...]

What’s the big deal about Transaction Management?

Slowly but surely the pace is picking up. After over 15 years of lost investments, misguided priorities and stalled initiatives the transaction management movement is finally reaching critical mass within the traditional brokerage community. Yet even with this new momentum and apparent enlightenment the most frequently asked question regarding the transaction management remains, “so what [...]

Are You Ready For the “Automated” FSBO?

It is spring, a time of new growth, new opportunity and new ideas. The setting was a five star ocean resort in Mexico. The event was the annual senior executive and management retreat for one of North America’s oldest and most successful real estate companies. The subject on the creatively designed printed agenda was simple; [...]

Will the New Brokerage Business Model Be a Retread of an Old Brokerage Business Model?

There is an axiom that cautions “Be careful what you wish for”. That advice has never seemed more relevant than today with respect to the continuing transition of the American real estate brokerage business model. A bit of history. The current business model traces back to 1947, when the dirt peddler of 1939 returned from [...]

What is a Student of Our Industry?

One of the many joys of my work is being able create and innovate with some of the most intelligent men and women in the country. I was so engaged one afternoon last week with a group of real estate professionals in Tennessee when one of my companions uttered what, in retrospect, seems to me [...]

Whoops, There Goes Another Rubber Tree Plant

What does an ant, that is trying to move a “rubber tree plant”, have to do with the contemporary real estate marketplace? For that matter, how does a ram, that wants to topple a “billion watt” dam, figure into our current industry landscape? Both of these references come from that famous song “High Hopes”, first [...]

Where Do The Hysterics Come From?

It was by any standards a weird week. It started with the media coverage of Hurricane Irene. Hour after hour of dire and dreadful announcements, horrendous and horrific pronouncements and frightening and onerous representations by a news media that seemed to be trapped in a vocabulary of words and phrases chosen to drive public hysteria. [...]

Learning to Soar Again: The 2011 Gathering of the Eagles Experience

Over the past decade the Real Trends annual Gathering of Eagles (GOE) conference has been the intellectual highlight and industry-defining event of the year. This “by invitation only” event brings together the best of the best and the “who’s who” of the American residential real estate industry. The GOE conference for 2011, held in early [...]

Apps and Naps: Defining the REALTOR® Future

This is a time of challenge for all Americans.  We live in a environment ravaged by a recession that seems to defy recovery, made confusing by a global economy that seems to take as much as it gives, a generational mash-up that seems to defy compromise, and a tsunami of knowledge that keeps us in [...]

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