Happy Birthday America! Better days are ahead!!

In honor of this great day I thought I would put a post together about my favorite founding father.

As a successful printer and a prolific inventor you might say that Franklin was America’s first vendor! Here are a few of many great quotes from Franklin!

“Drive thy business or it will drive thee.”
“Energy and persistence conquer all things.”
“A good conscience is a continual Christmas.”
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

“Well done is better than well said.”

A lot of talk on the web about today being Bill Gates’ last day at Microsoft. Here are some of my favorites.

Bill Gates and the Greatest Tech Hack Ever

My First BillG Review

Fortune


And here’s my Bill Gates story. My Dad made me take typing lessons. It was around 8th grade and I didn’t want to, because I thought typing was for girls. But as the saying goes Father knows best. Looking back now I can see that learning to type sparked my interest in computers and writing.

My Dad then bought me a computer from Radio Shack. The first time I was ever aware of Microsoft was teaching myself how to program in BASIC. One advantage I had was I knew how to type! I had a Microsoft BASIC manual that I would spend hours looking up ways to make my programs do what I wanted them to do. This was around 1983-84, and I was a Junior in High School.

I would read anything I could about him and Microsoft. I was, and still am, a big geek about the history of personal computers. To this day I sign my email’s with “gr” because I read somewhere that Bill Gates used to sign his email’s with “bg”.

The world is better place because of Microsoft. And the great part is that Bill is going to give it all back to try to make the world an even better place.

10 PRINT “THANK YOU BILL, AND GOOD LUCK!”
20 GOTO 10

gr

Word on the street is that 2 people have left FNRES.

Scott Hoen, an EVP/Division Manager, and Marty Reed the VP of Product Management for the MLS division.

I don’t know if this is clever, stupid or MRIS has simply jumped the shark.

You decide.

The Story of Mr. Is

Beware you evil interlopers!

I was catching up on my Google Reader and can’t believe I past this one up from earlier this month. I don’t care if it’s the second post in a row about 1000Watt. All I can say is I’m smelling what these guys are cooking.

It’s an interview Marc does with John Vatistas discussing the merger of Equitable Sotheby’s International of Phoenix and Russ Lyon Realty Company. John hits upon a point I’ve made before about the current real estate market.

“Marc: A dead market can certainly have that effect.

Vatistas: A couple of thoughts on this: The market had no bearing on the deal for me. If it was an amazing market or a terrible market, the deal makes perfect sense on so many levels. However, it’s basic real estate sense. When the market is down, buy. Increase market share. Combine personnel and reduce costs. Upgrade everything and everyone you can. Be poised to be the leader. Our competition is looking at us. Meanwhile we are looking directly ahead with blinders on.

Me: It’s about striking when the iron is cold.

Vatistas: Yes. And being more ready than everyone else when it heats back up. We are already knee deep in the process as I say this. The synergies are simply staggering. We have many offices close to each other that are being merged. The cost structure drops dramatically as a result of combining back offices. The agent pool is head and shoulders above the competition. We combined our management teams and really use their specific talents. “

Read the whole story here:

1000Watt Blog- Striking while the iron is cold: An interview

Everyone should check out 1000Watt’s Blog. I like Marc’s prose and his infusion of pop in to the world of real estate.

You’ll never guess what Marc’s post focuses on…the value of Vendors.

1000Watt Blog: Bedrock

Hey, that’s right up our alley!

Bravo!

Linda at FAR asked us to post this…

JOB POSTING

Real Estate Industry Solutions (REIS), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Florida Association of Realtors, has two positions available.

Marketing Director
Strategic thinker with superior understanding of technology product management and marketing strategies. Strong team player, consensus builder, project manager. Must have familiarity w/real estate industry and technology. Exceptional written/oral communicator. Superior interpersonal, presentation and customer relationship skills. 7-10 yrs applicable experience in mktg, communications and/or high-tech companies/products. BA or MBA, req’d. Some travel. Cover ltr, resume and salary hist to jobs at far dot org. EOE.

Sales Manager
Self motivated, high energy, team player to conduct sales and training activities supporting real estate industry products and services, especially technology products. Superior interpersonal, presentation and customer relationship skills. Must have exp w/real estate industry and technology. Must have proven sales, training exp. Exceptional communicator. Valid driver’s license and frequent travel req’d. Cover ltr, resume and salary hist to jobs at far dot org. EOE.

Tell ‘em you heard about it on VendorAlley! : )

“Today is a good day to die.”
-Warcry of Lakotah warchiefs

“You are witnesses to the new birth of Spinal Tap mark two- we hope you enjoy our new direction.”
-David St. Hubbins
Lead vocal, Spinal Tap

WOOLLEY | ROBERTSON
GROUP

http://woolleyrobertson.com/

I was talking to Shane McCarthy today. I worked with Shane at HomeSeekers.com and eNeighborhoods. For the past couple years he has worked at VisualTour. Shane is a very natural salesperson, and great in front of an audience (agents just love him). Shane also surfs ( he would want me to post that tid bit!)

The value proposition for VisualTour is this, for $29.95 per month an agent can create and host an unlimited number of virtual tours. These tours can remain online for as long as the agent/broker pays the monthly subscription fee. They claim to host over half the virtual tours in the country.

Great company, very focused on customer service. The problem?? It’s an agent based subscription service! And we all know what a grind that can be. How many agents stay and how many leave, etc. etc. etc.

Recently VisualTour has been running television commercials on national networks such as HGTV, DIY and Fine Living.

You can see one here. You can read about it here.

I haven’t seen any other commercials, but this one is hilarious! And it struck me how clever an idea this ad campaign really is, because it really hit all cylinders on a subscription based service such as VisualTour.

1. Be aggressive.
Market be damned, lets roll! See my previous post about this here. They have over half the virtual tour business and they see this market as a perfect way to go after ALL of it!

2. Innovate.
They have also created a simple search interface where consumers can search for properties that have virtual tours. Since they have over half the tours in the country , and tours of sold properties, their search inventory is decent.

3. Sell. Sell. Sell.
In my opinion the best way to solve agent retention problem in a subscription based business is agent acquisition. Agents will leave the business no matter how great your customer service department works. You’ve got to give your sales guys better ways/tools to acquire new business.

I can just see Shane up in front on an audience of agents. Here’s how I imagine it goes…

Shane:
Consumers love virtual tours.

We are the largest and best virtual tour company.

We just started a nation wide television campaign to help real estate agents out in this tough market.

Can you think of any other real estate vendor running television commercials?

Would you like to see one of our television commercials?

[Play television commercial]

Audience: Laughter

Shane:
We take Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. The line forms to the left.

Gnarly dude!

I love the fact they have integrated Cyberhomes valuation into their CMA.

If they would have used Zillow my condo in Huntington Beach would have been priced $110,000 dollars less!

Fidelity National Real Estate Solutions Releases Upgraded rDesk Suite

Enhancements include integration with FNRES’ web-based valuation tools

RISMEDIA, May 23, 2008-Fidelity National Financial, Inc. (NYSE:FNF), a Fortune 500 provider of products, services and technology solutions to the financial and real estate industries, has announced that Fidelity National Real Estate Solutions (FNRES) has released a major new upgrade to its popular rDesk Suite of agent and broker products.

Key among the enhancements is a feature that enables agents to offer consumers access to the full power of the latest automated valuation modeling via their own branded Web sites, and an rDesk CMA comparative marketing analysis function, which features stylish new graphic designs on all printed documents.

“This release of rDesk products means that for the first time, every type of information that a homeowner or buyer needs to make informed decisions will be available though an agent’s or broker’s rDesk Web site,” said John Hensley, FNRES SVP and General Manager of Broker Agent Products and Data Aggregation. “Data that was traditionally only available on property valuation Web sites like FNRES’ Cyberhomes, or Zillow and others, is now available through Web sites that use this platform.”

Enhanced rDesk-powered Web sites now provide consumers with access to comprehensive neighborhood information, demographics, school reports, cost of living statistics, housing information and environmental information, as well as comparable sales and property valuation of neighboring properties within the property detail page of every listing. Powerful map-based searching is also available through these rDesk-powered sites.

FNRES’s rDesk was the first comprehensive desktop productivity portal for real estate agents. The significant advances within rDesk v2.5 and rDesk IDX v 5.2 support FNRES’ position as a leading provider of Web technology applications, services and custom Internet solutions for agents, brokers, MLS’ and all the other constituents involved in residential real estate.

The rDesk Suite includes the rDesk agent productivity tool, rDesk Web site and rDesk CMA and Buyer’s Tour for comparative market analyses, as well as rDesk IDX for integrating listings search capabilities.

According to Hensley, “The real breakthrough behind the new power of rDesk is the breadth and depth of available data and the methodology we employ to sift, sort and simplify this information for consumer use. And, best of all, we’ve made this information available at no additional cost to our customers.”

Looking into rDesk

At the core of the rDesk Suite is the rDesk business control panel application, which integrates productivity and business tools into a single, personalized real estate agent portal. Compatible with any MLS system, rDesk complements most tools and technologies currently in use by real estate professionals. It generates leads and manages business and scheduling.

rDesk Web sites provide a turnkey solution in an environment where, for the real estate professional, “location, location, location” increasingly means the Internet. The rDesk Web site platform is the most cost effective tool for marketing a business via the Web, and now offers consumers a single-site location for the most robust property valuation and comparative reports available.

rDesk IDX enhances a Web site by providing an easy-to-use listing search engine, compliant with all local MLS Internet data display rules and regulations. Listings are updated on a daily basis through the MLS. In addition, rDesk IDX includes a variety of lead generation tools and supports the creation of client profiles for the purpose of saving searches, bookmarking properties and facilitating automatic email listing updates. These client profiles allow agents to monitor who is using their search engine, what types of searches they are running, and what properties they have taken interest in, helping agents and brokers better determine where to focus their time.

rDesk CMA generates presentations for potential buyers and sellers using attractive, stylish new graphics and prominently incorporating agent branding. There have been significant improvements to the layout and design of Property Detail pages and Side-by-Side Property Comparison pages as well, which now incorporate enhanced graphs and charts.

rDesk’s School and Neighborhood Reports are more comprehensive, too, yet are provided in easy to understand layouts. Information is gathered on the environment, housing, people, schools and quality of life for over 200,000 locations across the country.

The latest release from rDesk comes just weeks after FNRES announced the release of a completely redesigned and restructured Cyberhomes.com. The more powerful, easier-to-use Cyberhomes site now powers those agent and broker sites using the rDesk platform, giving them the detailed analysis of homes and their surrounding communities based on the site’s unique matrix of more than two million listings and 100 million property, ownership, sales and mortgage records drawn from more than 85 percent of the United States population.

For more information on the rDesk Suite, or for a product demonstration, contact the sales department at sales@rdesksolutions.com 800-336-1027

More information about FNF can be found at www.fnf.com.

RISMedia welcomes your questions and comments. Send your e-mail to: realestatemagazinefeedback@rismedia.com.