Welcome to Vendor Alley

If you haven’t checked out LORE Magazine this month you should. The magazine does a great job of letting you into the lives of the major industry players, all presented in high quality publication with great artwork, photos and layout, without sacraficing quality content. Kudos to its publisher Anne Randolph.

Lately they have been doing this interviews with 2 people that appear to have nothing in common or are fierce competitors. In May’s issue the article is “Strange Bedellows” where they interview Alex Perriello (CEO of Realogy Franchise Group) and Mark Willis (CEO of Keller Williams.) It kind of reminds me of the Iconoclasts series on Sundance Channel. Anyway in the interview Alex Perreillo gives the greatest quote…

LORE: What do you think agents and brokers should be doing?

AP: Now is absolutely the greatest time to grow your business, and we currently spend an enormous amount of time with franchises. Chandler Barton (president and CEO of CB when purchased by HFS) once said, “People have this business backwards. You need to cut expenses when the market is good because don’t need to spend the money, and you grow market share when the market is bad. So when the cycle turns, which it inevitably will, you’ve got a larger share”

Well said!

This just popped up in my Google alerts.

General Manager - eNeighborhoods
A Division of Dominion Enterprises

eNeighborhoods (a division of Dominion Enterprises) is seeking a General Manager. The General Manager for this successful and growing operation will lead expansion of current web-based products in addition to developing and executing business plans for future products. The position will be based in Boca Raton, Florida and report to a Division President.

eNeighborhoods is the nation’s premier compiler of home and neighborhood knowledge, providing marketing and data services to the real estate industry’s top performers. Successful candidates for General Manager will join a dynamic team responsible for exceeding our customers’ expectation and providing powerful tools to agents, brokers, MLS organizations, and franchises. General areas of responsibility will include:

Providing vision for business and securing necessary resources to achieve goals
Hiring and developing a team to develop, sell and support web-based products
Daily leadership, management and coaching of staff
Managing financial performance, to exceed budgeted revenue and income

REQUIREMENTS AND QUALIFICATIONS INCLUDE:

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent, with a minimum of 10 years experience in a leadership role
Minimum expectation of 5 years successful experience hiring, managing, and developing managers
Proven ability to hire, manage, and develop sales, marketing, operations, and technical staff
Demonstrated success in real estate technology and online business environment
Proven track record of success in growing a customer base for web-based products
Success in developing and executing budgets and business plans
Excellent verbal and written communication skills
Highest standards of ethical business practice
Enthusiastic and driven to succeed
Deadline-driven and detail oriented, with a focus on continuous improvement

Dominion Enterprises (www.dominionenterprises.com) is a leading marketing services company serving the wide-ranging needs of many industries including real estate, apartments, specialty vehicles, employment, automotive and travel. We offer a dynamic environment, excellent growth opportunities, competitive earnings and a comprehensive benefits package including a generous 401(k). Dominion Enterprises supports a diverse workforce and is a drug-testing employer.

If you have the skills and seek a challenging growth opportunity, please apply through this site or send a cover letter and resume to (no calls please):

matt.paddock at dominionenterprises dot com
757-314-2512 (fax)
150 Granby
Norfolk, VA 23510

I was inspried by Dennis Miller to come up with the today’s headline.

Solid Earth to Offer ListHub

WASHINGTON D.C.– May 22th – Threewide Corporation announced today that the company has entered into a joint marketing agreement with Solid Earth, providers of the LIST-IT full service Internet MLS solution. Under the terms of the agreement, Solid Earth will be offering ListHub to its MLS and broker customers. ListHub is a tool for brokers to access their listing inventory within the MLS and market their listings on the Internet, driving consumer traffic and leads back to their individual brokerage Web sites.

“We look forward to working with Threewide and offering ListHub to our customers,” said Matt Fowler, President of Solid Earth. “With ListHub, our MLS partners will be helping their broker customers take advantage of the many marketing opportunities the Internet has to offer. Our goal has always been to provide our customers with affordable, easy-to-use products and services to help them better manage their businesses. ListHub will certainly help us meet our goal.”

ListHub provides a seamless flow of data from an MLS system to popular Internet sites where consumers search for property information without any re-entry of data. MLSs and Brokers can control which sites display their listings and monitor the traffic and leads generated from those sites back to their own Web sites. ListHub keeps the data up-to-date in order to provide today’s homebuyers with the most accurate information available.

“We are excited to be working with Solid Earth,” said Rob Reid, Executive Vice President of Threewide Corporation. “They have built a strong reputation in this industry by delivering high quality products and services their customers need to survive and thrive in our marketplace.”

“We really see the addition of ThreeWide’s ListHub product to our line-up as a great thing for our customers,” said Matt Fowler, President of Solid Earth. “It provides a feature that our customers not just want, but need, to compete in the new marketplace. They have a great reputation and a widely accepted solution, plus it allows our development team to focus on our core deliverables. It’s a good fit for everyone.”
About Threewide Corporation

Threewide Corporation was founded in July of 1999 and has specialized in solving data management issues in the real estate vertical since its inception. In mid-2000, the company began to focus on the digital capture, packaging, and transport of data for brokerages, Multiple Listing Services, and other industry vendors. In 2007, Threewide launched ListHub, a broker product that pushes MLS listing information to an array of online marketing sites.

For more information about Threewide Corporation, visit www.threewide.com.

For more information about ListHub, visit www.listhub.net.

About Solid Earth

Solid Earth, Inc. was founded in 1998 and is the publisher of two SAS real estate products: the LIST-IT MLS System and MapMachine.com. LIST-IT is a customized real estate inventory management and marketing support system designed for use by local real estate trade associations. Associations use Solid Earth’s software to operate their Multiple Listing Service (MLS) systems, usually the primary real estate marketplace in each City area. Solid Earth currently operates 23 such systems across 14 states covering about 5% of all REALTORS nationally. Coverage includes the largest markets in Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky and Louisiana plus major markets in Florida, Michigan, New Jersey and New York. MapMachine.com is a browser-based Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping service designed specifically for REALTORS. It is the foundation of the mapping system for all LIST-IT accounts and is additionally licensed to approximately 11,000 agents in Southeast Michigan.

This press release contains various forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding future results of operations and market opportunities that are based on Threewide’s current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections about the company and its industry. Investors are cautioned that actual results could differ materially from those anticipated by the forward-looking statements as a result of the success of Threewide’s branding and consumer awareness campaign and other marketing efforts; competition from existing and potential competitors; and Threewide’s ability to continue to develop and integrate new products, services and technologies.

Press Contact:
Celeste Starchild
Vice President of Broker Sales
(877) 847.3394 ext. 708
cstarchild@threewide.com

Solid Earth Contact:
Bill Fowler
Marketing Director
bfowler@solidearth.com

###

Dave Rifkin was promoted to Vice President of Agent Services for eNeighborhoods

Michael Hayes was promoted to Director of Enterprise Services for eNeighborhoods

I wanted to say a few things. Dominion Enterprises showed a lot of smarts promoting these guys. Dave Rifkin has been in the real estate technology business since the mid 90s. He’s negotiated contracts with large MLS providers, help design product and more recently started an inside sales team from scratch at eNeighborhoods. He and Andy Woolley were the two biggest forces driving growth and my first company IRIS, LLC. IRIS would not have been a success without Dave.

Rick Sherwood, also an IRIS alum, is the whole package. Rick is very smart, has a great feel for the game, a good eye for product functionality design, and very tenacious. Rick lasted through (survived) all the bullshit at what began as Moore Data and is now FNRES MLS. You don’t go through that experience without being an A player and having a deep understanding of the MLS real estate technology industry.

Michael Hayes, a Wyldfyre alum, is another A player in the game. It’s a well known fact that Michael’s charisma can be tracked from space. People in the International Space Station see two things when look down at earth, the great wall of China and a bright white light coming from Los Gatos, California. When eNeighborhoods acquired WyldFyre Technologies from HomeStore (Move), we realized right away that the best thing we could do is give a smart and creative guy like Michael anything he needed. And what he has accomplished has been amazing.

Here’s the story from our friends at RIS Media.

eNeighborhoods Announces Promotions in Enterprise, Agent Services Divisions

RISMEDIA, May 19, 2008-eNeighborhoods, a division of Dominion Enterprises, announced the promotions of key staff members to further the company’s real estate technology and marketing initiatives. eNeighborhoods, says the company, delivers real estate technology to more than 400,000 desktops around the world.

Peter Ill, president of Dominion Enterprises real estate businesses, announced the promotion of David Rifkin to vice president of eNeighborhoods Agent Services. Rifkin’s new role includes agent sales and marketing as well as working with multiple listing services (MLS) organizations.

Joining Rifkin’s team as manager of Dominion Data Services is Wendy McDaniel. McDaniel will be responsible for the continued growth of the company’s Internet Data Exchange (IDX) program, and maintaining relationships with MLS organizations. eNeighborhoods operates the industry’s largest network of IDX websites, compiling more than 3.8 million IDX listings from over 450 MLS organizations on behalf of their broker and agent customers.

“The growth in our Agent Services division continues moving forward under Dave Rifkin’s leadership,” Ill said. “These actions will ensure that we continue to deliver relevant products and services for agents competing in today’s tough markets. Dave Rifkin is a real estate industry and eNeighborhoods veteran. We’re happy to welcome him to the senior management team, and to bring Wendy McDaniel aboard to manage Data Services.”

eNeighborhoods Vice President of Enterprise Services Andy Woolley also announced the promotions of Michael Hayes and Rick Sherwood. Both Hayes and Sherwood will become directors in eNeighborhoods’ Enterprise Services division.

“eNeighborhoods delivers marketing, lead generation, and data-sharing tools to leading MLS and broker organizations in the United States, Canada, and Australia,” Woolley said. “Few people have the marketing, technology and real estate industry expertise that Michael and Rick bring to the team in supporting our large enterprise customers.”

Join us in the Wardman “old” Tower (Marriott) at midnight tonight, suite 5300. Bring what you can to help us celebrate Dan and Greg’s departure.

Midnight tonight, Suite 5300!

See you there!!!

More fill in the blanks fun for your reading pleasure!

Are _____ and ______ freaking crazy for leaving their fat gigs at _________________?

Did you hear that _____ _________ is going to buy an NHL franchise?

Is it a requirement to be over 6ft tall to work for _______?

How does _____ get all these women to fetch him drinks and sit on his lap?

What’s up with _______ doesn’t he get enough _______ in Texas?

Was that Dave ______? I haven’t seen him at Mid-year in over 5 years.

________ thinks she’s so hot. If this was any other industry she’d be a “not”.

The Real Estate Channel? Archive? What kind of ______ is _______ smoking?

WTF? The new lounge/euro vibe of the lobby bar at the Wardman Park sucks. It reminded me of the SNL sketch of “The Schoeners” with their weird furniture. The seats are very uncomfortable and, to be honest, the layout makes it almost impossible to cruise the area and stop for a quick chat. Patrons I talked to kept sliding off the plastic cushions that were velcroed on to the seat backs, not cool.

While I did like the new placement of the longer bar the seating area was just plain a disaster area.

Greg Robertson and Dan Woolley leave eNeighborhoods.

You can read it all here.

Thanks for all the great comments and good wishes, keep ‘em coming, Dan and I will need all the encouragement/love/help/karma we can get!

I’m in D.C. at the NAR Midyear show. I’ve reactivated my twitter account, twitter.com/VendorAlley

See you there!

They give me inspiration!

“Howard Roark laughed. He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. The lake lay far below him. A frozen explosion of granite burst in flight to the sky over motionless water. The water seemed immovable, the stone flowing. The stone had the stillness of one brief moment in battle when thrust meets thrust and the currents are held in a pause more dynamic than motion. The stone glowed, wet with sunrays.

The lake below was only a thin steel ring that cut the rocks in half. The rocks went on into the depth, unchanged. They began and ended in the sky. So that the world seemed suspended in space, an island floating on nothing, anchored to the feet of the man on the cliff…

He laughed at the thing which had happened to him that morning and at the things which now lay ahead.

He knew that the days ahead would be difficult. There were questions to be faced and a plan of action to be prepared.

He knew that he should think about it. He knew also that he would not think, because everything was clear to him already, because the plan had been set long ago, and because he wanted to laugh.”

The Fountainhead, (Page 1)
Ayn Rand

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish
“I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle….
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”


Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple

Stanford University June 12, 2005

Commencement Address

“Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.”
Groucho Marx

Calling all vendors! Calling all vendors!!

New product? After-party location? Inside tip? Shameless plug?

If you got something to announce send it us and we’ll will post it.

Vendor.Alley@gmail.com

Let’s make this the “BEST NAR EVER!!”