Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

NAR to make a decision on possible postponement of Midyear Legislative Meetings by April 1st

Statement on NAR 2020 REALTORS® Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo and the Coronavirus

“As concerns over the coronavirus continue, many of our members have inquired about the status of the NAR 2020 REALTORS Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo (RLMTE), currently scheduled to occur May 11-16 in Washington, DC. Today, the NAR Leadership Team announced that a final decision regarding the possible postponement or use of virtual options for RLMTE will be made on or before April 1, 2020.

The safety and well-being of our members, staff, and partner organizations remains our top priority, and the Leadership Team recognizes the virus’s impact on large gatherings and events.”

Shit just got real yo.

We got nipple

As I head to NAR Annual in San Francisco I can help but remember back to NAR Annual 2003, also held in San Francisco, when I hired Fabio for a meet and greet at our eNeighborhoods booth.

We ran a full centerfold spread ad in REALTOR Magazine to promote his appearance. To this day I think its the only ad in REALTOR Magazine that ever showed full nipple.

So don’t believe anyone when they tell you not to follow your dreams.

#thanksstu

See you in Boston!

I’m heading to Boston today and looking forward to seeing everyone.

I’m also going to be moderating a panel at the MLS Association Executive Session on Friday at the Hynes Center, Room 210 on the Second Level.

The session runs from 1PM to 3PM. I think they have the panel starting around 2:20PM.

The title of the panel is “Innovation and Options – The Grid, MLS Aligned, Bridge API, Spark Platform and Trestle“. I will be joined by…

Marc Hill from Realtracs talking about the The Grid.
Chris Lambrou from MetroMLS talking about MLS Aligned.
Jay Lee from Bridge Interactive (Zillow Group) talking about the Bridge API.
Matt Fowler from FBS talking about the Spark Platform.
Ethan Bailey from CoreLogic talking about Trestle.

I’m really looking forward to this and hoping it will be a good opportunity for everyone to get a better understanding of what each of these solutions can do for the MLS providers and their members.

Also we’ve recently updated our booth design so make sure to come by and take a look, we are giving away lots of free stuff.

Booth #333

See you soon!

Vendor Tech: Get off the floor!

It’s trade show season again, so that means many of us have been on the road. I still do a little booth duty now and then and thought I’d share something with everyone.

Does this look familiar?

Yup that dreaded rat’s nest of cables on the floor, just to the side of the table cloth at your 6 foot table. Sometimes your charging cables are too short to reach your phone on the table, and it just looks like shit.

But today I have the solution for you. The Accell Powramid! These bad boys are awesome for trade tables and regular conference tables.

Sure they take up a bit of table space, but no bending over, no rat’s nest of cables, they fit all types of power bricks and they come with 6 outlets and two USB charging ports. Love ’em.

You can buy them at Amazon, here’s the link. => Accell Powramid

Take my advice, order twice as many as you think you’ll need because once you start using them you are gonna to find other places to put them.

You’re welcome.

Thoughts on NAR’s iOi Summit

I had heard about this event a few months ago, and had been asked if I was going to attend. I was skeptical about it, but when I received an invitation to apply to participate in the “pitch battle”, I went ahead and applied. As I previously mentioned I was surprised that we were selected.

The event was designed by Bob Goldberg, NAR’s CEO to bring the disruptors “inside the tent”. To foster “innovation, opportunity & investment”. Basically Mr. Goldberg wanted NAR to be part of the conversation.

Color me impressed. Not only was the event very well produced, but I enjoyed meeting and seeing other vendors, some old (like me) and some new in the space. I loved vendors pitching agent safety apps, new CRMs, new front end of choice apps, 360 photo apps to help with disaster recovery efforts, real estate photo augmentation, using lockboxes help with in-home medical care, and a way to level up agent performance. What I found most impressive is none of these new startups seemed to be making money by selling ads. Bliss!

BoxBrownine won the “Pitch Battle”. And KW Labs won the Hackathon. You can read more about them here.

And true to his word, Mr. Goldberg did bring in a few heavy hitting investors to the conference too. Of course Mr. Goldberg couldn’t help himself in touting NAR’s own success in the investment arm of his organizations, Second Century Initiatives and REach. He interviewed Ron Hirson, Chief Product Officer from DocuSign. Which recently went public and made NAR a small fortune.

As Mr. Goldberg hit the stage to wrap up the conference, I was thinking about what was missing about the event. And then it hit me. Zillow. I heard nary a mention about Zillow from any of the presenters, or startups in attendance. Not from some sort of mandate, but just…because.

Which to me was the most impressive. Bob Goldberg did seemingly the impossible. He held a tech conference where nobody was talking about Zillow.

See you at NAR iOi Summit this week

A few weeks ago I received an invitation to apply to compete in the “Pitch Battle” at NAR’s inaugural “iOi Summit“. I thought it was a long shot but maybe good opportunity to get the word out about Cloud CMA’s new feature, Cloud Investor Connect. Surprisingly I made the cut. I’m told there were over 100 applications, but they choose only 16 to compete.

CRMLS, MRED and SFAR have sponsored to another portion of the event, a hackaton.

So if you are going to be in SF, I leave tomorrow morning, drop me a line.

BOOST – The MLS Staff Summit

W+R Studios is hosting the “BOOST-MLS Staff Summit“. Join the crew at W+R Studios for 2 days of intensive Cloud Agent Suite learning, networking, and training on how to Boost your MLS career. We’ll take care of room and board so get your ticket and yourself to Huntington Beach and we’ll handle the rest!

This event isn’t for CEO or leadership, but for those in the trenches working with agents in the training and support departments of the MLS providers.

Boost is hosted by W+R Studios, the creative team behind Cloud CMA and we believe in working hard and having fun. ????

All that’s required is to buy a ticket. Room and board are on us! Plus we promise to keep you entertained.

Tickets are very limited. To order tickets or find out more information please click the link below:

BOOST- MLS STAFF SUMMIT

See you tomorrow at Inman Connect SF


Dan and I will be attending Inman Connect SF starting tomorrow, until Friday. I will be on stage at 4:40PM Tuesday on the “New Kids On The Block” panel (don’t ask) making a special announcement about Cloud CMA. We are super pumped about this announcement and think its one of the most innovative things we’ve done….ever. So stay tuned, and see you is SF!

Did KW just say FU to vendors?

At the recent Keller Williams’ Family Reunion convention, Gary Keller during his keynote declared “We are not a real estate company anymore” and had a slide talking about vendors that were “not safe”.

Chief Innovation Officer, Josh Team also announced, on stage, that the company would no longer deal with “bolt on” technology. Team defined “bolt on” as…

“Bolt-on technology is anytime you use another company’s technology product that you didn’t build and own,”

How fucked up is that? Imagine how the vendors on the exhibit floor felt after spending good money, on their booths, hotels, airfare and thousands of hours of time and energy to exhibit at an event where the CEO and the senior staff who put on that event insult them as “bolt on” and/or “not safe”.

To put it lightly, that was a pretty dumbass thing for KW to do to those vendors, and shows a remarkable lack of couth.

While I’m told the pitch my Mr. Keller was as masterful as ever, it’s really a shame to see a great company like Keller Williams stoop to this level. By spreading this FUD to their agents I believe they are risking their company’s best asset, culture.

Entrepreneurial, highly trained, independent, system focused, scrappy, motivated. Those are the terms I would describe KW agents.

While it seems that “tech enabled brokerages” are all the rage right now. This pendulum swings back and forth.

So while Mr. Keller’s head may be in the clouds right now, I would encourage him not to burn any boats anytime soon and that the two letters he should double down on are KW, not AI.

Inman Connect NYC – Need your help

Looking forward to seeing everyone in New York for the Inman Connect Conference. I’m heading out there tomorrow.

I’ll be participating on a panel on the “Data Track“, which has a ton of great content BTW!

The panel is “Live Problem Solving”, I’ll be joined with Chris Bennett, VP of CoreLogic and Suzanne Mueller, SVP of Move/Realtor.com, David Charron will be moderating. It’s at 2:55PM on Thursday, Westside Ballroom, Salon 2.

The premise of the panel is that audience members can ask us questions and we will do our best, based on our experience, of answering those questions. Here are some examples…

“How did you come up with pricing for your product?”
“How to you manage MLS permissioning”
“What trade/shows and events are worth participating in?”

So, here’s where I need the help. If you have any questions that you would like to ask myself or any of the other panel participants please leave them in the comments. If we have a lull in the questions we will bring yours up!

See you soon! And remember Never Go Big On The First Night!

#NGBOTFN

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