This is turning into much more than a comment so I’m going to another platform to post and then submit to Daniel.

We need to take control of our own destiny and use the data set that is ours to drive traffic back to us and not through a third party that wants to charge us for the leads generated or placement acheived.

It reminds me of Ray Kroc and hamburgers. Too many people, even to this day, think that the McDonald’s business model was based upon fast food. Those in business know it wasn’t.

These discussions about the Trulia’s and zillow’s of the world are nonsensical. And you are one of those who gets it.

This is evident in the extremely high failure rates of 80% of new agents getting out of the business within a year. And 90% getting out within 3 years.

I have nothing but respect for Zillow, Trulia, and the rest. They have some extremely good persons on staff – that make Bill Clinton look like he’s tongue tied.

It really comes down to that a lot of agents do not understand HOW they are helping Zillow & Trulia out compete them in the marketplace – and that later on down the road, there will be a greater price to pay for any short term gains they perceive that they are getting now.

Bouncing from place to place only works if all have equal visibility and exposure.

If a site shows up as #1 in the search engines for critical keywords, it has greater exposure. And, they can charge handsomely for it once they are secure in their position.

I have owned a few other “businesses” and never thought my competitors were “stealing” my business, they were beating me at what I did. I had 2 options…actually 3.

1. Keep going on my current course and be satisfied with my declining market share.

2. Quit..close up shop….or my choice…

3. Step up my game and COMPETE.

The Zullia’s of the world are in business. Realtors are in business (I think)…instead of having the continuing discussions about your market coimpetitot, why not step up your game and compete?

If any of the services or competitors in your market including other Realtors are exploitable, then by all means tell the public why they need to utilize you INSTEAD of your competitor.

Of course, this means that one would actually need to be IN “business” and run their operation LIKE a “business”. (i.e. spend money to overcome their competitors)

It’s a pretty simple business accumen. Yet so few Realtors follow or even know what to do. Other than Russell, who has from what I understand become an institution in Phoenix, how many other Realtors know or are even capable of establishing themselves as THE agent in a market.

His success did not come by accident.

I applauded Daniel’s post here becasue he recognizes that your competitors have already ENGAGED the consumer. Why haven’t you?

That may be the PR. One of the dumbest things NAR ever did was to give REALTOR.com to Homestore. The site, as it exists now is actually designed to make money for Move (formerly known as Homestore). Driving leads to agents is way down on the list of importances. Selling agents the ability to “enhance your listings” and banner ads and zip code exclusives, now that is important.

If REALTOR.com actually did what they really should have done – Zillow, Trulia or any of the endless other sites designed to compete with them wouldn’t have made it out of the starting gate. Not one of them. If REALTOR.com had really been driving leads to agents instead of attempting to line their pockets at the expense of agents (all the while with NAR executives blindly “overseeing them”) every agent in America would have found REALTOR.com a very worthwhile website.

Having a site that is “good for agents” doesn’t mean “bad for consumers”.