The theme had come up once at one of my office sales meetings and today again at lunch. Says one title company’s account executive, the time has come for individual REALTORS to write to the Arizona Association of REALTORS and demand they work diligently to counter the negative press about our industry.
Something struck me as wrong about this concept from the get-go, and I finally narrowed it down to a handful of bullet points:
1) Who’s your audience? The local newspapers and television stations aren’t going to care about a poor trade group being ganged up on, especially when they’re the ones doing the ganging up. Misery sells papers but not when trade professionals are involved.
Hell, the Arizona Republic can’t even spot loan fraud exposed in its own story if there’s no angle that blames the real estate industry or investors and not your average homeowner.
2) Who will believe them? NAR has ruined the credibility of an industry with the spin placed on monthly home sales. Now you want the local branch of that association somehow to aid in our effort to regain our credibility?
3) Negative news isn’t necessarily incorrect news. Sales are slow. Prices are dropping. An increasingly large percentage of homes are going into foreclosure. This is reality, negative as it may be.
“It’s always a great time to buy,” the standard slogan of NAR, is wholely inappropriate. This IS a great time to buy for those with the means to purchase a property and hold it for the long term, for those who have real money to use as a down payment. But that doesn’t mean that this is a great time to buy for everyone.
4) You create your own success. Stop pointing fingers – it’s the builders, it’s the mortgage industry, it’s the prices, it’s the bubble bloggers. You fail or succeed on your own merits. Period. If I’m out of this business in a year it’s because I didn’t work hard enough to stay in it. Stop looking for scapegoats.
If you don’t have the number of clients you want, increase your own prospecting efforts. Those that choose not to buy now because of the press or who were looking for reasons not to use a real estate professional because of perception weren’t going to do business with you anyway.
As David Knox says, “Let go.”
Focus on those folks who know the truth behind the mainstream media’s b.s., work to earn their trust and create your own success.
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Consumerism, Geo-mapping columnist
Marketing columnist
Such as it is in life. The only person responsible for you is you.
Oh puhleeze… I’m supposed to ask the AAR to stick up for me??
“Dear AAR – why is everyone always picking on us? Please do something! Make the bad man at the newspaper stop it!”
Gimme a F’ing break.
This was a *damn* fine post!
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Amen- preach on.
But I pay dues…
Oh NAR, why do you bother?
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The age of money falling off the trees for anyone willing to sit through a one week crash course in real estate is over.
The “mom and pop” homegrown way of doing business is over.
“There has never been a better time to buy a home!” is over.
NAR should look into hiring a new scriber with something more to the tune of “There has never been a better time to buy a home utilizing the services of a qualified and educated professional. You will have to do more than accept the Realtor® designation as a sign of this level of skill and education because we give it to anyone who gives us money.” It hasn’t happened yet but we are in for a big shift and I can’t wait to see the industry morph to a point where the MAJORITY of real estate agents are actual professionals. What a day that will be…
“You fail or succeed on your own merits.”
BRAVO.
Regardless of the market, that statement will ALWAYS be true. I think that the finger pointers are just using the market as a crutch and an excuse for why they personally just suck.