ActiveBob.....It's always Raining!

I went to Inman Connect NY this year determined to go to as many sessions as possible, gain new insights, and bring them back to the AR community. This strategy contrasted to my usual Inman experience of back-to-back deal making meetings with little time for sessions. I am sad to report that my hope of attending many of the sessions lost out to the best Inman networking experience to date! However, the good news is that all of that networking and deal making will result in some great new tools and features coming to our ActiveRain members in the future months! In fact it's Friday morning, and it's already been one week since the conference has ended and this is my first real opportunity to take a breather and write a real blog post about the experience.

I've come to savor the relationships rekindled at Brad Inman's Real Estate Connect conferences, held in San Fransisco in the summer and Manhattan in the winter. My first Inman conference was not as successful, despite my hopes; I aspired to meet with the "higher ups" to pitch the idea for ActiveRain and raise financial support. In reality, that first conference was quite the growth opportunity. I drove to San Francisco alone, and when I got there knew absolutely no one. I approached people who's name I recognized, introduced myself, and attempted to secure meetings. Needless to say, I ate every meal by myself during my three days in San Francisco and drove home just a little poorer than when I had arrived.

The first conference is the hardest to "crash", so to speak, but by the second, and certainly by the third, I found myself knowing more and more people. Now after my fourth conference I would guess that I know 1/3 of the attendants on a first name basis! 

I managed to sneak into parts of a several sessions, and here were some of my takeaways:

Charlie Young, COO of Coldwell Banker, banished the old "listings as commodity" argument with his emphasis on putting listings everywhere.

Marc Davison of 1000Watt Consulting stressed taking the temperature of the market and giving more transparency.

Sherry Chris, CEO of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate twirled people on their heads, stating, "Consider non-business application as business applications". Twitter, YouTube, etc.

Kevin Boer discussed using outside companies for your web components, opensource software, etc, as a way to make real estate blogging and technology affordable. Why reinvent the wheel? 

Trulia announced their new motto of "when your product becomes a commodity, commoditize your business" and the launch of their new white label listing product. (I personally believe that this is perhaps one of the most important milestones in the real estate industry in the last 10 years. I will try to post more on that thought soon.)

FrontDoor made their big appearance.  They are definitely a player, and should be watched!

Pretty much every expert said that the real estate market is doing very badly, and it most likely won't recover for another couple of years (except for a few locations, such as New York city, which are booming). 

The general theme left little doubt of the impact of conventional marketing as a has-been in our current marketplace. Exemplified by Pamela Liebman, President and CEO of the Corcoran Group, her company has done away with all print advertising, except to promote open houses. If agents are hesitant, she shared, track and share where closed sales originate. The numbers will speak for themselves, and agents will switch right away!