Last Friday, I found myself driving from Dallas to Waco. Destination: Baylor University. The reason: To participate in a 2-day think tank regarding the state of affairs of real estate sponsored by Gary Keller, Chairman of Keller Williams Realty.
Baylor is Gary’s Alma Mater. In March of 2007, he donated $5 million to the University to establish the Keller Center for Research in Residential Real Estate. The Center’s purpose is to explore the behavior of consumers in their decisions and relationships with agents. To research those parts of real estate untouched by academia.
This about putting an end to off the cuff opinions.
Dead ideas.
With little to no research behind them.
I was eager to arrive, albeit eight hours late due to a delayed flight from DC to Dallas. Once there, I joined the 60 or so invitees – a mix of top producers and those with a “track record of success in real estate” to tackle the issues confronting the real estate industry. Our assignment was to craft a viable mandate that will deliver real value – not just to Keller Williams – but to real estate as a whole.
It was 7:00 pm when I entered the campus. I rode the elevator to the 5th floor of the Hankamer School of Business. The room was on break. Seeking their third wind. While heading over to my appointed table I spotted Sami from Trulia who briefed me on the day’s events.
At the front of the room, projected onto on the screen, was a simple list. 12 words. The issues facing real estate. Lead generation. Lead Conversion. Lead Management. Advertising. Branding. Terms and practices generously shmeared inside the bagel that is real estate – over abundant, wasted and oozing out from all sides.
On the floor, 10 round tables. 10 seats each.
Gary led the event flanked by his writing partner, Dave Jenks. They provided an intense one-two punch of wit, insight and forward thinking. They motivated the thought process. Stimulated the conversation. Gary talked about the state of affairs in real estate and the affects the downturn is having on all participants in the industry, including brokers who knew what to say and what to do when homes were flying off the shelf but are now unclear on how and what to do as things sit. As people freak out.
They talked about consumers and the smart money they once had earning 25% a year in home equity that now can’t seem to perform at all. He talked about the reevaluation of purpose, meaning, people and expenses. He brought up the concept of caution. Extreme caution.
I had just read a story in the Wall Street Journal about a Vegas Realtor who lost the 14 homes he purchased over the past 2-years. He understood extreme. Had no concept of caution. I wondered how many clients he placed in his sinking boat.
This is a big reason why this event was so important.
I dug into the exercise. Our charge: Discuss issues and isolate the practices that appear to work regardless of market trends. Hour after hour each table reported their conclusions, producing a series of powerful questions and
concerns that would serve as the basis for a consumer research project
that the faculty and students at the Keller Center would undertake.
This two-day summit should have lasted five days. The foundation of a new real estate business was being formulated by architects decidedly committed to fixing a broken industry.
It ended Saturday afternoon and I drove to Austin to catch a flight home. Texas is a big state. We covered a lot of ground. If you’re ever in Waco eat at Buzzard Billy’s. Order a Steiner’s, raise the glass and toast the town where the bricks building the future of this business are being made.
- Davison
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Sounds like an awesome event Marc – what, pray tell, did the Ivory Tower come up with for action? Anything to share?
This event was aabout tapping into several things:
1) Poking into the success formulas of top producers who succeed despite any market shift
2) A serious of powerful questions that woudl serve as the cornerstone of a consumer survey.
The folks at the Keller Center and Baylor University are crunching the data derived from the event to create the next step which will focus on people and learn what it is they like and dislike about real estate.
The benefit to this will brings to real estate is huge.
Sounds like a very cool conversation. What kinds of questions came up for the consumer survey?
The consumer survey will be drafted from the discussions over the 2-day event as I understand it.
I am as eager as you to see it as well as see the results from respondents.
Wow…do we really need a consumer survey to tell us what appears to be more and more obvious each day?
I don't think that consumers take on a wholly new persona when they wade into today's murky waters known as "real estate". They probably want the same things that they have come to expect in other areas of their lives:
1. Greater transparency.
2. Give them credit (literally) for their willingness to do some of the work online themselves.
3. Justify your prices (or, in this case, commissions).
4. Create a great customer experience (see #3 above!).
5. Create relevant brands (launching a "Better Homes & Gardens" brand in 2007?..Who is your customer and how much longer will they be alive?)
6. Stop telling them about our expertise. If you have it, it's apparent and if you don't, it rings so hollow as to destroy all remaining credibility.
The one area that a consumer survey could actually be helpful in is determining whether or not consumers see their relationship with their realtor as transactional or ongoing…this would probably stop an awful lot of recipe post cards from getting mailed this year and get us to focus more on the customer experience over the life of the transaction as opposed to coming up with new ways to try to add value in between transactions, when we're not necessarily invited to the party.
And if it turns out that our relationship with our customer is more "transactional", it's going to help us define when the "transaction' begins. When someone talks to you? When they visit your website? Once we determine this, we can start building those customer experiences that lead to the kind of customer relationships that define a brand…but then we don't need a survey or even a business school do we?
We just need the courage to execute on the stuff we're already pretty sure of.
Here's another reason why real estate needs a definitive survey – to put to rest all the of the snake oil salesmen, gurus, etc., who build things that "consumer will love" or preach practices that will drive consumers – that is really about more aimed at buying their products or books rather than tried true ideas born from case studies.
Far too many Realtors have bought into ideas and products based on the sales pitch despite the lack of real, street tested consumer data.
Imagine being able to walk past a vendor booth at NAR and interrupt the slick pitchman who is knee deep in hyperbole with facts that stand in direct opposition of his or her fiction.
I agree completely that is real estate would simply look at how other industries treat consumers they would not need it own survey. But real estate doesn't do that. Or if they do, they seem to only study the airline industry that appears to have a equal amount of disinterest in the consumer.
Anyway, great post Jon.
Sounds like a very cool conversation. What kinds of questions came up for the consumer survey?