Notorious R.O.B.

The most frequently pressed number in a voicemail system: "0" for Operator

Now that I am a consumer in the real estate market, having moved from New Jersey to Texas (like so many others) and therefore having placed my house in the hands of a Realtor, I get to have some cool experiences. I wanted to share one of them with you all, especially the real estate professionals, because it struck me that this is probably not a perspective you get often from your buyers or sellers.

Tools. They’re great. I know many of you use tons of them. But you are going to want to consider how the consumer on the receiving end might perceive them. I got an email today from my agent, Sue Adler — or more precisely, I did not get an email from my agent, Sue Adler — which triggered this post.

Done correctly, tools can and do help you work more efficiently, more effectively, stay in touch better, and improve customer service. But more often than not, tools can make you seem impersonal and distant, like you just don’t care. And that’s probably not a good thing in something like a real estate transaction.

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Farewell, And Thanks for All the Fish!

So tomorrow is going to be my last day in New Jersey as a resident, unless something really dramatic happens and I get incarcerated here. I have a bunch of random, somewhat conflicted, thoughts going on and figured I’d share four of them here with you.

This got long, partly because I’ve gone through quite a bit, and partly because I’m going to be driving sixteen hours a day for the next three to four days. So blogging will be difficult, to say the least.

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Gary Vaynerchuk, of Wine Library, is a tremendously entertaining speaker. And he spoke at Inman NY this past week. While we wait for the official video from the good people of Inman, I found this… what do you call it, bootleg conference speaker video? on this blog post by Sue Adler, a realtor who actually works my market. (*wave* Hi Sue!)

Watch the whole video — I’m not going to embed it here, since you can view it on that site.

Gary Vaynerchuk — known more colloquially as GaryVee (his Twitter handle) — is an incredible speaker. He’s full of passion, full of entertaining stories, and definitely has the gift of gab. He is a superstar in the making. I found his Inman talk to be spirited, tremendously fun, and inspiring in many ways.

Unfortunately, for realestistas who must toil in the real estate industry, I felt that he ultimately failed to convince. Well, at least me. Which might be a good thing for GaryVee and his acolytes.

What is especially unfortunate is that Gary’s charisma and natural storytelling skills pose a danger for realestistas trying to figure out what’s what with all this social media stuffzorz. He makes points that are, on the surface, extremely appealing, and makes them in a very appealing way. If he had been a worse speaker, perhaps the seduction would be less.

Ah, but that’s where I come in, playing the killjoy party pooper. Let’s get into it.

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