by Ken Brand, Sales Manager - Prudential Gary Greene, Realtors / The Woodlands TX / Cell: 832-797-1779 on May 27, 2010
Is It Better To Ask For Forgiveness or To Ask For Permission?
Generally speaking, I’m in the “Ask For Forgiveness” tribe.
Facebook is a monster. It’s super cool. It’s fun and useful. But at the end of the day, Facebook is a business. They aren’t going to invest dozens of millions for the good of humankind. They want everyone on planet earth to use and enjoy Facebook. In exchange, they’re going to serve up targeted ads and things we don’t even know about yet. It’s their right. No free lunches, etc..
Recently, Facebook has pissed people off by making some undesirable changes to what the users post, where it goes, who sees it, how it’s indexed, etc. In fact, if you follow this kind of thing, the uproar has been loud and even Congress is eyeballing them.
This isn’t the first time. It seems every time it happens, Facebook asks for forgiveness, changes a few things, throws a couple of bones to the cry babies and makes a few positively viewed changes. This is the case recently.
One more thing, before I share some Easier To Manage Facebook Settings info, if you’re using Facebook as a tool for business, or as I do, you believe Hugh MacLeod’s cartoon below speaks the truth, then you really don’t care. Why? Because you want to connect with as many people as possible. The more people know you or about you, the more they can decide if they should trust you or not. It’s that simple. In the real estate business and in all business I guess, TRUST is everything. Plus, if you don’t want people to see what you write or share, don’t post it. Honestly, I really do believe that privacy on the internet is a myth. Whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not, most everything we do is tracked or trackable.
Facebook Announces How Their New and Easier To Use Privacy Settings Work.
When I find things I think you might need to know or be curious out, I share them. For Facebook updates, I rely on a site called AllFacebook.com. They know what’s up and are happy to share. If you want super detail, they have books and stuff. So, here’s LINK to their Security Settings Post.
I say Ah-Ha, because reading about them explains why people make the stupidest decisions and behave boldly-irrational.
I say Ha-Ha, because I have to laugh at myself and how many of these decision-making, behavioral, belief and social biases I allow to tarnish my day-to-day adventures. Turns out, I’m biased as hell. Just like everyone else. But, I’m gonna do something about it. How about you?
Because familiarity with the In’s and Out’s of human behavior is valuable, learning more about Cognitive Bias is wise. When we understand why normally sane and reasonable we and others make goof-ball decisions and behave idiotically-irrational, we can do something positive to correct or avoid them.
Of the 117, I wanted to talk about 2 of them. They aren’t really related in nature, but I think you may be familiar with both.
We’re in the business of being chosen. Chosen to manage the successful sale or purchase of real estate and the everything in-between details. In our markets, there are hundreds of choices, you and I are but one of them.
73% of our competition is no competition, their quest for attention, relevance and selection in chaotic, haphazard and sporadic. 27% of our competition is most likely, bright, focused and uniquely distinctive.
Bright. Focused. Distinctive.
Bright: The opposite of dull and boring. Interesting. Engaging. Memorable. Trustworthy. Candid. Surprising. Generous.
Focused: Consistent in quality. Consistent in design. Consistent in intent. Consistent in delivery. Consistent in response and reliability. Consistent in communication. Consistent in execution. Consistent in follow through and follow up. Consistently reinventing and evolving.
Distinctive: A combination of bright and focused, plus, unique in design, interaction, commitment, communication and delivery.
Intellectually, I believe we all understand the importance of creating and delivering Bright,Focused and Distinctive services and solutions. I believe that you and I press forward, daily, in our quest to do so. I’m certain that how you and I might define and deliver Bright, Focused and Distinctive would vary, the more important question is, how do civilians define it and will others know it when they see it? Would they know it was us if our labels and branding wrappers were scraped away?
To answer the questions, we can test ourselves. We can…
Click HERE for the rest of the story and to take the Scrape-The-Label test.
Newmark called some form of distributed trust system “the killingest of killer apps” for the web over the next decade (he said he wasn’t sure that was the best way to describe it, but was trying out to see how it sounded). He talked about “reputation and trust ruling the web, just the way it does in real life,” and how he was looking to big players such as Google, Facebook and Amazon as the kinds of entities that would have the scale to handle such a distributed trust or reputation management network.
Imagine A World…
What kind of insanely great world would it be if you were the real deal and were certified. Not some commercial, smoke, mirrors and polish, but real and trustworthy. Wow right? Even better, the shammers and scammers, posers and pretenders are exposed and driven into the sea or motivated to come-correct.
I’m sharing the why’s and what’s and how’s of creating a useful CMA (Competitive Market Analysis) for pricing your property. The goal is to sell it for the highest possible price, in your desired time frame.
Experience has shown that Qualified Home Buyers comparison shop. Typically, they will define a price range and an area or areas that they are interested in, the style and design, desired amenities, etc., and they go shopping, looking at pre-owned homes and New Homes.
After viewing all of the available homes that meet their criteria, a buyer will narrow their choices down to a short list of one or two homes.
In this day and age of Buyer Representation, the buyer’s representative will prepare a Competitive Market Analysis (CMA) to assist the buyer in the decision making process and offering price. At this point the buyer…having viewed all of the available homes (competition) will want to know..what similar homes have actually SOLD for, average number of Days on Market, Price Per Square Foot and List Price to Sales Price ratio.
This research is used to help determine their offering price and ultimately their own limits to what they feel a home should sell for relative to it’s competition.
Also, once the Buyer and Seller agree on a price and the buyer’s mortgage is being processed, the lender will send an appraiser out and they conduct the same research.
What we provide is the research on homes that a buyer interested in viewing your home may also consider and data the appraiser will also look at also.
By reviewing this market data we can select a price that will position your home competitively in the market place so we can meet your goals.
If there’s anything we can do for you, give me a call: Ken Brand 832-797-1779
