How to Bury a Real Estate Agent Alive

Have you ever been buried alive?

According to illusionist David Blane who spent 7 days buried alive, it’s not the near suffocation or loneliness or claustrophobia that grinds away at you…

It’s the feeling of being alive and TRAPPED that nearly kills you.

In the 18th and 19th Centuries, people were so afraid of being buried alive that they often requested to have their feet sliced or prodded with a fire poker to make sure that they were dead.

They did not want to be trapped.

We have a fear of being buried prematurely. Whether it is real or metaphorical. Nobody likes being trapped.

What does this have to do with real estate? Pay attention. I’ll show you.

The Ancient Bazaar

There’s good reason to believe that the real estate model is changing. [In fact, it already has: you just may not be aware of it.]

Nah, you say. The NAR is a huge organization that will not allow the model to change. At least not dramatically.

Is that right?

Let’s look at other supposed entrenched models that have changed and then tell me how you really feel.

Consider the Internet.

In the Cluetrain Manifesto, Christopher Locke wrote, “In many ways, the Internet more resembles an ancient bazaar than it fits the business models companies try to impose upon it.”

The Internet is a place where people can talk to other people without constraint. Without filters or censorship or official sanction. And perhaps most significantly, without advertising.

That was true in the beginning. But not now.

Manipulation, Coercion, Threats of Reprisal

The web has become just an extension of preceding mass media, primarily television. According to Locke, the rhetoric it uses is freighted with the same marketing jargon that characterized broadcast: brand, market share, eyeballs, demographics.

Of course, online marketeers still drool at the prospect of the Net replicating the top-down broadcast model wherein glitzy “content” is developed at great cost in remote studios and jammed down a one-way pipe into millions of living rooms.

It’s like TV with a buy button.

Yippee!

But business environments based on command-and-control are usually characterized by manipulation, coercion, and threats of reprisal.

And this means nothing to the web surfer. He’ll ignore you because he’s got plenty to keep him busy.

Funny thing is, not a whole lot of agents even know what the Internet is for, let alone blogging. Regardless, we’ve adopted it faster than any technology since fire.

And you need to catch up.

How to Bury a Real Estate Agent Alive

For one, it’s given the consumer way more choice and power than anyone imagined. It’s turned the tables upside down.

Many brokers and agents feared these changes, seeing in them only a devastating loss of control.

Those who didn’t adapt got buried alive.

Darwin said “It’s not the strongest or the fittest that survive–rather it’s the species that most adapts survives.”

Are you willing to adapt?

In the old school, you get this rule-book mindset–the broker’s s common look and feel, logo placement, legal number of words on each Web page, calls per day, work your family list, post a billboard here, churn out endless reams of cash here [pay per click].

These may have worked in the past, when the web was young, when the 80’s were a stellar set of years, but it’s all so cramped and constipated and uninviting now.

Dead.

The real point is that the Internet has made it possible for genuine human voices to be heard again.

The fact is, people at the bazaar, the consumers on the web, often have far more valuable knowledge than brokers and agents and business control freaks. They are driving the car now.

The Challenge Facing 21st Century Agents

So you get yourself a website. Fling up a pic, a logo, a slogan: “Outstanding agent in the Metro City Area who stands up for quality and fairness.”

Somebody, please, slice the feet to see if they’re alive.

What you don’t want with your website is to kill off people. If you kill off this enthusiasm, you can easily end up with a large, professional-looking, and very expensive website or blog that nobody gives a damn about.

In contrast, genuine conversation flourishes only in an atmosphere of free and open exchange. What if, instead, the attraction is a throwback to the prehistoric human fascination with telling tales?

When people are encouraged to share what they know with each other, when agents are ready to learn from the consumer what their wants and needs are…then this exchange becomes a rapidly expanding conversation–a conversation that would soon lead to loyal clients.

The challenge I’ve found agents to have is not to offer just trivial feature alternatives, but transparency.

In a networked market, the best way for an agent to “advertise” will be to provide a public window into his or her heart.

Instead of putting up slick images of what they’d like people to believe, agents will open up so people can see what’s really going on.

Of course you’ll be sticking your neck out.

But if you don’t, you risk premature death. You can’t invite customers to contribute buying and selling ideas by holding them at bay.

Or worse: failing to meet them where they are congregating.

Why They’ll Make Fun of You

To some, it’s spooky to think going online invites criticism.

Mouthing platitudes guarantees you will be challenged. Nothing is accepted at face value, or taken for granted. Everything is subject to inspection–whether it was a market condition, a working philosophy or, God help you, an advertisement.

Think of Joel and the ‘bots on Mystery Science Theater 3000. The point is not to watch the film, but to outdo each other making fun of it.

But this whole gamut of conversation, from infinite jest to point-specific expertise: who needs it?

You need it.

Conversations are markets. And markets is where you make your money.

When conversations are not only engaging, interesting, exciting–they become effective. They become tools and techniques to bridge that chasm between their problems and your solution.