near miss

Ok, I almost missed a day--this will be quick--rushing about most of day. Some interesting posts past couple days--Vendor Alley, 1000Watt, etc. The common thread in several posts relates to excellence--and differentiation. Not easy to define or perhaps even to find in this odd business. Who determines where excellence begins and "one size fits all" standards of practice end?

The trade organizations have certainly created one size fits all STANDARDS--forms, risk management benchmarks, ethics etc. etc. But none are descriptive of excellence or can be used in differentiation--there are 180,000 members of CAR--give or take a few. Same forms, same Code of Ethics, same legal updates and they're all good for the industry--as a bare minimum, but you can't build a brand on them--not a real brand.

The question remains WHO creates the yardstick and does that yardstick have a correlation to the standards.

What if the Buyers and Sellers create the yardstick? They make the choices and receive the service. I'm going to look at the industry from the perspective of Buyers and Sellers---no, I'm going to look at it from the Buyer's perspective. We all grew up in this business being chanted to about LISTINGS are GOLD. Listings control the industry. If you're any good you'll be a listing agent--yada, yada yada. In the new age of technology and what sometimes passes for transparency NOTHING important happens until a Buyer makes a decision that a particular property is the RIGHT property among all those available that received considered. That BUYER pays for everything--SUVs to houses to computers--pays for it all. Sounds important, huh?

What are those Buyers thinking when the wild urge to purchase real estate slips into their mundane existence. All sorts of things--and each Buyer is different. Oops! That may not be a good match for "one size fits all".

More tomorrow.