Season's Readings – 10 jolts from 2009 to jump start your 2010

We have a lot to be grateful for this year.

We have great clients from whom we have taken important lessons. We have managed to grow in a year that looked pretty scary coming at us. We haven’t driven each other insane.

We have you. Thank you.

Below are a few of our favorite posts from 2009. Most are not among our most popular or most commented. They are the pieces that made us think again when we revisited them, or gave us chuckle recalling where we were when we wrote them.

We hope you enjoy them.

From our families to all of yours; wishing you the very best this holiday season.

Marc, Brian, Joel.

Real estate’s year of competence and leadership

The ascent from JFK was bumpy. My back hurt. I had not slept well for days and spent inordinate amounts of time paying attention.

A week at Real Estate Connect. Exhausting but great”

The MLS moment

We’re bullish on MLS. Or rather, the potential that lies within most MLS organizations. In fact, Marc and I think MLSs hold some of the most exciting possibilities in real estate and technology in 2009″

A little broker website sucess story (and desperate wake-up call for big brokers)

We’ve received a ton of great feedback on the “Top Ten Real Estate Brokerage Websites in America” report we published with Real Trends back in October. Brokers big and small have come out of the woodwork to share their stories and seek our help”

Moving beyond broken

I spent three days in Scottsdale last week where I participated in several sessions at Leading Real Estate Companies of the World’s Future Tense 2009 conference. Amid the golden Arizona sunshine and within the Westin Kierland, one distinct sentiment echoed throughout:

The current brokerage model is broken”

The top ten things that kill real estate vendor website copy

I’ve been exposed to a host of interesting applications as a result of submissions to our Real Estate 2.0 Mind Map. And I have noticed patterns within the Website copy that pitch these applications. Too often they include big blocks of confusing copy. Bad copy. Superfluous copy. Technical jargon. Unsupported claims. Grandiose promises that wax miraculous from page to page”

Letting it all hang out, Imperial Palace style

The Imperial Palace, Las Vegas.

It’s the type of place where you might find yourself buying a pack of Dorals – not because you smoke, but because it just feels right. Where the drinks are weak and the sheets are stiff”

The school of Redfin revisited

Redfin was profitable last month.

This well-documented fact may be an anomaly, the brief shining moment of a real estate Camelot in which tragic geeks have their day. Who knows for sure“

Great marketing versus stupendously bad marketing

A good marketing campaign begins by understanding what you’re trying to achieve. It helps define who you are, what you stand for and how your brand should be perceived. Marketing helps you shape your image; or that of your product or service”

Measuring influence on Twitter: Who “cares?”

Recently, I found myself backstage at a Black Eyed Peas concert courtesy of my best bud, who handles the band. A chair on the side of the stage was offered to me, a few feet away from the action. Below, a tent filled with food was at my disposal. My friend is very influential in the music business. As a result, I got hooked up. But at no point did his influence really rub off on me”

It’s 2009, brokers. Do you know where your marketing director is?

I met Roy yesterday for the first time. He is a mild-mannered kid from California.

And he single-handedly runs the marketing department for one of the most innovative brokerages we’ve run across”