Have You Seen Some Of The Answers On Trulia Voices?
April 29, 2008
As I am constantly in search of constant promotion and link love, I recently ventured over to Trulia Voices.
I love the format. Consumers post questions about real estate and anyone who subscribes to a certain criteria that you choose, will receive the questions via email and then you have the opportunity to post your answer to the consumer…to the consumer!!
Great idea, great concept, and in its simplicity, a great way to interact with the consumer in a honest and open fashion. You are allowed to suggest an answer according to how you would handle a certain situation or dilemma that the consumer may have or be facing in the near future.
Of course, it is to be expected, that with a gazillion Realtors on the planet, that one answer may differ from another’s answer. We all have different life and vocational experiences that we can look to for our answers.
That’s what makes blogging so special. I may have one belief, you may have another and we can truly voice (no pun intended) our opinion as to what we feel is a suitable response to the consumer’s inquiry.
How wrong I was. Why did I ever go over to Trulia Voices? Yes, I probably received some of my sought after link love (no I didn’t check the “no-follow” tag), but I was not prepared for my other bonus.
Vilification as if one was an interloper! I began answering the questions that were being asked directly. I was giving the answers that I felt best solved the consumers problem or inquiry. I did not know that isn’t the way to respond.
Excuse me for speaking my mind and responding openly and honestly to an inquiry from the public. I didn’t see the response guidelines that said there was a specific manner in which to communicate with the consumer according to the amended Code of Realtor Mandated Responses on Trulia Voices. I now realize what I was supposed to do. Now I need a shower.
Most of those who choose to answer over at TV seem to be following some golden oldie real estate agent playbook. Most of the answers seem to be straight from the NAR manual for Standard Operating Procedures. There indeed must be such a book.
If I could find that book I am sure it would read as follows:
1. Never answer a question directly. Always make the consumer think you know more than you do by actually avoiding the question by telling the consumer to seek out a local professional.
2. Always, and I do mean always, tell the consumer that they need to seek out a local real estate professional for any question. (did I say this already…now you are getting the point of Trula Voices)
3. Never, ever, tell a consumer that any Realtor will EVER take a reduced commission.
4. Never say another Realtor was wrong (but secretly submarine him by clicking the thumbs down button)
5. Always tell the consumer that they received a lack of responses because they just don’t understand how the business works
6. Always be sure to tell the consumer how much a Realtor does to make sure the transaction goes smoothly and to reinforce the need to have a “local Realtor involved.” (regardless of the question the “local Professional will always have the answer..like the Ace Hardware man.)
7. At all costs, try not to DIRECTLY answer the question. That would be way too easy!
8. An issue previously discussed by Jay Thompson and Jonathan Dalton, Always answer as many questions as possible, even if you have no idea as to the answer or don’t live or work in the area. It does not matter. gotta get those points and improve those “rankings”. Seems I have hear about people commenting for the sake of points elsewhere…hmmm.
Actual Question courtesy of TV: “Looking for a Realtor willing to take a 2% commission on a new construction and give 1% back after closing.”
Written by an actual Buyer looking to do a deal and not one response was an affirmative “I’ll do it!”.
An Actual Answer: ” The lack of responses to your question should tell you a great deal, but I’ll try to bring it down to laymen’s terms. Imagine your boss coming to you and asking you to work a full 40 hour week, plus another 10 hour’s overtime. But after he pays you and you receive your check, he wants you to give the overtime payment back to him.
If you did agree to that, might you be inclined not to work as hard or diligent? If you do find such a hungry and desperate
agent, look at the bigger picture - not just the monetary aspect.”
Wow..Thanks, Sparky..I bet the consumer who asked that question feels fulfilled. You certainly told him, albeit “in laymen’s terms“. If you were unwilling to do as asked..why did you bother answering? Oh yeah, must be that darn playbook!
Another Answer: “An agent who is willing to take a 2% commission; share it with a selling agent; and give back 1% would actually lose money. You would need to find a real dumb agent to accept such a deal and I would not want him or her representing me.”
You would actually lose money?? I’m sorry…did he ask you to come out of pocket with any cash? Did he ask or state that this was the entire commission? C’mon, do these people even believe the words they are typing? I am not a mathematical genius but 1% of something is a lot more than 100% of nothing.
Rudy and the guys at Trulia came up with an amazing concept. A way for the consumer to interact with the consumer directly. An open line of communication wherein an agent could simply anwser a question and like writing a blog post, become an authority figure.
By answering a question with a clear and concise answer the agent could build credibility not just with the person asking the question but with other consumers reading the answers.
Instead, on TV we see question after question answered in party line talking points telling the consumer to “call me”, or ” work with a local Realtor” or “let me send you some information”.
This is a Web 2.0 world people! You can’t force old school marketing down the throat of today’s consumer. Everyone knows the stat, 84% of prospective homebuyers begin their search on the Internet. While we know that to be true, we can not be sure where that search actually begins.
It can be on your blog, on Realtor.com, on Remax.com or one of a million websites. It could even start on TV.
If it is starting on TV you are wasting a valuable resource and not working with a clear understanding of today’s instant information age.
Not to digress , but I love Twitter. I have just 140 characters to convey a message. That’s it, no more. Better make it clear and concise or the message is lost.
Today’s consumer doesn’t want to hear the mumbo jumbo that most Realtors are serving up on TV. If they wanted to consult a “local professional” they already would have!
They want an answer to a question. Answer it! Don’t use the space to advertise yourself or defend your profession or talk down another answer. Answer the question asked. Period!
Expose the others as professionally inept. Go ahead, this isn’t Romper Room…take the opportunity that the consumer is giving you to shine and DIFFRENTIATE yourself from the rest.
This is your moment on stage. You have direct communication from a consumer who is casting a line in the water looking for the most credible, authoritative person he or she can find. Don’t blow the opportunity with a talking point crafted response.
It might sound good to the other Realtors but it’s going to make you look just like what the consumer thinks you look like. We’ve all seen the studies, it’s obvious that now is the time to break from the pack and howl like the big dogs!
Trulia has given you the opportunity to be a purple cowand most agents just aren’t seizing the opportunity. You don’t get a second chance to impress. You have that one moment to answer the question and after you’ve answered..it’s over. You had better make it work.
I assume, even though I should not, that the reason people answer questions on TV is to make money. The eventuality of the Q&A is to lead to a consummated transaction. That being true, the opportunity is forever wasted if you do not give the customer that what they are looking for.
Trulia Voices is like a great restaurant, with great food and a wonderful ambiance. Unfortunately the wait staff doesn’t understand the menu and won’t serve up what the customer is looking for.
Like all restaurants in that predicament, the customer moves on un-satiated and quite unfulfilled. In doing so the wait staff goes home with sparse tips.
It’s not the restaurant (TV) that seems to be the problem here, it’s the quality of the service. In the end the customer relates the two as one.
While there are undoubtedly a number of agents who are using TV to their advantage (Ines from Miamism for one), there are far too many agents ruining the dining experience, if I may continue my metaphor.
I urge those Realtors who are willing to provide clear and concise answers and who have learned through their blogs what being an authority figure can mean to your business, to venture on over to Trulia Voices.
The consumer needs you.
Trulia Voices for Arizona (and Arizona only) remains in my feed reader in the off chance there’s a question I choose to answer. More often than not, I use what I’m finding for a blog topic on a slow day. I’ve also answered TV questions on my own blog; it may not help the person asking the question since they won’t see a link back but it helps in an FAQ kind of way.
You hit on one of my major problems with the answers - the “ask your Realtor” standard response that comes. If you can’t recognize that people are asking for free advice and don’t have/don’t want an agent, you’re oblivious. Many agents are.
Almost as entertaining is watching agents jump all over themselves to get an answer there even when the person asking clearly as an agent and isn’t going to make a change. That’s the one time where “you need to ask your agent” is the best answer.
A while back I announced a picket line be formed, with an informal strike against Trulia Voices. Jonathan, Jay, and I lined up. My concern with TV is that agents act in unethical ways too often, and if I participate, am is there guilt by association? I’m still concerned about that, and I’d still like to see the behavior of agents improve at TV. It has improved a bit, but it’s still not an ideal setting.
Getting specific, if an agent answers in a direct fashion: Live here, the schools are better. The consumer gets what they want, but the agent just broke fair housing law. If I post a different answer to the same question, am did I participate in breaking fair housing law? What if I post a legal answer, but at the same time do not clearly denounce the illegal answer? Might I be guilty of something wrong? I sure hope not, but is it worth risking my license?
Accordingly, I answer questions there sparingly. I also do as Jonathan does now and again, and bring questions to my own blog. Interestingly enough, I received two email inquiries in the last week from people that found my profile at Trulia. That’s not something to sneeze at, for sure.
As originally posted on Bloodhound Blog:
Hi Barry!
Great post. Thanks for sharing your feelings with us. What can I say, you make some really valid points Barry. The culture on Trulia Voices or for that matter, any online community or social network, will go through some growing pains. There is also a learning curve for those agents not accustomed to participating in an online community.
We provide a list on our blog but it may be time update the list.
http://www.truliablog.com/?p=191
It’s quite a challenge to change the mindset of some agents about “how” to effectively communicate with the numerous buyers and sellers we have on Voices. As you say, if someone asks a question and you don’t have an answer, then skip that question. Answer the questions that you “own”. Answer them in a manner that adds value to the conversation and more importantly gives the consumer an “answer”.
No online forum or community is perfect. That said, if you see someone providing an answer that does not address the persons question, and you “know better”, then please, by all means jump in. As you say, it’s your time to shine and differentiate yourself from all the others in the pack. And believe me, we have many agents that are standing out by providing some fantastic answers.
More and more, the agents who provide solid answers to hungry consumers are getting contacted by home buyers and sellers resulting in closed transactions. If you haven’t seen two of our Voices videos already,which includes some great testimonials from Deborah Madey, Mario Pinedo and Jonathan Miller, I encourage you to do so.
http://www.truliablog.com/?p=356
http://www.truliablog.com/?p=364
It’s amazing how many consumers I meet that tell me how useful Trulia and Voices in particular, has been to them. So, consumers are getting tremendous value by visiting our site. Now we just have to make sure, with valuable feedback from folks like yourself, that we continue to improve the quality of our community.
Peace!
Rudy
Social Media Guru at Trulia.com
P.S. I have not seen any playbook
Hey Rudy…TV can be a great forum and no doubt many consumers will continue to reap a huge benefit.
I get the RSS feed for my area as many others do as well and it just amazes me that the interaction opportunity is so often being lost by the Realtors who sometimes answer.
I am not sure people realize that so many can view the answers and realize what kind of impression that it leaves.
I’m going to keep at it, trying to answer questions I can and keep my nose out of those I can’t.
Hey Jonathan and Steve..like you I look at things in my home area and stay out of those areas I have no business being in.
Your post and Jay’s post detailed the manner in which questions were answered andmonths later..some are doing the same thing. Amazing!
Seems like you guys have it figured out in your area though as to how to utilize the platform.
I think it’s very viable iof answers are done correctly..what do you guys think?
Barry-
Like you, I think the basic concept of a real estate Q&A is an excellent idea. That idea alone is a true home run for Trulia. My complaint, if you want to call it that, is with the competition that Trulia has chosen to implement. The points, rankings, first answer, best answer, thumbs up/down all contribute to agents wanting to answer more and more and more questions, hoping to improve their rank. The system encourages you to answer anything you possibly can, so you can move up the rankings. Heck with ethics or legality or useful advice, just answer more and more questions.
Trulia has addressed some of the problem of out-of-area respondents by noting in a better way, the location that each “Pro” is from. That helps a bit, but the behavior won’t change, until the reward is removed.
Then there’s the bigger problem of illegal advice. That’s tougher, because I see as many local people make this mistake as out of area people. I really don’t know how we are supposed to address it. For the most part, if there’s a question that is likely to have an illegal answer, I’m not going to answer on TV. I’ve answered questions that could get people in serious trouble on my own blog, where I have a lot more control, but I won’t do that on TV. Maybe there’s no risk, maybe there’s only a minor risk, but my license is too valuable to me.
Finally, if someone posted, “I want to a buyer’s agent for XYZ property, and I’m willing to pay $ABC”, I would provide a somewhat straightforward answer, but it absolutely wouldn’t be “sure”. I think Ardell on her blog recently wrote something to the affect, “there’s no price that I’ll work for someone I don’t like. While for people I do like, there’s always a discount.” I love her transparency, and the sentiment.
And I have definitely answered, “talk to your REALTOR”, when someone admits to currently working with a REALTOR. Many would argue I could be interfering with established agency if I interject my advice in that case, which is an ethics violation. I don’t know if it is one or not, but I’d really like to see every poster acknowledge if they are currently working with a REALTOR so that I can avoid any accidental ethics violations.
Pete from Trulia promised changes last fall. The Wall Street Journal interviewed me about that. I honestly expected it to get much, much better by now, but alas, while I will admit it’s a bit better, I think there’s still plenty of room for improvement.
With regard to it being a violation of ethics to speak to another realtor’s client when the client has initiated the discourse: Here is your answer: NO. It is outlined below in the code of Ethics excerpts I have attached.
Standard of Practice 16-13
All dealings concerning property exclusively listed, or with buyer/tenants who are subject to an exclusive agreement shall be carried on with the client’s representative or broker, and not with the client, except with the consent of the client’s representative or broker or except where such dealings are initiated by the client.
Before providing substantive services (such as writing a purchase offer or presenting a CMA) to prospects, REALTORS® shall ask prospects whether they are a party to any exclusive representation agreement. REALTORS® shall not knowingly provide substantive services concerning a prospective transaction to prospects who are parties to exclusive representation agreements, except with the consent of the prospects’ exclusive representatives or at the direction of prospects. (Adopted 1/93, Amended
Standard of Practice 16-6
When REALTORS® are contacted by the client of another REALTOR® regarding the creation of an exclusive relationship to provide the same type of service, and REALTORS® have not directly or indirectly initiated such discussions, they may discuss the terms upon which they might enter into a future agreement or, alternatively, may enter into an agreement which becomes effective upon expiration of any existing exclusive agreement. (Amended 1/98)
The key here seems to be who intiated the discussions. Obviously, if the client is posting the question, they are “intiating” it.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night
and I can READ.
When we have questions like this it is a good idea to actually READ the Code of Ethics. We have an obligation to know our own Code of Ethics.
Nice of you to quote both articles. I’ll pull one simple statement out:
“Before providing substantive services (such as writing a purchase offer or presenting a CMA) to prospects, REALTORS® shall ask prospects whether they are a party to any exclusive representation agreement.”
Standard of practice 16-3 looks pretty clear to me that before I answer a question, I’m supposed to ask if they have representation. How many people are doing that at TV? Is anyone doing that at TV? Sure, it goes on to say, “knowingly”, for which my argument still stands, often, it is very clear that I know the prospect has an agent. And when that’s the case, Article 16-6 comes into play:
in Article 16-6, I am supposed to wait to provide my services until a new exclusive agreement is established between the prospect and myself, either at the expiration or cancellation of the previous agreement.
It doesn’t matter that the client came to me by going on TV and asking the question. I still have an obligation to determine if there’s an already established exclusive agreement. And upon the knowledge of that agreement, I’m to wait until that agreement has ended, either by expiration or cancellation, to proceed to provide services.
How else could anyone possibly interpret those two articles? And I have to ask, did you really READ them before you posted them?
And this is exactly my point. I apparently interpret our code of ethics differently then you do. Am I right? Am I wrong? I really don’t know. For any given question on TV, would an ethics committee side with me or you? I’d really rather not have to sit in front of an ethics committee and find out.
Sounds like you (Steve) and Bettina have a difference of opinion. Is there a right and wrong answer in this this discussion? It is interesting to hear your different view points and it is very interesting.
Hi Steve,
I am in agreement with you with regard to “providing services” without determining if the client has an existing relationship with another broker.
My point is that I do not believe answering a question posed by a person on TV is violating the code. Answering a question is not “writing a purchase offer or providing a CMA” or any other “substantive” service of that caliber as outlined by 16-3.
I do not believe answering a question falls into that catagory. Answering a question is not a “substantive service”. I would be willing to sit in front of an ethics committee on it if I could show the client initiated the question and I did not attempt to engage the person in any “substantive” dealings without knowing if they had an existing relationship with another agent.
Now let’s go a step further. If the agent answers the question and then starts soliciting for business or actively trying to procure that business things could get more complicated which is something that remains to be addressed more specifically by the Code. As you know, the continued popularity of the internet creates new issues that need to be addressed and resolved.
I agree with Barry that agents need to answer the darn question and stop trolling for business. Just answer the question, provide the information that internet users are looking for and the business will follow. I have gotten great business by being transparent and providing information freely. I do not covet the MLS or any knowledge that could help others. Open arms catch more than closed ones.
Judging from your blog, I am sure this is also the case with you.
[…] closed the show talking about Trulia Voices and Barry C’s latest post, “Have You Seen Some Of The Answers On Trulia Voices?“. In what could have been a great forum for consumers to connect with a professional real […]