We expect to be copied – on our signs, on how we market, on how we work with clients – and that, in and of itself, is a good thing. Will others do it better? I’d like
to think that no one else can do what we have done, but I’d rather not underestimate our competition :).

Heck, I and we copy other people as often as we can … first mover is cool, but sometimes the real skills are recognizing emerging trends and technologies and then having the gumption, wherewithal and ability to implement said trends and technologies.

The signs are an extension of Nest’s collective intent, start towards our “one size does not fit all” philosophy …

Downtownenvy’s comment the other day hit the nail on the head (bolding mine):

I like this! Not only do you get a price on the property without stopping the car, but this sign is actually more about the property for sale than the agency representing it. That’s refreshing. I would love it if I were a seller.

It’s not about us, it’s about the client.

Update 26 May 2009: I’m going to be transcribing these videos from here until my new found partner stops working with me.

Hey! Jim Duncan, RealCentralVA.com here. It’s Wednesday morning and lots to do. Buyers and sellers are crawling all over the place which is wonderful! I think there has been an up-tick in activity on both sides of the isle.

I want to talk today about innovation. If you saw the release of Nests’ new signs (I’ll have a link here at the bottom) they’re pretty kick butt. That was evidenced by the fact that NBC 29 even did a 45 second segment on how we have shaken things up in the real estate market here in Charlottesville. I think it’s pretty cool.

The one challenge that we’re facing is that we expect to be copied. Take the fact that flattery is best shown by imitating. At least two people in our market have bought Diverse Solutions as a search since I implemented it about six months ago. So thank you Diverse Solutions for having a great product.

So what do we do? We expect to be copied. We expect people to emulate what we are doing, and frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them do an even better job than we do. So that’s a really great thing though because it shows that real estate is changing. It shows that people have to strive to keep up and get better and realize that stagnation which has been the rule in Real Estate for the last several years is no longer good enough. Good enough was good enough to get by and survive and sometimes thrive, but now, we’ve got to change every single day. New data, new information, new technologies and that’s a really cool thing. So it’s keeping us on our toes and holding us accountable through what we see online and also by seeing how our competitors try to keep up with what we are doing.

That’s it for Wednesday. Talk to you soon.