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Estate Agents can't hide anymore
- By Dominic James
- Published 27/05/2008
- Property Blogs
- Unrated
If you've been to this site recently, you'll have been in the middle of
a storm. You see, for over a year we've been planning something
extraordinary for our potential and current clients. It's taken longer than anticipated but now we can
reveal all.
Some of you might not know but Dominic James was renamed from Moov-in in July 2007 after we sold the Intellectual Property Rights to another company. We wanted a re-brand to take the company to the next level and to undergo a complete re-vamp of the entire business.
I can tell you it's a big decision to re-brand a company after you've made a good solid name for yourselves for 6 years. In the last few months we've gone through some extreme changes and heard lots of rumours... Going out of business has been the main one from competitors, but as you can see, we've been changing and adopting new technology and sharpening old traditional values.
You can see by previous posts, adapting estate agency for this new era is something we all know will happen, it's just we decided to do it first.
It's a fact the number of valuations didn't go down massively, our viewings remained steady, our sales were consistent and our sellers were still happy. We concluded we didn't need an expensive office to work from so closed it in February '08.
It's in it's infancy right now, but for the pioneers, who understand how important these tools are for maintaining and building relationships, there's the opportunity to really carve out you own piece of internet real estate. How do I know it's going to be useful to people? Well, 60 million people who joined Myspace and Facebook in the last two years, must be getting something out of the tools. Now the most important tools they use are available at a local level, to help individuals and small business build solid, long lasting relationships throughtout Suffolk and beyond.
In the end, everything comes down to relationships and we know this only too well. Since May 2001 we've had to rely on word of mouth recommendations and always struggled to compete with the corporates because of their large, flashy advertising campaigns, but not anymore. The internet has truly levelled the playing field in this respect and it's my prediction many of the corporates will disappear in the near future because many of them will be exposed by everyday people for not delivering what all the glossy campaigns say they will deliver.
It's now time for the passionate, small, privately owned businesses to finally take back what is rightfully theirs and we want to be right at the front of the queue.
Some of you might not know but Dominic James was renamed from Moov-in in July 2007 after we sold the Intellectual Property Rights to another company. We wanted a re-brand to take the company to the next level and to undergo a complete re-vamp of the entire business.
I can tell you it's a big decision to re-brand a company after you've made a good solid name for yourselves for 6 years. In the last few months we've gone through some extreme changes and heard lots of rumours... Going out of business has been the main one from competitors, but as you can see, we've been changing and adopting new technology and sharpening old traditional values.
You can see by previous posts, adapting estate agency for this new era is something we all know will happen, it's just we decided to do it first.
Old technology and the corporate dinosaurs
Compared to the lumbering corporate dinosaur's, years behind because of their size, we can change pretty quickly if the need arises, and right now every business, not just estate agency, is having to undergo a completely different way of doing business. It's not good enough now just to have a pretty marketing campaign saying you do a good job, because no-body believes you anymore, they know it's just 'marketing'. It's now necessary for businesses to be completely open and transparent, because with the advent of blogs and social media, YOU CAN'T HIDE ANYMORE.First we closed our offices
So, first off we closed our offices in February after a 4 month test. We didn't let anybody know at the time but we closed the offices 3 days a week for just over 4 months and worked from our home offices. Guess what, in all that time, the only person to complain was a salesman from BT who had come to visit on the off chance to try and sell us something we didn't need.It's a fact the number of valuations didn't go down massively, our viewings remained steady, our sales were consistent and our sellers were still happy. We concluded we didn't need an expensive office to work from so closed it in February '08.
Second, It should really be all about you
Second, you'll notice a completely new design, we believe making it more about Your Property and less about us. That's why the main headings for each part of the site are not filled with our logo's. I mean, what are estate agents trying to market, their name or your property?Third, an explosion is about to happen
Third on the list, we've become the main sponsors to DomJam 2.0, a social networking site for Suffolk, packed full of useful tools anybody can use to connect, contribute and communicate. I'm particulary excited about this. DomJam 2.0 started life for only our clients, but has grown and grown and now is FREE for all to use. I see this as a place for Suffolk people and their families and friends to meet and share. Find out how you can benefit from Suffolk's First Social Network and learn why it can contribute to your already busy lives.It's in it's infancy right now, but for the pioneers, who understand how important these tools are for maintaining and building relationships, there's the opportunity to really carve out you own piece of internet real estate. How do I know it's going to be useful to people? Well, 60 million people who joined Myspace and Facebook in the last two years, must be getting something out of the tools. Now the most important tools they use are available at a local level, to help individuals and small business build solid, long lasting relationships throughtout Suffolk and beyond.
In the end, everything comes down to relationships and we know this only too well. Since May 2001 we've had to rely on word of mouth recommendations and always struggled to compete with the corporates because of their large, flashy advertising campaigns, but not anymore. The internet has truly levelled the playing field in this respect and it's my prediction many of the corporates will disappear in the near future because many of them will be exposed by everyday people for not delivering what all the glossy campaigns say they will deliver.
It's now time for the passionate, small, privately owned businesses to finally take back what is rightfully theirs and we want to be right at the front of the queue.
