Marianne Guenther Bornhoft
By Marianne Guenther Bornhoft
1982 was a year like no other. It created the Y generation. What’s so special about this group of people? A lot. Its members aren’t afraid to tell you why.
The name Generation Y first appeared in an August 1993 Ad Age editorial to describe people born 1982-2001 to Baby Boomers and early Generation Xers. Neil Howe and William Strauss — leading experts in the history of generations and authors of “Generations” — describe this echo boom generation “Millennials.” Whatever you call it, the Gen Y/Millennial group is ready to take over and the rest of us better be ready.
Growing up in a world where technology and ease of use of the Internet is second nature, Gen Yers are a breed of folks who expect a lot more than their predecessors. Millennials want information, not only instantly, but also with the ease that it should be accessible at their convenience with all of the normal benefits of a face-to-face meeting. A survey by CareerBuilder and Harris Interactive shows almost half (49 percent) Gen Yers prefer to communicate through technology (blogs, instant messaging and text messaging, for example) as opposed to having face-to-face or phone conversations, which are the preferred methods of Baby Boomers and Generation X.
A savvy REALTOR® who understands this age bracket can more easily understand and relate to meeting those demands. For example, a Gen Y client who sends a text to his/her agent after “normal” business hours might be driving home from an event and see a new house for sale. They expect an answer back quickly, just as if he or she would have called the REALTOR® directly. Likewise, a Facebook post about a unique looking staircase in a house for sale might generate enough buzz that a person, not necessarily looking, might click on the link in the post. After looking at the virtual tour of the property, that person may e-mail the listing agent about the house. This new way of advertising, called “murketing,” is an advertising strategy that avoids direct sales of a product and focuses instead on a simple thought or image, communicating how that product makes you feel or how others can relate to it. Author Rob Walker coined this marketing buzz term, a portmanteau of “murky” and “marketing.” This business tactic targets the three-quarters of Millennials who, according to the Pew Research Center, have created a profile on a social networking site. Continue reading »
Subhi J. Gharbieh
By Subhi Gharbieh
On Thursday, Nov. 8, my fellow Dallas REALTOR® Joe Atkins and I booked the 6 a.m. flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Orlando so that we could make it to the YPN Advisory Subcommittee meeting that started at noon. Being the responsible adult that I am (not), I tried to pull an all nighter so that I wouldn’t miss my flight early Thursday morning. That worked out well! I ended up falling asleep around 3:30 a.m., and the five alarms that I set to wake me up, well, didn’t.
So I missed the YPN meeting (bummer), but Joe, our MetroTex YPN chair, made it to the meeting and represented us well. After I got to our hotel later that day, Joe and I immediately left for the convention center to get registered and pick up our convention packet. The NAR staff do such a great job organizing the registration and welcome process. They are so efficient.
Thursday evening was pretty relaxing. We met up with some fellow YPN members from around the country at the Peabody Hotel. We caught up with some old faces and met some new ones. One thing that I have learned from attending the REALTORS® Conference & Expo for the last three years, is that we may only meet a couple times a year, but when we do, it feels like it was yesterday that we were just together at the last convention.
YPN Advisory Subcommittee & Network of the Year Award Winners (from left to right): Rob Mehta, Mark Epstein, Spring Bengtzen, Bobbi Howe, Rob Reuter, Michael Oppler, Tamara Suminski, Matt Case, Georgia Wall, Deena Zimmerman, Joe Atkins, James Martin, Subhi Gharbieh, Matt Phipps, Kerri Hartnett, and Christopher Mitchell.
I was very proud of our Dallas YPN network for making such a strong showing this year in Orlando. For the last couple of years, the norm for us was about two or three members travel to attend the convention. This year, we had right around 20 of our YPN members attend — that made me really proud.
Being the chair of our YPN network last year, I was really hoping that we would win Network of the Year during my term. That didn’t happen. We worked really hard and felt like we had done a lot of great things to win the title for Large Association Network of the Year, but we were topped by Chicago YPN.
Nevertheless, we started off 2012 focused on the same goal. We did a lot of great things in 2012, but when it came time to fill out our application for Network of the Year, we really felt like we could have done more. We completed our application thinking that we really came up short of our goals as a committee. The competition is so fierce among YPN Networks all over the country, and seeing some of the great things that some other networks had accomplished throughout the year, we didn’t think we had a shot at winning. Continue reading »
Jason O'Neil
By Jason O’Neil
I believe that we as a country, a world, and a species are suffering a crisis of confidence. I know, that’s a bold statement. But the magnitude in which our world has changed over the past 25 years is nothing short of overwhelming.
Confidence used to be something that was a part of our fiber, woven into everything we did. People not only had confidence, but they instilled confidence in others. Confidence was derived from neighborhoods, communities, religions, political parties, long standing jobs, and pensions. But many of these have been derailed and forced, even the most ardent of supporters, to question some very core tenets. Rightfully so, skepticism tends to be the norm.
I have heard it said, and I believe, that confidence is the single greatest asset one can have. Do not confuse my use of confidence with overconfidence, arrogance, conceitedness, or big-headedness, because it is not. Confidence is what gives us the ability to do what it is we are good at. Without a bit of confidence the world would never have heard The Beatles., we would not know the name Bill Gates, and Phil Mickelson would be a really good country club player. It is scary to raise your hand, to stick your head out and make progress. It is confidence that moves us forward step by step.
But confidence, the type of confidence I am talking about, isn’t just results and dollar signs, or awards and progress. It is the way we make people feel. I’ll go further, it is what we bring — our passion. It is the value that we, as REALTORS®, add to a transaction, a deal, a negotiation. Jim Collins wrote, “Genuine confidence is what launches you out of bed in the morning, and through your day with a spring in your step.” We are, in fact, handling the transfer of a exceptionally large assets. While easy to forget, it’s important to remember that the average person will move every six to nine years. Extrapolated over a lifetime, the average person will sell maybe seven homes. Many of you reading this sell that many homes in a given month. The last time that the average seller in 2012 sold a home, nine years ago, the real estate market was drastically different than it is today. Zillow, Trulia, REALTOR.com and Red Fin did not exist, computer-based forms were in their infancy, and not everyone e-mailed. Continue reading »
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