My friend Sara Lipnitz, who is an agent in my office, called together some of the top producing agents in other offices around town to jointly hold a broker open together. She had a theme in mind, and the Home and Holiday Boutique Day was born. We had vendors in each of our listings so that agents and the public could do some pre-Christmas shopping while seeing 9 beautiful homes.
The tour, by the way, was a big success and we even managed to get featured on the local NBC news!During the planning meeting for the Boutique Day, an idea came out. Why not work together monthly on some kind of joint marketing event. So here we are, 9 agents from competing firms coming together to share ideas and work toward a common goal of promoting each others’ homes. This kind of thing might be common in other markets, but I have to tell you, I have never heard of or seen this kind of cooperation in Metro Detroit.
There is great synergy in our group. We have people with diverse talents and skills. Those with access to things that will benefit the group. Organizers, planners, thinkers, doers. A group of motivated professionals not threatened by each others’ successes. Collectively and individually, we sell a lot of homes every year, and everyone seems to feel that there is more than enough business to go around.
So, in that first meeting, the Birmingham-Bloomfield Realtor Network was born. We’ve committed to each other to meet monthly to:
- share ideas about the market and our business,
- talk about our current listings and buyer needs, and
- organize one event each month that will not only promote our listings but also benefit other Realtors and benefit the community we work in.
We already have a website, LastTuesdayTour.com (most of our events will be on the last Tuesday of the month), where we are posting our events as they are announced. And we have a VERY exciting calendar of events planned for 2007 that we will be announcing soon.
I am truly enjoying sitting down with this group of agents and sharing ideas. I think it will lead to great things for all of us and for our clients.
photo credit: Jakub Vysloužil
[tags]birmingham michigan real estate, bloomfield hills, birmingham mi, birmingham mi realtor, bloomfield hills realtor, birmingham bloomfield realtor network[/tags]
Written by Maureen Francis
SKBK Sotheby's International Realty, 248.430.4450
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Maureen 12.30.06 at 4:21 pm
huh? the pingback … Romper Room vs. the blogosphere? What is Romper Room? I have read Teresa’s blog… I get the blogosphere part…..
John Lockwood 12.30.06 at 11:08 pm
Romper room is a TV show aimed at preschoolers that was popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s. One of the cool things about the show (aside from the magic mirror where Miss Jean could see all the kids having birthdays), was the concept of good do bees and grouchy old don’t bees.
I think the good do bees do what you did, getting along with your colleagues who may or may not be as technologically astute as you are. Most of what came out of the thread Theresa started were put downs of Realtors® who are “old school†or “flatlandersâ€, so my post characterized that as being in the grouchy old don’t be camp.
Beth Larsen 01.21.07 at 6:14 pm
Hello, I loved this post. This last September we put together a huge cooperative open house as a reaction to a glut of inventory that reached across the usual geographic & brokerage boundaries in our valley. It was a “first†here as well, and a very rewarding experience.
Your group has taken it even farther, and I loved the Holiday Boutique aspect-very creative. I hope you don’t mind if I share your blog post when we start to plan our next group open house event. We’ve discussed building towards a big annual Tour of Homes…apparently there is a successful event in Albuquerque every year that coincides with their balloon festival.
We do also have a Luxury Home Marketing Group here that meets monthly and does cooperative advertising.
Cooperation is a “good thingâ€, as the Martha says.