Real Estate 2.0? Understanding the basics with Ben Smith

It's great this month to get some perspective on innovation from a leader in the real estate, an industry that's been hit so hard in recent year, they are ripe for innovation. Beyond the obvious financial hit, real estate, like travel has been dramatically impacted by the web.

New sites to short cut the house hunting process have replaced part of the traditional role of an agent. An astounding 80% of home buyers use the web as part of their home shopping process and real estate agents are scrambling to adapt to the newest tools available on Web 2.0.

If ever it was time to consider revamping the industry, the time is now.

Fortunately our guest this month, Ben Smith is a web savvy social media pioneer in the industry. Ben, as VP Marketing of Polygon homes has a catbird seat for theses changes, yet unlike many who embrace social media, Ben brings a solid marketing perspective to the adoption of social media.

He still measures success the old fashioned way, in terms of sales and referrals. But he understand the power of Web 2.0 as a marketing tool to drive those key metrics forward. Ben tweets at @bensmithinc and @polygonhomes. He manages Polygon Homes Facebook Page and he has an eagle eye on the trends impacting his industry.

Though many of us might say, "Who would want to be in the real estate industry in these times", these are exactly the times when great innovation takes place. We know that from history. Every recession has been followed by a boom in innovation and entrepreneurship, those on the leading edge of the new innovations arising from a recession lead the way out of it.

Ben understands Web 2.0 and what it brings to the real estate industry. I was impressed with his insight into how the social networking tools now available rather than replace word of mouth marketing simply move it online. The power of these new sites enables home shoppers to move beyond relying on friends and neighbors for recommendations and opens them up to opinions from around the world.

And though real estate is a local business, new tools arise every day that increasingly make it a powerful tool for local business as well. Now home shoppers can connect with more than just their immediate network of contacts in their community to more or less everyone in their community - at least those that are on the web.

Ben's is a story of adapting to the innovation in one field and using it to drive innovation in another. HOW the real estate uses these Web 2.0 innovations to bring about change in their own industry will be the interesting story as we come out of this recession.

What is your role at Polygon Homes?

VP Marketing.

In your opinion what are the key trends affecting your industry?

As it relates to the Real Estate Industry: the obvious trend or "state of being" is the current economic situation. Currently prices have fallen, interest rates are at historic lows and we are seeing a lot of activity in the market right now. The suggestion is that we are at the bottom... only time will tell. Let's hope that this increased traffic and sales are the "trend" ; ) The other trend is the end of presale and a launch style of marketing and a movement to selling from finished product and a steady tempo approach to sales and marketing.

As it relates to the Marketing Industry in general: let me say first that the fundamentals have not changed despite what all the self-proclaimed "experts" will tell you. Marketing remains about developing one-to-one relationships that grow in to one-to-many referrals, which become huge successes when they transcend to many-to-many conversations. The trend is that the tools we now have to foster this are getting better with Social Media etc. and the trend of "transparency", social responsibility, info sharing, are all just results of customers using these tools and gaining power and a level voice with the companies they support. Don't be fooled, people have always wanted transparency, have been assembling into tribes that multiply since before Jesus and the 12 tribes of Israel, and have always cared about social issues, there has just been a shift in power and share of voice that has elevated these concepts more recently and made marketers pay attention to them. This is grossly oversimplified but you get the general direction.

How do you measure innovation or marketing success?

1. With money. Did it make and / or save any?

2. By leads / traffic. Did we draw anymore to our website and / or to our sales offices.

3. By education. Did we learn anything?

4. Anecdotally. Was anyone talking about it?

5. Emotionally. Did it encourage / motivate / empower the team to move forward, be better, keep going.

6. By speed / simplicity. Did it do any of the above faster or make it any easier?

If you could go back in time and change something, what would it be?

I would be a lot more humble about all the things I didn't know anything about and a lot less opinionated about all the things I thought I knew a lot about. Having said that, youthful arrogance breeds passion and passion allows you to risk.. and I likely would not have pushed myself and my career had I not been passionate and willing to risk, so maybe these were all great experiences and lessons. I suppose it's not about "good" or "bad" experiences, but what you make of them ; ) But now I am getting too philosophical, next question...

What is an example of an innovative company that people have never heard of?

Great question. I saw a company at LPV6 called Mobify.me... they allow you to take your existing website and "mobify" it for your mobile phone - thought that was pretty innovative. www.mobify.me

Also, my friend has a company in San Francisco called Brain Park that is doing some pretty exciting things to connect people, knowledge, and resource in organizations by building an enterprise solution that incorporates many social media type tools. www.brainpark.com

List a few of your favourite sites on marketing or innovation.

Don't really have any "favourites" in particular. Been caught up in twitter lately and follow a bunch of people who tend to pass around good stuff on these topics from a plethora of sources. I do read Seth Godin's blog fairly frequently, and watch TED for ideas, I also get fired up to watch and learn from Apple keynotes.

For a complete list of my bookmarks check out my del.icio.us account www.delicious.com/bensmithinc

www.twitter.com/bensmithinc

www.linkedin.com/in/bensmithinc

www.delicious.com/bensmithinc

About Ben Smith

Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Ben faces the world with the work ethic of a steel worker, creativity of his interior designer mom, and rational science of his dad... he is the guy in the MAC ads standing between MAC and PC facilitating the conversation.

By age 30, he had been the Managing Director of a leading boutique creative agency, the VP Marketing for a leading Vancouver Real Estate Developer (current), got married and had four kids. He's worked for brands both large and small and everyone in between. Credentials aside, it is an insatiable curiosity that fuels him to innovate and pursue excellence in marketing.

Incremental vs Radical Innovation - Do Consumers Care

I was reading yet another article on innovation on the web when a short sentence caught my eye:

Do consumers sincerely differentiate between incremental and radical innovation?

The author went on to describe the difference between the two

As I see it, incremental innovation... is most times, short-term and more profit-oriented. Furthermore, incremental innovation is used by larger corporations who might not have the right tools, creativity or knowledge to create new original cutting-edge products/services yet have the financial capabilities to execute and implement them!

It's true that most radical innovations are actually discrete accumulations of much smaller improvements yet they have the ability to be life changing, and those seem to have seized to exist these days!

In a nutshell, it seems in his view, radical innovation is what happens when you do a lot of incremental innovation. Sooner or later you reach a Tipping Point, where the next iteration is a radically new idea. (For further discussion of Tipping Points read Malcolm Gladwell's fascinating book of the same name.)

In some sense I would have to agree. Often radically new ideas are iterations of ideas already being explored, but aren't seen by the general public. And this is where I would diverge form the author's opinion.

I actually DO believe that big corporations have the " .. right tools, creativity or knowledge to create new original cutting-edge products/services... ". They also have the financial wherewithal to launch them. What they don't have is the ability to take a huge risk.

Large companies are risk adverse by nature (unless you are a financial institution apparently given how we've been watching them implode over the last year.) Large companies often come up with radical new innovative products but for one reason or another choose not to launch.

Sometimes this is due to how destabilizing the innovation would be to current products. Sometimes it is because of entrenched political positions against this type of innovation. Sometimes it's just that the champion is not well connected. (He or she has been known to leave said big company and go out on his or her own for just that reason and successfully launch the radical new idea.

But back to the question: Do consumers care if a new idea is radical or just an incremental innovation? No, I don't think so. Consumers are motivated by products and services that meet their needs. If that need can be met by making a small change - great. If it requires a radical change- that's fine too.

True consumers get a lot more excited about a radical innovation, but there's a place for both in any well run business. Why, because radical innovation is much riskier. For every success there are hordes of failures.

A well run company pursues both strategies. Incremental innovation builds the infrastructure for radical innovation and provides the fall back when things don't turn out quite like planned.

Which happens rather more often that one would wish.