“I’m not sure what we are going to do… Revenue is down and costs are the same. We are scraping by on a few first-time home buyer sales that come through. Worst of all, my employees are having a hard time making a living in this traditional brokerage business model.” (Frustrated Charlotte Real Estate Firm Owner)
“Most small companies are uncomplicated, simple, informal. They grow on good ideas regardless of their source. They need everyone, involve everyone, and reward or remove people based on their contribution to winning.
We love the way small companies communicate with simple, straight-forward, passionate argument rather than jargon-filled means.
Everyone in a small company knows the customers- their likes, dislikes, and needs. Small companies have to face into the reality of the market everyday, and when they move, they have to move with speed. Their survival is on the line.” (Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric from 1981 - 2001)
Jack Welch was one of the most successful businessmen in the 20th Century. Under his leadership at GE, he took the company from $14B in market value (1980) to $410B (2004). He helped create the largest and most valuable company in the world.
Welch felt that while being big was good and had its advantages, GE would only be successful if it maintained the traits of a small business. These traits included personally knowing their customer base, shifting to meet changing customer needs, and the ability to nimbly reposition their services efficiently to serve niches of customers before their larger competitors. And they had to do it quickly!
The problem was that any major initiative GE undertook would go on for years; it was the nature of their sheer size. When you have hundreds of thousands of employees, it takes a long time to disseminate information, train employees, and get things working correctly; just fighting through layers of bureaucracy is a time-consuming ordeal! Welch hated this and wished he could move at the speed of the market.
Big real estate firms have this same issue. They made billions of dollars in a buy and sell market and positioned themselves in the public’s minds as the place to go for brokerage. Their agents were trained killers that were negotiating offers, putting up listings, and putting ads all over the country. Unfortunately, as the pure brokerage market began to fade and real estate revenue sources moved elsewhere, they ran into the same issues as GE.
Besides being costly and time-consuming, repositioning a large company’s value proposition to customers is risky! The risk is in confusing the public about what they do well. For decades, big real estate companies told the public (with many, many ads!) that they were good at helping people buy homes; this year they are telling different stories. Some are saying that they are expert property managers now? Some are now good at finding foreclosure and REO properties for investors? Short sale specialists?
Here’s the rub. Name one company that says they do multiple things well- it’s tough! You just don’t see this in today’s marketplace because this type of marketing message doesn’t work! Customers do not like generalists; they go to specialists. Think about it. When you shop for shoes, do you go to Wal-Mart or a shoe store? Most people actually go farther than this. They’ll visit a very specialized shoe store (women’s dress shoes only stores, running store for running shoes, etc.), rather than a regular show store. Customers feel that if you say you are good at many things, you are actually mediocre and not an expert at anything!
In a changing market, small businesses are in the best position to capitalize. They can reposition their business to specialize in growing customer segments, get employees up-to-speed quickly and inexpensively, and communicate to their existing customer bases what they are doing. There is no red tape. Today you can be “Charlotte Brokerage, Inc.”, and tomorrow you can morph into “Short Sales 4 U, Inc.”, “Distressed Properties R US, LLC”, or “Rent-To-Own Rock Stars, Inc.”
You can innovate and implement today with little hassle. This is why Jack Welch is envious of your small business!
Brett Furniss is the President & Owner of BDF Realty, “Charlotte’s Most Innovative Property Management & Investment Company”specializing in rent-to-own (lease options) and rent-to-sell homes. You can follow his Twitter thoughts on the Charlotte real estate market by clicking on http://Twitter.com/BDFRealty. He is the author of the FREE E-Manual entitled “How to Rent-To-Sell Your Own Home” (http://www.RentToSell.com/RTS-Book.html) which details how to get the most potential buyers to your home in this challenging real estate market.
“Most small companies are uncomplicated, simple, informal. They grow on good ideas regardless of their source. They need everyone, involve everyone, and reward or remove people based on their contribution to winning.
We love the way small companies communicate with simple, straight-forward, passionate argument rather than jargon-filled means.
Everyone in a small company knows the customers- their likes, dislikes, and needs. Small companies have to face into the reality of the market everyday, and when they move, they have to move with speed. Their survival is on the line.” (Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric from 1981 - 2001)
Jack Welch was one of the most successful businessmen in the 20th Century. Under his leadership at GE, he took the company from $14B in market value (1980) to $410B (2004). He helped create the largest and most valuable company in the world.
Welch felt that while being big was good and had its advantages, GE would only be successful if it maintained the traits of a small business. These traits included personally knowing their customer base, shifting to meet changing customer needs, and the ability to nimbly reposition their services efficiently to serve niches of customers before their larger competitors. And they had to do it quickly!
The problem was that any major initiative GE undertook would go on for years; it was the nature of their sheer size. When you have hundreds of thousands of employees, it takes a long time to disseminate information, train employees, and get things working correctly; just fighting through layers of bureaucracy is a time-consuming ordeal! Welch hated this and wished he could move at the speed of the market.
Big real estate firms have this same issue. They made billions of dollars in a buy and sell market and positioned themselves in the public’s minds as the place to go for brokerage. Their agents were trained killers that were negotiating offers, putting up listings, and putting ads all over the country. Unfortunately, as the pure brokerage market began to fade and real estate revenue sources moved elsewhere, they ran into the same issues as GE.
Besides being costly and time-consuming, repositioning a large company’s value proposition to customers is risky! The risk is in confusing the public about what they do well. For decades, big real estate companies told the public (with many, many ads!) that they were good at helping people buy homes; this year they are telling different stories. Some are saying that they are expert property managers now? Some are now good at finding foreclosure and REO properties for investors? Short sale specialists?
Here’s the rub. Name one company that says they do multiple things well- it’s tough! You just don’t see this in today’s marketplace because this type of marketing message doesn’t work! Customers do not like generalists; they go to specialists. Think about it. When you shop for shoes, do you go to Wal-Mart or a shoe store? Most people actually go farther than this. They’ll visit a very specialized shoe store (women’s dress shoes only stores, running store for running shoes, etc.), rather than a regular show store. Customers feel that if you say you are good at many things, you are actually mediocre and not an expert at anything!
In a changing market, small businesses are in the best position to capitalize. They can reposition their business to specialize in growing customer segments, get employees up-to-speed quickly and inexpensively, and communicate to their existing customer bases what they are doing. There is no red tape. Today you can be “Charlotte Brokerage, Inc.”, and tomorrow you can morph into “Short Sales 4 U, Inc.”, “Distressed Properties R US, LLC”, or “Rent-To-Own Rock Stars, Inc.”
You can innovate and implement today with little hassle. This is why Jack Welch is envious of your small business!
Brett Furniss is the President & Owner of BDF Realty, “Charlotte’s Most Innovative Property Management & Investment Company”specializing in rent-to-own (lease options) and rent-to-sell homes. You can follow his Twitter thoughts on the Charlotte real estate market by clicking on http://Twitter.com/BDFRealty. He is the author of the FREE E-Manual entitled “How to Rent-To-Sell Your Own Home” (http://www.RentToSell.com/RTS-Book.html) which details how to get the most potential buyers to your home in this challenging real estate market.
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