BROKERS: Time to Wake Up Now. Go Independent.

The glamour shot photos of REALTORS with big hair and white teeth are no longer an important part of your business today.

In fact, this kind of glamour photo marketing of pretty agents is completely insignificant today as your customers are no longer opening your drip marketing emails. Nor are they reading the local real estate guide ads or newspapers.

REOLOGY Corp (C21, Coldwell Banker, ERA and Sotheby's) has upped their ad spend on social media networking. They have increased their ad spend on Internet advertising and have reduced their ad spend on newspapers and stupid real estate guide advertising by 31.7% LESS in 2008 according to a report I just read yesterday by TNS Media Intelligence.

This means REOLOGY spent $129.3 Million in 2008 as compared to $189.4 million in 2007.

From where I sit, I sort of question this because I am NOT seeing any of this marketing benefit go directly into the hands of a Coldwell Banker, ERA or C21 office in any city I've done my research on. If I am wrong, now is time for one of your REALOGY offices to correct me on this. Or confirm it.

Because my next book is: "Real Estate Warriors," Life at the Top of the Real Estate Food Chain.

It will be a book and audio CD with interviews of the top 50 brokers in the United States. They will tell you their story of their struggles. They will tell you in their words why they went independent and why they're so glad they made the move.

Let's look at what's broken with buying any national real estate franchise today.

Your NAF dollars are gone. (National Advertising Fund). But the fat cats back at REOLOGY continue to get your 7% royalties every month and some of you actually own them a few months worth.

EXERCISE:

Does REOLOGY pay you any money to help you offset your AdWords or SEO marketing expenses?

Does REOLOGY give you a Do It Yourself Virtual Tour Camera kit?

Does REOLOGY give you any marketing co op dollars to help you pay for any offline marketing like radio or billboard advertising?

Does REOLOGY give you a team of CSS and Web wizards that will design you a unique looking, Web 2.0, SEO friendly website?

The answer to these questions is NO.

So why the Hell are you spending $35,000 or more on a REOLOGY franchise when they give you NOTHING you need to run your business effectively? These things above -- you have figure out where to get them on your own.

With so many garage startups out there slinging code who never once stepped inside an advertising agency are the ones cranking out the crappy websites for unsuspecting brokers. And the broker suffers. Or you do what Keller Williams did and they hired a couple of propeller heads to crank out the worst looking KW website templates I have ever seen in my life.

Lead management is an expensive joke from REOLOGY. Lead Router is more like Money router.

It goes from your pockets to theirs and I have heard countless Coldwell Banker agents complaining their brokers sell them leads from Lead Router for 20% or 25% of their commissions now. Just ask the agents at Coldwell Banker Prime Properties in New York with more than 20 offices. Are they happy with the broker's decision? Not from what I'm hearing.

Stupidity Illustrated: Why continue to stay with REOLOGY and continue to pay them 7% of your earnings when you don't get the four things you really need to be successful in today's social media marketplace?

You already know how to do the job of selling real estate.

You already know where to go and get your yard signs printed.

You already know how to write up the sales and do the job.

Once you learn how to sell real estate, you really don't need the training wheels on anymore. Do you?

Why not dump them and go independent? You'll save 7% of your hard earned money every month and to make things even rosier:

FACT: Customers do not care about the big brands anymore. They like the smaller brands, the micro-brands, the smaller firms are (in the mind of the customer) a better firm as they are perceived to be working harder. There is a huge behavioral shift underway. Too many people are dumping the big brands and going with the smaller ones.

Seth Godin has a book on this trend: SMALL is the new BIG. Get it. It's on Amazon.

Brokers are going to have to raise the bar and dig so much deeper into your pockets if you plan on getting to the top of the food chain. With so many of you still owing 7% of your earnings and being 3 months behind or more in your payments to REOLOGY... how are you going to make the shift without it being an expensive nightmare that never ends.

REOLOGY is using their money you've paid them to market more Coldwell Bankers, More ERAs, More C21's and Sotheby's. But is any of this money helping you at your office? Coldwell Banker launched a branded YouTube channel here recently, and while there's a few videos here, soon it will become another me-too video portal not that different from AOL.

The problem I see is that one CB office will be just another click away from another CB office.

Brokers can produce their own videos now, upload your own to YouTube with less than $99 in software from LQGraphics.com They make a killer product called Photo2Movie and I love it. The software works for Mac or PC. Add $200 in Google dollars and create your own traffic to YOUR site.

And guess what, all of this will be a FRACTION of the 7% you cough up to REOLOGY every month, too.

Nuff said on this topic.

- bartman