Thanks for the welcome. I’m glad and appreciative to be a part of your blog. Its hard to believe that none of the other big guys have followed your lead with the blog concept. It just goes to show that the bigger one becomes the most important and simplest details are all so often overlooked.

Don’t worry about upsetting PM’s. It’s impossible to make everyone happy and that should never be your focus. If your goal is to be everybody’s friend, then you must accpet not maximazing your potential and drinking Milwaukee’s Best rather than the Corona’s you enjoy. I’m not saying be shrewd or greedy or disrespectful. Be friendly, be respectful, and leave other’s with a positive impression, but be confident and have faith that your product will become their friend. When customers see firsthand how your product will help them and actually make their lives a little easier, they will actually thank you for introducting them to your product. Just strive to do the absolute best you can to deliver the best results out there – wheter you want to blog or sell ads. Remember this, even when you have the creme de la creme, you have those that won’t use your product no matter how much it may help them. Be ready to accept that. The initial sticker MSRP is the #1 objection. And the #1 reason is because they are too busy to research your product and fail to look at anything other than price. At some point you must be willing to accept their ineptness and move on to the next guy. The next PM you have a friendly conversation with WILL get it and understand the effectiveness of your product. They will see that it’s such a huge no-brainer to use your product even though it might come with a heftier price tage upfont. They understand that it will pay dividens after the initial purchase. The term true cost of ownership might ring a bell to some. The others will eventually get the message and understand it’s not about price. Though more expensive than the nexy guy BUT as inexpensive as it truly is to advertise online where the majority of the tenants are, if they can’t afford your price ten they evidently have bigger issues at hand.

In rebuttal to your statement “My business plan does not call for a large sales staff so even if I wanted to do this I couldn’t.” It doesn’t take an army of salesmen to accomplish this or a room full of poorly dressed nerds in the IT department. It just takes just a few bright, driven individuals who believe in their product and truly want to help their customers. Take my advice, the majority of salesmen in this industry are discounters anyway and will do you m0re harm than good. Most of your IT guys will tell you that what you want to accomplish is not possible, walk out of your office, seal off the IT chamber doors, turn off the lights and spend the afternoon reenacting a Star Wars epic duel from the Revenge of the Sith rather than taking the time at arriving at a solution.

I’ve read your blogs frequently…hell, I’m thinking about starting a cult! I may be a redneck but I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. I gather that you’re an intelligent man. Smart enough to admit your strengths and weaknesses. That’s not such an easy thing to accept and the rest of us fail to recognize – especially in this industry. Brother, all you need is a little help right now because your reach is a little right now. Currently, the overwhelming majority of your traffic is from bloggers, not tenants. That has to change if your goal is to gain marketshare and compete on the same level with the big player in the industry (note the lack of plurals). Help me out here please…what’s the name of that website that used to be “The Man” until that other man came along with that other company and pulled the plug, and now we have a mega giant supersite which has become the Walmart of the industry? Now everyone’s ads are dumped together and the apartment guys are mad because their ads are grouped with the single family homes and the single family homes guys are mad becuase their ads are grouped with the apartment guys ads and the vacation guys are ticked off…well because vacationers are visiting other sites that have what they are looking for so their ads are viewed about as often as naked pictures of Janet Reno (out of courtesy to all I will not hyperlink).

SIDE BAR: (By the way, does this happen in your town because it does in mine alot – a super duper 24/7 Walmart center will influence the powers to be to evoke eminent domain, flush out the people who supported you and served your needs, move in just long enough to make enough jingle, then suddenly abandon the place & move out of town to greener pastures and leave the community in much worse shape than it was before they moved onto the scene? Hmmm…. very interesting. It’s all so errierly familiar).

OK! back to my original point where the Walmart guys sent that site to extinction – that website’s sales force started out very small and added salesmen only when the demand was overwhelimg. They did so to better serve their customers not for world domination. Don’t aspire to be the biggest, just the best. If your goal is to be exactly what you are today then that’s ok too. You serve a lot of people well. But right now it seems you are suffering from an indentity crisis. I get the feeling you want the best of both worlds. You can be the spot where people come to blog about the industry or you can make some changes be and a source where tenants come to locate properties and PM’s utilize to advertise their ads. But at this point in time you can’t optimize your site to wear both hats. But hurry up – times a tickin’. There’s a few sites out there that’s trying to be everything for everybody, but we all know the saying “No one can do everything, but everyone can do something.” The market is right for somebody to do something for them whoever “them” may be.

Redneck, welcome and I am glad you like visiting my blog.

My view point on this issue is property managers all talk to one another. If they see a friend of theirs getting cut a better deal than what they are receiving they might be upset.

My business plan does not call for a large sales staff so even if I wanted to do this I couldn’t. I know where you are coming from but I don’t want to upset the PM’s.

Just as in real estate, advertising rates are reflective of market conditions. A 2000sq ft 4/3 home in Denver will not rent/sale/resale for the same price as it would in “The Springs”. Robbie should understand this better than anyone because of the Jacksonville FL market. A 2500sq ft 4/3 house in Julington Creek Plantation will rent/sale/resale significantly more than the same house just one neighborhood over. Property managers seem to fully understand and embrace this concept yet do not have the capacity to carry this philosophy forward elsewhere where it’s just as relevant. I’ve worked with property managers the past several years. 99% of them are good at a lot of things, but 99% of them generally need a lot of help when it comes to understanding sales, advertising, and running the most profitable business they can.

Advertising 101 – where does it cost more to advertise – a small time news/classified rag or one of the big Cox owned Classified Venture news/classified rags in the same city? – price relative to traffic. In what city does it cost more to advertise – a suburb or in the big city? – price relative to traffic. Does it typically cost more to advertise on Monday/Tuesady in the paper or Saturday/Sunday? – say it with me please…price relative to traffic. The same radio & TV ad is cheaper in Atlanta than it is in Macon or Jacksonville/Orlando. – here it is again so say it with me…price relative to traffic. Trust me, I know firsthand. And Hello!!! The price of gas varies greatly from corner to corner. The price is based on what the market bares.
Ok – back to Robbie – If it’s hard for gas stations, real estate brokers, etc to be competitive in this enviornment then why do we see one on virtually every corner? Radio, TV, & newspapers are still selling ads with this pricing structure …I just checked my TV and Oprah is still carried on Channel 2. The advertisers are ringing the phones off the hook over there at 2 more than the phones are ringing over on Channel 42 where the Dukes of Hazzard reruns are now showing. Why? I’lll let you guys answer that (but for the dumb people…pssst…its traffic!)
So let’s carry this widely practiced concept into “our” industry. If city “A” generates x amount of traffic and produces y amount of email replies & ad views and City “B” generates 35% more traffic, email replies & ad views than city “A”, why should the ads in city “B” costs the same than city “A”. Being the smartest businessman you could be (oops a concept most just can ‘t grasp), would you try to maximize your earnings potential and charge more for ads in City “B”? If you wanted to bring home filet mignon instead of hamburger helper you darn sure would. Hey Mr Property Managers – If you could rent out that shack in the Southside for $150 more than you previously rented it for last month because you have a tenant who is willing to pay would you do it? I’m tired of listening to everyone crying about price and beating up the “The Man”! Just because some compaines are doing a better job at delivering results with advertising your ads than you are at maximizing your profitability at your own company doesn’t make them horrible. Perhaps they are just smarter than you are…ya think? If the price you are paying is not relative to traffic your ads are generating then its your job to find somewhere that is.

There’s a lot more to it than that but if I posted “the rest of the story” here, I would be giving up my trade secrets. I’m a first time blogger here but a long time “listener”. All I see is banter & bitchin’ (am I live? I can say that on the internet right? oops) back & forth about competitors, property managers, business practices, etc regarding the rental advertising industry. I love the forum and I applaud Dave for developing the blog here, but must of you guys are nuts. I either know you or know enough about you (or your company) to say that with complete confidence. And yes I’m a know it all. I had to be in order to be successful

By the way, Cityleases has much bigger issues than their pricing format – which I tend to agree with. As with the majority of the websites catering to this industry, I think Elvis is spotted in more Walmarts than renters are spotted checking out vacancies on cityleases.com.