The Team

Unfamiliar with vlogging? Well, here’s a little Vlogging 101 for you. Simply put, vlogging is a blog that features video content. Vlogging is a great way to let your personality shine through and show off your personal brand with this type of social media content. First, you’ll need a camera (use your smartphone!), a mic…

As a member of the video production team, I’m often asked the same questions time and time again, so in this column I’ll address the best solutions for these repeat queries. Besides the most obvious: “What equipment should I use?” “How do I edit?” etc., one of the most important items many people tend to…

While marketing listings is a top priority for most agents, it is arguably just as important for agents to market themselves as experts who are familiar with the community and local economy. LinkedIn is a great way to build your brand and showcase your expertise. First, make sure your profile is up to date with…

Read before hitting send. In today’s marketplace of texts, instant messages, Skype, Twitter and others, the email remains one of the most effective ways to communicate in business 47 years after the @ symbol came into use. Here are a few email tips to make sure your message is getting heard and you are not…

Instagram is a great way to market yourself, your business, have fun and show off your personality. Here are a few ideas to help you make an impact on Instagram: Tell a story. Then tell it in #hashtags. For example, when you post photos of your next listing, don’t just add the address or a…

Should I shoot and edit a video on my own or hire a professional to do it for me? Quick answer: that depends. But there are a few things that can make this decision easy to make. A couple questions to ask yourself are: Where is this going to be played and how long do…

I never knew that state real estate rules would have such an impact on my life. As a senior copywriter in The Studio/Design Concierge, I live them daily! For those not in Pacific time zones, did you know that every agent in the state of California must include their license number on all consumer-facing advertisements…

While some may think Q4 in real estate marketing is a sleepy time of reflection, think again! We’re just weeks away from the end of the year — and in a year where we never took our foot off the gas, the remaining five weeks of the year will be no different. We’ve got four major product…

As a new addition to The Studio as a junior copywriter (I graduated with a journalism degree a few months ago), I consider this my first “serious/important” job (apologies to my previous employers). At first, I had no intention of using my journalism degree. But when I finally branched into marketing for career options, I…

I can’t tell you how many Starbucks stores I see in a given month. There’s one across the street from where I live. There’s one across the street from where I work. Even as I visited a small town in Michigan, there was another. Why bring this up? Because it shows the power of branding.…

Posting videos to your social media pages can be a great self-marketing tool. These don’t have to be professionally shot videos, just simple videos shot from your phone. In a past blog, I shared with you how to shoot. Now here are a few ideas of what (topic) to shoot. The simplest video can be…

Field Marketing Specialists (FMS) have been popping up around the country as a new position to help agents dive deeper into their marketing and to hone their brands. The position was created to help agents live exceptional lives by helping them grow and launch the next stage of their business using the tools that Coldwell…

Here at The Product Studio, we’re intently focused on bringing our community of agents and employees together in new and creative ways. In an industry with no shortage of talent, insight and real-world knowledge, we believe the best way to build stand-out products that will lead us into the future is to tap into that talent,…

I’ll bet it’s a little of this, a hefty portion of that, plus a whole lot of stuff plopped smack-dab in the middle. With so many daily tasks requiring our attention these days, do you secretly wish a good fairy (better known as a personal assistant) would appear, wave a magic wand and clear your…

Five Key Takeaways From Our First Ever Realogy & Coldwell Banker® Product Summit This summer, one could argue that The Product Studio and Realogy Development (Dev) teams were really starting to gain their stride. If you had a checklist for high performing product teams, we were nailing the important marks: Everything we were building was…

Working for The Studio’s copywriting team is detailed — very detailed. You wouldn’t think creating marketing pieces like brochures, property templates, email signatures or business cards would be too complicated, but it’s much more complex than it seems. With Design Concierge, Coldwell Banker® affiliated agents have a personalized branding tool at their fingertips to make…

Are you ready to video edit? I am often asked what video editing software I use. And frankly, I love that people ask! It’s exciting that video is now so available and easy to share that it has become embedded in everything everyone does these days. Everyone and their cat are in some way engaging…

Whether you’re a seasoned pro or a novice, being on camera is never easy. Many a grown man and woman has grown weak in the knee once the camera starts rolling. The best thing you can do is be prepared. Most people think that just means having a script ready to go. In some cases,…

Millennials are a force to be reckoned with in today’s real estate market, making up more than a third of home buyers. Many of them are also first-time home buyers, and while they’ve gathered a mountain of information from extensive online research, they need an experienced agent they can trust to help guide them through…

I’m not worried, I’ve got a plan – a phrase I often used when discussing my future life goals. I knew that I wanted to pursue a college degree, purchase a car, get married, travel, buy a house and maybe even have some kids. Each step was mapped out for me. Parents, teachers, coaches, and…

With modern advances in smart technology, it often feels like we are surrounded with videos, and it can be a bit overwhelming. But many of the amateur videographers, bloggers and streamers often overlook the most important aspect of their production — the audio. Fuzzy, shaky, under- or over-exposed video can still have a positive impact…

Your agent bio is often the first information clients find about you. While most buyers and sellers ask for a referral from family or friends, they’ll still want to know more. A simple internet search will take them straight to your brokerage or personal website, or your bio on realtor.com or Zillow, to check you…

I’m a believer that the first 90 days at a job set the tone for the rest of your time in that position – you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, and all that. But while you’re working hard to make a good impression, the job is also making an impression…

One of the best things The Studio can do to support agents is helping brokerages find ways to recognize them for their accomplishments. Coldwell Banker NRT, in particular, is very proud of the diversity of its affiliated agents across America. Just like our country, agents are diverse in race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, and The…

The Top 10 Ways The Product Studio Conquered Summer Vacation Who has time for summer vacation when there are products to conquer, users to delight and problems to solve. Here’s how the team spent our summer vacations as we gear up for one of the most exciting Fall markets of our careers: 10. We were…

A long time ago in an ad agency far, far away, I was given a piece of writing advice that has followed me lo these many years. Simply, when you write, write like you’re talking to a friend. Back then, I initially thought, okay, so my writing may have more than its fair share of…

Millennials have many regrets: from buying $6 lattes, to their iconic social media obsession, to perhaps, my own regret, being a millennial at all. But who wants to have major regrets, the kind with consequences that’ll stick for decades, if not a lifetime? I’m thinking overwhelming student debt, landing a not-so-great job, or buying a…

Five Key Takeaways from Our First Ever Realogy & Coldwell Banker Product Summit   This summer, one could argue that The Product Studio and Realogy ABT dev teams were really starting to gain their stride.  If you had a checklist for high performing product teams, we were nailing the important marks: Everything we were building…

Desk is Coldwell Banker NRT’s new productivity platform, and where agents start their day, access their apps, check for notifications and maybe even learn a thing or two in the Help Center. But it’s so much more than that! It’s also the first open architecture platform in the industry. That means we are building within…

There’s this recurring feature of Reader’s Digest called “Things your <INSERT ANYTHING> wishes you knew.” It’s a fun read and usually I learn a thing or two or end up thinking about things a little differently than I did before. It got me thinking about the kinds of things I wish agents knew about the work of The Product…

One of the biggest challenges as a real estate agent is staying connected with your SOI (sphere of influence) – for non-real estate folks, I’m talking about past clients, current clients, friends, family, leads, etc. It too frequently gets set aside with the best intention of doing it when you have free time. You might…

In my recent blog, I began to delve in to the untapped data goldmine – also known as the voice of the customer (VOC). There is a wealth of learning and knowledge literally at our finger tips waiting to be unleashed to help us better understand the customer and, ultimately, deliver a truly exceptional experience…

Ever wonder where your feedback is going? Participate in a survey and question, “Is anyone really listening?” Respond to a, “Would you recommend this product to a friend or colleague?” and wonder, who is actually reacting to this information and what good does it actually do? Product owners understand that customer experience is the new battleground…

Shooting video on a mobile phone can be easy, but there are a few simple steps to take that will ensure you get good quality footage. Thanks to today’s technology, you can actually make your videos look like they were shot on a professional camera if you follow some basic guidelines. Size Matters – Make…

Anchored in the industry’s first open architecture platform, Desk, Coldwell Banker NRT’s suite of applications, enable agents to use our products or other great products seamlessly and effectively through our systems. We leverage our scale and talent to unify products in one cohesive, integrated solution. Desk is an agent’s first and only stop to accessing the tools…

We live in a world where technology terms are loosely thrown around, but do we really know what they mean? In the mobile sphere, we use words like native, web and hybrid when we refer to apps and it can become a little confusing. Here’s a breakdown: Native App – These are apps that live…

The Studio recently launched Design Concierge in select Coldwell Banker NRT markets, so now’s a great time to introduce Frank Marte, creative services manager, who leads the national design team supporting Design Concierge. I sat down with Frank, got to know more about him and his new role developing creative briefs, directing projects and helping…

I always like to think of CRM (Customer Relationship Marketing) as providing end-to-end coordination between the three functional pillars of sales, service and marketing. Every industry and every business within that industry adapts this concept to whatever makes the most sense for their CRM needs. When I was in the pharmaceutical industry that meant coordinating…

While the term Customer Relationship Management (CRM) wasn’t spawned until the mid-1990s, businesses have been performing many of the functions of CRM since the dawn of commerce. From the customer account notebook that mom and pop maintained of their customers on credit, to rolodexes, the advent of home computers and the use of Lotus 1-2-3…

I am now a copywriter who is part of the largest real estate marketing agency in the country. Actually, I have been since I first started with Coldwell Banker NRT in late 2017, but now, it’s official. We’ve announced our presence to the world. From Instagram posts and eye-catching videos to the sleek and simple…

All I read about in Inman News is regarding the new financial “deal” in real estate. Company Y is rebating commissions to buyers. I-Buying is the next big trend. Company Z is taking offers from unrepresented buyers, which will put us all out of business. When is someone going to admit, it’s still about trust…

I’m convinced that social media, smart phones and the internet have sucked the ability to write a proper sentence out of most Americans. These are amazing inventions, but they’ve led to our dumbing down, and we’ve forgotten even the most basic rules we were taught in elementary school. Here are five common mistakes that could…

On the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn Riots, we are proud to have many Coldwell Banker NRT companies, employees and independently affiliated sales associates organize and/or participate in their local Pride events. From Boston to Hawaii, offices are coming together to celebrate equality by walking in parades, speaking at events or hosting their own…

When we talk about leads in real estate, we often use that term to mean a number of different things. With our technology and product teams focused on consumer-facing products that attract consumers so that we can delivery business and value to our agents – the term “lead” often means the submission of an online…

This week I finished a painting — or the painting finished itself. I’m not sure which. There’s a thing that happens sometimes, when you’ve worked at something for a long time – painting, cooking, running, writing, whatever your daily pursuit may be – and if you’re lucky enough to really enjoy that activity and need…

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but lot of people are talking about APIs. But what are they and why should you – or anyone – care about them? APIs are built to allow different applications to talk with one another. The idea is to make each product more useful and usable by leveraging the…

“When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment; I told them they didn’t understand life.” – John Lennon I read this thing today (oh boy), written by a marketing expert and motivational speaker (says…

In March of 2017, we introduced Listing Concierge to our very first market: Sacramento/Tahoe in Northern California. Listing Concierge at that time was very different, as we were working with a temporary solution – and a very disjointed process – to get us by until the program we have today was ready to go. Unlike…

In January, I spent a day at the Inman conference in NYC. There was a lot of discussion about technology and all the different ways agents should be using it to market themselves – from AI to Zillow. Over and over, presenters and panelists came to the stage to talk about how to leverage different…

What happens to your feedback? Do you ever wonder what happens to the feedback you submit within a product? To the question you enter in a chat? To the incident you open with the NRT Help Desk? Well, we can assure you that your product ratings, issues, remarks and inquiries aren’t just going into a…

If you join our monthly TMAP (This month at Product) for Agents, which is open to all Coldwell Banker NRT agents, you will definitely hear us talking about how some of our products are MVP. But what exactly does this mean? MVP, or minimum viable product, is a product with just enough features to satisfy…

Discover your own special skills, what sets you apart. Then utilize them to create your unique pitch. It’s all about the doing of it. The creating. The diving into a challenge and figuring your way out of it. The final outcome is only part of the experience. For instance, I paint. And I love it.…

As a Product Manager, feedback from users is a valuable gift. During product development, feedback is used to validate that we’re on the right track, building the right things, or to make needed adjustments before we’ve gone too far down the wrong path. Ideally users are involved before we even begin development, through user interviews…

Fresh from Coldwell Banker’s Gen Blue and Realogy’s RGX events, we wanted to share that The Product Studio held its second Innovation Lab in Vegas last week. An estimated 250 attendees came through the lab and were among the first to see, experience and influence some of the hottest new apps and services coming out…

There’s a common misconception that in order to fully test a design, you need to talk to a lot of users. When I explain that we’re only researching with seven to 10 users, our business partners usually gasp, “How can you possibly be confident that you’re addressing our 5,000 users if you only talk to…

The Product Studio lives, eats, sleeps and breathes user feedback and iteration. Our product managers spend a great deal of time working with agents to better understand their needs and how products are used and received. Do they delight or are they causing frustrations?  Do they add value or do they simply create noise?  What products…

Through its annual international awards program, Coldwell Banker recognizes agents who demonstrated exceptional sales production and leadership over the past year. And behind the scenes, supporting Coldwell Banker NRT’s award publicity efforts is The Studio’s public relations team. Preparing for award announcements is not a task the team takes lightly. To start, the PR team…

When it comes to luxury real estate, no brand is more recognizable in the market than Coldwell Banker and its Global Luxury program. But for such a powerful brand spanning across 44 countries and territories, telling its story requires partnerships with likeminded luxury experts. The Studio’s public relations team works to bridge the Brand narrative…

When it comes to selling luxury homes and estates, Coldwell Banker Global Luxury specialist Jonathan Radford is renowned among his peers for his keen negotiating skills, market savvy and expertise. Radford first listed “Swain’s Neck,” an expansive waterfront estate, in the summer of 2017. Nestled on Nantucket, a tiny island off Massachusetts’s coast known as…

I am a big believer in voice of customer.  Feedback is gold in our world, and hearing agents’ golden nuggets just makes us stronger.  That is why I recently restructured our product team and now have a group that is focused on voice of customer as a way of helping us leverage that data to…

Anyone out there a Shark Tank fan like me? My husband and I love it. We watch it with our kids and love seeing the creative ideas, start-up spirit and (sorry to say, my guilty pleasure is) seeing the entrepreneurs squirm under pressure. One of my favorite parts of the show is the pitch. If you haven’t seen…

It was just about two years ago when we launched our first Listing Concierge pilot program for Coldwell Banker NRT in the Golden State’s capitol region, Sacramento/Tahoe. The local leadership and branch managers worked together to build the plan, there was alignment among the teams like I’ve never seen before and the marketing team was laser-focused…

It was a one-for-the-books kind of year. You know all that stuff about making you stronger? That was our year. 2017 was a year of “just keeping up.”  2018, however, was a year where we really started executing on our strategy and vision for Coldwell Banker NRT.  Among the highlights: We (almost) nailed our product consolidation goal. As of Dec.…

The real estate industry loves an acronym (CMA, DOM, MLS, FHA…). Every industry or organization has its own lingo or language and The Studio is no different. Here, when we say TLC, while there’s plenty of love to go around, it means Team Listing Concierge. And in The Product Studio, we live and breathe by…

It’s your birthday!  You wake up and your family has made you a wonderful breakfast-in-bed assortment of eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice and coffee.  And to top it off, a beautiful red rose.  The food is great, but let’s be honest – it was that rose that made you feel extra special.  That one little…

There’s a thing that happens sometimes, when you’ve worked at something for a long time – painting, cooking, running, writing, whatever your daily pursuit may be – and if you’re lucky enough to really enjoy that activity and need that activity and cherish that activity in a way that you didn’t even realize, there’s a…

Never-mind what I’m going to do. Just say go. It’s a photo shoot kind of day. I get to play creative director with a photographer and his team, the client and his phone, the subjects and their individual issues. It’s a strange kind of fun. The whole point is to create a perfected reality with…

There was a TV show a long, long time ago named Branded and all I remember about it is the theme song and a close-up of Chuck Connors. He had a face like a broken piece of slate. But now I think of that song and that face every time I hear about branding, which…

So, one of my favorite people asked me to write a blog about a blog. I do requests, just so ya know. A Blog, according to Wikipedia – and who questions them? – is a portmanteau – a what? – of the term web log; but I think it’s actually an acronym for Blabbering Lengthily…

Social media can be one of the most effective and cost-effective tools to expand your sphere of influence, show your expertise and build a reputation. But making mistakes could lead to a reputation that you don’t want. To get the most out of social media for your real estate business, avoid these seven common pitfalls.…

You’ve heard that content is king. That just means you have to post interesting things on social media to get people interested. But that’s easier said than done, and many real estate agents struggle with coming up with the right content and posting it frequently enough to stay relevant. Here are five ideas for real…

Real estate agents are constantly managing every aspect of their business, from admin to marketing and everything in between. Every minute of the day is precious, so the products and services agents use must keep up with their fast pace. Factors such as ease and flexibility are nonnegotiable. Enter Desk, a platform created by The…

Technology is undoubtedly a major force in all industries and since real estate is no exception, The Studio has combined cutting-edge tech with personalized customer service to create Listing Concierge, a new tool that offers customized and automated property listing marketing in all media spaces. Agents affiliated with Coldwell Banker NRT can get customized marketing…