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8 years ago when I was in the mortgage industry, I helped a nice lady refinance her home. She had two beautiful children, worked as a nurse and teacher, and she was an awesome client. I still remember the bank attorney closing the deal at her kitchen table- that was a first. Another thing I recall was that her toddler son loved to play in one of those jumpy swing apparati where the kid can jump like a kangaroo without getting hurt- we bought one, and subsequently wore it out, with our own.
Mary and I remained friendly and in touch. A year and a half back, she got her real estate license and announce on Facebook that she had joined another firm. I remember my jaw dropping. I would have hired Mary in a hot minute had I known she was looking to get into the industry. I was bummed!
So I watched as she seemed to take to the industry, which was no surprise whatsoever. Smart, caring, independent thinking people do well in real estate.
That is why I am REALLY excited and proud to welcome Mary Kingsley to J. Philip Real Estate as our newest associate. I now understand that Mary was an agent in Orange County in a past life, and that experience, along with her natural gifts, make this so exciting an addition for Ann and me. Mary is just an awesome person. Her adoptive son, now 11, has significant special needs as a toddler when I first met him. The updates on his progress I get now are nothing short of miraculous. Only extraordinary people do that. His older sister is an honors student. Not surprising.
There is a special feeling I have with all new associates when I order their cards and set up their back office and email. With Mary, the feeling was electric because I have known her for 8 years and I know what a quality person she is. I know for a fact her clients will be in the best hands they could ask for. If you want a professional who will watch your back like family, who is intellectually agile and committed, you’ll find your match with Mary Kingsley. She serves much of southern Westchester County and the Bronx. Call Mary at (917) 292-5378 or email her at marykingsley@jphilip.com. Then you’ll know why I am so honored to call her an associate.
Market reports with too many graphics and charts-especially in the absence of thought out commentary- lose most people. One chart or graph might be useful, but only if you interpret it intelligently. Otherwise you have peacock plumage that makes most consumers eyes glaze over, is useless to search engines and doesn’t even make you a better source of knowledge. I’ll explain. 
If you read Inman News, it is likely that you have seen the story on Redfin’s blog entitled “
The data that Redfin uses to come to their conclusions is their IDX or Virtual Office feed from the MLS systems they belong to. How do I know this? They told me. This data is meant for consumer searches. It populates websites where consumers look for homes. It isn’t really a data pool that is meant for such a deep drilling matter as agency disclosure. A few months ago, when Redfin attempted to publish “
On the End of Encyclopaedia Britannica in Print
Encyclopaedia Britannica announced yesterday that they would no longer print their reference library, opting instead to have it be available in online digital form only. Just a week or so ago, I wrote a post on my past life in the educational publishing industry, albeit nothing about the books and selling them. But I feel that my 7 years working for a company that was a Grolier distributor and a competitor in many levels with Britannica gives me some insight into the end of that line of books in print.
It should go without saying that this is a trend that affects more than encyclopedias; thanks to e-readers and computers, my grandchildren may never know what it is like to turn the pages of a book. Britannica was also not the first reference set to go out of print. As a matter of fact, they were the last of the Big A-B-C sets to stop killing trees. Colliers ended in 1998, and Encyclopedia Americana was last printed in around 2007. Only World Book, the set I devoured as a child, remains in print.
Having said all that, I do believe that the end of high end encyclopedias in book form was largely self inflicted and under discussed. I believe that, had they changed their model of distribution, Americana, Britannica and Colliers would still be in print in a sustainable way.
Virtually all high end educational references were sold the same way: a salesman would come to your house and sit at your kitchen table. After about a 90 minute pitch, you’d be informed that the whole thing would cost over $1,000, often far more. And if you didn’t buy today, the price would jump and the offer would expire when the representative walked out the door without a purchase offer. With each “no,” they’d throw in more books: children’s books, great classics, you name it, soon people would have a wall of books they’d never finish in a regular life span. It is called a one-call close, and the sales force was a transient, not terribly educated group that was on straight commission.
I know. I hired and trained hundreds. And I was one of them, initially as a trainee and all the way up to a regional manager overseeing the sales in 4 cities. I thrived selling our system, with Grolier’s New Book of Knowledge as the centerpiece of a $1,400 or so set. I was a cowlicked kid right out of college, I believed I was spreading the gospel of literacy, and I knew how to get people to say yes and sign their name on a contract and a check. I closed about one in three people I met with.
However, even I saw the writing on the wall, and in the post I link to above, I explain why I left the company and the industry. The firm closed its doors in 2000; one of the partners now originates mortgages and I have run into him at industry events. He went down with his ship, believing that a 1950’s model for sales would work in the new millennium.
I’ll cut to the chase. In the information era, you can’t generate sustainable revenue having a sales force of clip on tie wearing transients with high pressure schlocky pitches telling people that if they don’t spend $1400 right now, tonight, that they can’t have it. Not when they can Google anything for free or look it up on Wikipedia. Are there some people out there that would happily spend money on a printed encyclopedia? Hell yes, and far more than the 8,000 that Britannica sold of the 2010 edition. People may not buy a Stephen King or Harry Potter in print, but a reference library is still special to many.
The encyclopedia industry never adapted. That print is going away in all books is not the prime reason. People just don’t buy in the 21st century the way they did when I got started in the 1980s. Publishers should have realized that they could sell far more books far more profitably for far less money in perpetuity had they stopped the kitchen table sales and gone with Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other distributors. Without paying those $250 commissions, rent on offices and phones, and all the other brick and mortar overhead, they could have priced the sets at a fraction of the cost and sold more-far more- for less money. And they could have thrown in an online password for updates to keep current for literally nothing and never worry about anything going out of date.
It is a lesson in failing to adapt that other industries should see as a cautionary tale. There are still enough people who appreciate print. But nobody appreciate a high pressure sales pitch from an individual who isn’t credible, and that was always a problem the industry never addressed.
Now there is no industry. A cautionary tale for the rest of us, whether we are in real estate or not. Change or go extinct.