More Marketing Genius at Work in the Kingsway | Bruce Klassen

My mail arrived today and I had to drop everything and call the Toronto Star to stop the press! Royal LePage's Bruce Klassen who as we've all come to know as "Mr. I specialize in residences of The Kingsway and Sunnylea" had graciously littered my box with what he was calling a "news release."

Hey Bruce, do the the residents of The Kingsway and Sunnylea a huge favour and stop sending this mindless crap. Do you honestly believe that a direct mail piece that proclaims the fact that you bought some bullshit accreditation from The Institute of Luxury Home Marketing carries any weight with us?

What's wrong Bruce, isn't the lead generation you do at LKS's springfest working for you anymore?

Maybe I'm being a little harsh....sorry Bruce. I did watch the video about the institute and I can see how you are justifiably proud. You should get credit for bettering yourself with a 2-day course that enables you to slap all kinds of goofy logos on your marketing materials and convince us that you are now better equipped to sell million dollars homes that generally all sell themselves.

After all, many of the residents of the Kingsway and Sunnylea (this blogger included) have accreditations like CFA, MBA, CGA, CA, PhD which took 2 or 3 years of our lives so we can all relate to the time and hard work you've just invested. Congratulations. We are all so proud of you.

So, is it a press release? Hardly. Was it a moronic move sending our a direct mail piece like this -- you bet it was. Who does your marketing? Fire them.

How does $100 in marketing expenses justify a $60,0000 commission?

An argument you'll often hear in defense of the commissions charged by real estate agents is that their costs of doing business has risen dramatically in the past few years. If you watched the piece from 60 minutes, you heard the agent talk about the increased cost of postage, gas, printing, etc. that eat into their profits.

I could see her point. Walk by the parking lot at the Kingsway Royal Lepage Branch and you'll see a very significant collection of Europe's greatest automakers --- BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Porsche to name a few. With gas at a buck a litre, you can see how these poor people are clearly suffering.

But let's get back to the marketing full-service agents do. The so-called marketing plan that our agents put together for us included a 360 degree virtual tour of our home. They made it sound like it was some kind of super-costly value add that they offered. Truth be told, these virtual tours generally cost the agents about $100. Click here to see an online price list for a company that produces these for real estate agents. They also cobbled together an amateurish looking brochure with very poor quality photos they took themselves. Estimated cost for this piece of marketing wizardry -- $50 tops.

Our house sold for about $1.2 million. At a 5% commission our super-star agents shared $60,000 for a few hours work. Mind you, we have to factor in the cost of the virtual tour, printing a dozen colour brochures, a sign for the front lawn, and a few other incidentals which probably added up to about $300. Which leaves a very modest $59,700. That's tough.