The Fort in Morrison, CO is one of the finest restaurants in America and a Colorado Treasure. A replica of Bent’s Old Fort, the “modern” rendition sits alongside Red Rocks Amphitheater above Denver and creates “New Food of the Old West.” Part of the treasure is the one-of-a-kind character that is Sam Arnold, founder and purveyor of this unique establishment. Sam has created a restaurant that is not only fantastic dining, but a real experience. You don’t so much show up and wait for a table as you go back in time to the fun of the old west, mind you, an old west that has precious little tee totaling (anyone who coins a recipe for a Jim Bridger or a Hailstorm Mint Julep shares very little in common with Colorado Springs founder General William Jackson Palmer). This isn’t a kitchy Tombstone, AZ shoot ‘em up kind of place. It’s a place where actual artisans come and create and sell their creations, a place on the National Register of Historic Places because of it’s historical accuracy.
In 1997, Sam introduced his cookbook, The Fort Cookbook: New Foods of the Old West. For aspiring gourmands, it is tragically out of print. But if you can find one, it makes a fantastic gift. The book is a great read, not just for those seeking rattlesnake recipes or how to inject a banana with Bacardi 151… but also how to tomahawk a bottle of champagne or what the proper dinner is for a female black bear named Sissy. It’s fun!
Here is an example: Sam’s “Craneberry” (sic) Sauce, so named because the original name of cranberries was “Craneberries”. It’s a peace of cake, and could provide a lot of fun around the table with that talkative aunt from the Midwest…!
2 quarts washed and diced fresh cranberries
4 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup toasted and diced Pecans
One Shot Grand Marnier
Wash, and dice the cranberries, preferrably in a food processor. Place the cranberries in a large stove pot along with the sugar and the water and heat to a simmer for 20 to 30 minutes stirring frequently enough to keep the cranberries for burning on the bottom.
Dice and toast the pecans for 2 to 4 minutes, making sure you do not burn them.
Remove the cranberries from the heat and stir in the pecans. Stir in the shot of Grand Marnier. This will likely create a large sizzle and possibly a splatter when you add it. Thoroughly mix together, add to a serving bowl and chill for at least 6 hours before serving. You can also bottle it in the same manner as a jelly, jam or preserve.
I’ve blogged less since I came to Selley Group in November, 2010.
But look at my metrics since I joined.
I don’t get big blog traffic and I don’t want it. I want to talk to a small, but appreciative audience whenever I can. I believe in organizing a tribe. It’s a tiny little memento, but I had 2x as many blog visitors yesterday as I have had on any single day. But my voice is trending. If you’re looking for a single thought to organize what it is that I do, it is this: Build a Permission Asset.
Apparently, The Permission Asset “is happening” but it is also still under construction. I like the metaphor of “never complete.”
10.Higher than Denver (oops, people might think we have more MMJ per square mile, too)
9. Unparalleled Command and Control!
Apparently, the newest civic embarrassment is the $111,000 spent on the city’s new branded logo and motto: Live it Up!
The popular consensus seems to be that the logo reminds people of a softball team sponsored by either an ambitious dentist or perhaps a Dairy Queen competitor. In fact, do a tour of social media today, and what you’ll find is an ever-increasing degree of bile and one-up-man-ship as people try to come up with new ways of describing how much they DISLIKE both the logo and the video.
8. Worship 6025′!
7. Worship 14,110′!
The message here is pretty clear: you need to align your brand with your product; therefore, branding only works when you know what your product is. Considering that this was commissioned by the Convention and Tourism Bureau, it’s not that surprising to see a lot of imagery about the outdoors, specifically Pikes Peak and Garden of the Gods. But from my editorial perspective, what is unbelievably distressing is that the CVB also thought that this would work for creating jobs and appealing to younger professionals. If that’s the audience, how pray-tell does this video appeal to them?
6. Drive To, Over and Through Us!
5. AEROSPACE! Hell, Yeah!
The arts and culture are reduced to sloganeering cheerleaders and exactly 1 second and two images out of almost four minutes. Most “average citizen” shots appear contrived and forced and possibly done on a single take. There is a single image of the Air Force Academy, and it appears randomly disassociated from everything else. Poor Ralph Routen, editor of the Indy is reduced to talking about driving to the top of Pike’s Peak. Colorado College and UCCS do not make a single appearance in the video. Nor does The Old North End. But there is a guy holding a generic cup of coffee on Canon Ave. complimenting Colorado Springs… except Canon Ave. is in Manitou.
4. Right next door to Manitou!
What’s really missing? A narrative. A story. Check this out:
Which one instills civic pride? Which one shows a wide-variety of reasons to visit, maybe even plan a weekend or vacation around? Which one looks welcoming?
Why is narrative important? It engages the audience. Showing is better than telling. It makes it easy to remember. Narrative is worth talking about. Narrative is Benefit, not Feature-Driven. The CVB video spends a great deal of time telling the audience what to think about Colorado Springs, and a lot of them border on hyperbole. No one trusts hyperbole. The Downtown Development Authority’s video shows the audience downtown, and engages them with visual images that are more easily communicated as factual, not someone’s particular opinion.
3. Only 50 minutes from Park Meadows!
2. Come Get Your Monies Worth!
There is a standard that a Vimeo “film” needs to have a much higher production quality than a Youtube “video”. But considering that the Downtown Development video was made for a fraction of the cost and has a considerably higher production quality, the question quickly becomes: “if we’re actually any good, why not make a film?”
1. Like Tulsa, But Different.
Right now on Facebook, Hannah and I are taking a poll as to what people say. It’s terribly scientific in the way that all social media is, responses are volunteered and once critical mass of an opinion’s direction is determined, you’re not likely going to see any variance from that opinion. But look at the reaction to this on The Gazette (90% dislike at this writing), The CSBJ (24-0 dislike right now), and The CSIndy (5-0) and you have to wonder who the committee was that screened this production. Look at the voting on Youtube, where there are Zero Likes, and Nine Dislikes, and only mocking comments.
The reality of the city is much better demonstrated in the Downtown Colorado Springs. When Chris Carmichael talks about the Pro Cycling Challenge, the images anchor his words. When he mentions collaborative efforts by the city, organizations, individuals and businesses, you can see the reality.
What speaks loudest in the CVB video are the people chosen to participate. The video is much more about people speaking and their opinions then it is about the city. But the CVB is supposed to be about creating tourism, conventions, visitors and jobs. It is highly unlikely any of the people in the video would be visited personally or hired for an event. That’s not a ding on the people at all. That’s a strategic problem with the video and the company that created it completely missed the angle of branding.
The Downtown Colorado Springs film uses far more elegant images, cinematography, transitions, modern music… but also captures the product, Colorado Springs. The images are exclusive to downtown. They show people enjoying themselves out and about. Again, back to some scientific polling, but I showed my 8 year old and my twin five year olds both videos. My kids walked away disinterested from the CVB. They came back for the Downtown Colorado Springs film, and what got them excited? Everything. They know Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak first hand. But the Pikes Peak Center? That gets them excited because they’ve seen the symphony there. The rodeo parade is just fun. “There’s Poor Richard’s, brothers!” yelled Andrew. One is someone’s else’s idea of whatever everyone else ought to like. The other is turn-key door opening, a “let me show you…” with a grin.
Successful marketing needs a hook and a narrative. I’m sorry if this post offends, but I’m offended that the city decided to make a video and not a film, to provide opinions rather than show facts, to shout rather than show. As citizens, we deserve better. We’re worth a film. I can show you an example…
Five years ago, Joe Boylan introduced me to the crazy bearded dude who was the keynote speaker at an Inman Connect: Hugh MacLeod. Joe said he and about a half dozen others were all that was left in the room when Hugh finished his address (I’m betting Jay Thompson was one of those in there with Boylan). Most of “Real Estate” didn’t understand Hugh. They didn’t “get his gig“. Joe shared Hugh with me. I’m thankful. I’m pretty sure I get Hugh’s gig.
A lot of people “get” Hugh, and while you might call them geeks, the geeks run the earth. The sooner you “get” Hugh, the sooner you are to likely stop wasting efforts and start building a brand worth building. What Hugh does is make sense of social media artistically, by taking “the conversation” and ascending to art. Most social media marketers sell a tool box of offerings that are disparate and geeky. If Hugh sells anything, he sells accessibility. In 2 to 10 words, he starts the conversation.
Hugh’s gig is a huge lesson for my industry. Real estate has been quick to embrace social media. There are many explanations for this. Number one, REALTORS like to advertise. I use to manage REALTORS and this was the standard arithmetic for a REALTOR advertisement:
Cost of add equal to or less than one transaction’s likely commission.
How is that for a durable business plan? In fact, I’d go one step further: when doing annual reviews with agents or discussing their business building strategies, I’d say the number one thing I heard most frequently was, “if I sell a single property because of it, it pays for itself.”
For the most part, Social Media is free. There is almost no barrier to entry. And that’s what makes it so hard. Instead of trying to be big on five to ten of the hundred or so channels a consumer might be on, social media instead requires sustainable connection on specific channels out of millions. The Real Estate Market has been crippled, now going on month 66 of market correction locally. REALTORS are not stupid, they realize that the popular ways of advertising of the past like phone book placement ads and TV commercials are expensive and hard to pay for with their shrunken wages. But mastery takes time, and real estate’s embrace of social media has involved much shouting and the same slick images, and far less relevance and connection. It often lacks what Hugh calls “a Social Object“.
The problem is what to do with Social Media. The nice thing about a static phonebook ad was that it didn’t have to say anything. Use a fancy font, come up with a great moniker, have a good, trustworthy picture and you were set. The problem with social media is that you have to say something relevant. Merit applies. It has to be a point of connection. It has to be worth sharing.
All the links I’ve shared for Hugh route you back to one of his permanent manifesto pages, this one called “SO” short for “Social Objects.” Hugh’s obviously brilliant contention is that human beings do not gather randomly, that socialization happens for a reason: “Human beings do not socialize in a completely random way. There’s a tangible reason for us being together, that ties us together. Again, that reason is called the Social Object. Social Networks form around Social Objects, not the other way around.”
The purpose of this blog is to create lots of relevant social objects. Hannah and I formed Pikes Peak Urban Living because we both believe in the value of social organizing. This isn’t necessarily political; it is thought-leadership. Our job with our clients is not to sell them something, or sell something of theirs. Our job is to create something more durable, a permission asset, with each individual client. We take that permission asset which is founded on trust and relevance and pretty importantly, truth, and we collectively form plans of action in concert with our clients.
Here are some takeaways from Hugh, a quick sample of some of our favorites from www.gapingvoid.com. Follow Hugh @gapingvoid.com.
Note 3.14 of Hugh’s Social Object’s Manifesto: The most important word on the internet is not “Search”. The most important word on the internet is “Share”. Sharing is the driver. Sharing is the DNA. We use Social Objects to share ourselves with other people. We’re primates. we like to groom each other. It’s in our nature.
Pretty Brilliant. Thanks for helping us organize our thoughts, Hugh.
A quick, but big, kudo to business partner Hannah Parsons.
Hannah Parsons
Hannah was just featured this week in the Colorado Springs Business Journal for her entrepreneurship, and practical action of opening the downtown’s first co-working space. They do offer advanced degrees in entrepreneurship, and that was Hannah’s MBA focus. A participating member of our unique and charming downtown, Hannah is consistently looking for opportunities to take “quaint” and make that “thrive”. Next week, the “downtown offices of Pikes Peak Urban Living” become official, as we join other entrepreneurs at Hannah’s Co-Work Venture, Epi Central in the 400 block of Tejon. To the jealousy of the real estate community, Epi Central is across the street from PPAR.
Part of the real estate future shock is that money is rarely in the brokerage. The money isn’t even in the dirt. The money is in the ideas. The money is in the process. The money is in the relationship. The money is in the tribal leadership. Yep, real estate needs to start acting like something buzz-worthy. I have many times referred back to Seth Godin, from Purple Cow to his address to the National Association of REALTORS in 2007. Seth saw the end of business as REALTORS knew it in a single cursory glance and seeing all the frailties, and all of the unimaginative reinventions it was avoiding. Among Seth’s best pieces of advice was to start a blog. That probably made the majority of the old guard real estate practitioners in attendance roll the eyes, but that’s because they missed the sentence that came after “start a blog”. That sentence was “in order to organize your tribe.” You can’t glaze over that sentence. You can run like hell away from it, but you can’t glaze over it.
In other words, you can blog about real estate. You can regurgitate facts. You can do “market reports”. You can showcase the trim on a house. You can talk about the walkability of a neighborhood. You can check in with Foursquare. You can become the mayor of a coffee shop. It’s all nice. It might be helpful. But what about being a thought-leader? What about building a permission asset?
At the core of it, that’s what Co-Working is all about. That’s why Hannah is so cool. Hannah is about building permission assets. She is about sharing. She’s about strange bedfellows. She’s about attorneys sharing space and white board with social media marketers, putting designers and architects and gardeners in the same room, and giving them lots of fun seats and flex space to spur on their creativity. She’s about being lean, but not mean, practical while still encouraging depth.
Entrepreneurs don’t take instructions very well. They’re too damn inquisitive. They learn by doing and sometimes, that means ignoring the instruction manual. It doesn’t mean throwing out the rules or bypassing ethics, in fact, on the contrary. It just means that business as usual should always be questioned. Co-work is kind of like a thoughtfully inexpensive Montessori for professionals. Coming from me, who has given five years to Giving Tree Montessori (yes, the Indy’s best childcare/preschool two-years running), that’s a compliment.
Hannah: way to go. Thanks for questioning business as usual. Again.
Juicy, Meaty, Relevant, Insightful and Not Afraid to Tell You So Market Data.
What would be stranger, a real estate market recovery or the Broncos winning the AFC West? Both would be pretty weird, right? As of November 8, 2011, all the data is in place for a real estate market recovery locally. That does not mean a market recovery is about to happen. It doesn’t even mean it should happen. It just means that it can. The only way it will happen is if consumers allow it, and by consumers, I mean both buyers and sellers. The market has 4.00% interest rates. There last time there were so few homes for sale in November it was 2001… as in ten years ago. So throw out “lots of inventory to choose from” because it is not true. There is tight inventory. There is only 5.22 months of inventory several months after peak season.
The last time the market was this good in Movember, was BEFORE Jake Plummer. But I couldn't bear the thought of putting a picture of Brian Griese up here.
Prices are down on average 4.5% for the year, yet there is only a 4 month supply of housing for properties under $275,000 where 78% of the transactions have occurred over the last 90 days. In other words: the real estate side of the ledger is really tight. And yet: an opportunity is only an opportunity if there is risk. Want a real thrill? I mean a real thrill? Jump out of an airplane. The speed. The rush of the air. The adrenaline. The catch: you have to jump out of an airplane. But boy… what an opportunity. The focus of the Stat Pack this month is to dial in on the personal rationalizations, dreams and hopes of people making elective home-buying and home-selling decisions. The seeds of 2012 market activity are sewn now, like tulip and crocus bulbs underneath the winter mulch. The eureka moments of “I don’t need all this space”, “honey, did you see their master bedroom?”, “We need more space with twins coming”, “this commute has gone on long enough” tend to happen now, during the coming holiday season when individuals gather at other houses and formative real estate decisions germinate. As consumers begin to form their opinions and thoughts, they should do so with accurate information, but also, personal reflection and introspection. What are you trying to accomplish with your home sale? What’s your why? Why do you say you need more space? You said you wanted a nice master bathroom, but then you moved onto a benefit of “light and airy”… what will the benefit of this next purchase look like? Where will you be in life in two years? Ten? Do you want to be tied down to one place for at least a half decade? How much work around the place will your lifestyle allow? How many weekends are you willing to donate, vacation time and favors cashed in? How secure is your job? How much of your life is really under your control? The data says do it. Now what does your gut say?
This time last year, we were buying new signs, sending proofs to Santa Fe for new business cards, and in my case, cleaning out an office that had way too much stuff in it until 11:30 at night. The first “day in the office” was November 2nd, but Hannah Parsons and Benjamin Day joined the tribe at Selley Group one year ago today on November 1st, 2010.
I could have Photoshopped a candle onto the tree...
Both of us have experienced our best year ever. Hannah is closing five sides in six days right now. She has already had her best year ever, and I’m having my most profitable. But the signature of our first year together, which started with a lot of audacious, “we’ll do this better and that better” sorts of strategic planning is this: being.
Good writing isn’t supposed to use the passive voice in American English. You’re not supposed to get introspective and Shakespearean with your “to be’s and not to be’s”. The Bard was a deep thinker and what was going on beneath the surface – be it torment or motivation – was as important as what was going on above the surface. But American English doesn’t like the “passive” inner voice. It likes action verbs. It likes moving forward. The most American of presidents was Teddy Roosevelt, and he embodied everything American by constantly rushing forward in a whir. He was the Rough-Rider who took San Juan Hill for crying out loud.
Constantly rushing forward in a whir is tempting. Real Estate succumbs to 24/7 action-verb life pretty easily. On the surface, our production numbers this year are tangible metrics for what we’ve accomplished. They don’t even begin to tell the story however. The story starts in the passive voice of being.
This year has been a journey for both Hannah and I. Real Estate as an industry is in tumult. The failings of our industry caused the Great Recession and the continued sputtering in this enormous sector are continuing the malaise. We are surrounded constantly by the grouchy, the upside-down, the burned-out, the flighty and the burned. Real Estate for decades has embodied the American Dream for both practitioners and owners: start your own small business and be self-directed; enjoy the fruits, benefits and pride of home-ownership. Today, it embodies American Angst: live in fear of your business failing, act out of lack of trust, scheme, plot and scratch to keep your head above water; make all your decisions out of a spreadsheet, and allow the mistakes of the past to carry-over into the present and future where they are destined to reappear. We have begun year six of a less-than-thriving industry. The number of agents practicing in our business is down 40% from October 2007.
The origins of our partnership came from the problems of going 24/7 into American Angst, and the hope for something a bit better and more humane. There should be a little happiness in your work. You should have peers and allies. There should be a thoughtful perspective to share the results of a well test. There should be an empathetic listener when buyers’ choose to default. There should be a way to have a life for four or seven or fourteen days at a time without cell coverage. There should be a way to be a spouse and a parent without worrying about a transaction. There should be a way to not have to bring home the weight of so many burdens, every evening, every day.
Pikes Peak Urban Living is a joint marketing venture. Sometimes we share clients where I will do a listing and Hannah the buy side, and presently, behind the scenes, we are creating a fantastic, online, client-resource as a shared project. But what we’ve accomplished in our first year is a little more balance, a little more space, a little more focus, a little more perspective, and a little more presence. The culture of our business does not typically brag about increasing value per hour or being able to stay at home with a sick child or carving pumpkins on the front lawn on a 65 degree Sunday afternoon, but that’s what we wanted to be about when we started this 365 days ago, and that’s what we are becoming.
And there is that passive verb, yet again. It’s a journey. It’s not defined by actions and activities and metrics achieved and other metrics unfulfilled; instead, it is defined by Hannah being able and wanting to rush out to cover an appraisal appointment for me last Friday night when an appraiser scheduled an appraisal on a vacant house on 2 hours notice (instead of the usual 1-2 days) and I had Trunk or Treating with the kids and Amy was in Virginia. Or me covering for Hannah tonight at an appointment with an architect because she’s supposed to be at a closing that got delayed, and Bob can be home at that hour to be home with sick kids.
If this sounds to you like it’s all about us, well you bet it is. And if you’re wondering how this benefits you, ask yourself this: do you want an agent that’s tired, burned-out, making short-cuts in life and has no money in their bank account and therefore cannot give you advice without personal sacrifice or compromise? Or do you want someone that has an ally, a larger perspective and is making sustainable business decisions with constant accountability?
After one year, we can’t say at all “Mission Accomplished.” We’re on a journey. We’re trying to live a better story. We’re embracing the “be”. We can say we have cut superfluous chatter, reduced distractions, given it our all, and been happier with our business than we have in years.
Thanks for journeying with us as we embark on year two.
@JakobRodgers @csgazette cadet in ceremony texted us that they had to wait for Obama to clear. Helicopter security down I25 in flight path. 5 days ago
Finalizing May 2012 "The Stat Pack" and prepping for this afternoon's filming of #DataDump... All The RE Market News You can use in 90 secs. 2 weeks ago
@joyinthemorning Will Videoblog it this week for ya. 4 U: you bought very well. Market has turned. Anything under $200K basically going up 2 weeks ago
In 1997, Sam introduced his cookbook, The Fort Cookbook: New Foods of the Old West. For aspiring gourmands, it is tragically out of print. But if you can find one, it makes a fantastic gift. The book is a great read, not just for those seeking rattlesnake recipes or how to inject a banana with Bacardi 151… but also how to tomahawk a bottle of champagne or what the proper dinner is for a female black bear named Sissy. It’s fun!
