A tale of scale.

  In the past four years I have had the need to sell two houses. One in Stockholm, and the other in Florida. One sold, the other didn't. This is a tale of scale.

  To many people the image of Sweden is probably of a chilly place with somewhat grumpy socialists marching across the frozen landscape. Florida by contrast is a wonderland of palm trees and happiness. But I digress...

  When I contacted my broker in Sweden, he came by, we discussed the market conditions (a bit mediocre in 2010) and signed an agreement. Since I was on the road a bit we arranged for the house to be shown in my absence. 

   In Florida, I also contacted a broker I knew and arranged for the house to be listed. Market conditions were a bit better in 2012, so I was optimistic about the prospects for the house. This house was also being sold with me being out of town.

   Two houses, both in desirable settings, were being sold in roughly the same manner, at least from my perspective as the seller. 

   Where things became very very different was in the approach of the broker. 

   My broker in Stockholm takes very few houses to sell. But they ALL get sold. He puts his time and effort into it, and the listings are exclusive to him. 

   He took a decidedly average house in a nice suburb and had it sold well above our expected final price within a matter of a few weeks. 

  Why? Because he is focused on very few things professionally. He takes in listings which he is confident he can sell, and then puts his efforts into making that happen. In this case he even, at his own expense, detailed the property. 

   By contrast, the broker in Florida has many many listings, all in the MLS. He's a good, hard-working guy, but he's focusing on running his business, rather than the individual listings his firm has.. His money is in having enough inventory that some houses move and they take a cut. He is, in a word, scaling. 

   In fairness, they did put some effort into it. But the focus of the business is too spread out. The effort to market the house was just not sufficient. It sat and sat, until the market just sort of forgot about it and I had it removed from the market after several months.

   The moral of the story, is that while scale might sound very appealing, it doesn't work for all businesses. For me as a client, I was much better looked after by my broker in Sweden. 

   Client's don't care about your market share, or your reach. The internet reaches everyone. We want to be looked after. In a business involving such an intrusive process as selling a home, being another number feels lousy. Having the home not sell, worse.

   I even wonder if scales works for the big broker. The smaller operation is less visible, but also less stressful, highly profitable (virtually no overhead) and he has the luxury of turning away business. The larger operation is a machine with a lot of moving parts. All of which must be kept working for the business to survive.

   In businesses that are totally data driven, with wafer thin margins, scale is a necessity. But in businesses where humans matter scale can be a stressful, counterproductive mistake. 

   To me, the equation looks pretty simple. Sometimes scale just doesn't work. Grow at your peril.

Be concise, be brief, be quiet...

    Here's a thought for those writing or considering writing blogs.

    Seth Godin is the most widely read business blogger. His entries are remarkably short yet resonant.

    We're NOT wildly popular thought leaders, so why would people spend MORE time reading our lengthy blog post than they do reading the top blogger? (pause for the obvious)  Exactly!

    Pick a single point. Make it and move on. Less is more.

    Thanks for dropping by.

    (For more on this concept, read entry "#Twog, a brick of trust")

Reflections on the "The Show Me State" by Seth Godin

   As always, an interesting post from Seth. Thanks!

   Thinking about the post, and relating it to my own experience I came away with an example which reinforces his message, and to some degree expands on part of it.

   The major point or critique is a reflection about people's desire to sample rather than savor things, so they can race off to the next thing. Or conversely, having gathered some information about it, flutter away without really trying it at all. There is a lot of misplaced risk aversion encased in this phenomena.

   With deference to people's need to maximize their "time", I think it is pretty good to have some experiences that suck. If you are really out there living every now and then you're going to have a bad experience. Awesome!

   What? Crap experiences. Delete, Esc, Ctrl-Alt-Del. Help!

   Yep, you need to have some sub par experiences, or if you are massively anal about your time, settle for something distinctly average. These are the palate cleansers that allow you to discern the flavor of your next course, of that next grand experience. And usually, bad experiences end up being great memories. 

   My wife and I were traveling with my three kids (11 year old triplets at the time) through Jordan. We flew into Amman, and then headed south through the desert toward the Dead Sea and a small city called Kerak. Being guilty myself of trying to endlessly hedge my bets with research, I had found recommended accommodation in the Lonely Planet Guide at the Cairwan Hotel. When we arrived, it didn't look too promising, but I thought, let's do it! My enthusiasm was short-lived.

   Wow! There was an apparent rat infestation, as evidenced by some amatuer scatology. The beds were probably comfortable when the three wise men stopped by a few years back. The decor was other worldly. In an effort to ensure we would get the full effect, there was a wedding going on in the hotel bar during the night of our stay. Mayhem ensued. In short, it was really really BAD. 

   My kids were nearly as aghast as I, having stayed in their share of comfortable surroundings. But this place ended up being the ice water to before our return to the sauna. Our next stop was a two-story, three bedroom suite at the Movenpick Hotel in Aqaba on the Red Sea. 

  The contrast was to be savored. Every detail was richly magnified. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it without the "bad experience", but the bad hotel served as a framing experience for the good one. 

  We have repeated this experience somewhat by having deliberately reduced our travels to allow for some breathing, for some normal life. Without that, the experiences fold together like food in a blender. I might know it's there, and I can taste it, but the flavors overwhelm each other. Thus, the experiences are diminished.

   There is no short cut to enhancing experience. When you have a bad experience, or a bland one to give it context, you come away with much more. Whether it is a lesson, a book, a course, a hotel stay or a meal.  

   So, don't try to live life as a series of straight lines always seeking the shortest route. Meander, let some things go wrong. Give yourself the benefit of context. It will sharpen your mind, and separate events into discrete, more pleasing occurrences. 

   In short, context gives you the ability to see just how incredible life is. Enjoy it.