Team Eric on the way to help one of its own…

Charles Richey and his wife Jacqualyn participated as part of TEAM ERIC in the Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World SEO Contest that ended May 1, 2008. The ten members of the team (as well as several close supporters) had a great time in competing in the contest.

Little did we know that one of our own would be hospitalized a short time later. Charles was recently hospitalized with Guillaume Barr Disease and is currently in the Intensive Care Unit of a Las Vegas hospital. While we are all hoping and praying for a complete recovery, it is expected to be lengthy and require rehabilitation.

We are seeking the help of vendors and REALTORS to help us assist Jaqui (she sells while he works on the websites) with leads, support and other monetary assistance. Several kind hearted Vendors and others have stepped forward to assist. More on that in subsequent posts.

If you have something to offer…please shoot an email to me. Or better yet, you can contribute here.

Thanks in advance for your help as we help one of our own. Godspeed Charles…we are praying for your quick recovery.

Eric

Brabus Ventures Case Study

Just a quick note to Ben @ Brabus Ventures.

BRABUS VENTURES - Do you want to succeed or merely something to argue about?

Your online marketing ventures are being TOTALLY subverted by your legal efforts to SUBDUE free speech and silence a blogger. While I find this distasteful at best, the real issue here is that you are messing up your online marketing efforts and delivering a blow to your online reputation. You do not NEED honorable, well established folks like Russell Shaw publicizing your errors. You DO NEED him publicizing your apology and retraction of your filing of a lawsuit. You want step one? That is step one. Pride and arrogance do not play into this equation. Again. Do you want BRABUS VENTURES to succeed or something to argue about?

This is just some helpful online reputation management advice for BRABUS VENTURES from someone who is in the business. If you want some helpful advice read Russell’s on that post. He is correct. For further online reputation management advice for BRABUS VENTURES, contact me. I will be glad to help BRABUS VENTURES. I am not cheap, but I am worth it.

For the record. it truly does not matter the accuracy of the statements made. I do not even care. I am interested in the business of protecting online reputations. Most times right and wrong do not factor into that as much as one might think.

High gas prices and online marketing…a correlation?

With the high gas prices lately, it has caused me to do some thinking…

If energy prices continue to rise (and I think that they will…), then what impact does this have if any on online marketing? What follows are just my random thoughts on the subject.

I think that how energy prices impact marketing is an industry specific thing. If you are talking about the grocery industry, I do not think that high gas prices change much of anything. People are still going to go to the store and do their shopping. And I would think that even in industries where there is significant online marketing growth already, separating out which part of the increase has come from high gas prices and which has come from other factors is a difficult proposition at best.

There are a few industries where I think significant impact will be made. Industries where the actual buying process includes road time are likely to be most impacted. The obvious example of this is real estate, Home buyers often drive around neighborhoods looking at houses, sometimes long before they are ready to buy. I think this will slow as the price of gas increases.

Along those same lines, I think this change is aided because there is an alternative shopping style immediately available online that is widely used. MANY buyers browse online, do their research and THEN go drive around. I think the increased gas prices only add to that, causing many of the remaining ‘browsers’ to become ‘online browsers’.

OTHER IMPACTS TO THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY

Another huge impact in the real estate industry will be the demand level for ‘close in’ homes as opposed to the ‘burbs. We are already seeing that in Louisville, with new home developments in outlying areas have more difficulty in moving homes and having to offer discounts to entice buyers. It used to be location. location. location. now it is, proximity. proximity. proximity. People seem to be much less willing to drive the long commutes to get to work, rendering the outlying areas of a metro city insome cases with a valuation problem.

REALTORs from around the country are starting to discuss it online as well…I will add their posts as I find them:

Jim Olenbush mentioned it in his Austin real estate blog. I am sure more are going to be following suit as they see this correlation play out.

EDIT: There are now other posts appearing on the web regarding gas prices affecting the real estate market in Chicago, Columbus Georgia, another one in Austin Texas . JUST ADDED: One in Las Vegas as well!

If you know of more, equally relevant posts out there, please point them out to me and I will be happy to add them. I know my REALTOR friend Holly While in Nashville TN may well be writing one soon as well.