Every year, the dominant multiple listing service hosts a get together for brokers in South Florida. The event took place yesterday at the Panorama Ballroom at Pier 66. A couple hundred brokers and friends gathered to listen to the latest in online marketing, FYBA legislative affairs, and the poor European economic outlook. Overall themes were the usefulness of QR codes in print advertising, the growth of social media especially Facebook, and the important of mobile devices such as iPads and Android phones. I shared a table with my collegue Kevin, a Canadian broker named Don, a lovely charter broker named Nicole, and Trevor who owns First Mate Yacht Care and live blogged from the event.
While many of the tools presented we already use to market our yachts, I came away more excited than ever about our plans in the video, mobile, and social media spaces. I have seen some actual sales generated from our online activity and think we are developing some game changing ways to provide value to yacht buyers and sellers and validate our existence as a productive member of the maritime industry. Look for hints on these features as we continue to roll out new ideas in 2012.
Parable of the Week
A monkey and alligator came across a banana tree lush with ripe fruit. Banana trees were rare in that particular swamp, so they soon became engrossed in an argument to who the banana tree should belong to. After much debate, they agreed that they would split the tree and each take a half. The monkey who knew much more about banana trees coyly asked the alligator which half he wanted.
The alligator replied, “I will take the top half.”
The monkey said in fake angst, “That is not fair! The top half has all the fruit. I will be left with a no good stump.”
The alligator countered thinking he had fooled the monkey, “You agreed we would split it.”
The monkey relented, “Fine, I will take this worthless stump.”
Both took their halves back to their homes and planted them. The alligator’s plant to his great anguish quickly turned brown and died. The monkey’s stump with the roots, split off and produced another green lush plant with an even larger bunch of bananas than the original.
Moral of the story: In the long term, sometimes what is brown and dirty is better than what is green and lush.