My friendship with Maya Paveza began on Twitter a few months ago. I was going through my stream and saw that she was watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail, so I chipped in and started quoting lines. Up until that time, I had kept my Twitter presence pretty button-down (read boring) and hadn’t really understood that you could actually interact with people as yourself.
As our friendship grew, Maya began telling me about her dream – a site by and for Real Estate Agents. Now, after much blood, sweat, tears, and help from Human Business Works, the site is just hours away from hard launch. As a proud contributor to the new site as well as an
affiliate, I thought I would give Maya an opportunity to explain her vision in her own words here. I hope you enjoy!
To learn more about Maya, visit the about section of The Hip Roof!
1. What do you feel is the biggest challenge facing REALTORS right now?
Great question Margie, first off though I want to clairfy something, a REALTOR is a member of the National Association of REALTORS(tm), a real estate licensee is not required to be a member of NAR, most states have their own licensing standards and laws governing the real estate licensee and the real estate broker, there might be other categories that fall into a
similar mold like associate broker, and so on.
The bigggest challenge is probably the current market conditions and the
media spin on the situation. Rates are low, prices are low, it is an amazing
time to buy a house, but if you are buying for the right reasons. With
regard to this site the biggest challenge for real estate agents is to
understand why they need to be in the social media spaces and the essence of
the community and interactions. It is tough to try to do something without
having an idea about the reasons and philosophy behind it. That is one of the
main goals of THR.
2. How will The Hip Roof assist Real Estate agents with these challenges?
The site isn’t here to address the current challenges in the market, as the
market will shift, historically it always does, to only be here for that
would really be a limited reason for existence. We are here to help real
estate agents be better at all times, no matter the market condition. To
learn new skills and techniques, to improve on what they are already doing,
to work on time management – which is a huge problem for many real estate
agents. To share systems that work, as well as other successes and idea. We
offer the agents an amazing educational community website with the premiere
collection of real estate experts in a variety of the social spaces, as well
as regular business development and coaching for real estate.
There are constantly events going on around the world for real estate agents
to attend to learn and expand their business, but travel isn’t always an
option, or affordable, so THR brings all those resources, and many of the
experts directly to you. The difference is that almost all of our
contributors are working real estate professionals, I truly believe you
can’t help an agent succeed if you aren’t doing it yourself.
3. How will you measure the success of The Hip Roof?
I think it is tough to measure success as a metric most of the time, to me success is that each member gets some benefit from the site, they learn something, share something or make a connection for a referral network. Yes I will also be introducing my eBooks shortly with corresponding courses, and if they follow what I suggest they will see success in lead generation and new business. We will also have coaching, and some amazing interviews. It
will be difficult not to succeed since everyone is contributing as a member,
there are no “right ways” to do anything, there are just a lot of different
ways to do them successfully. It will be a very useful mastermind community
too.
4. How do you envision The Hip Roof a year from now? Five years from now?
A year from now I hope we are growing still, offering value, and evolving to
meet the needs of the community. The software platforms the site is built on
are incredible and nearly limitless in what can be done. I would love it to
be the default “go-to” for real estate agents, and industry partners, who
want to learn and share. I hope we will be keeping up with all the latest
innovations and technologies, that is part of the benefit of the many
contributors, the aggregation of experience and expertise is powerful, and
diverse.
Five years? Probably more of the same, just continuous growth and expansion
to meet the members needs. Perhaps we will have added a consumer facing side
to field questions of our expert members. Maybe even add some continuing
education for some areas if they need it.
5. What is included in a membership to the site?
The membership includes full access to all the site content, including three
weekly webinars – the Sunday Night Open forum, Monday “Experts Interview
Series” which kicks off with Ben Kinney on 2/28, and the “Hot Topic” weekly
learning webinar on Thursdays. That is available to all our agent members,
and partner members. Beyond that the partner members each have their own
private forums, what an office leader might need to talk about has little to
do with the agents, the lending partners can talk amongst themselves, and so
on.
What many people don’t realize is that real estate agents (and brokers)
exist behind a “cone of silence” as I call it. We can’t talk with the
consumer about a variety of things, those things are included in state
license laws, Federal fair housing guidelines and for REALTORS the code of
ethics. So this gives the community a safe place to interact and talk
through a variety of daily challenges we might have.
6. Why a site just for Real Estate Agents?
It is a site for real estate professionals and our industry partners, the
people we work with on a regular basis, who also have some of the same
guidelines and limitations on what they can talk about.
I think there needs to be a place for real estate agents with content by
real estate agents. There seems to be this uprising starting where agents
are saying “Stop telling us what to do if you haven’t done it, stop selling
to us”, they want to understand, to be taught by those who are doing it
actively.
I think The Hip Roof compliments other systems, as an educational community
without a brand affiliation it allows agents to share at the most common
level – as real estate professionals. I think if a member finds value here
they should also consider IMSD, the juxtaposition is a great one in
technique, then they should also learn to blog and become an active part of
the Active Rain community. But there are other great programs out there – we
work well with them all – from the new REALTOR ePro designation to the great
stuff that Jim Marks and Tom Ferry do.
There are a lot of people doing amazing things in real estate around the
world, this site offers them a place to share those things. And a safe place
to talk about the challenges we face everyday as commissioned sales people.
Take a peek at what The Hip Roof is all about if you are interested!