The Power of Bold

It was a magical moment. Kenneth Lowe, CEO of Scripps (HGTV, DIY, Food Network), told the story of how he had arduously labored to create the media behemoth that he is now responsible for. As he showed me pictures and video clips of the last 14 years of his career, he stopped and solemnly said, “I am your biggest fan.”

Granted, he wasn’t looking directly at me when he said it. And, to be fair, the distance between the stage upon which his podium rested and my seat was about 30 feet. And in the spirit of disclosure, he was addressing about 500 people. So, it is actually quite possible that he wasn’t really talking to me, per se, but for the sake of my ego and imagination, I will pretend like he was.

The opening session of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World’s annual conference in Scottsdale, Arizona was an inspiring one to Realtors, Brokers, and any one else who is in any way connected to the Real Estate industry. I will detail some of the key points that I took from this conference, but I’m going to do it when my laptop screen is fixed and I don’t have to pay 40 cents a minute to gift the world with my words of genius brilliance.

For now, however, I will touch upon one of the best moments for me personally. John Reinhardt, President and CEO of Fillmore Real Estate, the largest independent Real Estate Broker in the state of New York (he also happens to be my boss), really pumped up the crowd at the opening session. He talked about the “GREAT recession”, as opposed to the standard and ultimately overused “great recession”, and how it was probably the most opportune moments of time for him in his real estate career. Because of the economic duress we are all finding ourselves in, agents, managers, and department heads alike are more willing to universally come together and explore ideas that would have otherwise been scoffed at. As he so aptly said, we can’t tell agents we’re saving money, but rather that we are redirecting company resources towards more proftiable forms of marketing. The substance of his speech was in the specific examples of strategies implemented that led  Fillmore Real Estate to have over a 6% increase in sales transactions in February 2009 over the same month 2008.

I will leave you with the YouTube footage of his speech that was captured by an anonymous spectator (who was sitting about 30 feet from the stage upon which John’s podium rested). In his speech, he graciously dropped my name for all the world to hear. And that means more than any shout out from a media exec, imaginary or otherwise.