Creative Marketing in a Modern World

I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately, but I’ve also been doing a lot of reading and commenting on other blogs with similar themes.  Some of these can be seen in the sidebar on this page.

One blog in particular, is PrivateSaleBlog.ca.  I’ve been reading and commenting over there a bit this  morning, and I’ve been seeing one particular trend – although no one comes right out and says it, this site seems to be heavily biased toward PropertyGuys.com!  Is this a covert viral marketing campaign, or are there actually individuals behind this blog who are attempting to provide fair and unbiased information?

It seems to me that many of the articles here take the same marketing approach as the PropertyGuys web site and franchisees.  Even down to the comparison of commission you can save in the article linked above.  I, for one, had overlooked GST in my initial calculation of commission I’d save selling privately.  It was the PropertyGuys representative that I spoke with originally that brought it to my attention.  The article also states: “There is currently only one company in Canada with certified private Sale professionals, and that is PropertyGuys.com” Ok, that’s nice… but do you think, just maybe, that’s because the “Private Sale Professional” designation is a registered trademark of PropertyGuys.com? It remains to be seen whether their competition can buy a designation for a few thousand dollars.

Something else rather worrisome about this blog from my quick perusal, is that many – if not all – of the links to Kijiji property listings reference PropertyGuys.com listings.

If I’m reading into this too much, or I’m not seeing the big picture here, will someone please set me straight?  Please tell me that you’re not providing your blog as a marketing tool to get more property listings for PropertyGuys.com – or any other private FSBO, for that matter (though it that’s the point, you’re doing a pretty poor job of promoting yourself!).

As for me, although I do have a home for sale that I paid $500 (plus GST) to PropertyGuys.com’s local franchisee to have listed, I can’t yet endorse all of their practices any more than I’d endorse anyone elses.  As “just another guy” with a property for sale, I need the exposure that they can provide.  The only thing that I can endorse is the idea of private sale and the benefits it can bring for the buyer and seller.  I sincerely hope that this is not yet another corporation that’s trying to edge in on the billions of dollars made off of people’s hard-won real estate holdings.