Rob Hahn

Managing Partner of 7DS Associates, and the grand poobah of this here blog. Once called "a revolutionary in a really nice suit", people often wonder what I do for a living because I have the temerity to not talk about my clients and my work for clients. Suffice to say that I do strategy work for some of the largest organizations and companies in real estate, as well as some of the smallest startups and agent teams, but usually only on projects that interest me with big implications for reforming this wonderful, crazy, lovable yet frustrating real estate industry of ours.

Design vs. Technology: A Provocative View

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From the web publication (seems rude to call it a “blog”) @Issue comes this provocative article about the business value of design, which ends with this astonishing statement: [Design is] the accelerator for the company car, the power train for sustainable profits: design drives innovation; innovation powers brand; brand builds loyalty; and loyalty sustains profits. … Read more

John L. Scott's (Mis-)Adventures in Social Networking

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The Seattle-based brokerage John L. Scott has waded into social networking waters in a pretty significant way with JLSconnect — a brand new service based on Microsoft’s Live platform.  From the news release: JLSconnect augments the previous “Property Tracker” service found on www.JohnLScott.com which provides the ability for individuals to log in and save “favorite” … Read more

John L. Scott’s (Mis-)Adventures in Social Networking

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The Seattle-based brokerage John L. Scott has waded into social networking waters in a pretty significant way with JLSconnect — a brand new service based on Microsoft’s Live platform.  From the news release: JLSconnect augments the previous “Property Tracker” service found on www.JohnLScott.com which provides the ability for individuals to log in and save “favorite” … Read more

Video of my NPS Session at REBC Philadelphia

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Thanks to Greg Afarian (@zipvogreg) of Zipvo, there’s apparently video evidence of my session at REBarCamp Philadelphia. It was a great and fun session, and I hoped it would be useful to people who attended. For more information on NetPromoter Score and Real Estate, you can check out the page on 7DS: www.7dsassociates.com/RENPS. Thanks again … Read more

Imagining the Future, Part 5: Systemic Brokerage

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At last. We have arrived at the destination of this series.  (See parts 1, 2, 3, and 4). In Part 2 of this series, I spoke at length about institutional CRM and why that can be an unbeatable competitive advantage when properly implemented and used. In Part 3, we examined whether an institutionalized brokerage could … Read more

Personal Business, Business Personality, and Social Media: An Interview with Todd Carpenter, NAR

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Sometimes the most innocent of things lead to the most interesting of discussions.  A couple of days ago, I innocently asked whether such-and-such a person worked at such-and-such a company.  Turns out, this was not the right thing to do, because the username I saw was a personal Twitter account, not a business Twitter account. … Read more

Real Estate Insurgency, Part 2: Organizing the Cell

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In part 1 of this series, I discussed the First Principle of real estate insurgency: Never Fight on Their Turf.  The extension of that principle meant that insurgents have to figure out how to outmaneuver then neutralize the primary advantage of Big Brands: breadth of brand (aka, brand recognition). So let’s suppose you’re an insurgent … Read more