Normally I wouldn’t expect a pizza joint to make me sit back and say, “Hmmmm, this is a great idea to connect with customers and improve business.” It is, after all, just a pizza joint, albeit one with a damn good pizza.

But the other day I received a thank you card. A hand-written thank you card no less, from Mafia Mike’s Pizza on Cooper Road in Gilbert.

It’s not the free order of amazing cheesy breadsticks that makes me go “Hmmmm” (though as I noted in my review on Yelp, they are rather tasty). It’s the fact someone took the time to hand-write a note, hand-address it, and put it in the mail. You know, the real U.S. Postal mail.

Of course the hand-written note is nothing new. It is not like this is some new-fangled marketing technique that is going to take the business world by storm.

Why does it work? It is personal, it reaches out and connects. It says “thank you for your business” and “we appreciate you” in a way few other methods can touch.

That’s pretty smart business.

When is the last time you wrote a thank you card?

First, my humble apologies to all for the delay in announcing the winners of the “Win a Ubertor Site for a Buck” contest. We’ll blame it on my trip to Vegas to attend the Blog World and New Media Expo. Lame excuse, but it’s all I have.

The three grand prize winners are:

• Carmen Brodeur
• Dean Ouellette
• Elaine Hanson

All three win a Ubertor site for a year for the ridiculous amount of ONE dollar.

But wait, there’s more!

Steve Jagger, head honcho over at Ubertor has very graciously offered to provide ALL of the contest entries a Ubertor site for 4 months for one dollar!

Yep, everyone is a winner – Carmen, Dean and Elaine are just bigger winners.

Within the next 24 hours, I’ll be sending the three grand prize winners and all of the other “consolation” prize winners an email explaining how to sign up for their shiny new Ubertor sites! UPDATE: Look for an email from Steve Jagger / Ubertor! (thanks Steve!)

Thanks to my fellow judges Ian Watt and David Gibbons. And a HUGE thanks to Steve Jagger at Ubertor for offering up these great prizes and the killer extra offer so everyone can get a taste of the Ubertor experience!

How cool is that?

At this moment in time, I’m sitting in the Hilton in Las Vegas, nursing sore feet and an aching head (what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas). I’m here attending and speaking at Real Estate Blog World and Blog World & New Media Expo 2009.

There are a bunch of really smart people here. And really good people.

Yesterday there was discussion in many sessions about branding. What it is, what it’s not, building your brand, all that sort of jazz. Some very good and thought-provoking stuff.

Like any conference though, some of the best things happen in the hallways. I had one such conversation yesterday. I was walking around wearing that annoying Phoenix Real Estate Guy t-shirt when someone I’d never met approached me. (For the life of me, sadly I can’t remember the guy’s name. I really need to work on name recall.)

We chatted about real estate and blogging when he asked me the name of my company.

“Thompson’s Realty,” I said.

“Dude, your brand name sucks,” he replied.

Naturally, I asked him why he felt that way.

“It’s not catchy. And you’re limiting your ability to sell your company someday to people named ‘Thompson’. Why did you pick that name?”.

Well, because it’s my name. I figure that if I’m willing to attach my own name to my business then I won’t be able to hind behind some catchy name if/when something goes wrong. I want people to remember their experience with Thompson’s Realty by the kick-ass service they received, not because of some catchy name.

I don’t really care what the name of the company is.

I don’t really care that a non-Thompson might have to change the name if they were to buy my brokerage (which incidentally isn’t for sale unless you’ve got a ridiculous amount of extra money lying around).

As someone said yesterday (it was quite possibly the ubiquitous Jeff Turner from Real Estate Shows) a brand isn’t about your name, or your colors, or your logo. It’s about who you are, what you deliver and what you believe in.

We try to deliver the best real estate buying or selling experience on the planet. Do we succeed every time? Not even close. But we’re working on that. We know that going through the often daunting and tedious process of buying and selling real estate can be excruciating. We believe in making that as painless as possible. Are we successful at that every time? Nope. Trust me, it tears me up inside when we can’t sell someone’s house. I dwell on what we did wrong, what we could have done better. I feel like I let my clients down and I absolutely hate feeling that way.  I don’t give a rat’s ass that the market stinks and there are things out of my control that may lead to an unsold home or a buyer not getting the offer accepted on a home they love. I failed to help them and that’s a lousy feeling.

That desire, that need to help people is our brand.

The name on the yard sign doesn’t mean squat.

I can think of a lot of successful companies named after the original founder (or founders in the case of Thompson’s Realty). Ever been to Disneyland? Ever driven a Mercedes-Benz or ridden a Harley-Davidson? Eaten a Hershey bar?

Those are all some pretty good (and tasty) brand names. They all evoke a certain feeling, a certain experience.

THAT is what a brand is. That is what we want our clients to experience. That is what we work on every single day.

What’s in a name?

Nothing.

It’s who is behind that name, and what they do, that matters.

,

I just flipped the big virtual switch. We’re now hosted with Rackspace Cloud.

The name servers could take a day or so to propagate, so you could be served up from either Media Temple or Rackspace over the weekend. This could produce some wonkyness in regards to comments – if someone gets the MT version and comments, those that get the RS version won’t see them. And vice versa.

It should all be sorted out very soon.

If you see something broken completely, please let me know!

You are currently on the new Rackspace server

Now here’s something *completely* non-real estate related…

If you’ve been connected at all to the Internet over the last six months or so, you’ve probably heard of Susan Boyle. The runner-up in Britain’s Got Talent TV show has an AMAZING voice. Her YouTube performance from episode 1 of BGT has been viewed over 29 million times.

Her first single looks like it’s going to be a cover of the Rolling Stones Wild Horses, one of my all-time favorite songs.

Here it is via IrishCentral.com. Crank up the speakers, this woman may not look like it, but good grief can she sing.

Susan Boyle… living proof you should never, ever “judge a book by its cover”…

I’m fortunate to have a lot of friends across the country, both inside and outside the real estate space.

During the spring, fall and winter months, I have what I’m sure is an annoying propensity to gloat about the perfect weather in Phoenix. I like to send my friends messages about it being 80 degrees in January. This is particularly enjoyable when they are up to their elbows in snow. I send them photos of me riding around in my Jeep with the top down in December. I find this funny. It’s probably safe to assume they do not see the humor.

Invariably one or more of my friends will say something along the lines of, “Shut the hell up and talk to me in the summer!”

And here we are. June was quite lovely in Phoenix, and unusually cool. Sadly, temperature averages have a way of. . . well, averaging out over time.

Here’s the 5 day high and low temperature forecast for Phoenix (Gilbert actually, but close enough).

One of my favorite sayings – “You never have to shovel sunshine” – looses its effectiveness when it’s 117 freaking degrees outside.

Happy now?

OK, so occasionally I get these odd little glimpses of something akin to writer’s block.

I find it disturbing on many levels.

Once upon a time, I had an advanced writing professor in undergraduate school that said these things are complicated, but there is no shame in having it occur – it happens to everyone. Her solution was to eat a lamb chop with a side of beans and a bowl of pudding or perhaps a nice beignet for desert. Eggplant is to be avoided. However, anything is better covered in Sriracha sauce, so it is to be applied liberally (perhaps not on the pudding though).

Actually, that’s not even remotely close to what Dr. Marks suggested. She said the best cure was to ask someone for two words or phrases – any two words or phrases – and to write something that incorporated those words.

So I asked my “friends” on Twitter to send me some words and phrases.

They are a very creative bunch, and they’re pretty funny. Practically circus clowns even. I told them I’d recycle their musings into something about real estate.

If you haven’t already guessed, the words in bold in this post were the suggested words and phrases. Apparently my pals are obsessed with food products. While part of me wants to wreak vengeance upon them (try using “wreak” properly in a sentence without following it with “havoc”…), in all honesty doing that would be a fallacy. While we may have irreconcilable differences, the simple fact is, these are not flabby sharks, they are human beings, and I like them. Don’t believe that? Check my galvanic skin response and see if I’m lying.

Now before someone gets their panties in a wad, I realize I have yet to really say anything real estate related.

Work with me people.

I could have taken the easy way out and said how a short sale may not be a relevant property or a  sound investment. Ditto for a foreclosure. Or that loss mitigation officers at lending institutions are illogical. Not only can they be illogical, half the time I expect to get an email from them loudly proclaiming “All your base are belong to us. You are on the way to destruction!”.

Want to talk about landscaping? We could discuss the merits of the date palm or watering cycles for citrus trees.  Or the importance of a grand entry, or a big sky view. How about the benefits of being close to a soccer field for little Johnny and Sally? Perhaps we should chat about the need for quality flypaper in the summertime, or properly chlorinating your pool to keep the Kermit the froggy away.

But where’s the beef in that?

Wouldn’t it be better to discuss how no Home Owners Association will let you park a convertible dirigible on the street? Or perhaps we could get really deep and profound and discuss the cognitive dissonance a real estate agent experiences when the Code of Ethics they pledge to uphold conflicts with their innate desire to beat the crap out of a fellow agent that can’t find their ass with two hands and a GPS.

On that note, it’s time to end this nonsense. I’ve got appointments to make. It is, in effect, time to make the donuts. Carpe Diem!

And thanks for this little indulgence. It actually did help clear that weird blockage. And if you didn’t appreciate it, well, about all I can say is bite me.

Hat tip to these Twitter peeps:

Long time readers will know that I occasionally go off on a rant or three. Often about things seemingly non-real estate related (like towing scams, though I would argue that any sort of community news or happening is very much real estate related).

Anyway, looking back over the last few posts, I see a little trend of what could be perceived as just wee bit of negativity. Heck, my good friend Howard Arnoff of Charleston Real Estate said this in a comment a few days ago:

Jay, you’ve been in attack mode for a couple of days, part time agents, lack of pictures (but I couldn’t agree more).

Who or what are you going after next

And that was before the whole Mill Avenue towing thing blew up.

So today’s post will be about puppies and bunnies (literally and metaphorically). Let’s face it, you don’t get much cuter and sweeter than puppies and bunnies. Unless you’ve got a heart of stone (or the mind of a serial killer), you can’t look at that photo up above and not smile and think “Aww, how freaking cute is that?”

(Incidentally, that photo is used with permission from Warren Photographic in the UK. They have some very cool work there. Give them a visit.)

Puppies and bunnies make me smile. Real estate makes me smile most of the time. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that provide me the freedom to say what I think on this very blog – the good, the bad and the ugly – make me grin from ear to ear.

My friends and especially my family are way better than puppies and bunnies. So is a nice medium-rare steak with a frosty beer. Events like Ignite Phoenix, #EVFN and the amazing friends I’ve met in the Phoenix “social media community” pretty much blow away even puppies and bunnies. Ditto for me RE.net pals.

Wanna know another cool puppy and bunny moment? Getting emails from a Tempe police detective and the Tempe Community Relations Manager, a call from a Tempe Councilmember and the Mayor of Tempe all expressing the same frustration I have over the towing mess. Heck, even the guys at Monster’s impound lot must like puppies and bunnies as they were some pretty nice guys. There are puppies and bunnies to be found everywhere.

Let’s face it. Sometimes life sucks. Sometimes you have to deal with negative people, lousy service, general incompetence, a shitty real estate market and even getting scammed and ripped off.

Most of life though really is filled with puppies and bunnies. Those are the things you enjoy, and the things that make life worth living.

So if life’s bringing you down, if you find yourself letting the negative waves put you off, then get out there and pet a puppy and kiss a bunny or something.

Fear not. This blog isn’t changing to be some pie-in-the-sky let’s gather ‘round the campfire and sing Kumbaya kind of place. You’ll still get the straight scoop and my unadulterated opinion whether you like it or not. I ain’t sugar-coating nothing.

But today is puppy and bunny day!

So enjoy it damn it.

If you didn’t read yesterday’s post, this post will make no sense. In short, last night, several people were towed from a lot at Mill & 7th Street in Tempe. There was much sadness and confusion.

Today, all of us recovered our cars from the impound lot. Since I had no idea it was “cash only”, I didn’t actually pay the $135 fee yet. I did get my car with a clear verbal warning that if I don’t pay in two weeks, it will be reported to credit bureaus and a collection agency where fees will “at least triple” the charges.

I strongly feel that the lot isn’t properly marked with warning signs, so I did a little more research, and went back to the “scene of the crime” to take some photos and measurements.

I’ve been told by a City of Tempe official that the signs posted by the property owner follow city code in their placement, quantity and location.

I disagree.

Granted, I am not an attorney nor a policy maker. But I can read, and some of the Tempe City Code with regard to the notice to the public of the right to two seems very specific and clear to me.

Let’s take a look at Tempe City Code section 32-6 Towing from Private Property / Notice to public of right to tow. I’ll break it down to bite-sized nuggets of love… all emphasis in citations is mine.

Section 32-6 (a): The owner or person in possession of any private parking area shall be deemed to have given consent to unrestricted parking by the general public in such parking area unless such parking area is posted with signs as prescribed by this section which are clearly visible and readable from a distance of fifty (50) feet away and at all points of entry.

…and at all points of entry.

Here is a photo of what any reasonable person would consider a point of entry into the lot:

The tow warning sign is on the BACK of the green electrical box.  This is “clearly visible at the point of entry”??

…clearly visible and readable from a distance of fifty (50) feet away…

Here is the sign on the back of the box from approximately 50 feet away. You tell me, is this readable?

Moving right along…

Section 32 – 6 (b) Signs will be a minimum of twelve (12) inches by eighteen (18) inches in size and will be mounted at a minimum height of five (5) feet and a maximum height of ten (10) feet above the ground.

Pictures tell the story… here is the sign shown above. Of note, this is the specific sign repeatedly referred to by both the towing company and the Tempe Police Department last night when we converged on the lot only to find our cars had been towed off.

This sign is 6 inches wide by just under 12 inches long. The bottom of the sign is 3 feet 10 inches above ground level.

A little math… a 6” x 12” sign = 72 square inches. The minimum size per city code would be a sign of 216 square inches. This sign is therefore 33% of the required minimum size. Yes, it is one-third the size required by Tempe City Code (and it’s mounted too low. The top of the electrical box is the minimum height of five feet).

But wait, there’s more!

Section 32-6 (a)(5) Each sign shall state, "Tempe City Code, Section 32-6."

Shall. Not “should”, or “ought to”. Shall means it WILL.

Here’s a close up of the fine print:

Ok, so let’s assume that the sign behind the box at the main entrance doesn’t count. How you could disregard it completely and say it doesn’t matter is beyond me. But let’s pretend.

There are two other towing warning signs posted at the lot.

Here is one that is in the middle of the south end of the lot, approximately 160 feet from the main entrance.

Hey! It’s of the minimum 12 x 18 size! And it has reference to the Tempe City Code. You know, the one that says the sign has to be posted at a minimum height of five feet…

Yeah, this one is posted 25 inches above the ground. Last time I checked, 25 inches is less than half of five feet. So we’ve got yet another failure per the Tempe City code. (not to mention this sign posted two feet off the ground is 160+ feet away from the main entrance. Maybe it’s just me, but I also don’t see this quite being “readable” at 50 feet.

What about the other tow warning sign?

It’s posted at the northeast corner from the entrance, and is edge-on to the entrance. In other words, when you drive into the lot, you see the edge of the sign (it’s about a quarter of an inch thick) from 160 feet away.

Here’s a shot taken from the southwest corner of the lot. It’s the closest I could get to capturing the entire lot without standing in the middle of Mill avenue at 5:30 in the afternoon.

In summary

We’ve got a “primary” tow warning sign (I call it primary as it is by far the closest to the entrance and was repeatedly referred to by both the tow truck drivers and the Tempe Police as a reference) that is: 1) 66% too small; 2) mounted too low; 3) doesn’t contain all required verbiage; 4) not visible from the entrance; and 5) not readable from 50 feet.

You’ve got one sign that meets size and verbiage code but is posted at less than half the required minimum height.

And you’ve got one sign of proper size, verbiage and posting height. In the back corner of the lot and presented edge on to the entrance approximately 160 feet from the entrance.

And this, according to both the Tempe Police on-scene that evening and a City of Tempe official, are following city code in placement, quantity and location.

Again, I’m no attorney. I’d love to get an attorney’s thoughts on this – realizing of course you can’t give “legal advice” in this format.  Given that Tempe City Code Section 32-6 (c) states, “No private towing carrier shall tow a vehicle from a private parking area unless the signs are posted as required by this section and conform with subsections (a), (b) and (e)” my next research step is looking into small claims court.

Larger photos are available on my Flickr account.

*Sigh*

After a GREAT night at Ignite Phoenix #4, many participants went to La Bocca for some after hours networking.

Several of us parked in a vacant lot at the southeast corner of 7th & Mill, only to walk out to find our cars had been towed.

Here’s the [sarcasm on] big giant warning sign [sarcasm off] that parking there will result in towing.

Yep, it’s stuck on the back of an electrical box at the far end of the vacant lot at 701 S. Mill Street in Tempe (southeast corner of Mill & 7th St).

The lot is owned by “Tempe Mill LLC”, deeded on Nov 7, 1996 (per the Maricopa County Assessors public site).

According to the Nevada Secretary of State public site, Tempe Mill LLC is a Limited Liability Company registered in Nevada to a Dean Y. Kajioka, Esq. (source).

When I parked there, there were 5 or 6 other cars parked along the northern edge of the lot. Several cabs were also there, idling with the drivers in their cabs – I assume waiting for fares.

When I left La Bocca and got to the corner, a tow truck from Monster Impound & Recovery was in the process of towing a car (that I later found belonged to Steve Belt – who gets photo credits too) and one other car was parked next to Steve’s. Every other car was gone – hauled away by Monster Impound & Recovery.

There were several people milling about. One guy said one of the tow truck drivers has sprayed mace or pepper spray on him when he attempted to take a picture of the tow truck. He called the Tempe Police, who arrived very quickly.

More people whose cars had been towed began to arrive. A very nice family visiting from Mississippi also had there car towed. They had two small children with them and asked (quite politely I might add) if there was any way they could recover their car seats.

The tow truck drivers, two of the rudest and cockiest people I’ve encountered in a long time, told them the impound lot didn’t open until 9:00am (though the teeny tiny sign clearly says vehicles will be released at 8:00am).

The taxpayers in Tempe now get to pay for some police-arranged service to come pick up this family and get them some car seats.

The smart-ass tow truck driver told me, “Try suing us. People have been trying to for eight years”.

I called the number listed on the sign to try to recover my car tonight and was treated to one of the nastiest, rudest “ladies” I’ve ever encountered. She wouldn’t give me the impound lot address, and would only say I could call back at 9:00am tomorrow for information.

Here’s what REALLY chaps me…

Guess who the last car left in the lot belonged to?  I can’t say for sure who owned the car, but I can state unequivocally that one of the tow truck drivers unlocked the drivers door, got in, started the car and drove off.

So Monster apparently parks a car in the lot, baiting people to park there, then hauls them away. All for a tidy $140 fee (so I’m told. Guess I’ll find out for sure tomorrow. Update: cost was $135. Cash only, which I didn’t have. They gave me two weeks to pay noting at that point it would be turned over to collections where the fees would “at least triple” this amount).

One car owner told me he’d been parked there less than 30 minutes when his car was towed.

I asked one of the Tempe Police officers if this, “happens every night” and his response was, “Yeah, pretty much.”  They also said there was nothing they could do as this was private property and was “properly marked”.

Tempe City Code section 32-6 “Notice to public of right to tow” states:

(a) The owner or person in possession of any private parking area shall be deemed to have given consent to unrestricted parking by the general public in such parking area unless such parking area is posted with signs as prescribed by this section which are clearly visible and readable from a distance of fifty (50) feet away and at all points of entry.

(b) Signs will be a minimum of twelve (12) inches by eighteen (18) inches in size and will be mounted at a minimum height of five (5) feet and a maximum height of ten (10) feet above the ground.

I haven’t measured the sign (yet) but something tells me it’s going to be 12 x 18 inches and mounted five feet high. “Clearly visible and readable from a distance of fifty feet away” is highly suspect. I didn’t see the sign until the cocky tow truck driver pointed it out. Apparently none of the other seven people towed (nor their passengers) did either.

So maybe it’s “legal”. I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer like the guy that managers the LLC that owns the vacant lot. If they didn’t want people parking there, it would be an insignificant cost to post far more obvious signage, or here’s an idea – string a chain across the entry to the lot.

But wait, if you did that the towing company wouldn’t be able to park a car there. And you wouldn’t be able to charge people $140 a pop to retrieve their vehicles.

And all this after the Mayor of Tempe, Hugh Hallman, gives an impassioned plea at the opening of Ignite Phoenix to change the name to Ignite Tempe.

Whatever.

UPDATE: Interesting. Tempe Changes Rules on Towing to Prevent Companies From Scamming Drivers. So towing scams around Mill Ave are a known issue to the Tempe City Council…

Others Opine:
Roger Williams (@halfacat), another victim – Scam Alert! Towing Scam in Tempe, AZ