Selling Land the Egotistical Way

OK, I am in a grumbly mood today, I admit it. I slept in and didn't mean to. So now I am going to have a quick public whine, which I hope will make me feel better.

I was just looking through the Land Sales. OK, is it me, or are land sellers gettings seriously egotistical?

You see that picture thingy, next to the land sale listing? Isn't that supposed to contain a picture of the land in question? Nicely photographed so when a potential buyer sees it he/she just has to tp off to have a look? Sure helps narrow down a list of potential places.

But what do you see there? Well, more and more it is the sellers 'business logo'. Which is just mildly annoying. To be honest, who is selling the land is of little interest to the buyer. They are far more interested in whether the 'lovely flattish land in friendly sim' is really a steep mountain slope surrounded by huge black cubes. Come on, it is only $10 to stick a picture there. Lazyness? Sorry, I think so. I go look at land with pictures first, I know that.

But if there is one thing more annoying than the lack of a picture of the land - it is when you get a picture of the seller! What is all that about? This puts me right off a piece of land before I even go look at it. This is SO arrogant and egotistical. Why would someone looking for a piece of land to call home, or business or whatever, want to see how 'hot' you can make your avatar? I just don't get it. Sell land! If you want to sell yourself, go work for a club.

OK, I do indeed feel better now. I really needed to get that off my chest. Thank you for listening.

*goes back to building, humbly and quietly*

so true... and I sold a lot of land fairly quickly by doing just that. Unsure why people don't use it as often, because it really does help. But the land I sold was pretty.

It could be the lands in question have no view, surrounded by wretched views/builds with borderline griefers as neighbors, which in that case maybe that's why *g*

Agreed - putting your company or personal logo/picture up on a parcel you're selling discourages buyers. It is frankly unhelpful (would you want to deal with a company that was unhelpful? no...), and it straight away clues you into the fact the company you're dealing with cares more about appearing professional than they do about really being useful to their own customers or prospective customers.

Once, I was surfing the list of parcels for sale and noticed a particularly ugly company logo. It was for a 2-person land sale business, and it was bright yellow and red. It had the company logo in the middle of the picture, and snapshots of the two company founders/owners on either side of the logo. I think it was the ugliest logo I've ever seen - bright, glaring colours, marketing spin of absolutely no relavance to the product being sold... urgh.

A short while later that very company buys the first land lot next to mine, and sets it for sale at 3000L. That wasn't so bad... until they put up a HUGE rotating, yellow prim with red on yellow text and pictures of the business owners on it. A HUGE, rotating, fullbright, glaringly ugly prim hovering right next to my land. I was half tempted to buy the land just to get rid of that prim, it was so ugly.

Then I realised I did not have to put up with companies like this, or their tactics. I got together with a few friends, bought a sim, and haven't had to deal with anything like that since. The nice thing about private islands is that land cannot be sold unless the land owner permits it, so there are no annoying 'for sale' signs - all that is handled behind the scenes. If you're still on the mainland - you're missing out.

I haven't seen that company since, and, for all I know, that lot they had next to mine is still for sale. If they went under, I wouldn't be surprised and I'd suspect they deserved it, as IMHO any company that seems to care more about advertising and 'image' than it does about providing a useful service to its customers doesn't deserve to survive.

Companies take note : customers will pay more for a useful service than a useless one. Be useful - give the customer information about your product, not yourself. Customers don't usually care who you are, if they did, they'd be your friends, not your customers. They just want to know about your product. So, if you have a space you could use to give info on your product, don't waste it on showing your company logo or a picture of a smiling blonde who has zero relation to the product advertised.

In both inworld and forum listings, I interpret a lack of picture to indicate something undesirable about the parcel and don't give it a second thought.

I think they are trying to be like real life real estate agents in that agents tend to put their pictures in their ad somewhere and on their business cards.

What they are missing is real estate agents also put a picture of the property in the ad as well. The picture spot is not for business cards - tasteful business cards and logos can be posted on the land.

I don't have a problem with a company logo or realtor's picture if it is small and unobtrusive to the picture, however pictures are very much needed.

The other thing I've noticed is some people put pictures of real life forests or beaches. While this might not be as ugly as logos it is every bit as unhelpful because that doesn't tell me about the product either.

On the flipside I've received IM's from people wanting quotes on there land, and I know the other have as well. If the land is spectacular I'll take a snapshot, but sometimes a 512 is just a 512.

I absolutely see your point. I'm going to take this thread to heart and evaluate some of my listings.

Personally, I put my image in the listing because its free advertising. It's a great way to build name recognition.

Enjoy both worlds by taking the snapshot to disk, opening it in a photo app and adding your logo to one of the corners. Do that consistently and people will begin to view it as a branding mark.

Yes, that's a good idea.

I don't automatically discount land without pictures or with just a logo as a picture, but I will usually look at land with pictures first. Which often amounts to the same thing.

I definitely agree that seeing nothing but logos gets a little tiresome. I've recently thrown myself into the market for a 1024 plot after my little first land hovel became a sardine tin overnight...anyway, browsing the hundreds of listings can be incredibly time consuming and frustrating, I don't see why sellers looking to actually, you know, sell, wouldn't choose to be a little more accomodating to potential customers. I have a desired type of plot and setting in mind, and after enough wasted teleporting I actually did start restricting my visits to only those plots that were listed with pictures. As Khamon suggested, a logo *ON* a picture of the land plot really caters to the best of both worlds.

I agree that I prefer to see a pic of the land in listings.

BUT that being said I can also say that while browsing these ads when I do see the company logo it automaticaly puts a sense of familiarity to the deal. Some of those logos are known by me to usually have a nice plot and a decent price so when I see it I am inclined to check the offering.

The thing that gets me most is when you click and see a big black X and a grey background. THAT annoys me!! lol

I think they don't put up a picture of the land because they don't want to bother taking a snapshot. Like, that would mean another three minutes or so invested in the property, and that would take some pride or something. They certainly don't bother improving the land before they sell it.

However, if a person with a reputation for selling good land at good prices in a helpful way wanted to capitalize on their reputation by inclucing a logo, they could just build it out of prims or texture a prim (with appropriate alpha treatment) and stick that in the picture when they take their snapshop, avoiding the need for Photoshopping.

My biggest complaint is dishonesty, the type of misdirection
that can be claimed as an oversight.
There were too many times when looking for land, that I arrived
at the site only to find out that the price was higher than listed.
One seller I asked why this was the case, just said "I had to raise it."
I think it takes less than 10 seconds to amend the data.
Grr.

Yes the big ugly rotating prims are terrible, and I do think
people use those as a deliberate annoyance to motivate neighbors to buy those just to get rid of them.

I have just been out looking for a little piece of land, and have to say that a good lot of the adds without pics had something wrong with them. Either it was cliffside property, or enormous, ugly prims on the lots and neighboring lots. With one, the neighbors had textured one side of their house with a woman's rear end. Also, there are not nearly as many pieces of land up for sale as there were last month. Hopefully there will be a little more variety soon. I feel like I have missed out on all the good pieces. Currently, I am trying to wheedle the money to buy an island out of my husband, lol.

i hate it when there's a snapshot of land, but its not hte land in question

I use images in my land ads. I use a business card image. THere are benefits to both sides, an ad card, or an image. The image does take longer to work out, so if your busy, its more time consuming. The ad image is nice for the fact that if you ARE looking for land, you see a name there... take a second and IM them, ask if they have anything your looking for specifically (water, mountain, beach, commercial, quiet, etc)

Using my ad image instead of a land image gets me more IMs about "Hey I'm looking for <AREA> with <FEAETURE>, do you have anything?" types of questions. If you message someone and they are helpful, thats good customer service, and everyone likes good customer service.

If you are looking for land, try it the RL way. IM the realtor, or realtors, and see if they help you directly, most would I'd assume. They may spend the time with you TPing you to spots you may be interested in, or have a website where you can see all their current listings without muddling through the search screen.

Just my L$10 (approx US$0.02) worth

I admit I have been guilty of putting Second Realty's logo in the 'picture thingy' in the past.

Partly to save time and partly to raise awareness of my brand. Having read these posts, I can see how this would be annoying, so I've decided to change and perhaps just put the logo in the corner in future.

Thanks for the feedback. Any other problems you find with MY service, feel free to let me know.

EC.

I see what you are saying, Dragon. But do remember that many people are in a different country to you and so may never be able to enjoy your personal assitance.

I think the idea of putting a picture of the land with a small sellers logo is a great one - combine clarity and honesty with professionalism and brand building.

Just please, please, scrap the pictures of YOURSELF, lol.


Oh, and btw land sellers - listing a piece of land as waterside should actually mean you can paddle in the water without leaving the plot. It is NOT waterside property if there is another plot between it and the water (or in the case of a certain sellers listings, nearly a whole sim, lol). Thank you.

I just bought my first plot of land, and I now have a HUGE pet peev of people Putting up pictures of land, but it's not the plot that's for sale! What's the point? No one would buy it after they see what it really looks like anyway!

amen!

I agree completely the advertisments instead of pictures of land are annoying,But from a Realty perspective it has enhanced my sales tremendously.Majority of my buy/sells are done directly with the puchaser/seller and having my name plastered all over landsearch is why.

The picture never did justice ,so what is the point ? If it's flat green can you not invision a flat green 512 parcel? I will say this though ,if you come to look at land I have for sale it is cleaned up signs are flat and low to the ground ,even the odd tree is placed .Spinning FORSALE signs won't be seen.

If the price ,size and type are are right your going to teleport to look at it anyways .

Regards, CP

This is very true. I have bought most of the land I have ever gotten from CP and his signs on the ground are WAY easier to spot then the annoying spinning crayola puked on ones.

Interesting thread,
As a pretty new player (probably about 10 days now) to Second Life i have just begun to look at land, and with the amount of land down on the search interface i look down at the pictures before visiting, and sure enough the pictures that actually show the land are the ones that interest me, the ones with buisness logo's i have just been skipping past.

Egotistical, Maybe. My experience, limited though it is, has been that most 'successful' real estate agents are a bit egotistical. This applies to SL and RL of which I am a RL realtor.

Personally, I don't care either way because I don't trust the pic and will actually go to the lot before I do anything. I have found the picture thingie is sometimes two or three owners old on the lot. Not everyone changes it or even knows how to. I will consider adding a photo when I sell a lot though I no longer sell publicly. All my lots for sale are now done privately to prevent them from being turned into ad farms.

I have taken to heart the comments on signs and such and changed all my signage a while back. I have only recently started surfing the forums and learn a lot on 'public' sentiments here.

All that said, group land I manage will still get the group logo as the land is not set for sale but is available to the right person and the logo expresses that.

this right here just shows that people are getting blasted at every corner of their lives with ads and it gets offensive after a while. think about it:


wake up to your radio and get blasted with ad after ad to buy a new car or visit starbucks to shock your system awake

go to the potty and read a magazine jam packed with ads while you are doing your business

hit the kitchen and start making food and turn the television on and get blasted with even more ads for home loan companies and car dealers

check email and get messages "u need bigger boobs today! take this pill and look like the colorado rockies or the grand tetons!" (uhh, I am a man, not a woman, true story, got that many times)

go back to your room, forget about the radio on and get attacked with more ads for whiny kids screaming about running low on diapers and baby food, change into clothes

get into your car, viola! more ads on the radio bumpered by music, or

get on the bus/subway and see/hear more ads for "aids is a big problem, tarp thy goods and avoid std's also!"

work <enough said here>

head home to relax, repeat all the above pretty much, but then hop onto secondlife and endure "jack johnson realty sez "i'll sell u a home today!" ads plastered all over sims, the property being sold, 16 prim billboards, etc.

got the idea yet? we are blasted from land,sea,air,television,radio,internet,even regular mail with so many ads!

people are turned off by it, and it tends to dull/enrage people towards them, I know I feel that way.