A dad's advice to himself and his kids.

Since there was no football Sunday, and since Haiti has bored us, the whole online Realtor community lit up at some flap on Agent Genius. There was even some response. Agent Genius is congenial to a fault.  Literally.  They don’t have enough spice, and they play too nice in the sandbox.  They are at fault for valuing being nice over vetting and debating ideas.  But, that’s a choice that Benn and Lani have made.   Not my choice, but they seem to be rolling up a nice media juggernaut.

One of their writers, the sonorous  Greg Cooper takes some pot shots at Todd Carpenter, the NAR social media director.  He claims to have “95 pages of documentation,” somewhere.  He takes pot shots at @tcar’s twitter feed, typos and penchant for social drinking.

All of this was because Greg Cooper misunderstood a tweet from Todd.  Todd wanted to get a linkback, and was irritated that Greg’s event wasn’t linking first and demonstrating normal etiquette.  And for that, we get a bile filled rant from Inianaoplis Area Realtor Greg Cooper.

Greg is punishing Todd for his own (Greg’s)mistake and lack of experience.  I don’t care.

But where it was instructive was this: this was the first I’ve heard of him, and if I’m one of Greg’s competitors, I’d share this video long and hard.  Yes, he’s a good speaker.

But, it’d be easy to say, “Yeah, Mister Seller, Um, Realtors don’t show Greg’s houses because he goes off the deep end and slam’s ‘em whenever he can.”

Even if he was right (and he was dead wrong and waving his moron flag loud and proud), the way he did it was imprudent.  His real business can easily suffer if his sellers see this and are social media savvy (not, as Greg was, displaying his entitlementality and unwillingness to work hard).  So, he’s basically #failing at reputation management.

It’s a mistake I’ve made in the past. I don’t know Greg, but I dislike him.  It was obvious that he was erroring, and I’d be willing to bet, lying about 95 pages of documentation.  95 pages?  Geez, I create content fast, but that’s a big damn gotchagame I don’t wanna be playing.

So, here’s what I’ve learned about Greg Cooper:

1. He acts entitled when someone doesn’t give him his “respect”
2. He goes off half cocked and resorts to ad hominem almost immediately.
3. He was wrong here, but blamed others for his wrongness
4. He was somehow invited to blog on Agent Genius.
5. He has a great voice.
6. He has some sort of thug mentality when he’s not pleased.
7. He’d be simple to bait and draw into a battle.

That’s what inferences clients can draw.  So, rep management starts with character management.  If you’re late to the party, the least you can do is mingle a minute before you cry about the host being rude.