While this column is usually written both with the general public and with real estate professionals equally in mind, I must acknowledge that today's topic is directed toward the latter group. It is about a recently-published book that could be of considerable benefit to many who are, or are about to be, in the real estate business.

You Are Not a House (Trafford Publishing, 219 pages) is the somewhat disarming title of an excellent book written by Bill Fisher, Ph.D., a former California real estate practitioner and a long-time student and provider of real estate marketing materials. It is a book that is likely to be especially timely for those who, as the author describes them, began their business during a real estate boom and never really felt a need for a marketing program "until the business slows and they notice that they are small fish in a big bowl which is remarkably crowded with other fish."

Its description as "The Service-Oriented Marketing Handbook" is somewhat more revealing than the title as to the contents of You Are Not a House. It is a book about marketing, about a distinctive type of marketing, one that many real estate agents might find worthy of their consideration.

The point of the title is that, for many real estate agents, there is all too much tendency to advertise themselves in the same way that they advertise houses. But the enterprises are entirely different. The point of advertising a property is (in addition to mollifying the owner) to make the phone ring or the email inquiry to be sent. The point of such advertising is to get leads -- potential customers, maybe for the property being advertised, maybe not. For this kind of advertising, the ultimate test of its success is, "How many leads did it bring in? How many times did the phone ring?" But Fisher says that this kind of advertising, with these kinds of goals, is not what builds a steady or satisfying real estate career.

"[M]arketing is about ever so much more than just getting some unknown person to call you on the phone so you can talk him or her into the office for an appointment … . Your marketing, when all is said and done, is the way you let the right people know who you are and why they should call on you when they need the professional assistance that you can give them so well. In successful marketing, you begin to build relationships of trust, developing a target market made up of people who feel they know you, even though you may not yet know them."

This is to be accomplished through what the author calls, "service-oriented marketing", the first principle of which is, "Design all your marketing and prospecting with your clients' needs in mind. Not your own needs." Too much marketing is focused on telling the target market how warm, wonderful, etc. the agent is. It is true, and one of the principles of service-oriented marketing, that: "Your marketing program is built on who you are." But the marketing program must show people, not tell them.

For Dr. Fisher, one of the key components of a service-oriented marketing program is the provision of useful information. Among other things, people want a real estate agent who is knowledgeable and informed about market conditions and related factors. So, the thing for an agent to do -- consistently and over time -- is not to tell people that he or she is informed, but to show them. How? By giving information away. The now fairly-common practice of providing summaries of listing and sales activity in a neighborhood is a small example of this. But it only scratches the surface. People want the story behind the story. They want to understand why the market is doing what it is doing, and they want to know what strategies they can adopt to best accommodate whatever the realities of the day might be.

Inasmuch as Bill Fisher is a newsletter writer, it is not entirely surprising that he sees newsletters as an important component of an effective personal marketing campaign. But he counsels that newsletters must reflect the character of the agent who is using them. There is no "one-size-fits-all". Moreover, it is clear that today and in the foreseeable future such things as blogs and social networking posts may play equal or even greater roles in personal marketing than do newsletters.

You Are Not a House is about much more than developing a marketing campaign that will lead to a financially successful real estate career. The subtitle of the book is, "How to Build Your Real Estate Career with Passion and Authenticity." The author emphasizes early and often that an important goal is to build a career that integrates who you are. Your career is not your life and it is not who you are. No matter how good it is, you as a person are infinitely more complex and wonderful than that. That is a lesson not to forget, and Dr. Fisher emphasizes it with eloquence.

You Are Not a House is a perfect case study in the service-oriented marketing that its author espouses. The book provides real estate agents with a plethora of information and useful marketing ideas. In doing so, it also brings its readers into the life and character of Bill Fisher and shows them who he is. For both reasons, it is a worthwhile read.

Published: May 23, 2008

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Bob Hunt is a director of the National Association of Realtors and is author of the recently published book, "Real Estate the Ethical Way." A graduate of Princeton with a master's degree from UCLA in philosophy, Hunt has served as a U.S. Marine, Realtor association president in South Orange County, and director of the California Association of Realtors, and is an award-winning Realtor. Contact Bob at .