Sep. 16, 2008 - Real Estate Trade Shows - An Untold Story

Over the past year, everyone here at Zillow has made great strides to reach out to real estate professional community, explain our business model, and show how we can assist brokers and agents alike. One of the primary ways in which we accomplish this is by showing our support at many of the popular industry trade shows. However, what you see at the show doesn’t always tell the whole story and so, in the spirit of transparency here at Zillow, I thought I would share a behind-the-scenes event that happened to me last month.

As coordinator for many of the events that Zillow attends and participates in, it is my duty to see that everything from staffing, marketing material, transportation and logistics, as well as a hundred other little details are taken care of. When it goes right, the process is seamless and invisible.
When it goes wrong, watch out!

Last month, I was preparing for three events back-to-back-to-back, which is a bit of a challenge. The first was in Austin, TX, for a Keller Williams camp. The next was in New York, NY, for a RISMedia leadership conference, and the last was in San Antonio, TX, for the Texas Association of Realtors.

My primary challenge was figuring out how I could get Zillow’s backdrop display (think Lexus) to all locations in a timely manner. I thought I had it all figured out and was relieved to receive a confirmation email from UPS informing me that all packages made it to their first destination safe and sound with time to spare…and then the phone rang.

On the other end was a warehouse manager in Austin, TX, explaining that while technically all three of my packages had arrived for the trade show, one was essentially the lid to a box (the lid had the shipping label and that’s why the confirmation email was sent to me). However, the key piece that was missing was what the lid covered: a four-foot high, two-foot wide, and foot and a half long 60-pound box containing the backdrop. It was nowhere to be found. My heart stopped.

For over a week I proceeded to spend “quality time” on the phone having to explain the situation 13 separate times to 13 different people, each of whom gave me a different promise of what would be done and when.

Here’s the really frustrating part about the whole thing: because the lid was delivered (Yup, that’s me in the photo to the right, holding the lid), UPS had to treat this as a damaged goods incident and not a missing package incident. In other words, they wasted time retrieving the lid and inspecting it for damage instead of searching for a lid-less 60-pound box!

In the end — after losing a lot of hair (stress) — I sent the backup display (think Kia) and UPS finally admitted they were at fault. Don’t get me started on what they feel is adequate compensation for this whole fiasco.

So when you are attending a trade show and everything seems to be working just fine, just remember that there’s probably an interesting story or two just waiting to be told.

And for those of you who are attending CAR in October, be sure to stop by the Zillow booth, check out the new backdrop (think Rolls-Royce), and say hello.

P.S.  On my trip to San Antonio, my plane ran off the runway. But, that’s another story for another day. (Below is a photo of us walking off the plane, across grass to an awaiting shuttle van).