A Letter from Leadership: Dalton’s Dream

While it is not typical for any of us, and especially CEOs, to share our personal dreams within the workplace for fear of political correctness or worse, I feel compelled to share a recent nocturnal hallucination as it has to do with the Real Living Luxury Lifestyle Division. Hopefully my recalled dream and this unexpected form of communication, might heighten interest in our recently developed and introduced Real Living Luxury Lifestyle Division … here goes!

In my dream I was brought before the “Truth in Advertising” court and challenged to defend the introduction of the Real Living Luxury Lifestyle Division. My judicial encounter however unfolded more as a nightmare as you will understand by the following transcript:

Judge Jones:

Mr. Dalton, how can Real Living claim to have a luxury lifestyle division? Especially considering how your Real Living brand was indirectly and informally influenced by two former brands neither of which symbolized luxury real estate. One of those brands was symbolic of mainstream America and the other for middle-of-the road automobiles and finance.  Moreover, you do not appear to have anywhere near the number of million and multi-million-dollar listings as do the other brands. Ironically these other so-called upscale brands here in court today, don’t even claim to have divisions. Instead, they only promote that they have luxury marketing without bringing lifestyle into the mix. What say you?

Defendant Dalton:

Mrs. Jones, or rather Your Honor, Real Living is the most natural brand for the upscale market because of the words that describe our organization and our division, which represents luxury lifestyles. With all due respect, if anything, you might consider asking these other brands to defend their presumptuous and excessively elite selection process along with the dismissive assessments they make every year regarding the merit of thousands of remarkable luxury lifestyles that to them do not qualify for their elevated marketing and rarefied categorization.

Judge Jones:

Oh, so I guess it should be up to you or Wendy Durand or Marie Cabo to define luxury. Or is it just because of your name alone that you believe that every home you represent automatically constitutes luxury … or Real Living? Mr. Dalton are you basing your decisions of what makes a luxury lifestyle based upon etymological research on the interplay and interconnectedness of the words “Real,” “Living,” “Luxury” and “Lifestyle,” or the gosh darn property itself?

Defendant Dalton:

What does that word “etymological mean Your Honor?

Judge Jones:

Essentially the history of words.

Defendant Dalton:

Well since you mentioned the importance of the history of words I did some research. According to WebsterBusinessDictionary.com and the Cambridge dictionary, I learned the following:

That “Real” can mean very, extremely or especially as in … get real. “Living” can mean existing, and “Luxury” can mean something adding to the pleasure or comfort of something, but that is not necessary. “Lifestyle” is widely defined as the way in which a person lives.

Judge Jones:

This is beginning to sound like jabberwocky or real estate gibberish, please get to the point.

Defendant Dalton:

Your Honor, there are millions of homes that I believe are so “real” that they belong in an “especially” or “Real” category, not only because of the physical structure but also the overall and special lifestyle they represent. Also, there are millions of homes and their surroundings that go well beyond what is “necessary,” making them luxury lifestyles that are being under appreciated and under marketed by our industry.

And finally, “lifestyle” meaning the way that one lives, must by definition include more factors than square footage, curb appeal and arresting amenities within the domain. Therefore, we must rethink, recalibrate and re-engineer our approach to marketing homes, which is not only good for our home sellers, but also will help to improve the perception of our marketing value. Such re-engineering means re-evaluating how millions of homes have been defined or labeled for decades.

By making our marketing more magnanimous your Honor, we will appropriately be honoring more lifestyles and greater numbers of people whose new-age real estate decisions coincide with a mass movement that displays preference towards selecting overall lifestyles versus making life-altering decisions based upon the myopic attraction to the property alone.

Judge Jones:

Allan, I have a three-bedroom home on a little less than an acre that we purchased two years ago for $350,000. It is located in a section of town that has many million-dollar homes. We are close to Whole Foods, the museum and the most beautiful park. I know we would not qualify for the programs of these other real estate companies, but would Real Living, if you will forgive the pun, judge our property as a luxury lifestyle?

Defendant Dalton:

We would not put our luxury lifestyle sign rider on our iconic Real Living sign or create a customized luxury lifestyle marketing program if we did not understand how luxury lifestyles do not begin or end at the curb. I’m happy to come to your home personally and together we can evaluate.

Judge Jones:

Case dismissed.

Mr. Dalton, would you please approach the bench? Allan, here is my contact information. We want to sell, especially after hearing your expanded view of the meaning of Lifestyle.

Also, I don’t know if you have any program like say a Neighbors Know Best or something like that one in which you could ask for testimonials from my neighbors about our overall lifestyle. I think this would help because all of us believe we are enjoying Real Living at its best and are the fortunate residents of luxury lifestyles.

Ring, ring, ring. And then my alarm clock went off.
All my best,

Allan