Living in Los Cabos: What’s in a Name?

It’s the holidays. It’s high season. Either one of those might be a reason I haven’t blogged lately, but nope. The real reason is that my associates and I have been doing our best imitation of whirling dervishes. You see, last month we had an office meeting and unanimously decided to change our company name and affiliation. So right smack dab in the middle of all the normal December madness we’re running around making changes and notifying our clients that Realty Executives Los Cabos is now Cabo Realty Pros. Websites, business cards, yard signs, advertising and even this blog have to change. There are reasons we’re making this change, and we’re excited although a bit breathless from all the energy flowing around here.

Of course the name and logo are all that is going to change: our motto is still “Real Estate The Right Way” and we will continue to hold ourselves to a higher standard. And the company will continue to keep overhead to a bare minimum in order to pay the highest commissions in town. Those principles have served us well and gotten us to where we are today so they won’t change one iota. But they’ll be served up in a prettier package.

Picking a new name was a fun and collaborative process but the best part was finding a new logo. Luckily Jim had just done a course where they mentioned a design service called 99designs, at www.99designs.com. I cannot tell you how great they were to work with and how much fun the process was. The last time I went through a logo review it was excruciating. This was a blast. We contracted with 99designs to run a logo design contest: we supplied them with information about our company, our beliefs, where we are and put up the prize money. They then got the word out to graphic designers around the world and entries started to stream in. We provided feedback about which ones we liked and which we hated, and the designers responded. But things really got interesting when, having seen a number of logos with which we could live, I guaranteed the prize. When you do that there is no going back: some designer somewhere is going to take home the paycheck. And that’s when they get really motivated. And when we started having a little inter-office rivalry with one group claiming the colorful designs are representative of Mexico and another group who claimed the more monochromatic designs are ‘classy’. Posters went up supporting each position and visitors to the office were pressed into giving opinions. It was a really tough choice, but eventually everyone settled on the logo incorporating the sun, ocean and a whale.

Now we’re in the notification phase: letting everyone know we’ve got a new name, and getting everything switched over. It’s hectic, but fun. Being a whirling dervish has its perks: the switch has already brought us luck in the form of new business.

Our goal is to have the change complete by the end of the year and start 2012 with a new name and image. And then maybe stop whirling, and breathe.

Carol Billups is Broker/Owner of Cabo Realty Pros. She has enjoyed working with both buyers and sellers for over eleven years and still thinks hers is the best job on earth. She is also the real estate columnist for Los Cabos Magazine. You can read more of her articles on the website blog www.caborealtypros.com. You can reach her from the U.S. or Canada at 1-760-481-7694, or in Cabo at 044-624-147-7541. You can listen to our 24/7 broadcast on http://www.livecabo.net for a mix of happy music, weather reports and local information.

© 2011 Carol S. Billups