The undivided attention of 500+ employees

Tami Boni, a HouseValues subscriber from Keller Williams Realty in Tacoma, Washington, was at our Kirkland headquarters this afternoon to speak at our all-hands meeting. She spent aboug 15-20 minutes sharing her story and answering questions from the assembled team. Her story was truly inspiring, and was the buzz of the office for the rest of the day today.

In a nutshell, Tami joined HouseValues more than two years ago - just 40 days after receiving her real estate license. Today, she's one of the top agents in her office and manages a database of more than 1,000 prospective customers.

In front of more than 500 employees, Tami told several stories of how HouseValues has changed her life. She talked about the sales rep who brought her onto the system first, with which she is still friends. She talked about her coach, who wouldn't give up on Tami during those first few months when she was figuring out how to best use the system. She gave numerous examples of how her business has grown steadily and significantly over the past two years.

And then she talked about the two-month period last year when she was in a hospital after a very serious accident. She couldn't work, half the time couldn't remember her name, but her business continued to run. Three days after getting out of the hospital and back to work, one of her prospects listed his house with Tami - thanks in part to how well Tami "kept in touch" with the prospect over the past several weeks.

While Tami was in the hospital recovering, her Market Leader system kept her in touch with more than 1,000 of her prospects.

As you can imagine, Tami was mobbed after the meeting. More stories, plenty of laughter, lots of hugs. Even a few specific feature requests that I have a feeling will show up in Market Leader very soon.

Tami was a great reminder to all of us why we're here, why we do what we do, why we put in so many long hours. It's about people like Tami, and how we're making a difference in her life, and the lives of thousands of other real estate agents nationwide.