Back in 2007, when Christie and I started Elements Realty Group, we advertised with another map. That year, we spent a lot of cash to get the header of the front of that map. The creator had never done anything like that before, but we made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
It was amazing. Everyone in town saw the map and it quickly became known as the “Elements Map”. The next season, the map owner called us and asked if we would like everything the same. We said, “Absolutely!” because it was good for our new business. Once we got the newer maps, we noticed there was a huge problem.
Another real estate company bought the bottom of the map and did their new ad in a bright neon color. Not only that, as soon as you opened the map, there was that bright neon color again. We were very upset on so many levels. First, if color was available, we would have taken it. Second, I would have paid whatever the other company did to get their spot too.
We expressed our disappointment with the map owner and he tried to make it right, but thousands of copies of the map were already out there. We told him “No Thanks” and thought about how we could fix our huge problem.
The other map wasn’t really “eye friendly”. It was hand drawn and wasn’t really meant to get around town. We decided that we would create a Bucerias map that was large enough to have the whole town on it but still not be "Too big." We wanted the text to be big enough that most folks could easily read it. We also added the Terraltas to The Bucerias Map because nobody else had done that before...even though it represented over 1,000 homes. Overall, our first printing was a huge success!
That first printing has now brought us to our 4th edition of The Bucerias Map. It’s been almost 10 years and we still feel an incredible responsibility to get it right. Many businesses, government workers, pizza delivery people, and even emergency vehicles use our map to get around. We’d hate for anyone to get a cold pizza (let alone have an ambulance not know where to go) because of the map. Thankfully, we have many locals that send us corrections so that it is as relevant and accurate as possible.
We would especially like to thank all the local sponsors of the map (past and present). Without them, there would be a whole lot less of The Bucerias Maps printed. Currently, there are about 60,000 copies floating around.
You now know our story, please let us know yours. If you have found value in The Bucerias Map, please let us know.
Thank you.
John & Christie Forget