“Old School” Real Estate vs “Tech Savvy” Agents
By Eric Bryant | March 14, 2008
I have coffee every weekday morning with a group of guys at our local Starbucks. Yesterday our resident “Answer Man”, Gerry (Gerry is like 50 yrs old or so), ran across a young “Tech Savvy” Real Estate Agent in line with a rather unique hairdo….
“Tech Savvy” Real Estate Agent
…Ok, so while Gerry is staring at the Kid, the kid says to him “What’s the matter Old Man, didn’t you ever do anything “Wild” when you were a kid?” Gerry, without batting an eyelash, quipps back “When I was in the service I got drunk one night and (made love) to a Peacock! I was just wondering if maybe we were related?” and walks away!
Classic “Old School” vs “New School”. Made me think of my Agents and the discussions that typically occur when I have a diverse cross-section of Agents in a single training. Here are some of the quotes, you decide if it’s “Old School” or “New School”;
“Just picked up a lead off my CRM”
“Dam Phone is not Ringing”
” Having Trouble Keeping up With the Business”
“Gonna have to get another part-time job”
“Wow, look at our Pendings board, they have doubled each of the last 2 months!”
“Wow, look at my Print Advertising bill! Do I get any calls off of it?”
Ok, ok what’s my point? Of my 300 Agents, I have some that are selling Real Estate at a record pace. During what the Media has consistently labeled a “depressed” market. the only thing depressing about this market is that so many Agents are throwing up their hands in frustration and not getting on the “Web 2.0″ train to success!
Come on guys did you know that less tha 3% of Real Estate Agents (I am happy to report of my Agents it is 8%, though that is still a pathetically low number) utilize the FREE listing services on Zillow, Trulia, Google Base, MSN Real Estate, Homes.com, and over 15 other Major Listing sites??? Why? The Agents who are utilizing these and other on line Web 2.0 tools, most of which are FREE, represent over 50% of the transactions in my offices. Think about that; 8% of the agents doing over 50% of the business!!!
Hey “Old School”, you can tell me all day long about how you don’t need the Internet to be successful, but numbers don’t lie. They have no emotion, just pure logic!
Agents “Stop” “Learn” “Grow” “Prosper”
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Author's Website: http://www.asktherealestatecoach.com
Topics: Trulia, Yahoo!, Zillow, Office Technology, SEO, Lead Acquisition, Marketing |
5 Responses to ““Old School” Real Estate vs “Tech Savvy” Agents”
Comments
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March 14th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Hi Eric!
We must have been standing on the same line because I had some similar thoughts:
http://www.truliablog.com/?p=325
Rudy
Social Media Guru at Trulia
March 17th, 2008 at 9:41 am
While I agree with most of what your saying in this post, recent studies have shown that most people make judgements and decisions based on emotion, not logic and reason. Perhaps what is needed is to frame the issue in terms of gains, an appeal to the positive. That is our challenge, to get people excited about the new tools. When we address how the new tools expand the individual’s market base, and reach so many more people than traditional methods we are much more effective.
Knocking on doors? How about knocking on millions of doors?
Reaching out to prospects? How about bringing untold numbers of prospects to you?
Exposure? The net provides vast exposure and near instant contact.
Selling the idea to Realtors seems to be more difficult in framing the idea for clients. The traditional ideas of phrasing in advertising for our listings, simple rules in composing copy, seem to be more effective than our selling the new technologies to our salespeople.
For some, perhaps, the new tech is not “sexy” enough in and of itself. We need to find a way to change that.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:06 am
[…] Agents will take advantage? This is the part that hurts so much, if you remember back to my post on “Old School vs New School”, you will remember that only 3% of Real Estate Agents nationwide are actively involved in Web 2.0 […]
April 7th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
[…] I don’t write many post just linking to another post, but this one is right on the money. GeekEstateBlog.com has a great post that shows the difference between today’s high-tech agent and, well, everyone else!Eric Bryant wrote this post & I have to thank him for making the point so clearly. Read it here. […]
April 7th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Thanks Eric, This is right on the money. We see the same kind of division within our brokerage, Diamond Dwellings