“Old School” Real Estate vs “Tech Savvy” Agents

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”

The Coach