90% Still Don’t Get It!
By Allen Hainge · August 17, 2008
As you know NikNik, Chad and I have a strong love for real estate technology. Recently we crossed paths with Allen Hainge, President of Cyberstars. Alan will occasionally contribute his thoughts on marketing, technology and its application in the real estate industry. Please Welcome Allen as a guest contributor to MyTechOpinion. [Read full bio here.]
What an opportunity! 90% of the agent population still relies on traditional marketing methods: classified ads, same-ol-same-ol real estate magazine ads, recipe cards, open houses, floor duty, etc. Folks like you, as evidenced by your reading MyTechOpinion.com, realize that you can market much more effectively and reach far more prospects for less money by using methods that meet the needs of today’s consumer.
How do I know? I teach tech seminars to the real estate industry, both my own seminars and as a Senior Instructor for the Council of Residential Specialists (CRS). Across the country, I see that the majority of agents are well-grounded in traditional marketing but that a small percentage are using Web marketing to build their businesses.
Fortunately, there are exceptions. Many of them can be found among my CyberStarsTM, a group of 200 agents from the US, Canada, the Bahamas and Australia. We are a networking group of top agents who use today’s technology to meet the needs of today’s consumer. You will hear about them and see examples of how they use today’s technology to capture their markets in future posts, but I will mention one here.
James Nellis of RE/MAX Allegiance, Burke, VA, has always taken the lead in marketing with today’s technology. He shared one of his latest finds with us recently: Issuu.com. This dynamic site lets you save documents such as PowerPoint presentations to pdf format and then upload them to Issuu.com, where they display as stunning presentations in book, magazine, journal, newspaper or photo album formats.
You can see James’s listing presentation on Issuu here or one of his beautiful property brochures here.
Note one more thing: James has his listing presentation on Issuu (and also on YouTube). More about why he (and other CyberStarsTM) does that and how it works in my next post.
For now, congratulations on being in the 10%….those agents who realize that you need to know how to use today’s technology to meet the needs of today’s consumer!
Other posts you may enjoy:
Tags: networking group, crs, property brochures, top agents, traditional marketing, seminars
Being in the 10% is great. I still have a lot to learn. The issue is how many agents have the people skills, work ethic, business sense, and the tech know how to be successful. Its just not that many who wnat or can spend the time to be successful or can afford it.
Most of the agents I see will be here and gone in a couple of years. However when the 10% come along they can advance much more quickly in the tech age than they could before. My 2 cents.
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Issuu looks like a great site, one question I have for James is that….is there any concern that you wont get the listing appointment call if the prospective client sees your persentation on Issuu and then figures that they have seen enough? I am sure there are things that need to go along with that presentation face to face that cannot be conveyed from Issuu?
I’ve been preaching this to my fellow loan officers for one heck of a long time and I can’t wait to see what you have coming in the future…
Good comment by Ted Mackel:
“Issuu looks like a great site, one question I have for James is that….is there any concern that you wont get the listing appointment call if the prospective client sees your persentation on Issuu and then figures that they have seen enough?”
Look at it this way, Ted: chances are that if they don’t “buy” your listing presentation (posted on your site and on Issuu.com), they wouldn’t list with you if you were face-to-face, either. A number of agents have confirmed this in discussions I’ve had with them. They make two great points:
* You save a lot of time by not going on appointments where you wouldn’t get the listing anyway.
* You save a lot of time when they DO have you in for an appointment because you are pre-sold.
Again, Ted, thanks for the comment…great hearing from you again!
Being Internet savvy I think is a must-have, not a nice-to-have. I expect the stats to flip over the next few years, with 90% getting it, and 10% not.
George
[...] Agents Still Don’t Get It! (NikNik is not the author - but it’s a valuable read on her blog) Filed Under: UncategorizedTagged: blogging, Marketing, nik nik, real estate, technology Please check Seminar page for upcoming events. [...]
George O’Neill wrote:
“I expect the stats to flip over the next few years, with 90% getting it, and 10% not.”
Thanks for your comment, George….and I wish I could agree with you, my friend. Unfortunately, the 10% “get it” factor has remained static for a number of years…I wish I could be hopeful that it will change, but I don’t think it will.
I have been teaching real estate technology nationwide and in Canada for years, and I never give up hope. However, I haven’t seen much change since the early “Howard & Friends” days. Some adapt, but most adults fear the new. Today, change is coming at ‘em so fast that, I’m afraid, more and more are getting left behind.