Month: December 2017

Improve the experience.

Real estate technology changed rapidly. Creators of the technology know who their customers are and they’re making apps to make their customer’s lives easier, swifter, more efficient. From our offices we open access for our customers to use these apps. The real estate experience of those folks also may be easier, swifter, more efficient because the app exists.  We didn’t create the app. We have not improved the experience by being a pathway to the technology.

Those who make techno tools may devise something people can’t see living without. (a camera in their phone) Those who don’t could make a low tech advantage the client will not want to live without.  Feelings keep a person coming back or moving away.   It’s easy to  let a person feel special. It’s also easy to leave a person feeling disregarded.  How we approach contracts is a great place to change the feeling from disregard to special.

As the world turns toward technological precision and away from human interaction skills, there may be a giant gap in the human interaction enhancement world.  Whoever fills this gap will have the secret to the real estate agent remaining relevant. Or even necessary.

 

The Opportunity of Failure

Seth Godin wrote a simple thought about failure today. He said, “Failure (and the fear of failure) gives you a chance to have a voice…”.  Because we care, the Realtor has a voice in calming the fear, in removing the risk.  How often do we begin with calming the fear, and when do we begin by raising the anxiety?  A typical message from the real estate industry begins with creating fear of loss. Loss of economic opportunity, loss of prestige, loss of a house, loss of time, loss of winning. And then, after we’ve riled the public into discontent, our industry expects the public to look to us to provide a solution.  All we’ve done is created an environment for businesses with a calming voice to step in and take the share of the market which desires security.

The expansion of Zillow’s presence in the market place is directly related to our industry’s commitment to continue to instill fear and worry in the public with media campaigns and mantras. “Now is the time… Don’t wait…Rates are going up…prices are going up…prices are going down…”.

Empowering people to make wise decisions in controlled environments is the alternative to keeping people in the dark, and raising instilling fear. As long as Realtors continue to rely on fear of failure, there will be great opportunity for Realtors who deliver contentment, security, hope, and confidence.   Seth Godin

Did an Attorney Draft that Offer? Even a first year agent can draft impressive contracts.

A Realtor in his first 12 months of business submitted an offer yesterday and got this response from the listing agent. ” Did her attorney draft this Offer?”  Agent replied, “Nope. Just me.”  Listing agent: “Are you a lawyer?” Agent: “Nope”.

I always ask new licensees to tell me what they fear most about starting their careers. It’s common to hear that what wakes them up at 3 AM with worries is making mistakes, disappointing someone, or just plain looking like they don’t know what they’re doing.  There is a solution to that worry and fear. It’s learning. More than two years ago we started weekly Skill Share sessions designed to raise our knowledge of contracts.  We believe the best way to be relevant in the real estate transaction is to know how to make the contracts work for our clients and to do that we had to know what is and isn’t in the contracts. We had to learn to take addenda from other firms and lawyers apart to discover the hidden trips, and traps. We’ve done that, and more.

Today, our experienced agents and our relatively new agents who make the commitment to attend, participate, learn, and share have insight well beyond the understanding of even the most experienced agents. (Don’t be so sure that experience equals competence. Time is not the difference maker, learning is.)

Imagine being well prepared to fix a bad contingency and prepared to draft terms that work for everyone. You can do it in your first year. Just make the commitment to learn. We’ll give you the insight. That’s our unfair advantage. We care that you’re prepared.