By Matthew Collis
Think about iPads, tablets, real estate CRMs, QR codes, blogging, digital document storage and other technology tools. If you’re not embracing them, they’re not fully working for you.
Here’s the problem. Many real estate agents don’t consider themselves “tech savvy”. They may be interested in technology, but they haven’t fully embraced it.
As a Realtor, embracing technology is essential to future success. The first step is being open to learning and willing to expand your horizons.
Is technology, like a real estate CRM, hard to learn, use and fully integrate into your business? More often than not, the answer is a resounding no. Like anything else, it’s simply new and different at first. But you’ll adjust.
When you are interested and invested in technology, and have taken the necessary steps to integrate it into your business, the rewards can be extraordinary.
For instance, many of our customers at IXACT Contact have built their entire business from referrals and repeat clients. This is a result of using their real estate CRM to properly keep in touch with past clients and important referral sources on a long-term, ongoing basis.
A real estate CRM is just the beginning. I know many Realtors who can easily “wow” their prospects and clients with sleek, technology-driven listing presentations, state-of-the-art property videos, an impactful, feature-rich website and unique and innovative marketing and advertising tools.
Does all this bring more business, help them stay more “on-the-ball,” be organized and in-control? Absolutely!
There are two enlightening studies that were conducted by the online real estate community ActiveRain. The first, Real Estate Marketing and Software: The Price is Right, found that “agents earning more than $100,000 spend 79 per cent and 22 per cent more on their website and CRM respectively than agents earning less than $35,000.” The second study, Rich Real Estate Agent, Poor Real Estate Agent, found that those making over $100,000 invest six times as much in technology than those earning under $35,000 a year. Almost twice as many of these successful agents use a real estate CRM than the poor ones.
Both of these studies underscore the strong correlation between investing in and embracing technology and business success.
Dave Liniger, chairman and co-founder of Re/Max International, is a strong advocate of agents taking technology and using it to improve their business. When Liniger was named the “People’s Choice Most Influential Real Estate Leader” by Inman News last year, he used his acceptance speech to extol the virtues of agents adapting to technology and the dangers inherent if they don’t.
He mentioned that not very long ago (three or four years ago now), most of us had never even heard of an app or iPad. Now, the word iPad is a household name and more than 600,000 iPad apps have been created.
The issue may not have anything to do with technology and may be the bigger issue of change. Are you someone who readily adapts to change or do you tend to cringe and resist it?
If you fall into the latter category, your job may become increasingly difficult in the years ahead (if it hasn’t already) as technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace and your competition uses it to their advantage. This all happens as you trail behind, missing out on easy leads (perhaps low-hanging fruit) and great sources of new business and income.
Incorporating technology into your business can feel like a daunting task. Where do you start and how do you do it? The best approach is to prioritize the technologies you think might help you the most and then implement them one at a time in a step-by-step fashion. Don’t try to “eat the elephant” all in one meal. Instead, break it down into smaller steps where you can learn one or two functions that you can then apply to your business.
If you invest just 30 minutes every day, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you’ll start to see real results. If you’re not careful, within a few months you might get the reputation as the “tech wizard” within your office that your colleagues turn to for technology advice and help!
As technology constantly improves changes and evolves, Realtors need to adapt these technologies to their business. Those who do will be better positioned for success as we move into the years ahead.
Matthew Collis is part of the sales and marketing team at IXACT Contact Solutions Inc., a North American real estate CRM firm. In addition to overseeing many key sales and marketing programs, he works with Realtors to help them achieve their real estate goals through effective contact management and relationship marketing.
