We have so many technology options in the real estate industry.
From free to very expensive.
From basic to complicated.
From works like a charm to buggy & pieced together with duct tape.
From third-party to broker-built.
From required to use (ie broker review & getting paid) to optional.
Your brokerage offers a technology platform (hopefully beyond the basics of what comes with your local board association) but do you use it? Do you love it? Or do you use something else?
Do you love your website? Do your clients like your website to search for homes (or do they keep going back to Zillow)? Here's a tip, real estate 101: get your friends, family, & clients OFF of ZILLOW to look at real estate eye candy & on to your real estate website. The key here with YOUR REAL ESTATE WEBSITE is do those clicks & leads come direct to you, or is it really your BROKER's WEBSITE & they get the leads & get to distribute them (for a cost) as they see fit? You need a website that is YOURS ... it may be sponsored & provided by your broker (I do not recommend spending money on building a website ... no no no!), but it is branded for YOU. This is a very EXPENSIVE differentiation here ... broker-delivered leads typically have a big referral fee / split attached to them. If you already generated the lead in the first place, it should come direct to you. (Did you follow that? Happy to talk through this with you & analyze your website if you're not fully understanding this critical difference.)
In one way or another, you're paying for your broker provided tech (fees, splits), so I am curious if you are using the tools provided? No judgement here ... you should use the tools you like to use. The key is you're using them. And I am a fan of saving money.
I have personally varied on this throughout my career. From early on not even realizing how much better my tech could be (I had no idea my first couple years, many many years ago), to then learning what a CRM was (loooooong time ago), to later having a robust system that was touted as great but no one liked. The old adage ... "the best CRM is the one you actually use", this rings true. It seems there are agents out there who do not use a CRM at all ... how do they effectively love on their database?
My main question here is this ...
What am I paying for & do I use it?
What are you paying for & do you use it?
Do you systematically touch your database?
So let's do a quick exercise (I'm doing this too!) ...
What does my broker provide & how much does that cost?
What am I actually using & what do I pay?
What gaps do I have in my business with my technology & systems?
How well do I communicate with & track my top 250 contacts, my database?
Happy to do a consult ... you can CLICK HERE to land on my calendar for a quick tech consult.
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