I started writing an article on the subject of what makes a good real estate website and had a bit of an epiphany; how can you possibly create an effective real estate website if you don’t fundamentally understand the value of technology and the important role it plays in your success as a real estate agent? In other words, before you can effectively do, you must know why you have to do so.
With that in mind, the goal of this post is to drag you kicking and screaming into the understanding of why you will not be successful without effectively utilizing technology in your real estate career. Don’t get me wrong here, there are always exceptions to the rule and I am not trying to scare you, but in my opinion you must embrace technology and make it work for you or you will go the way of the dodo.
Without further ado, here are 10 truths of technology and why it is essential for the modern day real estate agent:
Truth #1
You may not want to have a real estate website, but your clients definitely want you to.
Believe it or not but the needs and expectations of home buyers and sellers are changing. Unless they are coming to you from a very strong personal referral (sometimes even if), you can bet that having an attractive and effective REALTOR® website to market their listing on is moving higher and higher up their list of requirements, if it’s not already at the top.
Truth #2
There is no farm league in real estate; you are competing with the Wayne Gretzky’s of the industry from day 1 and technology can be your edge.
It doesn’t matter if your competition has 20+ years of experience in the real estate industry because no one has years and years of experience utilizing modern web technology in the field of real estate. As a new agent or even a seasoned agent trying to take it up a notch, this can be your edge in a highly competitive market.
Truth #3
Your website will more often than not be responsible for the ever important first impression and also the just as important last impression.
An awesome website does not replace old fashion pounding of the pavement, but one of the goals is for it to generate leads and be seen by as many people looking to buy or sell real estate as possible. This means that there will potentially be hundreds of people digesting the content and design of your site without you there to back it up. Having a solid website ensures that these first impressions are positive, which hopefully prompts them to contact you and give you their business.
Furthermore, you can bet your bottom that a potential client is going to do their due diligence before committing to you for the purchase or sale of their life’s most valuable asset. So it doesn’t matter if you set stellar first impression in person if once they get home and google you, they find a hideous website that looks like someones dog made it in the 80’s.
Truth #4
Even if your potential buyers and sellers are not tech savvy, their children and other people they trust will be.
You may be thinking that your target demographic isn’t tech savvy and prefer to do business in person and therefore things like websites, social media, etc. are not important. This may be true, but people talk and you can rest assured that someone they talk to is going to google you. So once again, if what they see is sub-par, it could tilt the scale in the wrong direction.
Truth #5
By skipping out on social media, it may not negatively impact your business but it definitely will not help your business
Simple as that; by choosing not to use social media as a marketing tool you are not committing career suicide like some people preach, but you are specifically not taking advantage of an incredibly effective tool to help grow your business dramatically. The fact is that there is a growing demographic of buyers/sellers that use social media as a way to find real estate agents, plumbers, restaurants, vacation spots, etc. and if you are not using it, you are saying no to the potential leads it can create for a relatively small time commitment.
Truth #6
If used properly, technology can save you time
When used properly technology should not only help you generate leads, but it should save you lots of time. This is one of the main things we ask ourselves whenever we build a new feature for RealtyNinja; will this save our clients time? Looking at this from the other side, you could say that by choosing not to effectively use technology, you are choosing to waste time.
Truth #7
Having an effective and easy to use mobile website is no longer a novelty; it is a must.
As mobile web traffic continues to sky rocket, in combination with the number of smart phones and tablets being purchased going through the roof, it is no longer acceptable to have a sub-par mobile experience. Your mobile website has to be easy to use on the myriad of available devices and screen sizes because the fact of the matter is that people will be visiting you on their mobile devices and you must be ready to receive them. This is why we have made it so that every RealtyNinja site comes with a full featured mobile site by default!
Truth #8
You may not always get the lead through your website but that does not mean it was not because of your website.
Obviously you want to get leads directly through your website in the form of requests for more info, form submissions etc. but this is not the only source of leads your website will help gather. Some of the leads you get through direct e-mail or phone calls will come in because you have an awesome website. Think about it; if I meet you and another agent at a cocktail party and you both leave top notch impressions with me, I am going to do some research before I choose an agent. This will most likely be in the form of googling your name and checking out your website. Again, if you don’t have a nice website, I may end up going with the other guy even though you may be more qualified and left just as strong of an impression.
Truth #9
As a new agent, a nice website and technology strategy can make other agents want to work with you more
New real estate agents often rely on working with more experienced agents to get experience of their own and a couple deals under their belts. We all know how many new agents there are and that most all of them are vying for the attention of the rock stars in the office. So you need to make sure that you have everything going in your favour to be chosen by said rock stars and an awesome, sexy and effective real estate website with a plan on how to actually utilize it could be the key.
Truth #10
Technology is changing at such a rapid pace that the longer you wait to embrace it, the harder it will be to stay on top of it
It’s mind boggling and somewhat stressful how fast technology is moving. It’s a full time job to stay on top of things and identify what is a fad and what has solid business value. This is why it is important to work with companies such as our own whose job it is to make sure that you are indeed on top of things so that you can focus on your core business which is real estate and not stress out about whether or not “you are on it”.
[hr]Choosing RealtyNinja for your real estate website provider means that you don’t have to worry about the things I wrote about above because that is our job. Let us worry about the best web technology to use and what lead generating features you need because that is our core business.
p.s. It goes without saying that technology is not everything. What it can do is take a good agent and make them better or help an agent with potential achieve that potential. It is a double edged sword though because if you throw technology at a bad real estate agent, it will only magnify the flaws. Use the force wisely my friends =)
