The amount of technology real estate professionals have at their fingertips continues to grow, making it increasingly difficult to put together a well-rounded tech stack that’s both practical and cost-effective.
During RISMedia’s recent webinar—“How to Save on Tech Expenses by Choosing the Right Product”—panelists Rivers Pearce, co-founder and CEO of W8LESS; and Brandon Brittingham, CEO and team leader of the Maryland and Delaware Group of Long & Foster Real Estate, share how implementing the correct tech solutions will save you in the long run by streamlining your processes and introducing necessary automation.
The webinar was sponsored by BoomTown and moderated by Verl Workman, founder and CEO of Workman Success Systems.
Kicking off the conversation, Pearce pointed to the importance of understanding the term ‘dark tech,’ or all the technology you’re paying for and not using. Drilling down further, dark tech can also refer to redundant things.
According to Pearce, the simplest way to determine what type of dark tech is lurking in the background of your organization is to look at your credit card statement.
“Determine what you’re paying for, what category it falls into, what it should be doing and how much it costs,” said Pearce.
Most importantly, however, is to figure out the adoption rate of any and all technology being offered to agents within the organization.
“When you have a bigger system, or ones that are more expensive, they may not be dark tech in that people aren’t using them outright, but if it isn’t being adopted fully, you’re not getting your ROI out of it,” added Pearce.
“At the very least, trim the fat and get rid of things you’re not using. If that leaves a gap, figure out why they weren’t using that product, or find something to fill that gap.”
“If you want to ensure that you’re not wasting money, focus on adoption,” echoed Mac Hill, customer advocacy & influencer manager at Boomtown—a company that’s on a mission to make agents more successful.
While technology is a must-have in today’s ever-evolving industry, it must work together if you want to get the biggest bang for your buck.
“In this day and age, in the world of APIs where things can talk to each other, they should talk to each other. And while it takes a little bit of expertise, the more you can get them communicating with one another, the better it’s going to be from an efficiency standpoint,” said Pearce.
Once the pipes are connected so that everything can flow where it needs to go, automation is the next big step in creating leverage—a notion that’s not lost on Brittingham.
In fact, he’s made it a point to automate everything, beginning with speed to lead.
“The expectation of today’s consumer is that someone will respond to them and help them right away, so it’s important to master that speed to lead,” explained Brittingham.
“You’re throwing money out the window buying leads if you don’t have a system and automation and technology to get to them fast,” added Brittingham, who went on to explain that the gold is in the leads that are in an agent’s database, but not necessarily ready to do anything in the next 90 days.
The best way to hold on to those leads? According to Brittingham, it’s all about going deeper rather than wider.
“We always want to go wider and buy something else, but if you look at what you have in front of you, and you simplify it and go after that, I guarantee there are a lot more transactions than you think.”
And while real estate professionals specifically are quick to make financial investments in technology, they often overlook the second investment: time.
“If you aren’t consistently investing time into it to make it better, then you’re losing both time and money because you’re always playing catch up and you have so many holes in your system,” said Brittingham.
“Running a business is by no means easy, but it’s a lot easier if you run it like a business and you automate everything and take the time to build in standard operating procedures and processes that can be duplicated,” he concluded.
View the webinar in full, below:
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