I get so many emails and information daily I can’t keep track of who sends me what.  Here is something that came in and I quickly copied the numbers and important things for digesting later.  According to Leslie Appleton-Young, Chief Economist and Vice President of California Association of REALTORS, her analysis of the California Real Estate Market for 2006.

92% of internet buyers found their agent online, 63% found them through an internet search engine.  These people did not find their agent through what we call conventional marketing like brochures, yard signs, flyers or stuff mailed to their homes.  Actually they contribute 0% to conventional marketing.  So this made me think of a few things, first you need a very strong web presence but more importantly we now have a level playing field.  Let’s talk about the level playing field first.  I meet many new agents just getting into the business and they are concerned about the top producer in the office having such a great advantage just due to the fact they have been in business for ever.  So if the agent wants to quickly position themselves to grow their business they just need a little better web presence then the 20 year veteran.  Wow, you can position yourself right there next to the top producers, and you don’t have to wait a year for my conventional advertising to take affect.  Now before you start slamming me for not giving the veterans credit, the veterans can have just as big of a web presence plus they can say “top Producer in my city for the past 20 years”.  Guess what the veteran wins. 

Story for you, I was speaking in Charlotte, NC a few years ago and I had a guy come up and ask me to dinner, he had been to all my sessions in the past, never turn down a free meal.  Anyway we go to dinner and he told me the following story.  “After your last visit I realized I needed to get my act together with technology.  I boosted my website to gain a major web presence and bought a Smartphone because of you.  I started checking my email regularly and one day while my daughter was driving us back to college I checked my email.  I just got an email from a buyer in Denver asking me to contact him, I quickly called and he told me you win!  I said excuse me, he told me he searched the web for an agent and had decided on two of us based on our web presence, so he email both of us at the same time and the first to call him back got his business.  Turns out over a year in amounted to a few million in sales and referrals.”  I didn’t feel bad ordering that second bottle of wine! 

Bottom line he had not only a web presence but had the technology to capture the business.  You need a complete Technology Plan, not just web, not just mobile BUT everything!

Dick Betts

National Speaker