Tales from the Techside

I am hearing a lot of this right now. To say that this is a tough time for many in our industry is an understatement.

So what can you do? Well, without knowing your business model and strategy, it is hard to answer precisely. But I thought it might be a good time for a no nonsense hit list of things that you can do (FYI, if you don’t have a business model or strategy yet, this obviously cannot help… however, if you DO, and it isn’t producing, now may be the time to get aggressive about surveying the landscape and updating that plan).

Do a quick inventory of what you have and what you do. Of this, what do you think could benefit from an overhaul. Practical example - your office is 10 miles away but the local starbucks is 2. Take your wireless laptop, some business cards, and meet some consumers. They certainly aren’t in your office place, so the coffee house office is a real potential opportunity. That doesn’t work? Take a colleague, so that you can maintain a conversation that others might find alluring. I think you will find that the $3.49 Venti Mocha tastes much better than a $3.49 gallon of Unleaded.

Provide information to the consumer to get them off the fence. Remind yourself that you are doing this for their own good. All around me I am hearing people talking about buying a house. I hope to be one of them shortly. So I honestly believe that the consumers are ready, but they may not be the type of consumers that you were facing before. The giddiness is gone. There is a skepticism and caution about them. Which is precisely why I think more REALTOR® should be talking about the fact that the ‘average’ downturn lasts roughly 24 months (as much as these complex things can be generalized).

They should be flaunting statistics showing what a home investment would look like if purchased in 1997, and point out that now is the time to find values to match or exceed that performance charted over the next 10 years. They need to be prepared for tough questions about mortgages and be clear that they are going to help consumers make realistic choices about what is practical and feasible. I hear many consumers saying that loans are difficult to secure. That is simply not true, as much as any oversimplification cannot be. Break out loan information for consumers so they understand that if they can shop below jumbo, there are plenty of options.

If you are not online in as many places as you can be, strongly consider taking a few days to focus on just that. If you don’t know how, call me and I will give you some pointers.

If you are online, and it simply isn’t working, there is no ROI for you, then strongly consider getting offline rapidly. Turn it off if it isn’t working, and go back to the drawing board. Especially if you are investing a substantial amount in that service. You get to keep the domain names, so don’t fret about that, and it is a good idea to consider overhauling your online presence once every couple of years in any event. (if you are in the middle, Mark and I have both written a number of articles on things you can do to fine tune).

Wear your REALTOR® pin everywhere but the swimming pool. Seriously, I have heard a lot of stories about the random interaction at the supermarket generating a transaction.

Learn about REO and foreclosed properties. The optimum time for these tricky deals will not be protracted, but the desire for that unbelievable deal (and the stories will abound as this market clears out) will linger for a decade. That is ten years that you can be helping consumers search for that perfect deal. When they cannot find it, guess what, you are there to explain to them that sometimes it is enough to get a great deal and move on with living in that deal sooner. The REO and foreclosure market is tricky, by most accounts, but I genuinely believe that the knowledge itself can help translate into more traditional transactions for many agents.

Be Happy. It’s actually a really big deal. Take a day to look at the person that you want to project. Spend a good part of that day looking in the mirror, literally. There is nothing disingenuous about trying to consciously project a positive image of yourself. The majority of us have a rather complex persona that is often a whirl of conflicting ’states’ of emotion. Which do you choose to project? Believe it or not, you can make a conscious choice about this. Try it. Be positive, even if you have to laugh at what a tiny silver lining you found in something… at least it is silver. If you can do that for a few days, I gurantee it will start to reinforce, as others around you respond. A smile is the greatest gift of all, corny but true, because if you give it to someone genuinely, they will instantly give it back to you.

And with that bit of doggerel, I will end my post. If you have had success navigating these troubled waters and have a tip you could share, please feel free.

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