Real Estate Changes

April 22, 2010
Volume 4 Issue #2

April 15th started our 5th year in business as Next Level Solutions. Doesn’t sound like a long time in years but in Internet years it seems like almost half of an eternity. I’ve been involved in real estate for over 35 years which is a whole eternity.

There is one fact of life that jumps out on looking back over the years—CHANGE.
Life changes.
Business changes.
Most everything changes.
(OK my hair hasn’t changed but there are more and more products on the market that promise to grow it back.)

We've changed our business model 3 times since we started.  Currently, we're creating custom websites and customizing blogs in WordPress.  Our company has come a long way from the days of redoing Advanced Access templates! As a two man company (actually husband and wife), we've learned the fine art of give-and-take and constructive squabbling to hopefully produce some pretty darn good websites. All that happened over the course of 4 years. Wow!

To survive in the website business as well as in the real estate business you have to deal with and accept change.
The market changes.
Marketing changes.
Prospecting methods change.
The rules change.
What customers expect changes.

To me, the most important part of dealing with change is the customer expectation part. To succeed you have to meet customer expectations. Customers expect their agents to have a web presence and to use that web presence to help them meet their goals. Even your grandmother becomes web savvy when it comes to buying or selling real estate.

So what do you do?

Spend some time learning about the new tools available.
Learn to evaluate technology in terms of benefits to your customers.
Start using the technology tools that make the most sense to you and will benefit your customers the most.
If you already use technology, re-evaluate it for effectiveness and current market appeal.

This might help.

You do not have to understand all the ins and outs of how products or tools work; if you use them, just know how they benefit your customers.
People skills, perseverance, negotiating skills and actual market knowledge will never go out of fashion.
It is OK to get help; no one can be expected to know everything.
One more time, if you don’t understand how something can benefit your customers don’t do it!

We strongly recommend that you blog to help with search engine positioning and to establish yourself as an expert either in a geographic area or a niche market such as short sales.

To all our customers and readers—Thanks for making the last 4 years so exciting and fulfilling and we look forward to helping you understand and put technology to work for you and your customers.

Tech Tip
Make sure you review your blog or website in both Internet Explorer and Firefox (Firefox is widely used by Internet savvy younger users). What looks great in one doesn’t always look right in the other. Having both web browsers on your computer will not cause any problems and will come in handy every once in awhile.