I’ve always been a big fan of the stories from the old days. Usually the ones that stick around long enough have great lessons to be learned in them. Everything from stories in the Bible to basic Aesop fables. One of my favorites, that I admittedly don’t always remember, is the story of the Grasshoppers and the Ants. You know, the one where the grasshoppers party all summer and the ants work all summer storing their food for winter. Guess who makes it thru winter?

Well I can’t help but think this story applies to today’s current real estate market more than ever. We’re officially in the heart of one of the coldest winters in real estate. We all knew the market couldn’t continue to grow at the rate it was growing in 2005. Yet so many Realtors forgot the lessons we’ve all been taught and bought luxury cars, second homes, furniture, investment properties, etc. Thinking the money would always be coming in. Those days of easy money are now over and bills seems to be holding many agents from being able to invest in their success coming out of the downturn.

Let’s not forget these days/months/years of struggle that we’re going thru right now. Let’s bookmark this era in real estate so we can take these lessons and teach them to the future of real estate.

There’s a reason those stories have been around for so long. Let’s keep them around until we all learn the lessons from them.

The longer I am a participant in the real estate industry, the more I realize just how different it is from any other that I have been involved with. Sure, every industry has its distinctions, but real estate has a unique facet that puts it in a rare class. In most industries, whether they admit it or not, businesses are run from the top down. Real estate is all about bottom up…..and that’s a problem right now. Many will strongly disagree, but the industry is in dire need of top down changes.

The consumption of real estate technology is an illustration of the need for change. In traditional industries, technology is sold to companies, not employees. The reasons are numerous, but one is that companies want to control the tools that their employees use in order to maintain efficiencies, product and service quality, marketing messages, and so on.

In my company, if I informed each sales rep that they had to evaluate, select, and pay for their own contact management system, leads, website, and other tools, most would quickly fail. I would be asking them to divert a degree of focus away from their most important responsibility which is bringing in new revenue and providing great customer service. As a kicker, I’m going to have them pay me for the privilege of working for my company. A couple of outstanding individuals may survive, but for most, one of two things would happen.

About 80% would do a very poor job of finding and using the technologies, either because they simply can’t, or wont because of concerns over time away from sales activities. The other 20% would spend a great deal of time on the technologies, implement a couple of decent ones, and have little time left to spend servicing clients. To me, both alternatives are losing propositions. Never mind the fact that the sales reps are not even qualified to do the job that I would be asking them to do. That’s not an indictment of them; it’s just a statement of fact that that is not the skill set they were hired for.

Why then has this become the accepted model in real estate? I think it’s simple. The old adage of “If it aint broke, don’t fix it” is alive and well. During a recent conference, I spoke to several agents who pointed out that many of their peers don’t even have e-mail. My question to them was, “Why would the broker allow this”? Their response was “Those agents continue to pay their fees”. Now, I understand the fact that real estate agents are not employees, they are independents, but the bottom line is that the agent is still a reflection of the brokerage. Furthermore, the performance of the agent is the number one contributor to the perception of the real estate professional community as a whole, and that perception isn’t very good right now.

So what if the system is truly broke but nobody realizes it yet. Although new technologies have been trickling into real estate for the past 10 years, they have really just recently hit their stride. We haven’t had time yet to grasp the very real possibility that independent agents will never have the “appetite” to consume this much technology. The technologies aren’t just going away though. So what does this mean? I believe it means that we are on the cusp of seeing tangible changes in the relationship between real estate companies and their agents.

Real estate companies are indicating awareness of the issue by stating their need to do a better job of education. I’m sorry, but this is not enough. I don’t want to take anything away from excellent training. It’s critical to a company’s success. Unfortunately though, “more training” has become a cliché. Everyone says they are doing it, and very few really are. I’m personally tired of hearing the excuse that you can’t make your agents do this or that. If the same amount of effort was put into active agent management as is put into making sure the broker logo is properly displayed on every agent website, we would probably be a lot better off.

Not all is negative however. New real estate companies are springing up and experimenting with exercising control over their agents marketing and technology. I predict success for several of them. The manner in which companies provide and manage technology for their agents is going to be important when those agents are selecting their brokerage. I even believe that agents will pay slightly more for access to these technologies as long as it is measurable, and the reality is that large brokerages and companies can secure the technologies at a fraction of the cost that an agent can. Finally, I believe that the days of real estate companies relying exclusively on their brand as a way to recruit new agents are numbered. In the future, brokerages are going to realize that the way to provide the best possible service to their prospective home buyers and sellers is not to tell their agents to use technology, but instead, demand it and ensure it by driving the bus.

Now that everyone has digested the incredible amount of information presented in three short days at the Inman conference, many are asking “now what?” I love this particular conference because it brings together the best minds in technology, most of whom are fairly candid….ok some are maybe too candid. Outside of the tech leaders, there is a smattering of brokers mixed with an even smaller number of agents (using your fingers and toes to count would suffice).

When I first attended the conference last year I wondered why more agents did not attend. Then, toward the end of this years conference when I was in dire need of a defrag on my brain (or a cocktail), it hit me. How would most agents respond if they were sitting in the room hearing about all of these new technologies? Aside from a few tech savvy agents, I would bet the farm that a huge majority would feel the sudden urge to sprint from the room and order a double on the rocks pronto.

As I see it, the problem isn’t necessarily with the new technologies. A lot of them are intriguing, and some may actually get a house or two sold. Agents are typically solo or members of small teams, however, so implementing just a fraction of the new technologies would mean a steady diet of espresso and 20 hour work days. Very few of these new technologies work together and therefore force agents to learn and use multiple systems, measure their individual effectiveness, pay for them separately, and so on. It seriously brings into question whether or not a majority of today’s agents have a big enough appetite to consume everything that they are being fed. This leads me to ask the following questions:

1) What is the best way for individual agents to use the technologies instead of getting run over by them?

2) Should brokers be doing more to assist their agents with technology?

3) What other organizations (think Realtor associations) should be doing more to assist agents with technology?

I’m typically not an apologist for agents who do not effectively use technology to their advantage, but I must admit that the landscape looks pretty intimidating from where I’m sitting.

Ok, this years Connect conference was awfully busy for us at Incredible Agent. There was plenty to do and lots of people to meet and catch up with.

As always, there are lots of take aways from Connect. Here are a few things we learned this year…
1. BS is marketing 1.0
2. User Generated Content(UGC) is marketing 2.0
3. Your online reputation will replace your resume.
4. Web 2.0 started on some island in the South Pacific in 1917. (Kula! Kula! Kula!)
5. Blogging is getting bigger. Much Bigger!
6. Being a Geek is cooler than it was in High School. (www.GeekEstateBlog.com)
7. There are lots of features being created and not many businesses.
8. Everyone is a competitor and some are friendlier than others.
9. Business is still about people and face to face introductions.
10. There are plenty of small ideas, but very few big ones.
11. Our industry is panicked with excitement.

Overall, it was a very good conference. Last year, there were some companies in the audience that were under the radar who showed up big at this conference. It makes me wonder which companies were under the radar this year and will be big next year. Hmmm??? We’ll have to wait and see.

It’s hard to believe, but yes, we’re giving away our real estate website to every Realtor and brokerage who wants to use it for free. It’s also open to anyone who wants to add new tools, create custom designs and do anything they need to make their website better. No longer are Realtors and brokerages stuck with using old technology from 1998 and limited to only their designs.
Find yourself saying…”You fools, why are you giving your websites away for free?” We’ll tell you…because we’re tired of looking at all the junk Realtor websites that lose leads, get no traffic, cost Realtors valuable marketing dollars and do nothing in the search engines. Yes, we’re talking about Point 2, Advanced Access, Superlative, Z57, Number1Expert and all the others. Those companies have been keeping Realtors behind technological bars for years and we are here to free them. The current web providers don’t understand Web 2.0 and probably never will. Realtors need to stay up with technology if they are going to stay in business in this fast changing environment.

Our websites are very different than the other real estate agent websites you’ve seen. We’ve integrated Google Maps, YouTube, a simple blogging platform, lead capture forms, some fancy AJAX, Home Feeds for listings syndication and much more. I encourage you to check out our demonstration website at http://demo.incredibleagent.com to get a feel for what these sites are truly capable of.

2.0 in 2 minutes:
You can say bye-bye to that stale old website and hello to your new one in a matter of minutes. It’s literally a 2 minute process to create your own website and begin editing it in “preview mode” before you launch. Simply go to http://www.incredibleagent.com/membership.php to sign up and begin using your new website. Once you’re ready to launch all you need to do is point your domain name servers over to ours and you’ll be live within 24 to 48 hours.

Here are a few screen shots for you..

Here are some photos from our Incredible blog fest that we threw last night with the Blog Tour USA guys from Sellsius Real Estate. We were joined by many bloggers and everyone enjoyed the margarita fountain, lots of beers (more than we expected) and lots of mini chimi’s. Blogging and drinking just seem to go together, so we’re looking forward to the bloggers connect party in SF in a couple of weeks. Hope to see everyone there.

Rudy, Tom & myself having a little fun

Tom, Monica & I hanging by the bus

Christoph Schweiger, John Dalton & David Smith talking up a storm.

Michelle Shelton and team member from the AZ Mastermind Group

A little crowd shot for you.

We’re happy to announce our sponsorship of our friends over at Sellsius Real Estate on their Blog Tour USA. They will be driving over 8,000 miles across the country in an RV for the entire month of July. Stopping along the way for events at each destination to meet up with the local bloggers. We encourage everyone to say hello as they stop by your city. Click here to see what cities they’ll be visiting. They will be ending their tour in San Francisco at the Inman Bloggers Connect.

I dug into my closet the other day and found my trusty magic 8 ball from when I was in high school. I asked it a few potent questions about the future of the real estate industry over the next year and thought I would post the responses here. Feel free to weigh in on some of the questions or just want me to ask some new ones. I’m sure I’m missing a few great questions. By no means is this scientific…but the magic 8 ball is all powerful, so keep an eye out for some of the predictions.

Q: Will Zillow and Trulia be direct competitors fighting for advertising dollars?
A: Signs point to yes.

Q: Will Realtors find it more important to post their homes to their website than it will be to post it to the MLS?
A: Outlook Good

Q: Will the real estate lead industry change dramatically?
A: Reply Hazy, Try Again

Q: Do you think comments and ratings on home listings will become commonplace?
A: Ask again later

Q: Will Realtors lose potential clients if they do not have maps and cool web 2.0 tools on their website? (Being cool is hip)
A: It is certain

Q: Is the IDX going into the twilight years of it’s life?
A: You may rely on it

Q: Will there be massive consolidation in the Real Estate industry?
A: Outlook Good

Q: Will the beginning of a National MLS be released?
A: It is certain

Q: Do you think Video home tours will begin to replace the virtual tour?
A: Yes, Definitely

Q: Will Realtors spend more time on their computer than in their car?
A: Most Likely

Q: Will more Realtors start to recognize the importance of real estate agent reviews.
A: It is certain

Q: Will brokerages?
A: Outlook Good

Q: Do you think many Web 2.0 companies will fall just like the Web 1.0 companies did previously?
A: Concentrate and ask again (so, I did)
A2: Better not tell you now (Dang!)

Q: Will every Realtor at least know what a blog is?
A: Don’t count on it

Q: Will the real estate market bounce back?
A: Ask again later

For 100% of my real estate career I have loathed real estate websites. Simply put…They suck! That’s one of the reason’s I started Incredible Agent. I wanted to create good websites that stayed up to date with technology and didn’t look like they were built in 1997. This is a common complaint and I am 100% confident that I am not alone. I hear it all the time from agents, consumers, home buyers…whoever! It’s the first thing on their mind when I say I help agents market themselves on the Internet. Personally, I think the people in charge of the website providers should be taken out back and straightened out. You know who they are….Homes.com, Superlative, Z57, Number1Expert, AdvancedAccess, Etc.

Since starting Incredible Agent, we’ve been able to help a few agents with their website. Not nearly as many as we want, but we have a big announcement coming soon that will help every agent have a great looking and productive website. If you want to help in this endeavor…drop us a line. We’re looking for a few good people to spread the word.

What I love best about the whole web 2.0 revolution is that you can put a website out there and change it over time. That’s what we’ve done with our real estate agent review website IncredibleAgents.com. The only difference is that we left the whole “beta” tag off the logo. Here are some of the recent changes we’ve made to the site.

1. Free Accounts: Ability for agents to edit their account for free.
2. Simple Questionnaires: Simplified the questionnaire process and allow the agents to edit their questionnaire.
3. Video Introductions: Agents can now add a YouTube video introduction to their profile.
4. Dispute Reviews: Allowing agents to Dispute reviews they think are bogus.
5. Confirm Reviews: Attempting to confirm each review left on the site.
6. Highlighting Agents: Incredible and Preferred agents are now highlighted in every city on their profile.

Upcoming Changes: We are working on a few new tweaks to the site to make it more powerful for the agents and their offices. All in due time…all in due time.