Real estate agents face four simultaneous disruptions: AI and social media, shifting buyer expectations, iBuyers, and market changes. The speaker says agents must improve client experience, adopt technology, stop relying on paid leads, and build referral-based businesses to survive.
Are you prepared for the shift storm that is coming to the real estate industry? We're actually in the midst of it right now, and if your head is buried in the sand, it's not going to end up well for you and you don't want to stay there for very long. You know, the real estate industry and really every industry, every service industry has been going through a transformation that as real estate agents, if we want to take our business to the next level and be relevant in the future and be in this business in the future, we have to take action and at least be aware of the forces at work. If you stick around, I'm going to give you a free copy of the Business Growth Navigator. It'll show you the six stages of your business growth journey and how to navigate them so you can actually make it through and survive. And if you like these videos, please give me the thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel and turn notifications on so you're the first to know about new videos as they hit. When I think about, you know, the shift storm that I described a second ago, I actually get excited. I look at other industries that have changed radically and, you know, the winners, the folks that are coming up on top in other industries, are doing things that we could mimic in our own businesses. If you think of best experience you've ever had at a restaurant or if you think of like the worst amusement park you've been to and the best amusement park you've been to or going to, I used to shop at TJ Maxx and there's nothing wrong with TJ Maxx. It's just different than Nordstrom, right? Nordstrom. I was brought coffee. They were just catering to me. They were making sure that if something didn't fit, they would get me another size. It was just a different experience altogether. So as you think about your real estate business and you want to be in business in the future, there are four things that you have to pay attention to that are going on right now. Number one is that we are going through a technology shift to say that, you know, technology isn't going to impact the real estate industry is not a place that you want to be. AI is just sort of coming into real estate in terms of consumers and their search abilities and just how we need to interact with our consumers, you know, from a technology perspective. And so if you're sort of holding on to the days where like the MLS books were printed out and you're sort of angry about where the real estate industry is going with technology, you've got to get over it. You've got to embrace social media, video. You've got to do the things that are going to keep you relevant in your business. Number two I just alluded to it is consumers are shifting. You know, consumers will go grab an Uber, they will head to the Apple Store, they will go to like topgolf in our areas, like a driving range. That's like the best driving range I've ever been to. They'll go to, we have a lifetime fitness here, which is a gym. It's like the Taj Mahal of gyms. They'll experience all of those things and then they'll come meet with a real estate agent. And the experience with most real estate agents is like a big letdown when they're getting served in every other industry and every other vertical at a level that we must compete with. You know, you can go on your phone and order anything to me on Amazon. It gets here the next day, right? So are your systems, are your communication systems, your client care systems? Is your business set up to cater to the fact that consumers are already there? And if you're not meeting them in terms of their expectations of their experience, you're going to lose the game. And we don't want you to lose the game. The, the third thing that is shifting is just the industry overall in terms of how transactions are happening. This is the ibuyer phenomenon where businesses or big corporate companies that are backed by venture capital, they've got a ton of money, are coming into markets and just buying homes and making the transaction seamless for the consumer. They'll buy your home and then they'll put you into your next home and allow for a very seamless transaction with no contingencies. And, and you know, we have to at least be aware of it. I'm not competing with it. I chose to not go down the instant offer path in my business or kind of play that game. You have to be aware though, that Zillow is a big company, they got a ton of money and there's like three or four other ibuyers that are just kind of changing the way the industry works. Number four is the economic shift. You know, any time, whether it's shifting from a seller's market to a buyer's market, or buyer's market to seller's market, they, the economy, the housing market itself is always shifting. So just to be aware of where we are in that continuum, as I'm recording this video, you cannot keep a house on the market for more than like, you Put it on the market on a Wednesday. It has contracts by Thursday or Friday, not even the weekend. We used to be able to put it on a Wednesday and get through the weekend and generate some buyer business from our listings. The market is always shifting. It's going to go back to more of a balanced market. Right now there's like one month of inventory. You know, it'll go back to four to six months and be balanced at some point in the future. But as an agent that wants to grow their business, you have to be aware of where we are in the market. So we've got technology, we've got consumers, we've got just the industry and the model that's going on. And then we've got the economy. That is the ultimate shift storm if I've ever seen one. So don't have your head in the sand on it. The most important thing I will tell you and that I've experienced in our business is that we have let go of all of the paid leads. So we're still a multiple million dollar real estate team. We'll do close to $3 million GCI this year, yet we don't pay for any leads. Years ago we got rid of those leads because we went down the path of really focusing on the experience for our clients. That's the biggest thing I would take away from this video and look at where your business is today. Are you paying for a bunch of sort of junk leads, overpriced leads, or are you serving your client? And by serving your client, that's the virtuous cycle that's created by their referrals coming back into the business. Like I said earlier, if you want to know the stages of growth, to be able to build a business that not only scales in terms of number of transactions but but you're actually able to get your time back in the process and reduce your stress as you grow. Grab a copy of our real estate Business Growth Navigator. Just go to realestate business growth.com or click on the link below. And as I said, it helps when you give me the thumbs up. It motivates me. Subscribe to the channel. Turn notifications on so you'll be the first to know about a next video when it drops. Until next time, focus on what you can control and and in an industry where service is number one and the only thing that we're selling is our expertise, the client experience is where it's at. Until next time.
