5 Tips for staying sharp, relevant, helpful.

Colorado and US agents, it's time to reignite your real estate business with sincerity, genuine concern, expert advice that many of the iBuyer platforms cannot offer. YOU need to become the hyper-local, niche expert. Set yourself apart from the online, data-driven services. Be THEIR expert. This month's Agent Ignite session featured Real Estate trainer, speaker, author, Denver's own - Bruce Gardner. Tips are sprinkled throughout this session. You'll want to take notes.

We're at a tipping point from the way it used to be to the way the future will be and we are entering the digital age of real estate. This is where technology merging with the traditional real estate, it's just going to look different as we go forward because of that impact. The other thing that's happening is that our industry is being faced with a number of disruptors that are coming into the industry. They want to change it fundamentally and they have stacks of cash. So this money is going to have an effect on our industry. This is the kind of challenge we're up against. And when you start looking at the amount of money that's coming into the industry and the people that are behind it and what their goals are, it's a little scary.

You also are seeing a complete end to end agent transaction platforms. So there are a number of companies that are working on this right now. Compass, RE/MAX, Keller Williams are really working on building end to end transactions, ecosystems that include the CRM, automated consumer engagement programs, and transaction management services that also integrate with the mortgage and closing services. So I think as we continue to go forward every year, we're going to see more of this integration through the entire ecosystem of real estate and that could affect a lot of things.

RE/MAX has theirs off the ground and Keller Williams has launched the command platform. So these things are realities that are going to start to affect us. All right, the big social and technology trends, some of these are going to make sense to you. Number one, we all see cell phone addiction. I think we all would agree with that. Many of us have a social media addiction. A lot of us have that, especially in the last month. And everybody wants everything right now. We are a right now society. So Amazon is responding by saying that they can deliver things the next day or in some cases the same day. We can get rides in a car with almost no notice. We can have all of our fast food delivered directly to our house and we can stream almost anything that we want to watch On Demand.

And while you're doing all of this, you're being watched. So if you want to have some fun, if you have a little extra time on your hands, just Google surveillance capitalism and spend a little time reading about that. That'll blow your hair back. And then we also have big data which is accumulating at a massive rate. It's being stored in the cloud. We have artificial intelligence that promises to remake many of the ways that we do things in our lives. 5G is going to create this interconnected world. We're going to have digital cars or self-driving cars. We're going to have 3D printed homes. And in the middle of this, we have this generation. This is the newest generation that's been born since 2011. They are called the Alphas and this is the first generation of humans that will spend their entire lives in a digital world. And they are with us now.

So that has really caused the rise of the iBuyer and there's a number of these different models. Most of us are going to be familiar with some of them; Opendoor, Offerpad, Redfin, HomeGo, Orchard, Knock, Zillow is in the game, so we're only going to talk a little bit about Opendoor. We don't have time to dig into all of these, but Opendoor is the one that really is the industry leader right now and this is Eric Wu. He's the CEO of Opendoor. He is not your friend. It's his vision for real estate going forward. He wants to automate the home buying and selling process.

you want to educate your sphere of influence about what these companies are, what they offer, but you also want to educate your sphere of influence on one other thing, you want them to contact you before they actually make a decision. Train them to reach out to you if they're considering looking at these different options so that you can help them evaluate them and offer to help them interpret any offers that they get. And then also help them compare and contrast iBuyer option with the traditional way of selling.

So that's all the negative. Let's talk about opportunities. I want to talk about a couple of different things, focusing on your relationships. Let's get back to that clarity. Let's reconnect with our people and then attract great prospects by becoming an expert and get a little edge with technology.

if you want to know the actual economic value, your relationships really fall into three categories. A's, B's, and C's. A's are the people that you can probably predict are probably going to work with you and they move. Bs are people you know relatively well, but you're not sure exactly what they would do. And I would classify Cs really in that acquaintance level of relationship. But if you have 100 A's, that should be 10 closings a year, five deals, five referrals, average sales price on the average single-family home in Denver, $5.3 million in gross volume, average commissions, you're looking at about $150,000 in annual income.

Your goal should be to meet new people from the tribe, people that you're really connected with and you turn Cs into Bs and Bs into As. That should be our goal. Then some real estate content, regular communication about real estate reminds them that you're a pro. 

Bruce went through a list of ideas in this episode. Take notes! There are some simple, actionable ideas that will convert to sales for you if you are the pro he's assuming you are! His biggest call to action: Call your people, reach out to them, just connect. See what's going on with them, see if there's any way you can help them. 

About Bruce in his own words:

Many of you may have been to some of my classes. I really enjoy doing those. Hopefully, we can get back to that at some point. I do a lot of coaching. I speak at events around the country. I've written a couple of books, Seven Styles: How to Design Your Real Estate Career of Success and Significance, which is about the lead generation models of work in real estate. And then a book called Words: What To Say When You Don't Know What To Say, which is a sales training manual and reference guide for realtors out in the field. But everything that I do really is focus on helping agents succeed at a high level. And my focus really starts with skills. Working in the business strategy, which is your lead generation piece and then structure, which is how to build your business at the back office. So I focus on all of that, but in order to do that, I do a ton of research.

AgentIgnite is a monthly seminar hosted by Nicole Rueth. Currently, it is an online gathering. Learn more and see how you can participate in the next session in May.

Nicole Rueth
The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation
750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500
Englewood, CO 80110
303-214-6393
www.TheRuethTeam.com

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