Technology is a TOOL Not a Solution

by Brian Brady

Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL

Author website

There is a formidable conference, next month, that entertains the marriage of technology and real estate. I’ll be sharing the stage with one of the guys who started the whole RE.net, Dustin Luther. Kris Berg, Jim Duncan, Dan Green, and Jay Thompson, all giants in this space, will be contributing to the collective conversation as featured speakers.

Technology and real estate brokerage is an extraordinary marriage that is approaching its 10th or 15th anniversary, amid a misunderstood and sometimes tumultuous relationship. If you attended one on Dustin Luther’s “Relevance on the Internet” seminars, you might remember his history of the courtship. Dustin explained that the tech guys saw the large margins in our businesses as an opportunity to profit off of market inefficiencies. Of course, when they got their heads under the hood they found that the engine runs a little differently than they thought.

Online mortgage lending seemed to be the easiest way to disintermediate my kind. My kind responded with an explosion of product offerings that made the consumers beg for a helping human hand. Today, as the popularity of the 30 year fixed conforming loan is rising, the opportunity to disintermediate, once again, seems imminent. The need to “de-commoditize” your service offering, as a mortgage adviser, is more prevalent now than ever before. The banks and government are conspiring to limit consumer choices and do away with my kind in a cartel-like affront not seen since James Fisk and Jay Gould tried to corner the gold market, in 1869.

Advise and timely execution is all an independent mortgage originator has to offer, right now. Our “wholesale access” to residential real estate capital is dwindling and the information advantage we hoarded is being liberated by the transparency of information technology. Yet the very tool that contributed to our demise, information technology, can be the most important weapon in our arsenal as we fight our way to survival.

Success in this game will be a migration towards the concept of fiduciary from the bonds of functionary. If the consumer values you as a trusted adviser, you have succeeded. If you are seen as another “mark”; someone whom they can play off of another functionary to gain a perceived economic advantage, you’ve failed.

If you were to read the marketing communications of respected loan originators, like Dan Green, Rhonda Porter, Bob Ashby, and me, you would find that all of us are embracing financial planning concepts and communicating relevant information about the direction of mortgage rates. We’re escalating the conversation to emphasize the importance of specialized knowledge through a public medium; the weblog. Some of us are being courted by the mainstream media because of our very public conversation. Displayed expertise is one way a mortgage originator can use technology as a tool to win in the battle for a consumer’s brain cells.

Social networking technologies are another. Never in my 20 years of financial services marketing have I seen a time as rich with ready customer information as today. MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn, provide platforms for you to meet your ideal consumer. Market segmentation can be done by a simple MySpace search. Interested in communicating with single parents within a 10 mile radius of the Poway School District? Wanna target your message to cops, paramedics and firefighters? Need a way to meet those people? Look on the social networks. What first started as places for teenagers to share music have evolved into fullly-functioning eco-systems, mirroring society. Active Rain, Zillow, Trulia, and the upstart realty.bots are embracing the concept of community. They are creating virtual “swap marts” for consumers and dangling them in front of you. While those consumers may care less upon your advice than a connection made in a less transaction-centric site, the sales cycle is compressed and more likely to produce immediate fees for your business.

The seduction of the consumer, if done ethically and with genuine interest, is as easy as clicking a button, starting a conversation, and picking up the phone to follow-up.

Prospecting for potential clients is about making friends and determining if those friends will pay you for your advice when they need it. Having ascertained that, it progresses to buying their brain cells, through regular communication, so that they can think of no other provider but you when they make the decision to buy, sell, or finance real estate. Technology can help you do all of that.

You must remember, however, that technology is a TOOL not a solution. You are the gatekeepers of memories not a machine. You must resist the temptation of promised riches or the sales pitch of consumer delivery. No technology provider can initiate a visceral connection with a consumer like you can. If you succumb to the slavery model of community participation, without building up your own community, you will be creating your own “J-O-B”. My guess is that most of you ran from the shackles of waged employment for the brilliance of creating your own destiny.

…and you can do it. You are the master, technology is but your tool; don’t ever forget that.

NEXT: Some practical how-to tips about how to ethically prospect on social networking sites.