Death of the Real Estate Office?

I was moved today by Seth Godin's blog post. In it Seth said goodbye to the traditional office. In his last few book Linchpin Seth talked about the death of the factory system office where we became cogs in a conformist machine. I will be the first person to say that in some instances conformity is a good thing, but in our business we have been handed the keys to the individual entrepreneurial pot of gold. The internet and modern technology allows us to look big and work small, and that trend is only going to become more pronounced. I don't think we are going back to a simpler real estate time, and I for one don't want to. Last year I left a major franchise to go independent. I evaluated how my fees were apportioned and what I found was startling to me anyway. I was paying desk fees for a desk I didn't use. I was paying for a branded sign that didn't bring in business by itself, and I was paying for a national ad campaign that from asking my clients were they moved to use me because of it, they said no to the tune of 100%. So I set out on my own to control where I wanted my marketing dollars to go, and I started building a team.

Seth points out some great points about mobility and how out new office is being arranged. The old office was a gathering place because that is where we did business, making cold calls, and also phoning other agents to tel them about a new listing. If we had a team we had a larger office or multiple rooms to house the team because we needed to be together to transact real estate. We had the broker close by to give us mentoring, advice, or to help solve a problem. We fed off the energy of others around us. As Seth would say we had a Tribe. Finally we could say, I am on the way to my office.

The brave new world of technology and the information age has changed that. If you have a laptop you have your office with you. If you have a webcam and Skype you are connected anywhere anytime. If you need sales meetings you can use yugma.com for free to up to 20 people. You need to collarborate, you have Google Docs on line. Need graphics, there are a ton of companies online and places like expresscopy.com that can do it cheaper that your office, and even mail it the next day after the order. You need training then this is real Seth Godin Tribes terriotry. My training tribes are with Active Rain, The Real Estate Tomato, Domus Consulting, Virtual REBar, CDPE, and more. Besides, how many times at the office can you connect with the best in the business like these? It's like the old Murderer's Row hitting line up for the Babe Ruth led Yankees.

If you need the office, need the franchise, then go for it. They are not going away but they will have to change too. You should be where you are most comfortable and with what gives you the most confidence. For me, I looked at the dollars out, and didn't not see dollars in. It is just you need to look at what you are paying for and determine if it has value. I do have a problem with what I have done though. I need to figure out what I want to do with the $40,000 that is staying in my pocket this year. Retirement investment? Put more money into the business with a bigger team? And where will the extra money go to making charitible donations. Strive to be a Seth Godin Linchpin and learn the mantra of Ninja Selling, "the reason to be rich is so you can afford to be generous".