Technology Then and Now! We've Come A Long Way, Baby!
Once upon a time, in an industry long ago, before Realtors had cell phones, I was offered an unbelievable opportunity!
A representative from Southwestern Bell, now A T & T, called to interview me about how the business of showing and selling real estate worked.
They asked me to assist in a Beta Test for a Virtual Real Estate Office. We spent some time discussing how the business worked, making appointments, showing homes, writing offers, open houses, etc.
The telephone company provided equipment for the Virtual Real Estate Office, a massive cell phone, a portable fax and printer set in a rather complicated portable desk contraption. I selected a team of eight of the most successful Realtors in the office and the test started. The Realtors were to keep strict logs and reports detailing how and when they used the equipment as well as describing results and feedback from clients.
The Realtors were excited because this meant PUBLICITY for them! The local newspapers as well as the major Dallas newspapers, The Dallas Morning News and Dallas Times Herald, picked up the story and ran with it.
The dirty word was REPORTS. You know how most agents hate this!
The portable equipment for the Virtual Real Estate Office has really big, NO; IT WAS HUGE, filling up much of the room that clients usually enjoyed in the car.
Southwestern Bell wrote this up in their trade magazines and the local newspapers covered it from start to finish. The telephone company touted that this was the fore front of things to come in conducting real estate.
For the most part, the agents contended it was too large, too slow, too much trouble and was likely (surely!!!) just a fad.
Time passed! Time continued to pass! Some more time passed! Today the Virtual Real Estate Office can be held in the palm of our hands - the almighty cell phone!
The cell phone has certainly changed my life and the way I conduct business - how did we ever manage! In the early days I remember some agents almost having a "secret cell". They did not want anyone to call them because it would run up their minutes.
Today this "business office in your palm" provides unlimited opportunities to stay at the head of the real estate game. It is now the cell phone and beyond!
We are never ever not connected unless we choose not to be connected. Sadly, today, there are still agents that are not really connected in that they do not answer the phone or call back quickly.
I recently got a listing because of being able to be reached late on a Saturday afternoon. The seller went through his neighborhood taking agents' numbers from signs. He placed five calls to agents about listing his home. No one answered, including me, but I called back within two minutes. I had been on the phone, but I quickly called him back. I got that listing. The seller later told me that two of the other agents never called him back and that the other two called back the following week.
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