Your real estate business is a duality comprised of two aspects, a technical aspect and a marketing aspect. The technical aspect consists of various activities that are performed between the listing and the closing, from filling out contracts to ordering inspections to handling negotiations. The marketing aspect consists of the various activities that are performed to generate listings and buyer clients.
Like Yin and Yang, these aspects can oppose each other. For example, time spent learning to use online forms software is also time taken away from marketing. But, these aspects can also compliment each other, as in the example yesterday where learning to use a TMS platform to manage the technical aspect of a transaction created an opportunity for stronger marketing. These aspects also wax and wane. Agents spend more time on the technical aspect during a transaction and more time on the marketing aspect between transactions.
Is balance the key to happiness? Not exactly.
Certainly it is helpful to look for ways that technical knowledge can compliment marketing. The most important part of selling yourself is believing in your advantages and being able to communicate those advantages to your prospects. Acquiring technical knowledge is a way to build your confidence if you don't have a lot of experience or if you've been in a slump, but ultimately it is the marketing aspect, not the technical aspect, that will determine your success in real estate.
On the technical side you can get plenty of help from your broker, your transaction coordinator, your assistant, and in some cases your escrow officer and the other side. If you haven't submitted a necessary form, someone connected to the transaction will probably remind you. On the marketing side you are mostly on your own. True, some offices generate referrals and pass leads to agents, but you are responsible for marketing yourself and generating most of your business.
The key to happiness is leverage. Take advantage of opportunities to get help with the technical aspect so that you don't lose focus on the marketing aspect when you are managing several transactions. If you do invest time and money in software or hardware related to the technical aspect of real estate, such as buying a tablet PC to collect digital signatures, leverage that investment by marketing the benefits of your use of that technology to your clients and prospects.
Focus on complimentary relationships between the technical aspect of the business and the marketing aspect of the business and remember to always tend to the marketing aspect so that your real estate business will keep thriving.
Thanks!
Frank Jewett
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Leverage is certainly the key. Leverage yourself with techology, and then leverage yourself with people. That makes all the difference in the world!