January Challenge:
Internet Opened New SOI Horizons For Our Business
When I think of changes from the Internet, I think of how the magic of connection on the Internet Opened New SOI Horizons For Our Business. For an independent, boutique real estate company, the "big guys" loomed large in the 1980's and early 1990's. They had dozens of agents and mega-offices and even had lawyers on retainer! Very intimidating for sure.
My vision of what the future of our industry looked like changed as I watched the future Buyers TEXTING to communicate. They didn't answer calls to their work phones or cell phones. They only interacted with emails and texts.
I will never forget a very successful agent at a "big guy" firm telling me that if those potential Clients texting her wanted to work with her, they could just call. She had no interest in learning to text messages to them.
Well, I have to admit, pressing a phone key three times to get to a letter was appallingly annoying and slow!
Listening to her reminded me of Sisyphus. He could never get the boulder to stay on top of the mountain and that agent would never be able to stem the tide of change. Her refusal to accept the clearly defined future presence of electronic communication signaled a dismal future ahead for her in my mind.
Hearing her words created an epiphany for me. A true, sudden awareness that I had to decide. Either I would become not just active but skilled at the emerging technology computer-basis to our career or I would have to quit. After that conversation, I decided if I didn't devote a concentrated effort to jump ahead into the technology, I would be as extinct as the dinosaurs. Only choice: to move ahead - I wasn't ready to retire!
Since about 2009, I had been dithering around about joining ActiveRain. So I did join. Took lots of classes - about six months of everything I could learn at the AR University. Learned from amazing people. I began to comment on other members' posts. Fascinated because before long I had Followers although I hadn't even posted for the first time! First was Gary Coles (International Referrals).
Still timid about posting, I met Lyn Sims in Chicago when visiting family there. Her advice? "Just get started!" So I did and dedicated my first post to her!
Little did I know that when I posted for the first time in February 2011, I would jump into a controversy! I was just proud I had used a visual element (which now looks so rudimentary!!!) along with the text. A very close friend suggested the topic which seemed very tame to me. And then - no - it wasn't tame!!!
Now we reach the title of this post - Internet Opened New SOI Horizons For Our Business. As a boutique firm, one didn't have access to a broad swathe of other agents the way the franchise firms or multi-state firms did. Even locally, having interactions with others was minimal.
Once established in the amazing ActiveRain community, I had interactions with dozens of spectacular professionals. A whole new meaning for SOI...
Even started a GROUP -- AR-UPS -- for meet-ups when people travelled so they could let others know they'd be in town or on vacation somewhere. Met some new people over the years from there as well! By organizing AR Meet-Ups when I travelled, I met new people in Boston and in Philadelphia.
As I continued to apply my internet learning from AR University towards posting, I learned about the amazing Community Interactions of ActiveRain. Boutique firm or not, wound up working with people all over my state and across the entire country with ActiveRain as common ground!
To mention a few - Bruce Hicks and his dear wife from Hawai'i; Lawrence "Larry" & Sheila Agranoff. Cell: 631-805-4400 in Long Island, NY; Toni Weidman in Florida; Mike Cooper and, three referrals from Jeff Dowler, CRS although I was never able to help those folks! Keep 'em coming Jeff! One day...
So "the biggest change the internet has brought" to our business is access to amazing people! NETWORKING was not only something for the machines!
Thanks to Gary Frimann, CRS, GRI, SRES and Kathleen Daniels, Probate & Trust Specialist for hosting this contest! Love having to think!!!!
Amphora image, 530BCE, Persephone helping Sisyphus courtesy of Staatliche Antikensammlungen in Munich, Germany.
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