Your First At Bat – The Technology Pitches

In 2004 I found myself successfully working in the San Diego North County real estate market.  My clients, and my sales, were generated through referrals and mailings.  My initiation into utilizing the internet to get leads was just beginning.  As it turns out, my broker at the time had entered into an agreement with Yahoo to collect real estate leads and sell them to our broker.  I was in the first group of agents selected to work these leads.  (The pitch was coming in soft and straight…right into my wheelhouse).

And so I jumped on the first pitch, swinging hard, and swinging for the fence.

Strike one!! – And lesson number one

Technology, you see, is really like a soft curve ball.  It literally seems to “float” in at you.  You think you can see the seams, and you can predict exactly what you have to do to hit it.  But technology, especially technology for real estate agents, presents a target that’s not so easy to hit, even if it’s dished up on a platter for you.

There’s a lot of information out there….lot’s….

I don’t want to overdo the baseball analogy, but I’m going to use it throughout this post.  Don’t leave me.  When you first get introduced to real estate technology it’s a bit overwhelming, like seeing a new pitch.  You see the WONDER OF IT ALL.  There’s bloggers, WordPress, Social Media, widgets, plugins, HTML, media, green screens, IDX’s and so many interesting technology gizmos that you could take your eye of the ball.  And you do, believe me you do. 

Turns out that when it’s your turn to bat…well it’s fun, isn’t it?  And there is no end to the fun, interesting, challenging stuff that real estate technology can throw at you.  Think of it.  There’s a new language to learn.  You’re going to be exposed to HTML, the fuzzy world of widgets and plugins (Harry Potter look out!), videos, embedding, links, posts versus pages, SEO, and most importantly, you’re going into a place where you’re going to meet some of the brightest and most interesting people on the planet.  And these very interesting, very intelligent people are pitching you their technology at the very time you’re just learning how to hit that curve ball.

I mentioned that the purpose of my writing this was to help those of you who might be stepping up to either your first time at bat in the world of real estate technology, or maybe you’ve got some swings under you belt, but your average is not what you wanted.  So when I first started my WordPress blog, especially my own self-hosted blog, I was inundated with so much fun, excitement, learning, and experiencing that it wasn’t very hard to take my eye off the ball.

Strike Two – The Fans Like Me

After a while, for me that was about a year, the fans started to like me.  Particularly ONE FAN seemed to like me.  And that fan was Google.  I had discovered SEO, and although I still was batting in the low 200’s, my technology friends had opened up doors to Search Engine Optimization, long tail searches, and all the love that comes with that.

It’s not easy to win an Oscar.  Love um or hate um, movie stars are a peculiarly talented small group of individuals.  The screen loves them, even if you and I want to pan them, laugh them off, or simply hold a grudge about how much they make.  And some of the real estate technology people that come into your life once you decide to begin marketing yourself and your real estate business on the internet will be movie stars.  They shine and glow.  They talk with confidence.  They are “somebodies.”

I listened to a lot of these “somebodies” early in the day.  Loved them.  Fawned over them.  And I did in fact learn from them.  These IDX people, SEO experts, and web site gurus pitched me with enough information that the ultimate fan, Google, began to love me.  Want to be on page one for some search term?  Well, I had learned how to do it.  No black hat stuff.  Just fairly decent SEO practices, some skill with pen and paper, and a knack for making it happen.  So as the next year went by I satisfied myself with continuing to hit 200, take the same swings, and bask in the glow of some of the adoration I was getting from Google.

I could have stayed a 200 hitter for the rest of my career.  But during this time I met Greg Swann, a splendid, magnificent man who created and authored Bloodhound Blog.  Finding some reason to befriend me, he allowed me to come alongside himself and other more focused technology superstars that were not out to pitch me into mediocrity.  They were the beginning of my foray into real estate technology superstars who wanted to help, to coach, to help me understand why I was really up to bat.

Strike Three – Wait, The Ump Gives me a Checked Swing!

As I said, sometimes you have to catch a lucky call.  If not for a bit of great coaching, more of which I’ll describe in the final article in this series, I would clearly have struck out in my quest to make technology a pertinent, important, and productive part of my real estate business.

I’ll be back at the plate for another time at bat on this topic in a week.  Don’t miss this at bat.  I’m going to show you how to pick the coaches you really need, how to pick the pitches to swing at…and those to take, and how to become a 300 hitter.  Yes, I’ll name names, too.  First pitch 7:05 p.m.  Catch the Fun!