The red Letter:  Hop off the technology treadmill

By Jay Gaskill, CEO, Real Estate Digital

What’s your Pinterest strategy?

Have you accounted for Facebook’s new Timeline interface?

You’re optimizing for Siri, right?

If questions about the changing world of technology, media and consumer behavior cause your blood pressure to spike, you’re not alone.

Many of the brokers, MLS leaders and association executives with whom we work feel stuck on a technology treadmill with no “off” button – a machine that drives them onward to… well, who knows?

It’s exhausting.

Our advice: hop off the treadmill for just a minute and focus on what is not changing.

I have been in this industry for 25 years. And while I have witnessed breathtaking changes, the key metrics by which one measures real estate business performance remain constant.

GCI, company dollar, core services, non-commission revenue opportunities and bottom line for brokers; member count and non-dues revenue for associations and MLSs.

I view our job at Real Estate Digital as moving those metrics – the vital signs of real estate – in the right direction.

Technology evaluated, sold and optimized without a direct and ongoing connection to these things is worse than “cart before horse.”

It’s running to nowhere.

Technology is too often presented to brokers and MLS leaders as a means to do something new, catch a trend, or keep competitors at bay. A cadre of gurus, trainers and bloggers perpetuate this.

And that’s fine. Innovation is important. But what can be obscured in this rush is the need to deploy technology to do what you’ve always done more profitably. QR codes are cool, but cutting overhead by 20% by digitizing your office is a lot cooler. Fishing for new eyeballs on Pinterest may help your organization somehow, but serving ads on your existing website today will increase revenue measurably.

You get the idea.

And please: don’t call me a Luddite. Our company is filled with people looking ahead for our clients. And many of those clients have used platforms like Facebook and Twitter to increase their reach and generate leads.

But for most, first thing’s first. To us that means core technology solutions aimed at improving the operating efficiency and growth potential of our clients’ businesses.

I am not a technologist, though we have some of the best tech minds in the business on our team.  I am a businessman. So when I meet with clients, talk of the business comes first.

So embrace change. Sprint when you need to. But always try to tie technology to the things that are unchanging in your business.

The things that get you where you want to go.

Copyright © 2012, Real Estate Digital – All rights reserved.