I love this commercial!! The point of needing to get "out of your box" holds true for many things, but it hits home in the real estate industry. I remember 20 years ago when we were in office meetings deciding if we needed to invest in a fax machine or were we just being too lazy to hand deliver documents. Most of the Realtors against this new technology were also fighting getting rid of the huge MLS book with black and white photos for the new PC that allowed us to search properties real time. Now today the fax machine is almost obsolete and technologies like efax, document scanners, and PDF’s allow us to transfer documents via email as quick as pushing a button. Today we are negotiating contracts with Buyer’s and Seller’s who are thousands of miles away.
I remember being in Toronto last year at a conference and I received an offer from a Realtor for my one of my listings. The offer came to me on my laptop via email using eFax and within a couple of minutes I prepared a Seller’s Net Sheet, turned the fax into a PDF, and emailed it to my Seller who was back in San Antonio. In the email I gave my opinion about the offer and within 1 hour or so the contract was negotiated.
Other technologies such Instant Messaging allows us to communicate real-time with our team, Blackberries allow is to have access to our email when ever we want it, and sites such as Snapfish.com allow us to deliver high quality photos to our customers via email.
The point I am trying to get across is that it is so easy for us, especially in the Real Estate industry to just continue doing business the way we have done so for so many years (“stay in our box”) rather than to embrace new technology. If we are willing to get “out of our box” everyone wins!!!
