Future of Business
The Future Of Business – Real Estate Has A Problem
I wrote a blog post in October 2009 called, Are Real Estate Agents Obsolete? I ruffled feathers, I’m probably going to do the same in this post : ) My point at the time was, times are changing and they (in general) are not! I consult many agents on the topic of how their business is perfect for Social Media Networks, they are a service oriented business, a relationship business, perfect! So what’s the problem?
The tools aren’t the problem, the Internet isn’t the problem, people are not the problem, so what is it? It’s the way Real Estate Agents think. I’m generalizing so don’t get your listings in a knot.
I’m not trying to embarrass any one individual here, I’m speaking in general terms, don’t you realize what you have on your hands? The Internet is only 15 or 16 years old, what you did before the Internet came along worked great, offline, but those tactics don’t translate to digital very well do they?
Today, you can do open houses LIVE with a digital camera connected to the Internet, what a great way to find out if a home shows well. There are very few people willing to buy a home without actually going on site, so what are you worried about? The Internet has one real strong purpose for Real Estate Agents, and for the most part, they don’t know what that is.
Look, much of what Real Estate Agents do is now hyper-sensitive here online, why? People don’t want to be bombarded with sales pitches, and they don’t have to either. The “service” agents provide is just that, a service, you are not a classified ad. So why do you act like one?
Think about that for a moment, Social Media Networks are not more places to do outbound marketing or yelling. Well, you could use them that way, but you’ll fail miserably. There I said it. Social Networks are opposite to Radio, TV, and Newspapers (outbound), they are inbound. You need to be drawing attention through building relationships, being helpful, not constantly selling your stuff.
Imagine having a Rolodex the size of the Internet, you do! Who would need one that big right? Well, everybody knows someone, and that someone might be moving to your area, but you would never know if you don’t build relationships first. Go figure, Twitter as a Rolodex. This is the new CRM (Customer Relations Management), build relationships, build a huge network online, just like you would offline except you’re not selling. You are, building friendships first, then data mining, and through these relationships you will find business otherwise not found. Notice the order of things.
Be social, be mobile, and be the kind of person I and all of us would want to do business with, we want to know you, we want to know if you can help us when the time comes, but we will never know if you only cram your listings down our throats. This constant yelling and broadcasting is the disconnect with those you would consider clients in social networks, that way of thinking shows me that you only care about sales. I bet that statement makes you mad if you an agent, if so, then do something about it. Perception is everything, and once it starts, BAM! you are now stereo-typed.
A good friend Ron Karr wrote an interesting book on sales, I recommend it, it’s called, “Lead, Sell, or get out of the way” By Ron Karr, he can teach you a few traditional things, but most of all, he talks about how you think. Here’s my review. And that’s what I’m talking about here, the old methods got you to where you are today, and some of those methods may still work for now, but most likely won’t on Social Networks.
Scott Stratten coined the phrase in his book UN-Marketing, ” Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.”, these words should be your new mantra, they speak to the heart of every selling profession. My review of his book.
So build your Rolodex here online through building relationships first, where else can you save so much time & money, and reach so many in so little amount of time. Amazing isn’t it, most people don’t care what you know until they know you care. Gary Vaynerchuk is about to release a new book called, “ The Thank You Economy“, people want to know you care, and saying thank you goes along way to fulfilling that need.
The Future of Business in terms of Real Estate Agents, it will be entirely up to them. The business as a whole needs to pay attention, learn how to be social and mobile, both are critical to they’re success. More importantly, they need to unlearn a great deal of what they think they know about sales, specifically online.
I think in the next 5 – 10 years, Real Estate Agents will become fewer, because the current red tape and gate keepers will eventually be removed. It could happen sooner, you can by-pass agents already, but thats not the real issue. The mechanism of control is, and it will be harder to control the consumers of the future, so something has to give. For many agents, they don’t have the luxury of time, they must make sales to put food on the table. It’s that kind of pressure that makes you make mistakes, in social networks, the tolerance level for selling all the time, posting your listings, is much lower.
So, relationship first, don’t sell, provide information of value, teach me something, and tell me what you can do for me when I need someone just like you. Be an educator, be someone who cares about people, all people, because they are potential clients. Get to know me before you ever try to sell me something, that’s the mode of operation in social networks. And that takes time, but imagine the huge Rolodex you will have because you cared.
Forgive me if you are one of the very few actually paying attention to what’s going on, I am however talking to those who are not. I know brokers and real estate systems try teach you, but they too are stuck in old methods, it’s time to look around, the world is changing and it’s going to whether you do or not.
There is so much more that can be said, I am scratching the surface on this topic, I would love to here your thoughts.
The Future Of Business – Your Content, Your Voice
Imagine you’ve been blogging for the last 3 years, maybe longer, it seems like no one wants to know what you happen to be sharing, maybe 35 people a day stop by and take a quick glance, and then POOF! they’re gone. Your bounce rate is over 80% and time spent by visitors is less than 2 minutes, you’re discouraged, you think you’re waisting your time, in fact you’re thinking of quiting.
That scenario is more common than you might think, and that’s by today’s standards of blogging, it may even be a business going through the same challenges. If you are just blogging to share whatever is going on in your life or information you find interesting, don’t fret, in fact you can get excited. Businesses that try blogging, creating content, and using social media networks, tend to have very little patience for activities that don’t generate revenue quickly. Blogging, or sharing may look much different than today, it will have to be delivered to all mobile device formats.
There is much more to blogging and creating content than just throwing whatever is on your mind out there, hoping it will go viral. If you are mostly interested in making money through blogging, then you need a plan, more importantly a why, a direction, where are you going and what does it look like when it’s finished. Oh, and of course a product or service to sell, but that’s another blog post. Sorry to burst your bubble, but do the plan first, and know the why.
So many people think the Internet is “THE” success vehicle without thinking through what that means, the Internet is merely a door that leads to other doors. The Internet is the game changer for sure, but it is mostly a way to distribute products & services, your content, your voice. The future of business is still the same process of solving problems for consumers, the difference is, they no longer will tolerate being forced into buying upfront. Gerd Leonhard coined this phrase, “Proudly Found Elsewhere”. The masses will keep looking until they find it for free, so keep that cool little phrase in mind when planning.
The Blog, the website, is your doorway, is your sharing doorway blocked with a Toll Booth that may be in the wrong place? The younger generations and those yet to be birthed, want access first, they want to try it, touch it, smell it, and yes experience your product or service before making that financial commitment. Sounds backwards doesn’t it, but that’s how they think, and they will boycott faster than you can blink if you try to force them to buy.
One of the first action items before blogging or doing business online, is to know what you are about, what is the core of your business. Knowing what the core is makes it easier to understand which direction to go in, and help you seek out those who are looking for your information, product or service. You will also want to step back and look at a bigger picture, a view of what is yet to come, to get some of understanding who is coming and how they think.
Your content, your voice, does have an audience, it takes time and patience to reach them, and to find them. Depending on your brand, time will be the key commodity,time is what you will invest in the most. Everything you do, all the hours spent into developing, creating, and or building, knows why you are investing. The Future of Business – Your Content, Your Voice matters, eventually there will be an audience looking for you. I say this because the number of Internet users are still in small numbers, eventually, over the next 5 years we will see another 3 – 4 billion people become users of the Internet. Imagine a marketplace consisting of 7 Billion people someday, getting heard will be difficult, so stick with it. Because if you quit now, you will miss out on golden opportunities that have yet come, yet to be discovered, imagine what can be, plan for it, and see the future of your business in terms of, your content, and your voice.
The Future Of Business Is NOT Social Networks
One of the futurists I was following tweeted something that spurred me to write this little bitty, so bare with me. There is much confusion about Social Media / Networks, and saying that the future of business is Social Networks only adds to that confusion. For some unknown reason, there are far too many who seem to think that Social Media is the answer, the messiah, the silver bullet to all their business problems. STOP IT! This is far from the truth, and is sheer stupidity on the part of those who say it is.
I’ve talked about the next generation a few times now, GEN C, they are the under 20 somethings and they are starting to figure out what they want, and it’s not what business owners want. In fact, the generation that comes behind them will never know what a Tower or laptop is or was. imagine a generation that only knows wireless handheld devices, may never know what a Newspaper was, let alone a fax machine. They will all be things placed in a Smithsonian in some major cities if they can afford to have the show in town.
If you are paying attention to these social networks, and those who have built them, they are shifting and flowing, not because they work well, but because the people in those environments are looking for something. The future of business will be dependant on a couple of things, social networks are one of the tools to obtain those things, but not the end all. Being tagged will be paramount to being found in the future, your brand / product or service will live and die by being found. That being found will need to be everywhere, not just in social networks!
To found on the Internet will be one of the many challenges to deal with in the next 2 – 3 years. As with everything, the cream will rise to the top, the have’s over the have nots will continue as it does in the bricks & mortar business world. The big difference will be the tools or mediums you use, and how you use them that will matter, and should be well thought out. In the bricks & mortar we just yelled, and the loudest business got the attention, not so in the future, and social networks will play a minor role. Attention is the new currency, data is the new oil, and the combination of those two will present a whole new way of doing business in the near future. The problem is, the data is not fully understood, the technology we need is still not ready, it’s not ready because we don’t know what problem needs solving yet. Much of what we are relying on in social networks, hasn’t happened yet.
The future of business will be social, and it will most definitely be mobile, but it won’t be social networks that are the future. The real future of business is because we are connected, on the move, regrouping on the fly, unable to be controlled by anything or anyone, including social networks. A connected world cannot be controlled, it might be seduced, but only temporarily, and that is what big business and corporations are afraid of, they can’t control you & I.
Consider this, there will be another 3 Billion users of the Internet in the next 2 – 3 year, 5 at the most, are you in a position to get they’re attention online? Do you have a strategy or a plan to capture .01 % of that potential revenue? I can’t wait to see what new ways of increasing the new currency of attention, I’m ready, I’m more than ready, I’m down right excited. But if you’re still trying to figure out how to use social media networks, how to use a blog or a website, you better hire someone tomorrow to help you see whats coming. They can at least help you see the tidal wave and show you how to ride that wave rather than get wiped out by it.
That’s what we do here, we show you the future, and then help you create ideas to adopt what we show you. We are in the beginning of an upsetting industrial shift, a paradigm shift, and it’s very painful for some. Also keep in mind, much of what I am talking about is not about skill set, it’s more about how you think, to look at the world of business as it really is or will be.
The Future Of Your Business Depends On A Story Shared
I can remember as a young boy, sitting in front of the radio and listening to The Shadow late at night. The story being told in these who done it’s was captivating, and yet frightening at the same time. I mean come on, murder to a young boy in the 1960’s was unheard of in most small towns in Northern British Columbia. It was like pretend death, not real right? There were other programs but The Shadow always had you shivering, hiding under the covers, and making sure the light was on. Just in case you had to run, you had to see where you were going.
Radio was and is still a powerful medium, I know, I spent 15 years doing it. The problem with Radio today though, they almost never tell a story, they just sell, sell, sell. In my previous post I talk about sharing, and it proves my point, sharing the story is much more captivating than trying to sell 100% of the time. Even listening to a Hockey Game live on the radio told a story, the story of the progress each team was making, the ebb & flow, the swing in momentum, the incredible save Cheevers made but you couldn’t see, the announcers had to be masters of telling that story to keep you listening. The same is true with your presence on your Blog or website, personal or business, the story will draw people in, it’s been proven time and again for hundreds if not thousands of years.
The story is the glue, it is the very thing that can act as a magnet to your product, service or information. Find your story and share it, but remember, the story must be true and authentic, not fiction. It’s the REAL part that makes people come back. Making your story real and authentic, makes you and your Blog useful, especially if it solves a problem or informs them. People always comeback to places they find useful, it’s human nature to stick with what and who they trust. So, is your story trust worthy, is it compelling, better yet, is it interesting?
Every business has a story to tell, I would love to hear the story of your business, and does it fit the future business model, the open & free business model. The future of your business depends on your story being shared. Because, when we want innovation, we must focus on open and free thinking, and the storytelling that accompanies it.