Over the years I’ve had a lot of people tell me that the systems that I was using were overly complicated, and although these words usually came from people closing less deals or with less team members than me, I still wanted to take their words into consideration.
I would reflect back on how things were when I got into the business versus how things were at the time that the comments were made. When I got into the business, things were pretty simple. The MLS wasn’t connected to the internet like it is today; you downloaded it on the office computer and could only use it at the office.
The majority of real estate listings could be found in a book that came out every 2 weeks or so. There was no zillow, trulia, yahoo real estate….heck….google and youtube didn’t even exist (nor did the GPS as we know it today). If I wanted info on the real estate business, I went to the library (couldn’t afford all the high priced seminars), and I also read the entire real estate section of each Sunday paper in addition to the real estate magazines that came out each week.
I would keep track of all of my deals in a paper binder. Each day I would go through my binder page by page working on each deal. I kept the pending deals in the front and the coldest deals/leads towards the back; back then it was very simple.
Fast forward to today; I was on the line with a title company and I was trying to get an updated HUD for a closing that we’re working on for today and the rep told me that she could not access the file via the computer because someone else was logged into the file. I told her that I need a system like that!!
Today we have all kind of systems being thrown at us. We have Podio, Top Producer, The Wise Agent, Buildium, Microsoft OneNote, Realcomp with its data sharing, CRM, Transaction Desk, Cloud CMA, and the list goes on and on and on.
So, I’m asking...how simple should it be? Or maybe I should be asking “How simple can it be???” Well, I think that the more we spend learning how to do something the simpler it will become. I had to go about learning the old MLS DAS system the same way that I went about learning Realcomp; I blocked time daily to sit my butt down and learn what I needed to know, and I after that I used what I learned daily and I got better and faster at both systems.
Can it get more simple than that?
~Matthew