A client or just another hot lead?
I just had an experience that, if I were a cartoon character, would have smoke pouring from my ears and exclamation points popping above my head.
It did, anyway.
A few weeks ago two married young professionals, whom we'll call Ralph and Shirley, decide it's time to settle down, buy a home and start a family. Like over 100 percent of young home-buying professionals, they start their search online with a keyword or two. Which gets them the very spiffy search-engine-optimized website of an online discount brokerage we'll call RealCheep. To use RealCheep's top-flight site, you have to register. Ralph and Shirley look at each other, shrug and say "what the hey" or words to that effect, register and start browsing the site for new construction in their favorite city, Wonderfulville.
Not coincidentally, and quicker than you can say "hot online lead", Ralph and Shirley get a shout from ace RealCheep agent Myrtle. Myrtle offers to show Ralph and Shirley new condos in or near Wonderfulville. This works just fine for Ralph and Shirley. Myrtle scans the Multiple Listing Service, sees four new developments that fit the bill, shows same to buyers.
Myrtle doesn't have an in-depth knowledge of Wonderfulville, but neither do Ralph and Shirley, so Myrtle's knowledge gap goes unnoticed. What doesn't go unnoticed is that, after showing our buyers homes in four new developments only a few miles apart, an endeavor that takes all of one pleasant afternoon, Myrtle stands there tapping her foot and looking at her watch and saying, "Well? Are you going to buy something or not? Hmm? Hmm?"
Hey! No pressure!
Ralph and Shirley are novices at home-buying but, even so, Myrtle's hard sell doesn't feel right. But our buyers are nice folks who don't want to waste a busy real estate professional's time and, besides, they feel sorry for her: Myrtle has found the time, during their extremely brief business relationship, to tell them that she's a refugee and a single mom. So Ralph and Shirley oblige Myrtle by making an offer on one of the handful of homes they've seen during their highly labor- and time-efficient whirlwind tour of new homes. And why not? The home is what they told Myrtle they were looking for, right? A new condo in Wonderfulville, right? A new condo, right next to the freeway, in Wonderfulville. A new condo, way out on the edge of town, far from shopping and services, in Wonderfulville. A new condo, underneath power lines big enough to carry power to half the households in the Bay Area, in Wonderfulville.
Tap tap tap.
Fortunately for our buyers, the seller counters their offer, and Ralph uses this break in the action to discretely voice his doubts to a few friends. One is a former client of mine, who tells Ralph to back off and call me.
Ralph does, we meet that very afternoon, and I assure him that the little voice that's saying he's going too fast in the wrong direction is worth a listen. He reports back to Shirley and they promptly bail on the new condo. Myrtle, of course, knows this but, buyers being buyers and all non-confrontational and all, Ralph and Shirley fail to tell Myrtle that they've bailed from her too. Myrtle discovers this only when I contact Ralph and Shirley's loan agent, Lucretia, for a pre-approval letter. Somehow word gets to Myrtle in milliseconds, and that's Myrtle on the phone to Ralph, scolding him for his treachery. How can he do this to her? Now she'll have to explain it to her manager!
Ralph calls me, thoroughly shaken. I'm on the phone instantly to Lucretia, asking how it can be that Myrtle knew she'd lost Ralph and Shirley right after I hung up on Lucretia. Lucretia says Myrtle just happened to call to kvetch about how lousy business is. Apparently Lucretia saw this as an opportune moment to tell Myrtle that business wasn't getting better any time soon. Apparently Myrtle saw this as an opportune moment to unload on the nearest defenseless bystander, Ralph.
I'll let you draw your own conclusions about RealCheep's business model and agent professionalism from this episode. My conclusion, already well-formed, was enhanced by reading a recent interview with RealCheep's president—a guy with the inevitable real estate game-changer resume: tons of Internet marketing experience and zero real estate experience—who says sure! we've always lost money, but we've got this snarky website that draws buyers like bees to honey and hey! that's got to make us profitable someday.
Which makes question marks pop above my head. Is RealCheep selling real estate services like Family SharePlans®? There's a difference, I insist, and it's profound: the length of time spent with the customer/client, and the depth of knowledge needed to meet the customer/client's needs. Is RealCheep's emphasis more on processing leads quickly than on meeting needs, and is this inevitable, given the flood of leads assigned each RealCheep agent? If so, is that because management knows far more about online lead conversion than real estate services? Is this "this changes everything!" or just more high-pressure same old same old in new feel-good game-changer packaging? Finally, can anyone without a real estate industry background know what good real estate service is?