Simplicity in technology is often a razor-thin line to manage. The word "simple" can sometimes have negative connotations. If something as complex as setting up dynamic AI-driven drip campaigns can be made easy, then it must not be a high-fidelity bleeding edge tool with dozens of configurable settings, right? No brokerage or agent wants to use a tool that feels complicated or cumbersome. We all want everything to be as easy as the click of a button. After all, nobody knows better than technology and training directors how much real estate agents hate anything that feels complicated. 

I have been working in enterprise real estate software sales for the better half of a decade and what my time working with some of the largest real estate brokerages in the country has taught me is that sometimes it's not about what the tools can do, it's how easy to use the tools look. A product that can do 10,000 things for a real estate agent is worthless if it takes them 10,000 hours to learn how to make that tool work. I harken the idea back to the adage "it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a master of something." You never want to have to sell your agents on new technology you know can improve their business. Ideally, it should be able to sell itself in the minds of your agents. 

All of this is to say that in trying economic times, brokerages are now more than ever looking for tools to deliver their agents something of value that will help their business. They want to provide this without needing to dedicate a ton of time to learning these new tools, all with a razor-thin budget. Travis Saxton, the Executive Vice President of Technology for the real estate consulting firm T3 Sixty, shared that the average real estate brokerage has between 12-15 paid technology services implemented at their brokerage. Usually, that means you have a dozen-plus systems that are not communicating with each other (which easily causes confusion) and a dozen tools that any new agent you hire is going to need to learn, all while still maintaining their core focus of helping their clients buy and sell real estate. 

So, what is the solution for finding easy-to-use tech that doesn't sacrifice functionality for ease of use? In my opinion, the best possible decision to make for your brokerage in 2023 is to perform a full tech audit on your brokerage's existing tech stack and look for ways to consolidate your technology into an all-in-one platform that checks as many boxes as possible. 

No two all-in-one platforms are alike. However, something to really consider when evaluating those options in the marketplace is to truly find out if the platform was built as an all-in-one, or if it was made that way via acquisitions of other products and then Frankenstein'd together. After all, one of the goals of using an all-in-one is you want things to be easy and communicate well with each other. So many tech vendors will raise capital via Wall Street venture capital firms and then acquire established tools on the market to then try to mesh them into an existing tech product. The feedback I have heard for years is that this approach never truly works, as those tools were never truly meant to "communicate" with each other, technologically speaking.

More important than that is the need to make a technology tool feel like it truly belongs in your business. If the average brokerage has 12-15 different tech tools in place, and technology tools and services rapidly change in the marketplace, you have probably already sold your agents on the next latest-and-greatest tool a surplus of 30 times over the last decade. So, how can you generate a win in your business with your agents instead of receiving groans and complaints about needing to learn another tool? You need to find something that gives you all the value you need in an easy-to-use product that also feels like it was custom-made for your company. 

One of the largest complaints I've heard from enterprise brokerages over the last eight years is that so many technology companies offer a product that is strictly "off-the-shelf." There is no room for personalization — and as anyone who has worked in real estate knows, no two brokerages are the same. Every company has different values, different needs, and different niches. So how can a technology that is non-adaptable truly service your needs long term? It's this lack of customization that forces brokerages to eventually outgrow their solutions as their needs change. I personally have seen high-profile CRMs and Intranet tech tools that have not had a major update to their platform in the last seven years. If the economic times have changed, so should the tools in your toolkit. 

To truly get the buy-in from your agents on implementing new technology, I believe the values and message of the brokerage must be interwoven within the new technology rollout itself. It cannot be a flashy announcement at an annual meeting and then rounds of training at office meetings. The tool itself must feel like your company has built it in-house, explicitly for your agents and their unique needs. I have often used the comparison of your technology stack being equivalent to a business suit. You can buy a suit off the rack from any departmental retailer and it will likely look nice enough to get the job done. But any professional who has ever worn a tailored suit knows that going through the process of getting a suit tailored just for you looks and feels so much better. Your real estate software should share that same concept. An off-the-shelf option is adequate, but making it feel like it's your own will pay dividends in the long run. 

Allow me to use a recent example that was shared with me by one of the largest real estate brokerages in the US. This brokerage has used Delta Media Group's DeltaNET® tool in their business for over five years — helping 700+ sales associates generate over 11,000 leads per year with automations to help them close those deals. This brokerage happens to be a part of a real estate franchise that is truthfully for the first time trying to offer their network of companies a "free franchise provided all-in-one technology solution" as part of being in this affiliated network. After nearly one year of due diligence comparing the free franchise-provided solution to what they have built in the DeltaNET, the Marketing Director at this particular firm provided me with the following analogy: 

"It's as if your company never gave you a company car, so you go out and purchase one yourself. You decide to purchase a custom car off of the assembly line where you can control each and every piece of the car. The heated seats, heated steering wheel, and captain's chairs in the second row are all brand new. You fall in love with the car and drive it for years. One day, your company decides to give you a company car — and it's a model a few years older. You know it's a step up for the rest of the employees driving 20-year-old cars, and that isn't anything particularly wrong with the company car, but for you, it feels like a step down. You start driving the company-provided vehicle and you start missing the heated seats, you miss the heated steering wheel. Now your team is asking if you can pull some of the parts from your personal car and start putting them into the company vehicle…it just doesn't make sense." 

That sentiment is exactly what we're looking for from the agents that learn to use their brokerage's technology platform every day. Brokerages that are able to deliver a unique technology experience to their agents will ultimately gain a strong retention tool as their agents know they can't go get that same experience anywhere else. How many times have you heard the stories of agents who leave a brokerage that had been providing a specific CRM, and then the agent leaves the brokerage for another firm but can purchase their own personal version of that same CRM at your competition's firm? By building something truly unique to your firm, agents won't be able to easily leave and maintain something they should be using in their day-to-day business. 

The reason for these anecdotes is to illustrate that brokerages should be looking to find a technology offering that they can tout both as simple and easy to use, but also something that is their own. A technology service designed to be simple and designed to be modular enough that it can fit with hundreds of unique brokerages despite their various niches. Something that may be surprising to hear is that technology offerings exist on the marketplace that offers this exact product, all without a "break-the-bank" dollar tag. 

As your company evaluates technology offerings in 2023, keep these three concepts in mind: 

1. Does the product allow you to reduce the total number of technology services in place at your company? 
2. Is the product easy enough to use for the non-tech savvy agents at your brokerage while simultaneously supporting the tech-power users at the brokerage? 
3. Does the product allow you to easily tell a story to your agents that will enable buy-in long term? After all, you don't want to be making another "all-in-one" technology move for at least the next 5-10 years to prevent disruption in your agents' business. 

If you're interested in reaching out to our team for a free consultation, please contact us at sales@deltagroup.com.