Ready Player One: How the New Hybrid Virtual Brokerage Can Help You Compete

It's only been in the last few years that virtual brokerages have popped up, and they're a hot topic within the industry. Without a physical location, virtual brokerages have significantly lower overhead costs and can scale their business with relative ease--two big reasons why they're growing in popularity.

But there's no reason why a traditional brokerage can't become a "virtual hybrid" brokerage, with roots firmly planted in the physical world, but expanding operations quickly and nimbly by adding virtual offices to support their growing business.

Traditional brokerages can reap many of the same rewards as virtual brokerages by allowing their business to operate in both worlds. They can move faster into hot markets with a virtual office or team and easily shift to other geographic areas when market shifts occur. Costs are minimal, the rewards are high, and the business can still maintain its traditional roots and brand through a limited number of physical locations.

Must-have tech for virtual-hybrid brokerage

• Cloud-based and comprehensive - A cloud-based platform (like the kvCORE Platform) is the foundation for a successful virtual-hybrid brokerage. The ability to run your business from anywhere, on any device, is absolutely crucial. But mobile flexibility alone isn't enough; the platform has to be comprehensive and built to integrate easily with your other systems. It simply won't work to have a myriad of tech solutions that people must deploy in a virtual setting. It needs to be simple, easy to adopt and completely mimic what their brick and mortar office would provide them. Virtual-hybrids should seek out comprehensive solutions and avoid piling on disparate tech systems to keep costs low and maintain high agent adoption.
• Communication tech for every kind of agent - Virtual brokerages rely heavily on online communication and project management tools (chat, webinar, video conferencing, Google Suite, etc.) to keep everyone trained, informed, and on-task. Communicating through these avenues can be a challenge for agents who prefer hard copies and personal interaction with their cohorts. But having these other communication channels available means you can reach agents the way they prefer; embracing the tech commonly used by virtual brokerages increases a traditional brokerage's ability to recruit and retain high-producing agents.
• Streamlined and scalable back-office - Your back office financials can't slow you down and limit your ability to scale, in physical locations or virtual locations. Look for accounting and commission management tech that is cloud-based, automated and makes onboarding new agents, teams or new offices simple and painless. Modern tech like Brokersumo was built with the intention to make back office management and accounting easy. With full integrations into Dotloop, SkySlope, QuickBooks, and others, it saves time and has must-have features for any brokerage to scale virtually.

Be nimble and quick

Virtual-hybrid brokerages have a huge advantage when it comes to growing their business. They can keep their most profitable home offices running while being nimble enough to quickly set up virtual offices or teams in hot markets as they pop up.

Recruiting is no longer restricted geographically, opening the door to top talent in more markets. With the cloud-tech foundation in place, the hybrid-virtual brokerage has no delay in getting new virtual offices set up and running.

If you utilize the right tech, your virtual office functions the same as your physical office. You scale your business while avoiding overhead costs, and agents can work remotely while still being able to align themselves with your brand and expertise.

Embrace the wave of the future — without forgetting the past

Virtual brokerages aren't going away, but there is still real value in the local traditional brokerage as well. The hybrid model will allow the best of both worlds. It's a win for agents too, who get total freedom and flexibility to work however and wherever they choose.

To view the original article, visit the Inside Real Estate blog.