"It Pays for Itself with One Sale"

"It pays for itself if you get just one sale," says the technology salesperson.

I would not be surprised if you hear that a few times a month when real estate technology salespeople pitch their products. The keynote is "if" you get a sale from using their product.

As an agent, you should despise this sales pitch. How on earth could any technology company justify taking all of your commission on a sale? If you purchase three or four of these "technology solutions" from "technology partners," you could wind up spending a huge part of your income on technology. As they say in church, "Be leery of the snake's voice, and the tempting sweetness of the apple."

As a REALTOR®, there are dozens of products and services that you get through your affiliation with NAR, your state association of REALTORS®, your MLS, (sometimes franchise) and your broker.

Here at RE Technology, we do a lot to emphasize these products in our product directory. You will notice that if your MLS or association offers services like free IDX, free website, free CRM, free CMA, free forms, free digital signatures, etc., we highlight those products on RE Technology at the top of the category list for that product. We update this list on a quarterly basis. It's not perfect, but we try.

"Leveling the playing field" is the key objection that agents mention as the preventing cause for not using the products offered by their broker, association, or MLS. If you are a top producing agent with more than 12 trades a year over $200K, you can afford to buy a lot of technology.

If you are not doing that volume, use the products provided to you first. Build your business first. Once you hare making a decent income, consider some fancy technology solutions.

If you want to invest in a technology solution that will help you build your business, focus on one solution, not many. For example, if you choose online marketing, do not buy realtor.com®, Trulia, Zillow, et al. Choose one of them.

Remember, Craigslist is free in most cities. If you choose one, really take advantage of your investment. Log in every day and engage with the site and consumers on the site. If you buy it and forget it, the results will be limited.