USHUD Reviews What Goes Wrong in Online Real Estate

At the USHUD cooperative we get calls every day from people that need help and new business. What goes wrong is reviewed here and what goes right is also covered in another post. The first thing that goes wrong is real estate professionals are not tech or marketing wizards, and they shouldn’t have to be. Real estate professionals are professionals in their industry and that is good for everyone. But many times they are sitting and waiting for something good to happen and getting frustrated and deeper into debt as they continue to wait. It breaks my heart to hear them and we try to do everything we can to help. The purpose of this post is to illustrate what these people all have in common, what goes wrong and how to take corrective action. Then if we can identify what goes wrong it can be fixed with less aggravation. There will be exceptions that break the rule but for the most part everyone has the same issues. According to the NAR here are the issues that cause the most problems.

-Real estate pros don’t call their referrals right away

-Real estate pros are hesitant to call people on the phone

-Real estate pros have justify why they shouldn’t call people on the phone

-Real estate pros look for ways to get around calling people on the phone

-Real estate pros don’t appreciate the importance of calling referrals immediately

Obviously during the USHUD review the reasons identified that pros struggle is because of either not calling or not calling enough. They get stuck in the way they feel that things should be instead of embracing the way things are. This can be further underlined by studies done by the Harvard Business Review which we sight often when talking about the reasons that sales people struggle in sales generally and real estate in particular. According to the Harvard Business Review the average sales person takes 47 hours to reach out to a lead. That is exactly how it is read. You don’t have to read it again. Forty seven hours to call a lead back. It is not clear if they are trying to play hard to get, if they are just lacking in professional courtesy or if they are concerned about being intrusive.

I had a server the other day (at a bar) completely ignore my party and look past us as if we were ghostly apparitions and we could only see and be heard by each other. We could not be seen by the living and we were in a fourth dimension. It was crazy. It was insulting. It was time to leave. So we did.

The interesting thing is that she turns out to be known for this behavior pattern and we were not being singled out. We didn’t know this when we walked out without having being offered a beverage. Why in the world the watering hole which is well known and highly respected would allow this to continue is anyone’s guess.

We would have chalked up a minimum $100 tab and tipped heavy as we all have experience in the restaurant industry and respect those that serve others. But this server never asked and ignored our hand waving. What would you do if you were in our position? I guarantee you wouldn’t stay for an hour for the first drink when the expectation was set that it would be an hour before we were deemed worthy of being offered another.  This is the same as when real estate pros don’t call their referrals right away. The client is subconsciously thinking “This service is terrible and I don’t think this person has time for me” or worse.

We left and I don’t see myself going back there any time soon. Okay…ever.

There is no difference with not calling our leads right away. They are starving for information, assistance, attention. If we don’t provide it quickly our leads are going to have the expectation that we don’t care about them and we will not be responsive to their needs.