Agents are hungry for training
Realtor Notebook
By Teresa Boardman, Thursday, April 8, 2010.
Flickr image by remy_free.Realtors are an interesting group of people. If you want them to attend a meeting or an event, you either have to provide continuing education credits, free food or both. Food is probably the best way to get a group of Realtors together, even for an educational event.
Yesterday we held the first ever RE BarCamp event here in Minnesota. There are some things about RE BarCamps that are important. I am not talking about the camps themselves, but about why they exist. The events represent a grassroots movement started by Realtors because we need more education.
There is a huge need for training in our industry: one-on-one training and group sessions on technology and social media. The gap between the Internet-savvy Realtors and the not-so-Internet-savvy Realtors seems to be getting wider.
In 2006, I gave my very first presentation in a real estate office on how to start a blog and what a blog is good for. At the time it did not surprise me that there were some people in the room who did not know the meaning of the word blog.
Yesterday, when I gave a brief presentation dubbed "Blogging 101," I was surprised that I had to explain what a blog is. This is not unique to Minnesota. I have encountered the same thing in other states. In talking to my peers between sessions and at the breaks, I kept hearing the same things over and over.
They need and want more training. They want hands-on training and demonstrations, not just articles, success stories and the short sessions we have at the RE BarCamps.
They have so many questions. There are exceptions -- those who choose not to expand their skills. But we don't care about them, as they won't be around much longer.
The fact that a couple hundred Realtors from several brokerages all congregated for a daylong educational event speaks volumes. Maybe they came for the free food, but they could have gotten that by going on tour instead of attending the camp.
Many of the agents who attended never heard of the Web sites and products that their peers and the presenters have been using for years.
Our industry has been knocked around in the last few years. Turned upside down is probably a better phrase. The world has changed and it doesn't work the same way that it did in the 1980s. ...CONTINUED
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Submitted by Joellen Chappell on April 8, 2010 - 11:12am.
Funny thing about Realtors, you can provide great training on an ongoing basis, but until the light bulb goes on, they pretty much don't think they need to know it, until of course, they can't do business without it. Unfortunately this has been true throughout my very long career and continues to be true today. Technology is just one of many subjects they ignore until they NEED it! I don't mean to sound negative, but reality is just that, reality. I enjoy training agents, and always laugh hysterically when they come running in with an emergency question, that was answered in the previous training session, WHICH they attended!
Future Realtors will no doubt be better about this than current Realtors because of the increasing expectation of the consumer. And that, I will applaud.
Joellen D. Chappell, Broker Associate
jchappell@c21mm.com
Submitted by Kathy Jerzak on April 8, 2010 - 12:33pm.
When I heard your name right outside of the door of this event, I was like I know that name but wasn't sure how I knew and now I am thinking its from your articles posted here. Small world. Great article here as well as a great Mpls. event that really filled in a lot of missing gaps for me.
Submitted by Jillayne Schlicke on April 8, 2010 - 2:07pm.
"If you are a Realtor reading this, don't wait around for your brokerage or for continuing education classes. We are responsible for our own education, and it is always alright to go to classes that cost money, don't serve food and don't involve CEUs and that are not just for Realtors."
:)
Submitted by Randy Landis on April 8, 2010 - 2:21pm.
My problem has always been with the agents who are "staust quo". They have NO initiative to take the steps needed to learn new methods and technology. I talked to a 10 yr veteran agent last week who admitted she just learned to 'text' this month.
And Thomas ~ You need to get off that high horse and provide me and other hard working, knowledgeble AGENTS with an apology. You don't know me or anything of my achievements and insulted me anyway! Such Naievity.
Submitted by Ken Lampton on April 9, 2010 - 4:54am.
What troubles me is that it is so difficult to find a course that gets down into the nuts and bolts. I go to a two-hour course about social networking and blogging, and they spend ninety minutes explaining why I ought to be doing it, but only 30 minutes of useful instruction. I don't need any more calls to action. I'm ready for detailed, step-by-step training.
Ken Lampton
RE/MAX About Dallas
www.m-street-dallas.com
Submitted by Stan Kushner on April 9, 2010 - 6:51am.
I run a brokerage of over 100 Agents and I have found the Realtors that attend courses on a regular basis and attend office meetings and so on, are usually always the same Realtors that appear in 20% of the Realtors doing 80% of the business - go figure. It's difficult to have empathy for those that never attend anything nor make any attempt to keep current with our constantly changing industry.
Stan Kushner
MaxWell Capital Realty
Calgary, Canada.
Submitted by Dee Premo on April 11, 2010 - 4:18am.
Dee Premo, President
Whitehead, Inc. Realtors
839 North Perryville Road
Rockford, IL 61107
815-229-8023
Who offers the best nuts-and-bolts training on today's real estate "technology" (social media, blogging, websites, etc.)?
Submitted by Ruthmarie Hicks on April 13, 2010 - 12:53pm.
What I sense from all of this is that many agents really want more than nuts-and-bolts training. For example, I had one agent wanting to "pick my brains." After over an hour- it just seemed like we were spinning wheels. What that agent wanted was to be given a simple path to guaranteed success! Actually, they wanted to copy the path that someone had already walked skipping the pitfalls - and the wanted the information to do this for free...in a market where I compete with them....Hmmmm. That agent didn't just want nuts-and-bolts, they wanted to be spoon-fed with guaranteed results!
Most of the information that agents need is available on-line. They do have to hunt for it, but they will find what they need. I admit that it can be frustrating to have to play with new systems. There will be stumbling and issues will arise.
But the type of spoon-feeding many wish for is going to be costly. My suggestion to agents who don't want to spend a lot of money is just "dive in." Yes, you will make mistakes. Yes, you will be frustrated. But waiting for a quick, easy and cheap way to be spoon-fed is not realistic.