I'm sorry, your technology doesn't work for me

Takeaways:

• It seems like tech people are taking rejection personally; it’s not personal — it’s business.
  
• There are a zillion real estate companies, and real estate is local.
  
• Your app might be too expensive or not provide a tangible benefit for me as a broker.

Please don’t be offended if I don’t get all excited about your new product for the real estate industry, brokers or real estate agents. I might even think the product is a technological marvel, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to use it.

It must be hard and yet easy to sell products to real estate agents. On the one hand, there are a lot of us, and we spend money like crazy; there are many who will buy something — because it is new — without doing any research.

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We don’t all have the same needs. There are a zillion real estate companies, and real estate is local. It has got to be hard to come up with that one-size-fits-all product.

My business is bombarded with advertisements for new products and old ones, too. Some companies are persistent and even aggressive with cold calling.

I don’t have a problem with that, but I also don’t think anyone should take it personally when I disconnect on the call and block the number after repeatedly saying I am not interested.

I am in full-time, 100 percent commissioned-based sales myself, and I never take rejection personally, but I’m finding that some of the people who sell products or services or support them take rejection personally — and that just isn’t healthy.

5 reasons your product might not be a good fit

1. Real estate is local, and your product or service might not address a need that exists in my market.

2. Maybe there are several products like yours on the market already. I’m already using the competitor’s product, and I like it and don’t want to switch to yours even though you say it’s better.

3. Your app is amazing, but there isn’t any benefit to me in changing the way I work so that I can use it.

4. Your product is too expensive. There are less-expensive alternatives that will work just as well for me.

5. I need to do a little bit, but what your offering does is a lot, and it is hugely complicated, expensive, and requires hours of training or reading. If you made a light version for half the price, I would at least consider it.

Please don’t consider me a dinosaur because your wonderful product doesn’t fit into my business. It is just business and not at all personal.

I sometimes feel the same way when someone chooses a competitor to sell his or her home instead of choosing me. What were they thinking? Clearly, they have no business acumen — or they would be working with me. Next!

The experts are quite clueless as to what I need to run my business, and I am not sure why. I struggle with the suggestions I get for “must-have” software and mobile apps while I know I am missing some vital pieces that would make my job so much easier.

My company uses several products that are included with our MLS dues. They universally provide support if there is a problem, and most are so easy to use I can just skip the training videos and free webinars. But they are always there when I need them.

I don’t want to test every similar product because someone in California or New York tells me I am not using the best products.

Yes, I have an app for that, and sometimes I don’t need an app at all. I can easily access what I need through the browser on my phone, tablet or computer. Because they are all synchronized with each other, I can more or less pick up where I left off as I move from screen to screen.

At a minimum, I look for products that have good support. Recently, a service I use had a service outage, and it was then that I discovered the product is no longer supported like it was when I first signed on. I switched over to a similar service that same day.

If I were to develop a product or service for the real estate industry, I would want to do a lot of research. Having an unhappy experience buying a home because something was lacking does not mean that everyone or every market has the same experience, and I really wouldn’t call it research.

Don’t assume real estate agents are backward and have no business acumen because they reject your product. New isn’t always best or even better.

I am waiting for the day when technology companies ask me what I need instead of telling me what I have to have. There is plenty of room for innovation in the real estate industry if you know where to look.

Teresa Boardman is a Realtor and broker-owner of Boardman Realty in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is also the founder of StPaulRealEstateBlog.com.

Email Teresa Boardman.