In 2008, Smithsonian Magazine introduced us to the story of Apollo Diamond, a company using science and technology to create diamonds of such quality that “experts cannot differentiate them” from diamonds taking billions of years to form deep in the planet.

Real estate agents are in a terrible strategic situation. There are only four major sources of obtaining the cutting-edge technology they need to thrive, with the first requiring giving up their influence in the marketplace and the second and third refusing to help them.

Power in the real estate industry is not defined by company size, financial assets or a massive advertising budget. Power is a function of getting the marketplace to take a specific buying or selling action. All fruitful actions start and end with the individual agent in the 2016 real estate industry.

The “full-service” broker-centric real estate model will soon exit the “maturity” segment of its product life cycle and signal the beginning of a 20-year decline. We’ll explore how disruptive technologies triggered the broker-centric life cycle stages and the alternative business model that will replace the established one.

There are two immense and immediate problems in the real estate industry, and one near-future problem can be solved by the MLS systems acting as the market innovators. But the window of opportunity to execute is nearly closed, and once this opportunity is lost it will never be available again.

In a very crowded and confusing marketplace, defining who you are and what you represent to your customers has to be summed up with a single thought — by them, not you. This is your “position” in the marketplace. The way you outwardly portray yourself is your image, and how the market perceives you through your actions is your identity. The congruency or disparity between these two makes or breaks you in a competitive environment.