The Future of Real Estate Technology: The Agent’s Edge with Pete Matthews and Lee Woodward

just a bit of summary as to what the agent said is about so this is the first of a series of webinars that we intend to do and they need to provide the real estate industry with insights and information but also with tips on the continuing evolution of tech within the property industry internationally of course I'll do that through a process of conducting interviews talking about Trends and areas of the industry that are shaping the future of how we as agents will provide services to our customers and hopefully that'll provide some real practical Solutions and some outcomes in this first episode I get to talk about the emerging Technologies evolving customer expectations future of the digital agent and also how Tech is changed in a landscape for buyers and sellers and I am very very glad to say that I'm joined in our first episode by a great man who was also a contributor to the industry but also a great friend and that is a household name in real estate Lee Woodward who is the founder of art Lee Woodward trading systems he's the designer producer editor presenter of multimedia education for Progressive said I just leaders in businesses and also the author of the complete salesperson course and multiple books Lee it's great to have you thanks for joining us this morning thank you Pete and welcome to everyone great to be here yeah great you should give us a bit of a summary if you don't mind of how your 2023 has started because we've had quite a different year to 2022 been a lot that's been happening and you've been right at the coal face talking to agents and principals doing training and coaching and all those sort of things how's all that been yeah Pete it's been absolutely amazing and obviously even the last three years being with realtor doing the work there of digital we weren't allowed out in the training rooms actually I was trapped in here through covert if anyone was looking for me in the multimedia set and that was interesting Pete we talk about change and technology and no one saw covert coming and for companies like my own it was like you can't go out you're not allowed to go out and do the work you did no different to a real estate agent who couldn't get in the door can't get on the lawn can't do an auction and when you are shut down like that you've got to find another way and I think the greatest thing about covert was it taught everyone to think very fast on your feet and whatever you believe is the way you used to do it if that is stopped what it was and Melbourne was hit harder than any of our members around the country you had to find another way and suddenly technology was the only way to communicate it was the only way to transact real estate and I don't think any of us saw that coming and then for this year it's been back in the opposite of back into the training rooms human connection people wanting to get around people to discuss what it is they're going to do moving forward because I think a lot of people got called out a step there and you couldn't just collaborate as you normally would it's interesting though isn't it that like as you know that we were I guess out sort of talking about tech and Tech kind of luckily I think evolved to that point just pre-covered where there was enough of it that made sense to the process that when covert came it actually provided some really really strong value and we're going to talk a little bit about emerging technology but I guess the thing that you and I have always talked about is this reference of tech with technique you've been a very hard person to get a hold of because you've been so inundated with business owners with agents that are saying look you know there is this technology you know it's great how do we use it better to ensure that we can provide better service minimize our costs that's a big issue right at the moment ensuring that there's efficiency also in that process yeah what an interesting thing you're right about the efficiencies anyone right now needs a high impact low risk model because without that you could get caught out again and the efficiency of an agency today is just unbelievable and I think the cloud-based agent although a lot of them were forced to learn those skills would never go back to I'll do it when I get back to the office if you can't do it in real time where you are now you must be out of Step because the consumer is receiving it in real time so the fact they make an offer they can make a bid they can view a property do a video tour they're not going to some Center to do that they've got it all on their phone that's the game now can I communicate to the customer the final person for the full transaction even taking a deposit which a lot of people don't even know that's even going on where a consumer is putting in their own BSB and account number on a link that's been authenticated through the platform and paying their deposit we never thought that would have happened versus Monday morning in a real estate business support come in and go there's half a million dollars in the trust account does anyone know where it's from and that concern would happen so I think the device has just become the center of all transactions now yeah I agree and I think out the thing is that we've always talked about there's been lots of communication around the fact that you know really a consumer expectation is all those things you've described and agent's got to be able to do that from anywhere on any device and whether it's through the prospecting side of their business or it's right to the other end of the transaction that you just described in the receiving a deposit which is look it's a really simple process for an agent to do but it just is such a value add to the customer simply because from their side they've got a secure way of being able to pay a deposit and they've also got a secure way as a seller to be able to receive the balance of that but there's been a lot of issues but I know that you've been out in the field a lot and you've been seeing a lot of the tech that's in use and one of your major management is is about you know just having Tech is one thing but making sure you implement is another but what are some of the headline pieces of tech that you're seeing that are really valuable for agents right now well without doubt the biggest impact that we've seen is in training and Technology Pete you and I have to ask a question every day otherwise we're unemployed and that is what are we fixing and the first big tackle for everyone was and well everyone absolutely hated the prospecting process what they were doing they were sending out stuff but you don't know what's going on it wasn't working and in the last 12 months claiming doors became that big theme and for those that haven't been through that work that we've done with that you drive down the street and you see a house you've sold that's got your brand on it and then that vendor purchased it have somewhere else off a competitor that's still your door it's over there I'm claiming doors you need 900 Doors to get 46 transactions a year that's always been the science behind it but then the price update becoming the tool that it did and for those that the pitch platform to do that most people were using it just for their digital introductions and pre-listing kit but when the button went on book an appraisal the game changed I think last month Pete it was like 38 000 doors across the country was claimed and on the tech side that's amazing because that's one-to-one prospecting but from the training side we're able to teach okay now you can make calls off the rebound and they go what's that instead of coming in each day and ringing a hundred people for no reason call off the rebound so getting those out getting the notification you're calling off the rebound you've warmed up the data which is the whole significant difference that making that phone call Pete I sent you a price update the other day did you receive it now the fact I know you did and you've opened it three four times is a benefit but suddenly the person knows why I'm calling whereas today Pete without that sort of sequence to the work you can ring people so much today you'll lose the business the communication channels have changed and how people expect to be communicated with is actually quite private so if you're ringing me off guard I don't know why what's this about it's very difficult to what it was three years ago you know what I overdo it you know also I underdo it at the same time in that as well I guess because you've got the ability to create sort of digital prospecting and then as you mentioned as well you've also got the ability to be able to create proposals and all that kind of stuff I'm sure that there are too many agents today that aren't operating off a digital signatory platform or using a digital workflow to maintain all the documentation and all the complexity around the compliance around all those sort of things that would be something that I'm sure that you're seeing in every single one of your businesses that you're dealing with in sales people that you're talking to you think it would be but it's not the ones with efficiency doing really well got a strong pipeline coming through there's no coincidence to that they've claimed the doors they've tagged it in digital so that they know if it's going to be opened it's a response so there's a digital connection then there's a lot of people thinking no I'm just going to pump stuff out there and everyone loves me and they'll come back to me I don't think so that's a bonus if they come back to you because they remember you but everyone needs some sort of connection to remind themselves that that was you because a lot of people forget the person they even purchased the property of if I had to bring to the audience's attention the biggest leakage in the real estate industry right now and this is interesting Pete we're in a time right now we're not saying just short of stock things are really tight and I go are we sure to stop or did we suffer from leakage and they say what do you mean how many established clients do you have don't know so that means you don't have an established client program you haven't tagged that door yet you're also in the same sentence to me saying it's really tough out there but you've ignored the customer you've ignored those people and it's not even that the person who's your established client needs to sell it's that they need to talk about you as an advocate when somebody else says we're moving overseas we've got to get the property on the market call Pete Matthews but without that connection to the door there is no response and then you're going to cold cool till you die because you're chasing strangers would be a huge error right now love the ones you read like we spent all these things and energy trying to find new customers and we've got Acres of diamonds of those already in the CRM they're on my feet but sounds to me like if agents are going to move down that whole digital path to become a genuine digital agent which you know I guess let's be frank is probably the consumer expectation given what we've just been through over the last few years unless he's kind of starting at the very basic level which everything that we just talked about then it kind of took me back to like I've been doing this for 33 years similar to you later and you go this is the same thing we've been talking about for 30 years the difference is though you've actually got tools that you can manage their customer relationship so much better you've got tools that allow you to be able to centrally see everything that you're doing on a particular property and everything that you're doing with a particular customer it's all there it's just the reality it's going to be used and used used wisely couldn't agree more I'm going to share my screen and just give you a live example of something so this is a company in Newcastle called movable and movable do Residential and Commercial fantastic property management company as well but in this one I was doing some coaching here and said have you ever done a timed auction no one does it around here don't know what you're talking about or good have actually give it a go but no one knows what it is anyway they're probably up to their 30th timed auction now because the first one went well agent Jason Maxwell also the auctioneer overseeing it here but suddenly you've got a controlled situation here where this property is going in 12 days seven hours and he's got his starting bid in there so the consumer's got an engagement moment straight away and he's got his minimum bid increment but one thing I want our audience to understand is this is your own perfect digital booklet inspection in the carousel great photo actually I love that photo everyone wants a drive-by good shots but so many people don't use these platforms correctly you can actually load a video MP4 in here so the property video explainer can go in the photos the contract the building report the strata report and using that as a coming soon campaign so that was a timed auction which I absolutely love and I urge all our listeners to learn the time action time sale now that's the future of real estate because the consumer loves it not because the agent thinks it's good or not but consumers have really taken to register me I want to be notified I don't need you to call me and say it as another buyer I want to see there's other buyers and I love that point that no one can get angry at a system so if 75 notifications have gone out the marketplace has spoken it is worth more than I thought versus the opinion of the agent and in my entire 30 years in real estate Pete I've wanted the harmony between the consumer and the agent because it hasn't been there because it was never transparent enough to know is that real of what's been saying but with Jason there he went out to the marketplace with his new conversation by the way did you know we could do this nobody else has mentioned that to me and just winning business is hard enough to have a technique and you know the fact that he's done some study there to bring an extra option to the consumer makes him the better choice and it didn't take long to learn that we we get the listening conversation right and suddenly you're out there in the lounge rooms sounding like a modern real estate agent versus you guys are all the same you do the same thing we're just going to go with the cheapest that just makes me want to train even harder I want to hear there was no comparison between you and the others what you showed us and people keep asking me oh what does it cost to be on that nothing this is your platform that you get to use but Pete for any of our agents watching right now if they just loaded their current 10 listings up there and use that as their digital inspection and use that for the offer management system of that you just step forward as a modern agent incredibly and I think a consumer wants to know you are up to date on paying the same money have you done your study or are you just a traditional agent who's going to fax it to me I don't know but I think a big difference with the agents that I've seen have got interested in technology not just doing it because they have to and I think the interesting point that you made there too Lee was about the buyer's expectation of in sort of registering their interest and knowing that they're actually in the system and that they will be communicated with because there's a lot of fear particularly in a stock short market like we have today of buyers that you know they say well I've been through the property will the agent keep me up to speed when they've actually had the opportunity to either declare their interest by following the property or follow a consistent process either to register for a timed auction or a Time sale or something like that I think that's a really really sort of strong consumer outcome as well because I think it'll improve that relationship it just was getting curious about like sort of this whole phenomenon of chat GPT that's all coming to the market have you had much sort of murmurs in the coal face around all of that we have especially in Property Management writing Property Management ads is one of the most inspirational jobs you may never do and the fact that they can load the criteria the code of what they're after to get that back the efficiencies of that I think I saw Property Management take to it quicker because the agent's thinking I've got my database of ads but they're sounding the same and so forth so a lot of enjoying that technique of technology to well it's like when grammarly came out for all of us that can sell that can't spell you just have confidence that something's going over it and grammarly is no different it's running those algorithms to say that's a better word than that word and that word doesn't even exist and you're like okay I'm getting better at this I'm getting better at this and as a communication tool I think it's been taken too very fast yeah there's a number of different products that are kind of in their very early stages where just to take what you describe you'll be a property addressing you're throwing some attributes and basically all of your marketing from your website marketing to your signboard to your socials and everything else is nicely easily very quickly put together still gives you the opportunity to edit it but I think it's quite amazing the way that that's happening at the moment because that's in that marketing space with the chat GPT but I guess the whole AI area particularly the degenerative AI if I've got that right where it is artificial intelligence that includes machine learning is really really fascinating because there's some big questions globally talking about how does this impact the way that agents do business but probably even more importantly how does that impact the way that consumers search for property so it's a very big phenomenon particularly in the states there's a lot of communication on that right at the moment look at that search ability it's like the digital buyer's agent isn't it where someone could say I only want weatherboard Brunswick single story this side this side this street and I'm prepared to pay a premium for the exact match three story brick and tile homes with pools and so forth and the fact you could narrow it in but correct me if I'm wrong the portal doesn't really even have that search ability it's going to be a machine driven moment that that can laser beam across All Tech to say that's where it is yeah look I think we all know the portals are smart enough and strong enough and I've got enough money to be able to to sort of move into that space and take advantage of it but whether they can move at the pace it which is moving right now Lee I'm not too sure but it's going to be a really really interesting thing to watch because the reality is you look at the consumer expectation they want to be able to exactly that description that you said look I want to be able to have everything I want to be able to be served up information that suits my criteria I think that's going to be a really interesting place to watch on the agent side of things on the consumer expectations of Agents I'm sure you'd agree faster response less touch they certainly don't want to have to repeat information I know a lot of buyers these days instead of saying you've got my information already and agents so I've just got to take it again it becomes one of those pain Point moments for buyers there's a lack of consistency that buyers and sellers are probably looking for more consistency certainly transparency what's your sort of thoughts on that consumer experience to give it full perspective imagine as a real estate agent you went to board an international plane tomorrow and they were writing down your name as you got on yeah instead of boom and you're thinking are you sure you've got me like if this goes down well anyone now is even on board everyone's had that experience when you're in a cafe and someone takes your order but writes nothing down it comes back wrong you're like why didn't you just write it down next generation of that is I QR code it myself I ordered it myself I know exactly what I'm getting and I've paid for it so the consumer does have huge confidence in digital because digital won't hurt me it'll record me it doesn't have an opinion of me it's just placing me and connecting me so you look at these wonderful sales that we've been seeing happening where there's not a lot of people on the property but the ones that on there are the genuine real buyer and a couple of the timed auctions piece they have been getting moved forward but everyone gets notified versus nothing worse than the traditional real estate agent who says no it's definitely going to auction two weeks later they ring up and go oh just gonna get my building report on and we've sold that one yeah what do you mean sold it oh yeah someone you told me it was going to auction why have you discriminated me and that's where an agent can hurt a human because they made an emotional decision but they didn't notify and notifications had become a security for a lot of people that I can't registered I'll be notified versus I missed out and that's where digital has professional trust yeah because I guess if you're if a buyer and you you saw an agent was writing something down versus you're able to scan a QR code be able to declare your interest in the property you know that you're inside of the system so I agree with you around that you feel protected you also feel as a buyer that you've made your first step so you've made your declaration the agent can then communicate with you from an agent perspective at least all that information is in one spot so as you mentioned before send out a message you send it out to everyone so you complete your obligation to your seller by making sure that you don't leave any stone unturned because there'd be nothing worse finding out that a buyer who's not communicated to if you were the seller and we've probably heard plenty of stories about that but I guess the thing about all that is is that there's the technology that's available right and really the digital agent in the future should have access to that information that process because as you said before the industry hasn't really changed just the way that we do things is now easier faster more efficient and I guess too probably if you look at you know most of our customers that are out in the field today I mean every single agent's got a computer in their hand whether it's an Android phone or it's an iPhone or whatever it might be we've got access to be able to do all these things it's just a case of bringing it all together 100 and Pete I'll just share a story of my own at the moment I loaded a set of data up to a call company who's making some calls on my behalf but I got a live dashboard of how many calls they've made what the responses have been who I need to follow up who needs to speak to me urgently but in real time it's my list it's an on behalf call of me I'm seeing the notes the fact I'm in the back of a cab and I can scroll through and live and say I'm going to ring Pete Matthews myself and say hello g'day Pete it's Lee are you speak not on our team the other day and I just thought it I'd follow through and say hello to you that is efficiency and it's visible and I think digital's about gaining visibility and the owner loves it the owner loves seeing another offers come in that's not where we thought when you ring an owner to say okay we've had an offer it's all in your voice or you if you're calling after that they've had the notification in real time we both found out about it at the same time no one can get angry at a system but you're coming in after that but Pete I've got to say a lot of agents and we knew this would happen had this real weird reaction of our you know Technology's trying to take our job and so forth it's like you've got to be kidding you're working seven days a week we're trying to give you time back so when 75 people just got notified of that knockout bid how long would it take you to ring them on a Sunday to let them know there's been another offer do you want to increase your own it's about time our industry enjoyed these efficiencies and go home it's been way too long Pete that it's seven days a week 12 hours a day you can't switch off versus the system's always on now you don't have to be always on yourself I really want to see that work-life Harmony for our industry due to technology we'll take the first scene here today I'm in here you go back four years ago to be a camera guy a sound guy somebody else or somebody else costing 10 grand a day versus with the tech you learn it yourself you've got that efficiency but you got that control that I'm not waiting for someone to do something for me I can load those photos into cell now put a video explainer up which is good marketing and have it live myself in 5-10 minutes you've got to be your own mechanic today which is a really important thing absolutely there's no point just having Tech you've actually got to implement it you've got to ensure that you're engaged with it and make it part of your process so I'm sure that's a message that comes through in all of your training you are the inventor the author of The Price update which was a game changer for the industry really and also for our pitch product looking at that now the whole Suite of the platform there's so many other things now that have been evolved as a result of some of the feedback that we've got from our customers which we absolutely love because that's where a lot of ideas come from you know you've talked before about destination reports and using pitch as a destination report we had a chat earlier about you know sort of using pitch for more detailed vendor reports and what was really a great initiative and in talking about this buyer and consumer experience knowing that pretty much every buyer that's coming through probably either owns something else somewhere or may even own a property directly in your own Marketplace having buyer reports through pitch is something that's in trial at the moment and that came directly from the fields you know customers saying you know look it'd be great if you could do this and we've been able to convert that into some practical tools you know when I first saw peach peach is a brilliant multimedia communication tool with digital connection and notifiers and it was being used for that pre-listened kitten proposal and then to see it as a lead generation tool where you think wow we could strip it back so the price update is like the cheeseburger of the family it's got the less layers and that's the beauty of it when you can say to a consumer at the end of this phone call I'm going to shoot you a link and it's got the surrounding styles of your property I'll update it every six months for you just to keep me in the loop of the marketplace you picked up in the dialogue there not do you want one I'm sending you one well suddenly claiming 10 20 dollars a day has become the skilled and I'll say to agents before I ask you how your week was how many doors did we claim this week that's all I want to know first up I didn't get onto that I've got nothing else to talk about because we're not claiming doors we're going to end up locked and right now it's not when people say how do I get better fees get more doors the more doors you got the better fees you get because it's not so desperate now that this is the only chance you've got well you've got 15 potential sellers ready to come on the market because of your digital prospecting program you won't take a lesser fee because I've got more coming in versus if the only one you've got that's all you're going to get so that's been huge but I think allowing people to use this as their digital passport for everything so they go under your text messages now and they can go through your reports the progress report for the owner we've had some great examples samples where some of our pitch users God love them have said well there's a proposal that's everything we agreed to do I'm now going to add week one week two week three and I'll put your metrics report in there which might come from the CRM but these are my comments and notes and these my agents recommendations and this is the withdrawn interest from last week but the fact you can see the owners opened it I think is another significant part and if they've opened it three times today good time to hop over there and get a face to face that sort of notification for the agent has just been a game changer you also then put that into the buyers field where you've got a buyer who's declared their interest by scanning the QR code or following the property via the link and then you can actually put them onto a summary report essentially that can provide them with information about what's happening in the property over that period of time which no doubt not only a buyer would appreciate but at the same time too I think be a very very good sort of example of what you could do as a representative of their property should they decide to sell but I really shot you and I could you know talk about this for a long long time just a little bit of a summary and before I even get into that in the very early stage of Technology you've got sort of the innovators and the early adopters and they kind of make up about 15 of the total market then you've got an early majority where there's about another 34 that joins so we're kind of in that phase now they're kind of the early majority were called the pragmatists you know they're the ones that are kind of looking to go oh should we do it should we not and then you've got conservatives and Skeptics at the end and we're kind of moving through that phase in Tech I'm sure that you'd agree is that agents that are looking to take advantage of digital Technologies to improve their process and efficiency and also of course to provide better value and service to their customer really should spend a bit more time investigating that because the days of paper are well behind us and I'm sure you'd agree Lee that even the hybrids that exist where you've got some people on digital and some people on paper they're probably even noticeable at risk because they get assessed in one way and then they get disappointed in another so I think that's another thing that some of our customers should think about but just in some coming late so what we're talking about is make sure you get a process make sure it's got a digital platform to work that through it sounded very much like you know as we talked about sort of utilizing digital Communications with the climbing doors using presentations and prospecting tools in the digital space but also understanding that those same customers those same prospects are going to be coming through your open home and how you then engage with them and kind of bookending all that together with a compliant transactional process which you know you've described the timed auctions which is one of our methods of sale it's going to be an interesting space Lee I think your chat GPT things get interesting I'm going to have a lot more probably to say about that when we do our next webinar just after a bit spend some time in the States but you know they're getting the basics right is a really really important thing so summary comments from Ule how was lots of closing down I think this is a really important time in our industry and real estate's always going to be simple it's about attract engage commit that's all real estate is but commit has now become that sign on glass moment that's Sign Authority that I can bid online and the consumer is enjoying that so as a person who's a long-term career professional of this game I think the next five years Pete are such an exciting time in this industry for those who are up to date get it on your learning menu to study the digital sale now so when you need to do it you're a Ninja level at it versus oh I've got to learn this quick and I don't know what I'm doing this is what the consumer wants and it's bringing in so much compliance naturally to our business where agents weren't getting paid but get on board now because the next five years is going to be the most exciting time in the real estate industry you remind me of something like you look at an agent say 10 years ago who wanted to come in to b h was their first foray there wasn't really a very clear process most businesses couldn't say look this is how we transact real estate this is what we do for the initial customer engagement to prospect right through to settlement of the sale and today that process is there it's digitized and it literally is following that bouncing ball what I fear for the agency to be in the market for some time that haven't embraced is that there'll be new agents coming through that that's all they know they pick it up and they run with it and their ability to be able to move through those different levels that we know of age and performance will be a lot swifter if they've got a very very strong simple repeatable process that they can follow and I think we're going to see a big change in the Dynamics of agents in the future but whoever I'm watching I really appreciate I sort of tuned in today Lee thank you so much for your time I know that you are a very very hard guy to get a hold of [Music] thank you

2023-08-16 17:37

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