At the industry’s premier gathering of innovators, entrepreneurs and real estate thought leaders, experts from in and outside the industry delivered compelling insights on how to change the industry, one leap of faith at a time.
Brad Inman, founder and publisher of Inman News, in his opening remarks invoked Napster’s pioneering peer-to-peer MP3 sharing to remind the audience to “think before you over-react to innovation.” An idea perhaps too early for its time, the concept of file sharing has unequivocally changed the nature of data transfer in a digital age.
He commended CVS for “adapting its infrastructure to the future” by making the business decision to stop selling unhealthy items like cigarettes and alcohol to align with an increasingly health-conscious public by expanding pharmacy and clinic services.
And health care company Kaiser Permanente was praised for rethinking health based on prevention and for creating a digitized, searchable and password protected health records database in the cloud to enable physicians to focus less on processing paperwork and more on providing care.
In thinking about these risky shifts and forward-looking changes, Inman encouraged the room of innovators and entrepreneurs to bring together the old world and the new world to change the real estate industry.
Over the course of the next three days, speakers from a wide variety of industries and practice areas delivered TED-style talks and participated in spirited panel discussions, presenting novel concepts to apply to the real estate industry. Here’s a sampling:
Offense versus defense. According to Tommy Sowers, CEO and founder of SOLOpro, a venture backed real estate marketplace who also served as a U.S. Army Green Beret, “Green Berets are the entrepreneurs of the military. We play offense. If you play defense you get your butt kicked.”
Turn information into insight. According to Kevin Foreman, general manager of geo-analytics at traffic app INRIX, “Data is pervasive but in order to stand out in the marketplace, you need to turn it into insight. For instance, in real time traffic information, distance is now measured in minutes not miles.”
Change is hard. When thinking about being an agent of change Foreman made this observation: young people talk about tomorrow; old people talk about yesterday. Change is hard, he said, but today is the first day of the rest of your life.
Nordstrom training philosophy. Fafie Moore, broker/owner of Realty Executives of Nevada, shared her secrets to recruiting, compliments of Nordstrom: Hire the smile. Train the skill. But, she cautions, they need to be willing to prospect.
Behavioral economics. Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, shared results from a research study that revealed we are willing to pay more for a greater perceived effort. His advice to real estate professionals: Show your effort to your clients. Further, not only do we need to understand people’s needs and then counsel them to make a decision, we need to adopt a more paternalistic approach. People want to be advised by a trusted professional.
Empathy is the currency of trust. Jason Aleem, Redfin’s southwest district manager, believes empathy is critical to client relations. “Understand your clients,” he advised. “But also give them the opportunity to understand you as well. You’re in this together!”
