This article is the third in a series on effectively implementing new technology at the brokerage level. You can find Part One here and Part Two here.
Real estate broker/owners are busy. They’re responsible for the day-to-day management of their brokerages and important tasks like recruitment, negotiation, compliance, strategic partnerships, and more. With so much on their plates, they often delegate the management of front– and back-office technology to someone else. Despite not being involved in everyday tech decisions, they are the lead decision makers for implementing new technology. They therefore need to engage the right stakeholders to make the best decisions. If they unintentionally opt for the wrong solution, it will be much harder to implement, reducing ROI and adoption significantly.
Broker/owners must keep two things in mind: First, they don’t know what they don’t know. It’s critical they ask as many stakeholders as possible as many questions as they can. How does their team regularly work? What processes take the most time or cause the biggest headaches? Where are there opportunities for automation and streamlining? Second, no solution can do it all or solve every problem. The goal should be to tackle the areas where the potential return is greatest or tasks that are the most challenging. The only way to find out what those are is to ask.
Broker/owners must engage at least five key stakeholder groups to ensure new technology improves the maximum number of processes:
Brokers
Don’t neglect your own needs or those of the other brokers on your team. Do you need better reports or other ways to track brokerage performance? Do you wish you had a better way to track agent performance? Incentivize engagement? Retain your top agents? Make a list of your wants and bring them to the table.
Agents
A survey by the National Association of REALTORS® found that 35 percent of agents wished brokers provided better technology to help them do their jobs. How do yours feel? What areas do they need help in? Maybe they need better social media marketing tools, an easier way to follow up with leads, a more dynamic website or better tools to work on-the-go.
Marketing
Marketing has shifted quickly away from “traditional” channels to social media, content marketing, video marketing, and more. Does your marketing team have the tools it needs to create timely social media posts and assign every single online lead?
Admins
Admins are the wheels that keep things running. What are their pain points at your brokerage? Are there manual tasks that could be automated? Are there ten-step workflows that could be reduced to five? Are admins chasing down parties to sign documents? Are they spending hours scanning documents? Making admin tasks easier means major savings and a better work environment for the entire team at your brokerage.
Transaction Coordinators
Transaction coordinators keep every deal on track. Do you already have tools to help track deadlines, schedule appraisals and inspections, and review documents and signatures? If not, does the solution you’re looking at have features that streamline transaction coordinators’ jobs?
Anyone else?
Every brokerage is unique. What other team members should you loop in? Do you work with a bookkeeper or accountant? Do any of your agents have assistants? Do you offer property management, handyman, title or home warranty services? A solution that helps these stakeholders will likely help others, too.
Effectively implementing new technology can be a challenge, but by involving all key stakeholders in the process and getting their buy-in, broker/owners can make sure their technology implementations are a success.
Does your real estate brokerage have the right tools in place to support your key stakeholders and improve business processes? Constellation1 solutions are designed to suit your unique business needs. Book your personal tour today.
Rachel Bottineau, Vice President of Operations, Back Office at Constellation1. Rachel is an experienced brokerage operations leader. She has helped thousands of brokerages implement back and front office software over the past 15 years and is a key resource for advice on the who, what, and why for brokerage technology.
