- Build tech for the future, not for what you need today.
- Involve your whole team when selecting new tech.
- Tech solutions only work if your team uses them.
Communication is everything when it comes to teams, and technology can help keep everyone in the loop. Many teams of agents around the country are still testing a variety of tech solutions to find what will work best for them.
Live Love International
Keller Williams’ expansion team leader, Lisa Archer, who started her Live Love International expansion team with her father in Charlotte, North Carolina, said dotloop, Curaytor and Brivity were her three top tech tools.
Before deciding on a new system, Archer said she asks two questions: “Does it save us time and does it make (or save) us money?
“We have beta tested just about every product in the market,” she added. Expansion teams lose time logging in and out of systems, and staff members get frustrated when tech doesn’t work. “The products we have come to use and love have evolved. ”
Archer believes in involving the whole team in choosing what works for them. “It’s really important that the transaction management and admin are happy, they need to be part of the decision making too.”
Compass
Compass chief technology officer, Liming Zhao, does not accept that the tech systems used by agents are doing what they promise.
“At Compass, we deliberately avoided building CRM,” he said, noting that there are many solutions but that “not one single of them is working.
“As a startup, we want to know exactly what we want, and we can integrate tech for that purpose. It might be similar to CRM, but we would like to see a solution fully focused for a real estate agent, something to help manage your client.”
Added Archer: “The best CRM out there is the one you use — none of them matter if you don’t use them.”
Mobile tech
Should tech be focused on mobile for teams? Archer said the Curaytor platform had a variety of products for mobiles.
Zhao added he prefers to look at specific users when developing a product.
“To design a product just for the phone does not make sense.”
Archer said team leaders should encourage their employees to use tech together. Tech should “glue the team together” by helping with sharing and communication, she said.
“When looking at tech, build it for the future — not for today. Also, is it expandable, it is scalable and going to grow in the future?” she asked
