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Agently is an automated real estate business planning and coaching solution.
Platforms: Browser app
Ideal for: All new and mid-level agents, retention-minded brokers and team leaders
Top selling points:
- Highly engaging UI/UX
- Clear goal setting
- Unique, built-in marketing tools
- Goals integrated with local market data
- Clear performance reporting
Top concern:
I’d like to see Agently make it a goal to get embedded in brokerages as soon as possible, as its effectiveness and sustainability will rely on big accounts. It’s a smart, well-done refresh of what was a niche product, but it’s going to need champions from above.
What you should know
This version of Agently is all new. It once focused solely on automating content for listing descriptions and promotion, but now has built on top of that automation a smart, insightful coaching system for new and evolving agents. There’s no doubt this can also serve as a valuable brokerage tool rolled out for new hires to aid in recruiting and retention, something with which not enough brokers concern themselves.
I was skeptical going into this demo, but my opinion was quickly swayed when I took notice of the consumer-first, app-inspired dashboards, charts and goal-setting functionality. And by the fact that it’s so well developed to help new agents get their footing and understand what it takes to do well in real estate.
I’ve seen far too many brokers simply push a seat under their new recruits and hope they find their way to profitability. After all, why do you think the attrition rate is what it is? (It’s about 87 percent, by the way, according to TomFerry.com.)
I’m not promising the new Agently will ensure success, but it at least provides a fun, smart framework for going about your day-to-day. It offers direction.
The user experience begins with a simple setup of personal details and a financial goal. Of course, don’t go overboard here, be realistic on what you want to make, knowing that in real estate, success begets success.
With that income figure plugged in, Agently runs its algorithms against your market’s average prices, deal volume and other stats to show the user how many leads are needed and deals have to close to reach their goal.
The information is presented in a succinct, engaging summary with progress bars, performance reports and a host of daily, categorized tasks to accomplish. One day you may be told, “Create a social media post,” or “Record a video.”
Sure, everything is easier read than done, but an important byproduct here is that you’re not spending time wondering what has to get done. You have something to turn to. Yes, you can execute marketing tasks and find leads in places outside of Agently, but at least by using it you’ll always have reliable training aid.
Tasks are categorized as Social, Prospecting and Branding.
The software comes with a Canva-like social media library of templates and content, all created within the company. They look sharp, too, and are often fully ready-to-go, as Agently’s previous product was run by natural language processing. In essence, a robot writer.
There’s a website service here, too. It’s not a full-fledged web presence, but a simple landing-page type of web space with a bio, contact form and a listing section. Leads captured here will show up as tasks on the coaching interface.
Advertising campaigns can be set to find seller leads, promote a market report (kinda boring, but people like them), home evaluation calls-to-action and other categories. You set the budget and duration, and Agently takes over from there.
As leads come in, Agently’s tagging system makes it easy to prioritize who deserves the most attention. Now, most agents will have some form of CRM that could handle a good deal of this, so yes, there’s a fair amount of possible redundancy here.
A simple work-around would be to use Agently for its tasks, recommendations and goal tracking, and your CRM or marketing software to execute. There’s no reason the two can’t work together.
Agently is working on some integrations, at least a Zapier connection, so lead data doesn’t get lost in the mix.
But, all in all, it’s the software’s simple goal setting and ability to serve as a daily activity check-in that, to me, offer the most value. A lot of big, broad enterprise business systems and CRMs offer agent-specific goal setting and tracking, but they’re not designed specifically around the newly licensed agent. This is meant for them, for the agents that need direction.
In fact, the company’s founder told me he’d like nothing more than to lose users to “graduation” from his product.
Carpe diem, kids.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.
