Family Reunion 2018

[Brandon Hoffman]

I agree with Gary about Zillow and some of the "marketing" platforms. How did you feel about him saying KW is not a RE company anymore but instead they are a technology company? I like the KW model but I find that a bit of an odd thing to say.

[MikeJaquish]

Originally Posted by Brandon Hoffman

I agree with Gary about Zillow and some of the "marketing" platforms. How did you feel about him saying KW is not a RE company anymore but instead they are a technology company? I like the KW model but I find that a bit of an odd thing to say.

I found that interesting.
Will that ring true to consumers?

But, I have a pretty hard-assed attitude that a great company should offer as much or more supervision and development of broker performance vis-à-vis ethics, transactional and consumer satisfaction, as providing platforms, leads, lead generation, team building, and other instruction.

More leads and a good CRM and a good search don't make an agent a better servant to consumers.

Every large company has their brokers who push limitations, who work on the outside of the envelope. If not a "real estate company" any more, how are those operators regulated and supervised?

[MikePRU]

Originally Posted by Brandon Hoffman

I agree with Gary about Zillow and some of the "marketing" platforms. How did you feel about him saying KW is not a RE company anymore but instead they are a technology company? I like the KW model but I find that a bit of an odd thing to say.

I think whoever relayed Gary's speech to you only relayed it in part.

First, I 100% agree with Gary that KW needs to be a technology company. What he said during his speech (paraphrasing a bit here) is that we could either be technology enabled agents or agents that enable technology. "Do you want to be the tail or the dog?" is how he put it.

Data is the new oil and we're currently paying folks like Zillow and Top Producer for the privilege of giving it to them. Sure, Zillow says today that they're an agent marketing platform and they're our partners but one day they could change their minds and become our competition. From our perspective, it's a bad idea to get into a dependent relationship with these companies. So, KW is building platforms that we can use to accomplish the same goals but we still own our own data and don't get into dependent relationships with entities outside of our control. Plus, when these tools are released they'll be covered by our current fees. KW COMMAND when combined with all the other tech they were referencing is going to be a very powerful tool both for organizing our business, maintaining our database, and mining data that we choose to share among ourselves.

Gary also said that we're not just a technology company. We're a training and coaching company as well. Basically, we the agents are in the real estate business. KW corporate is in the business of supporting us. It's their responsibility to get us the technology and knowledge we need to succeed. Personally, I find that refreshing as I felt I wasn't getting a ton of support from my previous brokerage especially from the "home office."