He was an old Realtor(R) and he made his living selling homes on the sea to rich people who had gotten tired of it and had come there to do nothing serious for a while and then be lucky enough to die very happy.

In the beginning there had been many sales for the old Realtor(R) because the old ways worked then and you had a book of all the homes for sale and if they wanted to buy one, they had to come to you or make their own luck by looking for hours for signs on lawns.

But then it all changed and they quit giving the book to the Realtors and the people who bought the homes could then look on the Internet to find them and each year far fewer and fewer called the old Realtor(R) to help them buy a home near the ocean.

The old Realtor(R) was very smart and had won many sales awards up until it all changed and so he was slow to take on the new ways because he thought they would not last and that what had worked for him in the past would continue to work for him now. The Internet thing seemed a mystery and hopefully a fad and so he refused to learn it or even to type because he had been too young to grow up with computers.

It was all right for the first year of the Internet. Then the second year his sales declined by thirty per cent even though he still used the old ways that had worked for so many years before. He could not understand this and shook his head often and worked even harder using the old ways but no matter how many hours he worked his business still declined.

In the beginning there had also been a young agent who was his assistant, but after the second year of the Internet, the wife of the assistant decided that the old man was the worst form of bad luck and so she had her husband leave the old man to go to work for an agent who had six web sites that the rich people found with ease on the Internet and in the first year after he left the old man, the income of the boy tripled and the agent that he assisted won the top sales prize in his office.

Now in the third year the old man sat in the expensive hotel bar alone because his own wife of forty-one years had told him that there never was a man so blind as the man who would not see and left him for an Internet Realtor(R) who would make $700,000 this year.

The old man was draining his fourth Scotch and water with a twist, which was what he had drunk in the seventies back when hard but controlled drinking was an art form. The drink made some things better, yet it was not the same as it was in the seventies and nothing else was the same and he was toying with the idea of hiring a company to make him a web site and teach him the new ways when a woman behind the bar who might have been beautiful a few years ago came over and smiled at him. There was something about her that he liked very much. It would be good to like something much for a change.

“Feeling okay?” she asked as she nodded at the empty glass.

“All these new technologies,” he said gravely. “It is so hard to start over.”

“What new technologies?”

“I’m a Realtor. And I could do better if I would learn the Internet and many other new ways.”

“Then why don’t you? Should you be having another?” She eyed the drink.

“Maybe, but in a while. I don’t know where to begin. It seems so impossible.”

“Don’t you recognize me?” she asked, covering his cold hand with her warm one.

He craned his neck in the clean well lighted room for a better look. Then it hit him.

“I sold you and your husband a house on the ocean about fifteen years ago.” He was feeling the Scotch now, so he added, “ I remember that I flirted with you.”

“Yes, that is right. You were the most caring agent that I have ever worked with, before or since. And I flirted back, but it meant nothing, back then anyway, because I was married. He died two years ago. I remember there was something so worthy about you….and there still is. Maybe I can help. We both know that the drinking doesn’t.”

He saw her eyes sparkle and it made him feel young again. But it was almost too late and all his old clients had gone to agents who knew the new ways. Still, it was good to think that at least she cared. He remembered her warmly from years ago. “How could you help?”

She waved an arm to take in the expensive bar in the expensive ocean front hotel. “I own all this. And I own the Internet marketing school that my husband and I started five years ago along with an Internet Service Provider firm and another one that has built three thousand web sites for agents around the country. Like me, you are not too old to learn it. I could personally help you.”

The man in the tuxedo who had earlier served the old Realtor the four Scotches walked in and sheepishly thanked her for filling in for him. She did not look at her bartender. She kept her hand on the old Realtor’s and he felt his getting warm. Could his life turn around so completely this way? He loved the way she was smiling now. He knew she was weighing him and not by how much he had sold either. Maybe it was not too late to learn the new ways. Maybe sometimes you just need to accept the changes.

He put his other hand on top of hers that was on top of his. “It would be good to see,” he said.

She nodded and smiled. They looked at each other for a long moment.

And with that he told himself that with her help maybe he could learn the new ways if he applied himself truly. He decided that maybe he could have it, all of it, again.

Published: March 2, 2000

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Editor's Note: This article reflects the opinions of Bill Koelzer only and not necessarily the views of this or any other publication, organization or Website owner.

Bill Koelzer is a Web marketing consultant to web-proficient agents nationwide. He is co-author, with Barbara Cox, Ph.D., of the Prentice-Hall books, Internet Marketing in Real Estate and Internet Marketing. Bill is also webmaster of Orange County Real Estate, among the most-awarded known Realtor® sites. Visit his website, Koelzer.com or e-mail him at .