I don't normally give talks to individual real estate offices, but it is good for me to get out of the office, away from the computer and meet some real estate agents face to face on occasion. This morning I attended a morning meeting at a top Plano, Texas brokerage, and it didn't go as well as I hoped. In fact, I bombed.

That's right. I don't bat 1000, and sometimes it's good to be reminded of that. It's also good for you to know why I bombed, and where your competition is in their mindset about the Internet. If you are concerned about the World Wide Web becoming too crowded with other agents, let me put you at ease. That won't happen for a long time to come, if my failure today is any indication.

The topic for my talk was whether agents should market themselves on the Internet. Although there were a few people who read Realty Times and Agent News, knew my work, and were familiar with or using our newsletter, overall it was a rough audience. At 48, I was easily the youngest person in the room with the exception of Kate Kemp, our product manager, whom I had invited to share information about our newsletter. I was dressed casually in dotcom chic, but my outfit was no match for the designer labels shouting back at me. Kate had the good sense to wear a business suit, but her purple-streaked hair underscored her youth. Cyberspace was the same as outer space to these veterans, and it was too late for Kate and me to utter, "Take us to your leader."

These successful, seasoned professionals had been forewarned that some kind of Internet expert was coming to see them, but they didn't look happy or excited. I think I would have received a bigger welcome if I had announced that I was from the IRS. It didn't help that the manager who introduced me didn't mention any of my qualifications except that I have a sister who is a real estate agent. With this inauspicious beginning, I plunged in, knowing that no matter how much worse it would get that I only had a half-hour to suffer and would live to tell about it.

Here's how my talk went:

Everywhere you go, you are being told you have to start marketing yourself on the Internet, but most of you are too busy making money or trying to make money to worry about this new medium. But you should pay attention to what is changing on the Internet because it could shortly mean that you won't be doing business the same way much longer.

These statistics tell you why:

• Fifty percent of home buyers are visiting the Internet to look at listings and get home buying information before contacting a Realtor, says independent research firm Jupiter Research.
• Online buyers are twenty years younger and make almost twice the income of the average Realtor, according to data compiled by the National Association of REALTORS. These buyers grew up using computers, whereas the average Realtor faces a learning curve.
• The learning curve isn't that steep for many. Over 740 people go online for the first time every hour. That's 18,000 a day, says The Internet Standard, an e-commerce periodical. And, they are going on to the World Wide Web without lessons.
• The Internet isn't just for the young. The fastest growing group of Internet users is over 55 years of age, so if you've been letting age hold you back, you just lost your best excuse. These Internet users use e-mail, digital photography and other Internet tools to stay in touch with family. They expect you to know how to use those same tools for business.

A few of the Realtors sat in stunned silence. Others picked up the trampled flag of tradition. "Harumph!" cried one. "We do use e-mail," defended another. "I have AOL," justified a third." The loudest said, "Hah! We're not average!"

I'm glad to see that you aren't average, but that is the key word here. Average." I replied. "The average Realtor replies to her e-mail less than every forty-eight hours. These new Internet buyers expect you to use the same tools they do and to respond quickly to their requests for information. They want a response within an hour.

"Well, they do get upset, I had one client that emailed me and I didn't answer him for a week and he called me and asked me why I didn't answer his e-mail," said one agent. I felt a faint glimmer of hope. It was soon dashed. "I suppose we should just drop everything for an e-mail," said the loud one, dripping with sarcasm. "I've got better things to do." Others began to nod in agreement.

They stopped listening to me then and there, and I knew it. The loud one had won the day by giving everyone in the room a reason not to embrace change. Pride shone in her eyes, as she knew that she had vanquished an Internet interloper.

Still, I soldiered on, holding tight to the dwindling number of faces that were still turned to me with interest. It was too bad, because the others were about to miss the good part.

Yet less than a third of Realtors nationwide have a Web presence for these buyers to find them. Even fewer use a genuine business e-mail. That means there is a great opportunity for Realtors who want to use the Internet to have a real marketing advantage.

However, the Internet is a different medium that any other because you can communicate in real time with your consumer. That makes the Internet an ideal communication and information delivery tool. If you want to be one of the Realtors found on Internet listings, in directories, or through school and neighborhood reports, you have to buy the appropriate Web tools such as Web sites and sponsorships of lead generation tools. These can be costly, but they can also be effective if you track your results.

I asked at this point how many of the 15 agents who were present had Web pages. Three or four reluctantly raised their hands. Who's the vendor? Realtor.com, they all replied. Two had custom sites. They were blissfully unaware that this group was well below the national average for Internet presence by Realtors.

That's where the Internet separates the agents from the superagents. Internet-savvy agents use the Internet as a communication and information delivery tool. This is first and foremost over using it as a marketing tool. You have to be able to communicate with consumers, or all the marketing in the world does you no good. Consumers can find you from your Realtor.com listing by navigating to your I-LEAD page, and e-mailing you. But how are you going to communicate with the client once they have contacted you?

Your job is to entice the consumer off of Realtor.com and other listings sites and offer to send the consumer more detailed and fresher information than they can get for themselves. You can use e-mail to send documents, listings from your MLS, news and other information. Otherwise, the consumer has no reason to use you over any of the other agents that they can find on the Web.

Give them a reason to choose you over other agents. Demonstrate that you know how to save them time, money and frustration by using the Internet to communicate and deliver information.

Suddenly, there was a glimmer of recognition as one agent gleefully announced, "I've had five e-mails this week from buyers and three of them commented on my virtual tours!" The hapless agent received no support from her peers. While Kate and I cooed over her skill, the others sat on their hands, too cowed by the loud agent to offer any encouragement.

After a few more wind-up comments, I turned the program over to Kate to demonstrate what a nimble tool the newsletter is to help contact, nurture, and capture buyers and sellers online. She breezed through it, but to her credit, there is too much to show about the newsletter for a 10-minute presentation to do it justice. Some agents asked questions about the product, and then out of nowhere, one agent asked me, "How many agents do you have signed up?" I gave a number. "How many in Dallas?" he persisted. "Why?" I asked, unaware that I was making a blunder.

There's a reason why I'm a writer instead of a salesperson. A skillful salesperson would have seen this agent's question as a disguised objection, one begging to be overcome. "I don't know but I'll get back to you with that information. Why would you like to know?" is how I should have responded. Then I should have used his answer to my advantage. Instead, I thought what does the number of sales people have to do with the price of eggs? My mind was already racing ahead. Did he think having an online newsletter that other agents also have was a disadvantage? Why should it be any more so than with direct mail or any other farming tool? Everyone has a unique set of contacts, a personal farming pool, so the odds of receiving a newsletter from more than one salesperson, even in the same farming area, were astronomical. Could he not see that? So, to my disgrace as a salesperson, I bluntly replied, "Why?"

Later, this same agent later cornered me by my car and lectured me on what he felt would have been a more skillful presentation and how I should have answered his question. After all, I was there to sell a product. Realizing then how badly I must have embarrassed him, I just stuck out my hand and apologized for offending him. That wasn't good enough. He repeated the whole lesson while I stood there. "I'm getting exactly what I deserve," I thought. I wasn't about to add insult to injury by telling him that I got the point already. He needed to vent, so I let him.

After Kate and I spoke, the meeting was turned over to the manager who went over some company business. She wanted to know how everyone's open houses turned out for the weekend and what leads people had for current listings. It didn't sound like many to me. One agent was asked how she follows up on buyers at open houses. Did she use e-mail? She glanced at me and pointedly said, "No, I use another method to follow-up." She said she takes the buyer's address, does a CMA on the buyer's house, and mails it to them with a cover letter and some print-outs of current listings.

I wanted to ask why she didn't simply ask for an e-mail address and e-mail the listings complete with virtual tours, school data and the other data that might help the buyer. Use the e-mail to get a dialog going. Think about this - she's getting her buyers from open houses. Does she think hers was the only house the buyers visited that day? That other agents wouldn't also be pursuing these buyers?

But I didn't. She was determined to do what has been successful for her in the past. Nevermind that her way was slower, less efficient, conveyed less useful information to the buyer, and risked losing the buyer to other agents because of the response time, but who was I to bring that up? There was no doubt that her way was the right way. That's okay, I thought. I don't need to be the messenger here. She'll get the point when she starts losing buyers to agents who use e-mail to do the same functions she does by snail-mail. And with no mailing costs. Let them be the messenger.

The meeting was called to a close, but not before the manager wanted everyone in the room to share information about mailers. The loud one was asked about her calendars which she just sent out the first of January. "How much did you spend on those?" one associate asked. "Six thousand dollars," the loud one replied, a figure that made some in the room slack-jawed with wonder, including myself. "I spend more than $20,000 a year in mailers." She let her eyes skim over me, clearly triumphing in the moment. The manager reiterated that mailers were crucial to building a business and she wanted to see everyone stepping up the number of mailers that they send out. One person stepped up to complain that the company supplying the mailers was late with the Valentine mailer, and where were they? The manager, who apparently had ordered them, directed the office assistant to look into it. The loud one suggested that everyone make a call to the errant company, as if that would encourage a chronically late vendor to change its ways. "That's not the point," whined the complainant. "We are using this company because we don't want to have to worry about this, and we're worrying about it anyway."

I kept my face as pokered as possible. I was dying to jump in and say, "Why are you tied to a vendor who isn't doing a good job for you? That's exactly what the Internet consumer won't do and that's why they aren't loyal to you! Why are you spending so much money on mailers? Why aren't you looking for alternatives that are less expensive and yield better results?"

But then I remembered that these people didn't want me to be their messenger. If I spoke up, I was just asking to get shot. The definition of insanity is asking the same question over and over and expecting a different answer, and I already knew the answer. I'm tired of getting shot, but I am committed to one last try anyway.

Here's my message anyway for those who are still with me. The Internet is not a human being. It is not a competitor to any agent. Your competition is any agent who can use the Internet more effectively than you can. You can get away with not answering a client's e-mail for a week today, but that won't be true tomorrow. You can get away with faxing listings to your buyer to preview today, but not tomorrow. Tomorrow, your buyer will expect homes to fill their screens with virtual tours, school and neighborhood data and automated CMAs for every home. Age and experience will count for less as the digital divide grows between consumers and Realtors. Tomorrow, the Internet buyer will choose agents for their Internet skills as surely as for their market knowledge.

As I drove myself to the office, I reflected on the meeting, laughing to myself that I was a fool to think things had changed, that just because Agent News and I were out here for the agents, that they would know about us or care what I had to say. And that was a humbling lesson.

But I am here, and I'm not giving up, even if I do get tired of being shot as the messenger. Change is hard, and I don't blame agents for not changing when they think they don't have to. They believe they still have time to do things the old ways. Maybe they do. A bountiful real estate market has done little to dissuade them. Yes, they are making money now, and I hope they continue to do so.

But then again, maybe they don't have as much time as they think. Fifty percent of buyers are turning to the Internet - before talking to a Realtor. In some parts of the country, Internet buyers are as high as 90 percent. Two years ago, it was only 18 percent. The Realtors that they contact are the ones they find on the Internet. If you're not on the Internet, how do you plan to be found?

That's my message. Don't shoot.

Published: February 6, 2001

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Blanche Evans is the award-winning senior editor of Realty Times, the Internet's leading independent real estate news service. She is featured daily on the Realty Times Video Network in the "Realty Viewpoint" segment. Blanche has been named one of the "25 Most Influential People In Real Estate" by REALTOR Magazine, and has been twice recognized as a "notable." In 2005, she was named "Top Reporter Covering the NAR" by Delahaye-Bacon's. Blanche is a renowned author of five real estate books. Her newest, Bubbles, Booms and Busts: Make Money In Any Real Estate Market, McGraw-Hill, was rave-reviewed by The New York Times. She was also selected from hundreds of real estate experts to contribute to Donald Trump's book, Trump: The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received: 100 Top Experts Share Their Strategies, Rutledge Hill Press, and is featured on page 68. Order Now Review - Honors In 2006, Blanche was selected among scores of candidates to author two consumer real estate guidebooks for the National Association of Realtors: The NAR Guide to Home Buying, and The NAR Guide to Home Selling, Wiley & Sons. She is currently planning two new books for the NAR and its members.       Known for her keen insight into real estate industry issues and for her ability to make complex subjects easy to understand, Blanche is a sought-after keynote and continuing education speaker. Real estate organizations from MLSs, to brokerages, to franchisors, to associations hire her to provide up-to-the-minute analysis of real estate industry news and advice on how to improve revenues. Her passionate delivery, peppered with stinging wit, is a huge hit with audiences and fans. Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, Blanche Evans, Richard Courtney, president 2007, GRAR "The GNAR membership meeting last week featured Blanche Evans as the keynote speaker. Her comments and insights resonated extremely well with those in attendance and we have had many requests for copies of her PowerPoint Presentation. She was a terrific part of the membership meeting and convention program!" - Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors Coverage from WSMV, Nashville - 8-14-2007 That Interview Guy - Get Inside The Head Of Today's Generation 2007 AE Institute Session - To purchase 2006 AE Institute Session - Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 HouseValues Mastermind call - Parts 1 2 Blanche's fireside chat with Jeremy Conaway, HAR - Click here. To contact Blanche, email her at . For more articles by Blanche, click here.