Every month I continually receive E-mails from people asking me to take a look at a new service they are offering to real estate agents in hopes that I will want to tell everyone about it. And more than 90 percent of the time I find that these "new" services are basically nothing worthwhile to you as a real estate agent.

Either other companies are already successfully offering the exact same service or the "new" idea that is being proposed really has no merits in the real estate community.

The Internet is now evolving to the point where the average person is beginning to understand it much better. It used to be that you needed to hire a technology guru to get things done for you on the Web but now more people are fully understanding how to do many of these same things for themselves.

So because real estate agents are highly driven, make good money, and are relying more on electronic technology these days, some people out there feel if they quickly assemble some Web based service, buy a supposedly "hot" database of 1,000,000 or so agent E-mail addresses, and send E-mail announcements about their new service out to this database that they'll strike it rich in no time.

So, you have to watch out for yourself.

Some of these Websites and services are unbelievably horrible, and many have numerous misspelled words. And when I talk with the people behind these sites, I can often quickly tell that they have very little knowledge of the real estate business and very little knowledge about running a business that revolves around technology, too.

One guru out there who proposes to help agents build their Web sites and integrate technology into them has a Website for their own business with letters that are so small you really have to strain to read them. Now if someone like this has a Website that encourages people to quickly want to leave it, imagine the wonderful Web site that they'll design for you!

Which brings me to another point:

Technology specialists are not marketing specialists. Remember years ago before the Internet became a normal part of our lives when it was extremely clear to us that computer technology experts were not sales and marketing experts? Well, oftentimes this conception is not as clear to us today as it always was back then. Just because someone has more knowledge about technology than you do doesn't mean that they know the best approaches to market your real estate services to your clients and prospects through technology. Always remember this and it will serve you well.

So do your homework. If you need someone to help you with technology approaches in your real estate business talk to other agents who have already found someone who specializes in this arena that they have been very happy with. Also, make sure that the job you are hiring the technology expert to do is a job that they have already done successfully many times for other real estate agents. And check with other real estate agents to make sure that the technology expert performs the job you want done in a way that you know you will be very happy with.

Your real estate business is extremely valuable to you. Don't put it at risk by working with someone who you hope is a real estate technology expert but who is really a just a wanna be!

Published: February 24, 2004

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Jim Gillespie, Ph.D., is America's Premier Real Estate Coach℠. He has over 20 years of experience in real estate sales and is a past president of three different real estate companies. His FREE real estate E-newsletter with tips and creative ideas to help agents make more money is now read by over 35,000 agents nationwide. You can subscribe to his FREE E-newsletter by visiting RealEstateSalesCoach.com or contact him at Jim@RealEstateSalesCoach.com.