If your role in real estate involves sales demos or any kind of training, you’re likely familiar with the frustration of delivering the same webinar over and over again.
Or worse, preparing a webinar that is either poorly attended or no one shows up.
But what if you could do 100 or even 1,000 webinars a month—without getting in front of a camera?
Melissa Kwan is Cofounder and CEO of eWebinar, a platform that saves people from repeatedly delivering the same webinar by turning videos into automated, interactive webinars.
Prior to eWebinar, Melissa founded and successfully exited the real estate tech startup Spacio, a check-in app for open houses.
On this episode of Listing Bits, Melissa shares her journey as a proptech entrepreneur, describing how she developed her mad sales skills and why she was ready for a new challenge after Spacio.
Melissa discusses how her experience with onboarding and training for Spacio inspired the creation of eWebinar and explains what differentiates the platform from Zoom, YouTube videos and webinar replays.
Listen in for insight around Melissa’s intentional approach to life and learn how your real estate business might leverage eWebinar to get your time back and spend it on things you enjoy!
What’s Discussed:
The initial idea for Spacio and how it evolved into a check-in app for open houses
How Melissa developed her hustle and sales ability out of necessity
Melissa’s successful exit from Spacio after 4 years of running the business
The real estate leadership dinner that launched Melissa’s career as an entrepreneur
What differentiates eWebinar from YouTube, Zoom and webinar replays
How Melissa’s experience with training for Spacio inspired the creation of eWebinar
How brokerages and real estate teams are using eWebinar to qualify leads
The benefit of using eWebinar in terms of video quality and availability of content
eWebinar’s use cases for sales demos, onboarding and training
How Melissa runs eWebinar to reflect her work less, enjoy more philosophy of life
The first 4 months at Lone Wolf have been an awesome learning experience for me. Lone Wolf and W+R Studios have always had mutual customers, and I was always aware of the forms and transaction management business but now I’m getting a full immersion course. What I’m learning the most is this, at scale, it’s a tough business. I know that competition is starting to rise in this space, I would only say to them, be careful what you wish for.
With that in mind, I sat down to talk with Lone Wolf’s CEO, Jimmy Kelly. I was surprised but not surprised that he agreed to do this interview with me. I don’t think we made any edits or cut anything out, it’s about 30 mins long and worth the watch. Jimmy answered all my questions, even the tough ones (check out the timeline), and I still have a job!
Hope you enjoy and see how running a form business during the beginning of a worldwide pandemic is a little like Lucy and Ethel working at the chocolate factory.
Timeline:
:40 – Introduction to Jimmy, and history in software industry
4:20 – Greg and Jimmy discuss forms changes and frequency of requests
5:15 – Looking back on pandemic, COVID requests, and response from Lone Wolf
9:30 – Greg asks about product outages, instability. Jimmy discusses what’s going on at Lone Wolf.
12:00 – Greg: What do you say to customers who’ve heard that before?
16:05 – Jimmy discusses future of Back Office.
17:45 – Greg: Are Transactions (zipForm Edition) and Transactions (TransactionDesk Edition) eventually going to merge?
20:00 – Greg: What do you say to customers who want you to focus on current issues rather than innovating/buying companies?
23:45 – Jimmy previews what he’s most excited about coming soon from Lone Wolf
29:00 – Greg: What can you share about Stone Point Capital acquiring CoreLogic?
Paycheck Protection Program or PPP loans cover independent contractors in Real Estate, about 90% of the 1099 agents will qualify for the forgivable government PPP loan. The loan amount is likely to be around $5,000 on the low end and up to $20,833 on the high end, according to information provided by Capital Plus, Blueacorn, and MooveGuru. Approval rates are currently at 90%.
I know many vendors who have taken advantage of PPP loans. Every little bit helps as we make our way out of this pandemic. If you involved with doing any agent/member communication I would get this word out there.
First off if you don’t know what Clubhouse is, here’s a brief description from the New York Times.
“What is it?
A social networking app that lets people gather in audio chat rooms to discuss various topics, whether it’s sports, wellness, art or why Bitcoin is headed to $87,000. Rooms are usually divided into two groups: those who are talking and those who are listening (participants can see a list of everyone who is in a conversation, and the numbers sometimes run into the thousands). Unlike Twitter, Clubhouse is a closed, hierarchical platform: A moderator oversees discussions and has the ability to let someone chime in or to kick out the unruly. In addition to the “clubs” sorted by topic, two or more users can join together and start their own chat room.”
You’ll need to download the app and have an invite. I have a few to give out. First come, first serve. Also, Clubhouse is iPhone only for now.
I’m going to start the room on Clubhouse at 3PM today, PT. The topic I want to discuss is What is an “active user”.
If an agent has created a website but doesn’t login to the backend every month, do they not find value in having the website?
If an agent creates listing alerts for their past/active clients but doesn’t login to the backend of the app and change anything, does that mean their clients don’t see any value? Is “set it, and forget it” a bad thing?
If a vast majority of agents barely do one transaction per year and barely log in to the MLS, why should they pay monthly MLS dues?
Let’s face it, if you tied value to app usage then the clock on your computer desktop would cost $500 per month.
It’s complicated. I see all sides to this. But most times “logins” are not the answer. Sometimes just using the app once a year is worth it.
Increasingly vendors are under pressure because MLS organizations and associations are under pressure to deliver services that members value. But how we define “value” is, well, complicated. Especially since most agents don’t do many transactions.
The nature of Clubhouse is that it’s a live conversation, and not recorded. So join me at 3PM for a safe space to discuss this topic, hopefully, it can spur more offline conversations that can lead to a greater understanding of this complicated issue.
What can technology vendors do to better connect with the agents and brokers we hope to serve? And what can we learn from the perspective of a computer engineer turned REALTOR about how to approach real estate professionals and what kind of tech solutions they need?
Georgia Purpura is Managing Broker at Urban Nest Realty, a mid-size independent brokerage out of Las Vegas, Nevada, where she specializes in helping agents grow their business. She is also very involved in the local association, most recently serving as Chair of the MLS. Georgia has been a licensed agent for 12 years, acting as broker for Keller-Williams Southwest before joining Urban Nest in 2018. Prior to real estate, she earned her degree in business and information technology and spent eight years working as a computer engineer.
On this episode of Listing Bits, Georgia discusses how her background in IT has served her well in real estate, explaining how she evaluates technology solutions and what vendors can do to market their software more effectively. She offers advice for vendors and brokers on creating a business model that mitigates agent churn, challenging us to focus on producers rather than subscribers—casting a deeper net as opposed to a wider one. Listen in for Georgia’s insight on how modern agents learn about technology tools (and how that’s evolved over the years) and get her take on the top technology needs in the real estate space.
What’s Discussed:
Georgia’s background in computer engineering and how that tech experience has served her well in real estate
How Georgia learned about tech tools early in her career from sales meetings and through the local association
How modern agents learn about tech tools through word-of-mouth on social media
Georgia’s advice for vendors around marketing to top producers who can create influence for you
Why vendors should lead with the problem they’re solving for in pitching agents and brokers
How Georgia evaluates tech based on its potential to shorten the sales cycle and save time or money
Georgia’s criticism of how brokers have gone about increasing profitability by having the biggest army (rather than the best)
How real estate brokerages and software vendors can build a business model that mitigates agent churn
The top technology needs Georgia sees in the real estate space
–Integration among tech solutions (strategic alliances)
“Second, the three class-action suits ostensibly have an end game in mind: Divorcing real estate commissions,meaning that a home seller should negotiate listing commissions with a listing agent while a home buyer should negotiate buy-side commissions directly with a buyer’s agent. While this seems like an awfully commonsensical thing to do, the implications for the real estate sales industry would facilitate more transformative change than any technology-based innovation. “
If you’re like me you read about these lawsuits and you’re not sure if you should be overly concerned or not. Jeff does an excellent job of walking us down the path of what may or may not be the future in a world where buy-side commission rates are brought into the sunlight. SPF 2.5 anyone?
CMLS has been going on this week, and Day 3 focused on race and real estate. Great panels, so proud that CMLS put this out there. As uncomfortable as these topics are we need to bring them out in the open. One of the best panels was the Author of Color of Law,Richard Rothstein.
Zillow co-founder and former CEO Spencer Rascoff and dotLoop founder Austin Allison are launching Pacaso, a place where families can partner to buy second homes. Love this.
Looking forward to being interviewed by Katie about my new book, The Art of the CMA. Katie was a big help with the book and very generous with her time. The interview starts this Friday at 11AM PT, September 25th.
Well, to be clear, a “self-published” author. But hey, you gotta start somewhere. I got my first run of books from the printer and have set up a website where you can buy them. Check it out.
You can also purchase the book on Amazon. But they take a hefty cut so ordering through my website ensures the money goes directly to the children. In this case, my children, not Jeff Bezos.
I would appreciate any way you could promote the site. Bulk discounts are available. So they make a great gift for your board of directors, or your favorite REALTOR. ????
Why did I write a book? I’ve had a few ideas of books I’ve wanted to write, and still want to write, but in the end, someone once said, “write what you know” so I took that advice.
And one thing I’ve learned, nobody writes a book alone. And I have a lot of people to thank. First off Charles Warnock. I had started to write this over 2 years ago, without much success, but things started to move once Charles came on board to help me stay on track, give me honest feedback, new ideas, and make anything I wrote even better. Thank you, Charles. I also have to thank Dan Woolley my co-founder and partner in crime for close to 30 years. I wouldn’t have one ounce of success if it wasn’t for Dan. Sharran Srivatsaa was gracious enough to write the forward to my book. I met Sharran through Rob Hahn and if you don’t know him you should, he has been a big influence on me and was very encouraging during this process. Stefan Swanepoel is a big inspiration and gave me a lot of great advice and honest feedback. Victor Lund saw an early draft and was very kind and gave me a blurb for the back of the book. David Charron was great through this whole process. He read a copy of the book early on and cheered me on. I think David was expecting a lot of f-bombs in the book, while my wife Jenn was telling me to take them all out! Also, I want to thank Brian Boero from 1000watt who was very generous with his time. Whenever I read anything that Brian writes, I almost always say, “God, I wish I wrote that”, or “I wish I could write that good.” Brian had some key feedback that helped us a lot. Go sign up for 1000watt’s blog now.
I have a lot of great stories, ideas, and inspiration from Brad Nix, Katie Lance, Chris Smith, Brad Inman and Tom Ferry in the book. I stole from the best.
I dedicated the book to Maggie, Eddie and Dan. Maggie and Eddie, along with Dan were my first co-founders at IRIS, LLC. We had no idea how to build and run a software company but Lightning -Easy MLS Access and Lightning CMA Plus laid the groundwork for everything in my career.
Last but not least I want to thank my family. Jennifer, my wife, put up with the clicking sounds of my keyboard on a lot of early Sunday mornings.
And thanks to all of you in this industry who have given me your friendship, support, and allowed me to do what I love.
W+R Studios’ Co-founder, Greg Robertson Releases Debut Title, The Art of the CMA.
New book helps real estate agents and brokers let go of fear and compete in a new world of proptech.
September 10, 2020 (HUNTINGTON BEACH, CA) – Software entrepreneur, blogger and podcaster, Greg Robertson has released his first book, The Art of the CMA. A 28 year veteran of the real estate technology industry, Greg is sharing his experience of helping create real estate’s most popular Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) tools including the recent Cloud CMA Live. Throughout his career, Greg has had thousands of conversations with agents and brokers nationwide on how they can leverage real estate’s most versatile tool, the CMA. The CMA is powerful in that it highlights their unique knowledge to compete both offline and online in a new world dominated by ever-changing business models and huge real estate portals.
“Artificial intelligence is just that, artificial, it’s not real” stated author Greg Robertson. “All real estate is local, and when it comes to something as crucial as pricing a home, nothing beats the eyes, ears, and nose attached to the brain of a good agent. There is far too much time and energy spent in the industry hating on real estate portals, iBuyers and new business models who are “trying to destroy us.” It is only when agents let go of fear that they can clearly see what a huge opportunity this new era in real estate brings.”
The new book includes a forward by industry thought leader Sharran Srivatsaa and bonus content of the results of the W+R Studios’ 2020 Survey of Best Practices for CMAs and Listing Presentations.
For more information and to purchase the book, please visit, http://TheArtoftheCMA.com. Bulk discounts for teams and brokers are available.
About The Authors The Art of the CMA was written by Greg Robertson with Charles Warnock. Greg has been in the real estate technology industry for over 28 years. He is the co-founder of W+R Studios, a privately held software company. Greg is on the “Power 200” (https://www.realestatealmanac.com/executives/), a list of the most influential people in real estate. He has served as a director on the Council of MLS (CMLS) (https://councilofmls.org/), an organization dedicated to improving the Multiple Listing Service industry. He publishes the popular real estate technology blog, Vendor Alley (https://vendoralley.wpengine.com/). He also hosts two podcasts, Listing Bits and Industry Relations. Greg lives in Huntington Beach, California with his wife Jennifer, their three kids, and dog Molly.
About W+R Studios Founded in 2008, W+R Studios is a privately held web software company located in Huntington Beach, California. The company focuses on creating the next generation of web-based software solutions for the real estate industry. Their flagship product, Cloud CMA, part of the popular Cloud Agent Suite, is licensed to over 500,000 real estate professionals all over North America. By providing a “less is more” approach to software design, elegant user interfaces, and using the latest in agile programming, W+R Studios’ software applications are at the same time powerful, yet accessible to everyone. Co-founders Dan Woolley and Greg Robertson have over 28 years of experience each developing and marketing real estate software solutions.
“This is an important addition to dotloop’s transaction management platform and one that will provide enhanced value for both current and future California-based users,” says Marnie Blanco, dotloop VP, Industry Relations. “With direct access to C.A.R.’s Standard Forms, California-based agents, transaction coordinators, teams and brokers can now ensure their transactions close in the most seamless and efficient means possible.” California agents will no longer need to download and import forms into the dotloop platform, thereby saving them valuable time.”
Great win for Zillow and their dotloop users. No mention of any financial terms. I still remember being there when Austin Allison was on stage with Joel Singer debating the use of these copyrighted forms on dotloop. Austin thought it was perfectly okay to use these copyrighted forms in dotloop without permission or license. When I asked Austin how many songs he had on his iPod that he actually paid for, I got a few laughs from the audience but Austin looked confused.
Hard to believe this all went down seven years ago. I wonder if he is going to crack open a Cab tonight and pour one out in celebration.
