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Who Moved My Cheese?, the popular change management book by Spencer Johnson, is a well-known story that leads the characters and the reader to one important key conclusion: “If you do not change, you can become extinct.” I can’t help but see the parallel of this story and the real estate industry.
In many ways, the real estate industry is the character Hem in Who Moved My Cheese? Dead-set and historically refusing to change by ignoring the advancements of both the consumer and technology, the real estate industry is currently on its heels, reeling to figure out how this pandemic is going to change the landscape of things.
I can’t help but wonder what it would look like if Johnson wrote a real estate version of the book. Calling on six lessons from Who Moved My Cheese?, this is the advice I would give the real estate industry right now:
Lesson 1: Know that change happens.
When the internet was commercialized in 1995, everything changed. Virtually every industry became more economical, efficient and streamlined — except the real estate industry. Post-pandemic, technology will have radically catapulted and evolved the business of real estate. Consumers will have new needs and wants, and how they want to be serviced will change. In 2020 and beyond, it’s all about the consumer. Meet them at their individual points of need, not yours.
Lesson 2: Anticipate change.
If we know change is inevitable, why do we fight and resist it? For every generation, there are historical events that have altered the fabric of our country. By now, you’d think that being agile, cooperative, flexible and innovative would describe the largest asset class in the world. But it doesn’t.
Nothing stays the same forever. Always take inventory of yourself and your business to figure out how to disrupt and improve your culture, habits and processes in order to remain relevant.
Lesson 3: Monitor change.
The real estate industry is notorious for ignoring the writing on the wall and making bad decisions. I’m now convinced that it’s one of two things: Either the real estate industry doesn’t care to evolve with people and technology, or there’s nothing the industry can do about it.
How valuable is your value? In other words, how dated is your offering to clients? When was the last time you took inventory or did a client survey to really understand what your clients want? Maybe right now, while business is slow, might be a good time to understand what your database is thinking, what they need and what they will potentially want in the future.
Lesson 4: Adapt to change quickly.
It is no secret that the real estate industry is the most antiquated, expensive and fragmented industry on the planet. The DNA of the real estate industry was built with the agent at the center of the transaction. And since the birth of the internet, the industry has clawed and fought to maintain that position — forget adapting quickly! My question is: How do you keep something the same when the entire world around it is changing? It’s simple: You evolve or get left behind.
Lesson 5: Change.
The real estate industry is becoming a more transactional business. Relationships today are artificial. People now cry for, follow and love people they’ve never met. The word “friend” has a different meaning than it did before Facebook. Consumers are now conditioned by other verticals and are starting to expect and want the same experience and service when it comes to a real estate transaction. Everything is pointing toward an economical, efficient and streamlined process via an end-to-end platform.
This means that it’s not about you anymore. Automate your business, and make the consumer the center of the real estate transaction — in other words, become a transaction facilitator.
Lesson 6: Enjoy change.
The reality is that when you mentally digest change, you come to realize that it’s not that bad. For the real estate industry, the average agent could automate a lot of their business. However, in the pursuit of selling a perceived value to justify their efforts and rate of pay, agents are doing tasks that are not the highest and best use of their skill set. Tear down your business processes; evaluate each step, and ask why. Reinvent your method so you have work-life balance and make more money.
As has been pointed out by professor and entrepreneur Scott Galloway, we are witnessing how nothing can happen for decades, and then decades can all of a sudden happen in a matter of weeks. “Yes, a pandemic pulls the future forward, and there’s a lot to learn” about this chain of events. The real estate industry does have the potential to be better, faster and smarter. Understanding these six truths about change can help it get there.