The amazing, frightening thing every real estate agent knows

I’ve noticed something over the last eight years working in the real estate industry. It’s not unique to real estate, but it seems to be more prevalent here than other industries. There’s a consistent, unfruitful search for an elusive technological unicorn. A tool/app/platform that’s going to immediately boost your business, save you time, make your job easier, bring you more clients, make you more money, and essentially do everything for you. I’ve literally heard this verbatim (many times): “I just need something that does it all for me.”

I’ve seen it in countless Facebook posts and heard it in hundreds (if not thousands) of phone calls. Everyone’s searching for the newest, best, potential unicorn. Can it do this? Does it have this feature? Then they try it, and realize it just isn’t quite what they hoped. So they try to combine it with something else, and end up with a horn super glued onto a horse’s head.

I’ve seen agents trying to figure out what they’re competition is using. If they’re being outperformed, it must be due to the tools they’re using, right?

Wrong.

As a marketer for a real estate and mortgage marketing platform, I believe in our product. Pipeline ROI has features like social media posts that rewrite themselves with a click of your mouse, and let you schedule them out so you don’t have to remember to log in and post them manually. It also has drip e-mail campaigns that pull new leads in and automatically send them a series of lead nurturing e-mails. There are also pre-written eBooks and landing pages designed to capture leads, plus much more. But it still takes effort on your part to get these things into place, promote them, and check to make sure they’re effective.

It does make your job easier. It does save you time. It does help you generate leads. And yes, it really can help you make more money. If you put in the work.

It’s simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying, knowing that your success (or failure) relies mostly on… you.

There are plenty of tech tools that truly can help you do your job better. And sure, the market fluctuates. But at the end of the day, the most crucial factor in your success or failure is you. Maybe deep down that’s why you keep searching for the unicorn. You’re looking for a star player to pass the ball to in crunch time, instead of taking the shot yourself. That way, for better or worse, you’re off the hook. But you’re selling yourself short. No app can replace your work ethic. No marketing platform can render your expertise irrelevant. No tech innovation can do everything for you. And that’s a good thing.

So how exactly do you give yourself the best chance at success? Find a few tools that help you, and actually use them. Hustle harder, respond faster, and provide better service than your competitors. Squeeze every ounce of effort you can out of every minute of the day, and you will win.