Being a Stupid BROKER Should be a Crime.

Every business had them. Some of your clients are bright and get it. Others... just don't seem to have a clue.

I have my share of brokers that I consult with who have all of the best tools we can provide for them. Killer IDX. SEO Friendly website.

Here's an actual transcript of a conversation I had with a very large brokerage from one of the national real estate franchises a few weeks ago:

Hi XXXXX, this is Bart. I was calling to check in to see if you've been monitoring your leads on your IDX control panel.

No, we haven't

Here, let me show you. Go to your website and see the tiny IDX admin at the bottom of your page? Okay, good. Click that and log in using these credentials.

See these leads? Wow. You've got a few here. Five leads were posted last week, three more from two weeks ago, and look: two more leads on the 2nd of May. Has anyone called them or emailed them?

No, we haven't had time.

Okay, XXXX told me to take off the 2-way chat on your website. That's sort of counter productive or just as bad as not checking your leads on your IDX. Don't you have an agent on call for weekends?

Yes, we do.

Okay, that agent sits down sometimes at a desk and there is a computer on that desk, right?

Yes.

Okay, so if someone comes to your site, the 2-way chat is on your home page and next to every IDX search results page. This way, people feel safe being anonymous and can ask you questions. If the agent is there on weekends, and they are at the computer, when you hear the door bell sound, the agent can chat with a customer on line. The conversation can certainly turn into a lead and before you know it... they're wiring you $5,000 for a deposit on a new home.

We just don't have time to learn the new tools.

I say my good bye and I am in shock as I hang up the phone.

This is the SAME broker who complains abut the LACK of leads. I just call them and show them the leads are coming in, and by their own admission, they tell me they are too busy to learn the new tools.

This kind of Stupidity should be a crime.

The broker has page one visibility on Google. They have a hand crafted website. They have a state of the art IDX with a killer lead generator. They just continue to run their business the same way they did five years ago. They won't let me come in and sit down with their agents and teach them the basics of social networking which is now considered -- TECHNOLOGY Survival Skills.

The leads are here. They continue to come in a few every week. But because the PHONE isn't ringing, the brokerage and the agents all sing the same stupid song: The Sellers Market is leaving them high and dry.

This is pure human stupidity at it's finest. And the saddest part of all, it's totally unnecessary. Because from where I sit, this is another AllPro Realty waiting to go bankrupt (as they did in October 2008) and shut down all 20 of their Utah offices.

What is so hard about going to your website and logging into your control panel under your IDX listings and checking stats and your leads?

If REALTORS are bright enough to point, click and drag a mouse around a screen, log into the Rapattoni MLS and create a listing -- what is so friggin hard about going to your own website, clicking a link, entering in your password and then clicking a link for your LEADS?

Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn.com are new tools for REALTORS. But there is no book specifically for REALTORS to show you button to push. What to do step-by-step, where to start. But many agents saw the gun was pointing at their heads especially when they learn their broker says NO to their third commission advance.

The writing is on the wall and I'm fed up with looking at crappy websites, web pages that go nowhere when I am trying to find a home in El Paso for my friend in Florida who has $150,000 cash to put on a home and I find nothing of any value on-line. My recent rant about no intelligent life being in El Paso resulted in a few hate mails and a few interesting voice mails.

I don't believe for one minute there are 1.3 million agents in our trade membership today. But According to NAR, this is what they report. In my humble opinion, there might be 790,000 left that are active. REALTORS who are retired, or dead don't count.

Brokers today need to be involved in Thought Leadership. Brokers who stick their heads into the sand, refuse to learn the new tools, bang out these ugly me-too template websites create huge problems for the agents thatn hang their license with them. Stupidity and ignorance means you just get stuck with dozens or hundreds of agents asking you for a commission advance.

SMART Brokers invest into the new tools. SMART brokers will take a consultant and let them teach their agents how to Chirp, how to Blog, and get involved with finding where the customers are. Brokers who refuse to learn the new tools are simply standing in their own way of being successful.

Sooner or later, Smart Agents will realize this and will take their license down and hang them with the smarter brokers. Like Broker Bob at Amazing Realty.

SMART agents wake up to fact their brokers are complete morons and they are the ones kicking the tires on new real estate marketing tools. They are on ActiveRain and learning how to go with the new flow. To those agents... I salute you as I see you climb your way to the top of the real estate food chain.

We have so many mistakes and failures out there that we can all learn from. Like Tony Robbins says, "Success and Failure Leave Clues. Be passionate about becoming successful. Discover and learn what the successful sales people are doing. Do what they do, and you will get the same, if not BETTER results than they did."

Success or Failure? You decide: According to Terry Pullan, then CEO of Pullan Communications, more than 900 REALTORS every month signed up for a $39 a month website package. The following month, he said 600 REALTORS would call and cancel.

With all of the whiners and the crappy websites and the brokers and agents that just don't get it -- the ones that refuse to learn how to Chirp on Twitter, get a page on Facebook or ask someone if they're LinkedIn... it's time for you to consider another career move.

Or, you wake up right now. Take off your rose tinted glasses and face up to the facts. Put virtual tours on your listings. Please take 5 minutes to create a corporate Facebook page and spend all of your offline marketing to tell people about your online business website.

Do these things and you might survive.

Forget about them, or ignore them and you'll soon need to start practicing how to say, "Would you like ketchup with your order, sir?"

-- Bartman