| Ok, I feel a little guilty about that headline. Can you automate probate real estate with a bunch of fancy software and AI? Sure you can. But it’s most likely not going to get you the results you hoped for. Now don’t get me wrong – there’s a place for automation and AI. You should be using emerging technologies to take care of some of the mundane tasks that you should not be doing yourself (or hire virtual assistants – but that’s a topic for another day). But if you believe the hype all of the so called “gurus” are shoveling and you think you’ll be able to press a button and not have to do any work while your real estate business runs on autopilot, you’ve got another thing coming. And that thing is probably going to be going back to a 9-5 job! Here’s a word of advice that has served me well over the past 25 years – take a look at what everyone else is doing, and do the opposite! Texting and emails have become all the rage lately. If that’s how everyone else is showing up, you need to be doing more direct mail and cold calling. Do the opposite! Take Blockbuster Video. If you don’t remember Y2K, you probably don’t remember Blockbuster. Us more seasoned adults remember heading over to Blockbuster to rent a stack of movies to watch over the weekend. There was no streaming back in our day. You had to go through the effort of driving to the video store to rent DVDs (or VHS if you’re as old as I am!). We didn’t watch a movie for 5 minutes and then skip to the next one. We put thought into what we were going to watch and then actually watched it. So why am I bringing up something that’s been dead for over 10 years? Because Blockbuster Video is making a comeback. They’re opening five stores in southern California and if all goes well, there will be more to come. People are sick of trying to find something to watch on streaming services. And they’re canceling left and right. While everyone else is pushing streaming and digital, Blockbuster is going in the opposite direction. My advice to you today is to look at what everyone else is doing. Figure out how to go against that grain. I guarantee you’ll stand out head and shoulders above everyone else. And while you’re at it, dust off your Blockbuster membership card because there might be a store coming to you soon! To your success, Ernie “I’m VHS Old” Vargas | The Probate Fox |
May 1
