Consider the plight of the poor “Realtosaurus” – real estate agents who are increasingly falling behind because they stubbornly resist learning how to use modern technology.  They’re so afraid of these new technologies that they’ve overcompensated by making it an “old school” point of pride that they don’t know how to use a computer or a smartphone or the internet.  They do business the “old fashioned” way!

I think we all have to acknowledge that the time has passed when someone who doesn’t know how to use a computer is charming or colorful.  It’s just silly to stick your head in the sand and pretend that you can still be as effective and efficient without taking advantage of new technology that’s available to you.  Imagine an agent 30 years ago refusing how to use a copy machine, insisting that the “old school” way of mimeographing was good enough.

Moreover, it’s not fair to your clients. Why should clients trust an agent who can’t perform some of the basic requirements of the job – taking and enhancing digital photos, pulling comps online, creating and sending PDF documents, staying in touch through email and text?  Would you trust a doctor who trumpeted the virtues of his old school approach to using leeches and boring holes in your skull to release all the evil demons?

The reason so many of us are afraid of new technologies is that we give them too much credit.  We’re too intimidated by them, and many of us respond to that intimidation by just shutting down.  It doesn’t help that the real estate industry keeps treating “technology” as some awesome, unfathomable, omnipotent force that is segregated out as its own discrete category – we have whole conferences just devoted to “real estate technology” and whole training courses dedicated to teaching “technology” as a standalone subject.  Having a whole conference dedicated to social media is as ridiculous as a conference 25 years ago devoted to teaching people how to use answering machines, copiers, and the white pages.

Technology is not our job, it’s just a tool that we need to use in our job.  And like any tool that’s important for our business, you need to learn how to use it if you’re going to stay relevant.  Refusing to learn how to use a computer is like refusing to learn how to use a fax machine.

So stop being intimidated by new technologies. Learn how to use them, not for their own sake, but so that you can figure out how they can help you do your job.

This post is part of a series of what I call the “36-1/2 Rules for Client-Oriented Real Estate Agents,” a collection of short takes on the CORE concept that I’ve developed over the years of discussing and teaching the system.  We’ll count up to the 36th rule over the next few months, and then the 1/2 rule.  You can get the full list of rules by clicking on the “36-1/2 Rules for CORE Agents” category on the blog – scroll from the bottom if you want to read them in order.