A Year In Review & Lessons Learned

2018 was an incredible year for Scout, we:

1. Went through a radical name change and rebrand - yes, Top Agents is now officially called Scout – leaving many to question “what is it exactly that you do?”;
2. We continued to help buyers and sellers of real estate find the best performing real estate agents, and we also opened four new lines of business including: a) data sales, b) digital marketing, c) affiliate marketing (which allows us to provide even more discounts to our customers), and d) built an attorney search platform (coming soon);
3. Rolled out our affinity group discounts program to over 30 companies and over 1.1 million individuals;
4. Built new products from affordability tools to a Q&A forum, and new data dashboards;
5. Worked diligently to service the needs of over 750 buyers and sellers, nationwide; and
6. Learned a lot.

Here are some lessons from the journey that shaped our mission to improve real estate through transparency, trust, and efficiency:

1)     Customer Service Is Everything

It doesn’t matter how much tech you build, how fancy it looks, or how many clients you work with. If the consumer is not satisfied at the end of the day, you’ve failed in your mission and, as a byproduct, your consumer is not going to want to work with you again, or make referrals (which are the best source of new clients).

Just think back to the early days of Uber and Apple to see how true this is. The feeling that you got knowing that there was someone at the other end of the phone, a text, or chat box that was going to address your specific concerns and not divert you to a Terms of Use policy, was the same feeling that you got from being wrapped in a warm fuzzy blanket.

If your customer isn’t a priority, why bother providing goods or services at all? You may as well be trading commodities.

2)     Success Begins With Education

The best consumer is an informed consumer. Especially, when it comes to infrequent and complex transactions (read: sorry, viewers of HGTV, it’s just not that simple).

Starting the journey with a roadmap of what to expect puts you, as a customer, at ease and also creates a partnership towards a common goal. Not only will this help clarify misconceptions, but it will also help you avoid miscommunication and overcome apprehensions around decision making.

3)     Consumers Today Are More Informed About Less

The internet has created a place where information has been made available in any form at the click of a button. It is truly one of the most powerful and life changing tools to date. However, the internet is also a place where you can go down a dark hole of selectivity, meaning that you control your own destiny, choosing what you want to become informed about, or not.

Making a decision when you don’t know what you don’t know, is dangerous. And that is why we hire advisors. Advisors help us point out our blind spots and present the paths and roadblocks that we may not have thought about, or have chosen to ignore, and they truly add value. 

The only thing worse than information asymmetry is information ignorance.

4)     Marketing Trumps Tech / Product

If a home is sold in 1 day and nobody hears about it, did it ever really sell? Well, the answer is obviously ‘yes’ but if you didn’t see it on a Blog, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or get an email or a phone call, then it’s almost as if it never happened, and you’re not going post about it, tag your friends, or do business with that company when the opportunity arises. (See what I did there?).

If a home is sold in 1 day and nobody hears about it, did it ever really sell?

It’s also important to note: If you can help someone accomplish their goals or resolve their problems in innovative ways, then you are a valuable service provider, and the world deserves to know about that – market yourself as such. On the other hand, if you hold yourself out as a valuable service provider and can’t back it up, then you should probably stop marketing.

5)     Ideas Alone Are Useless, But Goals Are Important

We all have ideas. Some are good and some are bad. Some good ideas success and some fail. But, no idea will ever succeed without action, no matter how good or how bad. 

A plan without action is useless, but so is a plan without defining success. If you don’t know what success looks like, you’re going to be just as lost as when you started. Take your ideas, set goals, and start with the end in mind.

Don’t be afraid to make a mistake or get lost, either. Use your failures as a learning experience and change course – just try to enlist the help of some good advisors.

DISCLAIMER: While these thoughts come through the lens of building a marketplace to help buyers and sellers of real estate find the best professional service providers, many of them apply universally. Take them for what they are – one person’s perspective based on their own experience – learn from them, or challenge them, and make them your own.