Skip to main content

Leadership Lens: Recognize that change is inevitable

Inman is exploring what the future of real estate leadership should look like through a series of articles, Q&As with industry pros, and an upcoming 5-part series called Leadership Week. Please send your feedback to leadership@inman.com. If you’re a leader who wants to join us for our exclusive Disconnect in The Desert event on March 26-28, or want to recommend a colleague, send a note to brad@inman.com explaining why.

Lisa Fettner is the vice president of marketing at ReferralExchange, where she leads all strategic and brand marketing efforts, and associated websites/services (TopAgentsRanked.com, Referralexchange.com). Her responsibilities include brand development/management, social media, website, email, events, public relations, evangelism, sales support and business/partnership development.

We recently had the chance to chat with Lisa about the current state of real estate leadership, and her thoughts on what’s ahead for 2018.

As a leader, what keeps you up at night?

Technology is evolving so quickly and new applications seem to be appearing daily. Keeping our service relevant and meaningful for our constituency in the midst of so much hype is definitely a challenge. The accelerated change and capital we are seeing come into the market is unprecedented.

Lisa Fettner

If you could change one thing in real estate, what would it be?

The glamorization of real estate sometimes overshadows the time, expertise and effort involved in every deal. I’d like to see these popular shows highlight the hard work and professionalism that exists in every deal. They can do a disservice to people who are thinking about becoming real estate professionals and lull them into thinking it’s going to be easy. That being said, these shows are good for keeping the next generation of buyers and sellers interested in real estate.

The ultimate real estate agent home inspection checklist

3 steps to help best prepare your sellers for their inspection READ MORE

How have your expectations of your management team changed over the past two years?

ReferralExchange has doubled in size over the past two years, and our volume has grown even more. We’ve had to learn how to transition from a startup to a midsize company and scale/adapt accordingly.

How do you keep your team competitive?

We stay focused and try not to get distracted by shiny objects. We’re constantly thinking about how we can continuously improve our service to help our agents achieve their goals.

With so much disruption in real estate, what’s your best advice for managing change?

Recognize that change is inevitable. What was cutting-edge five years ago is now ancient history. We don’t all have to be “early adopters,” but we definitely need to embrace change strategically and figure out how to make it work for us.

Want to connect with Lisa? You can find her on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Email Matthew Shadbolt


Leadership Lens: Recognize that change is inevitable curated from Inman

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Amazon HQ2 talks reportedly narrow to Crystal City, Dallas and NYC

Amazon is reportedly getting close to finalizing the location of its  $5 billion, 50,000-job  second headquarters following a nationwide reverse-contest of sorts, wherein the tech company accepted bids and presentations from different city governments on why they should be the one to land Amazon HQ2. And now it appears that three locations are currently in the lead: Virginia’s Crystal City, Dallas and New York City. After speaking to people familiar with Amazon’s plans, The Wall Street Journal reported  this weekend that the search for the second headquarters has narrowed from the 20 cities originally shortlisted as potential locations. Discussions around Denver, Toronto, Atlanta, Nashville, Tenn., and Raleigh, N.C. have cooled somewhat while Amazon’s team has been having more talks with representatives of the other three cities. Amazon’s impact on home affordability has been a major consideration, as the tech giant’s presence in Seattle has both created nume...

The Ultimate Guide To Family Law

Introduction The government has always had a fascination with families and the contract of marriage. State legislatures have passed many laws regulating the requirements for getting married and for obtaining a divorce. In addition, today’s laws also affect couples who live together outside of marriage. It is hard to give simple answers to many of the legal questions that a person may have about marriage, parenthood, separation, or divorce because the laws change and vary from one state to another. In addition, judges in different states with identical laws may decide cases with similar facts in different ways. This article describes the laws and court rulings common to most states. If you have other questions, please contact a lawyer in your state. You may also wish to contact a specialist. Many lawyers (particularly in urban areas) work only on family law or make it a large part of their general practice. Lawyers specializing in family law also may refer to themselves as specialist...

A tech millionaire wants to build a blockchain city in the desert

The desert in northwestern Nevada near Tesla’s Gigafactory is filled with sagebrush and dust, but if a cryptocurrency millionaire’s high-stakes gamble goes the way he wants the land will soon bloom into a full-blown city unlike any that has preceded it. The land includes 68,000 acres of desert near Reno. The man behind the plan is Jeffery Berns, 56, a lawyer and the founder of a company called Blockchains LLC. And the idea is to create an entirely new community, the size of a city, that is based entirely on blockchain — a kind of digital record keeping technology that is best known as the transaction ledger behind cryptocurrency Bitcoin . “We are building the world’s first smart city based on technology, from infrastructure all the way up,” Berns said Thursday in Prague during a launch event for the project. A moment later he added that, “It’s not so much a city as much as a series of different projects to highlight the power of a public blockchain.” The New York Times toured ...