This evening, we held our third "Menifee Internet Professionals" meeting. This is a group I set up on Meetup.com, where folks living in my community, who earn a living on the Internet, get together for a social gathering. Read more about it here.

Only two people showed up, myself, and the gal hosting the meeting. I was really disappointed that no one else bothered to show. I'm not sure if that's a reflection on me, or if people are not taking this group seriously. I suspect it's the latter.

Cynthia, who hosted the meeting, is a Realtor who recently launched a new business called "Menifee4Rent", where she helps people find rental homes and apartments. She said many landlords and property management firms are willing to pay her finders fees. So during our meeting, we talked about how she uses the website to build up her clientele. She went on to tell me that most Realtors still don't have their own websites.

I was rather surprised to hear that. I thought that most, if not all, Realtors have them. It seemed like the real estate market is really sold on using the Internet as a marketing tool. But no, she said. There's even a lot of Realtors who do have websites, but don't know how to use them, or have barely put anything on them.

I guess that's kinda good news to me, because just last week I relaunched my real estate blog by providing tips to Realtors on how to improve their online marketing strategies.

For that matter, it's amazing to know how many local businesses in my community don't have websites. Most of these mom & pop shops don't have a web presence. They may be thinking that business has been pretty good just from people seeing their store from the street. But how much more business might they get if they had an interactive website? It's a question of how much business are you losing by not having a website?

Domino's Pizza is already well known for having created a pizza ordering system that you can access from their website. I understand that the mom & pop pizza shop can't afford anything that sophisticated, but it's not that difficult to have a website that displays their phone number.

Most Realtors seem to believe that their potential Internet audience is too small to convert into business. It's like they've made this a foregone conclusion. Even though Realtors use the Internet for their own personal use, they don't seem to understand what it might do for their business. Has any Realtor actually measured their potential Internet audience? I find it amusing that they've made a conclusion without even trying it.

The world only has a small percentage of people willing to try something new. The larger percentage is simply content to follow the mainstream.  

Labels: Meetup Group, Real Estate Blogging