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Bill Risser and Stuart Sim discussed the importance of technology in the real estate industry, including user adoption, onboarding, and team performance tracking. Despite growing up in Montreal and being a fan of the Bruins, Stuart is now a fan of the Seattle Kraken. They discussed the need for agents to be well-educated on real estate sites, the importance of local knowledge, and the need to provide good content to the consumer. Companies like Chime and EXP are providing educational resources to help agents stay competitive, and goal setting and planning for the upcoming year was also discussed. With technology becoming increasingly important in the real estate industry, Bill and Stuart discussed the need for agents to embrace technology in order to stay competitive and provide good content to their customers.
(00:33:29) Goal Setting for 2021
(00:22:37) Team Adoption Strategies
(00:28:11) Embrace Technology
(00:05:30) Real Estate Technology
(00:11:08) Tech Startups Struggles
(00:16:43) Real Estate Technology
https://chimeinc.com
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfwsOqwKEvDFd9FQ27P3JIA
https://www.linkedin.com/company/chime-crm/
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 - Stuart Sim
It's our job as technology companies to provide them with the training and information about the product that gives them the confidence to actually adopt it and not just a user count, but also the percentage of the product they use. So, you know, if you're if you're only using 25% of a CRM, 75% of the value of that CRM is going out the door.
00:00:24 - Bill Risser
You're listening to the Real Estate Sessions Podcast. And I'm your host, Bill Risser, Executive Vice President, Strategic Partnerships with Rate, my Agent, a digital marketing platform designed to help great agents harness the power of verified reviews. For more information, head on over to Ratemyagent.com. Listen in as I interview industry leaders and get their stories and journeys to the world of real estate. Hi, everybody. Welcome to episode 355 of the Real Estate Sessions podcast. As always, thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for telling a friend or two this week I'm going to talk to I guess it would be somebody that I connect with regularly in the circuit. And when I say made by circuit, it's the different conferences and events and things that happen throughout the year. I first met Stuart SIM, who is the head of industry development for Chime. I first met him at an imminent event. I'm sure I'll bring that up with him. We also run into each other at a lot of different places and events. It's been really fun to watch his company grow and he's got a really cool story. So we're going to get this going today. Let's not waste any more of Stewart's time. Stewart, welcome to the podcast.
00:01:40 - Stuart Sim
Hey, Bill, thanks so much for having me.
00:01:42 - Bill Risser
Our first meeting was at an inman event in New York. I'm fairly sure of that. And I would say over half of the guests on this podcast had their my first meeting was probably at an imminent event.
00:01:54 - Stuart Sim
Yeah, well, you and I both do the tour. We see each other often on the road at some of the really good shows that are out there and events where you meet all these people and you develop these kind of relationships, it's fantastic.
00:02:06 - Bill Risser
Yeah, the word connected right in their title. And Brad's done a great job of doing that for all of us. I think some people may have already heard it a little bit. You have a bit of an accent, Stewart. I know you're aware of that. You are not from the US of A. You are Canadian, correct?
00:02:23 - Stuart Sim
I am a Canadian. Long term Canadian. I grew up on the East Coast, moved to Vancouver 30 years ago. Great country to live in.
00:02:33 - Bill Risser
Yeah, you mentioned East Coast. So I'm just doing a little bit of digging. It seemed like you grew up in Quebec, right? Am I correct there? Montreal area.
00:02:42 - Stuart Sim
Yeah, I grew up in the West Island of Montreal in the late 70s, early 80s, which was a really different time. There language barriers. I went to a French school, my brothers and sisters went to an English school, all these different components. But for me it worked out well because I ended up learning that second language and ultimately my goal is to learn a third one. And I keep pushing it off as I get older, I really want to do it more. So yeah, interesting times, for sure.
00:03:14 - Bill Risser
Was it relatively simple. You keep hearing that as a child. That's the time to be doing this kind of stuff, like learning an instrument, picking up that second language. I would imagine speaking English at home and having to speak French at school. It happened pretty quickly.
00:03:28 - Stuart Sim
Yeah, you had to develop really quickly. The difference being like, when I think about when I go back to Montreal now, I can still speak the language, and my brother who's lived there for 60 years, still struggles with the basics. Right. It's insane. But those six or seven years where I was full time French made a ton of sense and I was happy at the results.
00:03:53 - Bill Risser
It is so unique to have a province or a state where that entity just be like, our language is French, we'll speak English, I guess. Tell me exactly how that works. I'm sorry, I'm such a neophyte when it comes to how Canada works.
00:04:10 - Stuart Sim
Again, I use the example of going back there. Right. So my mom still lives there and I have family back there, but when I go into a store that first time, my instinct is to speak English. But automatically they speak French. And you have the choice to speak English or French. They'll respond in English. But I actually like it because it gives me a chance to practice right now. Growing up was a little different because you were in that separation phase where Quebec wanted to separate from Canada. So languages were, call it an issue between the French and English, and that's kind of gone away now, so it's a little bit easier. Montreal still heavy English contingent there, lives there. And Montreal is so close to Ontario that it doesn't really make that much of a difference in the northern states. Right. Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire. Five hour drive to Boston. So super easy.
00:05:11 - Bill Risser
Yeah. How far from the border, say, to get into Vermont? I think it's very close. Right?
00:05:16 - Stuart Sim
It's like 45 minutes.
00:05:18 - Bill Risser
Wow. Okay.
00:05:19 - Stuart Sim
Once you get off the island of Montreal, it's like 45 minutes.
00:05:21 - Bill Risser
Okay.
00:05:22 - Stuart Sim
It's not far.
00:05:23 - Bill Risser
Well, I like talking sports a little bit. You know that. I'm just going to guess you're a hockey guy, am I right?
00:05:32 - Stuart Sim
Wow. Absolutely.
00:05:33 - Bill Risser
And is it Canada, is it the Habs or is it not?
00:05:37 - Stuart Sim
It wasn't the habs. Wow. Wasn't the habs. And it never really has been. So because I lived so close to Montreal, to Boston, we spent our summers in Boston, so I typically lean towards the New England team so the Patriots, the Bruins, Red Sox, not the Celtics, because I'm not a basketball guy. And of course now that I've lived in Vancouver for so long, vancouver, you're seeing them on the news, so a little bit of that for sure. And now the Kraken have a team, which is fantastic. Right? Seattle.
00:06:10 - Bill Risser
Yeah.
00:06:11 - Stuart Sim
So they made the playoffs. Pretty exciting to watch. The stadium that they built down there is really impressive. But yeah, growing up, absolutely. Bruins.
00:06:20 - Bill Risser
So that had to be weird. Living in Montreal, supporting the Bruins with everybody else. Hardcore Canadiens. How did that go?
00:06:32 - Stuart Sim
You know what? I think I liked it just because I was the difference. And as I got older, when you go to college and you start getting together and gambling a little bit, throwing a fiver down just for the games, it was super fun. But at that time, Montreal was pretty dominant, so it was a tough one because they used to pretty much slap the Bruins around.
00:06:53 - Bill Risser
Seventy s and eighty s. They want.
00:06:54 - Stuart Sim
To different today, right?
00:06:57 - Bill Risser
Yeah, that's true. My heart goes out to all the Maple Leaf fans. I mean, I thought this year might be the year, maybe they could get close. Oh, it's just too bad, right? You don't feel bad for them?
00:07:08 - Stuart Sim
No, not a Leaf fan at all.
00:07:10 - Bill Risser
That's awesome. That's what I wanted to hear. All right, we'll move off that. Let's move forward. Look, you head off to university. I'm sure in your mind you're going, I'm going to be working in real estate in the SaaS world, all kinds of tech. Is that what you were thinking?
00:07:24 - Stuart Sim
Well, there was no such tech at the time. We wrote papers by hand and had someone type them up for us, which was back in the day of university. My first computer on my desk was in like 95, and I think it was shared. I did take business at school, but I really didn't know what I wanted to be when I was going to university. I actually was a football player when it got to the university level, I wasn't fast enough or strong enough, so I didn't see a lot of playing time and kind of hit me in the face a little bit that said, this isn't going to happen. I finished school and I decided I needed some time away. So I'm a pretty good golfer. Just kind of hit it around pretty good. So I actually went away and taught golf for a couple of years in Mexico and the Caribbean just to instead of doing the backpacking thing around Europe, I took a different path to kind of give me a break. And then when I came back, technology still wasn't where it's at today. There was no such thing as email or anything like that, but I did understand kind of the sales side of things. So my first job was actually selling photocopiers door to door in Vancouver. Once I had moved out here, and once you get some form of technology on your resume, and that's just when things were kicking off with email and the interweb.
00:08:51 - Bill Risser
Kind of like early to mid 90s, right? That we're talking about that's right, yeah.
00:08:55 - Stuart Sim
Late ninety S. I actually got recruited by this company called WebSmart, which was an online secure card payment solution, and that led to databases. And once I got into database technology, that led me to I actually did a deal with Realtor.com to provide their human capital software, their software as a service. So I was already about ten years into database technology, and about a month after we finished the deal, they called me and said that you want to come on board. We're trying to reshape top Producer and the Top Producer sales team. And I took that on, and we went from a sales team of ten down to four, because I just trimmed everything off and then started building it back up based on what I believed was really going to be necessary. And we took the revenue from it had come all the way down after the debacle of 2008. This was 2011. We took the revenue from 30 million up to 65 million really quickly and grew the sales team from ten to 35 reps, plus, you know, ten support people. So it was a true organization. I was there for almost eight years, and it was really how I got super passionate about real estate. I took the role, started learning about real estate, started going to the events, but also just listening to Realtors on the day to day basis and how they struggle with technology and how a two hour call to get set up was hard to do based on what they had available in their day. So I really did get passionate about real estate when I worked for Top Producer Realtor.com, because I ended up leading teams in both companies. And then I broke away from there and started my own company, which was Facebook advertising for real estate agents called Martin Agent because agents struggled in the late 2018. Then I jumped to Chime about 18 months ago because I saw a massive technical opportunity, because the technology that Chime builds is super fantastic. Little bit of a struggle with the branding side, but we're getting there.
00:11:09 - Bill Risser
You said a lot there, so I'm going to go back real quick. First of all, the position you played in college where'd you come out of linebacker? Oh, Nelly.
00:11:18 - Stuart Sim
Linebacker, okay. Yeah, I was six, 2220 linebacker.
00:11:21 - Bill Risser
I was going to say back in that day, it was probably okay. You were average size for linebacker. Maybe even bigger, I would think. Yeah. Okay, cool. Good. And still playing golf?
00:11:31 - Stuart Sim
Still play golf.
00:11:32 - Bill Risser
Awesome.
00:11:33 - Stuart Sim
Absolutely.
00:11:34 - Bill Risser
That's all important.
00:11:35 - Stuart Sim
Still play hockey twice a week.
00:11:36 - Bill Risser
Do you really? Now we got to talk about that for a second. So Stuart, you're close to my age. I'm a little older than you are, but what is it like at a I'll call it a senior level. There can't be as much checking. It has to be a little more low key. Or is there always that one guy, that one guy who just thinks he's living this dream and he's going to take it out on somebody?
00:12:00 - Stuart Sim
Yeah. So for me it's interesting because as I get older, the game becomes harder to play. But yes. So I play in an over 30 league. I'm playing with guys who are 31, 32 years old and still thinking of themselves as I'm the man. And guys who played high level hockey, whether it was junior or semi pro, are guys that play in this league. So, yes, I'm now officially the oldest guy in the league. And I feel over the last two years I've kind of lost a step. My brain isn't telling my legs how to move as fast as they used to. So that part of it is where I struggle. And when we kick off in the fall, I might try and see if there's an over 50 league, but I'm still pretty competitive. The hard part is the competitive nature of what I am. I still ski. I still want to do all these fun things, jumping off cliffs into a lake, and my body is like, what are you doing, man? Come on.
00:13:11 - Bill Risser
Do you play defense? I'm just guessing. I would imagine.
00:13:14 - Stuart Sim
Yeah, because I've always played defense.
00:13:16 - Bill Risser
Okay. That's where the guys can really play a long time in their career. As I watch the NHL, you can be effective and be a little bit older back there as opposed to the.
00:13:27 - Stuart Sim
Yeah, I've still got a pretty good shot.
00:13:29 - Bill Risser
Nice.
00:13:29 - Stuart Sim
Yeah.
00:13:30 - Bill Risser
You like moving up in the power play and it's all good, right? That's awesome. I had no idea about this. Stuart, this is great. We've been chatting together for almost two years now and I'm getting a lot out of this. Good. Well, let's get back to the other the important stuff with your experience. I've sat and talked with you. I've watched you talk to others and you talked about you have a consulting company. There have to be when you're talking to a startup that's got some issues, are there common things that tech startups and especially maybe it's the real estate space routinely struggle with? Like do you almost know going into a conversation with somebody, oh, they're going to have trouble here and here? What would that be?
00:14:13 - Stuart Sim
Yeah, that's absolutely. Now the first one is money. They raise a bunch of money and they spend it like they're going out of style. And I have a couple of examples where during COVID you get the call saying things are great or you run into them at a show and you start the conversation again and they're like three months later when the bubble bursts, they're running out of money and they're basically selling for nothing. So you have to get my recommendation is always get a good CFO, an older CFO that controls that younger mind of wanting to push forward so fast. And technology is moving so fast right now that you get caught up in the race and you get caught up in the competitive nature of the industry that we're in. And whether it's a large franchise or a tech company like a Costar or even Zillow, they're moving forward fast and furious with new products and things. But when you're a small startup, you need to form certain relationships that are going to benefit you long term. And whether that's a partnership with a larger organization that can help you move forward with your user count to get your monthly revenue up there so you can actually pay the bills without dipping in to your seed money is my first advice, while Second advice is part of that as well, which is those partnerships. I think those are really key and we talk about that often. And we are in an incestuous industry where people work together because they like each other, or you get an opportunity with some larger organization because you're out on the road and you develop that relationship.
00:15:57 - Bill Risser
Right.
00:15:59 - Stuart Sim
A lot of these tech guys, the problem is that they're not salesy, right. They are tech driven, so their mind thinks a little bit different. So you need to give them that guidance. And if you can introduce them to people at trade shows and help them along, pushing through those to make sure that the brand gets established and then they're going to have a bigger opportunity than say, someone who's just sitting behind their desk building technology.
00:16:26 - Bill Risser
Right.
00:16:27 - Stuart Sim
No one loves that.
00:16:28 - Bill Risser
Yeah. Not getting out there and being a part of the it's almost like you got to be a part of the community. I mean, it's just mandatory, right? Yeah.
00:16:35 - Stuart Sim
I look at one company right now that's doing really well, rentspree, incredible. Michael and his team are out there like they're at every event. They're looking at partnerships that make sense. They're not just jumping into everybody, into bed with everybody. So I really respect him for the fact that what he's built and the direction he's taking that organization. So that's a great example of success in real estate technology.
00:17:03 - Bill Risser
Yeah. Well, let's talk about chime. You're with Chime, head of industry development. I think that's appropriate. There are so many companies in the tech space in real estate that do multiple things. Let's just go down that path. Stewart. What does Chime do? How is Chime different and what's your take on all the different stuff that's out there?
00:17:31 - Stuart Sim
Yeah. So I'll start with Chime because I joined Chime because I love the technology. I think it does deliver. I'm going to call it 85% to 90% of what a real estate agent needs. They're always going to need more help and they're always going to believe that they need more technology because something new comes out like AI. And everyone gets excited on this. Chime is different because we kind of look at what's out there in the real estate technology world and we look at what people need and how long it's going to take to develop and when will it be ready. So we've gone down the AI path. We...
