What about you? Are you satisfied?

We have a successful business.
We have grown every year since we started in 2008.
We are highly regarded in the industry.
We have a great team, great clients and great partners.
We make money.

BUT, we are never satisfied and continually search for ways to improve our business practices—even when it means radically changing the things that got us here in the first place.

Are we crazy? No!

In fact, we believe it’s absolutely necessary in today’s fast-paced and demanding environment. Proactive and productive change is something that does not come easy to most businesses, yet it is one of the main reasons successful companies succeed: Their willingness to change.

Resistance to change is one critical challenge that the industry has yet to conquer. I’m always amazed at brokerages that know they are underperforming in one or more areas of their operations; yet they don’t address these issues. Even though they know it costs them money.

If you don’t wake up every morning with a burning desire to do things better—even if it means changing how you run your business—you will end up in a rut. Furthermore, assuming you have competitors that do have the motivation, you will find yourself falling behind and eventually sacrificing profit and market share.

You must challenge your complacency and commit to modernizing your brokerage. We know the process can be painful. But take that first step, and acknowledge the weak points within your operations. We believe the hardest part is facing our personal failings. It’s so much easier to blame external pressures and refuse to take ownership of the problems you face.

The examples are endless:

Kodak invented digital photography yet never embraced it; the legendary company recently filed for bankruptcy protection;
The music industry fought file sharing and digital media, and Apple ate their lunch;
GM would not change their ways and required a government bailout.

In our industry we have seen companies like Trulia and Zillow change the way consumers search for real estate. We’ve also seen a lot of real estate companies go out of business or merge with their competitors. Why? Because, as an industry, we are reactive instead of being proactive! We are satisfied to be in business instead of being dissatisfied that we are not more successful.

At PCMS, we are never satisfied. We believe there is an amazing amount of opportunity in our industry (yes, even in this market) and we want to be a bigger part of it. We want to energize and compel you to see clearly and take action! We know we can find ways of better serving our clients and we can create more synergy between our partners.

It’s our mindset, we believe it, and it drives us to be better every single day.