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SetSchedule |
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January 30, 2017 Issue |
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CEOCFO MAGAZINE |
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The First Data and CRM/Practice Management Solutions for the Real Estate Industry Allowing Agents to Connect with Homeowners and Home Buyers, Schedule Appointments, Develop Leads and Close More Transactions |
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Chief Executive Officer
SetSchedule
Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – January 30, 2017
CEOCFO: Mr. Dekel, what is the concept behind SetSchedule? Mr. Dekel: The concept behind SetSchedule is to revolutionize the real estate industry by providing a first of its kind, data and practice management solution in the real estate space.
CEOCFO: Why is it taking so long to upgrade the real estate arena technology? Mr. Dekel: The real estate industry is well developed in certain aspects and is less developed in others. For example, you have market places such as Zillow.com, Realtor.com, and Trulia.com that really connect home shoppers, home buyers and sellers to the marketplace. However, despite the technological advances for the end users, the professionals in the industry, such as the real estate agents, have really lacked a marketplace that targets them and their needs exclusively.
Real Estate is also really competitive, there are a lot of agents out there, and unfortunately it is only the top five or ten percent of real estate agents that hold the largest percentage of sales. It is because of this trend, that many service providers target agents that reach a certain level, but Setschedule has utilized technology to place the company in a unique position to target the real estate agents in varying places in their career and focusing on their need.
CEOCFO: How does SetSchedule work? Mr. Dekel: SetSchedule has a distinctive user friendly methodology that allows real estate agents to search, find, pick and connect with homeowners and home buyers, allowing the real estate agent to more effectively and easily manage the sales cycle from the first appointment to closing.
CEOCFO: How are they picking home buyers? How do they find them? How do they know who is a good prospect? Mr. Dekel: Our system has an instrument learning component that knows how to study the real estate agent and their expertise, core competency and geographical focus. Our system also contains leads, data, and appointments that can be utilized by the agent. SetSchedule’s system produces an abundance of data and information that become readily available on demand to our clients based on the predictable need of the end user. It is almost like a dating platform, we study your interests, and end goal, and pair you with information that will help you to find your perfect opportunity.
CEOCFO: Where are you getting the leads from? How do you know when someone has set up an appointment with someone else or is looking for a particular type of house? Mr. Dekel:. We have system data scientists that consistently monitor and extract raw data from several different channels, including certain behavioral and public records channels. For example, we extract data from facebook of people that are looking to buy a home, have a new baby, lost their job, and had a death in the family and so on. That is just one example, of one tool or platform out of hundreds we monitor. We take that data and, based on our codes and algorithms, we can automatically identify on a mass scale where an opportunity lies. From that point there are two things that happen; the data is either pushed, on demand, to the real estate agents or the data is sent to our concierge marketing team, who connects with the homeowners directly, converting the information to an appointment or a very high quality lead, which we dispatch through our practice management software to agents that have signed up for our exclusive membership services. We are the only company doing anything like this and that is reason that we have patents and patents pending on our platforms.
CEOCFO: Are you able to account for regional differences? Is it a little bit more personalized by region or is that too far advanced? Mr. Dekel: It is not too far advanced. Obviously, we have data scientists on payroll so we can analyze numbers. However, I think that it will be easier to generalize. We are operating in over ten states right now very successfully. However, there are many more similarities than differences between all states, and at the core real estate agents battle with the same problems.
CEOCFO: Is your client an individual broker? Is it an individual real estate agent? Who is buying your service? Mr. Dekel: We are growing now in several different directions. Currently we are focused on individual real estate agents and/or producing teams of real estate agents that are consistently listing homes.
CEOCFO: How are you reaching out? Are people skeptical at first? Mr. Dekel: Real estate agents are skeptical in many instances, and rightfully so. Agents are often solicited by a lot of vendors that claim they are unique, and have a different product. There are vendors that pitch search optimization, web site building, branding or CRM’s. However, there is not company out there that offers a marriage between a lead and practice management on demand without a tremendous amount of commitment. Therefore, there is a lot of skepticism, “Why are you different,” because “I heard that lead pitched before” but we overcome that because SetSchedule is truly one of a kind in the industry.
CEOCFO: How are you reaching out to agents? Mr. Dekel: We reach out to agents nationally from several different channels, interacting with thousands of agents on a weekly basis. We utilize trade show opportunities, and have a strong online presence. Many real estate agents get exposed to us by social media. We also have great sales teams out of our Irvine Office in Orange County, California.
CEOCFO: Are you reaching out to homeowners? Mr. Dekel: We have several different channels, as I explained earlier, to harvest data, enrich it, and ultimately reach out to homeowners to bring the highest quality appointments to our Tier I members. Homeowners also reach out to us, because we have a strong social presence and have a relationship with thousands of agents.
CEOCFO: What has changed in your approach so far? What have you learned as SetSchedule has become available? Mr. Dekel: We have grown and learned so much from our clients. What we know, is that the hardship of the average real estate agent is immense, and that competition and the loss of listings to other agents is colossal. Therefore, we have shifted our original focus of exclusive appointments, to broaden our reach and focus on a practice management platform that will maximize the closing ratios of real estate agents, through data, leads and enhancement.
CEOCFO: Would you tell us about community involvement? It is clearly important for SetSchedule. Where do you focus and why? Mr. Dekel: As part of the value add that we bring to the table, which is again in certain ways unique, we incorporate members in certain social events and community opportunities. We are intimately involved with charities such as Kids Cancer Charities, The Jewish Federation and the Israeli American Council. We are involved with the American Technion Society; the leading technology college in Israel, and in a recent event raised funds for the development of new tech talent. Setschedule’s community involvement brings people together, because it is the responsibility of the community to be there for each other, and technology makes that easier than ever.
CEOCFO: How do you insure ease of use?? Mr. Dekel: The problem, in my opinion, when it comes to ease of use is that engineers and even founders of companies develop CRMs or practice management platforms, as engineers and not as the end user. Therefore, the difference here at SetSchedule is that the people who design the platform are the people that use the data. They are all real estate agents. These are the guys that promote the changes that they want to see, recommend designs that make sense to them and provide feedback that would work for the community as a whole.
CEOCFO: Are you seeking investment partnerships? Are you funded for the push you would like to make as you go forward? Mr. Dekel: That is the best question yet! SetSchedule is currently in a Series A capital raise and we are in talks with several interested major venture funds. We have a tremendous amount of interest from the community. The Series A capital investment will be used to invest in the patented mobile application, desktop CRM, and practice management system that will be rolled out in the next month. We consistently monitor the process, and improve our system to bring better quality appointments, and better quality leads, so agents have a better opportunity to close a deal. |
“SetSchedule has a distinctive user friendly methodology that allows real estate agents to search, find, pick and connect with homeowners and home buyers, allowing the real estate agent to more effectively and easily manage the sales cycle from the first appointment to closing.”- Roy Dekel
SetSchedule
SetSchedule CEO Roy Dekel featured in Q&A with CEO/CFO Magazine
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Real Estate Practice Management Software, SetSchedule, CRM for Realtors, CEO Interviews 2017, Roy Dekel, The First Data and CRM/Practice Management Solutions for the Real Estate Industry Allowing Agents to Connect with Homeowners and Home Buyers, Schedule Appointments, Develop Leads and Close More Transactions, Technology Companies, event schedule, verified appointments, marketing tools, elite invite only networking events for members, marketplace and technological solutions for the Real Estate industry, lead generator, vetted homeowners and investors looking to buy and sell, tools for homeowners looking to sell their homes, brokers, SetSchedule Press Releases, News, Tech Stock, Companies looking for venture capital, Angel Investors, private companies looking for investors, real estate practice management software companies seeking investors, CRM companies needing investment capital |
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Roy
Dekel