Chicago Tribune - Silicone Praire - August 2000 DOWNTOWN HOUSING BOOM BLOCKING INFLUX OF HIGH-TECH FIRMS --- Steven R. Goldstein
As a small businessman, I am always trying to find ways to make my business look larger and more professional to prospective clients. Even in a business that's as personalized as real estate, people always seem to be more comfortable dealing with a larger company.
So I use technology to keep up appearances.
My business is a commercial real estate brokerage that specializes in leasing smaller properties, typically 2,500 to 20,000 square feet, throughout Chicago. Many of my clients are high-tech startups, and they lease space the same way they do everything else: at Internet speed, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I need to be reachable all the time.
With no one at the office to back me up, I used to give out my work phone number, my cell phone number and my home phone number. Clients would get frustrated having to call all three and at times still wouldn't be able to reach me. Plus, I'd get calls at home that, in my estimation, didn't warrant more than a voice mail left at the office.
I also had to worry about extremely time-sensitive faxes. Given the tight real estate market in certain sections of Chicago, a tenant easily can lose a prime space to someone else in a couple of hours. A signed lease sitting on the floor below my office fax machine can mean a lost deal for my client and no commission for me.
E-mail was another problem. It required that I be in the office to receive and return messages. Yes, I could have signed up for the ever-accessible Hotmail or Yahoo! accounts, but I wasn't crazy about having either of those names printed on my business cards.
I solved my tech troubles – and, I think, impressed people along the way – by embracing still more technology. My quick fix has come in the form of a unified messaging system called Webley. The device gives me a single phone number – I was excited to get an 800 number – that I can use to make and receive calls, listen to voice mail, fetch e-mail and receive faxes. I can do all of these administrative tasks from any phone: a cell phone, a pay phone, my home phone.
Webley acts as my receptionist and locates me wherever I am, ringing up to four numbers simultaneously if necessary. The device tells me who is on the line and gives me the option of taking the call or letting Webley take a message. When a client sends a fax, the device notifies me that the information has arrived. If I'm on the road, I can dial Webley and have the message sent through any fax machine or to my e-mail account. The device also reads my e-mail to me and lets me reply that instant over the phone.
You'd think I had an army of help back at the office. Another up side: my clients, folks who are really into technology, see how one gadget runs my life these days, and they think it's pretty cool.
Technology will level the playing field for small companies that embrace it.
Steve Goldstein is founder and president of Metro Concepts and Chicago Broker, real estate brokers in metropolitan Chicago. For more information, visit www.chicagobroker.com.