Ethica CEO Judd Hoffman in conversation with real estate leaders, recorded on stage at industry events.
The reason was about the association, not the software
At Inman Connect San Diego, Judd Hoffman asked Phil Hawkins, CEO of the California Association of REALTORS®, what made C.A.R. decide this was something every member should have.
His answer never described a feature.
"All of our members do transactions at some point, maybe not every year, but all of our members do transactions."
That sentence is doing more work than it appears. A member benefit has to clear a bar an ordinary product doesn't: it has to be worth something to the whole membership, not just the members who would get the most out of it. Most real estate software fails that test honestly, because it's built for the agents doing the most volume.
The transaction is the exception. It's the one thing every member touches, in whatever year they touch it, and the part-time agent doing two deals has more at stake in getting one right than the agent doing forty.
Then Hawkins named the standard he was applying.
"A trade association is to make our members' lives better, and we're always looking for products such as this that makes our members' lives better."
That's a test the association applies to the product, not a claim the product makes about itself. It's also the reason C.A.R. put member dues behind Ethica rather than negotiating a discount and calling it a partnership. A discount is available to whoever chooses to spend; a member benefit is already theirs.
The full conversation is here.
Quick takes
Why did the California Association of REALTORS® make an AI transaction assistant a member benefit?
Because every member does transactions. C.A.R. CEO Phil Hawkins points out that all members do transactions at some point, maybe not every year, but all of them, which makes the transaction the one thing the whole membership has in common.
What is a trade association for?
In Hawkins's words, to make members' lives better. He describes C.A.R. as always looking for products that do that, which is the standard a member benefit has to meet rather than a standard the software sets for itself.
What makes something a member benefit rather than a discount or an add-on?
It has to apply to the whole membership. A tool that only helps the busiest agents reaches part of the membership; a tool aimed at the transaction reaches every member who does one, in any year they do it.
Sources
- Ethica Blog: Judd Hoffman and Phil Hawkins on Stage at Inman: The full twelve-minute conversation this clip is drawn from
- Ethica News: C.A.R. strategic investment in Ethica AI: C.A.R.'s investment of member dues making Ethica a member benefit
Transcript
83 words
JUDD HOFFMAN: What made C.A.R. decide this was something every member should have as a member benefit?
PHIL HAWKINS: So all of our members do transactions at some point, maybe not every year, but all of our members do transactions. In my role, I look, the California Association of REALTORS is a trade association, and in my mind a trade association is to make our members' lives better, and we're always looking for products such as this that makes our members' lives better.
