The Inman Connect conference is known for it’s ‘aha!’ moments. One of the great values in attending is hearing the truth bombs – sometimes dropped intentionally and often randomly – across the week. When compiled as a whole, they create compelling narratives.

The two big themes of the New York conference were technology and relationships. I’ve reordered these based on how they revealed themselves.

Here’s what resonated:

What they said about technology:

“Technology’s primary goal should be to give the agent back their time.” - Lisa Sevajian, Bentley’s North of Boston.

“The only way you’re going to make money is if you remove the diminutae from your day.” - Lauren Nemeth, Nextdoor.

“AI never gets sick, never takes holiday, will happily work 24 hours a day and is relentless with detail.” – Sarah Bell, AIRE.

“The supernova is exploding how brokerage is done and real estate agents behave. Tired brands and tired habits are being replaced with processes that instead of taking months, they’re taking weeks; and the things that took weeks are going to take days and the thing that took days are going to happen in hours.” – Brad Inman.

“Mobile is driving age of assistance. This gives brands the opportunity to always be helpful as consumers always have their mobile with them.” - Dan Siegler, Google

“Every touch point with your client contains a signal of intent,” – Facebook at the Learning Labs lunch hosted by Chime.

“The portals are moving from Search Engines, to Service Engines.” - Mike Del Prete, revealing how iBuying is a lead play for the portals even more than it is an immediate buying play.

What they said about relationships:

“Brand is one of the frustrations in the industry. It’s not a company that sells a home, it’s the agents.” - Robert Reffkin, Compass

“Clients are no longer asking what to do. They’re asking ‘why?’. Clients don’t want to be sold to, they want guidance. The customer says “so here’s what I know”. And their challenge to us is “What have I missed, or why is that happening? Or what is the best thing to do now.” – Jeff Turner

“Relationships are the financial lifeblood of your business,” – in the marketing budgets session hosted by Molly McKinley.

“Relationships are built with small interactions over the course of time. And real estate is a relationship business,” - Katie Lance.

“What anchors us is we are first trusted advisors before we are sales people.” Billy Ekofo, Leading Real Estate Companies of the World.