Ask the MLS: Meet Stan Hartke of WRIST
Welcome to another edition of “Ask the MLS.” Here, we talk to people running innovative MLSs around the country and ask them questions about their markets, their members and what keeps them up at night.
Today’s post features Stan Hartke, Director of Technology at Western Regional Information Systems and Technology, Inc (WRIST). WRIST serves more than 1,100 agents in Western Ohio. WRIST launched Homesnap Pro in October 2018 and is a member of the Broker Public Portal. Here’s what Stan had to say:
1. What makes WRIST a unique market?
We have a little bit of everything in this market. We have large cities, lots of rural areas, plenty of farms and agriculture, and several lakes with summer vacation homes available.
2. What is the most effective marketing tactic that WRIST uses to reach its members?
Short videos. A couple years ago, the MLS converted to a new MLS platform and we sent out weekly three-minute videos with updates and what to expect during the conversion. These videos got a lot of traffic, probably because the subject matter was so important for those MLS subscribers. Communicating who, what, when, why and how MLS platforms are changing matters to our agents.
Less interesting subject matters may not get many views. The key is to mix the content so the viewer will watch less important content in order to get to the important content. The six o’clock news is notorious for dropping a teaser story of great importance in order to get the viewer to stick around.
3. WRIST joined the Broker Public Portal in October 2018. What are the benefits of BPP membership, and has it made a difference for your members?
We are very new to the BPP and our agents are getting familiar with it. The greatest advantage I see with the BPP is that it is the first large attempt at data-sharing in the Ohio marketplace.
I’m excited to see how this experiment in sharing data may lead to future opportunities for data-sharing in other places and on other platforms.
4. If you didn’t live in Ohio, which of Ohio’s neighbors — MI, IN, KY, WV or PA — would you like to call home?
I grew up in a county that shared the Ohio/Indiana border so I would definitely say Indiana is my second Ohio. I spent many childhood vacations camping at some the great state parks in Indiana.
5. Which app can you not live without?
I recently started using Dashlane as my password manager for all of my devices. With it, you can set a master password and then it automatically fills passwords in on websites and apps you have on your phone.
It also has a built in VPN, so if you are on a public Wi-Fi at a hotel or restaurant, you can have an extra layer of security there.