The Cost of Doing Business
Think of the technology items that you pay for on a monthly basis. When I started in this business it was about $20 per month for a telephone and when I got busier I added another $10 a month for a pager.
At first the cell phone was considered a luxury but eventually I gave in and spent the $40 or so per month for the phone. Now it’s not business, but at some point I got a cable tv connection because I could bundle it with a highspeed internet connection for $69 per month.
Cable is great but we moved to the country so we got satalite tv for $79 per month which did not include internet. We needed another satalite connection for internet from wild blue for $79 per month.
My kids needed cell phones so I upgraded to a phone plan that cost about $100 per month. Then the kids started texting and I had to kick in another $20 per month for unlimmited texts.
Oh I forgot to mention our mls went to electronic lock boxes that we pay a monthly access fee to use and you can’t forget the $xx per month for MLS access.
Well, smart phones like a blackberry are pretty nice and as I’ve found, much needed. My cell phone bill including the smart phone is flirting with the $200 per month mark. My entire monthly technology bill tops $400 per month.
Just when I thought it was safe to drive by a cell phone store, the friendly folks there have informed me there is a new “have to have” item. It is the Kyocera KR2 mobile evdo router. For $229 up front and $59 per month it lets me use my cell phone signal to connect to the internet.
I have just decided I can’t pay what I pay for technology, but I think I may still buy this little gadget and the monthly service that goes with.
Here’s why:
I’m going to drop my Wild Blue internet connection at $79 per month. There’s $20 per month savings right there.
The connection I get using the Kyocera is faster and has no latency. If you don’t know what that is just figure it makes a broadband connection seem as slow as dial up. And all satalite services have it.
I can take my internet connection with me, The Kyocera is works like a cell phone, it’s mobile.
I’m going to drop my satalite TV as well and save $79 per month. I get the four broadcast networks, with netflix I can watch movies without ads and I can find many tv shows on the internet.
I don’t want to watch tv on my computer screen, but I think I can get a VGA cable from radio shack and plug my wide screen Sony tv into my computer.
The next thing I’m watching for is a way to port my home phone number into my cell phones and use a bluetooth connection to make it ring my land line. I could drop my qwest service and save another $20 per month.
There will be a lot of equipment left behind, it puts me in mind of the 8 track tape player. There will be more equipment to purchase and I’m sure there will be more services to buy.
In the end the only thing that is safe to say is everything is changing.
This subject reminds me a little bit of my advertising. Right now I pay way too much for it. You see I have a foot in both worlds. I pay several hundred dollars per month for internet ads, but I still pay for newspaper and yellow page ads. I have to because everyone has not gone electronic yet. I am hoping I can drop my yellow pages and newspaper ads soon. They are very expensive for what they produce.