Primary marketNAR Awards e-PRO Contract to InternetCrusade
The National Association of Realtors has awarded its coveted e-PRO technology course contract to longtime online advocates, InternetCrusade.
“We’re delighted to present the new e-PRO course for all Realtors in partnership with InternetCrusade," said NAR President Richard Mendenhall. "InternetCrusade is a company capable of creating and delivering compelling, relevant content for real estate professionals, as they conduct more and more of their daily business over the Internet. It is a well-known and respected technology resource in the real estate industry."
According to InternetCrusade co-founder Saul Klein, its been a long time coming. "We wrote the recommendation for a technology certification program in 1995 for RIN (Realtor Information Network,) which was to include an online community," he says. "Prior to the launch of e-PRO a year and a half ago, we were teaching Realtors about online consumers and their demands, long before other courses or studies."
e-PRO was the original brainchild of Internet advocate and speaker Michael Russer, who is stepping away from the e-PRO project by mutual agreement with the NAR. "It"s obvious that the e-PRO program has a life of its own," says Russer. "I am not going to participate in the new e-PRO program but I stand behind NAR and wish the project the utmost success. I"ll have future comments as to my position about this in the near future."
After the financial failure of the NAR"s former technology service provider Websuite, now under the reorganization supervision of Progressive Endeavors, the NAR had a strict list of criteria, which only a few technology companies in the educational field could meet. According to NAR spokesperson Steve Cook, InternetCrusade had every feature the organization was looking for.
Progressive Endeavors/Websuite was not invited to bid for the new e-PRO contract. It owns the intellectual rights to the former e-PRO curriculum based on Michael Russer"s teachings, and is relaunching a competitive Internet certification program which is currently being marketed to associations and other large organizations. Russer has announced that he is not endorsing the program but has agreed to allow the use of his intellectual property.
Klein maintains that the new e-PRO platform will be very different from the old platform, including new enhancements. "We took the course and became e-PROs," says Klein of himself and partners John Reilly and Mike Barnett. "Our version will record everything people do on the Internet, and we"ll have milestones to accomplish. There will be listservs for every module, a referral network and e-PRO will be tied together with the online community and that is an ongoing part of the program."
"There will be mandatory skill proficiencies that will be measured, and these you will have to do to get certified," he adds. Agents will learn how e-mail skills and to perform such tasks as changing your reply address and creating an automated signature.
"Before you graduate, you will have to send us an e-mail that will have your automated signature included," says Barnett. "There are certain skills people have to have to effectively communicate on the Internet. We"re not going to make anything so difficult that agents can"t do it, but the certificate will have meaning."
"The goal is to get every sales professional trained," vows Klein. "If I am a Realtor and if I have to deal with someone who doesn’t" have skills it makes it more difficult. We all have an interest to make everyone more proficient."
Editor"s note: If you would like more information, please visit the new e-PRO Web page at http://epronar.com - students who were unable to complete the previous e-PRO course will be rescheduled at no additional cost.