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Words of a Champion

Dirk Zeller
CEO

Leadership – The lost art! I realize that is an interesting thought for most people. The truth is there are too many managers in the world and not enough leaders. Great leaders are always great managers, but great managers are rarely great leaders. A manager often tells you what to do, but a leader will also show you how to do it. Your staff, clients, prospects, and other agents are looking for you to lead them. They are looking for guidance, vision, and solutions to the problems they are facing in their lives.

This is especially true with prospects and clients. We often shy away from the leadership model when dealing with prospects and clients. We are afraid of losing the potential business and relationship with them over control. They are looking for us to take that control to lead them to a successful outcome. How would you feel about the doctor that let you take total control of your cancer treatment? We must establish the role of leader from the first moment with the prospect or client.

Here are a few steps to take to establish the leadership role:

Plan out your qualifying questions.

Make sure your prospect qualifying calls are well scripted. Remember, whoever is asking the most questions is in control of the conversation. The questioner has the ability and skill to lead the other person to the desired result. Are you talking more than your prospects or clients?
Set specific boundaries.

Set boundaries on your availability. Let your prospects and clients clearly understand when you are available or not available, what your expectations of them are regarding meeting times, how offers are done, and the reality of the current market. If your client is not prepared for the current market conditions…they are wasting your time. Remember, you are investing your time…your most precious resource.

Let me share with you two great books on leadership; they have specific strategies on how to achieve mastery in leadership.

Leadership by the Book, written by Ken Blanchard
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, written by John Maxwell

These two books will help you build your skills to lead others to the desired outcome.

To Your Success,

Dirk Zeller, CEO
RealEstateChampions.com

Developing the Winning Mindset

One of the key characteristics that successful people have is a winning mindset. They have learned over time to program their mind for success. That's what gives them the edge in competitive situations. This mindset allows them to hit the winning shot at the buzzer, sink the crucial putt on the 18th hole to win the tournament, or get the listing signed . . . even when they are up against the best Agents in town. The question is why do some people have it and others don't? How can you ensure that you acquire the winning mindset? Let me take you through the development of a winning mindset.

Record and replay the tape: Now, I don't mean that you have to record yourself on a recorder. You do need to write down on paper (and track) your victories. We all have a lot of victories daily, weekly, and monthly. We just have a hard time remembering them. If we record them, we can review them during the challenges we are facing. When we lose our self-confidence, we can build it through reviewing our past victories. A lot of our victories, we will find, come out of a very challenging problem or struggle we are having. This review will also show us the direct correlation between the challenges we face and the victories we have. The key is to review them regularly. Review them, so you can invest them to pay dividends today – and tomorrow.
Understand the game you are playing: The highest peak performers understand the game they are playing – how to score and win. To master the game of real estate, you must understand that the primary rule in the game of real estate is: There is no second place. When I was younger, I played racquetball professionally. I always had a philosophy that if I finished second, it was the same as losing. I could have won all the other matches to the final, but losing the final was as bad as losing in the first round. For me, there was no second place. Real Estate is the same way. Either you list the home, or you don't. Either you sell the buyer a home, or you don't. Have you ever gotten paid for coming in second? When the seller says to you, "It was between you and another Agent to list our home, and we chose the other Agent", you don't get paid – they do. Second place does not make the mortgage payment. Make sure you are playing to win. Understand the stark reality of the business that we are in. Develop the focus that you need to compete at the highest level.
The secret edge: Believe in yourself. The best of the best in life believe in themselves. Michael Jordan believed to his core that he was the best. His belief, and his sheer will to win, created the best basketball player ever. I read an article about a survey in which professional golfers were asked, "If you had one putt to win a major championship, who would you pick to putt it?" Almost all of them chose Jack Nickalaus. Why, because he knew he was the best and had the ability to will the ball into the hole. When I sold real estate, I truly believed I was the best Agent for the job. That belief extended beyond just my market place. The question is what do you believe? When your confidence goes up, your competence goes up at the same time. Program your mind, through affirmations, that you are the best. Say aloud daily: "I am a great salesperson", "I am the best Agent someone can hire to do the job", "I provide exceptional service to my clients". You must drive your belief deep. It truly is the secret weapon for all peak performers.

We must invest time daily to develop the winning mindset. Take the time to record your victories. Review them daily, weekly, and monthly. Work to improve your belief in yourself. We all came from the same creator. He didn't create any junk. You have it inside you to be exceptional. The secret edge is belief.

Norman Vincent Peale said, "Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities. Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers, you cannot be successful or happy. Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind... a mental picture of yourself succeeding. Hold the picture tenaciously; never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture."

Lead Generation Machine

We are in the lead generation business. If you want to take control of your life and your business at a greater level, you must set up a system to generate great quantities of leads. By always having great quantities of leads, it will allow you to be highly selective in the people you work with. The truth is you will only be able to help a handful of people with regularity. These handfuls of people should be the best and most motivated clients – the ones who are sold on you and your system.

If you focus on being a lead generating system, you will not have to rely on others to refer business to you, and you will reduce call reluctance.

By using the technology in the automated ads industry, you can create leads 24 hours a day. This helps you create three to five times as many prospects than if they would have called your office. The reluctance of the consumer to call you is removed. You will then receive their phone number to return their call.

The key is to position yourself at the front of the line. You want to run point in this arena. You want a steady flow of consumer direct leads.

You need to elicit your team of affiliates to participate and pay for this service. You can do a mini-commercial like "Brought to you by ABC Mortgage, AAA Pest Control, A-2 Title and Escrow Company." You can cover the cost for all (or a major portion) of this service by well-placed affiliates' mini-commerce deals.

If you work jointly with your mortgage partner, you can create tremendous response. If you can advertise and create a plan for people to call your mortgage partner, you will remove even more reluctance. The truth is buyers will always look at us as salespeople. That is unavoidable no matter how we position or package ourselves to some people. The buyer can look to your mortgage partner as a consultant. This will enable your mortgage partner to have the inside fast lane to commitment by the buyer. Do not fail to enlist the power of your mortgage partner.

Seven Strategies for Call Capture Technology

Maintain the system, so it works well: Constantly update your system with new information and services. Also, check that there has not been a problem with the technology. You want your prospect to continue to call you for your services. They will not call if it is not working properly.
Track and know your numbers efficiently: Track your number of "hits" per listing, total "hits" per week, and what types and areas are receiving the most response. Track the number of appointments you set from the number of contacts you make, and then the number of actual sales versus the appointments set. This will enable you to plan the return you can expect against the work and cost. You will also be able to give solid feedback to your listings.
Callbacks must happen within 24 hours: The truth is people will not remember that you called unless you list them right away. The longer you wait the success rate of setting an appointment dramatically reduces.
Script questions to find out about the prospect: If you are not well scripted, you will spend too much time on the phone before you find out if you can help them or not. You need to be able to articulate a valid reason to set an appointment with you at your office. You cannot help them all. You are only looking for the best ones.
Once you have received their commitment to work with you, you need to call them every workday: By regularly contacting them, you will keep them in your corner. They will understand quickly that you are looking daily for their new home. They will not question your intention and focus to help them achieve their dreams. They will not speak with another Agent again.
Create more value in your mailboxes: Offer other mailboxes that are not just property descriptions. There are services and information you can offer them such as "How to prepare your home for sale", "What to look for in an Agent who is going to sell your home", and "What really sells your home." This will provide information to your prospects and create a higher level of credibility for you. You will also gain more information about your prospect. If your prospect is listening to "How to Prepare Your Home for Sale", you know they are thinking about selling.
Do not neglect your mortgage partner: They can be the key for vast amounts of new business. This alliance can be fruitful for both of you. They have a much different public perception than real estate agents do. Use this to your advantage.

Do not neglect to tap into the technology that will enable you to be a lead generation machine.

What is Sales Call Reluctance?

What is sales call reluctance? There are numerous definitions that industry experts have devised. Some describe it as a fear of rejection; others describe it in terms of a fear of failure. In their landmark book, The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance, George Dudley and Shannon Goodson describe sales call reluctance as "an emotional short circuit in an otherwise motivated and goal-oriented person."

To really have true sales call reluctance, you must have clarity in your goals and objectives. In short, you have to know why you are making the calls you are making beyond the need to meet this month's quota. For most of us, when we have clarity in the why, the how becomes easy.

My father, as a dentist, only worked Monday through Thursday. He was always around on Fridays when I came home from school. The biggest benefit to this was in the summer when we left Portland every Thursday afternoon to spend three days at a second home on a lake that was a quarter of a mile from the Oregon Coast. Some of my fondest memories as a child and youth were swimming, sailing, water skiing, walking the beach, and playing at our family lake house.

My father's why was born out of his love for my mother. The reason for his financial success was the challenge of Multiple Sclerosis that they faced together. My mother was diagnosed with MS when I was three years old. By the time I was in the second grade, she never took another step. The last years of her life were spent without the use of her arms, legs, hands, or feet. My father's big why for wealth was to provide her with the most extraordinary life possible during each stage of her disease; to be able to travel with three sons and a wheelchair bound wife to Mexico, Asia, Hawaii (annually), and many other locations. But mostly, he wanted to be able to care for her in her aged years in their home with the use of full-time care givers, so she could live in the home she raised her children in; to have the best quality of life imaginable for someone in her condition. That was his why. What's yours?

You also must have motivation to achieve in order to experience call reluctance. If you don't have motivation or desire, it's not a case of call reluctance. Motivation and goals are often connected in people. It's easier to have motivation to achieve if you know what you want to achieve. The goals stoke the fire of motivation and desire.

In Dudley and Goodson's studies, they determined that sales call reluctance can be traced to four core sources:

Predisposition
Heredity
Exposure
Personality

We can acquire sales call reluctance from our parents and the environment that we grew up in. Maybe our parents were technically inclined and technically educated like engineers, scientists, or accountants. Their view of salespeople was not particularly high. They often referred to someone in sales with phrases like, "He's 'only' a salesperson." Sales was not a highly regarded profession in my household. It has raised its status as a viable career only because of my overwhelming success at it.

We can be exposed to sales call reluctance by other salespeople and even our sales manager. It's like the flu. We all catch it at one time or another. If an outbreak happens in a sales department, it can be disastrous. The sales for the whole company can be affected due to some salespeople being infected.

Our personality or behavioral style can increase our ease of catching it causing sales droughts to take place. Through our extensive work in the last ten years, we have been able to connect a pattern between some behavioral styles and a high likelihood of sales call reluctance and even certain types of sales call reluctance. For example, we have discovered that high steady behavioral style salespeople have a higher probability of contracting the yielder type of sales call reluctance.

Sales Call Reluctance can be identified when the act of prospecting and lead follow-up, in terms of numbers of contacts, is too low. We know it's too low when it doesn't support the goals of the salesperson. If you know your sales ratios of contacts to leads, leads to appointments, and appointments to sales, and you don't make the number of contacts daily, and you have clear goals, you probably have at least a temporary case of some version of sales call reluctance.

If you can see marketing opportunities for what you are selling – whether you are selling a product or service – and don't seize the opportunities, it is probable that sales call reluctance is inflaming your decision to not act. Why won't you take advantage of what might be the "perfect storm" to create sales? Logically, most people with sales call reluctance will agree that they need to take action. The problem is if they are experiencing sales call reluctance, few of them do take action.