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In This Issue...
Words From the President
Before we get into this week's "Golden Nuggets of Real Estate Wisdom", I want to give you a little encouragement. Whether you are up, down, or in-between this year be encouraged that no matter where you are today you can change the direction of your life with the choices you make. By reading this newsletter, for example, you made, what I think to be , a wise choice to read the entire newsletter. It'll only take 10 minutes or so and could make a difference for you. It covers two of my favorites topics (Prospecting & Daily Disciplines), each of which could give you an idea or trigger a different action that may lead to a change of direction for your life. So, congratulations to you on making the right choice and investing a little time in yourself and your career. You could be reading the (most often depressing) newspaper after all. To your achievement
of success in Real Estate, P.S.
The last chance to get Foreclosure Mastery™ for the introductory
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Shattering the Myths about Prospecting - Forever!You’ve heard at least some of the reasons Agents use in order to avoid adopting sound prospecting techniques. “My market is different” or “You don’t understand how we do things here in Mayberry” are among the many. Truth is there are techniques that work in every market area, everywhere in the world, at any point in time. So, bury the myths, starting with the ones that follow. There is a “Magic Pill”…Real estate success is built on a series of fundamentals. One of those fundamentals is prospecting. There are plenty of people working to sell Agents on some “magic pill” they can take to avoid the fundamental need to prospect. They are greeted by a willing market, since many agents secretly want and hope for a prospecting-free existence. We secretly hope those guys on the late night infomercials are right that we can buy a home for no money down at below market prices, or we can eat whatever we want and not have to work out and still lose weight and have a sculpted body. Dream on. There is no magic mailing program, calendar, magnet, marketing piece, or website that will make up for the fundamental need to pick up the phone and start prospecting for new clients. An Approach Too Good to be True…Agents are quick to share with you how they got where they are today – passionately describing their techniques, people who helped them, or products that made the difference. While a few of these Agents can tell you the cause and effect link between their actions or techniques and their sales and revenue, better than 95% truly have no idea or can’t quantify their success for you. Your job is to pull the curtain back. In the movie The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy, the tin man, the scarecrow, and the lion were all mesmerized and scared of the great and powerful Oz. It took a dog, Toto, to reveal that Oz was a little man pulling levers and using a sound system to produce the semblance of greatness and power. In the future, when someone approaches you with great and powerful business-generating techniques, pull back the curtain with these questions.
Most people (whether they are other Agents, your broker, other trainers, or sales gurus) couldn’t answer most of these questions. However, they are all positive that what they are advocating is the “cat’s meow” for you and your business. I recently received a marketing piece from an Agent touting his approaches to business. He had sold 60 homes in his third year in the business – a very respectable number. Based on his personal success, he was promoting his lead-generation model as better than prospecting because he did 60 deals and generated over 1,200 leads a month. The average agent would be frothing at the mouth to achieve those numbers. I immediately grabbed my calculator and did the math. He generates over 14,400 leads a year, which means his 60 transactions represent a lead-conversion rate of .004167 – less than ½ of 1%. Put differently, he has converted only one person out of 240 leads that were generated through his so-called “prospecting technique”. There
are only two logical conclusions that one can come to: The
leads he is generating are marginal at best, or he is really poor
at securing face-to-face meetings and subsequent deals. I
will leave you to draw your own conclusion. This myth is based on some truth. Many top-performing Agents don’t prospect once they have “made it” as Agents. But you’ll be hard-pressed to find top producers who got where they are without prospecting at earlier stages in their careers. And you’ll be even harder-pressed to find top producers who can weather the swings and changes of the marketplace without going back into prospecting mode at least on an occasional basis. To become a top producer, you must prospect. And to remain at the top of your game, you must continue to prospect. Don’t quit prospecting . . . ever! As you become more and more successful at real estate sales, you may even do more prospecting – in part because prospecting becomes more natural and easier than ever. As you acquire name recognition and market presence, the people you contact are increasingly honored and pleasantly surprised to receive your calls. They know that you are busy and successful, and they respond not only with their own business but with many referrals, as well. My Clients and Friends don’t want to be Bothered…Agents who use this excuse are focusing almost exclusively on the canvassing or referral portion of the call, rather than on the connection the call allows with a long-established associate. Wouldn’t you be delighted to get a call from your accountant, doctor, dentist, or insurance agent asking how you and your family are, thanking your for your business, and seeing if there is anything they could do for you? I bet you can count on one hand the amount of times in the last 20 years you have received a call like that. If you did, you would probably be stunned and appreciative. Your sphere, past clients, and other associates would feel the exact same way. Every time I work with a new client, I hear the same excuse: They don’t want to bother anyone. Then they make calls for a week, and when I talk with them again, they always say the same thing: “I was amazed how easy it was. My clients were really happy to talk with me. I couldn’t get them off the phone. It was great to catch up.”For more information on how you can gain Prospecting Success ... Click Here
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Disciplines of a Champion - Your Success PlanStart each day focused on the daily success of your business. You want to begin each day by reviewing your business plan. Focus in on the daily activities that will lead you to the successful result you have set forth in your plan. Long-term success is built on top of achieving daily performance standards – for weeks and months at a time. If your business plan is not broken down to the daily activities or daily performance standards, you should take the time to do so now. I call these daily activities “The Disciplines of a Champion”. We each have activities that, if left undone daily, will cause our business to suffer. Some of the Disciplines of a Champion could be:
The Disciplines of a Champion are quantifiable and trackable. They are a specific amount of time or a specific number that must be achieved. To have power, the disciplines must set the time frame or the quality. It is too easy for us to opt out and not accomplish our goals without concrete parameters. Next, you need to evaluate whether you are ahead or behind for this week. Then create the strategy to catch up if you are behind or focus on maintaining the current strategy and direction that has kept you on plan or ahead. Too often, we know we are behind and let it go for too long without a change. You must react and change quickly to catch up. We often do not raise the level of our intensity or increase our work output until it is too late. If you get too far behind and are spending tremendous amounts of time inflicting wounds on yourself, change the plan. ALWAYS have a Plan B. There is no embarrassment to working a Plan B. Often Plan B is the better plan because you can invest the mistakes you made in Plan A. Edison tried over 10,000 different elements in his light bulb before one worked. What would have happened had he stopped after Plan A? Zero in on your area of success. People are paid very well on the few things they do very well. That is one of the best things about the field of selling real estate. There are so many ways to earn an outstanding income. Do what you do very well. We coach our clients to develop three to four areas of specialization in the real estate field and work to project their skills in these areas. Do not be a generalist in a specialized world. The jack-of-all-trades is also the master of none. You are highly skilled in a few specific areas of real estate sales. If you have only one or two areas, you need to begin to learn and add another area or two to give you balance. The possibilities are truly endless when you become a specialist. Here are some ideas of specialization:
There is an endless supply of opportunities to become the recognized expert in your area in a few categories. I could list three pages of categories, but you get the idea. Your success in your real estate career must be built from the ground up. Pour a solid foundation of daily disciplined goals and activities. These daily disciplines, or Disciplines of a Champion, will set you on the path to success in your career. Review and analyze your progress daily. Do not be afraid to adopt a Plan B if needed. Create a few areas of specialty. Decide what you enjoy doing and do well. Then zero in and take dead aim for the target of being the recognized expert in your area.For more help growing your business, consider carving out a niche for yourself in Foreclosures by clicking here...
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