In This Issue...

• Words from the President
• Effective Listing Presentations - Short & Sweet!
• Five Disciplines to Guaranteed Annual Increase - Now!

Words from the President

Thanks for joining me today on your journey toward success as a Real Estate Agent.

The two areas that we'll focus our time on today are Effective Listing Presentations & Business Development Disciplines. Either of these could help you change your life in 2007 if you'll read, absorb, and use the information.

I hope that you'll invest 9 minutes of your precious life with me today and that the information proves to be a blessing to you and your career.

To your achievement of success in life,


Dirk Zeller
CEO
Real Estate Champions, Inc

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Effective Listing Presentations - Short & Sweet!

The listing presentation is your moment to show a prospective client all that you’re worth.  With the value of your services and the relationship you hope to have with a client on the line, it’s hard to believe that the less said, the better.  But it’s true -- the longer a listing presentation takes, the worse it gets.  The client’s mind begins to wander, and the Agent begins to promise more in marketing and advertising to keep the client’s attention and procure the listing.  The commission rate will have a tendency to decrease and the listing price to increase.  This will lead to longer marketing, less profit, or eventually an expired listing.  Truly, the longer your presentation goes, the weaker it becomes; a short, focused presentation is the one that will speak volumes for you. 

I realize that many speakers and trainers have been teaching Agents for years how to do a two-hour listing presentation.  But think about it: in today’s busy society, does anyone really want to listen to an Agent talk about himself and his company for two hours?  In the seller’s position, after an hour or so, wouldn’t you find yourself thinking about what you would rather be doing with your family?  Once the owners begin to think about things other than listing their home with you, it becomes very difficult to get them refocused on signing a contract or agreement.  Remember that the length of your listing presentation is critical to your success.

One key to making the most effective presentation in the shortest amount of time is to ask questions.  To be an effective Agent, you need to find out the desires and expectations of the prospect.  The only way to do this is by asking questions, and one of the biggest mistakes I see Agents making is not asking enough of them.  The person asking the questions is the one who controls the conversation.  Develop a series of questions for your listing presentations; this will help you stay focused.  By asking each client similar questions, you will learn to evaluate each client’s motivation, compatibility, and expectations.  Working with a standard set of questions will also help you remember to ask all of the necessary questions.  By developing a series of questions, you will be able to standardize your presentation and control the time that your presentation takes.  Without a standardized presentation based on a set series of questions, you will have a tendency to take listings for too high a price, too short a term, or with people whose expectations are not compatible with what your skills and experience can offer them.

As you gather information from the sellers and present yourself to them, keep in mind that presentations should be directed, first and foremost, to price rather than to secondary issues such as marketing or advertising. Price is king in real estate; it is the dominant reason a home sells or fails to sell.  Our presentations need to accurately reflect this reality.  Rather than focusing on marketing, focus on the issues that will really affect the sale of the home.  I advocate rolling up your sleeves and getting down to the business of price, sooner rather than later.  If you and the seller cannot agree on price, then nothing else you might say is going to make this relationship work; you should politely excuse yourself and move on to the next prospect.

Above all, you need to show the clients the benefit of working with you.  This is, after all, what the clients will be paying you for.  You need to show them how your skills, experience, and strategy will benefit them.  They need to know and understand the benefits of your approach to selling their home.  Determine a few of the advantages you offer, and share them with the listing prospect.

If you'd like step-by-step training, including the scripts & tools you need for an effective listing presentaiton...check out my program "How to Create & Deliver a Dynamic Listing Presentaiton™" here.

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Five Disciplines to Guaranteed Annual Increase - Now!

Real Estate sales are changing and growing at an alarming rate.  Even with all the mergers, sales, and consolidations of the industry, there is one constant.  The Agents who learn to be better business and sales people will be more successful in this industry.  Agents who learn the five disciplines of increasing production will have a thriving business.

1. The first discipline is creating a schedule.  This schedule should encompass your whole life.  Your personal life must be factored in to create balance.  I have seen far too many Agents sacrifice their family to achieve a production goal or certain amount of commission earned.  When they finally reach their goal, they have no one to share it with, or they realize what little importance that goal has compared to their family.  I have a friend who tragically lost a child and now is reflecting on the years of decisions made for the sake of a few plaques and personal production goals.  Those plaques, or even the money earned, are little comfort to her at a time of great sorrow.  What a hollow feeling for that highly successful Agent!

The schedule should encompass the “time block” system.  By time blocking, I mean to schedule specific times for each daily activity in real estate.  Schedule time to prospect, qualify buyers and sellers, negotiate contracts, return phone calls, conduct listing presentations, and show property.  The better you “time block”, the more effective you will be.  The more you adhere to the schedule, the more success you will have in sales.  Remember to allow for a little “play time” or “flex time”.  You will need some time to relax and decompress.  This relaxation will enable you to stay focused and sharp during the “up time”.  Giving yourself 15-minutes of “flex time” every two to three hours should be sufficient to break the tension or catch up, so you stay “time blocked”.

2. The second discipline is to prospect daily.  There are as many ways of prospecting as there are people.  The key is you must do something daily to bring in the business.  You can prospect via the phone or in person.  You can prospect expireds, FSBOs, cold calls, appointments for buyers, investment properties, your sphere, and out of area owners.  The list is truly endless.  The truth is if we are not spending a minimum of one hour everyday prospecting for new business, we will have difficulty during stretches of our career.  Even calling your past clients and asking for referrals is an excellent way to prospect.

Often, when Agents get busy, prospecting is the first discipline to be shelved.  Their theory is, “I am busy; I do not need to prospect anymore.”  This is the time to pour it on.  You have momentum, so keep going.  The analogy I like to use is: If a plane is on the runway, it takes a tremendous amount of energy to climb to 20,000 feet.  Once the plane is at 20,000 feet, it can throttle back a little and easily maintain its cruising altitude.  If the plane throttles back completely, it will soon be back down on the runway.  Do not throttle back in your prospecting or you will find yourself on the runway quickly.  By continuing to prospect, you can then climb higher or do the same production in less time.  Consistency in your prospecting leads to consistency in your paydays.

3. The third discipline is qualifying the potential client.  This one is crucial to success.  I see more Agents make mistakes in this area than in any other.  They are afraid to qualify people to the point of excluding them out.  The whole goal in qualifying is exclusion of the unmotivated.  If you do not become skilled at excluding the unmotivated buyer or seller, they will waste your time.  They will eventually drive you out of the business . . . both emotionally and financially.

The most valuable commodity you have in life is your time.  We all have a finite amount of time here on earth.  We do not even know the amount of time we have left.  If we choose to work with unqualified, unmotivated, unloanable, unable-to-sell people too often, we will be out of business.  By properly qualifying all leads, you are saving yourself from putting them in your car or going to their house to find out they are not a lead at all.  Spending five hours showing property, only to find out that they are working with another Agent, unable to buy due to bad credit, have no money, or are unrealistic of the value of homes today, is a painful experience.  Any one of these people causes us frustration and macaroni and cheese for dinner.  Do not allow these people to control your business.  The majority of the Agents in our industry really need to strengthen this discipline dramatically.  They allow their clients to be the CEO of their real estate sales company.

To all of us, leads are like security.  If we have them, we feel secure, and we do not have to find new ones.  The truth is a lead by itself has no value.  What is the true value of your leads?  What would someone pay you for all your leads?  Why not make them worth something to you and your family by qualifying them well and then setting an appointment or throwing them out if they are of no value (which most of them are).  Leads have little value warehoused in your computer.  If you are not following-up on them, chuck them.  You can always create more leads.  You can get more than you can handle.  Why not pick only the best ones?

4. The fourth discipline is understanding your business.  By understanding, I mean know where it comes from.  What are the top three income producing activities that you do?  Where do you spend your time daily?  Compare those two answers.  What are you worth per hour?  Take your gross commission and divide by the number of hours worked.  Take that per hour dollar value and determine the activities you can do to earn that amount per hour.  Then do those activities the bulk of your day.  I will give you a hint…it is not putting up signs and lock boxes, unless you want to make less than $10.00 per hour.  You are a business owner of a company that sells millions of dollars a year in product.  You need to know about your business.

5. The fifth discipline is developing a philosophy.  By philosophy, I mean guidelines for doing business both personally and professionally.  If you understand your value per hour and your average commission check, you can determine the type of people you are willing to work with.  You may not be able to work in a certain price range or with certain types of people.  When a buyer does not give you the exact answers you need, you can refer him to another Agent or drop him, because he does not meet your philosophy.  We were not put on this earth to help everyone.  There are people we cannot help.  This does not make them bad people.  That also does not make you a bad person.  It just makes you a businessperson who expects a reasonable profit for the time invested. 

Once I was clear on my philosophy of what a client was and what I expected of a client, I did not have to deal with people who did not conform to my philosophy.  You need to concisely define your world of business.  This definition will enable you to better select the people you work with.  We have all selected the wrong people.  Bent on our beliefs, we spent large amounts of time and money working with people we should not have and felt awful afterwards.  Then we never were paid or appreciated for our efforts.  You will feel much better turning them down before you invest your time, energy, and money in a losing cause.  This understanding of your “core” philosophy will enable you to seek out the people who meet it rather than finding those who do not.  You will generally find what you are looking for.  You will also be able to quickly dispense with those that do not meet your standard operating procedures.

For detailed instruction & training on how you can integrate these disicplines into your business and become a Champion Real Estate Agent... Check out my new book "The Champion Real Estate Agent" here.

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• Prospecting?

• Lead Generation?

• Listing Presentations?

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• Objection Handling?

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