In This Issue...

• Adapt like a Champion
• Calculating and Analyzing Real Estate - Part 2
• Be Effective in Sales by Understanding People - Properly
• Defining Your Core Purpose for Your Team - Part 2

Adapt Like a Champion

Being able to adapt to the changing world is essential to maintaining long term success.  Recognizing opportunity and seizing the chance will make you have many successes in life.  We must equate challenges as opportunities towards success.

I have clients in every conceivable market condition.  With each market condition brings about different challenges.  It also brings along different opportunities.  Don’t neglect to slow down to clearly evaluate the opportunities; to invest your knowledge in the unique skills you have and the opportunities put forth by the market.  Don’t get too set in your thinking that you can’t make small adjustments and seize the moment.

Let me share with you the story about lost opportunity.  From 1900 to1967 the Swiss were the leading watchmakers in the world.  In 1967, when the Swiss patented digital technology, they rejected it in favor of the traditional ball bearings, gears, and mainsprings they had been using for decades.  They neglected to seize the opportunity of this “new marketplace.”

A Japanese company picked up the patent for the digital technology.  With in a short period of time 50,000 of the 60,000 Swiss watchmakers were out of business.  They didn’t react to the change.  Overnight this Japanese company became the leading watch manufacturer.  The company who seized the opportunity…Seiko. 

Stop and look at your marketplace.  There are opportunities everywhere.  That is one of the greatest things about selling real estate!  The field is wide open.  Anyone and everyone can have success.  Look at what opportunities are available now and where the market is going to create new opportunities in the future.

Wayne Gretszky was once asked why he was so much better than every other hockey player.  His response was “I always go to where the puck is going to be.”  The great one was always thinking ahead of the game.  He was playing a few shots or passes ahead of what was happening at the moment.  He was playing in the moment but also playing two shots ahead. 

To your achievement of success in life,

Dirk Zeller
CEO
Real Estate Champions, Inc

P.S. The three areas that we'll focus our time on today are Calculating and Analyzing Real Estate, Be Effective in Sales by Understanding People, and Defining Your Core Purpose for Your Team. Any of these articles could help you change your life in 2007 if you'll read, absorb, and use the information. I challenge you to take a few minutes of your time to read this material. If you don't have time now, print them out and take them with you to read between appointments.

"Swanepoel Real Estate
Trends Report"

During the past year, the real estate industry has experienced unprecedented change and significant innovation. You’ve no doubt experienced it first hand.

The key to being successful in real estate, or any other career for that matter, is staying apprised of the trends in your industry. If you can see where things are heading, you can utilize new opportunities before your competition.

• Beating your competition to the next wave of opportunities
• Avoiding fads that could set your business back years
• Gaining valuable insights about revealing strategies you can use right now

Learn More Here

Calculating and Analyzing Real Estate - Part 2

Three key statistics reflect real estate sales success better than any other indicators. These statistics are: Average list price compared to average sales price, average number of days on the market, and average number of listings sold versus listings taken. In this article we will take a look at Average Number of days on the market.

Average days on the market

Your ability to sell a home, on average, in fewer than 30 days clearly conveys to potential sellers your skill and success level.  It further indicates your knowledge of competitive pricing.

An agent with a strong track record for quickly moving homes presents a clear competitive advantage to sellers for several reasons:

• Agents that move properties quickly generally achieve higher sale prices and put more money in their sellers’ pockets. Buyers in today’s marketplace are extremely sophisticated. One of the first questions they ask an agent is, “how long has the house been on the market?”  Buyers realize that the best homes sell quickly. If they learn a home has been slow to sell, they adjust their initial offer downward accordingly.

• Sellers with newly listed properties have a stronger negotiation position when an offer comes in. If the home has only been on the market a few days, buyers realize that the seller is less likely to offer price concessions.

• Sellers with slow-to-sell homes sacrifice dollars two ways: One, through a lower sale price and, two, through ongoing expenses for a home they no longer want to own. This two-edged sword is the one agents need to point out in order to shorten the time a home languishes on the market. Sellers often want to hold out for a higher offer, but as time goes by that higher offer becomes less likely to arrive. Contrary to the beliefs of many clients, sellers don’t make more money by waiting, say, 120 days rather than accepting an offer in the first 30 days from listing. In fact, studies show that they receive less and less over time.  And while they wait, they need to make additional mortgage payments that do little to reduce their debt or increase their equity.

By showing that your listings have lower-than-average days on the market, you’ll present proof that prospective sellers gain a significant competitive edge and financial advantage when they choose to work with you.

To calculate the average number of days your listings are on the market, follow these steps:

• Make a list of all your listings that sold over a recent period of not less than three months. Alongside each listing, note the number of days that passed between when the home was listed and when a sale contract was signed.

• Add up the days on the market for all homes on your list. For example, if you had five sold listings, one that sold after 33 days on the market, and the others after 45, 62, 21, and 84 days, then your total would be 245 days.

• Divide the total number of days on the market by the number of listings sold. If you had five sold listings last quarter that were on the market a total of 245 days, then your average days on the market per property over that period would be 49.

• Ratio: Total number of days that all your sold listings were on the market  ÷ Number of sold listings = Average days on the market ratio

When comparing your days-on-the-market averages with market-wide real estate averages, take into account the following considerations:

• After calculating the average number of days your own listings were on the market, conduct the same calculation for your overall MLS area or real estate board. If you don’t yet have a significant number of listings, obtain the average number of days that your company’s listings were on the market and present that figure while you’re building your own business.

• Be aware that the price range you sell in can affect the average number of days on the market. In general, homes in a higher price range result in a higher average number of days on the market.

If you have a high number of listings, consider creating average calculations for various price ranges or geographic market areas. This will allow you to create apples-to-apples comparisons with other agents by analyzing performance in specific segments of the market.

• When comparing your performance with market-wide averages, strengthen your competitive position by including homes that failed to sell in your calculation. When doing so, be careful to disclose that expired listings are included in your calculations. By factoring in expired listings, you reflect the most comprehensive view of how many days homes sat on the market, whether they ultimately sold or not.

By including expired listings in your average calculations, the market average will go up sharply. The vast majority of expired listings will have been on the market 120 days or more. Therefore, if your overall market saw a number of expired listings and you personally had none, the gap between you and your competitors will stretch considerably and to your great advantage.   

If you're tired of fighting for every listing and would rather have a system that takes you completely through the entire Listing Process, so that you walk out with the listing contract signed, you've got to check out...

How to Create and Deliver a
Dynamic Listing Presentation™

Get the Listing Every Time with these Step-By-Step Instructions, Forms, Handouts, and Scripts.

The difference between getting the listing and walking out with "We'll think it over and get back to you" is all in your listing presentation. If you walk in with Dirk’s time-tested & proven (by 1000's of Agents) listing presentation, you’ll walk out with the listing.

What would your life be like if you had all the winning scripts and dialogues to help you nail the listing presentation every time? Even better than that, what if you had the right seller handouts and scripts to help you get the listing presentation appointment?

The 'How to Create and Deliver a Dynamic Listing Presentation™' Series will teach you how to:
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Be Effective in Sales by Understanding People - Properly

To be an effective salesperson, you have to understand people.  You have to understand that people buy and sell for a set of reasons.  They also make decisions on whom they do that with based on their reasons, not ours.  Being able to read people and ask the right questions is essential to success.  Let me share the rules of reading people.

• People are egocentric:  This means they are self-focused.  They are clearly fixated on what’s in it for them.  If we don’t know what they want and link that with the benefits of doing business with us, we will stumble in sales.  We all look at the world based on how a given situation or opportunity relates to us personally.  When we fail to connect the dots personally with our customers, we are rendered less effective.

• People make decisions emotionally: Most of us decide quickly.  Some of us gather our facts and information previous to making a decision.  Once we gather the necessary data, we move to the decision.  Even the most analytical person will make decisions based on a feeling, need, or emotion.  These people’s sales cycles are longer than others.  Your job is to identify the longer sales cycles and be there at the appropriate time.  We must also send all the data beforehand to be digested by the customer before they meet with us.

• People will justify their decisions with reasons: As salespeople, we have to give the prospect sufficient reason to do business with us.  This frees them to move forward in the purchase based on the emotional impulse they feel.  They want to move forward but are looking for a little security to justify their decision.  We must provide a compelling reason for their movement forward now!

• People delay making decisions: The longer the customer postpones making the decision, the lower probability the decision will ever be made.  As salespeople, our objective is to provide the customer with enough reasons to get them to attach benefit to our service.  Our other objective is to encourage them and direct them to act on it now once they have the information.  The sooner we can provoke a decision by the customer, the higher the probability that it will be in our favor.  The longer the time between when you make your presentation and when the customer decides, the lower the probability of success.  We must focus to shorten our sales cycles.

• People fear losing something: The fear of loss is one of the most powerful motivators for action.  People will move more quickly to a decision if they stand to lose something than if they are positioned to gain something. As salespeople, we need to put our compelling reasons for action now in terms of potential losses to our clients.  There are two types of fear of loss.

• Losing something you have
• Losing the chance to have something you want

Both of these are forefront in your customer’s thoughts.

Defining Your Core Purpose for Your Team - Part 2

A core purpose for your company is the reason for its existence.  What you are trying to create in a core purpose is to grasp the very soul of your company.  The soul of your company (or any company) isn’t just to make money or turn a profit; the soul of the company goes well beyond the structure, income, sales, closings, leads, and people you serve.

The mark of a great team is their adherence to their purpose.  It is important that each member of the team contributes to a common purpose that could not be attained through separate individuals working independently.  Your purpose for a company is like a piece of sheet music for a symphony.  All the players in the symphony must know the music and play together for the magic to happen.  If the trombones are out of rhythm, the music is compromised.  There is a difference in the sheet music based on the instruments and where they play but not the core purpose.  The instruments combine the grandiose symphony sound.  The need for the sheet music will end at the completion of the composition . . . the core purpose will not.

A true core purpose is really a guiding light for a company that can never be fulfilled.  When companies have goals, tactics, strategies, and objectives, the desire is for completion or fulfillment of them.  The purpose is not completed, and it does not change or alter.  If you have captured the core purpose, it will guide you for your whole life.  A true core purpose will inspire change for the organization but will not change itself.

Let me share an example with you.  My company, Real Estate Champions’, core purpose is: “To teach and inspire people to use their God-given gifts to achieve excellence in life.”  Nowhere in our core purpose is real estate mentioned.  We certainly do the majority of our business in the real estate field, but that is not the purpose of our company.  Our purpose is to help people like you tap into the hidden skills, talents, and attitudes that will enable you to achieve the exceptional life that you deserve and that is within your reach.  You have the capacity as well as the people on your team to do so much more than you are doing.  You have the God-given abilities to earn far greater sums of money than you do right now . . . or ever imagined.

If you'd like more information on how you can build your own real estate team, get your free copy of "The Champion Real Estate Team™ Guide"... here.

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• Determining a Home's Ideal List Price

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Here First!

by Dirk Zeller

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Here First!

by Dirk Zeller

Your 1st Year in Real Estate: Making the Transition from Total Novice to Successful Professional

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