In This Issue...

• Lead Like a Champion
• Barrier of Entry - Higher for Agents Now?
• Creating Referrals - Continuously!
• Your Business Vision Establishes Your Principles - Properly!

Lead Like a Champion

I was recently reading some insights from leadership author, John Maxwell. Many of his books are included on our reading lists.  In one of his insights he outlines the five syndromes we experience as leaders.

1. The “problem-solving” syndrome: This is where we spend vast amounts of time on problem solving.  We truly only have so much energy daily for problem solving.  It is important that we solve the big one quickly and efficiently.  Often we get caught up trying to make things perfect.  We try to solve all the minutia overnight.  Work to improve a little bit daily.  There is no such thing as an overnight success.


2. The “big enough now” syndrome: We are over loaded.  We don’t have the ability to lead because our plate is too full.  Leadership goes out the window because we are reacting to our business and lives.  Staying in the reactive mode for long periods of time relinquishes control of your business, prospects, clients, and other agents. It allows the marketplace to take control and steer your business.


3. The “no vacancy” syndrome: Being content with the status quo leads to no growth.  You should always be working to better yourself.  You are either growing or shrinking.  There is no way to just hover.  If you are trying hover you will get blown backwards.  Never be satisfied at where you are right now.  You should always be working to improve your life.  This may not be in the monetary sense.  You can be satisfied with your income but then you can learn how to earn it in less time.  Work on your relationships with your family, your health, and your spiritual walk.  We need to grow and stretch ourselves in all areas of our lives.


4. The “nostalgia” syndrome: This one dramatically effects most people.  We spend more time reviewing the past then planning for the future.  We all need to review the past so that we are able to invest our knowledge of our past into our future.  The only way to effectively invest is to have a plan.  We need to create and evaluate our plan for our life and our business.  Make sure to schedule in 30 minutes of planning daily.  Understand that you will achieve what you plan to achieve.


5. The “Lazarus” syndrome: This is where too much time and energy is spent trying to resuscitate dead plans or programs.  We need to evaluate carefully the value of spending more time in a losing cause.  Real estate agents live in this syndrome.  They will continue to work on leads that are dead.  Agents will take dead, over priced listings and they work with buyers who are not qualified.  Don’t waste your time working with the dead, they don’t have money to pay you.

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 Barrier of Entry, Creating Referrals, and Your Business Vision Establishes Your Principles.

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.

7 Keys to Building Your Own Marketplace Dominating Team™

I've been getting quite a bit of exposure through our Real Estate Team Articles here in Coaches Corner™... so much so that I've received several requests to conduct a Teleseminar on the subject with a questions & answers forum. As it turns out, quite a few people are either in the process of building or overhauling their team and would like some help.

As a matter of fact, Kathy C. (Sr. Vice President of a prominent Real Estate Company in Indianapolis, IN) emailed me recently asking if I'd conduct a Real Estate Team Building Tele-seminar for all of her company's 700+ Agents.


Seminar Format = 75 Minutes plus 30 Minutes of Live Questions & Answers

Rather than conduct a Tele-seminar for only her 700+ Agents, I've decided to make it available to the rest of Real Estate Champions' friends & family. That's where you come in.

Here's the deal:

We're going to charge our standard $97 for it, but (and here's why you should take note of this) I've decided to throw it in for FREE to anyone who orders a pre-release copy of my new book, The Champion Real Estate Team™.

So, for a small investment of less than $25, you'll get: a) Free admittance to the Champion Real Estate Team Tele-seminar [$97 Value]; b) Instant access to our interactive online training presentation, Becoming a Champion in a Changing Marketplace [$167 Value]; c) The Champion Real Estate Team book [$24.95] (shipped mid to late October); and d) a FREE companion CD for the first 300 customers of the Tele-seminar [$47]

Bottom line: You'll turn a $24.95 investment into $335.95 worth of training 

> > > Instantly Turn $24.95 into
$335.95 Worth of Training Now < < <

The '7 Keys to Building Your Own Marketplace Dominating Team™' Tele-Seminar will teach you how to:
	• How to establish What a Champion Real Estate Team is and isn’t before you start • How to Evaluate Yourself as the Lead Agent • Proper Team Target Development • How to Organize and Structure a Team Properly • Seven Stages of Champion Team Development • How to Establish the Proper Team Vision, Mission, Purpose and Core Values • How to establish the proper goals for you and your team that create explosive clarity • How to create explosive business growth by establishing personal performance metrics that trickle down to your team • How to build a marketplace dominating team by filling the most important positions of your team in the proper order • How to build the strongest organizational structure for your team for the start • How to build your team by properly assessing your risks vs. rewards • How to build your team around the Rule of 30 and watch your team flourish
You'll receive:
	• Free admittance to the Champion Real Estate Team Tele-seminar [$97 Value] • Instant access to our interactive online training presentation, Becoming a Champion in a Changing Marketplace [$167 Value] • The Champion Real Estate Team book [$24.95] (shipped mid to late October) • Instant access to our interactive online training presentation, Becoming a Champion in a Changing Marketplace [$167 Value] • FREE companion CD for the first 300 customers of the Tele-seminar

Grab My FREE Seat to the
Champion Team Tele-Seminar Now

Barrier of Entry - Higher for Agents Now?

Selling in the new millennium has moved away from transactional based selling to relational based, or values based, selling.   For many years, real estate Agents could focus on “doing the deal” – get the consumers into the home and the loan, and move on.  Consumers are looking for more than the “slam transaction”.  I define a “slam transaction” as one in which we slam them into a home and a loan, and move on to the next consumer.  It’s when we don’t focus enough on long-term and value-added service to our clients.

We could get away with doing slam transactions in the past because we controlled the information.  If a consumer wanted the information, he had to come to us.  With the advent of the Internet, the information is (to use a term from the movie Mission Impossible) “out in the open”.  Consumers can now get the primary service we have been providing for years without our assistance.  The consumer is now reassessing our value in a transaction.  They are more confused than ever, and the barrier of entry is even higher for the real estate Agent.

By barrier of entry, I mean their willingness to give us the information we need in order to provide exceptional service.  It’s also their willingness to create a trusted advisor relationship with real estate professionals.  Understanding the barrier of entry and learning how to lower it with prospects and clients will create long-term success for you.

Here are a few techniques to help you lower the barrier:

• Get all leads to your mortgage originator immediately.  Studies have shown that the mortgage originator has a much higher rate of trust by the consumer than the Agent does.  Use that level of trust to your advantage.  Turn over the leads before you build the relationship with the prospect.  If your mortgage originator can convert the prospect, you get a deal.  Use the natural trust the consumer has for your mortgage partner to your benefit.

• Get all prospects in your office for an interview.  Don’t just go out and show them a house.  That is what other Agents do.  Get in front of them, face-to-face, with no distractions.  The showing of the house is a distraction.  This “buyer interview” will enable you to connect and build a bridge to being a trusted advisor, rather than a transactional salesperson.

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:
	• Get Control of the Listing Appointment from the Start • Ask the 9 Critical Questions Every Listing Agent Must Know • Qualify Like a Master Listing Agent (Save Tons of Time) • Use a 5 Step (60 Day) Action Plan for a Perfect Listing Presentation • Use the Master Coach's Top-10 Presentation Evaluation Questions • Discover the Secrets Hidden in Your Prospect's Objections that Will End Your Fear of Objections Forever • Defeat Every Seller Objection in 6 Steps • Use 10 Questions to Isolate the Seller's Objection • Find the REAL Reason Behind a Seller's Objection • Plus much more, including 60 pages of tools, handouts (the same ones Dirk uses), scripts, and dialogues you can use as your own.
You'll receive:
	• 4 Audio CDs • 1 CD-ROM Workbook

I Want to Learn How to Get The Listing on the First Appointment Every Time!

Creating Referrals - Continuously!

We all want an office in which the phone rings continually with offers of referral business.  Does having this type of office sound like a dream?  It doesn’t need to be such a far-fetched reality, though it requires diligent work with clients.  There are a few key steps to creating a great referral business. 

The first step is to provide a high level of service in the first place.  If the service is not exceptional, no referrals will be forth coming.  One of the crucial factors in customer satisfaction is communication.  When our client feels we have communicated with them clearly and regularly, their level of satisfaction goes up.  Clients can overlook other errors at times, but lack of communication is rarely forgiven.

Another factor is to select the right person initially.  There are people we can do business with who will never be satisfied.  These people genuinely distrust everyone and everything.  They are looking for problems that do not even exist.  For example, I sold a listing I had obtained after another Agent’s listing contract had expired.  I went out, listed the home, and my buyers' Agent sold it within 30 days at full price.  We had a long escrow period, and it closed on time.  The seller received 19 days of free rent back.  It was a perfect deal for her!  The day before closing, the seller called me because she thought I had not earned my commission.  She said I had not done enough ads or open houses.  The key was she never was going to be happy.  I made a mistake when I selected her as a client.  I was paid well, but referrals are not forth coming from her.  The truth is I would not want them because, more than likely, most of her friends are just like her since people tend to enjoy spending time with other who are similar to themselves.  I am not interested in having clients similar to her because they will never be satisfied.

Another step toward obtaining referrals is to ask for them.  There is no substitute for actually prospecting for referrals.  Picking up the phone and communicating with your past clients is crucial.  If you send out pieces of mail, you will get a 3% to 5% return.  If you make phone calls to all the people who received the mailing, you will get a 12% to 15% return.  That is an extra 9% to 10% return from the same piece of mail.  Who would not like to do another ten transactions from the same mailing?  If your average commission check is $3,000, you will earn an extra $30,000 from the same piece of mail just by making a few extra calls.

Most Agents mail, mail, mail; but they never pick up the phone to make the call.  If you want to do a better job, you can track the effectiveness of your mailings by calling your clients.  You can also get feedback on what kind of information would be helpful to them.  Your clients want to hear from you.  If you provide quality service, they also want to help you be successful.  If you did a good job for them, they will want you to do a good job for their friends.

Do not forget to ask your current clients.  The people you are currently working with can be your best referral sources.  They are telling everyone they meet that they are either buying or selling.  Their whole conversations revolve around their current activity in real estate.  You want to hit them early on when their excitement is high.  Do not wait; get the referral now.  Your sellers are going to be on a high the first few weeks on the market.  They may never again be so high on you.  Enlist them into your referral army to find new clients.  Convince them that finding new clients will help you sell their home because it will.  If you have more signs, you will get more calls.  More calls mean more leads, more leads equal more buyers, and having more buyers will give you a better chance to sell their home.  Send them out to do reconnaissance in the bushes to find you buyers and sellers.  They will be more apt to do this in the first few weeks of your listing than at any other time.

Your buyers are excited and talking to everyone about the home they want, especially if they are a first time home buyer.  Do not miss the chance to tap into all their other friends who are first time home buyers.  If they tell you about a few friends and one of them buys, you will get the others to follow quickly.  They do not want to be left out or the last of their group to buy.

Lastly, understand you must consistently contact your past clients in order to achieve success in referrals.  Creating a program that helps keep you in constant contact with your past clients will yield the best results.  You will receive a good 80% of your referrals from 20% of your past clients.  You will have a small force of specialists who will do the bulk of the reconnaissance work.  Reward them and praise them for their efforts.  You will need to create a program to contact these people more frequently.  The more you keep in front of these people, the more business they will create for you.  You will need to contact these people at least monthly.  To achieve the greatest results, you personally must make the calls or the visit in person.

Make sure to effectively track who is sending you the business.  You need to know which people to spend the most time, energy, effort, and dollars on.  You might be surprised who is your leading salesperson in the field.  By tracking, you can accurately reward the “top producer” of referrals.  You could even have a contest and create a recognition reward for the most valuable past client, a MVPC award.  People love recognition from others.  If done right, you could create a feeding frenzy of past client referrals.

Your Business Vision Establishes Your Principles - Properly

Your principles in how you run your business will be influenced by your core values and core purpose.  If your core values and purpose don’t match, you will have incongruence in your business.  The first people who will see it are the members of your team.  You will lose credibility, trust, faith, passion, and commitment to you and your cause.  They will begin to accept cutting the corners in your business that you allow yourself to take.

The next group that will become aware is your customers.  This is especially true if you publicly state your core purpose and core values verbally or in your marketing pieces.  Even if they don’t read it or hear it publicly, they will observe it.  It is impossible to get away from the observable elements.

Once you have established core values and a core purpose, you might have to change.  You might have to change yourself first.  When leading a team, the leader is the one who usually has to change the most.  You might also have to change your systems, procedures, marketing, advertising, customer service, communication, lead generation, lead conversion, strategy, and tactics.  There are numerous changes that might need to be addressed once you have clarity in your core values and core purpose.

You might also have to change people.  My belief is you can’t train people to adhere to and believe in your core values.  They either buy into them 100% or they don’t.  There really is no middle ground on this.  As the lead agent and owner of the business, you do have to train them on the core values and purpose and the quantifiable actions that fulfill those values and purpose.  You can’t just hand them a piece of paper with them on it and consider it done for good.  There will be a constant education as to the meaning of your core values and core purpose.  Through training, education, and coaching of your core values and core purpose, you want internalization applied to their decision making, so you create adherence.  If a staff member doesn’t share your view, you can’t change it; you can only improve it.

Champion Team Rule – If you can’t change people, you have to change people.

You might have to read that a time or two for it to sink in.  It’s always a better statement from the platform than on paper.  What I am trying to express is that if someone on your team won’t improve or change, you will have to find someone else for the position.  You will have to change to someone else.

An effective business vision will help you make cogent decisions on staffing.  Do you want to provide Lexus customer service or Kia customer service?  Is the experience for your client important or is getting the job done professionally and well more important?

Look at Starbucks.  Their whole vision and passion is about the experience.  We pay almost $3 for a latte that costs them less than $.50 to make for us.  They are getting in excess of an 80% profit margin at the cost-of-sales level in their business.  This is all due to the experience.  In fact, a recent memo that came from the CEO to all the employees expressed concern that, since Starbucks went to the totally automated machines, the experience of a Starbucks had suffered.  The aroma of coffee is less noticeable, the grinding sounds are absent, and the barista measuring coffee and tamping it down (pounding out the used grounds) are all missing from the Starbucks coffeehouse experience.

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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Teleseminars
• 7 Keys to building a marketplace-dominating Real Estate Team

- September 13th

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Here First!

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

by Dirk Zeller

• Prospecting?

• Lead Generation?

• Listing Presentations?

• Scripts & Dialogues?

• Objection Handling?

• Converting?