Success Secrets of 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.  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 to 1967 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.  Within 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 players.  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.

The question is, are you playing a few shots ahead or are you playing a few shots behind?

P.S. My team and I here at Real Estate Champions would like to send our thoughts and prayers to all of our Friends in the Mid-West who are being affected by the floods. We hope our heartfelt thoughts of you, during this sad time, bring you and your loved ones some small comfort and strength.

Focus on success today,

Dirk Zeller
CEO
Real Estate Champions, Inc

Act on Your Thoughts Now

Being successful seems to be everyone’s desire.  We all want to achieve what our definition of success is in life.  Have you ever wondered why successful people are successful; why they seem to go from one successful situation to another, from one victory in life to another?  There is one thing that separates the successful from the unsuccessful.  It is not a huge thing; it is merely one small thing . . . successful people act on their thoughts.

Most of us know what we should do everyday.  We know many of the small steps we need to take to move our business forward.  We know the steps to enhance our marriage or relationship with our kids.  We just fail to act on those thoughts, NOW!  We fail to implement change and improvement in little quantities over time.  Implementation of action is the biggest barrier for most people.

We all compare and keep score of others around us.  We look at their production against their talent and say, “Hey, I can do what he is doing”.  We know in our hearts that we can achieve just what they have achieved.  We know that our talent and ability level matches or exceeds theirs.  We wonder why we are not doing as well as they are.  The simple reason is action.  We are not acting on what we know.  Knowledge without action is worthless.  It’s not what you know; it’s what you do with what you know that matters.

We all receive inspirational ideas.  When the idea hits and the emotion is strong, put the idea into place. There is a law called The Law of Diminishing Intent.  We must act when the emotion is HIGH.  If we don’t act now, the energy and emotion will diminish over time.  Let’s say you decide to start prospecting today.  A week from now, if you didn’t start, you will be less engaged in that thought.  A month from now the passion will be cold.  In a quarter, it’s a distant memory you ever had the thought.

Use the emotion you have to your advantage.  When you feel the emotion or passion, act on it.  Apply that emotion to a disciplined activity.  If it’s prospecting, pick up the phone and make the calls.  If it’s a project that needs to be implemented, start planning it out on paper.  If you need to show appreciation for your spouse, pick up the phone and order flowers just because, call and make him a tee-time, or stop at the store and get a card.  Act on the thought now!

If you can’t act on your thought, schedule a time to do so.  We can be in situations where we can’t act.  We must at least act to schedule an appointment with ourselves to move the thought forward.   We must cement the future commitment.  If we don’t, we are merely wishing that we could find time to do it.

Knowing and doing are two different skill sets.  One is not successful without the other.  One of our struggles as REALTORS® is that we are Independent Contractors.  Because of that status, we can ignore the need for more knowledge and skill.  We can ignore the need to apply or do the activities daily that will grow our business.  We must rely on ourselves in seeking knowledge and implementing that knowledge.  We receive some help from our brokers, but they have many other challenges to deal with.  The ultimate responsibility is up to you.  The question is will you take on the responsibility now?  Will you act on your thoughts and ideas now, rather than falling prey to the Law of Diminishing Intent? 

If you'd like help with generating new business in today's tougher markets check out my latest program "Tough Market Domination™ - CD Audio Series" here.

Staging The Home

The term “staging a home” describes the process of rearranging and decorating a home’s interior in an effort to downplay deficiencies and accent strengths. In its simplest form, staging involves adding specialty accessories like towels, candles, throw rugs, bedding, pillows, dishes, napkins, and stemware.  Staging at its most extensive level involves rearranging or replacing furniture, or even adding specialty furniture pieces to create a feeling of comfort and livability.

Before you try advising clients or taking on the staging process, gain knowledge about basic staging techniques and outcomes by visiting newly developed neighborhoods with model homes. Invest the time to see how new homes are being shown. Notice how the most appealing homes present master baths. Take a close look at desirable kitchens to see what is and isn’t on the countertops. Note how towels, dishes, and glassware are displayed. Most of all, study how furniture is arranged in various shaped rooms to create an open, warm, comfortable environment.

If you are really challenged by staging and design, turn to the professionals for help. In most real estate markets you’ll find people who specialize in staging homes for sale. Many interior decorators offer hourly consultation. Others offer full-service staging, by working up a design plan, bringing in the furniture and accessories, handling the installation, and dismantling it all after the sale – for a fee.

Learn the names and experience levels of staging or interior design specialists in your market area. Then be ready to convince the sellers that it’s in their best interest to invest in the home’s interior look. Remind them that well-staged homes attract not only buyer prospects but also Agents who want to show homes that show well. In many cases, the investment pays off in two ways: A faster sale and a higher price. 

Realtors cite a truism about buyers: Buyers have to move the seller’s stuff out before they can move in. Literally, the sellers have to move their stuff out. But figuratively, the buyers have to mentally remove the seller’s belongings when they assess how well the home that they’re viewing will accommodate their own possessions and activities. Some seller’s homes are so full of garage sale and flea market finds that the buyers honestly can’t see the home through the clutter. They can’t “move in” because they can’t see anywhere for their own things to go.

If you’re working with sellers of this type, take these steps:

• Advise them to remove excessive accessories and knick-knacks. Whether they get rid of them altogether or pack them up in preparation for their anticipated move, get them out of sight. The results can do wonders for a home’s interior appearance. 

• Dismantle what I call the “shrine wall.” A wall of pictures of children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, friends, acquaintances, and snapshots of every experience the owners remember fondly adds clutter with little to no buyer appeal.

• Follow the design rule “When in doubt, take it out.” Advise sellers to keep clutter, wall décor, and placement of figurines and mementos to a bare minimum.

“When in doubt, take it out” applies to furniture as well. Rooms that feel cramped and hard to move through usually suffer from too much furniture. To make a diagnosis and recommendations, put the home through these steps:

• Walk through the home to see where you feel the flow gets held up. Where do transition areas from room-to-room or from one part of a room to another feel restricted?

• Make recommendations to improve traffic flow. The sellers can’t move walls (without great expense) but they can move furniture that restricts movement.

• Evaluate the size and number of pieces of furniture in each room. Assess:

1. Are there too many pieces of furniture?
2. Are furnishings too large and beefy for the room?
3. Does the furniture arrangement work in terms of space and flow?

• Be on the lookout for small, decorative pieces of furniture. These are often the biggest culprits when it comes to restricting walkways and creating a crowded feeling

Most people have too much furniture in too small a space. Be ready to recommend that the sellers remove furniture to create bigger open spaces to make the home appear larger and more comfortable. Also be ready for your furniture-removal recommendation to meet owner resistance. Sellers will counter that by removing furniture there won’t be any place for people to sit. Stick to your story: Tell them a home with too little furniture almost always shows better than a home with too much.

Themed bedrooms ­– with matching wallpaper, wallpaper borders, sheets, pillows, comforters and wall hangings – are very popular for children today.  The problem is that buyers walk in and can’t see an alternate use for the room. Or if they can, they see considerable expense and effort to get from where the room is to where they’d like it to be in terms of decoration and usability. As a result they’ll offer a lower price, if they make an offer at all, in order to cover the costs they anticipate incurring in order to replace the theme with a more neutral design.

Be on the lookout for the following red flags:

• Loud or outlandish paint colors or wall coverings

• Immediately visible and highly personalized themes. For example, a vibrant pink bedroom with lots of stuffed animals might be off-putting empty nesters or a family that has only boys.

If you'd like more help with developing your home showing skills, check out my program "The Champion Real Estate Agent™ - Audio Series" here.

Setting Standards For a Listing Agent

The most important standards are in two areas.  They are the activity standards and the quality standards.  The activity standards would be their prospecting, lead follow-up, conversion ratios, and overall sales ratios.  There should be set standards for each of these areas to assure their success.  You will probably also want to set practice standards, so they raise their skill level to the highest possible level quickly, while costing you the least in blown opportunities.

It always takes us X amount of times to become proficient at anything.  That X will be different for each one of us based on our internal, God-given gifts and previous experiences and skills that compliment what we are trying to learn.

As an example, it might take some of you 100 practice sessions to really perfect your listing presentation; to be able to deliver it with power and conviction; to handle all of the objections that will naturally come up, and convert the seller to sign the contract the night you are there.  I might be less skilled than you and have a tougher time perfecting it.  My effort section on that learning curve is larger and steeper than yours.  I may need to practice it 200 times before I get it perfected.  The issue isn’t that I take twice as long as you to achieve the X number of success; it’s that I have an idea of where X is, and I am working toward it regularly.

I now have a Y Theory of Choice decision to make.  Since I know I have to practice my presentation 200 times, I have a choice of how long I will take to get to the X.  That is the Y Theory of Choice.  I can take ten years, five years, two years, one year, or perhaps even just six months.  If I only conduct my listing presentation live in front of sellers, and I am in front of sellers three or four times a month, it will probably take me over five years to get to my 200.  That is, unfortunately, the mistake that most Agents make.  They have a poor attitude and lack of commitment to speed up the time frame to hit X.  Their Y Theory of Choice is way too long to build a successful career.  Your success is determined by crossing the finish line of the X and using the shortest amount of time Y to get there.

The far better approach a Champion Agent would apply is to use a combination of presentations in front of sellers and a larger number of practice or role-play presentations to speed up the learning curve process to reach the X Theory of Success. 

My personal goal years ago, once I discovered the X and Y Theories, were to do a listing presentation every day.  If that presentation was live in front of a seller, wonderful.  If it was a role-play presentation, that was fine too.  For a little over six months, I did a listing presentation each day.  My role-play partner, my wife Joan, got very tired of hearing my presentation.  In fact, she could probably do it better than most Agents because she listened to it hundreds of times in that six month period.

As I got closer and closer to my X, I got much better at my presentation.  As I got close to the peak of the learning curve (about four months into my six month daily routine), a transition happened.  The number of practice presentations started to diminish.  The number of real presentations in front of motivated sellers increased.  By combining the X Theory of Success and the Y Theory of Choice, I increased the speed at which I reached the Champion level of production, and so will you if you apply the same principle.

The quality standard connects with the type of terms and conditions they must have on the listings they take.  These should be a standard deviation that they can’t go above of list price to true value for the homes they list.  The must know what they can’t go above in advance to take the listing they are trying to take.  Their job is to make sure they don’t go above that number.  There will also need to be standards in terms of listing length and market dollars invested, whether you do broker open houses or regular open houses.  We don’t want them out over-promising the client.  We want them to secure listings just as you would.

If you'd like more help with listing agent training check out my book "The Champion Real Estate Team™" here.