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Words of a Champion

The secret to a long and successful career in real estate is really quite simple.  The way to an ever-increasing income and revenue stream can be captured in three words . . . listings, listings, listings!

Unfortunately, the vast majority of Agents in real estate do far more business in buyer controlled sales than in listings sold.  I am not telling you anything that you have not heard before.  Everyone who becomes a Realtor® wants to be a great Listing Agent.  We also know the vast majority never get there.  Why do you think most people represent more buyers than they do sellers?

The answer can be found in which of the two areas, buyers or sellers, takes less skill.  It is more difficult to get listings than to attract buyers.  It’s easier to find a buyer than it is a seller.  It’s easier to convince a buyer to work with you than a seller to list with you.

Listings produce a far better return on your resources of time, energy, and emotion.  You have the opportunity to create multiple transactions through listings.  If the deal falls out, you still have a client to work with due to your listing contract.  You can control your life and your free time much easier through listings.  I have always said I would not have been able to take three days off a week if I worked with buyers.  The only pathway to time off is through listings.

Being a great Listing Agent requires you to work harder, with more intensity.  It takes more energy to create and convert listing prospects.  To be a Champion Lister, you have to be able to control your clients and control your schedule.  You have the opportunity to move people into your schedule, if you ask.

You must be disciplined in your approach to prospecting, lead follow-up, and pricing of the property.  Most Champion Listing Agents I have met are clearly more disciplined than other Agents.  They have the personal discipline to do what they must, even when they don’t feel like doing it.

Lastly, to be a Champion Listing Agent, you must master your scripts and dialogues, presentation & qualifying, and objection handling.  As a salesperson, to be a Champion Lister your skills have to be world-class.  This is the most important area because all others are built on this skill set.  If you are not supremely confident in your sales skills, you will look for excuses to not be in front of sellers in competitive situations.  We avoid situations where we might embarrass ourselves.  We avoid the opportunities that are uncomfortable when we know our skills are not at the highest level.

Resolve today to improve this vital area of your business now, and in the future.  The difference in your quality of life and your quality of your business is established by listing skills.

To Your Achievement of Success in Any Marketplace,

Dirk Zeller, CEO
RealEstateChampions.com

P.S. Are you in a changing or down market? Do you want to learn the same tactics that 84% of my clients used to have their best year ever last year, despite the poor market conditions?

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	•	How to use the 4 Pillars of Prospecting to avoid the plague of yo-yo production numbers and achieve long-term consistency in your income
	•	Dirk Zeller's personal high-converting and proven scripts that will allow you to easily convert buyers and sellers into clients
	•	How to answer the #1 crucial question that could mean the difference between a prospect selecting you or your competition - Most Agents forget it completely
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Using the CMA as Your Primary Pricing Tool

Most agents approach the CMA process with the mindset that the report’s primary purpose is to educate sellers about the value of their property. I take an opposite view, and I suggest you do the same.

I believe that the primary purpose of the CMA is to educate you, the agent, about the prices at which comparable homes are being listed and sold. Only by completing a competitive market review and analysis can you obtain certainty and conviction about the value of the property you're getting ready to list. With this knowledge, you’ll be able to proceed with confidence as you share your view of the marketplace and persuade the seller to accept your home pricing recommendation.

Factors that contribute to a CMA

A competitive market analysis involves a review of all homes in your marketplace similar to the one you are selling that have recently sold, have sales pending, are active listings, or recently expired. Activity in each of these four categories contributes to your analysis, however, some categories deserve greater importance or weight in your pricing assessment.

Sold properties

Often referred to as “solds”, sold properties provide the most valuable demonstration of market value. They are properties for which sales goals have been accomplished, transactions have closed, and ownership has transferred. The sellers have their cash in hand. When you study “solds”, you can be certain that the prices reflect values that won mutual consent from a willing buyer and a willing seller. Use these properties as the cornerstone of your presentation of value to the seller. Use entries from all other categories primarily to support the pricing position you recommend based upon comparable sold properties.

Especially in markets undergoing active appreciation or depreciation, review only homes that have sold and closed in the last six months or less. Sales before that period probably won’t be an accurate indication of current values.

Pending properties

Pending properties are homes that have been secured by a buyer, but the sale hasn’t yet closed, and ownership has yet to transfer. Deals linger in the pending stage for 30 to 60 days. When you study the pricing of comparable pending sales, realize that the information is less reliable than that of sold homes for these two reasons:

1. Anything can still happen to derail the transaction. The buyer can walk away from the deal. Financing could be denied if either the owner or the house doesn’t meet lending requirements.

2. The price on a pending deal is the price the seller initially asked. You won’t know the final closing price agreed upon by the seller and buyer until the deal is completed. In some cases, the closing price is substantially less or more than the asking price.

If a pending home is very comparable to the home you’re selling, and it’s pricing is very important to your CMA, contact the listing agent and ask if he or she can tell you whether the seller received close to the asking price. Expect only to receive general information. The agent can’t give you the sales price due to fiduciary responsibility owed to the seller, but you will likely receive enough information to help qualify the information received from pending sale documents.

Active properties

Your seller’s eyes will wander straight to this part of the CMA because it usually contains the highest prices in the report. Without good counsel, sellers will look at the prices being asked for other homes and want to place their price right at the top of the range. To avoid unrealistic expectations, take the following steps:

• Explain that active properties are accompanied by asking prices – which will be affected by the outcome of buyer negotiations and final price adjustments.

• Present comparable active listings as a good indication of the level and intensity of current competition for the buyer’s dollars, rather than as a clear indicator of current house value.

• Remind your sellers that, while they have only one house to sell, the buyer in a neutral market has many homes to choose from. Use active listings to help competitively position each house within the current available inventory.

Expired listings

These are homes owned by sellers who, in effect, lost the sales game. In a CMA, they provide a very good bookend against the prices of sold properties.  By presenting both categories, you can show your seller the pricing path to success, as indicated by sold properties, and the path to failure, as indicated by expired listings.

For an especially instructive pricing example, find an expired listing that also shows up in your sold category of properties. Use the example as a graphic illustration of the first-time failure that can result from over-pricing, and the success that results from on-target pricing.

Taking CMA results with a grain of salt

Remember the old saying, “Stop and smell the roses” ? I suggest you make it a mantra during the CMA process. At some point during your review of real estate records and home photos and computer analyses, take a break and get out to actually look at comparable properties in order to form a good old-fashioned first-hand opinion.

Don’t expect data sheets and digital photos alone to present the strengths, weaknesses, and permutations of each comparable property. Some homes just plain feel better than others, and that’s a distinction you have to experience live and in real time. Follow these steps:

• To view active properties, start by making an appointment with the seller.

• For a pending property, you can call the agent or the owner to gain entry in order to evaluate the house against your seller’s home.

• Call owners for permission to view homes that have recently sold or that have expired listings. You might even manage to turn a tour of an expired listing into a prospecting preview. Who knows? Play your cards right, and your research for one seller’s CMA might secure another seller’s listing.

• If you can’t gain access to a home, as a fall back position, take a few minutes to drive by any of the comparables you’re studying. The drive will give you a chance to review the neighborhood and the exterior condition, landscaping, and curb appeal of each property.

"Veteran & Rookie Agents Corner Dirk Zeller at Tele-Seminar - He Surrenders His Top Lead Mastery, Listing Presentation, and
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What You are Worth

The more I coach and train Agents, the more I realize the biggest battle Agents have is on the battlefield of time. Maximizing the dollars we earn per hour separates the extremely successful from the frustrated.  There are many Agents across the country who are merely trading more time for more money.  They are simply spending more and more time with people other than their family.  If you are one of those people, make sure you do the steps outlined in this article.  This article was written for you!

The first step to time mastery is knowing what you are worth per hour.  By knowing what you actually get paid per hour, you will be able to make wise decisions about your activities.  To figure out what you make per hour, take your gross commission (that’s before company split) and divide it by the number of hours worked.  To find hours worked, take the number of hours you work in a day, multiply by the days you work in a week and the number of weeks you work per year, and then divide that into your gross commission.

If we know our value per hour then we will be able to evaluate what we do on a basis of “Does it really pay me that amount per hour?”  Let’s say you make $50 an hour.  There are only certain activities in selling real estate that will pay you that $50 per hour.  The rule is if you would not pay someone $50 to do it, neither will anyone else - which means that you will not be earning your $50 an hour doing those specific activities.  For example, making flyers, inputting listings into magazines, putting together bulk mail, and typing letters are all activities that I think would not pay anyone $50 an hour.  We all know these have to be done.  The question is do you have to do them?  The second question is can I spend less time doing them?

We are all squeezed by time.  We all can feel there are not enough hours in the day.  We all feel the tug of our family and business and the battle for abundance in both areas.  If you truly want to find a few hours daily, do this next action plan.

We call this exercise “Task Analysis”.  What you are doing is taking a look at what you clearly do each day.  Not guessing what you are doing but knowing what is happening.  Take an old day timer page and make a few copies.  Then every 15-30 minutes, write down what you are doing.  Track this process for 2 weeks.  This process will enable you to know with certainty where you are investing your time.  You will be amazed as to the allocation of your time.  For most Agents who have completed this task, they find 10-20 hours weekly that can be better spent.  That’s anywhere from 25%-50% increased efficiency when fully implemented.  To know what that really means to you in dollars, multiply your gross commission by 25%.  That is what you can earn in addition this year without more expenses and without the latest marketing gimmicks.  The best part is that you are in total control of that number. The market, your broker, the buyers and sellers have no effect on your ability to increase your income by the amount you wrote down.

Work diligently on the task analysis process.  Really track the activities and the time invested in each.  Then, at the end of each week, add up the time spent in each activity.  Ask yourself these questions:

1. Am I getting paid ____ per hour for each activity?
2. How can I reduce the time I am spending in each activity that pays less than ____?
3. Do I really need to do this activity?
4. Can I get someone else to do this activity?

Knowing what you are worth per hour and what you are investing your work time in are the first two steps to time-mastery.  Once you have started down the road to time-mastery, you are moving toward sales mastery and then life mastery.  Make the commitment today to yourself and your family to do these action plans.  The truth of life is…it is a vapor.  We do not know how long we have to enjoy it.  We can make up lost revenue but cannot make up for lost time.  Know that your time is the most valuable resource you have.  Start the process to reclaim more of it today.

Simple Accountability Systems for Teams

The link between measuring, reporting, and accountability is connected with a chain the size that is used for a ship’s anchor.  It’s forged with links of iron that are unbreakable.  Having a measuring and reporting system that Buyer’s Agents must use daily creates the accountability that is needed.  As a Champion Lead Agent, you must use the tool of frequency and consistency to change the natural behaviors of your Buyer’s Agents and Listing Agents.  You must measure the benchmark or goal against the results achieved each day.

I would suggest using a daily, weekly, and monthly tracking sheet.  This will enable them to create the connection between activities and results.  Start every member on your sales team with daily accountability.  They must hand in this report to you daily at the close of each day.  They must compile the daily numbers to create a weekly and monthly report, as well.

You could have your administrative staff do the number crunching, although, I won’t recommend that at first.  They need to be hit graphically with why they are where they are in their business.  By calculating their own numbers, they will begin to see the link between the activities they do and the results they achieve.  Having to count and compile their own numbers speeds up the learning process.

By you knowing their numbers, you will do a much more effective job in coaching and training them.  You will know exactly where their skill deficiently is located, so you can address it.  If they are getting enough leads but no appointments, you know that their phone skills in creating a compelling reason for the prospect to meet with them face-to-face are not at a level they need to be.  If they are securing buyer consultations but have limited exclusive right to represent contracts, the problem will be contained in qualifying the prospect or their buyer presentation.  Remember that part of the presentation also encompasses objection handling and closing skills.

Another accountability system that is simple is to get them to weekly list their top ten prospects and time frames to contract.  You want to keep these reports weekly to check them against the previous week.  Make sure to have them identify the people who are going to buy or list with them this week.  If Bob Jones appears three weeks in a row as someone who will buy this week, there is certainly a problem.  If the Buyer’s Agents or Listing Agents have a steady diet of new leads and lead opportunities, it’s really easy for them to lose track of prospects.

The administration and support area of your business also needs some simple accountability systems.  They are centered on a task list or prioritization system.  Being able to hold your support staff accountable to completing the most important activities in the production supporting area of your business is paramount for a Champion Team.

Establishing your daily priorities will help you make each day a “10”.  I am going to describe a tool that I created a few years ago that really enables you to get maximum value from your time.  It is our Real Estate Champions Daily Priorities Tool.

Step #1 – List the activities that need to be done for the day.

When you are listing activities, you are brainstorming to get your thoughts down on paper.  Just focus on what needs to be done…all of it.  Do not let your mind think about importance or order of completion.  If you do, that will stop the brain storming process.

Step #2 – Categorize the activities that need to be done.

Most people, once they create a list of activities, number them or create an order.  The Champion categorizes them to determine their level of importance.  Assign each activity a category based on A, B, C, D or E.

A – Something that has a serious consequence if you don’t complete it today

B – Something that has a mild consequence if you don’t complete it today

C – Has essentially no consequence if it is not completed today

D – Can be delegated to another person on your team or an Affiliate

E – Should be eliminated because it is unnecessary

Once you have categorized them all using the system above, you are ready for the final step.

Step #3 – Prioritize the categories.

Select the A category activities and determine which one is the most important.  Number them and write them down in order.

If you were using this system yourself, each and every day for the remainder of your sales career, A-1 and A-2 are already spoken for.  A-1 is always prospecting and A-2 is always lead follow-up.  You are really starting at A-3 each day.  I believe the most significant penalty or consequence comes from not prospecting and doing lead follow-up daily.  The reason most of us don’t think there is a penalty for that is it doesn’t show up today.  It appears in ninety days when we fail to prioritize those activities higher on the scale and do them.  It is usually easy to place something else in the A-1 or A-2 slot.  For your administrative staff, determining the A activities and the order of those activities is not as easy.  That’s why you need to see this prioritization sheet for the next day before they leave.  You need to train them on what is a priority.

Proceed down through the Bs, Cs, Ds, and Es.  If you want to earn what a Champion Agent earns, don’t waste your time on Ds and Es.

Establishing the habit of them giving you their prioritization tool for the day before they leave, so you can inspect the progress of their performance and task completion each day, is essential.  Having them also hand you tomorrow’s prioritization tool at the same time allows you to review their decision making of the priorities they set in advance.  This technique allows you to hold them accountable to selecting the highest priority activities first.  They will learn more effectively from you what the real priorities are for the day and your business.

 

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