In This Issue...
Words of a Champion
Dirk Zeller
CEO
The key to improving your customer service is to clearly understand what your customer views as good customer service.
Everyone has a very different view of what constitutes customer service. Some people are far more demanding in what they want from people they do business with than they are with others in non-business relationships.
Joseph Mancuso wrote in his great book, Winning With The Power Of Persuasion, “The most powerful three letter word is ‘ask’.” He further said that most children ask about sixty questions a day. After they graduate from college, they’re asking two questions a day, and one of them is, “When do we eat?” The question is, what happened between the ages of three and twenty-three? How do we change back?
The most successful people ask a lot of questions. They are well prepared to ask the questions that make the greatest difference. Don’t assume that you know the answers before you ask the questions. We need to know the standard of service our prospects and clients want from us. We need to know how our prospects and clients want to be communicated with and what they expect. The questions are the key in this process. Let me give you some great questions to ask:
- What would have to happen for me to be the best Agent you have ever worked with?
- What is your expectation of me as your Agent?
- What are the most important criteria when selecting an Agent?
- How are you going to judge success when working with me?
These questions are powerful and will set you apart from all other Agents that a potential client might interview. They will also give you a very strategic standard of service you will need to follow if you want to create a “raving fan” through this transaction.
Lastly, take stock of yourself. Do a clear self-evaluation of the service that you are providing. Ask yourself this all-important question, “What is the one thing I could start doing or stop doing that would dramatically impact my customer relationships?”
It is essential for you to spend time evaluating this question. If you have other team members, ask them. Ask your Closing Coordinator. Ask your Listing Coordinator. You might even ask other Agents in your office to create some new insight for you.
Take the time to understand each client’s definition of customer service. Don’t miss the opportunity to create a “raving fan” every time.
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?
If you'd like to join them in controlling today's changing marketplaces, make sure you check out my brand new program. Click here to check it out!
If you’re frustrated & tired of letting changing and down markets control your real estate future, it’s time that you finally take back control and find out…
Dear Champion Agent,
In the past few months, I've been getting absolutely bombarded with emails from both my clients and regular Coaches CornerTM subscribers essentially asking me, "Dirk, my market is the worst it has been in years. What exactly can I do to get out of this slump and drastically raise my income?".
The truth is, whether you're in a market that is moderately down or one that has totally bombed, there is actually a huge opportunity for you to take market share and greatly increase your income. With the proper tactics, you can essentially take advantage of the fact that most Agents simply don't know what to do! Find out how by clicking here...
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How to play the odds in your favor like a casino - you too can become the house and come out on top in any market |
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The Top 3 Reasons why prospects
select an Agent, and how to use them to instantly create loyalty with new clients over your competition |
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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 |
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Dirk Zeller's personal high-converting and proven scripts that will allow you to easily convert buyers and sellers into clients |
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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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How to use Champion Sales Techniques to convince unwilling customers in a down market to price their homes competitively so you can get the listings sold |
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How to easily convert prospects to appointments every time using time-tested and proven scripts (provided to you in full) |
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...and much more! |
Find out how you can thrive in your market by clicking the link below...
It is the Start that Stops Most People
Lao-Tzu said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” John Maxwell said, “Success is a journey not a destination.” You combine the two and create, “The success journey begins with a single step.” That is what stops most people…that first step. That little step separates the abundance from the failure. Without that first step you are guaranteed to not accomplish your objective.
Without reaching out and picking up the phone and making the first lead follow-up call or prospecting call we are assured failure. It is that one motion of picking up and dialing that first number that separates the winner from the loser. In terms of time it is less than 2 seconds that will determine your outcome.
Now I realize that there is some pain involved with lead follow-up and prospecting. There is also pain involved if you don’t do it. There are two kinds of pain, the pain of discipline (the making of the lead follow-up and prospecting calls) and the pain of regret. The truth is we are going to experience one of them. It is unavoidable to not experience one. You have to choose which you would rather live with. You are the one who ultimately does the choosing.
When we take the step to make the calls we are experiencing the pain of discipline, the pain of potential rejection. You also may experience the pain of sacrifice and pain of hard work. To avoid the pain of regret you must pursue this course with single-minded purpose. You must decide and commit to the disciplined path. “All glory comes from daring to begin.” Spoken by Eugene Ware. If you do not begin you have selected the pain of regret.
If we don’t attack our dreams we will experience the greatest pain in life, the pain of regret. Sydney Harris wrote, “Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is the regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.”
The regret of doing what we know we should do, the regret of not achieving our goals and dreams, the regret of not crafting a grand lifestyle for our family and ourselves and the regret of not living up to our potential or by living off our potential. At what point does potential turn into regret? There is that moment in time. It’s different for each and every one of us. Are you nearing that point? Bill Parcels said, “You lose with potential. You win with performance.”
Performance is contained in the pain of discipline. Discipline involves work and commitment. Success is not purchased at anyone time, but on the installment plan. We only achieve success through disciplined effort over time. When we make the calls daily to our leads, prospects, past clients, sphere, expireds, FSBOs, we will achieve success guaranteed. We will also move far away from the pain of regret.
When we create a habit of daily discipline, an almost “magical” thing will happen. One day you will realize that your discipline has turned into desire; the desire to do the calls daily, the wanting to make the calls because of the habit and the results. The road will get easier to stay on.
The reason the first step is so hard is the pain position. The position of the pain is different for the discipline verses the regret. The pain of discipline we feel now...today. The pain of regret we may not feel for hours, days, weeks, months, and years. This will often cause us to make the wrong selection, because we would prefer to not have pain now or ever. The pain of discipline will pass and transform to desire. The pain of regret can linger forever. Start the process to discipline. Start today toward discipline and sway from regret. Begin your success journey today with a single step.
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True Magic Answer to Sales Success
Prospecting seems to be almost a dirty word in the real estate sales arena, but prospecting is an integral part of the sales process. Before a sale can be made, some type of prospecting must be done. Realistic Agents know that there is no way to avoid the necessity of prospecting; successful Agents wouldn’t avoid it if they could. Prospecting is not only essential; it is one of the most profitable, inexpensive ways to increase your business, and there are many different ways to go about it. Prospecting doesn’t always have to be done over the phone or in person. It doesn’t have to be cold calling, expireds, FSBOs, or knocking on doors. But I have found no path to success in sales that doesn’t involve some form of prospecting.
I have seen everything available to Agents today, and I know that there are a lot of speakers and trainers trying to sell the “magic system” that will be prospecting-free. Unfortunately, there is no “magic system” – no place on earth where success in sales precedes the work of prospecting. There is an old saying: “The only place where success is found before work is in the dictionary.” Zig Ziglar said, “Life is like a cafeteria line – first you pay, then you get to eat.” Zig is exactly right. We all have to pay the price of hard work before we receive the reward. Any one of us who assumes that we get to enjoy the cafeteria line of life without payment is mistaken. To think that there can be selling without prospecting is pure folly.
The good news is that prospecting (although it is hard work) does not have to be a nightmare . . . even for Agents who have struggled with it in the past. There are ways to improve your success in prospecting. The secret is to find the techniques and systems that work best for you. There are more and less confrontational ways to prospect; some methods require a higher tolerance for rejection than others. Not everyone should pick up the phone and call expireds or FSBOs, but we should all be calling and training our past clients to work for us in generating new business. We should all prospect our past clients (with whom we already have positive relationships) for friends, neighbors, and co-workers that we can help.
Just as you have to train yourself to put the necessary time and effort into prospecting, you must train your past clients in order to generate referrals from them. Sending out mailers monthly will put you in front of your past clients; only clients who are thinking of you can send other business to you. To really drive referrals your way, pick up the phone and call your past clients. Maintain your relationship with people you have helped, and tell them where to look for more people you can help. Focus them in on one of the spheres of people they know. You can’t give them the whole world as search parameters; they will be overwhelmed and unable to think of anyone in particular. Instead, zero them in on one area, such as their church, their neighbors, their family, their co-workers, their friends, or their kids’ soccer teams. When you do this, they will actually think of people instead of saying, “I don’t know of anyone.” Over time, you can train your past clients to keep their antennae up for you and your services.
Working with your past clients is one method of prospecting that does not require nerves of steel. But, like any method, it does require the discipline to do it and do it regularly; and a new discipline, in turn, requires motivation. Agents sometimes don’t prospect even past clients because they don’t see how the time spent prospecting will pay off for their businesses. The perceived pain of prospecting then becomes far greater than its rewards. Since they cannot see the benefit, they think, why even attempt the perceived pain? This is the same reason the American public is overweight and eats a high-fat diet. Most people see little benefit at 30, 40, even 50 to eating right and exercising regularly. Unfortunately, in their late 50s and early 60s, they pay the price for their lack of self-control. People need to see the benefit in order to be motivated to make the change.
The biggest benefit an Agent receives from prospecting is the ability to select the client. If an Agent prospects enough, he can qualify – or rather, disqualify – the marginal client. The marginal clients for me were always the ones who: weren’t interested enough; wanted too much attention; would never be satisfied; were unrealistic about themselves, their homes, the value of their homes, or what my job was; saw no value in a REALTOR®; or thought they knew more than I did about sales. I found that it was not in anyone’s best interest for me to try to work with these clients. These types of people were automatically excluded from my life and business. My staff also didn’t have to deal with these people, which was a blessing for them. I could exclude them because I was able to choose from many better clients through extensive prospecting.
Now I want to be perfectly clear: The fact that I excluded these people did not mean that they were bad people. It just meant that I couldn’t help them without dramatically compromising my philosophy. When you prospect with regularity and produce enough leads to disqualify people, you can focus on those whom you can help and be true to your other clients and your belief system.
Being true to your belief system leads to less stress, more income, happier clients, more referrals, and, ultimately, less time spent working. These benefits are more than worth the struggle to create the discipline of regular prospecting. There is no path to success that goes around prospecting, but the path through prospecting will take you to a level of success that you had only imagined. Take the powerful step to prospect daily, so you can apply your belief system more evenly and can run your business and your life as you intend them to be run, and you will have found the magic answer to sales success.
Hiring Your First Administrative Assistant
The decision to hire an Assistant should be a long process of evaluation. For many Agents, it is a turning point in their business. They begin to move from the realm of being focused on the sales aspect of the business into being a Manager as well. This transition may be difficult for the Agent because they often have trouble managing themselves, much less managing anyone else.
Often, Agents hire someone too quickly with the hope of "rescuing" themselves from the immediate pressure of administrative tasks. The truth is, until the Assistant is fully trained, a new hire will usually put an Agent in worse shape than they were before. Please read that sentence again. In part, this situation is caused by not having a well-defined picture of the qualities and job responsibilities of the Assistant. Even after defining the position, the Agent will need to discipline himself or herself to spend time and energy training the Assistant. Everyone knows the old adage that says: Give a person a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. This adage is true for your staff. If you always fish for them, they will never learn. It will be easier and quicker to do the tasks yourself, rather than through a new Assistant. Do all of it over time, while forgoing the easy road to do it yourself now. It will get worse before it gets better. Timing is essential. When developing a new Assistant, you have to look beyond the tasks of today. You must look at the tenth time you will need to do it a month or two from now. That's when the Assistant will do the task without your knowing about it. It's the "pay now, play later" concept of life. We are all wired this way. We want it now. It's as if we are all three-year-olds. Before you consider hiring, you must be prepared to spend the time to teach your staff the process of your business.
In order to find your perfect Assistant, there are three essential steps that you must complete before you begin the hiring process. First, define the characteristics you are looking for in an Assistant. Second, outline the Assistant's job responsibilities. Third, evaluate the applicants based on their ability, natural characteristics, and behavioral style. The Assistant's natural behavior needs to mirror the skills needed for the particular job, not your skills. Before you interview applicants, you will also need to have created a compensation program.
The steps, once you have made the decision to hire an Assistant, are to:
Define what your perfect Assistant would be like.
Begin by asking yourself:
A CEO of a major corporation was once asked how he trained all his people to be so nice. He replied by saying, "We hire nice people." The corporation's focus was on having friendly, helpful staff. Rather than trying to train someone to be friendly and nice, they hired people who were already friendly and nice. Before you begin, you should know what characteristics are important to you, and then look for applicants who already possess them. This knowledge allows you to hire people who have the essential qualities naturally and do not have to be trained in those particular areas.
Determine the attributes that define your perfect Assistant.
Your definition will be different from that of any other Agent. You must spend the time to clearly define the perfect Assistant, so you will be fully prepared to find the "right" person for the job. You will also need to determine your own strengths and weaknesses, so you can find a person who will strengthen your areas of weakness and allow you to invest your time in your strengths.
The target can't be hit if it's not defined. We can compromise if we are not defined and are desperate.
Outline specific responsibilities of the job.
At this stage, the outline may be brief. One way to outline an Assistant's job is to first outline your own "new" job. Since you will be transferring some of your current functions to your Assistant, you will need to determine your new responsibilities as well as your Assistant's. One "new job" responsibility that you will have is effectively managing your staff by investing your time and energy in their development. This is something you will need to do constantly, so your staff will continually improve and become more self-sufficient and productive, which in turn will help your business become more profitable. Don't learn as you go.
It is important to understand that you are looking for different skills and behavioral styles for each of the jobs on the team. Each member should complement the strengths and weaknesses of the other members of the team. During the process of constructing your team, you will want to make sure you are not selecting people who have similar strengths and weaknesses. We have a tendency to hire people like ourselves. The people we really need to hire probably will not interview well.
I have been blessed to work with Julie Porfirio for many years. She is an integral part of my team at Real Estate Champions. She also was with me in my real estate career in the early 1990's. In both companies, she is the ying to my yang. She is the exact opposite of me. We couldn't be more different behaviorally, and it shows on our DISC assessments. There are numerous things that I am world-class poor at. The good news is she is world-class outstanding at those same things. Her organizational and administrative skills are impeccable; mine are unbelievable. . . poor, that is. She wants to get tasks done and serve; I want to accomplish goals and bench marks. She is hyper concerned about the process and systems; I am fixated on the result.
It is easy to hire the same type of people, but over time, those shared strengths and weaknesses will cause the team to function less efficiently. By constructing a team in which each member has different strengths and weaknesses, you will be able to develop a team that is able to use each other's strength's to accomplish tasks in the most efficient manner. You are probably faced with hiring one person to do it all right now. Selecting the right person on future growth, behavioral style, skills, abilities, and attitude is essential. We usually hire based on skill and fire based on attitude. Make sure your new hire has the right attitude. It won't get better when they begin working. In fact, it will usually get worse. Don't make the mistake of focusing only on skill and experience. You can't train a good attitude.
Dirk Zeller
CEO |
Dear Champion Real Estate Broker,
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