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Words of a Champion

One of the biggest challenges for Agents is to objectively look at their real estate business as a business, and to evaluate the investment of resources against the return on the investment. 

The resources for an Agent are obvious:  Time, knowledge, and money.  How well are you controlling them to increase the return of commission dollars earned?  Are you building a business that needs all your time and energy to produce the desired results? 

The objective as Agents should be to create a business that works for us not because of us.  That is the mark of a truly exceptional business.  A business that generates profits and not merely wages is a healthy business indeed. 

The first step to generating profits is to adopt the mindset of a CEO.  A CEO has the skill to step back and evaluate the business objectively.  They see the problem areas and work toward solutions.  A CEO has the ability to work on the business not in the business.   A Realtor working “in” the business faces day-to-day challenges.  These challenges include prospecting, taking listings, working on the files, and getting the deals closed. 

Most Agents spend 100% of their time on these challenges every day.  A successful CEO allocates time to work “in” the business.  They develop strategies to improve efficiency.  They practice the skills to be more effective. 

A successful CEO would work to gain knowledge of sales ratios and trends in the marketplace, while looking for ways to add value to the customer base.  You are all CEO’s of multimillion-dollar sales companies.  If you don’t think of your business that way, you should.

Here is a question.  As the owner of a multimillion-dollar sales company, would you hire yourself?  Would you hire yourself as the CEO to run the company?  If you would, do you need to be re-trained?  Is there training or skills that are missing?  What are you doing about improving them?  Are you close to being fired?  Should the owner fire you as CEO because of lack of skill?  If you answered yes to the last question, you must act now!!

Resolve to spend at least 30 minutes of “on” time daily working on your business.  Take time in the evening after work to study leadership, sales skills and success.  There is no time to waste.  Start your growth towards CEO today.

To Your Achievement of Success in Any Marketplace,

Dirk Zeller, CEO
RealEstateChampions.com

P.S. Have you started to seriously plan for 2009 yet? Do you want to find out how you can grow your business by 313% and reduce your costs per transaction by 40% next year? Click here to find out how!

P.P.S. We are now officially opening up our forum to the general public! It's still in the early building stages, but we hope that you'll help us create a community where Agents can share ideas about what is working in today's marketplaces, and really come together to help each other become Champions. Take a look here (and make sure to sign up and post!): Click Here to Visit the Forum!

 

If you're tired of bouncing through your Real Estate Career with Yo-Yo Production Numbers and finally want to take control of your own Real Estate Success, it’s time that you check out:

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I am really excited about this program for two reasons...

#1) Most Agents (less than 5% of the several thousand I’ve met) never construct a firm business plan to execute in their business. That’s right! A majority of agents only have a few loosely held goals, wants, or even just dreams of what they hope to do with their business. I now have a chance to solve the #1 reason why most Agents fail to achieve a high level of success in their businesses...

#2) The second (and my favorite reason) is that I've teamed up on this program with one of the best minds in real estate. This man (who I'll reveal to you in the program) is truly one of the best real estate agents and business owners in the world!

When he and I met about eight years ago... Click Here.

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The 'REALTOR® Ultimate Business Planning Kit™' Series will teach you how to:
	• How you can build your Real Estate Business into an asset that can be sold in the future • How to play the odds in your favor like a casino - you too can become the house •Why spinning the lead generation odds will lead to better income, results, and time off with your family • How to determine & then double your hourly rate which in turn will reduce the number of hours you have to work to make the same amount of money • The #1 way to change the odds of success in your Real Estate Business • Why most agents suffer from “lead bulimia” • 3 Keys to overcoming the hurdles that litter the small, narrow, rocky pathway to super success • 4 Rules of Business Expansion and how to apply them to your business • The largest opportunity in Real Estate today that 87% of Agents completely missed last year • How one simple strategy increased my client’s market share by over 49% in the toughest real estate market in 10 years. • How you can transform your thinking, actions, execution and planning to the level of a successful business person • Three steps to easing the rapid process of real estate market change • The right way to plan your own financial independence
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Find Out How To Grow 313% &
Reduce Costs Per Transaction By 40% Now

The Final Quarter

The final quarter for 2008 is coming up.  You have an opportunity now to push hard and lean into the tape at the finish line.  If you are 10% behind on your goal, through hard work you can make that up.  You still have the opportunity to finish where you desire.

The true function of the last quarter should be to start preparing for 2009.  To achieve success in 2009 you need to learn from 2008, and then invest that knowledge in 2009.  Most Agents’ lack of success, or achievement of success, is directly relational to the plan they created and carried out throughout the year.  Probably most of them do not have a plan, or the plan lacks specificity and power to transport them to supreme success.  I am coaching some of the most productive Agents in North America.  Many, at the start of coaching, lack the vision or the plan in their life.  They are extremely successful, but they could double their business by creating clarity in their lives.  You can do it too.

You need to resolve today to focus over the next 60 days to create a clear vision for the future.  You need to resolve to make 2009 the best year of your life.  You must decide to make plans, set goals, and take action, so you can achieve more in 2009 than ever before.  Truly successful people have specific goals and a clear plan to achieve them, which they work on everyday.  You need to create a systematic method for setting and achieving goals to be able to accomplish goals at a higher rate.

When planning for the next year you need to create a vision of what it will look like.  You need to look at December 31, 2009 and determine where you want to be.  You need to visualize gross commissions earned, number of listings sold, buyer-controlled sales numbers, expenses to run the business, and net operating profit.  You should also determine the new ideas or systems you want implemented during the course of the year.  You might evaluate your current staff or decide if you need to add staff.  You should decide how much money you want to have saved by December 31, 2009.  Look at it as, “If everything happens perfectly, what will it look like?”

Once you have a clear written vision on these things, you have completed step one.  The crucial part is to create the vision and write it down.  Studies have shown that there is a direct correlation between writing something down, especially vision and goals, and entering it in the subconscious mind.  Napoleon Hill said, “What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”  When you write your goals down, your subconscious mind stores the information in belief form and works diligently to create the reality of your goals.

If you wish to become a peak performer, you must project your vision forward to the future.  You must see what the future looks and feels like, as if you were standing there right now.  From your viewpoint in the future, look back to where you are currently.  You will be able to see a series of steps that you need to take to move from where you are to where you want to be.  When you create and follow this road map, you will have become a peak performer.

In order to create a vision that develops into a plan, you will need to practice and work at it.  Your first attempts will take more time, and maybe a few more turns in your route, up the mountain of success.  Your speed and focus will increase as you diligently work everyday on your vision and your life.  Increasing the speed and focus makes the difference between traveling up the mountain on a yak or in a Hummer.  They both will get you there.  The big difference is the comfort, ride, and speed to the top.  You may be on the yak awhile at first, but you are still making measurable progress up the mountain.  The view a quarter, one-third, or half way up is better than the view from the valley floor below.

Successful people create a vision for 2009 and also a vision for the next few years beyond that date.  They create a vision for their entire life span.  If you wish to join them, you must focus long-term.  You will have to create the vision of the future.  Then have the ability to create and do the daily activities that drive you to your vision.  You must concentrate and focus single-mindedly on the most important tasks of your present day, knowing how they integrate into the long-term picture.

Japanese electronics companies entered into the television manufacturing industry twenty-five to thirty-five years ago.  They had a vision to control and dominate the electronic manufacturing arena and market segment.  At the time, American-made televisions were dominating the marketplace.  The Japanese realized they would lose tremendous amounts of money for a few years to create their long-term vision of dominance.  They have succeeded in their vision because most of the American manufacturers are now out of business.  The American manufacturers that are left have no market penetration.  The Japanese kept their eye on the long-term vision and succeeded in dominating the marketplace.

You need to determine what you want to earn, then how you are going to earn it: from buyers or sellers.  You need to know where, specifically, the money is coming from: referrals, open houses, cold calls, expireds, or FSBO’s.  You need to know the percentages of where your business is coming from and number of deals.  Here is an example:

Type	Number of Deals	Percentage of Business
Referrals	14	56%
Open Houses	7	28%
Expireds	4	16%
Totals:	25	100%

                                                           

You must be able to create a formula to use and then break it down monthly and weekly to the tasks you must accomplish in that time frame.  You can then control your business, rather than your business controlling you.

You can have anything you want in life as long as you plan for it.  You must, however, create a plan based on your vision and work it back to the daily disciplines you must do in order to achieve the plan.  When you follow these steps you will be one of the peak performers.

Have you started to seriously plan for 2009 yet? Do you want to find out how you can grow your business by 313% and reduce your costs per transaction by 40% next year? Click here to find out how!

"Veteran & Rookie Agents Corner Dirk Zeller at Tele-Seminar - He Surrenders His Top Lead Mastery, Listing Presentation, and
Buyer Conversion Tools"

Ten Have-to-Haves for a Real Estate Agent

#1 – Good contact management system

As a salesperson, you have to be able to keep in touch with prospects and clients easily and effectively.  You have to be able to put your hands on names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses in an instant.

You can track and keep your people and prospects the old fashion way (on 3x5 note cards), but you will outgrow that quickly.  My advice is always to get a CRM software package.  There are many available that are specifically designed for salespeople, like ACT, Goldmine, Shareware, and Salespeople.com.  These are all made for anyone in sales.

Another option is to buy something that is specific to the real estate industry.  The programs that are specific to Real Estate Agents hold many advantages over the general sales programs.  They are usually programmed with letter templates and correspondence an Agent could use. They also have pre-created lead follow-up and client follow-up plans already build in.  Most have plans to apply when marketing a property.  They also have plans you can launch once you have secured a buyer for your listing.

I recommend a real estate specific software like Top Producer or Online Agent.  With Top Producer, you can also just pay a small monthly fee per user for an internet access version.  This saves you all the up-front costs of the software, and you gain the updates for free.  You can also access your database from anywhere in the world, as long as you have a high speed internet connection.

A good contact management system is a must for any serious minded Agent.

#2 – Real estate calculator

An Agent must have the ability to help their client figure out the approximate mortgage payment, net proceeds after the sale, and down payment amount needed based on loan to value ratios.

Most importantly, an Agent needs to be able to figure out their commission amount.  When selecting a calculator, select one that has the features you want.  Also, ensure that you can learn to use it easily.  Some have so many different functions and keys that are unnecessary that it can take forever to learn how to use it.

#3 – Professional Attire

Each real estate area or region has a level of professional dress.  Your first impression to a prospect can carry a lot of weight.  If you are dressed well, they will assume you are successful even if you are not.  The public will make a judgment of you, fairly or unfairly, based on how you dress.

For men, in most markets except resort or tropical markets, I still believe that a suit is the correct attire for a professional Real Estate Agent.  It was rare for me not to wear a suit to work.  You feel better and more powerful when you are dressed well in a suit.  When buying clothes, buy classics that will never go out of style initially.  Stay away from the ultra trendy colors and styles.  By investing in classics, you can mix and match and expand your wardrobe.  Blue shirts, black shirts, and white shirts with red and yellow ties are part of the classic look.

For men, have your shirts professionally laundered.  There is nothing as crisp, clean, and professional as a well starched shirt.  It reeks of success.  I would advise women to do the same thing with their blouses.  When meeting clients or out in the public, make sure you portray the image of success.

#4 – Personal website

With more than 85% of buyers using the internet to search for properties, your website has become an essential tool for lead generation and exposing your sellers’ homes.

You don’t need the fanciest, most expensive website you can find.  There are a lot of companies that make solid template, mass produced websites.  These types of sites are extremely economical in the initial investment you have to make, as well as monthly hosting.  Many of these companies build cost effective sites, so they can get the residual income they charge monthly from hosting your site.

You want to work with a company that builds template sites as well as custom sites.  You also want a company that has the ability to place you higher in the search engine rankings.  This is where you will generate the traffic and leads.  I would encourage you to check out ChampionRealtorWebsites.com.  They build template and custom sites.  They also have a program that generates high search engine placement.

#5 - Professional business cards with your picture, note cards, and letterhead

These are all essential tools for a successful Agent.  You want business cards with your picture on them to help create a quicker connection and recognition.  My caution with a picture is, make sure it’s current.  I have seen too many business cards handed to me by Agents that caused me to look three times at the card and person to detect any kind of resemblance.  Too often, our old pictures can look like we just left the high school prom.

Also, having note cards, letterhead, and envelopes that identify you is advisable.  We need to ensure the professional image is carried through with every contact and correspondence with our clients and prospects.

#6 – Clean, professional, reliable car

If you are a newer Agent, you will be working with more buyers than sellers in the early part of your career.  By having a professional and reliable car, you can increase your probability of success.

Ideally, you never want to meet prospects for an appointment at the home they called or e-mailed you on.  You want to meet them at your office.  By meeting at your office, you can suggest that you ride in one car.  With the vast increase in gas prices, you can make this a benefit to them.  You are better able to model the consultative relationship you want.

Before taking them out in your car, it is better to conduct a buyer interview.  It’s easier to draw them into your office for this type of meeting if you aren’t meeting them at the home.  When they arrive at your office, if they want to go out to the home they are interested in without a buyer interview, if they ride in your car at least you will be able to conduct some of the interview in route to the home you will be showing them.

That is why you need a professional and reliable car.  You must also have a car that is clean both inside and out.  You don’t need to drive a BMW, Mercedes, or Lexus, but you do need a car that demonstrates you are doing reasonably well.  When you are a listing Agent, you can operate by other rules.  I didn’t have a buyer in my car ever again midway through my third year in the business.  The exterior of my six year old 7 Series BMW was perfect.  The inside, to be truthful, was a trash can with papers, cups, bags, and clothes.  It didn’t matter though, because the seller couldn’t see inside my car. 

My advice is, if you can’t afford a luxury brand of vehicle that is new or newer, buy one that is older with low mileage.  Make sure it’s a classic in style and prestige.  I drove my original real estate car for over eight years, and it still looked good when I sold it.

#7 – A headset for your phone

You all know what a proponent of prospecting I am.  A headset makes it easier for you to prospect effectively.  It allows you to stand while you are doing the prospecting.  Your hands are free to use to engage your body in your communication.  A headset will improve your posture, position, energy, and enthusiasm.

It will leave both hands free, so you can type notes directly into your contact manager while you are talking with the prospect or client.  It’s the only way to do it.

My caution is, don’t go the cheap route.  You can get cheap headsets for $50, but they sound like cheap headsets.  Make the investment of a couple of hundred dollars and get a good one.  I prefer wireless headsets because I am completely free to walk my whole office when talking to someone.

#8 – A number based business plan

Too few salespeople have a business plan to follow that encompasses the sales ratios and numbers of this business.  They don’t know or calculate the number of contacts needed to generate a lead, the number of leads needed to generate an appointment, the number of appointments needed to create a committed client, or the number of committed clients needed to generate a commission check.  Once you know that and your average commission check, you can calculate how to make any amount of money you desire to earn.

#9 – Sales scripts

Knowing clearly what to say in every situation really separates the high earners from the low earners in real estate sales.  Success leaves clues for anyone who is seeking.  Ancient scripture says, “Seek, and you will find.”

My best advice is find yourself some scripts that are proven and work. Invest hours weekly practicing them to perfection.  A word of caution, practice does not make perfect as the old saying goes.  Practice makes permanent.  Only perfect practice makes perfect.  To achieve perfect delivery, be sure to have the right attitude, expectations or success, pauses, and enough repetition to master each script.

Be sure that your role play partner is as committed to your success as you are.  My best role play partner was my wife, Joan.  I know there were times when, on the inside, she was thinking “not again”, but she never showed it.

#10 – Support system

This is not a tool in the classic sense of the work, but we can use it as our most effective tool.  In fact, this should probably have been first.

I would never have had the success that I had in my real estate sales career had it not been for my wife, Joan.  There were countless days I went home dejected, frustrated, and beaten up.  There were even a few days that I wanted to quit.  She would listen, care, and love me.  Then she encouraged me that, even though it was a bad day, tomorrow would be better.  She told me straight out that she believed in me and knew I was going to be successful.  Her support role caused my success to happen.  I think you will find that, with many successful people in life, there is a spouse, child, friend, parent, or significant partner that contributed mightily to their success.

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Hiring - New or Experienced Buyers Agent

The hiring of Buyer’s Agents has perplexed Lead Agents for years.  I will admit that much of what I write about this subject comes from many mistakes in personally hiring and firing Buyer’s Agents.  Some of the principles, skills, techniques, and evaluations have come from the frustration of the trial and error methods that my clients initially implemented to create a more effective process to hire their Buyer’s Agents.

Few Agents have any type of rules or processes to follow when deciding on which Buyer’s Agents are suited to join their team.  My goal is to give you some guidelines and coaching on the crucial evaluations you must make as a business owner to help you select the right Buyer’s Agent the first time.  The cost of the wrong one, factoring in lost training time, low conversion rate of leads, personal frustration, blown transactions, and going through these steps again with another Buyer’s Agent, is significant.

New versus experienced

The first question you must ask yourself is, what level of proficiency do you want your new Buyer’s Agent to possess?  There are valid reasons to hire only experienced Buyer’s Agents.  You can also make just as compelling of a case to hire only new Buyer’s Agents.  The question is which arena you want to work in.  You must create a long-term standard or profile of what a good Buyer’s Agent prospect looks like for your team.

I coach Champion Lead Agents with large practices who will argue on this issue of new versus experienced.  One Champion Lead Agent swears off new Agents, and the other swears by them.  I believe you can build a successful practice with either new or experienced Buyer’s Agents.  The real question is who you want to work with.

Looking at the advantages and disadvantages of new vs. experienced

When you look at new Agents, there is probably a greater element of risk.  They don’t have any type of track record in real estate sales.  They might have a track record of success in sales that will help, but to compare all sales jobs to that of an Agent is a stretch.  You will be training a new Agent through every step of the real estate process from securing the lead from an ad call, sign call, or open house to buyer interview presentations, showing property, promoting urgency to buy, writing and negotiating contracts.  Your training program will need to be from soup to nuts.  Even with an effective training program, there is a risk that your expenditure of time in training won’t produce any fruit in terms of enough sales.  Here is a short list of advantages and disadvantages of hiring a new Agent.
Brand new, wet behind the ears Agents can have a lot of success in the business quickly.  The real factor that swings success in their favor is their attitude and desire.  If they really want to be successful badly enough and are willing to put in the effort to achieve it, a new Agent can achieve in excess of thirty units in their first year. 

Because the learning curve is steep for a new Agent in terms of skill development, they must be willing to rely on their number of contacts and method of contact to earn their success.  They must be willing to make more contacts (i.e. make more calls, reach more people, return calls more promptly) than a more experienced Agent might have to.  They will need to do more personal prospecting and select a better method of prospecting that gets them face-to-face or even phone-to-phone more frequently than other Agents.  They will not win by waiting around for better prospects.  They are going to have to make due in the short run with lower quality prospects because the quality of their message is sub-standard.  It is not where it needs to be to be incredibly successful.

They also must be willing to exert the effort in practicing and perfecting their sales skills.  They must role play daily with someone.  They must role play weekly with you on their ad calls, sign calls, open house scripts, lead follow-up, presentations, showing property, and converting clients to contracts.

Most Champion Lead Agents would rather hire an experienced Agent than someone who is new.  While I tend to agree with this thinking in general, there are diamonds in the rough that you will lose if you have a blanket philosophy of not hiring new Agents. 

The basic assumption by most Lead Agents is that an experienced Agent is much closer to having their act together as a real estate Agent.  In many cases that is true; in many others, that assumption is disastrous.  To always assume that a person who wants to join your team to be a Buyer’s Agent is currently a successful Agent is dangerous.  If they were at a high level of success currently, they would not be talking with you about a position.  Most of the Buyer’s Agents working for Champion Teams would not be as effective on their own.  They joined the team for a number of reasons but the most common one is for lack of leads.  They don’t have a system that creates enough good quality leads with enough consistency to sustain their business as a singular Agent.  If they did, they wouldn’t be working with you!  Don’t ever lose sight of that fact.  There is a deficiency in their ability that you will need to work to fix.

If their number of leads is low, then you can be assured that they won’t have exemplary lead follow-up and appointment booking skills.  They haven’t had enough opportunity at doing it.  They probably haven’t practiced in the meantime while they were waiting for their opportunity to work with a live buyer prospect.  Getting an experienced Agent to adhere to your standards of practice, role playing, scripting, and delivery is one challenging area.  There will be times when they will move back to the old habits they had established because they are comfortable with them.  The old habits brought them to your team; the old habits will get them fired from your team.

 

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