To be successful in life we must focus on the things that limit our performance. For all of us there are a handful of things that block us from achieving a high level of performance.

In the end, if we really look at them one will leap out.  There is usually one that stands head and shoulders above the rest.  I would identify this one thing as the “limiting step”.

The reason I call it that is because until you step over it your life will be limited.  You will not be able to progress to the level of abundance that you desire.  You will often struggle to hit the peak performance level consistently.  You will have flashes of brilliance at times and even consistency of growth for periods.  But to really fulfill your full potential will be impossible.

This does not mean you won’t have a wonderful life and business without removing it.  It just means that you won’t be able to play at the level that God created you for.

So here is your action plan.  Ask one to two trusted friends or advisors (make sure they really know you and care about you) the following question:

“What one thing about me do you see as the biggest obstacle to my success?”  Meaning, if I changed this one thing about myself I would literally be astounded by the rapid progress I would make toward achieving my dream.

Once you get the answer, create a simple plan to overcome that big obstacle or limiting step once and for all.  Start implementing the plan the moment you create it.  Check your progress weekly.

We have to remove the limiting step to have a no-limit life.  For the many of you who are our clients, ask your coach what your limiting step might be.  They will help you identify the limiting step and create the plan.

For those of you who are not our coaching clients, I would encourage you to become one.  At least call our office at 1-877-RECHMPN (732-4676) to see if you qualify for a complimentary coaching session.  In a complimentary session one of our coaches can help you prepare for success in 2009.  Don’t wait, call our office and set your complimentary session today! 

Having said that, I would like to shift gears toward the holiday.  When we look back over the last year since our last pause for Thanksgiving, we see that the world and our country have experienced yet more great change.  The words, “Happy Thanksgiving” take on a whole new meaning.  More than ever, we need to take time to contact our friends and loved ones and let them know how we feel.

With the events of the last couple of years, we are ever reminded that life is like a vapor.  The true length of our life, compared to the marching of time, is small and fleeting. Don’t neglect to invest the time with friends and family that is needed. 

I would also encourage you to reach out to everyone you can who could use some extra care and attention.  We all have a lot to be thankful for.  I pray that you and your family had a blessed few days to share together next week.

To Your Achievement of Greater Success in 2009,

Dirk Zeller, CEO
RealEstateChampions.com

P.S. What if I told you that you could be generating up to 15%, 25%, even 50% more leads than you are right now, and you could also significantly increase how many of them you convert to clients? Want to find out how? Click Here to Join Me on the Next Page...

The ability to focus is crucial to achieving success in any endeavor we try.  Why do some Agents work 70 hours per week while others can work 40 hours and get the same results?  From personal experience, I know I would not have been able to work a four-day workweek without intense focus.  How well do you focus?  How well do you stay singly concentrated on the task in front of you?

We counsel our clients to time-block their days in order to learn a deeper focus.  This time-blocking allows them to stay focused on one thing at that moment.  When Michael Jordan is shooting a free throw, he is singularly focused on the free throw.  He is not thinking about the foul, the next play they will run, or the defensive scheme to use against his opponents.  He is focusing on the free throw and nothing else.

There are always people and circumstances that will try to take you out of your focus such as your prospects, other Agents, your staff, and your clients.  The key is to not be distracted by outside forces.  During an NBA game, when the visiting team is shooting a free throw, the crowd has long thin balloons that they wave violently to distract the player.  Since the backboard is glass, if the shooter is not focused on the rim he will miss the shot.  All he should look at and focus on is the rim.

We all have a few rims that we need to focus on every day such as prospecting, lead follow-up, listing appointments, showing property, and writing and negotiating contracts.  By focusing intently on these rims daily, you will achieve massive success in real estate sales.

We are all focusing on something at every moment.  For example, right now you are focusing on this article.  How often are we focusing on the wrong thing?  The key is to be focusing on the right thing.  If you carry a lighted flashlight that is focused up instead of down at your feet, what would be the odds that you would trip in the dark?  The odds, I say, would be fairly good.  The flashlight is pointing at something; it just might not be pointing at the right thing.

The most successful people focus on the process, not the product.  The product is a natural outcome of doing the process well.  The process repeated daily truly separates the producers from the non-producers.  The process needs to be broken down to what they need to do each and every day to get the product they desire. 

The process in real estate is very simple. It is:

• Generate new leads daily
• Follow-up on the leads you have daily
• Ask all leads for an appointment daily
• Qualify all leads and appointments daily
• Practice your appointment skills daily (i.e. buyer interview, listing appointment, scripts and dialogues, and objection handling)
• Go on appointments daily
• Ask your appointments to do business with you

If you focus on this process and incorporate it into your daily routine, the product of commission earned, sales made, listings taken, and financial independence for your family will be assured.

We all want the people we are trying to sell a home to, to just “roll over and buy”.  Even a neophyte Agent finds it easy to make this type of sale.  An unskilled salesperson fears hearing objections, but a great salesperson views objections as opportunities.

When you get an objection from buyers or sellers, make sure that you hear clearly what they are saying.  If you interpret the objection wrong, the answer you give, no matter how eloquent, will not be sufficient to overcome their area of concern.  Let me give you a few techniques I have used to turn objections into dollars.  I pause to make sure I clearly understood, and then repeat what they said or ask them to explain further.  This technique will do a few things for me.  First, I can confirm what their objection was to ensure I understood it properly.  Second, it enables me to be well prepared when I respond.  I bought myself a few seconds while my brain prepared my answer.  I was able to respond in a powerful, well-planned manner.  Third, I avoid the big mistake of trying to answer the objection before the buyer or seller gets the objections completely out of his mouth – as if stopping the buyer or seller from stating the objection completely will stop the objection, and it will go away.  The objection is legitimate to that person, no matter how ridiculous it may sound.  He feels it is legitimate, so it is legitimate.  Interrupting can cause the seller or buyer to become irritated with you.  It may not matter how well you handle the objection if you interrupt him.

Your mental approach to an objection will determine your success or failure.  Most Agents dread hearing an objection, but most objections result from one of two situations.  One is the seller or buyer has legitimate concerns regarding the property and/or your skills to sell his home.  The other occurrence of objections is because your presentation was not good enough.  You did not convey the confidence that you are the person for the seller to hire for the sale of his home.  You did not make a convincing enough presentation for the buyer to purchase the home you showed him.  The clients’ desire to work with you is a natural ending to a good presentation.  If the presentation is weak, the objections will flow like a river.  There are really only about forty possible objections in the selling process of real estate.  The question is why haven’t you learned them all?  If you wrote them all down and practiced them for half an hour a day for the next six months, you would know them automatically.  You would be prepared for any situation in selling.  You would then have the confidence to say, “Bring them on; I am ready for them.”  There are about ten to fifteen that are the most common objections that will stop unprepared Agents in their tracks 90% of the time.  How difficult would it be to learn just those ten in the next 30 to 60 days?

The problem is we do not regularly practice countering objections in real estate.  The Dallas Cowboys spend four to six hours a day practicing football.  The players and coaches spend a couple more hours a day reviewing film and studying their play books during a two month span in spring training, and then they play four practice games in pre-season to prepare for the real NFL season.  Next, the players and coaches spend a few hours a day practicing and watching films, five or six days a week to prepare for one 60-minute game.  They will spend forty to fifty more times practicing and preparing for the game than actually playing the game.  How skilled in sales would you be if you adopted that regiment?  How about if you practiced even one hour a day on your skills at overcoming objections?  You would become an unstoppable real estate sales person.

The second observation regarding objections is they truly are an opportunity to get a signed contract.  When a buyer or seller gives you an objection, he is presenting you with an opportunity to close.  He is basically saying, “I like this, but there is one factor I do not like.”  The buyer might say, “If the home you are showing me had a larger patio, it would be right for me.”  All you have to do is get him a larger patio, and you have made a sale.  You must put your problem-solver hat on.  If you solve his problem, then you get the opportunity to ask him to buy.  The client can say, “Yes”, or give you another objection.  If he gives you another objection, you get another opportunity to solve the problem and ask him to buy.  This procedure may continue for a few objections.  Do not give up; you are getting closer to a sale.  As long as you are able to continue to solve his problem, the client will buy.  Remember, you are the problem solver.

Too many Agents adopt the position of a deer looking in the headlights when an objection comes their way.  These Agents have a negative mental attitude towards objections.  They view objections as a big wall between them and the sale – a wall so tall they cannot see a way around, over, under, or through.

Join the ranks of the highly-skilled and highly-paid professional REALTORS®.  Change your mental approach to objections.  Implement a practice program.  All it takes is a daily commitment to practice for at least 30 minutes.  Commit today; you will not believe the results 60 days from now.

The journey to a successful life should be enjoyed.  True success comes from accomplishing the daily activities that will lead you to your ultimate goals in life.  Failing or neglecting to accomplish the daily disciplines will lead you down the path of lost opportunities and lost income. 

If the penalty for not accomplishing your daily activities or disciplines was implemented or assessed today, we would look at neglecting them differently.  The truth is the penalty for neglect is more visible in the future than it is today.  The person who eats fried foods does not pay the penalty at 35, he pays at 55.  The person who fails to save 10% of his income for retirement is not penalized at 40, but at 60.

If we were zapped today from neglecting the daily disciplines rather than in the future, our daily disciplines would change.  We have to make the neglect more painful than the activity.  There are three disciplines that must be done daily in real estate for success; working on growth, administration, and working ON your business.  Let’s look at each individual area comprehensively.

Growth

Growth is the part of the business that brings in the revenue for your business.  The more time you spend of your day in growth, the more income you will make.  Most Agents work on growth activities at the last minute, when they are running short on funds.  The problem is that is too late.  To have a steady business income you need a steady approach to growth.

Growth is the prospecting that you do daily.  It is the listing appointments that you have for the day.  It is the lead follow-up that you are doing on the people who want to buy or sell.  It is the meeting with your lender to work on your competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Growth is the critical part to any business.  Without growth a business will fail. I know a lot of Agents who are highly skilled in growth and poorly skilled in administration and working on their business, who earn large amounts of money.  I know of very few successful Agents who are not highly skilled at growth.  You can have huge deficiencies in administration and working on your business but still win the game.  You cannot be deficient in growth and win. 

Administration

These are the activities that complete the income stream:

1. Processing the listing so Agents can find it in the MLS
2. Processing the sold property through escrow  
3. Communicating with your clients on a regular basis
4. Directing your staff and monitoring their progress

These activities, done well, will enable you to turn clients into fans who will look for new business for you.  You will need one to two hours daily for administration.  If you create a good system and have a highly trained and skilled staff, your time spent in this area will be reduced.  In the perfect system, administration gets done well, but the Agent spends little of his personal time on it.

On your business

This is the time that most people neglect.  This working on your business really separates long-term success and growth from just running faster on the treadmill of life.  Long-term financial success lies in this section of your day.  The ability to earn more profit is also located here.

We are all really employees of our own little real estate business.  We are the ones who bring in the business and make the system go.  The more time we plan, read, strategize, practice, role-play, and implement our ideas, the more ownership we gain.  Becoming the owner of your real estate business only happens through diligent work on your business.  Instead of being the employee who works to draw a salary and pay the bills, why not become the one who orchestrates the company?  Be the one who has something to sell when he wants to try something else and/or retire.

What do you think your business would look like in 90 days or even six months if you were to implement the below daily routine?

Growth: 3 hours
Administration: 1 to 2 hours
Business: 1 hour

Time block these activities into your daily routine.  You will be amazed at the results you will achieve, even in one week.  Do not allow the distractions to overtake you and your new daily focus.  Do not neglect to do the things that will lead you to success.  Do them daily without fail.

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