Words of a Champion
Dirk Zeller
CEO
Dear Friends,
We are at the end of another year. It is amazing how quickly the days, weeks, months and years pass by. This time of year is my favorite because it marks a week of reflection for me. I spend a week reading, writing and reviewing. Be sure to invest in yourself in the next week. Take the time to:
- Reset
- Reload
- Recharge
- Recommit
In our tradition at Real Estate Champions, our office will be closed in observance of the Christmas Holiday on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of next week.
I want to wish you and your family a blessed holiday season.
To Your Achievement of Greater Success in 2009,
Dirk Zeller, CEO
RealEstateChampions.com
P.S. With the tougher market conditions and to share some of the holiday spirit, I'm doing something I've never done before here at REC... As one of my loyal subscribers, you can now get 25% off ALL of my CD programs and bundles until December 31st! I've never done anything like this before, and definitely won't again at least for another year or more. So make sure that you don't miss out on this opportunity and Click Here to Get Access to Your 25% Off Discounts!
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Its Not What Happens But How You React
A Champion realizes it’s not what happens but how they react to it that counts. It’s not the absence of challenges, struggles, and slumps that makes top level Agents more successful. It’s how they approach them mentally and move through them that separates these Agents from the crowd.
When I speak, I often ask groups if they think that an Agent who sells 100 homes a year has more slumps, challenges, struggles, problems, and distractions. Most Agents say that the large production Agent has fewer, not more. The truth is these Agents have more of the above, not fewer. They usually have more staff, which automatically qualifies as more problems. They have more exposure to problems because they are doing more transactions. It increases the number of times they have to work with challenging co-op Agents, difficult sellers, and problem transactions.
The real secret to their success is they let it affect their performance or mindset for a shorter span of time than other Agents do. Let me share an example. You lose a listing you thought you had in the bag. How long does it affect your personal performance? Does it affect your desire and motivation to prospect and do lead follow-up? Does it make you hesitant, cautious, and a meeker closer with the next prospect? Does it wipe you out emotionally for a few days? I frequently see low performing Agents get wiped out for the rest of the day or even the rest of the week when hit by a negative occurrence like this. A Champion would not let that happen. They would be disappointed for sure. They wouldn’t let that disappointment control the rest of their day, though. In fact, they wouldn’t let it control the rest of their hour.
A Champion doesn’t let their feelings and reactions determine whether they will be successful or not. They will execute the fundamentals even when they don’t feel like doing them. That is the mark of a Champion. The reaction is more important than the situation.
“Control your reaction; you have a chance – Don’t control it; you have no chance.”
~Dirk Zeller
Key Market Statistics That Link with Credibility
By utilizing the resources that are already available, we can set ourselves apart from other Agents. We have a large pool of resources that we can easily access, but few Agents do. We merely need to have the right questions, and then contact the right people.
The first group to access is the local board of Realtors®. We need to learn from them:
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The number of Agents in the marketplace
This information will help you calculate per Agent productivity, average listing per Agent on the board, and segment stats in your core geographic area based on Agent production. You can also see the Agent count and find out if it’s growing or shrinking. Showing your prospects that their odds of selecting an ill-equipped Agent is either moving against them or for them.
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The average production of Agents in units and volume
You will be able to compare your performance to the new Agents and other Agents in the marketplace. It will allow you to segment production into the top ten, twenty, or fifty Agents in the marketplace. Knowing where you are in comparison to the other Agents you compete against is essential. You might not be in a favorable position once you know the stats. You will then have to sell something else as valuable when up against higher producing Agents.
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Experience (in years) of Agents on the board
Most boards keep exhaustive studies on this area. For some reason, the public is swayed by experience. The funny thing about that is an Agent with twenty years in real estate could have one year of experience twenty times over.
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Percentage of licensees that would be considered part time
This number, coupled with the experience number, can be used to illustrate to a prospect the transient nature of sales people in the real estate industry. This statistic is extremely effective in building trust in a changing marketplace.
You can secure valuable statistics and information from your local MLS as well. The MLS can give you key market stats such as:
- Days on the market averages
- Inventory levels of active listings
- Geographically active markets inside your service area
- Active markets based on price point inside your market area
- Listing price verses sales price ratios
- Listings taken verses listing sold ratios
All this knowledge is really a phone call or a few keystrokes away. In some MLS areas, your Broker will have to generate these numbers because they have access to more information than you do. Most MLS systems restrict what the Agent can assert.
National Association of Realtors®
Some of the most valuable and least used services that NAR provides are their reports, market studies, and analyses of the national and regional real estate markets. They issue reports and studies on every segment of real estate sales like; second home markets, investment property, an annual homebuyers and sellers report, Internet popularity in real estate sales, and many others.
They also conduct studies and surveys of home sellers and buyers. They probe into why people selected a certain Agent, consumer satisfaction levels of their Agents, home amenities that buyers want most, what services consumers want from us, and a host of others.
This knowledge, in the hands of a Champion Agent, can easily be used to build credibility and trust. It will clearly provide value that will be unmatched by your competitor. Most Agents are unaware of these items I have listed. It’s the least used and best service, in my opinion, that NAR provides.
The information is available for you to utilize. Set yourself apart by doing what few Agents do and access the resources that are available. This information will link you to knowledge and credibility in your prospects’ eyes.
Seven Steps to Success
Success is an elusive concept to many people. It has as many different definitions as there are people on earth. To truly achieve success, one has to create their own vision of exactly what it is they want and desire. Too often, we buy into someone else’s success plan. We look at someone who has the outward appearance of success, but the truth is, we never know the real facts. We see the money, power, big house, and fancy car without looking at the path they travel. We do not look at the other areas of their life to really determine their true level of success. The vision of the perceived monetary success clouds our evaluation process. Their monetary success may be built on sinking sand rather than bedrock. The sinking sand could be a great lack in any of these areas of their life: mental, physical, spiritual, and family.
In the Bible, in Matthew 7:26, it clearly states: “But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat up against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” The truth is, the wind, rain, and rising rivers in life will come. You cannot prevent their coming. You can only be prepared for their coming. A successful person understands this clearly. They work diligently to create a successful life in all areas. You will not be able to avoid life’s tragedies. You will lose a loved one, friend, child, or parent. You will have financial struggles. You will experience health problems of some kind. It is not how you avoid them; it is how you prepare for them and deal with the curve balls of life.
Is success achieved by trading your family for money? Is success achieved by trading your health for dollars? True and lasting success is accomplished by creating balance in all areas of life and adding wealth to all these accounts on a daily basis. You must add wealth to each and every area of life daily. Do not transfer success to some far off goal in the future when you get to a particular place in your life or acquire something. The truth is, when you get to that particular place, or acquire that item, success will have moved on. Success is living today with all the zeal, gusto, and zest that you can pack into a 24-hour period of life. Success is clearly not a destination, but a daily journey we undertake every day. Success is found through focusing on the value of each day we are blessed with and soaking up all that life has to offer today.
"If you had a bank that credited your account each morning with $86,000-that carried over no balance from day to day, allowed you to keep no cash in your account, and every evening cancelled whatever part of the amount you failed to use during the day what would you do? Draw out every cent, of course! Well, you do have such a bank; its name is ‘time.’ Every morning it credits you with 86,000 seconds…every night it rules off as lost whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purposes. It carries over no balance…it allows no overdrafts. Each day it opens a new account for you. If you fail to use the day’s deposit, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against tomorrow. You must live in the present - on today’s deposit."
Using up your whole day will lead you to success in life. Wringing every moment of passion, happiness, sadness, success, failure, and love out of your every day will create a beautiful tapestry of life. Do not waste today for anyone, or anything. The truth is, we do not really know if we will be here tomorrow. If you had only six months to live, how would you live today? The truth is you or I may only have that long to live and we just do not know it yet.
Let me share with you the seven steps to success.
Step one: You must first decide what you want. The truth is, we can have anything we desire in life. Earl Nightingale said that if man only knew that he could have anything he wanted, he would set more goals. The truth is, if we set more goals, we would achieve more things in life. If your vision is clear, you are assured that you will get there. The problem is, we do not have a clear vision or set enough goals. We do not take the time to create the vision.
Step two: Your goals must be written. Success begins when you grab the pen and paper and think and work to craft your ideal life. Successful people think on paper before they act. You must take the time to write your success plan on paper and your goals down on paper. Only 3% of our population does so. Guess what those 3% have, live in, drive, wear, and eat? It is not by accident what they achieve. It is by design.
If you cannot write your vision with clarity on paper, you certainly will not be clear mentally to achieve it. By writing your vision clearly you will pull your mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional powers in alignment to achieve your vision and goals. Your mind, your body, and your subconscious mind will all work like a tug-o-war team, pulling on the rope of life. With those three powerful forces pulling in concert, it does not matter how many or how strong the opponent is on the other end of the rope. They will most assuredly be pulled across the centerline for your victory.
Step three: Create a time frame for your goal or vision. Set a target for when you will accomplish it. You have to get your mind in motion to achieve it by a certain time. Without a timeline, you have no goal you only have a wish. Wishes will only cause frustration. You cannot control or exert force on a wish to transform it into reality. If you do not achieve the goal or vision in the time frame, just set another one to shoot for. There are no unrealistic goals; there are only unrealistic time frames.
Step four: Achieving your vision, or goal, will take a series of activities. Create a list of the series of activities you must do for you to achieve your vision or your goal. As your motivation increases, the better you can clearly write out this series of activities. People will often not take the time to create the list. This can dramatically reduce the speed at which you achieve your vision or goal. Planning a vision or goal completely through, to create small bite size pieces, makes it easier to digest. If you cooked a 20-pound turkey dinner with potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, rolls, and gravy, you could not eat it whole or at one time. You could eat it over time by breaking it up into bite size pieces. Now if you invited a "team of friends" to help you, you could polish off the whole turkey dinner in one sitting by each of you taking bite size pieces. Successful people evaluate the situation and elicit help and create a plan to lighten the load on all. They then have everyone dive in and begin accomplishing things in bite size pieces.
Step five: Re-check the series of activities to ensure they are in the proper order. Organize this into a comprehensive step-by-step plan to achieve the vision or the goal. You need to start with the most important and move to the least important. Do not delay; begin the most important item today. Do not move on to another item until you complete the most important item first. There is an order to all activities and tasks. Spend the time planning to create it.
Step six: Do not allow procrastination to set in. You can always make an excuse to put it off until later. Do not fall to that temptation. The key is to start the momentum today. A primary law of physics is; a body in motion will tend to stay in motion. Do not delay getting your body in motion.
Step seven: Keep the body in motion daily. Do not neglect to do something daily that moves you closer to your vision or your goal. Constantly ask yourself, is this activity I am doing now moving me closer to, or further away from, my goal?
Once you are moving forward, your vision or goal can stay in motion with a smaller amount of effort. The greatest exertion of force comes in the beginning when you are trying to get the vision or goal moving. Do not stop and start. Keep constant pressure applied to your direction.
If you apply these seven steps to your real estate business you can accomplish any amount of sales you choose to do. The truth in life is you are the one who does the choosing. The market, competition, and interest rates do not affect your choice or outcome. You are the one that does the choosing, so choose wisely.
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