In This Issue...
Words of a Champion
Dirk Zeller
CEO
True growth in life happens when we are willing to risk and stretch our abilities, when we are willing to put it on the line for change. It is easy to get comfortable being around the same crowd, doing the same thing we have always done. We can often get attached to a system of activities that will only lead us to the same result we have always gotten.
We have to be willing to risk where we are today to get to where we truly want to be. By venturing out, we develop skills of strength that will build us up and make us stronger. Napoleon Hill said, “The strongest oak tree of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rain and scorching sun.”
The challenges you are facing right now will make you stronger. Move forward and take them head on. Step up to the challenges. Step up to the opportunities that lie just beyond the challenges. You may be in darkness, but the light is right around the bend. When you overcome the obstacles facing you…you will then be able to drink in the sunlight of accomplishment to recharge your battery.
You are truly like that oak tree. The only difference is that you can replant yourself regularly out in the open. If that tree takes root in the forest, it will live its whole existence there. You can continue to move out into the open. If the forest grows out to you and tries to bring you in you can move again. You have a tremendous advantage, are you using it? Resolve to move out into the open today!!
To Your Achievement of GREATER success,
Dirk Zeller, CEO
RealEstateChampions.com
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Attitude and Objections
It is amazing how an objection raised in the sales process can make most Agents look like a deer in the headlights: they get that blank look of disbelief that you see just before the front grill of your car connects with deerskin at full speed. If the deer manages to move at all, he does it at the last split second before fatal impact, leaving you to experience heart-pounding adrenaline for the next 30 minutes. Many Agents treat objections the same way that a deer treats oncoming traffic. They are frozen in terror, and move only at the last second before the buyer or seller runs them over.
Often, Agents will view an objection as a big wall between them and the sale . . . a wall so tall that they can see no way around, over, under, or through. But objections are really like a two-to-three-foot-high picket fence. There are, in fact, many ways over it; or you can walk down its length and find the gate. An unskilled salesperson fears hearing an objection, but a great salesperson views objections as opportunities.
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 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 Denver Broncos 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 playbooks during a two month span in spring training, 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 40 to 50 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.
Your attitude and mental approach to objections will determine your success level. Do not relinquish control of your mind to your client. Step up with mental authority and clarity to handle any objection a client raises. Practice being successful daily, and you will be amazed at your progress in as little as 30 days.
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Showing The Consumer Specifics
One of the challenges for sales people is that we sell in generalities when consumers really want specifics. If we stay in the generalities, we will lose.
We need to show the consumers specifically what they will receive when working with us; what specific results they can expect in sales price, net proceeds, time frame, communication, and additional services and how that differs from the competition. We need to show them what type of guarantee we offer, if any. The commodity mindset a consumer possesses demands the specifics. If they don’t receive them, it makes their decision to select the cheapest alternative a foregone conclusion.
The price of our service or our commission is really a marketing strategy. For anyone who has ever taken a college level marketing course, you will learn about the 4 Ps of Marketing. These four factors make up the elements of marketing. These four Ps are Product (or service), Promotion, Price, Place (delivery system), and Presence. When someone applies a discounting strategy to their business, they are really trying to apply a marketing formula to attract more opportunity. This is true of any business in the world.
Let’s say you now own a pizza parlor. Your sales are lower than you would like. What do most pizza parlor owners do? They use one, or a combination of a few, of the 4 Ps of Marketing to increase sales.
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Product or Service
As a pizza parlor owner, your product is pizza. You might offer salads, soda, and beer, but pizza is your revenue stream. There is not a lot you can do to change pizza. It is dough, some type of sauce (usually tomato based), with cheese and other toppings on top. Pizza Hut is always trying new types of pizza to expand sales, but other than changing a few toppings, pizza is very similar today to what it was 20 years ago.
As a Real Estate Agent, what changes can you make in service? I believe there are numerous options and differences in services we can provide. The core problem is that prospects don’t see them because we have never bothered to really show them. There is a huge opportunity for us here . . . unlike the pizza parlor owner.
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Promotion
For the pizza parlor owner, this is the area we, as consumers, see frequently. We see coupons in the paper, direct mail coupons, TV commercials, radio ads, and charity promotions, but the most common promotion is coupons of some type.
As an Agent, you can increase your marketing promotion through newsletters, direct mail, farming, sending all kinds of things to your past clients and sphere, bus benches, and shopping carts. Some of these techniques produce at a much higher level than others. You can always spend a lot of money on promotion to generate more leads. The possibilities in this area are endless.
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Price
The pizza parlor owner will use this one extensively. This one will often be linked with promotion. With a coupon for $2.00 off your next purchase, the promotion and price for this is often together.
For Agents, we often use this to attract more business. We feel that, by lowering our fee or giving the appearance that we are willing to consider a lower fee, we attract more people.
Another challenge with this strategy for Agents is the future business you might receive by either repeat or referred clients who will expect the fee to remain the same. As an example, the auto industry tried to increase sales after 9/11 through 0% financing. By offering no cost financing to their best customers, they increased sales. Almost five year later, they are still stuck using 0% financing on vehicles to generate sales. One short-term price strategy to fix sales has led to catastrophic results five years later. They can’t seem to break away from giving away free money to finance their cars. Most of the automobile manufacturers make more money in the financing of the vehicles than they make on the sale of the vehicles. They promoted and priced away their profit margins.
As Real Estate Agents, we could be doing the same thing with all of our future business in repeat and referral business. We will never be able to get away from it, just as the automobile manufacturers were not.
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Place or Delivery System
If you have a good business location, there is little reason to change. You might consider expanding to another market area. You can do this geographically as a pizza parlor might. As a Real Estate Agent, you could do this by market segment, rather than geographically, as well. You could start a farm; work expireds or FSBOs; create strategic alliances with lenders, probate attorneys, family law attorneys, and financial planners. Your place of business, in terms of market segment, is unlimited.
The most obvious choice to expand business is through increased advertising and reduction in the price. What is often the easiest is not always the best. The road frequently traveled by most people is the road to mediocrity at its best or the road to disaster at its worst.
I would encourage you to protect your commission through your service first and foremost by raising the value and perceived value the consumer receives. If you have a need for more leads, rather than marketing for discount leads, focus on promotion or expanding your place of business. Look at attracting and creating new lead sources, rather than marketing a reduced pricing strategy to increase the pool of leads and potential clients.
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Time Mastery
When I was working in real estate, there was one characteristic or skill that was most important in helping me achieve high production in sales while working a four-day workweek. This one skill allowed me the opportunity to develop the others that were necessary for success in sales. You are probably wondering what that one characteristic is that is above all others? It is Time Mastery. If we learn to master our time, and understand the value of time, we can change the outcome of our life.
Time is truly our most precious resource. The famous writer, Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber, wrote, “Unlike other resources, time cannot be bought or sold, borrowed or stolen, stocked up or saved, manufactured, reproduced, or modified. All we can do is make use of it. And whether we use it or not, it nevertheless slips away.” It truly is how we use it to our advantage that makes the difference. How effectively are you using the time you are given? Are you performing the high payoff activities in your day?
Many people may be asking, “What are the high payoff activities in real estate?” These are the activities that pay you exceedingly well per hour. They also happen to be the activities that only you can do. Your assistants will never be as good as you in all these activities. Because of your skill and ability, you’re the one who has to do them. If your staff were as skilled as you…they would not be working for you. They would be Agents on their own.
In real estate there are about a half dozen things that are high payoff activities. They are lead follow-up, prospecting, listing appointments, showing property, and writing and negotiating contracts. How much of your day is spent in these activities? The truth is no one will do these activities better than you. If you have staff, once they get markedly better than you in these activities, they will often leave you and go on their own. The highest pay per hour is contained in those half dozen things. Low payoff items have a tendency to push out the high payoff activities. They try to fake us out that they are important. Have you ever had a day where you left the office and felt like nothing got done? You just spent the day in low payoff activities. The low payoff day is like being in the twilight zone all day. You were present in body, but nothing got done.
To ensure you do high payoff activities daily, block them into your schedule. Create a specific time slot for prospecting daily. Make a time for lead follow-up daily. Schedule them both in and be militant with keeping other low payoff activities out of those slots. Turn your cell phone and pager off during those time slots, and then you can focus with intensity on prospecting and lead follow-up. If you just spend one hour a day prospecting and a half an hour to one hour doing lead follow-up daily, that will solve any production problems you have in your business, and you will gain quality time with your family. Find those times and block them in today.
The next step to time mastery is learning to do first things first. Too often, we spend time on the wrong tasks. Before you leave for the day, make a list of tasks that you need to do. To be highly effective, we must set up tomorrow before it comes. You will save ten minutes of execution for every one minute of planning you do. Then take the list and prioritize from most important to least important. I will give you a hint…the hardest thing that needs to be done is most important. When you walk in the office in the morning, start with #1. Work on #1 until you have it completely done. Then you can move on to #2. We often lack the vision to prioritize. We work on ten things at once, never completing anything. This causes frustration and low work output. Focus on the most important task. Focus always comes before success.
It is very easy to get distracted by clients, prospects, or other Agents. You must win the game of distraction. We all have distractions daily. It’s what we do with the distractions that come our way that matters. The difference between a time waster and a time master is the length of time it takes for that person to get back on track. For a time waster, it could be hours, or even days, to get back on track. For a time master, it will be minutes before he is back on track. People who control time earn more money. Time was designed to serve us…not be served by us. Many people feel that time is money. Israel Davidson said it well when he was quoted, “Time is infinitely more precious than money, and there is nothing in common between them. You cannot accumulate time; you cannot borrow time; you can never tell how much time you have left in the Book of Life. Time is life…” Use it well.
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