In This Issue...
Words of a Champion
Dirk Zeller
CEO
We are a little more than 90 days from the finish line for 2010. Most people’s reaction is, “Wait a minute; it is mid-August, don’t get ahead of yourself, Dirk.” I hate to break the news to you, but we are down to the sprint lap for listings. We have about 45-60 days in most markets to take listings that will sell and close in 2010. For most of us, we need to be in pending around Thanksgiving to ensure the close in 2010. We also need to get the listing before Halloween to ensure a sale by Thanksgiving.
Let me give you a couple of steps to finish strong in 2010.
Step 1: Don’t miss a day of your daily prospecting no matter what. That missed time will spell the difference between your success of reaching your goals or falling short. We have to continue the habit of consistency.
Step 2: Set a specific goal of the number of listings you need and will take in the next 45-60 days. We have to have this short-term target. Share this target with your coach or accountability partner. Tell them how important this goal is to you. Then with your coach or accountability partner decide how accountable you want to be held to this goal.
Step 3: In the next 30 days get all your listings to price reduce to the bottom of fair market value. We often list properties at the top of fair market value. When the market slows we end up with overpriced listings that don’t sell. Often the market will slow even more in the fall in many markets. Make sure that you are not caught off guard. We need our current listings to sell in 2010. Ensure they do with price reductions.
Step 4: Call all your leads in your database and ask for an appointment. I have had a number of my personal clients do this in the last couple of weeks. Every one of them who did it set at least 2 listing appointments from it. You have appointments in your database, just call them.
We are committed to running side by side with you to victory. We are there to finish the race strong. If there is anything you need from us to finish strong give us a call. We are committed to your success.
To Your Success,
Dirk Zeller, CEO
RealEstateChampions.com
To
get FREE, instant access to
YOUR copy of the Video Training & Bonus Tools Dirk
mentioned,
Please type your first name and
e-mail address below.
* PRIVACY POLICY: We respect your privacy and promise to never share your e-mail address.
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:
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
??? Need Help ???
Get FREE Expert Advice from
One of our Professional Real Estate Coaches Today
...Or simply call 1-877-832-9831
Real Estate Sales is An Odds Based Business
As salespeople, we operate in a game of odds and probabilities. Being deliberate in knowing the odds and improving them is what a Champion does. We must be able to balance the odds of the marketplace, the odds of the prospect, the odds of creating a delighted client, the odds of expending our resources, the odds of a higher return, and the odds of our time. All of these odds have to be evaluated and factored into our decisions.
Casinos earn large returns for the owners. The reason is they play the odds in their favor . . . always. They don’t do it sometimes; they do it always. There is not a game in any casino in the world where the odds are against the house . . . not one game! Some games, like blackjack, are more favorable with a higher probability of winning than roulette. The odds are still less than 50/50 for the player, though. The casinos know that, if you sit there long enough and frequently enough, even if you win in the short run, you won’t win in the long run. It is certainly better when you are the house. How do we become the house in the business of real estate? The first step is to understand the aforementioned odds by tracking and analyzing the odds of the marketplace, the odds of your skills, and the odds of the prospect.
Champion Rule: Wants and needs don’t change the odds.
Too often, we believe that if we want or need something, that fact will swing the odds in our favor. I would have loved to play professional basketball. I really wanted to be a power forward, like Maurice Lucas, Karl Malone, or Buck Williams. At 5’11” when I graduated high school, the odds were heavily against me. Even after I grew another four inches before I started college, the odds were extremely long. How many 6’3” power forwards have there been in the last thirty years in the NBA? NONE!
If a seller says to you, “You don’t understand my problem. I really need to net $100,000 from the sale of my home, so we need to list the home for $350,000 to net that amount”, and you know that the house needs to be at $299,000 to get a buyer for the property, does the seller’s need to net $100,000 change the value and sales price of the home? What are the odds of finding a buyer who is willing to pay this seller a $50,000 premium for their home because they are nice and the seller really needs it? ZERO!
We, as salespeople and entrepreneurial business owners, must play the odds. The better application of odds leads to better income, results, and time off with our families. When we are, in effect, playing the odds, we can still make a lot of money, but it will cost us more time than is necessary. When I see agents working six or seven days a week, it tells me they are ineffective at evaluating and playing the odds. It tells me that there is a lot of wasted time and emotion in their business model. This correlates to lower than necessary hourly rates for what they do based on their skill, lead volume, market presence, and experience.
One of my key objectives, when I work with anyone in a coaching and consulting capacity, is to double their hourly rate in the first few months of working with them. Your hourly rate directly connects to how well you are doing and will be doing in a sales business. It also demonstrates the odds of your business and how well you play those odds. Your value per hour is a critical computation and number of success. I describe it as one of the six key numbers in a real estate agent’s practice. The hourly rate is like when your doctor takes your pulse. It is the pulse rate of your business.
To calculate your hourly rate, take your gross commission income for the last twelve months and write it in the blank provided below. Your gross commission income is what you make before expenses or company split. You created the gross revenue, so use that number. Your split is really a cost of sale, not a cost of your time value. Then take the number of hours you work in a day, on average, and write that in the space provided. Then estimate the days you work per week and weeks you work per year. Multiply all of those work hours, days, and weeks together to get the total hours worked. Then divide your total hours worked by the gross commission income.
The goal is to double the number you just wrote down in the next six months. If you double your hourly rate, you have dramatically more options in life.
You can work the same number of hours and make twice as much money as you normally would, or you can cut your hours in half and make the same as you were making before. Most agents choose neither of these options. They usually choose a combination of more income and better quality of life. The best news is, you can choose now, where before you had no choice. Champion Agents continually raise their hourly rate through improvement of their skills, knowledge, attitude, activities, and the odds of the business.
Champion Rule: Consistent commitment of effort and consistent commitment of resources will change the odds.
A true Champion Agent is an agent of consistency. They consistently do the activities that generate high profit margin revenue for their company. They consistently prospect, do lead follow-up, and book appointments. They operate in a world of consistency. They consistently engage in self-improvement, listening to CDs, attending seminars to learn, or coaching. They consistently evaluate the financial performance of their company and their personal assets. They consistently engage in health related activities like working out and monitoring their eating habits. One of the characteristics of Champion Performers is consistency. Most people are too inconsistent to be of Champion caliber.
Let me illustrate the power of consistency. You decide to lose ten pounds, and in order to lose those ten pounds, you need to move your body sixty miles. You are now faced with a choice of odds. You could decide to go all out for three days and get it all over with by going twenty grueling miles each day to reach your goal. You could also run one mile a day for sixty days. Which of these approaches would increase the odds of your success in losing the weight? The answer is obvious to us all. The binge approach with little consistency would leave us far short of the ten pound weight loss. If we eat reasonably and exercise over the sixty days, we could achieve our goal.
The same is true in our sales business. To go out and make fifty contacts today, to binge and get it over with, rarely works. A Champion has developed the skill and discipline to invest in success producing activities like prospecting and lead follow-up daily. A Champion Agent doesn’t binge in this area . . . ever! They have learned to control their environment, schedule, access points, and emotion to engage in success producing activities every day of their working life. The consistency of activity is the key. That is true of everything in life.
"How You Can Have All the Tools, Tactics, and
Techniques You Need to Be a Champion
Agent 24/7, 365 Days a Year..."
Click Here to Learn More
Setting And Achieving Prospecting Goals
In setting prospecting goals, focus on three core areas: the number of contacts you should make each day and week, the number of leads you should develop, and the number of personal appointments you should set.
Start with easily attainable numbers, so you can build up your energy, intensity, focus, and discipline slowly and steadily. You wouldn’t decide to run a marathon without working your daily and weekly mileage up over time, and the same premise applies when establishing and meeting your prospecting goals.
A contact is a personal conversation with a decision maker who can make a purchase or sale or who might refer you to someone who could. A contact is not a conversation with the babysitter, a 10-year old neighbor, a friendly teenager, or an answering machine.
When I take on a new coaching client, I almost always start them with a goal of five contacts a day, and I would suggest the same for you. Make a goal of five contacts a day without fail, resulting in the completion of 25 contacts a week. It will take three to four weeks for contact with five prospects a day to become a habit. Once you achieve the goal for three weeks straight without missing a single workday, you can raise your goal to seven or ten.
Leads are contacts that have demonstrated through their dialogues that they possess the basic motivation and desire to make a change in their living arrangements. In prospecting, we assume until we either pre-qualify them ourselves or they secure an appointment with a lender that determines they have the financial capacity to make a purchase.
To advance your business, you should aim to develop at least one lead per day and five leads per week.
An appointment is a face-to-face meeting with prospects, during which you discuss their needs and wants, share how you work, and aim to gain their commitment to work with you in an exclusive relationship to sell their home or find them a home to purchase. An appointment is the launch of the agent-client relationship. It is not a meeting during which you show a property!
Like your lead-generation goal, your appointment goal should be set at a reasonable level: A goal of one appointment a week is a solid start. If you acquire two appointments, terrific, but make sure that you are able to secure at least one.
If about now you are wondering, hmm, five leads and only one appointment a week from all those calls, realize that these are starting goals. It is far better to begin with aims that you can actually achieve rather than ones that overwhelm you from the onset. As you gain consistency and skill in prospecting, both your numbers and your ratios will improve.
Even if you maintained the goals we set and sales ratios of leads and appointments, you would have a good year as a newer or inexperienced Agent. At the end of the year, you would have made 1,250 contacts. You would have created 250 leads. You also would have set and conducted 50 appointments and gotten two weeks off with your family to boot.
Even if only half of the appointments turned into listings or sales, you would have 25 deals in your first year. In most companies, that would make you rookie of the year. You would also earn in excess of $125,000 in gross commission income. I do not know too many people in real estate or in any other profession that make that type of money in their first year.
So set your prospecting goals by focusing in those three core areas: number of contacts made, number of leads established, and number of appointments secured. You will meet your goals if you follow through and be diligent in achieving them.
Help Your Friends
If you have friends and colleagues who would enjoy the
Coaches Corner™ please forward it and invite them to subscribe.
We appreciate your help since your recommendation is how we grow.
Real Estate Champions is committed to partner with you to create
abundance in your business and life.
Learn More Here
Make Sure to Follow Us on Your Favorite Social Network: