Archive for the ‘Leads Listings Leverage’ Category

Find Out Why – Achieving Your Goals

Tuesday, July 9th, 2013

Here is the entire seminar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJeTKzEDUcA&feature=youtu.be

And here is the handout https://number1homeagent.com/FindOutWhyHandout.pdf

What is your time worth?

Thursday, September 13th, 2012

If you are a working Realtor and want to “give yourself a raise” this short post is for you.

There are many many “things which must be done” in your business. Many. To skip just one of those things is to invite eventual disaster. But that does not mean YOU have to physically do each of them yourself. In fact, doing them all yourself is a very expensive way to foolishly spend money.

There are DOLLAR PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITIES.  And then there is everything else.

There are only two types of activities which can not ever be delegated. Just two. Lead generation (not lead conversion, it can) and quality control.

All other actions can be delegated. All of them. You will always make the greatest income if YOU focus on Led Generation and delegate the rest.

The first thing to get rid of is the $15 an hour stuff. Your time spent on lead gen is worth at least $200 an hour. You doing $15 an hour work costs you $185 an hour for you to do it.

And get over the (false) idea that customers only want you. They want a certain result. Not “you”.

This is done on a gradient. First get rid of $15 an hour work. And get a life in the process too.

No BS Real Estate

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

Jeff Brown's Head

I don’t think Jeff Brown’s (BawldGuy) head is much larger than Jay Thompson’s head or my head .  The three of us will be on a panel together on Tuesday, August 24th in Scottsdale.  Each of the three of us has a different approach to our business and yet I can’t remember a time I disagreed fundamentally with something significant that Jeff or Jay had to say about how to get and keep customers.

That last part of that last sentence is THE most important skill in business success: HOW TO GET AND KEEP CUSTOMERS.  If you are good at that one you could be bad at most of the other skills and still be a success.  I am not recommending being bad at the other important skills – just pointing how how important that one is.  If you are not good at that one it won’t make much difference how good you are at the other skills – if you are in business for yourself – you will still fail.  How we get and keep customers is what we will be covering – from three different perspectives.

In Gary Keller’s wonderful book, "The Millionaire Real Estate Agent" the idea of Leads, Listings, Leverage was a key concept.  If you are working on or solving a problem in your real estate business you were always solving or working on one of those three issues.  How to get more leads, how to get more listings from those leads or setting up or improving your systems.  Those three things: Leads, Listings & Leverage were THE things.  Just those three.  No matter how it might seem that our industry is changing or the economy is now "different" (it usually is) those three things really are what needs work.  Getting leads, converting leads into listings and being able to handle more and more and still give great service.

The "economy", various market conditions, etc. does not determine your stats or your income.  Your ability to adapt to the current market and lead generate in that market with an offer that seems desirable to consumers in the current market and then lead convert establishes your income.  That is all in the skill category and that is something you can do something about.  Always.

I Hate Most Every Sales Pitch And Most Salespeople But Make My Living Selling

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

SalesPitch

It’s true.  I really don’t like salespeople, I don’t like to listen to a sales pitch and anytime someone says, "I just need twenty minutes in person to explain it to you", I already know in advance that whatever it is I don’t want it.  And, for sure,  I don’t want to listen to them explain it to me.

It is also true that I have made my living on straight commission since I was 17.  I have not had a "job" or worked for wages, I’ve lived on commissions all these years.  Several times over the years people who wanted to get me to sit still for a sales pitch so they could give me a "briefing" or "enlighten me" have pointed out that my attitude on this subject would harm by business.  I don’t think so.  In fact, I believe my attitude has helped my business.

Once I am interested in buying something I do want information: whatever facts and data I might consider important.  But notice it is whatever facts and data I might consider important.  I don’t want to be "rushed".  I want to take my time.  That amount of time might only be a few seconds, but still – I want to make my decision based on my time schedule not the schedule of someone else who needs to move things along.  I don’t want to allow someone else to fixate my attention and then evaluate the relative importance of all the various "facts" for me.  That’s my job.

The person who "only needs twenty minutes" wants to attempt to evaluate – for me – the relative importance of various data and then try to tell me what to think.  All for my own good, of course.  No thanks.  I just want the facts, all of the relevant facts and then it is my job to decide which facts are important and which ones are not so important.  To me.  Those last two words are the key.  To me.  Which facts are important to me?

I believe it is the same, most of the time, with our buyers and sellers.  In most cases we wouldn’t even be talking to them for very long if they weren’t interested in buying or selling real estate (I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t, anyway).  My job is to make sure they have all of the relevant data.  It is up to them to decide which of those data are "important".  Is it a two-story home?  Single level?  Does it have a swimming pool?  How close is the school?  How much is the house?  How much have other homes nearby sold for?  Will I evaluate those last two for them?  Absolutely.  But it is still up to them to decide if it is the home for them or – if a seller – the offer is acceptable.

There are lots of examples of this but really, I want to treat them the way I would like to be treated.  The way you would like to be treated.

Russell Shaw Webinar for Number1Expert

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

WebinarNumber1Expert

Here is a link for a webinar I did about a week ago for Number 1 Expert.  You do have to fill out a short form to listen and give them them information to get to the actual recording.  It is about an hour long and you will see slides on the screen that are in sync with my answers.  They titled the talk, "How to Stay Positive in Uncertain Market Conditions".

Some good stuff.

We are looking to attract more listings without paying a lot of advertising expense

Friday, June 19th, 2009

Maryland

This was passed along to me by Benn:

We are a small real estate company in Md.  We are trying to expand our clientele do you have any advice on how we can grow our business.  We are looking to attract more listings without paying a lot of advertising expense.  We tried the expired listings but most of the time the homeowner phone number is not listed.

Thanks,

(name deleted)

I’ve deleted your name, so in case you feel insulted by what I am about to tell you – you can feel a little less insulted because no one but you will know who wrote the note above.  Including me.  I couldn’t find you, no matter what I tried.  The very first thing I attempted to do was to find out a little bit about you – what you are doing now.  There are so many different companies who seem to have a similar name – that there was no way for me to land on your web site.  If you even have one.  You didn’t give your name or any contact information when you wrote this and I am going to assume this is somewhat standard operating procedure.

The first problem I see you being up against isn’t the size of your company, because that is irrelevant.  What sort of leaps off the page is you are very out of communication with the world around you.  Do most of the people who live or work within a hundred yards of where you office even know your name or what you do?  If they saw you on the street would many of them even know you sell real estate?  I believe this is your primary barrier to confront and handle: come out of non-existence with the people in your immediate vicinity.  Start there.  Then widen that circle.  Get out and talk to people.  Get rid of (as in completely rid of) the idea that you need permission to approach someone – like you need someone to issue you a license of some sort before you open your mouth.  You didn’t find any phone numbers in the print-out of the expired listings.  So what?  Just give up on expireds?  Maryland is a pretty small state.  You could probably drive across the whole state in a few hours.  You could absolutely drive completely across the town where you live in 90 minutes.  Show up at their door.  Ask them if they still want to sell their home.

You don’t want to pay a lot for advertising for two reasons: you don’t have the money to pay and you wouldn’t know what to put in the ad anyway.  Okay so skip advertising for now.  Prospect.  Learn what people consider valuable just by trial and error.  See enough people and ask enough people what they might be interested in and in very short order (a few hundred people from now) you will know what to say and what not to say when you are talking to a prospective customer.

There are exactly two methods of getting business in our business: marketing or prospecting.  Learn to effectively do one or both of those or leave real estate sales.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, those are the only three choices.  The skill of getting customers is the "important skill" in our business.  For a really bright future make this important thing your important thing.

The Secret to Becoming a Top Listing Agent

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

Only the mediocre 

Here are some factual statements:

Most people who enter the real estate business are gone in just a few years.  Most real estate agents, who stay in the business, are not very successful.  To be in the top 1% of all agents in the U.S. would require about 50 – 60 sales a year.  Most agents, who are successful, (50 – 60 sales per year) do not really know why they are successful.  They think they know but they are usually wrong.

Only about 25% – 30% of the top 1% of all agents actually know why they are successful and most of those don’t know it very well.  So success can seem mysterious or elusive.  It needn’t be.  If one were to apply the same exactness to the subject of real estate sales that any well trained engineer would apply to his discipline it wouldn’t seem mysterious at all.

But applying that exactness would mean – really – looking, not listening.  Look at what people do.  Look at how they do it.  Exactly.  Look at what results they get from doing it.  It makes little to no difference what they think is causing their stats to rise.  What is causing their stats to rise?  Anyone who says he (or she) knows why they are successful would be able to teach it – and teach it in such a simple manner that the other person could apply what was being taught and get a similar result.  There would be no special cases, no exceptions.  Not if a scientific approach was being used.  Anyone who knew why they were successful would be able to increase their level of success.  If they could not do that one thing then what they are thinking is the "reason" isn’t the real reason for the success they have had.  That last one is so obvious it is usually missed.  Is there really any "highly successful" person who left real estate sales so they could teach it?  Even one?

There are few subjects on earth (possible exceptions are mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc. – and the other so-called "exact sciences" – that don’t just reek with false data.  The subjects of sales and marketing (those are two different subjects, by the way) have so much asinine, stupid and unworkable gibberish being pawned off as "the way to do things" that it is a minor miracle anyone who actually studies either of those subjects ever succeeds at all.  Just as an example, about 20 years ago it was validated that, in some fields, women who were trained by male sales managers did not do nearly as well as women salespeople who had no sales training of any kind.  Amazing.  The "sales training" had an actual negative value.  This is just one example.  So the thing to do is: LOOK, DON’T LISTEN.  I don’t care what someone says they are doing to bring about sales results (and highly successful real estate sales people will sometimes actually invent things to tell others because it "sounds better" than what they are actually doing).

There was a scale developed many years ago (originator is uncertain) that has been altered (for the worse, in my opinion) from what I learned in 1971.

From the bottom up, the original scale went:

1.  Unconsciously incompetent.  Doesn’t know and doesn’t know he doesn’t know.

2.  Consciously incompetent.  Knows he doesn’t know.  (note that NOT knowing is a step UP!)

3.  Unconsciously competent.  Knows how to do it, but doesn’t really know why it works.

4.  Consciously Competent.  Knows how to do it and knows why it works, so can increase it and validly teach it.

cat in mirror

The secret to becoming a top listing agent?  First become a really crappy listing agent.  Become a really crappy one, then a bit less crappy, and so on.  That is the actual path.  There is no substitute for "stage time".  None.  Fail.  Fail more and go right on doing it.  Having the right attitude is probably more important than any other factor.  A complete willingness to do whatever is necessary and to have the viewpoint that you are going to persist until you have arrived.  Sort of like it mattered.

I Mean Business

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

I Mean Business

What is a "top producer"?  How is it defined?  Why would anyone care?

Some would say if you are in the top 10% you qualify.  I set the bar higher because the bottom 90% is doing so poorly.  To be in the top 1% – of all agents in the United States – you would need to sell about 40- 50 houses a year.  The first year I qualified I sold 38 houses.  At 40 – 50 sales in a year you would probably always be in the top 1% in your area and in the country.

Why does it matter?  Why have you seen me mention so many times, "what top agents do"?  It certainly isn’t to suggest that someone doing less or something different is in any way "wrong".  There are many many ways to approach this business and anything that is working can be defined as "good".  To me it has to do with systems (successful methods).  There are some top agents that have very poor systems and handle their business by taking each particular situation, each escrow and just "glowing it right".  Through sheer intention and desire, making it close.  Forcing the deal together.  These agents do not have a stable business but have a temporary perch they will soon fall from.  When I think of "top agents", for me, it is really shorthand for "has workable systems".  Most importantly, top agents who are stable top agents spend very little energy "glowing things right" with regard to procuring new business.  Without exception, they have exact and specific methods they apply again and again and again – and get the same predictable results each time.  They have a system for getting business.  They do not depend on: lucky breaks, caught a good one, happened to meet a guy who is ready to buy, didn’t expect it to happen but it did sell and close.  As I personally spent the first twelve years of my real estate career depending exclusively on lucky breaks, happening to catch a good one, etc. – I am very familiar with how that works, as well.

During my first twelve years in real estate all of my deals – each and every one – came about as sort of a fluke.  If I had arrived just 15 minutes later, I might have missed it.  If I hadn’t driven down that street I wouldn’t have seen the guy in his front yard by a FSBO sign and wouldn’t have stopped to talk to him.  I discovered that I could get business from almost any activity.  Just about anything could produce a deal or two.  But while striking up a conversation with the guy behind me – while playing goofy golf, or chatting with someone in line at the drugstore or a movie theater could produce business, it wasn’t a very predictable method.  It is this point alone – a predictable method of producing new customers – that separates the top agents from the pack.  This is what makes the difference between having a business and having a job.  It was in 1990 I started to really make that transition from hoping for a deal to the continuous creation of deals (developing workable systems).

So when I hear someone say, "I got a deal from twittering", "I met the client at a Kiwanis meeting", "I knew them from church", "We golf together", "The neighbor really liked my custom yard sign", etc., to me that sale is in the category of a fluke.  I mean no disrespect.  That is not to say it didn’t happen or will never happen again but that it is not a controllable event.  I can’t go to enough Kiwanis meetings to get all of the business I want.  I can’t happen by enough golfers to support myself.  During those lean years I did have "miracle escrows" that truly seemed like a gift from heaven at the time.  And I was grateful too.  But I was also determined to eventually get to the miracles as usual level.  That required workable systems.

2. Invitation to the Realtor Ghost Dance

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

Realtor Ghost Dance

It would seem that anything, any idea, if combined with aesthetics can be made to stick.  Someone will embrace it and buy into it.  Apparently, there is no idea too preposterous, or so idiotic that it can not find a home.  From young men wearing big baggy pants, put on backwards, to Indians wearing "special shirts" that will stop bullets, there is always someone who is all in.

There is an endless supply of wonderful ideas from well-intentioned and those who only pretend they are well-intentioned about what "ought to be done with the MLS".  Most of these ideas would radically change or pervert the purpose of the MLS (an offer of compensation) to the point where it would not be recognizable. 

One of the more destructive ideas is "divorcing buyer agent commissions".

Most of the arguments seem to be based on it is "still sub-agency", and it isn’t right because the buyer’s agent is being paid by the seller (via the listing agent).  It is like we are lawyers.  We are not.  We are salespeople.  Our job is to sell homes or find one for the buyer.  Also advanced is the entirely false premise that the buyer pays the commission via the seller and the listing agent.  If that were true then you could see the commission shown as a cost on a FNMA appraisal.  But it isn’t there because it does not belong there.  A FSBO can get their identical home appraised for the exact same price as a home listed by a broker.  The reason that sellers believe they pay the commissions is because they do pay the commissions.

Setting aside that fact that "divorced commissions" is a completely destructive (towards Realtors and the public) idea, what is interesting is that virtually all of the wonderful new things that could be done if only the commissions were divorced can be done right now with no change being made by anyone else.  That’s correct.  Want more commission than is being offered?  It can be done.  Want less?  It can be done.  All, right now.  What the people working on this are really trying to do (as they have a "better" idea)  is to regulate how YOU do business.  Not how they do business.

MLS is working just fine, thank you.

Could a buyer agree to pay an agent "X" per hour to show them homes and write an offer?  Sure.  I believe there are lots of agents who would welcome a set fee per hour, regardless of if the person ever bought a home or not.  Various people (who can’t think clearly) like to insist what a wonderful world it would be if we could all do something like that – it would be so honest.  Many lawyers get paid like that, in fact, some of them insist on being paid like that.  Why wouldn’t that work for Realtors?  Simple: because most buyers of most houses would not be interested in making an agreement like that.  Ever. They strongly prefer the lawyer "contingency" method – you, Mr. or Ms. Realtor, collect your money at the end.  No sale, no pay.

Few buyers are going to pay by the hour for agents to show them houses, regardless of if they buy or not and in most cases they are not going to agree, at all, to pay an agent’s full commission if they can buy a home direct from the seller or through the listing agent and not have to pay any commission.  Most buyers (unless they are in litigation) do not find "agency" worth paying for or even talking about all that much.  Buyers want – and are looking for – a house, not an agent.  If you wanted to buy a new car, can you even imagine thinking, "I sure hope I can find a really great car salesman to help me and explain all that confusing paperwork"?  Or is it far more likely you would be willing to tolerate talking to the salesman in order to get the information you wanted?  "Enforcing agency" on the public will amount to NO agency.  They won’t pay for it.  Buyer agents who are "for divorcing the commissions", would, if "successful", only succeed in putting themselves out of business.

It can be remarkable the things people will sometimes do on the subject of failure.  To work on something like this a working Realtor would have to have at least a low-grade death wish for themselves and others.  Those outside the industry working on it have one for us.  Not necessarily low-grade.

3. There is Real Joy in Doing "Meaningful Work"

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

Happiness

Years ago my sister went through nursing school and completed all of the requirements to become a Registered Nurse and graduated.  Nurses were in demand so she got a job as an R.N. quickly.  She kept that job for exactly two weeks and quit.  She didn’t like anything about being a nurse.  Shortly after quitting the hospital, she took a job working as a bookkeeper for an accountant, where she stayed for years.  She must have liked the idea of being a nurse but not actually being a nurse.

Many men and women complete law school and yet don’t practice law.  Because the barrier to entry is so much lower a huge (as in very large) number of people enter the real estate business and don’t stay (about 13 out of 14 are gone by the end of the 2nd year).  "I think I would like driving around town in a Cadillac, wearing nice clothes" is one I used to hear a lot when I drove a Cadillac.

People who aren’t actually in a particular game seldom ever know what it is really like to play that game.  They think they do but they don’t.  Even the players themselves have to get "all the way in" a game to really get it.

In his groundbreaking book, "Outliers", Malcolm Gladwell identified the three qualities work has to have if it is to be satisfying: autonomy, complexity and a connection between effort and reward.  Being a Realtor – for those fortunate enough to get into the business far enough to make a full connection with those three things – this business can be mostly joy.  Outsiders can’t usually see that part.  It is invisible to most of them and even to many in the business.  Nevertheless, it is there for all who care to partake.

For the following three paragraphs I am borrowing (direct text or concepts) from Malcolm’s wonderful book:

When you come home at night you might be tired and even short on cash and a bit overwhelmed.  But you are alive  You are your own boss.  You are responsible for your own decisions and direction.  Your work is complex: it engages your mind and imagination.  And in your work there is a relationship between effort and reward: the longer or more effectively you work on and in your business the more money you can make.

Those three things – autonomy, complexity and a connection between effort and reward – are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.  It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy, it’s whether our work fulfills us.  If I offered you a choice between being an architect for $75,000 a year and working in a tollbooth every day for the rest of your life for $100,000 a year, which would you take?  I’m guessing the former, because there is complexity, autonomy and a connection between effort and reward in doing creative work, and that’s worth more to most of us than money. 

Work that fulfills those three criteria is meaningful.  Being a teacher is meaningful.  Being a physician is meaningful.  So is being an entrepreneur.   …..  Hard word is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning.  Once is does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you dance for joy.

Any Realtor who learns to effectively lead generate (lead generation itself has all three: autonomy, complexity and a connection between effort and reward) can have a business worth having and a life worth living (as in mostly fun).  Lead generation is very well covered in Gary Keller’s wonderful book, "Shift".  I highly recommend it.