Archive for the ‘The Millionaire Real Estate Agent’ Category

Russell Shaw’s Guide to Real Estate Listing Presentations

Wednesday, March 7th, 2018

Joshua Smith Interviews Me

Thursday, July 2nd, 2015

 

 

 

Seminar – The Two Types of People

Friday, January 3rd, 2014

This seminar contains the most vital, high impact and important information I know.

Here is the link to the booklet:

The Cause of Suppression

Here is the link to the YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g1qhh7Ubsqs

 

Happy New Year?

Wednesday, January 1st, 2014

Earth made the full trip around the sun.  365 revolutions of the earth.  And we are supposed to “make new decisions” about the time it will take for the earth’s next full trip around?

What was wrong with our old decisions?  Didn’t yours all happen the way you decided?  I know mine sure didn’t.  Not even close.  The sudden changes in the market stood many predictions on their heads.  An awful 1st quarter, a decent 2nd quarter and a mediocre 3rd and 4th quarter for us – we wound up 2013 closing 342 transactions.  But congratulations are not in order – as that is down from our 435 closed transactions for 2012.  Oddly enough, our annual sales volume ($63,973,603.) didn’t suffer, in fact it was up by almost a million dollars – due to prices being higher than in 2012.

So, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We hope it is happy.

Happy = Fun!

Happy = It went like we wanted and planned.

For the record I am planning on doubling the amount of business in 2014 we did in 2013.  I am no longer trying to figure out HOW to generate buyer sides, thanks to finally having that crazy making issue resolved thanks to my Real Estate Webmasters site (www.allphoenixareahomes.com).  So we have added 2 buyer agents (for a total of 6) and hitting 200 closed buyer deals in 2014 is no longer a pipe dream.  That now solved – along with the market shift back to “traditional sellers”, we can once again make lead generation for sellers our primary focus and have our (considerable) marketing dollars have a huge impact (regardless of the now numerous local copycats).  The new radio ad is done.  The new TV ad will be done early this month.  Our staff is fully groomed to provide an even higher quality level of service so the experience our clients have will create more raving fans.

Some of you felt battered in 2013.  I did too.  It is just part of the deal.  If you don’t ever want to get hit, don’t get in the ring.  This is going to be a GREAT year.  Won’t you join me?

Realtor Success Seminar – The Conditions

Monday, August 19th, 2013

You can see the booklet here: Ethics and the Conditions

 

 

 

 

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

Tone Scale Seminar for Agents

Tuesday, May 28th, 2013

Here is a video link for a seminar I gave to agents.  It is just under 90 minutes long.  It is a remarkable tool for predicting the behavior of others.  I think you will really like it.

http://youtu.be/fKxtpCmN9dE

Here is the link to the booklet I passed out: The Emotional Tone Scale

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.

Let’s Talk About How Much We Charge

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

Money with Sign

Let’s talk about commissions.  Realtor to Realtor.  We do it everyday with potential customers.  Reporters can ask us how much we charge and then print our answers for other agents to read.  You can call any real estate office and simply ask them or just look on their website (if they are willing to put their fees there as most discount companies are – and I am, as well).  Would it be okay if you read how much another agent or company charges but not okay if you heard them physically say it? 

A few years ago when I was speaking at Sell-A-Bration, in front of a few hundred people – which I will be again in a few days – I mentioned commissions and several people started openly protesting that I could not keep talking about it or they would have to leave the room.  I patiently explained that I was not breaking any law, violating the spirit of any law or doing anything wrong.  In fact, I was doing something very right: I was helping fellow agents to see that they didn’t need to "match commissions" with the limited service companies (the we-do-nothing-for-less-crowd), that there were services they provided and skills that every single person in the room possessed that factually mattered; that the running dog press had "their story" prior to "researching the article" and that ingesting a steady diet of poison would make anybody sick.

A few morons continued to loudly bray that if I did not stop talking about commissions they would leave the room.  Fortunately for me the main entrance to that room was to my immediate left and was a very large opening.  So it was quite easy for me to gesture towards that doorway so someone that unobservant wouldn’t have any difficulty finding their way out.  Two or three people got up and left.  Several of the CRS instructors in the audience had also tried to explain that there was nothing I was saying (including how much my fees were) that violated any law.

What is against the law (as it should be) is PRICE FIXING.  Agreeing to all "charge a certain price".

Is it possible that someone honestly believes that I could make an announcement via a blog post (or speaking to an audience of a few hundred people) and "fix commission amounts"?  "I charge ‘X’ amount because Russell Shaw told me to"; "Once the order from Russell arrived, we couldn’t charge any less"; "All of us now charge this amount, it’s the way Russell wants it now".  Really?  If I was truly that powerful I wouldn’t waste my power on something that stupid.  And if I was going "fix commissions", I would have everyone in the country charging a lot more than me so I could get all of the business without having to try very hard.

Truth is, I am not in competition with any agents outside of my area (yes, yes, I know we really need a national MLS so all companies and agents will be free to prove they have no real knowledge or value) and I go way out of my way to help and train the agents who are here.  Customers aren’t scarce.  Regardless of what is currently happening (this day, this month, this year) I will continue to survive.  I am not afraid of any competitor, in fact, I can now see that it is because of them I have arrived at my level of competence.  Their ability to win what I wanted forced me to get better.

It does not matter to me what you charge.  Charge the amount that seems right to you (based on your area, your price range, your competition, market conditions and your ability to effectively communicate your level of value.  If you feel you must charge less because of the internet, the existence of discount companies, articles in the media, "ethical explanations" from other agents who are hell-bent on having less (for themselves and everyone else), or any other important reason to work on reduced prosperity for yourself and your fellows – I understand that nothing I am going to say or write is going to change your mind.  This is strictly for those who haven’t already gone too far down the rabbit hole.