Archive for December, 2008

Fantastic New Yard Sign

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

Fantastic Yard Sign

When I saw what my friends, John Kalinowski and  Derek & Mariana Wagner had done with this idea, like everyone else I thought, "Pretty nice.  In fact, really nice".  But I also saw that they were only using photos of the house the sign was in front of (a very 80’s and 90’s approach).  I wanted to take it further, much further.

As you can see above, my new design doesn’t even bother with pictures of the subject property – I simply use nice pictures that people will want to look at: high-end homes, Camelback Mountain, a pretty girl.

Do what you like with this idea, although I highly recommend you use nothing that is "too racy".

Also, HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!

Think Category First, Brand Second

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

22 Immutable Laws -One of the true pioneers of what is referred to in marketing as “positioning” is Al Ries. Al Ries and Jack Trout wrote the groundbreaking book, “Positioning, The Battle for Your Mind“. It is probably the most influential book on advertising ever written. That statement is on the cover of their 20th anniversary edition of their book. I really doubt anyone who knows much about marketing or advertising would dispute it.

My favorite book by Ries and Trout is “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing“. I believe anyone who is going to spend any money advertising would benefit from reading and understanding that book.

Here is a post I ran across today by Al Ries – that drives the point of one of those immutable laws home – that I thought was so good I wanted to pass it along.

Inside The Box – YES, NO and MAYBE

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. – Henry Ford

In an email, Adam wrote:

Russell-

I never got a chance to thank you for the Star Wars “Duel in the Desert.” I attended the event and very much appreciated your insight and humor. I have been doing Real Estate for over 6 years in CA and AZ. Although I have made over 100k one year, I have struggled through many others. I found this interesting in the sense that you mentioned doing this through the first part of your career (the ups and downs).

Somebody asked you a question and you mentioned to them about not being “all the way in the box.” You then mentioned something along the line of You finally getting this perspective yourself in your career and getting “all the way in the box.”

I want to get all the way in. How is this change made? How do/did you flip that switch? I’ve been waiting for years yet it hasn’t happened.

If this seems like a strange email, it’s because it is! I just valued your advice so much that you gave a couple of months back and thought you might be able to give me more insight.

Thanks,

Adam

The question I was responding to was from a lady asking about sending out postcards but she didn’t want to mail “ordinary” postcards to a farm area or a personal mailing list. She wanted something really unique – something outside the box. As I hear this sort of thing all the time (and recognize it as a destructive idea) I told her that her problem was not that she wasn’t outside the box with her thinking and her postcard program but that she wasn’t IN the box yet. Few agents are suffering from not being “outside the box”. They think they are but their real problem is they haven’t gotten “inside the box” yet.

There are certain fundamentals in any industry, profession or activity. There are correct ways of doing almost anything. The people at the top (of almost any activity) have mastered the fundamentals of that activity. They aren’t always endlessly looking for a “brand new” (never been done before) way to do something but first take the time to learn the existing way of doing it. And they learn it well.

Please understand that I am not protesting or attempting to inhibit innovation of any type. Forward progress is accomplished by people attempting new things and exploring new ideas. In any area where real advancement is happening the people there are trying new things. Google is a perfect example of this – they became the dominant search engine used on earth by changing the way their searches were done. While all of the other search engines (at least at that time) based their rankings on the frequency of what words were found on a site (including the hidden or “meta” words), Google based their search rankings on how often other sites linked to the page. In other words, they made their search results a sort of huge popularity contest for the entire internet – who else seemed to think this page was important, and what was the popularity of THAT page that linked to the page. Yes, this was a new look at something that had been around a while. But the people involved knew ALL of the fundamentals of how it was currently being done, which was what enabled them to see what they saw and have the insight they did, when they looked. Experts see things when they look at an area that ordinary folks don’t see at all. In a totally different area – Mixed Martial Arts, there has been more advancement in the last ten years for these athletes than in the past 1,000 years. Ten years ago, the top – at the time virtually unbeatable fighters could take on all contenders (sometimes 4 or more in a single night) and win, regardless of their opponents size. Now those same fighters are easily beaten by fighters who learned what they know and combined it with what they already knew. Lesson here? Learn and be able to apply all of the basics.

No one is really going to get all the way out of the box until they get all the way IN the box!

What is your goal? What do you really intend to accomplish? Is that what you actually want? Getting started in this business can be rough because most of us tend to learn by by seeing it done. The problem with this approach for the real estate brokerage business is that most of what you will see would lead a person to the conclusion that you can work really hard and still wind up failing. Look around and what you mostly see IS failure. Even “making 100k” in commissions isn’t making 100k – it is grossing 100k and by the time you pay all of your expenses you are really “making” about $60,000. Take a look around at top agents. The really successful ones. If you were to go around and meet and talk with several hundred of them you might be amazed to observe that most of their marketing and the things they do are not “fantastically unique” or different. Oh sure, organizations like Starpower put a huge emphasis on unique and “the latest thing” (and in spite of this, I still think of them as the very best and most useful organization for Realtors who want to get ahead) but the “secret” the successful agents have is THEY KNOW THE BASICS. Get more contacts to get more appointments to get more listings. It is almost too simple, really – there just HAS to be something complicated about it.

So what is stopping you? It could be someone. But it is common that the “someone” is oneself. The sequence of obtaining anything is (also from L. Ron Hubbard) NAME – WANT – GET. To get anything you have to be able to exactly name it. What IS it? Exactly. If one can not NAME it, there is no chance of causatively wanting it or getting it. If one can name it they would then need to WANT it. Here is where you may be having a bit of a problem. Change “I want to be successful” to “I have an income of 200k a year from real estate sales” . (you need about double what you want to net – and the goal must be SPECIFIC). Now …. do you want the goal? Really? Making 200k a year in real estate sales is factually easier than making less than 100k in gross commissions. A lot easier. Do you WANT it? Totally? (hint: if the answer is an unqualified yes – you already are making that much) No no, that can’t be true! I really want it, honest I do. Sure, but you also have other “wants” that are in direct conflict with that particular want. When someone has an “unqualified want” there is nothing that comes between them and the goal. Nothing. “Well I can’t work then because I would miss out on X”. “I’m not going to go out and knock on doors – I’m a professional”. My point here isn’t to encourage door knocking but to give a couple of examples, there are hundreds, if not thousands of examples you may be able to think of yourself. Achieving success (at anything) is about 90% “mental”. It is almost never the specific circumstances or conditions one finds themselves in or happens to have that are “the reason”. One wants something and DECIDES they are going to get it. Again, NAME, WANT are the two first parts. Exactly named (specific and exact targets that could be checked off as “done” are the only ones that qualify) and then UNCONDITIONAL want. Any thought (your own or someone else’s) that is in conflict with the goal is “bad”. Ignore it and pay no attention to that sort of idea – it is in conflict with the goal.

When a goal matters enough to a person, that person will find a way to accomplish what at first seemed impossible. – Nido Qubein

There are three possible answers to any question of “Do you want it?” – YES, NO and MAYBE. At the root of any problem you have ever had or will have is the MAYBE. Maybe is yes and no fused together. You want it and don’t want it at the same time. This is the anatomy of a problem – opposing goals, opposing force. Get rid of the maybe and you have just solved the problem. Keep the maybe and you keep the problem. All “techniques” and methods simply smooth out the GET part of the cycle. The better one’s technology the easier it is to GET the prize. But with intention alone one can start to move in the direction of what they want, providing they want it and have no counter intention. This is the process of how someone “flips the switch”. You write your goals – exactly. What do you want? Put it in writing. If you like, make it an affirmation as a statement that you already have achieved. See it. How does it feel to have accomplished that? Now notice how you have “other thoughts” about how you are sort of lying – you don’t have it. Write on a list you keep someplace private every one of those thoughts – ANY thought that is in conflict with your goal goes on the list. It makes no difference where it came from or who said it (may well have come from you when you were tired or hungry) it does not matter. You want to get it out of your head and onto a list so you can recognize it as “something to be ignored” should it pop up again. Every day put your attention on HAVING ALREADY ACHIEVED THE GOAL. Make it real. It is yours. You aren’t waiting any longer for the correct viewpoint – you CREATE it.

The secret to productive goal setting is in establishing clearly defined goals, writing them down and then focusing on them several times a day with words, pictures and emotions as if we’ve already achieved them. Denis Waitley

I’ll bring you a big basket of cash if you’ll let me sell your house for free

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

Chris writes:

I’m looking to get into real estate after i graduate in a couple of weeks but i have a couple of questions that i’m looking to get answered, appreciate your help.

If all real estate brokers in an area generally charge the same fee for selling a house, how do real estate agents compete with one another if they cannot vary their fees? Also is the real estate profession overcrowded in your judgment?

Yes, the industry is horribly overcrowded, there are way too many agents chasing too few deals for all of the agents to make a decent living. This has been a true statement for at least the past four decades. 13 out of 14 agents fail and leave the business within two years. bugAll real estate brokers do not charge the same fee. Some brokers charge 6 – 7% to list and sell a house and others charge half that amount, some companies charging a flat fee of $300 – $500 to list a house. There is now a company affiliated with Buy Side Realty who will list the house at ZERO. Correct. A FREE MLS listing. And when you buy a house through Buy Side, they will give you back 75% of the commission. These companies are already “national” unlike the endlessly commented upon Redfin, who only has offices in a few cities.

A company was started some years back called HomeGain that was initially based on the premise of agents blindly (they wouldn’t know who the seller was – but the seller would know who they were) offering to list a home for less. The agent who offered the lowest commission won the prize of getting to list that home. This company was started by Bradley Inman and he sold HomeGain for enough money (tens and tens of millions of dollars) so he can now devote as much of his life as he wants to working on getting agent’s commissions down.

Then, how DO agents compete with one another? If you are in the business and working on getting business, you somehow contact someone and let them know you are in the real estate business. Do that one thing often enough and your other problems and issues tend to resolve themselves. Fail to do it often or at all and you become one of the 13 who are always in the process of actively routing themselves out of the business. Here is a post from March you might want to take a look at.

I believe that agents (and companies) who attempt to make their point of differentiation price (how little they will charge) had better be amazingly efficient or learn to beg effectively. If an agent were stupid enough (and many were) to play by the HomeGain rules they are announcing to the consumer – but more importantly to themselves – that they have very little value. The real damage done isn’t the low fee they accepted, it is the viewpoint they have accepted.

Last week Steve Martin was on the David Letterman show and Dave asked him if he played any other instruments besides the banjo. (Steve Martin is a very accomplished banjo player). Dave was just joking around and Steve’s response was also funny and lighthearted, “If Yo-Yo Ma was on your show would you have asked him if he played any other instruments besides the violin?” Steve was there with two other incredible banjo players, Tony Trischka and Bela Fleck. Steve Martin is a very funny guy. He also is a very bright guy who respects himself and his art.

It really does not matter how many agents there are or how stupidly low some companies set their fee structure. Unless you plan on actually paying sellers to let you be the one to list their house, you can not compete on price. The low point is now zero. The only way to beat that price is to pay the seller. “Hey sir, here is a nice prize and I’ll bring you a big basket of cash if you’ll let me sell your house for free.” Most people (and companies) in the real estate business are routing themselves out of the business. Some are efficient and do it quickly. Others are inefficient, even at that, and take a while.

If you are going to bother to get in, get IN. All the way. That means you are in to stay. Or better to not bother at all.

Is the Goal is to Have a Big Team?

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

“My goal is to have a big team”. I actually had a Realtor say exactly that to me. Why? Is there some special reason someone, who wasn’t deranged, would have the goal of having a big overhead and loads of people to manage and be responsible for and to? Is it possible that a sane and rational person would ever have such a goal? The answer is, yes, if they are stupid enough. He was, too. One of the lowest responsibility, most intellectually lazy people I’ve ever known. He later, as part of his program to build a large team opened his own office and after being open for business about 90 days sent me an email asking the name of a good book on how to recruit agents. He discovered that agents weren’t lining up to come to work for his little shoestring operation and then thought he might want to learn a little about that. If it wasn’t too much trouble, of course. He never did. He then shut that down and went back to being an agent with someone to help him with buyers. He is still working on “having a big team”.

Please understand I am not against someone (say for example, me) having a large team. No no. It is just that isn’t the goal. No good reason for anyone to have that for a goal.

The goal is (or at least should be) something along the lines of I want more money after all expenses and I want more free time. Having a team (other personal) teamworkcan help to make that possible. Most real estate “teams” are
not teams at all. More a group of people all sort of working together in the same building. They may have a helpful attitude towards each other and be quite happy when they see each other but that doesn’t make them a team. I get asked often by other agents who “have a team if my buyer agents are allowed to list property (no, never) or if my listers are allowed to work a buyer (almost never). They are usually surprised, as their “team members” do everything. Some even have administrative people who also “sell a little”. In sports, each of the team members has a specific position they play. If they are a good team they aren’t all just “out there on the field together”. Each one is doing an exact thing. Even when in business, a workable definition for team would be something like, “People working together in a committed way to achieve a common goal or mission. The work is interdependent and team members share responsibility and hold themselves accountable for attaining the results.”

If you are good at lead generation, really really good – you will want to learn the steps necessary to build a team. There is quite a bit to learn but it is totally worth it, as you can give those customers to other people to handle (who are quite good at handling a customer, just not that good at getting them). If you are not good at lead generation you have no business whatsoever even seriously thinking of bringing others into your current failure operation. Dirk Zeller thinks teams started in the early 90’s. It was much earlier than that. Much. The first brokers who were rainmakers and could hire agents (the old 50-50 split shops) that they could route customers to were the first to “build teams” in real estate. It requires certain management skills (that nobody is born with) and a bit of leadership (which can also be learned). Other than that relatively minor quibble, it is otherwise a well thought out article. The two best books on the subject (for Realtors) that I know of are The E-Myth and The Millionaire Real Estate Agent.

The key is lead generation. Period.

But if you are good at lead generation then there is no good reason (other than you simply want less) to spend your time on anything but that dollar productive activity. THE most dollar productive activity in residential real estate sales is lead generation. All of the other activities (yes, all) can be hired for a LOT less going out than the amount coming in from the lead generation. It makes little difference how this is scaled. The agent who simply hires an administrative assistant is applying this principle. The agent who then adds a buyer specialist is applying this principle. The agent who winds up needing several listers and several buyer agents and a crew of admin people is applying this principle. Every assistant we have ever hired makes us money or allows us leisure time or both or they do not belong there. Assistants do not “cost money” they “make money”. If you can produce customers for your business what do you think you time is really worth per hour? A hell of a lot more than you are making is the answer.

40 Tips for a Powerful New Year

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

In late 2001 when I had cancer one of the most interesting things I learned was while I was talking to the other people in the chemo room. It was just a room in Making Happythe doctor’s office where we were all sitting in comfortable chairs while our particular poison (mine were Gemzar and cisplatin) was going into our bodies via a tube into our arms. We would talk. One of the remarkable benefits I had, that they didn’t, I was was in Los Angeles, three days a week, receiving Scientology Spiritual Counseling to get rid of all of the grief, fear and “deathfullness” I had. The one thing I found that each and every one of the other patients had was an upset on one particular thing: they didn’t know when they were doing to die.  When they found out that they had cancer they then knew that they might (or might not) die. And they didn’t know when. I was in exactly the same boat. I didn’t know if I would be dead in six weeks, six months or six years. It was interesting that I could cheer them up by just by asking, “When was it that you did know when you were going to die?” I could get them all laughing on this point, as they would eventually realize that there never was a time when they knew.  What had happened is, as a result of knowing they had cancer, they had discovered that they didn’t know. It was step up in awareness.

I considered myself very very fortunate at the time. If indeed, I was close to the end, I had been given the most wonderful opportunity to do all the things that mattered most. Even with the chemo and the surgeries I still had time. I could call the people who mattered most and tell them I loved them. I could go and see them. And I did too. Each day, every day was another wonderful gift that I was grateful for. That was six years ago. I had over 200 people praying for me every week. I had a totally competent surgeon. I had the most wonderful counselor one could even hope for. I had chemo that worked. I’ll never be able to specifically and exactly assign the correct amount of thanks to the four sources of effective help. I got to keep my body and stay in the game.

Some people get to plan dropping their body. Death does not come as a surprise or shock to them. For them it is predictable and predicted, both the time and the event. Others are not as fortunate. Yesterday, a very nice person, Lory Smith – someone I’ve known since 1992, when we were on the Education Committee at the Phoenix Association together, passed away. This year, Lory was serving as a Director on the Phoenix Association’s Board of Directors. In all the years I have known her I have never heard anyone who knew her ever say anything unkind about her. Like I said, Lory was a very nice person. Death came suddenly and without any prediction. Yesterday she went to the dentist and her heart stopped while she was in the dentist’s chair.

___

Today I received the following in an email. I don’t know who wrote it or put it together. I wanted to pass it along.

40 Tips for a Powerful New Year

o Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile. It is the ultimate anti-depressant.

o Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. Buy a lock if you have to.

o Buy a TIVO, tape your late night shows and get more sleep.

o When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement: “My purpose is to___________ today.”

o Live with the 3 E’s: Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.

o Watch more movies, play more games and read more books than you did in 2007.

o Spend more time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6.

o Dream more while you are awake.

o Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat fewer foods that are manufactured in plants.

o Drink green tea & plenty of water and eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli, almonds & walnuts.

o Try to make at least 3 people smile each day.

o Clear your clutter from your house, your car, your desk and let new and flowing energy into your life.

o Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip, issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.

o Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.

o Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper.

o Smile and laugh more.

o Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

o Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

o Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

o You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

o Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present.

o Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

o Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, and wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

o No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

o Frame every so-called disaster with these words: “In five years, will this matter?”

o Forgive everyone everything.

o What other people think of you is none of your business.

o Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

o However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

o Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

o Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

o Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

o The best is yet to come.

o No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

o Do the right thing.

o Call your mother and father often.

o Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements:

“I am thankful for __________.” “Today I accomplished____________.”

o Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed.

o Enjoy the ride. Remember that this is not Disneyland and you certainly don’t want a “fast pass.”

ENJOY LIFE IN 2008

This was first published January 15th, 2008.

The Millionaire Real Estate Agent

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

– Isaac Newton

What follows in this post may seem to some like Earl Nightingale meets Buddha – and maybe it is – but I think you are going to like it.

Last week Matt wrote:

I might have missed something in the post, but to say that all listings for the discounter were $299 is probably not correct. “58 X 299 = $17,342.”I see a lot of “Discounters” using low selling price as a tool to get people in the door, or on phone. $299 is usually a no support price…and then they tack on a-la-carte items to raise that price up. True, it will never be full commission, but I doubt all 58 sold for only $299. How would he still be in business only making $17K per quarter?Russell, How hard was it to get to the level you are at today? Many realtors never get to this level, because it is very, very hard. I would bet that it is a lot easier to throw up a bunch of ads, that say you will sell a home for $299, and get a ton on people in your office. It can’t be that hard…

I don’t know how much selling up occurs at his site. But assume he only sells half of the listings he takes and gets paid on twice as many as he closes and manages to up sell every possible option he has – I still don’t like the numbers. I am still saying it is NOT that easy to make money by lowering one’s prices. Please understand I am not saying it can’t be done – just that making money doing it is not easy.

But the question of yours that really caught my eye was, “Russell, How hard was it to get to the level you are at today? Many realtors never get to this level, because it is very, very hard.”

I don’t believe that is even the correct framework for understanding what is involved. To think of it as “hard” or “difficult” is trying to grasp it in terms of how much effort is involved vs. charging less and “getting a lot of business” that way. One of the huge advantages I have over most highly successful Realtors (this year we will take over 600 listings, close over 400 escrows – for over 100 million in volume) is that I was an “ordinary” agent my first twelve years in real estate. My first 12 years I sold between 18 – 24 houses a year. I was heavily in debt, lived from deal to deal and was not exactly happy with my “real estate life”. Compare this to Craig Proctor – who at age 29, his third year in the business, was the number one agent in the world for Re/Max. My first TWELVE YEARS were a struggle. So my perspective about achieving an extremely high level of success isn’t all “book learning”. This understanding has enabled me to not only create a completely stable level of success in my own business but also to share my wisdom on this subject with others and help to make them successful, as well. To get to the level I am at (and there are hundreds of other agents making the kind of money I make or more) isn’t a matter of “difficulty” at all. Does it take a lot of effort and dedication? More than an ordinary person can even imagine. But the work isn’t “hard” – it is almost a non-stop joy, a reward in itself. I smoked for 29 years and quit smoking in 1989. For some years after I quit smoking I would get asked if it was “hard to quit”. My answer was always, “No, it wasn’t hard to quit”. I had a few days of unbelievable cravings (I took off work and spent two days non-stop TALKING about smoking – my wife got to listen to all this). I had about three weeks where I had to have Nicorette gum. But it wasn’t “hard”. I had DECIDED. Now deciding – oh my GOD was that difficult. I “thought about” quitting for TWENTY NINE YEARS. People who get to my level DECIDE to get to this level. There will be numerous times along the way where it will seem right to “coast” – I did for three years at 60 deals a year, again at 130 deals (2 years there), again at 200 deals a year (3 years at that level). You get the idea. The operative word here is: DRIVE. It isn’t “hard”, it requires drive. The person has to really want it.

What I know now is that every person has a “set point” for just about everything. On any subject there is a certain amount of “X”that is considered “good”. Any amount less than “that amount” is not enough. Any amount over that amount is too much. Although this concept applies to anything; motion, speed, food, sex, free time, affection, etc – I’ll use the example of money. There is a certain amount of savings, for example, that is “right” for a person. Less than that amount and they must get it back up to the correct level. More than that and they feel like they have “a surplus” and will find a way to get rid of it. Same with income – make less than the “right amount” and the person will find a way to get their income back up to that “correct amount”. For some years the amount of money I was “allowed” (by myself) to keep was a minus number. As you can imagine, this made for some very interesting checkbook balancing from time to time. So the first “rule” to know if one intends to change the amount of money they will earn or have would be for the person to change their ideas about “how much they need”. Many people may think of this as “positive thinking” – but it is the VITAL first step and can not be omitted.

Here is a link to a positively wonderful short video that a friend sent to me. It is called 212 degrees. Please turn your sound on and take a few minutes to enjoy it.

There is also a movie out on DVD called “The Secret“. You can watch it on line for about $5 or order the DVD for $30. If you have not experienced it you are missing out on something quite special.

A truly key point is covered in the following, and if you understand and grasp it – you will never see your business potential the same again.

Excerpt from policy letter 28 Aug 1973, Organization Executive Course, Volume 7:

WHAT DETERMINES STATS

“It is also true that the volume an organization handles is NOT dependent upon public demand. The volume it gets and handles is solely determined by its internal organization. This sounds so strange that many an Executive Director has had great trouble until he believed and and used it. You can always internally shoot the stats up and keep them up. It is THAT, across all divisions, which determines the volume an organization gets and handles. This is sometimes hard to teach people but once they see the results of it they become converts to that principal —- that it is internal, not external actions that determine stats.”

– L. Ron Hubbard

So long as I believed (my first 12 years in real estate) that “the market” had something to do with my income I was like a cork floating in the ocean – my destiny controlled by forces that were – for the most part – completely out of my control. What I know now is that agents who are “geared up” for 50 – 60 deals a year are not going to do much more than that. They may have little spikes up here and there but they will get it “back to normal” quite soon – whatever it takes to accomplish that.

In Gary Keller’s outstanding book, “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent” this (although not stated explicitly like above with the Hubbard quote) is covered in the correct sequence for hiring assistants. Any real estate agent who plans on ever moving past “having a job” into having a business needs to read this book. At least twice.

It is not just the most important book ever written on the subject – it is the only book ever written on the subject. Imagine if you could get author, Michael Gerber, “The E-Myth Revisited” to stop by and write up for you what to do in your business to build it up into a stable operation so you would not ever have a problem that money would solve. The proceeding sentence is my book review for The Millionaire
Real Estate Agent (known to affectionados as the “MREA”).

To get to the next level (life is improved on a gradient) your organization would need to be set up for actually handling the level of business you want to do. This, of course, would include promotion. Advertising and marketing would not be for the level you are doing now – but for the level you plan to do. If, for example, you did not have an assistant (then you factually ARE one) to do “all the little things” for you – the growth ceiling is to some degree set right there.

The MREA, which was on the Business Week best seller list for over a year, features numerous quotes from me and they featured me in the book, along with about a dozen other top agents in the United States. Vice President of Keller Williams International, Dave Jenks, along with a camera crew, flew from Austin to Phoenix and came to my office (currently a building attached to my home) and spent a day here filming me and my staff. It was the first video they ever did of a mega producer. It was and still is used to train KW agents at their KW Mega Camp. Their video production techniques are SO much better now but that crude video is still used today and I get told (by KW agents and brokers) it is still the one they like the most. Why am I telling you this? There are KW agents whose incomes dwarf mine. They have direct access to some of the most successful agents in the world. The year they interviewed me for the book we closed just a bit over 50,000,000 in volume. Respectable, sure. But not amazing “world class”. The year in question was 2001. I wasn’t here much that year. I was diagnosed in July of 2001 with bladder cancer. I had an aggressive stage 3 tumor in the bladder wall. The urologist wanted to (was insisting on) completely removing my bladder and my prostate. The Mayo Clinic would not accept me as a chemo patient – they would only accept me I would agree to have my bladder removed. I decided I would rather not have this body than have that kind of life. I wound up with a nut for my oncologist (her main nurse was an angel), I had a wonderful surgeon – had three surgeries and I spent nine months traveling to Los Angles once a week for Scientology counseling to get rid of the grief and “deathfulness”. I was physically in Phoenix about 3 days a week and with the chemo I could actually do “real work” in my office about 6 -7 hours a week. I was unable to go on listing appointments anymore (I tried it but would space out so much while talking to them it was kind of pointless).

That year we had the best year (at that time) we had ever had. My business went UP with me GONE. As the MREA was all about systems, they liked mine. And there is nothing I do that can not be replicated by anyone who wants to move up. Nothing.

I am totally cancer free – have been “officially” since March of 2002. At the time I even bought myself a Porsche to celebrate (yes, of course it was a 911 convertible. Yes, of course I had to have supercharger added to it later:-).

And I have exactly the same attitude towards helping agents “break through” any barriers they may have between themselves and the success they desire as I do about giving a cancer patient a “lift”. Attitude is EVERYTHING. Everything.

Please read this book:

MREA

The Common Denominator of Success

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

Today I received two emails from Dean Selvey. One of them was a forward of an email from one of my least favorite people, Mike Ferry. Clicking on the link for the free audio allows you hear a 15 minute commercial for the Action Workshop. I can’t say it isn’t well done. I can say that most everything Mike Ferry ever does is to get people there so they can sell them coaching.

clip_image001Do you need a coach? Does coaching “work”? I believe that coaching does work but not for the reasons most real estate “coaches” usually think it does. I don’t have a coach. The closest I ever had to a coach was Paul Pastore or Dean Selvey when I was on my way up. Dean sometimes says I am his coach. I don’t believe any coaching organization can really claim “better coaching results” than any other coaching organization. Individual coaches often get better results than other coaches but I really doubt that there is any one organization composed of only good ones – those with a really high “care factor”. But why does it work at all?

It couldn’t possibly be the stupid “someone to be accountable to” reason that most coaches seem to think is so damned important. If having someone to be accountable to was the correct reason coaching “works” then how do so many people without a coach become successful? And If I am Dean’s coach then how is it he is so incredibly successful (he is the # 1 Re/Max agent in the world) talking to me for about an hour a month. And in that hour we may chat about what is new with me, cars I might want to buy, how things are going, etc. Do I give him vital data (usually an organizational concept I learned from Hubbard) that he can use? Yes, but our lunches are hardly “class is in session now”. Over the years (Dean and I have been having lunch once a month for 19 years) he has helped me about as much as I have helped him. What is it that he does that works so damn well? He keeps his eyes on the prize. Dean knows what his goals are and is constantly looking for ways to make his business better.

I suppose you can pay someone (who wouldn’t even have to have done the thing they are now “coaching” you on) to ask you questions like, “What is really important to you? “What would you like to accomplish?” “Why is that important to you?” “How would you feel if you had already accomplished that?” If you want to know the secret as to why coaching works, just look at the last two sentences in the paragraph preceding this one. What are your goals? If you put your attention on your goals and look at what you need to do to achieve them you tend to start working on them. The goals become “more real”. You move in that direction. This can seem like a complicated subject. It isn’t. It is so simple that it is almost anything added to what is written in this paragraph and those last two sentences in the one before just adds crap. I understand the Just Do It slogan can seem daunting but it really does come down to that once the person decides. No counter intention, just the decision to DO it.

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This is the 2nd email I received today from Dean: 

Paul Pastore referenced this essay in his article. I liked it. I am sure that you’ve seen it a hundred times, but if not, its attached.

Note from Russ: This first appeared as a major address at the 1940 NALU (National Association of Life Underwriters) annual convention in Philadelphia and has been available to association members in pamphlet form ever since. Mr. Gray was an official of the Prudential Insurance Company of America.  I believe his message is timeless.

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Here is the essay Dean sent me:

The Common Denominator of Success

By Albert E.N. Gray

“The common denominator of success — the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful — lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do.” Several years ago I was brought face to face with the very disturbing realization that I was trying to supervise and direct the efforts of a large number of men who were trying to achieve success, without knowing myself what the secret of success really was. And that, naturally, brought me face to face with the further realization that regardless of what other knowledge I might have brought to my job, I was definitely lacking in the most important knowledge of all.  Several years ago I was brought face to face with the very disturbing realization that I was trying to supervise and direct the efforts of a large number of men who were trying to achieve success, without knowing myself what the secret of success really was. And that, naturally, brought me face to face with the further realization that regardless of what other knowledge I might have brought to my job, I was definitely lacking in the most important knowledge of all. Of course, like most of us, I had been brought up on the popular belief that the secret of success is hard work, but I had seen so many men work hard without succeeding and so many men succeed without working hard that I had become convinced that hard work was not the real secret even though in most cases it might be one of the requirements.Several years ago I was brought face to face with the very disturbing realization that I was trying to supervise and direct the efforts of a large number of men who were trying to achieve success, without knowing myself what the secret of success really was. And that, naturally, brought me face to face with the further realization that regardless of what other knowledge I might have brought to my job, I was definitely lacking in the most important knowledge of all. Of course, like most of us, I had been brought up on the popular belief that the secret of success is hard work, but I had seen so many men work hard without succeeding and so many men succeed without working hard that I had become convinced that hard work was not the real secret even though in most cases it might be one of the requirements.And so I set out on a voyage of discovery which carried me through biographies and autobiographies and all sorts of dissertations on success and the lives of successful men until I finally reached a point at which I realized that the secret I was trying to discover lay not only in what men did, but also in what made them do it.

I realized further that the secret for which I was searching must not only apply to every definition of success, but since it must apply to everyone to whom it was offered, it must also apply to everyone who had ever been successful. In short, I was looking for the common denominator of success.

And because that is exactly what I was looking for, that is exactly what I found.

But this common denominator of success is so big, so powerful, and so vitally important to your future and mine that I’m not going to make a speech about it. I’m just going to “lay it on the line” in words of one syllable, so simple that everyone can understand them.

The common denominator of success — the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful — lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do.  It’s just as true as it sounds and it’s just as simple as it seems. You can hold it up to the light, you can put it to the acid test, and you can kick it around until it’s worn out, but when you are all through with it, it will still be the common denominator of success, whether you like it or not. It’s just as true as it sounds and it’s just as simple as it seems. You can hold it up to the light, you can put it to the acid test, and you can kick it around until it’s worn out, but when you are all through with it, it will still be the common denominator of success, whether you like it or not. It will still explain why men have come into this business of ours with every apparent qualification for success and given us our most disappointing failures, while others have come in and achieved outstanding success in spite of many obvious and discouraging handicaps. And since it will also explain your future, it would seem to be a mighty good idea for you to use it in determining just what sort of a future you are going to have. In other words, let’s take this big, all-embracing secret and boil it down to fit the individual you.It’s just as true as it sounds and it’s just as simple as it seems. You can hold it up to the light, you can put it to the acid test, and you can kick it around until it’s worn out, but when you are all through with it, it will still be the common denominator of success, whether you like it or not. It will still explain why men have come into this business of ours with every apparent qualification for success and given us our most disappointing failures, while others have come in and achieved outstanding success in spite of many obvious and discouraging handicaps. And since it will also explain your future, it would seem to be a mighty good idea for you to use it in determining just what sort of a future you are going to have. In other words, let’s take this big, all-embracing secret and boil it down to fit the individual you.If the secret of success lies in forming the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do, let’s start the boiling-down process by determining what are the things that failures don’t like to do. The things that failures don’t like to do are the very things that you and I and other human beings, including successful men, naturally don’t like to do. In other words, we’ve got to realize right from the start that success is something which is achieved by the minority of men, and is therefore unnatural and not to be achieved by following our natural likes and dislikes nor by being guided by our natural preferences and prejudices.

It’s just as true as it sounds and it’s just as simple as it seems. You can hold it up to the light, you can put it to the acid test, and you can kick it around until it’s worn out, but when you are all through with it, it will still be the common denominator of success, whether you like it or not. It will still explain why men have come into this business of ours with every apparent qualification for success and given us our most disappointing failures, while others have come in and achieved outstanding success in spite of many obvious and discouraging handicaps. And since it will also explain your future, it would seem to be a mighty good idea for you to use it in determining just what sort of a future you are going to have. In other words, let’s take this big, all-embracing secret and boil it down to fit the individual you.If the secret of success lies in forming the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do, let’s start the boiling-down process by determining what . The things that failures don’t like to do are the very things that you and I and other human beings, including successful men, naturally don’t like to do. In other words, we’ve got to realize right from the start that success is something which is achieved by the minority of men, and is therefore unnatural and not to be achieved by following our natural likes and dislikes nor by being guided by our natural preferences and prejudices.The things that failures don’t like to do, in general, are too obvious for us to discuss them here, and so, since our success is to be achieved in the sale of life insurance, let us move on to a discussion of the things that we as life insurance men don’t like to do. Here, too, the things we don’t like to do are too many to permit specific discussion, but I think they can all be disposed of by saying that they all emanate from one basic dislike peculiar to our type of selling. We don’t like to call on people who don’t want to see us and talk to them about something they don’t want to talk about. Any reluctance to follow a definite prospecting program, to use prepared sales talks, to organize time and to organize effort are all caused by this one basic dislike.

Perhaps you have wondered what is behind this peculiar lack of welcome on the part of our prospective buyers. Isn’t it due to the fact that our prospects are human too? And isn’t it true that the average human being is not big enough to buy life insurance of his own accord and is therefore prone to escape our efforts to make him bigger or persuade him to do something he doesn’t want to do by striking at the most important weakness we possess: namely, our desire to be appreciated? Perhaps you have been discouraged by a feeling that you were born subject to certain dislikes peculiar to you, with which the successful men in our business are not afflicted.

Perhaps you have wondered why it is that our biggest producers seem to like to do the things that you don’t like to do.

They don’t! And I think this is the most encouraging statement I have ever offered to a group of life insurance salesmen.

But if they don’t like to do these things, then why do they do them? Because by doing the things they don’t like to do, they can accomplish the things they want to accomplish. Successful men are influenced by the desire for pleasing results. Failures are influenced by the desire for pleasing methods and are inclined to be satisfied with such results as can be obtained by doing things they like to do.  Why are successful men able to do things they don’t like to do while failures are not? Because successful men have a purpose strong enough to make them form the habit of doing things they don’t like to do in order to accomplish the purpose they want to accomplish. Why are successful men able to do things they don’t like to do while failures are not? Because successful men have a purpose strong enough to make them form the habit of doing things they don’t like to do in order to accomplish the purpose they want to accomplish. Sometimes even our best producers get into a slump. When a man goes into a slump, it simply means that he has reached a point at which, for the time being, the things he doesn’t like to do have become more important than his reasons for doing them. And may I pause to suggest to you managers and general agents that when one of your good producers goes into a slump, the less you talk about his production and the more you talk about his purpose, the sooner you will pull him out of his slump?Why are successful men able to do things they don’t like to do while failures are not? Because successful men have a purpose strong enough to make them form the habit of doing things they don’t like to do in order to accomplish the purpose they want to accomplish. Sometimes even our best producers get into a slump. And may I pause to suggest to you managers and general agents that when one of your good producers goes into a slump, the less you talk about his production and the more you talk about his purpose, the sooner you will pull him out of his slump?Many men with whom I have discussed this common denominator of success have said at this point, “But I have a family to support and I have to have a living for my family and myself. Isn’t that enough of a purpose?”

Why are successful men able to do things they don’t like to do while failures are not? Because successful men have a purpose strong enough to make them form the habit of doing things they don’t like to do in order to accomplish the purpose they want to accomplish. Sometimes even our best producers get into a slump. And may I pause to suggest to you managers and general agents that when one of your good producers goes into a slump, the less you talk about his production and the more you talk about his purpose, the sooner you will pull him out of his slump?Many men with whom I have discussed this common denominator of success have said at this point, “But I have a family to support and I have to have a living for my family and myself. Isn’t that enough of a purpose?” No, it isn’t. It isn’t a sufficiently strong purpose to make you form the habit of doing the things you don’t like to do for the very simple reasons that it is easier to adjust ourselves to the hardships of a poor living than it is to adjust ourselves to the hardships of making a better one. If you doubt me, just think of all the things you are willing to go without in order to avoid doing the things you don’t like to do. All of which seems to prove that the strength which holds you to your purpose is not your own strength but the strength of the purpose itself.

Now let’s see why habit belongs so importantly in this common denominator of success.

Men are creatures of habit just as machines are creatures of momentum, for habit is nothing more or less than momentum translated from the concrete into the abstract. Can you picture the problem that would face our mechanical engineers if there were no such thing as momentum? Speed would be impossible because the highest speed at which any vehicle could be moved would be the first speed at which it could be broken away from a standstill. Elevators could not be made to rise, airplanes could not be made to fly, and the entire world of mechanics would find itself in a total state of helplessness. Then who are you and I to think that we can do with our own human nature what the finest engineers in the world could not do with the finest machinery that was ever built?

Every single qualification for success is acquired through habit. Men form habits and habits form futures. If you do not deliberately form good habits, then unconsciously you will form bad ones. You are the kind of man you are because you have formed the habit of being that kind of man, and the only way you can change is through habit.

The success habits in life insurance selling are divided into four main groups:

1. Prospecting habits

2. Calling habits

3. Selling habits

4. Working habits

Let’s discuss these habit groups in their order.

Any successful life insurance salesman will tell you that it is easier to sell life insurance to people who don’t want it than it is to find people who do want it, but if you have not deliberately formed the habit of prospecting for needs, regardless of wants, then unconsciously you have formed the habit of limiting your prospecting to people who want life insurance and therein lies the one and only real reason for lack of prospects.

As to calling habits, unless you have deliberately formed the habit of calling on people who are able to buy but unwilling to listen, then unconsciously you have formed the habit of calling on people who are willing to listen but unable to buy.

As to selling habits, unless you have deliberately formed the habit of calling on prospects determined to make them see their reasons for buying life insurance, then unconsciously you have formed the habit of calling on prospects in a state of mind in which you are willing to let them make you see their reasons for not buying it.

As to working habits, if you will take care of the other three groups, the working habits will generally take care of themselves because under working habits are included study and preparation, organization of time and efforts, records, analyses, etc. Certainly you’re not going to take the trouble to learn interest-arousing approaches and sales talks unless you’re going to use them. You’re not going to plan your day’s work when you know in your heart that you’re not going to carry out your plans. And you’re certainly not going to keep an honest record of things you haven’t done or of results you haven’t achieved. So let’s not worry so much about the fourth group of success habits, for if you are taking care of the first three groups, most of the working habits will take care of themselves and you’ll be able to afford a secretary to take care of the rest of them for you.

But before you decide to adopt these success habits, let me warn you of the importance of habit to your decision. I have attended many sales meetings and sales congresses during the past ten years and have often wondered why, in spite of the fact that there is so much good in them, so many men seem to get so little lasting good out of them. Perhaps you have attended sales meetings in the past and have left determined to do the things that would make you successful or more successful only to find your decision or determination waning at just the time when it should be put into effect or practice.

Here’s the answer. Any resolution or decision you make is simply a promise to yourself, which isn’t worth a tinker’s dam unless you have formed the habit of making it and keeping it. And you won’t form the habit of making it and keeping it unless right at the start you link it with a definite purpose that can be accomplished by keeping it. In other words, any resolution or decision you make today has to be made again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and the next, and so on. And it not only has to be made each day, but it has to be kept each day, for if you miss one day in the making or keeping of it, you’ve got to go back and begin all over again. But if you continue the process of making it each morning and keeping it each day, you will finally wake up some morning a different man in a different world, and you will wonder what has happened to you and the world you used to live in.

Here’s what has happened. Your resolution or decision has become a habit and you don’t have to make it on this particular morning. And the reason for your seeming like a different man living in a different world lies in the fact that for the first time in your life, you have become master of yourself and master of your likes and dislikes by surrendering to your purpose in life. That is why behind every success there must be a purpose and that is what makes purpose so important to your future. For in the last analysis, your future is not going to depend on economic conditions or outside influences of circumstances over which you have no control. Your future is going to depend on your purpose in life. So let’s talk about purpose.

First of all, your purpose must be practical and not visionary. Some time ago, I talked with a man who thought he had a purpose which was more important to him than income. He was interested in the sufferings of his fellow man, and he wanted to be placed in a position to alleviate that suffering. But when he analyzed his real feeling, we discovered, and he admitted it, that what he really wanted was a real nice job dispensing charity with other people’s money and being well paid for it, along with the appreciation and feeling of importance that would naturally go with such a job.

But in making your purpose practical, be careful not to make it logical. Make it a purpose of the sentimental or emotional type. Remember needs are logical while wants and desires are sentimental and emotional. Your needs will push you just so far, but when your needs are satisfied, they will stop pushing you. If, however, your purpose is in terms of wants and desires, then your wants and desires will keep pushing you long after your needs are satisfied and until your wants and desires are fulfilled.

Recently I was talking with a young man who long ago discovered the common denominator of success without identifying his discovery. He had a definite purpose in life and it was definitely a sentimental or emotional purpose. He wanted his boy to go through college without having to work his way through as he had done. He wanted to avoid for his little girl the hardships which his own sister had had to face in her childhood. And he wanted his wife and the mother of his children to enjoy the luxuries and comforts, and even necessities, which had been denied his own mother. And he was willing to form the habit of doing things he didn’t like to do in order to accomplish this purpose.

Not to discourage him, but rather to have him encourage me, I said to him, “Aren’t you going a little too far with this thing? There’s no logical reason why your son shouldn’t be willing and able to work his way through college just as his father did. Of course he’ll miss many of the things that you missed in your college life and he’ll probably have heartaches and disappointments. But if he’s any good, he’ll come through in the end just as you did. And there’s no logical reason why you should slave in order that your daughter may have things which your own sister wasn’t able to have, or in order that your wife can enjoy comforts and luxuries that she wasn’t used to before she married you.”

He looked at me with rather a pitying look and said, “But Mr. Gray, there’s no inspiration in logic. There’s no courage in logic. There’s not even happiness in logic. There’s only satisfaction. The only place logic has in my life is in the realization that the more I am willing to do for my wife and children, the more I shall be able to do for myself.”

Imagine, after hearing that story, you won’t have to be told how to find your purpose or how to identify it or how to surrender to it. If it’s a big purpose, you will be big in its accomplishment. If it’s an unselfish purpose, you will be unselfish in accomplishing it.

And if it’s an honest purpose, you will be honest and honorable in the accomplishment of it. But as long as you live, don’t ever forget that while you may succeed beyond your fondest hopes and your greatest expectations, you will never succeed beyond the purpose to which you are willing to surrender. Furthermore, your surrender will not be complete until you have formed the habit of doing the things that failures don’t like to do.

More On Success

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

Wayne Long writes:

I am a big fan of the Millionaire Real Estate book and all the products they have. All that said, as I watched the video I had some questions.

The book was written now several years ago based on people who became successful prior to the book being published.

My question is: Has the paradigm shifted? If we are interviewing agents 5 or 10 years from now who are mega successful agents – will they say that SOI and direct mail is how I got here or will they say a great website and blogging is how I got here?

There are obviously certain principles that never change and great service, systems, leverage, and lead generation will always be the way to success.

The question is: Has the most effective way to generate leads changed?

These questions were in response to the video. Short answer; no. Long answer; no, and I doubt it is ever going to change. There will of coursesuccess brush be
people who will rise up and disagree with that statement. They are simply wrong. But before anyone even bothers to disagree (watch the video first), let us be very very clear about what I am even talking about here. Is there something in the MREA book that is wrong? No. Is is “outdated”? No. Could it be more updated? Yes, and, in fact, a revision is in progress – but it still isn’t “outdated”. Our business hasn’t changed. The most important parts of long term stable success in residential sales is getting and getting rid of listings. That was true 40 – 50 years ago and I believe it will still be true 40 – 50 years from now. The things that make is seem like the business has changed are not what is important. There are obviously certain principles that never change and great service, systems, leverage, and lead generation will always be the way to success. Correct. Always. And that is (along with the correct viewpoint) exactly what is covered in the Millionaire Real Estate Agent.

But there is a part of our business that is changing. It changes all the time. Not daily, in our business, but from month to month, from year to year, it does change. Surveys are the key to stats. Survey buttons (what a customer) in any industry considers “valuable” or desirable changes over time. In some industries – clothing, for example – the buying publics idea of what is fashionable, changes from month to month. But (usually) the idea that people would wear clothes isn’t changing. Same with our business. As long as the world exists, as we know it, people will want houses to live in. They will usually want to own them, therefore there will be people selling them. Will there be changes in the way Realtors conduct business? If the past 20 – 30 years is any indication of the future, my answer is that there will be far more change in the next 20 – 30 years than there was in the past 20 – 30 years. I expect to see most of those changes for Realtors occur in the area of buyer brokerage. When I started the internet did not exist. There was no world wide web and no one had a website. Now any agent without a website isn’t fully in the business. Sort of like having a business card. Gotta have one. Is the internet far more important today – for attracting buyers – than most any print ad? I believe the answer is an unqualified, YES. Has the internet changed what is effective in getting listings? Nope, not really. Do you – as a lister – need a website? Absolutely. Can a person get listings from internet generated leads? Sure. But show me one top agent anywhere in the United States who lists even 100 houses a year from the internet. Just one. I’m not talking about 200 or 300 listings a year – just 100. How about 50? Obviously, I am not talking about the people who will list the house for $500, $300 or for free. It would not make any difference how many of those they got anyway (no need to take my word, just do the math). Even the success those companies and agents enjoyed in the market we had is evidence of the statement, Surveys are key to stats. What does the person you want to reach think? Not what do YOU think, what do they think. You have to ask them. The primary thing you get from a survey is a button. If you were asking multiple people, this is the answer that was given the most number of times to your survey question.

Working with and attracting buyers is quite a different thing than attracting sellers and getting them to sign a contract with you. Most agents don’t really understand this rather vast but simple difference and so make all manor of errors in their thinking because of not understanding this one thing. Buyers are looking for a house. They will accept working with an agent but usually did not really want an agent, they just wanted a house and talking to an agent is what they had to do to get the information they wanted. Which is why ads aimed at buyers proclaiming, “work with me, I’m the best” or “work with me, I’m loads of fun” don’t have much impact. Put some photo of a house in that same ad saying, “fantastic home below market” (or any fully believable statement) and notice the difference in the number of calls you get. What words should go in the ad IS the question. That IS what changes. What offers should you make to attract buyers and sellers – oh my, does that change. Sometimes kind of fast.

I have been running radio and TV ads offering my services to sellers for about 17 years. During the first 8 or 9 of those years I formed some very bad habits and wound up with some really stupid ideas. My market had been pretty stable – very slow, gradual upward pressure on prices. Time on market did not change much and as days on market was about a third of the average agent’s time – I promoted those numbers. I still do. But I did something really really stupid.  For years, I kept using the same DOM numbers. It was a lazy thing to do. When the market would change a bit, I figured, what the hell – my actual numbers are even better than what I am advertising – why bother to change the ad. It’s a lot of trouble. Leave it be. The first six or seven phone calls I received late at night (people just taking the time to call and leave me a message calling me a liar) I completely ignored. Malcontents. That’s all. People who have nothing better to do than give others crap. Then it started to dawn on me, I hadn’t been receiving calls like that all the time, they were a new thing. I had been running the same TV ad for five years. The market had changed. The publics idea of what was a “good” marketing time had most certainly changed. Not me. Once I came to my senses and changed my radio and TV ads – also changing the “buttons”, why surprise, surprise, the number of calls went way up.  But notice that when my “TV ad stopped working” is wasn’t a TV ad not working, it was a TV ad that had a no longer current “button”.

Will people years from now say that a great website and blogging are important, good and will lead to success? Only the ones who aren’t already saying it now. If you are going to make more money you are going to find a method of getting and keeping customers. This statement is is true for all businesses of all types. It always has been a true statement and it always will be a true statement. If you are going to make more money in any business you are going to have to get and keep customers. In our business there are just two methods of doing this. I suppose you could combine the two methods and then call it a third method but there are just two basic methods of getting more customers: prospecting or marketing. If you had a farm (geographic or demographic) you could both market to that farm and also prospect them, as well. But to get more business you would do one or the other or both. That’s it. There are no “other methods”. So one gets good at one or both of those. Those are the skills that will matter the most. If you can get enough customers all of the other “issues” tend to take care of themselves.

As far as the question on what are the most effective lead generation methods, let me first say I wish I knew the answer to that question. I really do. The only data that exists to answer that question – as far as Realtors generating leads goes, is ALL anecdotal. All of it. There are many people claiming to know the answer(s). They are, each and every one them charlatans or fools. What is known is what is the most effective lead generation that any person keeping actual and accurate stats is doing. But that is not an answer to your question. I am part of a lead generation study being done at Baylor University and that question, among others is exactly what they are going to research. Last October, Wendy and I spent a few days in Waco,Texas so panels of people with doctorates could listen to us. (I know, pretty funny, huh?) They wanted to know what we wanted to know. That is what they are going to research. It has never been done before. Once I actually know, I promise to pass along what I learn.

Back to success now. Here is a an email I received from Dirk Zeller yesterday. Sure, it’s spam. But he does a pretty good job using “come on dissemination” – taking ideas and concepts to pose questions that you will want the answers to – that most readers of this blog can figure out the answers to for themselves. To fully see what I am talking about you will need to click through on the hypertext, “find out how to grow 313% …. etc.”. There is no meaningful statement he makes here that I think is wrong. None. Do I believe that the start dates for success are really November 1st to December 15, specifically? No. But I know for a fact that any Realtor who fails to plan may as well have intentionally planned to fail. That will be the result. All top agents, all top performers in just about every field set aside time to figure out what they are going to do.  This isn’t done while they are working in the business. Never. It is working ON the business. Very different thing. When you get outside of your business and work ON it you can start to see what your real priorities need to be. Some of you may discover that you have not been treating the main thing like it was the main thing. I didn’t buy the CD’s Dirk is selling and I am not asking you to buy them either. But I liked the viewpoints he had there so much I wanted to pass them along.

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Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. – Abraham Lincoln

The Theory Of Sales Relativity

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

When we upend things in physics these days, it’s not necessarily that the old things were wrong. It’s just that underlying it is a more complete theory. Quantum Web 2mechanics tells us that a ball is made up of atoms, but Newton’s laws still work just fine. You can predict the ball’s trajectory without knowing that the ball is made up of atoms.

Lisa Randall

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Allen Butler wrote the following on a post:

The only problem I see here is simply this: many consumers simply don’t know, or don’t care to know. The whole thing about being “transparent” is great ad copy. However, while we are waiting around for the internet to change our lives, your average Joe is simply looking for one more way to have to actually do less research and less work. The conveniences of modern shopping have led to very lazy consumers. Maybe a Redfin customer would have the gumption to search out the facts & such. Most will not. Real estate consumers fall into two distinct categories: buyers and sellers. The buyers will end up with an agent through sheer happenstance because they don’t know and don’t care.

The sellers will go with whomever is “recommended” to them by a family member of friend. It is usually not until they have expired a few times that they actually start to pay attention.

In a market like ours, the listing agents who get the job done will remain in the game. Those who don’t. . .well, most are already gone.

Gonna go out on a limb here (flame retardant suit loosely fitted to allow breathing room) and say that all this talk of disintermediation and having to prove your value in this new “web 2. . . .world” will not pan out. The consumer is too lazy.

Then again, I’m wrong occasionally.

I don’t think Allen is wrong. I don’t think that what web 2.0 offers is even a little bit new, either. At least not in the “what do customers want” department. What exactly do web 2.0 clients want? What is this unique commodity that they strive to get? Transparency. Isn’t that just a different way of saying, “I can see you aren’t lying to me”? I think it is just that. Customers don’t want to be lied to – not even a little bit.

Yes, you do have to actually have something they want (or need). They have to already want (need it) it or you have to be able to create a want. But as long as they have a choice, they will always prefer to deal with someone they believe will tell them the truth. I noticed many years ago that people who came here from some other country (who could not speak English) who I wound up having as customers had to have a translator. In many instances the person who wound up being the translator was their young son or daughter. Years ago, I had “translators” aged 10 and 11 years old explain the basics in a purchase contract to their mother and father while I listened. I could watch the parent’s faces as the various concepts were being talked about back and forth (in a language I did not speak or understand). From this there were two things I found most interesting: 1. It was actually possible to do this, so long as I understood what it was I was talking about to the 10 year old, and 2, the entire back and forth completely changed once they could tell I wasn’t lying to them. In fact, the main skill they seemed to have developed and relied on the most was determining, is this person lying or is this person telling me the truth. They weren’t nearly as interested in the nuts and bolts of the purchase agreement as they were in figuring out was I telling them the truth.

Over the years I observed that it wasn’t just foreign language cases who behaved in this manner but most customers. They weren’t really that interested in “learning all about it” but were very interested in knowing if I “knew all about it”. And if I would point out the “bad” things right along with the “good” things for them. From observation of this – that once they saw I was honest – it was like a switch had been thrown, from off to on – they would then move ahead rapidly, with no real objections, I was able to exactly identify and change what it was I was attempting to accomplish.

I saw back then that what I was really “selling” was my credibility. Just that one thing. That lesson stayed with me. I have learned since then that the business I am actually in is the lead generation business. In the business of getting and getting rid of listings there are just three parts. Leads, Listings & Leverage. This, of course, is straight out of The Residential Sales Bible. The main hat I wear in my organization is lead generation. In any organization, lead generation, done well enough and in enough volume will pretty much “solve” many of the other problems. One possible problem it does not solve is credibility. It is always vital that one is believable and that the customer feel like they got a “good deal” by using one’s services. This does not even imply that one have the lowest prices, etc., but simply that the customer’s overall experience – in their opinion, was a good one and it was “worth it”. For example, I don’t know of any amusement park on earth that charges more than Disneyland – to my knowledge they are the highest priced amusement park experience on the planet. Yet on any given day, over two thirds of all of the visitors to Disneyland are repeat customers. They come back again and again.  In their estimation they got a “good deal”.

What I don’t want is my customer wondering what kind of Mickey Mouse operation I’m running.

Mickey with logo