Archive for lead generation
Three Steps to a Successful Coaching Relationship
Posted by: | CommentsIf you’ve done any coaching at all, you have found that people don’t respond just because you told them they needed to be more productive—or they told you they wanted to be more productive. You may have blamed yourself for their failure to produce. Although it is true that we all need to hone coaching skill sets, failure to move an agent off ‘dead center’ is usually not a function of poor coaching skills. It’s usually a function of the coach choosing a poor candidate.
The Steps to Choose the Right Coaching Candidates
Step One: Determine who is coachable
You and I know that a successful real estate office is built one agent at a time. Although there were 30 licensees in that office (some of whom I never met), there were many fewer workers. If we didn’t have sales volume, we couldn’t attract the kind of people who would want to be on the team to attain that vision. My first job, then, was to find out who wanted to be productive. Here are the steps I followed, and that you can follow, too, to create a coaching relationship with those who will respond positively to your guidance.
First, set up a meeting with each agent that you think is coachable. Have prepared a list of questions, arranged with a place to write his/her answers for each question. Schedule at least 45 minutes with each agent. Here are 3 of the questions you should ask:
- Describe how you created a successful real estate business in the past.
- Describe how you are creating the business that you are doing now.
- What would be different in your life if you had higher income?
Coachability evaluator: Click here to get an evaluator to use with your agent so he/she can determine if he/she is coachable.
Step Two: Evaluate Your Chances of Success through Coaching this Agent
After asking these past-based questions, take the time to evaluate whether or not you think this agent has the skills and motivation to move his/her career to a higher level. Here are three of the questions you should ask yourself?
- Has this agent demonstrated the ability to overcome failure in the past?
- Is this agent realistic about the activities required and the time frames involved, to succeed?
- Does this agent accept personal responsibility for production?
Step Three: Get Agreement on Mutual Expectations from the Agent
You’ve now determined who wants to work to higher goals. You’ve done your due diligence to determine whether you think they’re coachable. Now, you have to get agreement on the game plan—the plan of action. This is the point at which the agent may say, “I just want to do better on my own. I don’t need any coaching. I just want to be able to ask you questions whenever I want to, and I want you available.” If this is an agent that is not meeting your minimum production standards, I suggest you give them a choice:
Either
- attain specific monetary results (a listing sold or a sale) within a certain time period, or you will terminate that person (and you must be explicitly clear when you say this)
or
- implement a mutually-agreed upon game plan and meet with you on a pre-determined schedule with pre-determined activity standards to be attained and goals to work toward
The game plan: Coaching often fails because it’s not anchored by a specific, pre-determined, agreed-upon game plan. Most agents weren’t taught how to organize a start-up business plan, or weren’t given one and coached to one as a new agent, so they don’t have a proven game plan. You need to have one ready.
“George, I’m so pleased to be working with you to help you take your career to the next level. What we’ll do now is to agree on the activity standards to maintain our coaching agreement (minimum numbers of lead generating and sales activities), your goals, a time frame (should be at least 3 months), and the scheduling for our coaching appointments. We’ll agree on what would stop our coaching relationship, too (not doing the activities, not keeping the coaching appointments).”
P. S. I’m working on an online program right now for the new or challenged agent, to get them into great business habits fast. One of the features of this program will be broker coaching. I’ll coach brokers on choosing those who are coachable, and how to coach when you have no time to coach! What do you want to see included?
Coaching the Coach: When to Start Your Start-Up Program for your New Agents
Posted by: | CommentsThis month, I’m doing complimentary coaching for both those agents in Up and Running in 30 Days, and their coaches. In this blog, I want to give you some tips from the discussion we coaches had in the first tele-conference call. These this are concerned with the most important variable which will determine the new agent’s success:
When to start the program to assure highest pay-off
We’ll also provide some tips on how to coordinate the program with your orientation. You do have an orientation program, don’t you? If you need one, check out my orientation and operations checklists and manual template.
When to Start Your Agents in Their Busienss-Getting Program
First, let me ask you: What does your new agent do the first week he/she is in the business? The second week? The third week? Go to your staff and find out exactly what the activity plan is for that new agent. Here’s the critical question:
When does your new agent start lead generating regularly?
Ask your new agents who have been in the business 6 months, “What could I have done differently to help you get a better start?”
Why is that important? Because, until that agent is lead generating the agent isn’t in the business!
Surprising truth: In a survey of hundreds of agents under three months in the business, the majority of agents told me they expected a sale in month one! So, how does your start-up program coordinate with that expectation? Are you spending too much time orientating them? Are they spending too much time in training class? In getting ready to get ready? I’ll bet you’re shocked at what you found when you actually laid out their activity program for that first month.
Note: In Managers: Putting Up and Running to Work, I have a flow chart of when you should have your agents into various aspects of their career start.
Big Principle: The Longer You Put Off Starting the Up and Running Program, The More Apt the Agent is to Fail.
Why? They get poor habits from just ‘hanging out’ in the office. They start doing business supporting activities to take up their day. They create the business of a failed agent.
Coordinating your Program with your Orientation
Do you have a tight, precise Orientation process? That’s so important to implement the first week that agent is in the business. Get all the ‘housekeeping’ out of the way. Be sure your agent checks off those tasks, and provides the checklist to staff. Don’t allow that new agent to drift without focus, or that agent will become increasingly non-focused.
When to Start the Up and Running Program
In week two. Why? Because, if your new agent expects a sale fast (and they do, whether they tell you or not), they must start lead generating NOW.
A Great Idea from One of the Up and Running Tele-Conference Attendees
Sometimes things just don’t get started on the right foot. If that’s the case in some of your Up and Running implementations, it’s okay to ‘re-set’ the clock. Why? It’s important that your agents feel energetic and optimistic about doing the program. They must have recognition, appreciation, and ‘wins’ to keep going.
What did you learn when you analyzed your ‘start-up’ program for your new agents? What are you changing? Let me know. Thanks for your dedication to helping agents get the start they need to succeed.
This is the resource package I’m referring to. It will greatly shorten your timeframe in hiring and getting that agent started. It will increase your production and profits, which makes it much easier for you to recruiting successfully. Check it out: The Manager’s Up and Running Coaching System.
Free bonus: When you order it, you will receive 2 customizable flyers for promoting the program both inside your company and to recruits.
How to Lose $10,000 a Month with your Hiring Practices
Posted by: | Comments
It’s estimated that an agent who fails in six months costs a broker between $10,000 and $30,000! So, if you’re hiring only one a month who fails, you’re easily losing $10,000 each month!
Do you know how much poor hiring practices cost you? Most brokers don’t realize they are doing irreparable damage to their companies by hiring those who aren’t going to go right to work—and keeping those who won’t work. Here are the 3 biggest consequences to poor selection I see.
1. Stops you from hiring great producers.
Likes attract. How can brokers hope to hire that great producer when they have more than 10% of their office as non-producers? I can see it now. “Sure, I’ll come to your office. I’m a top producer, and I just love to be dragged down by those non-producers. It will be my pleasure to waste my time with them.” Not.
2. Kills your recruiting message.
Do you have a training program? Do you use it to recruit? Here’s the real message: “We have a training program. All our new agents go through it. We don’t get any results from the program, so it really doesn’t work. But, join us.” You can’t possibly show how successful your training program makes your agents because your training program can’t possibly get results—poor people in and no actions and accountability required.
3. De-motivates your agents to provide referrals to you.
Your outcomes and hiring practices speak more loudly than you could possible speak. Why would one of your good agents possibly refer someone to you when your good agent doesn’t see those you hired starting right out and making money fast?
This Market Won’t Cover Up an Inadequate Selection Process
In a fast market, ‘accidental sales’ buoyed poor agents and made them look as though they were actually selling enough real estate to be a ‘median’ agent. When the market left, so did the agents’ ‘mirage’ of decent production. Now, brokers need to hire with purpose (using a stringent, professional interview process). Then, they need to put agents right to work with a proven start-up plan.
Please Tell Me What You Think
What do you think a non-productive agent costs the company? In my next blog, I’ll give you some line items that will probably double what you think a bad hire costs. Let’s see what you think first. Poor hiring practices really, really hurts brokers—both financially and emotionally.
Coaching: How Much Lead Generation Does Your Agent Need to Do?
Posted by: | CommentsYou’re the coach. You’re helping that seasoned agent re-energize his/her business. The agent asks you, 
“How much lead generation do I HAVE to do, coach? ”
What do you tell the agent? I have a strict, precise lead generating plan with ratios of success in Up and Running in 30 Days. I also have a plan for the seasoned agent in On Track to Success in 30 Days System. But, it’s not quite that simple.
Three Variables to Keep in Mind
I wish I could give you one tight, proven formula. There are variables that make specific formulas difficult to pin down.
Success by the Numbers
I set the expectations for the Up and Running in 30 Days business start-up program based on my experience on the number of contacts it takes to get a lead, then a sale. But, it also depends on several variables, as explained in Up and Running:
1. Type of contact–how warm or cold is it?
How much trust has been established? The warmer the contact, the more trust is already there. So, it takes less contacts in a ‘warm’ target market (like people you know or past clients) to convert to a lead, than to a ‘cold contact’. For example, the Internet marketing companies say it takes 200 contacts to equal one sale.
2. The agent’s sales skill, competency, and tenacity.
How good is the agent at opening sales conversations? How good is the agent at finding out needs? Asking insightful questions? Listening? Guiding the conversation with focus toward a goal of moving the sales process forward? The better the agent is at sales skills, the easier he/she will find it to sell–and the better the lead and conversion ratios.
3. The market–buyers and sellers are more hesitant to ‘turn themselves in’ today.
Sales skills come back into play here. It’s not a market where people just fall all over themselves to buy and sell real estate. You have to have skills, tenacity, and competency.
How can you tell the numbers it takes?
Provide a tracking process as you coach. (There are tracking Excel spreadsheets with goals and ‘actuals’ in both Up and Running and on Track). Set up goals for each target market and track the agent’s conversion rates with him/her . Now you know the specific work it takes for the agent to generate a lead, create an interview, work with buyers and sellers, and get sales results. Armed with those numbers, you can customize a program like Up and Running.
The problem: Most agents work way too few lead generation numbers and sources. In fact, they have so few, it’s impossible to extrapolate ratios. That’s why Up and Running and the four -week regeneration plan in the On Track to Success in 30 Days System (for seasoned agents) have such big numbers–it’s an insurance plan.
What your agent needs to succeed: Tenacity, a business generation plan, and action. Help each agent set goals and keep accomplishments. Analyze them. Point out their best sources of business and help them work them with consistency. Teach classes and have them practice and polish sales skills. Remember, you are helping each agent, one at a time, develop an enviable career.
Is Your Real Estate Office Productivity-Focused?
Posted by: | CommentsIs your office productivity-focused? Or, is it basically a social gathering place? What’s important to your agents? Do you know how you can tell? It’s in
your agents’ attitude about lead generation. Do they run home to lead generate? Or, are they proud to pick up the phone and lead generate in your office?
What Percent of Your Agents Actively Lead Generate?
Do you know? Find out. Do your agents ask you if they will have to lead generate to be successful? Too many times, agents look at lead generating as a ‘last resort’. In their minds, they are saying to themselves,
“If nothing else works, I’ll pick up the phone.”
So, their lead generating efforts are too little, too late—and done without much skill. In fact, they spend too much time and energy negating various methods of lead generation. They say things like,
“It won’t work for me in my area.”
“I tried that once. It doesn’t work.”
“Isn’t there something new?”
“I’ll wait for people to come to me.”
“I am going to company that provides leads.”
“I’ll join a team and they will provide me as many golden leads as I want.”
What Are You Telling Them in the Interview?
Too many times, we whitewash the real estate sales game in the interview. I’ve heard managers say things like, “You won’t have to lead generate with us. We’ll provide you leads.” Or, “Our floor time is great.” Those are set-ups for failure. Look at your interview process and be sure you aren’t shining on that candidate, only to see them fail later on.
Don’t Let Them Shunt Lead Generating Aside–They Will Fail in Real Estate!
Instead of spending countless hours, energy, and money trying to avoid lead generating, help your agents make lead generating the cornerstone of their businesses, not the exception to the rule.
Follow the Sales Path to Results
The sales path, as explained in Up and Running in 30 Days, is:
Lead generate
Interview and qualify buyers or
Interview and qualify sellers
List marketable properties or
Show buyers homes
Listing sells or
Make a sale
The last two activites are the only 2 activities that make us money!
It all starts with lead generation. If your agents are avoiding it, ask yourself ‘why’? Perhaps they need to be someone’s assistant, or find a job that doesn’t require them to self-start. Instead of doing everything to avoid lead generating, help change your culture to embrace it. Teach them and hold them accountable to a new method every week. It’s the most important aspect of your agents’ success.