Archive for Sales
Uncluttering your Agents’ Clutter for Better Time Managment
Posted by: | CommentsAre your agents drowning in clutter? If I walked into your office, (or your agents’ offices), could I see processes and systems they use? Could I see the checklists, posted, so that I knew they followed a regular, proven procedure for each group of activities? Could I see pre-made, ready to use, presentations for buyers and sellers? Could I see binders labeled with each subject (like ‘listing process’), and filled with ‘how-tos’ for assistants (or themselves inside? Or, would I see stacks of disorganized papers?
Having been in sales and management a long time, I understand how difficult it is to organize that blizzard of information. And, admittedly, you’ll have to keep changing your organization as you progress. Yet, until you meet the organizational challenge, you can’t really move forward. It’s up to us, too, as managers, to help our agents step ahead of clutter and into effective time management.
There are two reasons to organize. The first is that it provides much better customer service. If I’m the consumer today, I want to know that your agents trustworthy—that you’re good for your word. If I can see that the systems, I know that you will have a much better chance of keeping your word to me. I’m using the word “see”, because we believe what we see, not what we hear.
The second reason is that it provides your agents and you much better time management. The agent’s biggest challenge is to find a way to make the same amount of money and quit working 24/7. Creating systems will take a long way toward that goal.
Below are some checklists of the processes and systems agents need in place to take their careers to the next level. Take this system inventory now with your agents now.
Here are the minimum systems agents need:
For sellers:
- Lead generating system (should be run with contact management software)
- Automated process for following the lead from first contact through listing
- Visual marketing presentation and a system for having them pre-done and always ready to go
- Pre-first visit presentation and a system to have them packaged, ready to use
- System for following the listing from first listed to after closing (can be automated with use of a contact management program)
- After close/client retention system (can be automated)
- Your personal marketing system—a marketing plan that can be automated and delegated to someone
For buyers:
- Lead generating system—driven by contact management
- System to follow the buyer from first contact to sale (can be automated)
- Visual buyer presentation—packaged and ready to use
- Pre-first visit presentation—packaged and ready to use
- Checklists: process during buying/before closing/after closing—client retention
- Your personal marketing system
How to begin. Real estate professionals are doers. We talk our way through processes. We dread organizing things, and frankly, we’re not good at it. So, how do we begin?
Start with one system or process at a time. Gather your agents for a workshop. Make a list and prioritize it for the systems they believe they need first. Put a date to start, and a date for completion (I know, there’s that organization again!). You’ll find that the first is the hardest, and then, it starts to actually get easy! It’s a skill like anything else. Bottom line: Systematization allows you to actually run a business, not just run after buyers and sellers.
Note: If you want to make it easy on yourself and your agents, get The Complete Buyer’s Agent Toolkit and Your Client-Based Marketing System, the complete buyer and seller systems, with dozens of checklists, processes, and presentations already created for you.
Now, you’re on your way to ‘unclutter’ the clutter!
Webinar: How to Motivate
Mark your calendars: On March 17, at 2 P. M. EST, I’m doing another webinar for the NAR Learning Library. This is a ‘must attend’ for managers, because I’m going to be delving into the fascinating and misunderstood) arena of motivation: Light Em on Fire: Newest Motivational Strategies. Click here for more information.
The Recruiting Skills You Need to Identify ‘Tough’ Agents
Posted by: | CommentsIn the last blog, we explored how to toughen up your agents. We know it takes an agent with more tenacity and more skill to make it in real estate sales than it did in the past. Now, the question is, how do you find these tough people in the first place? There are specific strategies we recruiters must gain to choose the right people for this newer, more unforgiving market.
One of the ways to pick winners is to ask questions in the interview that indicate your candidate has the tenacity and persistence it takes to thrive in this market. (See The Complete Recruiter and Your Blueprint for Selecting Winners for skills on how to construct best questions).
Best Questions to Identify Toughness
Here are a few questions to include your interview process:
- Tell me about a time in your life when you accomplished a great deal against all odds.
- Was there a time in your life when you had to accomplish something completely on your own? What happened?
- Have you ever performed in front of dozens, or even hundreds or thousands of people? How did you prepare to do that? What happened?
Asking this type of ‘past based’ questions, probing, listening, and evaluating will give you a great sense of the performance potential of your candidates in tough markets.
What are your favorite questions? What challenges are you having picking agents for this ‘new normal’ market? Let me hear from you!
How to Toughen’ Em Up for the ‘New Normal’
Posted by: | CommentsHow do you toughen your agents for the ‘new normal’—that much more challenging market? You’ve probably noted, as I have, that many agents have either gotten out of the business or have dropped to the sidelines, to ‘wait it out’. Why? Because they don’t have the will or the skill to tackle this market. But, there are some agents who are thriving in this market. What’s the difference? Self-confidence and self-esteem. To wildly paraphrase psychologist Maxwell Maltz, we can’t motivate ourselves to raise to a challenge without a concurrent raising of self-esteem.
What did he mean? We just aren’t willing to take risks unless we’re feeling pretty good about ourselves. I think we’d all agree that this is the kind of market that requires us to have a high level of self-confidence. How do managers find it and nurture it?
Symptoms of Self-Esteem Issues
Managers: Are there some agents you have now that just can’t seem to ask the closing questions? Just aren’t willing to lead generate? Run away when faced with objections? If so, read the tips below on helping your agents raise their self-esteem so they can thrive in this market.
Toughening Tips from Top Performers
Great performers MUST have high self-esteem. Just for a moment, pretend that you’ve been chosen to present your recruiting or listing presentation on a 100-foot stage before 30,000 real estate peers. How do you feel? Excited? Scared? Which way are you running? Toward or away from the stage? Because I’ve been on the stage as a musician from the time I was four years old, I’ve had the opportunity to feel those ‘stage’ feelings and have had to learn how to manage my ‘performance’ emotions. Here are three keys to gutsy performance in these challenging real estate markets:
- Practice, practice, practice. You wouldn’t get up in front of those 30,000 people without having practiced your presentation until you were a master. So, don’t go to a single presentation without a high level of practice, either.
Managers: Assume your agents can’t perform competently without practice. Build in practice to every training and coaching session.
- Role play with a coach! I am teaching an Up and Running in 30 Days small group right now. I found that several of the agents just didn’t have compelling reasons for a seller to meet with them. Why? Because they hadn’t practiced their dialogue with a coach. You know your dialogue isn’t very good when you don’t get the listing, but, isn’t it unfortunate that you didn’t have better dialogue to optimize that contact?
Managers: Make role play a part of your training and coaching. You’ll be stunned—and sometimes thrilled—with the creativity of your agents!
- Build your self-esteem with a Professional Portfolio. What is a Portfolio? It is a presentation about YOU–your strengths, your strategies, your differentiators, and, most important, what people have said about you. It’s used to help agents, sellers and buyers get to know the ‘best you’—fast. After all, if they don’t trust you and respect your knowledge, you can’t form a relationship with them.
Tip to managers: Create a version of your Portfolio for your office entry. For a complimentary list of the contents of your Office Portfolio, and suggested topic separators, click here.
The importance of the Portfolio to your self esteem: Because you’re going to put your testimonials in the Portfolio, it will infuse you with self-confidence to make you motivated to tackle those tough buyers, sellers, and transactions.
Armed with these ideas, and the subsequent action, you’ll be providing the toughness necessary for your agents to thrive in the ‘new normal’.
To get your list to create a Book of Greatness, click here.
Trainers: Are We Creating Performing Artists or Research Professors?
Posted by: | CommentsAre you standing in front of your students to create better performance, or more knowledge? If you are want to train, it’s very important to clarify for yourself exactly what your role is. Why? Because it will determine the outcomes you get.
I learned this the hard way. After graduating in piano performance, I applied to and had been awarded a scholarship to UCLA as a graduate assistant in the music department. But, after I was at UCLA a few weeks, I became disillusioned, for I found out that the UCLA music department was all about ‘knowledge’, not performance. Professors earned tenure by publishing papers about sixteenth century Elizabethan madrigals–but they didn’t have to be able to play the madrigals…My interest and experience in music had been performance.
Are You After Better Performance or More Knowledge?
I’ve never forgotten that lesson about the difference in the knowledge about something–and the performance of it. Which is more important in what you’re teaching? What do you want your students to be able to do as a result of your presentation/training? Sure, just like musical performance, you must have some technique to perform. But, also like musical performance, lots of knowledge doesn’t make you a good performer.
If You Want Better Performers…..
Here are five areas to look at to assure you’re creating performers, not just know-it alls.
1. What percent of your program is instructor focused? That is, the instructor performs. If it’s more than 50%, you have a knowledge-heavy program. Model your program like the piano teacher teaches piano. He talks very little, demonstrates some, and listens to the student play and gives positive reinforcement and re-direction. The teacher knows he taught because the student can play.
2. Do you choose your instructors based on their knowledge and their ability to deliver the message attractively? Start choosing your instructors, instead, on their ability to facilitate performance. They should be able to demonstrate a role play, set up a role play, and draw conclusions. Like great piano teachers create increasingly difficult programs for their students, your instructors should be able to craft ever-increasing difficult rule plays. Think of them like creators of ‘virtual reality’.
3. Who is held accountable for the program–the instructors or the students? In most programs, we ‘relieve’ the instructor if he doesn’t get good reviews from the students. The instructor’s the only one accountable. Turn it around. 75% of the accountability should be on the students to demonstrate they have learned the skill. Why? Because, without student accountability, managers get your ‘graduates’ who can’t perform.
4. Is your focus on curriculum? Are you attempting to create value for the program to management or owners by providing more information than the other school? Most training programs could cut 50% of their curriculum and graduate better performers. Instead of focusing on curriculum, create your program as ‘virtual reality’. Have a system that provides a series of “performance building blocks”. Don’t tell them all about playing a concerto. Just tell them enough to let them ‘get their fingers on the keys’.
5. Are the objectives of your program knowledge-based? How do the students graduate from your program? Do they pass a written exam? Managers want a graduate who can perform the activities of a real estate salesperson to reasonably high performance standards. A good training program should identify, teach, observe, and coach performance in several critical performance areas until the student can perform well enough to graduate.
The Right Performance ‘Test’
As a piano performance major, each term, I had to play a ‘mini-recital’ in the music auditorium for an audience of four–all piano professors. I couldn’t just talk about music theory, or answer a multiple choice exam. I had to play. And, to pass the ‘course’, I had to play to certain set performance standards. The more your training program resembles the ‘virtual reality’ of your specific performance, the more valuable your program to the people who hired your students –and you.
10 High Pay-off Training Tips
Posted by: | CommentsHow many of these 10 high pay-off tips do you have in your training now? Too many times we provide training because it helps us attract people to our company. That’s getting only a partial benefit! If you apply the 10 tips for training below, you will see your training pay off in increased productivity, lessened expenses, and much higher customer satisfaction and retention levels.
1. Clarify what you want the student to do—during class, and after class.
2. How well do you expect the student to do that activity? Establish competency levels.
3. Make training a process, not an event. It takes 6-8 times of hearing something to begin to retain it!
4. Space your training for “spaced repetition”. Skills can’t be learned in one marathon session. If your objective is to develop skills, you must create layered, spaced, repetitious workshops.
5. There must be rest and reflection between practices. Scientists have proven that skills are not retained unless there is at least 4 hours between skill-developing sessions.
6. If it’s skills training, three quarters of the time in class should be practice—not teacher lecture.
7. Culturize as you train. The training should be from your point of view, your method of action, and your opportunity to create a strong culture within your training modules.
8. Get feedback from the skills training in your meetings. It reinforces the skills and encourages others to take part. Take your skills to a higher level with additional masterminding.
9. Use a facilitation approach, not a lecture approach. Instead of delivering the information via lecture during class, have the students read articles, interview beforehand, listen to audios, etc.
10. Expect accountability. The student should be highly accountable for practicing the skills and for competency learning.
How many of these 10 high pay-off training tips are you already using?
YOU CAN! ‘Move’ Your Ceiling of Achievement Upward
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s the new year. Are you ready to move that ceiling of achievement you’ve been batting your head against? 2010 is the year you can do it! Without new skills, we just keeping working harder, not smarter. The really bad thing about continuing to beat your head against that ceiling, is that it hurts more and more. You spend more energy just trying to accomplish the same thing.
Too Much Energy, Too Little Results
Worse yet, we bounce off that ceiling and hit a new low every thing we get up the energy to try to break through it. Not only that, the last few years have been discouraging for many in real estate. Don’t give up on yourself! You do have the talent, the skill, and the determination to succeed at a much higher level again.
All Performers Hit ‘Ceilings of Achievement’
As a long-time performing pianist and flutist (I spent the first thirty years of my life playing and teaching music), I had to learn how to constantly change up my playing for the better. In these next few blogs, I’m going to share what I learned as a musician that will change your 2010 performance dramatically—for the better.
You Aren’t as Good as You Can Be—I Promise
I just did a talk for our area’s Women’s Council, on how to have a much better 2010—how to smash through that ceiling of achievement. (Title: Everything I learned about Achievement I learned from Tickling’ the Ivories—also the title of my latest keynote).
As a four-year old, I climbed up on the piano bench and figured out, by ear, how to play “Sue City Sue”—with bass notes, chords, rhythm, melody—the whole shebang. I was acclaimed as a little kid. However, as I got a little older, I found that playing by ear just wasn’t getting me to be a better player. Here’s what I did to get to concert artistry level, and earn a bachelor’s in piano performance—and how you can translate these performance principles to your real estate business.
Get from ‘By Ear’ via your Talent to Conscious Systemization
As a musician, I know that no one can play very well when they try learning only by hearing (playing ‘by ear’). To progress pass a ‘whiz-bang, aren’t you wonderful’ amateur level, musicians must learn to read music, get a great teacher, and learn to practice perfectly. Generally, their teacher/coach will teach them how to practice, and provide the best editions of music. They will teach them will a specific system. The better the system, the coach, the music, and the practice, the higher the performance—the sky is the limit.
The First Time You Do Something Isn’t As Good as it Gets!
What does that mean to a real estate professional? Most of us started selling or managing ‘by ear’. Some of us were talented, and that carried us pretty well for quite a while. But, then, we hit our ‘ceiling of achievement’, and found we were working 24/7 and expending way too much energy—and money. The way out:
- Grasp systems (the best systems you can find)
- Follow processes and checklists
- Get a great coach
- Practice as perfectly as you can
Practitioners—Watch Those Actions, Not Just the Words
Unfortunately, we real estate professionals don’t realize that we are judged on our performance, not our knowledge. So, when you get all antsy because you think you need more classes, stop and think about your performance level, not your knowledge level. Spend more time evaluating your performance, and pay someone to coach to you get better (all performers, whether musicians or golfers, do this, by the way). Critique your systems, and keep refining them because they will subconsciously affect your performance levels.
If I had a piano, I’d demonstrate these points (I do use the piano in the keynote!).
What Do You Want to Work on This Year—from ‘By Ear’ to Systematic?
Do you have some business plan goals for yourself this year to raise your ceiling of achievement? What do you believe is most valuable for you to work on?
What’s In a Business Plan?
Posted by: | CommentsWhat’s in a business plan? Goals? Action plans? You’re right, as far as it goes. But…..Last week, I presented a webinar through the National Association of Realtors’ Learning Library, titled Not Your Grammy’s Business Plan. One of the points I made was that the old-style one-two page business planning templates just don’t make it these days. It’s not enough to either write a
Platitude-heavy mission/vision plan, with a lot of ‘we will be….’
Or
A goals-only plan
Why? Because neither version of a business plan does you much good if you want to create a business plan that is useable every day.
What’s in a Useable Business Plan
Click here to see the parts of a strategic business plan for a real estate agent (this would work for any salesperson). I created this ‘flow chart’ after being frustrated that there was no good business planning process or template for real estate salespeople. I found that there needed to be a clear ‘path’ from the big picture planning aspects (vision/mission/objectives) to the action plan. I also found there had to be a clear delineation of the parts of the action plan. Why? Agents will focus on what they find easy—the business support parts of the plan, not the lead generating parts of the plan.
Make Money—Or Not
By focusing on the review and action portions of your plan, you will have a real blueprint to follow to create success every day. Be very careful about which planning system you use. The way you think will determine the kind of plan you get. Follow the model I’ve provided her. Now, you have a useable business plan for 2010.
Want to see more on business planning? Check out The Business Planning System for the Real Estate Professional (for agents) or Business Planning for the Owner, Manager, and Team Builder.
Grab your Complimentary Audio CD
I really, really want each one of you to gain a workable, useable plan for 2010. So, I’m offering a bonus of an audio CD to help you in your business (offer good until Dec. 31, 2010).
What To Do With your New Agents ‘Til Training Starts
Posted by: | CommentsYour agent started in the business Tuesday. You have sent the agent through your orientation process, but your training program doesn’t start for another week. What do you do? Well, here’s what NOT to do:
• Tell them to ‘just see the inventory and get acquainted’ (they’ll think that’s the job description and some have been know to inspect the inventory for years before they would talk to a human being prospect!)
• Give them your own activity sheet that you used upteen years ago–to keep them occupied
• Give them nothing and see what happens—the other agents will probably keep them busy with administrative work (!)
Watch Out for the Truisms
Truism number one: Only about one out of a hundred new agents is a ‘natural, talented’ salesperson, who will figure out how to prioritize activities on his/her own
Truism number two: In the absence of a precisely, well-thought out prioritized start-up activity plan, most salespeople will create a plan for a ‘slow start’; they’ll form hard-to-break bad habits, scheduling easy-to-do, low pay-off activities—because they’re easier and non-threatening
Here’s What to Do
Use a preliminary start-up plan that has the same priorities as the business plan you’re going to teach and coach them to during their training period. (You are going to start them with a proven start-up plan, aren’t you? And, you’re going to coach them into doing that plan until it becomes habit, 30-90 days, aren’t you?) Why use a preliminary plan that has the same priorities as your chosen business start-up plan? So the agent doesn’t get conflicting priorities. And, remember, in the face of conflict, we all take the easiest way out. That’s not good for fast income!
Here’s what to look for in a preliminary-to-training activity plan:
• It has the same priorities of business activities as your training start-up plan, so your agent ‘gets the picture’ of success from day one
• It gives your agent meaningful activities to complete prior to starting your training program
• It doesn’t require anyone in the office training that agent—until your training program starts
• It forms the basis for first-day coaching, if you want it to
• It takes advantage of your affiliates (mortgage, title, inspectors, etc.) who want to form relationships with your agents—to teach them the basics of the technical aspects of real estate
Consistency Equals Productivity
Your job as a manager/trainer is to create—or choose—a preliminary plan, a start-up plan, and a training program that all present the agent’s job description in the same manner with the same priorities—so your agent has a clear roadmap on how to succeed every day. Doing so assures you have to hire less new agents to meet your recruiting goals, you’ll have more success that you can promote to recruit, and more real dollars will flow to your bottom lines—and theirs!
The Four Smartest Things Things You Can Do to Rev up Profits NOW
Posted by: | CommentsHere are the four smartest things you can do to rev up profits right now. Take advantage of the reviving market before you hit the holidays.
1. Recognize that empathy alone is not enough.
Why do brokers think that ‘loving them’ will somehow motivate agents to go to work? ‘Loving and cheerleading’ may suffice in a fast market, but it doesn’t work when everybody needs to face facts and go to work. Smart brokers are focusing agents on lead generating plans and holding agents accountable to that work. That demonstrates their faith in the agents’ ability to succeed—and the ability of the brokers’ program to facilitate that success.
Conclusion: No plans and no accountability suggests the manager either doesn’t care, or doesn’t have a plan to help agents achieve.
Questions to ask yourself:
How are you communicating your faith in your agents’ ability to achieve?
Do you hold your agents accountable to their goals?
How much faith do you have in your productivity programs (or do you have them)?
2. Set the standards of performance to define the values of the company.
Good managers aren’t afraid agents will leave. They’re willing to give up that one deal a year to ‘take the lid off’ those productive people and get them fired up with other pros. If your value proposition says that you have a team of ‘quality professionals’, define that in terms of production. (My two coaching programs, Managers’ Up and Running in 30 Days Coaching System for New Agents, and Managers’ On Track to Success in 30 Days Coaching System for Experienced Agents offers suggested activity and results standards—and plans to get your agents ‘leaping’ over those standards.)
Note: A recent study to over 70,000 professionals in 116 organizations found 93% said working with a slacker actually hampered their development or decreased their productivity.
Questions to ask yourself: Are you unwittingly de-motivating your agents by keeping non-producers?
3. Put systems into place that appreciate, motivate, and inspire your agents.Studies prove that immediate, positive feedback results in higher goal attainment. How often do you appreciate your agents? Do you have an appreciation/motivational system in place? Unless it’s planned, it won’t happen.
4. Refine your hiring practices.
In a shifted market, brokers must hire much more carefully—and be really tough in the interview with a top-rate, practiced ‘mutual expectations’ talk. (I believe only about 10% of managers have an adequate ‘mutual expectations dialogue). Not just anyone can sell in a shifted market. Now, agents must have the tenacity, gain the skills, do the lead generation, and work at least 40-50 hours a week.
Questions to ask yourself:Do you have a planned, practiced interview process?
Do you find you sometimes get ‘surprises’ in your hires, because you forgot to ask important questions?
Do you get agreement for your culture, values, and minimum performance expectations prior to hiring?
Tough but fair expectations coupled with an agent development plan assures profits challenging times. That’s the formula. Why not get your share of profits right now?
Don’t Underestimate your Inspiration Potential
Posted by: | CommentsWhat’s your “Inspiration Potential”? Often, we managers/trainers/coaches completely underestimate our power to inspire. I just read an article in our local newspaper (link below) that demonstrates just how strong that power can be.
How a Homeless Girl Got to Harvard
Khadijah Williams’s mother was last spotted living in a storage unit in Los Angeles. But, Khadijah isn’t living there. She’s on her way to Harvard. What an improbable—yet inspiring—story. For as long as she can remember, she and her family, consisting of her mother, and her sister, have drifted from one homeless shelter to another. Yet, she’s still not drifting. And, she’s not just graduating from high school, or getting an entry-level job, or going to a community college, she’s actually enrolled in Harvard. (Don’t get me wrong. It’s a terrific feat to go from homeless to a job, or to graduate from anything. But, Harvard?…..)
What aspects of Khadijah Williams’s life caused her to veer off the homeless, dependent path and toward higher education? What role did her mentors play?
Inspiration, Tenacity, Belief: A Homeless Girl’s Lessons
1. Be aware of the power of your words
Someone told Khadijah she was smart. In the third grade, she scored in the 99th percentile on a state exam. Her teachers told her she was gifted, and put her in special programs—even though her schooling was intermittent—and she moved schools constantly.
2. Help them believe in their unique talents and skills
Khadijah believed in herself because she believed what her teachers told her about herself—the positive.
3. Give them the encouragement/inspiration from mentors
Khadijah realized she couldn’t do it herself, and sought out organizations and mentors.
4. Help them keep on keeping on. Never give up
Fueled by her belief in herself and the faith others had in her, Khadijah developed unbelievable tenacity to put herself into programs, stay in school, and ignored the taunts of the other students (you’re homeless, you can’t do this, etc., etc., etc.)
5. Help them create a better environment
Even though her mother and sister continue to live the homeless lifestyle, Khadijah has never blamed her relatives or her environment.
Yes. It’s a challenging market. But, you have skills the agents are hungry for. From these five points above, you can see the absolute power of the mentor. You have the ability to change people’s lives for the better!
Who/what inspires you? Let me know who and what inspires you and why by putting a comment on either of my blogs on this subject (1-2 paragraphs, please). Simply write a comment on the blog, telling me who and/or what inspires you.
And, the winner is……I’ll pick three inspiring comments, and send each of you a complimentary copy of Your Professional Portfolio, which helps you choose your best skills and talents and shows you how to share them with your clients to create loyalty.
Deadline: Sept. 10. I’ll let everyone know who wins, and I’ll publish the inspirations for everyone in a later newsletter (and probably a blog).
Managers’ tip: Why not do this as an exercise with your agents? You’ll inspire them and re-light the fires of desire so they’ll be eager and enthusiastic to do what needs to be done to get back into the action.
Read Khadijah’s entire article here.
Now, go and achieve your “Inspiration Potential”.