Archive for time management
What If Your Coaching Isn’t Working?
Posted by: | CommentsYou’ve been coaching an agent for three months. You haven’t seen any improvements. What do you do if your coaching isn’t working?
The biggest mistakes managers make in coaching agents is to continue the coaching relationship when the agent isn’t doing the work. Usually, we continue because we didn’t set coaching standards at the beginning of the relationship. When our coaching doesn’t get results, we think that we must re-motivate the agent—that this is our job.
Who or What Motivates?
Motivation happens when we do an activity and it works for us. Then, we want to do it all over again. That’s right. WE do the activity! In this case, it’s the agent doing the sales activities and having some success. You just encourage that success. You can’t encourage not doing things, which is what you’re doing when you let that agent meet with you and you ‘pump them up’ even though they haven’t done what they were supposed to do! Don’t get caught in that trap.
Reasons to Terminate the coaching Relationship
Here are the reasons to terminate the coaching relationship:
- Not doing the activity work
- Not meeting at the scheduled time
- The results are working negatively on your own self-esteem
You’ve done your agent and internal review, and you’ve established the coaching rules. Now, it’s easy to terminate the coaching relationship. You already set up those perimeters prior to starting your coaching relationship. Remember, you have only time to coach those who respond. You also need this response to provide your own self-assurance that what you’re doing is working.
Free Yourself for Better Experiences
By terminating the coaching relationships that have no pay-offs, you’re freeing yourself to coach those who do want your time and talent—and you’ve pre-determined that these people will be successful. You’ve created the best recruiting tool there is—concrete success from your agents with your personal and professional help.
Choosing and Coaching ‘Responders’ Has Many Benefits
I find time and time again that when I try to work with people who do not want to achieve higher goals, they fail—and I feel as if I’ve failed. So, my caveat to you now is this: Choose the people you will coach carefully, to retain your self-esteem, self-confidence, and contribute your talents to those who will respond. That’s a win-win!
A coachability evaluator: Click here to get an evaluator you can use with agents.
What are your reasons for terminating a coaching relationship? What mistakes have you made in continuing a non-working relationship?
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?
Do You Have a Job Description for your Agents?
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Do you have a job description for your agents? Most agents tell me they did not receive a job description when they started in the business (or in the interview). If not, why not? In my last blog, I discussed the fallacy that agents should start out as ‘independent’ business people. Now, I don’t mean they shouldn’t take responsibility for their actions and success. I mean that we shouldn’t abdicate our responsibility to teach, train, and coach them so they become great salespeople (so they can become independnet). Besides not having skills they need to succeed, they usually don’t even know what the job is!
Poor Job Descriptions Abound
As I teach management courses nationally, and speak nationally, I see many examples of poorly thought-out job descriptions and activity plans. What do you think is a poor job description? Take a look here. 
( a preview is to the right).
Why do you think I regard it as a poor job description? It’s not:
Prioritized
Some of the activities don’t result in success
My conclusion: This job description was written by an academic who had never been successful in real estate!
Abdicating our Leadership Responsibilities
Part of that abdication of management responsibility, I believe, is not providing a prioritized job description to your agents. Notice I said ‘prioritized’. Which activities should the agent start with? Which are important to be successful? Which are less important?
Before I share my job description with you, please write the job description you believe is the one you expect agents to follow.
When do you share that job description? In the interview? I hope so.
My Prioritized Job Description
Now, take a look at the prioritized job description I developed as a foundation for the new agent’s start-up plan, Up and Running in 30 Days. How does yours differ? What does your job description say about what you think is important? Are you gaining as much success for your new agents as you should? What does your job description and start-up plan have to do with those results?
For a printable copy, click here.
Get that job description refined. Talk to some of your agents to assure it’s the job description that reflects how you hire, train, and retain. Start using it in your interviews. Now, you’re getting much more effective and efficient.
If you’re a busy owner or manager, you’re probably wondering how you possibly implement the leadership you know it takes today to move your company forward. I’ve got the answer. Once a month, I’ll share a new leadership strategy–a strategy you can instantly implement in your company to motivate, energize, and help your agents be more productive (plus, these are great recruiting tools). Take a look at 365 Leadership.
For just $39.95 per month, you’ll get that strategy/action plan, an instructional webinar, a coaching tele-conference call, and all the ready-to-use documents you need to make that strategy a reality. Our new session starts in January, 2012. Don’t worry: You can join through March and get any sessions you may have missed. And, you will have access to all the completed sessions any time you want to view or review them. Check out 365 Leadership today. Let me share with you the specific, creative strategies I used to rebuild 2 real estate offices into exceptional profits.
Is the Real Estate Business an ‘Independent’ or Dependent Business?
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Perhaps you went into real estate because you wanted to be independent. You wanted to be your own boss–name your own hours–work at your own speed. You’re probably hiring agents right now with the same reasons for going into real estate. Not so fast! Even though real estate is considered to be a career where ‘you’re in business for yourself”, taking that thought too far can result in failure: Failure for both you as a manager and your agents.
Why? Because there are many skills required in this business that people new to it just don’t have. Yet, we help them believe that all they have to do is to start in this business and go to our training. They will be successful. Then, when they start failing, they can’t figure out why. In this blog I’ll name 3 qualities and skills your agents need to develop fast. My question to you is: How are you going to help them develop them?
Skill # 1; Time management
Most people go into real estate from a field that required them to show up on time, do specific work, and work for at least eight hours. If they didn’t fulfil the minimum requirements of the job, they were fired. Understandably, many people don’t like to work under those strictures. So, they go into real estate where they can name their own hours, work at their own speed, etc. etc. The problem is, with many, that they don’t understand that working at their own speed many be working at a failure speed.
My question: What program do you have to teach them time management skills, monitor their development, and hold them accountable to a good schedule?
Skill # 2; Being accountable to a plan
When I was regional director for a very large international franchise company, I found, as I screened them, most potential owners and managers had never had anyone hold them accountable. In fact, there was a negative feeling about being held accountable. When you have a ‘boss’, you are accountable to that work plan and to your boss. In real estate, we’re so careful not to step over the boundaries of the independent contractor concept, we rarely hold anyone accountable to anything. The result: Most people never know what the job really is, and whether they are on track to attain their goals.
My question to you is: How are you going to help someone be accountable for their own success and be willing to be coached?
Skill #3: Implement a plan of action.
It is just amazing to me the kablooey plans of action out there. In another blog, I’ll show you why most of them lead to an agent’s failure. Most of the time, in fact, an agent isn’t provided a plan of action. He/she is just told suggestions or 50 ways to do something. The result: The agent has no idea how to prioritize activities and proceed. He has no idea whether what he is doing every day actually is leading him toward a goal.
My question to you is: Do you provide a prioritized plan of action, introduced in the interview, and use that plan of action to coach your agent in executing a successful real estate business?
So, after I’ve given you 3 skills agents need to succeed, what do you think? Is real estate an ‘independent’ or dependent business? I believe it needs to be a ‘dependent’ business at the beginning. That is, I coach the new agent as he/she starts his/her business. I am the leader. The new agent is the follower (or the struggling agent). There is the dependence. Once the agent ‘has it’, I step back, and become more of a consultant.
If you haven’t read the great book, Outliers, get it and read it now. One of the great lessons in the book is that no one succeeds alone. In later blogs, we’ll talk about the ‘community’ it takes to help someone be successful today.
Give me your feedback on the ‘independent’ or ‘dependent’ concept. What do you think?
Why not let me support you with your agents? Take a look at my blog for agents, Up and Running in 30 Days. I’ll motivate them, inform them, and support your point of view. Sign them up today.
If you’re a busy owner or manager, you’re probably wondering how you possibly implement the leadership you know it takes today to move your company forward. I’ve got the answer. Once a month, I’ll share a new leadership strategy–a strategy you can instantly implement in your company to motivate, energize, and help your agents be more productive (plus, these are great recruiting tools). Take a look at 365 Leadership.
For just $39.95 per month, you’ll get that strategy/action plan, an instructional webinar, a coaching tele-conference call, and all the ready-to-use documents you need to make that strategy a reality. Our new session starts in January, 2012. Don’t worry: You can join through March and get any sessions you may have missed. And, you will have access to all the completed sessions any time you want to view or review them. Check out 365 Leadership today. Let me share with you the specific, creative strategies I used to rebuild 2 real estate offices into exceptional profits.
Your Business Plan: A Checklist for the Systems You Need in 2012
Posted by: | CommentsIn December, I’m doing business planning in this blog and my blog for agents, Up and Running in 30 Days. Check back for free processes, checklists, and guidance.
Do you have systems needs built into your business plan?
I am just finishing the 4th edition of Up and Running in 30 Days, the new agent’s business start-up plan. I wanted to update it with the systems and technology I thought the new agent needed. After spending many hours researching and talking to tech ‘gurus’ and thinking through the systems agents need in their first month, my head is spinning! I know you have the same concerns as a broker. So, you need a systems plan in your business plan, just as I put a technology and social media planner in my8 4th edition of Up and Running in 30 Days (4th edition will be out about April).
People Systems are as Important as Software Systems
One of the mistakes we brokers make is to think all our problems will be solved if we just get everything ‘automated’ with technology. Well, let me tell you, it’s hard to automate people! Yet, we need people systems so we can be sure no one falls through the cracks. We need to assess our systems to assure each agent, at each stage of his/her development, is worked with. Otherwise, we fail to meet our segmented agents’ needs.
For example: We may have wonderful seasoned agent training. But, we hire new agents with no orientation and no detailed, high accountability training and coaching. So, we have a huge failure rate with our new agents. Sound familiar?
Click here to get your copy of my systems survey and planner.
Use the planner to access your needs and then create an action plan for those needs in your 2012 business plan. Now, you’re on your way to saving time, money, and having systems you can delegate to free up your time.
New Business Planning Program for Managers
Do you find it difficult to get your agents to plan? Do you put off doing your office plan? Here’s your solution. This all-new program does several things for you:
2 webinars teach your agents how to plan using Carla’s strategic planning system
14 planning documents are included to guide your agents right through the planning process
3 webinars for you:
1. How to Create a Great Office Plan
Included: 22 office planning documents to make it easy for you to stay on track and create a great plan
2. How to Convince your Agents to Plan
3. How to Integrate your Office and Agents’ Plans
Also: Hundreds of dollars of bonuses included. See more at Come See 2012: Beyond the Basics of Business Planning. Why not build a great office plan and get every agent a real strategic plan–one that’s inspirational all year?
You the Business Planning Coach: 3 Areas to Look at in your Agents’ Business Plans
Posted by: | CommentsIn these posts in November and December, I’ll be featuring business planning strategies. Watch for checklists, processes, and systems--ready to use, too. I want to help you create a great business plan for next year!
This post’s ‘gift’ is my after sale survey. See the link in the body of the blog.
I hope you are coaching your agents through the business planning process. Here are three areas of their plans that you should help them look at, that, with small adjustments, can pay huge dividends.
1. Where’s the money been going? It makes sense that the money agnets invest in theircareers should be giving thempay-offs equal to their investments. Unfortunately, many agents don’t know where they spent the bulk of their money last year. As you coach each agent, have them go back over the past four months.
Add up the moneys they’ve spent to generate business in each of their ‘target markets’–those identifiable groups of people that they build programs around to get business (geographical farm, first-time buyers, etc.) Where are they spending most of your money? Are they getting a good enough ‘return on their investment’? They will use this analysis to build their budget for next year, too.
From working with agents in my business planning course, I’ve observed that many agents don’t build a business plan around their best source of business: ‘sold’ customers and clients. Marketing surveys show that it costs six to nine times as much to get a new customer as to keep an old one. So, if agents spend more money on their best source, and less on theirother sources, they’ll optimize their investments.
2. What are their ‘success’ ratios? Most agents don’t know this one: What are their ratios of listings taken to listings sold? How many of their sellers are they making happy? How many of those sellers are so delighted with the service that they will refer more people to the agent? In my opinion, a good agent should target a 80-90% success ratio in this area.
Why? We all know we need to promote ourselves. The most successful, believable promotions are based on our success records–what we’ve done, not promises. If you have a sign on your desk that says “If you don’t list, you don’t last”–tear it up. Instead, put up a sign that reads, “If your listings don’t sell, you don’t last. Small adjustments, big dividends. (Plus you’ll save lots of marketing dollars.)
3. How ‘delighted’ are those customers? Most so-called ‘business plans’ in real estate merely are goal-setting grids. Focusing only on the ends suggests that the ends justify the means. However, the consumer sure doesn’t think so! These goal setting grids alone lead agents to miss the point of the decade: Top-flight customer service begets more business. That is, not just what you do, but how you do it.
What level of customer service are your agents providing? Is it just good enough to get through the transaction? Or, is it so great that your customers and clients are thoroughly delighted? (Delighted consumers refer business to you–less cost and more effort equals big pay-offs, right?) What can agents build into their business plans to assure that the are regularly delighting those they work with?
One of the agents in featured in many of my books, Rick Franz, now provides surveys weekly during the time he works with buyers and sellers. He wants clients to know he cares how they feel about the service, and that he’s dedicated to providing the best service they’ve ever had. Pretty competitive, yes?
Click here to get my after sale survey, one of the dozens of strategies ready to use in my business planning system for real estate professionals.
I’ve just started using a new online survey service. Check out zoomerang. It is easy to use and looks very professional.
Although there are dozens of areas to scope in your plan, just taking one hour out of your day now to assess these three areas–and plan adjustments–will assure your agents make more money this year–and create better, more pleasant long-term careers.
FREE Managers’ Business Planning Webinar
If you’re stumped as to how to get your agents to create business plans, you need to attend this webinar. If you want more teamwork and loyalty, you need to tune in. I’ll show you how I got 100% of my agents to write good business plans, and how I used those plans to coach and consult all year, building my office to #1 in a 19 office company–the strongest company at that time in the Northwest.
What: Managers: Get Every Agent to Build a Business Plan–and Build a Great office Plan
When: Dec. 1
Time: 1-2 PM, Pacific Standard Time
Space is limited, so register now. Click here to register.
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.
Coaching your New Agent: Conquering the ‘Focus’ Challenge
Posted by: | CommentsRecently, I did the first of a series of complimentary coaching calls for those managers who are using the Up and Running in 30 Days start-up plan for their new agents. This is a very aggressive program, to get the agents a sale in 30 days (rather than the 3-6 months it takes most new agents.) The coaches have received their coaching resource guide, so they already have some guidance in implementing the program. We had a great discussion on the recent call. I want to share some of the discussion we had on the call, to help you as you coach your new agents to much faster success.
Biggest Challenges for the Coaches
The coaches on the call told me their biggest challenges were
Keeping the agent focused on the important activities
Getting the time to coach the agents frequently and regularly
So, in this blog, I’ll tackle that first concern—keeping your new agents focused.
Up and Running Gives you Two Keys to Keeping your Agents Focused
1, The Daily and Weekly Schedule. Have your new agent analyze his/her daily schedule at the end of the week. There is an exercise in Up and Running to reveal to the agent the priorities he/she needs to arrange in order to create a successful business. Unfortunately, most agents arrange their priorities to protect themselves from starting the business! Teaching your agent how to ‘self-manage’ by analyzing that past week is huge to set them on the road to successful sales.
Tip: Use this scheduling strategy with your experienced agents. Most agents have never created a weekly schedule, and don’t analyze their past week with the priorities explained in Up and Running.
2. Business-Producing vs. Business-Supporting Activities. Keep reiterating to your agents the difference between business producing and business-supporting activities. Up and Running teaches agents to put all their business activities into one of these groups. It’s one of the most important concepts an agent can grasp—and few agents have ever been taught this fundamental and very important concept.
Tip: You know your agent has struggles with time management. Help them analyze their activities and schedule their activities to do more business-producing activities. Their time management challenges will shrink, and their incomes will sky-rocket.
Invitation: If you’re using Up and Running in 30 Days with your new agents, and didn’t receive an invitation to be on our tele-conference calls, email me at Carla@carlacross.com and I’ll add you to the invitation list.
Next blog: I’ll discuss when to start Up and Running, and how to assure your new agent has a complete track to run on—so he/she gets that sale fast, which is yours and his/her goal! I’ll also discuss how frequently and consistently you must coach that new agent to assure he/she adheres to the Up and Running activities and goals.
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 to promote the program inside your office, and promote it to recruits. Training is the name of the recruiting game in this decade! Get onboard.
How to Organize that Clutter for more Profits
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Envision your real estate office. If I walked into it, could I see processes and systems your agents use in providing top quality customer service? Could I see your checklists, posted, so that I knew you 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 you) inside? Or, would I see stacks of disorganized papers?
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 you are trustworthy—that you’re good for your word. If I can see that you have 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 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.
Take system inventory now. Click here for a list of the systems managers need.
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? First, find your organizational resources. Here are three: Other managers who already have systems and who are willing to share, great assistants who are good at organizing, and professionals who sell these packages. You’ll probably want a combination of all three. I know it’s wonderful to think that you can hire an assistant and expect that assistant to organize from the ground up.
But, my experience is that you will have to be involved in the process, and you will have to buy ready-made systems to help that assistant get a clue about what you want.
Start with one at a time. Make a list and prioritize it for the systems you 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.
Leadership already systemized! Want leadership actions you can put immediately into practice with confidence? Take a look at my subscription series for anyone who wants to step further into leadership: 365 Leadership. You’ll get one leadership action per month that you can put to work in your real estate office. Read what attendees are saying about the program at 365 Leadership. Join us. It’s profitable and it’s fun–and it’s very affordable!
Moving from Crisis Management: How to Grow your Business
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Real estate owners and managers; Do you feel like you have climbed to the top of the management mountain each day, or are you struggling in the mud flats?
If you’re trying to grow your real estate office, you’re most likely struggling to step to the next level. You want to get loose of some of the day-to-day concerns you handle. You want to delegate more, so you can do the pro-active things you know will give you that ‘quantum leap’.
Is Selling Real Estate Holding You Back?
For example, one of my Leadership Mastery coaching clients sells real estate. He sells a lot of real estate, and he’s really good at it. He also owns a real estate office with 20 people. To move his company to the next level, he knows he needs to step into the arena of “pro-active people development” (recruit, select, train, coach). He has to stop focusing his management time on reactive crisis management. To change his focus, though, he has to sell less—and delegate more. I need to provide him the tools, guidance, and support he needs to have confidence in his ‘next level’ business plan.
The Most Important Thing You Can Do to Leap to the Next Higher Level
There’s one concept that will do more than any other to take you out of ‘crisis management’ and into business management. It will enable you to create a business that’s truly saleable. It will solve your problem of being really good at what you do, and your fear, that, if you stop doing it, everything will fall apart!
Systematize Your Business
This concept is systemization. To move to that next level, you must have systems, operations, and checklists in place. Why? So you can delegate many of those present level responsibilities to someone else. But, you say, you’ll just hire someone and have that person create the systems. Oh, sure. McDonald’s does it that way. They just hire someone from out of the blue, and say, ‘create me a system to be more McDonald-like’. No, they don’t, and you can’t either. You must create a system for what you want done. Then, you hire the talent, and then you teach and coach them to the system! Now, you have delegated the job the way you want it done.
A Stunning Concept: Your Systems Make Up Your Business Plan
For years, my business planning resources for agents and managers have taken them past the numbers to help them create the related, systematic actions they need to take each day to reach their goals. (See The Business Planning System for the Real Estate Professional and Business Planning for the Owner, Manager, and Team Leader). Then, I read a concept that sums up my approach.
Gerber: A Management Consultant Master
This concept is from Michael Gerber, the small business guru and author of the famous books, The E-Myth and The E-Myth Revisited. (I highly recommend you read both of these). He says,
the integration of your systems is your business plan
What he means by that statement: As you think through how you’re going to act each day, you’re going to create systems and processes, including your operational checklists—so you can follow the plan.
People Development Systems is Key to Attaining Next Level Goals
You may have systems in the financial/technical arena. You may have systems in the operational area. But, do you have systems in the most important area for your growth? You need “people development Sytems.” These systems put down in black and white how you’ll recruit, how you’ll select, how you orientate, how you’ll train, how you’ll coach.
Want a list of systems you need? Click here.
Creating Systems: The First Step in Growing Your Business to Sell
In our coaching programs, we help agents and leadership analyze the systems they have in place, and prioritize the systems they want to get up and running. We integrate this concept of systematization into their business plans. There’s a huge bonus in creating a business plan based on the integration of your systems. One of our biggest concerns in our industry is time management. Creating systems that are delegatable takes us out of the ‘crisis management’ realm and put us into the pro-active, business-building arena. Why not make your business plan systematized and executable?
The easy way to get leadership systems: Want leadership actions you can put immediately into practice with confidence? Take a look at my subscription series for anyone who wants to step further into leadership: 365 Leadership. You’ll get one leadership action per month that you can put to work in your real estate office. Read what attendees are saying about the program at 365 Leadership. Join us. It’s profitable and it’s fun–and it’s very affordable!
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.