Being successful seems to be everyone’s desire. We all want to achieve what our definition of success is in life. Have you ever wondered why successful people are successful; why they seem to go from one successful situation to another, from one victory in life to another? There is one thing that separates the successful from the unsuccessful. It is not a huge thing; it is merely one small thing . . . successful people act on their thoughts.
Most of us know what we should do everyday. We know many of the small steps we need to take to move our business forward. We know the steps to enhance our marriage or relationship with our kids. We just fail to act on those thoughts . . . NOW! We fail to implement change and improvement in little quantities over time. Implementation of action is the biggest barrier for most people.
We all compare and keep score of others around us. We look at their production against their talent and say, “Hey, I can do what he is doing”. We know in our hearts that we can achieve just what they have achieved. We know that our talent and ability level matches or exceeds theirs. We wonder why we are not doing as well as they are. The simple reason is action. We are not acting on what we know. Knowledge without action is worthless. It’s not what you know; it’s what you do with what you know that matters.
We all receive inspirational ideas. When the idea hits and the emotion is strong, put the idea into place. There is a law called The Law of Diminishing Intent. We must act when the emotion is high. If we don’t act now, the energy and emotion will diminish over time. Let’s say you decide to start prospecting today. A week from now, if you didn’t start, you will be less engaged in that thought. A month from now the passion will be cold. In a quarter, it’s a distant memory you ever had the thought.
Use the emotion you have to your advantage. When you feel the emotion or passion, act on it. Apply that emotion to a disciplined activity. If it’s prospecting, pick up the phone and make the calls. If it’s a project that needs to be implemented, start planning it out on paper. If you need to show appreciation for your spouse, pick up the phone and order flowers just because, call and make him a tee-time, or stop at the store and get a card. Act on the thought now!
If you can’t act on your thought, schedule a time to do so. We can be in situations where we can’t act. We must at least act to schedule an appointment with ourselves to move the thought forward. We must cement the future commitment. If we don’t, we are merely wishing that we could find time to do it.
Knowing and doing are two different skill sets. One is not successful without the other. One of our struggles as REALTORS® is that we are Independent Contractors. Because of that status, we can ignore the need for more knowledge and skill. We can ignore the need to apply or do the activities daily that will grow our business. We must rely on ourselves in seeking knowledge and implementing that knowledge. We receive some help from our brokers, but they have many other challenges to deal with. The ultimate responsibility is up to you. The question is will you take on the responsibility now? Will you act on your thoughts and ideas now, rather than falling prey to the Law of Diminishing Intent?
Taking action is the key to success. My
friend Jim Rohn said, “Labor is the finishing miracle of life”.
Putting into action (or labor) what needs to be done creates abundance.
Applying your knowledge in action will move you ahead of the crowd.
In coaching REALTORS® throughout North America, we combine the
teaching and accountability to create quantum leaps in their production.
The right combination of knowledge and action works every time.
Focus on success today,
Dirk Zeller
CEO
Real Estate Champions, Inc
P.S. Are you so busy buying
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Taking the Insult Out of an Insulting Offer
The first step toward taking the sting
out of a low offer is to assure your client that the offer
is financial, not personal. Most likely the prospective buyers
don’t know your sellers or your sellers’ family. They
might not even know the rationale behind the number they presented.
They may have relied on poor counsel, too much counsel, or an
unskilled agent, in which case a well-presented counter offer
is in order.
On the flip side, the sellers’ house may be overpriced, either because the sellers insisted on a high price or because the market environment changed between when the home was listed and when the offer arrived. If a home is radically overpriced then a fair offer can look insulting when it really isn’t.
If your sellers’ home is overpriced, you must get them to focus on the gap between the low offer and fair market value, not the difference between fair market value and their inflated listing price. Likely you’ll remove tens of thousands of dollars of “insult” through this calculation alone. If that doesn’t work, ask the cooperating agent to share the burden by helping to explain the rationale behind the offer.
A good agent won’t write an insulting offer.
I was asked many times to write ridiculously low offers. I consistently
refused to represent those on the equivalent of a fishing expedition.
One client chastised me, saying I was required by law to write
whatever she wanted to offer. I corrected her misinterpretation
of my responsibility. Agents are required by law in most
states to present all offers they write, but nothing forces
agents to write garbage that is embarrassing to present and wasteful
of their time, and costly to their reputations.
Getting beyond emotion
People get emotional during the closing for a number of reasons. For one thing, money is at stake. For another, both parties are anxious to get the deal done and time is ticking away. For a third, home inspections and low-price offers reveal opinions about a home’s value that can feel jarring to sellers who have viewed the home with pride and joy for a number of years.
The only antidote to an emotional uprising is a pragmatic focus on the goals the parties are trying to achieve and a renewed commitment to find common ground and get the deal done.
A few years ago, my father sold the family home I grew up in. My mother had died six months earlier and he wanted to start a new life.
Fortunately, I didn’t represent him in the sale, but he did call to discuss an offer he’d received. I took his call one night and we talked for 45 minutes while I was driving through mountain passes on my way to a speaking engagement in Vail, Colorado. (FYI, I would never talk with anyone but my dad for 45 minutes about a contract.)
He was such a typical seller! His big issue was
the sales price. I asked him the question I often pose to get
to the core of what’s affecting a sale negotiation:
“Dad, is the reason you want this price for the house
based on your ego or do you really need the money?”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Of course,
I knew he didn’t need the $20,000 he was so emotional about.
From that point, he was able to find common ground with the buyer and get the home sold.
When you hit a buyer-seller impasse, find
a way to ask: Is this about ego or income? Do they want the bragging
rights that come with a high price, or do they need the money?
Usually, you’ll bring your client back down to earth in
a hurry. You’re asking, in essence, what are you really
fighting for?
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Do Objections Catch You Like a Deer in the Headlights?
When an Agent hears an objection in the sales process, they often react like a deer caught in the headlights: they freeze in terror, moving only at the last second before the buyer or seller runs them over.
Often, Agents will view an objection as a big wall between them and the sale – a wall so tall that they can see no way around, over, under, or through. But objections are really like a two to three-foot-high picket fence. They have lots of openings; you can climb over them or walk down the fence’s length and find the gate.
An unskilled salesperson fears hearing an objection,
but a great salesperson views objections as opportunities.
Your mental approach to an objection will determine your success
or failure.
A great salesperson knows that most objections result from one of two situations. The first situation is regarding the concerns of the property, which is usually price based. The seller usually feels that their home is worth more than the marketplace or more than you would recommend.
This is your signal to go back to the price. Re-explain the importance of proper pricing. Show him that he will be the highest bidder for his home. Remove the emotion from the discussion and look at the facts. The more emotion you allow into the discussion, the higher the price the seller will want. You must have conviction and belief in your price. It is imperative you show that when handling objections effectively. Remember this is your opportunity to overcome the concern and then ask for the order again. Every objection is an opportunity to close. Great Agents clearly view objections as opportunities.
The second situation is the seller’s concern about your abilities. This objection stems from your presentation and conviction. When this arises, a great Agent will go back and focus on their track record. They will focus on telling the seller about their ability to get the job done. Once they have done that, they will ask for the agreement from the seller. This can be done many ways. I often used a question such as, “Do you believe I can sell your home?” If they said yes, I asked for the order. If they said no, I asked the most important and powerful word in sales, “why?” It allowed me to get to the bottom line of the objection.
There are only forty possible objections
you will encounter in real estate. You can learn to counter
them all.
If you wrote them all down and practiced them for
half an hour a day for the next six months, you would know them
automatically. You would be prepared for any situation
in selling. You would then have the confidence to say,
“Bring them on; I am ready for them.”
Pro teams like the Denver Broncos spend four to six hours a day practicing football. Then they review films and study their playbooks. They spend more time preparing for a game than playing the game. There’s a lesson in that.
How skilled in sales would you be if you adopted that regimen? How about if you practiced even one hour a day on your skills at overcoming objections? You would become an unstoppable real estate salesperson.
Practice being successful daily, and you will be amazed at your progress in as little as 30 days.
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"Production Volume Up 351%"
Location: Eugene, OR
Before Coaching With Real Estate Champions:
26 Total Units
$5,700,000 Total Volume
Coaching With Real Estate Champions:
69 Total Units
$20,000,000 Total Volume
Question for Kim: What are the top two or three things that have benefited you the most from coaching?
"The top three things that have benefited me from coaching are time blocking, objection handling, and dramatic improvement of my quality of life."
Question for Kim: What would you say to someone considering coaching today in the current marketplace?
"Just do it! It will be the best investment
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Increasing Sales Production Through Quality of the Message
When you break a real estate agents business down, there are only four ways to increase production. There are four proven avenues toward increased gross revenue. The four ways to increase production are:
Number of contacts
Method of contacts
Quality of the prospect Quality of the presentation
When you begin working on any one of these, you have taken the step to becoming a Champion Agent. Once you have raised your level of the performance in each of these areas, you can call yourself a Champion!
Quality of the message
I feel this is where the Champion Agent really excels over other agents. The message you present is essential to your success. What you say and how you deliver your message in tonality and body language influences the results you achieve. It’s the edge that your other sales agents don’t posses. If they were that skilled at sales, they probably would not be a member of your team. You will need to address this aggressively and promptly when bringing any sales agent on your team. I think we have gotten too far removed from the sales aspect of real estate sales. In the end, homes are not bought but sold. Professional representation services are not bought but sold. We have to sell to be at the Champion level. Most agents have never taken formalized sales training of any kind. They have taken a couple of weeks of introduction to being a real estate salesperson that their broker provided . . . that’s it.
When sales skills go up, income goes up.
There is a direct correlation between sales skills and ability
and income. I know there is a large group of skeptics reading
this. Let me illustrate my point. To be successful
at any profession, no matter what profession you select, you have
to achieve mastery of the primary tool of the profession.
There are other secondary tools that help, but the primary tool
is the cornerstone or capstone to success. Without mastery
of it, you will always be brushing up against a ceiling of production;
you will never explode through.
My father was a dentist for over thirty years. As a successful dentist, he had one primary tool that he worked for years to master and a lot of secondary tools. As secondary tools, he had explorers, drills, polishers, Novocain, a dental chair, lights, scrapers, probes, amalgam fillings, sealants, gold crowns, different types of adhesives, x-ray machines . . . you get the idea. All of these were secondary tools.
What is the primary tool of a dentist? What is the one tool that must be controlled to let all these other tools work their magic? For a dentist, it’s his hands. A dentist without skillful hands as his primary tool isn’t a good dentist.
As a real estate salesperson, you have laptops,
blackberries, Internet sites, lock boxes, lock box keys, marketing
pieces, mailings, flyers, customer relation management (CRM) software,
computers, tracking forms, your car, your clothes, MLS, and countless
other secondary tools. What is the primary tool of a real
estate salesperson? For a real estate salesperson, it’s
the words that you say and how you deliver them. The
message you present and convey either causes the prospect to work
with you or repels them away. All the other secondary tools
will not make up for a lack of skill in the primary area –
the words that you say and how you deliver them.
Most agents invest far more in their wardrobe than they do in themselves and their skills. I have listened to hundreds of very good agents’ prospecting, lead follow-up, buyer consultation, and listing presentation tapes. I have never gotten one initially one that I thought was awesome. The tapes I have listened to have come from some of the best agents in the world. That’s why I can say confidently that the vast majority of you reading this article, even if you are doing a lot of production, have a message or presentation that is not very good, either. I am not trying to cause you to toss this article aside, never to pick it up again, by making such a bold comment. I am merely trying to get everyone to face the facts of how important our message is and what we need to do to change it to improve our business.
I had a client I worked with for a number of years
who was an excellent agent in Cleveland, Ohio named Sheri Nasca.
Sheri was one of the best salespeople I have ever worked with
in terms of sales skills. She was forced to move and restart
her business all over again in the Chicago area. She
did sixty closed sales her first year in Chicago without
knowing a soul. She was able to do it because of her
superior sales skills. I think sixty units your first year
in production without market presence, a sphere of influence,
or past clients is outstanding. Sheri did it because she
is the consummate professional in her sales skills.
A professional football team will practice for
forty to fifty hours a week in preparation for a sixty-minute game.
How much time do you invest weekly to practice your craft of selling?
Most agents will spend at least $500 on a good suit, $75 on a quality
shirt, $75 on a nice tie, $12 on socks, and $200 on a quality pair
of shoes. All tolled, we will invest nearly $850 to walk out
the door dressed for success. Yet, we won’t spend a
dime on what matters most – our mind and our sales skills
to create, convert, and service our customers well. The message
you present and its quality are imperative.
If
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Dirk Zeller
"The Champion Real Estate Team™ Guide"
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