Agents In Action - Education, Inspiration, And Strategies For Real Estate Agents | Realtors

This is a very common misconception sellers have when listing their home for sale. Time on the market is the #1 enemy for a seller. Historically, we know the longer a home sits on the market for sale, the softer the price becomes. In this episode, I want to share one approach that's worked well for me in these situations. Should you decide to incorporate this into your business or not, the main purpose of discussing this is to be sure you have your go to script, plan... whatever you prefer to call it. Our ability to effectively deliver our responses to common objections such as this can be the difference between a listing taken or a listing sold. Let's list some of the things buyers think when taking into consideration the length of time a home they're interested in buying has been on the market. Of course, it depends on the market conditions, this will be applicable in any market and especially effective in a predominantly seller market or neutral market. Let's first look at a home that's been listed for jus

I am noticing a pattern that keeps showing up lately during conversations I am having with many agents.  Since this seems to be so prevalent, I thought we could talk about it today as it’s likely something many of our great agents in action are experiencing.  Even though a simple, and even a common topic, it’s one that is (in many cases) costing you $10,000’s and even $100’000’s in lost income opportunity.  Ultimately, this shows up in our lives many ways.  Sometimes, it’s having more month than money left at the end of each month...day to day lifestyle choices, it poses restrictions on us to give to others,  not taking much needed (well deserved) vacations and so many others.  What is this villain? It’s our ability to know what to do with our time each day and some long-standing myths or lies that are encouraging this to continue.  I thought we could really dissect what I believe is the underlying cause behind this. The Three lies robbing your productivity. Lie #1 Everything Matters Equally All things do not

Four Ways To Boost Confidence When Pricing Property Typically, when preparing for a listing appointment, most agents will leave their pricing research to a desk review over their computer.  If you want to outperform your competition and at the same time...dramatically boost your confidence, go the extra mile and consider implementing these steps to maximize your confidence and accuracy. 1. Preview property every 10-14 days to give yourself a stronger knowledge of your local market, and it will give you more confidence in pricing during the listing presentation. The more real estate you see, the more familiar you will become and have a keen sense of what a home’s value actually is. No more guessing or wondering. Gives you the edge over your competition as you will have the ability to reference properties for sale or that have sold, carry a higher level of conversation with both your sellers and buyers and clearly demonstrate your expertise of the market place.  A great disguise for new agents or agent that

Personality Styles 101 - Today we’re going to discuss the D.I.S.C personality styles and how to use this system to have more influence with anyone you are speaking with, resulting in a higher level of communication and ultimately, developing these skills will be an asset to close more business or, increase your overall effectiveness when putting deals together. It’s was something I learned early in my career...probably 20+ years ago now. What’s interesting is I use what I have learned probably on a daily basis, if not several times a week. Knowing first who we are and then, to identifying the traits in others has been invaluable over my career.  Remember the saying, people that are like each other tend to like each other and birds of a feather, flock together...it’s really true they’re not just “sayings” they are a fact of life. As Realtors, having a solid understanding of the various personality styles, and how to approach each of them, will be an asset and contribute to your success. A good portion of our s

Most Realtor's suffer from the same money leaks in their business and do not even know it.   This episode of Agents in Action recap of the most common money leaks or “gaps” I noticed among the agents I have been coaching or met at speaking events this year. It was interesting to me to see these same patterns repeating themselves across the board. It was so consistent, that I wanted to go through these with you so you can take a look at what you’re currently doing in your business.  If you can, grab a pen and paper so you can write a few things down as we go through a few exercises during this episode.  You have gaps that are allowing money to leak out of your business. Imagine this scenario; The Bank Manager calls and has some news to share with you…Think about who you currently bank with...you get a call from the branch manager, and he/she says...I needed to alert you to something that we noticed when we came in this morning...it must have happened overnight.  It appears you have a leak in your account.  Mon

At The Preview Appointment -  Objective - Gain access, establish a relationship with &  continue to qualify the seller.  The Tour:  While walking through the property, take notes on the home’s features and benefits.  In a casual, yet deliberate manner, ask questions to determine what the situation is with this particular lead.  Greeting: Introduce yourself, hand them a business card and thank them for having you over to take a look at the house. (Notice, I say house a lot, not home. Why? Home is emotional, a house is not). Also, assure them you won’t be long which should send a message that you aren’t going to overstay your time and push them into listing w/you.  Create a casual conversation as you tour the house: Ask we walk through the house, I have a list of questions to ask you, do you mind if I take some notes? (They always will say ok, sure that’s fine)  This allows you to relax, just read your questions and take notes...they gave you permission).  Remind me, how many bedrooms/bathrooms? Square foot

A Behind The Scenes Look At The $40,000 For Sale By Owner System.  89 percent of sellers sold with the assistance of a real estate agent, up slightly from 88 percent the last three years, and only 8 percent (down from 9 percent) were FSBO sales. The share is the lowest since this data collection started in 1981. Did not want to pay commission fee: 48% Sold it to a relative / friend / neighbor: 21% Buyers contacted seller directly: 18% Did not want to deal with an agent: 6% Agent was unable to sell home: 5% Seller has real estate license: 1% Could not find agent to handle transaction: 1% Other: * less than 1% Source: 2015 Profile of Home Buyers & Sellers, (National Association of REALTORS® - Research, 2015). The Success Formula  Meet 2 by owners every 30 days = 24 year 50% don’t work out for one of many reasons; this leaves 12 you eventually make a presentation to. Of the 12 remaining, convert 60% - which is 7 of the 12. Of the 7, six close. Let’s even plan for one falling through; it ca

  Managing your time in the real estate business.   First, this is something people struggle with in general, not just Realtors.  However, in the world of real estate sales, it appears to be magnified even more as it’s a commission only business.  If you’re being paid hourly or salary and mismanage time, for the most part, it's become accepted. Of course, it’s a contributing factor to the lack of productivity, yet, for the most part, things go forward.  As a Realtor, you have a much shorter fuse before you find yourself out of time, money or both. As a commission only, independent contractor this should very well be your #1 priority. Talk to us about your experience with having a schedule to follow, maybe what you did and any suggestions you may have for our agents in action. When we think about having a schedule, we often have some amount of resistance to this process.  Often, we feel it’s will be restricting and cause conflict with the discipline necessary to follow a structured schedule.  I know this be

How important it is to know your market statistics and position yourself as the goto expert and trusted resource in your marketplace?Fact: I would venture to say 97-98% (or even more) of the Fact: I would venture to say 97-98% (or even more) of the agent's industry-wide DO NOT know the market #s. Have you ever had someone ask you “how’s the market”?  What do you say? How effective is your response? What message does it convey about you, your knowledge and professionalism/expertise? Typically, when someone asks this type of question, as a whole, many of us respond in 1 of 100 different ways.  Why? Unfortunately, for the large majority of agents, they’re NOT prepared and haven’t rehearsed how to respond effectively to one of the most commonly asked questions of our friends, acquaintances or when we come into contact with the general public. Of course, there're several opportunities to put this into practice, and we’ll cover a few of them today. What’s interesting (and somewhat surprising) is the vast majority o

Whenever we get together for an episode of Agents In Action, I often ask myself “what is it I should share this time?”  I have been devouring several books these past few weeks, and one of them jumped out as the obvious answer for this conversation.  I realized, without one’s ability to do this effectively...especially someone in sales...it can be a long uphill climb that leads to endless frustration.  It’s a great book by Mark Victor Hansen & Jack Canfield called “The Aladdin Factor” The book focuses on a skill that arguably, is the absolute foundation for the results we have, not only in business, life itself.  It’s all about learning how to be “masters of the lamp” as the authors call it...having the ability to...simply put...yet easier said than done...just ask. As I was reading the book, it hit me between the eyes how this simple idea is so important to be aware of in our lives.  As you know, my focus is always searching for ways to chunk it down to the simplest ways I can help the agents I work with

Let’s start with a great saying a long time mentor of mine; Dr. Wayne Dyer has said so well. "Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change." From now on...in business,  Oct 1 is the start of a New Year. Think regarding a 15-month business plan.  Of course, everything you do will be a part of this year's overall production, it will also be a part of next year’s production volume. That’s the main point of this conversation we will be having. I just want to stress the importance of the decisions that are going to be made here in the coming weeks and the massive impact it can have on your goals.  Your decision will take you closer to, or take you farther away from them.  Stay engaged, take off the holidays, enjoy the season ahead...just don’t take off the next 2-3 months...just the actual days the holidays fall on. As we get closer and closer to the end of the year, this is a great time to get all the “things” done you haven’t had time to do; it’s a part of running a solid business.  I enco

Lee Cockerell was the Executive Vice President of Operations at Walt Disney World for ten years. Lee knows what it takes to create magic. You don't have to be at Disney World to create magic. Lee joins the Agents in Action podcast to discuss how Realtors can create magic.   In this episode, we examine the most important and influential keys to accomplishing your goals.  It is the strength of your connection to your dreams, purpose, and meaning of your life, which in turn, is the fuel that causes us to take action.  This is the difference maker between someone who will persevere when faced with adversity or fold under pressure, withdrawal and give up.  The majority of people today have stopped dreaming big, therefore, haven't a great amount of hope for their future. As an example...when I meet an agent, and they share something they are facing a challenge the first thing that comes to my mind is why are they doing this? When we know why we can then figure out how. The “why” is the leverage to step outside the

In real estate, there are several ways to generate leads...some more effective than others.  All approaches will usually fall into two categories.  They are either proactive or passive at their basis.  Proactive is defined as a person, policy, or action creating or controlling a situation by causing something to happen rather than responding to it after it has happened. Passive is defined as accepting or allowing what happens or what others do, without active response or resistance. So, clearly, we are going to have more influence over the results when we’re proactive in our activities. This would be a good time to take a look at what you’ve been doing to generate leads and determine which category most of your prospecting efforts fall within.  What we often discover is many of the approaches we’re using are passive, thus contributing to slow responses and lower quality leads. Let’s first look at some of the passive ways leads could be generated. They would be sitting open houses, talking up calls or sometime

Ten Tips When Working With Objections                               1.    Remember, there is a direct connection between the amount of objections you receive and the strength and quality of your presentation. A strong, convincing presentation eliminates doubt and encourages interest in hiring you.  How convincing are you? Do you have work to do in this area? Or, maybe you could consider turning it down a notch in this area? If you were the seller, would you be compelled to hire you? People love to buy, give them something they’ll be comfortable “buying” into. An efficient presentation will inform/educate while answering questions the seller has in mind that don’t have to be brought up in the form of objections. 2.    An objection is a question in the mind of the customer that remains unanswered … answer their questions. Point being, sometimes we take a simple objection and blow it up to be a 50-foot monster. Our ability to remain calm will come from knowing what to say - practice more. There is NO

Your real estate business is built 90 days at a time. Have you ever felt like you were legitimately working and wondered why you aren't getting anywhere? Frustrated with your ability to get things rolling?  First, it's not your fault. It's likely no one has ever explained how the cycles in the real estate business work and what it is going to require of you to get traction and some business rolling. I like to use the example of a plane upon take off.  If the plane doesn’t have a long enough runway and is unable to get enough speed, it won’t be able to have enough momentum to get lift and take off.  The plane requires a certain amount of energy being generated from its engines (thrust) to keep it ascending, eventually, reaching its cruising altitude. This is where the plane requires less energy or thrust to maintain flight; you could say the plane has momentum now.  The most energy the plane exerted was getting the plane from a standstill to its cruising altitude. (This is no different for us in real estate.)

We discussed in the last episode the key to realizing high levels of achievement was having a clear understanding of what your 20% is related to your job/business. Those activities, that if not done consistently would eventually lead to you going out of business or losing your job. These are the core responsibilities that require your attention and consistent execution. Now that we’ve talked about (and will be working on) identifying these key areas, the next step is to set ourselves up to win by weaving in an ample amount of vitamin A with your 20%.  As I reflected on the last episode, I realized the importance to raise our awareness around this as they both tie into one another...and...typically, one without the other prevents maximum results.  Many of us may be aware of our 20% and yet lack accountability OR tend to have an accountable approach to their daily lives and lack clarity on that 20% activity is to lead to 80% of your results. Vitamin A is for Accountability.  We’ve all heard about the importance

Today we’re going to talk about staying focused on your 20%. The 80/20 principle.   Time is The Great Equalizer Q - We all know or have heard of someone who has had extraordinary success. How do they do more,  achieve more, earn more, have more? A - They get to the heart of things...They go small. “Going small” is ignoring all the things you could do and doing what you should do.  It’s realizing that extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus. What exactly is this 20% secret?   We have found that every job or role in business, has a measurable way of tracking performance. To determine this, we ask three questions. 1. How do you gauge success in your job or business? 2. What are the things/activities that contribute to that success? 3. Out of those things/activities, which is the priority item? Meaning, if you didn't do that activity at all, you would essentially see your business fail or lose your job? This concept comes from the Italian philosopher named Vilfredo Pare

How effective is your pre-appointment routine? I like to call this phase of the listing process “showtime.” Do you have a specific process you follow each time you get ready to head out to a listing presentation? If you don’t, this means you are either winging it each time or haven’t yet been introduced to this strategy as an effective way to prepare for your listing appointments...of course, you could also be choosing not to follow any sort of process or routine which I wouldn’t recommend. Remember the very important and meaningful 5Ps? Prior, planning, prevents, poor, performance. Speaking of performance, a great example is Olympic athletes. How much goes into their preparation? How many years of preparation? How many hours each and everyday?  In most cases this goes on for 4-8 years!  All that to make the team and when it comes to actual performing time, that can vary from a few minutes to a few hours...and 4-8 years to get to this moment.  Also, what about the difference between winning the gold or silver

Tip #1 - Conduct a Consultation - For some reason, I have observed over my career - going back to 1991...most real estate agents have always approached working with buyers differently than with a seller.  With a seller, we make an appointment, go out to meet the seller at their home and have a meeting - or - we refer to this as a listing presentation.  However, (and I say for whatever reason) our industry as a whole doesn’t approach the buyer lead the same way. Why is that?  Is it just a matter of watching what others have done and doing the same as what everyone else has seen people do?  It reminds me of the story… A young girl was watching her mother bake a ham for a family gathering and noticed her mom cutting off the ends before placing it in the oven. “Mom, why do you cut the ends off before baking the ham?” she asked. “Hmmm…I think it helps soak up the juices while it’s baking.  I’m actually not sure, though. That’s just the way your grandma always did it, so I’ve just always cut them off. Why don’t you

Over the years, through focused preparation and hours and hours (and even more hours) of practice...I was able to have a fairly high listing presentation to listings taken ratio.  Most agents will have an average of a 25% closing rate, better than average would be 50%, and the top agents would be converting upwards of 70-80% of the appointments they go on.  What is interesting here is if you take...say...10 appointments and each one is going to payout $6000 CGI, the difference between having average skills and above average skills is an additional $18,000 for the top listing agent - for the same amount of time! Repeat this a handful of times over the course of a year and you can see how you’re leaving, at least, $100,000 on the table - or putting in your pocket! Here're six benefits you can have when you commit to pre-qualifying 100% of your listing appointments, 100% of the time. 1. Flushes out what's really going on - I like to use this example when I am teaching agents about pre-qualifying the seller.  Fir