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

Vital signs (often shortened to just vitals) are a group of the 4 to 6 most important signs that indicate the status of the body's vital (life-sustaining) functions. Pulse, blood pressure, temperature, respiration rate are a few of these “vital signs” for life. Appointments Set - Obviously, we all know that this is where the magic happens.  If we’re not getting face to face with people, it will be a challenge to sell anything.  Again, this all comes down to your annual sales goal.  If we take an agent looking to sell 24 homes in a year, we want to break down how many will be a seller side, how many a buyer side.  Let’s say 60% seller and 40% buyer. This would suggest we’d be setting a goal to close 15 listings (rounded up).  Ask yourself, how many listing appointments do you need to go on to get 15 to list with you?  If you are closing 50% of the listings you go out on you’d be setting a goal for 30 listing appointments. If you are closing 70%, you would be looking at approximately 21 appointments. As you see

Vital signs (often shortened to just vitals) are a group of the 4 to 6 most important signs that indicate the status of the body's vital (life-sustaining) functions. Pulse, blood pressure, temperature, respiration rate are a few of these “vital signs” of life. Days worked - With 365 days, when counting M-F “working days” there are typically 250 days considered “Working Days”.  What I want to emphasis is this, when we take a step back, and realize we have 250 days or 2000 hours (if working an 8 hour day) to accomplish our goals it puts into perspective there is an ample amount of time to achieve our goals.  So, if we’re falling short, why?  The first area most people falls short is having a clearly defined business plan/goals set. In fact, most studies tell us that only 3% of us have written goals.  One of the most famous studies from the book What They Don’t Teach You in the Harvard Business School, by Mark McCormack posed this questions and research: Why Do 3% of Harvard MBAs Make Ten Times as Much as the Ot

Are You An Eagle or A Duck? No one can make you serve customers well….that’s because great service is a choice. One man, Harvey Mackay, tells a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point. He was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey. He handed my friend a laminated card and said: ‘I’m Wally, your driver. While I’m loading your bags in the trunk I’d like you to read my mission statement.’ Taken aback, Harvey read the card. It said: Wally’s Mission Statement: To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment…This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean! As he slid behind the wheel, Wally sai

A Formula For  S.U.C.C.E.S.S - Breaking down the word “Success” - characteristics for success in Real Estate: Systems -  A set of principles or procedures according to which something is done; an organized method. There are many ways an agent can approach selling Real Estate. Something I wish I’d known early in my career was this principle,  “moving from E to P.” E, for entrepreneurial, by our nature, and the mere fact we’re in the Real Estate business we have an entrepreneurial spirit about us. This is an important factor that drives our success.  Specifically, when it comes to being in “E” mode, we’re talking about doing what comes naturally. We jump out of bed each morning with a positive spirit ready to take on the day (or in some cases the world) going hard, pushing forward with that “I can make it happen” mindset. In “E” mode we often find ourselves being “reactive”  to what comes our way vs. “responsive.”  We often are proud of the fact that we’re charging hard in “E” mode, sharing with those around us

14 Negotiation Tips - 7 Don’ts  Don’t use force, threats, fear tactics or burn bridges with any party to the transaction - If you’re planning on having long-term success, your reputation and how you conduct business is also a factor that will come into play now and in the years ahead.  It’s critical to keep in mind that we have a lot more at stake than just getting a  deal done at all costs.  It’s so easy to find ourselves falling into a trap of manipulation when pushing to make a deal come together. Negotiating isn’t always really what we see depicted on TV or in the movies. A top negotiator not only has a clear objective to get his/her clients goals met, but they also have a good understanding of what goals the other party is attempting to accomplish.  Let’s be clear that successful negotiating doesn’t always mean we get everything we want, it means we get the majority of the terms in our favor, and we often overlook pointing this out to our clients.  Setting this expectation will in itself help you close

14 Negotiation Tips - 7 Do’s and 7 Dont’s “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate” John F. Kennedy said during his Inaugural Address, (55 years ago)January 20, 1961  - I love this quote because it reminds us not to let fear stop us from fully expressing ourselves and encourages us to put in our order - to ask for what we want and in doing so realize the answer is no if we don’t ask.  We’re all on a journey to live a fulfilled life, and if we can step back and understand, we need to look at the big picture when we are approaching a negotiation we’re more likely to have a favorable outcome for all parties. A recent Forbes magazine article of the top 5 reasons consumers hire a Realtor was to assist with negotiations. This was #2 only behind accessibility to inventory and a convenience factor.  This means, even though other topics like price, fees, and more trivial questions come up early in the conversation with potential clients, consumers desire finding an agent that has strong

You can find the first 8 Income Producing Habits here.    9. The Habit of Tracking Your Numbers - What I mean here is knowing the following.  How many calls are required to book one appointment? What % of your leads are converting to appointments? How many appointments are required to get a contract signed? How many signed contracts end up in a closed sale?  Knowing these will empower you with the knowledge and provide a  predictable outcome of your activity. Others would be knowing the market statistics in your market area.  New listings taken, active listings, pending sales, closed sales, expired listings.  This not only allows you to be an expert, it allows you to KNOW what the market is doing vs. wondering, hearing what someone else thinks or the media is reporting.   10. The Habit of Regularly Reviewing Your Goals - Setting goals is great, often, once set that’s it.  In this high-speed world, we can easily lose sight of the very lives we intend to experience. Creating a habit to review your goals regular

1.The Habit of Lead Generation - The key to all choices.  When you have the ability to create leads, you have given yourself the ability to choose who you work with, where you work and when you work. 2.The Habit of Speaking Up and Asking For Business - We’ve all felt it before, the opportunity is staring us in the face to speak up, and we hesitate and miss the opportunity.  You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.  The answer is no if you don’t ask so you may as well ask!  The 2015 NAR profile of buyers and sellers says 88% of people would refer their agent...and less than 8% of agents ask!OH/RR 3.The Habit of Closing One More Time Than You Are Comfortable - My experience is many agents don’t even close once.  The research shows that it can take up to 7 attempts on your part before your prospect makes a decision to work with you. Every attempt gets you closer to a yes.  You never know unless you do it. 4.The Habit of Staying Organized With My Lead Follow up -  80% of sales require five follow-up calls

Trickle, Flow, Flood - Establishing Proper Expectations with Sellers Scenario – You just got the listing agreement signed, and you want to now establish expectations, so the seller knows what to expect is going take place over the next few weeks. Why is this so important? 1. It promotes excellent customer service. This shows you have everything under control and are highly competent. We’re the expert and as the RE professional, we are here to take the seller through the process and provide direction and demonstrate our leadership. We may do this on a daily basis and in most cases the average seller may go through this process 4-5 maybe up to 6-7 times over their life time. 2. It reduces the seller’s anxiety and their mind from wandering and making stuff up. Exactly, we don’t want our sellers to be graduates of MSU – Making stuff up. It’s only normal for a seller to “wonder” what is going to happen next.  By telling them what to expect, you’re not only helping them be more comfortable with the process, they ar

There are several types of closes.  Today, we’re going to focus on 2 of the most common. Mastering the use of these two will allow you to book more appointments and close more sales. Trial Close. Alternative Close. Trial Close - What is it? The trial close is the salesperson's MVT.(most valuable tool)  It's like a thermometer or blood pressure cuff – it's a critical diagnostic tool used to assess a situation…or better yet, assess how our prospect feels about the product or service we are selling. A Trial Close is a 'closing technique' to test or determine whether our prospect or client is ready to make a buying decision. Trial closes are questions designed to get the customer in the habit of saying yes before you ask your final closing question. What happens most of the time is we do all the talking and leave them out of the conversation, not knowing what’s on their minds, not getting any diagnostics to work with and then all of a sudden ask for them to make a decision - Allow them to go through a decision

How often do you ever hear -  “ You have to lead generate” and “You have to make calls”? Step back and put things into perspective. Let’s address the details behind these comments.  I want to bring some awareness, help break this down for you and I trust the end result will be you feel empowered and have some clarity. Usually, this is an open-ended conversation - it’s a broad subject “lead generation” or “prospecting” I’ve found, since it’s such a broad topic - almost like when we say the universe - that’s a big space - in fact how big is it exactly?  No one really knows.  So, when we say “you have to lead generate - make so many calls each day etc.  It can easily become overwhelming.  As a result, we tend to shut down and become paralyzed with fear and the unknown. So let’s go over a few basic steps that should help you accomplish your goals. 5 Steps to setting up a lead generation plan of action - Step 1 - Establish your 12-month production goals - How many homes or units are you going to sell? You have to

The 4th quarter of the year matter. You can finish strong with these 1o tips to stay engaged during the holidays. Don’t be too quick to buy into it’s the “it’s the holidays trap”. When you let up in the 4th quarter, you are losing six months of production. Consider working from a 15-month business plan. Prepare yourself for the end of year objections, they never change. Accept the fact that you’re going to have to make more contacts in the months of Oct, November and December compared to March, April or May. Have a mental diet prepared full of vitamin M - for mindset. Most agents mentally check out around Halloween each year. Therefore, your competition decreases while your production increases. If your business has slowed down, take advantage of this and work on your business since you’re not working as much in your business. Understand part of having a grand harvest next year is planting your seeds ahead of time. Start a 66-day challenge.

Eight Steps to get more sales through lead follow up 1. Have a clearly defined definition of what qualifies as a lead.  2.Have an established pipeline - Build a list of your top 10 leads. 3.Approach each lead like there are serious, qualified and ready to go. 4.It’s critical to understand the majority of your appointments will come from lead follow-up … not your initial call.  5. Most agents have too many “leads” which actually works against us. 6. Leads have no value … we must be thinking appointments and contracts. 7. When following up, set it up like an appointment  8. What is the best follow up system to use?   

For Sale By Owners – Discussion Points and tips to list more FSBO’s Winning with FSBO’S is 90% mindset and 10% skills. I’m not discounting that we need to have some skills to get the job done, I am suggesting that it’s what our approach and expectations are that will make us win or have more challenges with the when working with the by owner seller. Fact: at least 70-80% eventually list with an agent. If we know that the vast majority eventually list, why not say to yourself it’s going to be with me and in order for that to happen I have to insert myself into the conversation, the odds are in your favor. There are more by owner sellers than most agents have as a goal to sell each year.  They are only a few things that can happen, they sell, the list or nothing at all. The serious and most qualified ones are most likely to list with an agent. Our job here is to sift through all of them to find the aces in the deck…or at least the face cards.  The key is to never lose sight that the good ones are there an

How to show less and sell more. Your First Contact - Making it count with the 4 Ws: Why, Where, What, When Make them convince you. Listen for the following; Clarity - Do they have direction, focus, and specifics in mind. Urgency - What is the timeframe to work within? Do they have to buy or want to buy? Open Minded - Are they coachable? Will they follow your lead? Pre-Qualifying - It is about more than money.  Financially - Can they meet the lending guidelines to fund the loan? Motivation - Are they truly motivated to buy a home? Finances and Motivation must line up. The more time you take having a solid first conversation, the less time it will take you to locate the buyers new home and have your next sale under contract. Consultation - This is where most agents get off track.  All parties must have 100% clarity of the desired outcome. A consultation saves everyone time when showing property and prevents missed opportunity. If a buyer resists meeting for a consultation, it is a red flag. A consultation allow

Your mindset will determine your success. There are three aspects to a winning mindset; attitude, approach, and expectations.  Attitude It is the small things that make a HUGE difference.  95% of your success is attitude; the other 5% is attitude.  What are you listening to? What are you reading? Who are you hanging around? All of these impact your attitude.  Approach Have a plan.  Remember the five Ps - Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.  People don't plan to fail; they fail to plan.  Expectations Rome wasn't built in a day. You operate on 90 days cycles. Have you  taken enough action, consistently over a period of time to have measurable results? The 11th commandment - Thou shall not kid thyself. 

The Three Step Prep is the key to setting up a successful 1st appointment with clients. Step 1 – The Initial Conversation Find out the Why, What, Where, and When about their decision to buy/sell their house. Are you convinced they are motivated to take action? Step 2 – Pre-Qualify There are two types of pre-qualification, financially and level of motivation. You must pre-qualify 100% of the time. Pre-qualification must become a standard if not already. Step 3 – Set up the Appointment Offer an alternative close to help set the appointment. Use an open ended question. Ideally, allow for a few days to get lenders "ok" before you even meet.

A successful real estate business does not happen overnight. Nor does it happen without planning or effort. In this episode of Agents in Action, Todd Smith explains the five stages you are likely to experience while building a successful real estate business. 1. Building a Solid Foundation This step is often (and easily) overlooked in our excitement to get involved in the sales process. It is critical to have a solid foundation in place. The more solid the foundation,  the more likely you are to weather the storms of frustration and discouragement that will show along the way. If you don’t know “why”, the “how” becomes a chore instead of a journey to your dreams. 2. Work with Dedicated Focus Your business is built in 90-day cycles. What you see showing up today is a result of your action, or lack of action 90 days ago. You may not see immediate results. This is why it is important to know your big WHY. 3. Breakthrough When you have your breakthrough, you begin seeing consistent results.   During a breakthroug

Welcome to Agents in Action. The Agents in Action podcast, brought to you by Todd Smith, is devoted to providing education and inspiration for today's agent in action. You can expect the Agents in Action podcast to; Provide a learning environment everyone can take advantage of. Whether you are a new agent working towards your first sale, or a seasoned veteran looking to have a breakthrough, the content of Agents in Action will help your career. Agents in Action will bring real world experiences from the streets to you, so you can move forward faster. Todd Smith will pay it forward and share tried and true strategies, experiences and knowledge to help you cut down the learning curve and have success earlier in your career. This show will help you break through and take your real estate business, skills and income to the next level.