I recently read an industry article about remuneration for salespeople, discussing which was best: salaries or commission-only.
While I do not intend to argue that point now, a comment from an industry leader caused me concern.
This leader said that commission-only percentages varied widely, but the common rule of thumb was that the higher the commission, the less support the salesperson received from the agency. Continue reading Time, Attention and Care
In this short leadership session, real estate agency profit consultant, Gary Pittard, discusses the dual roles of leader and coach. Continue reading Leader and Coach
There can be no doubt that the pandemic, now in its second year, has disrupted business and the economy.
The real estate industry has been less affected than, say, tourism and entertainment, but the pandemic has still led to periodic restrictions on how we go about our daily business life.
But is it all bad news? For good business owners and salespeople, the pandemic has also taught us valuable lessons. Let’s look at two of those lessons. Continue reading Two Lessons From the Pandemic
In this short real estate sales session, real estate profit consultant, Gary Pittard, looks at a great sprint technique, which gives you a focused burst of productive activity. It’s an idea of author Mark McKeon, who calls this sprint technique ‘Go Zones’.
Nobody can work ‘flat chat’ all the time, but too many people work erratically at whatever activity comes to mind, or on urgencies that scream the loudest, failing to perform sufficient actions to produce high results.
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I am not telling you anything you don’t know when I say that rent rolls sell for big money. But what about your sales department – how much is it worth?
Many, if not most, real estate agency owners place little value on their sales department. They believe their sales department isn’t as valuable as their rent roll. Continue reading How Much Is Your Sales Department Worth?
In this short leadership session, real estate agency profit consultant, Gary Pittard, looks at the life of the lonely leader.
They say it’s lonely at the top. But many leaders are lonely, not because of the nature of the position, but because they don’t have a team. And the reason they do not have a team is that they have never fully devoted themselves to building a winning team.
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Do you remember the days when salespeople used to list large numbers of properties – eight or more every month? We seldom see numbers like these anymore – salespeople have become used to low numbers.
Many years ago we coined the term, “Take care of the numbers and the dollars will take care of themselves“. This is just as true today. When salespeople focus on gross commission, on the dollars, the numbers always suffer. Salespeople who focus on dollars set lower targets. Continue reading Used to Low Numbers?
In this short real estate sales session, real estate agency profit consultant, Gary Pittard, discusses the importance of being at your best during listing presentations.
Like it or not, sales is an emotional game. When we present, we appeal to our clients’ emotions – they make decisions emotionally, not logically.
Our own emotions can also affect our performance as presenters. The listing presentation is ‘Game On’. In these days of high selling fees, we risk a large amount of money if we go into the ‘game’ without being fully prepared.
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With so many offices making record profits, everybody is busy. But for leaders, you can be busy making sales, or you can be busy running a business. What type of busy are you?
Leaders who spend much of their working week listing and selling can, if they are not careful, fall into the trap of being too busy to recruit effectively. Recruiting effectively doesn’t just mean finding help, it means finding the RIGHT HELP and coaching them. Continue reading The Right Help
In this short real estate leadership session, real estate agency profit consultant, Gary Pittard, discusses how to make your business a happy place to work by injecting a little fun.
But you must strike a balance between work and fun. Salespeople occupy their positions for one purpose: to make sales. When there is too much fun in the office it can often be at the expense of results. Leaders tread a fine line between balancing results while still making their offices a happy place to work.
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Ask any person how important their reputation is to them. Nobody will say their reputation doesn’t matter.
Sure, some say, “I don’t care what other people think of me” – but that’s usually to justify being rude or insensitive. If these people care that little about their reputation, they probably can’t be trusted. Continue reading Reputation Matters
In this short real estate sales session, real estate agency profit consultant, Gary Pittard, discusses some ideas from Jeb Blount’s book Fanatical Prospecting.
Sales gurus that claim prospecting is dead, can greatly harm a salesperson’s career. According to Jeb Blount, this is music to the ears of failing salespeople, who would rather look for a silver bullet than prospect. Good news is not always the right news, however.
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“Mediocrity requires a big cheque book.”
Gary Pittard
The quality of a sales team should be the main priority for all agency leaders. Allow incompetence to fester in your sales team and the losses can be huge.
Many agency leaders express concern over their present teams. Leaders say that they wish their salespeople would prospect more, were better closers, would lose fewer listings to the competition. These skill and activity deficiencies are the primary reasons why business is lost to the competition, and the price is not just a lost sale, but a massive loss of income and profit. Continue reading The High Price of Business Lost to the Competition
In this short leadership session, real estate profit consultant, Gary Pittard, looks at Brightness of Future.
Today’s employees want more than money, they want a LIFE. If we are going to keep team members over the long term, we have to help them build a great life using their real estate sales career as a vehicle.
Sales can wear people down, even those who are ideally suited for a real estate sales career. No amount of real estate training, motivational training, time management, communication training, closing skills, listing ability etc. will offset a lack of brightness of future.
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In a sellers’ market, where you sell almost every property you list, the last thing you want to do is run low on listings. List more and you will sell more – we all know that – but many agents are low on stock. If you are one of those salespeople, what are you doing about it?
To get more listings, there are four areas salespeople should focus on. Continue reading List More Sell More
In this short real estate sales session, real estate agency profit consultant, Gary Pittard, discusses time management.
A common theme in real estate salespeople’s conversations is, “I’m too busy”, or “I’ve got a lot on”. Check in with those same salespeople at the end of the month and you will often find that their results were poor.
This begs the question, “Busy doing what?” Clearly, while these salespeople might have been busy, they have been busy on the wrong activities. Either that, or their actions were incompetent.
The key to getting more done is to simplify. Time management is not that hard.
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No doubt you’ve heard of the saying, ‘Same same, but different’, but sadly this does not often apply in real estate. Most agencies are same, same, but not different.
If you’ve seen one real estate salesperson, you’ve often seen them all – they say similar things to win business. They recommend similar methods of sale. They push for expensive marketing campaigns. They offer similar advertising options. And, if you’ve seen one auction, you’ve seen them all – again, there is no point of difference. Continue reading Same Same, But Not Different
Many real estate business owners struggle to make a profit from their sales departments. And for these agents, booming markets do little to help their profits.
In this short leadership session, real estate agency profit consultant, Gary Pittard, discusses profit and explains how to make more of it.
In a market where you sell everything you list, agencies that struggled during buyers’ markets still struggle in sellers’ markets – they struggle to find, and list, sufficient properties to allow them to capitalise on the boom.
Regardless of the market, it always gets the blame when agencies do poorly. But is the market really the culprit for low profits, or could it be that these agency leaders focus on the wrong metrics? Gary believes that some leaders do not have an ‘eye’ for profit.
Sometimes leaders must look at what isn’t working and do things differently. To quote country music performer, Sonia Lee, “If you keep on doin’ what you’re doin’, you’ll keep on getting’ what ya got.”
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Agents who discount their fees believe they must do so to win the business, but is this true?
Others reducing their fee is not a legitimate reason to discount your fee. This thinking indicates that your business is being driven by your competitors’ actions and not by yours. It’s a defeatist attitude. Continue reading Take Fee Off The Table
In this short real estate sales session, real estate agency profit consultant, Gary Pittard, asks, “What is your attitude to failure?”
Our school days did not equip us with a healthy respect for failure and its role in the pursuit of success.
At school we learned that getting things wrong is bad. We were taught to commit seemingly endless facts to memory for regurgitation at exam time. Then we were either right or wrong. Wrong was bad. It could see you repeat a year if you were wrong often enough.
The real world is different, or it should be. To master anything, you will probably do it poorly before you ever do it well.
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