One of the biggest handicaps we face as leaders is that many of us are really salespeople. We think like good salespeople. Good salespeople, that is.
A good salesperson wants an instant result. It gives you a ‘high’. This is where a lot of us go wrong – we don’t knuckle down and take care of the hard management and leadership tasks that are necessary to our long-term success. We want results NOW.
I know how you feel. It’s like going to a nursery and being told a shrub grows to ten feet fairly quickly. How quickly you ask. Seven years – that long! “How much for one that’s already ten feet tall? I’ll have that one!”
Being a good leader is a balancing act. You have to get results now and, at the same time, lay the foundations for your future success.
I’ll give you one example: Spotter Ads. In our Real Estate Agency Management Program we advise leaders to place regular advertisements in their local papers advertising for home owners who may wish to sell to buyers we have on our books. We give specific examples of buyers and describe the type of properties they are looking for.
We advise leaders to set up a regular system for the placement of Spotter Ads and offer plenty of advice on how to write them. We provide many samples of good Spotter Ads in our management manuals. And, at the risk of nagging, we even advise those leaders’ salespeople to use Spotter Ads and include examples in their Winning Ways – Real Estate Sales manuals.
And we even go one step further. I cite an example of a Spotter Ad and show how one leader, Michael Kies, linked more than $92,000 in fees, received over a twelve-month period, to just ONE Spotter Ad.
Guess what happens? Many leaders commence running Spotter Ads. And, when they do not see instant results, they cease running them. The writing of a good Spotter Ad requires practice. More than likely your first few ads won’t be very good, and therefore won’t attract many calls. Even when you get good at them, you may only receive six or so listings per year from Spotter Ads – many offices claim forty or more. But ask yourself this question:
Although you may only get twenty listings a year from Spotter Ads, how many will you receive if you DON’T RUN THEM?
That’s right, none!
This search for instant results at the expense of the long-term is a real handicap. Leaders need to think like leaders, not salespeople. As onerous as some management tasks may be, applying ourselves to making permanent those tasks which lead to long-term success is a worthwhile pursuit of anybody serious about creating a very profitable real estate agency.