Category: Sales Articles

I was talking with a Diamond member of Pittard’s Winners Circle recently. The topic came around to telling sellers the truth about the likely selling prices of their properties.

This million-dollar producer said, “I tell sellers that in this market their properties will sell for $x. If they aren’t willing to price near that, I won’t take on their listing.” He hastened to add that he explains this to sellers more tactfully than that, but his point is that sellers must be told the truth about the likely selling price by their lister. Continue reading A Matter of Integrity

Agents who inflate the likely selling price with sellers in order to win the listing – who ‘buy the business’ – might get away with it during a boom market, but in a down market this horrible practice no longer works. Many agents paint themselves into a corner.

In our sales program, Winning Ways – A Smarter Sales Career, we teach real estate salespeople that when an agent quotes two figures to buyers by way of a range, the lowest price in that range becomes the de facto list price. Continue reading The Impossible Gap

Do your results fluctuate? Are they persistently low? Have you ever found yourself blaming outside forces, such as the market or difficult clients, for a run of bad luck? The good news is that this can be fixed.

In my book, Why Winners Win, I name four Success Ingredients: Attitude, Knowledge, Skill and Competent Action. Continue reading Self-Management

“The 30–Day Rule states that the prospecting you do in this 30 day period will pay off for the next 90 days. It is a simple, yet powerful universal rule that governs sales. Ignore it at your peril. When you internalize this rule, it will drive you to never put prospecting aside for another day”

Jeb Blount – Fanatical Prospecting

Where is your next listing coming from? If you don’t know, you’re heading for a performance slump. All salespeople should have a full pipeline of prospects – warm leads that will soon germinate into listings, then into sales, then into income. Continue reading Pipeline of Prospects

In 30 years I have interviewed countless winners, and have noticed one big difference between winners and their mediocre counterparts:

Winners do the hard tasks. Winners understand that the hard tasks pay.

In truth, the ‘hard’ tasks aren’t hard at all. Simply, salespeople don’t like doing these tasks so they avoid them. In their minds, they make these tasks seem harder than they really are. They invent excuses for not doing them. When asked by their leader, “How much prospecting have you done this week?”, they reply, “I’ve been too busy”. This is nonsense, and a fundamental cause of low results. Continue reading Hard Tasks Pay

A common complaint from leaders is that their salespeople lack focus. It has a been constant theme in my 30 years as a real estate agency profit consultant.

One leader said his salespeople had the attention span of a gnat.

A short attention span is not a problem for most people. Watch people doing leisure activities – things they love to do. They have no trouble giving these activities their full attention. Continue reading Short Attention Spans

Below are snippets are from surveys conducted by Roy Morgan over a 17-year period. I have been following these surveys for 25 years and note the position of our industry moves very little in the list of most trusted professions.

Most Respected Professions: Nurses, Pharmacists and Doctors
Least Respected: Car Salesmen, Journalists and Real Estate Agents.

Roy Morgan 2000 Continue reading A Foundation of Honesty

Let’s give some thought to how we can make more sales despite the gloom and doom about the current state of the real estate market in many regions.

Reality

The market is your reality. As professionals, we must learn to thrive in all markets, whether booming, static, or down-turning. If you don’t like the reality of this market, ask yourself, “Can I change this?” Continue reading How To Make More Sales

A change in the market has exposed many of those who looked like winners during the boom. Back then, it was easy to look like a hero – if you could get the listings and held onto them long enough, prices would rise to the sellers’ enthusiastic expectations and you’d make a sale.

Times have changed. Now skill is required to make sales.

In the down-turning markets of Sydney and Melbourne I have noticed the emergence of two distinct types of salesperson: Continue reading Two Types of Salesperson

A lot of leaders and salespeople are complaining about the ‘tough market’. But is the market really the whole problem?

The advice I’ve been giving to Pittard clients is that we can’t change the market – it’s the hand we’ve been dealt – and so instead let’s concentrate on what we can control. Continue reading Are You Sure It’s the Market?

Let me introduce you to Joan Carter, who retired on 30 June 2018, ending a successful twenty-four year career in real estate sales.

Before real estate, Joan was a school teacher. Throughout her career, she was often in the Top Ten Salespeople in the Pittard rankings. She was part of a very impressive pool of winners whose results far exceed typical industry averages. Joan was often in the top three. Continue reading Competence Doesn’t Just Happen

During the boom, I heard many salespeople talk up their results. Many of them are quiet now that the market has turned. Now I see many leaders and salespeople in a state of panic. They’re not making sales and they’re blaming the buyers.

It’s time to get out of panic mode and get to work.

Do you have listings? How many are you personally managing? If you have stock, you can talk to the owners about the state of the market. If they want to sell, they must understand that their properties are commodities on a market. Overpriced properties don’t sell. Continue reading When the Market Turns

Late last year, I read a Real Estate Business Online article entitled, Purplebricks already effecting ‘dramatic change’ in commission-charging agents’ behaviour. It quoted Purplebricks global COO Neil Tavender stating that since entering the Australian market, Purplebricks has caused traditional agents to reflect significantly on how they operate.

Tavender was quoted as saying, “We have seen in some instances where commissions have come down from 2.5 per cent to 1.8 per cent. But obviously with the fixed cost models that they have, with premises and associated costs, that is not a sustainable future.”

Continue reading What Is Your Value Chain?

An interview of William Danko, co-author of Richer Than a Millionaire with Richard Van Ness, will be released this month on Pittard’s streaming platform iTrain®.

In Professor Danko’s previous book, The Millionaire Next Door, co-authored with the late Thomas Stanley, the focus was on what it takes to become a millionaire. In Richer Than a Millionaire, the focus has shifted to two areas: what it takes to be wealthy, and what it takes to be well-adjusted.1 Continue reading Wealthy and Well Adjusted

You cannot watch, listen to, or read the news for long without being bombarded with bad news, gloomy forecasts and general negativity. Bad news sells.

Let too much of it into your head, and your performance will suffer. I believe that in life we get the ‘negatives’ for nothing. We must work for the positive. We must consciously seek out the good, the positive, focusing on what we can do instead of worrying about things that are beyond our control, much of which will never happen. Continue reading The Committee in Your Head

In an age where people can be quick to assert their rights but slow to live up to their responsibilities, we at Pittard advise our leaders to hold their people accountable. That is, accountable for doing winning actions, in large quantities, on a regular basis.

In Sales, there are right actions and wrong actions. The right actions lead to a listing, a sale, or a price reduction, and eventually to properties sold and fees received. The wrong actions are a waste of time and don’t lead to results. Continue reading Hold Yourself Accountable

To people of integrity, their word is their bond. They do what they say, when they said they’d do it, how they said they’d do it. People of integrity realise that those who promise are in debt.

When I say that our word should be our bond, I mean in matters large and small.

If we say we will do something, we must do it, even if we don’t specifically use the word “promise”. If leaders and salespeople forget this, their reputations suffer. Continue reading A Promise Is a Promise

Some people say you must love your work. I agree that this is desirable, but it’s not always realistic. Pursuing this ideal could cost you a great career.

Author Larry Winget says you don’t have to love what you do, but if you accept payment to do a job, whether you love it or not, you have a moral obligation to do it well.

Let’s face it, a sales job is tough. When you first start this career, chances are high you’re not going to like it, or at least not every aspect – prospecting for example. But this is irrelevant. Like the task or not, some tasks are essential to success and longevity – prospecting for example!  Continue reading Loving What You Do

Some years ago, I presented a Field Challenges workshop in Perth. Participants submitted for discussion challenges they were facing in the field. A few topics were offered and dispatched quickly as the solutions were obvious.

I then read to the audience a field challenge submitted by email and asked the audience if that challenge affected anybody. All hands went up. Continue reading Free Shots

Salespeople spend a lot of time trying to convince sellers how good they are. They talk about the advertising they do, the awards they’ve won, the results they’ve had. The trouble is, too many salespeople make the presentation all about themselves.

Whether your clients are buyers, sellers, landlords or tenants, they are all out to look after themselves. Most are fair, but in their minds, their own interests are paramount. Continue reading Why You?