Who would have thought that many real estate businesses would have had bumper sales numbers despite the COVID-19 pandemic? But this was the case for many real estate agencies, and for many real estate salespeople.
It is predicted that 2021 will be even better than 2020. That appears true as we enter the second quarter of 2021. Continue reading Plan, or Struggle: It’s Your Call
Is the thought of an increase in your monthly targets daunting? If your leader told you that it’s time for you to list 8 properties a month, would you resist?
Most salespeople would resist because they look at the entire figure. Eight listings a month sounds a lot.
Funny, but it’s all relative. I remember times when salespeople listed between 10-15 properties a month without fail. As selling fees increased, listing numbers decreased. This tells me that most of the battle is in our heads. We imagine things to be tougher than they are. Continue reading Prospecting In Bite-Sized Chunks
A salesperson in Adelaide was doing it tough. For two years he struggled and could barely make enough to cover his bills.
I admired him for persevering but secretly wondered how long he would last before he pursued another career. Continue reading Make Your Hard Work Pay Off
An essential ingredient to saleable listings
Happy New Year! I hope 2021 is your best year ever, and if you have goals, challenging targets and a plan, you’ve already laid the foundations for this to be a reality. Now all you need do is get to work and follow your plan. Continue reading Feedback
“May you live in interesting times” is purported to be ‘the Chinese curse’, although its origins in China are doubtful. Chinese or not, the year 2020 has seen ‘interesting times’ thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, many agencies have had a good year. Continue reading Up or Down in 2021?
Respect (noun)
To respect someone is to admire qualities in them and to show regard for their feelings, wishes and rights. Respect should be shown to everyone we meet, not just to those who can benefit us. Continue reading Respect
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many salespeople were saying that they were selling everything they listed. “We’d make more sales if we had more listings” was a common statement.
March 2020 was an uncertain month. Nobody knew what restrictions the government would apply and what effects those restrictions may have on business. This caused many salespeople to ‘mark time’ where actions were concerned. Some cut their hours, most cut their prospecting, and often their offices cut marketing to save money. Continue reading Are You Short of Listings?
I have said on many occasions that clear goals are an essential element in achieving consistent results.
No doubt, many of you began 2020 with clear goals. Then along came COVID-19 and perhaps your goals went out the window. And if you didn’t abandon the idea of achieving goals this year, you may have put your goals on hold. I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Continue reading Goals On Hold
Talking with salespeople at differing skill levels, I notice a subtle, but critical, difference between the pros and the rookies. The difference is that pros have an ‘eye’ for results.
Let me explain.
Talk to a professional salesperson and the conversation quickly moves to results. How many listings they got, how many listings they’re working on. Likewise with sales – sales they’ve made, sales they have ‘cooking’. Continue reading An Eye For Results
When an aircraft takes off, a huge amount of energy is required to get it off the ground.
Aircraft use a lot of fuel and require a lot of thrust to take off. Once clear of the ground, climb power is applied. Once the aircraft reaches the cruise, thrust is set to cruise power. Each power setting is lower than the one before.
In the cruise, the aircraft has momentum – a high cruise speed is achieved with a minimum amount of power, which allows the aircraft to fly high and fast. High speed with a lower fuel burn. Continue reading Momentum
On an agency visit I spent time with a salesperson who had fallen short of target for the previous two quarters. When I asked what her goal was for the coming quarter she replied, “Hang in and keep my job“.
I told her this was the wrong focus. Fear-based thinking is always the wrong focus. It’s a terrible way to work – there’s nothing inspiring about it, nothing to look forward to. Continue reading The Wrong Focus
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
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