For real estate agencies to thrive, they need a constant flow of quality listings. Both office and team must be committed to, and active in, the search for new business.
Happiness Is Relative
‘There’s an old saying that “one man’s gain must be another man’s loss.” Many people take that old adage for granted as the whole truth. And yet, it is totally false. Why? Because happiness is relative. And what pleases one person is not necessarily going to please the next person. This means that two individuals . . . more →
Measure and Improve
A short session for salespeople, presented by Gary Pittard. Measure and Improve discusses the importance of understanding your personal statistics. Know where you are now and you will be able to drive improvement.
Opposition
“The one thing we could not and should not do was dismiss the ability of any competitor to capture our customers.”
Howard Schultz (Starbucks)
Nothing stays the same. Stand still in business and eventually you will be overtaken by an ambitious competitor.
Never underestimate your opposition. You don’t have to like them, but you should respect . . . more →
The Game of Life
Negotiation has been called “The Game of Life.” Not a day passes that fails to confirm its presence in almost everything we do with others.
Negotiating Effectively Within Your Own Organization
by Chester Karrass
by Chester Karrass
Negotiation is a critical skill to master, in both our professional and personal lives.
The closer people are to us, the easier . . . more →
Falling for the Red Herring
The idiom “red herring” is used to refer to something that misleads or distracts from the relevant or important issue.
Wikipedia
Real estate salespeople are in the business of listing and selling properties. Sometimes they need to be reminded of this, because sometimes they try and sell the wrong product. Instead of property sales, . . . more →
A Deeper Understanding
Order Takers are typically not involved in persuading or convincing someone to buy something. They may answer questions and point out various choices regarding their product line or services, if asked, but Order Takers do not proactively cause a sale to occur. The prospect, typically induced by advertising or other means, has decided on . . . more →
Worth Keeping, Worth Coaching
“Weekly coaching sessions enable you to identify and eliminate problems that can compound over the year and cost the company money, new business, and countless hours in attempting to salvage an employee. And if you’re losing salespeople as a result of coaching negligence, it will cost your company even more time and money to . . . more →
Train To Win
Back in the nineties we estimated that for every dollar invested in training a real estate business owner saw a return of approximately $30. With the size of selling fees today, the return on investment in training would be closer to $100 for every dollar invested.
This is a big return for a small investment. So . . . more →
Work Is A Verb
In grammar, there are nouns and verbs. A noun is a part of speech that is used to name a person, place, thing, quality, or action. A verb is a doing word.
My reason for pointing out the difference is that in modern speech words can switch functions. Some nouns have morphed into verbs, for . . . more →
Great Expectations
My apologies to Charles Dickens for ripping off the title of his classic novel, but Great Expectations encapsulates an important principle of leadership. Great leaders have great expectations, of themselves and teams.
A team will never exceed its leader’s public expectations of the team. If the leader aims high, the team will do likewise. If . . . more →
The Right People Make Life Better
Parents want the best for their children. One way they show this is to observe the type of people their children mix with. Nobody wants their kids running with the wrong crowd.
We do not appear to find it difficult to identify that type of child either. They are rough kids, often impolite, angry, bad . . . more →
Great Leader, or Pretender?
Leadership is influencing people – by providing purpose, direction and motivation – while operating to accomplish the mission and improving the organization.
US. Army Handbook
This is a good definition of leadership, however I do not entirely agree with the handbook definition. I do not believe that it is a leader’s job to . . . more →
The Journey To ‘Excellent’
Every time he drove by a For Sale by Owner, he would first stop his car. This is perhaps the most difficult part of this technique, because most agents do the exact opposite: We accelerate past the sign and pretend we never saw it.
The next step was to drop what . . . more →
Leadership: Not Just Bossing People About
“In the past a leader was a boss. Today’s leaders must be partners with their people. They no longer can lead solely based on positional power”.
Ken Blanchard
Today’s generation of employees are different from previous generations. Gone are the days when respect automatically came with the title of supervisor, or boss. Today you have to . . . more →
Does Typical Advertising Work?
So often you see agencies with very few listings advertising heavily for buyers. While I have nothing against advertising, I do believe that you should advertise for what you want – if you want buyers, advertise for buyers; if you want listings, advertise for sellers.
Advertising is of little use, however, when it comes to . . . more →
That Elusive Thing Called Motivation
Salespeople often talk about the need to discover a seller’s motivation. “No motivation, no sale“, many say. While I believe this to be true, I also believe that many salespeople do not understand what motivation really means, and therefore don’t know how to question sellers deeply enough to discover their true motivation.
In his book, The . . . more →
The Forgotten Rookie Syndrome
For many years my colleagues and I have urged real estate principals to give hiring and developing their people more attention. Often this falls on deaf ears. A large proportion of real estate business owners were formerly salespeople, and the sales habit is hard to kick.
Chris Lytle, author of The Accidental Sales . . . more →
A Profound Connection
“You must understand the following: In order to master a field,you must love the subject and feel a profound connection to it. Your interest must transcend the field itself and border on the religious”.
From the book, “Mastery” by Robert Greene
An interesting thought from Robert Greene on the topic of Mastery.
It makes me wonder how . . . more →
Succession Planning: All Talk, or All Action?
Succession Planning is something I hear leaders talk about often. For many, however, talk appears to be as far as it goes. While I hear many leaders talking about Succession Planning, I don’t see too many doing much about it.
The average age of a real estate principal in Australia and New Zealand is around . . . more →
Study for Understanding
I recently interviewed Sandy Rogers, salesperson at Marsellos Pike Real Estate in Morayfield, QLD. I first interviewed her ten years ago and since that time she’s been a high income producer for her office.
During the interview I wanted to find out how Sandy achieved longevity in her career. After more than fifteen years in . . . more →