
Complaints – Crisis or Opportunity?

Our When you examine the activities that salespeople routinely work on, you have to wonder whether they understand
exactly what a real result is. best leaders NEVER allow their offices to close unless the agency has at least one real result for the day. These leaders understand that they incur expenses every day, therefore they must achieve one real result a day.
As leaders, we must help our people recognise what constitutes a result, what actions are necessary to achieve those results, and then follow up to make sure they are doing those actions. All activities in a salesperson’s day should lead directly a real result.
Continue reading What is a Real Result?
One reason real estate agencies don’t do as well as they should is that they are run by salespeople. It’s what is called the dilemma of salespeople at the top.
When an office’s leader is a person who loves making sales, you often find such people too busy doing what they love to spend time tracking where the income goes. This is a recipe for disaster. There is no point, no point at all, in making lots of sales unless you keep a good proportion of the sales income. It’s like setting sail in a leaky ship – sooner or later you’re going to sink.
Willpower and stubbornness are close relations. One attribute you want. The other you don’t.
Stubborn people steadfastly hold onto ideas and, right or wrong, will not be persuaded to see any other point of view. You could argue that this is misdirected willpower.
When it comes to forming new habits, willpower is what you need. With willpower you can say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to yourself and mean it.
If you feel that you lack willpower, take heart. Willpower can be exercised. Start small. Make a short-term commitment and stick to it. Then increase the time and difficulty of the commitments. Your willpower will strengthen.
So often you hear people complain, “I make the calls, but I’m not getting any results!” If you find yourself in this position, perhaps you should do something about it. Prospecting, like all tasks a salesperson performs, must show a healthy return.
There is no delicate way to say this: if you cannot find sellers, and lots of them, then you probably won’t master the skill required to list them. You might as well face the fact that real estate is not for you and save yourself months of misery. Failing that, you have no choice but to get good at finding new sellers for your agency. Becoming good at this takes dedication, determination and courage.
In his book, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill names Eleven Major Attributes of Leadership. Whether you run an agency and have a team to lead, or you are a salesperson with clients to lead, you are a leader. And let’s not forget that we always have to lead ourselves.
As with all ideals, you might find yourself lacking in some of these leadership attributes but, as we often say, Leadership can be learned – daily, not in a day.
Continue reading Eleven Attributes of Leadership
“I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.” Shakespeare.
Borrowing money is for fools – incompetent suckers. In business, and at home, there is rarely a need to borrow. People borrow because they don’t have sufficient funds. They don’t have sufficient funds because they don’t save. If they can’t save, how can they repay a loan?
Loan payments sink businesses. They destroy families.
To borrow money is to incur debt. But it’s worse than that – to borrow is to incur an obligation far greater than the debt. It’s an obligation many people regret. It’s an obligation we can live without.
Have you ever put off doing a chore that you thought would be difficult? You dreaded doing it but eventually you got stuck into it, and what happened? It was much easier than you thought. You couldn’t imagine why you thought it would be so hard.
Prospecting is like that. It’s just not that difficult. All you have to do is start, keep going, and it will become a habit. A winning habit.
There are only 3 reasons why salespeople don’t prospect:
Do you have a problem with unethical competitors ‘jumping’ your signs? People who approach the owner of a property whom they know, or suspect, is exclusively listed with another agent, are acting unethically. If attempting to induce another person to break an agreement – a promise – with a third party isn’t unethical, what is? This seller gave his or her word to allow the agent, whose sign the ‘sign jumper’ walked past, to sell the property, and the seller gave the agent an agreed time in which to do it. How sniveling and cowardly it is to try and convince that person to break their agreement with their agent.So if you are the agent whose sign(s) is being jumped, let’s begin by looking at the positive side. You are fortunate to have competitors who are so weak and desperate that they have to resort to pilfering other agents’ sellers in order to survive. Close the door on this source of sellers and you will send them broke. Fast.Closing this door is easy, too. There are some things you MUST remember to say during the listing, and some things you MUST do after you have the property listed.DURING THE LISTING PRESENTATION
I’m not trying to do myself out of business with this statement, but salespeople need far more coaching than typical salespeople receive. While there are many good seminars and presenters in the marketplace, there are simply not enough regular seminars in your town or city for that method of training to be sufficient to develop a winning team.
In addition to external seminars, the leader has to step up and coach.
If you do not have this already, your office must have a comprehensive training library of books, recordings, manuals, and DVDs. Ideally there should not be any problem your sales team faces that cannot be solved by a program that is in your training library. This is what the Pittard Training Group strives to provide its members and it is essential.
How does the leader coach?
Last year I recorded an interview with Adam McMahon, from Dignam Real Estate in Thirroul, NSW.
Adam is a keen goal setter, which explains why he is so focused. In the twelve months prior to that recording, Adam produced around $730,000 in fees for his office, without the aid of a personal assistant.
Inevitably the conversation turned to ways of avoiding erratic performance. This is what Adam had to say about goals and how to reach them:
“You have ups and downs, like everyone has. To start with, you sometimes set easy goals that you think you’re going to reach quite comfortably. Then over a period of time you push yourself and take your goals higher”.
Your weekly sales meeting should be the most important part of your business week. If you’re interested in making more sales, pay attention when your leader asks you, “What have you got cooking?”
The definition of a cooking sale is a sale you believe you have a reasonable chance of closing.
Some sales are obviously cooking, for example, the buyers are coming back for a second inspection. These sales are usually the only ones that are given in answer to the “What have you got cooking?” question.
To get the obvious cookings is not why your leader asks the ‘cooking’ question. The purpose of examining the cookings is to help you to uncover the hidden sales.
I read this a long time ago but cannot remember where I read it or exactly who was involved.
My recollection is that John D Rockefeller (I don’t know if it was senior or junior) was having his shoes polished, when the busboy gave him a ‘hot’ stock tip. The magnate sold all of his shares the next day, saying something like, “When the busboy buys, sell!”. Shortly afterwards the share market crashed, followed by the Great Depression.
In the Leader Bulletin Every Business Needs Clarity we discussed the importance of Clarity to your business.
If clarity is the mental strength for success, Focus is the physical strength. Focus is the force that enables the leader to sweep aside all the obstacles, problems, excuses and distractions. Focus demands the great leadership characteristics of discipline and courage. Focus requires the application of pressure. When pressure comes two different results can happen. People either focus or fold.
Following the November 2011 sales bulletin, ‘So You Think You’ve Got Plenty of Listings’, Phil McGrath from Impact Property requested ideas on how to develop relationships with sellers. It’s a good question, one whose answer would fill a chapter of a book.
Building relationships requires contact. Lots of it.
In Part 1 of this three-part feature we talked about the importance of understanding your sellers’ needs, and how important this understanding was to making sales. In Part 1, I gave you seven questions to ask your sellers during the listing presentation. Here are fifteen more.
Continue reading Get Close Part 2