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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
“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 →
Advertising is of little use, however, when it comes to . . . more →
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 →
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 →
“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”.
An interesting thought from Robert Greene on the topic of Mastery.
It makes me wonder how . . . more →
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 →
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 →
He told me that he used to work at an agency across the road. He said that most of his present team at some time or another also used to work at that agency, and these people are now producing great figures in . . . more →
If a member of your sales team is not performing, then that person is either not doing sufficient actions to achieve desired results, or is performing sales actions incompetently, or a combination of both. Most likely it’s a combination of the two.
Unless you do something about this, your salesperson will enter a slump and . . . more →
People who are successful in their chosen fields do more of the right actions every day, over the long term.
When I say ‘right actions’, I mean actions that lead to results. More of the right actions, means more results. More results means success, provided your expenses are under control.
Most people know what the right . . . more →
I’ve been a big fan of Jeffrey Gitomer for many years. Over that time I have recommended his books to many people and quoted him often.
As soon as I heard about his most recent book, The Sale Redefined, I ordered a copy for my Kindle. Sadly, it was a great disappointment.
I think that in . . . more →
The majority of salespeople suffer from fluctuating sales – up and down like a roller coaster.
Just because the majority performs this way, it doesn’t mean that consistent sales are not achievable. Consistent sales can be achieved and it’s not as difficult as you may think. It only requires a little thought and discipline.
Consistent sales . . . more →
I read in a recent real estate news publication that the NSW Minister for Fair Trading, Anthony Roberts, warned real estate agents to be sure they can prove that the glowing testimonials and endorsements on their websites are from genuine customers. He warned of fines to a maximum of $16,500 for corporations and $3,500 . . . more →
Quite often, we are better at solving other people’s problems than we are our own. Caught up as we are in the day-to-day business of being us, our own problems . . . more →
I’ve been reading Stanley: Africa’s Greatest Explorer by Tim Jeal. It’s the biography of Henry Stanley of “Dr Livingstone I presume” fame. Actually, he never said that. Evidence points to Stanley inventing that line, a bad move since it made him the subject of ridicule in many circles.
Stanley accomplished so much. African travel in the . . . more →
What is a result? In real estate only three things count:
An exclusive listing obtained;
A sale started;
One of your listings reduced in price to a point where it is saleable.
The best advice ever given to me as a fledgling salesperson was to strive for one result each working day. “Learn to start working on this result . . . more →
My daughter and son-in-law were recently involved in putting out a small brush fire, started by a wayward sky rocket. I won’t say who set it off, but for the record it wasn’t me. I would have used real rockets, just for starters.
The fire was extinguished in less than five minutes, but in that . . . more →
