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What Do I Do Now?

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

Below are two emails I’ve received in the past week. One is from a successful veteran agent in Texas and the other is from a young man from Canada in the business just over a year. Their stories are a bit different but my response is going to be the same to both.

From the veteran agent:

I just wanted to say Hi and wondered how things are going in your market?

Our market has seemed to turn into a foreclosure market and a significant chunk has come from that direction! 90% of listings are over-priced…but one story homes and REALLY nice homes are selling.

Interest rates are causing the market to fluctuate…and the stock market seems to be doing the same thing.

At best my business is breaking even after paying me and my wife’s salary of $200k a year….which I guess is good. If things continue then my profitability will have dropped over 50% this year. We generally NET $420,000 -$470,000 per year on sales of 1 Million.

Much longer when from the new agent:

Hi Russell,

Thank you for returning my call and giving me the correct email address. I have a lot on my mind with this career called real estate and I need a real person who understands the psychology of the business and who can point me in the right direction. With your proven track record I know I can use what you have already applied and take it to the next level, because the company I work and the broker’s are not seeing the big picture that I am seeing and it is a little frustrating. There are great trainers say that “if you want something go out and find people that is doing what you want to be doing, and start to do what they do on a regular basis”.

Just to give you a little bit about me and to get you up to speed on where I am at in my career, and what I am looking to accomplish. I have been in Real estate for a little over a year and my first year Gross sales were $75,000. My Business came from 3 Open Houses, 1 Cold Call, 1 Referral, 1 Agent Duty walk-in ( BUY & SELL ),1 Call Sign, 2 Family Referrals. I started Late February 2007. I was told through my office in June 2007 I was recommended to take a course called the Leader’s Choice Program ( Which is a cold calling course) and I did enjoy the program and I start to do what they program said to do was pick up the phone and call. Since then I have been studying this program for the last seven months and I know the dialogue in and out. I am actively on the phone prospecting, calling FSBO’s but I am not seeing that I am getting anywhere. I know that you don’t get excited about Tommy Hopkins or the man with the last name Ferry and they sound like a sleazy salesman, and these scripted sales people almost always talk to much and not focused on what the customer wants. I figured that if I talk to enough people someone’s is going to say ”yes! Come list my house tonight.” Now after month of prospecting on the phone and going on listing appointments, and getting belly to belly and talking with potential clients it seem likes no one is selling anything at all! Or I am just a really bad real estate agent. It seems to be turning into a buyer’s market in Canada because “Cautious Canadians” are worried about the American Housing market, but at the end of the day someone is going to sell something, and I just can not get them. So I come to you to see how I can turn this around.

I am always constantly looking for ways that successful agents have used to get the results that they have, and use it to get results that I want. I while ago my partner that I work with he told me about BloodhoundBlog and told me there was some valuable information that we could use. So I started watching your pod cast and you started to talk about numerous things that I started to try right away. I even wrote the notes that you put on the board so I could see exactly what you were speaking about at the time.

There was one presentation that you did for conference call talking about how you use the internet to generate leads, and also #1expert and how it all work to get buyers to you see your listings and then buy your listings. After seeing the presentation at my office with my partner I look in to how I could control the buyer on the website. So I fixed my website to capture leads www.justdewit.ca and I started a home buying program called www.ontariohomesearch.com. I now needed the internet traffic to get there so I went a head to GOOGLE and set up ad campaigns. I had no idea how to do this but I set them up and started to get pay-per-click on my website.( Which was expensive!) I know you said on one of you pod cast that to generate more business you need more leads. You need 6x the amount of leads coming in. I set it up with the budget for online advertisings and start to put my listings on free websites to trying to get more leads. After I you mentioned to get more business to pick up the phone. So I started to pick up the phone and prospect for people who wanted to sell their house today. If I got the right price and the right terms I would take the listings, because I am better off playing cards or doing something I love then having an over priced listing. After months of Cold calling and changing my listing presentation to the supply and demand and showing how we get the property sold by using the internet I am still at the same spot 2 current listings as of right now. I am doing a deal every 5 weeks on average. I am so focused on getting business there seem to be none coming in.

I want to become the next Russell Shaw in Canada , and I am committed to becoming the best, and the only way to become the best or the most recognized in the province of Ontario Canada is to work with the best. I will be attending this year STAR POWER in Orlando and will be talking to some of the leading experts, however July is too far away and I need to do something right now.

You have mentioned to me a couple of month ago on the phone to give 150 people that I know something that would make me go “thanks, that is a cool gift”, and right before I leave turn around and say “oh by the way I am in real estate if you know of any one looking to buy or sell, give me a call” (Something around that format).This I idea that I came up with would be giving the a TEN dollar gift card from TIM HORTONS. ( Big Coffee Province loves this coffee) because almost every person in Ontario go to Tim Horton’s Coffee shop at one time or another. Do you think that this gift would work for what you are talking about? How do you feel about the amount being spent on the gift or is there a certain amount you should spend?

The Next question that I have is do you use a canned listing presentation, do you have a process from start to finish during the listings presentation that you use, and what is in your listings presentation? (Could you forward me your listing presentation so I could see it)

What is the best ways to really isolate the buyers on the internet?

Is there internet tool such as Programs, companies, Website Designers, Ad Words campaigns, that I should use or anything else that would work for this effect to capture more leads?

What should I be doing different to get better results? My brokers say I am too hard on the phone only because she thinks that I “always trying to close people” however she doesn’t hear how the conversation is going. She told me she doesn’t like to be cold called so that is why I think she is saying these things.

I am working so hard to work my way up to become the best and the vision I have for the future is bigger then what 98% of what my office thinks they can accomplish. It’s like I work with people that are not that inspiring or motivated to be come there best and that there is always a excuse for something, and I think differently. I know that I can become the Next (YOU) Russell Shaw and that I can one day share my story with STAR POWER and be the one of the leading experts in real estate in Canada.

All I need is a mentor to help me along this journey, and I ask for your help. Will you guide me through this journey?

I am committed to becoming a leader in the industry and I will fly from Toronto to Arizona to meet you in person and discuss what my inspirations are for my future and then there you could make a decision if you could assist me. I promise you one thing that if you take time to meet me I am 100% committed to becoming a Leader.

Look forward to hearing from You!

___

As you are both with KW, I will start by pointing out something I learned from Gary Keller: your goal would not be to have a good year but to have a great career. There is no one in real estate who didn’t get a big whack by the market this last year. No one. Many companies have gone completely out of business and shut their doors. National discount companies that have not gone completely out of business have had hundreds of their offices shut down completely. Nationally, several hundred thousand agents have dropped their membership in in their local, state associations and the NAR. They are no longer in the business at all. And this does not take into consideration the 1/3 of the members of any given MLS across the country that sell nothing in a year. Read that again. One third of all of the members of the NAR have NO sales in any year. It isn’t always the same 1/3 but the 1/3 is pretty much a constant. This includes “good years”. No sales. The fact that you have survived says something about you. You are still in the game.

So you made less. So did I, about 400k less. My gross and net income was down just a bit over $400,000. I am not saying this to get sympathy nor am I going to feel sorry for you. The company I am with has lost almost 150 agents. They had almost 900 and now are down to about 750 agents. There has simply been less business to go around in 2007 than there was in 2006. My fixed (hard costs) overhead is well over 110k a month. Any month I get less than 110k in net commissions (my share) we are paying for the privilege of being in business. In the 4th quarter (and therefore my first quarter earnings are down, as well) we were grossing around 30 – 35k a month in commission income. We were paying 75 – 80k a month to get to sell real estate.

Oh it’s fun, but not so much fun that anyone would want to keep doing it for long if that part wasn’t going to change.

So what to do? Lets start with attitude. Ignore anyone who says or (even worse, without saying) gets you thinking you aren’t going to come out of this just fine. Do whatever is necessary to get that kind of crap out of your head and straighten out, blunt or cut any communication line that has you “wondering”. It isn’t that all of those people have it in for you but as they themselves are failing, it just wouldn’t be “right” for you to do real well. Anyone spewing failure, succumb or any of that stuff in all of its various guises can be safely ignored. Whatever the activity, if you don’t feel “more up” as a result of doing it or being there, stop it. Real estate offices can be a giant cesspool of contaminating failure. Stop watching the news and stop reading it in the papers. If there is something vital you won’t be able to stop hearing about it anyway. People, places, things and activities that make you happy – do them. A lot. Every day do something just for you.

Production is the basis of morale. You want to have a high morale? Produce. Find a statistic that you can control. That is vital. Find something that can be measured (number of new contacts, for example) that you can control. Every day work on getting that stat up. Do not focus on the deals or listings you don’t have, focus on that stat. From the Bible, it is Leads, Listings, Leverage. Right now you are only working on leads. Cut out all “lead generating activities” that cost money that are not productive. If it works, keep it in. If not, change the “button” and make it work or get rid of it. You are in the lead generation business. You have no other job.

See yourself achieving your goals. Work out specific affirmations. Lots of them. Send them to me. I will do a quality control on them for you. Make them specific and always “positive” and always “now”. Go to Tips for Success and read the articles. Read a new one every day.

Anything that works for you is “good”. Anything that does not is “bad”. This includes Mike Ferry or Tom Hopkins. I learned many things from both of them. Take whatever you need from wherever it is workable for you. It makes no difference what I don’t “like” or what anyone else does not “like”. What is works for you? This includes your broker and anyone else in your office or anywhere else.

ALL of your “problems” stem directly and only from “maybe”. There are three possible answers: Yes, No & Maybe. The problem is always the maybe. Get rid of maybe. Yes or no. In or out. Are you a Realtor? Are you going to survive quite well, regardless of “market conditions”? Well, are you?

It makes no difference what has happened. That is the past. Live in the future. Create it.

Posted in The Realtor Success Series | Comments Closed

The Seller HAS a Problem and Then BECOMES One

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

The seller has a problem. They have a house they want to sell and need to sell it at a certain price. They hire an agent who takes on the task of selling the home.

"Maybe if you had more open houses?"

"Have you thought about running an ad in the Wall Street Journal?"

"There are a lot of people from California with money because the prices are so high there. Run an ad in the L.A. Times."

"If you go to (large local employer) you can put a notice on their bulletin board about the house."

This is just a partial list. The limits of the list are only the limits of the seller’s imagination. There are hundreds and hundreds of these great ideas for getting the house sold. Sometimes agents try them all (one at a time, of course). Usually, the agent notices that it didn’t work. But for some strange reason this does not prevent the agent from attempting the very same science fair project again at a later time, and surprise: they get the exact same results they did the first time.

Walking through the office about 15 years ago a very nice agent asked me if I would go in with her on running an ad in one of the picture magazines. She didn’t want to buy the whole page herself and was looking for a couple of other agents to put one of their houses in the ad, in order to defray the cost of the ad. I asked her why she was running the ad and her answer was, "To make the seller happy". I asked her if she believed that running an ad in the picture magazine was very likely to sell the house. Her answer was no, she did not think it would even help sell the house. I told her I did not ever run ads on homes because they did not make any difference in getting the home sold. She agreed with me. But she still ran the ad.

It was easier for her to run that ad than it was to tell her seller the truth. My answer to sellers on that issue is, "If an ad in the paper or some magazine was going to sell their home they don’t need an agent. They could just run the ad themselves and save the commission." That’s the truth.

From Anne:

ok, so if I may start my question asking. My goal is to get seller’s to stop getting so addicted to my marketing efforts and more focused on price. I feel my current listing presentation does a pretty good job (although now after star power I’m going to make it even better) as some are well trained while others act like cocaine addicts and can’t get enough of my open houses and are always calling me with new ideas to get "exposure" to their potential buyer and crap like that. Some of them I flat out tell them no and others I feel so sorry for because they are seriously in trouble if they can’t sell financially. How do I handle this? any thoughts?

Yes. Get a subjective reality on what does and does not cause houses to sell. Get rid of all of the little points of "reasonableness" on this subject. The "unsolvable problem" does not exist in the mind of the seller. I do understand that it seems like it does. It exists in your mind. You do not have certainty that what you are doing is enough. There is some nagging doubt that there is "something" you aren’t doing that you "ought to do". This point alone opens the door to all sorts of nonsense (the not very fun kind of nonsense).

If you believed that running those ads or holding those open houses (or whatever "exposure" you or they could dream up) was going to cause the house to sell, you would be doing them. You wouldn’t need any sales pitch or prodding. You would just do them. There are two factors here: what works for you and what you "like" to do. Open houses can work. I don’t like them. Therefore I don’t do them. This is not a statement that others should not do them or that someone who does not know how to correctly hold a house open should not learn how to do it.

I believe that if you re-read the first paragraph after your question and wanted a simple answer to what caused a home to sell (assuming the usual is already being done) you will come to realize what you already know: price.

Posted in Getting Listings, Leads Listings Leverage, Marketing, The Realtor Success Series | Comments Closed

Shift Happens. Read This Book.

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

This is the book I am telling all of my friends in the real estate business to get and read. It is so well researched that those of you who like statistics will be impressed just with some of the stats. Those who may have hit a rough patch and found their business in a bit of a skid will find it to be just what the doctor ordered. Those who are already doing just fine will find a very put together write up of what they are already doing. I haven’t found anyone doing really well who didn’t find something in this book that they could use. Now.

You can find it at just about any book store. Here is a link where you can peek inside and buy it online. You can see some nice excerpts from it here. And, if you like, watch a ten minute video on YouTube from Gary’s tour. The book covers the specific twelve tactics that are needed for survival and success.

The better off and more informed you are the more you will discover things you already "sort of knew". For example, look over this simple illustration showing seasonal sales cycles in any normal year (a small seasonal shift). It is part of a page in the book.

The footnote reads, "Based on a study of over a million closed transactions over a five-year period." To me, this kind of data is priceless. I would have no way of ever compiling it on my own and no one else (at least no one I know who is sharing with agents) has it to hand to me.

Another one – this one is the Seasonal Income Cycle. I wish I had known this sort of thing my first 10 years in the business (the ones where I wasn’t keeping track of my own stats to ever be able to see this sort of thing for myself). The text above the chart is from a page in the book.

Notice how only about a third of all the months are in the "average" range. What would you do differently if you knew that about 2/3 of the time the income you were physically receiving was not your average? It was way above or way below. Would it change anything for you?

One last one. The book has simple wisdom like this in great abundance. This is another one that (at least in my opinion) every agent should have a subjective reality on.

Do well. Buy "Shift". Read it. Get others to read it.

Posted in Getting Listings, Leads Listings Leverage, The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, The Realtor Success Series | Comments Closed

Do What You Are Doing While You Are Doing It.

Monday, November 24th, 2008

Have you ever had the remarkable pleasure of talking to someone who keeps checking their phone for new text messages while they are talking to you? Naturally, nothing you are saying could matter quite as much as the next fabulous text message they are pretty sure they are going to receive.

The stupid idea of multitasking has spread throughout our society like a contagious disease. It isn’t simply a "bad" idea (as in unsafe, rude, counterproductive), it also happens to be physically impossible.

One does not "multitask". Oh sure, you can think you are multitasking but you are not. What a "multitasking person" is doing is one of the most inefficient things possible (as far as real work output goes): they are stopping doing one thing and starting another, literally jumping from task to task and back again. They aren’t really "there" with regard to the other tasks they are "sort of doing".

Almost all truly successful people in just about every profession and activity (sports, business, entertainment, construction – you name it) have ONE thing in common: THEY DO WHAT THEY ARE DOING WHILE THEY ARE DOING IT.

A common problem for Realtors is they never quite "arrive at work" so can never really take time off either. When they are "on vacation" they are still working on deals, sending faxes, taking calls – in other words, they simply changed their location but not what they were doing. I see agents out to dinner and there – sometimes actually on the table – sits their cell phone. Oh no, can’t take a chance on missing an important call!

If you are an on call medical doctor (or some profession where it really is a matter of life and death) perhaps being interrupted during dinner makes sense. If you list and sell houses for a living, I don’t get it.

When working, work. Really work. When not working, don’t. Not even a little bit. BE. HERE. NOW.

Try it sometime. You just might like it.

Posted in The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, The Realtor Success Series | Comments Closed

What Turns Your Dial?

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

The emotion of fear is a gradient scale that starts at simple, garden variety “worry”, at the lowest level and goes up to a high level of terror. At the highest levels of fear the body will literally shut down. The emotion of fear is built-in to the body from a long time back as a survival mechanism (the fight-or-flight response). If you have a mental fear the body will respond. Any real or imagined threat to survival can produce this response. However, possibly having less money (which is a survival point in the current society) is not likely to cause death. But many people will get a mental and physical reaction to being laid off, fired or receiving less money that is not much different than if life itself was about to end.

If there was ever a question about stock market prices ever being based on anything other than greed and fear that question had to have been answered in the past two days. Oh-my-god-congress-didn’t-pass-the-bailout-bill-sell-everything. Good-news-it-looks-like-they-will-work-it-out-my-stock-is-valuable-again.

Good grief.

This isn’t the end. The four horseman are not mounted and riding – I make that statement fully realizing that folks wearing suits who are on TV or work for the Federal Government are saying this is the worst possible situation. Blah, blah, blah. In case you missed it over at Bloodhoundblog, see this for a good laugh.

This is only about money. Money that was spent by people who didn’t earn it and who didn’t have it. One of the primary laws of finance is that income must be greater than outgo. Sounds simple. So simple it is routinely ignored: by individuals, companies and governments. The United States is the richest, most powerful nation on the face of the earth. More so than any nation has ever been in all of recorded history – even Rome, when all roads lead there. And yet, our country – with all of it’s riches and all of it’s resources has been spending more than it has been earning. The current “meltdown” is just the house of cards that was there all along, falling down. You can’t lose what you didn’t have. We haven’t “lost something” so much as we discovered we didn’t have something. To paraphrase Winston Churchill’s statement on democracy, the bailout is the worst possible solution, except for all the others.

Some say if we don’t do the bailout we could have a depression. Not a recession, a depression. Truth is we could have a giant recession or even a depression if we do the bailout. And I’m writing this to make you feel better. It is just money. That’s all, money. No matter what happens, it isn’t the end of life as we know it. You want to survive. Me too. A simple way to accurately predict how a person will behave or fare in the future is to look at their past pattern. How did they do before? How do they tend to handle things? Do they tend to screw things up no matter what? Or do they tend to land on their feet – always finding some way to make things go right? That is always the ultimate test of any being: The ability to MAKE things go right. Not “are things right? The ability to make them right. Don’t you usually so just that? So what makes this all that different? The suits from the government and TV yip yapping about this mess like they know what they are talking about? If they knew what they are talking about we wouldn’t have this mess.

No no. It isn’t that I have faith in the people “fixing” this – it is that I have real faith and confidence in man’s survival drive – your survival drive. Something really bad? September 11th, 2001, New York City. Yet, here we are. If you insist on having something awful to worry about at least have the good sense to move it off of the subject of money. Money does not equal life. Worry about (I’m not really wanting you to do this!) World War III. This small little planet is composed of an anarchy of nations armed with nuclear warheads. Potential mid-east conflicts alone could bring about the end of life as we know it. If you must concentrate on “something awful” – use that one. But let me suggest, if you have managed to make it through the past few weeks without losing sleep over that one – skip the bailout, as well.

The question, what turns your dial isn’t nearly as important as who. Who turns your dial? And hopefully, the answer to that question – at least most of the time – is you.

Posted in Government, The Realtor Success Series | Comments Closed

Listings. Listings. Listings. Still.

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

From the Department of Homeland Stupidity comes the newly formed Department of Bailouts. Is there now a sufficient level of converting the United States into a socialist economy for the New Regime President (aka, Treasury Secretary Paulson) to feel that his work is done?

But the above isn’t my special area of expertise. Showing fellow agents how to have a truly successful business is what I am known for. And I find it funny (odd?) when I read something that directly contradicts what I know to be true on that particular subject. It certainly isn’t the first time I’ve seen, "getting listings is no longer the best way to go" – just the first time I’ve seen it from someone I respect as much as I respect Brian Brady. He wrote:

Thirty years ago, the mantra “listers last” was all important advice to a new real estate agent. Today, inventory has been democratized through the IDX search on a website. Open houses then, are a good time to work on your SEO. A REALTOR who controls the SERPS rather than the inventory should profit best from this buyer-centric market.

Okay, fine. But can anyone name even four or five TOP AGENTS who have buyer based businesses? I personally know a couple of them. But I don’t know of any top agent who has had a buyer based (as opposed to a listings based) business who did it for 3 – 4 consecutive years. Can an agent attract buyers via the internet? Absolutely. Can it be done at a level so great that the lead agent (rainmaker) hires many many many buyer agents to handle the load? Again, the answer is a confirmed yes. However, the web traffic – at that level – isn’t normally achieved through SEO but pay per click. All of the huge buyer based operations I know of in the U.S. use PPC to attract the traffic. Not saying SEO doesn’t enter into it but the bulk of it is PPC.

How many of them have done it or will be able to maintain their performance level for even three years? I can’t say, as it (at least to my knowledge) hasn’t ever been done for that long. Which is my main point. Almost all top agents have a listings based business. I am not saying this because I have a listings based business, I am saying it because that is what I found when I went looking at the profiles and the patterns of top agents. What I observed is what caused me to decide to take the path I took – become a lister. I have never seen any confirmed data (vs opinions)that contradicts that.

There is nothing I am writing here that suggests that selling homes to buyers (as we need at least one for every listing!) is bad or should not be done. Oddly, by accident, I am one of the leading buyer side agents (based on number of sales) in the Phoenix market. I discovered that odd fact a little over a year ago. I had been working for years to find out what the "top buyer agents" were doing so I could start doing it too. Once I realized that I wasn’t way behind everyone else but ahead of most everyone I stopped trying to "discover" what I must already know. Our buyer sides came about as a result of marketing our listings. Period. Just doing the things that should be done to properly market a listing produced buyer deals. Lots of them.

An interesting post I came across about a month ago was over at the always-worth-reading, Notorious R.O.B. There was a discussion regarding possible violation of a listing agent’s fiduciary duty to have their listings on Zillow, Trulia, etc. Seems several different lawyers were of the opinion that it could possibly violate a listing agent’s duty to his seller. I disagree. Completely. From my comments to that post on Rob Hahn’s site:

There will always be plaintiffs and lawyers litigating for various reasons. I can not say any lawsuit over which websites a listing was posted on should not occur. I can say that any lawsuit brought for those reasons is without merit. It would have be based on the (erroneous) premise that inquiries from those various sites actually directly helped or caused a home to sell.

The top national site for traffic is Realtor.com. I currently pay about $4,000 a year to “enhance” my listings. There was a time that every 20 leads from Realtor.com equaled a closed escrow on *a* home. Seldom the one they inquired about. Now, the *only* reason I am on Realtor.com is to be able to say to our sellers that “we feature your home on Realtor.com”. That is the ONLY reason. In the past four years, I have never sold a listing because it was on Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow or any of the other sites. I have sold homes to buyers because we received an email lead because we have a lot of listings on those sites. Big difference.

If you are wanting buyer leads those sites may or may not be good. If you want to “impress” your sellers, they can be very good. If you want to actually sell that house I don’t see that they make *any* difference.

All of my listings are on all of the important sites. We do receive some inquiries from nearly all of them and some of those inquiries can become actual leads where we make a sale. I’m not convinced that today’s "internet lead" is much different than the "ad call" of twenty-five years ago. The best data I had at the time was it took about 400 calls (on the average) regarding a particular home to physically sell that home to that buyer. If you only have a few listings and sometimes sell one it can seem like it does not take that many. Get a few thousand and keep track of them and you see a different picture. If this were not true I suspect that most of us would be out of a job – as most sellers could just run an ad (or today, get "internet leads") and sell their own home.

My main points in this post are:

1. Listings were, are and will continue to be the very best method of having a stable real estate practice.

2. There are huge amounts of fantastic nonsense available from lots of different places regarding what is necessary to sell homes.

3. People who can’t see clearly will continue to disagree with point # 1 and therefore continue to attempt to sell the nonsense mentioned in point # 2 as essential.

Nonsense.

Posted in Getting Listings, Government, Leads Listings Leverage, Marketing, The Realtor Success Series | Comments Closed

Are You An Opinion Leader?

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

photo credit: www.rishimodi.com

Management is telling people what to do. Leadership is teaching them how to think. Opinion leaders tell people what to think.

Despite various surveys indicating how low the general public ranks real estate agents, some agents are highly respected by their clients and peers. How does that happen?

To understand how that is accomplished, first let’s look at the concept of influencing the opinions of others. Various studies have shown that media communication intended to change someone’s buying or voting behavior seldom works directly. The communication may be directly received by the person it is intended for but is mediated through their social relationships. There are individuals (depending on the subject) that others consider experts and who are looked to for advice on that particular subject. There are some people who act as Opinion Leaders – they see themselves and are seen by others as having an influence on others.

In politics and fashion, for example, there are TV shows hosted by people who have very large audiences who watch the show in order to find out what to think. Yet, Opinion Leadership is not a trait some people have and others don’t. Every person who has an elevated interest (and thereby knowledge) in an area, can serve as an opinion leader on that subject to those around them. It is a natural part of everyday personal relationships.

Research suggests that, in the US, opinion leaders constitute roughly one in ten Americans, and that as a group they tend to serve as a leading indicator of popular trends, from public issues to new product adoption to social attitudes. Many consumers today place more weight on the word-of-mouth insights of their more influential neighbors than on what they hear on TV or read in the newspaper.

Opinion leaders are people whose opinion on a subject/product is influential on the social group they belong to, although they may or may not have an acknowledged authority over them. Opinion leaders are not necessarily traditional leaders in society, such as politicians and clergy (although they can be). Rather, they are perceived experts in particular domains – which is exactly the position occupied by a successful residential Realtor. When it comes to correct pricing and effective marketing of homes there isn’t any substitute for a competent Realtor. Notice I didn’t say real estate company, as it is the individual agent who is looked to (or not) as the expert. A company may enjoy a wonderful reputation and there are many instances of an individual and his or her company seeming so inseparable that you can’t think of one without the other – but it would always be the individual that is the opinion leader. One could join the largest, most successful real estate company in the world and this would not automatically cause them to be perceived as an expert. Conversely, an individual broker could have a one person shop and be regarded as THE go to person in that area if you had a question concerning real estate. Opinion Leader Realtors are trusted by their clients because the client can see that the agent has their best interests at heart.

There are many real estate instructors who teach “scripts” on how to handle commission objections. The seller doesn’t want to pay “X” commission and they are advocating using a “technique”. Think of someone you trust and go to for services – like a dentist or physician. Isn’t that trust based largely on the belief that they don’t recommend a service you “need” based only on their desire for money? (as opposed to they use "really good scripts" to handle you).

There is a Scale of Motivation, it goes highest to lowest:

Duty
Personal Conviction
Personal Gain
Money

For example, when one is communicating to their clients about a needed price reduction from the viewpoint of personal conviction or duty, rather than “I want the money” – that “Care Factor” on the part of the agent is visible to all but the worst off in the society. Please don’t think I am advocating earning less or not reaching all of your financial goals, I’m not. I believe that great agents operate and handle their clients from the level of Personal Conviction or Duty. They tell their potential sellers the whole truth every time and don’t hold something back because they might not get a commission. This isn’t so they can be in compliance with the Code of Ethics, but is just the way they think and operate.

In the next year or so a great many agents will be leaving the real estate industry – but they were really on their way out before this latest crash arrived. And they were primarily motivated by money or personal gain. Not the highest level of motivation. Ever.

Posted in Getting Listings, The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, The Realtor Success Series | Comments Closed

Will This Post Win The Inman Innovation Award?

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

Actual link to Google Maps

What you are looking at is an actual image from Google maps. If you want to see what others are saying about it, you can find it on various sites. Is it innovative? A little bit, maybe. But in the end, probably not. Does a Realtor really need to "be innovative" to succeed? I don’t think so. There are more and more "out of the box" ideas that are presented to the real estate industry almost every day. Loads and loads of "new" stuff that is really just more old stuff. Most of the agents I talk to about various seminars seem to be looking for something new. Something different.

I don’t believe that we need to get out of the box. I believe most of us need to get all the way in the box. One reason? You can not depart from a location you have never arrived at. You must get all the way in before you could need to work on "getting out".

Our business is really pretty simple. Get and keep customers is the main issue. Lead generation (if it is going to matter) is really lead conversion. If we are looking at the subject of getting and getting rid of listings, here is a concept to look at:

All "problems" in getting listings are either in getting to the table or at the table. About 70% of all sellers talk to only one agent prior to making their decision to list with them. About 15% talk to only two agents prior to deciding. This data alone clearly suggests that the main problem is not at the table but getting to the table. Get to the table and you are likely to win. The various ideas for getting to the table (that actually work) all seem to me to be very "low tech". Very low tech. Finding out what is really wanted and needed and then providing just that – that sort of thing.

Unless you have a rather amazing list of names in your Rolodex, it will usually be the number of people you can ask to do business with you that will determine the outcome – and your income.

Will someone please let Inman know I am standing by for my prize?

Posted in Getting Listings, Leads Listings Leverage, The Realtor Success Series | Comments Closed

A World Champion

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

He made history. In the 112 years the Olympics have taken place, Michael Phelps was the first person to ever win 8 gold medals in a single Olympics. The crowd went wild when he won the 8th but nothing was more remarkable than his 7th win. He won that one by one one-hundredth of a second. To me, it looked like the other guy (he has a name but isn’t it interesting from a marketing perspective how it doesn’t just roll off the tongue?), Milorad Cavic actually won. 1/100th of a second difference took 1st place. That was the difference between Gold and Silver. The difference between 1st place and last place wasn’t even that great. Even the slowest guy is a world-class athlete. So, just a little bit can make a huge difference.

What I found most fascinating was Michael Phelps’ decision prior to the event to win 8 Gold Medals. He made no secret of the fact that he wanted to do exactly that. And that is exactly what he did. It would have been easy to mock him with, "That’s impossible!" prior to the event. To most people it would have seemed impossible too – just like the goals and dreams they have for themselves. Why that is just out of reach. A pipe dream. There is an aspect of what he did (his 7th Gold Medal) that to me beautifully illustrates the Power of a Decision.

When a person really decides on something, really decides and strips off all of the "maybe" – with just that clean simple, exact postulate to do "that", it seems as though the physical universe shifts around as needed so as to be in alignment with that postulate.

In the mind, "maybe" is "yes" and "no" fused together. It is common for a person to have conflicts with regard to what they hope to accomplish. All of the counter-intention (thoughts that oppose your goals) that a person carries around causes dispersal: where the person will attempt to go in different directions at the same time. They "do want" and "don’t want" the same goal at the same time. Every single unresolved problem a person ever had or has – has a "maybe" (yes and no combined) sitting at the base of that problem. Get rid of the maybe and you just "solved" the problem.

What is it you secretly dream about doing? If you knew you would succeed what great thing would you attempt?

Posted in The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, The Realtor Success Series | Comments Closed

A Talk I Gave to New Agents

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

This was for new John Hall agents and the room was very hot, so I had two big fans going at the same time. Unfortunately, you can hear the fan noise. The talk is a bit over 90 minutes total and it has been split into nine parts. It is in mp3 format and clicking on each of the links will open the file in your computer.

People who have heard me speak many times before said it it was very very good. Other than the fan noise, I agree with them.

Talk from Russell on July 16th, 2008 part 1

Talk from Russell on July 16th, 2008 part 2

Talk from Russell on July 16th, 2008 part 3

Talk from Russell on July 16th, 2008 part 4

Talk from Russell on July 16th, 2008 part 5

Talk from Russell on July 16th, 2008 part 6

Talk from Russell on July 16th, 2008 part 7

Talk from Russell on July 16th, 2008 part 8

Talk from Russell on July 16th, 2008 part 9