Category Archive

The Realtor Success Series

What Do I Do Now?

Posted on December 27, 2008 by Russell Shaw

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

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The Seller HAS a Problem and Then BECOMES One

Posted on December 18, 2008 by Russell Shaw

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

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Shift Happens. Read This Book.

Posted on December 2, 2008 by Russell Shaw

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

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Do What You Are Doing While You Are Doing It.

Posted on November 24, 2008 by Russell Shaw

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

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What Turns Your Dial?

Posted on October 1, 2008 by Russell Shaw

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

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Listings. Listings. Listings. Still.

Posted on September 23, 2008 by Russell Shaw

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,

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Are You An Opinion Leader?

Posted on September 3, 2008 by Russell Shaw

  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

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Will This Post Win The Inman Innovation Award?

Posted on August 31, 2008 by Russell Shaw

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

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A World Champion

Posted on August 19, 2008 by Russell Shaw

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

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A Talk I Gave to New Agents

Posted on August 13, 2008 by Russell Shaw

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

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