Bill Kennedy - Greenville SC Realtor

I am going to deviate from the more common real estate themes of my blog and write about a topic I am passionate about: REALTOR® safety. Perhaps it is my background in law enforcement, but I feel that there are many REALTORS® who work day to day oblivious to the possible dangers that lurk in our world.

REALTORS® place themselves in contact with strangers everyday. It is our job to get out there, meet people, and broker the sale of properties. Unfortunately, many people from the criminal element also know this fact. Each year, REALTORS® are assaulted, robbed, and even murdered. Is that enough to make you want to quit selling and find a safe career in basket weaving? Hopefully no, but I would like to increase your awareness to what happens all around you.

Awareness is probably the biggest key to remaining out of harms way. If you are familiar with your surroundings, and keep an eye on what is happening, then you eliminate many threats. Criminals generally look for targets of opportunity, and if you are alert they may pass you by to prey on someone who has their head stuck in the proverbial sand.

Above all, if something terrible DOES happen, don't be afraid to fight back. In a recent study, it was found that 80% of females who fought back at attackers escaped the situation. Survival is a MINDSET. Make it your mindset to make it back home each and every night, NO MATTER WHAT THE COST. This may sound a little extreme, but when it comes down to a YOU vs. THEM moment, YOU should be victorious.

There are several things you can do to increase your overall safety, but unfortunately I don't have the space to delineate them all. Take an agent safety course that emphasizes safe behavior as well as self-defense. Encourage yourself and other agents to meet prospects at the office before ever meeting them at a home. Prospects are generally glad to do this, while the prospect of the presence of other witnesses may scare criminals.

Don't fall into the mindset that if you carry pepper-spray on your keychain that you are impervious to criminals. If you carry any weapon, you MUST know how to properly use it and what the effects are. This goes for anything from pepper spray to firearms. Weapons are a great deterrent, but only in the hands of those who are knowledgeable.

If you know of any safety threats that have affected REALTORS(R) in your area, please share them below. Perhaps by commenting on safety problems that we have experienced or heard of, others can learn.

Stay Safe!

If you don't list, you don't last. This concept is driven into our skulls by real estate trainers year after year, but I would like to go one step further and make the argument that if you don't generate leads, you don't list, and therefore you don't last. Now this may sound quite simple to most of you, and I am quite willing to concede that it doesn't take a doctorate in Realestateology to figure it out. Unfortunately, the big, ugly truth is that even though 100% of you may understand this, we have an 80% failure rate in real estate!

So what is the underlying problem in the quest for making a real estate career work? I often find that it is a lack of understanding the basics of lead generation, and even more prevalent is a lack of DOING some sort of lead generation activity. I can sit here and quote the conversion rates for mailing to people you haven't met (1:50), or lead generating to groups of people who know you, like you and trust you (2:12), but if you don't actually DO something, the only number that will mean anything is the 80% failure rate.

What keeps many people from lead generating is fear. Fear can take many forms, such as fear of rejection, fear of saying the wrong thing, and so on. We cannot allow fear to run our career, because our career will run into the ground. Understand that the only person who is going to really care if you are rejected, or stumble through your script, is YOU. You might not get an appointment, or a listing, or a buyer, but that shouldn't stop you from going onto the next prospect and TRYING AGAIN!

Here are some very simple tips to get your lead generation kicked off. First, don't reinvent the wheel! There are several great lead generation programs out there, so use one! For instance, read The Millionaire Real Estate Agent (Keller/Jenks). There are some very simple lead generation systems that will get your business flying. Go see a national trainer and use some of their programs. Talk to your peers who are successful, and see if they will give you some pointers. Just DO SOMETHING and do it CONSISTENTLY!

Second, pick up the phone and keep in touch with people that you know. Make sure that everyone knows you are in real estate, and remind them in a subtle way whenever you talk. Mention a closing you are about to have, or a trend in the market. After all, the question we always get when someone knows we're in real estate is "How's the market?" Know how to answer them in a way other than, "Doing as well as ever." People want to do business with those that they know, like and trust, so keep in touch with those you already know!

Consistency and repetition. Consistency and repetition. Consistency and repetition. Even if you are doing something small, it will yield some sort of result, if you keep doing it, and doing it the same way. The only person who will get bored by your lead generation activities is you! Now, get out there, and get some leads! After all, I want you to stay in the other 20%!

Think back to when you graduated from Real Estate School. This could be a few months ago, or several decades ago when caves and sod houses were the hot listings. What did you get out of your pre-license training? Most people will say that the class got them through the test, and that is true. If you maintained consciousness you also learned a great deal about the law, generally the "thou shalt nots" of real estate, but there was a huge, gaping hole that begged to be filled with know-how.

You didn't learn how to sell property, write contracts, input listings, market for prospects, farm neighborhoods, utilize technology or talk vendors into buying your lunch. The last one comes naturally, but all of the other ones require one big word: TRAINING!

Aside from vendor lunches, training is perhaps the most important part of a real estate company. When you're new, you need mentoring; when you're more experienced, you need coaching, but as long as you're breathing and still possess a real estate license, you need training!

Since I was blessed with a bouncing baby boy 17 months ago, I'll use babies as an analogy for new REALTORS®: When a baby is born, he or she will know nothing except for who mommy and daddy are. When the baby grows, he or she learns things such as colors, shapes, and types of animals, with the help of interactive parents and family.

New agents generally know nothing, though they already have a leg up on babies with color recognition. With the right training program, they will start showing the signs of sales aptitude, and before you know it they're asking for the car keys... to show buyers, that is. If an office has no training program, agents are left floundering without a strong foundation, and knowing the red house from the blue house probably won't cut it.

A top rated office needs a top rated training program, a program in which new agents can learn the trade, and experienced agents can learn how to excel beyond their current ceiling. Training should benefit everyone at one point or another, including bringing agents up to speed with new technologies and new methods. Agents should be turning in contracts within a month or two, not just sitting by the phone waiting for the next call.

If you feel that you're behind the curve right now, and your knowledge level is not where it should be, perhaps it's not you... it may be time for a new training program at a different company. If you ever start to look for greener pastures, ensure your future by checking on the available training, and make sure that it will fit your future real estate goals! If it's not time for other pastures, sit down and have a heart-to-heart with the Powers That Be at your company, and try to come up with a more comprehensive training solution that will be a Win-Win for all the agents. As the Career Development Chairperson for my market center, I take training VERY seriously.

Now, I must go.... time to figure out where that baby boy bounced off to...

Bill

All agents, at one time or another, have really been excited to show a house to a potential client. They practically dance through each room, pointing out the features with a flourish, all the while anticipating that the next thing the prospect will desire is their name on a contract.

What if the prospect desires nothing more than to take your money and leave you for dead?

It's a sobering thought, but unfortunately, it happens more frequently than most of us want to acknowledge.

As a REALTOR(R) Safety Instructor, I think that it is paramount to point out a basic concept that can save your life - POSITIONING.

This is something that I taught police officers for years, in my previous life. Positioning is vital to cutting off an assailant's line of attack. What do I mean by positioning? Simply this - the way that you place yourself in regards to the location of your prospect(s), as well as the physical geography of the home that you are showing.

Let's think of some examples - First, what is the place in most modern houses that you are the MOST trapped? I ask this in my safety seminars, and the answers are usually the basement, or the bedrooms. In my opinion, the area that you are MOST vulnerable in is the master bedroom closet. In most modern houses, you have to walk into the MBR, then into the master bath, and finally into the walk-in closet. Most of the time there is only one point of escape - back through the bedroom.

In this example, how would you show this series of rooms? I would stand at the entrance to the bedroom, and allow the prospect to go into the other places by themselves. You can still speak to them. If they want to ask you a question about the bathroom, you can move to the entry of the bathroom without entering it, and with ALL of the prospects inside the bathroom or further.

My basic rule of thumb is to keep all prospects in front of you, never turning your back on them. Make sure that you have a point of escape. If someone wants to do something to you, they will probably want to get to the most isolated spot in the house before they act, because there is an inherent fear of getting caught.

Constantly keep your position in mind. I require couples and families to stay together when I show a house. This way, one party won't lure you into an area of the home while the other party sneaks up from behind you.

I will be posting more later on REALTOR(R) Safety, especially with our national Safety Week coming up! Keep posted, and please - BE SAFE!

Bill

I have a home that I will be selling in the VERY near future. It is gorgeous, and has been staged well except for one thing - the owner has smoked in it his entire time there.

This is quite aggravating, because I've seen the way that buyers generally react to smoke odor in a house. Even smokers have a tendency to overlook these houses, especially if they are smokers who take their cigarettes outside because they KNOW the negative consequences on their homes.

Overall, it just makes a house "feel" dirty.

If you have any suggestions, please let me know. I will appreciate all of the feedback. Once I compile all of your comments, I may post another blog on here as a summary, to give others these ideas.

Thanks, and have a great day!

Bill