Have you ever seen two different agents that have signed up with the same company, went through the same training and are surrounded by the same office environment and yet one seems to always go so much further than the other. Why is this? Well, there is a simple answer which is that more clients are choosing to hire the one agent more than the other, but why is that? Traditional real estate thought would tell you that success in real estate is all about the training that you receive and your expertise on contract negotiation, your ability to market your properties and other real estate techniques. There is one problem with this mindset though... if you have no clients there is no contract to negotiate or listings to market. So that begs the question: Why do some agents tend to go further than others in a shorter amount of time when they basically go through the same experience with all things being equal.
The answer is simple. THE INTANGIBLES. While the tangible parts of your business are important, as important if not more important, are your intangibles. With that being said remember this. There are 3 things that all potential clients must believe about you in order to make the decision to hire you as their Realtor:
1) THEY MUST LIKE YOU- Likeability is where many agents miss the boat. We are so busy being professional and trying to make sure that come off as confident that we lose our personalites in the process. Remember this. The high majority of your clients that decide to use your services will never know if you are good at what you do until after they have decided to hire you. All they will know in the beginning is that they like you. Once they make the decision to hire you you now get to prove to them that they made the right decision, but think about it, you do this all the time. Have you ever hired a plumber because you met them at a picnic or used an accountant because your friend uses them and you got along with them when you first met them? Of course you have so don't underestimate the power that you have in people liking you. Learn your trade but don't lose "you" in the process. You are the draw not your techniques. Believe in yourself and let your personality shine! Believe me we see this with our coaching clients all of the time. Instead of internalizing scripts so that they are trained Realtors, they read them word for word and lose what makes them unique. Don't let this be you.
2) THEY MUST TRUST YOU- There is no substitute for true sincerity and character. I like to say that character is who you are when no one else is around. If you are someone that acts nice in front of your client and then talks behind their backs about how much money you are going to make off of them then this is for you. Your clients want to feel your sincerity and know that your truly have their best interests at heart. So do you? Only you can answer that question honestly but earning the trust of your clients will do more than make you a commission, it will build you a long lasting business.
3) THEY MUST BELIEVE THAT YOU CAN GET THE JOB DONE- If they only believe #'s 1 and 2 then they will invite you over for their next picnic but they are not going to hire you to sell their home worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. In order for them to believe that you can get the job done, you have to believe it first. The #1 deterant that I see in agents all over North America is a lack of confidence. One of our coaching clients was referred a buyer last week and didn't even call the buyer because they were not sure what to do if the buyer actually wanted to work with them. I point this out because so many agents suffer from this. To build up your own confidence and gain the confidence of your potential buyers and sellers make sure to stay current on all of the market activity in your immediate area as well as what the national market is doing so you can speak from a position of strength. Gaining a potential clients confidence also lies in how you dress, act and speak. You have to mirror those that are in front of you. On one listing presentation a suit and tie may be appropriate and on the next you may come off as "slick". So know your audience and dress appropriately.
If you want to take your career to the next level make sure to master your business but don't leave out the intangibles in the process. They can be the difference between you living in the middle of the pack or setting the pace as a Top Producer!
Have a great week!
Let me just start off by saying I know that you read this title and thought to yourself, "What?". That was really the point but the truth is that every one associated with real estate, and pretty much any other profession, needs a gardener. Let me explain...
As many of you know I was formerly a full-time Realtor and have now found myself in the role of real estate coach and speaker. If you are like most you hear that title and the first thing that comes to your mind is, "Yeah, ok. Another 'coach' and 'speaker'. Isn't that the popular thing to be right now." Without arguing the point let me explain why every person in real estate needs a gardener.
I get asked all of the time by agents all over north america if I really believe that they need a coach and what does a coach do? There are many answers I could pull out of the vault but I have just come down to describing myself as having the role of a gardener because when you get down to it at its simplest form I really perform the same three activities as a gardener.
1) I plant seeds- For some Realtors they lack the confidence or information they need to do their job effectively. This usually applies to newer agents but you would be surprised that it is not limited to just the new Realtors. For these people my job is to plant the seeds in them that they will need to succeed in this or any other market going forward. The truth is just about every agent needs a certain number of seeds. Just like a farmer has different seasons where he replants the crops year after year, we are no different. Just because you grew corn last year doesn't mean you can sit back and wait for it again this year... I usually like to compare this part of my job to a good shower. Coaching and motivation are similar to your hygiene in that when you take a shower, you usually smell and look good when you are done, but if you don't repeat that pattern of showering for another week you are in trouble, along with the people around you. I don't think I need to go into any more detail on that. So you get the point. We all need a cerain amount of seed planted in our lives on a regular basis to function at our maximum capacity.
2) I monitor and change, if necessary, the soil- This one is sometimes a little hard for many Realtors to grasp but just like a farmer has to make sure he is planting his seed in good soil, I do as well. With all of our coaching clients I usually like to look at the whole person because their environment can have as much to do with their success as what they do. Any of you who have heard me speak before know how important I believe this to be. I can give you the best techniques and principles to follow but if your soil, the people and environment around you, are not solid ground then all of the good information you have received will go to waste. Tell me if you have ever went to a conference before and heard so many great ideas and then never acted on them. Or worse yet, people from your office ask you scarcastically, "How was the conference? Are you all motivated now?" This is a common response from people that are familiar with never implementing good ideas into their business. They make fun of others that do so that they can feel better about themselves. They are a great example of having bad soil around you. Bad soil will devour, kill and prevent any good seed in you from growing. A gardener is challenged with the task of changing the soil when necessary to prevent his seeds from being devowered. In your business there are many places that can potentially be identified as bad soil not just from your office, but also from your personal life. Do you go home to encouragement and support or... My hope is that you have surrounded yourself with supportive people who want to see you succeed rather than see you fail so that they don't feel so bad about themselves. If not, you may want to start reassessing your relationships. This is not an easy thing to do but nobody ever said that success comes easy.
3) My 3rd role is to water the seed- This applies, again, to all real estate professionals but more often than not it applies to the veterans in the business. If I told you how often I hear from people after an event that the things I talked about they have always known they should do, they just don't do them. It could be because they are busy or just suffer from complacency, but it doesn't matter. The result is the same if you don't water the seeds in your business; you will never reach your full potential. Everyone needs accountability including myself. In fact, it is usually the people that train and teach others that need it the most. So this is one of my most important roles. To keep you accountable to do what you know you should do. I want you to do a little mind exercise with me. Close your eyes right now as you are reading this. Did you close them yet? Ok. I want you to imagine your whole career up until this point. Now imagine if you did every day everything that you knew you were supposed to do with systems, follow up, prospecting for business, and networking, etc and how much business you would have right now if you had. Now imagine how much that business adds up to monetarily. (I know you didn't close your eyes. You couldn't have read what you were supposed to imagine if your eyes were closed. :) My goal is not to depress you. It is to wake you up to begin doing today the things that you know you are supposed to do on a consistent basis.
Have a great week!
Jared James
www.jaredjamestoday.com
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