There are two key words that lead to success in life.  These words control the successful outcome of your business, marriage, and many other areas of life.  Although you may have incredible talent and skill in life, you will fail if you do not master these two words – and vice versa.  Even if you have only limited talent and skill, you will win if you live by them.  These two words determine your future.  They are attitude and expectation.             

When representing sellers, I always requested that offers be faxed rather than  the buyers agent personally presenting the offer to my clients. I was one of the first agents in the country to take this approach nearly 15 years ago. Today it is commonplace. It allows the agent and the sellers time to consider the offer before responding to it. When representing buyers, I preferred to present the offer personally. I wanted to deliver and clearly express my buyers’ intentions rather than have them relayed through the seller’s agent. By presenting personally, I could gauge the response of the sellers by watching facial expressions. I could express my view of the property value.

Once you decide on the basic structure for your team, you will need to establish a few rules for the hiring process.  I believe it’s best to create some ground rules before you start interviewing and deciding whom to hire.  You can get so excited about the prospect of a new person or a specific person you want to hire that all logic goes out the window.

Marketing for referrals with mailers, calendars, recipe cards, and other outreach and appreciation efforts is nowhere near as effective as prospecting for referrals by making personal calls and requests.  

The hard truth is that most consumers stand a far better chance of finding a poor agent than a great one. Once you can personally convince them that you’re among the best in the field, referrals will follow.

 When cultivating referral sources, realize that most people who send referrals your way do so for a variety of reasons, but above all, they recommend you for the following two reasons:       

Too often, we examine the risk and make it too large.  We view the first hiring of an administrative assistant as a $30,000 per year expenditure.  This is especially true for your very first hire.  Your mind says, “Well, what if I don’t increase sales; what if I have an off year; what if the assistant doesn’t get it?”  These are natural thoughts, but in many cases, they are blown out of proportion.

Once they’ve asked for and received a referral, most salespeople stop and wait for the magic to happen. In fact, this is when Phase 2 of the referral-generation process kicks in. Follow these steps:                    1.  Thank your referral source, immediately!

The business plan is a foreign tool to most REALTORS^®.  After studying, observing, interviewing, and coaching hundreds of Agents, I have concluded that very few have taken the time to create a quality business plan.  Fewer still review their business plan on a regular basis.  The few who have good business plans often make them so complicated that they possess little value.  Those Agents create such a complex business plan that they will never carry it out.  What kind of value does this complex business plan have to them? . . .  Zero! 

A Champion Lead Agent realizes there is a price to be paid.  Nothing comes to someone who has climbed to a Champion level that hasn’t been earned or paid for.  The pathway to being a Champion isn’t a downhill path.  You know you are on the path to being a Champion because it’s uphill all the way.

I have shared with you my long version of what a Champion Team is.  The truth is it matters very little what my definition is.  The true question is what is your definition of a Champion Team?  To be successful in life, we all have to affix the target.  In order to hit our objectives, goals, and dreams, we have to know what those objectives, goals, and dreams are.  You have to be willing to ask yourself the tough questions to get at the right answers.  You have to get out of the answers and into the questions.

The buyer interview is the first step in the buyer process.  It should happen before you run to the computer to find them the right home.  If you don’t do this first, you may be competing with two or three other Agents for the same buyer.  Why compete when you don’t have to?  Let the other Agents in the marketplace compete and waste their time with disloyal buyers.  Champion Agents only invest their time with people who are loyal and who will buy through them. The buyer intervie

Prospecting expired listings can be the core of anyone’s business in the real estate field.  You can create a system that will give you repeatable results for your effort.  Let’s look at these three very positive characteristics in prospecting expired listings. They are easy to find:  Expired listings come up everyday, so you will always have a handful that you can work with on a daily basis.  They provide a steady stream of new leads to contact for listing appointments. 

There are two key words that lead to success in life.  These words control the successful outcome of your business, marriage, and many other areas of life.  Although you may have incredible talent and skill in life, you will fail if you do not master these two words – and vice versa.  Even if you have only limited talent and skill, you will win if you live by them.  These two words determine your future.  They are attitude and expectation.

Selling in the new millennium has moved away from transactional based selling to relational based, or values based, selling. For many years, real estate Agents could focus on "doing the deal" - get the consumers into the home and the loan, and move on. Consumers are looking for more than the "slam transaction". I define a "slam transaction" as one in which we slam them into a home and a loan, and move on to the next consumer. It's when

What is your business philosophy? Do you know the answer? You should be able to write it out and articulate it clearly. Whether you know it or not, you do have an answer. Your standard business practices and procedures for what you do make up your business philosophy. It is the guidelines you follow for daily business.

Too often, we know we are behind and let it go for too long without a change."? You must react and change quickly to catch up."? We often do not raise the level of our intensity or increase our work output until it is too late."? If you get too far behind and are spending tremendous amounts of time inflicting wounds on yourself, change the plan.

We have to increase the number of easy sales that we can do and reduce the number of difficult sales we do."? Sales is a margin game not a volume game."? It's the margin between the revenue that you make and the investment you put into it.

Before you leave for the day, make a list of tasks that you need to do."? To be highly effective, we must set up tomorrow before it comes."? You will save ten minutes of execution for every one minute of planning you do."? Then take the list and prioritize from most important to least important."? I will give you a hint"the hardest thing that needs to be done is most important."?

Acknowledge that you know the owners are apt to feel cautious about "tying their home up" for another long period of time. For that reason, offer them an easy-exit listing agreement or include a 100% satisfaction-guaranteed clause.

Just because someone is on the superstar agent panel, doesn't mean they have a profitable business model."? Nor does it mean they understand how they generate their leads; where their transactions, leads, appointments, and commission income come from; what they spend in marketing; what marketing really works and the return on investment for it."?

Get an agreement with the client on price before you move on."? There is no point in continuing if you and the client do not agree on price."? You will just be wasting your time."? I urge you to have the conviction in your skills, as an Agent, to truthfully interpret the market, even though most Agents will not."? Be honest.

The most important skill in sales is qualifying."? It is the ability to separate the non-motivated buyers and sellers from the motivated ones who want to do something now."?

Agents will often build teams to try to help smooth out the swings in income that happen in the real estate business."? They feel that if they had a few buyer's agents, their income would be more consistent from month to month."?

By using this DNA analysis of measuring one's level of desire, needs, and ability and authority you will have an accurate basis for determining the probability of your prospect converting to a good client for your business.

The buzzword in real estate today is "teams"."? I see more agents today trying to establish teams in their practices than ever before, and they are trying to create them much earlier in their careers."?

Begin to treat time as your most valuable asset. Realtors are too casual with their time, leading to career, relationship, or bank account casualties that could have been avoided by treating time as the most precious resource in life.