In this installment, we’ll move on to the third thing you need to become a mega-producer in today’s real estate climate — the tools, strategies, and the discipline to manage all those low-cost leads for the time required to actually complete transactions with a large number of them.

I must confess that it’s very frustrating to see agents possess the very tools they need for their success and yet fail to take that last step — the step to making it all come together. I once was a struggling agent and nearly quit the business until I developed the lead capture gateway that quite literally turned my business around forever, so I’m very passionate about having the ability to generate as much business as you want or need to make your professional dreams come true.

On a fairly regular basis, I hear people comment that this person’s or that program’s form letters or fliers are bad/not for their market/hokey, you-fill-in-the-blank.

The value in ‘canned’ content is not necessarily in that you can take them as they are, and start using them. While it is true that there are some things, some times, that can be good they way they are, or pretty close, it is rare. The value is in the fact that the content, the concept, is already there for you, and pretty much done. What is left for you to do is to tweak it to your personality, and/or your market. The value is in not having to start from scratch. Starting form scratch takes a great deal of time. That’s where the value is; the time savings.

Today’s successful mega-producers are generating plenty of business, but unlike the customers of yesterday, today’s real estate customer is beginning online. According to the latest figures, in excess of 90% (94%) are beginning their search online. In my last installment, I explained how successful agents today are going way “upstream” to capture their business — before the customer has had the opportunity to be attracted by old-school marketing techniques. If you haven’t read it yet, you owe it to yourself to start there.

We are all under the gun every day in real estate sales.  Most of us get up every morning unemployed.  We need to go out and find a person to buy and sell with everyday.  How do we “pressure proof” our business?  We must put ourselves in the position where we are always winning.  When we are on a listing appointment, and we are struggling with the seller, we must believe they will sign the listing before we leave.  We must know during our prospecting block that we will turn up a new listing or new buyer every day.  Let me share with you a few ideas to make your business “pressure proof” and successful daily. 1.      Trust Your Skills and Abilities We all go through droughts or slumps in our business.  I s

In my last post I discussed the difference between yesterday’s pull marketing and today’s push marketing. I explained how pull marketing is reactive — “If you build it they will come.” Push marketing, on the other hand, is pro-active — “If you build it they won’t come so you have to go get them.” (Click to view previous blog post.) Many agents today have experienced that very phenomenon: doing lots of advertising and getting little if no results.

The real estate market is challenging throughout the United States.  For the first time in nearly thirteen years, U.S. home prices experienced a quarterly decline, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO, November 29, 2007).  Additionally, single family home sales fell by 13 percent in 2007, which was the largest drop in 25 years (CNNMoney.com, January 24, 2008).  Credit markets are in turmoil and the stock market is down from last Summer.  As a result, it is harder to make a living representing buyers and sellers as a real estate agent.

Before we launch into this segment, let’s recap the last installment. In it I was discussing how in the 1960s and 70s, our industry was in a Broker-centric Era. The brokers had all the power. Customers had very little access to listing inventory except through them. Agents had no business except through them. Modern real estate brokerage was in its infancy. By controlling the inventory, broker-owners were able to build real estate dynasties. It was common place to see multiple office operations with teams of agents, and it was during this climate that companies like Century 21, Coldwell Banker, ERA, and other similar broker-centric companies became huge empires.

Salespeople love referrals. They’re the sincerest form of compliment and a remarkably cost-effective route to new business. The idea of attracting referrals is so popular that sales trainers who bill themselves as referral gurus make fortunes promoting magical systems that supposedly deliver more referrals than an agent can handle, all in return for tuition at a three-day seminar. What they talk about for three days is a mystery to me.  Referrals are really pretty simple stuff.  A lot of it you can only acquire through perfect practice of your scripts, over and over, of referral-generating and referral-cultivation tactics.  

Referral Truths and Consequences

One study after another has shown that your body language and tonality account for over 90% of your presentation’s effectiveness.  What you actually say accounts for less than 10% of the delivery.  If you’re scrambling to find the right words, as most salespeople are, you’re spending your energy in inverse proportion to what impacts your effectiveness. The solution is to plan what you are going to say beforehand, so that during the presentation you can focus on language, tonality, and the following four steps to a great delivery. 

How to Reach Buyers in Today’s Market 

With an abundance of houses for sale and buyers still weary to return to the housing market, it is now more important than ever before that real estate agents improve their marketing, says the new, 170 page 2008 Swanepoel Trends Report from RealSure Publishing.  In Trend 3, titled ‘The New Digital Currency,’ the Report provides numerous statistics and information showing the shifting patterns of today’s home buyers.