UP AND RUNNING IN 30 DAYS

Are you using the old term, “listing presentation” to describe the presentation you give to the seller to list the home? It’s over. The days of describing what you’ll do for a seller as a “listing presentation” just don’t cut it in this marketing world.

Today, savvy agents are presenting “marketing plans”, not giving listing presentations. Why? Because you want to describe what you’re going to do for the seller in action terms. That’s your special marketing plan. To get the commissions you expect, you must compete on “added value” issues. That added value is all about you, not just about your company. These added values are best stated in your individual marketing plan. Here are 5 points to remember as you create your plan:

1. It’s an action plan—what you will do for the seller

2. It’s specific—it has dates for what will be done and who does it

3. It’s not about what the company will do—it’s about what you will do

4. It is stated either as a checklist, as a calendar of events, and demonstrated in your visuals.

5. It has a section on pricing, but the pricing, or market analysis, is only one part of the plan

Show Them or Tell Them the Plan?

We agent types like to talk. In fact, many of us became agents because people told us that, since we’re good talkers, we’d make great salespeople! That’s an old idea today. Why? Because consumers are over-whelmed with sales talk. The client today just doesn’t trust salespeople because they have a good ‘sales spiel’.

If you’re finding it increasingly difficult to list properties at the right price, it may be because you’re working too hard trying to talk the seller into it, and are not working hard enough to show a seller into it. Sellers, like all of us, believe what they see, not what they hear.

Go visual. Instead of trying to tell a seller what you know to be true, back up your statements with statistics, graphs, facts, etc. You do this already in your market analysis. But, most agents don’t do this with the rest of their marketing plans. Start now gathering information to back up your chosen marketing strategies. For example, if you’ve found, through your experience, that open houses do not sell that particular home, start keeping statistics of your open house visitors, their needs, and what happened to them during their buying cycle. You want to provide sellers the information they need to make good decisions, and to support your marketing plan.

Tell them What You’re Going to Do—Show them Why, and Show them What Worked

In a recent study of buyers visiting open houses, only seventeen percent accepted the claims of the agent holding the home open. The other eight-three percent sought a second opinion! So, back up your claims with testimonials, statistics, pictures, graphs, and history. You’ll see a dramatic rise in your marketable listings. You’ll have enthusiastic clients forever. You will have told the truth attractively!

For a complete sellers’ process, including marketing plans, see Your Client-Based Marketing System.

Tags: coach newer agent, listing presentation, marketing plan, newer agent, selling real estate, success, Up and Running

Is your listing process focused on the best interests of your client? The five questions below will help you evaluate your process, and update it for today’s client.

The “Client-Centered” Approach

If what the client wants from us is a “sold” sign on the property, and that’s the only way they rate us highly, then, we must change our methods of listing and marketing properties to create higher levels of customer satisfaction. By the “client-centered” approach, I mean to keep the client’s best interest first at heart—not the agent’s!

Here are five questions to ask yourself, to see which kind of process you use—and tips to change your process to true ‘client-centered’.

1. Do you have an ‘information-loaded’, prioritized listing system? If you don’t have a complete process, you aren’t instilling trust and confidence in the seller.

2. Do you educate from the beginning, or do you just sell, sell, sell (tell) ? A pre-first visit package educates seller and shows your professionalism.

3. Are you a ‘property information gatherer’ or a ‘people consultant’? An in-depth questionnaire focusing on their needs proves you care more about them than getting a sign on the property.

4. What’s your objective? The statistics prove that most agents’ objective is to list the property. That is not in the client’s best interests. To change to client-centered marketing, you must focus on listing only saleable properties.

5. Do you provide the seller a written marketing plan? A professional marketing company always provides the plan in writing. Shouldn’t you?

Catch Up with the Business Principles and Trends

The principles I’ve outlined above are reflected in the bigger, and more real, world of international business. They’re how you and I like to be treated as real people. Step your business up to the next level now by catching the trends, not by trying to copy what worked in yesteryear.

For a method to polish your presentations for today’s challenging clients, see Your Client-Based Marketing System.

Tags: Carla Cross, coach newer agent, listing, sales, sellers, selling real estate, Up and Running

How valuable was your new agent training to your success ? I don’t mean, did you like it, or did you like the instructor? You’ve been in the business awhile. I want to know how valuable you found it to launching your real estate career—and results—fast.. Why?

I’ve done surveys to managers and to newer agents about the value of their new agent training. I found a great disparity between what the managers thought, and what the new agents thought—six months after the training. So, I’m gathering information from the source—you newer agents—to find out what you found valuable, and what you wish you had experienced in training. I will also do the same from the management perspective.

Here are some things to think about:

How well did your training prepare you to give effective listing and buyer presentations?

How could it have prepared you better?

How well did your training prepare you to answer buyer and seller objections?

How well did your training prepare you with visual buyer and seller systems so you appeared to be a ‘seasoned agent’ to compete with the best?

How well did your training prepare you with the self-confidence to work with difficult buyers and sellers?

What did you want your training to do for you—before you entered that training?

After having been in the business awhile, what do you wish you had experienced during the training?

Did your training lay out a business start-up plan, and did it train and hold you accountable to that plan until you got results?

Did your training require you to demonstrate enough competency that you could effectively work with buyers and sellers?

How well did your training prepare you to write and negotiate purchase and sale agreements?

How well did your training prepare you to gain loyalty and buyer agency agreements?

What Else?

Please comment on the positives and negatives of your training, so I can better help managers and trainers prepare newer agents for the ever challenging markets and sophisticated buyers and sellers. Thank you!

Tags: Carla Cross, coach newer agent, make money fast, newer agent, sales, selling real estate, success, Up and Running

What in the world can a pianist teach you about getting higher performance. A lot, I think. It’s the new year. Are you ready to move that ceiling of achievement you’ve been batting your head against? 2010 is the year you can do it! Without new skills, we just keeping working harder, not smarter. The really bad thing about continuing to beat your head against that ceiling, is that it hurts more and more. You spend more energy just trying to accomplish the same thing.

 Too Much Energy, Too Little Results

 Worse yet, we bounce off that ceiling and hit a new low every thing we get up the energy to try to break through it. Not only that, the last few years have been discouraging for many in real estate. Don’t give up on yourself! You do have the talent, the skill, and the determination to succeed at a much higher level again.

 All Performers Hit ‘Ceilings of Achievement’

 As a long-time performing pianist and flutist (I spent the first thirty years of my life playing and teaching music), I had to learn how to constantly change up my playing for the better. In these next few blogs, I’m going to share what I learned as a musician that will change your 2010 performance dramatically—for the better.

 You Aren’t as Good as You Can Be—I Promise

 I just did a talk for our area’s Women’s Council, on how to have a much better 2010—how to smash through that ceiling of achievement. (Title: Everything I learned about Achievement I learned from Tickling’ the Ivories—also the title of my latest keynote).

 As a four-year old, I climbed up on the piano bench and figured out, by ear, how to play “Sue City Sue”—with bass notes, chords, rhythm, melody—the whole shebang. I was acclaimed as a little kid. However, as I got a little older, I found that playing by ear just wasn’t getting me to be a better player. Here’s what I did to get to concert artistry level, and earn a bachelor’s in piano performance—and how you can translate these performance principles to your real estate business.

 Get from ‘By Ear’ via your Talent to Conscious Systemization

 As a musician, I know that no one can play very well when they try learning only by hearing (playing ‘by ear’). To progress pass a ‘whiz-bang, aren’t you wonderful’ amateur level, musicians must learn to read music, get a great teacher, and learn to practice perfectly. Generally, their teacher/coach will teach them how to practice, and provide the best editions of music. They will teach them will a specific system. The better the system, the coach, the music, and the practice, the higher the performance—the sky is the limit.

 The First Time You Do Something Isn’t As Good as it Gets!

 What does that mean to a real estate professional? Most of us started selling or managing ‘by ear’. Some of us were talented, and that carried us pretty well for quite a while. But, then, we hit our ‘ceiling of achievement’, and found we were working 24/7 and expending way too much energy—and money. The way out:

1.  Grasp systems (the best systems you can find)
2. Follow processes and checklists
3. Get a great coach
4. Practice as perfectly as you can

 Practitioners—Watch Those Actions, Not Just the Words

 Unfortunately, we real estate professionals don’t realize that we are judged on our performance, not our knowledge. So, when you get all antsy because you think you need more classes, stop and think about your performance level, not your knowledge level. Spend more time evaluating your performance, and pay someone to coach to you get better (all performers, whether musicians or golfers, do this, by the way). Critique your systems, and keep refining them because they will subconsciously affect your performance levels.

 If I had a piano, I’d demonstrate these points (I do use the piano in the keynote!).

 What Do You Want to Work on This Year—from ‘By Ear’ to Systematic?

 Do you have some business plan goals for yourself this year to raise your ceiling of achievement? What do you believe is most valuable for you to work on?

Remember, if you’re a newer agent, you’ll be tempted to hang back, keep your fingers off the keys, and wait for something different–or better–to happen to you. Don’t get tempted! Put to work these performance principles and see your 2010 improve dramatically.

Tags: businesss plan, coach newer agent, inspiration, Motivation, selling real estate, success

 We all talk about qualifying buyers and sellers. I hope, as the year folds into 2010, that you’ve made a goal of better qualifying methods for 2010. But, in addition, buyers actively qualify agents to figure out who to work with. (Or, if they just take any agent who comes along, they are disappointed because ‘the customer doesn’t know what he’s getting, until he doesn’t’.)

Why meeting buyer qualifying criteria is important: Buyers today have many choices of how to find homes. You need to create competitive reasons to help buyers choose you.  It will save you time and money (more about that in a later blog, too). And, if you’re a newer agent, creating solid reasons to help buyers choose you will increase your self-confidence 200%.

Five Critical Questions Buyer Should Ask Agent ‘Candidates’

Here are five critical questions I believe buyers should ask agents to assure they have a ‘match’ between what they are looking for and what the agent provides. In addition, I’ve added what I believe buyers should look for in the anwers (that means that we agents must be able to qualify on these terms):

1. “Is selling residential real estate your full-time career?”

My advice to buyers: Listen to be sure the agent specializes in residential real estate. You want someone selling homes for a living, not apartment houses. Listen to see if this is the agent’s full-time career. Ask additional questions if the agent’s answers need more clarifying.

2. “How many homes did you sell last year?”

My advice to buyers: You want someone successful; that means, at minimum, the agent sold homes to buyers at least six times in that year.

3. “How long have you specialized in residential real estate in this area?”

My advice to buyers: Be sure the agent has been working in the area where you want to purchase for at least six months, so you know the agent has expertise and interest in that area.

4. “Describe the work you do in our price range and area.”

My advice to buyers: Listen to be sure the agent zeros in on the area and price range you need. If the agent says, “I work anywhere with anybody”, that agent may not be for you, for he may be trying to cover too much ground to know very much about specific areas.

5. “Tell us how you will work with us.”

My advice to buyers: Listen as the agent describes the buying process, as he views it. Does it reflect what you’re looking for?

Agents: Think These Criteria are Too Tough?

Did some of those questions and my advice to buyers make you defensive and argumentative? That’s because we agents tend to look at things ‘inside out’ (from our perspective). Instead, pretend you are a discriminating buyer. You’re going to spend $60,000 on a car. What kind of customer service do you expect? Now, think in terms of the real estate buyer. What kind of service should a real estate buyer expect?

Newer Agents: Panicked Because You Think You Can’t Qualify?

Relax. You don’t need to qualify on all terms. But, you need to have answers and explanations ready so you can provide buyers reasons to work with you. Advice: Educate yourself so that you are as well-prepared to help a buyer as an agent who has sold 100+ homes in his/her career.

Resources to Help You Compete to Qualify for a Buyer

Objection Busters for Buyers’ and Sellers’ Objections–provides a unique method to ‘craft’ answers to objections and provides dozens of scripts and role plays

The Complete Buyer’s Agent Toolkit–all the presentations, checklists, and skills you’ll need to create loyalty with buyers and compete with mega-agents

Your Professional Portfolio–how to build the unique YOU to position yourself as a real estate professional/expert/consultant

Tags: buyer agency, buyers, Carla Cross, consumer demands, customer service, selling real estate, success

Do you have a mission statement as part of your business plan? (More basic question–do you have a business plan?) Why is having a mission important? How should it guide you? You’ve heard the talks about finding your passion. But, you may be over-whelmed in your careers. It’s just too much to think big when you’re just trying to find that house or convince a buyer to work with you!

The Importance of Your Mission

This time of year, we’re encouraging everyone to create their business plans. One of the first things you’ll do in creating your own business plan is to define your mission. Why? Because, otherwise, you don’t know whether or not the actions you decide to take will fulfill your mission. You go to all those seminar gurus and just can’t decide what’s right for you. Having a solid, well-thought out mission will clear up the cobwebs and give you focus.

Tackling and Bringing Down your Time Management Challenges

If agents have been in the sales business a little while, they’ve already discovered that their biggest challenge is time management.  How can you get done in a business day everything that needs getting done? That’s where your mission comes in. Creating your mission helps you prioritize all the things you’re supposed to do. It helps you decide what not to do. Most important, it helps you figure out

     how to put YOU into your sales business successfully

I have a gift for you right now, to you assist you in defining your vision (where you want to ‘end up’ in your business) and your mission (it works for leadership, too). Click here to get these planning tools, which are excerpted form my resource The Business Planning System for the Real Estate Professional. 

Want more business planning help? I’ll be doing a webinar for the NAR’s Learning Library Dec. 8, 2009 for agents:  Not Your Grammy’s Business Plan.

Tell your broker. I will help your broker teach all of you to create great plans and use them to grow your business. Click here for my business planning webinar/coaching series.

When is training not a good thing? When it keeps you out of the real estate business. I just talked to a new agent who is taking every class known to man (or woman). Why? She wants to be ‘educated’, confident about what she is doing, etc., etc., etc.

What’s Really Going On

There’s nothing wrong with training. I’m a trainer, after all! But, we make money in real estate when we actually DO something, not sit in class and talk about it! Too many times, newer agents hide in the classroom because they’re scared spitless to get out in the field and actually start working in the business.

If you find yourself coming up with all kinds of reasons why you can’t start lead generating with the numbers in Up and Running, and why you just have to take that 1031 Exchange Course, be honest with yourself and admit that you are putting up huge barriers to your own success. 

When Do You Want to Start Making Money?

When do you want to start making money in real estate? What are your manager’s expectations of you? (when does she/he expect you to start making money?) How long can you afford to stay out of starting the business to ‘learn good things’? If you have the Up and Running program, you know

                         the business starts when you start talking to people.

Why You Should Take That Class

Before you sign up for another class, ask yourself:

1. Is this class absolutely necessary to support my career development right now?
2. Could I put off taking this class until I have generated the numbers necesssary for success in the Up and Running program?
3. Why am I really taking this class? What am I hiding from?

The Class You SHOULD Take

If you have the opportunity to be coached or do a small group coaching with the activities in Up and Running, literally run to take advantage of it. Why? Because it will prepare you to win in the ‘contact sport’ of real estate. You need to learn sales skills, you need to gain the presentation packages that will allow you to compete with experienced agents.

Go for Action Classes, not Nice to Know Knowledge

Make your mantra for 2010 “I”m getting into action today.” That way, you won’t want to hide in classes and stop yourself from making money selling real estate. You will have conquered the illness of ‘over-training’ inertia.

What’s the secret of your success for 2010? Yes, I know you’re getting bombarded about everything you need to do, everything you need to buy–and, by the way, how are you at social networking? Yet, none of those things you buy or the number of times you tweet really make much difference to your success.

The Secret of Your Success in 2010

Is it harder or easier to sell real estate than it was three years ago? Much harder. Are buyers and sellers throwing more objections at salespeople–or are buyers and sellers  easier to close? Harder to close. Do you need to master sales skills now? You bet. Are there more obstacles to getting that check, or are there fewer obstacles? More obstacles.

So, the secret to your success for 2010 is one simple word: Tenacity. It is amazing to me the lack of tenacity in many new salespeople. They give up way too quickly. They expect buyers and sellers to ‘turn themselves in’. They don’t have an appreciation for the need to master the business of selling and the art of sales skills.

If Failure is Not an Option….

I was helping my son, who owns a real estate company, organize his cadre of instructors for his high accountability sales productivity course. To my utter amazement, some of the new agents considered attending this course as optional. One said she was doing things differently (she’s been with the company 5 months and has not made a sale–yes, I guess that is “different”).

There is a Proven Process to Success in Sales

I’ve never met someone who became successful who didn’t have a respect and a great appreciation for processes and systems that are proven to provide success. Inversely, I never met someone who became successful by ‘doing it differently’, or ‘winging it’.

The formula: Follow a Proven System and be Uncommonly Tenacious

Those who are winning big are treating real estate like the serious business it is. They are devoting at least 45-50 hours a week to create their careers. They are following proven systems. And, they are stunningly tenacious.

Is that you for 2010? Why not? Go for it! You will have discovered the secret to  your success.

Congratulations. Perhaps you’re using Up and Running in 30 Days as your start-up plan. If you are, you don’t have to worry about getting into some ‘grammy’ planning habits. But, maybe you’re ready to do a long-term plan.

Are You a Candidate for Longer-Term Planning?

You are, if:

• You’ve completed over 8 transactions this year (so you can look back on your business)
• You’ve been in the business at least 6 months (so you have the lead generating habits entrenched that you learned in Up and Running)
• You understand and use all the concepts in Up and Running 

Avoiding Grammy’s Plan

What do I mean by ‘Grammy’s Plan? That’s the old simple goal setting ‘fill in the blanks’, and/or “How much money do you want to make next year?” method of slap-happy planning. Not only does it not work, you’ll never refer to it again! So, don’t waste your time. 

Don’t let anybody give you a pre-done plan. That’s not the idea. It’s your plan. You need to think through all the aspects of your business. You need a template to help you think through that business. There is not ‘right plan’ for you. There are only the various aspects of your business that you’d want to look at–in a particular order.

(Take a look at The Business Planning System for the Real Estate Professional, if you’ve answered the questions above and believe you’re ready to plan longer-term).

Four Steps to a Great 2010 Plan

On Oct. 29 I’ll be doing another NAR Learning Library webinar, called Not Your Grammy’s Business Plan. Click here for more information and registration. I’ll help you grasp the four steps to planning, and you’ll see if you’re ready to launch into a bigger plan.

Note: Congratulations to Up and Running in 30 Days. It’s just been chosen as a featured best resource by the Council of Residential Specialists for November. Way to go, Up and Running! (CRS has quality tested and determined that this resource is the best of its kind). 

Four Steps to a Great 2010 Business Plan

In a book about buyer representation I wrote for consumers, I chose the characteristics of an agent who I thought would best serve the consumer. Here’s that list:  

• has been in the business three to five years and seems real committed and enthusiastic,
• has completed higher level training (Graduate REALTORS® Institute and Certified Residential Salesperson—both REALTOR®-sponsored educational series for real estate agents, which include sales and technical skills),
• has completed an average of 10 to 20 sales per year or more (working with buyers),
• has letters of recommendation and a list of people I could contact,
• has a portfolio or brochure, with stated mission and values,
• specializes in areas where I want to look,
• has time to put me first, within reason,
• doesn’t delegate me totally to an assistant,
• seems strong enough to tell me the truth, even if I don’t like it
• explanations about agency relationships and how they work are clear and concise,
• has high standards for choosing buyers,
• demonstrates strong communication skills, and
• seems to match my business values.

 How many of these qualifications do you meet? If you don’t meet them, how can you ‘equal’ them with your other great qualities and skills?

Agents Sure Responded to Me

I was really shocked when I started getting phone calls and emails from agents, protesting that I was too stringent in my qualifications. The key here, though, is not to feel you can’t do a great job for a consumer without some of these qualifications, but to figure out what you DO bring to the table.

Expected, or Exceptional?

Unfortunately, too many of us in services businesses think that we are providing exceptional service–while the consumer rates those services as ‘expected’.

So, my question to you is: What’s your list of qualifications, and how can you get to the ‘exceptional’ level?

For more information on personal promotion, see Your Professional Portfolio. There’s also information on personal promotion in Up and Running in 30 Days.

Webinar note: Want help in business planning? I’ll be doing a webinar for the National Association of Realtors’ Learning Library Oct. 29 at 1 p. m. EDT (10 a. m. PDT). Click here for more information.

Tags: coach newer agent, consumer demands, customer service, sales, selling real estate, success