www.realestateratingz.com

www.incredibleagents.com

www.zillow.com

These are agent feedback sites. You’ll see the good, the bad, and the ugly. In fact, you’ll be stunned, I think, at the impact a testimonial has in writing—on the net. This is a huge trend: Clients providing feedback that can be accessed by everyone. Now, even Realtor Associations, like the Houston Association of Realtors, is regularly surveying members’ buyers and sellers for feedback. Expect this trend to get bigger quickly.

Two New ‘Players’ in the Agent Information Business

In addition to the sites I told you about above, Bank of America and USAA are getting into the ‘information about agents’ business. Check them out, too.

It’s So Easy to Stand Out from the Crowd

You don’t have to be a top producer. You don’t have to be a technical genius. All you have to do to succeed is to put yourself in your customer’s shoes and think,

“How would I like to be treated? How would I like to be answered? What makes me trust a person? What makes me walk away from the product or service?” You’ve got it. You’re on your way to a stellar reputation and business.

Survey, Survey, Survey

Are you surveying right now? Would you like a copy of my survey? If so, click here. Let me know how it works for you!

Question: Why are agents afraid to survey? Studies show that only about 10% of agents actively and regularly survey.

In this blog, I want to share with you how to assure your commissions don’t shrink.

After all, if you’re a committed agent who invests monetarily and emotionally in a long-term career, you deserve the commissions you want to charge.

What it Takes to Preserve the Commission Levels you Want

There are two things you can provide that more than earn your ‘generous’ commissions (and that a computer search can’t do for a buyer or seller):

Expert consulting

Expert negotiating

In fact, negotiation skill was one of the skills California buyers said they wanted (and 82% said they didn’t get) with their buyers’ agent. 

Becoming that ‘Value-Added’ Consultant and Negotiator

There are some specific steps you can take to provide truly deliver immeasurable value to your clients. Here they are:

1. If you haven’t taken interactive, tough, to-the-point consulting and negotiating workshops, do so now. Unfortunately, most agents aren’t trained consultants or negotiators, so they’re missing the opportunity to differentiate themselves from other agents—and impersonal web-based services
2. If you don’t use a written questionnaire to interview prospective buyers and sellers, get and starting using them now.  (see The Complete Buyer’s Agent Toolkit and Your Client-Based Marketing System for comprehensive consulting tools)
3. Regularly survey your clients, at least at closing, to find out how you did—and keep refining your buyer and seller systems based on client feedback

Surveys Now on the Web for the World to See

A huge trend: websites have been created that feature surveys from real estate clients. The client has been feeling let down by agents, and now can either vent or brag! Take a look at

www.incredibleagents.com

www.realestateratingz.com

www.zillow.com

Ask yourself: If I were a client, what kind of feedback about an agent would cause me to want to work with her? What would cause me to avoid this agent? Some of the client surveys you’ll see on the site are awe-inspiring—and some are exceptional for entirely different reasons!

Down to the Wire

I believe that, very soon, companies will be either full service, generous commission companies, with dedicated, career-focused agents, or limited service, “less generous” commission companies. Which level of service (and fee structure) will you offer?

A Resource to Guide You to Today’s Representation of Buyers

Whether you’ve been in the business 3 minutes or 30 years, it is time to polish your buyer presentation skills. I’ve put together all the resources you need: Buyer presentations, with a PowerPoint presentation, and your own guide, where I coach you as a presenter. This is a really comprehensive guide, with over 150 pages and several presentations–plus dozens of checklists and documents.

Take a look at The Complete Buyer’s Agent Toolkit.

The market is slowly improving. Yet, many agents are not changing how they do business to take advantage of it. Historically, agents have ‘snared’ clients by promising they could get something for them, do better than that other agent, or represent them so client always won–and made the other client lose. (Not always legal is it?). In a market ruled by short sales, foreclosures, and other ‘not-controllable’ outcomes, that sales strategy just comes back to hit the agent in the face!

Stop Over-Promising and Under-Delivering

According to a recent California Association of Realtors’ survey, buyers gave agents an overall satisfaction score of 4–out of 100!

Obviously, this over-promise strategy didn’t work very well with buyers! One of the areas buyers said agents were deficient in were negotiation skills. Although I think that’s true, I believe the anger is caused by something else. Unfortunately, many agents are still using that old-style sales technique of making promises they can’t keep. I think they made promises to buyers, and, when they couldn’t get what they promised, the buyers thought the agent didn’t have negotiation skills. Better negotiation skills isn’t going to make a bank sign something the bank has not intended to sign!

This is not the era of ‘over-promise’ and ‘under-deliver’. It is the era of ‘under-promise and over-deliver’!

For example: The agent is attempting to get the bank to accept an offer on a foreclosure. To get that buyer to work with him, the agent has promised he will ‘get that bank to sign on the dotted line’. NOT! Now, the agent has over-promised to get the client, only to let the client down. The client believes the agent doesn’t have sufficient negotiating skills. Actually, the agent has used deceptive, over-kill sales tactics with the client. It’s a situation the agent can’t hope to win. Agents who are working like this must think clients are really, really dumb.

The Customer Doesn’t Know What He’s Getting–Until He Doesn’t

Have you heard that marketing saying? We all want to believe there’s a tooth fairy. We love to find ‘found money’. We want to believe all those smooth salespeople that say they can get us something for nothing. But, when it doesn’t happen, we turn against the salesperson. That is certainly happening in the real estate industry.

The Answer: Learn to ‘Tell the Truth Attractively’

Instead of using the old sales tactic of over-promising, learn to do a consultative interview with your potential client. Tell him what you can and can’t do. Give him your credentials and testimonials. Promise him you will rely on other experts in areas where you aren’t an expert. Become a ‘partner’ in solving problems. You aren’t a magician, you don’t control sale outcomes, and you aren’t an attorney–or a judge, or a bank.

Be Ready to Lose Once In Awhile

If you want to build a loyal clientele over time, you must be ready to lose to win. Sometimes you will lose a client to that old style manipulative agent. But, that client will come back to you, and be more loyal that ever. Remember, ‘the customer doesn’t know what he’s getting–until he doesn’t. And, when he realizes what has been done to him, he will appreciate your candidness and steadfastness. That’s the way to build loyalty over decades.

What do you do to build loyalty and counter the claims of that old-style ‘over-promising’ agent?

A Resource to Guide You to Today’s Representation of Buyers

Whether you’ve been in the business 3 minutes or 30 years, it is time to polish your buyer presentation skills. I’ve put together all the resources you need: Buyer presentations, with a PowerPoint presentation, and your own guide, where I coach you as a presenter. This is a really comprehensive guide, with over 150 pages and several presentations–plus dozens of checklists and documents.

Take a look at The Complete Buyer’s Agent Toolkit.

This post’s ‘gift’ is my after sale survey. See the link in the body of the blog.

Don’t want to forget to invite you and your agents to a free business planning webinar for your agents, Nov. 29, 1-2 PM PST.

Before you launch right into that business plan for next year, take a look back. Why? Your history will provide clues about how to save time and money for next year.

 Here are three areas of your real estate career, that, with small adjustments, can pay huge dividends.

1. Where’s your money been going? It makes sense that the money you invest in your career  should be giving you pay-offs equal to your investment. Unfortunately, many agents don’t know where they spent the bulk of their money last year. Go back over the past four months.

Add up the moneys you’ve spent to generate business in each of your ‘target markets’–those identifiable groups of people that you build programs around to get business (geographical farm, first-time buyers, etc.) Where are you spending most of your money? Are you getting a good enough ‘return on your investment’? You’ll use this analysis to build your budget for next year, too.

From working with agents in my business planning course, I’ve observed that many agents don’t build a business plan around their best source of business: ‘sold’ customers and clients. Marketing surveys show that it costs six to nine times as much to get a new customer as to keep an old one. So, if you spend more money on your best source, and less on your other sources, you’ll optimize your investment.

2. What are your ‘success’ ratios? Most agents don’t know this one: What are your ratios of listings taken to listings sold? How many of your sellers are you making happy? How many of those sellers are so delighted with your service that they will refer more people to you? In my opinion, a good agent should target  a 80-90%  success ratio in this area.

Why? We all know we need to promote ourselves. The most successful, believable promotions are based on our success records–what we’ve done, not promises. If you have a sign on your desk that says “If you don’t list, you don’t last”–tear it up. Instead, put up a sign that reads, “If your listings don’t sell, you don’t last. Small adjustments, big dividends. (Plus you’ll save lots of marketing dollars.)

3. How ‘delighted’ are your customers? Most so-called ‘business plans’ in real estate merely are goal-setting grids. Focusing only on the ends suggests that the ends justify the means. However, the consumer sure doesn’t think so! These goal setting grids alone lead agents to miss the point of the decade: Top-flight customer service begets more business. That is, not just what you do, but how you do it.

What level of customer service are you providing? Is it just good enough to get through the transaction? Or, is it so great that your customers and clients are thoroughly delighted? (Delighted consumers refer business to you–less cost and more effort equals big pay-offs, right?)  What can you build into your business plan to assure that you’re regularly delighting those you work with?

One of the agents in featured in many of my books, Rick Franz, now provides surveys weekly during the time he works with buyers and sellers. He wants clients to know he cares how they feel about the service, and that he’s dedicated to providing the best service they’ve ever had. Pretty competitive, yes?

Click here to get my after sale survey, one of the dozens of strategies ready to use in my business planning system.

I’ve just started using a new online survey service. Check out zoomerang. It is easy to use and looks very professional.

Although there are dozens of areas to scope in your plan, just taking one hour out of your day now to assess these three areas–and plan adjustments–will assure you make more money this year–and create a better, more pleasant long-term career.

FREE Webinar

Join me on Nov. 29, at 1-2 PM, PST, for a ‘meat-packed’ webinar on business planning: Beyond the Basics of Business Planning. I’ll help you find the hidden problem areas of your business, reveal how to put inspiration into your plan, and give you several strategies for next year. Space is limited! Register today.

Click here to register.

1. Wrong “career roadmap”

 Most agents have unrealistic expectations from the business. Examining your preconceptions–and misconceptions– is important to grasping how you got to where you are now–and why. What’s your job description right now? What kind of activities do you spend most of your time doing?

Recommendation: To make money, you should have only three priorities: Lead generating, showing and selling. Are you spending enough time doing those activities now? Analyzing your time and activities is key to gaining a hold on your time management.

For a Time Analysis tool,  click here.

excerpted from the On Track to Success in 30 Days System for the Experienced Agent.

2. Following the wrong role models

With real estate changing dramatically, each agent must know the opportunities and challenges inherent in his stage of the ‘career life cycle’. Without realizing it, many agents today are slipping into ‘decline’, hoping that real estate will go back to the ‘good old days’.

Recommendation: If you want to move your career ahead, you must consider yourself in the “growth cycle” of real estate. Why? Because the dramatic changes in the business force us salespeople consistently to examine our businesses and adopt new methods–just as we do when we want to grow a business, not merely maintain it.                                              

3. Not managing your attitude

A recent survey showed that agents expect managers to “keep them up”. Now, just think about it. How many times a day do you get “down”? Unless you carry your manager around in a fanny pack (that’s a picture), and wire him/her into your emotions, your manager just can’t ‘be there for you’ when you need a pep talk.

Recommendation: Find 4 methods to keep your attitude on an even keel. Listen to motivational audios; watch inspiring videos; read the right books.

4. A ‘peaks and valleys’ business

Do you know agents who have a great month, followed by four terrible months–even when the market is good? They do that over and over until it’s their business pattern. They’ve created a ‘peaks and valleys’ business. How did they do that? Mainly, by waiting for the customer to come to them.

Recommendation: If you’re getting more than 25% of your business from re-active sources, (floor time, open houses, Internet leads), you’re playing Russian roulette with your income. If that pipeline freezes, you’re back to being a first-day agent again! Your business should be coming from 75% or more pro-active prospecting (you go out to find the prospects).  

5. Spending your marketing dollars wrong

Recently, I was a speaker on business planning at a large regional real estate conference. I asked the agents what their best source of business was. They told me, “Old customers and clients–referrals.” I then asked them how much money they spent on that source. Out of 400 agents in the room, only one knew his investment in his best source!

Recommendation: Plan on spending 60% of your promotional dollars on old customers and clients. They’re your best source of business.

What did I miss? How do agents in your office get off track?

Don’t forget. Click here to get your time analysis tool. This is a very valuable tool that will reveal to you exactly how you’re spending your time–the good, the bad, and the ugly!

Where can you get more information to get past those career barriers? My consultative resource, The On Track to Success in 30 Days System for the Experienced Agent, gives you dozens of tips on how to figure out what’s right and what’s holding you back in your business. Then, I provide recommendations in each chapter, plus a 30-day regeneration plan.  See more here.

Social Networking has Taken the Place of Databases, Carla–You old Fuddy-Duddy…..

I know. You just love social networking. You could spend hours on it (in fact, you do). You go to all those classes on social networking, and, by golly, you know more about it than your manager. Don’t get too cocky yet. There are two problems you’re creating for yourself by relying on social networking:

1. You are probably spending too much time at your computer and not enough time meeting real people and forming relationships. Remember, buying a home is not like buying a set of knives. You’ll have to work hard to establish a trusting relationship. Most of us aren’t good enough at writing to do that without finally meeting someone.

2. You are not gathering your future goldmine–your database full of people who are going to love you and what you do.

Who do you ‘Own’?

Here’s the problem with relying on the social networking sites to keep track of your potential clients. You don’t own them. The social networking site could go out of business. It could start charging you. It could sell your contacts.  That’s why you need to ‘own’ those contacts in your own database. Now, you can create a marketing plan. You can communicate with those people on a schedule.

Start and Populate your Database Intensely

You’re a newer agent. You want to make money fast. You want to establish a solid long-term career. Become a ‘database freak’ so that you can remember all those wonderful people you met. Lead generation is the most important part of the sales business. Doing a lot of it assures high income. That means tracking all those people you meet. It takes more than one communication to create a loyal client.

New Agent Key to Success: Right Priorities

Those of you who have used Up and Running in 30 Days to start your careers know that I have worked hard to prioritize your business for you so that you are successful quickly, and gain business management habits for life. I’ve prioritized types of business, best sources of leads, and all the activities you’ll do to get started quickly. I want you to prioritize your technology activities, too. Remember, you’re a salesperson.

Become that database freak and see your business develop quickly.

How do you set the stage for a professional relationship with a seller?  How do you list properties that sell? Most likely you’ll have a phone conversation with the seller before you do anything else.  This is where many agents waste time and energy.  They hear the seller say, “I want you to come over and tell me what my house is worth”, so they run over.  Then, they find out the seller is listing with another agent, wants the evaluation for insurance purposes, or wants to move in one year, etc. Even worse, the seller says, “Just drop a competitive market analysis (CMA) on my doorstep. I’ll let you know if I want you to list the property.” The agent dutifully completes a CMA, drops it on the doorstep, and finds out another agent has listed the property!

 Five Questions to Answer to Set Your Professional Standards 

Avoid wasting your time and being disappointed. Here are five important considerations to answer for yourself to see if your “pre-first visit” system is up to standard: 

1. Would you go to a seller’s home just because he asked you to come over? If not, what are your standards? 

2. Would you give the seller a price opinion without a thorough analysis of the market trends and of the property? 

3. Would you go to the seller’s home without knowing why he is moving? 

4. Would you go if the seller wouldn’t let you explain how you work? 

5. Would you go to the seller’s home of all sellers were not present? 

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, you probably are doing too much work listing properties for not enough income! Establishing standards to meet for first visits to sellers, along with a pre-first visit questionnaire, will assure you use your time wisely.

Want much more help in screening sellers AND convincing them to list at the right price? Take a look at Your Client-Based Marketing System. Powerpoint presentation, plus dozens of tips on presenting professionally. Take charge of your listing process now!

 How Would you Rate a ’10′?

For example: What would constitute the consumers rating you a ‘10’ (out of 10)? It’s very frustrating when you don’t know what great performance looks, sounds, and feels like. If you’ve ever been evaluated and gotten a less than stellar evaluation, you know how frustrating it is to be rated as less than stellar—but not know what constituted ‘great’ in the eyes of those rating us.   

Read What Consumers Want from Buyers’ Agents

 Besides surveying buyers and asking them to rate agents, the California Association of Realtors asked buyers exactly what they wanted from those buyers’ agents. Here’s what buyers said:

 What We Can Learn to Help Us Get those Great Ratings

 As you can see, consumers expected us to be experts at whatever we were doing. They don’t want us to try to help them in areas where we’re not competent (like trying to sell foreclosures without adequate education).  What does that mean to us? The obvious. If we’re going to delve into short sales and foreclosures, we need to dedicate ourselves to becoming an expert.

 What are you an expert at? What are you working on this year? How do you explain this to buyers?

In my next blog, we’ll discuss how to show buyers your value.

Would you agree? The more we can fulfill the client’s expectations, the more referrals we can expect from that client.  And, we all know referrals is the name of the game. Referrals cost us much less, and the client referred to us loves us already. Plus, by making the client ecstatic, we have a reason to charge those generous commissions we love—and we should.

 Obvious Question–Not an Obvious Customer-Agent Service Match

You may the above question and answer are obvious. But, we should slow down and really think about it. Why? Because the gap between client expectations and general agent performance has, in the evaluation of the consumer, become a chasm. And, unless we can breach that gap, our commissions will keep sliding downward.

 Time to Think ‘Outside In’

 As you read this, stop yourself from thinking ‘inside out’ (What we like to think about ourselves). I, like you, have spent most of my adult working life as a Realtor. I sold hundreds of homes. I hired, trained, and coached thousands of agents. It’s painful for me, as it is for all of us, to look at ourselves from ‘the outside’. But, if we want to sustain our practices in the best way possible, we have to close that gap between what we think of ourselves and what consumers think of our practices. We have to think ‘outside in’ (look at ourselves from the consumer perspective).

 Buyers Talk—Let’s Listen 

Take a look at this survey of 2009 from the California Association of Realtors.

 CAR asked buyers to rate the overall satisfaction level with their buyer’s agent. Wow! 4 out of 100! Now, I know that’s not true of you, but, it is what those thousands of buyers rated those thousands of agents they dealt with. Is 4 out of 100 good enough to get referrals? Is it good enough to sustain ‘generous’ commission levels? I don’t think so, do you?

 Our Reputation as an Industry is Impacted By Every Agent’s Practice 

Yes. I know most Realtors are independent contractors. We like to think we are not impacted by others’ practices. But, in truth, study after study shows we are. The consumer judges us generally by the level of practice of the agent with whom they have contact. Then, we ‘inherit’ that reputation—whether we earned it or not. And, when we have that less than sterling reputation, we have to dig ourselves out of the hole to prove we’re not ‘one of those’. It’s there, and we have to recognize it. 

What do YOU Think?

What do you think the consumer wants that he/she’s not getting? In the next blog, I’ll show you what they said (what they wanted from buyers).

The listing sold quickly

The listing sold for close to full price

 The Agent-Centered Process

You can guess what that is: The agent creates dialogue to get the seller to list with him/her at any price–so the agent will have a listing he/she can market to snag buyers.

The Cient-Centered Approach Gets You Referrals

If what the client wants from us is a “sold” sign on the property, and that’s the only way they rate us highly–and give us referrals, then, it makes sense to do a  listing and marketing process that creates the 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!

Five Questions to Ask Yourself

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?

Looking for guidance in how to make your process truly client-based? Take a look at the CRS-recommended resource, Your Client-Based Marketing System.      In it, you’ll see all the questionaires you need, a PowerPoint presentation, ready to use, a marketing plan, and much more. Save time and compete with the mega-agents.