• 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
• provides clear 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? (like being in the business only 1 year….) Why do you think I listed them? What do you think they mean to consumers?

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. I’m afraid they were using ‘inside out’ thinking (from their perspectives, not clients). If you don’t agree with my list above, what do you think clients should expecct from an agent?

The key here, 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? If you don’t have the qualifications I listed, how do you compensate for them?

The reason I’m asking is that the public is increasingly going to websites to read feedback from other clients regarding an agent. The public is getting smarter about choosing agents. Set some goals for yourself this year to meet the highest standards for your clients–and then you can promote them, too.

The Information Hoarder/Revealer Agent Has No Value Today

When agents were able to hoard the information about homes, agents could sell value based on home information. Now, there’s no agent-provided value there. So, what value do you provide, and how do you show it?  I believe there are three packages that buyer’s agents need to provide, to justify their desired exclusive buyer’s agency agreement, and their commissions:

• The Pre-Appointment Package
• The Consultative Package (I call it “Your Guide to Purchasing a Home”)
• The Home Buyers’ System Package

Why packages: To create visual, substantive evidence that you are professional, you are knowledgeable, and you are current and contemporary.

Here’s the principle you’re going to follow:

We believe what we see, not what we hear 

Non-Committed agents need not apply. You and I know that a non-committed, part-time, or low producing agent just isn’t going to take the time to create these packages, processes, and systems. You are. Creating these packages and systematizing your buyer process shows you are a committed, savvy, value-added agent.

Systematizing: The Pre-Appointment Package

To guard against that Internet buyer de-valuing the services you provide, you’re going to start educating them from the time you first talk to them. Your pre-appointment package will do just that.

Systematizing: The Consultative System and Buyer’s Package

Because you’re thinking in terms now of a complete buyer system, part of that system is a professional process to meet with the buyer using a planned process to meet the buyer’s needs. That means you’re going to educate the buyer, and you’re going to carefully and systematically qualify the buyer. You’re going to use the ‘consultative’ approach, asking great questions in an orderly, purposeful fashion.

Bottom line: You’re going to create awesome value, because you’re going to help that buyer prioritize the myriad pieces of information they’ve gotten from the Internet.

Added Value: The Home Buyers’ System 

The last package you’re going to create is the most valuable. But, it’s not given to the purchaser unless and until the purchaser agrees to work exclusively with you. This package has the specific processes, checklists, and systems that you’ve created to partner with the buyer successfully through the home buying process.

The Ideal Buyer’s Agent: Working with the Internet Buyer Through Fully Systematized Processes 

You’ve systematized your buyers’ process to raise it to a value-added level. You’re not focused on information-providing. You’re focused on information-prioritizing. You are now matched up with the needs and desires of that Internet buyer, and you’re poised for exceptional real estate success. Congratulations! 

Don’t waste time reinventing the wheel: To help you get into action instead sit creating systems at your computer, I’ve provided a ready to use PowerPoint presentation, along with the three buyer packages you need, read to go, in The Complete Buyer’s Agent Toolkit. Not only that, I’ve provided a comprehensive training system to assist you in performing like a top producer—even before you are one. Click here to learn more.

The Ten Tips

1. Learn non-verbal skills and apply them in writing, on the phone, and in person to establish rapport in an increasingly ‘cold inquiry’ world. (For example: That’s voice pacing, inflections, pauses, pitch, dynamics–just to name a few ‘hearing’ non-verbal skills.) 

2. We believe what others say about a salesperson, not what the salesperson says about themselves. Use testimonials; check evaluation websites to see what consumers are saying about you.

Check out www.realestateratingz.com and www.incredibleagents.com.

3. Create an after-the-sale survey and use it consistently. If there’s something wrong, fix it fast.

4. We believe what we see, not what we hear. Show, don’t tell. Use visual presentations consistently.

5. Flip your sales presentations. Ask questions—lots of questions—first. Educate. Finally, sell (well, you won’t have to sell).

6. Tell the truth attractively. Show evidence.  Don’t try to scare the client into action by predicting  the future.

7. Evaluate the client for long-term relationships. Is the client someone you want to add to your ‘tribe’?

8. Use ‘tough love’ with a client to tell the truth, turn down a client—to stay true to your values. Do what’s best for the client.

9. Re-cap. Regularly, stop and re-cap with the client. Do this, too, when you can’t meet client expectations.

10. Book of Greatness: Don’t brag about yourself in the middle of apresentation. Create a ‘Book of Greatness’ to use in your pre-first visit so your clients get to know you and your approach to sales.

Trust evaluator: See what your trust level quotient is. Click here to get the Trust Evaluator. The higher your trust quotient, the more money you’ll make–more easily.

3.Build a marketing plan around your best source of business. Now, you’re starting to think big. When you consider old customers and clients, plus those who know and trust you, as sources of business, you can start creating actions (tactics) to capture referrals. How many actions can you think of now–off the top of your head? For dozens of tactics, see Beyond the Basics of Business Planning.

4. Check out your level of service to assure it’s high enough to expect a referral. It’s critical to create a marketing plan around your best source of business. But, let’s not kid ourselves. Unless your level of service is perceived by your customers as highly satisfactory, you can ask–but you’re not going to get! How do you know what your level of service is now? Survey everyone you work with. There’s an excellent survey used by top agents in my business planning system I referred to above.

5. Decide which is more valuable to you: The listing, the sale–or a referral.  Creating a marketing plan for your best source of business starts a paradigm shift in your thinking. Here’s the critical shift you must make to create a business based on referrals. You’re not after the sale. You’re after the referrals. You’re not after the listing. You’re after the referrals. Stop thinking about the immediate gratification–a sale. You must become a big, long-term, visionary thinker. What an order for a salesperson.

Give up immediate business? I can hear you arguing. A listing, even over-priced, can result in calls from would-be purchasers. You’re right. You’ll get a short term gain. But, you’ll also create long-term pain. Let me put that sales tactic in perspective to the real person out there who uses our services (our client and customer). Guess what real people call that sales tactic in automobile sales? “Bait and switch”. It hurts me to write that, but it’s true, isn’t it? The reason I’m laying it on the line here is that our consumers are threatening to leave us unless we clean up our act. We must become longer-term thinkers, looking out for a customer’s best interests, even if it doesn’t help us short-term.

6. Manage your referral business with the truism “behavior that’s rewarded is repeated”. That is, if you want someone to do something again, reward the behavior you want. (If you have children, you know exactly what I mean). To get more referral business, pay more attention to the customer after closing. The customer doesn’t think we deserved the commission unless we keep in touch after we got their check. If we ‘love ‘em and leave ‘em, the customer thinks that all we wanted was that commission. (You would, too….) That’s not an effective method to encourage referral business!

Are You a ‘Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em Kind of Agent?

Even though you and I understand the “reward” concept, agents still try to save money by skimping in the wrong areas. Recently, I was teaching a business planning course, where agents analyze their businesses, choose their best sources, (target markets), and  decide on tactical actions to get the best return on their investments. One “under-achieving” experienced agent told the class he’d decided not to spend any money on his customers after closing. After all, he’d gotten the check. It was over. He thought that closing gift idea was a waste of money–and since he wasn’t making much money, he wanted to save what he did have for finding new customers.

It was really obvious that he was only after one check. He was practicing real estate the old way–looking for new strangers to close. To build his business with less marketing dollars and more satisfaction, this under-achieving agent should have made the paradigm shift. He should be building a marketing plan where he’s spending more of his time and money on that client after closing –than before. Why? Because, with a marketing plan targeting referrals, he could make that one sale pay off in at least five future transactions! (The rest of the story: This agent is out of the business).

Be generous with your ‘thanks’ for business and for referrals.

Be generous with your information, care, and support after closing.

Build a tactical marketing plan to continue communicating  after closing. Remember, “behavior that’s rewarded is repeated”.

Change your paradigm from ‘next’ to ‘love ‘em forever.

we believe what others say about us, not what WE say about us.

Are you sending out your surveys regularly, at least at closing? At the end of this blog, I’ll give you a link to get a format for a survey, if you need one.

According to Stefan Swanepoel, in his 2010 Trends Report,

Consumers are looking much harder at ‘proof of experience’ in the form of comments from past clients.

If you are sending surveys at closing–congratulations. But, what are you doing with them? Are you reading them, then putting them in the drawer? Not so fast. You need to publicize them. You need to let others know that clients believe you are competent.

Watch Those Websites

Take a look at 10 agents’ websites–at random. How many of the ten have posted testimonials or evaluations? I’ll bet not more than one or two of them. So, you can see how easy it is for you to stand out. Just start by posting 5-10 of your testimonials on your website. By the way, always have a place on your evaluations where your clients can check that they will let you use that evaluation publicly.

Take Advantage of LinkedIn and Facebook Endorsements

It’s getting to be a really big deal–evaluations and endorsements. So, get in the habit of asking for endorsements on these sites. There’s just too much information today available for the potential client to know who to choose. Help them.

Check Out Evaluation Webites

These websites offer clients an opportunity to provide feedback on their agents. Take a look at this feedback: 

After the Sale Survey

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.