Sobering thought: If they don’t expect anything from you, how much effort will they put out to see you are successful?

The Ten Commandments

From working as an agent for 8 years, and managing agents for almost two decades, I’ve drawn some conclusions about the ‘turnabout’s fair play’ that I believe agents owe managers. I’ve also listed these in Up and Running in 30 Days, to give agents a ‘heads up’. I believe if managers are willing to give 100% support through training and coaching each agent to success, agents need to give it their best, too. Here are agents’ ten commandments:

1. Do the work. You know what it is!
2. Don’t argue.
3. Don’t make excuses for not doing your start-up plan.
4. Don’t tell the manager you’ve been in the business two weeks and you have a better way.
5. Do thank your manager frequently.
6. Do tell other agents that you appreciate your manager’s efforts.
7. Do tell other new agents you meet in other companies that you have a great manager.
8. Don’t bug other people in the office to find another answer because you didn’t like your manager’s answer.
9. Don’t change the Up and Running plan because you “don’t like it”. (You just don’t like lead generating, do you?)

10. Don’t miss a coaching appointment!

I’d love to hear what you think of my ‘ten commandments.’ Are there others you think are important? Before you hire on, get in writing exactly what your manager is going to do to assure your success, so you won’t have disappointments later. Getting agreement on what we both expect before deciding to work together is key to a happy partnership. The only surprises I want you to have after you start are good ones!

6. Starting the business part-time, with no ‘drop dead’ exit plan from your other work. I know. I started part-time, but, within three months, I realized that I could not serve my consumer honestly when I had to run to another job. The truth is that you just don’t care much about the consumer if you’re not committed and working a real estate at least 50 hours a week. If you have to start part-time, give yourself a deadline to become full-time. Managers, don’t hire without that dead-line in writing. You’ll be wasting your time training and coaching.

7. Not getting a commitment from your manager that he/she will consistently and frequently coach you to a game plan. If your manager can’t rise to that level of commitment, how successful to you think your manager intends you to be? (Side note to managers: I believe you need to be 100% committed to your agents, or else the likelihood they will fail is 100%. Use a precise, consistent, proven game plan like the 3^rd edition of Up and Running in 30 Days to put your agent to work, and coach your agent with Managers: Putting Up and Running to Work, now in its 3^rd edition to match the new, expanded agent’s start-up plan.)

8. Thinking that the best commission plan is the best place to work. As the old song says, “Nothin’ from nothin’ is nothin’.” You need to sell lots of real estate—lots and lots of real estate. Choose the place where you think that will happen. New agents who figure out they only have to sell three homes a year to pay those fees are thinking like losers.

9. Not investing in the business until they ‘get successful’. When would that be? Why do you get to be successful without an investment? With that attitude, how are you going to compete with those great agents—and how are you going to meet those amazingly high consumer expectations?

10. Going into the business to see if they like it. I’ll bet 50% of new agents don’t really go into the business to make it a career. They go into the business to ‘try it out’. If that’s your attitude, how do you expect your manager and your company to be 100% committed to you, when you’re 25% committed?

A Great Manager Plus a Great Plan Plus Accountability = Success

Harsh words above, but true.  If you want to succeed, find a great manager who will coach you and hold you to a start-up plan. Find a manager who will tell you the truth—even when you don’t want to hear it! Find a manager who is 100% committed to you, and you will be one of those 50% who survive their first years, and go on to great careers.

Some dumb actions don’t cost us much, but, when an agent fails, it costs money to everyone-agents, offices, and consumers. It’s estimated that it costs a manager $15,000-30,000 for every agent hired who fails! So, that agent isn’t a profit-center, she’s a cost center! In addition, an agent who fails spends at least $5000-15,000 just in ’subsidized living’ and real estate expenses the first three months in the business. Finally, the consumer loses, because the agent is out of the business before serving the consumer.

Heads Up

New agents don’t come into the business to fail. But, they don’t realize the effort and skill it takes to succeed. In addition, there are increasingly difficult challenges for new agents:

1. The gap between consumer expectations and agent performance is widening quickly and dramatically. New agents must have better training, coaching, and commitment from their brokers.
2. The market in most areas has become more challenging, so new agents can’t get those ‘easy sales’.
3. The committed, career-oriented agent is taking much more of the market share.
It’s estimated that 50% of new agents fail and get out of the business in their first year, and 75% are out in two years. That seems to me a huge waste of resources-and a huge contributor to that expectations gap I listed above. We need to stop that attrition now.

So, new agents, I’ve created a list of the ten dumbest things I’ve seen thousands do to fail themselves right out of the business. In this blog, we’ll investigate the first five:

1. Thinking that there are lots of ways to start the business. There aren’t. Real estate sales is sales, and sales is a numbers game. (Up and Running shows you exactly how to work those numbers to your benefit).
2. Thinking they don’t have to lead generate, because they’ll “do it differently.” Don’t talk to people consistently and in great numbers and you’ll be flipping burgers before you know it! (Not that there is anything wrong in flipping burgers, but you won’t be “selling real estate”.
3. Thinking that their manager or office or the Internet will supply them leads. If that were the case, your commissions would be much smaller.
4. Thinking that this business is about tasks and technology. It’s not. It’s about people relationships.
5. Treating the business like a ‘next’ business. It’s not about finding and selling a customer. It’s about finding and keeping the customer for long-term referral business.

How many of these dumb things have you done? In truth, we learn from our mistakes. It’s not what we do wrong. It’s what we continue doing wrong. I wrote Up and Running to cut your ‘mistake time’!

If Giving Up is Not Your Option….

What if there’s a magic measurement of success? Would you be willing to meet that measurement? You know that the Beatles attained pop music mastery. You know Bill Gates did the same with technology. But, did you know what they have in common-and that you may have, too?

Before I tell you that, let me share something that happens to me often. I’m a pianist-and have been a musician since I was four years old. In my speaking, I often tickle the ivories-just a little, of course…..Invariably, someone comes up to me and says, “I’ve always wanted to play the piano.”  I tell them, they certainly can. How? here’s the simple answer:

Practice one half hour a day for one year. You’ll be able to play well enough to play simple pop tunes at parties.

You’ve heard the old chestnut, Practice Makes Perfect. I certainly know that as a musician. But, how well do we apply that principle to our business lives? Is this something that is a key to our attaining our goals? I think so. Read on.

The Commonality between the Beatles and Bill Gates

In his fascinating book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell studies performers-from Mozart and the Beatles to Bill Gates. The commonality he found was that high achievers spent an average of

Ten thousand hours practicing and honing their craft to get to mastery

In other words, it isn’t talent, it isn’t just circumstance (although Gladwell points out being at the right place at the right time is important, too)-it is just slogging it out, practicing your craft, logging in ten thousand hours.

The Beatles-Having to Work Seven Days for Eight Hours a Night Was the Beset Thing that Could Happen to Them

When I read that the Beatles played in Hamburg 8 hours a night, 7 days a week-for 2 years, I instantly felt tired! I know what it’s like to perform in bars for hours! But, the Beatles said that experience was key in making them the performers they became. In an interview, John Lennon said, “We got better and got more confidence. We couldn’t help it with all the experience playing all night long…..we really had to find a new way of playing.”

Bill Gates-Practically Living at the Computer Lab

Gates describes his early years: “It was my obsession….I skipped athletics. I went up there at night. We were programming on weekends.”

Isn’t There a Shortcut?

For those of you who have never attained high performance, you don’t–and can’t-realize the importance of practice. You think that it’s just a matter of talent or luck. But, haven’t you known extremely talented people who just extinguished themselves like a flaming rocked? Haven’t you known people with all the advantages who just didn’t attain what you thought they could-or should? Of course.

Are You Willing to Put in those Ten Thousand Hours to Excel?

From the many examples in Outliers, and from my own experiences as a pianist (I have a degree in piano performance and a master’s degree in music theory), I know that practicing your craft provides the only true competence and confidence. You don’t gain mastery by talking about it. You don’t gain mastery by someone trying to motivate you. It’s practice. So, get out there, and practice and perform. Rack up those ten thousand hours, and you will achieve your goals. If the Beatles and Bill Gates didn’t take shortcuts, we shouldn’t try it that way, either.  Isn’t devoting enough time to your goals important enough to you to feel the joy of attainment-of mastery?

Personal note to you: Be sure you’re practicing the right things the right way. You can put in 8-10 hours a day and get nowhere. To be sure you’re practicing right, use the right start-up plan. Up and Running in 30 Days will work for you!

For many more dialogues, see Your Client-Based Marketing System—the complete seller marketing tool).

First, Decide What You Want

Sellers are pretty clever. They will say, “I just love you, Carla. You are so professional! We want you to list the property. But, we want our price.” So, you’re flattered. But, ask yourself, “What do I want? Do I want a listing and happy sellers for a short period of time, only to disappoint them when it doesn’t sell, or do I want a long-term professional relationship based on trust and honesty?”

The Dialogue

I hope you answered the latter. If so, this dialogue is for you. Here are the five steps:

1. After the seller states his price, ask, “If I were to list the home today at your price, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being high, how would you rate me in customer satisfaction right now?”

2. “What would cause you to lower your rating?”

3. “If the house doesn’t sell within ______ days or ________weeks, how would you rate me?”

4. “I would rather turn down your listing now, and have you refer me to others, because I was honest with you now, than take your listing today to please you—and disappoint you greatly when your home doesn’t sell.”

5. “I assume you expect me to market your home to a ‘sold’ sign, not just put up a sign and wait for something to happen. I know I can’t get a ‘sold’ sign on your home at this price, so I don’t want to promise you something that I can’t deliver. My reputation isn’t worth a sign on your property.”

When you start using this dialogue, you will be amazed that you will have sellers stopped in their tracks, because you told them the truth! The majority of the time, this dialogue will re-open the question of pricing, and you will list the property at the right price.

Last question: How much ’substantiation’ do you have to prove your price is right? Watch our next blogs to get ideas on how to gain credibility.

Ask your Interviewer: Five Critical Points

If you’re looking for effective training to get your career started fast, you need to choose a training program that has these features. So, in your interview ask the manager if the training program has these attributes:

1. The objective is fast productivity, not just knowledge. When you interview, ask what the objectives of training are with that company. If it’s just knowledge, run the other way! You will know a lot, but you won’t be in business very long.

2. The training program has business-producing expectations and goals. For example, if you expect to make money fast, your training program needs to help you learn to set prospecting goals and attain them. That doesn’t mean lecturing in class. That means you have an activity plan and are working in the field during the class duration. That also means that you aren’t in class all day.

3. The training program is built around a business start-up plan. Ask to see the company’s business start-up plan for you. If it isn’t sales-producing, it isn’t a real start-up plan.

4. Sales skills are practiced by the students in class. How can you expect to be competent with clients if you haven’t gained competency and confidence in the classroom? Clients are very discriminating these days. They expect agents to know what they’re doing! During the interview, ask for a description of how the students spend class time. If the manager says the students listen all the time, pick up your materials and go to the next interview. You need skills training; you don’t need to know everything the instructor knows.

5. Expectations for achievement in sales developing and packaging are clear. Is this a college-level training? In college, students are expected to perform during the course. If you’re not expected to practice outside class, and get your sales packages together (like listing and buyer presentations), then this isn’t a real training. It’s just a time-eating event. Wouldn’t your consumer expect you to have a high level of competence? Then, your training program must deliver.

Armed with these 5 critical expectations, you can choose a training program that is dedicated to assuring you quick results, high sales skill, and confidence with consumers. Why settle for less?

You as a System

I want you quit thinking of yourself as a creative individual, and, for a moment, consider that you can organize what you do just like software organizes tasks (well, almost!). In other words, you can systematize YOU, to some extent.

Choose or create systems—then harness technology. First, create your systems. Then, choose the technology to run those systems. You’ll spend less money and utilize your technological investments better if you’ve organized your business systematically first. Then, you’ll know exactly what systems you want to automate. In Up and Running, I’ve provided a Technology Planner, to help you prioritize your needs.

Five Steps to Systematize Your Business

1. First, itemize the tasks you do each day.

2. Prioritize your tasks as they relate to accomplishing your main objectives. What are the most important tasks you do to assure you make money consistently? (Up and Running provides lots of guidance on prioritization.)

3. Organize your high-priority tasks into systems–or purchase systems.

Should you create your own system, or buy one? Smart agents buy systems, if they’re available. An example is a listing presentation. Even though an agent could create a system, time spent on creation isn’t worth the price paid in ‘down sales time’ profitability. Don’t be a creator unless you just can’t find a good system.

4. Choose your technology to support the systems you already have in place. Let’s say you now how a manually-created listing system. You’ve decided who you will involve in the plan; you’ve decided which tasks you can delegate. Now, you’re ready to choose technology to automate your system. Because you know what you want this technology to accomplish, you can make a good choice. You can easily customize the software to meet your needs–because you already have a system in place.

5. Package your systems so you can promote your exceptional business organization to buyers and sellers. For example: If you’ve never worked with a particular buyer or seller before, that buyer can’t know if you’ll communicate regularly. Show the buyer your process/system for communicating regularly, so he can start trusting you as the professional you know you are. Remember, we believe what we see, not what we hear.

Start with just one series of tasks and get that systematized. Soon, you’ll be running your business much more like a business.

It is amazing to me that agents wait so long to get organized! I remember, though, how confused I was as a new agent. I just didn’t know what to do first. Luckily, though, I quickly found buyers and started selling homes. I’m going to tell you the bare truth: I was not organized, packaged, or, certainly—systematized!

You Can’t Go Very Fast Unless You Have Packages and Systems

What I found, very quickly, was that I had to have ready-to-use systems to serve buyers and sellers as fast as I wanted to move (I sold 40 houses my first year in real estate!). After years of working on them, I created packages for both buyers and sellers that work.

Here are the Packages you Need for Buyers

Your buyers’ system should include

• A Pre-First Appointment Information Package—to set you apart from the ‘pack’
• A Consultation Package (I’ve created one I call Your Guide to Purchasing a Home, available in my resource The Complete Buyer’s Agent Toolkit)
• The Buyers’ System—a resource you provide only to those who sign a Buyer’s Agency Agreement with you, that takes the buyer much deeper into the process

Capture Buyers’ Loyalty and Respect

Creating your Buyer System not only raises your value dramatically to buyers, it creates a track for you and your team to run on. When you treat buyers with the care and systematization you show sellers, your buyer close ratios go way up, and your time management challenges diminish. Why not start competing with very seasoned agents with your own packages? You will greatly increase your confidence, and find the buyer trust you much more quickly.

A resource to cut your ‘learning time’ down dramatically:  Take a look at The Complete Buyer’s Agent Toolkit. You can see a sneak preview of the complete toolkit there, too. Make a goal for yourself to get your buyers’ process systematized now, and enjoy the benefits.

Do you have the qualities of successful real estate agents? Do you know what they are? In my three decades of working as an agent, and having hired hundreds of real estate agents, I know the qualities that assure success. Here’s the list that I came up with for my book, Become Tomorrow’s Mega-Agent Today. Most of you reading this list will already have been selling real estate. So, read this list and ask yourself which of these qualities is very strong in your character. Which do you find needs ‘shoring up’? To move to the next level in your business, you must exhibit these qualities in your sales and sales management behavior.

1.         High Personal Initiative

Your success depends on your being able to create programs and implement them on your own, with relatively little monitoring.

2.         Tenacity

Only those who “stick with it” will win.  Plan on dedicating one year to establishing your business. Plan on spending at least three to five years building the kind of business you want to have as  a ‘mature’ business.

3.         Mental Toughness

A positive mental attitude is essential.  Others who give up easily will try to influence the tenacious, mentally tough individual to also give up.  It takes courage to keep going in this long-term business.

4.         Belief in Oneself

We each have to know, inside ourselves, that we are capable, that we have the talent and the tenacity to succeed, and that we can depend on ourselves. How are you motivating yourself today to reach higher levels in your business? Do you have a deep belief in yourself?

5.         Willing to Take Direction and Be Accountable to Your Goals

Real estate is a constantly-changing field.  Those who win and keep building a stronger business learn new skills and apply them constantly. They also hold themselves accountable to their goals, and let others hold them accountable, too.

6.         Enthusiastic

A joy in doing, and a desire to accomplish shows itself in an enthusiastic attitude. Does your enthusiasm show to your clients? To your fellow agents?

7.         Creative

In today’s marketing-oriented world, an agent must be truly creative to design programs where he stands out as valuable and different.

8.         Educated and Communicative

Writing skills are a necessity today.  Our sophisticated target markets are well-educated.  Effective verbal communication is also paramount to success.

9.         Team Player

The preservation of our office spirit and cooperation is very important.  We are all more successful together. What are you giving back to your team mates?

I’ll bet you can add to this list. Write a comment here and tell me what you think is an important quality in a successful real estate agent.

When I phone an agent today, I have no idea where that agent will answer his or her phone—or from what phone the call is being answered. And, I don’t really care. Technology allows the phone to follow the agent. That’s great. Here’s what’s not so great. Many times the agent’s message is so dull, powerless, or mumbled that it doesn’t sound as though the agent wants to talk to me. Or, the agent’s message is so long, that I’m impatient by the time I get to leave the message.

What Impact Do You Want to Make?

Surveys show that consumers want their agent to be enthusiastic. So why do many of the agents’ phone messages sound as though they are terribly tired or uninterested in the caller? Here’s the principle.

We use our senses to make snap judgments about people.

The less senses involved, the more important it is that we communicate properly. On the phone, there is only once sense involved—that of hearing. You have no ability to communicate your warmth, your interest, etc. visually on the phone. You have only your voice.

Decide What You Want to Communicate

What conclusions do you want your caller to have about you? Write down the five most important judgments you want your caller to make about you and your business approach. Now, listen to your own voice message. Do you believe you are communicating your ‘best self’? Ask five other people to listen, too. Decide what you like and what you want to change.

Research your Competition

Don’t listen only for your own communications. For three days, listen carefully to the tone, intent, and messages you hear on answering machines or voice messages of other agents and brokers. Listen carefully to how agents answer the phone at their offices. What do you think those agents are communicating? Do you believe they are communicating the kind of qualities they want to communicate—and think they are communicating?

Four important tips to remember when recording your own message:

1. Stand up—you’ll sound as though you have much more energy.
2. Write out your script first—and be sure it’s not too long. I don’t really care where you’re going to be all day!
3. Modulate your voice pleasantly. Try to get some resonance.
4. Sound as though you’re looking forward to hearing from me!

These simple tips will increase your trust rate and your business. Get to ‘hearing’ today! Best news for budgeting agents: This tips cost you nothing, but reap you great benefits. First impressions: Create your best phone voice.