Sesame Street Simple

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The best agents know that there are a few basic questions that determine the course you need to take with your clients when conducting listing presentations. The key is Sesame Street simple: what they think they want and what they actually need are not the same. Your task as their agent is to determine their needs and their desires, help them reconcile the differences between the two, and move forward.

What you want is for your client to talk to you. There is a basic four-question formula you can engage them with:

1) What would you like to see happen here?
2) How would you like to see things proceed?
3) What would you like for me to do?
4) How can we best work together?

If you think about it, these questions structure your entire listing presentation by defining your client’s perceptions, needs and desires. What you learn here informs your thinking on the solutions you will provide to your clients going forward.

There is a danger of making listing presentations unnecessarily complex. Your goal is to make the process as simple as possible for your clients. You want them to feel empowered, confident, and motivated. You want them to have a positive sense of urgency toward choosing you and your agency to represent them in the sale of their home.

There is a real satisfaction here in truly connecting with your clients, determining their needs and preferences, and helping them move forward with their sale.

Some of the most relevant questions you can ask in order to facilitate this process are:
– Have you sold a home before?
– Do you have a preference between auction and for sale?
– Is there a particular price that you need to get in order to be able to move?

Your clients rely on and will respond to your expertise in pricing and market response. This is where you establish yourself as a trusted advisor.

Be mindful of how you want to represent yourself, in an organic interactive way, not by rote. Show them an open for inspection brochure from one of your earlier successful sales. Offer evidence of your credibility with examples of your prior sales.

Your auction bidding record is another viable determiner of your ability to deliver buyers from a variety of networks who are willing to pay a premium price for attractive properties.

You want your clients to know that you are proven to be current and connected, and thus you can be their trusted advisor. Remember, if they can’t see the difference, they won’t pay the difference. It’s up to you to represent yourself well to the consumer.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you next week.

Chase the new or work with the old?

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Like most agents, you are probably focused on prospecting for new customers and it never occurs to you to work with your past clients. But that’s exactly what you should be doing. Building relationships with your clients does not end with making the sale—maintaining those relationships is how you generate future business, with them and the people they refer to you.

Handing over the keys to a property should be a beginning, not an ending. You want to remain relevant to every client you have worked with. To do that you need a system that is scalable and teachable so that it grows with your business and becomes part of the regular work your team does.

First, as you study your market for new listings make sure you contact past clients in your database with listings in their area. Call them up and let them know when a property near theirs goes on sale and then what it sells for. This is not primarily about getting appointments, but staying current and establishing yourself as their trusted advisor. You want to be their “friend in the business.”

When you call your client back with the final sale price of that property, then you can ask if they would like to make an appointment to assess the current value of their own home based on current sale prices.

One simple system to follow is the one day, one week, one month and one year strategy that begins the day after selling your client a home. Simply call them the day after they move in and ask if they have any questions so far about the property that you can answer, or that you can ask the former residents.

A week later, call them again with an item of interest in their new neighborhood. One great gesture is to tell them about a local restaurant and arrange for them to have a round of free drinks there on your tab by mentioning your name to the owner.

In a month call them to let them know you will continue to be available if they need to contact you, that you will call them occasionally with news about properties in the area, and you will be happy to answer any questions they may have by then. This is a way to step back without stepping away, and maintaining that connection with them for the future.

The one-year call is to reinforce the continuing relationship with the client and to make an appointment to assess their home again if they are interested in knowing its current value.

Following this system is not just a good idea for keeping your past clients active with your company, but it also puts you ahead of your competition. Most agents only see 10% of their past clients again after the sale. That means their past clients can easily become your current or future clients if you build and maintain the client relationships that your competition fails to follow through with.

There is a lot to be said in favour of working with people you already know and have established rapport with. You still want to always be prospecting for new clients, but you don’t have to generate as many new contacts to be highly successful if you can maintain all of your past client relationships as well.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Burnout Recovery, Renewal and Working More Powerfully

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It happens to all of us: Burnout. How you handle it will determine what you can achieve during the busiest months of the year.

The months of August through December are big months in real estate. A lot will be happening with all the holidays, and Daylight Savings Time means more evening appointments. All of this creates additional demands on your time and energy, so having a few recovery routines in place will make a big difference in your ability to make the most of these opportunities. Especially if you are already feeling tired and irritable, you need to change the way you are working.

First and probably most important is your diet. What you eat and when you eat directly affects your energy, ability to focus, and health in general. Food is fuel, and you must refuel at regular intervals or you will stall out. Skipping breakfast and having late lunches, and later evening meals, are hard on your body. Bad eating patterns alone will wear you out. You want to eat every 4 to 6 hours, or even have 5 smaller meals a day, to keep your energy high. Drinking plenty of water is also necessary to keep you feeling fresh and clear, and presenting yourself to clients at your best.

Exercise is also a vital part of your defence against burnout as it is the very best stress relief, and stress is a major contributor to burnout. If you aren’t already training then a personal trainer could be very helpful to get you going and keep you committed. Whether you go to the gym, or go running, cycling or swimming, keep active on a regular weekly schedule.

You must get enough sleep every night, too. Commit to an appropriate bedtime, get plenty of sleep for renewal, and you will be far more productive and powerful during the day.

All of these physical maintenance elements will give you greatly improved mental focus. Keeping a daily task list will direct that focus into efficient productivity. It will also help your assistants manage workflow, stay on track, and properly execute whatever tasks you delegate to them.

Working in 45-minute segments is another way to stay sharp and focused while you are working. You will get more done in less time by taking a break every 45 minutes. Use a timer if you need to, but give your mind a rest and maintain clarity.

Good emotional energy is another factor you cannot overlook. This is generated by keeping great people with positive energy around you. Maintain healthy supportive relationships and avoid negative distractions. Listening to carefully chosen music can be highly motivational or deeply relaxing, depending on what you need it to do for you.

Finally, always keeping your goals and achievements fresh in your mind offers a tremendous boost to your energy and vitality. One of the easiest and best ways to do this is to keep notes in your mobile phone. Maintain a list of goals and a list of achievements, update them regularly and look at them daily. These notes are a ready source of inspiration whenever you need a boost for your confidence or sense of purpose. Setting a short-term goal every few months and achieving it is a great way to boost your sense of personal accomplishment, too.

If you want to stay consistent and avoid burnout during these high-productivity months ahead, then make sure you have all of these areas covered. Diet, hydration, exercise, sleep, mental focus and emotional energy, and keeping your goals and achievements always fresh and current—all these factors work together to keep your energy high. It’s your energy, after all, that really sells.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

When do you change gear?

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Being a real estate principal is about being a leader and growing your business. Before you can do that, you have to decide what kind of principal you are and who you want to be.

There are basically two kinds of principals:
• The principal who is an active listing selling agent
• The principal who is a coach, leader and mentor

You might be thinking, in terms of revenue, if you are acting as an agent you can make 60%, 70%, or even 100% of your business revenue, but to do that you must sacrifice your role in coaching, leading, and mentoring your people because you simply have to spend too much time with the tools. And though it is true that you can make a $10,000, $15,000 or $20,000 fee whenever you list a property yourself, when you list a great salesperson they can generate $100,000 to $150,000 in fees every year they work inside your organization.

It is necessary for you to decide what you really want to be best at, and what you want to do with your business in the next five years. Of course you love listing and selling, but you can achieve more by being a leader—and the people who work for you are counting on you to do that and to learn from you.

Consider that the agents who work for you are actually your internal customers. They believe you have a plan they can learn from to help them achieve more in their own careers, and in essence they are paying you up to half of their income to learn from you while they work inside your organization. They aren’t there just to list and sell property; they are there to benefit from your management, coaching and leadership. You should ask yourself if they are reaping those benefits–if they are increasing or declining in their income production.

As a principal, you must first be clear about what you ultimately want to accomplish in your business, and then you must share that vision with your people. Be a good mentor and help them to realize their potential whilst working within your organization. Be available to talk with them and answer their questions. Have coffee or lunch with them. Find out what their dreams and goals are. Find out what their expectations are of you, learn what they have to offer your organization, follow through on your promises, and help them to help your business grow and prosper.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this month’s Growth, Leadership and Management Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next month.

Getting clear on what you want

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Making significant changes in your business often begins with improving your life in general. Most important is having the confidence that comes from knowing exactly what you want out of life. Once you can define that for yourself, everything else—including your business–can fall into place for you.

There are three simple steps you can take to start making those progressive changes in your work and your life:

1. Keep an Achievements List
2. Keep a Lessons Learned List
3. Have a Statement of Purpose

In our business we are exceptionally busy and we often don’t recognize all of our achievements because we are always focused on the next step forward. So the first step you should take is to create an Achievements List as a note in your mobile phone.

Every time you do something important in your life, put it in your Achievements List. This includes things like making time for your family, having a great day at the gym, or participating in a charity event. Then, if you are having a disappointing day or questioning your abilities, pull up your achievements and remind yourself that you are making progress and accomplishing important things.

Next, you need a list for Lessons Learned. This is where you document things that go wrong and mistakes you make. But this is not a list of failures; this is a list of solutions. After you get through a crisis, write down briefly how you resolved it, what you learned and how to keep it from happening again. Not only is this a reminder for you, but it is also wisdom you can share with assistants and colleagues when they find themselves in similar situations.

Your next note to yourself is a Statement of Purpose based on the often-quoted phrase that the tragedy is not that we will die; the tragedy is that we will live, but allow something important to die within us. Spend some time discovering what is most important to you in your life and write it down so you can see it whenever you need a reminder. This is your purpose. Without it you have very little motivation to accomplish anything.

People feel energized by others who are positive, active and motivated. For your life and your business, you want to have that attractive, vibrant life energy about you. Whatever your age, you have a lot of potentially productive years ahead of you. What do you want to do with the rest of your life?

The book Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly is about fulfilling one’s life dreams. There are exercises you can do from this book that examine your areas of interest, including travel, adventure, creativity, character, legacy, financials, professionals, relationships, spirituality and more, to determine what is most important to you. Once you choose the areas of life that are most meaningful to you, then you can focus your energy on those areas.

This basic life choice was summed up in the movie The Matrix when Neo has to choose between a red pill and a blue pill. Most likely, if you would choose the blue pill you would not be in this business today. The blue pill offers a normal, mundane life. The red pill offers a real chance to live life to the fullest.

Do you want a bigger house than you have now? Do you want to travel the world? Do you want to have a family? Do you want a passive income of 100,000 or more per year?

Don’t be afraid of making money. Money gives you opportunities that you do not have without it. Money allows you to have a positive impact on the world and to support the values you believe in. Money allows you to live a life of significance.

Know what you want out of life. Learn from your experiences. And never forget what you contribute to the world every day. All of this will make a difference in your business and in your life.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Past Clients – Out Of This World Customer Service

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You may be missing an entire market segment that is sitting in your database right now. It’s a source of uncontested business that no one else is working—but you are about to do just that. What are you missing? It’s your list of past clients.

You actually have two sets of past clients to work with: the people who have sold property with you, and those who have bought. In order to work with this market you need to do two things that you should already be doing:

1. Build and maintain client relationships
2. Stay actively relevant

Most agents probably do not follow up with past clients more than once or maybe twice after a sale is completed. Years will go by and no contact is made. There’s no relationship and no relevance in that. You can do better than this. Rather than being done as soon as the sale is completed, your next level of prospecting is just beginning.

The customer service you perform after a property changes hands is where your future business and customer loyalty will be set. It starts with the experience you provide as soon as the client picks up their keys from you. Instead of having them come to your office to get the keys, why not meet them at the property and escort them in? How about a small housewarming gift waiting in the kitchen as well?

After the new homeowners have had a day or two to settle in, you can give them a call and ask if they have any questions or concerns, or anything you might need to ask the previous owners about for them. In about a week, call them again to make sure everything is still going well. Then in about a month, check in with them one more time.

From this point onward make sure they get quarterly newsletters and alert them to related sales in the area. Then make a yearly appointment to see them and the home so you can keep them apprised of its value in the marketplace. Keep yourself current with them and maintain that relationship.

Most agents only check back with fewer than 5% of their past clients after a property is sold. That represents 95% of a market segment that is essentially untapped and uncontested. That can be your market segment, with better fees and more recommendations through the relationships you build and stay active with. You can base your entire agency on this philosophy and train all your incoming agents to follow up this way. You can be the best at what you do and stay ahead of your competition by simply delivering a higher level of service than anyone else.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

The List – Ultimate Productivity

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There are some surprisingly simple systems you can use to get yourself back on track and working at your ultimate level of productivity.

First, increasing your daily bookings is as basic as starting each call session with a list of your top 5 potential sellers. It’s those face-to-face appointments with clients that get listings and, ultimately, sales. Just think about what happens if you start every business day calling five potential clients first thing, before you even check your email. You can’t take them to market if they don’t know you, so make those calls and see those people.

Out of the hundreds–or thousands–of prospects in your database, you need a reliable method for choosing which ones are potential sellers. One of the simplest ways to do this is to create a special Seller Hit List category in your database for potential sellers. These are people who own property in a marketplace where they are likely to sell in a given number of years. For some markets that may be five years, for others it could be twenty years.

Your goal in locating and contacting potential sellers is to progress them into a market appraisal. This is where you can talk with them directly about what it will take for them to make a decision to sell. Pricing context is a key component to this discussion as you must find out if there is a price range they would not consider at all for their property, a price range that might interest them, or a price range they would definitely sell for if they could get it.

Once you are clear on a client’s pricing expectations you can then advise them on whether selling in the current market is a good move, or if they might want to wait for market conditions to improve for their property. Delivering a sound professional recommendation to a client is the best way to become their trusted advisor and gaining their loyalty for future real estate transactions.

The people who come through the market appraisal looking like potential sellers are the ones you categorize in your Seller Hit List. These are the people you will call regularly in order to bring them to market as soon as they are ready.

Keeping your systems simple is key to remaining flexible, responsive and current. Unfortunately many agents suffer from “task load” which means they encumber their databases with too many tasks and activities and eventually burn out trying to keep up. Consequently the few truly important tasks get buried and lost. You can avoid this pitfall by being clear about your process, and selective in your tasking and scheduling. One way to do this is to simply wrap up your phone calls by asking when you can next speak with that client, and scheduling that next contact point before ending the phone call.

Ultimate productivity is based on working a category, not individual clients. Each client fits inside a category, so if you address communications to the category—emails, market news, videos, etc.–then each individual will get the specific message that is relevant to their situation.

Still, it is your daily 45-minute phone sessions that drive your business. If you’re not making calls then you will have no appointments, no listings and no sales. Therefore the best time to make phone calls is the minute your day begins. Very simply, if you want more business more often, then you’ve got to be on the phones more often. So your most important task every day is to have your list of people to call, and get on the phones first thing. This is what it takes to be a great agent. It’s up to you to get serious about your business and make it happen.

I hope you have enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip. If you have a topic you would like to see discussed here, simply reply to this email. We’d love to assist you at the Josh Phegan Company, and we look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Targets and Managing Anxiety

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As real estate agents it’s simply in the nature of our business that we will experience anxiety. You will sometimes feel discouraged and overwhelmed. This is normal. The key to dealing with anxiety is learning how to manage it, and the best way to do that is to know what you need to do and focus on accomplishing your goals.

Once you decide how many listings and sales you need to complete to be successful, then you can begin to make that happen. For example, let’s say you know you need to write $500,000 in gross fees. Just looking at that number may make you feel anxious, but we’re going to break it down into manageable bits.

First, you are working with a ten-month year because you will need a vacation, and the market will have an off month or two. So divide your $500,000 target by 10. You now have $50,000 to focus on writing per month. Next, assume your average fee is $10,000. In order to make $50,000 in sales per month you only need to sell five homes, so you will want to list seven homes just to be sure. Therefore, seven listings per month is your base goal.

Now set a weekly goal by dividing the month into 4 weeks, and working to get 2 listings per week. Now, you need to put in the work necessary to get those 2 listings per week, because if you don’t you will find yourself 3 weeks into the month with no listings and high anxiety. However, since you have set a weekly goal for yourself, you have a clear target to work toward instead of making random efforts here and there.

Knowing where you want to go and creating steps to get you there also allows you to measure and quantify your success. And that helps you to grow and expand, because once you can reach your target goals then you need to raise that bar and aim for the next level up. Always aim to step up from your current target. You will also discover that when you stay focused and you are aggressively pursuing a goal, you will not feel anxious; you will feel confident. Action gives you confidence; inaction takes your confidence away. And feeling confident significantly reduces your anxiety. With every week you fail to list any properties your confidence will decrease, but every week you achieve even a single listing will increase your confidence and decrease anxiety.

Here’s a simple tracking tip: Write the numbers 1 through 7 in a column on a sheet of paper. Each time you list a property, write it in next to a number. Do the same thing for sales and income. Post that paper where you will see it every morning as you start your day, and commit yourself to do the work necessary to add the next listing/sale to that list. Use this simple list to focus your intensity every day so you can do the work that counts now, and then you will be able to relax and truly enjoy a well-earned vacation.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week. In the meantime, if you have questions or need our assistance simply reply to this email to contact us here at the Josh Phegan Company.

Productivity Over the Phone

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Connecting with prospects by phone is probably the most important thing you do every day, so you want to be as productive as possible when you make those calls. Most agents simply leave it all up to chance whether they will make an appointment or progress a customer. But this is not a game—this is your business.

First, get focused. What is your goal in making these calls?

• To establish and maintain a business relationship
• To progress a customer
• To make an appointment with a prospect

If you are on the phone for more than 2 minutes you are probably getting off track with the purpose of the call. Either book an appointment so you can discuss things in detail with the client face to face, or progress the client quickly to the next step they need to get to.

There is some simple psychology behind the way you conduct your calls. For example, you may be surprised to learn that you will complete more phone calls using your mobile phone than your landline. People tend not to pick up for calls from marketers and organizations. A call from your mobile phone will show up as a personal call and as such is more likely to be answered.

Also be aware that you will often be answered by voicemail. You need to be ready for that and leave a message that will get people to call you back. Leaving just your surname and your brand will likely not get you a reply. Also, stating the reason for your call will prompt the client to question whether you are relevant to their situation at the moment.

Relevancy is actually a key consideration that you can use to your advantage simply by asking the right questions.

First, call from your mobile phone so the call shows up as personal. Then leave a very brief message such as, “Hey John, it’s Josh. Can you just give me a quick call? 0448-406-303,” and hang up. Most people will call back just to find out who you are and why you called.

Have a basic script for your calls that ensures the first 15 seconds of the call will result in a productive conversation. Don’t leave the exchange open to fall apart before you get started—make a simple introduction with a bit of urgency behind it. Something like, “Hi Liam, it’s Josh Phegan calling. Just a really quick courtesy call,” will answer the client’s first questions—who you are, why you are calling and how you are relevant to them. Address those questions in the first 15 seconds of the call and you will be more likely to connect and engage for the balance of 2 minutes.

It will also serve you well to have a short, sequential list of questions that will most effectively progress the customer or book an appointment with them. However, it is important that you don’t sound like you are reading from a list, or you’re in a rush, or your delivery is too polished and rehearsed. Make sure you aren’t using a “phone voice” and are instead speaking naturally as if the client was standing in front of you. Be relaxed and natural and they will be, too.

All of that may seem like a lot to think about, but if you make a few calls with these suggestions in mind the delivery will quickly become natural to you. Most importantly your calls will become more successful and you will connect with more people more often.

I hope you enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Setting The Vision

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You can’t get anywhere you want to be if you don’t know where you are going. That is why having a clear vision for your real estate business is so important. Tactical thinking is fine if your tactics support a long-range strategic plan for growth. Tactics without a plan, however, are only a random unrelated set of short-term solutions.

When you look to the future of your business, what do you see? In fact, why are you in the real estate business?

Some agents end up owning a real estate business with no real thought or plan for it. They may have some ideas for short-term gains, but they have no structure to expand and grow to their potential, mainly because they don’t know what to do. They get stuck thinking about the one office they have instead of the possibilities of owning multiple offices, or even a boutique independent network.

We’re talking about your business here, and it needs to be built upon your vision of what you want it to become in the future. If you hire a managing director, a CEO, or a sales manager to make a plan and run your business then it really isn’t your business anymore. Those people do not have a better idea of how to shape your future than you have. You simply need to think for yourself about it and get clear in your mind about what you really want to achieve.

Your vision is built on a foundation of your own purpose, mission, and values. Think about what it is specifically that you want to achieve through your business. Then think around the numbers and measurements you need to meet in order to reach your goals, such as how many people you need to employ, how many sales you need within specific timeframes, and how many properties you want to have under your management.

Without a strategic plan you can easily fall into a routine of layering results based only on increasing your efforts a little beyond what you achieved last year. That may bring you small increases, but it will not actually grow your business. For real growth you have to have a clear vision to build toward so you know what kind of infrastructure and people you need to be adding into your business.

For reaching your true potential you must think 5 to 10 years ahead. How big do you want your business to become? How many locations? How many agents should be working for you? Having a clear picture of what your future business looks like informs decisions you make now about scalable databases, servers and internal networks, possible locations for new offices, and other decisions you will be making according to long-range goals instead of short-term needs. This kind of thinking will help you make better decisions today that you can build upon for tomorrow.

Your vision for your business depends upon clear ideas for projects, numbers, locations, employees, and cohesive tactics. Your strategic plan for growth must support your declared purpose, mission, and values. Get clear on exactly what you want your business to do and to be, and then create the structure that will make it happen.

If you’re ready to achieve rapid growth inside of your business, the Josh Phegan Company is ready to help you. Simply reply to this email and I’ll give you a call to see what we can do to help you get on track.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this month’s Coaching, Leadership, and Management Tip. If there are other topics you’d like to see me discuss, just let me know in a reply to this email.