Coaching your own people is core business

Today I want to emphasise how really important it is to your business that you demonstrate leadership by coaching and mentoring your own team – how well you empower and train your people matters enormously to your bottom line and is directly linked to your core business.

Think of it this way; when a salesperson has the opportunity to come and work inside your organization they are effectively paying you for that opportunity to work underneath your guidance. They have chosen you as their career coach.

Let’s say, for example, you work on a 50/50 split with a salesperson and perhaps they’re producing $500,000 in fees. That means that effectively they are a customer who is paying you $250,000 for the opportunity to sit within your business. Remember, they are paying you to not only provide the resources, tools and the brand to manage their own business, but most importantly, the mentoring and the “tormentoring” that they need to achieve their potential.

This is a great way to stand back and look at your own business and its opportunities, essentially from the perspective of a managing partner.

One of the great challenges that we all face as business leaders is really connecting with our people and ensuring that we’re growing them in terms of their skill set.

Throughout the course of the year I recommend that you conduct some structured team reviews, maybe an annual review or a quarterly catch up, as well as having weekly one-on-ones with individuals for 10 or 15 minutes.

The challenge is that we all very rarely really connect with our own people when we’re trying to fit these kinds of meetings into a busy work day and a busy work life. I think it is critically important to every aspect of your business to fully understand your role as a leader and the opportunity that you have, at every meeting, to truly connect with a person and be a great mentor and a great tormentor.

The late Steve Jobs would actually take his people on a walk around the block to talk with them. His reasoning was that it’s an informal environment and can reduce friction and challenges to really talking issues through. It’s a great opportunity to get some sunlight and a refreshing way to connect.

If you want higher engagement with people then you you’ve got to get to know them. Most importantly, you’ve got to be challenging them specifically around the skill sets that you know are going to take them to the top of their game. We know, for example, that there are three core skill sets that substantially boost performance.

The first of those is the listing presentation. If you can train your people to be phenomenal at listing, that can change their entire view on prospecting, because they learn how to ask better questions, build their self-confidence and their own drive to do more prospecting.

Prospecting is obviously the second major element because it is about hitting the phones, understanding how to be more relevant to customers and also how to build a system for consistent lead generation.

The third component, which is a critical one for you as a mentor, is to ensure energy and self-management. I know that a lot of real estate agents burn out in our industry because they’re not managing their energy well, whether it’s their diet, physical exercise, values and goals or even simple things like making task lists and managing their calendar.

As your own business leader you must realise that you’re the boss first, not a friend of the people that are working with you. This means you must challenge and torment them to really achieving their growth. The best way is to do a SWOT analysis by sitting down with each person, from reception to sales, to pinpoint their own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

They key here is not for you to be the persecutor, but to help them to think about where their personal opportunities are for growth. Encourage them to talk with you in an open way around where they’re doing well, their weaknesses and how to pursue their opportunities and also the threats. Your clear role is to coach and mentor them so that they build greater momentum, more often.

Sometimes the best way to mentor someone is through the course of a transaction, to give them real, on the job training. As your business grows you can employ external coaches and mentors/ tormentors, as I do for many growing clients.

In short, it is critical for you to think about your own role in ensuring the delivery of the 50% of fees that those agents are paying you for the opportunity to work with you. At the end of the day, your role is to be a phenomenal tormenter, mentor and coach to take them to the top.

We’d love the opportunity to work with you at the Josh Phegan Company and help you make this happen within your own business and for your own benefit. Just hit reply to talk to us about where you’re capable of going. Have a great month!

Employing Effective Phone Skills

The telephone may be your most basic and essential tool, but make sure you are using it to your advantage or it will work against you.

It is very easy to find yourself selling over the phone, but selling is best done in person. Remember that the more time you spend with a client on the phone, the less focus and direction your phone conversation will have. A routine phone exchange can quickly deteriorate into a waste of time for you and for your client.

Each phone conversation must have a goal and an objective. Remember you are on the phone with a client specifically to bring that client and their property into the marketplace.

For example, if the client says they want to wait a couple of weeks before making a decision, ask them to use that time to have their legal documentation prepared. This does not signify a commitment on their part, but it does make the rest of the process go more smoothly should they decide to move forward. This is a great suggestion you can make by phone in less than 2 minutes.

And 2 minutes is the key here: Anything longer and you are in danger of trying to sell over the phone. This is counter-productive. If your conversation needs more than 2 minutes to complete, then make an appointment and spend face time with your client.

Think of it this way: Each phone call is a means to an end, and that end is to get face-to-face with your client. That’s because the best way to move your client forward through the sales cycle is to be present with them. You can’t do that on the phone; you need to be there in person.

It is helpful to have some call-enders ready for those clients who want to sit on the phone and chat with you. A few reliable exits include:
“I know you are busy so I’m going to let you go now.”
“Oh, look, my 2pm appointment has arrived so I need to let you go for now.”

Just make sure that 2nd call-ender is properly timed!

Every call is important, but efficiency is a core trait of every successful agent, and nowhere is that more applicable than time spent on the phone. Exiting a call gracefully may seem arbitrary, but it is a necessary skill. No less important is the skill of asking a few powerful questions that will render you the most pertinent information with the least time and effort. Plus, it never hurts to record your calls so that you can review any details you may have missed. You can also finesse your phone skills by reviewing your calls and improving your approach.

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

Scaling For High Capacity

The scalability of your business determines the capacity you can achieve. There are three basic ways you can increase capacity in your business: Fitness, Systems, and People.

Your business fitness is a lot like your personal fitness. It is defined by your strength, activity, and speed of recovery. Business systems define the structure within which you operate to achieve regular and consistent results. And frankly, nothing happens without people: You, your team, and your clients.

There are many opportunities available to you and your business – so many that they can become distractions. In order to capitalize on those opportunities and minimize the distraction factor, you need to build a great team that can help you achieve scalability by handling necessary maintenance tasks so that you can devote yourself to the work that requires your focus and expertise. And of course, prospecting is your number one priority because you have to have clients in order to offer properties and make sales.

One scenario is that you could have an assistant arrive to work a half hour before you do and begin the task of reviewing primary real estate websites for new listings for your target areas, and print those listings out. The assistant can then search your database to match potential sellers, market appraisals, past clients, key referrers, and landlords who lead the industry or own similar properties in those specific areas, and print out that list as well. When you arrive at the office you will have a full report on those prospects so you can immediately start making calls. What this allows you to do is have relevant conversations with active prospects in a timely manner, and to stay ahead of your competition. It also establishes you as a trusted advisor with your finger firmly on the pulse of the market.

This is only one example of systems you can put in place that will allow you to progressively expand the capacity of your business and maintain the relationships that are crucial to your continuing strength and success as a real estate agent.

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

Increasing The Value Of Your Database

Your contact network represents your net worth, but that value is lost if you cannot effectively use that information to build your business. Your database requires structure and organization to be useful. Establishing categories is the best way to manage the high volume of contacts you collect every week.

Every contact you add to your database belongs in a category. Some are relevant to 2 or 3 categories. Those categories include:

Buyers
Potential sellers
Market appraisals
Past buyers
Past sellers
Key referrers
Landlords

It is important to have a central database with all your contacts sorted and accessible. It’s easy to end up with bits of contact information in your phone, on bits of paper, in printed lists, and random other places. Choose one system that can be automated and accessed easily.

Once all of your contacts are sorted into their proper categories you can begin to target your marketing efforts to key categories. Individuals belong in categories because they have specific interests, focus, timelines and positions. You will save time and effort by targeting your marketing efforts to those people through their category.

Contacts come to you primarily through online inquiries through major real estate websites, and through open for inspections each weekend. You may have hundreds of new contacts in a single weekend and they all need to go into your database. There are a few ways to accomplish this task, some more efficient than others.

You may enter all your new contacts into your office computer, or have an assistant do it. Or you could be entering it on-site at an open for inspection on a laptop, tablet or phone that is connected directly to your main database. You could also have an assistant whose primary purpose is to collect and enter contact information as people enter the open property. And of course, it all needs to be appropriately categorized as it is entered. Always be evaluating how you can best move these clients through the sales cycle. How many new contacts are you making in a weekend? How many are potential sellers, market appraisals, past clients and key referrers?

The next step in this process is to automate your marketing campaigns for timely information to be sent to clients in specific categories so that the right message gets to the right people at the right time. Automate whatever tasks you can so that you can address the tasks that cannot be automated more effectively. Then you can work on how best to manage tasks that cannot be automated.

Finally, you need to identify any barriers – or “choke points” – you may be experiencing against getting these tasks done. You may discover key information you are not gathering, or obstacles to getting all the data into the database quickly and correctly. Maybe you are trying to do too much yourself and it’s time to hire an assistant. Be smart about how best to get your necessary tasks done and you will build your business with consistency and integrity.

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

Managing Client Expectations

One of your tasks as an exceptional real estate agent is managing client expectations. This is true for buyers and sellers alike. You are responsible for presenting realistic sales and pricing figures for a given market as opposed to what your clients may be seeing in the media. Your best information will be based on the indicators of interest you are seeing firsthand in your marketplace.

Indicators of interest are simple yet powerful signals for measuring how well a property is going to do in the marketplace. Your evaluation begins with numbers of inquiries you receive by phone and then how many people come to open for inspections. From there you can count how many come back for a second inspection. The private second inspection is, of course, a strong indicator of buyer interest. These are the people you want to interview further.

The next step for an interested buyer is the contract request, or request for legal documentation. You will want to monitor which interested parties actually pursue this documentation and are willing to pay a solicitor or conveyancer for legal advice. From there you will see who finally makes an offer and what kind of offer they are willing to present. Of course, sharing this information with your clients as events occur will help prepare them for actually entering the market.

There are six simple, key elements to an offer once it is made:

What is the name of the person or entity who will be making the purchase?
Who is the solicitor or conveyancer?
What is their timeline for settlement?
Will they want to do inspections on the property?
What price are they offering?
How much of a deposit are they willing to make?

Once you have answers to all or most of those questions then you will know with certainty if you have a qualified buyer, and you can now set realistic expectations for all parties involved.

I really hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I hope to see you here again next week. Thanks for watching.

Tips For Qualifying Buyers Quickly

You can’t sell if your client can’t buy, so one of your most important steps in any transaction is buyer qualification. This needs to happen early in the game so you don’t waste time and resources on a dead-end pursuit. If you’re driven, you may meet 300+ potential buyers in a weekend of open for inspections, but how many of those people are actually ready to buy?

Frankly, only 2 or 3 of those potential buyers per weekend are important for you to meet your yearly sales goals. What you need now is a simple, reliable system for qualifying buyers and sellers as soon as they enter an open for inspection.

There are nine basic questions you will ask from the moment you meet each potential buyer.

1. Why are they moving?
2. What is their timeline?
3. What areas are they considering for relocation?
4. Have they been to any other opens yet?
5. Have they bid on any other properties or made an offer?
6. Are they paying cash or using a bank?
7. Have they made arrangements with a bank yet?
8. Is this their first, second or third purchase in the area?
9. Can you come by and see their current property?

This set of questions will tell you everything you need to know to qualify a buyer. You will know why they are selling a home and/or buying a new one, and when they need to be moved in. You will know if they are location specific, or more lifestyle oriented, so you know which features you can help them find. You will know how far along they are in the purchasing process, whether they are active in the marketplace, and what steps they still need to take. You can also quickly identify any blockages, questions or objections that need to be addressed to allow them to move forward.

Verifying financial capacity is vital, and you may need to refer them to a bank or broker before anything else can be done. Learning if this is a first purchase, or if they have bought and sold before, will tell you if a buyer is also selling, or may even be a property manager. And getting in to see their current property will help you better evaluate preferences they may have for their next purchase.

You can see how these nine simple questions will give you a well-rounded view of each client and help you to qualify potential buyers quickly. It will also help you to assist each client at their current stage of the process, wherever that may be, so that even if they don’t qualify yet they are likely to come to you when they are eventually ready to buy or sell property.

Thank you for watching today’s Coaching Tip. I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

How to Make Your Sales Meetings Really Work

I believe it is essential to your business to have your whole sales team moving ahead together so you can build momentum and motivation, beyond how you physically bring them together.

Most offices require the team to gather together on a weekly basis in what we call the sales meeting. Having worked with thousands of salespeople around the country and internationally, I can tell you the number one complaint is how long the sales meeting goes and whether or not it actually covers the right content to make it a really powerful meeting.

A key challenge is to decide the best timing to ensure it is effective. This depends on the type of culture within your organisation. If lots of salespeople don’t have dependents and can be there early, then you might like to run your sales meeting before the business day starts, at 7:30am or 8am. If, however, several people must drop children off at school, then consider running your sales meeting later in the morning at around 9 or 10am.

Here’s a great idea for you. The most critical thing is that your salespeople are actually making sales. And the number one sale opportunity every day is for them to be booking appointments. To create success you want your people prospecting more often. So what about spending the first 45 minutes of your meeting getting every sales agent on the phone prospecting together? From experience, this is a terrific activity to amp it up.

You can just bring everyone into the boardroom with their mobile phones and a simple printout of the potential sellers, market appraisals or buyers they are following up to convert them to listing opportunities.The magic thing about doing this together is that you get everyone on the phone. You can set a timer on an iPad to count down 45 minutes. Then have each agent measure their total number of calls, connects and appointments at the end. There are two huge benefits – instant results and a shared, team culture around prospecting. You’ll always have some people who feel uncomfortable with this, but I’d say then at least we know that you must build their skill in this area. Ultimately there is nothing like getting it done and getting it done early so that your people can build more confidence more often.

To build a great culture in your business it is critically important that everyone actually understands what you are doing in order to make that sales meeting really effective. So I’d like you to get your salespeople prepared. What are the things that they need to bring to the table to ensure a great sales meeting? I would suggest they bring a list of their existing stock on your stock control sheet, which records key information such as inquiries, inspections, second appointments, contract requests and offers that they’ve received. Have them think about what the owner’s expectations are in relation to the sale price and what is the current market feedback?

Now I’d ask them to give that sheet to you the day before the meeting, so as the sales manager you can review their stock and highlight a few case studies to discuss at the meeting. Ultimately, a sales meeting is exactly meant for that. It’s designed to make sales. So your salespeople need to leave that meeting feeling more energetic and more driven about what matters to them to make sales. So you must think about “How am I going to make my people feel?”

I also like to run the sales meeting to time, so I put a 45-minute timer on and we work to that timeframe. It’s amazing how the energy shifts when everyone knows we have a deadline. We all get more energetic in the meeting and focused on what we could be doing. You must think about it as a training meeting too, where you have the opportunity to help people think more long term and more reflectively about what to spend their time on. When are they taking holidays? What goals are they looking to achieve at the moment? What have they achieved in the last few weeks? What is the number one issue right now that we could help to resolve before next week’s meeting to get them back on track?

At the end of the day, YOU create your business culture and most importantly the energy within it. You do that by engaging with your people and getting them to connect to the values that matter. You must think about how you make your people feel and how can you help them do more of the activities more often that will produce income. I can tell you that in the greatest businesses I get to work with everyone’s making money, but more importantly there’s good energy and focus on what’s critically important – and that comes from helping everyone to achieve their goals and their dreams for their life.

I look forward to connecting with you again soon!

Your Number One Lead Source

Open for inspections are a great way to meet new prospects and keep in touch with current clients. It’s important not to let your presentations falter during the rush of a busy Saturday. One quality showing of a property is far more effective than several poor ones.

When deciding which clients to invite to an open for inspection, remember to include prospects other than your most obvious potential buyers. Naturally you want to contact people you know are looking in your market, but include other people looking at properties up to $50,000 more or less than the list price for this property. You will also advertise in order to attract new potential clients, but stretch your thinking a bit to include market appraisals, past clients, referrers, and area landlords. What you want is a group of people at your open inspection whether they are all interested in buying or not.

Having several people at your open for inspection creates a sense of competition and urgency for anyone who is actually interested in buying a property. It also gives you an opportunity to stay in touch with your other clients and maintain your presence in their minds. Once you have people in attendance, make sure your presentation to them is powerful.

Make a checklist of the things you want to accomplish during your open for inspection. You want to be organized and thorough. Timing is also a factor for an effective presentation: short presentations of around 30 minutes are powerful and increase the sense of urgency for potential buyers. Not only does this allow you to have several people through at the same time, but it also allows you to present more properties to more people in a single Saturday by spending less time at each one.

Make sure you set the open for inspection for the time agreed upon between you and the property owners. You should arrive at the property 10 to 15 minutes early to prepare. Turn on lights, set a comfortable temperature, play music, and generally make sure the property is attractive and ready to show. Use a simple system to register basic contact information for attendees whether you use a digital system or a simple notepad and pen. Have a professional brochure to hand them as they walk in, as well as other handouts available in the house for your other current listings. And wear a name tag or badge so people know immediately that you are the agent.

During your presentation have a cheat sheet handy with details about the property such as when the home was built, when it was renovated, whether it is gas or electric, and even estimated rent per week. Be polished and prepared so potential clients will trust that you can handle their requirements. Also consider the importance of having an assistant to handle basic tasks so that you can focus on clients and the presentation.

Open for inspection is not just about selling the property – it is also about prospecting, so your presentation should be impressive to buyers as well as potential sellers, past market appraisals, past clients, and new people who saw your ad in the paper or online. Be fresh, rested, prepared and healthy. Saturday is your day to sell yourself and your business, so make it work for you.

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

Make Mobile Technology Work for You

Mobile technology has added a whole new dimension to your ability to do business effectively, but it also introduces the problem of distractions. Besides incoming phone calls, we also receive constant alerts for incoming SMS, email, and social media messages.

Within this barrage of messages is important information you need to know, but the distraction of all the random messaging wastes more of your time and energy than you may realize, and it keeps you from doing the work that really matters. Your mobile phone can quickly change from an asset to a liability.

Consider that when you are with a customer in a listing presentation you don’t let the phone interrupt you. You turn it off, or leave it in your car, or otherwise remove the distraction. The fact is, you can choose to remove that distraction for most of the rest of your business day. You can turn off the alerts and check on your incoming calls, emails and text messages at scheduled, appropriate times during your day. You can take control, remove those distractions and restore your focus.

You know that making appointments and meeting with clients is what really drives your business. One effective way to accomplish this is to work in 45 minute sessions. Within 45 minutes of concentrated work you can make your phone calls and meet your appointments, and be completely present for your clients during that time. Then you have 15 minutes each hour to check email, messages, etc. and catch up on those communications. You get your vital work done, and you don’t miss any important incoming information

Most successful agents make a daily task list and follow it. This assures that you stay on track and get all your most important tasks done. A task list also organizes your thoughts so that you don’t try to do too many things at once, or get sidetracked on less important tasks that pop up at you during your day. Also, if you work from a written or printed task list instead of a computer-based list you will avoid the temptation to check your email, your calendar and your social media while you are online.

You can also rely on your assistant to check your email and incoming messages for you and relay the truly important information to you at appropriate intervals. This removes yet another level of distractions from your day and allows you to focus even more on meeting and prospecting clients. In some cases you can save time and make a more powerful impression by answering email by phone and making that direct contact.

Also be aware that your own approach to work will be reflected in the working styles of your assistants and other agents who work for you. If you set a good example they are far more likely to follow suit.

You can take control by making the decision to remove all unnecessary distractions. Make mobile technology work for you by structuring the way you use it instead of letting it interfere with the work that really counts.

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

The Power of Routine

If you really want to be successful in your business, you have to be consistent. And the best way to maintain consistency is to set a routine and follow it. That’s the way the best agents stay on track.

Your routine will be built on an understanding of how your market flows throughout the year, and of the rhythm within your own business. In order to have a great January and February, you have to lay the groundwork for that success in October and November based upon your knowledge of your market’s cycles. For example, open for inspections allow you to meet more people and build your buyer database, so naturally the more people you meet early on, the more open for inspections you can hold each Saturday. If you don’t do enough open for inspections to reach your sales goals you lose traction and fall behind.

Maintaining active campaigns based on the number of sales you need to make each month helps you build a routine by establishing momentum. That positive energy gives buyers more confidence in you than in your competitors. Remember, if you aren’t making calls your competitors are, and that’s how they can beat you. You need to be the one making those calls and converting customers. A routine will ensure you are getting that done.

Routine is actually just scheduling simple tasks to do without fail each day. It’s the time you wake up in the morning, have breakfast, get to the office and start working. Set times for your first call session, for meeting your appointments, for dinner and the gym, and for getting home and going to bed. Everything you do in your day must be scheduled and the schedule must be followed.

Mastering all these simple daily tasks will create a powerful business, and anybody can do this, no matter who you are or what your situation is. Also remember you probably only have to maintain that routine for around 44 weeks per year, because your greater level of success allows you to take more time off. The key to making it work is to build your routine around what is realistic for the demands and requirements of your business and your life. When you wake up and times of day you eat may seem trivial, but those are events that occur every day and must therefore be regimented. Otherwise you get sidetracked and derailed which throws off your whole day, resulting in lost productivity.

A set routine that supports your business and your life allows you to focus on getting things done instead of wasting time and energy deciding what to do next on the fly. Your routine will work best if it is simple and can be the same every day. Focus on scheduling high-value daily activities such as prospecting for times when your energy is high and you feel your best. An exercise regimen is your best form of stress management, too, because it energizes you while allowing time for deep thought and introspection. Use that time to ponder what is happening in your life and how you can be ready to seize opportunities when they come to you.

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