Ep 140 – Vendor Reports: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

In today’s High Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly around vendor reports. Alex begins with the role vendor reports play in aligning on price and ways agents hide behind them. Josh notes the advantages of being blunt with the client in the report and Alex comments on keeping the vendor informed throughout the process. They discuss how a lot of significant issues with clients are a result of changes in the market after you set expectations in the listing presentation.

Josh advises making sure everyone in your office is providing the right feedback to clients, Alex explains why you need to have a reserve meeting well in advance, and Josh reminds on the importance of being in front of the consumer when it counts most.

Choosing your Market

The real estate industry seems a little bipolar around the issue of market territories and organizational politics. In this Coaching Tip I’ll tell you about choosing your market, supporting all of your agents, and serving your customer so you can scale enough to fulfill your dreams and aspirations.

There are actually two markets you need to choose. Your primary market is the one where the majority of your normal transactions at average sale prices happen all the time. Your secondary market is made up of higher priced homes where you make fewer transactions and sales are less consistent, but it can be juicy when the market is good.

A great business has trade-ins, and your secondary market also offers you an opportunity to find sellers for your primary market. These are customers who are upgrading to a more expensive home and therefore need to sell theirs.

Now, the industry has a problem with allocating farm areas to new agents and then limiting what those agents are able to do there. Basically the agent with the lowest skill set gets sent into the toughest market, against the toughest competitors, to build new market share.

I’ll give you a detailed scenario in the video around what it’s like for that agent to try to work this new territory. Essentially it’s about finding customers, increasing customer spend, establishing new relationships and winning the deal. The problems come with the politics of working around existing agents and their own territories, their past clients, their landlords, and their old ideas.

In today’s real estate world you have to clear the way for new agents to really work those territories they’re given, whilst respecting existing relationships and building new ones forward to get us a result. Together we’ll get another signboard up and gain more market share more often. Choosing your market then becomes more effective through cooperation and coordination between all agents inside of your organization.

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

Growing Your Agents to Grow Your Business

Too many potentially great agents are struggling. They’re stuck inside of firms that don’t have the right process and psychology to take them to their first 30 transactions. In my Growth, Leadership, and Management Tip this month I’ll tell you why growing your agents to grow your business is so important.

The faster you can take your agents from $0 to $330,000 in fees, the quicker your business will develop. Some firms do this by bringing in existing agents from other brands who are already writing those numbers, and then training them up to become that $1 million performer. But it’s not that hard to grow people to that first milestone and then get them to a position of becoming a great agent.

Growth begins with basic foundational principles like market knowledge and listing skills. Maybe any agent who joins your team needs to start out as an assistant to gain exposure to your market by doing open for inspections, being at auctions, and meeting more people more often.

You must have a career development plan in place. Systematically teach your people all the key skills and essential functions you’re going to need them to do for you. Make sure they understand the rights and responsibilities of buyers and sellers in all situations. Require that they make a minimum number of deals before becoming an agent on their own.

Growing your agents to grow your business is not hard to do. It’s all about having great systems, planning for growth, and knowing your expectations for the people who join your firm. Make sure you’ve got a learning and education process in place, and then watch for the people who take that step further to do even more training on their own.

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

Ep 139 – Formula for Success

In this High Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips look at finding a formula for success by knowing what works for you and focusing on doing those things. Alex states that enjoying what you do and doing what you’re good at are key elements, and passion is a big part of his team’s process. Josh and Alex talk about the need to have intent around your prospecting calls and the contacts inside of your database. Josh notes that getting in front of people is important, and Alex elaborates on why that’s true.

Josh defines a fad, a trend, and a reality, and observes that a lot of agents can’t seem to tell the difference in importance between them. Alex explains why long-term realistic operations continue to work year after year. Josh ends on the importance of understanding what works and why. Those are the things you need to continue doing.

Positioning your Property correctly

No single marketing medium in isolation works on its own. My Coaching Tip today is about positioning your property correctly and to do that you need to understand how marketing to the modern consumer works.

As a real estate agent you need to think about where your buyers are going to see properties marketed. Most customers these days go to the Internet first, but there are other marketing mediums they are exposed to as well. You need to understand how to use all of them.

The modern consumer will see more than one item of marketing in their property searches. Beyond the different real estate websites and social media channels they visit, they’re also going to see things like window displays, magazines, emails, brochures and signboards. They may also be called directly by an agent, or referred to the property by other people.

It’s also important to understand that, especially in an auction situation, even if a customer doesn’t buy a property they can improve the level of competition on a particular sale just by bidding or making an offer. So you need to know which marketing mediums they used during their property search.

Using the law of contrast you can separate and differentiate the way you present a property by using the right mediums to really present it well. You need to be in every medium that the consumer is using for their property search, and understand the importance of positioning your property correctly.

What people are actually buying is a perceived lifestyle, and if you take shortcuts on marketing, you’re also going to take shortcuts on your vendor’s price. Clearly marketing and positioning are important to getting the best price possible for your properties.

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

Special Edition – Team Work featuring Alexander Phillips and Pru Kelly

This is a Special AREC Edition of the High-Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents featuring Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips. Today they’re discussing what really happened when Alexander entered the real estate industry. He talks about passion, drive and determination, and tells how he and his partners run their incredible firm in PPD. Alexander addresses topics like starting where you want to end up and making sure you can grow in your marketplace. They discuss office culture and being all-in with your work. Alexander emphasises working hard and loving what you do, and details tips to be successful.

The full-length version of Team Work featuring Alexander Phillips and Pru Kelly will be available exclusively to AREC attendees or on the Membership App.

Identifying Active Buyers

Someone you met three, six, nine, or twelve months ago may or may not still be an active buyer today. My Coaching Tip this week is about identifying active buyers, and I’ll tell you how to reengage with your buyer pool to know whether or not they’re in the marketplace now.

If you’re not getting the numbers you need at your open for inspections, there are some things you can do. Start with contacting all the buyers who have inquired on a property over the last 12 months and find out if they purchased, or if they’re still in the market.

The way you approach those potential buyers has a massive bearing on your success. Don’t put pressure on them, but do invite them to tell you about their current circumstances and feelings as to whether or not they’re looking to proceed with a purchase. If so, then find them the right home and they’ll likely come and buy it.

Now, most agents have come to rely on email and social media as their major lead sources, expecting to get a higher number of inquiries. But recent changes in legislation require a statement of information that forces quoting on every single home listed. It’s important that you communicate with your buyer pool about those new guidelines, and how market conditions shift and resettle according to demand and supply.

Make sure you maintain a good quality list of buyers who are in the market today. Think of all the people who have already registered or bid at auction, made offers on homes, or come back for second appointments. And watch the buyers who are coming to open for inspections over time.

You can also have a regular meeting in your business around identifying active buyers. Schedule 20 to 30 minutes each week to run through your best buyers in each price range with your sales team. Then you can map those buyers to the best properties you have available.

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

Ep 138 – Dealing With Buyer Enquiry

In this High Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips talk about dealing with buyer enquiry. Josh reviews different kinds of enquiries and Alex outlines his team’s best practices for dealing with buyer enquiries and not missing any opportunities they present. They discuss how to handle email and response, and how to qualify buyers by their level of interest. Alex then relates a case study of a successful transaction from a properly qualified buyer enquiry.

Alex also discusses how presenting a price guide improves time management, and they discuss data gathering through website logins to qualify and progress interested buyers. Alex tells how he handles late-day enquiry calls, and the value of human interaction.

Paying for Leads

Do you want to build a business where you pay for leads, or do you want to have leads that pay? In this Coaching Tip I’ll show you why this is a decision you have to make, and help you sort it out for yourself.

These days a lot of agents are taking their leads from lead-generation websites. The reality, though, is that a lot of those leads are already sitting inside of your database. So where do those customers hang out before they need you?

The best estate agents are focused on putting themselves wherever their potential sellers are. These are places like open for inspections, email inquiries, and people already in your database. So there are hundreds – even thousands of leads actually leaking on the inside of your business every year. You need to find where the leakage is and fix it.

I advise working from a four to seven year timeframe based on the perspective that when you enter someone into your database that person will become a seller in four to seven years. Your job, then, is to identify what their reason for moving will be, what they don’t like about their existing home, what problem a new home would solve for them, and when that move might happen.

There are a lot of things you can do to generate leads, but paying for leads is just not necessary if you do two basic things: Focus on the one or two lead sources that will make you incredibly powerful, and retain the customers you already have.

For me that’s about open for inspections, working my personal network, and working past clients. People who do really well in business have repeat and return customers, so make sure you build those relationships to ensure customer retention.

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

Ep 137 – Scaling and Building a Team

This High Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents features Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips talking about scaling and building a team. Josh begins with remuneration and bonus structures, and Alex offers guidelines to consider when bringing people into the team, with emphasis on clarity and transparency around commission incentives. They discuss different models of compensation and Alex talks about combining performance and numbers, and when to deliver bonuses.

They also discuss rewards and recognition other than remuneration. Josh reminds us that driving specific skills and developing people inside of your team helps your business grow. Be clear around standards and expectations for each level of pay and bonuses.