Feature Interview LSN 2017 – Part 1

This is a special edition of our High-Performance Podcast featuring Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips in a live interview from List Sell Negotiate 2017 in Sydney. They talk about having a marketplace big enough for your aspirations, Alex tells how he handles large numbers of open for inspections, and Josh comments on overcoming the fear of letting go and allowing your team to work for you. They talk about the hunger that drives Alex to grow his business year after year, and he outlines how he and his team do it.

Alex tells how it feels to be close to writing 10 Million in sales, and how he did over 450 appraisals this year through planning, preparation, and the synergy inside of his team. The discussion then continues in Part 2.

Is your marketing about You or the Customer?

There are lots of ways to get your name out there, but too often agent marketing is all about the agent – how successful they are, what just happened in their career, or the SOLD sticker they just put up. In my Coaching Tip this week I’ll show you why you need to ask yourself, is your marketing about you or the customer? Are you working from your ego, or with humility?

One of the problems with social media is that it’s much too easy to amplify ideas about who you are as an agent that represent you badly out there in the marketplace. Be very aware of what you’re doing in your marketing. The focus should never be on you. The focus has to be on the consumer, because that’s how you make that connection with them.

The difference between ego and humility is where you place others in respect to yourself. You may think that positioning yourself above others separates you from the pack, but it also separates you from your customer. You need to let the customer be the hero. Center them in the picture and step yourself to the side. Tell the story about what you do for the customer by showing them a person they can relate to moving smoothly through their buying or selling process and enjoying their results.

This approach holds true whether you’re working with a homeowner or a developer. Your role is that of an information provider and a coach who will guide them through their particular scenarios. Ensure that what you’re doing at a marketing level is timeless so that even when you’re not actively promoting yourself, your market activity will show what it is that you’re doing as an agent.

Remember, the best way to connect with the consumer of the day is by getting on the phone and talking to your customers combined with plenty of face-to-faces. And always ask yourself, is your marketing about you or the customer? Solve the customer’s challenge, be their best source of information and you will become an incredible agent.

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

Setting a Vision

When people come to work for you, most of them are buying into your vision around what you can do for them. In my Growth, Leadership, and Management Tip this month I’ll explain how setting a vision for your business involves not only where your business is going, but what people are doing on the inside of it.

Staying close with your people is the key to retention because you need to be clear about what you’re doing to help them achieve something meaningful, not only in their business life, but also in their personal life. Created progression will give them a real reason to be part of your company.

One of the biggest mistakes small business owners make is failure to build a framework around their ideas. They never create a plan for what they want to accomplish, and they never plan for their people, either. So if you tell a salesperson you’re going to sell them a portion of the business someday, what does that really mean? When will that happen, and how will you prepare them for the added responsibility of being a business owner?

It’s important to have quality conversations with your people about timeframes and expectations. Otherwise your people feel stuck in what I call the “Never Never” where you never set benchmarks and keep stretching out the time before they can take the next step. One day your competitor will come along and give them that career progression plan they desire. Overnight your best salesperson will walk out the door.

You must get close to your people to understand what they want to achieve and give them a path to do that. Know the skills you want them to acquire, then build clear structures to help them progress. Setting a vision for your business is up to you to do. Built into that is the idea that you’re building your business to sell. Ultimately the people who are working inside of your business will become your best buyers.

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

Ep 123 – Pipelines

In this High-Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents, Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips discuss pipelines, beginning with what they are and how to work one. Alex explains his process for understanding and managing his pipelines, and Josh lists questions you need to answer for making the most of your database. Alex advises long-term thinking, and they discuss ways to progress people in your pipelines and get clear on what to do ahead of the curve.

Josh outlines pipeline scheduling for the year and how agents do it wrong, and Alex details how to get it right. Josh observes that if you can’t remember your clients then they won’t remember you, so it’s important to know and understand their needs and desires.

Jobs Done

You set your value – and your fees – by jobs done for the customer. But what are those jobs, and why do they matter? In my Coaching Tip today I’ll show you how to determine which jobs are most important, and which ones you should really focus on.

Most agents will say their most important jobs are to sell the house, maximise the price, and help the client make their best decisions. But in reality, the jobs we actually do may be different. The key is to think like the customer so you can ask the right questions to find out what they need and why they’re unhappy where they are. Then you can help them find the right property for their situation and lifestyle.

Of course, once you find that perfect place for them, then they need to sell the place they’re in. Your next job, then, is to get them their best selling price. One of the best home selling points is a property where everything is already done. Customers are time-poor today and the less they have to do upon moving into a new home, the more they’re willing to pay for that convenience. If your client is willing to invest in getting that property in shape before the buyer moves in they’ll realize a higher profit.

If you can do one job well that other agents don’t, that may well become the reason customers choose to use you.

Sometimes it’s the little things that make the most impact, so it’s important to understand which jobs done are most meaningful to customers. Your most important job as a great real estate agent, then, is to become the customer. Understand which jobs they need to get done, and which of those jobs you can do for them to alleviate their stress and pain. This will set you apart as a great real estate agent.

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

Ep 122 – Principles of Selling in any Market

In this High-Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents, Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips talk about principles of selling regardless of market conditions. Alex identifies the one reason property doesn’t sell, and discusses various elements involved in taking a property to market. Josh notes the importance of vendor paid marketing, and Alex expands on why vendor commitment is so important. They discuss the necessity of getting early offers on a property, and consistent vendor communication including vendor reports and face-to-face meetings.

Josh continues discussion with managed sales process, Alex explains why process matters so much, and Josh reinforces how critical it is to get every one of these principles right all the time, because the one time you don’t is the deal that goes wrong.

Taking it to the Next Level

Mediocre; it’s a word most people hate and for real estate agents it’s a time, a phase in their career, they want to quickly skip past. So how do you leapfrog past the point in your career where things are moving along okay but not setting the world on fire?

What do you need to do to turn an average number of listings, which sell for an average price, in an average time frame, into mammoth listings that sell for record prices in quick succession? In short, how do you take things to the next level and list more and sell more, for more?

You need to have a goal. You need to want to shift gears and go from being a good agent to being a great agent. Without a goal, and a plan to reach that goal, you have nothing to strive for and nothing to motivate you towards success. Once you have a goal it’s time to set your mantra.

I always recommend to the agents I coach that they commit to doing one thing really well – serving the customer. It doesn’t matter whether you work in a prestige market or blue-collar suburbs, if you serve your clients well, success will follow. There are three key areas you need to improve to propel yourself from being a good agent to being a great agent.

Prospecting
It’s vitally important to get your marketing in order so that you can ship specific content to specific customers and maximise your database value. You need to be relevant, frequent and consistent when prospecting. Rather than send each client the same pamphlet or email, you need to tailor your marketing. A vendor or new homeowner may not care that a property 10 suburbs away has sold, but they will be interested to know that the house around the corner sold for a record price.

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The key is to be hyper-local and inform clients about what’s happening on their street, their neighbourhood and their suburb. Relevant marketing and prospecting naturally flows on to frequent prospecting. Prospecting isn’t a ‘sometimes thing’ it’s an ‘all the time thing’. I urge my agents to use the one day, one week, one month, one year approach to frequent marketing and prospecting.
That means hop on the phone and have a chat with your client at each of these intervals. Any longer and it may have been too long between drinks. You also need to be consistent in your marketing so set a standard you want to achieve and stick to it. It often helps to set up a marketing calendar to determine what material goes out and when.

Listing
A listing presentation is your chance to sell yourself and your skills and win the listing. But where a lot of agents go wrong is approaching the listing with one-dimensional glasses on and only talking about themselves and their successes. While it’s good to let potential vendors know you’ve set the record price for their suburb, it’s even more important to explain what this means for them.
You need to know how to identify the needs of the customer and pitch specifically to those needs. It’s also critical to know how to use powerful visuals to sell your key concepts, which set you apart from your competition. So instead of using an auction photo where you had two bidders, use the photo where six bidders were spread among a crowd of 60 interested onlookers. It’s also important to present the right mix of urgency and empathy when dealing with your clients.

Of course, you want to quickly win the listing and get the property to market but don’t run roughshod over your clients, because you’ll never win. Instead, temper the sense of urgency with an understanding of your clients’ thought processes, concerns, questions and emotions. Meeting their needs will ultimately meet your needs.

Clearance
Achieving more listings generally translates to more sales. But it’s hard to get more and more listings when you’re still working on achieving sales on properties that have been languishing on the market.
Great agents know how to reduce the days on market, which not only helps achieve the very best sale price, it improves stock turnover and allows you to meet more people more often. Meeting more people, more often means more listings, more often.

So put yourself in a position where more people can see you and meet you. Go to open homes and follow up on every phone and internet enquiry. As your popularity grows, so will the number of people wanting to use your services. Another tactic to sell more properties for more money is to create pre-market demand. Source buyers who have missed out on previous properties and draw their interest to one of your new properties. Buyers want to buy what others want.

Once you’ve moved from being a good agent to the top of your field the key is to stay there. Remember you need to be humble and hungry.

This article first appeared on Elite Agent:https://eliteagent.com/stay-humble-stay-hungry/

Power of the Past

Forget the adage the past will come back to haunt you, real estate agents should strive to ensure the past comes back to help them. The trouble is, many agents don’t look at the big picture or view their career as a long-term journey.

Instead of viewing every customer as a lifetime client, they have a narrow view of the sales process. Too often agents view a sale, and therefore the client, as valuable for only a single transaction. They see it as a deal to be done and dusted and very little, if any, thought is given to what role the client could play in future transactions. What many agents fail to realise is that if you build a long-term relationship with every client, the power of the past will turn full circle and come back to aid their career again and again.

If you build your relationships and become a trusted friend in the industry then each client will not only deliver word-of-mouth referrals but will return as a client when they’re next ready to sell or buy. Before you let out a groan anticipating the extra workload building these relationships will entail, let me assure you there’s a simple yet effective philosophy you can follow. To harness the power of the past you need to learn to be relevant, frequent and consistent in your marketing.

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Relevant
Rather than sending each client the same pamphlet or email you should ensure your marketing is tailored and relevant. A vendor or new homeowner doesn’t care that a property 10 suburbs away has sold but they will be interested in listings and sales close to them. The key is to be hyper-local and to inform them about what’s happening in their street, their neighbourhood and their suburb.

The price the house across the road sold for is relevant to them as is the fact the median sale price for the suburb has risen $50,000 in the past quarter. Use your ever-evolving market knowledge to target your marketing to each client.

Frequent
So how often do you contact your clients with this information? If you ring them once a year you’ll most likely find that it has been too long between drinks and the relationship is stale and awkward. Your aim is to become their friend in the real estate industry and I urge the agents I coach to use the one day, one week, one month, one year approach.

One day after the client has moved into their new property you should call them to check and see if there’s anything they need or whether they have any questions. One week later phone them with some friendly advice such as where the late night chemist is or the fact the restaurant around the corner is renowned for its steaks. One month later phone again and assure them that while you won’t be calling all the time, you will keep in touch whenever there is a listing or sale that’s relevant to them. One year later call your client to let them know that you’ve been looking through their file and given some recent prices achieved in their neighbourhood it would be good for you to take a walk through their property and give them an update on its value.

Consistent
When a client is ready to sell you want it to be your name that is top of mind. While your sales processes and marketing will never force a customer to sell, they can ensure you’re the agent they turn to when they’re ready. Examples of consistent marketing could be a weekly video where you discuss what’s happening in the market in a particular suburb or a quick email with a daily tip on preparing your home for sale.

The key to marketing is to do it all the time and not just when things aren’t going well. That way you will hopefully avoid the need to implement crisis marketing. The secret to using the power of the past is to never underestimate the influence someone you meet today could have in the future.

This article first appeared on Elite Agent:https://eliteagent.com/the-power-of-the-past/

Leading Change

Change is never easy. But it’s not changing at all that is the downfall of many once great real estate agents. I explain how you can avoid the pitfalls and set yourself up for success. For many of us in real estate, change is the only constant.

People handle it in different ways and many see change in a negative light. They’re the ones recounting the glory days of old while resisting the new, usually with an ‘if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it’ general worldview. So why is it that when the winds of change sweep through our industry that some build walls, while others create windmills that power remarkable growth?

The key is getting clear about your goals, ambition and being in a position to define what is important to you now and having a plan for the future. Not just 12 months down the track but a longer-term view. And how will you get there, step by step.

You should look 25 years ahead. When you are that age, 25 years on, where do you want to be in your life?

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It’s only once you envision this that you can fully start to build a framework to take you there. It becomes less about what you want in life and more about what’s really important to you. Having a clear purpose will help form a platform for you to stand on when the ground is shaky for others. It will ground you with solid values about important areas of your life, such as:

Health: Your diet, exercise and sleep

Relationships: A significant other, your family and friends.

Creativity and Community: Your interests in music, art, design and sport.

Spiritual: Your belief and connection.

Financial: What passive and active income goals you have.

Professional: Your career aspirations.

Adventure: Your plans to renew with fun and recreation.

Legacy: How you will be remembered.

Character: How you behave and are perceived.

Material: What you want to possess.

Once you refine your philosophy around these core areas, you will have a roadmap to guide you through the changing landscape to where you want to be in your life. Change renews and refreshes. It keeps you young and allows you to adapt to all the challenges you will face. Often it’s the little things such as dealing with new database software or a new process or procedure. Sometimes it’s change outside of your control such as elections or government policy changes or major moves on the international stage, such as Brexit.

It’s important to remember that ultimately when things change it is a great opportunity for you to step up. Leading change in difficult times will position you as a go-to person in the minds of your customers. Once you have a vision that captures the essence of what you really want to achieve in your lifetime you will start to be guided by purpose and direction.

It is then that you can decide for yourself: Are you going to drive change or will change drive you?

This article first appeared on Elite Agent: https://eliteagent.com/dealing-with-change/

Fee Cutters

Deciding what you should be paid for selling someone’s property is tricky business, especially when someone undercuts you. I will examine how to beat the fee cutters.

Fee cutters are a fact of life in real estate. You will never be able to escape them, but there are ways to overcome them. I’m sure most, if not every, agent has cut their fee at some point only to have the competition score the listing anyway. It’s a gutting feeling.

But the fact is, if you don’t offer a better experience for your higher fee then there’s no reason for a client to select you as their agent over any other at any fee.
Differentiation is the key. In the absence of differentiation, the customer will always shop on price. From a customer’s point of view, skill and experience are less compelling than confidence and energy.

You will win business by selling yourself better than all the other agents and to do this you need to listen to your customer and relate your value to their needs. The most important component of the listing presentation is identifying need. If you can identify the client’s needs then you can sell the features and benefits that specifically relate to the client and where they are at in the sales process.

Find out:
• What they are looking for in an agent.
• What they don’t want in an agent.
• How they will select their agent.
• What they already know about your company and yourself and why they called you in.

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Asking these types of questions allow you to build a case for what you’re worth. One of my clients hit a major problem when potential vendors would hang up the phone if they mentioned a fee higher than 1 percent. By highlighting that fees “started at 1 percent” they were able to get in the door more often. The next step is to build the fee up with tasks like open homes charged at an extra .5 percent. That’s not being tricky or deceitful, it’s simply understanding there are multiple fee levels. They also started having agency agreements pre-written at 2.5 percent including GST and since then they’ve achieved that fee every time.

If you’re not confident in your ability you can’t expect others to be. You have to set what you’re worth in the marketplace. I also get a lot of requests for fee defence scripts. The reality is, if you think you’re going to win on fee because you have a great fee defence then you’re in trouble. Rather than defending your fee I recommend being proactive from the beginning.

Fee approximation close.
Start your listing presentation highlighting that agents charge fees anywhere from 3 percent down to 1.5 percent, and while you’re not the dearest or the cheapest you are known for having the best value. By starting with the larger fee you’ve used that as a base platform from which to jump. Later in the presentation and in summary mention your actual fee and then switch to another topic. That way the customer doesn’t really get a chance to jump in.

Dollar difference.
This is another of my favourite techniques and it’s so simple. Estimate fee dollar difference between yourself and your competitors and suggest the difference is added to the reserve price. You still attract the fee you’re worth but the vendors also feel they’re not paying too much out of their own pocket.

Cheap versus quality.
It’s also important to remind potential clients that in life you often get what you pay for and real estate agents are no different. Ask them “have you ever bought the cheap version of something only to have to go back and buy the more expensive version to ensure the job was done correctly? Don’t make that same mistake with your agent.”

This article first appeared on Elite Agent: https://eliteagent.com/real-estate-commission-fees-advice/