Ep 121 – Simplifying Your Business

This High-Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents features Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips on simplifying your business. Josh lists things he does, and also notes things he doesn’t do. Alex elaborates on ways you can really understand what you do so you can more effectively simplify those processes. Josh tells how a lot of activities agents perform don’t even relate to generating their business, and how to choose your best lead sources. Alex tells which numbers he tracks on to get the results he wants.

Josh observes the importance of working with everyone in your database before searching for new clients. Alex talks about building social proof, and Josh wraps up with simplifying life for your clients and driving momentum that breeds success.

Principles

In his book, Principles, Ray Dalio talks specifically about the importance of having some basic rules that set you off for success, not only in your work but also in your life. In my Coaching Tip today I’m going to give you some basic principles that will help you become a successful real estate agent.

Let’s start with 4 principles that allow you to sell a home. Negotiate for vendor-paid marketing, speak with your vendor every single business day, write weekly vendor reports on next actions and recommendations, and make sure every property you have on the market receives an offer within 10 days.

If you fail to follow these four principles, you’ll have problems in your sales campaigns. The same holds true for principles that apply to other areas of work and life. Be clear about what you want and don’t want, and then consider the principles that will lead you to success.

For prospecting, commit to a 45-minute call session every day, don’t go home until you’ve booked 3 appointments, and make sure you’re face to face with consumers every day. If you don’t have great energy, get yourself tuned up quickly. One of the best principles for that is to simply smile because you’re here to serve the customer and they won’t want to deal with your negativity.

Some of my own classic principles for managing energy to perform at my best include making sure I get proper sleep, diet and exercise. I also know it’s critically important to create an environment that feels successful to maintain a mindset geared for success.

It all comes down to building up either a system or a person. Your business is a machine you need to tune to ensure you get the results you deserve. Get these principles in play and they will lead you to success.

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

Head in the Game

Real estate agents striving for success need to make sure they are mentally tough. I explain some ways to make sure your head is always in the game. We’ve all seen mentally inferior tennis players double fault to lose a tiebreak and everyday real estate agents face just as much pressure. So how can you ensure you play like Roger Federer rather than ‘Nigel Nobody’?

Just as tennis players need to remain mentally tough, real estate agents must ensure their head is in the game and they’re mentally ready, focused and stable in order to achieve success.
Resilience is the key. It’s vitally important that agents never take anything too personally.

Like water off a duck’s back, agents should let negative customer comments rest in the first instance rather than instantly reacting in a potential upset manner. The comments can be filed away to use later as fuel for future success. Agents must also understand the sales process inside out. Customers will say no, they’re designed to.

The secret is to become good at asking the right questions so you find out exactly what they’re objecting to and why.

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Once you know this you can realign your strategy and, hopefully, still achieve a successful outcome. Successful agents also see every setback as a chance to make an almighty comeback. But how do you obtain this positive mindset I hear you asking.

The secret is to nominate three people, other than your life partner, to play a major role in helping keep you focused and on track.

The positive person. Every time something goes wrong, ring them and they’ll pick you back up. Similar to having your own little fan club, this person can turn every negative into a positive, be it an opportunity for you to improve in some manner or a chance for you to refocus and expand your business operation.

The negative person. Over time you may develop a feeling of invincibility, but if you call this person they’ll bring you back to earth. This is important as feelings of invincibility can lead to a decline in the effort and once that happens it can be hard to turn things around. Keeping your feet planted firmly on the ground ensures you’re always approaching every sale with the right attitude and level of diligence.

The Negotiator. Every time you need to make a tough decision in your life ring this person. Their superior negotiating skills will help you make that choice. Them being a distant third party also means they can look at each situation with a better perspective and without bias.

Once you’re off and running it’s important to avoid peaks and troughs in your mental stability as those ups and downs could lead to similar highs and lows in your sales performance. One of the best ways to do this is to focus on the number of appointments you book each week. Only ever judge your success by the number of listings you gain each month. I suggest that my clients track their results on the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th of each month.

Focusing on the here and now helps you focus your attention and energy on what’s currently important and prevents you from becoming overwhelmed by looking at too much of the pie at once. If you focus on just a few tasks at a time you ensure procrastination is kept to a minimum and your energy and dedication levels are at optimum rates. Employing a real estate coach is also an excellent way of making sure your mental stability avoids peaks and troughs. They are able to analyse your situation objectively and devise opportunities to keep you on track. If things do run off the rails it’s important to remember why you started in real estate, what you love about it and how you can turn things around.

One solid tactic is to look for opportunities to book appointments with potential vendors.

I suggest my agents call all of the people who bought from them in 2012 and 2013 as they’ve most likely had a 20 percent increase in their property value and now is the ideal time to capitalise on positive market conditions. Maintaining a regular, healthy diet, exercise and sleep routine will also help you avoid mental burnout as will controlling your stress levels. Controlled and self-induced stress is better than imposed stress so it’s important that agents learn to manage their anxiety and to channel it towards tasks and outcomes that really matter.

Another good idea is to keep a list of your goals, achievements and lesson learnt on your phone. It’s the easiest, quickest way to pick you up and help get your focus back on track.

This article first appeared on Elite Agent:https://eliteagent.com/is-your-head-in-the-game/

Hiring an Assistant

Agents looking to grow their business should keep the adage ‘many hands make light work’ top of mind. As the number of properties you list and sell increases it’s vital that you build a team around you to cope with the increasing workload. There’s only so much one agent can take on themselves and that’s why hiring an assistant is a key component in progressing your business.

Now and always, you need to cast a look in your crystal ball and focus on the success you want to achieve. If you don’t have goals for the future you will never get there. But knowing when to employ an assistant can be a tricky task, as you have to balance having enough income to afford the extra help with needing the firepower to boost your finances in the future.

Once you have recorded three consecutive months of earning $30,000 then the time has come to hire an assistant. Ideally, you want to have a reasonable amount of savings so you don’t have to worry whether the position will succeed. Once you earn $60,000 for three consecutive months you are ready to hire your second assistant and when you hit $100,000 per month you can employ your next team member. Usually, the first assistant an agent hires will focus on administration tasks such as taking care of phone and internet enquiries, managing the database, undertaking office tasks and agent marketing.

Often the second and third assistants an agent hires will have more of a sales focus, helping the lead agent with campaign management, buyer work and overflow prospecting. The biggest plus of having an assistant is having more time to focus on what really matters – prospecting, listing and selling. An assistant frees the agent of administration tasks and allows them to narrow their focus, as well as equipping them with the capacity to conduct more open homes, grow the number of listings, branch out into new markets and to take a break to avoid burnout.

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It’s also important to make sure your team is made up of dedicated, productive members. One way to assess the strength of your team members is to grade them according to how much time you spend directing them.

A Graders: require as little as five minutes direction each week.

B Graders: require a couple of hours a week of guidance

C Graders: need significant attention every day.

Another option is to rate each agent with a plus or minus according to their performance. These strategies will help you target how you train your staff and assess their capabilities for achieving business goals. Recruitment is an ongoing task that helps you not only replace low performers but to expand your business. When employing new team members don’t limit yourself to only interviewing or hiring people from within the real estate field. If someone is a high flyer in another industry they will likely also shine in your organisation with the right training and coaching.

When you hire someone it’s best to place them in a position that matches their current level of expertise. The new assistant will then learn the tasks that are essential to the business as well as how your brand works and what drives its success. Employing a new staff member can be an expensive operation if they cannot meet their position requirements or your business goals.

Therefore it’s best to offer new team members training and hands-on experience before moving them into a higher position. If they can’t cope with their current workload they won’t be able to complete more complex tasks. New hires can also be expensive if they leave and take their income producing power with them. As such I advise that any one agent should not be responsible for more than 15 percent of your total revenue. This does not mean you should hire mediocre staff but that you need to balance the number of agents you employ with how much income they can produce.

Successful growth is a decision. Decide what your vision is, decide to create it, decide when to put on that first assistant and then decide to let go and let it grow.

This article first appeared on Elite Agent:https://eliteagent.com/many-hands-make-light-work/

Leading Agent

Real estate is a competitive and, at times, merciless industry. Every day, at every agency, every agent is competing for appointments, listings and ultimately sales. It’s a world where the highs can be dizzying, the lows desperately depressing and the difference between success and failure can be fickle.

Climbing to the top of the ladder takes courage, hard work and resilience. Staying there can take even more work.

The cycle of supply and demand means the more agents there are competing for listings, the smaller the chunk of pie they’re fighting for. A recent survey I conducted with my clients revealed 17 per cent felt dealing with competitors was the biggest challenge facing their business. In a battle for listings, agents usually compete in three main areas: price, marketing and fees. In the absence of differentiation, sellers will always shop on agent and marketing fees and my clients said they often face competitors who are undercutting.

“Business is great and the market is excellent but unfortunately this is allowing many agents to cut fees,” one agent said. “They are not necessarily small offices with unprofessional agents, I am seeing my strongest competitors doing it too.” So how do you stay ahead of your competition and do it in a honourable way?

Regardless of the fee you charge you want sellers to want you as their agent. This means to become the leading agent in your market you need to stand out. The key is to focus on the customer, their needs and meeting those needs as effectively and efficiently as possible. If you focus on your competition you never win.

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Rather than trying to take out your competition, work on yourself, your skills and strive to be a role model. Work your database and back up your promises with third-party endorsements. When you focus on the customer you create more word of mouth recommendations more often. If you’re a new agent trying to climb the ladder it’s vitally important that you study the market you want to overtake.

You need to know every new listing, every sale and become an absolute specialist when it comes to pricing. As you move towards the top of the ladder it’s important to generate and convert lots of leads. Make more and more calls to get in more doors and use your past clients as a great source for getting new face-to-face appointments. Once you’ve reached the top of the hill and are the leading agent in your market you have to work hard to stay there.

The key to success in this regard is to monitor the market, continually prospect and never become complacent.

5 Top Tips for becoming the leading agents in your market

1) Know the size of the pie.
You need to make sure you’re working in a big enough market. Markets change over time and you need to ensure there’s enough turnover to meet your desired income.

2) Know the market.
You need to be able to counteract your competition so make sure you know every listing, every sale and are an expert on price. Good quality market knowledge allows you to separate yourself from the pack.

3) Know why you pitch differently to your competition.
You need to stand out from the crowd. Focus on the customer, their needs and desires and show how you can meet them faster, better and cheaper. Cheaper doesn’t mean cutting your fee or marketing, it’s about the speed of sale. The faster you sell a property the less of a discount it usually sells for.

4) List it well, sell it well.
Don’t rush a property to market if you haven’t finalised price, presentation and marketing. People buy a perceived lifestyle and will pay more for a property when it is complete, rather than one they have to renovate.

5) Know when to build a team.
Know when the time is right to employ an assistant so you can focus on what really counts. Choose people that aspire to really be something, have a strong family business background, who are hungry to learn and who can be coached.

Career Progression

Starting out and progressing your career can be tricky if you don’t know where you’re going. Time may heal all wounds but it doesn’t necessarily equate to success in the real estate field. Just because you’ve been an agent for 20 years doesn’t mean you are at the top of your field.

Rather, hunger, desire, skill, mentoring and environment contribute much more to a successful career path than years on the clock. So how do you ensure your career is progressing along the right path?

Most importantly it is vital that you have a vision for the future of your career and your business.

If you have no idea where you want to go how are you going to get there? Know what you want to achieve, set short-term goals to move you forward and your business will grow and prosper. Decide your vision based on your purpose, mission and values and think about the numbers and measurements you need to meet in order to reach your goals. Your basic tools for growth include increasing your fees, selling more properties and boosting your average sale price. To reach your true potential I recommend thinking five to 10 years ahead. Ask yourself what you want your business to become, how many offices you’d like to have and how many agents you’d like working for you.

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Key Career Progression Tips

Have a plan and a mentor
Every business needs a business plan. Plan your strategy for success and plot the numbers that will measure your success. A mentor can also guide your through the stages of your career so look for someone whose work you respect and admire. Ask yourself what is holding you back from progressing in your career. Is it skill level, time or the number of transactions you are achieving?

Ask yourself the ‘what’ question
What books, skills and attributes or lack of are holding you back? Identify your weaknesses and work hard to overcome them.

Mimic others
Spend time with other agents who are far more successful than you are. Pepper them with questions, watch their style and mimic their systems.

Starting out
If you’re new to real estate the first stage of progressing along the ultimate career path starts with building your database. The sooner that grows the sooner your business grows. Market your database and learn what to send to which category. Start with buyer work because there are plenty of them and remember that the only difference between a buyer and a seller is time. Set benchmarks you want to achieve and work diligently towards them. It’s also vital that you learn how to list properties well. If you can list it will teach you to prospect and that’s your bread and butter.

After 5 years
If you were new to the business five years ago you should now be at the point of already being or close to becoming your own agent. If you come with a little more life experience you should be focused on securing more transactions and higher fees. Level 1 agents will complete about 30 transactions a year and write about $300,000 in fees. Level 2 agents will secure up to 60 transactions a year and write about $600,000 in fees. Level 3 agents will sell more than 100 properties a year and work as a multi-million dollar fee-producing agent.

If you haven’t already, a main goal after five years should be to build a solid team around yourself and to build a business that is sustainable. It’s also vital that the amount of word-of-mouth referrals and the number of repeat customers are continually rising.

After 10 years
After a decade you should have a great team around you and could have progressed into partnership, directorship in your existing firm or even have started your own agency. Your goal after a decade should be to continually write more in fees year-on-year. Referrals and past clients should make up a substantial amount of your transactions. Once you’ve made your goals and started ticking them off, it’s time to reassess, make new commitments and move forward again.

Career progression and business growth is a lifetime thing and I urge my clients to review their goals daily. In terms of taking a hard look at where you’re at and what’s happening with your business plan, I recommend checks at the end of the calendar year and the end of the financial year. If you do this twice a year you can ensure you’re always in a growth phase and not sliding backwards. Start by reviewing your numbers over the past year – listings, sales and income generated. You need to review each month in detail and look for patterns. Which months were slower? Which were successful?

You need to understand what is and isn’t working for you and why.

If and when your plans and goals go astray, set a new goal and strive to reach it.

Progressing down the ultimate career path and growing your business doesn’t happen by luck but because you plan for it, adjust the plan when necessary and follow through on that plan.

Curveballs

Just as baseball’s Sandy Koufax was known for his devastating curveball, many a vendor has been known to throw tricky situation after testing question at real estate agents. For the unprepared agent, a listing presentation can quickly become a minefield of ‘should haves’ and ‘would haves’ when vendors take a cut-throat approach to selecting their selling agent.

But to succeed at the listing presentation agents need to be armed with a heavy bat in order to knock those curveballs out of the field. Over the years the agents I coach have consistently come to me for solutions to the top curveballs vendors pitch at them.

Here’s a list of those tricky hurdles and how to jump them.

Pricing.
For the large majority of vendors, the price is their top concern when looking to sell their property and who they sell it through. No one wants to undersell, everyone wants the best price possible. Inevitably vendors will quiz their would-be agent on what they think they can sell the property for.

The trouble is, vendors, agents and buyers often have very different price expectations. The key to jumping the price point hurdle is to explain to your potential vendors how each party determines the ‘right’ price. Sellers manifestly work to a cost, spend, need equation where they analyse what they paid for the property, add on what they have spent in terms of renovations and then consider what price they need in order to achieve their next property goal. Buyers on the other hand inescapably want to secure a property for the lowest possible price.

They form their view on what a property is worth based on their attendance at other open homes, recent sales in the area and the perceived competition for the house they’re interested in. Yes, it’s the agent’s job to mediate the selling price but before they can do that they need vendors to select them to be their agent. Agents decide price based on their market knowledge and in order to convince the seller they are the right agent they need to be able to back up their market knowledge with social proof. Agents should come armed with price evidence such as three properties similar to the vendor’s that are currently on the market and three recent sales.

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Marketing
Everyone is economically driven and no vendor wants to pay more for marketing than they have to. It’s the agent’s job to show what kind of marketing would be ideal for their vendor’s property and why. But rather than taking the hard sell approach my agents have found it best to lead the horse to the dam to drink.

The best way to do this is to sell large, medium and small marketing packages, explaining what each one contains and why it works. It’s also important to link specific marketing pieces with specific buyers to show that marketing really does work.

Fee.
In the absence of differentiation everyone shops on price. If you don’t stand out and stick in a vendor’s mind for the qualities you bring to the sale, they will line you up against other agents and pick the winner based on price. Some people see good value in a Kia, while others prefer a Ferrari. You’ve got to show why the Ferrari is going to cross the finish line first every time.

Show vendors that you’re a safer option than your competitors, that you have a strong performance record, that you can sell either off-market or with your prestigious brand, that you can ease the pressure on them with a tailored campaign and that serving their needs is your top priority.

Why you.
The truth is all agents look the same unless they know how to pitch to their vendors’ needs and desires. The pitch should be all about the vendor, not just about you. Winning agents know how to differentiate themselves from their competitors in a way the customer cares about. The key is to go tactical and show them competition for a recently sold property through the bidding record or prove buyer interest through open home attendee lists.

Sale method.
Vendors consistently worry about the different sale methods current success rates. Rather than pushing a particular sale method onto a vendor listen to what they feel comfortable with.
Take a softer, more negotiation style of approach and try to lead the vendor to the best sale method rather than drag them kicking and screaming. Ask them if they have a preference of auction or private treaty? The key is to get the listing exclusively and at the right fee and not lose a listing based on how you approach the method of sale.

This article first appeared on Elite Agent: https://eliteagent.com/hitting-a-homerun/

Ep 120 – Handling Stress

In this High-Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents, Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips discuss handling stress, whether things are really busy, or things just aren’t working out for you. Alex notes that busy times occur throughout your career and gives examples of how top agents deal with stress on a regular basis. Josh advises that you know the signs of stress and suggests ways you can manage it early on. Both then discuss ways to spot and manage stress in your team.

They talk about staying focused on the end of the year even as you prepare for the new year and note some quick ways to recharge your batteries and keep going. Josh ends with his personal stress management and the importance of being present for your clients.

Focusing on the last 50 Listings

You want to make sure you’re putting your time, effort and energy into lead sources that will actually get listings. In my Coaching Tip today I’m going to tell you why your last 50 listings tell you more about your business than anything else.

Look at your lead sources for your last 50 listings. A lot of agents will say that their database is their lead source, but that’s just where you store those leads. Lead sources include open for inspections, buyer inquiries, past clients, market appraisals, your existing personal network, or results from marketing campaigns.

What you want to do is learn to play to your strengths. If you know your key lead sources you can attune your diary to working them. For example, if you have several thousand properties under management, that’s a significant lead source. Those landlords own investment properties as well as their own home, and 8% to 9% of them will change their investment mix each year. If you already have that kind of lead source, why would you focus on cold calling to try to get market appraisals?

The 3 major lead sources are open for inspections, past clients, and your personal network. Just working those leads will make a huge difference to your business. A lot depends on how you first came into the real estate industry. If you started in leasing and moved up into sales you already know people who own property that they bought through an estate agent. That agent has a loyalty program with those people and that’s already an incredible relationship.

If you already know people who trust your brand, then it’s up to you to call them up, make the appointment, and go do an annual checkup on their home. The last 50 listings you’ve won will show you your strengths. Make the decision to get strategic about how your business generates leads, and stop wasting resources on activities that don’t work.

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

Ep 119 – Breaking the Million Dollar Barrier

In this High Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips talk about breaking the million dollar barrier in your mindset. Alex begins with reasons why there’s a psychological barrier, why it’s not an unattainable goal and how to make it happen. Josh poses the difference between ego and service, and Alex explains how to break down your numbers to set goals. Josh notes the necessity for training to gain skills you must have to write that million in sales, and Alex describes how it feels to write your first million.

They agree on the best next step whenever you reach a milestone, and then talk about ways the first million in sales boosts your business through referrals and reputation. Josh ends on raising your aspirations and taking the actions you need to achieve that goal.