The race for growth

Your only job is to be on the phone or in front of the customer every day. If you’re doing anything else you’re doing it wrong. In my Coaching Tip today I’m going to tell you how to scale by 300 using milestones to guide you in leveling up inside of your business.

Administrative work is necessary, but it’s not the work that brings in the fees. If you’re doing $30,000 a month 3 consecutive months then you’re at the point to put on an assistant. Once you get on the phone booking appointments full time you will radically see the results shift, but you have to make that decision to become an absolute specialist around making those calls and getting face to face with customers.

One thing you will surely discover when you put on that assistant is all the flaws inside of your business. You will have to stop working emotions and improve your systems, your checklists and your database, and that’s a good thing. You’ll learn to build a team and scale the effort in lots of 30 transactions, first to 300,000, then to 600,000, and beyond. Build that momentum and then you can scale around that.

Set your vision to focus on what you’re really good at, and have someone else to do 100% of the other work. You’re the one who understands how to take a client from one point to the next, wherever they are in their process. You help them make the decisions that will take them where they want to go. Let go of the less specialised work – including some of the phone work – and let your assistant provide the value you hired them to do. Help them build confidence and capability so they become a real asset to your business.

So, starting from day one, treat each new hire the way you want them to work inside of your organisation and they will help you scale by 300. Teach them your systems and make sure they follow them. Use checklists and forms to maintain consistency. Give them everything they need to do their work better than you can, then focus on doing your own work that mattters most.

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

Resetting for a New Year

Beginning a new year is an opportunity to think about what it takes to be that great real estate agent you want to be. In my Coaching Tip today I’ll help you focus on resetting for a new year through scaling, planning, commitment, and making good decisions.

Multiplying your business really comes down to understanding three simple numbers: average sale price, volume, and fees. Every year you’ll want to think about how you’re going to scale your services so you can do more, charge more, and sell higher priced properties than the year before.

Scaling is about increasing your capacity through fitness, systems and people. It’s getting fitter at the work you do, like fee delivery and the way you prospect. Systems involve checklists and forms that ensure everything gets done properly and consistently. Position the right people at the right time, beginning with yourself. Make that decision to be a much better agent. Prepare to deliver a higher level of service. Follow the routines that will set you free to be at your best every day.

Plan ahead to make the most of your time this year. Know that there are only seven auction Saturdays in the first quarter, so set your auction dates early so you can run great campaigns in March and early April before the holidays. Plan your first quarter well or your second quarter will suffer. And make sure you schedule in your own holidays so you can really be customer-focused every workday.

Don’t forget that we’re here to help you with a range of brand new programs. There’s also our continuing MasterClass Program, and the Josh Phegan Membership will feature new short courses and additional content this year. We’d love to be involved in helping you become that much better agent in 2017.

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

Mergers and Acquisitions

So you’re ready to open your second site. Brilliant! Have you considered buying out an existing agency? In my Growth, Leadership and Management Tip today I’ll advise you on the benefits of mergers and acquisitions, being friendly with your competitors, and growing a business that’s sellable.

There’s an organic way to grow a business, but you might do better to grow through through a merger or an acquisition of a competitor’s agency. It’s my opinion that you should always buy someone out, especially for your second site, because you won’t have to start from scratch with your building and equipment, with hiring all new people, and prospecting for new clients. Particularly in buying a property management business you’re also acquiring a whole book of potential sellers and investment properties to establish your brand with. Plus a property management asset is a sellable element

Negotiating a merger can be an advantage for you and the people you’re acquiring the business from. A merger with a sunset clause can help them save face upon their exit by removing any appearance of failure. This is why you maintain good relations with all of your competitors, because you never know which one you’re going to buy out one day. And you never know when you’re going to need to sell, so set a long-term goal toward building a sellable business driven on renewable income streams.

Buying a great property management business and bringing it into your own helps you get to that next scalable commercial size more quickly. You’ll have more property managers who can then split portfolios based on geography and functionality, and the way you do the work will also change. Once daily property management revenue meets cash flow requirements, sales will happen naturally. That annuity income will get you through bad markets as well as good, establishing your business as profitable and thus sellable.

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

Ep 83 — The Power of Routine

This High Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents features Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips on the power of routine and how it affects an agent’s fees and success. Alexander  explains how following a routine helps you stay fresh, balanced and structured. Josh points out the importance of focusing on making decisions that are important and simplifying everything else through routine. Alexander describes prospecting and training routines new agents can really benefit from.

They discuss the necessity of building recovery into your routines, knowing when to be flexible, working smarter and always being “on.” Josh suggests identifying opportunity gaps and challenging the routine you have in place if it’s not working for you.

Ep 82 — Marketing in the Modern Age

In this High Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips cover marketing and what it looks like in the modern age. They discuss direct mail, how to use it, and where it is still relevant in a campaign. Josh details how additional mediums support your phone calls from awareness to conversion. Alexander tells how most agents stick with a pattern or copy each other rather than thinking about what their customer will benefit from.

They talk about agent marketing vs. property marketing, brand experience, consistent and professional presentation, and preparing marketing campaigns now for 2017. Alexander projects on changes in the market next year, and Josh notes ways to prepare for the first quarter.

The Role of Planning

To be that great real estate agent who is refreshed and energetic in front of the client you need something to look forward to every four to six weeks. In my Coaching Tip today I’ll explain the role of planning in making sure you’ve got your business covered so you can take some time off when the time is right.

You can live out of season inside of your business if you understand what’s important and what’s not. That takes planning and most people don’t do it. You can avoid getting yourself into situations and not knowing what to do to get out by looking ahead up to 180 days from now. For example, there are only seven auction Saturdays in the first quarter of 2017. Then April will be a busy month with three 4-day work weeks. If you plan ahead and set things up right you can actually take a few days off around those holidays without missing any real business opportunities.

It’s all about learning when to take leave and when not to. I’ve found the best times are December 10th through January 5th, two weeks around Easter, and maybe a week between June and August. Once you hit August it’s a big run through to November. The key is to plan for those seasons well ahead of the curve and make sure you hit your targets, because if you don’t finish that business then you can’t take the time you need to refresh and prepare for the next run.

So the role of planning is to help you make better decisions about how you use and regenerate your energy so you can be a great agent and a great person, have a satisfying life, and stay clear about what success looks like for you.

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

The Culture in Your Office

Your role as a great leader is to pull people up, but too often we actually pull them down. In this month’s Growth, Leadership and Management tip I want to talk with you about the culture in your office and how you can ensure that it’s about improvement and progress.

You want to build an organisation of collaboration based on a culture of learning. The key is to teach systems and train on skillsets. Those can be broken down into forms for operations such as booking a market appraisal, qualifying a buyer, or taking hold of bids at an auction. The goal is to put together essential information in the right order so nothing gets missed.

Using checklists supports your system by teaching basic processes such as running an open home. A checklist for that would step an agent or assistant through putting out the board and flag, opening the home, playing the music, having the contract and brochures available, and taking visitors’ details at the front door. The best way to write those checklists is to develop them as you make mistakes to make sure those mistakes won’t happen more than once.

Understand that your systems and checklists only work if you’re using them yourself. If you don’t follow them or take them seriously, neither will your team. It’s your role to set the culture in your office you want others to follow and deliver on your own expectations, because your people will do as you do, not as you say.

This includes learning new skillsets. Just having a new hire follow an established agent isn’t enough. There has to be specific training around those skills and a desire on the part of the trainee to learn them. That desire often comes from a failure that prompts a decision to get better. Your part is to encourage that decision and offer appropriate feedback in a supportive manner.

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

Ep 81 — Building your Pipeline

This High Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents features Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips on building your pipeline. Building relationships is key and Alexander describes what he talks about with people in his pipeline and how he stays relevant. Josh notes that some agents don’t really know how to stay active with their database, and Alexander suggests ways to keep it functional and stay active with clients. He then tells how he performs database searches.

Josh notes ways agents procrastinate and fail to use the information they have, and Alexander tells how to keep calling criteria broad and call as many people as possible. Josh states the need for clarity, purpose and value to the customer, and both offer tips for accomplishing that.

3 Steps to Building a Great Business

There are 3 steps to building a great business and my Coaching Tip today is all about taking those steps to build, work and convert. It all begins with building your database and getting as many people into it as possible. That’s Step 1.

You can build your database with cold calling, door knocking, or other conventional ways. But the smart way to do it is by working with the people you already know. Your estate agency has lists of property inquiries, visitors to opens, and past clients that other agents aren’t contacting. I’ll also tell you how one of my clients created an opportunity to generate new contacts. The key is to get in front of those people and start building your database from there.

As soon as you have contacts in your database you can start Step 2, which is working it. Most agents don’t have a process for it, but I’m giving you one here: Every time you list a new property, search your database for all the people you know in that area and ring them up to invite them to the open for inspection. But don’t stop there, send them a reminder in the mail with a brochure to get them thinking about the value of their own home. Next, send them an SMS just before the Saturday open for inspection.

At this point you’ve begun Step 3 in building a relationship, so when they show up at the open home make sure you have that first real conversation and then follow through on it. Call them after the home sells to inform them of the price and offer them an appraisal of their own property. Then mail them a summary report of the complete sale campaign results. This process of the 3 steps to building a great business is what it takes to establish that depth of relationship with your client, and to build and work a database that converts.

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

Ep 80 — Helping New Agents Build Solid Careers

In this High Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips talk about helping new agents build solid careers. Alexander details how he helps new hires rise in his agency and build a great database. Josh mentions deal support and Alexander tells how he answers those questions. They discuss recognising stages of an agent’s progress and coaching them on the long game, build relationships, and avoid taking shortcuts.

Alexander talks about building listing skills and confidence through practice, role playing, experiencing various scenarios, and going out into the field. Josh advises agents to get clear on skills they need to improve and work on those. They end with emphasis on mentorship throughout your career.