How Many Years Experience Do You Bring To Your Business?

When I was hiring and managing new home sales people for builders, one of the questions I would ask in interviews was, "How many years of experience have you in the business?" After they answered, my next questions were, "Is that "X" years or one year of experience, repeated "X" times? What books have you read? What training have you taken recently? When was the last  seminar or training you attended? What did you learn? What have you adjusted or changed in your daily practice from that training? What have been the results? Have you measured them?"  Most looked at me like deer caught in headlights, indicating one year of experience repeated however many years they were in the business.

 When reading the book "Talent Is Overrated," by Senior Editor to Fortune Magazine Geoff Colvin, it is one of those paradigm-busting books that will expand your view of the world, if you will allow it to challenge your belief systems. The premise is that most of us explain away the superstars in any endeavor as "gifted or naturally talented," innately knowing we could never replicate their success without that gift. I thought about writing this blog on his conclusions, but chose instead not to rob you of the opportunity to read it and challenge your own thinking because of his. He speaks of what actually makes the difference is deliberate practice. The so-called superstars never stop trying to improve in different aspects of their craft through designed, deliberate, and focused practice.

 He spoke of something that has long been understood in learning anything new; I know I've taught it for years. That is, the idea when you first try to learn something new, You start as Unconsciously Incompetent. Do you remember your first time trying to drive? You had watched others do it for years and it looked easy; you didn't know what you didn't know. When you actually tried, you quickly realized you didn't know how, so you moved to the level of Consciously Incompetent. You were then aware of what you didn't know and were open to learn. You soon became Consciously Competent, where you could do it as long as you thought about what you were doing. However, it wasn't long before you became Unconsciously Competent, where you could drive on autopilot. That is how almost all learning experiences go: Unconsciously Incompetent - Consciously Incompetent - Consciously Competent - Unconsciously Competent. Once we reach that level, we quit growing. After we get through our first year in our business lives, we may learn things occasionally as new experiences happen to us, but we no longer see real sustained growth.  The superstars learn how to remain Consciously Competent in their practice and stay engaged in learning even finer points.

 This book, fits perfectly with the ideas that Malcom Gladwell writes of in his books "The Outliers," and "David and Goliath." They remind me of mental building blocks. I recommend you experience them all to let your own mind wander to the possibilities.  There is a movie called "Vantage Point" that shows us this thought. The movie is about an assassination attempt and the director shows us the event over and over again from several characters' vantage points, showing how differently the perspectives are. Same event, very different perspectives, just like these books, looking at the same core truths from very different views.

 How many years of experience have you? What are you doing to challenge that and take ownership of your continued growth?

The Call Of The Leader, Is It Calling You?

What does it mean to lead? 

 When put into a leadership position, far too many people immediately think it means special privileges. They seek out to take advantage of the the additional benefits of a title. This is not leadership; leadership is about putting your people first. It is about taking on more responsibilities and holding yourself to a higher standard. Leaders feel the weight of responsibility for those they lead. The decisions they make and the actions they take will directly affect the people under their lead, in more ways than one. Be prepared for some long nights, carrying those families on your shoulders as you pace the floor. One of the greatest leaders I have had always spoke of how he ate a lot of crow, because it paid well. He would always take the blame in any misunderstanding with one of his people, so they could quickly get the issue behind them and work on moving forward. He also made it very clear that while you often try to find solutions to situations that were win-win for you and your team, if ever it came down to only you or your team could win, make sure that you got the win for your team. 

 Sometimes being a leader is the loneliest place on the planet. Sometimes you have to fight battles that your team will never even know we're happening. One of my mentors had a battle that he took upon his shoulders and never let his people know what he was facing. Only his wife and family and a select few of his most inside circle ever knew. The company in which he had built a worldwide distribution business wanted to go public. Their attorney said that they needed to break the exclusive contract they had with their distributor franchises, and he was their test case. They quit paying him and withheld his contracted commissions and bonuses. He fought them in court, kept paying his people, and kept helping his organization build their businesses without knowing the burden he faced. He never told anyone, but he sold his house, his jet, his vacation home, and more. In the end he won. The company that tried to break him eventually apologized. They even thanked him for saving them from potentially ruining the business. That is one of the calls of leadership.

 You may or may not, be so challenged, but understanding the consequences of taking on the responsibility of leadership might help you be prepared just in case.

There are five levels of leadership, each have a different relationship with those you lead.

1. Position: This level is by appointment, by title. This is the lowest level of leadership. This would include most people who carry the term manager in any field. In this level, your people follow you because they have to. They follow you because their position says they have to. Here is the lowest commitment to follow, they will follow you as long as they can see you. They follow you just as far as they are required to in order to keep their jobs.

2. Permission: At this level people follow you because they like you. They like working with you, they enjoy the relationship, and they trust you. This is the first level of earned leadership. I might even go so far as to say this is the true first level of leadership, because this honor had to be earned. It will begin opening doors to growth.

3. Production: Now your people are starting to see results, starting to see the benefits of following your lead. They now follow you because they are seeing the results of your leadership in the organization, but, more importantly, in their own work and lives.

4. People Development: At this level your people follow you because of what you have done for them and the growth they see in themselves. This is the level of reproduction, where you are replacing yourself by developing leaders around you. Here, you are starting to see your people hitting some of the growth that they may have first not seen in themselves. They are reaching the goals and dreams you helped them to set and achieve.

5. Pinnacle: This level is a rarity that few rise to. It is where your people follow you because of how much they respect you. They follow you because of who you are and what you represent. This level will have many Level Four leaders following them. A great example would be the late Dean Smith. The NBA and NCAA is full of top-level coaches who played and coached under Smith's leadership. What you might not know is every year all of them would meet with Coach Smith at a weekend retreat to council and refine their thoughts; none of them would take a job or make other major decisions without bouncing it off Coach Smith. They were the top minds in their industry, but they held so much respect for their coach, they wanted to know his thoughts..

If you choose to follow the call of leadership, there is something you should keep top of mind. In any growing organization no matter what level of leadership you have earned, even if you are at that lofty level five, you will always have people who you must earn their trust and respect. This never changes. It would be a huge mistake to try to relate to someone brand new to your team as a level five when they still are trying to figure out if they really like you, can trust you, will see results, or advance their own careers under your leadership.

 If you should so choose this call, there is nothing like seeing people's lives change. To help them see themselves as more than they would have, or could have alone.

Are You Working Your Business Or Are You Chasing Your Dream?

This last weekend was my 40th Class Reunion for Noblesville High School Class of 1975. It was good seeing those who came, fun to reminisce  and catch up. A lot of the faces were difficult to place, we don't look much like the 18 year olds who parted so many years ago. However, the biggest take-away I got from this event was the words of one of my long-time mentors ringing in my ears: 

 "Are you working your business, or are you chasing your dream?" 

 In most of the conversations, the topic was how many years they had left before they retired. Many were looking forward to being retired in 4 more years at 62, some earlier with government jobs. There were even two in the Real Estate business who were on the countdown. One actually said, she couldn't wait to retire because she hates "her job." My first thought was, if you think your real estate business is a job, your working in the wrong office culture.

 It seemed like such a foreign thought for me hearing them all talk. They sounded so old, coveting the end of their working lives. I feel like I am really just getting started. I cannot wait to get up and at it each day, and cannot imagine not being in the hunt. Just the other day I was asked my plan for how long I'll stay in the game. My answer - as long as my health allows, then until they nail the lid down. If you love what you are doing, why would you want to quit doing it?

 My personal goals and visions have changed over the years, from sustenance to significance. The Mission Statement that I have long lived by is "Have Fun, Make Money, and Make a Difference." I believe if you focus on Having Fun and Making a Difference, Making Money will take care of itself. 

Right now my passion is changing people's lives for the better, helping them achieve more: more money, more control, more time for their families and things they love to do, and most importantly, more passion for what they do with their days and lives. It's about helping one agent at a time, one family at a time, until the entire industry has to shift to change the lives of thousands. 

 When Jimmy Dulin took me to lunch and shared his dream in 2010, I knew that it was what I wanted to do with my life. I haven't worked a day since, I have been chasing a dream from eyes opening to eyes closing every day. 

 The question you should be asking yourself is that same one my mentor taught me to ask, 

"Are you working your business, or are you chasing your dream?" 

 The first is a hamster wheel, where you count the days for the weekend or retirement; the latter is magic. Find your magic if you haven't already! 

There Is A Ticking Time Bomb In Real Estate, Are You Prepared?

The real estate industry is closing fast on an issue that at yet seems to have no real answer. 

The big talk in the industry is selling to the Millennial and/or recruiting the Millennial. Something that should be considered is, what are we going to do about filling the shoes of the Boomers as they retire?

 The average REALTOR today is a 56 year old female. That topic has been discussed for some time, however the average age of the Managing Brokers and Broker Owners is closer to that 65/67 retirement age. The same can be said of the leadership with most MLS's. Part of this is just a result of the birth numbers coming back to bite us. 

 The Baby Boomers were the largest population for decades. What they did drove the market for the last 50-60 years with their 78 million members. The Generation X that followed only had around 50 million, so by sheer numbers didn't make as big of market impact. Now we have the Generation Y or Millennials with their 78 million and off we go again. What we are now finding is that there are 10,000 Boomers turning 65 every single day. 

 The challenge becomes - what are broker companies doing to prepare for this shift? The real estate industry has always been highly fragmented with the vast majority of brokerages, associations, and MLS's being small organizations. We know that from NAR's 2014 Profile of Real Estate firms that 81% of brokerages have only one office and another 12 have two or three. That means that 93% of real estate brokerages are small companies. 

 With real estate, one of the biggest struggles is that companies are simply too small to have a leadership team in the first place. From the Council of Real Estate Brokerage Managers (CRB) membership data, we learn that 54% of the brokerage managers manage fewer than 50 agents and 41% fewer than 25.  This means that most brokerages are simply too small to have a deep pool of leadership talent. When we lose the paper-thin level of quality leadership we have at the top, we have a real issue. 

 When we look at the experience of the management we find that 59.6% have over 15 years of experience as Broker Managers. Since we have a high starting age, that means we have a very high average leadership age. Remember that most of these companies have only been led by the founder. When those individuals retire, what happens to those operations?

 There is no greater moment of risk to a company than when it has to change its leader.  Especially if the departing leader is a charismatic, driven entrepreneur, like the ones we tend to find in the real estate industry. How the organization deals and prepares for this change will then make or break them for years and years to come. 

 The loss of leadership and maybe just as important, the loss of relationships that were developed over those years, will need to be addressed. These leaders, who make thousands of decisions each and every day that affect the whole of the industry are getting older as a group. As they retire it will leave a huge leadership vacuum. Therefore one of the most urgent issues for C-level leaders and those responsible for organizational strategy is to set up a clear plan of succession and begin grooming the leaders of tomorrow, today. If not, many companies will face a longtime leader riding off into the sunset without leaving a sheriff behind. 

 This is one of the reasons we at RE/MAX Ability Plus believe that so many Broker/Owners of Independent firms, as well as with brands, are hiring us to take over that back end support of their companies. This allows them to go sell, thus taking the stress of managing their companies off their shoulders, as well as the worries of what to do next. 

Have You Tried Using Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook In Your Follow Up?

When you reach out to your database, what do you do? Do you repeatedly send emails, texts, and calls telling them why they should do business with you? Is each contact a sales call of some sort? Does your drip campaign continually ask or sell? How is that really working for you?

Have you ever heard of Gary Vaynerchuck and his book "Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook?" Vaynerchuck's claim to fame was taking his father's little liquor store into a national wine selling powerhouse through his dynamic use of marketing. His theory is that most sales and marketing professionals continue to sell with each touch to their database and it’s a turn-off those who get these "commercials." He suggests that you “Jab," or send out messages of value that have no call to action, no sales wording, in most of your correspondence. This turns your message a welcome touch. Then after, and only after, you have been serving them with value have you earned the right to throw that "Right Hook” - that call to action, that sales request. 

Yesterday I had some eye opening results. The last eight touches I have sent out, through whatever medium, were “Jabs”. I offered something that could help the recipient in his/her business, or a free party they could attend as my guest. Then yesterday, I had a couple hours where I could focus on my address book, so I contacted several on my database with a quick text to meet. During that two-hour time frame, there were five confirmed appointments made! Additionally, I had six more who are working on dates and times, and two more who asked me to get back after a certain date or event. Some of these contacts are people who have not responded to anything in more than two years. 

If you are not using the giving approach, truly giving more than you’re asking, you might want to seriously consider it. It is the ultimate win-win. 

The Three C's Change Everything

Who wants to be a "C" company? Do you have a plan to accomplish it? Michael Dell, of Dell Computers and Tony Hsieh, of Zappos.com both discuss the keys to their businesses are their three C's.

In 1999 Michael Dell spoke at the Detroit Economic Club about building a competitive advantage in an Internet economy. This was only four years since the consumer had access to dial up Internet service, so he at the time was one of the top experts with Dell Computers. He taught that there were three critical C's to building a business in the Internet age: Content, Commerce, and Community.

Content -         Needed to be compelling content, what people wanted.

Commerce -    All transactions involved, order status, simplicity of delivery.

Community -  Building a relationship with company, consumers, and providers. 

In a nutshell, Content meant that you had the products or services that people wanted to buy. Commerce meant that your systems were user friendly and your processes created a positive experience. Community was the trickiest part. In fact, in that speech Dell said no one had it figured out. The key to Community in a brick and mortar world was geographic location. Your consumer community was those places that were on the roads between your work and home, between your home and your kids' schools, and between your home and your church. Likely your grocery store, hair stylist, drugstore and more are on one of those roads. You move or change jobs your consumer community changes. 

 In the Internet-Commerce world everyone is next door, so the community has to be created by experience. If a clerk at the grocery closest to you makes you mad, you vow never to go back. And you'll keep that vow - until you need groceries next week. However, if you go online and you burn a bridge, it remains burned. As agents, how consumer-friendly are our online presences? Can we give a wow experience?

 In 2013 Tony Hsieh spoke of the three C's of Zappos.com and their company's culture. Those three "C's" are Collisions, Community and Co-Learning. 

Collisions - Are those serendipitous "bumping into" meetings. They strive to maximize the serendipitous interactions and have taken steps to help facilitate those collisions: all of their employees go in and out the front door; they have food and drinks available during working hours, but on different floors; company parties; and events are all used to encourage more collisions. 

Community - Is the ongoing interaction created by those collisions.  Culture to a company is the same as Community is to a city. Community is where Collaboration takes place. It is where those who work together and those whose work brings them into collisions from auxiliary industries come together to create fresh perspectives and possible solutions. 

Co-Learning - This is the result of the Collaboration of the Community where, organically, the members of the Community teach and learn from each other. It is not top-down directed, while it may take the form of a classroom setting. More likely than not, it is going to be organic and quick. Simply one person showing another something that the other wants to know. Then, the one learning shows what they learned to another, spreading information informally and almost virally. 

The ingredients for Serendipity are to put people together in a vibrant, populated environment created for those Collisions. There must be a culture of openness, collaboration, creativity, and optimism.

To maximize the serendipitous interaction you need a density of population in the office or community. Always prioritize collisions over convenience, and create a space that attracts different groups of people to collide. 

 In 2014 there was a group of us who went through the Zappos and Tony Hsieh's Downtown Project in Las Vegas and saw the "Three C's" in action. What most amazed us was that those three C's are exactly what the culture is at our RE/MAX Ability Plus. We hadn't named them before but the idea of Collisions is exactly what our Café-dominated offices are for. With our working patios and our events, we created Collisions with more than 20,000 people last year alone. The design of our offices and the culture of sharing and openness creates that Community of Collaboration that fosters that ongoing Co-Learning. That was the most exciting part of the trip: to finally label our day-to-day world in such a way we can focus on increasing those mutually beneficial Three C's. 

Tony Hsieh says that one of their goals in his Downtown Project is to create a Three “C’s” climate that fosters when you visit that part of Las Vegas you come away smarter. I believe that at RE/MAX Ability Plus that same goal exists, no matter if you are one of our agents, a visiting agent, or any partner from the overall industry, you too will come away smarter from the experience. 

A great brand or company is a story that never stops unfolding.

One Agent Has The Most Experience, The Other Agent Is The Quickest Learner, Who Wins Long-Term?

Which is better in today's world: being the expert or the quickest to adapt? For years we knew that answer. We sought out to be the leading expert in our field, assuring ourselves of great success. Is that still the answer? We now live in a world where change is happening at an ever-increasing speed, and while principles never changes, practices do. We still need to do the same things, but we are doing them in constantly changing ways. 

 Let's take a quick look at economic history to see the changing landscapes. For centuries we defined the time by which technology dominated. We have had the "Stone Age," the "Bronze Age," the "Iron Age," and more. In those times, change happened so slowly. People were born, lived and died all under the same age. Things have sped up, as you may have noticed.

 Here is some local economic history from not so very long ago. In 1930 there were 30 million American farmers who were barely able to produce enough food to feed the American people. By 1980 there were only 3 million American farmers who were producing so much food that the government paid them to not farm all their land. This happened over a fifty year time frame, allowing a great deal of the farmers to get old, retire, or die off, while most of their kids had to look for work in the cities, many at factories. Also in 1980, there were 250,000 people in the Mid-West  making carburetors. By 1985 virtually no one was doing so, because the technology had changed and all cars were using fuel injectors made elsewhere. Many of them went to work in Indiana and Ohio pressing vinyl records. In fact, by 1985 there were 250,000 doing so. The greatest number of vinyl records were made and sold in 1989. Bad news just one year later. Virtually none were being made in 1990 as Compact Disc technology took over, putting all those people out of work. 

 These jobs didn't disappear because of politics, they didn't disappear because of recessions. They disappeared because of new technology - a new technology that made them obsolete. Our times require a very different approach than before. Change happens faster and faster the more connected we are as a society; the faster information is exchanged, the faster things change. Entire industries come and go almost overnight. I recall interviewing a fellow for a job once, and I wanted to meet him at his home to get a better understanding of him. I noticed his house on Geist was for sale as was his Mercedes in his driveway. He started to complain about the economy under George H.W. Bush. It seems he was national sales manager for his tech company that tested microchips, and it was failing. He had once had 100 sales people reporting to him, but now only three. His income followed that trajectory. I asked if they were making less machines, and his answer was, “No, but where a circuit board used to have 10 microchips now they might have one, and that one self–tested." He was looking for a job with competitors and not having any luck. But he was so close to the forest, he couldn't see the trees. He was likely in the very best "buggy whip" manufacturer in his industry. His industry was gone. 

 What is required today is not to be the most experienced or the most knowledgeable, but to understand where and what to learn and to stay cutting edge. When I was hiring sales people for a builder, one of my favorite questions was, "How many years experience have you?" Then I would ask, "What have you learned new this year?" Most only really had one year's experience repeated by the years they had worked, but didn't continue to push themselves to learn. 

 Learn to learn, make it a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly practice. The day you say you know it all, or even think you do, is the day your career starts to die.