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.

Is There Something Lurking Hidden That Is Killing Your Goals?

There is one factor, one culprit, that destroys more goals than any other, and it is one that is talked about the least. This one thing can work for you and create a dividend that amplifies and even multiplies your efforts. Or it can create a tax that slows down or even derails your plans. That one factor is TRUST. Most people do not reach their goals because they don't trust themselves. Is that you?

 Trust either brings dividends or taxes everything we do, depending upon whether we are in a high trust or low trust environment. Trust actually is five-faceted; you have Self-Trust, Relationship Trust, Organizational Trust, Market Trust and Societal Trust. Each one is important in your business and life. However, today we are going to focus on Self-Trust. 

 Self-Trust manifests itself in your life every time you set a goal or commitment. You set a goal and your subconscious mind says, "You're a liar, you will not." It has heard too many times before when you set a goal and didn't follow through. It likely is because you didn't really know how to set a goal, so you were just winging it. Then, when things weren’t going well you gave up. Each time, you were conditioning yourself to not believe in you, and that is a tax that impacts everything you do from there. This is ultimately why many of us simply give up on setting goals. Here is a link from an earlier blog post to help you know how to set a goal that you can achieve. How to set effective goals 

 Self-Trust is an account that you can damage in so many ways, each having a downward impact on how you view yourself. Cheating, stealing, being unfaithful, not following through on commitments, not following through on promises, or deadlines, or goals all create in you a lack of trust or respect for yourself. Where most people miss, the point here is the damage is made worse if you don't get caught. The reality is, you never get away with it. Because you know, and it has a direct impact on how you view yourself. 

In my own sales career with thousands of sales transactions there were two that haunted me for years, because I didn't respect my actions in either. In the past, when I’ve told the stories, I have had many people tell me that what I did wasn't wrong, but in my heart it was, so the damage was real. 

The first one was in 1982. I was selling Cadillacs at Lockhart Cadillac. At that time, the average commission on a brand new Cadillac there was $200. They had a used Eldorado that had been languishing on the lot for a year and they wanted to move it so they put a minimum commission of $500 on it. Everyone I met got a chance to see it; it was good looking, a deep midnight, metallic blue with white top and leather interior. But, it was one of those early diesels that were unpopular for a good reason. Finally, I had someone who really liked it. While we were looking at it with the hood up, he asked, "Has this ever been wrecked?" I had never been told whether it had been or not, but looking at it with him I saw paint overspray under the hood, which is a clue that it might have been. I simply answered, "Not to my knowledge." Technically, that was accurate, but I had suspicions. To me that was a lie. He bought the car, I felt bad about it for years. 

In the second instance, I was selling new homes in Lighthouse Cove in the Geist area. I had just taken the position to see if I could turn the community around. It had been for sale for more than a year without its first sale and we desperately needed to get a new home under construction to start to build momentum. I had a client come in who had just moved to Indy from Connecticut where she had taken a very exciting ride on the inflation train on her condo. She had tripled her money on it. She wanted to pay cash for a new home and she picked one out that was so much larger than her previous condo. She was overwhelmed with what she was going to do with all the space! The garage itself was bigger than her old condo, and this was only going to cost half what she sold the previous condo for? What I beat myself up over was, I knew that if she didn't spend the same or more for another house she would have capital gain tax on her inflation gain. I have no idea if she knew that or not, I simply didn't bring it up. To me, that omission was a lie. Again I beat myself up for years. 

 If you have things that pull down your self-trust, you can overcome it. You can act your way out of it. When setting goals, set goals that are activity goals that stretch you a bit, but not so far that you won't achieve them. If you are not good at making prospecting calls, I would much rather you set a goal to make one a day and always achieve it, than to set one for 10/day and only reach 5/day. Each day you do what you said you would, you gain respect and trust in yourself. You can always stretch them as you grow. Be very careful about making a promise or a commitment to yourself (or anyone, for that matter). Don't ever make them lightly; only do so if you are absolutely certain that you will make them happen. Don't jump on a bandwagon or join something if you are not personally committed to really making it happen. Don’t set yourself up for withdrawals in your beliefs and confidence.

 Take it as baby steps. Keep one commitment at a time. Have a commitment every day or week that you know you can make happen - then make it happen! The perception you have of yourself will soar and then the sky really is the limit to what you can do and believe you can do.