If you were asked to choose a mascot for the real estate industry, what would you choose? If I was asked, I believe I would have to choose the Ostrich, specifically the image of it's head buried in the sand. The entirety of the real estate industry is under siege and all of our trade associations are silent, our big brands are talking about what cool technology they have, brokers are worried about turf wars, and agents seem oblivious to what is going on.
What is going on? Wall Street is pumping billions into big tech and data companies who are targeting the commissions that brokers and agents make their livings. One of their newest weapons is the iBuyer programs where they will be able to control the market by controlling the listings. They want to either buy the listings, or if not, identify who wants to sell then sell that lead to "preferred" agents at 35% today and an every escalating percentage as they get agents hooked on the model.
The new CEO of Zillow has openly admitted that his goal is to tighten down his Zestimate model to go from the absurd numbers they are known for, to their actual offer to buy anyone's home. Their goal is that you go to your house Zestimate and then you can click and they will buy your home then and there. Zillow is only one of the many sharks in the water of iBuyer. If agents understand this threat they don't participate in the online chats and threads about it, from there it is amazing how little is understood in our industry. Of course, if agents are depending upon NAR or their local boards to explain it, no wonder they have no idea what is going on. From what I have seen agents dismiss this out of hand. However, the big players like Realtor.com partnered with opCity, Redfin just partnered with Open Door to try to combat it. So, those most tuned into the big data are most engaged in what they see happening.
Maybe the trade associations and big brands are all mute because of the ongoing lawsuits against our cooperative agreements with NAR. Maybe their attorneys have told them to stay quiet, but this is a poor time to be silent, it is a time to "go to the mattresses." We are in a war if we realize it or not. Now the Department of Justice is also involved looking into the NAR agreements as well. If you don't think it is having an impact look at what it has done to REALOGY's stock. REALOGY is the largest real estate company in the world, they own Coldwell Banker, Century 21, ERA, Sotheby's and Better Homes and Gardens, and as of last week you could buy a share of their stock for the same price as a drink at Starbucks for 5.75 per share, 70% lower than last year.
Okay, those may be the problems, what are the solutions for an agent that doesn't have billions to invest to fight Wall Street? The answer is vitamin "C." At the Detroit Economic Club in 1999, Michael Dell, spoke on the Three "C's" of E-Commerce. Those three "C's" are just as relevant today as they were in the infancy of the Internet. Those three C's are what is required for a successful business model.
First "C" is Commerce - You must have a business that has products or services that people want, are willing to pay for, and are willing to pay the price you need to sell.
Second "C" is Content - You must have a client user friendly process, where it is a pleasure to do business with you, not inconvenient or a hassle but an experience that they enjoy, will be willing to do again and to recommend to others.
Those two are required for ANY business.
Third "C" is Community - This is the one that Dell said NO ONE on the Internet has figured out, I would now say other than Social Media. The key to Community is that once you attract a client from where ever, how do you continue to engage and stay top of mind. How do you get through the noise. It is 500% less expensive to maintain a client relationship than to acquire a new one.
As an industry we have allowed this attack on us by allowing our practices to become transactional. We, as an industry, spend 94% of our marketing budgets in lead acquisition, then once transaction is over move on to the next one. This makes us vulnerable to the big data giants taking away our businesses. Also as an industry we mistakenly believed that our only value was our data and guarded it from the consumer, that breech of understanding is the very thing that allowed Zillow and others to move in between us and our own clients. However, all we have to do to inoculate ourselves from that is focus on Community.
We need to make ourselves THEIR Trusted Advisor, their Go To Expert, Their Advocate that they wouldn't think to go without. How do we do this? First we have to have systems in place that guarantee that we provide a great experience with our Commerce and Content phase. Then we need to be accessible and experience based not only throughout the process of their transaction, but from then on. We need to be engaged with them forever. They need to hear from us through a multimedia approach at least 33 times per year forever. The big Data will not be able to compete with this, they can do automated drips, which we will also use, but they won't talk to them on the phone, take them for coffee, invite them to client appreciation events. Doing this approach means you have to offload a lot of what you are doing today. If it is not talking to a client or negotiating for a client, it should be someone else doing it. In other words, you need systems that keep you out of day to day activities and free you up for high priority, low urgency, business development.
If this sounds good, but you have no idea how to get there, let me know. We have developed systems that you can plug into that will take care of 60-70% of your touches and all of your high urgency transactional activities. This way you will have your Vitamin "C" to ward off any sort of Zillow infection for your business.
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Monday, April 8, 2019
The More High Tech The More We Need High Touch.
Have you ever asked yourself, what is going to happen to real estate? With all the Big Data, Deep Discounters, Wall Street IPO's, Zillows, and more, it feels like Dorothy must have with the Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my! What must we do to compete with the billions being thrown at the relationship between us and future buyers and sellers?
Let's look backward to get a better view of forward. Remember, practices always continue to change, but principles never do. Let me tell you my own, most terrifying moment. I had about half of my income coming from selling new homes and half from a distributorship for a large marketing company. On Tuesday morning one week in early 1999, I attended our builder's sales meeting where they said the entire company was going on computer, there would be no paperwork everything would be done on the computer and online. This terrified me, I had never touched a computer before, I had heard they blew up, and that didn't sound good. Anything with a keyboard intimidated me, because I only passed typing in school because my coach was my teacher. I then figured, okay, I will just focus on my marketing company, until that next Saturday, when I went to a convention where they announced they were going 100% online! I honestly wondered if the world had passed me by, if I was going to live in a cardboard box somewhere. It was the most terrifying week of my entire life and career. Have you ever felt like you were being run over by change?
My response, once I was able to breath again, was I have to learn this stuff. I bought a "WebTV" set up and learned how to navigate the "World Wide Web." Keep in mind, this was only three years after the Internet was accessible to the general public. This was a brand new world. Once I gained confidence, because I learned I could learn it, it was something that I dove deep into. That one week, after shaking off the initial terror, I knew one thing for sure. I NEVER wanted to feel that way again, it was my Scarlett O'Hara moment, "As God as my witness, I will never be hungry again!"
There is some wisdom from the past we can all learn from today, the principles haven't changed. In 1982, John Naisbitt wrote the book "Mega Trends" this was the very dawning of the information age. His central point is just as relevant today as then, actually much more so. That is "The more the world goes High Tech, the more you need to become High Touch."
In 1999, one of the early leaders of Internet business modeling was Michael Dell, of Dell Computers. He spoke at the Detroit Economics Club about building a competitive advantage in an Internet economy. He taught about the critical C's to building a sustainable business in the Internet age.
Those three C's are Content, Commerce and Community.
Content - A product or service that people want and are willing to buy at a price that they will pay.
Commerce - Ease of ordering, ease of transactional activities. No drama.
Community - Building a relationship with company, consumers and providers.
Dell, lamented that he, and at the time, no one had figured out Community. That he would spend millions driving people to his website to buy a Dell Computer, but then when they needed another one, he had to spend that money all over again that there wasn't an ongoing relationship to capture them before they shopped around. In the brick and mortar world, our community was not only around where we lived, but on the roads to and from our house to work and to the kids schools and church. Almost every where we shopped was on one of those paths. If we took a new job, kids changed schools, we changed out shopping community. We may have gotten mad at a clerk at the grocery and vowed to never go back, and we wouldn't at least until the next week. Because it was on the way. Now, every website is already on the way. So we have to find ways to create a community that has stickiness. How?
Can we compete with the multi-billion dollar companies that are trying to get in front of and in between you and them by outspending them? By out advertising to the over all markets? Highly unlikely. However, we can go back to John Naisbitt's advice and raise the High Touch level to counter their High Tech. We need to create a consistent WOW Experience for our clients, one that they will refer to others as well as never consider going with strangers that some Big Data company sells their name to. How do you do that? Being consistently top of mind when not actively working with them, that they hear from you, through a consistent multi-media approach at least 33 times per year. Those would include at least a couple invitations to client appreciation events hopefully for some face to face time. How are you going to do all that and work with your active clients? Work 24 instead of 18 hours a day? No, you can't do it if you are trying to do all the work involved, not possible. That is why we as an industry have fallen prey to these companies, we got too busy for our clients.
I realized a lesson from my own experience. I had a bank account with the same company since I was six years old. The bank's name changed from American National to Society, to Key and I stayed. I owned businesses for years and new the branch managers, the tellers and even was able to call the president if I needed something. I was loyal to the relationships. Then we realized at one point we didn't go in as often, and every time we did we had to show our identification to do anything because no one there knew us and we didn't know them. So we decided that if we don't have any relationships there, we should go to one of the big banks who has more bells and whistles. So if we aren't known we might as well make things more convenient. Your clients will make the same choice if you allow them to be disconnected. They lost my community.
If you are still doing all your own transaction management, that is taking your time and squandering it at lower dollar value which takes away from the time you can be doing real business development by staying top of mind with your clients during the process and after. If you don't have a solution contact me, I will be happy to walk you through what you can do to fix it. Let me also recommend that you read the book "The Experience Economy" to get ideas on how to truly separate yourself and your business and enjoy not worrying about what the disruptors are doing. We have a HUGE advantage over all the Zillow's and Big Data companies, but we have to exploit it, that is to be the ones who focus on the Community with our past clients, sphere and database. We must be that Trusted Advisor that is top of mind for your help with real estate. In our firm, we have several tier levels of automated multimedia marketing touches to cover 20-25 of those 33 touches for you, so you can focus on the highest value ones yourself. Even better we offer multilevels of transaction coordination to take the low value work off your schedule so you have time to WOW your clients.
Let's look backward to get a better view of forward. Remember, practices always continue to change, but principles never do. Let me tell you my own, most terrifying moment. I had about half of my income coming from selling new homes and half from a distributorship for a large marketing company. On Tuesday morning one week in early 1999, I attended our builder's sales meeting where they said the entire company was going on computer, there would be no paperwork everything would be done on the computer and online. This terrified me, I had never touched a computer before, I had heard they blew up, and that didn't sound good. Anything with a keyboard intimidated me, because I only passed typing in school because my coach was my teacher. I then figured, okay, I will just focus on my marketing company, until that next Saturday, when I went to a convention where they announced they were going 100% online! I honestly wondered if the world had passed me by, if I was going to live in a cardboard box somewhere. It was the most terrifying week of my entire life and career. Have you ever felt like you were being run over by change?
My response, once I was able to breath again, was I have to learn this stuff. I bought a "WebTV" set up and learned how to navigate the "World Wide Web." Keep in mind, this was only three years after the Internet was accessible to the general public. This was a brand new world. Once I gained confidence, because I learned I could learn it, it was something that I dove deep into. That one week, after shaking off the initial terror, I knew one thing for sure. I NEVER wanted to feel that way again, it was my Scarlett O'Hara moment, "As God as my witness, I will never be hungry again!"
There is some wisdom from the past we can all learn from today, the principles haven't changed. In 1982, John Naisbitt wrote the book "Mega Trends" this was the very dawning of the information age. His central point is just as relevant today as then, actually much more so. That is "The more the world goes High Tech, the more you need to become High Touch."
In 1999, one of the early leaders of Internet business modeling was Michael Dell, of Dell Computers. He spoke at the Detroit Economics Club about building a competitive advantage in an Internet economy. He taught about the critical C's to building a sustainable business in the Internet age.
Those three C's are Content, Commerce and Community.
Content - A product or service that people want and are willing to buy at a price that they will pay.
Commerce - Ease of ordering, ease of transactional activities. No drama.
Community - Building a relationship with company, consumers and providers.
Dell, lamented that he, and at the time, no one had figured out Community. That he would spend millions driving people to his website to buy a Dell Computer, but then when they needed another one, he had to spend that money all over again that there wasn't an ongoing relationship to capture them before they shopped around. In the brick and mortar world, our community was not only around where we lived, but on the roads to and from our house to work and to the kids schools and church. Almost every where we shopped was on one of those paths. If we took a new job, kids changed schools, we changed out shopping community. We may have gotten mad at a clerk at the grocery and vowed to never go back, and we wouldn't at least until the next week. Because it was on the way. Now, every website is already on the way. So we have to find ways to create a community that has stickiness. How?
Can we compete with the multi-billion dollar companies that are trying to get in front of and in between you and them by outspending them? By out advertising to the over all markets? Highly unlikely. However, we can go back to John Naisbitt's advice and raise the High Touch level to counter their High Tech. We need to create a consistent WOW Experience for our clients, one that they will refer to others as well as never consider going with strangers that some Big Data company sells their name to. How do you do that? Being consistently top of mind when not actively working with them, that they hear from you, through a consistent multi-media approach at least 33 times per year. Those would include at least a couple invitations to client appreciation events hopefully for some face to face time. How are you going to do all that and work with your active clients? Work 24 instead of 18 hours a day? No, you can't do it if you are trying to do all the work involved, not possible. That is why we as an industry have fallen prey to these companies, we got too busy for our clients.
I realized a lesson from my own experience. I had a bank account with the same company since I was six years old. The bank's name changed from American National to Society, to Key and I stayed. I owned businesses for years and new the branch managers, the tellers and even was able to call the president if I needed something. I was loyal to the relationships. Then we realized at one point we didn't go in as often, and every time we did we had to show our identification to do anything because no one there knew us and we didn't know them. So we decided that if we don't have any relationships there, we should go to one of the big banks who has more bells and whistles. So if we aren't known we might as well make things more convenient. Your clients will make the same choice if you allow them to be disconnected. They lost my community.
If you are still doing all your own transaction management, that is taking your time and squandering it at lower dollar value which takes away from the time you can be doing real business development by staying top of mind with your clients during the process and after. If you don't have a solution contact me, I will be happy to walk you through what you can do to fix it. Let me also recommend that you read the book "The Experience Economy" to get ideas on how to truly separate yourself and your business and enjoy not worrying about what the disruptors are doing. We have a HUGE advantage over all the Zillow's and Big Data companies, but we have to exploit it, that is to be the ones who focus on the Community with our past clients, sphere and database. We must be that Trusted Advisor that is top of mind for your help with real estate. In our firm, we have several tier levels of automated multimedia marketing touches to cover 20-25 of those 33 touches for you, so you can focus on the highest value ones yourself. Even better we offer multilevels of transaction coordination to take the low value work off your schedule so you have time to WOW your clients.
Thursday, April 4, 2019
REALTORS, The Disruptors are at the Gates!
The Disruptors are at the gates, the industry is seeing more clamoring to get into the middle of the transaction than we have seen in many decades. We are watching Wall Street dump billions into the home selling sector. They are not doing that without the belief that they can take the lion's share of the commissions currently going to Brokerages and Agents.
When I mention disruptors to most agents, most seem to think that the "new cool kids" broker model is what I am speaking of, I am not. While those types of "disruptors" might be disruptive to brokerages for a period of time, but that has been going on for the entire time I have been in the industry and longer I am sure. These remind me of a big Ferris wheel, who's cool this year is old next. Every hot cycle also spawns a lot of new low fee brokerages to attract agents, they are popular while it's hot and disappear when it's not. Those are not the disruptors I am speaking of.
The disruptors I mean is the game changer big data companies, and even more so this potential lawsuit against NAR and the industry practises. Anyone who thinks this is nothing isn't paying attention to who is involved, and the argument they are making. I see no way that we won't have a big change coming in the next 3-5 years when it concludes.
We have allowed them space in the market, just as we did Zillow, by not focusing on client experience and believing that our value was simply our control of information and data. As an industry most gravitated to a transactional model and away from a consumer focused one. This allowed our services to become commoditized making it vulnerable to these outside threats.
I am doing a deep dive study in my family's ancestry and since I'm a history and economics nerd I'm seeing some real lessons we should pay attention to today. As I look back across the centuries in my family almost all were farmers. Each generation the oldest living son would take over the farm. This went on from the 1600's until my siblings and I were the very first generation that no one stayed on the farm. This was in the late 70's to 1980. My dad and I tried to keep it going but to create enough cash flow to support two families we had to increase revenue per acre. We tried to put in a confinement hog operation to do that but were shot down on zoning. When you look to economic history you would see that in 1930 there were 30 million American farmers producing just enough to feed 100 million Americans. By 1980 there were only 3 million farmers producing enough for 300 million Americans as well as those all over the world. In 50 years technology eliminated 90% of American farmers. But this was fifty years so it wasn't as noticeable until about 1985 when Willy Nelson was having Farm Aid to try to save family farms.
I believe we are at the tipping point right now in the real estate industry and will see a similar sea change take place.
I had my "Scarlett O"Hara" moment, that "As God as my witness, I'll never be hungry again," was in 1999. It was the early days of the Internet, when we still called it the World Wide Web, the public was only introduced to it around 1996. I was running two businesses, one was selling new homes for a builder, the other was a marketing and distribution company. At our meeting on Tuesday morning the builder said that all of our contracts were going to be going online and paper would be no more. This was terrifying to me, because I had never touched a computer, anything with a keyboard intimidated me. I recall thinking that I would just put all my effort into my distribution company. However, that Saturday at a convention we were told it was going 100% online. I have never felt so terrified. I saw myself living in a cardboard box, wondering if there was even a place for me in this new world. I made the decision to learn, immersing myself in not only the Internet, but online marketing, reading, going to every seminar where the stars at the time were speaking. Michael Dell at the Detroit Economics Club really helped me see more clearly. Ever since, I am committed to never get left behind, to jump in front of whatever I see on the horizon to see if it is something that will be the disruptor or not.
My beliefs are that there will be two models that survive and thrive and those will he large super efficient systematized teams that will be transactional. They will be the Walmart lower cost per transaction to make everything happen quickly and smooth but the client will be responsible for more leg work. This will be lower commission but high volume. The other will be the Nordstrom model as professional concierge level service for those who value their time and experience more than trying to do it as cheaply as possible. This will be a higher commission rate for higher service levels. All those in the middle become Sears with similar futures.
All of this will require running as a true business model not the traditional self employed model where agents get lost doing all the transaction activities "pushing paper" and not focused on the ONLY two things they should be doing, giving their clients a wow Experience that they will refer and pay more for, and communicating with database and doing business development. Anyone who doesn't figure out how to systematize all their back end processes are going to be the farmers heading into town.
When I mention disruptors to most agents, most seem to think that the "new cool kids" broker model is what I am speaking of, I am not. While those types of "disruptors" might be disruptive to brokerages for a period of time, but that has been going on for the entire time I have been in the industry and longer I am sure. These remind me of a big Ferris wheel, who's cool this year is old next. Every hot cycle also spawns a lot of new low fee brokerages to attract agents, they are popular while it's hot and disappear when it's not. Those are not the disruptors I am speaking of.
The disruptors I mean is the game changer big data companies, and even more so this potential lawsuit against NAR and the industry practises. Anyone who thinks this is nothing isn't paying attention to who is involved, and the argument they are making. I see no way that we won't have a big change coming in the next 3-5 years when it concludes.
We have allowed them space in the market, just as we did Zillow, by not focusing on client experience and believing that our value was simply our control of information and data. As an industry most gravitated to a transactional model and away from a consumer focused one. This allowed our services to become commoditized making it vulnerable to these outside threats.
I am doing a deep dive study in my family's ancestry and since I'm a history and economics nerd I'm seeing some real lessons we should pay attention to today. As I look back across the centuries in my family almost all were farmers. Each generation the oldest living son would take over the farm. This went on from the 1600's until my siblings and I were the very first generation that no one stayed on the farm. This was in the late 70's to 1980. My dad and I tried to keep it going but to create enough cash flow to support two families we had to increase revenue per acre. We tried to put in a confinement hog operation to do that but were shot down on zoning. When you look to economic history you would see that in 1930 there were 30 million American farmers producing just enough to feed 100 million Americans. By 1980 there were only 3 million farmers producing enough for 300 million Americans as well as those all over the world. In 50 years technology eliminated 90% of American farmers. But this was fifty years so it wasn't as noticeable until about 1985 when Willy Nelson was having Farm Aid to try to save family farms.
I believe we are at the tipping point right now in the real estate industry and will see a similar sea change take place.
I had my "Scarlett O"Hara" moment, that "As God as my witness, I'll never be hungry again," was in 1999. It was the early days of the Internet, when we still called it the World Wide Web, the public was only introduced to it around 1996. I was running two businesses, one was selling new homes for a builder, the other was a marketing and distribution company. At our meeting on Tuesday morning the builder said that all of our contracts were going to be going online and paper would be no more. This was terrifying to me, because I had never touched a computer, anything with a keyboard intimidated me. I recall thinking that I would just put all my effort into my distribution company. However, that Saturday at a convention we were told it was going 100% online. I have never felt so terrified. I saw myself living in a cardboard box, wondering if there was even a place for me in this new world. I made the decision to learn, immersing myself in not only the Internet, but online marketing, reading, going to every seminar where the stars at the time were speaking. Michael Dell at the Detroit Economics Club really helped me see more clearly. Ever since, I am committed to never get left behind, to jump in front of whatever I see on the horizon to see if it is something that will be the disruptor or not.
My beliefs are that there will be two models that survive and thrive and those will he large super efficient systematized teams that will be transactional. They will be the Walmart lower cost per transaction to make everything happen quickly and smooth but the client will be responsible for more leg work. This will be lower commission but high volume. The other will be the Nordstrom model as professional concierge level service for those who value their time and experience more than trying to do it as cheaply as possible. This will be a higher commission rate for higher service levels. All those in the middle become Sears with similar futures.
All of this will require running as a true business model not the traditional self employed model where agents get lost doing all the transaction activities "pushing paper" and not focused on the ONLY two things they should be doing, giving their clients a wow Experience that they will refer and pay more for, and communicating with database and doing business development. Anyone who doesn't figure out how to systematize all their back end processes are going to be the farmers heading into town.
Saturday, February 2, 2019
Where's Your Cheese?
We are watching Wall Street dump billions into the home selling sector. They are not doing that without the belief that they can take the lion's share of the commissions currently going to Brokerages and Agents. We have allowed them space in the market, just as we did Zillow by not focusing on client experience and believing that our value was simply our control of information and data. As an industry most gravitated to a transactional model and away from a consumer focused one. This allowed our services to become commoditized making it vulnerable to these outside threats.
I am doing a deep dive study in my family's ancestry and since I'm a history and economics nerd I'm seeing some real lessons we should pay attention to today. As I look back across the centuries in my family almost all were farmers. Each generation the oldest living son would take over the farm. This went on from the 1600's until my siblings and I were the very first generation that no one stayed on the farm. This was in the late 70's to 1980. My dad and I tried to keep it going but to create enough cash flow to support two families we had to increase 7 revenue per acre. We tried to put in a confinement hog operation to do that but were shot down on zoning. When you look to economic history you would see that in 1930 there were 30 million American farmers producing just enough to feed 100 million Americans. By 1980 there were only 3 million farmers producing enough for 300 million Americans as well as shopping all over the world. In 50 years technology eliminated 90% of American farmers. But this was fifty years so it wasn't as noticeable until about 1985 when Willy Nelson was having Farm Aid to try to save family farms.
I believe we are at the tipping point right now in the real estate industry and will see a similar sea change take place. My beliefs are that there will be two models that survive and thrive and those will he large super efficient systematized teams that will be transactional. They will be the Walmart lower cost per transaction to make everything happen quickly and smooth but the client will be responsible for more leg work. This will be lower commission but high volume. The other will be the Nordstrom model as professional concierge level service for those who value their time and experience more than trying to do it as cheaply as possible. This will be a higher commission rate for higher service levels. All those in the middle become Sears with similar futures.
All of this will require running as a true business model not the traditional self employed model where agents get lost doing all the transaction activities "pushing paper" and not focused on the ONLY two things they should be doing, giving their clients a WOW Experience that they will refer and pay more for, and communicating with database and doing business development. Anyone who doesn't figure out how to systematize all their back end processes are going to be the farmers heading into town.
I am doing a deep dive study in my family's ancestry and since I'm a history and economics nerd I'm seeing some real lessons we should pay attention to today. As I look back across the centuries in my family almost all were farmers. Each generation the oldest living son would take over the farm. This went on from the 1600's until my siblings and I were the very first generation that no one stayed on the farm. This was in the late 70's to 1980. My dad and I tried to keep it going but to create enough cash flow to support two families we had to increase 7 revenue per acre. We tried to put in a confinement hog operation to do that but were shot down on zoning. When you look to economic history you would see that in 1930 there were 30 million American farmers producing just enough to feed 100 million Americans. By 1980 there were only 3 million farmers producing enough for 300 million Americans as well as shopping all over the world. In 50 years technology eliminated 90% of American farmers. But this was fifty years so it wasn't as noticeable until about 1985 when Willy Nelson was having Farm Aid to try to save family farms.
I believe we are at the tipping point right now in the real estate industry and will see a similar sea change take place. My beliefs are that there will be two models that survive and thrive and those will he large super efficient systematized teams that will be transactional. They will be the Walmart lower cost per transaction to make everything happen quickly and smooth but the client will be responsible for more leg work. This will be lower commission but high volume. The other will be the Nordstrom model as professional concierge level service for those who value their time and experience more than trying to do it as cheaply as possible. This will be a higher commission rate for higher service levels. All those in the middle become Sears with similar futures.
All of this will require running as a true business model not the traditional self employed model where agents get lost doing all the transaction activities "pushing paper" and not focused on the ONLY two things they should be doing, giving their clients a WOW Experience that they will refer and pay more for, and communicating with database and doing business development. Anyone who doesn't figure out how to systematize all their back end processes are going to be the farmers heading into town.
Sunday, August 12, 2018
Have You Ever Felt Blown Off Course? Thanks
Isn’t it amazing how your paradigms can change with a new experience?
For most of my life I have tried to model my actions towards any goal or vision as described in the verse “But Jesus told him, "Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God." As an old farm kid, I knew clearly what this meant by experience. When you start to plow a field you “walk off” or measure it on both sides make a mark and drive straight to the mark. If you are tempted to look back you will forever see that swerve from the mark that entire year. So, to me, on any quest it meant you doggedly push towards the goal, fighting through any obstacles that may try to get in your way. When things don’t work you don’t change the goal but go back to the drawing board and go again.
Today I was reading in Stephen Covey’s book, "The 8th Habit" and he said, "The truth is we're all off track most of the time, all of us- every individual, family, organization or international flight to Rome. Just realizing this is a significant step. But, for many of us, the feeling of being off track brings with it discouragement and despair. It needn't and shouldn't be so depressing. Knowing we're off track is really an invitation to realign ourselves with true north principles and recommit ourselves to our destination.
Remember, our journey as an individual, team or organization is like the flight of an airplane. Before the plane takes off, the pilots file a flight plan. They know exactly where they are going. But during the course of the flight, wind, rain, turbulence, air traffic, human error and other factors act upon the plane. They move that plane slightly in different directions so that most of the time to it is not even on the prescribed flight path. But barring anything too major, the plane will still arrive at it's destination.
Now how does that happen? During the flight, the pilots receive constant feedback. They receive information from instruments that read the environment, control towers, other airpanes, even sometimes the stars. And based on feedback, they make adjustments so that time and time again, they return to the original plan."
Personally, I had a new experience last Sunday that made this message pound home. I was piloting a boat across Lake Michigan. It was the first time I drove something where there was nothing in view to point towards. That the destination was only visible to me by looking at gauges and by a compass. With the choppy waves of that great lake hitting my hull the bow seemed to constantly be pointing in a different direction. I was rarely directly on course, it was a state of nonstop corrections. But ultimately the destination was on target. What struck me even more so, was one of my compatriots who had driven before me, complimented me on how smooth I was, and how he found it so difficult. I had felt the exact opposite, that he was so smooth and I was all over the place. In both instances our perceptions changed dramatically when we saw how we were constantly fighting to stay on course as opposed to enjoying the smooth ride.
Isn't this how it feels in all our lives as we set our course and then face the never ending shifts we must to reach our own shores? Don't get weary in well doing, set your course and then understand it's going to ebb and flow by your corrections as you go.
For most of my life I have tried to model my actions towards any goal or vision as described in the verse “But Jesus told him, "Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God." As an old farm kid, I knew clearly what this meant by experience. When you start to plow a field you “walk off” or measure it on both sides make a mark and drive straight to the mark. If you are tempted to look back you will forever see that swerve from the mark that entire year. So, to me, on any quest it meant you doggedly push towards the goal, fighting through any obstacles that may try to get in your way. When things don’t work you don’t change the goal but go back to the drawing board and go again.
Today I was reading in Stephen Covey’s book, "The 8th Habit" and he said, "The truth is we're all off track most of the time, all of us- every individual, family, organization or international flight to Rome. Just realizing this is a significant step. But, for many of us, the feeling of being off track brings with it discouragement and despair. It needn't and shouldn't be so depressing. Knowing we're off track is really an invitation to realign ourselves with true north principles and recommit ourselves to our destination.
Remember, our journey as an individual, team or organization is like the flight of an airplane. Before the plane takes off, the pilots file a flight plan. They know exactly where they are going. But during the course of the flight, wind, rain, turbulence, air traffic, human error and other factors act upon the plane. They move that plane slightly in different directions so that most of the time to it is not even on the prescribed flight path. But barring anything too major, the plane will still arrive at it's destination.
Now how does that happen? During the flight, the pilots receive constant feedback. They receive information from instruments that read the environment, control towers, other airpanes, even sometimes the stars. And based on feedback, they make adjustments so that time and time again, they return to the original plan."
Personally, I had a new experience last Sunday that made this message pound home. I was piloting a boat across Lake Michigan. It was the first time I drove something where there was nothing in view to point towards. That the destination was only visible to me by looking at gauges and by a compass. With the choppy waves of that great lake hitting my hull the bow seemed to constantly be pointing in a different direction. I was rarely directly on course, it was a state of nonstop corrections. But ultimately the destination was on target. What struck me even more so, was one of my compatriots who had driven before me, complimented me on how smooth I was, and how he found it so difficult. I had felt the exact opposite, that he was so smooth and I was all over the place. In both instances our perceptions changed dramatically when we saw how we were constantly fighting to stay on course as opposed to enjoying the smooth ride.
Isn't this how it feels in all our lives as we set our course and then face the never ending shifts we must to reach our own shores? Don't get weary in well doing, set your course and then understand it's going to ebb and flow by your corrections as you go.
Saturday, February 3, 2018
Build A Life Not Just A Living!
As I sit here at a wrestling tournament that my son is coaching it made me think of a critical message I want to share. It is why I do what I do. It had driven decisions throughout my life. Too often I got it wrong, but thankfully got it right on some big ones. Don't get so busy making a living that you miss out on your life. In real estate that is an easy thing to do.
Too often we become poptart agents who pop up every time a potential client pops up. We don't live our lives or businesses with intention but spontaneously, we are reactionary instead of proactive. As such we risk looking back and realizing we missed the most important things. A couple nights ago my son and I were talking about the tournament series, he mentioned a memory from his senior year at the "Medal Round" to go to State. He was down 8-1 going into the final period and looking up in the stands he saw me holding my face in my hands. He recalled thinking "Not again" he had lost an advancement round match the year before on a bad call. He came back to win and go the State Championship. I don't recall my head in my hands but not surprised if I did. The important thing was I was there. A few years earlier I took a huge pay cut and went into management to free up my weekends from my job in New home sales for a builder. Because that job requirement was working weekends. As REALTORS, you have the choice to run a business or a job.
What gets me up in the morning now is helping agents take control of their businesses and their lives. When I hear one of our agents who is committed to learning and putting into practice the Complete agent business and systems training tell me that he best month in her more than a decade long successful career was in October with 12 pendings and that same month she realized for the first time in her career she had time to go to all her grandkid's games. I couldn't be more proud of her taking the risk to make changes and putting in the effort to take mastery of them to change her and her family's lives!
I recall an old AT&T commercial where a mom was getting ready for work and her daughter came in asking to go to the beach. She told her daughter "I can't go to the beach, I've got an appointment with an important client. At that the daughter asked, "When do I get to be an important client?"
It is those clients of yours I most enjoy working for with you and your business!
Please excuse typos etc I wrote this on my phone between matches the kids my son coaches, I'll edit later.
Too often we become poptart agents who pop up every time a potential client pops up. We don't live our lives or businesses with intention but spontaneously, we are reactionary instead of proactive. As such we risk looking back and realizing we missed the most important things. A couple nights ago my son and I were talking about the tournament series, he mentioned a memory from his senior year at the "Medal Round" to go to State. He was down 8-1 going into the final period and looking up in the stands he saw me holding my face in my hands. He recalled thinking "Not again" he had lost an advancement round match the year before on a bad call. He came back to win and go the State Championship. I don't recall my head in my hands but not surprised if I did. The important thing was I was there. A few years earlier I took a huge pay cut and went into management to free up my weekends from my job in New home sales for a builder. Because that job requirement was working weekends. As REALTORS, you have the choice to run a business or a job.
What gets me up in the morning now is helping agents take control of their businesses and their lives. When I hear one of our agents who is committed to learning and putting into practice the Complete agent business and systems training tell me that he best month in her more than a decade long successful career was in October with 12 pendings and that same month she realized for the first time in her career she had time to go to all her grandkid's games. I couldn't be more proud of her taking the risk to make changes and putting in the effort to take mastery of them to change her and her family's lives!
I recall an old AT&T commercial where a mom was getting ready for work and her daughter came in asking to go to the beach. She told her daughter "I can't go to the beach, I've got an appointment with an important client. At that the daughter asked, "When do I get to be an important client?"
It is those clients of yours I most enjoy working for with you and your business!
Please excuse typos etc I wrote this on my phone between matches the kids my son coaches, I'll edit later.
Thursday, December 28, 2017
Are You A Natural REALTOR Or An Ongoing Student?
So many of us get into sales, or real estate, because we have been told our entire lives that we “have the gift of gab,” or “could sell ice to Eskimos.” The difference in outcomes comes from if we continue to do it naturally or become students of our craft.
There are seven key result areas in our industry. They are like digits in a telephone number, you must dial each in sequence if you want to get through and make a sale. Your performance and effectiveness in each of these key results areas determine your overall success and height of your income.
These key results areas are prospecting, building rapport, identifying needs, presenting through a conversational approach, answering objections, closing the sale and getting resales and referrals. Your own self-concept in each of these determines your performance and over all income.
Fortunately, everyone who is good in any of these areas was once poor at it. Every professional in the top ten percent started in the bottom ten percent. The good news is if you can drive a car or operate a cell phone, you can become excellent in each of these seven critical skills. It is simply a matter of learning and practice.
If you have a poor self-concept with regard to any particular sales activity, you will avoid it whenever possible. The only reason you avoid taking action in a particular skill area is because you are not yet good at it. You have not yet mastered the skill. If you are not good at something, you make mistakes. You will feel awkward, angry and frustrated. It would be normal and natural for you to avoid that activity.
The solution for your fears, or reluctance in any key skill area in selling, is for you to master that skill. Fortunately there are countless books, audios and our own Momentum Complete Agent Development courses available to you. There is no reason for you to be held back from joining the top of this profession simply because you are currently weak in a particular skill.
You can learn how to prospect effectively. You can be taught how to build high levels of rapport and trust with prospects. You can become skilled at how to ask questions and listen carefully to the answers. You can develop calmness and confidence in your interactions with others. You can learn anything you need to learn through practice and repetition.
It is the same with any skill area. You can become an expert at accurately identifying the needs of the person you are talking to and qualifying the prospect by asking more and better questions. You can become excellent in your sales conversations, growing so effective that people are asking you to close them. You can learn how to answer the prospect’s objections and concerns, responding so satisfactorily that the objections disappear and never return. Also you can learn to create a never ending chain of referrals and repeat customers for your business.
The better you get in any area, the more positive your self-concept becomes in that area. The more confidence you have in your abilities, the happier you feel when you are doing that part of your job, and the better results you will get. You never feel uneasy doing something you are good at. You only feel anxious doing something that you think you are not particularly good at. Every single step that you take to improve in any area raises your self-confidence and increases your likelihood of success each time you try it.
In 2018 there are Small Groups that will be working together with Jimmy's guidance to hone your skills and develop your businesses, there will be our ongoing classes and boot camps to refine those seven skills. There will be monthly accountability sessions to assure that you are making defined progress and private coaching to work on your own specific business needs along with two retreats were you will be introduced to new challenges to stretch your thinking and a deep dive into one area of your business.
So, whatever future success you desire is available to you for the taking.
There are seven key result areas in our industry. They are like digits in a telephone number, you must dial each in sequence if you want to get through and make a sale. Your performance and effectiveness in each of these key results areas determine your overall success and height of your income.
These key results areas are prospecting, building rapport, identifying needs, presenting through a conversational approach, answering objections, closing the sale and getting resales and referrals. Your own self-concept in each of these determines your performance and over all income.
Fortunately, everyone who is good in any of these areas was once poor at it. Every professional in the top ten percent started in the bottom ten percent. The good news is if you can drive a car or operate a cell phone, you can become excellent in each of these seven critical skills. It is simply a matter of learning and practice.
If you have a poor self-concept with regard to any particular sales activity, you will avoid it whenever possible. The only reason you avoid taking action in a particular skill area is because you are not yet good at it. You have not yet mastered the skill. If you are not good at something, you make mistakes. You will feel awkward, angry and frustrated. It would be normal and natural for you to avoid that activity.
The solution for your fears, or reluctance in any key skill area in selling, is for you to master that skill. Fortunately there are countless books, audios and our own Momentum Complete Agent Development courses available to you. There is no reason for you to be held back from joining the top of this profession simply because you are currently weak in a particular skill.
You can learn how to prospect effectively. You can be taught how to build high levels of rapport and trust with prospects. You can become skilled at how to ask questions and listen carefully to the answers. You can develop calmness and confidence in your interactions with others. You can learn anything you need to learn through practice and repetition.
It is the same with any skill area. You can become an expert at accurately identifying the needs of the person you are talking to and qualifying the prospect by asking more and better questions. You can become excellent in your sales conversations, growing so effective that people are asking you to close them. You can learn how to answer the prospect’s objections and concerns, responding so satisfactorily that the objections disappear and never return. Also you can learn to create a never ending chain of referrals and repeat customers for your business.
The better you get in any area, the more positive your self-concept becomes in that area. The more confidence you have in your abilities, the happier you feel when you are doing that part of your job, and the better results you will get. You never feel uneasy doing something you are good at. You only feel anxious doing something that you think you are not particularly good at. Every single step that you take to improve in any area raises your self-confidence and increases your likelihood of success each time you try it.
In 2018 there are Small Groups that will be working together with Jimmy's guidance to hone your skills and develop your businesses, there will be our ongoing classes and boot camps to refine those seven skills. There will be monthly accountability sessions to assure that you are making defined progress and private coaching to work on your own specific business needs along with two retreats were you will be introduced to new challenges to stretch your thinking and a deep dive into one area of your business.
So, whatever future success you desire is available to you for the taking.
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