Making Change Work

Changing our behavior to achieve better results is the most important challenge we face in trying to compete in this chaotic world. Maybe you are in a slump or know deep down you have accepted an average performance when a great one is possible. When you're ready to change - to increase your sales, to take some calculated risks, to improve any and all aspects of your life - you may not know how to begin beyond crossing your fingers and hoping for a lucky break. What can you do differently to create more positive results in your work and personal life?

First, accept the fact that if you are not getting the results you want in any aspect of your life, it just might be you ! It's not somebody else's fault. To achieve real change in your results, decide that this is your year. You must believe in yourself and your ability to make change happen. When you do, you'll find that your belief naturally leads you to take action, and action is the only thing that brings results.

True change requires you to develop clear reasons why you will not fail yourself and your family. So when you know what drives you, write it down. The process requires introspection, which you may not be used to, but in order for it to work, you need to take the time to quietly consider every aspect of your life (past, present, and future) and commit it to paper.

To embark on this process, consider the following:

1. Where have you been?

If you feel as if disappointing results are your destiny, they will be until you are able to see the behaviors that lead to those results. So take ten minutes to reflect on your accomplishments and your disappointments, big and small, and then write everything down. Consider and answer these questions for your career, family, health, faith, self education, finances, and recreation/fun.

What accomplishments am I most proud of?
What specific results have I achieved?
Have I been willing to do what I know it takes to do better?
What have been my biggest disappointments?
What did I learn from my disappointments?
2. Where are you now?

To change, you need to know where you are in the present moment, as well as where you've been. Make an honest written assessment of where you are in your life right now in the areas listed above. Where have you lowered the bar and accepted it? Think in terms of keeping score and getting clear on the actual numbers you have right now. Look at the truth! Getting disgusted with your current situation is a heck of a motivator.

Health and energy level is the Achilles heel for most people. The number one killer in the nation is heart disease, and almost half those who have a heart attack die from their first one. So you can see the necessity of getting honest with yourself right now about your heath, as well as other aspects of your life. To draw a detailed health picture, go to a professional and find out:

What is my current weight compared to where I want to be?
What are my blood pressure, cholesterol levels, triglyceride level, and EKG readings?
What is my standing heart rate? Can I run a mile? How quickly do I recover after exercise?
How often do I work out a month? Am I too tired at the end of the day to enjoy myself?
Is fifty-percent of what I am eating water-rich live foods - fruits and vegetables?
Repeat this process in the other key areas suggested, considering every aspect of your life as it really is, right now.

3. Where do you want to go?

Allow yourself to fantasize about what specifically you want most in your life. First consider what you'd like to do immediately, then in the near future. What are the top specific, measurable outcomes you'd like to achieve within those time frames? Look to clarify and raise your personal standards of conduct. Make sure you have each of the key areas represented. It is not the quantity, but the quality of the goals you set!

For someone in sales, good questions to establish immediate, short and long-term goals would be:

What am I committed to earning this year?
What percentage of my sales is from referrals?
How many new prospects will I contact a day?
How many current clients will I contact?
How can I better document my successes with testimonial letters, quotes, and pictures?
What company award and/or incentive trip am I committed to winning?
What will I do each day to enhance my expert status and give more value to my clients?
Have I been doing what it takes to be great or have I been making excuses and fighting to be average?
4. What is my action plan and tracking method?

Break your bigger goals into monthly and even weekly achievable steps. But keep in mind that the time-worn old advice to take gradual ?baby steps? is seldom effective; you'll get frustrated and discouraged if your new results don't come quickly enough. Be bold! Making more radical changes will simply yield quicker results and establish forward momentum.

Next, create a goal sheet and action plan in any format that suits you: a time line, a monthly calendar with target dates and notes, pictures of the outcome you want with a simple list of the steps it will take to get there, or any other creative format that works for you. Make it easy to review your goals and higher personal standards daily by laminating your action plan and putting it in your shower, on your bathroom mirror, or in your briefcase for easy daily review.

Radical changes you can make for better results include:

Get up thirty minutes earlier at least four days a week for aerobic exercise.
Make ten prospecting calls for new business every day by noon.
Contact three past customers every day and ask questions to uncover new opportunities.
Send one hand written card a day keeping in touch with clients or praising an employee.
Limit fast food intake to once a week. Bring a small cooler of healthy food to work/in your car.
Eliminate soda from your diet. Eat seven to nine servings of fruits and vegetables each day.
Focus only on positive things your family is doing or has done the first thirty minutes at home.
Write a written outcome before you make every sales presentation. Tape it and review.
Take the time to write down why you are committed to stick with these radical changes. Focus on the joy of when you make the change not the fear of failing. Write at least a paragraph to yourself. What kind of person do you want to be? How will you behave to become that person?

The Rewards of Change are Many

Whether you make change happen or not, it's going to happen; that's the way life is. And the results of passively waiting to see what happens next - of letting life decide for you - can be completely opposite from what you'd choose for yourself. Do not wait for a crisis!

While making a radical change can be an intimidating prospect at first, the rewards are many and will come quicker than might imagine. When you're in control of your destiny, achieving your optimal results and beyond, you'll look back on that decision and realize it was the moment everything began to change. Mastering the ability to confront reality and make a change isn't just a key strategy for business. It is a necessity for life and perhaps the one skill most worth learning.

Get a brief on your side

One of the biggest decisions any individual, or every family will ever make, is probably the purchase of their main residence or place of fixed address. Some might have a few around the world - depending on their situation and means.
Now think. How do lawyers and realtors fit into this picture? Normally, they are seen as necessarily part of the process and not really adding any real value. They get paid, (handsomely from outside perspectives), at times for doing very little but transact and follow regulations. They execute realty related business and activity. That is the scope of their role, involvement and responsibility.
There are lots of forces that influence, affect and work on these and other related realty transactions. For example: buying a business, second home, speculation or income property, retirement residence, summer home, vacation residence, cottage or country property, farm, land or commercial-industrial property, buy to let, off-plan purchases and many others all quality.
We study, we work, we move, we change, we relocate, we marry, we get sued, we wrong, we stumble, we fall, we have kids (or not), move around. We get promoted, change jobs, get divorced, have a partner, OR parents die, get in debt, re-mortgage, retire, get involved in a serious work or car accident. We even borrow against our equity assets, lose our homes and so on—that in short, is LIFE.
Now, you may ask how that affects what you do everyday as a choice realtor, or realty niche specialist? The answer: A LOT and EVERYTHING!
We suggest, that utilizing the legal practitioners, who work in these and other related fields, assisting others dealing with these conditions, events and life occurrences, might be great sources of leads.
They give access to pre-qualified, targeted leads and potential transactions, referrals, connections and even client relationships, that last a lifetime. They provide opportunity for referral and business partners for life. If we but took the time and trouble, spending some effort of exploring these channels, more pro-actively and hands-on, with purpose and intent, our businesses will grow and we outperform even our wildest expectations.
Normally, these and similar opportunities, pass us right by. We just do not know, what we do not know. We miss out on an immense wealth of openings, referrals and even business, by simply ignoring the obvious!
Without us getting into the topic much further, just think for a minute, how any of the following attorneys could help you generate leads, grow your business, or even be a business opportunity in the making:
Tax, Insurance, Liability And Medical Malpractice Attorneys
Personal Injury Attorneys
Family Law Practitioners
Commercial, Real Estate, Land-Transfer Attorneys
Brokerage Houses With Residential Expertise Under One Roof ? Bankers, Lawyers And Realtors, Mortgage And Land Transfer Lawyers
Anything? Any ideas? Our lives are indeed complex and interwoven. Home life and business assets are co-mingled and managed. Some by us, some by third parties or contracted helpers, some of which come from the legal profession. They help with process, procedure, paperwork and protocol. Qualified, equally dedicated professionals in their respective industries, niche specialties and doing what they are best at.
How does that help you, or us as realtors, at all?
The answer is simple. Whenever there is a major incident, occasion or impetus, that bring people into the market for
a new purchase or a resale home; or maybe
a condominium, farm or leasehold property; secondary homes or work/corporate residences; even
cottages, vacation, leisure or recreational properties;
multi-unit properties, offices and apartment complexes,
income property, investment options and real estate holdings and portfolios or strategies, or
family trusts and legacies, inherited properties, old deeds and the like,
WHERE DO THEY TURN TO?
Are we prepared to answer the call, even before they know they need an industry professional on their team, on their side and representing their interest?
First, let us take a look at lawyers 2 and 3 in our line-up here.
Family Law and Personal Injury Lawyers
Any accident is a traumatic experience. Whether it happened on the job or on the road, while on vacation, it does not matter. It respects and spares no-one on the grounds of who they are or what they have—it just happens.
We are often left dealing with the aftermath and at times, refer or defer to personal injury lawyers, that help get compensation. From these involved parties and misfortune, could come, a helping hand.
A realtor with experience and expertise can help clients who just got their claims either rejected/accepted/ paid out, adjust their lifestyles accordingly. Even handling relocation, involving property sale and/or re-purchase, refinancing. Perhaps short-term rental or long-term retirement residential solutions, will and testaments, trusts, sale of businesses or vacation homes.
Bankruptcy lawyers are another source of leads where your expertise could/would be welcomed.
Mortgage lawyers and other financial legal practitioners can also call upon your expertise and services, informally, through networking, referrals, and even full-fledged partnership and collaboration, to assist their clients with all realty-related matters.
Family law practitioners, normally involves, pre-nuptial agreements, divorce-settlements, estates, will and testaments, trusts, inheritances and other family related matters, that could easily involve the buying and selling of property, both residential and commercial.
Go where the business is or most likely to be. The logic here, is that you will in all probability, find some there, at the very least. We propose actively and purposefully going to seek them out, building and growing your business, not leaving it up to random chance and business to find you, somehow, magically.
Now let us look at lawyers 1, 4 and 5 in our line-up of legal practitioners.
Even though these resonate even better with us, as industry-related somehow, we still do not actively utilize what they could hold for us, in term of leads, contacts, referrals and/or partnering, opportunities.
When life and circumstances change, the flip-side of that coin and intricate part, is almost always also realty-related in some way, shape or form.
It is up to us to hunt for, identify, target, unearth and optimize these to benefit all, our interest and pocketbooks included. Happy hunting. It is open season on lawyers again!

Marketing Activities Test

Peter Drucker, famed business marketing guru, said it best when he stated... "Because its purpose is to create a customer, your business has two purposes and two purposes only: Marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation make you money, generate sales, produce profit. Everything else is an expense..." I've gone further to outright state that the absolute single most important difference between mediocrity and millions more over the life of a business or career is your ability to market masterfully and your competitor's inability to do so. Well, rather than devote THIS article to a mere theoretical discussion of things you can do to market better, I decided to actually "challenge" you - here and now - to put your marketing to the absolute "acid" test. Let's see, together, exactly how well (or poorly) your marketing stacks up. Are you game? Good. Because I've designed a pretty straightforward 35 question, self-diagnostic "assessment test," complete with a scoring table that let's you see for yourself exactly where your marketing stands. Once you take it, it'll either instantly open up "monster" prospect generating, and client-building opportunities and possibilities you weren't taking advantage of before - OR, it will reconfirm you're doing everything you could and should, and doing it at the highest level of performance you need to be operating at. So, with no further ado, let's take the assessment test together...and see how your marketing stacks up. How Do You And Your Business Stack Up? Self-Diagnostic Assessment Test Points 1. Do you have a powerful USP (Unique Selling Proposition) that comes across to the market you target as being the only viable solution to a problem they have that you alone verbalized for them or an opportunity you alone identified?__________ No (0 point) Yes (2 points)
2. How many different client-generating methods do you currently do/use?__________ One (1 point) 2-4 (2 points) 5 or more (3 points)
3. How many new potential selling/marketing methods have you tested in the last 12 months?__________ None (0 points) One (1 point) 2-4 (2 points) 5 or more (4 points)
4. Is your real estate business being marketed tactically or strategically?__________ Tactically (0 points) Strategically (2 pts)
5. Do you have comprehensive databases of your prospects and past buyers/sellers that identifies everything from names, contact numbers, type of buying, what they buy, what they didn't buy, where they originated from, size of past purchases, etc.?__________ No (0 points) Partial (1 points.) Yes On All Issues (3 points)
6. Do you actively use all the data above to target different categories of prospects/buyers in different ways for different products or services?__________ No (0 points) Yes (3 points)
7. Do you know exactly where all (or at least most) of your business is coming from and how to stimulate more people from those specific sources to transact business with from you?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
8. Do you know where your biggest source of untapped NEW business is located - and how to ultimately mine it?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
9. Does at least 25% of your business currently come from referral/word of mouth?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
10. Is the average number of referrals you get every month going up or down? Growing or dropping?__________ Down/Dropping (0 points) Up/Growing (2 points)
11. Do you have a reliable system of collecting and creating client testimonials, endorsements and success stories?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
12. If "yes," how many client testimonials and success stories do you have?__________ 1-5 (1 points) 6-10 (2 points) 11-20 (3 points) 21 & over (4 points)
13. Do you effectively and powerfully use your testimonials/endorsements in all the marketing, advertising, follow-up and sales efforts you do?__________ No (0 points Sometimes (1 points) Yes, always (3 points)
14. Do you have respected people in your field, market, industry who unhedgingly endorse you and your company?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
15. Do you have any strategic alliances/host beneficiary relationships actively in place right now that generate continuous new business for you?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
16. Do you have a systematic, ongoing follow-up system you follow and put into action for every prospect and first time client you acquire?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
17. How often do you follow up to past buyers/clients by phone, mail, e-mail or in-person?__________ Never (0 points) Every Six Months (1 point) Quarterly (2 points) More Often (3 points)
18. If yes, how many different progressive, backend repeat transactions do you so every month?__________ 1-2 (1 point) 3-9 (2 points) 10 or More (3 points)
19. Do you offer ethical bonuses (either tangible or intangible) as an incentive to transact business with you now?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
20. Do you do PR/media relationships/radio/newspaper/magazine interviews?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
21. Do you use the results of these activities in excerpts or reproductions as part of your marketing?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
22. Do you write articles, special reports or a book(s) you use for promotional positioning?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
23. Do you have a continuous way to build a growing prospect/client e-mail list?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
24. How often do you send quality e-mails out that provide a benefit to your clients and/or prospects?__________ Never (0 points) Infrequently (1 point) Quarterly (2 points) Monthly or More (3 points)
25. Are your e-mails, educational/content-based and not merely self-serving?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
26. Have you and all your people who have contact with your prospects/buyers had formalized "strategic" consultative/advisory sales training?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
27. Do you regularly educate and update your prospects and clients on industry, marketing, relevant events, developments, threats or opportunities?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
28. How many additional prospect lists have you located and use that better target your prime prospects?__________ None (0 points) One (1 point) 2-5 (2 points) 6-10 (3 points) 11 or More (4 points)
29. Do you effectively prepare prospective buyers from their very first contact experience with you to keep coming back to transact again and again?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
30. Do YOU personally talk to your past buyers, sellers, prospects, and clients regularly to learn what they want and then build a repeat transactional relationship with them?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
31. Do you regularly monitor your competitors to see what they do differently, better or are doing more effectively that your company don't do?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
32. There are between 15 and 30 key impact or leverage points that can positively increase your business' transaction performance. How many have you identified?__________ None (0 points) 1-5 (1 point) 6-10 (2 points) 11-20 (3 points) Over 20 (4 points)
33. Do you have a complete e-mail marketing strategy you constantly adhere to, implement and follow?__________ No (0 points) Yes (2 points)
34. Do you know all of the marketing assets (both tangible and intangible) your business has available to it? Like this Blog???__________ No (0 points) Some (2 points) Yes, most (6 points)
35. Are you effectively applying yourself as the most trusted advisor to all your selling, marketing, promotional and prospect development communications?__________ No (0 points) Sometimes (1 point) Yes, Always (2 points) __________ TOTAL POINTS


The "Key" For Interpreting Your Answers Now that you've completed answering all the questions in this assessment test, here's how to see what it all means to you: Tally up all the points your answers represent, by calculating the point status of each answer you've given (use the number in parentheses following each response). Once you get your combined total, here's what it tells you...If your total points equal 13 or less, it tells you that your marketing is very weak, your opportunity for professional growth and greater profitability, with a better marketing strategy to follow is almost assured . You are probably realizing less than 15% of your real business/financial/marketing potential.If your total points equal 60 to 74, you're marketing at a decent level; but your business has exceptional room for improvement. You can probably increase your overall performance by 80% or more, merely by better understanding and applying the marketing opportunities you have available. If your total points exceed 74 or higher, congratulations! You're a very fine marketer already and should feel good about where you've come, so far. But, ironically, because YOU understand so well the real additional marketing opportunities available to your busines - your business probably still has spectacular geometric growth possible if you decided to take your strategy and tactics to the highest performance levels possible. Nevertheless, I'm very proud of your level of success so far. Depending upon your score, and the actions steps it requires, I'll be teaching you different elements of the business building/marketing mastering process in subsequent articles and interviews I do. If you scored exceedingly high, congratulations. Keep going. Never give up.

Turn Calls into Cash

The phone rings. You answer. Darn, it's just another time waster wanting to know the address of one of those advertised listings or the price of a home with one of your company's "for sale" signs in the yard. Dejected, you hang up, convinced it was just another pointless call.

How often does this happen to you? Probably more often than you'd like to admit, right? But was it really a waste of time?

For many agents, the notion of taking "floor-time," "up-calls," or "duty-calls," regardless of what you call it, seems to be an absolute waste of time. Perhaps you just need to look at it a little differently.

You (or your broker) spend a lot of money, probably more than you realize, trying to get the phone to ring. It's why you market yourself and your listings. It's the nature of advertising to make the phone ring and convert prospective buyers and sellers into actual buyers and sellers.

More Leads = More Business. More Business = More Money.

Determine the True Value of a Lead

What if you discovered that every incoming phone call was worth $500? Would you look at the "Ring-Rings" a little differently?

How can you come up with your "lead conversion" ratio and the value of each lead? It's simple math. If it takes ten leads to generate one actual buyer, and the value of a buyer sale is $5,000 to you, then the value of each lead is $500.

Each time your phone rings, whether it's a result of your marketing or your broker's marketing, you have an opportunity to convert a prospect into a customer. If just one out of every ten leads (10%) is converted into an actual buyer—which translates into a commission of $5,000 to you—then the value of each lead is $500.

And if you could learn how to convert twice as many of these leads, you'd increase the value of each lead to $1,000. That's even better, isn't it? If only they'd tell you on the phone whether they're serious or not...

Separating Buyers from Liars

Have you ever asked yourself: "How can I find out if I'm talking to a BUYER or a LIAR?"

Here's a NEWS FLASH: they're ALL buyers to some degree, either directly or indirectly! What other reason would they have to pick up the phone and dial your number? Trust me: they're not just compiling data on how well you answer the phone!

Time for a reality check. Don't make the mistake many agents make by trying to get ALL of them to become YOUR buyers. It's not possible or wise to even try. Instead, use the opportunity to screen through enough of them until you find the RIGHT buyers for you. These should be the ones you've connected with by establishing a sense of RAPPORT and who have displayed some degree of MOTIVATION and URGENCY.

Look at it like this: you get an opportunity to pick which buyers you want to work with, if any. It's your choice, not theirs. If you feel there's a connection and they seem to have real MOTIVATION and URGENCY, then why not go ahead and let them apply for the job of becoming one of your customers? Nice posturing, isn't it?

Uncovering Motivation and Urgency

MOTIVATION is better described as your prospect's "WANNA" factor...or how bad they want to buy. Your job is to figure out if they really "WANNA" buy. For example, which of the following examples would you say is more motivated: (1) a young couple, no children, living in a two-bedroom apartment with nine months remaining on their lease, or (2) a family of four with another baby due in three months, living in a small two-bedroom unit on a month-to-month lease?

URGENCY, on the other hand, is based on the reality of their current situation. Look at it as their "GOTTA" factor. If they WANNA move but they don't GOTTA move, they might move. But if they WANNA move AND they GOTTA move, then they're much more likely to move, and of course they're more likely to BUY.

Consider the following scenarios: one couple with nine months remaining on their lease and the second couple with thirty days to decide whether or not to sign another annual lease with a heavy-duty early termination penalty. Which has more urgency?

Asking the Right Type of Questions

It would be great if all home-buying prospects would just tell you up front if they have the "WANNA" and the "GOTTA" factors, wouldn't it? But they won't. It just doesn't work that way. Your job is to ask enough questions—the right questions—to uncover the truth.

The next time your phone rings, and there's a prospective buyer on the other end of the phone, ask if it's okay to run a couple of questions by him while you're looking up the information he called about. Do this even if you have the information at your fingertips.

Then, instead of asking them the normal questions about WHAT they're looking for, try finding out WHY they're looking. Ask questions that will help you find out how long they've been where they are, how soon they need to move, how big a place they live in presently and how many of them live there. Then, if they pass the WANNA/GOTTA test, invite them to come into the office to meet with you and see if they pass the LIKABILITY test.

Turning a "Ring-Ring" into "Cha-Ching" is nothing more than separating the buyers that WANNA and GOTTA from those that DON'T WANNA and DON'T GOTTA. By focusing on their situations you're more likely to uncover their true MOTIVATION and URGENCY, or the lack thereof. Stick with the ones you LIKE that WANNA move and GOTTA move, and you'll be way ahead of the game. You'll not only be working smarter but you'll enjoy your work a whole lot more.