Talk to your punters

It amazes me how we have adapted our lives around email, cell phones and text messaging. While I think it is wonderful that there are so many articles written teaching us how to "blast" our contacts with information on our new listing, price reductions or "e" news letters, let's want to focus for a moment on the sound of your voice.

Do you think that people like your voice? Honestly. Do you enjoy hearing your voice on your message machine or voice mail? If you are like most people, you will say "no"!

However, I am convinced more than ever, in this demanding world of technology, that your clients and customers want to hear your voice.

Certainly the internet is a way of helping us to communicate, stay organized and build our businesses much faster than years ago. Email allows us to communicate with hundreds and thousands of people across the country. However, I challenge all of you to look at the amount of time you really spend behind the key board or how much time is spent with the cell phone rather than a face to face contact.

As I drove around my neighborhood I noticed someone walking their dog, and typing on their PDA. Another day I went to the grocery store and actually missed my email. I couldn't wait to get home to see if there was anything to "do" or what if someone "needed" something. I've actually become a slave to my email and computer! Sound familiar?

Last week when speaking to several agents they expressed how they don't feel as internet savvy as some others. Their main concern is that they are being left behind. I encourage these agents to understand that yes the internet & latest technologies can help them build their business, however please continue to use their god given voice as the main communication with their customers. I explained how if they focus on what really matters, the relationship, they can simply learn the new techniques and technology to add to their profitable business. Yes, the tools are important and must be learned however their business does not need to fail just because they are not using the latest PDA. Allow the internet tools to pull or bring more business to you, but then step out and use the best communication of all—your voice.

10 years ago, we did not email our sellers a marketing report to show them the progress of their sale, we would type it out, mail it or even drop it at their door. We would discuss with them the progress of the sale, not email it.

When is the last time you called your seller and said you would like to drop something off for them to look at? Perhaps an article from the paper, or your marketing report. How about the last time you called a buyer—just to tell them you were thinking of them, and want to go the extra mile to be sure that their experience with purchasing is outstanding. Simple phone calls that ensure business and build relationships. Sure you can email too, however that voice of yours is awfully powerful.

You've heard the saying that "the pen is mightier than the sword".

I believe that the sound of you voice will forever bridge the difference between being a good agent and simply getting by, or being a super agent with a successful & profitable career. One phone call at a time can still change the course of your business forever.

Increasing your customers self-esteem

Listening Builds Self-Esteem

It has been said that, "Rapt attention is the highest form of flattery." When you listen intently to another person and it is clear that you genuinely care about what that other person is saying, his or her self-esteem goes up. His or her feeling of personal value increases. He or she feels more worthwhile and important as a human being. You can actually make another person feel terrific about himself or herself by listening in a warm, genuine, caring way to everything he or she has to say.

When a man and a woman go out for the first time, they spend an inordinate amount of time talking and listening to each other. They look into each other's eyes and hang on every word. They are each fascinated by the personality of the other. The more each listens to the other, the more positive and happy each of them feel and the stronger becomes the bonds of affection between them.

The Opposite of Listening is Ignoring

You always listen to that which you most value. You always ignore that which you devalue. The fastest way to turn a person off, to hurt their feelings and make them feel slighted and angry is to simply ignore what they are saying or interrupt them in the middle of a thought. Ignoring or interrupting is the equivalent of an emotional slap in the face. Men especially have to be careful about their natural desire to make a remark or an observation in the middle of a conversation. This can often cause the sales conversation to come to a grinding halt.

Action Exercises

Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, take every opportunity to make the other person feel important by listening attentively to what he or she says.

Second, avoid interrupting the other person by slowing down and pausing for a few moments after he or she has stopped speaking.

Memory Counts

Your palms begin to sweat and you avoid eye contact with someone you know you've listed, but you just can't remember his name.

Your heart sinks as you hang up the phone after a call from a potential seller; you forgot you'd made an appointment with her.

You pound your forehead in frustration as you realize, too late, what you should have told a buyer about the property that would have made the sale.

Have you ever thought, "If only I'd been born with a better memory, I'd be a better real estate agent?" The good news is that you don't have to be born with a great memory! Like almost anything related to the real estate profession, memory improvement is a learned skill that anyone can cultivate.

You can become a highly effective and well-respected real estate professional. Begin by learning how to prevent these sticky memory-related situations that you may already have experienced.

Memory Slip #1: Instantly forgetting a prospect's name.

You meet a prospect and shake his hand. He tells you his name, and no sooner does the handshake break than you have forgotten it. Socially, people find very few things more annoying than having their names forgotten or mispronounced, and in real estate, what's annoying can become deeply offensive, enough so that you can lose sales.

When you immediately forget a prospect's name, two challenges arise. First, because you know that you have forgotten the name, you become totally preoccupied with trying to remember it, so it's difficult to pay attention to what is being said about the property that the prospect wants to buy or sell. Second, if the prospect perceives that you've forgotten his or her name, it sends a very negative message about you, as if you don't care about the person or are simply not very smart. Typically, neither of these perceptions is true, but if you can't pay attention long enough to remember a name, you give that impression.

With a little practice, you'll find that this particular memory slip is the easiest to avoid. First, slow down and listen. Focus on the prospect for five seconds at the beginning of the introduction and concentrate on his or her name. Next, repeat the name back in a conversational manner. When someone says, "My name is Bob," respond with, "Bob. Nice to meet you, Bob."

Memory Slip #2: Forgetting the name of an established client.

As a real estate agent, have you ever gone to a meeting or been at the grocery store and run into someone that you sold a house to or for...and gone completely blank on a name to go with the face? Most often, this slip occurs when you meet the client outside the context of your profession: You may feel like you know that you know the person, but you can't remember how. You may even remember the details of the listing or purchase, but you can't for the life of you remember the person's name.

This phenomenon is not only frustrating and embarrassing; it can also cost you a lot of money. Learning to avoid such a situation takes a commitment to work on improving your memory. You can improve your chances of remembering a forgotten client's name by learning to manage your stress. When you know that you know something, but you can't pull it up in your mind, it's usually because you are stressing yourself out about it. The stress blocks your brain's ability to retrieve the information. So try taking a deep breath and doing a little positive self-talk. Tell yourself, "You know that you know this. Just hang in there and be a little patient." Oftentimes, the name or other necessary information will then come to you.

Memory Slip #3: Forgetting an appointment or showing up late.

Any real estate professional knows that showing up late is terrible, but forgetting an appointment altogether is even worse. The solution is simple but requires a commitment on your part to be better organized and to take the time you need to plan. Many common memory challenges arise when people have too much going on and try to rush to get everything done. The key here is to be systematic. Take an hour once a week to review what you have coming up and to plan, in detail, what you need to do and when.

Memory Slip #4: "I should have said..."

If you've ever thought of the perfect thing to say to someone ten minutes after you needed to say it...you're just like every other human in the world. But for a real estate agent, this can easily cost you a sale. Have you ever thought of the perfect answer to someone's question or objection right after the prospect walked out the door? Or closed the door on you? Wondering what went wrong, your brain suddenly turns up again and you think, "Oh, no! I'm so stupid! I should've said that!" (Or shown them that property or demonstrated that unique feature of the home or answered their objection with that response in my sales manual.)

You can overcome this challenge by memorizing information systematically. Systematic learning is not rote memorization - the way you learned your multiplication tables - but developing a system to help you store and retrieve information easily.

To recall information and train your memory, you must learn to speak the language of your memory, which means creating pictures. When you must recall information, if you can see something, it becomes much easier to recall it, even with a great deal of detail. Creating mental images and an organizational system in your brain will make the information easier to find; if it's in a big pile, you may know it's there somewhere, but who knows how long it will take you to find it!

Learning leads to confidence, the key to real estate success

Real estate professionals need to take their business seriously enough to put effort into learning. Many "wing it," and don't make nearly as much money as they want to as a result. No one gets rich in selling by accident. Those who dedicate themselves to learning and growing are always the most successful.

The good news is that you can learn to overcome memory slips and will grow as an effective real estate professional as you do, because you will gain greater confidence. All other things being equal, the agent with more confidence will always get the listings and sales - and the hefty commissions, too - over someone who has less confidence or none at all. The formula for real estate success is the same as the formula for improving your memory: preparation, listening, and proper learning.

Prospecting...Just do it!!

When we begin our careers as real estate agents, prospecting is often the activity that occupies most of our time. We don't have any transactions we're working on and we may not know of anyone who's looking to close a real estate transaction, so the majority of our time often revolves around finding some people we can do business with.

The problem, though, is that oftentimes once we've achieved a certain degree of success in our industry, prospecting becomes something we do when we feel we have the time. And we all know how easy it is to find enough things to do to consume our day and not allow any time for prospecting. In summary here, it's easy to feel that as long as we're busy working on activity, prospecting is not really the most urgent matter we need to deal with.

And in mentioning this, how is your level of business activity right now? Are you happy with the number of transactions you're currently working on? How about the size of the transactions and you're average anticipated commissions from them?

If you're happy with your answers to these questions then what I'm about to say may not be relevant for you. But if you find yourself wanting more transactions or higher quality transactions for you to work on, the fastest way to elevate yourself to this new level of activity will probably be through prospecting.

With this in mind, how much prospecting are you doing on a weekly basis these days? I find that most veterans are probably doing no more than two hours of prospecting a week once they've established themselves in the business, and some of them are even doing less than this. But when I normally talk with agents who are doing this low level of prospecting, most every single time they're disappointed with the results they're currently producing in their businesses, too.

And when you're not doing your prospecting, you can become like a scavenger in your real estate business, working on the deals that just fall into your lap or have been passed over by other agents. You can feel like a boat at sea with no engine, no oars, and no sails...being moved in a direction that's completely outside of your control. In short, you can feel like a victim, but at the same time one who feels very busy doing a lot of activities everyday!

All the business you've ever wanted for yourself is constantly out there for you everyday. Just look at all the deals your competitors are closing that you're not involved in and you'll understand what I mean. If you had been prospecting these same people six months to a year ago, it could have been you successfully representing them and closing these transactions instead of your competitors. Maybe you wouldn't be closing all of these transactions, but you'd certainly be closing a good number of them.

The top agents I know personally prospect 10-12 hours a week. And what's even more important, they continually prospect like this every week even when they're busy. Because they know in doing this they'll continually find better leads for more lucrative transactions that they'd otherwise miss if they stopped prospecting.

So if you really want to kick your real estate career into high gear, here's my challenge to you:

For the next three months block out 10-12 hours a week on your calendar and prospect during this time. Don't make any excuses and just get this prospecting done no matter what happens. And if you do this for just the next three months I can almost guarantee your biggest problem will be deciding how to handle all the solid new business you're constantly working on.