5. Understand communications technology and use it
High speed internet, laptops, cell phones, PDA’s, text messaging and call capture systems (800#’s). The best system that we have found is
Adtrakker (
www.adhotline.net/58419 ). Modern technology at its finest. And perfect devices you can use to leverage your time and income. For example, we use call capture systems to:
· Generate leads for both buyers and sellers
· Answer all calls from these lead sources
· Deliver an educational and benefit laden message to all callers
· Soft qualifies all callers
· Answers the same questions asked by most callers
· Guides callers into the next step in the marketing sequence
· Requests and records callers name, address and phone number
· Requests caller to make a direct call into the office
· Send Fax Back brochures of a property of special report to a potential client
We also use call capture systems to:
· Provide an audio brochure of our listing inventory
· Provide a "seller’s update" service eliminating the need for personal calls
· Provide a "FSBO Helpline" which educates and helps generate leads
We use modems and faxes to request lender information, property specs, and referrals. We use cell phones to make calls, check email and utilize text messages while on the road. We use cell phones as "announcement" devices letting us know when our internet site has received a response, when an ad has been called upon, and when a potential buyer has called on a property ad.
Use modern communications technology to leverage your time and efforts. Take a look at what’s available and think about how you could best use it. And, I promise you, you’ll be amazed and what you can get done… easier, faster, and with less headache and hassle.
6. Develop a local top-producer network
One agent I know absolutely refuses to work with sellers. Another absolutely refuses to work with buyers. I’ve asked both what they do with their "unwanted" leads and referrals. Their answers: "Nothing." Oh, gee… that’s a brilliant, money-making answer! One thing’s for sure… it’s your ticket to leveraging your time, money and income potential. For example, one small-town California agent I know uses her top-producer network to generate over $500,000 a year in extra commissions by simply referring all her soon to be expired listings out to her competition. By giving them permission to solicit these soon to be expireds… chances are very good they will be relisted and sold. When they are, she gets a paid 25-30% referral fee. Money she would not have seen otherwise! In return, she too takes listings which were referred to her, earning 70-75% of her normal commission which she gets with very little (if any) competition!
Set up a fax-back system, or internet system to gain valuable feedback concerning your listings.
Set up new "listing announcement" system. Either fax or email or have delivered all of your new listings to your top producer network. Have them do likewise.
Expand your network globally. Get yourself listed on numerous "referral" programs. Develop a network of "non-competitive" professionals and meet with them once a week or so for the sole-purpose of lead generation. You get leads for moving companies and you give them away. They get leads for your services and they give them to you. What a deal!
7. Think systems
"Go to work ON your business rather than IN it,
and ask yourself the following questions:
1. How can I get my business to work, but without me?
2. How can I get my people to work, but without my constant interference?
3. How can I systematize my business in such a way that it could be replicated 5,000 times, so the 5,000th unit would run as smoothly as the first?
4. How can I own the business, and still be free of it?
5. How can I spend my time doing the work I love to do, rather than the work I have to do?"
—Michael E. Gerber in his book, The E Myth.
Real Estate. It’s the career you love to hate.
You love the money and freedom real estate represents. But you know what?
Statistically you are doomed to fail. And you know it.
That’s why you have a love/hate relationship with the industry. You love the opportunity real estate represents, but you hate the thought of potential failure. The thought that it might all come to an end someday; the phone will stop ringing; your calls will stop being received; the market will take a nose dive right into the toilet…
When you chose real estate as your means to financial success… you set the stage for a play wherein there are only two roles—Heel or Hero.
The attrition rate in the real estate industry is even worse!Statistics tell us that if 60 individuals apply to take a prelicensing course, only 50 will complete the course. 32 will pass the exam on their first attempt. 25 will sign up with a local broker.
Of the 25 who enter the business, most will earn less than $24,000 a year. One will make over $75,000 their first year.
Five years from licensure, only 2 or 3 will still be in the business. Now, let’s see. By my count, that’s 57 "heels" for every 3 "heroes."
Now I don’t quote the stats to discourage you, but rather to introduce a key distinction you must make if you ever hope to make it big in this business…
You need to create and maintain the mind set you are in business.
Successful real estate professionals are not hobbyists. They have not embraced a career, or a part-time venture. They have decided to go into business, and they engineer their day-to-day activities in such a way as to work ON their businesses versus IN their businesses. And that is the key to their success.
Most agents and brokers (remember… most will fail or, at best, produce mediocre results year after year after year) arise every morning in search of the "deal". They spend their time seeking out new prospects, do their best to secure that business, finalize the sale… and go on to the next sale, the next deal. In other words, they spend the majority of their time working in their businesses!
They do all the prospecting. They place their own ads. Conduct their own open houses, complete their own paperwork, receive all calls, do all their own qualifying, interviewing, driving, showing, picture taking, sign placements, mls postings, mailings, and escrow closings. They do it all. And they’re good at it. They’ve mastered in the fundamentals, the nuts and bolts of the business… and, most will fail. Miserably.
The successful real estate professional, on the other hand, wakes up in the morning and goes about the business of creating a business. A big business. The "deal" is just one element of many—and not necessarily the most important.
The goal isn’t to secure a new deal… the goal is to create an enterprise, an equity-based business that can 1) run profitably independent of your efforts, 2) provide the means of an early retirement if that is what you want—a perpetual money machine, or 3) a salable business.
The successful real estate professional may work in their business when necessary, but their primary emphasis is working on their businesses—on the creation of viable, hugely profitable enterprise.
Key Distinction: Your business in not your life.
Your real estate career, your business, if you want it to succeed in a huge way… at its best, should be viewed as distinctly apart from you. Your business and your life are two totally separate things.
You, as an individual, will live and die according to how well you maintain your health, avoid accidents and disease. Your lifestyle will be determined by how much income you generate and how much free time you have available to enjoy the benefits of your income.
Your business will live and die according to how well it performs its one and only function: to find, satisfy, and keep customers. Your life is not our business. You do not live to serve your business; your business lives to serve your life. You have to make this key distinction, this "separation" if you ever hope to propel your business beyond your capabilities.
So, just how do you go about working ON your business versus working IN your business? How are you going to create systems… the ultimate in leverage?
Imagine you are given the assignment to create a hugely profitable real estate franchise. A turn-key operation. In other words, your task is to create a business that not only works, but is also 100% duplicable by anybody. An "out-of-the box" salable business. Plug it in and it works.
Not sometimes. Always. Without fail.
And remember… you won’t be there to run the show! You won’t be there to do all the work! The business model you create must be 100% duplicable… without your interference in any way, shape, or form.
Here are some more "rules" you should need to follow as you create your winning, duplicable business:
1. Your business model will provide consistent value to everyone directly or indirectly touched by it, its products and/or services. Your goal is not to provide outstanding service but, rather, ASTOUNDING service.
2. Your business will operate efficiently and effectively by people with the lowest level of skill and monetary requirements. Your $12-an-hour office manager should not be employed in a $6-an-hour telemarketing job. Likewise, if your $6-an-hour telemarketing personnel is capable of reproducing a press release, stuffing a few envelopes and mailing… why on earth would you even consider hiring super expensive PR agency to do the same thing?
3. Your business will be organized to the hilt. Sloppy habits make for a sloppily run business. There is not order to be found within the chaos as far as your duplicable business is concerned.
4. Every job, duty, and operating procedure will be formally documented in an Operations Manual. Remember your primary goal is to create a duplicable, "out-of-the-box" business. Everything must be organized, systemized, and documented so anyone who can read and follow simple instructions and do what you’ve determined needs to be done.
5. Your successful business will provide consistent, predicable results. Not sometimes. Not just when the market is good. Always. No excuses.
Leverage yourself. Think systems. Think how you can "sell in bunches."
Happy selling!
Brandon Patrick
Dean of Students
Real Estate Toolbox University
