An Educated Competitor Is An Asset! A resource and a friend. Teach a competitor and he becomes a friend and a personal disciple!

I left banking to go in to real estate 34 years ago, one of the things that surprised me most was the anti competition mentality. Lenders at the time co-operated. I started with the most progressive and at the time largest company in the state, the only one at the time with an accredited full time school. Dedicated to excellences through education, they were no less paranoid about any contact, any wisdom being shared with outsiders!

We're not talking about corporate secretes, no we're talking about basic real estate! They regularly brought the best in the Nation to teach us basic real estate. We're not talking about pre-licensing, their people passed the exam on the first try by themselves or they could work elsewhere. I myself got 66 hours notice one Friday that I was taking the real estate exam at 8:00AM the next Monday. I was given my ticket to take the exam, and two books, the red book, RE Law and the Green Book, Seminole on RE, I had to study them while flying Brenda and Eric to a wedding and a family camp out, so with Eric sleeping between sleeping bags and formal close in the back, I studied while Brenda watched for other airplanes.

For the next two years the broker did his best to keep us away from other real estate people. God forbid any one should find out their secret, start with good people an educate them. We had three big problems! There had been some attacks on salesmen showing vacant homes, fall-out when buyers were turned down by banks, and competition paying for civil-rights testers to testus almost weekly! I suggested we pull credit reports before showing any property! Credit reports and a copy of the clients drivers license/s in a locked file at the office stopped muggins, pre-quailing with a credit report cut down turn-downs and testers now had to send real couples, in fact one of our people even sold a test couple a home they didn't know they wanted.

The company agreed to put-in a credit report teletype machine if I would teach interpreting them and pre-qualifying, my introduction to teaching, sharing for it's own sake.

We still had a problemmany of our listings were being sold by other offices and keap falling out. I was on the Board's Education Committee, I suggested they teach credit-reports and pre-quailing. Open month insert foot (I'm good at it!) Suddenly I was head of a new subcommittee for seminars! Little did I know this would amount to nearly two a month over the next ten years! What I learned was that when someone who'd had the class presented an offer on one of our listings they were much more likely to close! An Educated Competitor Is An Asset! When I'd taught the class there was no argument they'd show me what I wanted to see, to our benfit and that of our clients!

At about the same time as I taught the first class for the company I joined the CCIM marketing group, low and behold as soon as they saw you were serious they'd teach you! The very best educated REALTORS® were freely on call as long as you were a serious student. Six months later I joined the Farm and Land Institute, the very best people I've ever been privileged to associate with! FLI was a constant education, they had less formal classes, but they included education in every session, every hour of their 3 day and 2 night meetings each month! They excepted, not demanded reciprocity, I taught credit, finance and the HP-38c /12c for both groups.

Why teach a competitor? You teach for three reasons:

          One, you teach because working with an educated competitor is more successful!

         Two, you teach because the public, our consumers paint us all with the same broad brush!

         Three, you teach because there is no better way to hone, sharpen your own skills!

This was inspired by Jason Couch's blog: Do you really think of every other agent in your area as a competitor? Overcoming a scarcity mentalitywhich was in turn inspired by one of Jeremy Blanton's posts.

It amazes the number of REALTORS® and Mortgage Originators that think so little of themselves that they think they have competition! We have only one product our personal service! You rarely have a truly exclusive listing or loan program. Your own service is the only thing that no one else can offer, pimps and their staff excluded. Unfortunately, all to often Real Estate People see their peers as competitors. These same people think they sell real estate or mortgage money. They're wrong! Real Estate people sell advice, wisdom, consoling and comfort to clients in stressful situations. Real Estate people sell their services! No one else can sell you! You have no competitors!

Once you accept the simple truth, you have no competitors, then networking aiding and being aided by your peers is the best way to build your skills and since most work in a relatively small geographic area those same peers can become a major source of referrals.

I promote and participate on Active Rain because we're all bettered, nay blessed, by our social intercourse!

I sell my services, what I've been taught by the great people I've been privileged to associate with. My services are relevant and up to date thanks to friends known and as yet unknown sharing, participating, learning and teaching on and in Active Rain. An Educated Competitor Is An Asset! A resource and a friend. Call me: 832-259-7078, I'm booking for 2010.