If you are new to real estate and trying to find your path to success, or if you are an experienced agent looking for ways to improve your performance these "tips" can help you refocus your efforts to achieve the results that you desire.

In trying to build a real estate business we have to look at a number of important issues .... for example .... the individual agent's personal motivation, how big the agent thinks, the agent's level of commitment, their willingness to learn how to sell .... and the list goes on.

In addition to these types of thoughts the agent has to decide what methods they will use for building their business once they've dealt with the issues from above.  By methods, I mean, are they going to wait for business to find them, are they going to buy business or are they going to go out and earn the business?

The term waiting refers to the traditional methods used by agents who generally never become top producers in the marketplace.  By waiting the agent is going to hold open houses, take floor time (referred to as "opportunity time") and work a geographical farm.  The problem, of course, with these types of activities is that it's very difficult to predict the business coming in to the agent or duplicate it once you get the business.

The term buying business has also become a commonly used method by agents today.  Here the agent commits to and spends money with the anticipation of people calling them (this is commonly called "response marketing").  Buying means, you will be spending your money on advertising, both personal and property ads, extensive marketing that will vary from personal brochures to bus benches to a variety of the other gimmicks that agents purchase to gain the public's attention.  Also in the category of buying business falls the extensive mailings that agents continue to do.

These mailings will be from anybody to a lead in the database to the just listed, just sold cards and letters that are being continually sent out.

Earning business was the third method mentioned above and the method that is taught the least, and, therefore, used by the fewest number of agents.  By earning business the agent spends a portion of each day prospecting or trying to find potential buyers and sellers.  This is done either face to face or on the phone.  The agent will contact their centers of influence, their past clients, call or contact people around their listings and sales, contact for sale by owners and expired listings and, in some cases, make cold phone calls or knock on cold doors.

Of the three methods mentioned in this report, the superstars that are working to add 20% annually to their business are specializing in earning versus waiting or buying.

Will the superstars I'm referring to in this report take floor time? ....

No. Will they hold an open house? .... No. Will they have an assistant or showing agent hold open house for them? ... Occasionally. Are these top agents spending money on ads, promotions and mailings? .... In some cases they do and the more repeat and referral business they earn, the less money they spend on these and the higher the profit they experience in their business.

As you read the ideas in this article, you must realize that the agents who contributed these "60 tips from the superstars" are following preplanned, designed systems and are working to add 20% annually to their business and, are working daily using the ideas they've learned regarding earning business.

The information shared in this article was taken from an interview with 75 agents from all over North America.  They have been in the real estate business an average of 9 years and their production for the years 1997, 1998 and 1999 is as follows:

1996 they averaged 121 closed units per person.

1997 they averaged 152 closed units per person.

1998 they will average 209 closed units per person.

The average income for this group is just over one million dollars annually and they are running about 35% in expenses.  Their expenses include monies paid to assistants and showing agents they may employ.


As you can see, they are not only highly productive but they are highly profitable, which is one of the primary goals that everyone has in this business.

Regarding the "60 tips" .... they are divided the thoughts into four categories .... Skills, Production, Mindset and Profit.


Skills

The skills a real estate person has are the foundation for a productive and profitable career.  The skills are either made of steel and cement or they are made of sand.  Obviously, one is lasting and strong and one goes away with the slightest amount of adversity.  To make your skills strong, exact scripts, dialogues and techniques must be practiced daily.

They must be learned and ingrained into the subconscious mind.  Real estate is still one of the only industries where basic skills are not required.  Because of this, each salesperson has to take the time each day to improve on the specifics of what they are saying and what they are doing.  Without skills the agent must rely on waiting or buying as a means of getting business.

Remember, that waiting and buying are very time consuming and very expensive and it's very difficult to control the responses you get.


Production

Comes to agents as they develop their skills, intensify their commitment and follow their business plans. Production is the result of doing each day those activities that lead to listings and sales.  A productive agent is going to spend 70% of his work day involved in prospecting (finding new business), lead follow up (setting appointments and qualifying prospects), listing presentations and negotiating contracts.  The other 30% of the day will be spent on the management of the staff, planning and occasionally working on a problem transaction.


Mindset

Many people believe that it's easier to learn a skill than it is to develop strength of mind, and, they are probably right.  Mindset is simply developing mental strength so that the day's ups and downs do not throw you off the track.  Developing a strong mindset is probably one of the biggest challenges every individual faces and it is critical to an agents' growth.


Profit

What's left after the expenses have been paid.  For an agent to believe that they can create production without the proper skills and mindset is foolish.  The growth of your profit in real estate is the proof that you've mastered or are in the process of mastering, skills, production and mindset.

As stated above, the "60 tips" fall into each of these four categories with 15 tips in each area.  Study them carefully, re-read this report daily and then apply these ideas and let's add 20% to your production.


SKILLS

1. Developing the ability to set, maintain and follow a goal oriented daily schedule is critical to
    one's success.  Each of us must develop the skill of not only setting the schedule but then
    create the discipline to follow it daily.

2. To increase your skills you must determine what motivates you as an individual.  Some of
    your options are: more money, more recognition, debt reduction, savings for investments
    or retirement, or you may be motivated by something as simple as intense competition
    within your office or your area.

3. Prospecting results come as a result of patience and an understanding of the time required
    to get those results.  You must complete a 90 day prospecting cycle to develop the skill of
    prospecting required to add 20% to your business annually.

4. Prospecting intensity is critical .... You should never stop your prospecting because you
    have or have not generated a lead.  Generating or not generating a lead is not the issue,
    it's the discipline of completing the prospecting process that is the issue .... this requires
    intensity on your part.

5. The objective in prospecting is to get appointments .... not leads.  When you get a lead,
    you must qualify it immediately and close for an appointment, otherwise you're going to
    be spending too much time doing lead follow up later.

6. We generally do not prospect for any one of a few reasons .... discover which one is
    stopping you.  For example, we don't have any scripts to use, we can't handle rejection,
    acceptance or embarrassment or maybe it's something as simple as poor time
    management skills because we've never created the schedule referred to in point
    number one.

7. We have to create the habit of never going on a listing presentation until we've pre-qualified
    the seller 100%.

8. Your listing presentation must be designed around questions.  The answers to these
    questions will give you enough information to decide whether or not you want to take the
    listing.  Remember, you and only you, decide if a contract is going to be signed.

9. When you ask a question, you must be able to stop talking and listen to the answer being
    given .... then you must respond to that answer.

10. You must develop a response to every question and objection you receive while prospecting,
      presenting, closing and negotiating.  This is the easiest way to not only build confidence in
      yourself but to also have the customer have more confidence in you.

11. You know when a seller's motivation is lower than it should be because they demand ..... a
      much higher price, extensive marketing and a lot of personal service.  You must learn to
      walk away from these types of listings.

12. To increase our skills we must develop both strong, positive and negative consequences to
      our own behavior and then have somebody hold us accountable so we make sure we are
      using the skills we are being taught so we don't continue to make the same mistakes
      repetitively.

13. You can control the response and the effectiveness of your prospecting by controlling both
      the quality and the quantity of the contacts that you are making.

14. When prospecting you must learn and use every word of the script, not just the words you
      are comfortable with.

15. If you're uncomfortable making lead follow up calls, it means that you either do not have a
     defined script or you don't have a lead.


PRODUCTION

1. Learning not to be emotionally involved in the transactions is one of the first and most critical
    steps to higher production.  There is nothing that can hurt your personal production faster
    than letting the customers or the transactions run your emotions up and down daily.

2. Accept the fact that scheduled prospecting times are actual appointments that you have to
    keep.  These prospecting appointments are as important as a listing appointment because
    you can't do one without the other.

3. Since everyone experiences slumps at various times, the fastest way out of a slump is to
    prospect for two hours and find someone who wants to buy or sell immediately.

4. Every day when you start to work you have two options ....

    A. Do something highly productive or,

    B. Act like an average, non-productive real estate agent. Which path are you going to take?

5. To increase production, remember, you are the only one to decide if a real estate market is
    good or bad.  Your customers, the economy and other agents do not make this decision for
    you.

6. It really doesn't matter what cycle the real estate economy is in, because 15 to 20 good
    listing appointments a month will cure all of your production problems.

7. Every week, answer these three questions:  Should I be giving some of my listings back?
    What emotional price am I paying for some of the listings that I have?  What does it cost
    to keep a listing for six months that will not sell?

8. To increase your production, construct your business around the following:

   A. Continuous planning.

   B. Paying absolute attention to details.

   C. Making decisions based on facts and not on emotions.

9. We can never reach high levels (non-traditional) of production if we keep going back to
    traditional methods of doing business.  At some point we have to cut the cord and go to
    the next level.

10. Always be looking for the thought, word or action that stops you from achieving the goals
     you've set .... it may be a person who you know well, so beware of the people you spend
     your time with and talk with.

11. To increase production, remember, that the agents who are willing to continue trying after
      they have continually failed will always win in the long run.

12. To increase production we have to eliminate all the clutter in our lives, especially in our
      business and our workspace (our office).  And, as importantly, we must remove all the
      frenzy that either we create or we allow our staff or customers to create from the business.

13. To increase production try the following:

     A. Track the number of hours you prospect daily for 90 days.

     B. Track whom you call and the order in which you call them.

     C. Check your energy and intensity hourly while you are doing the prospecting.

14. At the end of each day carefully answer the following three questions.

     A. What did I do right today?

     B. Where did I get off the track?

     C. What do I need to focus on tomorrow?

15. To increase production, remember that selling is legal.


MINDSET

1. Don't be so hard on yourself everyday.  As long as you're doing what you're supposed
    to be doing everyday, you're going to succeed in this business.

2. There's nothing that's going to happen each day as you work that you really have to be
    afraid of.  Keep your eye on the goals that you've set and the fears that you experience
    during the course of the day will go away.

3. Accept failure as a normal part of the living process.  View it as a new way to explore the
    world of selling.  Make note of the lessons you learn and move on.

4. If you put the same energy into prospecting daily and following our schedule that you may
    so often put into creative avoidance activities you'll achieve the goals you've set a lot faster.
    You have the power  eliminate these non-productive activities.

5. If you never expose ourselves to high risk you'll never get high rewards PERIOD.  Are you
    willing to take the risk of learning new skills?

6. You must constantly ask yourself these types of questions if you want to develop a stronger
    mindset ...

    A. Who do I spend my time with?

    B. What have they got me saying and doing?

    C. Where do they have me going?

    D. What do they have me thinking?

    E. Because of the above ... what am I becoming?

7. The people around you are nothing more than a reflection of you.  If you want to see who
    you are, look at your friends, your acquaintances and the people you spend time with.
    Are you happy with what you see?

8. Since success in anything is nothing more than the progressive realization of a worthwhile
    goal or objective, you must define the goal, the path that you're going to take and, in your
    mind, accept the fact that you can accomplish this.

9. A good portion of the success that you will achieve comes in streaks.  We have to learn to
    pace ourselves mentally and emotionally .... Think of yourself as running a marathon versus
    running the hundred yard dash.

10. A real estate person is never finished when they are defeated.  They're finished when they quit.
     Develop the mindset that quitting is not an option for you.

11. Discipline is the ability to make and keep a promise to yourself.

12. We all know that the problem we face is not the fear that we have at the moment, but how
     we react to that fear.  If you look carefully at this, it is a mental situation, not a physical one.

13. It's critical that you never start our day real excited or real depressed, because you can't
      think clearly when you are overly excited or overly depressed.

14. You need to make the connection between our success and the fact that you are the only
     one in charge of that success.

15. Mental toughness is doing what you are supposed to do every single day.


PROFIT

1. The difference between a real estate agent earning a living and a professional salesperson
    doing a large and profitable business can easily be defined by how efficient they are each
    day.  How efficient are you?

2. One of the simple ways to accumulate high profits is to learn to control your emotions.  Our
    emotional ups and downs lead to bad decisions, and, in almost every case, cost us money.

3. If 70% of your income is not coming from listings sold, you are working too many days and
    too many hours and therefore, you are not as profitable as you should be.

4. The only way to earn large amounts of money and therefore, potentially large profits is to give
    high quality service to the people you deal with.  Also, you have to mentally accept the fact
    that making money is critical because money is how business people keep score.

5. If you are in a position today where you are short of money, it simply means you have not
    given the type of service to other people that they actually want.  Re-define the service you
    are offering and the cost of giving it.

6. There are only two types of activities in the real estate business:  creating income ... and
    administering the income that you bring in.  Where do you spend most of your time?

7. You have to have a monthly profit and loss statement.  You need to get to know it,
    understand it and, if you're brave enough, share it with your staff.

8. To increase profits, charge a full commission on every transaction.  Don't cut
    commissions for anybody under any circumstance.

9. To increase profits add a transaction fee for all buyers and all sellers on every transaction.

10. There are three major challenges to increasing your profits. They are:

     A. Getting your ego out of the way.

     B. Developing the ability to change quickly.

     C. A lack of commitment.  Which one of these is stopping you from becoming more profitable?

11. As I mentioned earlier regarding emotions .... One of the quickest ways to increase profits
     is to quit acting like an average real estate agent.  Don't spend 10% more than what you
     are earning.

12. Everyday, measure the difference between the plan you've set and where your business
     actually is at the moment .... If you want to improve your profits, close this gap.

13. To become highly profitable you have to quit focusing on our gross sales volume and what
     your showing agents, if any, are doing.  You have to look carefully at the reality of what
     you personally are doing each day and the money you are bringing in. This is how you
     create profits.

14. If my profit is to improve, my attitude towards the words skills, production and mindset
     needs to improve also.  The faster I improve my attitude toward these words, the faster
     I'll improve my profits.

15. Remember that personal discipline is a key factor in earning a profit.  Take the time to
     re-read this report daily for the next sixty to ninety days.  Work on one idea at a time
     until you have mastered that thought.

NOW GO GET IT DONE!

Just thought you should know.

Have a profitable day!

Steven