10 Days of Pain for 1 Day of Closing.

Excruciating Pain.

I have yet to meet a real estate agent that is willing to state, "I love lead generation."  It's the one thing we all seem to hate.  Whether we dislike the rejection, the awkward silence on the other end of the phone, or just feel uncomfortable intruding; we all go through periods where getting us to call and convert leads (for the record, I hate that word) is akin to having root canal surgery with a rusty spoon and no Novocaine.

In Chapter 8, "Social Media and Lead Conversion", of Ben Kinney's ebook Soci@l (which you can download for free at the RainCamp page on ActiveRain), Ben discusses his aptly titled 10 days of pain.  When I first read the book, I chuckled over the title of this and thought of how many times I sat in front of the phone about to call a new lead.  Picking up that phone is like lifting a few thousand pounds on that first call.  It's painful.  Every time though, as the conversation begins, I find myself thinking, "why was this so hard to do?"  Conversing with people is something I can do.  It seems picking up the phone is the hard part.  The actual act of lifting the receiver is where the pain is.

The 10 days of pain campaign that Ben Kinney has developed gave me three things to think about - 1) how am I at converting leads, 2) a funny way to describe it (a little humor makes everything slightly less painful), and 3) actionable steps that I can implement (often I find there's a lot of talk about how to convert, but not enough substance in the form of a simple how-to).  While I won't attempt to summarize the 10 days of pain here (you can read about it for yourself), I do think this is something I can personally implement.  One of my goals this year is to really buckle down and get the conversion part of the business a bit more refined.

How much are you willing to give?

Ten days sounds like a lot at first.  That's more than a week!  Immediately after reading the chapter, I thought about it for a few minutes.  Am I willing to through 10 days of pain to get one day of closing?  The answer is obvious?  Of course!  Ten days of pain beats thirty days of pain because I have not closed a transaction.  In my recent time away from real estate, I had the ability to truly look at my real estate business and analyze what I liked, what I didn't like, as well as what was working and what wasn't working.  I was able to step back and look at my business from a new angle - one which didn't require me to deal with the daily work of being an agent (it's easy to get distracted from the tough questions when you're working hard).

Once I compared the ten days of pain to one day of closing, I began to think of it in a different light.  Ten days suddenly seems a little easier to swallow.  We all want more closings, yet we all struggle to do the things necessary to get the leads turned to clients that will get us to those closings.  Tom Ferry and I have been building a plan for the year for myself (thanks to the free coaching calls I received via ActiveRain) and I can already see how implementing Ben Kinney's 10 days of pain will help me implement some of the work that Tom and I are discussing (more on that later).

Looks like I'll be experiencing a painful year and somehow, that's exactly what I want.

photo courtesy of Racchio

 

 

This blog post is a review of Soci@l: Attract Friends, Followers and Connections to Your Business. Soci@l is a free download written by Ben Kinney in conjunction with ActiveRain and Jay Papasan. In exchange for downloading the free copy of Soci@l and writing this review, I have a chance to win a free iPad and I'm getting 2000 ActiveRain points.

Download a free copy of Social here and find out how you can have a chance to win an iPad and be guaranteed 2000 ActiveRain points.

All content ©2008-2010 by Matt Stigliano unless otherwise noted.

 Matt Stigliano, Realtor® | (210) 646-HOME | www.RErockstar.com

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