Last night, my wife hosted an event for anyone in our database who chose to show up. She had asked our Lender to do a presentation about the mortgage debacle and for me to give a local perspective through the eyes of a Principal Broker. This was a fun presentation. John's Power-point presentation was a "canned" marketing presentation prepared by Contrywide . . . It was National statistics, so my local data was fun to toss into the mix when appropriate. The fun aspect of it was that the national trend was "High Inventory, decreasing prices, long days on market . . . while the local Nashville trend is High inventory . . . INCREASED average prices . . . and I was sitting there holding a bar chart showing that Keller Williams Realty is having a good, solid business flow.
This morning, our son Tyler "shadowed" me for a high school assignment. I had a very full (normal) schedule with 4 coaching appointments, leading 2 Masterminds, a barrage of smaller emergent issues, @ 50+ incoming telephone calls and 2 on-going and very complex negotiations . . . all in the 3 hours he was with me. At one point, he and I looked at each other, and he said that each time I opened my office door, it was like a vacuum and would suck more people with their issues into my office. For sure, it seemed that way. Tyler had a questionnaire he needed to ask me, and every time he asked a question, we would be interrupted . . . Finally, he stood and LOCKED my door and staked his claim to some private time. I turned the phone off, and we had @ 20 minutes of uninterrupted interviewing . . . This was fun for me as he actually asked some questions that caused me to really start thinking.
I may sound like a broken record, but I had at least 5 opportunities today to advise associates to reduce expenses and increase prospecting activities. My mantra is even advising against attending classes unless they are CERTAIN they will gain information that will directly benefit them - STOP building new systems and focus entirely on developing healthy client relationships even if they are long term. Truth is, I have yet to see any positive impact from the Fed rate reduction. I think the public is waiting for the media to tell them it's OK to buy now . . . but this does not mean that there are not new leads out there . . . just don't expect immediate sales from those leads . . . It's ALL about filling a solid pipeline and keeping in close contact.
We are looking forward to a relaxing week-end . . . soccer Saturday . . . a couple of Open Houses on Sunday . . . and beautiful weather :-)
Best,
b
Barry Owen
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