37 Ways Not to Suck at Real Estate

37 Ways Not to Suck at Real Estate

When Ben Kinney and I traveled around the country during 2010 doing RainCamps, we had three goals in every city. Our first goal was to offend someone. Goal number two, to make someone cry. Goal number three, to make everyone laugh. I don't think we ever succeeded. Usually the person that was offended refused to laugh.......(you know the type)

(and more often than not, I was the one that ended up crying...........have you ever seen this video? Wow! Tear jerker for sure!)

Ben's a little brash, so the making people mad part was usually pretty easy for him. If you've heard him speak, you know what I mean. The thing is though......the guy sells real estate. He sells A LOT of real estate. In 2010 his team took over 600 listings. I'll repeat that because it bears repeating. His team took over 600 listings in 2010.

And I'm sure you're thinking, 'yeah, but he's been in business for a long time'. WRONG. He's in his 6th year in the business. So how the heck does someone go from 6 listings their first year to a team that does 600 listings in their 6th year? Systems, that's how. And they do things a little different than everyone else in their market.

I love Ben. He inspires me. I always savor the chance to get to hang out with him. Our conversations are amazing. I remember him telling me one time "I want to do things in my market that disrupt the market and have never been done before. If I do things that throws the competition off balance, I know I'm doing things right. How can they compete with me when they are always wondering what I'm going to do next?"

I'm super excited to have Ben joining me on an ActiveRain University webinar where he's going to share "37 ways not to suck at real estate". Now, you could end up being the person pissed off. Don't say I didn't warn you. As long as you aren't that person, I promise you one hour with Ben that will inspire you to generate more leads and close more deals because he'll share with you what he does to make those things happen. They are things that anyone can do, you just have to do them!

(make sense? Anyone can do it.....you just have to DO IT!)

In case you were thinking you have something else going on that day, I want to share this little story with you about Ben. It's one of my favorite stories and it goes to show how making small changes in the way you approach your business can make a significant impact. The actual names and places have been changed to protect the stupid........

Before getting into real estate, Ben was a cable guy.  He sold and installed cable for a big cable TV company. Well at first he just installed it, but after bird dogging the sales manager every day for six months, the guy finally gave Ben a shot at selling it.  It was a door to door sales job which meant Ben and 20 other guys knocked doors every day and tried to sell people cable, phone, and internet.  Ben did ok as a door to door sales person.  He would sell as much as any guy in the division 2-3 sales per day.   

The problem for Ben was that his income was tied directly to how many doors he could knock during the day light hours.  (I mean who would answer the door with a weird looking guy like Ben standing outside after dark)  Ben wanted to sell more Cable TV so he decided to wait for all the sales people to leave the office then he would start calling people from the phone book instead of knocking on their doors.  He was able to increase his number of touches from 100 door knocks to 3-500 dials per day which increased his sales from 2-3 per day to 3-6 sales per day.  

That wasn't quite enough sales for Ben though - so he had an idea (Probably while using the restroom since that seems to be where all Ben's ideas come from) He thought "when do most people order new Cable, Telephone, and Internet Service?  When they move right??"

Before Ben (we'll call this BB) if you rented an apartment in his little college town or bought a new home, the property management or Realtor would give you a flyer with all the utility companies listed on it which had the phone numbers for the different cable, satellite, and phone companies that when customers called they were routed to some foreign countries call center.

What do you think Ben did?  He went home and created new utility sheets for every apartment building, property management company, and real estate office in town - complete with their logos and on nice pretty stationary paper and with only one minor change next to the Cable, Phone, and Internet Companies he put his name and cell phone number with a simple FREE INSTALLATION offer!

Yep, then he went to every apartment complex, real estate office, etc. and let them know that he was going to provide FREE custom utility sheets every month so they would have nice fresh ones to give to their new residents who needed cable, phone, and internet.  When thier residents needed new service they could get it installed, all in one quick stop. No need to have your call routed through India's sales office. Ben would sell you the cable, phone, and internet right there and then come over that night and install it.  Then Ben was able to sell 10+ per day and never knock another door again.

Do you think he upset a few people sitting on their butt in the cable office? So what!  To me this was GENIUS!! There is no other word to describe it. I never would have thought to do it myself, I can admit that. I'm sure there was nothing in the cable company manual that said he couldn't do it. One small minor little change and all of a sudden he is the top selling sales person in the history of the cable company.

He's making these small tweaks all the time in his real estate business, to the tune of 693 listings taken in 2010. This year, his team will sell over 500 properties. And he's a regular guy just like you and me, except he might be a little bit uglier.......or maybe looking at things just a little bit different.

Come join us on August 2nd at 10am Pacific Time. I promise you'll learn a bunch and you might even make one small discovery that will change the way you do business. There isn't a ton of room so get registered now to make sure you don't end up being the guy/gal sitting back in the cable office waiting for the phone to ring.

(Here is the video if you missed us live)