Today many Realtors and new home salespeople are faced with an abundance of listings and available completed homes ("spec" or "inventory"). It's hard to focus on selling all of them at once, so here's an idea that I've been using.

If you have several homes to sell, pick one. It doesn't matter if it's the biggest, smallest, lowest or highest price, the shortest time on the market or the longest. It just doesn't matter which one you pick, but you must pick one.

Then to the relative exclusion of selling anything else you sell this home next - the one you have "adopted" as your pet project.

We all love a good challenge and thrive on competition. It's part of the salesperson's psyche. So here's the challenge: before you sell anything else, sell your new "adopted" home.

Have a contest with yourself. How long is it going to take you to do this?

Now, I don't mean that you should force it on someone who isn't right for the home, or vice versa. If you have the opportunity to sell something else, by all means do so.

What I'm talking about is becoming so familiar with the particular home that you select that you determine how to market it effectively. You look at the interior merchandising or staging. You critically examine the price, and if it's a reasonable asking price you figure out how to create sufficient value to merit the asking price. You have ready answers for any conceivable question or objection. You literally become an expert on that one home and act as if you must sell that home in order to survive.

With each new person you meet or talk to, your "adopted" home is the first one you mention or think about for that person. If you need to introduce or discuss other homes, that's OK - but only after you tried to sell your "adopted" home first.

Then after you sell that "adopted" home, repeat the process with another one.