“Coffee is for Closers!” Alec Baldwin
shouts this to Jack Lemmon in one of the best sales movies of all time,
Glengary Glen Ross. It’s the story of four real estate salesman trying to make end
of the month quotas. Their company is sponsoring a contest. First place is a Cadiallac, second place is a set of steak knives and third and fourth prize is
“you’re fired!”
Baldwin continues his sales meeting with the ABC system – “Always Be Closing”. The salesmen complain that the leads stink and Baldwin says that the good leads are for closers. These are the Glengary leads. I was channel surfing the other night and ran across this movie again and it reminded me just how much my attitude has changed towards my business over the years.
“She sure did hit the ground running”, that’s what the old timers in my office said when I first started selling real estate back in the day. I was full of excitement and so clueless that I would follow every lead no matter how small or ridiculous. I didn’t know how to qualify leads, I just followed up on anything and everyone that gave me an inkling that they might buy or sell a house someday. I don’t know if people felt sorry for me, or if it was just beginners luck, but I had three listings and sold two buyers in my first few months.
I would take office “up time” whenever I could and if an agent didn’t show up I’d jump right in their spot. I was so naïve in fact that I go around to the experienced agents and ask them for the leads that they were done working, the ones that they were going to throw away. I told them that if I could resurrect their dead lead, that I’d give them a 25% referral fee, “just let me have a stab at it” I’d beg. They’d laugh and always throw me a bone or too and I’d work those leads like they were gold. And sometimes, I’d be able to turn their garbage into a sale or listing.
Over the years I’ve learned how to qualify leads, get buyer agreements signed and turn down grossly overpriced listings. In my first year of real estate, I would have never turned down a listing no matter what the price was. I was thrilled just to have one of my signs in someone’s yard.
Fast forward two decades - I look back on those days and chuckle to myself. I worked a ton of hours that first year and surprisingly closed several of those dead leads. I earned my stripes I guess you’d say. But have I become “too good” to follow every single lead now? Am I over qualifying leads? Has the great market the past few years made me soft and lazy?
I use Top Producer to track my leads these days, but the leads haven’t changed much since that first metal box of note cards. What has changed is how much time I give to each lead. When I was new and only had a few cards in my box, I’d follow up with phone calls and personal notes and even visits. Now I have customers on email campaigns and automatic alerts. As I scrolled through my data base today, I thought to myself that it’s time to get back to basics and to work those leads like they were gold.
I also started to prune my data base. I printed out those leads that I just wasn’t going to work anymore and I’m going to give them to one of the newer agents with instructions to “work the lead until you just can’t anymore”. One hundred percent of a dead lead for me is zero, but 25% of a referred transaction is something.
The market is changing and we have to change with it. It’s time to get back to the basics and work those leads. Maybe those leads don’t stink; maybe we’re just relying too much on drip email and automatic alerts and not enough on personal attention.
Following is the famous “sales meeting” that Alec Baldwin delivers in Glengary Glen Ross. It has a ton of four letter words. If this sort of thing bothers you, please don’t watch this clip. I just think it’s brilliant and there is so much to be learned from watching these different salesmen try to overcome their own personal obstacles. Please don’t watch this and then email me that you are appalled by the language, I’m warning you now.
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