OK. I have to admit that I wasn't exactly sure I should have put it so bluntly. I have watched the careers of some of the best agents in my area go down the drain while others are having their best years ever in this market. Even my new agents in my office are doing well. Being a new agent in this business at this time is probably a HUGE advantage to making a great living in real estate today. Why? Because they don't know any better then the current market they are in. They are being trained on how to go out and find the business and all they know is that they need to work hard plus build a referral base. Experienced agents were so used to the 5-6 years of having it easy that they are having trouble going back to basics! Which to me means working a longer day, making extra phone calls, or having more open houses. Yet the new agents know nothing more THEN THE BASICS! These newbies are out there doing what they are told to do (because they don't anyything else) such as, call your friends, build a business referall network exchange, become an expert in a niche, hold open houses in the most active price range, etc... For the past 9 years, I have had the great fortune of training some of the best agents in the twin cities. The program that these agents attend is called "The Elite Sales Force sales Academy." I havebeen documenting and recording their results over this 9 year time peiod. While conducting the course, I have always found that the top performers all seemed to have 7 common key elements in place whereas the agents who did not do well in the course ALWAYS fell short in one or 2 of these areas. Now, I need you to know that in good markets and bad, winter, spring, summer, or fall, these agents have been averaging over 2 listing appointments a week and almost 1 unit a week!!
Todays real estate agent needs to take a lesson from "The Sales Academy" and learn the "7 Key Elements of Highly Affective Agents." Once you see what they are, you need to master every one of them and then WATCH YOUR CAREER SKY ROCKET!
Element #1
Goals are the first element. I know that every company probably has a goal setting exercise. You are always asked how much money do you want to make and everyone writes down $100,000. A year later they brush off their goal form and see that they didn't hit their goal again and throws the sheet away.
Attendees of the course go about goals and planning a little differently. We figure out how much money they need to do the things they want to do. Look at 2/3 of their income coming from listings selling and 1/3 coming from working with buyers. Once we have this down, we factor in how many listings we need to sell, how many listings we need for sale to hit that goal, how many listing presentations we need to list one house and then how many total presentations we need a month to hit our goal. My agents know that they need 3 times as many listings (maybe 4) as they needed a few years ago to hit their goal. We also figure that if we have our listing goals that the buyer activity and buyer controlled sales will take care of themselves. Once we figure out how many appointments we need, we start to look at how many calls we need to make daily in order to achieve our goal. This is the first step to hitting your income goals.
Next time, we'll discuss the 2nd key element of what HIGHLY EFFECTIVE AGENTS are doing.
Keith Maahs is a national speaker, national consultant, and writer. He is a Certified Internet Agent, a Certified Negotiation Specialist, a Certified Electronic Marketing Specialist, and a Certified Marketing Specialist. Keith Maahs speaks at many company functions throughout the year. If you are interested in having Keith speak at your next company function or conference, feel free to conatct him at Keith@KeithMaahs.com or call him at 763-412-1203.
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