“Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.” – Thomas Jefferson
  

Your feelings are not your friend.  They will get you in trouble more times than not.

I’m not saying not to have them, just keep them in perspective.  If you get mad and rip into someone because you are angry or frustrated, you may feel like you won the battle, but you will have lost the war.  Don’t feel like prospecting?  Is it really better to go with that feeling, if you do where does it lead?  Most of us live on an emotional roller coaster, with our life, business and the service we offer our clients.  We do so at our own peril. 

Your feelings give color to your life, and they can be glorious and exciting.  They just shouldn’t dictate your actions.  As you paint the portrait of your life, your commitment and actions should provide the black and white outline of how you live while the color adds the vibrancy.  Reverse it and your life will look like a kindergartner’s version of the Michelangelo masterpiece your life was destined to be…

Most of the real estate community is stuck fishing for income. Living deal to deal and in feast or famine.

Almost all of life has a financial aspect to it. The surplus of it adds to yourpossibilities through opportunity and the laws of attraction. As they say “The rich get richer…” It’s true, but not because they have money. Wealth is a by-product of the way they think. If you change your thinking, your habits will change, your habits change and your account balances will take a turn for the better.

Here are a few questions to give a quick “check-up from the neck up.”

· How is your financial situation?
· How stable is your income stream?
· Do you live within, at, or beyond your means?
· Are you a natural saver or a habitual spender?
· How much credit card debt are you carrying?
· How much money is enough for you?
· What actions could you take that would double your current salary or profit?
· What mistakes do you seem to make with money?
· How much of a priority is making more money?
· What holds you back financially?

We are all guilty of not getting in right, the point is not to beat you up and have you start your day on a downer, but to remember what we need to focus on to make tomorrow a little brighter.

Two words: Sticky content.

Sticky content is information (web site content) that makes people stick around and return for more. Examples are how-to articles, tips and tricks, beginner’s guides, and any other free information that your clients and prospective clients would find of value.

Keep in mind that the more content you have, the stickier your site is. Sticky is good for at least three reasons: It gives your visitors a reason to come back again and again; it gives your visitors a reason to tell others about your site; and it demonstrates your expertise for people who are interested in your services.

With good content, you will be able to gather leads, acquire names for your mailing list, as well as offer good reasons for your visitors to tell their friends and colleagues about you.

Here are a few of my notes from a seminar by Zig Ziglar on Top Performance

• Leadership starts with you
• Trust is where that key is
• Integrity is NOT relative
• Motivation is to “want to” as training is to “how to”
• Lead with positive solutions
• Leaders are always learning
• Colleges are full of professors teaching about a future that no longer exists
• You can have everything you want if you help others get what they want
• Leaders make it personal
• Individuals score points, teams win games
• People stay where they grow and are respected
• Leaders build teams
• What you do off the job determines what you do on the job
• Leaders create healthy environments
• Leaders are in the people business
• What you say to yourself is the most important conversations you have

Here are a few things to give some thought to this week.

• Have nothing unresolved or unfinished.
• Get over any addictions and be healthy and well.
• Be a part of a full, successful, and happy community of people who love you as you are.
• Be able to verbally express your feelings, sensations, and prob­lems.
• Want a tremendous amount but crave nothing.
• Have life set up so you have really neat things, people or activities to look forward to all of the time.
• Know and live in your values.
• Have much more than you need.
• Have goals that turn you on.
• Have standards that are clear, and high.
• Have plenty of time.
• Be okay about and with yourself.
• No longer try to “make it” or prove anything.
• Working on a special project that is personally and professionally fulfilling.

One of the best ways to save costs and improve your ROI is to shift is from traditional marketing to advocate marketing. So you will need to put as much effort into referrals as you do into marketing efforts. Remember if you had 50 advocates that give 2 referrals a year is 100 great leads a year. Here’s some things to keep in mind -

1. It’s easy to create 50 advocates.
2. Make it easy for people to advocate for you.
3. Appreciate and thank them for their advocacy.
4. Tell them how to be an advocate.
5. Continue to innovate your services so it’s easy to be an advocate for you.
6. Make you service clearly better then anyone in the market.
7. Live your service/values/philosophy don’t just sell’em.
8. Get really good at using 3rd party edification to your advantage.

Do you struggle with leads?  How about key listing or showing appointments?  Conversion rates?  Closing on contracts?

As the market has changed, the sales skills of the pros have become more and more in demand.  Strong negotiating and closing skills are ever important in today’s market climate.  No longer can we simply make our clients feel “warm and fuzzy” about the experience.  Character must be saddled with competence.  As the DNA agent dies (those who did deals solely with those related to them), the pros gain market share.  The foundations of fortunes are made in these markets. 

The single most effecting sales skill to get more business is to be fearless about asking for the order.  What would happen to your business if you got 10 new contacts a day by simply asking if they had an agent they currently are referring business to?  It doesn’t even have to be via door knocking, FSBO contact or working expireds (although all of those are good and viable) but it can be as simple as asking those in line at Starbucks.  How about with your current pipeline?  What would it look like to simply ask each one of them to just take the next logical step in the process?  Are you walking out of appointments without the signed contract?  Did you really ask for the order or did you let the prospect take the lead?

Start with 10 new contacts a day for this week, then translate asking for the order at each of the next steps through the process and watch your business transform before your eyes. 

Seminars are great to put on for your SOI, farm and target markets and can be tailored to suit your audience. For example, there are several agents I work with who have had very successfully seminars for investors, first-time buyers, financial aid for kids going to college, health and wellness, etc.

Just having an event will get you a jump in your SOI yield and establish you as an expert in your field, and the events multiply their effectiveness (and cost less) when you involve your strategic partners and invite their client base to join the event.

If you haven’t read the book Made To Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath yet you should plan on picking it up today on your way home.  It is a great primer on how to generate buzz, convey ideas that last and how to maximize your advertising and marketing dollars.

One of the villains they talk about overcoming in the book is “The Curse of Knowledge.”  Usually we look at knowledge as a good thing (it’s pursuit would even cause me to go out and pick up this book for example) but many times it’s what we think we know or what used to work that kills us.  Take this market for example.  The fundamentals are still just as applicable as they were 30 years ago.  We still need to spend each day getting to know new people, negotiating contracts and finding willing buyers and sellers to bring together for a mutually beneficial outcome.  But HOW we go about doing that has changed a bit over the years (or year for that matter).   Our tactics and tools need to change and what we need to be constantly open to growing , learning and changing.

Every day, starting today, commit to growing in something that is tangible, measurable and meaningful.  Maybe it’s sharpening your skills, your knowledge about your industry or business, or looking at ways to stay ahead of the curve.  Take 15-30 minutes a day and watch what a difference that time makes in the next week, month and year.

I came across an interesting article that talked about how to write ads that work.  It talked about how in 1999 an Israeli research team studied the effectiveness of advertisements, they found that all the best ads (measured by people remembering them or them causing people to take action and do something) fell into 5 different categories.  As I watched the ads during the football games on Sunday (and every knows the best ads are run during football games), I started to see the science behind the art of advertising.  Here is the five categories and a challenge to find ways to use them in your real estate marketing.

1. The Pictorial Analogy - features extreme analogies rendered visually.
2. Extreme Situations – A product is shown to be performing to an exaggerated extreme.
3. Competition - A product is shown winning a competition against another product in an unusual usage situation.
4. Interactive Experiments - Think taste tests.
5. Dimensionality Alteration - A time leap that shows the long-run implication of a decision.

Sounds like most of the real estate ads you see in the weekend paper?

Nope, that is probably why no one remembers them…