You will be disciplined.  Either you will choose to do it yourself or life will do it for you.  Take your finances, you can either discipline yourself to live within your means or you can spend like there is no tomorrow and reap the consequences with sleepless nights and bill collectors car-pooling to your home. 

Your business works the same way.  Either you will discipline yourself on what you need to accomplish and employ enough focus to get it done.  The upside is that you get to determine when you get up, when you can vacation, what you will do in the day and how much you are worth.  If you choose not to discipline yourself you will need to go back into an environment where you have a employer who will tell you when you get up, when you can vacation, what you will do in the day and how much you are worth.

Either way you will be disciplined, it’s your choice as to how.

Carpe diem,

Deliberate, organized networking can be one of the strongest lead generators for your real estate pipeline, and I personally have found that B2B meetings work like magic for me. I discovered ten secret keys to making the most of my meetings.

I am sharing these with you because I want you to make the most of your Group 100 program, and not damage your reputation or put you in an uncomfortable situation in the process, so please, learn from my experience!

1. Start the meeting on a positive note, with a smile, some words of appreciation, and a personal touch such as a handshake (or hug, if you’ve got that kind of relationship). This sets a friendly, upbeat tone for your meeting.

2. Use a Group 100 Notes sheet. This will demonstrate your clear intention to ask specific questions (rather than just make something up on the fly), as well as give you a script to follow, thus moving the conversation along the right track in a timely manner.

3. Have an extra Group 100 Notes sheet to give to the other person. The act of writing down information helps lodge it firmly in our memories, and you want the other person to ask you the questions you are prepared to answer, and to remember your responses, right?

4. Be prepared to give your answers in five minutes or less. Many times these meetings will focus more on the other person for the first 20-25 minutes, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get your point across when it’s your turn to answer questions. You know the questions before the meeting, so you can be prepared to give clear, concise and memorable responses to the questions when you’re asked, even with only five minutes to share.

5. Resist the temptation to have the meeting be all about you. Even if the other person is a more effective listener than a talker, it is your job to draw out the information you need to be able to refer to that person.

6. Never let the meeting morph into a sales or lead conversion conversation for you. Set up another meeting AFTER your Group 100 meeting if you get the chance, but don’t allow the Group 100 meeting to turn into an immediate sales opportunity because that is not what you promised when you set up the meeting.

7. Honor your promises. If you say the meeting will last 30 minutes, end it at 30 minutes; even if that means you don’t get to speak at length about your business. If you absolutely must extend the meeting, get permission to extend the meeting by five minutes, and then do it.

8. Be prepared to end the meeting on a positive note. Think about what you want to say, and rehearse it in front of a mirror so that you don’t draw a blank at the end of the meeting and stare at the other person in awkward silence.

9. Set expectations for the meeting up front. Remember that although you are “in charge” of the meeting since you know how it should go and what questions will be asked (as well as how you plan to answer them), the other person needs to fully understand the meeting’s purpose and flow. Be prepared to explain in advance how the meeting will work in terms of length and format, as well as what you both can hope to get out of it — which is a better understanding of each other’s businesses so that you can refer with confidence and precision.

10. Follow up the meeting with thanks. Yes, you can email your thanks if you’re not a note-writing kind of person, but you must put something in writing because a phone call just won’t cut it.

Yes, there may still be a few awkward pauses and missed opportunities in your conversations, but it does get easier (and more profitable!), I promise. And if you learn from my mistakes and use the secrets above as a guide, you’ll get much more out of your Group 100 process than you would ever imagine!

Carpe diem,

The following tactics support the most common strategies successfully used by many small businesses (particularly REALTOR® service professionals just like you) including visibility, credibility, sample of your services (important), direct sales, and networking.  While it is possible that not every one of these tactics is appropriate for you in the long term, they make a great default list until you develop tactics that are tailored to your unique talents, personality, and business strategies.

1. Put up a web site and update it with sticky content at least monthly.
2. Register your site with search engines, your industry referral sites, and local/national chapters of any other professional organizations to which you belong. Add reciprocal links to your site to drive traffic.
3. Attend at least one networking function per week.  Offer a free sample of your service to five people you meet there.  (Clearly, I’m not talking about a sample of ‘selling their home’.  I’m talking about offering to talk about a real estate RELATED  service like a 1031-Exchange, transferring a deed into a trust, a ‘wellness check’ for your home – aka a Home Inspection, etc.)  This doesn’t have to be your time; it could be an article or Top 10 list that you’ve written. 
4. Ask everyone that you want to work with for their business.
5. Send a networking letter to everyone you know (everyone!) to let them know that you’re in business, and looking for clients.
6. Make phone calls daily to set up meetings with your centers of influence, make presentations or follow up leads.
7. Write articles for your web site (or someone else’s) and/or submit them to business and industry publications.
8. Send out a newsletter (or contribute to someone else’s).
9. Host a seminar or workshop on your area of expertise, or speak at an industry event or association meeting.
10. Include an annotated signature in all your email.

Carpe diem,

Young children throw tantrums because they don’t have the language they need to share how very, very, very unhappy they are. Adults also throw tantrums, although in “more acceptable” formats. The adult versions include:

1. Silence (not saying anything, although they should)
2. Digs (saying something that undermines the person)
3. Resentment (which results in getting even later on)

So, why do we do this? For one simple reason: We do not have the language we need to say what we want or need to. If you have the words to fully communicate, there is virtually no situation or person that will get the best of us.

To get the language you need, familiarize yourself with the notion of Distinctions. Distinctions are subtleties of language, that when gotten, give more power. The process of seeing these subtle differences is called “drawing a distinction.” Drawing distinctions is not simple semantics. It is a method of accelerating a person’s development because they not only see or understand the distinctions, but begin to reorient their lives around the stronger one.

Imagine what your life will be like when you draw on all of these.

Wow.

You’d have all the language you’d ever want or need.

Carpe diem,

Networking is a great way to get your business and your name known, find new potential strategic partners, and to surface some prospects. But networking isn’t just about finding prospects. You know that, and I know that. Pretty much everyone in business knows that, right?

Wrong.

I was at a business networking event a few weeks ago, ready to meet lots of new people to add to my ever-growing network of colleagues, clients, alliance partners, prospects, and contacts.

I spoke to another marketing professional, and we chatted about getting together so that we could refer to each other. (Hey, not every person who wants marketing help wants to work with ME, so I like to have a few good marketing experts in my network to whom I can refer with confidence.)

I traded jokes and business cards with a charming husband-and-wife life insurance sales team. I have a great relationship with my own insurance lady, but she isn’t right for everyone, so I was happy to spend a few minutes getting to know these two nice people. I will definitely send business their way.

And then I was approached by one of the smiling hosts of the networking event. She asked me what I do (although I got the feeling that she didn’t listen to my response), and asked me for my card.

Then she asked me if I had heard of a certain type of make-up and skin care line that is sold exclusively through personal sales reps. I said yes, and mentioned that I my wife was wearing a lipstick from that line at that very moment.

Her smile turned into pursed lips, and a crease appeared between her eyebrows as she looked at me for a moment. Then she (rather abruptly) asked the name of my sales rep.

You probably won’t believe this, but she returned my business card to me, because (and I’m just paraphrasing here) she had no reason to keep it if I was already working with a competitor.

No interest in finding out whether I might have anything to offer HER.

No interest in asking if I knew anyone who meets her ideal client profile (and who may not want to work with my sales rep, because of location, age, personality, or whatever reason).

No interest in getting to know me, period, because she saw no immediate sales potential in me.

I don’t think I need a crystal ball to predict that this woman is not going to win the “Networker of the Year” award. And she isn’t doing her business any favors, either.

Because networking isn’t about making sales or setting up sales appointments on the spot — it’s about developing relationships. It’s about becoming known, liked, and trusted.

It is not about what I will buy from you right now, or what you will buy from me tomorrow, it is about adding resources to our business tool boxes. And those resources are so much more than just one-time sales (and they certainly contribute to sales); they are intangibles like support, referrals, suggestions, introductions, tips, information, mentoring, advice, and alliances.

The bottom line is this: The value of networking isn’t in the potential of an on-the-spot sale – it’s the relationship.

The woman who returned my card saw no value in knowing me. She had no idea how very many people I know, how open I was to referring to her, and how access to my network could help her build her business. And now, she will never find out.

That’s a networking lesson worth learning.

Carpe diem,

The Private Client Group campaign employs a four pronged strategy to ensure adequate interaction for optimal ROI and highest yields. We also divide our SOI into four groups to maximize our effectiveness. While we are not discriminating against those who live outside our service are, we also recognize that we are responsible to use our hard earned marketing dollars in the best way possible. Out of the four groups we will establish four separate mini-campaigns based on the following four pronged approach.

Live Interaction - No one can discount the importance of personal contact. You Private Client Group is your “Book of Business” and it is essential that we create time in our calendar to spend belly to belly. We want to guarantee that we see these people several times a year through live events, lunches, or drop-bys.

Phone - Not everyone likes the phone, but it is an essential piece of the Private Client Group puzzle. In the businesses we’ve studied over the years those that use the phone calls increased their return 70% over those that didn’t. Each piece of this campaign is designed to either demonstrate our competence or our character. We will be using the phone for the latter.

Mail - Having a monthly piece that goes to your SOI is the safety net to make sure you never have a past client, friend or relative call you to tell you the exciting news – that they just made an offer on their dream home and you are not the one who wrote it. You can get a marginal return if this is all you do. It is important and a valuable tool as a generic competence piece. It’s the one time you get to flaunt your abilities and real estate prowess without it being offensive to those who are closest to you.

Email/Txt - We want to establish a systematic, irregular email that goes out that is always welcome, relevant and timely for the recipient.

Let us assume your current financial needs were covered by income from a job/business or investments and you had the following two choices:

1. Work on a project for a year that had an excellent chance of earning you an extra $100,000.
2. Spend a year learning Internet, communication and entrepreneurial skills, (which probably would not earn you any extra money during the first year.)

Which would you select?

The first option, (Jerry McGuire’s “Show Me the Money!”) would seem to be a logical choice. However, before jumping in, I would suggest that you look at the potential OPPORTUNITY COST of that choice. Especially when you compare it to the opportunity cost and potential revenue stream from the second choice. Depending on where you want to be in 5 or 10 years, the second choice may be the least expensive one for you. Especially if you have any inkling about how you might leverage what you learn during that year to generate much MORE revenue.

Numerically, if you ended up making an extra $1,000,000 over your lifetime, after taking a year to learn as described in the second choice above, the opportunity cost of $100,000 in the first choice would be $1,000,000, giving you a net loss of $900,000. Now, opportunity cost is one of those hard-to-measure costs, but simply asking yourself the question “What is the opportunity cost of this choice?” will improve how you make decisions.

Carpe diem,

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The popular quote “God is in the details” conveys well the essence of this principle.

The idea is that the more you pay attention to the details of a goal, project, your life, body, environment, ideas, trends, changes, etc., the sooner and better you’ll be able to do something with it. Of course, there IS more than that to this concept; and future posts in this series should paint the entire picture of this very, very important concept.

Details, Systems and Big Picture: what’s the ratio? “Think globally, act locally.” This popular quote supports the idea of focusing primarily on the micro aspect of your project or goal, instead of mostly on the big picture. If I could create a magic formula, I’d come up with something like 50% micro, 48% system, and 2% macro. Meaning that if you spend about 2% of your time understanding and expanding your bigger picture of things (macro), that the rest of the time can well be spent either improving/tweaking the details (micro) and/or installing systems to improve the details. The way to make the biggest difference is to make lots of little differences. However, that 2% macro focus is essential for the 98% micro actions to really be effective.

Carpe diem,