Things to never do

• Don’t gossip-that is, virtually never speak about another person not present, sharing neither good news nor bad.
• Do not tolerate anything or anyone. Do not be uppity and obnoxious about it, but either handle the situations fully or get the heck out.
• Do not complain-rather, turn all your complaints and petty disturbances into requests and solutions that get accepted.
• Stop doing what you should, ought to, have to, could; fully choose each moment, person, and activity.
• Don’t fight the flow. Oh, have courage and be committed, and take a stand, but don’t hurt yourself trying to prove something.
• Don’t allow people to cross your boundaries.
• Don’t let yourself get into the position where you have to make a decision based on the consequences.
• Be insured and insulated from almost every problem.
• Don’t wait; respond immediately.
• Don’t fight. Smile, instruct, or walk away.
• Don’t let people manipulate or play games with you.
• Don’t say yes when you mean no. Don’t overpromise.
• Don’t try to puff someone else up, but speak with them in such a way that they feel good about themselves.
• Don’t help people unless they are ready for it.
• Don’t live in hope someone will change; they won’t as long as you need them to.
• Don’t get caught up in people’s drama, even if you care deeply about them.
• Don’t expect anything from anyone.
• Don’t spend time with someone just to fill time; either fully enjoy them or don’t spend time with them. 
• Don’t tolerate anything less.

Carpe diem,

You can also click on one of the following links to have the mastery coaching blog with helpful life and business tidbits geared to real estate’s elite delivered to your computer,

To subscribe to the mastery coaching blog via email To subscribe to the mastery coaching blog via RSS reader

I highly recommend the book The Starbucks Experience by Michelli. It’s a great read on why people will stand in line and pay $4 for a cup of coffee. As I read through it, I thought I’d share a few of the principles from the book in a condensed form as well as some of my thoughts on how they apply to your business.

Principle #1 – Make It Your Own
We all have common objectives. Our goals and those of each of our clients are similar in their construct. Where we soar is in the individual creativity and passion that we apply to what we do. It is in those things that we form the bonds so that people will continue to come back. It is there that we connect, discover and respond. It is in our core values and strengths that we learn to love what we do.

Principle #2 – Everything Matters
In a service industry, everything matters. Every detail, every conversation every nuance makes a difference. Master the simplicity of the basics and spend the rest of your time perfecting your game. It is in the details that the pros stand out from the masses.

Principle #3 – Surprise and Delight
Pursue “wow” moments. Think through your business and ask yourself – “where can I give a ‘wow’ moment to my clients? Those are the moments where you have exceeded expectations and delivered something above and beyond. It is in these moments that we demonstrate and prove our value. We need a certain amount to justify our compensation, we need more to create buzz. Deliver the exceptional, surprise and delight at every opportunity.

Principle #4 – Embrace Resistance
Change is going to happen, people are going to complain, life is going to hurt at times. Learn from it all. Everyone has something to contribute, every challenge offers an opportunity. Be open to hear about your faults and shortcomings and where others are disappointed. Learn from them and except that you are a work in progress, not perfection.

Principle #5 – Leave Your Mark
What do you leave behind? I’m not talking about a notepad either. What is it that has added value and where have you invested in others? Success is sweet, but significance, yes significance, is what brings glory to our soul. Joy and peace, the deep internal kind that marks your life and the lives of those you come into contact with is manufactured in spades in significance.

Carpe diem,

You can also click on one of the following links to have the mastery coaching blog with helpful life and business tidbits geared to real estate’s elite delivered to your computer,

To subscribe to the mastery coaching blog via email

To subscribe to the mastery coaching blog via RSS reader

I will start out by saying that this story, Wayne’s story, is not allegorical.  Wayne is not only a client of mine, but a friend. 

Within weeks of Wayne getting his real estate license, his wife moved out, took their daughter and re-located 400 miles away, his home burned to the ground and his car got stolen.   I’m completely serious.  His new broker/manager allowed him to crash on his couch until he could find a new place to stay and he would ride his bike to a neighborhood close by.  He would chain his bike to a stop sign, and start door knocking looking for business.  Door after door, day after day, Wayne would knock. 

He didn’t necessarily like it, nor was he especially good at it in the beginning.  But he was determined.  He started to lose weight, pick up business and gain confidence. 

In working with a small army of mega-producing agents, I have found that none of them are good at everything.  Each one of them has developed a mastery of one, possibly two, prospecting methods.  Wayne’s is door knocking.  He now works in one of the highest cost zip codes in the nation.  Surrounded my multi-million dollar estates he still will hit the streets when business slows down.  He has earned the ability to rest on his SOI, marketing, repeat and referral business, but he looks at his door knocking as a volume knob.  Business is good, he can cut back, business or the market drops, he can turn it up.  He can tell you how many doors he has to knock to get a closing.  He can do it in his sleep.  He is truly the best door-knocker I have ever seen.

Maybe your thing isn’t door knocking – that’s ok.  It doesn’t need to be.  But you need to have something you can fall back on to generate new business.  Something you can dial up or down depending on your business activity; something that you can use as a regulator.  I would encourage you to pursue something that fits your personality and get good at it – no, get great at it. 

This year the strong will not only survive but thrive.  The pros always make money – that’s why they control 90% of the market activity.  They don’t have an escape clause; they don’t have another choice of career.  They aren’t trying real estate.  They simply chose to do. 

Carpe diem,

You can also click on one of the following links to have the mastery coaching blog with helpful life and business tidbits geared to real estate’s elite delivered to your computer,

To subscribe to the mastery coaching blog via email

To subscribe to the mastery coaching blog via RSS reader

There are two main reasons why some of our greatest agents aren’t achieving the completely realistic benchmark of 50% for referrals from their active clients. 

First, Most of us assume that our clients know what to do and understand our love for referrals.  What we forget is that our clients are not in the Real Estate business and need to be educated on how to recognize the “referral moment’ and what to do when it arises.  If we incorporated a simple dialog at our first meeting together saying – “Now that you have made a decision to buy or sell, you will notice a strange phenomenon, much like when you bought your last car (got married, had a baby, etc).  When you were looking at that car and first got it, weren’t you amazed at how many others you saw around?  The same thing happens in real estate.  As you begin looking and throughout this process you will start seeing other people that are looking to buy or sell.  All I ask is that when those situations come up that you remember me.” 

The second is that we do a great job minimizing the great job we do.  Our standard of excellence is a part of our service package and has become old hat to us.  The challenge is that our clients have no idea that our service is exceptional because they don’t have a standard to measure it against.  Overcoming this is easy, especially since the service is there.  We need to start weaving opportunities to tell our clients the truth.  Drama happens in every transaction, and while I am not advocating dragging your clients through the drama, I am simply suggesting you communicate it to your clients with how you saved the day.  If we can also enlist our strategic partners (escrow, title, mortgage, inspectors, TC’s, etc.) to simply drop a note, phone call or comment to our clients to the effect of “I work with a lot of different agents, and I have to tell you how fortunate you are to be working with one the very best.”  Your clients feel like a million bucks and it creates an atmosphere for them to say “wow” and tell a friend, or two or twenty.

Carpe diem,

You can also click on one of the following links to have the mastery coaching blog with helpful life and business tidbits geared to real estate’s elite delivered to your computer,

To subscribe to the mastery coaching blog via email

To subscribe to the mastery coaching blog via RSS reader