GO FORWARD WITH EXCELLENCE @ THE BASICS

Go forward with Excellence @ the basics

Each year as we start afresh, having set new resolutions at New Year, we prepare a new business plan and set out to this year make a real difference. We look forward:

As salespeople to a steady flow of listings, having a listing presentation that really creates a real listing advantage, advertising budgets that increase our profile and buyers who understand that the property you are showing represents great value and consequently a steady and increasing income. This is the year you really are going to iron out those peaks and troughs in income.

As managers we look forward to a recruitment programme that attracts a whole lot of top performers, to a sales team that can list and sell without constant management intervention, to a team that all follow the office rules and a market that reduces our marketing costs, reduces holding time on listings an those salespeople you have kept too long will suddenly come right.

In essence we are hoping that this year something will come along that is a strategic advantage that only we have and this new tool will set us apart from all the competition.

This year when you complete your business plan take a look to see what you are going to do different or better than last year, that will make a real difference to your career or business. Search through all the tactics and strategies available to you and see which ones will really make the difference you are looking for. I’m going to suggest that you already know enough – that you are already aware of what it is, that will make the big difference.

1. Let’s start with managing you.
As you return to work you need to resolve that you will not be captured or influenced by any of the mediocrity and negativity demonstrated by some of your colleagues. Despite you best intentions there will be other people who unconsciously pollute your workplace with bad habits, negativity and mediocre skills. Take control of yourself – don’t let them win. Tell them to go away.
There is no bigger waste of time than hanging out with the hopeless.

As a manager resolve that the poor performers, who have more time to spend in your office will not influence your marketing plans or internal policy. Put the acid on them to perform or get out of the way.

Start your days early, set up your daily plan and stick to it. If the hopeless ones gang up on you – so what? If you are lucky they might all leave at the same time.

2. Assess what you need to be excellent at.
Before returning to the office and running the risk of getting caught up in the rituals and routines that support the average, work out what you need to be excellent at.

That’s it – be excellent at a few basics and stop waiting for a silver bullet.

Now is the time to accept that there are no silver bullets other than you. No-one is going to sell you a special strategic advantage that is totally unique to you. You are it!

Take a moment and look at your core functions and resolve to be superb at them. Then watch the business flow.

3. The Excellent Manager
A great manager is the creator of a special workplace – a positive and fun environment where success is celebrated, where inspiration is a daily does and where a group of competing commission based sales people create a marketing team that cuts through the opposition because of an insistence on minimum standards of performance and behaviour.

So what do you need to be superb at?

Recruiting – an on-going and thorough recruitment programme that talks to many and engages the best.

Induction – making sure your new recruits really do know what to do and how to do it. Making sure new recruits have early listing success.

Training – providing a continual skills enhancement programme by learning how to train, then applying it across your team, and measuring the results. This includes getting out in the field and doing “live” demonstrations.

Coaching – knowing how to coach and mentor your people. How to inspire people to new heights, how to administer both reprimands and compliments, how to address non-compliance and breached of protocol.

Providing a Positive Environment. Understanding that any negatives in the office give non-performing people a lot of excuses for their lack of performance. That means you can have no visible favourites, you tackle disputes quickly and fairly, don’t leave issues to fester, and you make sure all your team have all the tools they need to be successful.

Invest time in the top half of your team
Resolve this year to grow your business with your top and better people, and the quality recruits you will induct. Make the poorer performers responsible for more of their own actions and prove to you that they deserve further investment from you.

Provide great Administration support.

Provide information, training and systems for Risk Management.

Provide technology and support that is fast – nothing is more de-motivating than waiting a week for a mail merge to a database.

4 The Excellent Salesperson
Choose your Philosophy
Make sure you understand that the customer comes first – that yours is a business to be based on referrals from doing a great job – that your reputation as a fair, honest and ethical sales person is never tainted. Stand by your name and be strong in walking away when the deal feels wrong.

Plan and Focus – self-explanatory really but all the planning and training is a waste of time, if you can’t turn up for work again and again, fully energised and focused. So take control and responsibility for you – take a sole agency on your attitude and energy. Get the envious and mediocre out of the way
(hope it’s not the manager).

Prospect – not very innovative, but the key ingredient in your future. Learn how, watch the experts, find out and implement. A simple solution could be to just talk to 20 people a day and see if that works. People still list their homes with people and people buy homes through people. Not very confusing or difficult really.

Have a great Listing Presentation and stop looking for tricks and variations on a theme. I am a great believer that thee are three ways to sell a house:

Exclusive Listing with or without a price

Tender
and
Auction

People who continually try variations on these probably lack the competence to do any of these superbly. So learn how to do these 3 strategies superbly

Make sure you have a powerful and modern Pre-Listing Pack and a superb Listing Presentation or Marketing Submission and learn them off – be simply awesome at these and you will prosper.

Learn the Power of Profile Marketing and how it benefits your vendors. Sell this concept to them and reward their investment with a great marketing and negotiating performance.

Write superb Advertisements – and collect additional marketing investments

Know how to Demonstrate a Home – run great open days

Learn how to handle objections – especially to price and No-Price.
Goodness me – why talk to a buyer if you aren’t great at these two?

Be a great Closer and Negotiator
This includes how to protect your fee. Truly professional and competent people do not negotiate their fee – that’s the first sign that they don’t view their own professionalism as high as they want their clients to.

Sure there are a lot more ingredients to being successful in real estate but when you become simply excellent at the basics above, you will become the “Special Agent” all the local vendors want to market their home. And having become superb at these basics you will be more than ready to help.
Then your real estate career will truly prosper.