Creating Daily Success in Real EstateWritten by Dirk Zeller
The journey to a successful life should be enjoyed. True success comes from accomplishing activities daily that will lead you to your ultimate goals in life. Failing or neglecting to accomplish daily disciplines will lead you down path of lost opportunities and lost income. If penalty for not accomplishing your daily activities or disciplines was implemented or assessed today, we would look at neglecting them differently. The truth is that penalty for neglect is more visible in future than it is today. The person who eats fried foods does not pay penalty at 35, he pays at 55. The person who fails to save 10% of his income for retirement is not penalized at 40, but at 60. The prospecting we fail to do today does not hurt our income today, but 90 to 120 days from now. If we were zapped today from neglecting daily disciplines rather than in future, our daily disciplines would change. We need to associate pain today with not doing our daily disciplines in real estate business. We have to make neglect more painful than activity pain. The truth is we have a tendency to move away from pain and towards pleasure. There are three disciplines that must be done daily in real estate for success. They are working on growth, administration, and working ON your business. Let’s look at each individual area comprehensively. Growth: Growth is part of business that brings in revenue for your business. The more time you spend of your day in growth, more income that you will make. Most agents focus little time on growth activities daily. They work on growth activities at last minute, when they are running short on funds. The problem is that is too late. To have a steady business income you need a steady approach to growth. Growth is prospecting that you do daily. It is listing appointments that you have for day. It is lead follow-up that you are doing on people who want to buy or sell. It is meeting with your lender to work on your competitive advantage in marketplace. Growth is critical part to any business. Without growth a business will fail. I know a lot of agents who are highly skilled in growth and poorly skilled in administration and working on their business who earn large amounts of money. I know of very few successful agents who are not highly skilled at growth. You can have huge deficiencies in administration and working on your business but still win game. You can not be deficient in growth and win. My focus is to help our clients achieve a high level of skill in all three areas. Growth is engine that powers train; you must first pay attention to growth. Growth demands a minimum of three hours daily in activities of growth: prospecting, appointments, lead follow-up, and meeting with affiliates. Prospecting should comprise 65% of growth time daily. If prospecting does not happen, other growth areas will wither. Remember higher hours spent on growth, higher income and profit.
| | A Quick and Simple Tip for Gaining CustomersWritten by V. Berba Velasco Jr., Ph.D.
In course of my career, I’ve had to deal with a lot of vendors—software companies, sensor manufacturers, electronics distributors and more. Some of them have left lasting impressions on me, whereas others have been eminently forgettable. I’d like to talk about two of more memorable vendors, and simple technique that they used (perhaps unknowingly) which made them stand out in my memory.As my byline shows, I have letters “Ph.D.” after my name; however, I seldom use that title, except in my various writings and official correspondence. For professional reasons, I do have these initials on my business cards and my e-mail signature; however, I never expect people to call me “Doctor,” and if they do, I almost invariably insist that they call me by my first name instead. For most of my daily affairs, this title simply isn’t very important. Most salespeople don’t mention this title either, which suits me just fine; after all, I’ve always been a fairly informal fellow. On two occasions though, a vendor actually took notice of my degree, and chose to address me using “Doctor” honorific. Even though I normally eschew that title, this was still a pleasant surprise. It was nice to see a prospective vendor take notice of such details, however unnecessary they may be.
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