Work only with motivated people!

Well friends, today I learned this lesson again for the 10th time. This rule is a big one friends. This rule can save you from wasting alot of time, money, effort, negative mental energy and potential for greatness. What is this rule you ask? The rule is: "We need to be working only with the most motivated clients we can find!" that's right, only the most motivated. Now this may sound a little mean-spirited to some of you, but think about it for a moment... Today I just got a call from one of my listings. They decided that after 7 months of listing with me (and refusing to lower their price as well) to take their home off the market and live out their lives there by using a reverse mortgage!! Now, truthfully I am happy for them since its the right decision for them, but as a business person running a real estate business I had NO business wasting my time, money and effort in the hopes and chance that the home would sell at their price in this softening market. I did a great job for these people. I provided great advice, marketing and consult. I was able to generate multiple offers at very respectable levels, I was able to find them a great home to move to as well..But ultimately their motivation to make this sale happen was not there. Something was holding them back. That something was MOTIVATION.

So, how do you know if your working with someone who is completely motivated to sell their home or buy a home? We need to get comfortable asking questions that get right to their motivations and continually check in with them throughout the process to make sure their motivation is still there.

If your working with a seller, during the listing presentation you want to be asking questions like this; "If I brought you an offer tomorrow what would you do?", "What are your plans when we sell your home?", "Do you have a home to go to, or do we need to find something first?", "Do you have your mortgage payoff, tax receipts, utility statements and home improvement records ready?", "Did you fill out the questionnaires I sent you with my pre-listing package?", "Have you spoken to any other Realtors about selling?", "On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being ready to move, how would you rate yourself?", "Why are you moving?", "Do you fully own the property?(wills/probate issues)", "What type of improvements and maintenance have you been doing to get ready for the sale?"

If your working with a buyer, during the buyer consultation the questions sound like this; "If I showed you the right home tomorrow what would you do?", "Have you been pre-approved for a mortgage", "Do you have down payment money, and closing cost monies ready", "Do you need to sell a home to buy a home?", , "Have you spoken to any other agents", "When would you like to be in your new home?", "Why are you buying a home?", "On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being ready to moving, how would you rate yourself?", "How long have you been looking?", "Have you seen anything you liked? What prevented you from buying it?"

All of the above questions are going to be helpful in realizing if you have a motivated client or someone who is just trying to test the market.

The trick to testing motivation is asking the questions that need to be asked and then re-asking them during the process to check. You then need to really hear the answers and make a decision whether or not you want to continue working with these people. It is OK to let someone go today instead of letting them down tomorrow. It is OK to say "Sorry, I can't work with you at this time Mr and Mrs Buyer, but when your ready to make it happen I'll be ready to work with you."

Now early on in an agents career we all want that first listing real bad, and its real easy to take a listing at the sellers price. But I am advising you DONT TAKE THE LISTING IF IT IS OVERPRICED. The only way I would take an overpriced listing is if I have it written in my contract that there WILL be price reductions at particular points in the process, and if I am helping the client buy a home. If the seller does not want to agree to this, than they are simply not as motivated as they need to be to sell their home. You need to pass on the listing and move on to the next.

For you newer agents out there passing on a listing gets to be easier when you have lots of leads and referrals coming in, which is why you need to create that database as I discussed in a prior post and use it systematically everyday as I will explain in a later post.

-Ron

Now you have a Contact Database, what do you do with it?

First I want you to contact EVERYONE on the list that you know by phone and tell them about your new career in real estate and that you need their help getting started. If they know of anyone looking to buy or sell real estate you'd like to know about it it. Now of course your also calling to connect with them on a personal level so make sure to make the call personal by using the FORD method (Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams) The call goes something like this; "Good morning Steve, its Ron Smith! I hope I am catching you at a good time! How's everything going with your (family, occupation, dreams, goals, plans, etc..)? That's great, well I don't want to take to much of your time, but I do want to mention that I've started a new career in Real Estate and I need your help! (Most people, will want to know how they can help because we all want to be part of something great). I'd like to know if you know of anyone who is looking to buy or sell real estate that could use my help?" If they say no, than just close with something like this "that's ok, but would you please contact me if someone comes to mind?" If they say yes, start asking them about the person and get some basic information. Then ask if they wouldnt mind if you contacted this person with their referral. If they decline, simply ask them to contact the person and pass your information on. End the call by mentioning that you'll be keeping in touch every few months and you look forward to speaking with them again. Remember we are trying to build and grow a relationship here.

So now, you've contacted everyone you know to get the word out. Follow up, buy mailing them your business card and something else of value.

The next step is to setup EVERYONE (mets or have not mets) to receive 8 touches from you over the next 8 weeks. A touch should cost 75 cents or less and should be a combination of things like; cards, letters, reports, emails, phone call, magnet, calendar, etc.

If you're a real trooper try calling everyone again half way through the 8 week process to make sure they are getting your materials. Otherwise, you MUST call at the end of the eight weeks to make sure they got the materials, see if they or anyone they know needs YOUR help and that you'll be keeping in touch with them.

The way you'll be keeping in touch is by setting up touch campaigns for the MET group and the HAVE NOT MET group. The MET group you want to touch many times during the year, at least 24 times and some say more like 33 times. The HAVE NOT METS, you'll touch about 12 to 15 times a year. Remember these touches are a combination of emails, calls, letters, cards, magnets, calendar, holiday wishes, etc.

The whole point of putting people on a touch campaign is to get into first position in their minds when they think about real estate. Remember your success or failure in this business is dependent upon the amount of people that when they think about real estate, they think about you!

Good Luck!

Build your Contact Database and feed it daily!

This is the first and probably the most important step in developing your real estate career. There are many different types of real estate database programs such as; Top Producer, Sharper Agent and Agent Office just to name a few. But you dont need to go out and purchase one of these specific Real Estate programs. You can get started with something we all likely have on our computers right now, and that is MS Outlook. What you want to do is make a list of EVERYONE you know and put them in the database with full contact information (email, address, phone, spouse and family name, anything specific about them, the last time you saw each other and why, etc). You also want to try and categorize each person into one of two groups; mets and have not mets. If you can, add more categories like profession, or if they could be a buyer or seller, or if they would be a someone who is likely to recommend you to friends. Call these categories whatever you like, but you should know what they mean and know under what circumstance a person would fall into a category. The reason for the categories is simple. You want to be able to run reports and do specific marketing to certain groups at certain times. For example you may market to the "have not met" group at certain times of the year with different marketing than you would to the "have mets".

So now you've built a database with all the names of everyone you know (friends, relatives, former co-workers, people from your civic groups, chamber of commerce members, former schoolmates, etc.) now what do you do with it?! Naturally we are going to use it in a systematized way.

I will cover what to do with your database in the next blog!