From RealSource... Glenn's Blog

This is a phrase I use with our team regarding Time Management and Focus.  It comes from the country* saying....

       "It's like teaching the pig to sing... it just wastes your time and annoys the pig."

One of the skill areas I am focusing on for myself is improving time management and prioritization.  This is important to me and will help my clients and our firm.

There are so many wastes of time in every industry... and our lives.  For instance, in real estate my personal belief is that over-priced houses are such a waste of everyone's time.  Are you really selling or not? 

Bad cold calls are another waste...  If you can't get me interested in 30 seconds, then please take some classes.  Not all calls are something I am interested in but you might still be interesting or of value to someone I know.  But come on.... be interesting and interested.

Look around and you can see that many successful people are either inherently skilled or, more likely, have developed their focus skills.   We can all practice and improve our own skills in these areas and it does yield better results!

"la laalaa la lalala la la" :-)

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* In the interest of full disclosure, I grew up in Bear Creek, a town of about 1,000 people (pigs are not counted) in rural Northwest Alabama.

Ever notice how businesses of all types, not just real estate related, sell themselves much like high school kids?  They want to be unique... just like everyone else.

Even when honest, the messages often sent don't mean anything to the potential customer.  It's great you are customer-focused, honest, experienced, seasoned, been in the business lots of years, sold lots of houses, a leader in technology, a leader in your community, married, not married, kids, no kids, progressive, received sales awards, have a few listings, have hundreds of listings, like the beach, like to golf, like to fish, are active in local Realtor or Lender associations, or any of the other hundreds of great things about you!

But what makes that unique in the eyes/ears/memory of the audience... to the point of being remarkable? And by "remarkable", I mean something someone would learn about you and later literally remark to someone else.

It is human nature to see ourselves different than the world sees us.  But that can be a limiting thing in sales (or other aspects of running a business).  We want to be special.  And we all are in our own way.

Look at your own marketing messages, for you as a professional, for your listings, for your loans.  

Changing a few words around does not make for a unique, remarkable message.  A "nice" message perhaps... but those get lost in the crowd of messages we are all bombarded with each day.  

Quick... think of the last three new billboards you saw in the last 24 hours?  A few people can do this but most admit the billboards are unremarkable and unmemorable.  Is your message the same as all the new billboards?  Boring and unnoticeable to anyone but you?

Can you really show how your marketing messages are that different from anyone elses?  Are you doing what everyone else is doing? (note: Boring).

So, how to be unique?  How to get others to remark?  How to get referrals?

Your service, attitude and work ethic IS your marketing.  It is what people will know you by, regardless of what your website, your brochure, your business card or your flyers say.  And I don't mean doing what minimum effort everyone else does.  Unique and remarkable is when your efforts are uniquely and remarkably way ahead of others.

(If there is interest in some examples of unique and remarkable efforts we've seen (or done ourselves), I'll be glad to post some ways to do that.  Let me know.)

Become a person of value to others, and you will be valued.  It takes time but building any good business or career always does.

Alone, pretty words everyone else uses would probably not convince you to buy something expensive.  So keep that in mind as you build the message about yourself the world sees (haaa!  real marketing!!).

What can you do with a "no"...

• Move on to the next prospect.
• Move on to the next property.
• Move on to the next research project.
• Find out if you made an error (so you don't repeat it).
• Find out if you were not communicating clearly (again, so you don't repeat it)
• Move on to the next day.
• Move on to the next email.
• Move on to the next phone call.
• Move on to the next house for a past client.
• Move on to learn more about a market.
• Be glad you've not wasted more time on a dead-end.
• Find out why it was a "no" and see where that leads.
• Move on to the next opportunity!

We all dance around like "no" is a four-letter word we should avoid.  Customers don't like to say it.  Many people don't like to hear it.  Some people say they won't take "no" for an answer (that can make you a pest if you don't handle it right).

"We'll think about it and let you know" may (not always) really mean "No, but I can't use that word it might make me look bad for wasting your time and I would feel guilty."

But you know what... avoiding "no" can waste everyone's time.  Give people permission to say "no" and it actually creates more freedom to discuss and even leads to more "yes"es!

I practice telling people a clear "no" if something does not work for me.  Not agressive, just "no thanks" or "no that really is not for me."   Professionals will appreciate this.  I hope you do too!

Little things can be such a big difference!  In the conclusion of a recent deal, we found a lender had added "SW" to a street address on all of their paperwork.   Don't know why but there it was.  Every document from the lender.

Well, it turns out that "changed address" was a real, but different, street address (for example, the deal was for "123 Second Ave" but the loan documents said "123 Second Ave SW."). The closing staff and attorney either did not catch this mistake or ignored it

Now, to make it interesting the buyer of this house was having utilities turned off for some reason (perhaps he was going to remodel or not move for a month, don't recall).  He used the incorrect address from the loan package... an address that was someone else's property and where someone lived that was not involved in this deal!  .

Imagine sitting at home and off goes the power, call the power company and they say the new owner ordered the power turned off.  Or when you go to sell your house, you find a mortgage attached in someone else's name!

And if that was not enough, the closing attorney's office did not want to get the loan documents or the other associated closing document corrected because the deal had already closed.  They said it was no big deal.  And this is the party that represents the lender!!!

Our position was that the lender was at great risk here and the attorney's staff were also responsible for protecting the interest of their client, the lender.  There were a multitude of potential problems downstream for the buyer and risks for the titles of two properties now, one of which was not even involved in the deal but would now have a lien attached.

It took several phones calls and being a bit of a bother to get the attorney's office and the lender to correct the address on the documentation.  And they expressed great dissatisfaction about having to do this "extra" work on a closed deal.  The idea that this was an opportunity to correct their own mistakes was irrelevant.

But it was the right thing to do even though it was not our fault and required several days of additional periodic follow-up.

So, remember that every little detail can be a problem if not properly attended.  Have a great day!

Greetings! 

I am curious as to how those with good-to-great assistants found those assistants.  And how you keep them trained.

I spoke with one successful Realtor that told me that by having an assistant, she and her husband sold 14 more houses a year.  She said that if she loses focus and starts working on tasks normally assigned to their assistant, her husband teases her with "So, are you being the assistant today?"  That helps her keep the eye on what she should be focusing on.

I've spoke with another Realtor that has had several assistants and none worked out.  The assistants she hired were not very motivated and were easily confused.  And there is likely some question as to how effective the Realtor was as a manager and employer.

Thoughts?