If you are an agent who takes advantage of the floor time available in your real estate office you will find that your success rate will be increased by the questions you ask of the customer who calls or walks in more so that the questions you answer for them.  Unsuccessful floor time agents spend the most of their time on floor playing operator or information giver and never ask a single question in return.  The questions you would want to ask of anyone inquiring about real estate would include:

• Do you have a home to sell?
• May I ask for your name? your phone number? Your email address?
• Would you like to speak with one of our lenders to discuss mortgage programs available for you?
• Can we meet this evening?  This weekend?
• When do you plan to move?
• When do you plan to buy?
• What is it about the home you called in on that you most like?
• When can we get together to discuss your real estate needs

Successful agents will look for every opportunity to engage the customer, asking for the appointment and trying to meet with them whenever possible.

1. They listen.  They listen to their buyers, they listen to their 
sellers, and they listen to their coaches and mentors.  Successful 
real estate agents understand that the ability to listen is a key to 
success

2. Successful agents ask for the deal.  With their direct mail, 
listing flyers, websites, business cards, emails, promotional pieces, 
and in their day-to-day conversations with friends and strangers they 
ask for the deal.

3. They run a business.  Successful agents operate with a written 
business plan.  They have planned what they are going to do daily and 
they stick to it.  Successful agents budget not only their time but 
also their money and can account for where both are spent during the 
course of the year.  They consider wasting time and money as not 
operating their business wisely and put into place steps that prevent 
them from doing either.

How do I know that these are three steps of successful agents?  I see 
agents with these traits succeeding daily in my office and am 
confident that successful agents throughout the country possess these 
same traits.  Your future success depends on your ability to add these 
traits to the manner in which you operate your real estate business.

Lots of real estate agents will tell you that they farm specific neighborhoods or sub-divisions in their market areas.  A real estate agent who truly understands what is involved with farming understands the work and effort to farm a neighborhood effectively.  To realize a bumper crop of new customers, farming needs to include more than just the occasional planting of seed with bulk mail.  To determine if you are really farming an area effectively, ask yourself the following questions:

• Would the majority of the people who live in your farm recognize you if they saw you on the street?
• How many active listings are in your farm area right now?  How many are pending?  How many sold this year?
• What is the average sales price of a home in your farm area?  When is the last time you called or contacted the people in your farm letting them know what home values are doing in their neighborhood?
• Who just moved into the area?  Who moved out of the area?
• How many open houses have you held in your farm area during the pas 6 months?
• How many garage sales or rummage sales have been held in your farm area over the past 6 months and who held them?

The process of farming is a tough job but when done correctly the rewards abundant!  If you are going to take the time to farm and area then you should commit to doing the very best job possible.  Your goal should be to be the name everyone in your farm area thinks of when they think of real estate long before they personally need your real estate services.

The economic events over the past year have certainly taken their toll 
on Florida real estate agents.  Agents who were enjoying successful 
sales careers only a few short years ago are now finding sales hard to 
come by or the market has swept these same agents out of the real 
estate business.  If you are an agent whose business has fallen and you 
cannot getting it moving in the right direct, upward, I would like to 
suggest that you try the following.

1. Listen to someone else, preferably a Broker or an agent who is 
continuing to enjoy sales success.  It is possible that due to your 
previous sales success in years gone by you started sub-consciously 
blocking out good suggestions, advice and direction.  Be proactive and 
ask for help from a peer or mentor.  Listen to what they say and 
quickly implement it into your business.

2. Have someone hold you accountable.  Now more than ever you should 
consider hiring a real estate coach or ask your Broker to take an 
active role in holding you accountable.  The bottom line is that in 
order to succeed in today’s market it is going to require consistency 
and dogged attention to detail.  Without someone we trust holding us 
accountable it could be easy to miss a few details or skip a few 
steps, which will slow down your turn around.

Don’t wait, try these two steps immediately.  This market is here to 
stay and each of us need all the help can obtain to get our career 
moving in the right direction.

One of the keys to not only surviving but enjoying the success other real estate agents are missing is to understand that now more than ever before, more is more.

Those agents who have an ability to generate leads and lots of them, are not fairing as badly as their counterparts in the business.  The ability to consistently generate leads is a skill set most sales people never learn.   So what is their secret?  These top producing real estate agents understand that to have more leads they need to do more lead generating activities.

• More open houses
• More center of influence contacts
• More calling of expired and FSBO
• More price reductions
• More internet marketing
• More door knocking
• More money making prospecting and marketing efforts, period

The agents who are making the sales today understand that in this real estate market they need to have lots of irons in the fire.  “Being there” is more important than ever before.   Open houses may not always produce contacts and leads but NOT holding a home open guarantees that you will never pick up a buyer or seller lead.  This same principle applies to each and every marketing/prospecting avenue available to real estate agents.

Do what it takes to generate leads and you will excel, even when others fail.

You cannot have a successful real estate career unless you learn how to prospect  and become efficient at prospecting.  When followed consistently, the following 3 steps will help you grow your real estate business.

1. Find people.  Real estate is a people contact business.  You must find ways to meet people if you intend to be successful.  You can choose to knock on doors, hold open houses, join clubs and organizations, socialize online or real time.  The more people you meet increases the opportunities to successfully prospect.
2. Engage those you meet.  One of the biggest mistake real estate agents make is not taking the time to build relationships.  Take the time to find common interests with those you meet.  People love to deal with those they trust and know.  Get to know them.  Be sincere.  Ask questions, be interested in them.  Taking the time to get to know the people you meet could result in a new friend or a chance to learn something new long before you ever help them buy or sell a home or property.
3. After you have built your relationship don’t be afraid to talk about your business and career.  Of course you should not dominate the conversation with talk of business.  However, well timed reminders that you are a real estate professional and can help them or anyone they know buy or sell a home will be appreciated to those who know you and who do have a need for real estate help.

In summary remember that in order to enjoy a successful real estate business you need to meet people, get to know the people you meet and then ask those people for business.  Developing solid prospecting efforts now will equal sales in the future.

The facts are, most agents who have been in this business for any length of time will tell you that they have picked up buyers and sellers simply because the agent was wearing a name badge when out in public.  The perspective customer noticed the logo of a real estate company, they’d been looking/thinking/wondering about buying or selling a home, and approached them.

There are some agents, however, that do not believe that the wearing of a name badge is fitting of our profession.  They are quick to direct you to the fact that we are professionals and well, other professionals such as doctors and lawyers do not wear name badges, so we shouldn’t either.

That seem to be a valid reason, we do want to put on the best professional image we can, right?  If the professional doctor or lawyer believes wearing a name badge is “unprofessional”, who are we not to follow suit.

Right?

We-e-e-l-l-l-l-l-l, there is a bit of a difference between a doctor/lawyer and a real estate professional.  What is the difference?  WE ARE SALES PEOPLE!  They are not.  At the end of the day, we get paid for selling a product, the product being the home or property.  Sure we provide consultation services; sure, in some cases, we act as a 
trusted advisor; yes, we provide information that allows the customer to make their own informed decision but when all is said and done they pay us because of a house or property we sell.

If you need help in seeing the value of wearing a name badge you might want to think of them in this regard.  You may want to think of your name tag as nothing more than running adwords online.  The customer comes across your site (in this case, you in the flesh) and catches a glimpse of your adword (the badge), if  they are in the market they may do the real-time version of clicking on the ad which is approaching you and engaging you in a conversation.  Isn’t that what we want them to do?

If you are new you may not believe this but there will come a time in your career when you will say no to a seller and not take the listing even when the seller wants you to have the listing.  Saying no to an unreasonable customer at the beginning will save you time and save them from disappointment down the road.  

If the seller is being unreasonable on pricing, if the condition of the property requires extensive repair work which the seller cannot or will not correct, or if the seller is not willing to allow the home to be shown or objects to portions of your marketing plan, all of these are sufficient reasons to say no to the listing.   

Tactfully turning down the listing, being honest and genuine with the seller, is in their best interest and also allows for the possibility of revisiting them in the future and possibly doing business.

One of the mistakes I find agents making is not providing a net proceeds sheet to the home owner at the beginning of their relationship.

A net proceeds sheet will show the seller what he can anticipate receiving when the home sells. The figures should be based on the list price. Providing this information at the beginning of the listing and the following up with a new net proceeds sheet with each offer you receive on the home will eliminate the guess work for the seller and allow you to confidently present the offers knowing that the amount the seller will receive is acceptable.

Top 10 Suggestions to ensure success in today’s market:

1. Prior to cold call nights all agents stand outside looking for the first star to make wish upon.
2. Increase the amount we throw into the wishing well from a penny to a buck fifty.
3. Bulk ordering of St. Joseph statues.
4. Weekly meetings where we sit around hoping tomorrow will be better.
5. Nightly covert trips to competitors’ dumpster looking for leads.
6. Sheep and lambs to be sacrificed prior to every business meeting.
7. Instruction on how to cross fingers and toes at the same time.
8. Direct mail is replaced with direct begging.
9. Rub top producer’s head prior to floor time for good luck.
10. All agents to receive rabbit’s foot.

If none of these tips are helping you then try back to basics. Open Houses (EVERY WEEK) – Walking neighborhoods – calling past and present customers and asking for the business – get involved in a local club or organization – come to office training – attend all business meetings AND caravans to learn the inventory – cold calling – warm calling. Most importantly keep a good attitude. This can still be a great market for those who work it. Be positive. This is a people business. Get out and talk to and meet people. It works!