The initial training was so successful Watson Realty will be offering agents a chance to attend a second training scheduled for January 12, 2012.

Ongoing training is essential for real estate agents who take their career seriously and seek to to increase their bottom line.

One of my newer agents suggested, Rhinoceros Success. This book, written by Scott Alexander in 1980, 122 pages long, to me has the same message or content being repeated throughout the chapters. This book was a pretty simple read.

The premise of the book as I understood it, is that business success favors those with tough skin and a can do mentality. The can do mentality comes from having the rhinoceros trait of charging head first into any endeavor you take on. Charging like a rhinoceros towards every opportunity available instead of being passive and unsure (the writer calls non-rhinoceros type persons, cows) will result in success, according to the author.

The book also discusses the common denominators for success; believing in yourself, clearly defining your goals, taking care of yourself, learning and surrounding yourself with positive people. The writer says that by, “going rhino”, 6 areas of your life will improve.

1. Financial
2. Work
3. Family
4. Physical
5. Social
6. Spiritual

Perhaps because of when the book was written in 1980, I did not read anything that I had not read or heard before. The rhinoceros comparisons, especially when compared to unsuccessful people or cows, were humorous. The book contained a few too many biblical references for my taste.

Going rhino is not the only path to success. Some of the most successful agents I have met during my career are soft spoken, non-rhino-esque and yet are still very effective because they have other qualities other than hard charging. I would think this book would appeal to the already aggressive personalities seeking assurance that charging full speed ahead is a recipe for success.

Photo credit by bob_rayner

As agents we should pay particular attention to our spending habits and why we choose the companies and services that we use daily. They can provide insight into the mind of a potential customer, because we are also potential customers and as such we think like a customer thinks.  So what is there to be learned from where we purchase our gas?

I can count on one hand the number of times I have actually walked into the gas station’s building over the past year. I am sure that inside the station there will be a smiling sales person behind the cash register offering a warm greeting, maybe even a manager watching over the comings and goings, making sure shelves are stocked. I am usually in a hurry and have no need for a huge soda pop in a cup or a pack of gum. I’ll buy the station’s gas even without the warm and fuzzy greeting or any direct selling of their product. Why?

There are 3 reasons that I can think of for buying gas at a particular station without ever going in to speak with a sales associate.

1. I have a need.
2. They are are able to handle my need.
3. Convenience.

I have a need

I have a need for gas, so a purchase is going to follow. From the customer viewpoint, the need comes first and starts the purchase process rolling. Buyers and sellers of real estate have a need as well.

• Seller needs to relocate.
• Buyer needs to stop renting and buy a home.
• Seller needs to short sell their home.
• Buyer needs to use FHA or VA financing.
• Seller needs to purchase another home after selling theirs.
• Buyer needs to purchase a home in a specific area.

They are able to handle my need

I know that the gas station can fill my need. How do I know? I can see that they have gas pumps. I see other people buying gas ahead of me. They have a big sign advertising that they are a gas station and have a variety of grades of gas to sell.

Do customers know that you can fill their real estate needs? Do you make sure your marketing and prospecting efforts carefully outline what you offer that fills the needs of others?

• Do you promote yourself as a relocation specialist?
• What have you done this year that clearly identifies you as an agent that can assist first time homebuyers?
• Do you make sure your market knows that you have the education and qualifications to assist sellers with the short sale process?
• Who knows that you can help a buyer obtain a FHA or VA loan?
• Buying a home while selling one is more complex; does your customer base know you to be a knowledgeable real estate professional?
• Are you the area/city/town expert?

If we are to learn from the gas station, the customer would need to know all about us even without or before meeting us.  How is that possible?

Word of mouth, marketing and prospecting that accentuates your services.

Your current and previous customers are walking billboards. Your family and friends are your radio and TV spots, reaching into hundreds if not thousands of households with a message about you. Word of mouth will let people know that you can fill their needs before they ever meet you.

Does your marketing and prospecting accentuate what the customer is really concerned about, their needs? Is your message clear, for instance, that you are a relocation specialist and do you offer examples of how that benefits them. Do they know you understand the fears and concerns with buying a home for the first time and are able to guide new home buyers successfully through the process? Remember your goal is to introduce your skills to the customer and let them know what you can do for them before getting face to face.

Convenience

I pass by several gas stations on my way to the one I most commonly use because of the convenience of using this station. I know where to find the station, they are easy to find, easy to use, and are able to provide me what I need when I need it. If not, I search for the next “known” gas station I need.

Can potential customers say the same thing about you? Do you have enough for-sale signs out in the neighborhood that make it easy for a new customer to find you? There is a phrase, “you list to last” and the reason I find this to be true is because listings result in new customers calling the phone number(s) on the for-sale signs. Are you online? Do you take advantage of social media sites leaving online directional signs to you? Can the potential buyer or seller conveniently locate you anytime of the day or night from their home or office? Do you answer the phone? This is a biggie. Are you always letting calls go to voicemail putting all of the work on the caller to either leave a message or move on to a more convenient agent? If we are to pattern ourselves after a service such as a gas station, we need to be around every corner, open for business and ready to serve the needs of our customers.

We can learn from our everyday purchases

There is a lot for us to learn from our own buying and spending habits. Analyzing why we purchase from one store or vendor over another will help us reach more of the customers we seek. Start making mental or written notes as to why you shop a certain store or read one direct mail piece over another and then incorporate what motivates you into your own real estate business.

Photo Credit by the Italian voice

In my company our agents still adhere to the dress for success belief. We believe the way we dress helps us achieve our goal of putting forth the highest professional image. We believe our dress should exceed our customer’s expectations. Our dress code ideas are not shared by many of our competitors. The dress code of real estate agents in the Florida market stretches from shorts to suits.

Does your dress matter to the customer?

MindTools.com is a site that discusses skills needed for a successful career. In the Making a Good First Impression article, the author notes that it takes but a quick glance when you meet someone for the first time for them to evaluate you. This first impression is based on several things the person notices about you, including your appearance. Will the customer have a different initial opinion of you if you meet them for the first time in dress shoes versus sandals? It would be reasonable to think so.

I believe the first meeting and subsequent meetings with a customer are similar to a job interview with follow-up interviews. Common sense tells us to dress your best when going to an interview for a job you really want. Of course how dressed up, will depend on the position you are applying for. As professional real estate salespeople we often hear that we help people with the most expensive purchase they will make in their lifetime. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty serious job and one that calls for more than a casual attitude or attire.

Business conservative dress

Fashions and styles vary across the country. For a real estate agent, dressing for success would include men wearing; dress shoes, pressed slacks, a long sleeved dress short and a nice tie. Women would want to consider; a business styled pantsuit, skirt, blouse and jacket.

Does this mean you won’t sell a house unless you are dressed business conservative? No. But if it helps you sell one more house or take one more listing, when up against the competition, wouldn’t it be worth it? We think so and that is why you will usually find us out-dressing our competitors.

Photo credit by Rennett Stowe

Your efforts can best be served by having a timeline/checklist with which you can closely monitor the process. The following items should be on the timeline/checklist. These are offered as suggestions; your office may have specific guidelines that you will want to follow.

Get everyone on the same page.

• Make sure everyone involved in the transaction have the completed, initialed and signed contract and addendum.
• You should also make sure that all copies are legible.
• You want to make sure your buyer/seller, the cooperating agent, your office administrator or broker, the title/closing agency, and the buyer’s lender all have complete, legible copies.

Monitor your timelines.

You are the steward of the contact timelines. Maintain a written schedule of dates and obligations related to the transaction and make sure all parties are kept completely aware of approaching deadlines.

• When does the buyer need to make application for their loan?
• Has the payoff been ordered from the seller’s lender?
• Are utilities available and inspectors scheduled so that the inspections can happen within the designated time period?
• Ordering the survey, scheduling an appraisal, all fall upon you to make sure they happen as determined by the contract.

Dot the I’s and cross the T’s.

As you get closer to the closing date you need to pay special attention to the small details.

• Has the buyer purchased home owner’s insurance?
• Has the seller repaired the wood rot on the garage service door?
• When do you need to schedule the final walk-thru?
• Have buyer and seller made arrangements for the transfer of utilities and warranties?
• Has the home warranty been ordered?
• Have the buyer/seller received the HUD statement and have you reviewed it?

As an agent you should create a contract to closing timeline system that lists each aspect of the closing process. This will allow you to oversee or personally complete the tasks involved with the closing process. Having a system in place will reduce delays in closings making it easier to get from contract to payday.

Photo credit by therichbrooks

Our practice is to send every customer a service evaluation survey immediately after their closing. We want to know among other things, what prompted them to contact our company and our associate and what did they think of the service they received.

Each new evaluation received offers insight on what it truly takes to succeed in this business. Without a doubt the answer can be found in providing great customer service. I am confident that providing great customer service will result in more business during your career than good marketing or prospecting.

A majority of the great comments received are the same with each returned evaluation; the agent is very professional, efficient, courteous, and friendly. Their agent was there for them and made sure the customer was provided continuous updates. They were shown the homes they wanted to see, and the process was explained to them in detail. Taking into account all of those great observations and compliments the best thing the customer does just before sending the evaluation back to us is when they circle “yes” next to a question that asks” Would you recommend the agent and our company to a friend?  Answering yes is the result of great customer service and is invaluable. Great customer service builds successful real estate careers.

You should set aside time daily to evaluate the type of customer service you provide. Perhaps your time management has room for improvement so that you never keep a customer waiting for you or your follow up skills and systems could be tweaked so customers are never left in the dark.

Our customers will tell us what we do well and what we need to improve on. They will also tell us what they want and expect from us, we just need to listen.

Better time management will help reduce stress and add an additional hour or two to your schedule but in reality the only agents not faced with an endless list of tasks on a daily basis are the non producing agents.

I attended a meeting recently where the CEO of Watson Realty Corp., Mr. William Watson Jr. stated, “If your list of must-do tasks ever dwindle, you are in trouble.” His words rang true. If we are able to spend a lot of time playing online games or catching up on the latest office gossip, this is a clear indication that our “to-do’ list needs restocking.

Start by stocking up on ways to get new business. Make sure a significant portion of your day is used to meet new people. Once you start meeting new people; inspection deadlines, ordering surveys, meeting appraisers, ordering deposits, putting out fires and doing the impossible in order to close, all of these things and more will quickly find their way onto your lists.

Any answer that contains conversation about commission is of course meant to be considered in context to your personal office policy and in no way suggesting that commissions charged are fixed by real estate agents.

1. Meet more people.  Meeting more people is the number one answer to most of the issues or problems a real estate agent may face that centers around their career or income.  If they are not making enough money, they need to meet more people.  If they do not like listing property they need to meet more buyers.  If they do not like working with buyers they need to meet more sellers.  If they are terrible closers then theoretically they would need to meet more people to increase the odds of their bad closing skills working.  Are you following how this is going?  If they come in your office and they say, “I am not sure what I should be doing today, how can I start my business, or what is the secret to success?”  Your response will be, “Meet more people!”
2. What did the buyer/seller say they want to do?  How many times have you had an agent come into your office and lay out a situation going on with a deal?  Perhaps the appraisal came in low, or the inspection report revealed a problem or the closing is going to be delayed for any number of reasons.  The agent may tell you that they have been talking about whatever it is with the listing or co-op agent, and now they wonder what you think is the best way to handle whatever “it” is.  Your first response should be “What did the buyer/seller say they want to do?”  You will be amazed at how many times the agent sitting in your office has not stopped to call the customer.  As long as what the customer wants to do is not illegal, immoral or unethical, do that.
3. Measure twice; cut once.  This is the answer you should give an agent when they are ready to send off an angry email, or make any important decision that falls within their ability to make.  Measure twice; cut once is an old carpenter’s term that means you better measure that board twice before taking a saw to it.  This way you can be confident you are making the right cut, or in the case of your agent, the right decision.
4. Put it in writing.  Here is a no brainer but one of the most forgotten by our agents.  When they are sitting in your office and you start hearing a lot of “he said, she said”.  You need to say, “Get it in writing!”  Writing means more than an email.  It means getting signatures and the information on the proper company-state approved legal form/contract/addendum to legally bind all parties to what “they said”.
5. Go talk to the other agent.  This is the answer you should give to an associate who comes in with a concern or complaint about another agent within your office.  The situation might include confusion over which agent a customer belongs to, or a referral owed or something overheard at the water cooler.  Agents are professional businesses within your business and should be professional enough to deal with each other.  Before you put on your striped shirt and whistle and start acting as a referee, tell them to go talk to the other agent and work it out.
6. Google it.  As a manager you are expected to know everything.  In most cases you probably do have the answer to an agent’s question.  You have the answer, not because you are a walking talking encyclopedia, but most likely because you have done the research in order to find it.  In order for your agents to learn and grow, they need to do the research themselves too.  What does a specific zoning code allow?  Google it.  Where can I get flood insurance? Google it.  What does egress mean?  Google it.  
7. Say no.  This is something we do not learn early enough in our careers.  The buyer wants me to write an offer a zillion dollars below asking price, what should I do?  Say no.  The seller wants me to list the home so high I need a helicopter to see the top, what should I do?  Say no.  Mr. Unethical Agent wants me to participate in something that does not feel right.  Say no.  The seller has asked me to list their home for a penny.  Say no.
8. Never give away money.  There are times when we have to make concessions but those times should be few and far between and the person or persons who got us to give up a dollar should feel like they had to pry it away from our clenched hands.  The last person to give up money to fix a leaky roof, pay for past due HOA fees, offset the cost of a delayed closing, or get the seller to sell by reducing commission is you, the agent.  When an agent asks you about giving up some of their hard earned money, revert to answer 7 and include answer 8 to never give away money.  Tell them to work all other solutions first and then report back to you.
9. Let the facts speak for themselves.  This is the advice you need to give your agents when they are sure that something needs to be sugarcoated or when you start hearing phrases like, “Well I believe the buyer/seller/other agent is dealing in good faith”. The contract answers almost everything that a buyer or seller might question.  Point the buyer or seller to those answers and then zip it.  Let the facts speak for themselves.  They do not need your additional commentary.
10. Quiet the noise.  This could also be called focusing.  Real estate sale is an easy business but is hard to be successful.  The hard part comes in because our minds will often run amok.  I need to send out direct mail. I need to build a website. I do not speak as well as the next person.  My family is not supportive.  I am sure to fail.  The real estate market is bad.  My boss hates me.  I get the bad floor time.  There is too much paperwork.  I am afraid someone will hang up on me.  No one will attend my open house.  The buyer won’t qualify.  The seller will want too much.  I can’t get bank owned property.  I don’t understand the contract.  I will embarrass myself.  All of this noise is paralyzing!  You have got to help your agents quiet the noise and learn how to focus on the task at hand or they will never succeed in this or any other business.

If you are going to work with buyers you should follow these steps:

Find them, find out what they want, give them what they want, if they do not buy, find out what they want.

Finding buyers

How you find buyers is up to you. The best way to find a buyer is to hang out where they hang out. Historically buyers have been know to hang out at open houses, they have been seen calling or stopping in an office during floor time, buyers have also been spotted associating with people you already know and an increasing number of buyers hang out around the internet.

Find out what they want

This is the qualification period in your relationship with the buyer. Qualifying a buyer goes beyond their financing. Finding out what a buyer wants involves understanding what type of home – style, pricing, location, enhancements – will motivate them to make a serious offer in an appropriate time frame.

Give them what they want

An agent who thoroughly knows the market will be able to easily identify all of the homes that match the buyer’s criteria. These are the homes you will want to present to the buyer and show them over the next few days.

Uh oh, the buyer is not buying you better find out what they want

So you have found the buyer, listened to them and thought you found out what they want but now they are not buying. It is time to re-qualify them in order to avoid having your very own career buyer.

Agent: Mr. Buyer when we first met we discussed in great detail the type of home you were interested in. You told me how many bedrooms you needed, the area you desired and you provided me with a price range that you would be willing to spend for the right home. You also indicated that you wanted to be in your new home within the next 60 days. Have your criteria or time frame changed?

The buyer’s answers to your questions will let you know whether you should modify your search criteria, hand them off to another agent in your office as a referral or stop showing them homes until they are really ready to buy.

Qualifying and then continuing to qualify your buyers during the buying process will result in you closing more transactions.

Meeting people

As a real estate salesperson your main job is meeting people. Until you are successful at meeting people you cannot accomplish all of the other tasks and jobs that are part of a real estate career.

Meeting people and then being introduced to more people will handle a multitude of issues you will face in this business. If you are not successful with taking listings you can offset that by increasing the number of buyers you meet and work with. If you have little success with qualifying buyers or getting buyers to write offers, you need to meet more sellers and leave the buyers to the showing agents.

If your day to day activity revolves around putting out fires, chit-chatting with fellow agents, staying on hold with the lender’s short sale department and little or no time was devoted to prospecting in order to meet new people, you will most likely never realize the success you expect.

Agents who enjoy a high level of success do so for reasons other than being accomplished at administrative or clerical work. They are successful because they enjoy being face to face with people and they know how to increase the number of people they are face to face with.

Their results show that they take the time to be involved in their neighborhood association, they are active in their community or church. You can glean from a top agent’s multiple closings that they continually monitor their prospecting efforts to ensure it is touching the right people with the right message. They are not shy about asking for a referral from past customers. They would rather delegate the paperwork instead of letting it get in the way of them meeting more people.

Meeting people is a real estate agent’s number one job. Ask yourself, “Have I got a plan in place to meet people today?” If the answer is no, rework your plan.