Here’s what we’re talking about today: the 5 most important things you must do today.

A good friend of mine that owns a very large and successful battery company with over 600 employees and branches all across the nation shared with me his secret for managing all the demands of his role and keeping stress under control.

He said that each night before he ends his day he does these 3 things:

• He takes stock of the day’s the wins and the losses. He congratulates himself on the wins and looks at what caused the losses to occur. What can he learn from them and what is needed to correct them?

• He clears his emails and voicemails and organizes his desk.

• He makes a list of the 5 big items he must accomplish the next day, knowing that while he may have much more to do, if he completes these 5 then he has moved the company in the right direction.

Once he completes his 5 things if there is time left in the day he can do more.  If there isn’t time left he makes his list of 5 things for tomorrow and goes home.

And you know what, he is one of the most mellow guys I know.  I know he has stress and pressure; it just goes with the territory of being a business owner.  But he has trained himself to do his best each day, accomplish the big rocks, and then go home and enjoy his life.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the things we could or should do. Chunk it down and do what you must do to keep the business growing and servicing the clients you have.

Whenever possible eliminate the spinning plates, the unnecessary things that you don’t really need to or want to do, things that you just somehow got roped into. Because no matter how efficient you are you cannot fit 36 hours of stuff into a 24-hour day.

Do what matters to you personally and do the most productive thing at the most productive moment to grow your business. 

And when you are off be off!

Today we’re going to talk about the power of concentration

Were any of us born disciplined?

Maybe, but I don’t think so, I think it is really a habit or a pattern that we develop.

Just like working out at the gym, if you systematically strength train you will develop stronger muscles.

Often agents select the real estate profession because they are looking to be free, to be their own boss, and to spontaneously flow through the day.

Usually though very soon into their career they discover this isn’t serving them well, they feel lost, stressed, and are not achieving the goals that they have set.

And yet many still resist a schedule, they still resist having a structure or plan for their business, and they find themselves continuing to struggle day to day and month to month with no predictability to the business or the production.

Does this sound familiar?

If so remember, you are not alone, and yet it is probably time to stop flying by the seat of your pants and start treating your job like a real job.

Honestly, I think that the freedom of being an entrepreneur is too much for some to manage and that they would be more successful in a structured environment.

I am assuming though if you are reading this email you are committed to being an entrepreneur, good for you!

To insure your success let’s work on building some structure into your day and let’s do it with a few simple basic activities.

Let’s start with setting a starting and ending time to your day.  Get up at the same time each day, develop your strong morning routine, things that get your head in the game. 

Maybe that’s exercise, or meditation, prayer or journaling whatever it is that gets you mentally in the place you need to be to have a powerful day.

Your brain is in an alpha state in the morning, it is very susceptible to what you put into it so put good stuff in it!  You need to protect your mindset as if it’s a fragile egg.

Go to work!

I mean it go to work!

If you work at the office arrive daily as if you were punching a clock.  Think about the amount of money you want to earn.  If you were paying someone that amount would you expect them to show up on time?

If you work at home consider starting your day at Starbucks or some coffee shop near your home.  It will get you up and dressed and out the door. By the way, as you are getting dressed put your name badge on or your branded shirt.  I promise you people will often walk up to you and ask you questions about the market, you might as well capture some easy leads am I right?

If you have huge goals it will be necessary to perfect your entire schedule, at first though work to perfect your morning routine between the time you begin and 12:00pm.

Most likely when you do this the rest of the day will take care of itself.

Do your tougher activities early in the day when you have more energy and patience.

Consider blocking 1 hour of quiet time a day where you just focus on the work on your desk. Turn off the phone and all conversations 100%. Corporate studies have shown that when employees do this they got more work done than they normally would have in 3 hours of multi-tasking.

Multi-tasking is not a virtue. Stop it and focus!

You know the old saying Rome wasn’t built in a day? As you work to develop your perfect morning routine you are going to fall off the wagon. Just think about this, if over the next 12 months you stayed on schedule 4 out of 5 days in a week imagine all the great things you could accomplish!

And if you need some help call us we will keep you on track!

Today I’m talking about how to triple your listing appointments and dominate your local listing market.

Buyers are great and yet top listing agents always dominate their market and attract the quality buyers.  That is why as a coach I encourage you to be listing centric.

If you look at the amount of listings taken in your local market year to date I wonder…do you feel you were able to extract your fair share?  To truly be an active listing agent a good rule of thumb is no matter what the market condition you should have at least 5 active listings at all times and potentially much more depending on your personal goal.

If you are like most agents I speak with you would probably say you are struggling to get to the table often enough to win the listings you need and want to have, and you would probably agree that once you are invited to the table it’s often challenging to convince the seller to choose you over your competitor.

If you were to come to us for coaching we would immediately run an analysis to find the gaps in your listing process.

One of the first things we would look at is what are you doing to create the listing opportunities you need, including who are you talking to each day and how are you marketing to the homeowners in your community?

Recently we have encouraged all of our clients to participate in the 5-5-5-5 plan as their minimum standard for the number of contacts they will make per day.

5- High quality eye-to-eye or ear-to-ear conversations to generate business.

5- High quality emails to reach out to prospects and contacts.

5- High quality texts (often if someone will not respond to an email or call they will respond to a text).

5- Hand written notes to show appreciation and deepen a connection.

This is a minimum standard of connections per day, ideally I recommend you strive to hit 20 contacts a day and 100 a week.

Next, we would look at your marketing because we know 80% of agents’ marketing dollars are wasted on items that do not create leads or responses.  I find agents often copy each other’s marketing, and they often pay no attention to who they are targeting. Additionally, they often fail to measure their results, so even if 20% is working they don’t know which 20% is effective.  Think about who you are reaching out to and the messages they will respond to. If you need some help reach out to me at [email protected] I will share more about what you need to be doing.

Once you identify your targets and strategically set your marketing plan next you should focus on your lead follow up because 70% of your business will come from your follow up.  You need to perfect your system and you need to develop a pipeline of now and future sellers that you nurture and stay top of mind with.

We would also encourage you to position yourself as the consultant and advisor who can help them make the big decisions they need to when moving up, moving down or investing.  Data is easy for them to come by, but your knowledge and wisdom are not.

The good news is that even with all of the information that is available to them I read somewhere the other day that 75% of homeowners select a real estate agent they know and trust. Your goal, of course, is to be that agent!

Questions To Ask Yourself:

• Have you analyzed the competition? What are their weaknesses and strengths that would help you identify your edge to show the seller you should be their clear choice?

• Have you honed your market expertise?

• Are you customizing your presentation to the seller’s home, specific market, personality style, generation, and culture?

• Is your presentation visually interesting and an engaging conversation vs. a pitch?

• How are you navigating the pricing conversations? We suggest our clients offer their sellers 3 pricing options to choose from (email me at [email protected] if you would like more information on these strategies).

• Are you able to defend your commission and prove your value to earn what you are worth?

• Can you close 5-6-7-8- times graciously?

If you have discovered that you have a lot of work to do, that’s okay, because that means that once you do the work, the listings will come!

Hello it’s Debbie De Grote and welcome to Debbie's Daily Tips!  So what we’re talking about today is: the holidays do not begin on Halloween.  Over the years I’ve had the chance to coach some of the best agents across North America, in total, conducting more than 60,000 private coaching calls. 

I’ve noticed a common phenomenon that often occurs around Halloween.  Agents often take their foot off the gas and begin to cruise through the last quarter of the year.

Often I hear things like, “I will begin that in the new year,” or “I have worked hard, I just need to take it a bit easy,” or “I have a lot going on for the holidays.”  It goes on and on, the excuses.

Unfortunately, when an agent adopts this type of complacent mindset and lack of aggressive action, it will almost always send them into a tailspin.  This then results in a very hard start in January.  I have noticed that often it will take them an entire first quarter to dig their way out of the ditch and get back on track.

So painful, wouldn’t you agree?

That is exactly why each year at this time the coaches and I unite in a campaign to keep our Excelleum clients in action, because we want them to have a strong finish, a wonderful holiday, and the best first quarter possible.

We thought it would be helpful to share with all of you the action list that we are giving our clients.  I hope you will print it and use it!

I also have available, if you’d like a copy,  a short term business plan.  Reach out to us here at Excelleum (714)625-5226 or email me, [email protected] and we’d be happy to get you a complimentary copy so that you can set the goals you would like to achieve to finish the year strong.

If you are like most agents, you will be more likely to excel when you have a custom plan and some strong accountability.  If you need help and are interested in speaking with us you can simply reach out to me direct and I’ll get you the help you need.

Please enjoy our suggested actions, “The Holidays Do Not Begin On Halloween, The 10 Things You Must Do Right Now!”

Hello it’s Debbie and this is Debbie's Daily Tips!

I wanted to share with you some practical ways to work with today’s sellers when you’re working to maintain commission.  See, my favorite is to point out to the seller that the commission is really a marketing tool.  It provides the incentive to the listing agent to work overtime to sell the property for the highest price possible.

It also explains that it attracts the best agents to the market to show the home.  It points out that that seller is not writing anyone a check today.  They are simply dangling a marketing carrot, and that the only time anyone is going to get paid is when an acceptable offer is delivered and they, the seller, choose to accept it!

Whether you feel comfortable with the commission objection handlers that I like or not, I’d like to ask you to please commit to choosing two to three very powerful ways that you will internalize, that you will practice.  Because it’s going to come up and if you are not prepared, you will most likely take the cut.  And when you do this repeatedly, it’s going to have a very severe impact on your profit margin.

You know the old saying, work smarter, not harder?  If you net higher commissions you won’t have to work as hard to earn what you are worth!

Now, the Gen Xers and Millennials, they’re a very savvy generation and they’re not going to fall for the old fashioned sales techniques and gimmicks.  They will check, they will review, they will check your credentials, they will do their homework.  So be ready!

And when you are ready, you will welcome the challenge and the opportunity to outshine the rest, to be viewed as the clear choice and to have the sellers be happy to pay you what you deserve.

So again, if you’d like a copy of our commission objection handlers that we share with our clients, please feel free to contact me direct: [email protected], and we’d be delighted to share those with you.  Thank you for listening!  Talk to you soon.

Hello! Welcome to Debbie's Daily Tips, we’re continuing on in our series on holding the line on your commission.

So when you’re doing an outstanding presentation, the presentation needs to address not just how you are different, it needs to address how you will make their property stand out head and shoulders above the competition.

You need to sell the sexy, the benefits, the value.  Remember, they don’t buy the plane, they buy the destination.  They buy the perceived value.

If you have statistics for yourself or your company that proves you net your sellers more, bring those to the table!  Also, bring to the table testimonials that showcase how you’ve helped other sellers achieve the top price the market will bear.  In other words, prove it!

Often, many agents that we coach fill in the commission into the listing agreement before they go to the home.  They prepare the net sheet with the full commission, they do their outstanding presentation, and then they turn it around, hand them the pen, and say nothing at all about the commission.  And guess what?  Often the seller just signs it!

I know you’re thinking though, “But what if they don’t sign it?  How do I handle that best?”

Just for fun, I Googled some commission objection handlers and I saw a lot of stuff out there online.  A lot of stuff that I actually don’t really believe will work very well with most of today’s sellers.  Here is why I say this.  You see, many of the objection handlers I noticed talked about how the agent couldn’t afford to cut, or how their broker wouldn’t let them.  In other words, they’re assuming that the seller cares about us.  And you know what?  They don’t.  We already know that they don’t.

So as I said earlier, your best chances of winning higher commission is when you position it as a benefit to the seller.

Tune into the next Debbie's Daily Tip and I'm going to share one of my favorite approaches to handling the commission objection.

Hello it’s Debbie De Grote, welcome to Debbie’s Daily Tips!

We’re continuing on in our series on holding the line on commission.

Now, we talked on the last tip about practicing.  What if you took the scripts for overcoming the commission objection I’ve given you, or that I’ve discussed with you in this report, and you maybe took the commission objections handlers that you know, or that you’ve requested from us, added a few additional that maybe your broker may have shared, and you carried them with you?  What if you practiced them for 15 minutes every single day?  Before long you would have a few great responses internalized so that when you use them you sound natural and super confident!

What if you even recorded them in your own voice and listened to them as you drove to a listing appointment?

I have another thought for you.  What if you broke down exactly what it cost you to have each listing, and that includes the value of your time?  What if you sat in your car before you went into that appointment and you wrote out a check for that amount to the seller?  So let’s say you determine that each listing costs $3,000 with hard costs, staff costs, and your time.  You wrote that check out to the seller and you put it in your pocket.  I want you to feel it burning a hole in your pocket as you sit there at the table defending what you are worth!

While we are on the subject of being at the table, let’s go back to the presentation for a moment.  Many of the people that we coach have a rule.  They always go through their full presentation 100% of the time even if they know the seller personally, and even if the seller has promised the listing to them.

Why do they do this, when they could just walk in and take the listing?

Here is why.  Because they feel if they do a full presentation and the seller sees all of the benefits they are bringing to the table, that they will be okay with paying more commission.  They’ll be more likely to take the agents advice on what the home is worth.

In other words, a stellar presentation really sets the stage for a powerful close!

Thanks for listening, and we’ll talk to you on the next Debbie's Daily Tip.

Hello and welcome to Debbie’s Daily Tips, we’re working on our series on holding the line on commission.

If you’ve listened to the past few tips: okay, we aren’t done yet, hang in there with me.  Because here’s the next thing I am going to ask you to do before you ever agree to cut commission:  I want you to really stop and think about, first of all, is it a good business decision?  Now if you feel that it is, and you’ve examined all the angles, I am still going to ask you to be prepared to fight for your full fee!

What does being prepared involve?  Well, of course, it involves having some great scripts and objections handlers ready.

We have some that we can share with you if you reach out and ask us for them. I encourage you to print some scripts, study them, practice, and perfect them, because they will help you earn what you are worth.  It’s really worth the time invested to improve your skill at handling this very tough objection.

Now that we have a few ideas on the table over our last several tips, let’s take a step back way back, all the way to the time when the appointment is set.  Please be well prepared.  Let’s be sure that you are very carefully prequalifying the potential seller.

Be sure that you are preparing carefully and methodically for every aspect of that listing appointment and that you have an outstanding listing presentation.

You see, I find that often agents don’t earn full commissions because, quite frankly, the seller didn’t see the value in paying them more.  I know this because when the client comes to us for coaching, one of the first things we do is ask them about their listing presentation.  Often they say, “I don’t have one,” “I don’t use one,” or “Mine is a mess.”

If you don’t have a razor sharp presentation, then you need to make this a priority project immediately!  Just a note of caution, having a razor sharp presentation doesn’t mean that it has to be 47 pages long.  If it is, you won’t use it and they’re not going to sit still and listen to it for that long.  So it needs to be clear and it needs to be concise.

Many of the large brands offer their agents a generic listing presentation package.  These packages are often 40-50 pages long.  Now while they do contain very valuable content, you’re going to need to be able to pare this down.  And you want to pare it down by maybe laying all those pages out on the floor and remove any of the “fluffy stuff.”

Also, if there are pages that are somewhat identical, basically discussing the same marketing tool in a different way, pick out only the one that is the most powerful.

If there are pages on “price it right,” charts and graphs, etc., you may want to consider pulling those out of the presentation.  Take them along in your briefcase instead, so that you can pull them out and use them only if they are needed.

Pages that might talk about how to prepare their home for showing, or post sale information, pull it out.  You can review this once they list the home.  Don’t muddy the waters with information overload.  Share what you need to share to get the contract signed!

Now that you have pared down your packet, add in of course your bio, your testimonials, and any other custom pieces you think are critical.

When it’s all said and done it should ideally be 15 pages or less.  It should be very nicely organized and printed.  You need to study and rehearse it until you are confident and flawless.

I know that some of you resist a “canned presentation.”  However, you already have one, the stuff you usually say, which quite frankly may not be all that terrific.

Drill it down, practice and rehearse.  It should sound natural.  You can then dance with your script and adapt it to each seller.

Let’s also remember that a terrific presentation should not be a pitch.  Today’s sellers don’t want to be pitched at; it should be an interactive conversation.  It should be a consult where you are speaking less than 50% of the time and 25% of that, you are asking great questions.

We all know that the close isn’t one magic moment.  Therefore we should realize that winning the commission you deserve doesn’t happen simply because you made one great point.  Winning the listing at the price, terms, and commission rate you want is really a layering process.  Pre-qualify, prepare, engage the seller, and demonstrate how powerful you are.  If you skip a step, you put your commission at risk. 

Okay, make it a great day!  If you missed the previous tips on holding the line on commission, please go back and review those.  Look forward to our next tip as we continue this series.

Hello and welcome to Debbie’s Daily Tips!

Okay, we are working on the series of commission, holding the line on commission, so in our tip today we are going to talk a little bit about why so many agents cut commission.

With all the good stuff that we’ve talked about so far, it really proves why we should hold the line on commission.  We already addressed that agents could be desperate, they may be lacking in skill.  Sometimes they are simply lacking in confidence and they don’t think they are worth the full commission.  Maybe they have a problem believing in themselves.

Let’s think about this together.  When you take a listing, a listing costs you money, whether it sells or not.  There’s the hard cost to market, there’s staff time, if you have administrative help there’s their time, and your time, which of course is incredibly valuable.  Also each listing and sale carries with it a liability.   You, in a sense, can be at risk each and every time you do a deal.  So you need to earn enough for all of it to be worth it!

Since we are talking about risk, let’s remember, you’re taking all the risk up front.  You are spending time, money, expertise, and they haven’t even paid you a dime!  They only pay you if the deal closes.  When you look at it, it’s a pretty good situation for a seller, don’t you think?

In the high end, I often see even more agents willing to cut because the commission dollars on high priced homes are so much larger.  Just ask the fantastic luxury agents we coach.  They’re going to tell you that when a property is more expensive, it often costs significantly more to market, takes longer to sell, and can at times be a much more complex transaction with big egos!  So it makes sense that for those of us who have the skill to close these big sales, they deserve to earn the big dollars.

So I’d like to ask you to do one thing effective immediately.  And this is very important and actually very easy to do.  Just stop right now, and forever, volunteering to cut.  At least make them ask you. 

The next thing I would ask of you, if you do decide that you’re going to make a cut, you need to carefully analyze this decision.  Please make sure that you’re not cutting because you are weak, scared, or desperate, or because your ego doesn’t want you to lose a listing.  Instead, examine how long it will take to sell, how easy the clients will be to work with, if you can sell it yourself, or if you can create some other type of business opportunity from it.  And of course after you invest your time and money, will you make a profit?

We’re going to talk a little bit more about how to be prepared, so that you can be prepared to win and showcase how dazzling you are on the next Debbie’s Daily Tip.  Talk to you soon!

Hello and welcome to Debbie’s Daily Tips!

We’re continuing on in our series on holding the line on commissions and today we’re talking about being a market expert.

A few years ago, I had an opportunity to conduct focus groups with buyers and sellers in the Orange County market.  One of the questions we asked was, “What are you looking for in an agent?”  And they said market expertise.

You see, they know that a market expert can help them save time, money, find the opportunities, and avoid the pitfalls.

Recently I had my own experience with this and the opportunity to compare a market expert to a novice.  My husband and I own a small cabin in Northern Idaho, it’s a great little cabin but it’s not directly on the lake.  We decided it was maybe time to upgrade to a waterfront location.

We contacted a waterfront expert, someone who had worked the area for 30-plus years.  We asked to see a property we had noticed online, he showed it to us, and we decided to make an offer.  He informed us that due to his experience, he knew that the beach in front of the house had a title problem, because all of the other houses on the beach had the same issue.  Bottom line, it meant the seller didn’t even own the beach, and if the issue wasn’t resolved before we purchased it, neither would we.

He told us he knew exactly how to go about clearing this up and that it could be done fairly easily.

Guess what, though?  The listing agent, a novice, didn’t even have a clue.  Neither did their seller.  The novice agent had marketed the home with features it didn’t have and had stated that there was a homeowners’ association, which there was not.

Lots and lots of mistakes.

The good news is, though, our agent had all the facts.  Ultimately, when reviewing those facts we decided not to buy that property.

The bad news for the seller is that if our agent hadn’t imparted all of this knowledge to the novice agent, the seller likely would have ended up in a lawsuit with their buyer someday down the road.

Now of course, that novice agent cost a bit less.  I wonder, though, if they now think they did the right thing hiring a cut rate agent.

That’s exactly why it’s important to showcase that you are the market expert and how that ads value to the transaction.

Thanks for listening, and tune in for the next Debbie’s Daily Tip, when we go a little further into holding the line on commission.