Why are absentee owners an absolute gold mine right now? Well, that's because there's a lot of pent up demand.

I recently conducted a Webinar on this topic. If you happen to miss the Webinar, email me at [email protected] and we would be delighted to send you a copy of the Webinar to listen watch.

The reason I want to encourage you to pursue this activity is we do have a lot of landlords who have felt stuck with their properties in the down cycle. They are now starting to see some of the value rebound, and they are tired of the headache or maybe they are completely happy owning the properties, but they would simply like to upgrade into something better on a 1031 exchange.

Now if you go to my script book, I have the absentee owner script in there for you. If you're not currently one of our coaching clients and you need to have access to that script, please feel free to email me at [email protected] and we would be happy to send that out to you. And we will be happy to send you a link to our Webinar.

So how do you get started? You identify an area.

You work with your title company or other systems that you might have… tax rolls, etc.

You identify who are the absentee owners. Collect any of the phone numbers that you can. Set your budget and your plan and your system.

Many of the agents I speak to, they mail to the absentee owners monthly. And they call quarterly those that they have a phone number for. You can use my script, you can find your hot leads and your future leads. And I think you are going to find there's very low rejection because they really are interested in what you have to say.

So, again, let me know if you have any additional questions and I will talk to you tomorrow on the next coaching tip. Thank you for listening.

Hello and its Debbie De Grote for our daily coaching tip. I have had, in the last four days, five people email me and say "How do I find a buyer agent?" and "What is really the difference between a showing assistant and a buyer agent?"

So in a minute or less I'll try to give you a quick summary.

First of all, a showing assistant would really be someone who has a real estate license but does not have a lot of real estate knowledge. So I kind of think of them as the Vanna White of real estate. So they're going to open the doors, be available when you cannot be, smile pretty, be gracious, and bring the client back to you. So that type of person is not going to have the same split as a full-fledged buyer agent.

Now a buyer agent is typically going to be someone who has hopefully, some experience, and they're willing to follow your process and procedures.

Now you don't have to ensure or guarantee them that you're going to give them every buyer that you have. What we usually tell our buyer agents is that we do expect them to prospect, we do expect them to bring business to the table, and we're going to work the leads that specifically request us, friends, family, very direct referrals, and we're going to give them the leads that we're not interested in working.

Now some of you have online lead generation systems, you have some of great open houses for them to hold, but what should you be looking for in a buyer agent? Well, first of all, you want to look for someone who has a personality that's engaging and great at communicating with people and meeting strangers.

You probably want to look for someone that's a really good reflection of your style, your character, maybe even communicates a lot like you. It'd be great to look for someone who's very very familiar with the area, that has some sort of sales background and is not afraid to ask people to sign the contract. Of course they need to be available and willing to work the hours that you need them to work. So if they say "I can't work evenings or weekends", then they are probably not a great fit.

Now I would suggest the DISC test. I would suggest outlining what is your perfect buyer process and making sure they adhere to that. And have them listen to you as you do some of your calls and maybe go with you on a few consults or appointments so that they have a lock on your style and your preferences.

If you have more specific questions about this, please feel free to email me, [email protected]. And I'll try to cover more on this topic on future tips with Debby. Thanks for listening.

Our daily coaching tip today is about organization. Or should I say- lack of it?

On three of the coaching calls I had today with three really terrific and successful clients, they all said to me, our biggest problem is organization.

And maybe that's the organization of their team, or, an administrative person not being on point or on task, maybe its organization in terms of their own personal schedule. Well this is exactly one of the reasons that I created a program recently; Administrative Efficiency.

Now if you're listening and you are a Black Diamond client, you already know about this program because it’s already included in your total premier coaching package. However, for all the rest of the listeners, it is a terrific program.

Every Monday you have a one hour call with me and we're going to go over some area of efficiency. Whether that's creating an efficient schedule for an administrative person, managing email overload, creating systems and processes binder, taking your customer service up a notch in terms of really giving that customer what they want and what they need, systems for asking for and collecting referrals, you name it, we cover it.

Now also, if you're a client of our issue, know that we have a complete resource file for you on the elite agents online referral network and it outlines some best practices for your administrative people on your team. Now if you don't have an administrative assistant, why don't you follow the checklist? And do the things you need to do, to be extremely efficient.

Now if you need to get a hold of some of these resources, and you are not currently a coaching client, email me, [email protected]. Tell me what you need and we'll be happy to help. The Assistant Training Program, our Administrative Training Program is on-going. It's $99 per month and that's 4 hours of training. And you're going to leave the session with a complete binder of great tips for running an efficient operation. If you're interested in knowing more about that, let us know. If you just want to ask some general questions, again, feel free to email me and I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Today's tip is about your vendors and affiliates.

Do you have a great group of vendors and affiliates that support you? Are you loyal and supportive of them? Are you reasonable and easy to work with? But then let’s flip this around and say "Are they good to you?”

I always told my vendors and affiliates that I didn't want gifts from them. I don't want them to take me to dinner. I just want them to do a terrific job.

I would meet with each of my vendors and affiliates and I would sit down and I would outline what exactly is the type of service that I am expecting that they would deliver. And I would ask them "How do I work best with you so that we can be incredibly efficient together?”

I expected my vendors and affiliates to be problem solvers. Don't just call me and dump a problem in my lap. Try to fix it. Or at least call me and say, "We have a problem. And here is the solution.”

I also expected them to be truthful, to tell it like it is, to be responsive, and yet I knew that if I was going to ask for those things from them, I needed to give them my loyalty.

For many of you, you're busy and you're not yet in a place where you can hire more administrative support so your vendors and affiliates can be your go-to for some additional help. But be reasonable. We can't take advantage of them. They have a lot do too. But ask them, say "What are you doing for other top producers that you could do for me that would take a little bit of burden off my plate so I could go and create more business for both of us?” 

Also, go to my script book. You'll see a whole section on talking to your vendors and affiliates and asking them who they might know that needs your help. So it's a two-way street. We give them business. They give us great service and hopefully, from time to time, they're able to give us a few terrific referrals.

Have a great day. And I will talk to you tomorrow.

Today’s tip is about practicing your scripts.

Now, some of you are great at that. Some of you absolutely practice your scripts every single day. Good for you. Some of you say, "You know, I don't like scripts. I would rather just wing it".

The interesting thing about that though is that you really do have scripts, it’s just the once you always say over and over that you consider winging it, that may not be very good.

I would really encourage you to go the script book that I have for you. It's 89 plus pages. Its 30 plus years of knowledge and information, not just out of my head but from all of the great agents across North America that have shared some of their best bits of dialogue with me; dialogue that actually works to create listings and sales. And I've already blended in for you all of the terrific NLP, words, phrases and techniques so it’s easy.

Now, also, you get the matching audio download because some of you have said, "You know Debby, sometimes when I read your words, something you might have written sounds a little bit direct. And I am not sure if I could say that. And yet when I hear you on the audio, the style, the tonality, absolutely, I know I could do it".

So I would encourage you this week to commit some time to practicing your scripts. Ideal would be 15 to 20 minutes every day with a practice partner.

And if you can't find a practice partner, simply read the scripts out loud that you are practicing over and over and over again. Put the script to audio on your phone, listen to it when you work out, listen to it when you are in the car, and before you know it, many of those great words and phrases are going to be yours, because someone said once, and I wrote this down.  I thought it was such a great line.

They said "Remember, somewhere today, someone is practicing. And when you meet them, they may beat you". So get ready. Be ready to compete and win. And start practicing.

So my thought for you today is, “Where do you need to expand?”

Now it doesn't mean eat some cookies and gain some weight. Not that kind of expansion, but, where do you need to expand your business?

When we think of expanding that could be a new prospecting activity, a new method of marketing, that could be adding someone to your team, those would all be certainly valid ways to expand your business. It also could be expanding your market reach.

Many of you who have worked a very small market place, you may find that as your goals increase, as you grow your business, it's difficult to extract all of the business that you need from that small market and it may make sense to look at some markets that are on the border; that are surrounding your main market.

A quick little strategy for this, I know that there is not a lot of for-sale-by-owners out there at this time, a few more popping up, but one of my clients who happens to be in area of organ where there are quite a number of for-sale-by-owners. They have a strategy…

They said, "Well you know I drew a little bulls eye around my office within 10 minutes, if there is an expired or for-sale-by-owner in that 10-minute circle, they may not be willing to commit to a full listing appointment, but most will let you can stop by and take a look at the home.”

If its within 10 minutes, they'll go. They'll take the chance. I'll go.

They'll meet. And they'll try to flip that to an appointment. But if its 10 to 15 minutes plus, so 10, 20, 30, 40 minutes away, on those, they're going to be much more selective about making sure that those are fully qualified listing appointments.

That was a way that they could deal with expanding their market without wearing themselves out.

So, think about it. Where could you expand in any of the areas that just by tapping into a new potential, or a new potential market, you could open up a new slice of business?

If you have any questions about this, talk to one of our coaches. Or feel free to reach out to me. And I'll look forward to talking to you tomorrow.

I have another question for you today. What opportunities are your market presenting or is your market presenting that you should be taking advantage of?

The market changes every day.

Things that didn't work six months ago might work for you today; things that maybe you've never tried but you often thought that you should. Now, possibly you're avoiding them simply because, you haven't, it hasn't occurred to you.

Or you haven't had time to get around to it.

Or possibly there are some call reluctance or fear of rejection. Just fear of the unknown.

If you could put all of that away and you could think about this: "If I could do one thing today that scares me but I know if I did it, I would have a great result".

What would that one thing be?

What are you avoiding that's exactly the thing that you should be doing?

You know there was a fun book many years ago. It was super popular. You probably read it. It was called "Who Moved My Cheese?”

It was kind of a silly little book talking about a bunch of mice whose cheese got moved and they sat around waiting for it to come back instead of going to find it. And that's really our market. Every day, as things change, we want to be open and alert for new opportunities.

We want to block a little bit of time in our day or our week to work on our business, not just in our business. Embrace change and new opportunities. Get past the fear of trying something that's unfamiliar because that could be the very activity that blows your year wide open. So have a great day.

Do one thing today that scares you.

And feel free to send me an email and let me know what you accomplished. And I'll talk to you soon.

You know, I have a question for you: what are you doing out of routine or habit that is no longer, either necessary, profitable or productive?

You know, we all have our methods, “best practices” of how we do things or how we have always done things. And yet as the market evolves and changes, technology evolves and changes, possibly they are just obsolete or our systems need a little bit of tweaking and adjusting.

Also we may be spending money on particular items, marketing, mailings, print ads and we are really not getting the results but we are continuing to throw money at that project.

So what I would ask you to do is to take a minuet today and think about this question: what am I doing out of routine or habit that is no longer, either, profitable,  productive or necessary and should be changed?

Now if you have some questions and ideas that you want to bounce them around with me, feel free to email me: [email protected]. And I look forward to talking to you tomorrow.

Welcome to Debbie’s daily coaching tip.

I was thinking the other day why do buyers and sellers actually choose the agents that they choose?

Well, I teach a lot of classes and there are lots of information about this. And we could talk about this for hours. But I remember reading a report not long ago and they had interviewed thousands of home buyers and asked them that question, and when they surveyed and tabulated all that data, the answer that came back was “product knowledge.”

They thought that the agents they chose really knew the market, the prices, the trends, the statistics and could give them great advice.

How much time do you spend on your product knowledge?

For example, how many homes are on the market in your county? Do you know how many are going pending each month? What’s the price point that most of the homes are selling at?

How is your marketplace appreciated in the last month or not the last 6 months? How are you actually previewing property?

I think previewing property is a lost art because we can sit at our computer and do a virtual tour and you know, maybe that’s fine, but I am curious, do you block time in your schedule every week to work on your product knowledge?

I remember back when I was holding a lot of open houses back in the day of being young and starting at real estate, and I look at property every single day. My broker said you must preview 10 homes per day in the different areas that you serviced.

What was fascinating is when I would hold an open house people would come in, they would describe the home they are looking for and I would say, “You know, I just saw it yesterday, come back at 5 o clock and I will show it to you,” and I sold it. And they might be shopping and looking around for 3, 6 months I got lucky. But I got lucky because I had product knowledge.

So I would encourage you to be what they want you to be; the expert in your neighbourhood in your county. And put some time in your schedule each day and each week to study your market.

Thanks for checking in today, and I will talk to you soon.

The coaching tip of the day about team building.

So many of you want to build a team or you maybe already have a team. So what I would ask you to do, as Jim Collins said in the book, “Good to great,” take a look at if you have the right people on the bus. And if so, are you utilizing them properly?

If you have buyer agents, what is your standards and expectations for your performance? What is your unbreakable expectations of showing up at the office, attending meetings, are they meeting those expectations? And what are you doing to help them grow?

What about your administrative processes? Are they good? Are they streamlined and do you have job descriptions for each of the people who work with you?

Are you a good communicator? Are you clearly communicating priorities? Are you accessible to your team when you need to be? Or are you expecting them to manage themselves?

Each of our coaches has had teams and they know how to coach you on improving your team. Talk to them about the gaps and the challenges you might be having.

Big teams can be great, and yet, they are not always profitable. So we really want to examine at the end of the day, at the end of your hard work, is your team creating the revenue that it should be. And if not, we need to do something about hat right away.

Now if you have never had a team, want to build a team, talk to your coach. They are going to help you create a strategy and if they are going to need any help with that, they are going to talk to me.

So having a team is certainly a great way to leverage your opportunities. We just want to be sure we build the right team for you.

Thanks for joining us today.