Real Estate Uncensored - Real Estate Sales & Marketing Training Podcast

Your time is your most important resource. But how is your time different when you make the switch from being a 9-5 employee to being a business owner? Can your emotional resilience, or lack thereof, make you lose weeks or even months on over analyzing your defeats? Is owning a real estate business a sprint or a marathon? On this episode, we share our experience with time management.

Emotional resilience is one of the key traits to become a successful person in general, but definitely being a business. -Matt Johnson

Three Things We Learned

When planning take into the equation your energy not only time

Often times, we see ourselves using our time doing what we want, not what needs to be done. But not only do we put excitement over responsibility, we also take the employee mindset with us. For a business owner, it’s harder to sit 8-10 hours working every day compared to an employee who doesn’t have the pressure of maintaining the business. Business owners not only sit down and get the work done but they also do most of the problem-solving. This usually impacts their energy levels, because you can only have so much mental energy.

Stay emotionally resilient

When you make a mistake as an employee, it’s easier to deal with it. The project is not yours. You just happen to be the one who works on it. But as a business owner, the blows hit closer to home. Don’t set goals that you’re emotionally attached to, as this will only lead to self-sabotage.

Take the hit, but don’t let it govern you. Emotional resilience is what makes business owners perseverent and happy with themselves and the success of others.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint

Prioritizing is more important than throwing all the balls in the game, simply because there are tasks that should be done urgently and goals that you don’t have the resources to reach right away. While you may be tempted to do everything faster, the one factor that usually pushes things the most is the focus—and focus is a finite resource. And since it’s so finite, there’s only so much so many sprints you can take in a business before you collapse.

Don’t mistake being competitive for discounting yourself. Lowering your commissions a little bit in the beginning is fine. But when your entire selling point gravitates around a low price point and not around providing value, you cause harm to both your wallet and clients. You can only do so much for you and your clients if you’re working on a very limited budget, which will make you, and the seller, go home with less money.

Referrals are one the best ways to get a steady stream of income without making a large investment. But how can you get people to talk about you? How can you build a referral machine both online and offline? And how should you keep in touch with your database? On this episode, we answer these questions with Elite Real Systems leader, Jeff Cohn.

If you have a 5-year goal and you do every single thing you believe you need to do to reach that 5-year goal, you will probably get there in 2-3 years. -Jeff Cohn

Three Things We Learned

Create unique content

One of the best ways to make people talk about you is to create unique content for each neighborhood you’re in charge of. Make videos of the neighborhoods. Take as many photos as possible, and bring information to the table that can’t be found in the listing.

Build your own Google

Instead of constantly searching for new people, use Excel or a CRM to create your own database. Make sure you tell everyone you meet how you can help them, and get their contact info. Send your database occasional emails and text messages on the value of their property, as well as how many properties are being sold nearby and if there are any bargains on the market.

Cold calls still matter

No matter how intense your branding efforts are, cold calls still matter. You should make at least 20 phone calls per day and spend at least 20 hours on the phone per week in order to get results. But make sure you always bring something of value when you give a call. It could be an update of what’s happening on the real estate market, the fact that you have buyers in a certain areas, etc.

The secret to expanding your referral machine is to add more people to your team. Share everything you know with them, and after they become experts at what they do, provide them with resources, technology, and incentives they can’t find anyone else. If you choose to do everything by yourself, you will soon find yourself limited. But if you create a system, your business can expand indefinitely,

Follow-up is one of the most time-consuming tasks. Often, agents pour too much energy into the wrong leads. How can you weed out the curious from those with a solid buyer intent? Is there a way to make door knocking a pleasurable experience for property owners? How can you keep in touch with potential buyers in your database? On this Q&A, we answer your questions on following up the right way.

The next thing to watch out for is narrowing that funnel and making people jump through some hoops before they get an agent. -Matt Johnson

Three Things We Learned

Use coupons when going door knocking

Don’t just be the agent who goes door knocking. Make them look forward to seeing you. Bring them information about the neighborhood, your success stories, and the state of the local market.

You can also bring coupons for dinner or lunch, or whatever will make you stand out and show them that you’re interested in their well-being first instead of just getting a listing.

The orphan program

The orphan program consists of buyers that agents forget about. These could be buyers who say they will come with a follow-up but never do. Make the first step and show them you’re still available. Send them a anniversary card or give them a phone call instead of expecting them to remember you.

Automated follow-up weeds out the curious from leads

Following up on a constant basis and keeping track of all your leads can be quite daunting at times. Instead of doing everything manually, set up a system like Agent Legend that helps you record your voicemail and sent out messages and emails. This process will weed out those who are just interested in finding out more info from those who are actually interested in selling or buying property.

 

Many agents spend way too much time on the phone with people who express interest but don’t have a buying intent. To avoid this, create a system that weeds out the curious from the solid leads before you jump on a call with them. Automated follow-ups, funnels, and chatbots are all useful when it comes to lead selection.

Having a network to tap into for leads is one of the biggest sources of income for realtors. But how do you reach key people? How can you leverage social media to build your brand? How long does it take? On this episode, Sarah Johnston shares how she used Instagram to get the connections she needed to increase her sales.

If I look right now, 50% of my sales are from people I either know or referred to me on Instagram. -Sarah Johnston

Three Things We Learned

Branding opens doors

Realtors are often limited by the connections they have and the local market.

When you’re just starting out, it’s hard to present yourself as a trustworthy persona. This is exactly what branding does. It puts you in front of people. Instead of handing your prospects your business card, social media allows you to give them some far more important. They receive little bits about your life and work ethic that they otherwise wouldn’t know about. These types of interactions are far more memorable than anything else, and often times they’re client sources.

Practice patience

In the real estate industry,vanity metrics don't count. The interactions do. Don’t follow people for the sake of creating an impressing friend list. Instead, search for people who might need your help and start interacting with them. Social media marketing done this way requires some time to take off. But when it does, the people in your list become the hidden helpers behind your business.

Don’t leave anything to chance

Motivation is wonderful but fleeting. Instead of trying to keep yourself motivated, make a schedule that involves discipline. There will always be uncomfortable tasks that need to be done. There’s no way around that. After a while, you will be on autopilot and won’t need to search for motivation to get things done.

Philanthropy is one of the best ways to get in line with your audience’s beliefs. Volunteering and giving back to your community say a lot about your character and who you are as a person. Not everyone will agree with your actions. But those who do will respect you even more simply because you stand for what they stand for.

Guest Bio

Sarah Johnston is the director of Calgary Real Estate Board, speaker, and a realtor at MaxWell Realty Canada for over 10 years. She shares her experiences and stories online on her website at http://www.maxwellrealty.ca/agents/sarah-johnston/ and on her Instagram at @adventuresinrealestateyyc

When it comes to hiring, most people separate it from all their other marketing efforts. Why is this a huge mistake? How can you use content marketing to make your recruiting easier? How do you go about finding people who will be a great fit on your team? On this episode, we are joined by Gene Volpe and out guest, hiring expert, author and consultant, Jay Niblick to answer these important questions.

Stop segmenting hiring talent and finding buyers and sellers, it’s one of the most critical mistakes we see. -Jay Niblick

Three Things We Learned

Finding clients and finding recruits should be treated as the same process

Don't make the mistake of thinking that your hiring efforts are in some way different to everything else you’re doing to get clients. There should be no difference between the two. If you want great talent you should always be marketing for it.

Add agent focused content to your marketing

It’s so important to have content that is aimed at other agents. Your content shouldn’t just be about why buyers or sellers should work with, you it should also show people what you’re like as a boss.  

Interviews are important in determining if you should hire someone but they aren’t the only thing

Interviews are very important, but the problem with just interviewing on gut is personalities dictate that the more like you they are, the more you like them in their interview.

Teams and brokerages would save themselves a lot of time and effort if they marketed to get recruits the same way they market to get clients. Those two processes are actually the same and should be treated as such. When you put content out into the market, also put out content that targets agents. If you approach hiring in transactional mode, you won’t attract quality recruits who will really fit. If your content shows that your team offers strong mentoring, leads and backend support, you will attract talent and you won’t have to chase it as much.

Guest Bio
Jay Niblick is the Founder and CEO of Innermetrix Incorporated. Go to www.innermetrix.com/team/ for more information.

Wherever you are in the world, successful people share certain habits and traits. How does hard work and dedication draw opportunities closer to you? What is the truth about the grind it takes to be successful? On this episode, our good friend Glenn Twiddle joins us to talk about the biggest takeaways from the Million-Dollar Agent Summit and the differences and similarities between top high producing multi-millionaire Australian agents vs the mega producers in the States.

If something’s worth doing it’s worth doing badly to start and then improving. -Glenn Twiddle

Three Things We Learned

You won’t start out doing something well, it takes time

No one gets something perfectly done when they are new to it, but that doesn’t mean you should give up on it. If something’s worth doing, it’s worth being crap at it at first because no-one starts doing anything well. You can always work to improve.

A good foundation attracts good things

When you have something like hard work, dedication, grind and really great content as the foundation of everything you do - it attracts opportunity, people and profit. Those foundational virtues are magnets that pull people towards you.  

There’s nothing wrong with choosing to grind and go hard

A lot of people look at people who are on the grind to build their business like they are doing too much. The truth is, some people would be happier to choose work-life balance over the grind and that’s okay. The key thing is not to criticize the grinders.

Success will always leave clues behind it, and the top producers all understand the necessity of all the outbursts of effort towards their goals. When it comes to really going after what you want, there will be seasons where you really need to grind it out. But the truth is, there are few successful people who look back at those years of grinding and going hard with regrets because it does pay off.

Building a team with agents who choose to work with you even after becoming authorities in real estate is a rarity. How can you create a work environment your agents enjoy? What can you offer them that they can’t find somewhere else? On this episode, Dan Beer shares his secrets to building a team any skilled agent would like to be part of.

As long as we are turning every outcome into a learning opportunity over time we will win more than we will fail. -Dan Beer

Use every win and loss as a learning opportunity

Detach yourself emotionally from every win and loss you have and learn from both.The real problem is a lack of self-analysis, not the performance itself, which can be easily fixed. There are many experienced agents who repeat the first year in the real estate industry over and over again simply because they never took the time to learn anything from their past experiences.

Give the team incentives

The best way to keep the team motivated is to always give them a new mountain to climb, a new set of goals that need to be reach. You can do so by building a number of levels that offer bigger and bigger incentives as they move on to the next level. This way, they will feel both valued and motivated to walk the extra mile.

Build a culture your team identifies with

Build your business around core values that you want your team members to adhere to. This will sort out the kind of agents you want to work with and the kind of agents you don’t want in your team. High retention isn’t only caused by money. It also has to do with the culture of your business, and whether your team resonates with your core values. They'll happily stick to a work environment they fit well into.

Lead and splits are not a competitive advantage. In due time, anyone can learn how to generate leads or there is always someone with a better split. Instead build a system impossible to replicate even by top performers. Give them best tools on the market, a support system and unmatched marketing opportunities and connections within the industry.

Guest Bio

Dan Beer is the Owner of Beer Home Team of eXp Realty of California and the founder of AgentAcademy.com, where he shares his knowledge on team building and scaling real estate businesses.

You gotta get people’s attention, you gotta hit that that sweet spot and get the emotions flowing. -Greg McDaniel

The real estate arena is changing. What are the newest lead generation strategies you should give a try? Where should you invest your time and money? How can you stand out in a competitive market? On this episode, Jay Kinder speaks about the doors technology opens and how you can use them in your benefit.

Use social media to find what buyers want in a home

There are many niches you can tap into, and social media can give you a clue about what your potential buyers want to see in a home. Some like the vintage look, while others dream of a home on the beach. Find out what they want and focus on showing them the homes that fit that picture.

Pour your personality into your branding efforts

There are many ways you can share your knowledge in the digital world, but the real challenge is to share it in a way that makes people listen.

Don’t be afraid to be more than just an agent. Build your brand around your core values and  share bits from your life that will make your audience relate to you.

Know your market inside-out

There are many shortcuts that only knowledgeable and skilled agents know about that you can bring up in conversations with your leads. For example, there are special loans offered to your clients in the healthcare space or benefits they probably don’t even know about.

 

Conversations with your audience are one of the most powerful lead generation tools, and your online presence is key. Consistency is vital in marketing and putting yourself out there through paid traffic or advertising campaigns on social media is cheaper than ever. The more you invest in your online persona, the higher the chances of people seeing you and giving you a call.

Guest Bio

Jay Kinder is the owner of Real K Estate Experts, CEO of National Association of Expert Advisors, growth coach, and public speaker. Jay’s been working in the real estate industry for 18 years and describes himself as suffering of “productive paranoia.”

You can drop him a line on his Facebook account or check his website at Jaykinder.com.

The listing presentation is a chance for you to show off what you can do. How do you make sure you have a great presentation? How do you meet with sellers and close the deals? What are the cherry-on-top high value actions you can include in your process? On this episode, we draw upon years of real estate experience to share some of the most powerful tactics and strategies to take your listing presentations up a notch.

In this business it’s so easy to lose your soul and find yourself running after the wrong things. How do you combat the feeling that you'll never arrive? What is the secret to happiness in our lives? How do you set yourself up for better days? On this episode, James Colburn is back to go deep on some important mindset shifts we all need.