How to Become a Leader: Tax Reform Advocate Norquist’s Advice

In a recent interview with U.S. News, tax reform advocate Grover Norquist shared three keys to becoming a leader in any high-pace environment: Work hard, do not whine and know where you are going.

Your Real Estate Career: How to Create a Happy Ending

The ending is everything.

That’s why Greek heroes like Odysseus–who were able to look beyond the present and plan several steps ahead–seemed to defy fate. In fact, men like Odysseus mimicked the Greek gods in their ability to tell the future.

The comparison, today, is still valid.

If you can think further ahead and patiently bring your plans to fruition, you’ll seem godlike. And naturally be more successful.

8 Solutions to Keep 2009 from Going Down in Flames

here’s a list of 8 solutions to your current economic, real estate woes. Hopefully these will keep you from pumping a ton of money into something that returns little to nothing. When you’re finished, let me know what you think.

Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.

Want fresh, new ideas on making your phone ring with prospects? Then grab this free 7-part online video training series.

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Make Sure You Know the Answer to This Question Before Your Next Presentation

9 Dead Simple Ways to Persuade People

Get Attention: 10  Unorthodox Ideas That Work

In other words, they love persuasion, which boils down to these three keys: establish rapport, establish rapport and establish rapport.

You can’t really have an persuasive power over people unless you have their trust…and you can’t have their trust if you don’t take the time to build a relationship. A solid relationship is the groundwork for persuasion.

But how do you create that relationship…how do you build that rapport? In the coming up months I’m going to run a series on developing persuasive power. Today, to get you started, here are ten ideas you can actually start using this very day:

1. Know what you want. You have to understand what makes you tick before you will ever be persuasive. You have to understand what you want out of life and who you are. What drives you? Is it power or money? Making people happy? Who are you? Powerful persuasion starts with soul searching questions.
2. Make people fell like the center of the universe. Get your head out of your rear and out of your navel and start caring about people. Start treating them like royalty and you will begin to have incredible influence over their lives.
3. Compliment people constantly. Sure, it’s flattery, but there is nothing like buttering people up…even if they know about it. People love to feel like the center of the universe, and they like to be told good things about themselves. That bolsters esteem for them. For you it’s like investing in that person that allows you to make withdrawals when the time comes.
4. Remember people’s name. You can’t really start to make someone feel like the center of the universe if you don’t remember their name, can you? Look for tricks to do that.
5. Give power to other people. This includes things like freedom and purpose. Give them room to make decisions and make them see the bigger purpose. Help them achieve their dreams and you are giving them power.
6. Be positive. Even if a negative situation arises, you can control and influence people if you can find ways to remain solid and upbeat even in the midst of a storm. That kind of influence attracts people. You can also help avoid people making bad decisions by guiding them towards thinking about situations and questions when they are not so emotional…whether positively or negatively.
7. Understand the person. Of course, if you don’t know anything about your prospect, you really don’t know what to give them to influence them. Take the time to get to know your prospect or client. Try to invest as much time into the relationship as you invest into getting the deal closed.
8. Develop a sense of humor. Have you ever noticed that some of the most influential people are very funny? They like people and they like to make them laugh. Give it a whirl…learn a few jokes, learn how to tell a story and start making people laugh.
9. Ask better questions. You can influence people by simply asking questions. Ask the right questions and you will be irresistible.
10. Relax. Even the most influential people lose. When that happens to you, don’t take yourself so serious. Learn from your mistakes and move on.

Look for future posts on each numbered point in the coming months.

Your Turn

What tips can you share that have helped you to be more persuasive?

Did you find this article useful? If so, leave a comment. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.

Want fresh, new ideas on making your phone ring with prospects? Then grab this free 7-part online video training series.

Related Articles

Make Sure You Know the Answer to This Question Before Your Next Presentation

9 Dead Simple Ways to Persuade People

Get Attention: 10  Unorthodox Ideas That Work

Don’t get me wrong: I believe you can ignore it and still make a great living as a real estate agent. But I think it’s also useful for driving business leads and building relationships. If you use it correctly.

With the following tools I’ve found my own use of Twitter to be more effective and profitable. Here are they are. Enjoy!

6 Twitter Tools to Make Real Estate Agents More Effective

• StrawberryJ.am – If you’ve got a lot of followers and don’t have time to check every tweet that gets posted (which is 99.99% of Twitter followers) then you can use StrawberryJ.am to analyze all of your friends tweets and spit out the most popular links. You can use this information to generate ideas for marketing strategies or discover where you need to hang out more on the social media world.

• Buffer – This is a great tool to use if you are the kind of person who tweets in little spasms…like twenty minutes in the morning…maybe twenty minutes after lunch…and another twenty minutes before bed. Well, Buffer will take those tweets and spread them out over your Twitter stream during peak times so they get more exposure.

• Tweriod – Another great tool to help each tweet you post be more effective is called Tweriod. The idea behind this app is to find out when it is you and your friends are online. You’ll see the time of day most of your followers are online, meaning you have a better idea of when you should be tweeting to get the most exposure for your tweets.

• BackTweets – If you are interested in the impact of every tweet…and the total reach of each tweet…then you need to use BackTweets. It’s an analytic tool that will show you the full extent of a tweet’s reach. This is great stuff for anyone who is trying to maximize the power of what they share online. You can see what worked and didn’t work, adjust, analyse, adjust and tweet. Repeat that process until you have a winning formula.

• Twilerts – Do you like to know when someone tweets your name? Then use Twilerts to send you an email any time someone tweets about you. It could be your full name or Twitter handle. This is like Google Alerts for Twitter. Why is this important? It helps to manage your reputation…seeing what people are saying about you so you can stay on top.

• Tweepi – A lot of users of Twitter get in the bad habit of following everybody who follows them. Or they go on a follow campaign and end up with a big, messy list of friends and followers. Tweepi will help you clean up that mess by getting rid of the people who don’t follow you, taking off the Twitter accounts that are inactive and even suggesting people you should follow.

What third party Twitter tools do you use? Share in the comments below.

And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.

Want fresh, new ideas on making your phone ring with prospects? Then grab this free 7-part online video training series.

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What Kind of Time Are You Putting into Social Media?

Nine Dead-Simple Ways to Persuade People

The 3 Best Social Media Ideas for Improving Your Sales

But that’s exactly how the place holder and long snapper practised it. The New York Times article that describes how they did it is aptly named: Giants Field-Goal Unit, Needing Its Best, Prepared for the Worst.

The field-goal unit knew that the game could come down to a 3-point kick. They also knew that conditions in San Francisco would be wet and muddy. So all week Steve Weatherford, the Giant’s place holder, and Zac DeOssie, the Giant’s long snapper, simulated the worst possible conditions they could. They only practiced with balls kept in water buckets and even smeared the balls with mud.

Why is this important to real estate training? This is a perfect example of what Geoff Colvin calls deliberate practice, a topic I’ve written about in the past.

Preparing for the Worst in the Real Estate Market

For the most part, what you do in real estate doesn’t come down to a field goal on a muddy field in overtime to win a championship game. Forutnately, real estate in the U.S. is a little more forgiving. But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t practice for the worst possible scenario.

Let’s work through three scenarios to show you what I mean.

Handling Objections

In a perfect world prospects, agents and clients would all do what we say and never throw up an obstacle. But that’s not the case, which is okay, because we all make objections from time to time. And if you think about it, an objection is a worst-case scenario.

Now, it’s not horrible, but it’s kind of like putting a ball in the bunker if you are golfing. You need to be good at getting the ball out even if sending it to the bunker doesn’t happen all the time. So, when it comes to objections, you practice overcoming them ruthlessly.

Closing the Deal

While closing a deal is not a worst-case scenario, I’ve been in the real estate business long enough to realize that most agents don’t know how to close the deal. They are really good at attracting a prospect, getting them interested in a home…but actually getting them to commit to buy it is a totally different story.

And if you can’t close the deal…you don’t get a commission. That’s not a good scenario at all. So, I would suggest you practice closing the deal, too.

Cold Calling

This is probably the least worst-case scenario, but ask a lot of real estate agents and they’ll tell you: they hate cold calling. In fact, they’ll avoid it like the plague. The only time they will even consider it is if they do not have any business coming in.

That’s a bad deal.

So you better learn to love it…and the best way to do that is simply to practice, practice and practice. And I don’t mean by that “pretending” like you are cold calling. What I mean by practice is you actually get on the phone and dial. And dial. And dial.

In no time you’ll love it.

Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.

Want fresh, new ideas on making your phone ring with prospects? Then grab this free 7-part online video training series.

Related Articles

10 Must-Read Post on Great Real Estate Negotiating Ideas

Want the Sale? You Have to View Objections This Way

How to Win (Almost) Every Listing Presentation

For example, they may categorize each objection as “objections on price” or “objections on lack of interest.”

The first approach is problematic in that, as I mentioned, you cannot possibly cover every objection. You will ultimately run into an objection that isn’t on your list, even though they are the most common, and you’ll be stumped.

The second approach seeks to fix that by widening the net. It’s designed to teach you to recognize objections on principle. But you still have to be somewhat fast on your feet to be able to respond if you aren’t familiar with high you are supposed to respond. The framework trainer will probably give you some counter-objection scripts to deal with each category of objection.

While these aren’t the only approaches in the real estate training world, they are the most common when it comes to real estate sales…and they are really incomplete unless you change your entire mindset about objections.

A bad real estate trainer will treat objections from prospects like they are walls that need to be brought down. Agents who practice this approach usually adopt an aggressive, even combative mindset…that’s because baked into this model is a view that real estate is about transactions and not relationships.

A good real estate trainer, on the other hand, will treat them as opportunities. He’ll see them as an interested prospect who wants to do a deal but has some concern he wants to take care of first.

Here’s how Charles Green describes objections:

An objection means the buyer cares enough about you and the sale to want to explore it with you. They’re telling you about a concern they have, in the hopes you’ll help them resolve it. Your enemy is not the customer; your enemy is disengagement. And an objection demonstrates that the customer is very much engaged.

When you get an objection, recognize it as an opportunity. If you and your customer can resolve it, great, you’ll get a sale. And if you can’t resolves it, well it’s almost certainly because it’s just not the right thing for your customer just now.

Amazingly, you get even more credit if you back out gracefully when your offer isn’t right. Your customer will be surprised, and appreciative. And you’ll increase the odds of getting the next sale, and the one after that.

Anyway, people vastly prefer to buy what they need from people they trust. So help them resolve their objections and be secure in knowing you’ve improved the long-term relationship–and your long-term sales.

Did you catch that in the first paragraph? Objections aren’t your enemy. Disengagement is.  In other words, objections are signals that you have an interested prospect or client. That means you have an opportunity in front of you.

So next time you find yourself talking to a prospect, you can easily measure the level of engagement by the number–if any at all–of objections they raise. And, in the end, if you don’t have an answer for an objection, take the high road: admit you don’t know but promise to return with an answer. Then be faithful to that promise.

Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.

Want fresh, new ideas on making your phone ring with prospects? Then grab this free 7-part online video training series.

Related Articles

10 Must-Read Post on Great Real Estate Negotiating Ideas

10 Must-Read Posts on Great Real Estate Sales Ideas

How Social Scientists Taught You to Close More Deals

This is real estate training at it’s best.

Naturally, if you look at what these super-achiever agents get done, you have to scratch your head and wonder where they get all the time. But it’s not magic and it’s not really about how much time they have.

It’s really just some things they do to maximize their time that you can do, too.

Eliminate Distractions

The number one rule to lowering your real estate learning curve is to eliminate distractions. Put the iPhone away, shut down the laptop, turn off the social media and focus. It could be on a book you are reading or a seminar you are attending. You’re focus should be 100% on what you are doing. Resist the temptation to multi-task.

Block Time

One of the best methods to focusing is to have an unflinching dedication to doing just one thing until you are done. This means ignoring the phone, email inbox and your colleagues. Schedule an hour a day to learn something new about real estate or practice a certain skill, and do nothing else during that hour.

Get Feedback

You can’t really learn successfully unless you have some sort of feedback system in place. For a lot of high-achieving agents this means a coach or mentor.

If you can’t afford a coach or mentor at this point in your business, then find ways to evaluate what you are doing. Record sales calls or listing presentations. Go back through the tape and listen to what you said. Figure out what you did well and what you didn’t do so well. Then go back out and practice on those things that you didn’t do so well on.

Multiply Practice

If you look at the high-achieving real estate agents who’ve climbed the ladder of success faster than what you think is normal, what you will probably see if you explore their background is that they poured in a lot of time on perfecting their craft.

In other words, these agents understand that the more they perform a certain task–and in real estate their are just four areas you must master, negotiations, marketing, selling and listing–the better they got. That means they knew they needed to figure out ways to perform that task more.

Perhaps it was triple the number of phone calls they made in one day. It could’ve of been getting in front of anyone who will listen and going through their listing presentation as much as they could. Perhaps it was looking at every single encounter they had every day as a negotiation and applying the principles behind that discipline to that situation.

Stimulate the Unexpected

High-achieving agents also figure out how to plan for the unexpected and then prepare for that unexpected event.

This is similar to Tiger Woods dropping a bucket of balls into a sand pit and hitting that shot until he gets it right. In a single season he might be in that situation once or twice, but either way he’ll be prepared for it.

Conclusion

Mastering the real estate learning curve quickly is an art that anyone can learn. It takes discipline and self-motivation, but if you have just a little of those qualities you can easily start to work like a superstar agent well before your time.

Can you think of other techniques that can lower the real estate learning curve?

Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.

Want fresh, new ideas on making your phone ring with prospects? Then grab this free 7-part online video training series.

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The Introvert: Networking Tips and Habits for a Little Understood Group

11 Ways to Be the Most Irresistable Person at the Party

Geoff Colvin on High Achievement in Real Estate

So far we’ve got:

• 10 Must-Read Posts on Great Real Estate Sales Ideas
• 10 Must-Read Posts on Great Real Estate Prospecting Ideas
• 10 Must-Read Posts on Great Real Estate Listing Ideas
• 10 Must Read Posts on Great Real Estate Negotiating Ideas

Today we’ll deliver 10 most-read posts on great real estate negotiating ideas. And don’t forget: take your time reading through these articles. It will only be an investment of 30 minutes, but if you can add at least $1,000 to your bottom line because of an idea you learned…don’t you think it will be worth it?

Enjoy!

10 Must-Read Posts on Great Real Estate Negotiating Ideas

 How to Concede Smart and Avoid These 3 Mistakes

When it comes to making concessions in negotiations, here’s a good rule of thumb: If you are going to concede in the opening rounds of a negotiation, concede small. In other words, avoid these three mistakes… Read more.

A Sly Negotiation Tactic to Get What You Want

In football, when you want to give your opponent the feeling that you are moving in one direction but planning on going in another direction, you give them a head fake. That is, you lean your head in one direction… And once your opponent commits to that direction, you go the other direction. The same is true in negotiations. Read more.

How to Stop Ridiculous Buyer Offers

In the throes of a housing market meltdown, ridiculous buyer offers are abundant. Here’s an example… Read more.

Six Effective Ways to Win More Negotiations

A very rich man once said that getting wealthy wasn’t complex. There were just a handful of basics he had to master. The same is true with negotiations. Master these six rules of negotiations and you’ll stand to get win-win agreements nearly every time. Read more.

Nine Dead Simple Ways to Persuade People

“Show business is not hard. It’s all just basic Dale Carnegie stuff,” Jay Leno once said in a Selling Power magazine interview. Easy enough for Leno to say. The thing you should know, though, is that Leno’s back-of-the-napkin statement is supported by decades of smooth, polite and consistent relationship building. And nine easy-to-follow techniques. Read more.

5 Proven Tips to Help you Negotiate in a Buyer’s Market

Before the dismal collapse of the housing market, negotiation skills weren’t quite as important as they are now. In many cases, all you had to do was put the house on the market with a reasonable price and get out of the way. Things have changed. And won’t get better any time soon. Read more.

Why Breaking This Childish Habit Would Be an Ugly Mistake

It’s often not until your child is grown that you appreciate some of their childish habits. Take persistence, for example. If you have children, especially teenagers, you know that sometimes you may give in to their demands just to be able to get on with your life. The same tactic works quite well in the business world. Read more.

Negotiation Tips for the Obscenely Timid Real Estate Agent

Does the thought of negotiating make your throat go dry? Palms sweat? Heart hammer your rib cage? If so, you’re not alone. But don’t try to fix that and you will never succeed. Here’s what you need to do. Read more.

The Oldest Negotiating Trick in the Book

This negotiating trick is a timeless classic. It’s something Aristotle taught Greek lawyers in 300 BC. And it’s something lawyers are still learning today. What is it? Read more.

How to Create, Build and Protect a Fearsome Negotiating Reputation

What does Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla have to do with negotiation reputations…and fearsome ones at that? Well, it turns out a lot. Read more.

Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.

Want fresh, new ideas on making your phone ring with prospects? Then grab this free 7-part online video training series.

Each post is made up of 10 must-reads from the past year or two. This is some of our best material for each topic, intended to help you kick butt in 2012.

So far we’ve got:

• 10 Must-Read Posts on Great Real Estate Sales Ideas
• 10 Must-Read Posts on Great Real Estate Prospecting Ideas
• 10 Must-Read Posts on Great Real Estate Listing Ideas
• 10 Must-Read Posts on Great Real Estate Negotiations

Today, great real estate listing ideas.

All ten articles in today’s post will probably take you about 30 minutes to read altogether, so when you are ready to read, sit back, relax and absorb as much of the material as you possibly can, because as I’ve said before, deliberate practice will  make you a master.

Enjoy!

10 Must-Read Posts on Great Real Estate Listing Ideas

The Secret to Making a Living Off of Expireds

Tell me if you see yourself in this scenario: you’re scanning the MLS for expired listings. You find more than 20. It’s a good day. You then grab the phone and start dialling. If that’s you, then you’re not alone. Unfortunately, it’s a huge waste of time. Here’s why. Read more.

Lure Buyers in Without Lowering the Price

While necessary [and something, by the way, you can do near pain-free with this method], price reductions are no fun for your clients. That’s money they lose and you lose. Read more.

10 Effective Ways to Build a Profitable Business in a Lousy Market

But what if you don’t live in one of these comeback cities? What if you live in a city that looks to suffer even more foreclosure losses? Well, one way to approach this problem is simply to attack it at it’s source… Read more.

How to Ride the Wave of Foreclosures to Your Best Year Ever

Working pre-foreclosures is less about padding your pocket and more about helping another human being. I can’t stress that enough. So, when approaching pre-foreclosures for the first time use these ideas to prove to them that you are truly their to help can save their home. Read more.

10 Home-staging Tips to Attract More Buyers

What a couple of easy tips to help you make a home look attractive to a buyer? Look no further. Read more.

How to Win (Almost) Every Listing Presentation

Long ago I believed that winning listing presentations meant having a mental toolbox full of witty comebacks, sly counter objections and a persuasive delivery that would allow me to deflect arguments, shut down concerns and steamroll the prospect into signing with me. That’s all changed. Read more.

10 Things You Don’t Want Homeowners Saying to You

With the housing market is not expected to bottom out any time soon, you could probably use a little jolt of laughter to shake the blues that’s plaguing us in this distressed economy. And after you read this top-ten list, why not share one of your own frigthening comments you’ve heard homesellers make. Read more.

My Unofficial Guide to Short Selling

Short selling is nothing new. Especially with the collapsing home market, and all. That’s why I thought it would be a good idea to gather all the best ideas on short selling I can find. Read more.

Use the Problem-Agitate-Solve Formula to Sell More Homes

Pain and problems dominate us. Everyday and every hour we are constantly looking for solutions for our pain and problems. This holds true for home buyers and sellers. That’s why it’s a great idea to use the PAS formula in your sales presentations. Read more.

Social Media Matters: Selling Houses During Hard Times

Everyone knows that in today’s market, it’s not enough just to get the listing—you need to have an aggressive marketing plan. While printed flyers, signage and the basics will always have their place, we all know that over 80% of home buyers begin their search for a new home online. In fact, second only to over-priced home, no internet marketing strategy is the biggest reason homes don’t sell. That’s why you need advanced online marketing strategies–social media strategies–to help you create a compelling online presence. Read more.

Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.

Want fresh, new ideas on making your phone ring with prospects? Then grab this free 7-part online video training series.

Each post in the series will share with you the top ten posts we’ve written on that topic.

So far we’ve got:

• 10 Must-Read Posts on Great Real Estate Sales Ideas
• 10 Must-Read Posts on Great Real Estate Prospecting Ideas
• 10 Must-Read Posts on Great Real Estate Listing Ideas
• 10 Must-Read Posts on Great Real Estate Negotiations

Today I’ll focus on prospecting.

Remember, you actually have to read these articles and then put their ideas into practice if you want to take 2012 by storm!

But because you’re reading this I’m certain that’s what you’ll do, so sit back, sip some coffee and get ready to read some hard-hitting articles on real estate prospecting.

10 Must-Read Posts on Great Prospecting Ideas

What Can George Orwell Teach You about Generating Leads in a Sluggish Market? 

George Orwell, the English author of 1984, Animal Farm and other classics, has six rules of writing. You need to know this: These rules are all gems and can turn you into a ruthless copywriter. A killer blogger. A writer with dangerous copy chops. But what do they have to do with generating leads? Simple. Use these rules when writing ads and you’ll create tight little advertisements that boost your conversion. Read more.

3 Rules to Real Estate Marketing Success

People are self-interested. That means they don’t care about the car you drive. How many houses you sold. The number of awards you’ve won. What school you went to. Who you work for or how long you’ve been in the business. All they want to know is this… Read more.

36-Year Veteran Explains Her Mouth-Watering Success

Lisa Burridge is a lot like you: She’s a real estate agent who wants nothing more than to succeed. That was true 26 years ago when she decided to get into real estate. And it’s still true today. The only difference between then and now? Twenty-six years ago Lisa was making $6 an hour and working up to 18 hours a day… Read more.

Need a Damn Good Referral System to Save Your Career?

Ever wonder why you seem to run into the same deal-destroying problems with prospects? Or hear the same bridge-burning complaints from your clients? Or maybe you’d simply be happy to learn how to find clients who always walk away satisfied after a transaction with you. Think about it: what’s it worth to you to find and nurture a handful–say, I don’t know, 100–clients who love you to death? Read more.

How to Become Highly Prosperous in a Shaky Market

Up to this point your ways of working may have been successful. But here’s something to think about: What can you, as a real estate agent, do that would challenge the status quo, overturn your market or even persuade a competitor’s client to work with you? Read more.

Lead Generation Strategies: Seeker-Oriented v. Attract Oriented

Last year Baylor researchers asked real estate agents, “When it comes to lead generation–what works?” These researchers discovered two things. Read more.

9 Things That Make Emails Seriously Effective for Prospecting

Despite the endless talk about social media–Twitter or Facebook, for example–-emails are still the workhorse of online prospecting. Here’s why.Read more.

What Do Journalism and Real Estate Prospecting Have in Common?

Prospecting has a lot in common with journalism. For instance, journalists are always approaching strangers. They’re always asking a lot of questions. And they’re interested in learning the truth. And, just like in journalism, a good prospector has to understand the 5W’s. Read more.

The Claude Hopkins Guide to Real Estate Prospecting

Here’s the deal. In the book My Life in Advertising“, Claude Hopkins tells a great story about a gloomy copywriter named Powers–a story with implications of everything you’re working right now, today… Read more.

Follow Up: Why Targeted Repetition Works So Well

As every great agent knows, it’s your consistency that will make the difference in making any follow-up program work. Even if you borderline on obnoxious. Understand, I don’t mean you have to be a jerk…but you may have to be that agent who refuses to “take a hint”. Read more.

Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.

Want fresh, new ideas on making your phone ring with prospects? Then grab this free 7-part online video training series.

And to help you prepare for success, I’m going to start a 4-part series on 10 must read posts from the 4 critical areas of real estate: sales, prospecting, listing and negotiating.

Today I’ll start with sales and deliver the rest in the following week.

When you get this post in your inbox or rss reader, pop it open, grab a cup of coffee and devote about a half hour to reading all the articles inside. That’s about how long it will take you to read all ten.

Make sure to take notes on action items…and then make plans to hold your feet to the fire because goals are nothing but dreams if you don’t try to achieve them.

Anyway, take care and have a great day, month and year!

10 Must-Read Posts on Great Real Estate Sales Ideas

Are You Using These 4 “Second Glass” Tactics to Make More Money?

Most real estate agents tend to think about making money in the business as simply closing more transaction. They think about it in a very linear fashion, where you find a home owner who wants to sell, you convince them to let you list the home and then you advertise the home in the hopes that it will sell. That’s the way an average listing agent thinks. Here’s how an above average agent does it. Read more.

How to Be a Killer Salesperson the Lazy Way

If you’re like me and don’t want to work really hard at something you don’t particularly enjoy…and sales is something you don’t particularly enjoy…then this post is for you. However, don’t get me wrong here: I’m not giving you an excuse not to work hard. What I’m actually going to do is show you an approach to selling that will allow you to train better and actually enjoy it. Read more.

How Social Scientists Taught Y0u to Close More Deals

People. You just never know what they’ll do next. But if you really believe real estate is a people business, then any effort you make to better understand yourself and how others tick will make your business flow and your bank account grow. Fortunately, a couple of social scientists have developed tools that can help you shed light on the mystery of human behavior and get a better handle on personalities…yours and others’. Read more.

When You Should Depend on a Team–and When You Shouldn’t

So, you’ve been thinking about starting a team, have you? In spite of a dismal economy, your market seems to be rockin’…you’re doing pretty well…and, well, you want to grow. The natural thing to do is build a team, right? Maybe. Here’s why. Read more.

Quick Tip: 5 Reasons Why Sellers Should Work with You on Both Sides of the Deal

Did you know that one of the simplest strategies to closing more transactions is simply helping your seller’s buy their new home? If sellers ARE staying in the area, ask if you can help find their next house. It benefits both you and the seller. Here are five reasons why. Read more.

How to Make Any House Irresistable

When Longinotti-Buitoni took over Ferrari North America as CEO in the late 90s, the U.S. and Canada were in a recession. He couldn’t imagine people would spend their money on such an expensive, impractical car. Since then, Longinotti-Buitoni has changed his mind. Read more.

Eliminate This Behavior and Become More Effective in Sales

Has this happened to you recently: you tend to become desperate in tight times by trying to aggressively pin down real estate buyers? But did you know that removing pressure from the sales process will actually cause you to win more listings and prospects and sell more homes? That’s right. A sales approach where you create pressure-free conversations with buyers is more effective. Read more.

Five Words That Will Injure Any Sales Call

The key to being successful is sweating the small stuff. That comes down to the very words that you use. That’s why I’ll always encourage you to paint persuasive word pictures for your clients. But don’t stop there. Avoid those words that raise flags for buyers and sellers. Words that paint ugly, bad pictures–albeit, stereotypes–of salespeople. Read more.

Real Estate Agents: You Don’t Work for Walmart

The numbers game will wear you out. It will leave you dissatisfied, frustrated, and rejected. The whole idea of the numbers game is that if you spend enough time dialing, churning through prospects, you’re bound to make the occasional sale. Burn and churn, baby. Problem is, when you do make a sale, you believe even more that the number of prospects you burned through was the secret to success. Read more.

Why It’s Okay to Lie to Salespeople

The reason most prospects lie to you is that they have multiple layers of sales resistance. Traditionally the sale model has always been about advancing the sale. Well, the people in your market place are fed up with the traditional sales model. People are tired of being manipulated. Here’s what you have to do about it. Read more.

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