A Fresh Approach to Real Estate Rookie-hood with Jennifer Allan: September 2009

Glad you stuck with me through the Monkey Series! You made it all the way to the punch line.

In case you just stumbled onto this series, you should probably read it from the beginning - starting here. Or not. Your call.

It's really easy for Old Fogie types (like me) to confidently proclaim that WE don't accept Monkeys that aren't ours to mess with, and WE (said in a deep, gravely voice) just tell our clients the way it is and if they don't agree; NEXT!

But it's not that easy, especially for newer agents who really aren't sure what their responsibilities are, and are not in the mood to NEXT anyone. So, here are some tips.

•       Don't be an objection-buster (aka Silence is Golden). When a client throws out objections, concerns or stumbling blocks, think before you speak. Often these objections, concerns or stumbling blocks will be HIS Monkeys, not yours. Just smile, nod and make an "I hear ya" noise, and let the client continue. If he wants your input, he'll ask for it directly, but until he does, just listen without offering solutions.

If, after your moment of golden silence, you realize that this IS your Monkey, go ahead and offer a response or solution. If you aren't sure, just write it down or commit it to memory to ponder later. You can always accept a Monkey after the fact, but it's much tougher to return a Monkey after you've accepted it prematurely.

•       Ask "What's Your Plan B?" as if you are not guaranteeing the desired outcome... which you aren't. I use this strategy with sellers who are being a little stubborn about pricing, accessibility or condition. I sweetly ask them what they will do if their home doesn't sell for the price they "need" or, at all. This subtly lets them know that while I'll do my best, I won't take full responsibility for their home selling - that's not a Monkey I'll accept.

•       A la Jackie Leavenworth, the Real Estate Whisperer - if a buyer or seller looks to you to solve a problem that isn't reasonably yours to solve (e.g. you give up some of your commission to put or hold a deal together), you can gently say something like "I've found that when a real estate agent wants to make a deal more than the other parties involved, it's not the right deal to make." (Jackie has a whole audio CD on negotiations that is superb - check it out at: http://www.coachjackie.com/jackiesproducts). If you like my stuff, you'll love hers.

So, what IS the punch line?

If you know what Monkeys are yours to carry... and which are not... and you respect the other party enough to let him keep his own Monkeys, you'll be a much happier, healthier and RESTED real estate agent!

The Epilogue - I have a very timely situation to share with you about two agents on opposite sides of a deal who both accepted Monkeys they shouldn't have. Stay tuned! 

Quick announcement before I head to waters bluer (Bahamas, here I come!)...

On Saturday morning, October 10th, I'm hosting a teleseminar with four newly NON-rookie real estate agents in their 2nd & 3rd years, who obviously did NOT become first-year statistics. They're doing quite well, thank you very much, even though they started their careers at a really lousy time.

The show will be structured as a panel discussion, with each guest honestly answering a series of questions about his or her rookie year (actually, they all happen to be female this round). They'll tell us what prospecting strategies worked... and which didn't. Where they spent money wisely... and where they threw it away. Their biggest success... and their most embarrassing moment.

Stuff like that.  

My guests are all readers of Sell with Soul, so their secrets of success probably don't include any cheesy closing tactics or aggressive sales pitches. And this will not be a brag-fest where each guest tries to out-shine the others with outrageous claims or trumped-up production levels. Nope. These are real people, with real challenges, frustrations and fears.

Anyway, if you're in your first year... or just feel as if you are... or if you're in charge of training the newer agents in your world... please join us! It'll be fun!

HERE'S WHERE YOU REGISTER FOR THE ROOKIE-TO-ROOKIE SHOW

Bon Voyage!

Yesterday I promised to share some ideas to become a Master of Your Market so you can capture more of that business that crosses your path in your day-to-day wanderings!

First, if it's customary to "preview" in your market, do that. A lot. (If previewing IS customary in your market, you might be surprised to hear that it's frowned on or flat out not allowed in some! If that's the case in your market, you might want to move;-])

I advise all new agents to spend some serious quality time previewing in their first few months. By "serious," I mean every other day if they can. The best way to effectively preview is to practice what I call "Opinionated Previewing" or "Previewing with a Purpose." That means to look at somewhat similar homes and compare them to each other or against your "subject" property. You would practice both when you preview in preparation for an open house, or preview for a new buyer. If you don't have a new buyer or an upcoming open house, go preview all the houses in a certain price range or architectural style. Whatever your excuse, being able to compare homes to each other helps you internalize the data you're gathering (so you can spit it out intelligently if the opportunity arises).

A great side benefit of pro-active previewing is that karma always seems to provide you with an audience to share your newly-found expertise with. What I mean is that if you go out and preview all the Bungalows between $250,000 and $350,000, within a week or two, you'll almost certainly meet someone with one of those to sell, or who knows someone who'd like to buy one! It's previewing magic!

Another way to Master Your Market is to always have your antenna up for opportunities to show properties to buyers. Even buyers who probably won't ever lead you to a paycheck.  It's one thing for you to go out alone and preview, but quite another to have someone else with you to provide feedback on what you're seeing. And if you make conversation with this person, you'll get to hear their impressions of neighborhoods and styles and features, which will help you better understand what's important to the consumer. So, drive across town for a sign call.  Take a buyer out to look at properties even if she says she won't buy til next spring.

If you've chosen to master a particular geographic market, you'll want to learn about the flow and amenities of the area as well as the housing stock. Drive the area using a variety of access points. Visit the grocery stores and the neighborhood parks. If you have friends who live there, ask them what they like and dislike about their neighborhoods. Read local neighborhood newspapers and subscribe to other agents' newsletters who specialize in your new favorite neighborhood.

Do open houses in that neighborhood as often as you can, even if you have to do them for an agent in a different office.

The job of "becoming" a market master is never really done. Markets change (duh) and in order to truly be a master, you have to keep up with the changes. Don't go overboard - you do have other things to do besides preview (I hope!), but try to keep Market Mastery on your to-do list. You'll feel awfully smart the next time you capture a great new client at a party because you knew how much that Victorian down the street sold for!

 Next up - Nurturing Relationships TODAY for Business Tomorrow

Picking up from yesterday's installment of things you can do TODAY to ensure a Happy Next Year, today's topic is how becoming a Master of Your Market can get you business. As with yesterday's topic (blogging for business), what you're about to read comes from the Pipeline 2010 program that was included in my 2009 Summer of Soul Teleseminar series.

First, what does being a "Master of your Market" mean? To me it means that if someone tells me where they live, I get a mental image of their neighborhood or subdivision or condo building. I don't necessarily know how big their house is or what year it was built, but I can probably guess within a decade or two, and I have a general sense of the overall ambience, what amenities are nearby and even a personal anecdote or two about the area I can toss out.

What being a Master of your Market doesn't mean is that you're a walking encyclopedia of facts, figures and statistics (click here to read my thoughts on the irrelevancy of the DOM statistic). No amount of research sitting behind your desk will give you the level of intimacy and familiarity with your market that you'll need to be a master of it. Again, a good definition of a market master is the ability to visualize a neighborhood when given an address - and there's no way you'll get that from MLS research.

How does being a Market Master help you attract business?

Well, as a real estate agent out there in the world with your antenna up, what do you have to offer the Average Joe who strikes up a conversation with you? Does he care how many listings you have? Does he care how gorgeous your home brochures are? Does he really want to hear about your 32-step marketing plan for selling houses? Probably not. But if he's at all interested in what $300,000 buys you in his neighborhood (and you know), or how much it costs these days to get into South Park Hill (and you know), your ability to make intelligent conversation about the market will get him, if he's gettable.

But if the best you can come up with is something like: "I'm not sure about that, but I'd be happy to find out for you;" well, it doesn't have quite the same effect.

The same thing applies when you're sitting on floor time or at an open house. If the best you can do is hand a visitor a list of other homes in the neighborhood, but can't really make conversation about them, the possibility of watching that stranger walk back out your door just went way up. But if you can chatter about nearby listings or comparable neighborhoods, you just dramatically increased the chances that your visitor will ask for your business card.

When you're on floor time, or take a sign call, again, if you can speak intelligently about the market either surrounding your listing, or that your office specializes in, you'll easily capture those leads.

So, what should you be doing right now to ensure that you're a Market Master by 2010? Well, following the advice of Todd Clark in his featured blog: "How Long of an Article is Too Long?"  I'll answer this tomorrow... but please share YOUR thoughts today!

This topic, as well as nearly a dozen others, is covered extensively in the 2009 Summer of Soul Teleseminar Series, which is a collection of over 800 minutes of downloadable audio recordings on a variety of topics of interest to real estate agents. It's just $49 until September 15; then it's going up to $99. Purchase the series here.

From time to time I post a blog about the abysmal state of rookie real estate training in America.

• Here's one - Just What a Rookie Real Estate Agent Needs: CHARM School!
• Here's another. "Good for you, Let me know if you need anything"
• And another. New Real Estate Agents - Put DOWN that Phone!

Do I have an agenda? Eh, maybe. Yeah, I sell books about real estate training and I even have boot-camp type program specifically for rookies, but that alone doesn't inspire the contempt, yes, contempt I have for the real estate training industry.

I'm disgusted by the "fake it til you make it" attitude. I'm annoyed by the focus on prospecting competence over, well, COMPETENCE competence. I'm frustrated by the stories I hear of promises made during the recruiting process that are broken as soon as the rookie shows up to work. I could go on and on.

But today, I'm asking. WHY? Why is it this way? It occurs to me that if 80-95% of our new agents fail within the first year, then something isn't working and maybe we ought to try something different. Like... training? REAL training, not some fluffed up, time-wasting, sales-pitch-disguised-as-education to promote some product or another?

Here are the reasons I've heard for NOT training our new licensees.

1.       Not a good use of resources. Since the majority of new agents will fail, it's a waste of money and time to implement a decent training program.

2.       Not a good use of resources, Part II. Since the agents who do not fail will likely leave their first broker in search of a better deal elsewhere, why would Broker 1 spend time and money training the rookie to be his future competition?

3.       That's the way it IS. This is a sink or swim business. If you don't have the drive to learn the business yourself, you shouldn't be here at all.

4.       That's the way it IS, Part II. "We" didn't have our hands held and we somehow survived.

5.       Real estate agents are competitive; therefore, there's no real motivation to help someone who will become your competition.

It's easy for us Old Fogies to brush off the need for training - after all - we don't particularly want any more competition. And besides, "we" didn't get formal training and we came out okay. But then in the next breath, we complain loudly about "the guy (or gal) on the other end of the sale who doesn't know what he's doing and is screwing up my deal."

Maybe it's just that we've forgotten how much there is to learn in your first year and how complex the process really is. I talk to rookies every day, so I'm reminded of their pain and confusion... and their utter frustration with the lack of support they receive from the broker or trainer.

So I'm sincerely asking - WHY do we seem to care so little about quality training in our industry?