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

I’d already been rather distressed this last week about something - and the timing is unfortunate because I have so many other things to do besides rant and rave and whine and fuss about my Issue du Jour (or du Week?) ... and then I saw Leslie Ebersole's excellent featured blog called "Mocking Me Won't Make Me Buy" and was inspired to put my rantings and ravings and fussings on "paper."

In the last 7 days, I’ve received no fewer than 12 emails or calls from real estate agents who are frustrated with the messages they’re getting from their high-priced "coaches" telling them that WHO THEY ARE isn’t good enough and unless they change WHO THEY ARE, they’ll fail. They’re paying Big Bucks for this message to be delivered to them on a regular basis and they seem to think the advice is warranted - that they truly aren’t good enough.

What a number that message is doing on their psyches! I have to wonder… maybe this is being snarky… but I have to wonder if that’s the intent – to play on the agents’ insecurities so they’ll keep forking over the $200/month, $500/month or even $1,000/month for coaching that seems intent on convincing the coachee that they’re, well, not good enough!

Now, I’m not talking about simply encouraging these agents to work a little harder, or work a little smarter or be a little more consistent. No, as far as I can tell, these programs are advising agents to venture WAY out of their comfort zones into places that they REEEALLY don’t want to go – and for some reason the agents aren’t making the connection that something that creeps them out might be wrong for them!

Here's the thing. Hiring a coach and writing him or her big check doesn't change who YOU are. If today you're creeped out by an approach to prospecting or deal-closing, don't think it's going to be any different tomorrow just because you signed up for an expensive program. You'll still be creeped out, I promise.

As I’ve said once or twice or a dozen times… if something feels wrong to you; if something makes you feel icky and dread getting up in the morning – it’s WRONG for you! And you don’t have to do it to succeed, no matter how much money you just paid someone to convince you that you should or how much they try to make you feel inferior for hesitating! You CAN succeed by being wonderful, extraordinary, one-of-a-kind YOU, I promise!

Okay, rant over. For now.

It's a common complaint among our ranks that we often work "for free," especially these days when buyers are fussy, sellers are frustrated and closings are more tenuous than ever. We can work for months on one transaction only to watch it fall apart due to factors beyond our control, leaving us uncompensated for all that time, energy and gas money.

While I have some issues with the opinion that all that work was "for free," that's not my topic du jour.

Today I want to pontificate about our resistance to providing a "free" CMA (comparative market analysis). That it's unprofessional to "give it away" so that the seller prospect can take our information and run with it, possibly even giving it to another agent who offers a lower fee and uses our hard work to procure a sellable listing.

Nonsense.

If you go to my website (www.sellwithsoul.com), you'll see enough free stuff* there to keep you busy for hours, maybe days. Some of that free stuff (actually, most of it) took ME hours (even days) to put together, some of it at a not-insignificant cost.  I imagine there's enough free stuff there to get you 75% of the way toward knowing everything I know about running a successful real estate business without selling your soul to do it.

Why do I give so much away?

Well, there are two ways to market yourself to your potential audience. You can TELL them how great you are... or you can SHOW them how great you are. Which approach do you think might be more convincing?

When you cheerfully provide a thorough, professional market analysis to a seller prospect, you're demonstrating that you are a competent real estate professional who understands his or her market; as well as opening the door to further discussion, which builds rapport and further proves your competence and professionalism. Sure, you could TELL the seller that you're professional and competent, but that CMA will say it far more convincingly.

Will the seller prospect "use" your CMA against you? Maybe, maybe not, but so what if they do? If they do, it has nothing to do with the fact you gave it to them and everything to with something ELSE. In other words, doing the free CMA only enhances the chances (hey, that rhymes!) that the seller will honor you with his or her business, but if they don't, it's not BECAUSE you did the CMA, but rather in spite of it.

Do some readers take my stuff and run with it, without ever spending a dime in my bookstore? Sure they do, and I'm fine with that. But if my website were just one big promo for Jennifer Allan Hagedorn and how fabulous she is, I'm pretty sure a whole lot fewer dimes would find their way to my bookstore and bank account!

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*Here's some of the free stuff you can find at SellwithSoul.com: a sample listing presentation, 2X/month teleseminar shows, listing and buyer checklists, three newsletter/mini-courses, an abridged version of Sell with Soul, a 7-day free trial of my Savvy Prospector program, sample client  and SOI communications, a forum... probably more but that's what I can think of right now!

I get emails all the time from newer real estate agents who want to know how to "pick up clients."

(Don't we all?!)

But there's something about that phrase - "pick up clients" - that makes my nose wrinkle. While I obviously get the gist of what they're asking, and I realize the pressure new agents are under to prospect, generate leads and yes, pick up clients, something about it just sounds a little icky to me.

But what if these agents adjusted their goals FROM "picking up clients" TO "finding people to serve"?

When you strive to "pick up clients" - you're coming from a position (and attitude) of YOUR need for business, with nothing in it for those potential clients you're hoping to pick up. When you strive to "find people to serve," you're coming from a position (and attitude) of a DESIRE and ABILITY to solve a problem for someone who needs your help.

Which approach gives YOU more confidence in yourself as you're prospecting? And which approach gives your audience more confidence in you that you might just be the right (wo)man for the job?

Just something to think about...

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Last September I posted a blog called "To Photo or Not to Photo" where I raised the age-old question of whether or not to put your (hopefully) smiling face on your business card. (I vote YES).

One of the comments on that blog was something along the lines of "Can anyone actually demonstrate that their picture on a card resulted in business for them?" Excellent question! My response to the commenter was:

"There is no one magic bullet to success. Clients come in from dozens of sources - I got a listing once because my lawn guy saw my RE/MAX signs in the back yard. So, is your business card in itself an important part of your marketing strategy? Probably not - at least, I hope no one is relying on a business card to generate business for them. But if one open house visitor remembers me over the other agents he met that day because my photo was on my card, I'll consider that a valid testimony. If one cross-country real estate agent I met at the NAR convention sends a referral my way because she was able to remember me out of the dozens of other agents she met, again, that's certainly worth having my photo on a card."

My point in revisiting this debate today is to reiterate that real estate clients find us in many different ways. And when they do, they each bring with them the potential of a significant paycheck - in some cases, even a year-changing paycheck. Depending on your market, your average commission check could be $3,000, $5,000 or even $10,000! Therefore, just one missed opportunity to capture one potential client could cost you $3,000, $5,000 or even $10,000! Not to mention all the business that potential future satisfied past client would send your way...

(Um, still not seeing your point, JA-H).

Okay, getting to it now.

If you miss opportunities to capture potential clients on a regular basis with silly little omissions, carelessness or even (gasp) laziness, you could easily cost yourself $100,000 in the next twelve months (assuming 20 missed opportunities at $5,000 per).

What might those 20 silly little omissions, carelessness'es or even (gasp) laziness'es look like?

Ahhhhhh... Watch This Space for further discussion. (But in the meantime, feel free to share your own thoughts!)

It's funny - I notice that the questions that come into my in-box often have a common theme... one month it's grouping and categorizing your sphere, the next it might be getting feedback for showings, the next maybe it's making open houses more productive.

Well, this month's most popular topic seems to be about expanding one's sphere of influence without being a pest about it.

Just in the last week I've been approached by three different agents who realize they need to beef up their spheres of influence - and quickly - but don't know how to do it without coming across as pushy, desperate or mercenary. So, they're finding themselves hiding out at home being decidedly UNsocial, and then kicking themselves every evening for failing yet again to Meet More People.

Wanna know what I told them?

I told all three to go out there in that world AS A SECRET AGENT instead of venturing out into that world, business card in hand and elevator speech fired up ready to launch at every opportunity!

What? Are you serious, Jennifer? You're telling agents to BE a Secret Agent? You're nuts.

Maybe. ;-]

But here's the thing. No one out there in that world cares one bit about your real estate career until/unless they care a little bit about YOU. And when you head out with grand intentions of handing out business cards and delivering elevator speeches, you're gonna scare people. (In fact, I got an email from a real estate agent over the weekend who was nearly arrested for too-aggressively prospecting at a local Target! But that's a story for a different day).

These three agents who wrote to me knew this deep inside - they knew that they'd make other people uncomfortable if they pushed their agendas (and business cards) onto people prematurely, which is why they were having trouble motivating themselves to do it.

So, my advice to them to BE a secret agent went like this: "Go out into the world every day, be pleasant to the people you find there and keep your mouth shut about your career UNTIL/UNLESS someone asks you what you do. At that point, they CARE (at least a little bit) and you're free to answer them enthusiastically."

Will you miss a potential prospect or two by keeping your mouth shut? Perhaps. But I doubt it. And the more pleasant you are to more people (sans sales pitch), the more likely it is that those people will ask you about yourself and actually care about your answer!

I'm doing a little one-on-one consulting with a relatively new agent (who's gonna ROCK!) in Denver. We have similar personalities when it comes to our feelings about prospecting and business-building, so our conversations about prospecting always lead to some interesting A-HA moments for both of us.

Anyway, yesterday, my agent friend told me about a conversation he had with a like-minded career coach - one who specializes in matching personality types with business-building strategies. According to this coach (and my friend's score on the MBTI), my friend is capable of cold-calling and door-knocking for business, and he might even be rather good at it, as long as he feels he has something of value to offer.

HOWEVER, the coach cautioned him that even though he might be moderately successful in his cold-prospecting efforts, his personality type is simply not one that tolerates rejection well over the long term. That if he spends too much of his time and energy on prospecting activities that involve a steady dose of rejection, he'll eventually become depressed and discouraged. And probably won't realize why he's so lethargic and unenthusiastic about his career... and his life.

That makes perfect sense to me! I've been preaching for a long time now that there's no reason to spend your days doing something that you aren't comfortable with when there are perfectly acceptable alternatives. And if there AREN'T perfectly acceptable alternatives, maybe you're in the wrong business!

The good news is, of course, there are plenty of real estate prospecting techniques that don't involve much rejection. Oh, sure, rejection is a part of life, but that doesn't mean you have to put yourself in positions of pursuing it in the name of generating business if you don't want to. There's no need to "suck it up" or "just do it" if the sucking-up or just-doing makes you miserable.

Life's way too short for that. Figure out what you enjoy doing that brings in business. Do that. It really is that simple.

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It's Here!!!! 
The Sequel to Sell with Soul
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