Ignorance: willful, circumstantial or accidental?
It cripples our society in destructive ways: racism is rooted in ignorance, bigotry is rooted in ignorance, sexism is rooted in ignorance, tolerating violence is rooted in ignorance, oppressing the poor is rooted in ignorance.
Ignorance causes misery.
Transformation requires suspending our ego along with an open heart and mind. I’m at war, I’d like us all to be at war against ignorance.
When you are inconsistent, nothing works at the optimal level.
Here’s what I know: recruiters, talent attraction coordinators, team leaders, managers, and real estate sales professionals who consistently set and attend appointments are producing more results, period. These leaders are consistent and disciplined in their daily prospecting and marketing routines.
Consistency… social media does not work if you are not consistent; geographic farming does not work if you are not consistent; repeat and referral does not work if you are not consistent; open houses will not work if you are inconsistent; online leads – a waste – if you are not consistent; recruiting and talent attraction is a roller coaster without consistency.
Show me something in your business that works when you are inconsistent.
Anything you are going to do, the more consistent you are with your mindset, attitude, approach, expectation, strategy, and tactics, the more predictable the result.
Bottom line: when you are consistent, everything works… when you are inconsistent, nothing works.
So my question is, what have you been inconsistent with?
What has that inconsistency cost you financially, emotionally, or physically?
I’d submit that the action we can all take is to be more consistent in creating, setting, and attending more new appointments.
We cannot control the market.
We can control ourselves, our thoughts, and our actions.
Next Steps:
#WinTheDay
“In the end, someone or something always gives up. Either you give up and quit, or the obstacle or failure gives up and makes way for your success to come through.”
~ Idowu Koyenikan
Stop and reflect for a moment. How would your business be impacted if you went on at least one or more new appointments each workday?
Here’s what I know: sales professionals who – embrace the three realities – are setting and going on new APPOINTMENTS are PRODUCING, period. Those that are consistent and disciplined in their daily routines win the day.
Consider this:
• We CANNOT control the market.
• We CANNOT control what others think.
• We CAN control our business process.
• We CAN control our thoughts, behaviors, and routines.
So, why are some sales professionals succeeding wildly today while other agents are getting out of the business?
What separates those who are still making sales from those who are not?
What is the key to succeeding in this market, or any market for that matter?
What are your beliefs about growing your business? Are you fighting ANT’s – Automatic Negative Thoughts?
This posting intends to give you specific ideas and techniques that will lead to a breakthrough in the number of appointments you set. Let’s begin by defining an appointment, and then we will look at seven ways to set an appointment a day.
What is an Appointment?
APPOINTMENTS are any meetings that will positively impact your business. Specifically:
• Sitting face-to-face with a motivated seller (listing presentation)
• Working with a buyer who wants to buy
• Previewing a motivated For Sale By Owner property
• A face-to-face meeting with a Past Client, a Center of Influence, or anyone who can refer you to business
• Meeting with potential investor clients or directors of HR involved in executive moves
Again, I’ll ask how your business would be impacted if you went on at least one appointment each workday?
How would that feel?
Check out these 7 steps that can inspire you to create an appointment-setting breakthrough:
1. Focus Daily on Setting Appointments
Some agents focus on the amount of time they engage in lead generation each day. Some focus on the number of people they contact daily, and some focus on the number of leads they generate.
Top producers focus on the following:
• Setting great appointments
• Getting contracts signed
2. Create A Definition of an Appointment that Serves You
If your definition of an appointment is something like, “I only meet with sellers who will list with me today at 2:00 P.M. for 25% under fair market value and 9% commission,” you will likely find yourself with an empty appointment book!
If you want a full appointment book, create a definition of an appointment that serves you.
3. Affirm That You Set Appointments Daily
Affirm that you will set an appointment each day. Say this simple affirmation constantly throughout the day:
“I set one or more NEW appointments each day!!”
Consider this easy exercise and watch how it can positively affect your mindset and results. What is measured and reported improves.
4. Carry Your Best leads with You At All Times
One way to do this is to put your best leads on 3×5 index cards and carry them with you all day long. Even in a mobile world, a top 1% producer – because she is in the car all day – uses a paper form! Or enter them into your Smart Phones note or reminder app. Or use a CRM with mobile capability. Have a system as we know a system will produce what a system will produce, nothing less, nothing more.
What does your current system produce?
The key is to call your leads constantly throughout the day. Consider calling your leads three separate times each day to increase the probability of reaching them and setting an appointment. Call them first thing in the morning, try it again around lunchtime do your last attempt at the end of the day. You cannot overcall your leads. Consider using a tool like REAL CONTACT or VERSE.IO to streamline your process.
5. Know Your Automatic Shot
Your “automatic shot” is the source of business you know you can count on if you really need a deal. We all have areas where we excel over others, and we all have sources that are particularly favorable for us, and you must know what it is for you.
Ask yourself this question: “If you absolutely had to set an appointment today, who would you call?” The answer to this question will define who or what your automatic shot is. Make sure to take your automatic shot every day!
6. Learn A Few Basic Closings to Improve Your Confidence
Skills and confidence are critical in this market. Be surrounded by like-minded professionals that invest the time in learning the scripts and objection handlers necessary to confidently set appointments with ease. Let’s work to enhance your closing and objection-handling skills so you can add one appointment each and day or, at minimum, every week.
7. Be Unattached to How and Where Your Next Appointment Comes From
The key here is to remain focused on the fact that you intend to set at least one appointment each day. Once your intention is set, simply go about your business, follow your schedule, and do your lead generation and conversion.
So, there are seven ways to set at least one appointment daily. I want to encourage you to shift your focus and energy now.
“If I Am Always Shaking The Tree, An Apple Will Fall Somewhere!”
Focus on:
1 – Finding your next appointment,
2 – Going to another appointment and
3 – Servicing your existing clients at the highest level.
Your ACTION STEPS:
√ Make an appointment goal for the next two weeks and share it with an accountability partner.
√ Gather all your past leads, open house registers, and people you know and start making appointments to meet – ask for tips on people they may know who need to buy or sell. Use tools like – VERSE.IO – to streamline the follow-up nurturing process.
√ Consider creating a small appointment-setting mastermind group that meets in your office weekly. Roleplay objections, practice your listing presentation, and critique each other; practice answering a buyer who asks: “Why should I use you?”
√ Once you have the appointment, consider what I learned from Jeff Bezos, CEO, and founder of Amazon:
“We don’t make money when we make a sale; we make money when we help someone make a purchase decision.”
Your Business Is Like A Rowing Team
“A coach is someone who helps you see what you don’t want to see so you can be who you’ve always wanted to be.” ~ Tom Landry
One of my former associates, real estate team leader and top producer from Austin, Texas, is also a “coxswain” and a rowing coach. He told me a story about a new rower placed on a boat with eight others. He noticed she appeared to be working very hard and sweating profusely. Yet, her technique was so off it wasn’t helping the team.
Can you relate to a time when you’ve been working hard and not getting the result you intended?
A rowing team – and your business – need more than just quality, skilled resources. You also need all your resources in the right seats, doing the right things.
Here’s the thing I learned about rowing: in an eight-person boat, each rower has one oar—four on port and four on starboard. If one side pulls harder than the other side, the boat turns. If one side’s oars are raised higher than the other side, the boat tips. To find the set and create a swing, everyone must work together to balance the boat and have the exact timing. Your hands must be at exactly the right height as you slide up to the catch. Every oar has to drop into the water at the exact same time. Everyone needs to pull under equal pressure. All the blades need to come out of the water and release in unison. Any deviation disrupts the boat.
So, what can we learn?
First, have a clear direction, but an easy hand on the steering: The “coxswain” job is to keep the boat on course and steer the straightest line possible. Steering too much means zig-zagging over the course and rowing far more than 2,000 meters, which adds to the time. The trick is to keep the end in sight and steer to a center point far down the course, not trying to keep coming back to the center every stroke. To do this, the coxswain calls out increased pressure for a few strokes on one side of the boat or the other to correct the course rather than use the rudder, which slows down the boat.
Learning: High-performance teams always keep the end in sight and know the ultimate objectives of their work. Without a clear picture of the goal, teams thrash with the process and fail to achieve proper alignment in their activities. Going in the wrong direction as fast as you can doesn’t get you any closer to the finish.
Second, it’s not how hard you work; it’s how hard you work together: It turns out that pulling as hard as you can without pulling together actually slows the boat down. Imbalanced power will veer the boat in one direction and throw off the catch and release timing. Uncontrolled straining at the oar can tip your weight left or right and toss the boat side to side. A successful team pulls in perfect balance and with perfect timing.
Learning: Successful teams know that performance is a function of collaboration and coordination, not a sum of individual effort. Knowing how your contribution affects the outcome and staying highly aware of what others are doing while staying in sync are critical to delivering results. Reacting quickly, deliberately and in a coordinated fashion allows teams to adapt to changes, handle new information, and stay on target.
#WinTheDay
To Team Or Not To Team
So, you want to start a team?
Or you already have a team and are now questioning that choice?
Maybe you already have a team performing at a high level, and you are looking for a boost?
You see, we’ve just about seen it all:
In the most successful teams we know, the leader assumes the CEO role of the team, and they always lead with revenue! And they understand this:
“A system will produce what a system will produce, nothing less, nothing more.”
Here are a few thoughts to consider as it relates to team leadership:
Team Requirement No. 1:
Do you have a clear and compelling value proposition?
Team Requirement No. 2:
You’re on Target or Ahead of Your Production Goal
Team Requirement No. 3:
You Have At Least 4 Successful Pillars of Lead Generation
Team Requirement No. 4:
You Have Lead Follow-Up Systems in Place That Create Raving Fans and Ensure a High Level of Service
Team Requirement No. 5:
You Have an Accountability Structure in Place That is Utilized Daily
Team Requirement No. 6:
You are on a mission to grow your leadership skills and serve your team members
Now that you’ve considered six factors for team success, I have a practical exercise to start the process.
There you have it; the opportunity is yours.
Consider this…
With all the plans, strategies, goals, innovations, business practices, and culture that make up your team, you are getting exactly the results your business systems and processes are currently capable of producing – nothing less, nothing more! Looking to be more outcome-focused? Read this blog from Mark Johnson, co-founder of CoRecruit.
To get better results, you must improve the design and execution of your business systems and processes—at the detail checklist level.
The law of cause and effect governs all business outcomes. To change an effect or result, you have to change the cause.
#WinTheDay
By design vs. by default with Seth Godin
Leaders make one thing more than any other: decisions.
Every environment has constraints, and the decisions about how time and resources are allocated – about what to do next – drive all outcomes.
How do leaders decide what’s next? Is it based on urgency, proximity, or values? It’s a mix of each, yet the top 1% make more value-based decisions.
The top 1% know the first in + first out approach is not an effective strategy; it’s typically an excuse or by default. Even worse: defaulting to the squeaky wheel strategy. Leaders minimize the whirlwind. By design vs. by default.
PS: Need help with talent attraction, selection, or sourcing accountability? Just a DM away.
Jennifer Love Hewitt turns 44, and Corbin Blue 34. The job market is booming. Inflation is falling. Yet, if you asked your neighbor, the news about eggs and housing might get in the way… is it a real estate seller’s market?
Check out the latest stats in your area – click here – and if you need a local area expert, I know a few around the country.
If information was enough, we would all be top performers in our profession, exercise every day, eat more vegetables, be within the government’s height and weight standards, and have a ton of money saved for the future.
Think about it: you can use Google or YouTube for the instruction manual for almost anything. You can access a step-by-step guide, the best practices, and the quick start guide. So, I have a straightforward question – with access to all this information and proven evidence – why do we still struggle with limiting beliefs and behaviors?
The answer? Our feelings outweigh our commitments. When our commitments outweigh our feelings, that’s when a breakthrough begins.
The five words that kill more dreams, more potential, and more happiness than any other five words spoken are:
I’m not sure of your dream, yet I suspect that for many of you, it’s more financial freedom, better health, stronger relationships, and more connectedness with your community. Yet let’s face it, so many times when you are about to start something toward those dreams, the onslaught of excuses flood your mind like water gushing out of a broken pipe. The theme of these excuses always traces back to the same root:
How often have you said, “I don’t feel like it?” How often have you listened to that thought, allowing it to alter the course of your actions? What has that cost you physically, financially, and emotionally?
I know that “I don’t feel like it” is the universal human condition that silently kills dreams. Yet you and I don’t have to accept this dream killer, and we can overcome the feeling and move powerfully toward our goals and objectives. It starts with intention: the intention to live on your terms, not the terms of your moods and feelings.
Sports psychologist Bob Rotella, said “I tell people: If you don’t want to get into positive thinking, that’s OK. Just eliminate all the negative thoughts from your mind, and whatever is left will be just fine!”
Maxwell provides 6 steps to expanding our possibility thinking:
#100DaysOfSuccess
Resistance is like a Jedi mind trick. It’s not really there, but it feels like it is. And the more you think about it, the more powerful it becomes.
New goals are likely to fall apart before February ends. That’s according to data from Strava, a social network for athletes. The company analyzed more than 31.5 million fitness records from its users and found that our annual commitments start crumbling in the middle of January. Strava’s research only draws from its own user base, so it could be skewed, yet a frequently cited study from the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment produced similar findings:
Only 55 percent of participants stuck to their resolutions for a full month.
Yet don’t let the data discourage you.
Resistance is normal. You’re likely to experience it at some level when trying to change, regardless of how positive your intended change is. Try not to fight resistance; instead – accept – that it will happen. By recognizing resistance and understanding why it happens, you can focus your energy on making positive changes stick for the long term.
And by spending a little time thinking about the potential obstacles, roadblocks, and impediments you may encounter during the change process, you can reduce your resistance levels and increase your chances of success — and overcome resistance.
“In the end, someone or something always gives up. Either you give up and quit, or the obstacle or failure gives up and makes way for your success to come through.”
~ Idowu Koyenikan
Step one is getting back in touch with the reason you started the change, resolution, goal, or process to begin with. Review these four questions:
Step two, no judgments! Once you’ve identified the reason for your resistance (typically fear of something) – the root cause of your frustration – you can look for a way to meet the needs of your resistance while not allowing it to prevent achieving your goals. Like taking a 10-minute break, then returning back to the task – a pattern interrupt.
Step three is to act opposite to your feelings. Of course, if you don’t feel like making your sales calls, make them anyway!
Step four, take action. Let go of what you have no control over. Sometimes, becoming aware of your repetitive patterns – and making a new intention – is all that is required. But other times, a deeper dive is needed.
In the book A Course of Miracles, it is written there are only two emotions: love and fear. If you are in a place of resistance about something, look for the fear behind it and find a way to dissipate it. Find a way to embrace it and “love” it!
And finally, my friend and mentor Tom Ferry wrote about four “addictions” that kill more dreams than any other. In my view, they are all patterns of resistance that each of us can control and change if we choose:
Resistance is not futile it’s a valuable learning tool. Use it to your advantage. Think breakdown to breakthrough!
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”
~Henry Ford
