Questions from Mike Ferry’s Production Retreat – Part 2
Last week I found several hundred great questions attendees submitted from our Production Retreat in late January in Las Vegas. I had put them in a briefcase, I put the briefcase in one part of my office and I misplaced them, at least mentally. Until I found them again recently, and now I’m reviewing the questions with you … last week, this week and for the next couple of weeks. These are great questions submitted by the audience … So I’m going to continue with these.
1. I’m a new Real Estate Agent and I’m out working every day and I’m going on presentations. Oftentimes the Sellers lack confidence I can get their home sold because I’m a new agent. Aside from stating, ‘You have my full attention when you list with me … 100% of my attention is going to be on getting your listing sold, and my Broker is giving us full support in getting your property sold,’ what else can I say on a listing presentation as a newer agent?
Well, quite honestly, it’s not just the fact you’re new … It’s the fact you’re probably not expressing a lot of confidence in yourself during your presentation … which means you’re going up against agents who’ve been in the business three, four, five, 10 years … who are competing for that listing. You’re not expressing confidence to the Seller that they should list with you versus anybody else.
The natural path for a newer agent is to work with Buyers … which is understandable, natural, normal … but the trouble with working with Buyers is you don’t commit time to learning how to list property, so the odds of ever being a substantial producer are minimal.
You’ve heard me say this in the past: Put a Buyer in your car and the Buyer will buy the house because of the home you show them. Go to a Seller’s house, and the Seller is instead evaluating you as a person, you as a salesperson, evaluating your company, evaluating your presentation, evaluating what you can do to get their home sold. So a Buyer buys because of the house, whereas a Seller lists because of the strength of the Listing Agent and their presentation. So the first thing I’d suggest to those of you who are newer is to evaluate the strength of your presentation. Spend a good portion of your day practicing and rehearsing live listing presentations, either in front of a camera, in front of the mirror or in front of another agent in your office.
You’ve got to make that a professional strength … See, the truth is, there are agents all over North America who’ve been in the business … 10 days, 30 days, 60 days … and they’re taking listings because they’ve learned what to say, and they say it with so much conviction and strength that the Seller never even knows.
Now, why would a Seller say to an agent? “Gosh, you must be new. How long have you been in the business?” Sellers say it for one reason: You haven’t displayed confidence in yourself at this point. So, “Yes, you have my attention, full attention, 100% of my time. I have really nothing to do but work to get your home sold and my Broker supports it 100%.” That statement has to be made because you haven’t displayed confidence. Knowledge equals confidence. Ignorance equals fear. Work on increasing your knowledge, which will build confidence.
2. Why do you encourage agents to focus on the number of transactions they do annually versus focusing on increasing their price point? Isn’t there more profit and a higher income from high price points?
Maybe. Maybe.
Now why do I say, “Maybe”? Well, I have some experience in this, I’ve seen over the years agents who jump price point … price point … price point. Let’s say the average sales price in your area is 300. Agents will say, “I want to move into the $600,000 to $800,000 price point.” Great. Here’s the first thing you have to realize: You have to look at your market place like a pyramid. As the price points increase, the number of transactions decrease … The number of potential buyers decrease.
Now, yes, 5% or 6% of $1 million is certainly more substantial than 5% to 6% of $300,000. However, the marketing costs on a million-dollar house — if that’s a big, expensive home in your area — are substantially higher than the marketing costs on a property that sells for $300,000. The expectations of the Seller are totally different, and the commissions are more apt to be negotiated down on high prices than negotiated down on lower-priced homes.
So why do we encourage agents to focus on the number of transactions? It’s for one simple reason: It’s a measurable item that you can track and follow. If you’re measuring your gross commission income or gross sales volume, one big transaction can throw everything off. You measure your business by the number of deals you do.
3. How do I keep laser focus on lead generation and prospecting? I see other agents in the office having success using social media … Should I make it part of my sales and marketing plan?
Well, I think we have to define what those agents are doing. What are those agents doing in terms of social media? Okay, are they doing webinars for prospects? Could be. Do they have a blog they’re sending out in a mass-type operation to the public in your area? Could be. Do they have all of their database in their Facebook account? And do they keep in contact with their database through Facebook? Could be.
I really question this person’s question, and I question it because social media is one of 61 methods of prospecting to find a listing. So, what we have to look at is what are the four or five methods you’re using to get listings? Do you have four or five good, valid methods you’re using on a regular basis? If you have four or five such methods, could social media be one of them? Yes. But if you make it the only one, guess what? You’re probably going to suffer.
4. Can you give me some indication of how many contacts per day and per hour the big superstar producers make?
Well, it always depends on whether they’re operating as an individual agent, or with a small or even a large team. Now, the reason I say that is the larger the team, most often [the Superstar producer] is not prospecting at all. Here’s the agent, he’s got five, 10, 15 people on his team. He’s relying on the production of those to produce his income. Here’s another agent who has one assistant, one Buyer’s Agent. He is producing listings, and those listing leads that come on potential Buyers go to the Showing Agent. It’s two different methodologies of doing business.
However, when I talk to people like John Ames, Josh Barker, Bernie Gallerani and Regina Drury, and some of the wonderful agents I coach personally, they’re going to be making from about 15 to 25 contacts a day. Most of those will be within their database because that’s where they generate a lot of their business. And they’re going to make about 10 contacts per hour calling a By Owner, a database, a just listed, an Expireds listing … If you follow the script, you’ll make about 10 contacts per hour.
5. Mike, you say all the time to never take rejection personally from people you don’t know … But how do you handle rejection from people you do know?
It’s a great question. All right, everybody worries about rejection in the sales industry. Whatever the product or service, people worry about rejection. And, of course, I say to myself all the time, selling is a numbers game, period.
I have to talk to a lot of people, whatever the product is, whatever the service is, to get somebody to buy. If you’re in a retail-store over here and people are flowing in, not everybody buys. Some flow in, flow around, and flow back out without a sale. Only a small percentage actually buys the product or service. If you’re in direct sales, which for us is Real Estate, you’re going to be talking to 5, 10, 15, 20 people a day to look for the one who wants to buy or sell a piece of Real Estate.
So we have to consider this thought: Most people are not rejecting you to hurt your feelings. They just don’t have an interest in what you’re saying or selling at that moment.
And they have a right not to have an interest in what you’re saying or what you’re selling at that moment, whether you know them or not. They have that right. So the answer is, then, how do you handle rejection? For people you know just smile and say, “Well, thanks for sharing your thoughts with me.” And you call the next one because it is always going to be a numbers game. And as long as you keep that thought in mind, you’re going to win the game all the time.
6. When you start to feel dragged back by thoughts of fear or the fear of failure, what’s the best way to reset your mindset and move forward?
I’ve said for years we all deal with that problem. It’s normal … It’s human nature. Don’t beat yourself up because you have moments of not being excited about the work you do. It’s human nature. However, I tell people all the time you should be taking three or four 10- to 15-minute mindset breaks per day. Let’s say you get to the office at eight … at 9:30 to 9:45, take a 10- to 15-minute mindset break.
Maybe you should go to our Vault … Listen to one of the recordings in The Vault. Many are 15 minutes long and will help recharge your head. If you have a couple of books you’re reading … Read three or four pages, okay? You have access through your phone or your iPad to one of the many inspirational messages we produce on YouTube … Three or four times a day, you recharge yourself … And a couple of times a day, you get up and walk outside and you breathe some fresh air and have a glass of juice or a piece of fruit. You know, you call one of your best clients because your best clients are always positive and happy. Take positive steps to get positive results. You can do it.
Thanks for these questions. We’ll continue this next week. It is now the middle of March. It is time to get going and get moving and stop talking about the market. It’s time to go do something about the market. See you next week.
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Mike Ferry is the global leader in Real Estate Coaching and Training. Watch Mike each week as he discusses a variety of topics to help Real Estate Agents and Brokers. Grow your Real Estate business by improving your mindset, developing your skills and creating a plan of action to increase your production!
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