Selling Soulfully with Jennifer Allan

Everyone has heard how you have to be in someone's face at least 7 times before they'll buy from you. Or something like that. The other day I read a story in a business magazine about an advertising salesperson who contacted a prospect 34 times before clinching the sale on call 35. The salesperson gleefully described how the prospect became more and more irritated with her as the calls continued, eventually asking her (that's putting it mildly) to leave her alone and never call again. Undeterred, the ad sales babe made that 35th call... and got the sale.

A sign of a good salesperson? Maybe. But maybe not.

Why on earth is it necessary to badger someone 34 times (or even 7) in order to spark interest in a service or product? Could it be that the product or service isn't all that compelling, or egads, the sales pitch sucks? If I call someone once, pitch ‘em and they turn me away... and I call them again, pitch ‘em and get turned away again and then do it again... and again... with the same (although increasingly hostile) result... might that not mean that I'm doing something WRONG? Why on earth would I continue to something that clearly isn't working?

Let's compound the insult. I do this all day long to my entire database of prospects. Day after day. Rejection after rejection. Every once in awhile I score a YES, which supposedly makes all those rejections worth the effort. But, but, but... has no one ever considered the possibility that all these rejections might be trying to tell me something?

Doing something that doesn't work very well enough times that someone finally succumbs to the pitch doesn't sound professional (or very efficient) to me. Maybe it's time to toss that old marketing clichés out the window and come up with a new paradigm! If something ain't good enough to work the first time, maybe it's just not good enough!

So, is there something you're doing over and over and over... without much result, but assuming that your persistence will eventually be rewarded? Maybe it's time to rethink that approach...

Just Released!

www.sellwithsoul.com

Visit most real estate training sites and you'll pretty quickly see references to being a Superstar or a Champion or a Hero or a Top Producer or some other high-falutin' descriptive term for a tippy-top level of real estate production. You'll see testimonials from agents who bought whatever system is being marketed claiming to have tripled their income or hit the half-million mark in commissions or sold 167 houses their first month on the program.

Wow. That's something. I'll admit to being intimidated by such marketing, both as an active real estate agent AND a real estate trainer myself. Gee, I never made $500,000 or sold 300 houses in a year. Neither has anyone I've ever coached or mentored or trained.

Do I believe the claims? Sure I do - no real reason to believe that such levels aren't attainable just because I never did it or know anyone who did.

But I don't believe that the majority of agents are going to see anywhere near those production levels, regardless of what system, program or philosophy they follow. No, not even in a good market.

And that's okay! I have a loyal following of several thousand real estate agents who don't want or need to set the world on fire - they just want to make a consistent, comfortable living, doing business in a manner they're proud of, making more people happy than unhappy. They also want to have time for their families, their hobbies and their naps. They don't want to be Power Prospectors who generate business 14 hours a day and then hand it off to their harem of assistants and specialists on their way out the door to drum up even more.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be the Top Dog in your office, neighborhood, city, county or state. But if you don't, that's okay, too. There's plenty of room (and commission checks) here in the middle for those with slightly less-grand aspirations.

So, don't fret if you doubt you'll ever be a Superstar. You're in very good company.

 It's DONE!
The Sequel to Sell with Soul
AVAILABLE NOW! 
Order Here

I have a new soapbox that has fired up my blogging energy... doncha' love it when that happens? Off we go...

I had an interesting meeting last summer with a real estate agent who started in the business the same year I did, in the same company. That year, he was the Rookie of the Year ... and I was runner-up to him. Neither of us recall who was third, of course!

Anyway, we literally hadn't run into each other since that awards ceremony in the mid-90's. Oh, I've seen his name around and he's seen mine, but we've never actually talked. We both went on to have successful careers and to set our individual worlds on fire (in our own minds anyway) and are still alive and kicking, almost 13 years later. Good thing.

So, last summer, we had the opportunity to chat about our respective careers. Since his dad had been a mega-producing broker at the time this guy (let's call him Skip) entered the business, I always assumed that his success had been handed to him. Au Contraire!

Skip explained that his dad wouldn't even let him in the door of his real estate office until he had, get this, worked for a year as a copier salesman. After that, he had to get his appraiser's license. Only then did Dad allow him to hang his new real estate license. But that was only the beginning - the boot camp then begun. Skip had to call all 600 of his dad's past clients, had to knock on 20 FSBO doors and call 20 expired listings per week. He had to hold two open houses every single Saturday. I'm sure there was mass-mailing and advertising tossed in there, too, but he didn't mention it.

And, voila! Skip was Rookie of the Year!

At the same time, I was taking my friends to lunch and attending social events with my future-ex-husband. I did some open houses and returned phone calls in nano-seconds. That was about it for my prospecting efforts.

And voila! I was the Rookie of the Year Runner-up!

Truth be told, Skip blew me away in production. He sold something like 70 houses that first year to my 25. But I was pretty darn happy with my 25 and I was enjoying the heck out of my new real estate career. So, for me, it worked. Had I been forced thru Skip's boot camp, I wouldn't have made it past my first month.

Fast forward to today.

Both Skip and I have had successful careers. We've made a lot of money and have consistently been top producers in our offices. I'm sure he has a lot of plaques on his "me wall," as do I.

But our approaches are still vastly different. He said he has to sell AT LEAST 100 houses a year to be profitable - that is, to support the systems and staff he's put in place. He HAS to cold call, he HAS to door knock, he HAS to prospect, prospect, prospect to stay afloat. He said that if he only has 5 closings in a month, he's in deep financial doo-doo. 

Me? Well, my "best" year was in 2001 when I sold something like 70 houses. But you know what? That year, I brought home less than 40% of my gross commissions (not counting taxes) because the cost of maintaining that level of production was astronomical. A few years later, I sold "only" 35 houses and netted exactly the same amount, working half as hard and taking on only half the risk. Hmmmmmm.

Today, my business is very simple (and cheap) to run. It's just me, myself and I. No assistants, no buyer agents, not even a free-lance transaction coordinator. I don't advertise, farm or SEO. Due to my strong sphere of influence and past client database, I have a steady stream of good business. Will I sell 100 houses this year? Uh, no. But do I work 60 hours a week? Nope. Haven't done that in years.

I imagine Skip's annual income is close to a million, if not more. Mine? Nowhere close to a million! But do I feel as if I'm been blown away by my fellow Rookie? Not really.

I don't ever want to be in the position of having to be a mega-producer in order to survive. I just want to take on the amount of business I can handle all by myself, the amount of business that I can easily attract using the soulful methods and philosophies that have always worked for me.

I must be getting old...

 It's DONE!
The Sequel to Sell with Soul
AVAILABLE NOW! 
Order Here

A few months ago I was approached by a state Realtor association - New York, maybe. Well, it wasn't actually the association; it was the marketing firm for the association, trying to sell me ad space in their magazine.

The nice man with the heavy New Yawk accent threw out a bunch of numbers and statistics and options, trying to entice me to spend several thousand dollars advertising in the magazine. Readership, distribution and such. Oh, several thousand dollars is out of your budget? Okay, well, we also offer very effective classified ads for a fraction of the cost (but still several hundred for a 3-line ad or something like that).

Okay, well... I've spent a lot of money on advertising in my life and I can honestly say that NONE of it has worked for me. In fact, it's rare that it even pays for itself, much less generates a profit. But, hey, I'm open to new venues for business, so I made this proposal to Mr. New Yawker:

"Sir (okay, I didn't really call him sir), I'd be happy to give your magazine a try, but I don't have that kind of budget to risk and in my experience, print advertising is a waste of money. But if you're sure that an investment in your magazine will pay off for me, how about you run an ad for me for a few months and if it generates business for me, I'll be delighted to pay for it. And, obviously, if it's producing results, I'll continue paying for it."

Well, as you can imagine, that didn't fly. Didn't expect it to, but thought I'd give it a shot.

I guess when you work in an industry where you only get paid if you perform; you're much less excited to pay upfront for something that might NOT perform. And, since so much advertising simply doesn't work, I'd love to see the marketing/advertising industry adopt a policy of showing US the money before asking for ours...

Crazy? Maybe. But I'm from Missouri - the Show Me State!

www.SellwithSoul.com

I'm sure you've heard the infamous ABC's of sales from the scene in Glengarry Glen Ross - when Alec Baldwin is slamming the sales force with a string of memorable quotes starting with "Put down that coffee - coffee is for closers ," followed by "Get them to sign on the line which is dotted !"

He then points to the chalkboard where he's written "ABC - A= Always; B= Be; C= Closing.

Always
Be
Closing.

Whatever.

Can you imagine how delightful it would be to be around someone who is Always Closing? Or, to BE that person who is? I suppose it comes naturally to some; but to those to whom it does not, BLECH!

But it occurs to me that the Always Be Closing mantra is a beautiful sentiment if applied in the proper situation.

In our business, a real estate closing is the goal of what we do. Not only because it's when WE get paid, but it's also payday for the mortgage broker, the title company, our own broker, the home warranty company, the county tax assessor... all sorts of people and businesses benefit from a real estate closing! Not to mention (duh), the buyers who realize their dreams of home ownership, the investor who will soon be hiring contractors and home stagers and property managers and someday, maybe YOU to sell the home again, and the sellers who can breathe a sigh of relief that they can move on with their lives.  

Yes, a closing is a beautiful thing.

So, I propose that we real estate agents Always Be Closing . No, not sales-pitching everyone to death, but rather - getting our buyers and sellers to the closing table!

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I read somewhere (I believe it may have been in the book "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion") that human beings develop analytical short cuts in their brains in order to make judgments or decisions about new ideas or offerings that come their way. The example given was that of "You get what you pay for." Since we don't have the time or energy or even the desire to analyze every single product that is advertised to us, we make assumptions about the value or desirability of the product based on the price. Therefore, something that costs $9.99 (a too-good-to-be-true price) is not as good as a similar product that costs $99.95. While the $10 product may be every bit as effective as the $100 one, a vendor might actually sell more of his product if he increases the price, rather than put it on sale.

Interesting.

In 2009, we are overwhelmed by information and advertising. It comes at us from every direction and there's no way we can take it all in. Too many choices, too many options... to save our sanity we MUST develop an automatic evaluation method to avoid mental overload.

I'm reailzing that if something comes at me as a sales pitch, I Just Say No. I'm paranoid enough, suspicious enough and burned too many times by salespeople to give many the benefit of the doubt. I don't have time to check references or decipher trumped-up testimonials. If someone is trying to sell me something, my automatic evaluation system kicks in and I reject it.

I've found this to be true in my own world, with my own SWS "prospects." I get inquiries every day from people who want to interview me, who'd like a proposal for me to speak, who want to include my articles in their newsletter. They find me online or hear about me from others, and are intrigued. But I tell ya, the minute I approach someone and ask if they'd like to interview me, if they'd like a proposal for me to speak or would like me to submit articles for their newsletter, I almost ALWAYS get brushed off. Sometimes not even very politely! I approached a radio talk-show host once (he was just getting started, not some big shot) and he somewhat nastily accused me of just wanting to sell him something.

So, it appears that the way to sell something to someone is to let THEM find YOU. Create an attractive "product" and put it out there in the world for interested prospects to stumble onto.

I'm sure I didn't think this up all on my own, but I betcha' we'll see a massive paradigm shift AWAY from pursuit-oriented marketing TO attraction-based marketing. Might turn the sales-training world on its ear! (which is a very good thing).

www.SellwithSoul.com

MYTH #3: You Have to Pester (er, Cold Call) Strangers to Build a Successful Business

Some people have it, some don't. The desire and willingness to cold call, door knock and network, that is. I'll bet many competent future real estate agents have been deterred from their calling, thinking that they had to spend their lives bothering people to get their business. Not true! I am living proof of that and so are countless other successful real estate agents.

Strangers are probably not your best source of business anyway. Many real estate agents primarily prospect to strangers with newspaper advertising, web placement, bus bench ads, even billboards, but these self-promotion techniques are expensive. I've found that the agents who attribute their success to these techniques are the ones who could not pay the bills relying on a referral-based model. In other words, they don't get many referrals! Possibly because they are spending most of their time and energy on massive marketing projects rather than focusing on doing a good job for the clients they already have.

I've known many agents who operate this way. Their marketing efforts are legendary. They blanket their farm area with thousands of postcards, harass every expired listing, advertise on the radio and TV and pay big bucks for top placement on search engines. And they do get a lot of business, so I guess you could say these efforts are successful. But that's not the way I'd want to build my business.

(If the above sounds good to you, see if you can get a refund for this book. It won't be much use to you.)

It doesn't have to be that way. You can build a successful business on a combination of referrals and warm prospecting, which we'll discuss in depth later. Just know that if the thought of making a hundred phone calls a day asking the poor sap who answers the phone if he "knows anyone who's thinking of buying or selling real estate?" leaves you cold, don't for a minute think that you can't be as successful as you want to be.

Tomorrow... Myth #4

The 7 Myths of a Real Estate Career
  Your Love of People Will Make you a Successful Real Estate Agent
  Your Love of Houses Will Make You a Successful Real Estate Agent
  You Have to Pester (er, Cold Call) Strangers to Build a Successful Business
  Your Job Is to Drive Buyers Around and Hold Open Houses
  You Will Work Every Weekend
  Real Estate Is a Team Sport
  You Shouldn't Ever Discount Your Fee

* due to heightened self-imposed stress due to participation in the NAR Convention, I am blogging with material from my book until the end of October (unless something absolutely brilliant strikes me that I MUST write about).

copyright Jennifer Allan 2007

Hopefully I'll think of a better title for this blog, but I probably won't. It's not going to be one of my best anyway. Just a little tidbit for my 99th post!

Found an article today on iSucceed.com about Calling your Sphere of Influence. Here's the link.

It's the typical "call up your friends and remind 'em you're in real estate" stuff that I often advise against. This particular article provides ten opening lines to help you make those calls ranging from: "I'm doing an open house in your area today; can I send you a brochure?" to "I was driving through your neighborhood today and thought of you; howzit going?"

But as I read through the opening lines, something struck me. Here are a few of the scripts, verbatim:

"Good Afternoon client this is Jim over at ABC Realty how are you? Hey I drove through your neighborhood yesterday showing another property and I just wanted to call and check in with you guys - how's the house been treating you?"

"Good Morning client this is Jim over at ABC Realty how is it going? Hey I'm working on a couple of new marketing ideas newsletter, postcards, personal brochures, flyers, I wondered if you could give me your thoughts on what you think of them. Could I send them over to you?"

Hmmmm. Wanna take a guess at what bugs me about them?

http://www.sellwithsoul.com/

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copyright Jennifer Allan 2007

We've all heard from the guru's how we should prospect two to three hours a day. Uninterrupted. No distractions. After all, we are self-employed and need to ensure ourselves a steady stream of business in order to stay IN business.

Fair enough.

But for those of you who shudder at the thought of pestering strangers every day, here's a new approach, compliments of Loreena Yeo.

Loreena is my consulting client. She hired me to help her succeed in her real estate business. Per our agreement, I get paid for my efforts. But, with her insight and wisdom, she's helped me every bit as much as I've helped her.

Here's what I learned from her this week.

To give myself credit, I introduced Loreena to the concept of an SOI business model. And she's run with it. She is now the poster child for how to succeed in real estate sales by being a good friend.

How does Loreena prospect to her SOI? Well, you can check out her blog for lots of ideas. But the one that struck me this week was this...

Loreena spends her "mandatory" two to three hours a day prospecting time writing personal emails. Not calling FSBO's. Not pestering expired listings. Not cold calling her farm area.

She spends that time catching up with her friends. Via email, because she's a little shy, it's easier that way. Does she ask her friends for real estate referrals? NO WAY. Does she share her latest success story? I doubt it. She just does what we woman creatures do naturally. Communicate, nurture, offer compassion when needed.

Is it working? Oh yeah. Just ask her. She's crazy busy and her phone is indeed ringing. With business and referrals from her SOI.

Here's the best part. She estimates a 90% success rate. As in, 90% of the people she writes to write back. Do they have a real estate need or referral today? Probably not. But when they do, you can be sure they'll think of Loreena.

How does a 90% response rate compare with YOUR prospecting efforts?

www.sellwithsoul.com

copyright Jennifer Allan 2007

Okay, so I'm reading my latest edition of the Broker/Agent News.

Came upon an article by Dirk Zeller entitled "The Four Pillars of Prospecting." Well, I never prospected much (Thank you, SOI!), but now that I'm a writer and consultant, I figure it's good to learn how the other half works. 

Tip 1:  "Set a daily time and place for prospecting." Got it.

Tip 2:  "Fight off distractions." Fair enough... oh, wait... what's this?
"The truth is most agents welcome distractions taking them away from prospecting obligations. An inbound phone call, a problem transaction, a home inspection question, an incoming e-mail or a broken fingernail, anything will do. It's called creative avoidance and agents generally excel at the art."

Now he has my attention... continuing...

"What do you do when distractions hit? Do you postpone prospecting while you put out a fire? Do you make just a few calls to settle the pending issue....? To fight off distractions, you have to bar their access...."

You may recall that on the home page of the Selling Soulfully group I make the statement that soulful agents "care as much about the clients they have today as the clients they hope to have tomorrow." I take that philosophy VERY seriously.

"So," Dirk asks, "Do you postpone prospecting while you put out a fire?" Uh, YEAH. My current clients pay me darn good money to care about them and their fires. One silly cold call, even two, will never be more important to me than the good will and appreciation of my current client.

Which, I dare to say, is why I never HAD to prospect.

www.sellwithsoul.com

copyright Jennifer Allan 2007