Here’s an online version of our presentations from the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World Conference 2010. Enjoy!
Related Blog Entries:
- Radically Rethinking Leads Management
- The Real Meaning of Days on Market
- The Aflac Lesson for Real Estate
- The Manager has Left the Office!
.
Here’s a radical idea for brokers to help real estate companies convert more prospects into deals. Like most of our ideas, real estate agents will probably hate it. Which means consumers are going to love it. Stop assigning leads to an agent because they are “next in line” on some imaginary roster. Or they happen to be sitting at a desk on “floor duty.” Instead, only assign leads to those agents whose actual past performance indicates they are best qualified to turn potential business into actual deals. Read more…
With our sensors on full, we’ve scanned the real estate metaverse online to find some of the latest links to research, industry thinkers and opinion that can help you chart a course to success in 2010. Read more…
In a tough market, real estate companies need everyone to contribute their best efforts daily. Agents need to prospect, follow up on leads and ask for referrals. Marketing departments need to revamp websites, produce constant blog content and create company buzz on social networks. And what should managers do to contribute their best? Get out of their office!
In one of our recent management workshop, a group of managers and brokers were brainstorming ways to “make agents more productive.” It’s always instructive to hear this kind of language, as if agents were programmable robots who merely need a few new parts and software upgrades to be more efficient. The discussion turned to the usual solutions like training agents to use technology, encouraging them to purchase smartphones, mandating minimum photo and video features per listing and getting them involved on Facebook. All excellent ideas, but all missing one essential point.
Improvement isn’t spontaneous.
If it were, why would we need managers, coaches or trainers? Hardly any of us wakes up one day and “becomes” more productive. Olympians have trainers – really, managers – who show up with them every day. Yet even the best trainers will tell you that it’s not just the “training” during the class but the “implementation” after class that changes outcomes. George Washington led his men across the Deleware. He didn’t stay back in his tent.
Most of what agents and companies need to do to increase productivity isn’t rocket science. It has already been discovered, tested, proven and perfected: Prospect 50% of the time, focus on referrals and repeat business, and communicate with consumers the way they want to be contacted (such as text messaging or social media). In fact, most agents know these things.
It’s up to managers to help them do them.
What’s the best way managers can help agents do their job – whether it’s old-school or high-tech in style? The answer isn’t contests, cash-rewards or speeches. It’s not new technology or more marketing dollars. Any manager can tell you today that they have plenty of those things, but the needle isn’t moving.
Instead, managers need to do what they ask agents to do – if they want to change the outcomes at their companies. And that means one simple thing:
Get out of their office!
Managers need to be a daily – and constant – part of the production process. They need to be in the action, as it’s happening. This simply cannot be done from their corner office. And for the most part, it cannot be done in the physical office at all. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. One step at a time.
Imagine what would happen if managers did not have back offices within the company. Where would they sit? Right next to the agents. What would they do? Listen, watch, learn – and be involved. That’s exactly where companies need managers to be: at the front of the action, a part of the process of creating and nurturing new business.
Managers without offices would change everything.
Suddenly, agents sitting around chewing-the-fat would be visible to the manager. And the manager would be visible to them. Not picking up the phone or sending out email marketing would not persist for long under the watchful gaze of the production manager. Within proximity of the action, managers would see and hear how customers were being handled by whoever is answer the phone. Good interactions could be praised; bad ones could be corrected, mentored, improved. Right away. Not at some future date.
Managers in the action could greet customers and learn critical market information. How did the customers choose their company? How were things going with their agent? Are they aware of the other services the company provides? Oh, and thank you for the business. Managers meeting customers would change everything.
But without an office, how would the manager do “their work”?
Just what work do you mean? Paperwork is not the work of management. It’s the work of an administrator. Managers read reports, learn from them, and adjust production by coaching their agents. Managers don’t write reports. So who needs an office to do that?
Managers don’t plan events. They don’t order trophies. They don’t go to wasteful meetings – inside or outside the company. Managers manage output from the production floor. And that cannot be done from the corner office, a meeting at the local Board or picking out a hotel for an event. Surely there’s someone else who can do that.
But there’s only one person who can manage.
Everything would change at a company where the managers sat next to the agents all day long. Morale would soar, as agents reconnected with their leader – and received consistent support, encouragement and advice from them as the action was happening. Interpersonal conflicts would be managed, as hearsay was replaced by first-hand observation. And the act of making or capturing new business would be managed. No paperwork could ever be more important than that.
Now consider the ultimate conclusion. What if the manager actually left the building? Not by themselves, of course, but with their agents. What if managers accompanied agents on listing appointments, showings and closings? That would really change everything. New agents learning the trade would have their manager by their side, mentoring and supporting them as they applied skills for the first time. Experienced agents could move to the next level of performance, as their mentor helped them refine their skills even further. Even Olympic trainers have to actually watch their students perform in order to point out their opportunities for improvement.
A manager accompanying an agent could debrief, correct and coach the agent’s performance within minutes of the action.
Managers out of the office would not only support an agent’s performance right away, but they would learn incredible amounts of valuable information from actual consumers – many of whom are never in the office. Managers at open houses could observe and interact with consumers and learn about their expectations, concerns, trends. They could identify which marketing approaches were effective. They would conduct a “higher order” assessment of consumers in actual sales situations – and take that information back to the rest of the office. When was the last time an agent debriefed the rest of the office on what they learned at a showing or an open house?
That’s the job of management.
Some managers do this and it’s why their companies consistently beat the market and produce successful careers for agents. In fact, companies with managers who aren’t in the office find they rarely have to recruit new agents. They are too busy making existing agents productive – by participating in the production process – that there’s little need to replace failing agents. Managers outside of the office see potential failure in advance – and can take action to avoid it. Retention becomes a non-issue as well, as agents realize they couldn’t possibly substitute a higher commission or new tech-tool for real-time management involvement.
For some companies, kicking managers out of their offices may be a radical idea. The corner office is long-seen as a reward for achieving a certain level in one’s career. Yet all too often the rise in a manager’s career coincides with a drop in the company’s performance. It’s easy to blame the market, the consumer, new technology or ill-trained agents: but it would all be self-deception. Companies have sold record numbers during recessions, without the opportunities of new technology, during times when agents weren’t even licensed. Time and time again, when we look at highly productive companies, we see the same formula at work. Hard working sales professionals who are led – daily, consistently, directly – by a manager who is on the front lines, in the middle of the action. Leadership cannot be done from the back office.
If you want to change everything at your company this year, lock the corner office door. And throw away the key!
While the real estate industry struggles (and hustles) to catch up with consumers on social networking, a common concern has appeared amongst real estate agents. Faced with the prospect of being connected to their sphere of influence on a daily basis, “What should I say?” is the most common question asked by agents and brokers. Offering valuable content to prospects daily will mean more than repeatedly posting about overpriced listings. Here are a few suggestions to help.
On Screen – a periodic “launch” of news, commentary, resources, bloggers and other information you can use to get your week started – from Matthew Ferrara & Company.
On Screen: Real Estate Industry news launch for February 9, 2010:
- The Wall Street Journal reports that Fannie and Freddie have already consumed more than $111 billion in taxpayer dollars. And they are likely to need more.
- A real estate bubble in Canada looks like it’s already inflated and expanding. Some markets are experiencing surges of 20% month-over-month, and it shows no signs of stopping.
- NAR Economist Lawrence Yun finally acknowledges that the tax credits are causing housing data to skew wildly every month in the latest release of pending sales figures from the National Association of REALTORS.
On Screen: Expert Advice from Industry Leaders:
- Steve Harney reminds REALTORS that the housing “recovery” is shaky in “Built on Jenga Blocks.”
- Stephen Fells offers ideas on how REALTORS can keep an eye on what the social sphere is saying about their business in “Why Every REALTOR Should Use Google Alerts.”
- Ron Hahn offers thoughts on how branding differentiation works in the real estate industry in “Interesting Branding Insights: Real Estate Companies Pay Attention!”
On Screen: Technology Trends (with Comments)
- Cisco says there will be more than 5 billion personal devices connected to wireless mobile networks. (Important trend considering under 50% of REALTORS reported using a smartphone last year).
- Comscore research shows that more than 178 million US citizens watched more than 33.2 billion videos in December 2009. (Amazing considering so few property listings have videos on them.)
- Nielsen research says that use of social networking online soared more than 82% last year over the year before. (Yet less than 35% of REALTORS had a social networking presence in 2009)
On Screen: Smart Ideas to Sell More
- Entrepreneurs should beware “vanity metrics” when measuring true performance, says the Harvard Business Review.
- Timeless ideas on innovation from Peter Drucker at Human Resources IQ’s website.
On Screen: But Wish it Were Not!
Here’s the MLS photo of the week from “Really Bad MLS Photos” group on Facebook:
Readers of this column long know of our contrarian opinion of most traditional real estate practices. None more frequently irks us than the idea that all problems in real estate can be solved by increasing the body count, er, recruiting. Even amidst the worst downturn in housing markets in two decades, brokers who hate recruiting still can’t stop doing it. Perhaps because as awful as it is, recruiting is still easier than focusing on productivity.
Ready to make big improvements in your business in 2010? Most of us make a list of things we currently aren’t doing – and probably still won’t in the New Year. So rather than work against ourselves – a formula for failure and disappointment – why not resolve to keep doing what you are already doing. Perhaps just a little differently!
At Matthew Ferrara & Company, we don’t believe in the “overcoming weaknesses” method of business planning. Rather, we think everyone should focus on their strengths and find ways to maximize the use of them every day. If your resolutions involve working on things you don’t like to do, don’t have a propensity for, and mostly do poorly, you’re heading for underachievement, frustration and disaster. On the other hand, if there are some things you’re already doing that leverages your natural talents, you enjoy doing already and would be more inclined to do more of or better, those should be the focus of your strategy for the next twelve months of business.
Focusing on your strengths lets each of us create business resolutions that best suit us – and therefore have the greatest chance of success. Rather than adopt someone else’s “must do” lists that we’ll never even try, we’ll be more successful if we take our “already doing” list and fine-tune it. Here are ten ways to do just that.
1. Know your strengths: The first thing you need to do is identify what you already have some talent for doing. Very few of us have talent for everything in business. So we need to figure out where our talents lie and organize our strategy around them. So sit down and make a list of what you are already doing that you do fairly well every time. Every other resolution you’ll make must focus on taking those talents and turning up the “volume” on their effectiveness.
2. Accept your strengths: If you list the things you have talents for, you’ll also bring to mind everything you’re not so good at doing. Make a side list of those things. Review the list and label each one “QP” or “NC” – Quick Possibility of mastering and improving or No Chance of being really good at soon. There are some things you might be able to improve – if they already relate to your existing strengths. Maybe you’re a strong prospector, but you are fairly week at generating new contacts. That is probably a QP with a little technology and technique. On the other hand, if you are really bad at paperwork and numbers, then list if NC and put it aside. You will deal with it – but not personally – later.
3. Outsource everything that’s a NC or clear waste of time. Look at your No Chance list from #2 above. Decide whether you can simply stop doing it (and nobody will notice) or if it’s a vital activity required for your success. If it’s vital, determine how you will outsource it. Remember, you’re already not doing it – or not doing it so well you should stop doing it harmfully – so someone else is going to have to do it for you. Find an office staff, another agent or third party business who can do it for you – at peak quality and performance – and resolve to stop wasting time trying to fix things you’re never ever going to actually do well.
4. Set goals, not to-do lists for your business. Rather than make a list of lots of things you’ll buy, try or do, focus your mind on the most important outcomes you wish to achieve in your business this year. Stress and chaos are created by task-oriented planning. You can easily create a list of things you can never get done in the time you have each day. If you want to succeed differently this year, stop worrying about tasks and keep your mind on the goals. Whether it’s financial, professional or personal, three clear and measurable goals which you review and keep in mind every day will more effectively guide you to what needs to get done than a “master list” of intimidating to-do’s and tasks.
5. Organize your time. Most business professionals make the mistake of trying to organize their tasks, rather than their time. They erroneously think the goal is to find the magic combination of scheduling tricks to get the most things done in the least amount of time. That works if you’re a machine on an assembly line. However, most real estate sales is knowledge work, and your brain cannot work “on command” in an unbroken stream of activities. Deal with your time differently this year, by organizing it into periods of most useful outcomes. Determine what is most useful to your business – prospecting, training, presentation skills, negotiating – and then organize your time around getting those things done consistently. Look at the week and ask yourself how to best use the time you have to work towards your goals. Then schedule the right amounts of time to using your best talents to achieve those goals. Eliminate, delegate or forget about everything else.
6. Get effective before you get efficient. We sometimes mistake efficiency for effectiveness. This often leads us to mis-use our talents and time, and especially technology. For example, using technology to organize our databases and create labels for mass mailings may be highly “efficient” compared to the days when we tried to remember everyone’s name and send handwritten notes. However, it could be massively ineffective if the consumer’s preference for contact is email or social media. When you look at turning up the volume on your talents, don’t just take for granted that improvements come from simple efficiencies. You could outsource your prospecting calls to a call center, who could call 1,000 people a week for you; but that might not be nearly as effective as making friends with your past ten clients on Facebook, and writing a personal note on their Wall each week. Both are prospecting. One is efficient by volume. The other is effective by goal.
7. Fire things. Just like you clean out the drawers of your desk at the end of the year, simply throwing away paper and items you packed away rather than dealt with all last year, start your new year by firing everything that no longer works toward your goals. For managers, this might be non-productive salespeople, unattended office meetings, or handing out leads to agents who just throw them away. For agents, this might mean unreasonable sellers who refuse to market-price the home, buyers who won’t work under contract and other agents who refuse to pull their own weight in a deal. Your problem solving must be different this year. If avoid-and-forget didn’t work for you last year, fire-fast-now might be the different approach you need.
8. Stop copying others. Too many of us think that if we just copy someone else’s activities, we’ll reach the same success they have achieved. This is a bad strategy for two reasons: We only see the outward side of others’ success, without the back-story of challenges they handle, but some of which might sink us. We are simply not the same people; problems they can handle with their talents could overcome us if we have different strengths. Secondly, copying others activities means implicitly accepting their goals. Our goals should direct our own activities; There are many paths to success, and it’s important for each of us to follow their own. Some agents achieve high sales performance with lots of technology; others are masters of the telephone and handshake. Both can achieve measurable successful outcomes – based upon different strengths. But adopting the techo-approach for a techno-phobe could be the wrong strategy, and vice-versa.
9. Listen to customers. Lots of consultants, planners, leaders and technologists in the industry claim special access to the future. They have systems, tools, programs you can purchase to get there. Some work; some don’t. But what always works – every year, boom or bust – is talking to customers. They will tell you exactly what they want, how they want it and how they would like to pay for it. And since they pay the bills – not create them, like everyone else – they should be your most important source of information. Then you can go back to the others and ask how their products and services jibe with what consumers are saying, and incorporate the best of these into your optimal use of time and talents.
10. Get to work. While this sounds obvious, it is most certainly not. Most people go to the office but never go to work. They hang out, chat, catch up, eat lunch, run errands, do paperwork, upload a file, check their email, and lots of other activities. But they never actually get to work. If your job is to make sales, then going to work only happens when you make sales. At the very least, you’re only working when you’re doing activities that directly correspond to the next sale you will make. The sales will not make themselves. Others – your fellow agents, your broker, the government – will not make the sales for you. If you want to really do something differently in the next twelve months, then go to work and get to work for every minute you’re there.
So there’s a quick list of ten things to do differently in 2010. Note that none of them are silver bullets, get-rich-quick schemes. There’s not a single specific techno-gadget or snappy-comeback to use for or against consumers. The list requires each of us to assess, evaluate, plan, organize, delegate, focus and do that which is necessary to reach our goals in 2010. To create your next year of success, wishing for a thing is not enough to make it so. It’s time to do the right things – and differently – to make next year your best in the business.
During the holidays, most of us are taking some time to slow down, enjoy the season, and recharge the batteries. It’s been a tough year – and next year will likely prove just as tough. But while it’s important to enjoy the festivities and good cheer, don’t forget that January 2 will likely be the most important day of the next twelve months. For REALTORS especially.
According to research by the National Association of REALTORS, buyers habits are changing when it comes to real estate. The report, recently released by NAR, asked more than 100,000 consumers to rank the usefulness of information sources to their efforts to learn more about the marketplace. The good news was that for the first time in years, the real estate agent edged-out the internet for top-spot as “very useful” (81% vs 77%). The bad news is that, by a factor of 4, most buyers think open houses suck.
Recently while teaching a social media strategies workshop, one of the brokers approached me during a break. In essence, while he admitted to being dragged into the social media world reluctantly, he was just about furious with my suggestion that agents play games online. It’s bad enough they are wasting time in these social networks, was his point. To suggest they should spend time farming, killing vampires and running a mob gang was simply stupid. How are REALTORS supposed to make sales while they are playing games online. Let just see, shall we?
Riddle me this: How is it that the industries that charge the least for their products and services seem to have more more advanced technology than those that charge the most? Some time ago, we wrote that REALTORS might want to take a look at how gas stations were using technology to market ancillary products to their customers. Now a year later, my local real estate brokerages still don’t offer any interactive technology to their visitors in the waiting area, but my local veterinarian and shoe store does.
The real estate industry is ripe for a serious game changer. By that, I don’t mean some company that comes along fiddling with commissions or cutesy technology marketing. I’m talking something that causes customers to stand up and say, Wow! I’m definitely working with that company. We’ve talked about this before in our blog, but the timing is better than ever. In fact, I’m thinking of making an appointment with Richard Branson, in the hopes that he’ll take up my suggestion and do for real estate what he’s done for the airline industry. It’s time for him to open Virgin Real Estate.
According to the Wall Street Journal real estate blog, a “W” or “U” shaped recovery is shaping up to be the most likely curve for the real estate industry, if not the economy as a whole. According to one property mortgage insurance group, there’s still another 12% drop to go in most markets. And even though some economists think prices will remain flat as inventory stabilizes – and we all know that’s also to be tempered with regional biases, since some housing markets have remained reasonably healthy – the chance for another full year of slow or flat growth will pose serious challenges for real estate agents and brokers who have barely hung on this year.
It has often been said that sales is a contact sport. If so, then every opportunity to work closely with consumers is a sales moment. Real estate sales professionals know that it’s all about relationships. So it’s important to never let a good sales moment go to waste. If you’re serious about a sales career, then selling means more than just showing up. And one place to start selling more is at the Open House. Read more…
