OK, so this may only happen in high priced markets.  Wanna earn a $46,000 commission?  Do you refer clients to Agents who move to other cities?  Do you look for opportunities to refer friends and clients who live in other cities to look to you to refer the best possible Agent? 

There are so many bad business planning models for Agents being promoted it actually makes me sad.  One of my clients spent an hour on a tele-seminar going through an elaborate planning exercise.  She faxed me the nine pages of work.  By pure bulk, that’s impressive.  Unfortunately there is equal bunk.  The resulting conclusion was that she needs to prospect 25 hours a week to reach her goal.  That’s ridiculous.  The assumptions and conclusions of the plan are juvenile.  What is 25 hours of prospecting anyway?  Is it 25 hours of cold calls?  Well if that generated five appointments that lead to sales each week, wouldn’t it be a lot smarter to make those appointments a lot more efficiently than spending 25 hours beating yourself and other people up on the phone?  Is that 25 hours made of Expireds and FSBO?  Sorry, in most markets you’d run out of Expireds and for sale by owners after just a few weeks.

Another one of my clients took another of these amateur business planning sessions and concluded that he would need 118 listing appointments to reach his goal.  This is an Agent in his third year in business.  He is in an average $400,000 priced market.  Just 14 sales to buyers and sellers will accomplish his goal.  The plan suggests that he is going to make all of his sales with listings sold, none with buyers, and he is only going to have 20% of his listings sell.  Both of these ideas are unrealistic, even foolish.  Most Agents have about a 50/50 split between listings sold and sales.  That makes sense for any Agent’s business.  And any decent Agent will have 70% of his or her listings sell, maybe as low as 50% in a softer market.  This Agent doesn’t need 118 listing appointments.  He needs 20 to 24, even if he has mediocre listing skills he’ll only need 30 to 36.  And if the latter is true by the time we’re done working with him he’ll only need the smaller number because we’ll identify the listing weakness and improve those skills. 

It’s not sad so much as angry, that there are these people selling coaching, training, systems, and products that are so far off the mark that Agents must be confused, discouraged or both. 

I’ve made the following challenge a hundred times and I’ll make it again.  Examine our work, listen to our tele-seminars, go through our business analysis and tell me where you find a flaw.  You probably won’t and if you do discover something we could be doing better I promise you we will quickly improve our work to incorporate it. 

Choose your mentors carefully.  Trust your judgment.  If you are being told something that doesn’t ring true for you or doesn’t make sense.  Seek confirmation.  Call or e-mail us.  One of my coaches or I will share our views and you can decide the best decision. 

We are committed to Agent’s success and through that success raising the standard of service to the public which results in improving the professionalism of Real Estate Sales and raises the perception the public has of us.  Choose the high road in your career, in the people you learn from as well as the choices you make. 

Rich Levin

Here’s a moral dilemma.  You have had a listing for sixteen months.  You have spent over $3,000 advertising and promoting the property.  The price is down to say $280,000.  An offer comes in for $390,000.  The buyer uses an out of town lender and the appraisal comes in at the sale price.  You believe that there is something fraudulent occurring. 

What do you do? 

My client and I discussed this for quite a while.  After looking at all the options the client decided to have the seller withdraw the listing and my client, the Agent took no commission on this.  She decided that her peace of mind was more important than the money. 

She called me about a half hour after I spoke to her.  She walked into her Broker’s office to tell him of her decision.  Literally, as she got back to her office her phone rang.  The client’s daughter was on the phone saying that she and her husband were moving back to town.  Her parent’s told her that she couldn’t use any other Agent but her.  They are buying approximately a $300,000 home. 

Maybe you believe in karma and signs from mystical sources or maybe you don’t.  I was really glad that this “sign” or coincidence happened to “prove” that she did the right thing. 

By the way, she did check with attorneys to discover whether she should or even had a legal or ethical obligation to report her suspicions to higher authorities and was advised that she clearly should not. 

Rich Levin
http://www.richlevin.com/ 

Have you ever heard of debt addiction?  I think I made up the concept when I started coaching an Agent who was below broke (in debt) earning around $50,000 a year.  After our first year of coaching she was earning over $100,000.  She told me that she might have to stop coaching.  Why?  Because she was so far in debt, I never anticipated that a person would increase their debt faster than their income. 

Then again, it is not foreign to me.  Back in the 1983 I bought a Real Estate company.  By 1986 we were number one in our market with lots of productive Agents, a great staff, very successful by every measure; every measure except profitability. 

By the time I realized that we were in financial trouble (1989) we were nearly $100,000 in debt and our expenses exceeded our monthly income by over $5,000.  So, by the time we could reduce overhead by enough to start paying off the debt we owed nearly $125,000. 

Oh, I have a sign that you are debt addicted, two actually.  One happened to me, that is when you are already in credit card debt and you get another card in the mail.  You look for the line of credit you are being given, let’s say $5,000 and you feel like someone has just given you a $5,000 gift.  If you feel that way you are what I call debt addicted.

The other sign is one that the above client shared with me.  She said she would already have more Real Estate tools than she used and she still bought more.  Here’s the key.  She didn’t tell me as her coach that she was doing that.  And, she fought with her husband about the purchases, making the purchase every time. 

I don’t know if there is really something called debt addiction.  A psychologist friend of mine and I discussed it and the behavior and belief system has all the signs of clinical addictions.  I just know if you think this is happening to you, please start to measure your debt and manage your money.  Seek professional help from credit counselors to psychologists or anyone else you think might help.  You deserve to enjoy the freedom and opportunity provided by a successful Real Estate career.

Rich Levin
http://www.richlevin.com/

Buyer Specialists are a great option for Agents.  I received a call from a fan who has been working for a builder for the past ten years.  The builder has had her working three weekends a month, Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5 PM.  Her significant other has a Monday to Friday 8 am to 6 PM.  She wants more of her life back.

She earns about fifty thousand dollars a year.  She has good sales skills, although she has not had to prospect very aggressively.  If she were to transition to being a full service Agent she will have to generate from scratch. 

So, I recommended that she interview with one of the top Agents in her city to be one of their Buyer Specialists.  It’s ideal for her and for them.  She gets a nice flow of leads which she is completely capable of converting to sales in addition to her marketing to her Sphere of Influence and past clients.  Holding opens on homes she knows will get traffic on Sundays from 2 to 4 PM as she needs is a breeze compared to the desolate opens she experienced with the builder. 

Recently a client of mine was dealing with a sticky situation; she just sent me this follow-up email that I wanted to share with you.

“Persistence pays.  We got the house for their original offer price and with the seller paying my commission!  I even got a "good job" and 2 handshakes from the seller!”

Rich Levin

Rich Levin’s Success Corps inc

You have to believe in yourself, too.  If you look at our Hierarchy of Success you will note that Self Confidence and Self Esteem are the foundation for your entire business and life.  Now I have clients who are extremely successful and although they portray an immense amount of self confidence, some of their behavior clearly indicates some levels of insecurity.  This combination is rare.  Usually low self esteem leads to low productivity.

In the past week I was reminded of this with two clients who are struggling.  I picked up from their language that they had lost confidence in themselves.  So, I told them the two basic affirmations that we teach as foundational to your confidence.  They are:

“I like myself unconditionally.”

“I completely trust my own judgment.”

A quick note, repeat these last thing at night and first thing in the morning.  Repeat each until you can say it clearly without any “buts”.  In other words, no I like myself but I wish I were making more money.  Or, I trust my own judgment even if I am not doing as much business.  Keep repeating each affirmation until you can say it and there is no additional thought.  It is just “I like myself unconditionally.”  “I completely trust my own judgment.”

You will find that increased confidence seeps into every aspect of your life. 

Rich Levin

Rich Levin’s Success Corps inc

Damn I hate situations that are just tough.  Check out this e-mail from a client of mine in the mid west.

Dear Rich,

Do you have any suggestions? I have been working with a family that has two handicapped children.  They put in an offer on a FSBO with me. 

The house is vacant.  The seller renovated it and put about 190,000 in... it still needs work. 

The house is listed for 599,000.  We made an offer of 600,000 and closing in March.  He had agreed previously to pay a 2.5% commission.

He claims to have another buyer although it doesn't sound like they have come back with a better offer.  He countered our offer at 611,000 with a closing date of Early February and changed some other minor things. 

We have come back with an offer of 600,000 but now he says his net is too low if he sells at 600,000.  So we have given him until 1 pm tomorrow and I spoke to him today after I had faxed the offer to him two days ago and he said he hadn't looked at it yet! 

I know he is playing games but I really don't want the buyers to lose the house because of my commission.  

BTW, I sold him his current house.  It was negotiation that almost killed me that time. These buyers are ready to walk away if he doesn't agree and he is so full of himself and his negotiating skills that he probably will walk away too, even without another buyer.

This is a very strong client of mine and a very strong Agent who sells over a hundred homes a year.  I am sure she will put it together.  I share it with you so you can see that even the strongest Agents have tough deals every year, deals that test their skills, test their patience, test their tempers, and more.  You certainly understand. 

Please know that you have the admiration and respect of this coach who is humbled by your commitment and your efforts to this career that provides you with more opportunity for success and more freedom than any career on earth. 

 Rich Levin

Just back from a four city tour, it seems obvious that there is a lot of need out there for good coaching and intelligence on all the topics around assistants, buyer specialists and teams. 

There are a lot of Agents in the country who are doing really well, selling forty and fifty or more homes.  On this tour in every city Agents came up to me and said some version of this.  “Rich I am making good money.  I am selling fifty homes a year.   But I see Jim over there and Don and Sally and they are selling a hundred homes or more every year.  I am generating leads like crazy.  I have web marketing handled.  I have a twelve lot subdivision I just listed last night.  I know that with the right help I could be doing more than a hundred deals a year.  I feel like the sky’s the limit if I could build the right team.”

The conversation usually goes on something like this.

“Rich, I have had two assistants and they just don’t work out.  I have had people working with my buyers and they just waste most of the leads I give them.”

I would like to tell you in a few paragraphs within this Blog how to design the right job description for your best administrative person, then tell you how to find them and hire them, then how to compensate, motivate and supervise them.  I’d like to tell you in a few paragraphs how to structure a winning relationship with a buyer specialist.  As you might have already imagined and guessed, it is not that simple.

When I help someone build a successful team it takes understanding their business.  Creating a job description that compliments the Agent’s strengths and weaknesses.  Then we have to advertise and locate that assistant.  We work with you on reviewing resume’s and conducting phone interviews.  We do DISC behavior assessments on the final candidates before you do personal interviews.  We help you structure checklists and teach you how to conduct regular accountability meetings to monitor progress and ensure success.

That all has do be done in coaching.  Although, I am working on putting it all into a CD product, that will be available after the first of the year.  If you are registered for the Success Club at RichLevin.com you will get information when it is available. 

For now I just wanted to share with you either that what you are experiencing is being experienced by lots of others around the country.  Or, what you can look forward to as your business builds.  Or best of all, congratulations on solving these tough issues without our help. 

 Rich Levin