Jan. 16, 2007 - The Gurus
Every single day of my life I am blitzed by the gurus. They are the guys who are out there trying to tell me that they have the keys to the kingdom of real estate nirvana. For a nominal fee they will share the secrets of real estate bliss with me. They will make me a better agent than the next guy, I will gain business beyond my wildest dreams, my listings will fly off the MLS, my marketing efforts will be so fruitful that I will know unimaginable riches, my web sites will become client magnets. All this for a nominal fee.
I get a couple hundred e-mails a week from these guys. Mostly they never get to my inbox any more. They go to a folder called Guru Spam if my spam filter doesn't catch them first. I go in and look them over every now and then. Some of them can be rather entertaining. If they happen to be having a free seminar on a day when I have nothing else to do I might just even go, especially if they are offering a free lunch or something. Some of what they will reveal in their free seminars is usable, but I rarely hear anything new any more. If you want to know what you don't know, you have to pay, pay, pay.
I guess if I took all of the gurus seriously I could spend about $40,000 to $50,000 a year or more trying to find out what they know that I don't. If I did that then I would have to try and make it up by shaking the last coins out my clients pockets. I would only get to work with the most gullible clients out there. My pre-guru track record of success would be rendered meaningless. I would have to charge an extra 1 or 2 percentage points more in commission so I could pay the gurus.
I have often wondered why the gurus are in the guru business instead of the real estate business. I mean, if they hold the secrets to success beyond imagination, why aren't they making their money serving the needs of all the real estate clients in the world? Why aren't they cutting out all the competition like they are offering to teach me to do? Could it be that they can't operate within the realm? Could it be that convincing real estate agents that they are lacking in some skill or another is an easier sell then giving a listing presentation? I believe so.
I do have formal training in the things that count, and my track record speaks for itself. Anyway, everything I need to know about foiling the competition I learned from the comedian Chevy Chase. "I'm Gene Molloy and your not".
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