Diligent Salespeople

Many people in real estate sales think being called a salesperson is like being called an axe murderer. Being a salesperson is an honorable profession. It is a highly skilled and professional vocation. A professional salesperson is a critical cog in any company’s success. Just ask IBM a few years ago, when they were heavy on engineers and light on sales professionals. Because of the lack of sales, IBM stock went on a free fall until their sales increased.

Many REALTORS® misinterpret what a salesperson’s function is for the client. My first thought is to remember that selling or being a salesperson is legal. As REALTORS®, we are not selling crack on the street corner. We are helping to provide one of man’s basic needs and desires…home ownership. Selling is also the highest paid profession in the world. There are more millionaires in sales than in any other profession. We should be excited that we have selected a profession that provides an unlimited income while still providing a valuable service.

The art of being highly successful in sales can be summed up in five words: Believing something and convincing others. That’s it! That’s what makes a salesperson successful. You must have unshakeable belief in what you are selling.

• Unshakeable belief in homeownership for your clients.
• Unshakeable belief in your strategic partners: your mortgage originator, attorney, title or escrow company.
• Unshakeable belief in the company you work for and your broker.

If any of these begins to waiver, or if you are lacking in any of these areas, you will find resistance from your clients and prospects. The ultimate edge over your competition is the firm belief that you are the best Agent they can hire to get the job done. When you possess that belief down to your soul…you will be unstoppable.

The first step to being a Champion Agent is self-mastery. You have to master yourself before you can lead others. People will be hesitant to follow you if you are not in control. The largest part of self-mastery is time mastery – being able to get paid well for the time you invest in others and yourself. Time mastery is learning to increase your hourly wage by narrowing your focus to only the activities that pay extremely well. There are only about half a dozen activities that will pay you extremely well in real estate. They are prospecting, lead follow-up, listing appointments, showing property, and writing and negotiating contracts. These are what we call high payoff activities.

How much time is spent daily on the above high payoff activities? After coaching hundreds of successful Agents, we have discovered that they generally spent less than 2 hours a day on these activities. These are the activities that can pay you $200, $300, $400 or more per hour. Why not master yourself and your time, so you can do more high pay off activities during the day. Without time mastery, you will never earn the income you desire.

The second step is that you study and know human nature. You have to genuinely like people and have the desire to serve. Understanding and studying people is a lost art in sales. By studying their motivation and behavioral styles, you will be able to give them the guidance they need to move forward to make the correct decision. The Agent who doesn’t encourage the client to move forward when the right house comes up does his/her client a disservice. In most cases, the client doesn’t get the house, and then compares every house to the phantom house they didn’t get because they moved too slowly. This situation is magnified when we are in a competitive selling market, where we are seeing multiple offers on properties. In these types of markets, Agents often have to earn their commission over and over again. You won’t be able to help your clients move forward to the right decisions if you don’t have sales skills. Professional sales people handle the objections that their clients raise efficiently and effectively. After the objections are settled, ask for the opportunity to serve the clients.

The third step is to have the mental strength to persevere. Professional sales people need to be able to take the punch and keep coming. Too often, we look for the easy road. The truth is the easy road never leads to success. If that were the case, the road to success would be well traveled and well worn, but the road to success is hardly traveled. The true road to success is a toll road. The toll is persistence and patience. Most are not willing to pay the toll. They would rather buy the ‘rejection-free’, ‘prospect-free’ system from some guy who has never been in the trenches but claims to have it all figured out. Success is never easy, but it is worth the price.

Achieving success is not a 100-yard dash. It’s a marathon race. To win the race, you need legs, but the most important thing to winning the marathon race is not legs or lung capacity – it’s heart. You have to have heart to be a success.

Successful people know the importance of perseverance and salesmanship. Thomas Buxton said, “With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.” Thomas Edison said, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Edison was asked what the secret of success was, and he replied, “Don’t look at your watch.” What he was saying was to keep going. Don’t quit and become impatient and stop moving forward…keep going. Edison would often get so absorbed into his experiments that he would forget to eat or sleep. How could he not succeed with that level of commitment? The key to greatness is believing something and convincing others. I watched how successful these five words were first hand. My father was a great salesperson in what many people believe is a non-sales profession. He was a dentist for over 30 years. He applied the rules I shared with you extremely well. He believed in doing the job right the first time with excellence. This belief often caused him to ‘sell’ people on putting in gold crowns instead of just putting in an amalgam filling in the heavily decayed tooth. There was a substantial cost difference, but he believed the job should be done right, and he was the man for the job. A gold crown was eight to ten times the cost of a filling. This difference raised his hourly rate and provided the highest level of long-term quality care for his patient. He believed in something and convinced others…being a salesperson is honorable, whether you are in real estate, life insurance, or even dentistry. Earl Nightingale said, “We are all successful in life based on our ability to sell.” I believe and am convinced that is true.