Real Estate NewsWe Want More Contemporary and Younger Speakers!
Yes, I was absolutely devastated! After thirty years in this industry and after training some of the top agents in the country, we actually had one of our prospective clients say to my event coordinator that they were looking for younger and more contemporary speakers. In a life of real estate, it has always been my goal to overcome objections, but how do you overcome this one? You can"t get younger, no matter how hard you try! What if you already think you"re contemporary? I had to do some thinking on how to turn this negative into a positive. Here is what I came up with.
Young and contemporary speakers don"t know tough markets. These young and contemporary speakers ("YNC speakers") have grown up in the order-taker environment, where if the listing was priced anywhere near its target price it easily sold. When you had a buyer who was presented with an ever-decreasing inventory of real estate at higher prices, they became panicked to buy. There was much less skill required in real estate during the years of 2002 – 2007.
The YNC speakers don"t have business plans that are universally accepted in all market types. For instance, YNC speakers are always talking about getting more leads through internet prowess by going after buyers. They don"t realize that top agents really want to build inventory. The least expensive and most effective method for finding buyers is to have more inventory. Why produce services on individual agent"s website that will hopefully cajole a buyer"s, when a listing is already listed on over eighteen different websites. Buyers could actually find the listing agent through those other websites.
Individual, personal websites for real estate agents should pertain to the needs of the seller by giving them a free 24-hour phone value analysis or letting them know the current services that their current demographic might require. Demographics included might be for sale by owners, mature owners in large homes, or out-of-state owners. Each of these demographics requires long lists of services to get the sellers to interact.
YNC speakers usually do not have the big picture plan to survive so they are consistently trying to devise technological or niche solutions that doesn"t develop a tough market business plan. YNC speakers need to know how to make money in real estate before they can design technological or niche solutions to them. For the past twenty-five years, I have been using technology to make the greatest business systems faster and cheaper. I understand what works. The next time you hear the Feng Shui method to stage homes, ask yourself, "Did this person ever make a ton of money for himself/herself and his/her clients?"
YNC speakers are filled with all kinds of "feel-good" stuff. Not that it"s wrong, but today, top agents want to know hard-and-fast rules, system objectives, and business plans to implement tomorrow, creating an increase in activity. There are few real estate problems that can"t be cured with five more listings. If you talk with some of these new speakers who have not interpreted this market correctly, you will find that they are wasting their time on less profitable activities, which brings me to my next point….
I am a "low-hanging fruit" type of real estate trainer. There is only so much time in the day. My clients focus their efforts on activities that produce the most amount of money in the least amount of time while leaving behind the happiest clients. It is a truism that just about anything in this business pursued greatly will actually end up working. Why don"t we save a lot of time and only work on the things that make the most amount of money in the least amount of time?
YNC speakers don"t really understand the amount of steps necessary to increase an agent"s income. These steps are the following:
Getting the opportunity for more "at bats" with a seller
Making a more effective listing presentation that takes less time at a higher commission rate with a longer listing period
Understanding that buyers are the least profitable aspect of any real estate activity
Implementing systems allowing you to be "choosier" with your buyers
Asking affiliates to become unpaid members of your team in return for loyalty
Implementing a daily time-blocked business system that can be repeated over and over again once
Getting back on the phone and stop depending on technology to maintain relationships with clients, who would do business with you again if you could only call them a couple times a year
Taking some of the net profit that this business plan produces and start buying the only thing that you really have time to learn well enough -- real estate investing
My Dad said you only have time to learn one investment vehicle really well. For real estate agents, that investment vehicle is investing in real estate. Yes, I know you still need a net profit to produce a down payment to buy an investment piece of real estate. YNC speakers are still talking about flipping – buying low and selling high. While old, experienced "curmudgeons" (like me!) talk about building positive cash flow and having the tenants pay off the underlying loan. You can pay off a 15-year fully-amortized loan in 7-9 years by applying the positive cash flow to the underlying loan. It seems to me that YNC speakers could retire earlier if they followed this plan.
Lastly, the YNC speakers just don"t get the leveraged aspect of real estate. Sellers are your least expensive and most effective way of getting buyers. When you work with buyers correctly by giving them great ways to find "off market" properties and showing them inventory levels that are not available to them (unless they use an agent trained by me), then the buyers are not getting what they deserve. Agents who implement my systems show buyers additional levels of inventory such as old expireds, for sale by owners, past clients in their database, leads produced by direct mail to the target area of destination for the buyer, advertising the buyer"s needs both on their sites and in print advertising, and advertising in other methods to generate unique inventory for a buyer. This unique inventory will excite the buyer, allowing them to become much more willing to sign a loyalty agreement.
The magic of this activity is that while you"re showing buyers unique inventory, you are also generating additional listing leads. The leverage of buyers produces listing leads. The last piece of leverage is that buyers and sellers are paying agents trained on my systems to consistently look at the inventory. This is same inventory that top agent using great systems will have enough money to buy.
Be careful about contemporary and young speakers and trainers. They just don"t have the deep resources of knowledge to apply great business systems to today"s current technology.