Here's a quick and accurate way to find out just how good you are.

Written by John McTavish – Specialist Real Estate Business Coach

Here’s a quick test to diagnose the problem.  Take your yearly rent and multiply it by 20. Now compare that figure to your gross income. If the income is greater you have an expense problem. If the income is less then you have a production problem.  Now this might not be a perfect analysis 100% of the time and its always wise to get an outside expert in to help if you’re losing money but you would be amazed how accurate this rule of thumb is.  And while we are on the subject of profitability did you know that the majority of real estate business owners who concentrate on controlling costs go out of business WHY? – because what we focus on is what gets our time and energy and so by focusing on NOT spending money the business spirals down and down until there is nothing left.  Smart owners focus their attention on their team and making sure the attitude in the organisation is positive and happy.

A good business coach can show you how to make this happen while putting into place procedures which automatically restrict expenditure to predetermined levels. Take the temperature of your business right now.  Is it a happy place to be – are your people smiling all the time and giving generously to all around them.  If not then maybe you need to take a quick look in the mirror. Without exception every problem I have seen in the hundreds of offices I have worked comes down to leadership.  

 When you catch on fire with enthusiasm,

 people will come from miles around to watch you burn

Fire Planet Image Copyright Zak Thorpe 2009

People do not have a natural mind set to look for opportunities to refer our ‘service providers’ to colleagues, friends or family. The focus is often on what am I getting not what I can share.

By referring a service provider to someone within your sphere of influence you are achieving three key things.

•    You are giving your friend or colleague a chance to use a service or product they may not have been aware of if you had not brought it to their attention – a gift to them!

•    You are supporting someone who is currently doing business with you (your service provider) and feeding them additional business.

•    And you are fostering a reciprocal arrangement which will start to lead to mutual referrals between two parties that already understand each others businesses. A chance for you to get some business back!

Referrals work in such a simple way but it requires that you first train everyone around you to refer, remember it is not a natural state for them to think this way. This can be done in a couple ways, by referring to them first and by association they will start to see the rewards from this practice. Give and you shall receive!

And secondly by constantly asking all those around you if they know anyone who is thinking of ‘needing your service’ in the near future? A key point here is you are not hounding the person you know to do business with you, you are asking them to refer you to anyone they know who is thinking of needing you in the near future.

Once you get a referral it is very powerful, the new client comes to you with ‘advocacy’ the blessing of your mutual contact, and in many instances will not even bother to get your competition in the door for a comparison. The business is yours!

We have a natural filter in place that stops us seeing this ‘potential business’ which is right in front of us every day.
So we need to first train ourselves, then all around us, to open up this filter and to start looking for potential clients through the people we already know and are already doing business with.

To ensure that you start thinking this way, the first step is to make it a new personal minimum standard to simply ask every person you are in contact with if they know anyone who could use your service in the near future. That’s everyone, even the person at the grocery store checkout, or your lawyer, or your mother! Leave no one out of the equation. Everyday we walk over ‘Fields of Diamonds’ and don’t see these opportunities because we are so busy working to create business, when if we just asked…….?

Have a look at this www.coachedeggs.com

I vouch for it 100%

Now is the ‘Time to Strike’

Now is the time to strike while all those around you may be giving up – as your competitors spend precious Dollar Productive time preaching the sky is falling and the market is tough? They are so busy destroying their own reality while becoming convinced it’s just all too hard at the moment. They just can’t see the massive opportunity we are all given right here, right now! So now is the time to take real advantage of your competitor’s inattention to the huge amount of opportunities that are right there for the taking. The beauty of the current climate is that it filters out the real performers from the people that just cruise through the day soaking up their ‘natural market share’ without really doing the business. When the going gets tough these people just go – right out the back door. Yes, we will see lots of casualties in the next few months but for the serious people out there that’s not a bad thing. Even if the pie is shrinking, it just gives the rest of us the chance to grab a great big slice of a slightly smaller pie. That in its self can be a big piece of action.

What’s the strategy?

Right now, more than in any moment in time, there is a need to strike a decisive blow to gain a big slice of market share off your competition. As a winner of that new found market share you will be strengthening up your foundations and scaffolding for even greater momentum when the market returns to ‘normal’. Gaining critical mass now will pay huge dividends in the future. Now is not the time to falter but to surge ahead and dominate the business segment you are in. In tough times clients will gravitate to positive, enthusiastic people who can provide answers and solve problems. If you supply a product or service you need to become the ‘paramedic’ salesman- it’s time to stop selling pretty products and start selling ugly situations. Speaking the truth to your clients about the realities of their situation is a hard task, but your clients expect it and they will certainly respect it.  And if you have the positive solution to cure the illness – you will start to be the one to make all the house calls.

It’s time to Zig when everyone else Zags

Don’t follow the herd; in most markets the minority of the business people do the majority of business, so why follow the pack? The greatest profit is made when you supply something, or do something, or solve something no one else can. Being unique is a powerful position not a weakness. And courage is needed to take the other road. Charles Darwin said ‘It’s not the most intelligent nor the strongest that survives, but the most adaptive to change’.  What worked before might not now, the system we used before might now be redundant, the advice we received could be a generation out of context. Review your information and make a firm decision about what, where and from whom you will now source your advice.

The Secret Weapon

I was asked the other day how my coaching clients were fairing up in the current client. Without exception they are having record months, gaining market share and increasing their income many times over. That’s because our work together moves them against the natural flow, to gain when others can’t and to join that exclusive club; the minority that earns the majority of business within their chosen field. They choose to tap into a ‘tall poppy’ group of winners and work with a business coach and mentor  to stretch their thinking, their beliefs and their knowledge to attain higher incomes, more time off and a far greater quality of life. But they won’t want me telling you this; it really is their secret weapon.

Written by Grant Thorpe

Grant Thorpe is an internationally recognized Business Coach, Mentor and Professional Speaker with ‘tall poppy’ clients throughout Australia, New Zealand, Asia the United Kingdom and in the United States. His successful work in this field coupled with his incredible energy and enthusiasm makes him a highly sought after speaker. Grant entrepreneurial background was founded in the Real Estate Industry. He is known for being one of the best Real Estate marketers in the world, and has become one of the most awarded and respected top performers in the industry. He has now developed a unique program for coaching top achievers, which has rapidly expanded beyond Real Estate into a wide variety of industries and marketplaces. www.grantthorpe.com

“It’s not what’s happening – it’s what you do that counts”

In a tough market like we are currently experiencing it’s all the more important to have a clear strategy for success. These are my 5 clever strategies to making a huge gain against your competitors in a tough market.

1.       Get up early and get started. Increase our work rate and your work effectiveness by at least 20% to gain an immediate advantage over your competition. This has a compounding effect over time. If I ran a mile each day and you ate a Pizza, by the end of the year we would be 365 miles apart and 365 pizzas apart. One of us would also have a 10 to 15 year life expectancy over the other – one of us would look far better as well. Start now it’s never too late.

2.       Have a Plan. Start the day with a plan to get in front of the money. Prioritise your focus on the Dollar Productive Activity first -leave ‘busy stuff’ to last.

3.       Get Tough- to survive in a tough market you need to get tough! Harden up and make some tough decisions to ensure your survival. If it’s a cost you don’t need, then get rid of it now! Avoid emotional attachments – just make the call and act on the decision that is required.

4.       Review everything – what was relevant a year ago, a month ago, or a week ago may not be now. Be prepared to change and despite all your beliefs calling you back into your old comfort zone, be prepared to change direction to one that meets the current climate.

5.       Don’t listen to anybody else! In a tough market there are more doomsayers preaching the sky is falling than positive people looking for the raft of opportunities that are right there in front of them. Work out who you are talking to and stick with the positive group. Divorce the others and no matter what, stick to your new plan and don’t deviate from it, no matter how hard others try to influence you.

‘It’s not the strongest or the most intelligent that survive, but the most adaptive to change’

-Charles Darwin

Coaching and mentoring is the growth industry of the century. More and more people are recognising the value of having someone to guide them through both the tough times and the good times – to maximise the advantages each situation offers.

There are a number of benefits in having a coach or mentor to guide you through the various stages of your career development. Average performance should not be acceptable. Assistance may be required to achieve above average performance.

It’s important to be able to have someone to bounce ideas off – especially in a business environment. It is not always possible to be open and honest with a colleague about what you are thinking – the things that you would like to try, but aren’t sure whether they’d work; your reasoning for whether they might be successful or not. To have an ‘independent’ sounding board whom you trust and who will be honest with you, can be the difference between a good idea and an amazing business activity/strategy.

If it’s good enough for athletes to have coaches (even “specialist high performance coaches”), then it should be good enough for people in a real estate business to have a coach or mentor to ensure performance levels are high.

Business coaching is an effective way to surpass current levels of performance and productivity.

The challenges faced by real estate businesses in terms of operating effectively in an increasingly competitive environment means there is an opportunity for some agents to step “up to the next level” and achieve much better results than their competitors.

For the proper growth and development of any organisation, it is necessary to have a management team that is up-to-date with recent trends and who have beliefs, values, attitudes, motivation and thoughts that drive them to excel and, more importantly, enables them to inspire their teams to excel.

Business coaching & mentoring provides the perfect platform for developing personal skills and behaviors that are necessary for implementing organisational changes and initiating the learning process.

If you always do, what you’ve always done – your results should be easy to predict.
Business coaching or mentoring should be available at all levels of any organisation. Sometimes it is an informal process, but it is most effective if it is managed and controlled, monitored and supported by management.

The purpose is to improve the performance of those being coached/mentored. The challenge is achieving this outcome with minimal disruption to the business operations. However, if the result is an increase in the business profitability (through more listings, sales & managements) then it should be seen as a worthwhile use of time to develop the team members to achieve these goals.

Grand finals and championships are not won without time devoted to the training & development of all members of the team.

Real estate agents are not the best at sharing their “secrets of success” with their colleagues. They operate in a competitive marketplace. They have set targets, and sometimes these targets over-ride all other purpose in their lives. The need to achieve those targets is often at the expense of quality time with family & friends, or involvement in sport or leisure activities. Their life balance is “out of whack”, in pursuit of their work related targets and goals.

What is required at all levels of any business operation is an understanding of the organisation’s current position and its future growth patterns. Apart from effecting educational development and experience, coaching also provides objective feedback and acts as a critical tool for successfully engineering organisational change.

In adapting to the rapidly shifting marketplace, businesses often need to modify or change their approach to capture a larger slice of the market in which they operate. However, this is often difficult to implement as people and organisations are naturally resistant to change. Business coaching has become a very effective tool for initiating productive changes in individuals, teams, and systems by enabling leaders, managers, and employees to uncover potential that might otherwise go untapped.

To be able to do this is not an easy thing to do in the beginning. The value of the changes need to be recognised first, and then “buy-in” will occur. This shift in attitude and approach can be quite infectious and profitable for all concerned.

“Steady as she goes” is not a good approach in today’s rapidly moving and technologically advancing business environment.

There is a growing recognition that profits, productivity, and customer satisfaction are the outcomes of performance rather than the cause. Coaching programs can focus on leadership issues, cultural factors and the learning and development practices that drive performance. Performance will drive productivity and customer satisfaction, which then permits repeat business and profitability levels to increase.

Everyone’s a winner!

The goal of coaching is not to be an alternative vehicle of managerial control. It should concentrate on empowering and delegating to create a culture of responsibility and self-generated, commitment-based actions.

Coaching is certainly more than just a technique. It involves viewing the business from a different perspective, working through relationships, dialogue and feedback to harness future potential and growth. It provides businesses with the ability to modify current work practices and communications. Coaching has become an important differentiation mechanism for modifying or creating an effective work environment that is more adaptable to change and growth.

Coaching allows managers to more effectively confront challenges and motivate others to achieve the business and personal goals. It creates awareness among managers that they can transform or create a culture that is more receptive to change and open to new possibilities.

Managers (as coaches/mentors) learn to increase their own self-awareness to

• decide when and how to take action
• find creative solutions
• consider opinions and feedback from fellow employees
• set targets
• make appropriate requests
• decrease hostility
• reduce stress and negative emotions in the workplace

Managers who are involved in the coaching process get a clear idea about their own commitments, as well as those of the organisation. They learn how to generate and maintain effective relationships, which in turn increases the levels of trust and accountability in the organisation.

A coached manager’s understanding of organisational and interpersonal dynamics is increased considerably, which in turn empowers them (and others) to achieve the identified business objectives. They learn how to take calculated risks for producing results aligned with the business vision. They learn to develop the right kind of unity and team spirit that will allow powerful work relationships to develop and that, in turn, will help achieve extraordinary results.

There can be no real justification for a business not wanting to improve the performance of the team members – from receptionist to accounts/admin staff to property & sales teams to principals. The level of training and development that occurs is a reflection of the commitment of that business to being the best they can be – and better than their competition.

Go for Gold in an Olympic year!

Tony Rowe is General Manager of Corum Training, a specialist provider of training to the property sector in NSW. Corum Training has fully qualified trainers with extensive knowledge, expertise & experience in the delivery of assessment & training services in real estate across Australia and New Zealand.

Tony can be contacted on 1300 793 723 or www.corumtraining.com.au