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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

In the world there are two distinct groups of people.

Those that fight their way through life, and those that sail through life, riding over the rough seas – with help from their friends.

When you see someone truly successful in life or in business they will undoubtedly have a very strong network or fan club around them.

I noticed this early on in my business career when I worked with a young man, who despite his years had an amazing network of people supporting him. He seemed to know everyone that was possible. If you need a mechanic, he knew one, if you needed a builder he knew a reputable one and on and on it went. Not only was he referring a lot of business to this group but he was constantly getting the heads up from them on any business within his industry too. He has learnt the value of having a strong group of people around him that were looking out for him – ensuring his journey was going a lot more smoothly than mine!

Sometimes in our lives we have to make sacrifices now to accomplish the greater goal later. Delayed gratification it is called. Unfortunately others around us may not be so committed to the long term goal and believe they need our time or resources right now.

This can create what I call ‘an emotional blackmail’ situation. Where quite frankly you are left feeling dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t

I remember in my early years of selling real estate when my children were very little. I was in a constant dilemma when I had to go out in the evening to secure a listing or negotiate a deal. This was often right at their dinner or bedtime and their demand for me to read a good night story or be there with them in the evening was strong and well vocalised.

Often I would leave the house with such a feeling of guilt, that it affected my whole performance in the field. Instead of walking out the door charged to go and do the business, or to be in the groove to negotiate a deal, I was stressed and guilt laden to the point that I knew the clients could probably sense it too.

Then one day it dawned on me, what I need was fan club one that would cheer me out the door, one that would be as excited as me when I had completed a deal, and a fan club that was coming with me on the journey.

So, simple as it sounds, I sat down with my two young boys and my wife and set about explaining to them what I was trying to achieve and what it meant when I had to go out at night.

I went to great lengths to explain, what I did and how it all worked.

But most of all, I sold them on what it would do for them. I set a goal for all of us, that if I could sell one extra house each month for the next 4 months we would all go to a tropical island for a holiday.

They were impressed. I put up a poster of the island in each of the boys rooms and got some brochures showing them all the fun things they could do on the holiday!

Now I had a fan club!

Each night if I had to go out, I now had two young boys cheering me out the door, ‘go Dad’ they would yell, ‘get out there and sell a house’! Waving as I drove out the drive, what a difference this made, when I drove off I was invincible, the greatest sales man in the world!

And of course first thing in the morning they would run into our bedroom to ask if I had done the deal! Were we all, that bit closer to the holiday?

Now here is the secret! This worked in two ways!

Firstly I was released to do the job without having to carry the emotional burden out the door with me – weighing heavy on my back.

I now had a ‘fan club’.

But just as importantly I now had a whole extra layer of motivation, how could I let this new ‘fan club’ down and not perform to deliver the team the goal of the holiday on the tropical island.

This is a technique I still use today, if you can have others buy into your dream, with their support anything is possible!

One of the major obstacles we have to overcome is our selves. We simply get in the way of our own journey

This style of obstruction comes mostly from our belief systems, what we believe to be true, even if it is completely wrong. For many of us, these beliefs, about what is fair, the way things work, or what we deserve or can expect, are in place by the time we reach our late teens. The problem is most of them are wrong, in some cases not just a little bit off the mark but up to 180 degrees away from reality.

Carrying around these beliefs is in effect a disability, as it restricts us in our ability to make an informed decision about the next best move forward.

Often our beliefs are passed on by those around us. These people may be seriously under qualified to give an opinion and they just continue their cycle of belief through into us. What they know and believe may once have been true; but could now be a generation out of date, and has long been passed by with the advance of discoveries in technology, science, medicine or finance, to name a few.

The dream we have, to achieve something specific in our lives, can be easily quashed by someone near to us who doesn’t believe it is possible and voices that opinion. A dream can be diverted or diluted by someone who wants to protect us from failure and so convinces us to take a safer option. The result in the end can be a journey much further away from our original goal, so far in fact that the end result is the ‘other person safe dream’, not ours.

Many wonderful singers, who as children may have taken the brave step to sing out loud only to be told, it wasn’t good enough, or to be laughed at for trying, quietly retreat away, never to sing again.

When people pass comment about us, they are telling us all about themselves. The person, who told the child they couldn’t sing, didn’t want to sing themselves. Or did want to sing, but didn’t have the courage. They passed on their beliefs and fears to the child. The result a disaster for both parties!

So the first step to success is being careful who you share your dreams with, make sure they are people who will support you on the journey, and that they will be able to put wind under your wings.

The next step is to ensure that if you need advice; to only get it from someone skilled in that area. Why would you take financial advice from someone poorer than you? Why would you take medical advice from a builder, or take real estate advice from a restaurateur.

So you can see how others can affect your journey, and that can be much easier to see because you will have someone ‘external’ to blame.

You need to remain totally focussed on the outcome of your goal or your dream and no matter what, no matter who tries to divert you, who tries to dilute it or who tries to contain it or whoever tries to quash it, you remain true to yourself and to your dream!

But what about yourself? The number one internal terrorist to achieving your dreams!

The last step is to deal with your internal conflict, and perhaps the greatest hurdle to overcome, is getting started then sticking to the plan. A test I like to use when I have to complete a task that I don’t really want to do, but needs to be completed to get me one more step closer to my end goal is the ‘Pleasure or Pain’ test.

It is simply this, no matter how bad the next task is, how much I fear it or how much it puts me out of my comfort zone, – will the end result be more pleasurable of more painful to me.

If it is going to be more pleasurable then I do it. If the end result is more painful I don’t.

Everyone will have an opinion about why it can or can’t be done. You will be bombarded with facts and figure, opinions, strategies and ideas but….

Just remember this!

“If the dream is big enough – the facts don’t matter”.

visit my audio series at www.secretstoswonderfullife.com

– Oprah Winfrey, talk-show host, producer

for more good quotes visit my ‘Coach’ website

We usually only take photos of fun times, the moments we want to really treasure!

So if its been a while since you last took that photo, its time to look in the mirror and ask yourself how wonderful your life really is?

For more information on creating a truly wonderful life visit  my Coaching website