Based on the incredible response we've received from real estate professionals of all walks of life to our previous post about promises, I want to make a promise to you.
In the next two weeks leading up to our event in West Palm Beach (you can learn more about the event here, or register here), I am going to unveil the most powerful promise ever made in the real estate coaching industry.
Make sure you subscribe to our blog or add us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or YouTube so that you don't miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Happy new years and 2010 will be best the best year of our lives. Thank you for making 2009 so profitable and fulfilling!
How may of you use a cell phone to do business? Ok...how about a smartphone?
How many of you still use the car-phone you had in 1985 or a cell phone from 1997 that still dials your mom every time you put it in your pocket?
Congrats! 100% have upgraded the cell-phone technology you use to do business. 100% of you have done the same thing with your computers, appearance, and vehicles.
Then why haven't you upgraded your mind-set? Specifically, why have you not upgraded the approach you take toward improving your business and life?
Do you set goals? I would venture to say that at least 90% of real estate professionals in the year 2010 will set goals. The simple fact is that goal-setting is out-dated. For most people, it no longer works.
100 years ago nobody had heard of goals, but as we progressed along the 20th century EVERYONE began setting goals, and a lot of people made a lot of money telling others how to set goals. The truth is we continue to progress and more and more research suggests that goal setting does not offer a high probability of success.
I've read studies that suggest only 15% of people will actually accomplish the goals they set. Why? Setting a goal in-of-itself does not provide you with enough incentive to transform or conform your life to accomplishing that goal.
Now, you might be saying to yourself "I see his point, I've set a ton of goals over the past 5 or 10 years, and I don't really remember accomplishing much." It's OK. I am not hear to destroy the foundations of your life. Our research as a company, and independent brain research suggests that there is an updated method we all can use to accomplish what's important in our life: setting promises.
How is setting a promise different than setting a goal? When you set a promise, your personal integrity is on the line. If you promise your child that you will be there to pick him up after school, do you dare miss picking him up? If you promise to visit your mom every month, wouldn't you feel horrible for missing a month?
I think you see my point. As a business and real estate coach, I start coaching all my clients by ripping up their goals and working with them to create 7 promises based on what's important in their life. I then help them implement specific action steps into their schedule meant to satisfy those promises, AND I create tracking tools to verify their accomplishments. It's no wonder 100% of them are accomplishing what they want from life.
You don't want to keep using that car-phone anymore do you?
I was just in Chicago last week and the group we presented to were pumped about 2010, and rightly so. If you've survived 2009, or more importantly, if you've improved in 2009, be proud. It has been a really tough year, but if you've made the best of the situation you are set up for BIG success in 2010. However, don't make the mistake of expecting it to be easy or to "just happen."
As you know I like to keep things simple. If you can do these three things next year you will be ahead of 99% of the competition.
1. Keep doing the good things you did in 2009: Stay disciplined and do the 6 income producing activities every day
2. Eliminate the bad things you did in 2009: There are going to be more and more qualified buyers out there, so why continue to work with unqualified ones?
3. Improve on the good things you did and be great at them: We all did a lot of good things last year, but what if we were great at them? Identify a few areas which you can become great at...and do it.
In my last post I asked if you had incorporated the 6 income producing activities into your schedule. While you need to be doing those 6 activities every day, you also need to make sure your schedule is realistic. With our clients, we will encourage them to NOT put something on their schedule if they don't think it's realistic they will commit to it. I know some of you have things on your schedule that come up every day or every week that you ignore. If you are going to avoid it, then get it off there and replace it with something you will do.
Last but not least I want to post an email that I sent out to all our clients and friends last week. I hope you take some time to think about it going into the holiday's. Have a great rest of the week and cherish the time you spend with your family. - John Alexandrov, www.realestateinnercircle.net
Ok, it's time to bare my soul a bit. After last weeks
email about goals and promises,several of you asked how I came to use this process of "making
promises" in my coaching program.
Well, it's a very personal story and one that very few people know. It’s about
a promiseI made when I was 8 years old.
At that time, my mom was 8 months pregnant with my sister. One day my dad came
home andsaid, “I am leaving.” I remember standing in the living room and watching
my mom cry ashe just walked out the door.
He left us and never came back... no contact, no financial support, no love.
I didn’t know what to do. I was only 8 years old... what could I do?
Instinctively, I went to my mom, hugged her and told her I loved her. In all
honesty, I don’t knowwhere the next words came from but I looked my mom right in the eye and I
said...
“I promise everything will be all right. I’ll take care of you.”
I'm certain that I didn’t really know the power of what I had just said at that
point in time. However I did know that I had made a promise to my mom andI was going to keep that promise!
Some how, some way my mom, my sister and I held it together. We didn’t have
much and I couldoften see the fear and worry in her eyes.Sometimes
it was sheer terror.
As Christmas was approaching in 1971 (I was 13 years old) I could see my mom
was starting toworry even more. We had no money, we were living on welfare and she didn’t know where to turn.
It was then I thought back to the day my father had left and thepromise I had made to her.
The next day at school I asked my friend Kevin if I could take over his paper
route. Kevin couldn’tgive up his route however, there was one part of the route he hated because it was such a long walk…way over two miles from our neighborhood.
He said, “You can have the June Street route but there are a couple of things
you need to be aware of…you’ll have to get up at 5 am every morning to finish the route to get to school on time and you’ll haveto go out and collect your own money for the subscriptions every week at
night.”
So that’s what I did…5 am every morning and 7 pm twice a week.It was bitterly cold and it was always
dark.After 8 weeks I had saved $30.00. I had another $20.00 I made from raking
leaves and shoveling snow.
So one day before Christmas, I packed up my 4 year old sister and we took the
bus downtown to goChristmas shopping for my mom. We went to Woolworths’s and bought her an
electric can opener,a toaster, blender and an electric frying pan… a set that all matched.
Before we got to the bus stop to ride home, it had started to snow. It soon
began snowing so hard thebuses were running late. We sat at that bus stop for over an hour… and my sister started to cry.
When the bus finally came, it was snowing so hard I couldn’t even see out the
window. It waswarm on the bus though and my sister was safe. I had a hard time judging where
we were howeverI did recognize a few people on the bus that I thought lived near my neighborhood. So, when theygot off the bus... we did too.
As the bus disappeared into the blizzard, I realized I had gotten off at the
wrong stop.
My 4 year old sister and I were still over a mile from home and we couldn’t see
more then 20 feet in front of us.She started crying again and the snow was up over her knees. On top of that, I
had the bag full of gifts andit was heavy.
In that moment I once again remembered the promise I had made to my mom. So I
picked my sister upin one arm and carried the gifts in the other. We fell down twice and the bag holding the gifts broke.
I was so worried about my sister I couldn’t stop crying, yet somehow we kept
going. An hour and a halflater, we made it home.
Just before we walked in the house I pulled it together, stopped crying and
pretended to my mom that itwasn’t any big deal. Back then we didn’t have a car and there weren’t any cell phones so my momwas really worried.
A few days later my mom opened her presents. I remember the look on her face as
if it were yesterday.Joy replaced the look of fear and worryI'd become accustomed to. It had been 5 years since she hadreceived any type of special gift. It was a truly special Christmas.
That's when I learned about the power of a real promise.
That's why I have my coaching clients make promises.
A new year is fast approaching... what promises are you making?
If you want some free guidance on how to transform your goals into promises, click here to sign-up.
Quick, who can name the six income producing activities that agents should be doing every day?
If you've got them built into your schedule you must know them by heart. Lets end the suspense:
We will talk more about promises and goals down the line as well as the other methodology we use to keep people on track with their schedule, but I think its important to first focus on those six activities...and how simple they really are.
Lead Generation - simply the main way to get business
Lead Follow-Up - simple if you are lead generating
Going on Listings - simple if you are doing #'s 1 and 2 effectively
Working with Qualified Buyers - this is hard for a lot of people, but we make it easy by only working with buyers who will sign a contractual commitment to work with us.That way we know they are serious and we don't waste our time...which gives us more time to led gen, etc. I do this in my own business and it frees me up to pursue people I know are serious about improving their business and their life.
Negotiating Contracts - easy if we are working with qualified buyers
Taking price-improvements - easy if we are doing what's best for our clients
The things that are not simple that we do during the day are things like responding to fives emails at a time, or avoiding these six steps. One thing I know from watching and coaching people in this business is that it's 50 times harder to NOT do the 6 activities above than it is to just do them.
If you're a committed real estate professional, and I know most of you reading this are, take a fresh look at your schedule in 2010 and commit to doing these 6 activities every day. Like Staples says, "that was easy!"
Last week I asked you some tough questions about scheduling and Michael and I discussed why having a schedule is so important. I believe that 100% of us are not accountable to our schedule 100% of the time. But I also believe that there is one sure-fire way to get as close to 100% commitment to a schedule as possible. That's why I've designed the very simple "Schedule Accountability Challenge."
Here is my challenge to you:
Week One:
Today is Monday. For the rest of the week do your best to follow your schedule...meaning that you complete the tasks you put on your calender that day. So if you schedule prospecting for 9am but it gets moved and completed at 2pm that is OK as long as it gets done that day. However, if prospecting at 2pm forces you to miss a task, you will have to be accountable for that miss. Be brutally honest about this and at the end of the week compile your percentage of completed tasks (completed tasks divided by total number of tasks assigned). I will be participating as well.
Week Two:
In week two I would like you to do the same thing, except I would like you to find a person you trust (family, co-worker, coach, etc.) and share your schedule with them. Email it to them the night before or first thing in the morning (schedule it as a task!) so they have it every day. Tell them about this challenge and that you want them to hold you accountable to that schedule. They can send you email reminders, do a five-minute end of the day recap, however you and they want to do it. Again, compile your percentage of completed tasks.
Now I know what everyone is thinking: "Of course my percentage is going to be higher in week two because I will have somebody I trust holding me accountable."
Then why do 99% of people avoid having someone hold them accountable to their schedule? If you knew with 100% certainty that you would be more productive if you were held accountable by someone you trust, why would you not do it? (If you just made an excuse to that question, you need accountability even more than you think.)
My advice? Skip week 1 and go right to week 2.
In this short video, Michael and I discuss the important of having a coach review your schedule:
If you know what you need to do to become more accountable to your schedule, do it! If you know you need a professional coach to make you more productive, do it! If anyone wants testimonials of how we help our clients stay accountable go to my website and register for a free 1-on-1 coaching call. One of our certified real estate coaches will review your schedule during that call as well.
Make it a great day!
John Alexandrov
www.realestateinnercircle.net
PS. I am pleased to see that we are getting more and more people reading
the blog, following us on facebook and twitter, and watching our
videos. Thank you for your support.
Today I wanted to post our first video in a short series about the importance of scheduling. As coaches we know that one of the key things that every successful real estate agent does is utilize a schedule.
But as you'll see its more than just putting events in your calender. Ask yourself:
"Does my schedule reflect my promises and goals?"
"Am I accountable to my schedule?"
"Do I have down-time accounted for in my schedule?"
"Do I have the 6 income producing activities scheduled every day"
"Am I interested in having a great schedule, or am I committed to having a great schedule?"
Click below to play the video as I discuss the importance of effective scheduling with our Director of Coaching Services, Michael Friedman.
(TIP: The volume is a little low so please turn up your speakers)
I ask you...what tips and techniques have you used to implement an
effective schedule in your business? Can anyone give me an example of
how they account for a specific long-term or short-term goals or
promises by reflecting action steps in their calender?
Thank you for watching and be on the look out as Michael and I go into more depth on what makes a great schedule. As always please pass along to friends and co-workers.
Raise your hand if you socialize on Facebook? OK. Now raise your hand if you have a strategy to integrate Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube, and your blog into your real estate business?
One of the ways in which the real estate industry is evolving is that sellers, buyers, agents, brokers, loan officers, and associated industries are using social media on a daily/hourly basis to make business decisions. The question you should be asking yourself is: How do I capture leads, brand myself and my business, and sell more homes in an easy, affordable (time and money) way?
Unfortunately (or fortunately for you!) some agents use social media only as a social tool and do not take advantage of it to close more business.
If you are receiving this post then most likely you are participating in social media.
Do you have any suggestions for agents who might be afraid to make the leap from just socializing to creating business on-line?
Does anyone have one example of how they sold a home/closed a deal/generated leads using Facebook or LinkedIn?
For those of who know they need to stop socializing, and start figuring out how to incorporate social media into their business plan, please watch the short video below. In it I sit down with social media expert John DiPietro to explain why we've developed the only easy to use, truly affordable program that shows you how to use social media for your business.
For more information or to sign-up for this program today click here for a complete description of what the course offers and for pricing.
As you can tell, I've incorporated social media into my business and you can too with some really simple and easy steps. Our team of coaches talk to agents all around the country every day and believe me, 99% of them are not taking advantage of these FREE tools to create new business. If you can....you will be way ahead of the game.
Please pass along to anyone who isn't using social media or to anyone who is just socializing!
Last but not least...look around at your peers. Are they socializing on-line or are they creating business on-line? Which one will you be in 2010? I know which one sounds more fun, and profitable to me. Click on the link above or give our office a call, 508-438-1164 (ext. 1100) for more information today. *A great holiday gift for your real estate peers...or yourself!*
I sat down with our Director of Coaching Services, Michael Friedman last week to put together a video describing our free Semi-Annual Client Appreciation event in West Palm Beach, FL on January 13th and 14th.
You'll get a run-down of the agenda and preview of each of our courses. Click below to start watching! (TIP: The volume is low so make sure to turn it up on your speakers)
ii. Supercharge your prospecting with RE Phone Burner
iii. 5 Scripts that will change your business forever
3. How to Register
a. Click Here to register or call 508-438-1164 (ext.1100) and ask for Jarred
This is a can't miss event for everyone looking to kick their real estate business off right in 2010. Again, it is free to attend. Come see what it is really like to be a Real Estate Inner Circle client!
It's almost 70 degrees in Massachusetts today! Come January it will be 20 below, but the Real Estate Inner Circle will be in West Palm Beach. Anybody want to join us?
Some more daily news...my blog is a one-stop-shop!
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