The most important day you can spend this year is the day you spend reviewing the year.  Too often we forget to review our past experiences.  To be truly successful, we have to invest what we have learned into our future.  By making this wise investment we increase the speed that we travel to achieve greater success.
 
My friend, Jim Rohn, says you are either going to lead a life that is an example or a life that says warning.  The difference between those two diametrically opposed lives is the time …

Pricing recommendations hit troubled waters at two predictable times. One is when clients have unreasonable price expectations that need to be brought into line before the home can be sold. The other is when an agent gets ready to list a property that owners want to sell at an inflated, unrealistic price.
 
Both circumstances require caution. The following presents advice to follow as you troubleshoot your way through to a successful pricing decision.
 
When clients have their minds set on a price that is out of line, follow this process to bring …

From an early age, every child learns the Golden Rule: Treat others the way you want to be treated. Customer service pros replace the Golden Rule with the Platinum Rule: Treat others the way they wish to be treated. 
The Platinum Rule was coined by speaker/trainer Tony Alessandra, who explains that a salesperson’s job is not to treat and serve clients as you want to be treated but as they want to be treated.  
The only way to know how a person wants to be treated is to ask and observe. Different …

Do you have the desire to receive recognition from your peers; to be recognized as one of the top Agents in the country?  If you do, you need to start by taking dead aim daily.  It is the disciplines we do each day that mean the difference between being on top or being part of the crowd.   
Start each day focused on the success of your business.  You want to begin each day by reviewing your business plan.  Focus in on the activities that will lead you to the successful result …

Many of you are a lot like me.  Entrepreneurial.  We’re constantly looking for opportunity, and when we see it, we often just naturally go for it.  Some of us more than others, depending on our place in life, our risk tolerance, financial ability, and the other things on our plate, but all of us, to some degree, learn to spot opportunity and react.  Such is the life of an entrepreneur.
I thought that some of you might find it enjoyable or even possibly instructive, if I were to walk you through …

Prospecting is one of the easiest but most misunderstood concepts in the field of sales.   Sales trainers are always trying to sell their “prospecting-free systems” on worldwide speaking circuits by saying, basically, “You will never have to prospect again if you use my system.” And, because salespeople secretly don’t want to prospect, they readily buy into the too-good-to-be-true, no-prospecting philosophy. 
Our readiness to take the easy bait makes us like the wolves that are hunted above the Arctic Circle. The wolf hunter dips a sharp knife in blood and freezes it.  …

… training program is that they focus too much on passing a written test; not enough about showing / demonstrating successful performance of skills needed to succeed.
I wrote recently about this issue on another blog that focuses more on learning theory and instructional design, so I won’t rehash the details here. 
The gist is this: there’s a model in the field of learning that describes six levels of cognitive understanding.  Much of the training we receive in licensing school, continuing education and many (most?) third-party training programs is leveled at the bottom two levels:  …

As someone who spends a large part of my life training agents to succeed in this new age of real estate, I’m often amazed at the general lack of understanding on the topic of advertising in our industry.  I’m not talking about understanding the nuances of Madison Avenue or even being a student of David Ogilvy, Al Ries, or Jack Trout (some of the giants in the advertising industry).  I’m simply talking about having a good working understanding of the fundamentals of advertising, since as working agents, advertising is our …

As I travel the country giving seminars on how to overcome prospecting and lead generation reluctance (see www.yourcalltosuccess.com), I hear a common theme from agents. Many agents believe that their market is different, that they are facing unique challenges and that selling real estate is easier or better “somewhere else.” The reality is any agent can be successful (regardless of what the “market” is doing) if they focus their time and attention on the six income producing activities that lead to success in this business.

It’s that time of year again. It’s getting dark earlier, Walgreen’s already has Christmas decorations set up in the store and its not even Halloween yet. Other signs of “the end of the year” are everywhere. People are planning Thanksgiving trips, holiday parties and shopping lists are being created. It’s the time of year when most real estate agents put things on “cruise control”, relax for the rest of the year with the false hope that “next year will be my year.” Those crazy thoughts creep into our minds, “after the holidays I’ll get focused again”. After the election “things will settle down.” When the stock market recovers “more people will be interested in buying real estate.” Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.