There is an old adage that we make three listing appointments for every one we actually go on.  We make a presentation on the way to the appointment as we run through it in our car.  We make the actual presentation live – in front of the Seller.  And we usually make the final one on the way home from the appointment.  Which one of the three is usually the best?  Right – the one on the way home.  At that point, we have the opportunity to reflect and say …

One of my favorite movie scenes ever was in The Godfather when Vito Corleone was asked how he got his own way in a particular situation.  His answer was, “I make them an offer they can’t refuse.”  In real estate, we are in the business of writing offers and negotiating contracts.  In fact our most common form is called an “Offer to Purchase and Contract”, meaning that the document starts as an offer and upon acceptance, becomes a contract.
Most of us have written dozens, if not hundreds of offers on …

December 2009 saw the demise of Editor & Publisher Magazine, which had been around since 1854. It lays claim to being the chief chronicler of the American newspaper industry and has presided over the business for 125 years and is a clear signal that an era is rapidly drawing to a close.

NEWSPAPERS

Daily newspapers have been losing between 2% and 5% per year of their circulation base during the last 10 years. In 1940 there were 1,878 newspapers in the U.S. with a total circulation of 32.4 million. …

First impressions are almost always irreversible and can make or break your connection in a matter of seconds, and how you connect on and offline will make determine if you will win or lose!
What can you do differently than you have been doing?  Are you relying on the same old things, systems, and habits…. or even more concerning, doing the same things your competitors are doing?
Today’s savvy consumer knows what they want, and are not willing to pay for services that do not meet their need. The largest buying segment …

The creation, control, and conversion of leads determines the revenue and success of your business.  Most Speakers, Trainers, Coaches, and Authors focus a lot of their time on the creation of leads.  They try to sell you their “lead generation system” – the system that creates thousands of leads for you!  We have all heard of these third-party Internet companies that, in most areas, are charging Agents lots of money for low quality and low conversion rate leads.  The only people who are making money out of this deal are …

Too many luxury real estate marketing professionals have become mesmerized by the mechanics of online social networks and have all but forgotten the phone call as being a vitally important component of professional networking.

Look around.  Today, agents are dropping like flies.  Real estate brokerages are closing on nearly every corner.  Good people are leaving the real estate business like rats from a sinking ship.  Not that I have any first hand knowledge about rats and sinking ships.  Where do they go anyway?
I digress.  Why are they leaving the industry?  Primarily for one reason:  They can’t afford to stay.  In other words, the real estate business as it is today is not profitable at all for many of us, and only marginally profitable for …

It’s almost time to start our Zero2Hero Agent Challenge 2010, but it’s not too late to for you to enter.  We already have a good sized field of contestants and we hope to get started soon.  So far we have agents from Georgia, California, Hawaii, Florida, Michigan, Idaho, Minnesota, Nevada, Texas, and even one from Hong Kong.   We have agents from big cities and small towns.  We have new agents, and agents starting over.  From national franchises and local independents.  In short, we have a great sample of the real …

Okay… The holidays are over and we are at the half way point of the first quarter of a new year…..So the question is…What has changed in how you are doing (or not doing) your business to make real money?
We are all prisoners of our habits, and especially after a certain age, it is tough to “change”. It’s been said, that if we keep on doing what we’ve always done, we’ll keep on getting what we have always gotten….but that is not true anymore! In today’s competitive marketplace we may …

For 30 years we have been taught, as REALTORS® we must be there for our clients. I hear it all the time from Agents across North America; “I want to be there for my clients.” What does ‘be there’ mean? Does ‘be there’ mean we are available 24 hours, 7 days a week for our clients? Does it mean that we miss soccer games, tee ball games, and piano recitals? For many Agents that is exactly what it means! Many of us equate access with service. We have been trained …