9 minute read
EDITOR’S LETTER Samantha McLean
I“If your head is on fire, and your feet are in a bucket of ice, it does not even out to a comfortable body temperature!” A valuable lesson taught to me by one of my early career mentors and a metaphor I often used to kick off a large bid back in the corporate world, pre- my Elite Agent days.
It would often get an outrageous amount of laughter and it was a great icebreaker (pardon the pun!)
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My point to each bid team I addressed during that time was that there was no point in having the best sales strategy, or the best document, or the best negotiation session in the world if the engineering team didn’t get along with their opposite geeks, or the service team couldn’t present with a can-do attitude. The same thing applies – perhaps on a smaller scale – to you and your team, and your business.
With a new year upon us and peak performance top of mind, EDITOR’S LETTER
I can offer you this: Your sales funnel is a chain-link system and your potential for success will always be limited by your weakest link.
When I say sales funnel, I mean the process of taking someone you have never met through the various stages of marketing and relationship building to the point where they are happy to sign off on the agency or management agreement and then loyally refer you to their friends because you’ve done such a great job.
A good example of a chainlink system is a military convoy which can only ever travel at the speed of its slowest vehicle.
There is no point in improving the speed of the other vehicles in the convoy if there is a slow one holding up traffic.
With all the information we have about how to be an ace at cold calling or how to be a gun on social media, it was a podcast interview with Jimmy Mackin that caused me to stop and remember my old training and
think more about this concept of chain-linking and how it applies to real estate.
And what the success factors really are.
LEVEL UP IN 2020 Sales or marketing success comes down to a combination of skill and personal attributes.
If you’ve achieved moderate success, then getting to the next level is going to be limited by your weakest chain link.
You can continue to improve one aspect of your system continuously but it won’t improve your success if it doesn’t address your own personal limiting factor.
For example: If you are great at generating appointments on Facebook, but things don’t work out at the listing presentation because, let’s say, you are weak at objection handling… well, that is the weak link that will limit your success until you do something about it.
There is absolutely no point at listening to a social media guru telling you to throw more money at Facebook when the listing presentation is the slowest vehicle in your convoy.
Or when you don’t have the systems to follow up.
Over January this year we did something new and ran a 30-day kick start where I questioned the notion of ‘just making more calls’ with participants.
Some breathed a sigh of relief when I challenged that age-old notion.
If you’re great at making calls and it really works for you, by all means go for it.
But if you’re not great at making calls, you really need to get better at making them before you make more of them!
AND THE TOP PERFORMERS? From what I have gathered from interviewing some of the top sales people, leaders
and property managers in our industry, they don’t appear to be dramatically better at any single skill than the average person. The magic comes from being a few points better than their competition in every area of the chain-link system that matters. In fact, they are a tiny bit better in every area that drives success, rather than 10 times better in an individual area. Now, read those last two sentences again.
IS THAT THE SECRET? For top performers in real estate, or telco, consulting or any other world I’ve been in, I would say the secret is their ‘chain-link system’ fires on all cylinders and isn’t impeded by a weak link.
These folks are a tiny bit better in every area that drives sales success, rather than being, say, 10 times better in an individual area. The equation I’m talking about is similar to the habitcompounding formula James Clear talks about in Atomic Habits, where small (one per cent) changes or improvement in habits add up to major compound improvements.
So the good news: Being 10 per cent better than your average peers in each area of your sales process does not make you 10 per cent better overall.
It makes you something like 70 per cent better, because those small differences across each area compound, which is what will make you an order of magnitude better than your competition.
Small improvements in all areas can compound to an extraordinary result.
5. Top performers foreshadow point 4. in their marketing (by problem-solving and focusing on the customer at the marketing stage) so that when it comes to the conversation in the living room, marketing has done the somewhat difficult job of assisting with closing. The messages from marketing to service need to be consistent.
HE OR SHE WHO ASKS THE QUESTIONS HOLDS THE POWER Other than understanding and working on your weakest chain link I can also offer the following: 1. Top performers listen more than good performers. I pick this up when I’m asking questions of someone – they ask me questions back and are almost more interested in me than giving information about themselves. I interviewed Ben Collier for this cover story and I actually think he ended up asking me more questions than I asked him during the time we had together. I can see why his loyal customers pick up the phone every time they see his name on the display. 2. Top performers respond to objections with questions more often. This is usually to
clarify where the objection is coming from (average performers jump straight to answers more often). 3. The ability to use point 1. (listening) to improve on point 2. (questioning) is one of the compounding factors I urge you to consider when reviewing how to optimise your sales chain. Think like a reporter: if you had to write a news story on your prospect, would you come away with something great, or would you still not know what to write? 4. Top performers spend more time scheduling next steps with their vendors and buyers (tenants and landlords). They take a leadership position, make recommendations and spend time mapping out the individual actions for that person (something the machines can’t do!).
MARGINAL STRENGTHS So here’s my conclusion: What makes a top performer is actually a really hard question to answer because of the chain-link system which makes success factors harder to see when you are on the outside looking in. Top performers have an increased (even if only slightly) marginal strength in every area of their sales/marketing process – lead generation, discovery, presentations, value messaging, objection handling, deal strategy, negotiation, service and personal motivation, to name a few.
Fortunately you can see your own prospecting funnel up close from the inside.
In 2020, I urge you to look at where your head may be on fire and your feet may be in a bucket of ice.
And work on bringing that ice bucket up to temperature. To your great success!
SAMANTHA MCLEAN MANAGING EDITOR samantha@eliteagent.com
REAL RELATIONSHIPS MATTER
The skills Jasmin Day learnt as a teenager working in hospitality, retail and as a vet nurse still ring true in her real estate career today. The Accom Property agent shares how developing long-term relationships is a key to her success.
What was your first job? I had a few jobs in hospitality and retail when I was younger, but my first full-time job was a vet nurse. I started during work experience in Year 10 and then as part of my degree. After I left school, I ended up working there for three years before jumping to real estate.
What is the best thing about your job? Meeting so many different people from all walks of life. You often get to know these people and form a relationship over the years. I am an inquisitive person, and I love getting to know more about people and their life experiences.
What type of business is your focus? We specialise in lifestyle holiday/investment style properties, so our clients are often quite successful business owners. I often learn so much from them about life and business. I love understanding how they got to where they are in life.
What’s the most important part of your day? Starting my morning right by waking up and going for a walk or going to the gym. I also usually listen to a podcast. It starts my day giving me some ‘me time’ without being rushed and having the feeling of trying to catch up all day.
What are the key areas you’re focusing on in 2020? Getting better systems in place so I don’t sweat the small stuff and I can focus more on my clients’ individual needs. I am also working with marketing guru Imogen Callister to build a phenomenal personal brand.
Where would you like to be by this time next year? To have created a strong personal brand in the marketplace and have achieved some great results for my clients.
If you could change one thing in the industry, what would it be? That we become less egodriven and be more authentic. People want real people and to know that the agent they choose holds values consistent with theirs.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? “It’s nice to be important but more important to be nice.“
6 ELITE AGENT • MAR 2020 I use this inside and outside of work, to remind myself to be humble and that we are all human, no matter your life circumstances.
If you had to start from scratch in real estate tomorrow, what’s the first thing you would do? Get out in the community more and build my profile amongst future clients and become an ambassador for the area. n
