5 minute read
Your Opportunity IS Knocking
BY MELANIE ROBITAILLE, SR. STAFF WRITER & GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Winners are called go-getters for a reason; they go after what they want in order to be the best. They train consistently and effectively because that’s what it takes to be successful in any endeavor.
In real estate, when the fish are jumping in the boat faster than a Mississippi River carp derby, it’s easy to get caught up in trying to keep pace and put off refining your sales skills. You get used to clients seeking you out, instead of knowing where to find them, knowing how to ask for their business, and knowing how to build trusting referral-worthy relationships.
After 11 years of being an EXIT Realty MIND-SET Trainer, Erica Nasby knows that many agents lack the confidence to do these things on a normal day. She has witnessed real estate markets ebb and flow. So, what do you do when listings in your market are all seemingly fished out?
Top Real Estate Coach, Author and Speaker, Brian Buffini suggests that, “There’s not a shortage of inventory, there’s a shortage of listed inventory,” and that essentially there’s plenty of fish, (or houses in this case) just not enough agents going out and asking for the business. Where the great online, social media world of today can leave you waiting to be found amidst a sea of search results, ads, and news feed posts, getting one-on-one time in front of potential clients is invaluable because as Buffini also shared on a recent exclusive EXIT webinar, even though 97% of sales start with online searches, 94% still end with a real estate professional’s help.
Most truly successful agents build a strategic real estate career where good digital marketing is secondary to the power of interpersonal skills, but the plain truth of the matter is that more and more people are struggling with face-to-face communication because less and less actually use it. It’s unlikely you’ll sell a house via text or Snapchat, and clients still want personal attention as well as a trustworthy real estate advisor. There’s no greater way to be that to someone than by going right to their door.
“I think you build your chops in a market like this, especially if you’re working with buyers, but a boom like this eventually goes away. We saw it in Vancouver, Canada in 2017 and with the mortgage bust in the U.S. in 2007. You had to go out and hunt for business again. Anybody who can hunt for business will always have a job. Anybody who can go out and prospect will always have a job; and not just prospect, anybody who can go out and build a relationship will always have a job,” she said with certainty of dealing with uncertain times. “Remember during both of those scenarios it didn’t stop people from getting married, getting divorced, having babies, moving into care facilities. At the doors you’re only looking for people who have to move, it’s never working to convince people, but you’re simultaneously building relationships with those who aren’t moving, so when they do need to consult a real estate expert, you’ve already been in front of them multiple times qualifying them. That’s what you do at the doors, you qualify buyers and sellers looking to move within the next 12 months.”
It provides a huge confidence boost, knowing you’ll have 12 months-worth of strong leads in your pocket. It also helps build a knowledgeable market perspective and a powerful farming practice, helping to ease stresses around pricing, and turning you into a market expert that other agents often seek out for advice and farm area info. These are all vital pieces of the backbone that keep champion REALTORS® standing tall no matter the market.
This is how EXIT Realty’s Field Day Training or online Performance Training with Erica Nasby can help you and teach you how to build people skills, better habits, and self-confidence, so you can take that into the field and knock on doors. A renown personal coach and TEDx Speaker, Erica not only furthered her late father, Bill Nasby’s legacy of a back-to-basics method to real estate, she expanded on it with her inside-out approach that specifically deals with agent inhibitions, creating a training that no one, no matter how “new school” should miss.
“I teach agents how to work with and through their own emotions, so the stress and fear don’t override them. I also break bad habits by teaching agents how to recognize the subconscious patterns that keep them stuck. We look at how to read personalities at the doors, how to create the habit of door knocking and follow up, how to set goals, how to communicate more effectively, and how to deal with integrating your everyday life with the demands of real estate. I hold you accountable, both in thought and action. It’s a recalibration every week to stay on track, and starting in spring 2021, I’m offering a new performance training company-wide,” she explained of the two-part course. “Next, (and I do this online with performance training, but we’ve always done this in addition to the doors in person), I actually sit on the call with agents as they go to the doors and correct their process.”
Just ask some of EXIT’s top agents like Marcella Poitras, Pamela Norman, Jennifer Hortin, Gary Trembinski, Mellanie Thorum, Stephanie Dickson, Nalin Nandrajog, and Cathy Korpi. Not only are most consistent award winners, but they all prospect as part of their regular business practices.
—REAL ESTATE COACH, AUTHOR & SPEAKER, BRIAN BUFFINI
The doors aren’t dead, they’re part of the foundation upon which this business is built. Through consistency and hard work, they put you right in the middle of the game as the star player. So, ask yourself, where would you rather be, sitting inside your head in a cubicle or home office on the sidelines, or spending a day taking control of your productivity by owning your day? Because as Emerson said, “He is only rich who owns the day.”
