What Do We Know? Be Like a Monkey On a Cupcake

by Jeff Brown

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Know: Be absolutely certain or sure of something.

Certain: Established without doubt. Complete conviction about something.

Sure: Having no doubt that one is right.

How much do each of us know about what we do? How much do we know about increasing the number of people we’re able to talk with about what we do? How certain are we of the results we’ll get when we set out to execute a particular marketing/prospecting strategy? Are you sure what you’re doin’ and the money you’re spendin’ are gonna produce the expected results?

Kinda puts a different spin on things, doesn’t it?

BloodhoundBlog is all about results. Whether it’s about technology, marketing, some sorta prospecting, software apps — we’re about what gets our clients exactly where they wanna be. As I’m fond of saying, the rest is happy talk.

From the bottom of my heart, no offense intended, but if you’re a recipient of leads fallin’ from some RainMaker into your computer — this post ain’t for you. This is for those who create somethin’ outa nothin’ — the RainMakers themselves. You create the business where before you did whatever you did, there was none. You’re a full time real estate agent or broker. You’re in the trenches every day by choice.

Who knows that whatever they’re gonna do tomorrow, next week, next month, to generate new business, is gonna work?

Who knows?

The other day I was asked very politely by a young real estate agent if I’d be willing to have a cuppa coffee with her at StarBucks — her dime — to talk about why she’s not coming within shouting distance of hittin’ her 2010 goals. Sensing the advantage, I negotiated for a couple oatmeal raisin cookies. Deal.

We’ve met, had the conversation, identified problems, and fortunately also singled out a solution or two. She admitted to having little if any confidence in what her office manager has told her to do. Fair enough. We figured out what she knew would work. She’s pretty excited.

If you’re not doing as well achieving those lofty goals you set between Christmas and New Year’s, what’s the main reason(s)?

This ain’t about how you’re producing new biz

Whatever you’re doin’, if it works for ya, bless your heart. It’s all about skinnin’ cats and creating furry walls. Two agents arguing the relative merits of hi-tech vs old school is stoopid when they’re both takin’ home half a million a year. The damn cats are on the wall — you tell your war stories, then they’ll tell theirs.

Agents don’t produce as well as they’d like for a myriad of reasons, but much of it is cuz they don’t know that the methods they’re employing will work. It’s not that those methods may not be creating logjams of business for others. It’s simply that they don’t believe to a point of inarguable certainty what they’re doing will produce results the same way they believe eating enough food will rid them of their hunger.

And when we don’t believe our work produces results, we tend not to work all that hard. (Earsplitting Duh!)

Think of examples in your own life. Here’s one in mine.

I produced spotty results in bodybuilding ’till I ran into a world champion at the gym near my home. I was 16. There was no doubt in my mind fulla mush back then, that whatever the gym’s owner told me to do would work. I was like a monkey on a cupcake. Superior results followed almost immediately.

Imagine that.

Even though it’s worked every time it’s tried correctly, if you don’t know your gym workout is gonna produce the desired results, you’ll mail in your efforts, then give up when they don’t produce. This isn’t new to you, is it?

Pick a prospecting or marketing approach you know will work. Match it to your personality, whatever. There can be no doubt.

How we arrive at this unflinching confidence is irrelevant in a literal sense. Your muscles don’t know why you ended up in the gym that day doin’ the right thing, over and over. But, since it’s the right thing to do, and you’re doing it with perfect form and your best effort, the muscle gets bigger and stronger. Sounds silly as hell when you read it, doesn’t it?

The principle doesn’t change when it comes to real estate, or anything else we do. We either know doing X will produce Y or we don’t.

Figure a prospecting approach and/or a marketing method in which you can believe the way you believe water is gonna be wet every time out. Then work it like a maniacal monkey on meth in a cupcake factory.

You’ll like the results.