There’s always something to howl about.

Category: Group Therapy (page 49 of 81)

Are you closing on the wrong objectives? The most insidious form of sales call reluctance is proudly racking up empty “accomplishments.”

I want to talk about being a sales monster, so I want to issue a disclaimer first: We are all about value. I get paid for closing real estate transactions, and I like getting paid, but I never want to get paid for encouraging a client to do the wrong thing. I’m going to be talking about closing in a lot of different contexts, but I am never talking about arm-twisting or even the mildest kinds of suasion. The ancient Roman law of agency is respondeat superior — let the master answer — and this is how we conduct our business.

But still, as a salesman it’s my job to close. That’s important just by itself. It’s one thing to be an ethical salesperson, as above, but it is quite another to fail to close at all. My job — always — is to move the process to the next logical step. If my client wants to make a deal, it’s my job to make it happen, and the way I do that is by closing on the step of the deal-making process that happens next in the sequence.

That’s Salesmanship 101, except that no one teaches salesmanship these days. And, alas, many of the salesmavens who taught this discipline in the past were creepy, oily, slimy, smarmy moral degenerates. Selling is not a confidence game, and there is nothing at all wrong with helping your client take the steps necessary to achieving his objective.

Because marketing on the web is so cost-efficient, I can do a lot of my closing with software — passively, automatically, at any hour of the day. But: I still need to close.

When a new vistor lands on one of our web sites, I’m closing on one idea: More. Stick around and read — there’s lots of content. Or swap over to our free Phoenix MLS search. At an absolute minimum, I want you in our internet universe, so I do a lot to attract people, then I do a lot more to hang onto them.

When we get someone to do something we want them to do, we call Read more

If you are a working Realtor — if you list and sell residential real estate for a living — the time you spend on social media sites is almost certainly anti-marketing, doing you more financial harm than good.

Chris Johnson pulled this out of our phone conversation the other night, quoting me on Twitter:

People don’t want a relationship with you. They just want your damn services.

We were talking about real estate weblogging, but the principle applies even more firmly to the world of social media — Twitter, Facebook, etc.

The notion that strangers are seeking out Realtors in order to befriend them is absurd. For a Realtor to get invited on a getaway weekend with three people who are not old school chums would require that all the undertakers and life insurance salespeople they know are already engaged. We all know what to expect from Realtors in any sort of social setting — which is why there is an entire mini-industry of RE(education)Camps to train Realtors to resist their smarmy, deal-probing impulses on-line.

That’s point number one, neatly Tweeted by Chris — who is, don’t forget, a vendor: You are the means to your clients’ ends, not an end in yourself. Even though you might sometimes hit it off just right with a client and forge a serious friendship, in virtually all cases — including those where you make a friend — it’s the mission-critical job that matters, not your sweet personality.

And that friendship? It will seem serious to you alone. If you are any good as a Realtor, your deep, deep friendship will be invisible to everyone else. You should be much too busy to be anyone’s friend. If you make a stout effort, you can hold up your end with your spouse and kids, but, beyond that, you should expect to hear this from the people you think of as being your friends: “The only time we ever get to see you is when we’re buying or selling a house!” That is real estate in real life.

Here’s point number two: “Marketing” by social media is a huge waste of time. Selling is one-on-one, focused, time-consuming and goal-directed. Marketing, done properly, is broadcast, diffuse, time-efficient and passive and long-term in its goal-pursuit. Even if you are really doing your best to market your services on-line, if you are doing it Read more

A weblogging strategy for non-writerly Realtors. Or: How you can learn to stop worrying and love your blog.

I was on the phone yesterday with Chris Johnson, talking with him about Realtor weblogs. He mentioned that some of the buyers of his real estate weblogs are having trouble coming up with regular content.

I have a solution for them.

What should they do? Stop worrying about it — and solve the real marketing problem instead.

Instead of building a blogsite around a regularly-updated weblog, it would make more sense to me for reluctant writers to build the blogsite around the mission-critical content instead.

Here’s the deal: There are a finite number of topics that you absolutely, positively need to cover. Whatever target-marketed niche the blog is concerned with, you need to document that niche in a fairly comprehensive way.

How many articles would that take? Five? Ten? Surely not twenty. If you’ve done what you need to do, you can ignore the blog except when you’re burning up with something to say.

A WordPress theme like Equilibrium would give your weblog a magazine-like look and feel. The “featured” section could highlight the three or six or nine posts that are mission-critical for your niche. And the “latest post” section can document your more-recent musings. If you write something crucial later on, you can rotate it into the “featured” section.

Here’s the thing: Everything so-called weblogging experts (including me) have told you about real estate weblogging is probably wrong.

You are not trying to build long-term relationships with regular visitors who will wait for your latest pronouncements with bated breath. Instead, the objective of your blogsite should be to provide mission-critical information to people who will find you by Google when they need you and who will be happy to forget you just as soon as they no longer need you. The magazine-style blogsite fits that approach perfectly.

The purpose of your weblog is not to be available for lonely people looking for friends. It is not to make you one of the cool kids, so that Realtors from all over the world can show up at your place to grouse about how awful the real estate market is. The purpose of your blog is certainly not to make Read more

Lucha Libre Mortgage Reform

Last week there was some discussion about what was to have happened today in Washington. This discussion centered around whether the government would or would not take certain steps to protect the housing market through a mandated deficit funded mortgage bailout.

Today, we have some new information on what Tim Geitner and a host of invited banking executives chit chatted about.

Seems that much of the talk in a few of the posts here centered on whether we could expect the Obama administration and industry executives to continue along socialistic lines, (Wall Street still knows better than Main Street), or whether lightning would strike and we’d decide to take our lumps now.

The answer’s in.

Obama administration invited banking executives Tuesday to offer advice on changing the government’s role in the mortgage market. Their response: stay big.

While the executives disagreed on the exact level of support needed, the group overwhelmingly advocated the government should maintain a large role propping up the nearly $11 trillion market.

Bill Gross, managing director of bond giant Pimco, said the economic recovery required more government stimulus, particularly in the housing market. He suggested the administration push for the automatic refinancing of millions homes backed by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac.

Refinancing those homes at the lowest mortgage rates in decades would give Americans more money each month. That would boost consumer spending by $50 billion to $60 billion and lift housing prices by as much as 10 percent, he said.

Without such stimulus in the next six months, Gross said, the economy will move at a “snails pace.”

Treasury officials have said they have no plans to enact such a plan, which has been the subject of intense rumors on Wall Street in recent weeks.

So it was just a rumor after all????? But wait….there was more…

Geithner did not offer a specific exit strategy for Fannie and Freddie. He agreed that the government could remain involved in the mortgage system by guaranteeing investors in mortgage-backed securities get paid, even when borrowers default.

There is a “strong case to be made” for such an arrangement, Geithner said.’

This is just like a professional Read more

Unchained melodies: A danceable rebellion…

In my spare time I am more than a little annuckingfoyed at the state of whorebottery in the RE.net, which I had once hoped might be an antidote to the whorebots who have infested residential real estate since the advent of the NAR, at least. But: Teri Lussier advises me that the solution to all this annoyance is danceable music, so here do I deliver me of my frustrations.

First, Elvis Costello in an acoustic demo of Green Shirt that is better than the more-polished radio hit:

Second, live and acoustic, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young with Chicago:

And finally, for Jim Klein and Don Reedy, Lyle Lovett puts everything in perspective:

“…I knocked that transaction right on it’s…”

The Real Estate Ideal?

Sometimes the best part about being a real estate agent is the time it affords you to be with your family.  Of course, other times the best thing about being a real estate agent is the excuses it provides for doing exactly the opposite: “What’s that dear?  Your mother is going to be in town this Sunday and you want to spend the morning down at Begonias, Begonias and Tulips, then do a little shoe shopping?  Gosh darn it all, I’ve got an Open House that Sunday.”  You get the idea.  But if you really think about it, the best part about being a real estate agent is the opportunity to knock someone else right on their derriere – metaphorically speaking, of course.

Last week our local football team (the San Diego Super Chargers!) held an open practice at the stadium where they play their home games.  I took my two boys down there and we made an evening of it.  (Mostly because I wanted my boys to see what the inside of a professional football stadium looks like without having to drop a cool $500 on parking, tickets, popcorn and a great big Styrofoam finger that implies we’re #1 at something… I’m guessing it’s separating fools from their money, but I can’t be sure.)  Anyway, being there gave us an opportunity to watch Kris Dielman in action.  Man I like watching this guy play the offensive line.  Having been a defensive lineman myself, that’s saying something.  The difference in mind-set between the two is staggering, but that’s exactly why I enjoy watching him so much: he plays offensive line like a defensive lineman… and he plays football the way we should practice real estate.

He’ll often knock his guy 2, 3 even 5 yards back; sometimes he puts the guy right on his backside.  Now that’s what you call getting the job done.  Even more than that: it’s what you call getting the job done very, very well.  You might say he’s a Top Producer at what he does.  But here’s the thing: after he knocks that guy back one yard and two cheeks, do you Read more

The Basic Laws of Stupidity – No Explanation Needed

Greg often talks about self determination and splendor.  There is a raw courage that comes with saying that a bandit can put a gun in your face and demand what they want, but ultimately that bandit cannot take from you what you will not give him.

But what about stupidity?

Here’s an interesting read from an article published by Carlo Cipolla, and summarized briefly in this post.

THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY

by Carlo M. Cipolla

1. The first basic law of human stupidity
2. The second basic law
3. The third (and golden) basic law
4. Frequency distribution
5. The power of stupidity
6. The fourth basic law
7. The fifth basic law

The first basic law of human stupidity

The first basic law of human stupidity asserts without ambiguity that:

Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

The second basic law

The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

The third (and golden) basic law

The Third Basic Law assumes, although it does not state it explicitly, that human beings fall into four basic categories: the helpless, the intelligent, the bandit and the stupid.

A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

The fourth basic law

Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

The Fifth Basic Law states that

A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

The corollary of the Law is that:

A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.

My premise? What I see as a pandemic is the unfettered law of stupidity threatening us in every arena of our lives. Professionally it’s NAR and financial reform. Sociologically it’s the “let’s all get along” mantra. Politically it’s the apparent dismembering and misinterpretation of our Constitution. Financially it’s our socialistic tendencies. Personally it’s the lack of decorum and respect.

Are there basic laws of stupidity? Read more

Reasons to be cheerful, Part 3.1.4: “Get me rewrite!” How to revise the script of your life — writing yourself a happy ending.

A friend said this on the phone: “I’m sorry this is taking me so long. I’m really bad at computers.”

My reply: “Why would you say it that way?”

“Huh?”

“I understand that you’re reporting on what you see as being a matter of fact. But why not say it this way: ‘Computers have been a challenge for me, but I find I’m getting better with experience.’ You’re telling the exact same truth, not misrepresenting anything. But by focusing on what you’re doing right, you’ll improve your future performance just by changing your attitude.”

I’m not talking about canned affirmations. I’m talking about the words you choose when you’re telling the unshaded truth about your life, your mind, your talents, your work, your relationships.

You can say: “I’m a lousy writer.” But you can be just as truthful by saying this instead: “It hasn’t been easy for me to improve my writing skills, but I’m finding that hard work is paying off for me.”

You can say: “I always get lost when I go someplace for the first time.” But it would be equally factual to say, “I find it beneficial to prepare carefully before I travel to an unfamiliar neighborhood.”

You can say: “I’ll probably lose.” But you would be no less honest to say, “I just might win.”

The statements you make about yourself might seem to you to be statements of fact at the time you are making them. But whatever truth there might be in those expressions right now, you are also writing the script for your future. Saying “I’ll probably lose” is functionally equivalent to saying “I’ll never win.” If you don’t mean to say that you can never, ever get anything right, then stop telling these brutal lies about yourself.

If you invert those expressions instead — concentrating on everything you get right, not everything you get wrong — by that one simple change of habit you will rewrite the script of your future. There’s no telling how high you can rise, once you stop putting yourself down, but, at a minimum, you will write yourself a much happier ending.

Here’s what I say: I’m Read more

Radical Chic – Oh Baby How I’ve Missed Ya

Radical chic is a term coined by journalist Tom Wolfe[citation needed] to describe the pretentious and fashionable adoption of radical political causes by celebrities, socialites, and high society. The concept has been described as “an exercise in double-tracking one’s public image: on the one hand, defining oneself through committed allegiance to a radical cause, but on the other, vitally, demonstrating this allegiance because it is the fashionable, au courant way to be seen in moneyed, name-conscious Society.”[1] Unlike dedicated activists, revolutionaries, or dissenters, those who engage in radical chic remain frivolous political agitators. They are ideologically invested in their cause of choice only so far as it advances their social standing. – From Wikipedia

On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama was inaugurated with much pomp and circumstance, and today, some year and a half later, remains (IMO) a polarizing figure in American politics. So, when I, as a member of the real estate community, read about the overt actions of the Federal Government under the leadership of Mr. Obama, and contemplate both the merits and missteps of his administration, I cannot but yearn for some few hours with the elite of American society who swept him into office with their own brand of ideological one-upsmanship.

Yesterday Brian Brady commented that he had not been invited to attend the reported meeting on August 17th of the Obama’s administration’s attempt to overhaul or repair Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

That got me thinking about an old essay by Tom Wolfe.

The essay, Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s “. . . It’s a tricky business, integrating new politics with tried and true social motifs . . .” from New York Magazine on June 8, 1970, got me wishing for a few hours of time with just about any of the elite of American society that ushered in and oversaw the coronation of their very own so chic, so hip, so nimble and enlightened leader. But the radical chic, those who helped elect this President, and with it the seemingly endless policy shifts away from accountability toward mediocrity and the continued Read more

The line for food stamps is over there. This is the line for deficit-funded mortgage bailouts.

James Pethokoukis at Reuters:

Main Street may be about to get its own gigantic bailout. Rumors are running wild from Washington to Wall Street that the Obama administration is about to order government-controlled lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to forgive a portion of the mortgage debt of millions of Americans who owe more than what their homes are worth. An estimated 15 million U.S. mortgages – one in five – are underwater with negative equity of some $800 billion. Recall that on Christmas Eve 2009, the Treasury Department waived a $400 billion limit on financial assistance to Fannie and Freddie, pledging unlimited help. The actual vehicle for the bailout could be the Bush-era Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, a sister program to Obama’s loan modification effort. HARP was just extended through June 30, 2011.

The move, if it happens, would be a stunning political and economic bombshell less than 100 days before a midterm election in which Democrats are currently expected to suffer massive, if not historic losses. The key date to watch is August 17 when the Treasury Department holds a much-hyped meeting on the future of Fannie and Freddie.

What would be the motive for doing something this dumb? To buy your vote, of course:

Keep in mind the political and economic context. The nascent recovery is already running out of steam. Wall Street economists just downgraded the government’s second-quarter GDP estimate of 2.4 percent to around 1.7 percent. And as even Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is warning, the unemployment rate may well begin to rise back toward the politically toxic 10 percent level given such sluggish growth. Many in the White House thought the unemployment rate would be dropping sharply by this point in the recovery.

But that is not happening. What is happening is that the president’s approval ratings are continuing to erode, as are Democratic election polls. Democrats are in real danger of losing the House and almost losing the Senate. The mortgage Hail Mary would be a last-gasp effort to prevent this from happening and to save the Obama agenda. The political calculation is that the number of Read more

You Still Here? Good. Now Get Out!

I was talking to a pretty large group of agents yesterday and during the break I asked my standard questions: “So, how’s business?”  “Are you keeping busy?”  Over and over I heard the same two answers.  One agent would say, “No, it’s been slow and it’s killin’ me.”  The next agent would say “Yeah, I’m real busy, but every transaction takes three times as much work and pays half what it did.  It’s killin’ me.”  Kind of reminded me of a classic Woody Allen joke about two old ladies sitting at a resort in the Catskills.  The first one complains, “The food here is terrible.” The second one replies, “Yes, and such small portions.”

I know, I know – this space is normally reserved for big-brain posts and how-to tutorials all written to help you find your bigger, better, more passionate place in this bowl of cold porridge we call real estate.  Heck, just for writing this I might get drummed out of the “challenge them till they drop” school of bootcamp real esate training that cost me $19.99 and four cereal box tops.  But listen, if you’re making it right now – despite the poor food and small portions – then you are a success and when the tides eventually rise, you’re going to reap ever increasing rewards. (Unless, of course, those tides drown you, in which case your reward is in the mail… please don’t contact me.)  So give yourself a pat on the back.  Better still, take yourself out to dinner this weekend and make damn sure to show this post to your wife or husband.  They should spend the better part of that dinner telling you how impressed they are that you’re still making it.  (Wouldn’t hurt if they commented on your tremendous bouyancy either.)  Oh, and make sure you order dessert too – something decadent and fattening.  Just tell the waiter that no matter how bad the dessert is, you want a large portion.  It’ll be okay, I promise.  Besides, you deserve it.

On a Scale of 1 to 10…

USC is cleaning house after the Reggie Bush debacle.  (For those of you with real lives, Reggies Bush is a running back for the Saints who, while attending USC, was lucky enough to receive – no strings attached – a big, beautiful new home for his family here in San Diego…  It reportedly had nothing to do with his prowess on the football field.)  According to a recent AP story reported in the San Diego Union Tribune, USC will be sending Mr. Bush’s Heisman Trophy back to the Heisman Committee as an expression of their shame.  Apparently, they are no longer proud to display it along side the trophies of Mike Garrett, Matt Leinart, Carson Palmer, Charles White, Marcus Allen and … OJ Simpson.
 
I’m guessing the closed-door strategy session ended with something like this: “Yes, yes, he nearly severed two people’s heads… I mean he alledgedly nearly severed two people’s heads!  But Reggie cost us scholarships and bowl games.  Gentleman, I believe our course of action is clear.”