Your head hurts. Your stomach is queasy. You hear the panic in the voices of some and thrill in the voices of others. You close your eyes, partially anticipating the next climb while fearing the next drop.
You have all the symptoms of riding a roller coaster yet your physical feet are planted firmly on the ground. Well, if you are in sales, you may have stumbled involuntarily on the figurative sales roller coaster. Worse yet, you may be cultivating habits that only cement your feet and career on this sales whirlwind.
Enough is enough. Make sporadic sales business a thing of the past by defining what spotty or counter-productive habits need to be decimated.
1. On-again-off-again lead generation
Some days you are in your #RiseAndGrind mode; other days, not so much. Perhaps you are dealing with transactional “fires” and client issues. No matter the reason, your lead generation tasks are the first to get pushed to the side. One isolated instance is never the issue — it’s that many times we end up missing several days (or weeks) of deliberate lead generation activities. These misses can translate into business dry spells.
It is time to stop the on-and-off treatment. If you do not plan on “breaking up” with real estate, then it’s time for an all-in commitment to your marketing.
How?
Develop and be intentional about your doing your Daily Half Dozen. Check out this video to learn more about the power in committing to a Daily Half Dozen.
2. You don’t have time for numbers
Ninety percent of the time that agents seeking increased income come to me for coaching, they do not holistically know the numbers for their business. Some may know their GCI from the last calendar year and that is all — but that is not enough.
Do not assume that the numbers will just take care of themselves. Worse yet, many agents have a “goldmine” in their database that sits untapped from not knowing the numbers.
Track your numbers. That might include using a CRM (like the one offered by your firm, Follow-Up Boss, Wise Agent, Espresso Agent, LionDesk or Brivity to name just a few). But it could also be as simple as using one of the free database templates in Google Drive (here are examples).
Some of the $20 million sales producers that I work with even use only notebooks because they are not comfortable with apps and gizmos. Okay, no problem. I do not want to make this post about how you track your numbers but rather that you do it. Use your preferred system. If you like it, I love it!
3. You are an island
Just because you are in business for yourself does not mean you should be in business by yourself. Our network truly influences and increases our net worth.
In essence, we should welcome accountability.
But I also get that some salespeople are ruthless and might even exhibit snake-like traits. Thus, we must be discerning in who we allow to speak into our lives and see our “trade secrets.”
Who can help you push yourself forward without sabotaging your progress? That could be a fellow agent, manager, mentor/coach or someone with the same hustle and ambition as you in another industry altogether. What role they occupy is not as important as how well they roll through life.
4. You only take mandatory classes
As a high school student, you might have not cared much about the classes offered and only taken enough to graduate. As a real estate pro, however, you must pursue lifelong learning.
What new information have you learned this year? This month? This week? Today?
There might not be anything new under the sun when it comes to relating to people, but market cycles and technological trends necessitate a vigilant eye. Despite the panic of the last decade, there has been no economic downturn or upturn or investment vehicle that could not have been planned. That is why there are multi-millionaire producers when times are good and bad. They have learned to adapt to the ever-changing marketplace.
In 2019, information is free-flowing — at least in the U.S. — so we can all stay in the know.
5. Cookie Cutter “R” Us
If Sally Sales-A-Lot (the top producer in your area) uses it, it has to work for you too, right? Strategies, tools and apps are not always as “plug and play” as we would hope. Often times, our individual personality determines how easy or difficult it is for us to apply someone else’s technique. Does that mean we should not be in sales? Probably not. Does that mean we need to find what strategies work best with our unique personality and experiences? Absolutely.
After researching some of the top 1,000 U.S. residential individual sales agents for my doctoral research, it was amazing to learn several nuggets — but there were three that I want to highlight here:
- All personality types (based on the DISC profile) are represented among top producers, not just the most extroverted, despite sales myths.
- Every top producer understood how to do the activities that flowed best with their individual personality. They knew how to profit with their personalities (read more on this topic by clicking here.
- Every top producer had at least five (but many had closer to 10) key lead generation activities that they did daily (not just when they felt like it or had the most time). This point speaks to why I am an advocate of the Daily Half Dozen.
There is a rush both of excitement and terror that comes from riding roller coasters. If you enjoy such highs and lows, make sure they only happen an amusement park while you keep your business stable and growing.
