Category: Management

Flashback Friday: Charging Less, Making More

The ability to go into the marketplace with a financially attractive offer for consumers AND walk away from the transaction with more dollars than your more traditional counterparts is at the heart of Help-U-Sell’s appeal to brokers.

Think like an ordinary broker for a moment:

  • The success of the office is built on one thing:  your ability to attract and retain productive agents.
  • Your primary tool in accomplishing this is commission split — you know to be successful you need agents and to get them, you’ll need to pay well.
  • Unfortunately, the health of your bottom line is dependent on how many commission dollars you retain after splitting with your agents.

Put all of that in a hat and shake it up and you’ve got  . . . a mess!  Your formula for success is at war with itself! No wonder ordinary real estate offices suffer from embarrassingly low profitability if they make a profit at all (despite the fact that consumers think they’re paid way too much!).

Help-U-Sell takes dynamite to all of that nonsense.  First thing we do is demystify the listing process.  We toss out the notion that personality is what sellers buy when they list their property for sale.  Bunk! we say.  Listing is a logical thing.  If you present a system with a track record of success for a fee that is reasonable, most people jump at it.  Instead of two hour marathons where traditional agents warble on about how wonderful they are, listing presentations become simple, short and matter-of-fact:  here’s what we do, here’s what you do and this is what it costs.  Listing is so easy in Help-U-Sell that, well . . . even a Broker could do it.  That’s why we take the listing side of the business out of the agents’ hands.

We believe the listing side of the business belongs to the company, and the broker or an assistant (that’s different than an agent) takes all listings.  The agent’s role is on the buyer side, where we can afford to split commissions.  But, since we create all the leads for our buyer agents through our large number of listings and the power of our well-conceived marketing, we don’t have to give away the farm to get and keep salespeople.  We’re not asking them to call on FSBOS or Expireds, to knock doors or make cold calls to find listings.  We’re not asking them to master a slick listing presentation or memorize responses to two dozen common seller objections.  We just want them to take the prospects we’ve created and find them a property.   Good agents thrive at Help-U-Sell.

Back to the listing side;  here’s how the dollars break down:

Here’s where the ‘yeah-buts’ start to echo from the mouths of ordinary agents:

Yeah-but, with no listing agent the seller is getting less than full service!

Says who?  Full service is getting the property sold for the greatest walk-away dollars in the right time frame — and we do that every day.

Yeah-but, you get what you pay for!  When you list with me I’m going to actively market your property until it’s sold!

Um, let’s see . . . ‘actively market‘ . . . I guess that means put a sign in yard and a listing in the MLS, which then syndicates to a couple dozen Internet sites, right?  In my experience that’s what ordinary agents do when they get a listing.  In my Help-U-Sell office, we have a comprehensive marketing plan (that includes all of that and much more), orchestrated, monitored and constantly improved by . . . ME.  It’s not just a bunch of agents running around willy-nilly, making it up as they go along on every listing they take.

I could go on with the ‘yeah-buts,‘ but we try to keep these posts to a ten minute read or less.

We are a very proud group, and rightfully so.  We’ve taken the fluff and snake oil out of selling real estate and converted the process to logical systems that get results.  We’ve done it in a way that saves consumers thousands of dollars and makes our brokers a nice profit.  Who could ask for anything more?

Flashback Friday: No More Begging!

(Here’s a post from November, 2009 that’s still very relevant.  The point is:  since there is not one iota of difference in the consumer experiences at  Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Keller-Willams, Re/Max, and every other ordinary real estate company, since they are all selling exactly the same thing, their ‘pitch’ ends up being smoke, mirrors and begging.  You have to have something different that works before your ‘pitch’ can be educational, meaningful and powerful. )

It dawned on me 20 years ago when I was working as a Business Consultant for one of the other large national real estate franchises:  In the ordinary real estate world, we were all beggars.

Agents made listing presentations where they begged sellers to work with them.  Then they begged them to reduce the price and relist.  They begged their buyers to be loyal.

Brokers begged agents to come work in their offices.  They begged them not to leave, too.

The Franchises begged (really:  begged) people to join them.  Then they begged them to use the tools, begged them to do the thngs that would help them succeed and begged them to renew at the end of their term.

It was all very degrading, all this begging.

In a universe where everyone is on their own and everyone has the same set of tools, where all the players are just alike — making a convincing argument for your service becomes sophisticated begging.  It’s no longer a matter of educating the customer about the benefits your particular way of doing business can bring to bear on their situation.  It’s about having enough flair to make the ordinary seem special, enough personality to be convincing when you say, ‘Trust me.’

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When I came to Help-U-Sell, I noticed something different.  I saw agents and brokers who had more then their personalities to distinguish them from the pack.  They had systems that worked.  They had a specific way of marketing a listing that got it sold.  They had a unique way of starting a new agent in the business that made them productive.  They had a carefully structured method of working with buyers that not only resulted in loyalty, but also produced such customer satisfaction that testimonials were a cinch.   Everyone — brokers, agents, even the franchisor — was coming from a position of strength because they were backed by a unique business model that worked.

The Help-U-Sell Listing Consultation is not about trying to convince the seller that you’re the best.  It’s about showing the seller enough of your program that they want it, and then deciding if this is a listing you want to take, a seller you can work with.

We don’t chase buyers.  We capture them with a carefully constructed intake system (the Buyer Data Sheet), and then do a consultation that ends in a loyalty commitment.

When we recruit (and we only do this when our program has created more business than we can handle with current staff), we don’t try to convince every agent who walks through the door to join us.  We look for the few who recognize the value of being able to focus on a single, managable aspect of the business.  Then we put them through Science 2 Sales training and hold them to a reasonable production standard.

It’s all about having systems that produce results.  That’s what puts you in a position of strength so that you don’t have to beg for business.

How to Pay Your Real Estate Agent

If you ask, you’ll probably be told you have to pay your agent some percentage of the sales price:  5%, 6%, 7%.  You’ll get that news as if it is law, set by some regulatory agency or trade union, when in truth:  real estate commissions are completely negotiable between the consumer and the office broker.  You can pay whatever you and the broker agree upon.  So what should you pay?  Let’s get to that answer by doing a little ground work first.

In the ordinary real estate world, when you agree to pay that percentage based commission (remember?  5%, 6%, 7%, whatever), you’re actually agreeing to pay not one, but four commissions.  It’s generally accepted in the ordinary real estate world that most sales will involve two brokers, one representing the seller in the transaction, and another one who comes in with the buyer.  This is so common that ordinary brokers plan for it:  they charge you a lofty lump sum percentage so that there is enough commission to pay that outside broker in the event that’s how the sale is made.  Typically, commissions are shared equally between the Seller’s broker and the Buyer’s broker . . . so that’s two commissions right there.

But we’re talking about Brokers, here.  You’ve probably been hearing from Agents, not Brokers, right?  An Agent is the Broker’s representative in the field.  He or she works for the Broker, follows the Broker’s instructions, is supervised by the Broker.  It’s rare (in the ordinary real estate world) that the consumer ever meets the Broker.  He or she is almost always dealing with an Agent who represents the Broker.  So we now have to plan for an Agent on the side representing the Seller and one on the side representing the Buyer:  two more commissions.  And 2 + 2 = 4.

Ordinary Brokers bundle this whole mess up into one big lump: their real estate sales commission, and when you agree to list your home with an ordinary Broker, you are agreeing to pay all four commissions whether there is an outside Broker and Agent involved or not.

That’s not as awful as it sounds.  Ordinary Agents and Brokers today have been conditioned to ‘throw a sign in the yard, put it in the MLS and wait for someone else to sell it.’   As a result, most real estate transactions usually do involve four separate sales entities that need to be paid.  But 15% – 25% of transactions don’t.  And ordinary real estate usually makes no special allowance for these other kinds of transactions.  What are they?

  • A Buyer could see the for sale sign or find your home in some other piece of marketing, call the listing office and ask to see it and eventually, buy it.  No outside Agent involved, no outside Broker involved.  But you’ll be paying those two extra commissions anyway, because that’s what you agreed to at the time of listing.   
  • A neighbor who saw the sign go up excitedly tells you about her brother who has wanted to live in the neighborhood for ages.  You invite the brother over, he loves the house and buys it.  No outside Agent, no outside Broker . . . but you still pay full fare.
  • You could go to the office and meet the new guy transferring in from out of town and, coincidentally, looking for a home just like yours!  You invite his family over and, of course, they buy the house.  No outside Agent or Broker, in fact YOU found the buyer . . . but what will you pay?  Full fare.  Its’ just the way things are. 

It doesn’t have to be that way.

When you interview your agent (remember:  you’re going to negotiate your commission . . . because you can),  insist that they un-bundle the commission.  Agree to pay the listing Broker no matter what:  he or she will have real expenses in marketing and will represent you to close of escrow.  And if you’re talking with an ordinary Broker, you ‘ll probably also have to agree to compensate his or her Agent as well.  After all, that’s who you’ll be dealing with (unless you are talking with an extraordinary Broker who will eliminate the middle-man and represent you himself).

Then, agree to pay the other two parts of the commission only if an outside Broker and Agent are involved.  Allow for the possibility that you may find the buyer yourself.  Allow for the possibility that an outside Broker/Agent working the MLS will not come in with a buyer.  In fact, if you are in one of the hot markets where inventory is at a premium today, maybe you should instruct your agent NOT to put you in the MLS for a few weeks, NOT to offer to pay an outside Broker/Agent for awhile, to give the market time to sell it without having to pay that extra commission.

I know:  this is sounding like a very complex negotiation.  How are you going to pull it off without shooting yourself in the foot?  I don’t think you’ll meet with much cooperation from your ordinary Agent.  You’re proposing taking a big bite out of the industry’s cash flow!

But you know what?  You don’t have to navigate this negotiation at all.  Help-U-Sell has been working that way for 37+ years.  We let you choose whether  or not you even want to offer you home for sale through outside Brokers.  We let you choose whether or not you want to participate in the marketing, whether or not you want to try to find your own buyer.  And when the sale is made and closed, you will pay based not on some arbitrary percentage you agreed to at the time of listing, but on how the home actually sells.  If no outside Broker is involved, you won’t pay one.  If you find your own buyer, you’ll pay even less.

Ready to start making sense out of your real estate transaction?  Go HERE to find a Help-U-Sell office near you.

How Is Your Real Estate Muscle?

I am into Geezer Fitness.  That’s what happens when old people work consistently toward achieving fitness goals.  Geezer Fitness.  I got serious about it 10 years ago, in my early 50s and it has paid big benefits.  I am much stronger, healthier and happier than I was when I began.  I look better too.

Geezer Fitness means 3 things:

Diet – which doesn’t mean denying yourself anything, but rather taking control and making small adjustments.

Mental Conditioning – stretching your brain and pushing it to grow.  For me this takes the form of learning new things:  another language, a new sport, painting.

Physical Exercise – (in order) Stretching – Cardio Exercise – Resistance Training.  I say ‘in order’ because if you haven’t exercised in a long time, that’s how you should start:  consistent stretching every other day until it becomes an anticipated habit;  then adding in a little Cardio, and a little more, and a little more, until it, too, becomes an important routine; then doing the same with Resistance Training.  If you’re just starting out, it will take at least a year to get all three happening in an integrated rotine.

If you are not a little careful, it is possible to ‘strain’ any part of this recipe.  If you go overboard on the diet thing, you can end up craving stuff that will set you back.  If you push too hard in learning, you can become fatigued and muddled.  And when you over-do any part of your exercise program you can end up in pain . . . as I have.

I strained my back late last week.  Believe it or not, I think I did it stretching . . . in a yoga class.  Yes, it’s even possible to over-do when you are doing the most gentle part of your program.

Pain is your body talking to you.  It’s telling you you’ve gone too far, done something wrong, and now need a break.  I’ve had five days of pain – each day a little less severe than the one before – and near complete cessation of physical activity since.  You have to do that when you strain a muscle:  stop, sit down, take a break, give the muscle time to heal.  And while you are recouping, think about how you did this to yourself and make plans about how you’ll avoid it in the future.  In baseball they call this the ’15 Day Disabled List.’

And all of this is true for your real estate career too! (you knew I’d get around to that, didn’t you?)

If you’ve done it right, your real estate career is a set of pleasant routines you’ve developed over time that produce a beneficial outcome. . . just like my Fitness program.  Your routines are probably in several categories:  Marketing, prospecting, lead management, client base development, and so on.  You can ‘strain’ your real estate muscle by being out of balance, by dropping the ball on any one of your routines, by becoming reactive and out of control of your business.

No matter what the cause, Real Estate Muscle Strain always feels the same:  you hate your job.  The thought of talking to one more FSBO contorts your entire face into a frown.  You can’t find the gumption to call the Seller with the unrealistic price to report no new activity and to suggest a price reduction.  You put your phone on d0-not-disturb mode and let it all go to voice mail . . . and then dred all of those calls to return.

Just as with physical muscle strain, there is a prescription for Real Estate Muscle Strain, and it is the same:  Stop.  Rest.  Think about how you got the strain and plan how you will avoid it in the future.

But how do you do that when your business is clicking along?  You can’t just abandon everything and take off to Cabo!  But maybe you could get the flu.  Here’s the cure:

  • Identify your real estate pals:  the one or two people you would trust to cover for you and for whom you’d be willing to cover in return.  Do this NOW, before you strain your muscle.
  • Meet with them and form a pact:  when one of you go down, the other(s) will pick up the slack.

Now, when you discover you’ve strained your Real Estate Muscle:

  • Devote an hour or two to organizing your current business so you can hand it off.
  • Meet with your pal(s) and give them your files.  Plan to talk with them once a day.
  • Contact your active clients – sellers and buyers – and explain that you have the flu or a family emergency or a sick parent or something and that your Pal(s) will be covering for you.  You expect to be back in the saddle within the week.  
  • Go somewhere where you can rest.  This might be home . . . or maybe it really is Cabo!
  • Give your mind and body a break from real estate.  Talk to your Pal(s) once a day and then drop it.  
  • Think about what it was that caused the strain.  What drove you over the edge?  
  • What can you do immediately on your return to put that straining influence in check?
  • And how can you organize yourself and your business so that a strain in this area will be unlikely in the future?  

Need an example?  Here’s one that has ‘strained’ many real estate people:  shifty, rude or obnoxious clients.  Honestly:  if you are working with people you really don’t like, it’s a strain and it can drive you right off the cliff.  So give yourself permission to get the real estate flu, hand your business off and go to . . . Cabo!  But think:  how did  you get yourself into this pickle?

You’ll probably realize that at some point you were so desperate for business that you took whatever business you could find.  That’s usually how we end up with obnoxious clients.  The real problem isn’t the clients, it’s the desperation.  Without the desperation you can be picky about who you work with.  So what caused the desperation?  Oh, lack of leads (perhaps).  So how can you generate enough leads so that you can be picky about the ones you choose to work?  Oh, I know!  Marketing!  Maybe it is time to jump into that great mailbox program from Excel . . . or try this Facebook pay-per-click thing, or buy a zip code from Zillow.  And when you get back to work, is there a listing you want to give back?  A buyer you want to pass off to someone else?

See how it goes?  Strain is a symptom.  First you have to take care of the symptom by stepping back, by stopping.  Continuing to work when you have a strain only makes the strain worse.  You think:  what caused the strain?  What can I do NOW to get control?  And what can I do going forward to ensure that I don’t have this problem in the future?

I’m sure my strain came from forward bends:  downward facing dog, child pose, bent-leg forward bend and so on.  I pushed too hard and, I think, did a lot of bending from the low back, not from the hinge of the hips.  When I go back to yoga next week, I am going to limit my forward bends.  I’m going to use blocks under my hands to ensure that I don’t over-bend.  I’m going to consciously think about my hips and stop when they stop hinging.  It’s taken a week in a chair on muscle relaxers to come to this understanding.

Now:  What’s your plan of attack on your Real Estate Strain?  And where are your muscle relaxers?

Small Adjustments

Most of us want to lead healthier lives. Most of us want to build a healthier planet. Most of us want to have a healthier business.

Getting healthier in your business is just like getting healthier in your body and your home: it is often a matter of small adjustments applied consistently over time.

Think about water for a moment. It’s a precious resource, one that becomes even more so as populations increase. What small adjustments could you make in your relationship with water that would benefit your health or planet?

From a health standpoint, you could drink more of it and cut out the ‘junk’ alternatives to water humans have concocted through the years (read: soda).

From a conservation standpoint, you could turn off the tap while you brush your teeth and shave. A very small adjustment with a very big benefit. Really: can you imagine how much water we’d save if everyone did this?

From an environmental standpoint, you could quit carrying your water around in a ‘disposable’ plastic bottle. There’s nothing ‘disposable’ about them and the alternative is so simple.

Small adjustments in your relationship with water can mean big benefits in your life and the lives of others.

Now, think about your business. What small adjustments could you make in your business life that would yield equally big positive results?

How about planning your day the evening before? Really, simply writing your to do list before going to bed has proven to increase productivity. Simple step: Big return.

How about getting up 30 minutes early every day and spending the extra time stretching and breathing? You will be better prepared physically and mentally to tackle your day and, over time, you will reverse the natural fossilization that occurs as people age. I mean: do you really want to look like a question mark when you hit 80? Small adjustment – Big benefit.

How about committing to NOT respond to crisis? One of the things that happens as we get busy in real estate is that we become reactive. We are bombarded with urgent requests to get things done and to solve problems and to help others with their own tasks. Your entire day can be taken up responding to one urgency after another.

The truth is there are very few real estate emergencies. Not real ones. Most problems can be solved and few ever require immediate attention. So why allow the crisis of the moment to derail your plan for the day? If you will plan your day the night before and then give your plan primacy over everything else, you can quit being re-active in your business and start being pro-active.

If you have agents, you know how they can overload you with dozens of problems. Are you better equipped to solve the problems? Sure. But what other important activities are you going to sacrifice to do so? You could insist that nobody come to you with a problem without also bringing a couple of potential solutions (this short-circuits a lot of unnecessary problem dumping). Or you could be less formal.

I’ve written about a great broker for whom I worked in the early 80s. He was Godzilla’s boss. Remember? The man was adored by his agents. Really: we were so proud to work for him and to have him on our side. One of the things he did so well was to solve problems. We all knew, if we were backed up against the wall with a terrible situation, he could find a strategy, a solution, better than anyone else. And the conversation always went something like this:

‘Have you got a minute?’

‘Sure, what’s up?’

‘Well, I’m having a heck of a time with blah blah blah blah.’

‘Really? Tell me about it.’

‘Ok: blah blah blah blah blah.’

”What solutions have you already tried?’

(From this point forward, I will omit the ‘blahs.’ All lines will be the Broker’s – they are the only ones that count)

‘Why wasn’t that solution successful?’

‘What do you think might make a difference?’

‘How do you think we could make that happen?’

‘I think that’s a pretty good plan – what do you need to move forward?’

And so on. He rarely if ever gave us the answer. Mostly he just asked questions and we found a solution. Now, I don’t want to imply that he never had input. He did. But mostly he got us to think about our problems in new ways and to invent our own solutions.

It was a small adjustment in his style (he curbed his own impulse to have the answer)  that had a big payoff in his business – a happy, loyal and productive staff.

Finally, think about baseball for a moment, professional baseball.  There are superstars being paid millions to play the game and there are many not-s0-super-stars making a whole lot less.  The average players – the ones who will be largely forgotten when they leave the game – will successfully make contact with the ball and have a hit 5 times out of every 20 times they come to the plate.  The superstars?  What makes them so much more valuable?  What makes them worth millions to a club?  Every 20 times they come to the plate, they will get 6 hits.  Just one hit more.

What small adjustment can you make in your business and your life to get just one more hit?

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