What's Wrong With Real Estate (Part I)
If I get another e-mail promotion from Mike Ferry telling me I need to learn “28 Guaranteed Ways To Close The Sale”, I’m gonna barf!
When I became a Realtor® 34 years ago, it was all about how to use sales manipulation to entrap people and get them to sign on the dotted line.
There was the alternative choice “close” ~ that’s the one where you ask them if they would like to buy today . . . or tomorrow, with the underlying concept being that the client was toast if they so much as burped.
Kinda like Gotcha Sales:101
Then, there was the “feel, felt, found” technique for isolating objections.
Unfortunately, this one is still in use today.
It goes like this:
“I can understand why you feel that you want to think it over, Jim and Mary”.
“I’ve felt that way too”.
“However, I’ve found that I will generate my commission faster if you buy right now”.
Enuf to make you gag, isn’t it?
Manipulate people, trick them, and “close the sale”.
And we wonder why we aren’t regarded as professionals?
In my early days in real estate, Tommy Hopkins was the king of tricky closing tactics, along with Zig Ziglar (made me feel good for about two hours), Cavitt Robert, and other sales trainers of the day.
I still remember sitting in a packed Sunnyvale hotel conference room in a 1974 Tommy Hopkins seminar, thinking I would become successful if I could just learn all of those tricky sales techniques.
In later years, it was Tony Robbins and a new generation of “motivational speakers”.
Some of the are still around, spewing their techniques as a road to riches for anyone in sales.
The only personal development speaker I ever liked was Jim Rohn.
Jim’s honest messages were “work harder on yourself than on your job”, “you can become, have, and do anything you choose if you will just choose”, and “the true value of a goal is to entice you to become the person worthy of achieving it”.
That worked for me.
My real estate business model is really pretty simple:
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Show up (on time)
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Tell the truth
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Don’t get attached to the outcome (some do; some don’t)
Real estate, at its most basic level, consists of finding people who are motivated/qualified, asking them lots of questions and listening carefully to their responses, and helping them get what they want.
It’s amazing what you can learn about someone’s motivation if you ask enough questions to “peel the onion” and understand why they want to do something.
You don’t have to trick good clients into doing anything; they’ll do it on their own ~ really!
It is not about sales persuasion and “closing the sale”; it’s about the client!
The real secret to real estate success lies in finding good clients.
You can help a hundred, but you can’t carry even one on your back.
November 30th, 2006 Posted in Uncategorized
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