When you’re afraid of the answer to a question, ask it!

When you’re afraid of the answer to a question, ask it!
We all know people whose lives would be immensely better if they would just ask a tough question.

This kind of “question avoidance” happens all the time.  They don’t ask the questions because they’re afraid of the answer. They suspect that they’re going to get bad news, so they keep putting it off as long as possible so they can extend the fantasy they have that everything is okay.  If they ask the question and get the bad news they suspect is coming, it will pop the bubble of denial that they’re living in.

Estate agents do this all the time.  They shy away from asking tough questions because they’re afraid of the answers.  They don’t ask buyers if they’re working with other agents.  They don’t ask sellers if they’re prepared to sign contracts at an appointment. They don’t ask clients whether they would be willing to write testimonials. You MUST ask those questions, even if they’re uncomfortable for you.

Indeed, it’s the very fact that you’re afraid of the answer should alert you to your need to ask the question.  You absolutely must know whether this buyer that you’re schlepping around all day is stepping out with other agents.  You definitely need to know if the seller is serious about signing a contract and you certainly want to know whether your client is happy with their experience with you.

It’s bad enough when people shy away from confrontations in their personal lives.  You can’t do it in your professional life.  Living in denial is no way to live.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

Don’t be Afraid to be Called “Pushy,” at Least Once

Most of the very good estate agents I’ve worked with have one thing in common. They’re a little, sometimes a lot, pushy.  They’re not afraid to ask tough questions, make aggressive demands or put people on the spot.  Simply put, they’re comfortable making other people uncomfortable.

Most of us aren’t built that way.  We are hard-wired to be agreeable and cooperative and likeable. We’re empathic and deferential to other people’s needs. We try to be “nice” to other people in our daily lives because we want them to like us and we know they won’t like us if we’re pushy and demanding.  For the most part, those are admirable traits.

Sometimes it pays to be a little pushy when you’re in the business of providing a service to someone else.  You might not be pushy in your everyday life, when it’s just you and your needs that are at stake but you need to be willing to be a little pushy when you’re looking out for someone else.

Think of it this way.  If someone hit you with their car and you were filing a claim, wouldn’t you want your solicitor to be a little pushy? You don’t want some mild mannered solicitor who’s afraid to step on any toes, you want someone wearing big, oversized clown shoes stomping around on all the toes they can!  Think about how some of the most timid, agreeable people you know are about their children. You can push them around all you want, but they’ll bite your head off when it comes to protecting their kids.

Now, I’m not saying you need to become a raging sociopath.  If you’re not a naturally aggressive, demanding person, you’re not going to be able to pull it off. You’ll be uncomfortable and self-conscious and you’ll probably come across like a total idiot.  However, I do think that most of us have a lot of leeway to be a little more aggressive in our business.  We can push a little more than we do without actually crossing the line to “pushiness.”  We’re so agreeable, we shy away from those tough questions, aggressive demands and uncomfortable situations even when we should charge ahead.

My point is this. If you’ve never, ever been called “pushy” at least once in your career you’ve never challenged your OWN comfort level enough.  Commit yourself to push a little more until you find just how far you can go without turning people off.  Then, when you do finally get called “pushy,” it’s not the end of the world. Just apologise, explain that you sometimes get “so passionate” about what you do and then back off and change the subject. Now you know where the line is and how far you can go without crossing it.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

When Someone Asks You How You’re Doing, Say “I’m GREAT!”

When you become an entrepreneur, you can’t afford to be in a bad mood. Bad moods bring bad results.  It’s tough to get hard things done when you’re walking around like a mope all day.  And it’s also tough to generate new business since people don’t want to talk to someone with a permanent scowl on their face.

It’s not easy.  Being in the property industry means having to deal with a lot of stuff that can make you want to crawl into a ball and hide from the world. Deals fall apart, buyers who end up hiring another agent, sellers who blame you for the state of the market.  It can be a hard slog.

But you have to stay positive, even if you’re not.  We could spend all day talking about the power of positive thinking but there’s a simple trick that you can use to trick yourself just a little bit into staying more positive on a daily basis.

The trick is easy.  When someone asks you how you’re doing say “I’m GREAT!”

For example, let’s say you’re in the supermarket and you run into a friend.  They ask how you’re doing.  Normally, you would respond with something rote, boring and mundane like “I’m good” or “I’m ok” or “I’m fine”. Instead, let’s say you respond with a fervent “I’m GREAT”

Why is that so much better? For one thing, it’s much more likely to start a real conversation with someone. When you surprise someone by saying “I’m GREAT” their tendency is going to be to ask you why.  It gets them engaged which is important insofar as you are in the business of trying to get people interested in talking with you.  Maybe you’ll start talking about property and find out that they know someone who needs an estate agent. I’m not saying that saying “I’m GREAT” will actually generate new business for you but it’s a lot more likely than if you just said something boring like “I’m fine.”

More importantly, by saying “I’m GREAT” you might actually trick yourself into believing it.  This isn’t some armchair psychology hocus-pocus. Lots of studies show that people can change their mental state by the way they talk and speak.  If you slump your shoulders, you’re going to reinforce your lousy mood. If you keep telling yourself that it’s going to be a lousy day, then you’re likely to be right.  But if you stand up straight or keep telling yourself that you’re feeling great, you can actually create a better mood.

So try it.  Whenever someone asks you how you’re doing, say “I’m GREAT”

It’s different, it’s interesting, and it might actually become true.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

All the Stuff You Don’t Like to Do is Why People Pay You

I used to live on the fifth floor of an apartment building in Central London that had a dodgy passenger lift and combined with my fear of enclosed spaces, I walked the stairs rather thanrun the risk of being trapped. I hated walking up those stairs every day and I particularly hated carrying heavy things up the stairs.  So when I bought stuff like furniture or groceries, I would usually get them delivered. Every time, the delivery guys (they were always men) would do the same thing.  They’d huff and puff as they ascended, acting as if this was one of the greatest injustices in world history. How DARE I ask them to lug this heavy stuff up all these stairs!

Now, of course, they were just trying to guilt me into giving them a big tip for their troubles, but it always annoyed me.  I mean, that’s the job, right?  Their job was to carry heavy stuff up stairs.  If I didn’t have a lot of stairs, I could do it myself and then I wouldn’t have to pay them.  Indeed, their very job depended on me having a lot of stairs.

It’s like a dentist complaining that he really hates teeth.  If you don’t like teeth, don’t become a dentist.  Dealing with teeth is the job!

Estate agents do this all the time.  They complain about having to fill out paperwork.  They complain about dealing with clients who won’t pull the trigger.  They complain about having to prospect.  They complain about everything.

But all those things you hate doing? That’s the job! Those are the things people PAY YOU MONEY for.  Filling out disclosures?  That’s the job.  Calling FSBOs?  That’s the job. Schlepping buyers to look at house after house?  That’s the job.  If you didn’t have to do those things, you wouldn’t have a job, and you wouldn’t make any money.  If you really hate it so much go find another job that you’ll like better.  Maybe carrying heavy things up stairs will be right up your street.

The fact is, everyone complains about their job sometimes, regardless of how great the job is.  Somewhere there’s probably a movie star complaining about the boredom of sitting in his trailer waiting for the next shot.  Some jobs are better than others but every job has stuff that we don’t like doing.  That’s why it’s a job.

So suck it up. Don’t complain about your job.  It’s annoying, and no one cares.

Buildings Built Without Blueprints Fall Down a Lot

Buildings Built Without Blueprints Fall Down a Lot
You wouldn’t hire a surgeon who was just “winging it” when he performed your operation.  You wouldn’t feel safe with a pilot who chucked his flight plan out the window and literally decided to fly your plane by the seat of his pants.  You wouldn’t be comfortable moving into an apartment building whose contractors decided they didn’t need any fancy-schmancy blueprints.

Why? Because when it comes to important things like cutting into a human body, flying heavy hunks of metal in the air and erecting towering mountains of concrete, we recognize the value of having a structured plan to follow.  Whatever you call them checklists, project plans or blueprints these types of formal organizational structure save lives by ensuring attention to detail, consistency of execution and codification of best practices.

Unfortunately, estate agents rarely have these types of standardised procedures for running their business.  They make it up as they go along.  They wing it.  They constantly reinvent the wheel. They come into the office with a half-hearted “to do” list and good intentions but are immediately thrown off course by a phone call, an email or just their own tendency to avoid difficult tasks.

But if it’s good enough for pilots, doctors and builders it should be good enough for us.  Let’s say, for example, that you just took a listing.  Once you sign that contract, you have a bunch of tasks that you have to complete. Take pictures, write descriptions, check the accuracy of the description, order a sign, set up an open house and so on.  You might have 25 or 30 discrete items that you have to complete.  More importantly, they are the SAME 25 or 30 discrete items every time.

So why don’t we have a detailed “project plan” that codifies the best practices for putting a listing on the market? Figure out what has to be done, put it on the list and then take out that list every time you need it.  Think about all the ways that would help you. Saving you all the time and energy you spend trying to remember what you need to do next. Encouraging attention to detail by focusing your attention on each discrete task; Creating consistency of execution, because you would be doing the same thing every time.  Most importantly, a project plan codifying proven best practices would ensure a high level of performance for your clients.

And if you can do it for listings, you can do it for every other common project in your business. Facilitating a transaction, making an offer or even planning your productive day.  The more structured you are, the more organised you are and the more organised you are, the more productive you’ll be.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

Any Plan is Better Than No Plan

All diets work even the gimmicky ones. You want to spend the next six weeks eating nothing but cabbage soup?  You’ll lose weight.  Nothing but carbs?  You’ll lose weight.  No carbs, just protein? You’ll lose weight.  Grapefruit, nothing but luscious grapefruit?  You’ll lose weight.  If you actually do something smart like simply control your portions, restrict calories and exercise a little, you’ll lose weight.

The point is – they ALL work.  Why?  Because any plan is better than no plan.

The same is true when you’re trying to make changes in your business.  For example, lots of estate agents have started lead generation campaigns, usually after they’ve attended some sort of coaching or training program, where they set up a “prospecting” schedule and commit to making a certain number of calls or contacts every day.

Like diets, all those programs work.  Any sort of plan to build your business is going to make an impact, regardless of whether it involves cold calling FSBO’s or online marketing or sphere development.  Why?  Because a lead generation campaign is a plan requiring you to (1) set goals, (2) track what you do, and (3) monitor your results. In other words, your campaign, like a diet, is a plan.  And any plan is better than no plan.

However, lead generation campaigns, like diets, only work in the long-term if you internalise the methods and make them part of your habitual routine.  The “plan” you adopt has to be something you can stick with. Something that spurs a permanent change in your behaviour and ultimately becomes second-nature.  Then it actually stops being a “plan” and just becomes as natural to you as brushing your teeth every morning when you wake up.

But all big changes in your life have to begin somewhere.  A plan, any kind of plan, is a good place to start.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

Never Talk to Another Estate Agent For More Than Five Minutes

I love estate agents. I work with them every day. You probably like estate agents, too.  They’re your colleagues, your co-workers, your friends and the people you spend most of your time with every day.

But you should stop talking to them so much.  Why? Very simple. They’re almost certainly never going to buy or sell a house with you.  You need to spend more time with people who actually might.

Unfortunately, a lot of estate agents spend an inordinate amount of time every day talking to other estate agents.  We get pulled into these never-ending conversations where we complain about the market, gossip about other agents and share war stories.  Obviously, that’s all largely wasted time, and you should do your best to extricate yourself from those traps as much as possible.

But even the “productive” conversations you have with other estate agents can sap your time and energy. So here’s the rule you should follow. Never talk to another agent for more than five minutes.  Anything you need to discuss, an offer, an inspection, a transactional issue, listing feedback can be done in five minutes or less. Any more than that and you’re just wasting time.

A great way to limit your phone calls is to use “I only have a moment” trick, which goes like this: “Hi Bob, I just wanted to call you to go over the inspection, but I only have a moment.”  Why is this so helpful?  Because you’ve signalled to the other agent that you need to make the conversation quick, which encourages them to get to the point quickly. It’s not rude, it’s almost flattering. You’re indicating to them that you have a busy schedule but you’ve carved out time for this call because it’s so important.

Indeed, the other agent will probably appreciate it.  Don’t flatter yourself. They’re probably thrilled if they can get you off the phone in less than five minutes….

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

Spend Five Minutes Each Morning Organising Your Day

If you can carve out five minutes every morning to organize your day, you’ll save yourself many, many more minutes.  I know you’re busy.  We’re all busy.  But we’re only talking about five minutes.  300 seconds.

I’m not talking about anything elaborate, just sitting down and thinking about what you want to accomplish that day and how you’re going to do it. You’ll find that just the act of sitting and thinking for a few minutes every day will make you more organised, disciplined and productive during the rest of the day.

Here’s why it’s important.  Very few people start each day with an organised plan  They have a general idea of what they need to do usually built around the appointments they’ve set up or their “to do” list, but they don’t have a firm structure.

So what happens?  They start with all sorts of energy and enthusiasm to get things done and then something unexpectedly comes up that dominates their day, a problem with a deal, an angry call from a client or an email with a request.  Whatever it is, it wasn’t even on the schedule but it ends up becoming the main focus of the da, and they never actually get to any of the items on their supposed “to do” list.

Now, sometimes emergencies come up and will throw even the most disciplined person off their game.  But here’s the key. Someone who actually has a schedule set up is MUCH more likely to get able to get back on schedule after a disruptive event than someone without a plan. If you start the day with only a general idea of what you want to accomplish, it’s a lot easier to end up getting distracted and disrupted.

So plan your day.  You don’t need to spend half an hour doing it.  You don’t need to hyper-organise your day into 15-minute increments.  Just spend five minutes gathering yourself, setting your goals, structuring your appointments, organizing your thoughts and committing yourself to what you want to accomplish.

You Wouldn’t Trust a Doctor Who Still Used Leaches

Consider the plight of the poor “Propertysaurus” – the estate agents who are increasingly falling behind because they stubbornly resist learning how to use modern technology.  They’re so afraid of these new technologies that they’ve overcompensated by making it an “old school” point of pride that they don’t know how to use a computer or a Smartphone or the internet.  They do business the “old fashioned” way.

I think we all have to acknowledge that the time has passed when someone who doesn’t know how to use a computer is charming or colourful.  It’s just silly to stick your head in the sand and pretend that you can still be as effective and efficient without taking advantage of new technology that’s available to you.  Imagine an estate agent 30 years ago refusing how to use a copy machine, insisting that the “old school” way of mimeographing was good enough.

Moreover, it’s not fair to your clients. Why should clients trust an agent who can’t perform some of the basic requirements of the job such as taking and enhancing digital photos, pulling comps online, creating and sending PDF documents, staying in touch through email and text?  Would you trust a doctor who trumpeted the virtues of his old school approach to using leeches and boring holes in your skull to release all the evil demons?

The reason so many of us are afraid of new technologies is that we give them too much credit.  We’re too intimidated by them and many of us respond to that intimidation by just shutting down.  It doesn’t help that the real estate industry keeps treating “technology” as some awesome, unfathomable, omnipotent force that is segregated out as its own discrete category. We have whole conferences just devoted to “real estate technology” and whole training courses dedicated to teaching “technology” as a standalone subject.  Having a whole conference dedicated to social media is as ridiculous as a conference 25 years ago devoted to teaching people how to use answering machines, copiers and the white pages.

Technology is not our job, it’s just a tool that we need to use in our job.  Like any tool that’s important for our business, you need to learn how to use it if you’re going to stay relevant.  Refusing to learn how to use a computer is like refusing to learn how to use a fax machine.

So stop being intimidated by new technologies. Learn how to use them, not for their own sake, but so that you can figure out how they can help you do your job.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

Only Embrace New Technologies That Replace Old Tools With Better Tools

Consider the plight of the poor “Propertygeek” the real estate agent who embrace new technology so tightly that they leap into every new trend and buy every shiny new gizmo that hits the market. While the “Propertysaurus” reacts to the intimidation of new technologies by shutting down and ignoring them, the Propertygeeks respond by elevating them as centrepiece of their business in the smug belief that all the “old school” ways of doing things are dead.

But Propertygeeks make the mistake of thinking that they’re in the technology business, not the real estate business and so they spend too much of their time doing things that don’t actually help them acquire clients or sell homes. They don’t see the point of cultivating a sphere because they’re going to generate all the leads they need from their blog, their Twitter feed or that new online system they just bought.  They don’t pick up the phone since NO ONE talks on the phone anymore.  New technologies become important for their own sake, a security blanket that tricks the Propertygeek into thinking that he had a productive day if he spent three hours posting a great answer on Twitter or Facebook that is generating a lot of online buzz.

Now, I’m not saying that technology is a bad thing. You need to find a happy medium between the Propertysaurus who reject all new technologies and the Propertygeeks who embrace all of them for their own sake.  The key is to recognise that technology is just a tool and differentiate between the tools that will help you and the tools that are a waste of your time.

Here’s the key. If a new technology allows you to do something you were already doing, but to do it faster, cheaper or easier then it’s a productive technology and you should learn how to use it in your business.  Good technologies are just tools that are better than the old tools you were already using.  Smartphone’s are better than dumb phones, emailing is better than mailing, scanning better than faxing, a GPS is better than a map and digital photography is better than film.  All these new technologies are great because they are just tools that give us a better way to do something we were already doing.

Conversely, non-productive technologies are tools that seduce you into spending a lot of time doing things that you never did before like blogging and tweeting and answering online questions from people who are not, and will likely never be, your clients.  You have to avoid technologies that give you that false sense of productivity because you spent a lot of time in front of the computer without actually accomplishing anything that will generate business or service a client.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

Self-Improvement Plans Fail Because They Don’t Work, Or Because They Do

We’ve all been through it.  You go to some sort of coaching or training seminar and get inspired to make some changes in your business. You’re going to set up a whole new system for developing your sphere or engage in two hours of lead generation a day or join a bunch of new organisations or whatever.  You’re going to make some changes that will completely transform your career.

A month later, you’re back to normal. Those training manuals?  They’re in a drawer somewhere.  The follow-up classes? You had to skip them because you had an inspection that day.  No change. No transformation.

One of two things happened.  First, maybe the program didn’t work.  You tried it, gave it a little time, didn’t get any results and so you stopped doing it.  Let’s put aside whether you gave yourself enough time for it to work and stipulate that if you don’t get results from the program, you’re not going to continue to put time, effort and money into it.

More interestingly, the second reason that self-improvement programs fail is because they actually DO work.  Let’s say that you started doing the program and you really started to see the results. You’re making lots of new contacts, a whole bunch of new leads and you’re almost giddy with excitement.  You had your doubts, you were worried that it all sounded good but wouldn’t actually succeed in practice and now you’re seeing it pay off.  It really works!

But now something very strange happens, you get a little over-confident.  You marvel at how simple it was and how easy it now seems.  You can’t believe that you didn’t start doing it years ago.  But now that you’re a little busier, you start to cut corners.  Those two hours of prospecting calls?  That follow-up campaign? You don’t really have time for it because you have so much new business already.  So maybe you’ll just take this week off to “catch up” with everything else. Just a short break.  After all, it’s so easy you can just turn it on anytime you need to jump start your business.  So you’ll get through this backlog, keep that great program in your back pocket and pull it out anytime you need it.

And you never do it again.  In other words, it worked so you stopped doing it.  I know it sounds nuts, but it happens.  We go on diets, lose 10 pounds and start cheating because we figure we can go back on the diet whenever we need to lose weight again.  We go on a lead generation campaign, develop a bunch of leads and stop because all those leads need our attention. Then a month later we wonder where all our leads went.  Don’t let that happen to you.  If you start a new program, you need to give it time to work.  And if it does indeed work realize that you would be absolutely crazy to stop doing it.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

No News is Still News

No news is still news. You know what the weather is like right now in Dubai? It’s 85 degrees and sunny.  You know what it’s going to be like tomorrow?  85 degrees and sunny.  Next week?  85 degrees and sunny.

The funny thing is they still do the weather report every day.  Turn on the news and at some point the Dubai meteorologist is going to come on to tell you that it’s 85 degrees and sunny.  Every day, even thought it never changes.

You know why?  Because no news is still news.

That’s the approach you need to take when setting up contact systems for your active clients. No news is still news.  Even if you have nothing to report, you still have to give them a call with the update. Clients who don’t hear from their estate agents get nervous that they’ve been forgotten.  It’s important to keep them informed, even if you have nothing new to tell them.

This can become tough to do, particularly with a seller who has been on the market for a while. It’s not easy to pick up the phone each week to tell the seller, “Yup, we had another week without any showings or offers.”

The challenge, of course, is to find some way to dress it up, to find SOMETHING new to talk about each week.  But that’s the job!

Think about it from your own perspective. Let’s say that you have a buyer who is waiting to hear back about there mortgage commitment.  A week goes by. No news. Another week goes by. No news.  You’re wondering what’s going on.  Would it be helpful if the loan officer gave you a call to update you that, in fact, he was still waiting to hear back from underwriting?  Of course it would.  Even if his update was only to tell you that he’d made no progress, that’s still an update.

All those people in Dubai, they want that weather report.  They don’t want to watch a newscast where the attitude is “we’ll let you know when the weather changes, in the meantime, just hold tight.”  What kind of weather report is that?

Same idea.  Give your clients regular updates, even if you have nothing new to tell them.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

If a Client Calls You With a Question, You’ve Probably Already Failed

If a client calls you with a question, you’ve probably already failed. Your phone rings.  It’s a seller whose home you’ve listed and they want to know if that buyer over the weekend had any feedback. Or it’s a buyer you’re working with, wondering if anything new came on the market this week.

Guess what? You just failed.  Why?  Because they felt that they had to call you. They had a problem, a concern or a question and they did not feel confident that you would be calling them. By definition, they had needs that you were not meeting.

That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. In the ideal agent-client relationship, they don’t have to call you, because they know you’re going to call them.

That’s the expectation you should always set with your clients. First, that you’re going to contact them on a consistent and regular basis and second, that you’re going to contact them anytime you have something to report.  They don’t need to ever call you because you’ve established a system that ensures that you’re contacting them with regularity.

For example, what if when you first met with your clients, you told them “I think my most important job is to make sure we communicate regularly, so I want you to know I’m going to call you every Monday with an update about what’s going on.  And if anything comes up during the week, I’m also going to call you whenever I have some news.”

Let’s say that after making that commitment, you keep it. You call them every Monday to update them and call them during the week if you have anything important to tell them.  What does that do?  First, it establishes that you’re going to have a regular phone conversation with your client on Monday.  Thus, if they have any non-urgent issues during the week, they know that they can just bring them up to you on your weekly update call.  Second, they also know that if anything DOES come up during the week, you’re going to reach out to them, so they don’t have to worry about calling you.

This is better for everyone.  The biggest complaint most clients have is that they don’t hear from their estate agent, which really means that they don’t have a settled expectation on when their agent is going to call them. From your perspective, this ensures that you’ll always be calling them on your terms, when you’re prepared.  You won’t be fielding or ducking random calls during the week when you’re with other clients, taking time off, in a meeting or whatever.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

Never Argue With A Vendor Or Anyone Really.

I deal with angry clients and vendors all the time.  I’m the marketing guy in the company and run the marketing campaigns for clients as well as the other businesses in the Group. I rarely get to talk to the happy vendors or our partners within the Group.

So I talk to these angry vendors, who sometimes have legitimate complaints but, more often than not, are just unhappy for some reason and they’re taken a patchwork of relatively mild problems and stitched into a colourful quilt of discontent.  I’ve found one simple way to soothe them. I hear them out, I apologise and I ask them what I can do to make it better. More often than not, it works.

I don’t argue with vendors because it’s pointless to argue with anyone, particularly someone who is angry. You know what happens when two people get into an argument?  They both become increasingly convinced that they’re right.  The more they argue their points the more committed they become to their position.

Have you ever been in an argument with a vendors that ultimately sincerely agreed with your position?  Someone who ended the argument by simply saying something like, “You know what?  I have heard what you said, and you’ve convinced me!”   Usually, most arguments end with one person just giving up and, at best, sarcastically saying in a huff, “fine, you win. I give up.”

What’s the lesson?  Don’t argue. It’s pointless.  In particular, don’t argue with a vendor. It’s worse than pointless.  It’s expensive.  That’s the whole point of the saying, “the client is always right.”  Of course, the vendors is not always right.  The vendor is often very, very wrong.  But it doesn’t matter, because there’s no advantage in arguing with them.

Let’s say that your vendor is upset about something that’s really not your fault.  The “for sale” sign fell down and no one fixed it, some website screwed up your listing feed, a buyer didn’t show up to see the house when she was supposed to. Whatever.  The vendor is upset, and is taking it out on you. Of course you want to argue, because it’s unfair.  Maybe the vendor is being unreasonable, rude or even abusive.  But what is arguing going to accomplish? Are you going to convince them that they are wrong?  Are you going to “win” the argument?  Of course not.

Be the bigger and smarter person. Apologising does not make you weak.  Taking responsibility for problems that are really outside your control doesn’t mean you lose face.  It means that you’re smart and secure.

Now, I’m not saying that you should routinely put up with abusive vendors. You have to use your judgment as to whether putting up with some crazy person is worth your time and energy.  If they’re that tough to work with, just fire them.  You shouldn’t waste all that time and energy arguing with them.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

If You’re Not Good at Something, Get Good or Have Someone Else Do it.

It’s staggering how many things estate agents need to know how to do.  They need to be market analysts, appraisers, negotiators, counsellors, photographers, videographers, writers, lead generators, stagers, transaction specialists, communicators and marketeers. Everything that goes into helping people buy and sell homes.

It’s tough to be good at everything.  We all have our strengths and our weaknesses. Maybe you’re good at marketing and servicing an instruction, but not so good at generating leads to get new ones. Maybe you’re good at taking great pictures of your instructions but you can’t write a complete sentence for your property descriptions.  The problem is that you cannot be a successful estate agent if you have big gaping holes in your skill set. All these things are important and you need to do them all well.  Too many estate agents aren’t particularly good at their jobs and or particularly inclined to improve.  Don’t be one of those agents. Your clients deserve better.

You have two options when you’re not good at certain aspects of your job. One, either get good at them, or two find someone else who is.

Can you get good?  Often, the skill you lack is just something that you’ve never actually learned how to do.  Taking good pictures is not brain surgery, you can learn how to do it.  Take a class, read a manual. Sometimes, the problem is that you’re just not good at it or you could do it but you just don’t WANT to do it.

Instead of hiring an assistant just to do your “busy work” find someone who has a skill set that you lack.  If you can’t afford an assistant, get good at what you're not good at and fast.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

Never Tell Anyone You’re ALWAYS Available For Them, Because You’re Not

Never tell anyone you’re ALWAYS available for them, because you’re not. So you’re sitting down with a client for the first time and you’re trying to impress them. You take them through your valuation presentation, answer all their questions and you can tell that you’re close to locking them in.

It’s all going so well, so you decide to close them with the one thing you know they absolutely will love to hear...... “When you instruct us, I will always be available for you anytime you need me.”

You see their eyes light up.  They’re sold.  Enjoy the moment because it’s the very last time your clients will ever be happy with you. Why?  Because promising that you’re “always available” is the second dumbest thing you could ever say to a client.

First of all, it’s a lie.  You’re not always available.  In fact, as you sit there with that client, you’re almost certainly NOT available to all your other clients since your phone should be either on silent or turned off during your client meeting. Next week, when you’re meeting with another new client, you’re not going to be available to the one you’re sitting with today.

You’ve made the tragic mistake of setting unrealistic expectations that you will never, ever be able to meet. You’ve set yourself up to fail.

It’s like training a dog. You need to establish boundaries. Firm expectations for behaviour that you want to encourage and discourage unless you want to spend your life picking up poo from your living room.

You have to do the same thing with your clients. Set firm boundaries about what they can expect of and from you. Make sure they know when you’re available, when you’re going to regularly contact them, the kind of information you’ll be sending them.  Tell them what they can realistically expect from the sales experience. The amount of time it will take, what it will cost and what they should look out for.

If you fail to set boundaries and expectations, they will just keep demanding more and more of you until they exceed your ability to satisfy them.  Then they’ll complain that you let them down.  Most clients are reasonable people and will respond well to reasonable expectations for your performance.

Your job is to establish and then manage those expectations.  Or else your clients will poo all over your living room, at least metaphorically.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

Personal Communication Requires an Actual Person Communicating

As modern communication technology advances, it becomes increasingly hard to have actual conversations with other people. I know that seems crazy since we have so many wonderful ways these days to get in touch such as mobile phones, voicemails, emails, text messages and Facebook status updates.  However, we don’t actually “talk” with each other as much anymore, we’re more likely to talk “at” each other.

This is the price of progress. Every time we discover a new communication technology, we increase efficiency while we decrease intimacy.  In the beginning, all our communications were face-to-face and we had to actually talk in person.  Very intimate, but very inefficient.  Then came the telephone, which drastically increased efficiency at the small price of giving up the intimacy of a face-to-face interaction.

But technology keeps advancing and accelerating.  Answering machines allowed people to have “conversations” that were actually just an exchange of messages from one to the other.  Caller ID allowed people to duck personal conversations and send them to voicemail so they could listen to them when they had the time or inclination.  Email eliminated the need to pick up the phone.  Then text messages replaced email.

Everything is getting more efficient and less intimate.  Communications between people used to be actual conversations. Now they’re often duelling soliloquies bouncing back and forth from one person to another.  They used to be person-to-person and now, they’re often person-to-people, broadcast via email, Facebook or Twitter.

You have to be careful to use the right communication tool for the right purpose.  Sometimes efficiency trumps intimacy, like when you’re doing a deal.

Sometimes intimacy trumps efficiency, particularly when you’re trying to build or cultivate a relationship. Real estate is a business built on personal relationships and personal relationships should be intimate not efficient.

If you want to build your network, win over an FSBO or follow up with a buyer lead, you need to build a personal relationship.  That requires a personal communication, which requires an actual person making the communication.

Call them.  Talk to them. You can’t build a personal relationship via impersonal communications.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

Great Service is in the Eye of the Beholder

Let’s say you’re shopping for a new jacket, and you pop into a clothing shop. Immediately, a salesperson comes up to assist you, asking if you need any help and what you’re looking for. Usually, that’s a great thing, so much better than those times you go into a shop and you can’t find anyone to help you because the sales clerks are all in chatting in the back or sneaking outside for a smoke break.

Sometimes, a salesperson coming up to help you is just annoying.  Maybe because you’re just browsing and you’d rather just look on your own.  If you start talking to the salesperson, you’re going to start feeling sales pressure. The more time they spend with you, telling you how great everything looks, the more likely you are to buy something that you don’t really need.  Or it might just be that you don’t want to waste the salesperson’s time and effort when you’re not really in the mood to buy.

Your service experience did not depend on what the salesperson did.  They did the same thing BOTH TIMES.  The difference was you and what you wanted.

Clients looking for property are like that. Their service experience depends not just on what you do, but what they want at the time. The key is to figure out how your client wants to be serviced.

Now, of course, some aspects of delivering a good service experience are foundational and universal. A good attitude, product knowledge, communication, etc.  I can’t think of anyone who would want to work with an estate agent who doesn’t care about doing a good job, doesn’t know their stuff or drops completely out of touch.  Even a salesperson who jumps to assist you is useless if they don’t know thier inventory.

How you deliver that service experience depends on what your client is looking for.  Some clients want constant attention and some take a “don’t call me, I’ll call you” approach.  Some want you to do all the work and some want to look for homes on their own and send you the ones they like.  Some want to talk to you on the phone and some would rather you just email or text them.  They’re all different and they all have different needs.

So how do you figure out what they want?  Ask them.  Ask them about how they want you to communicate with them.  Ask them how often they want to go out.  Ask them about what their expectations are for their sales experience. Basically, ask them what they want and then do that.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

Happy Clients Are Better Than Any Marketing Program Ever Invented

Estate agents are always coming up with creative places to put their adverts.  It used to be that you’d see an estate agents advert just in the pages of newspapers and magazines, but now you see them on park benches, billboards, shopping carts, anywhere there’s a flat surface and someone willing to sell you space on that flat surface for an “affordable” (i.e., very, very large) monthly fee.

That’s all fine, I guess. Brand marketing is important.  I’m not so sure that a face and a slogan like “Let me bring you home” on a shopping cart is a great use of your money, but it probably doesn’t hurt.

But don’t kid yourself.  Brand marketing is an expensive and inefficient way to build your business. It takes a lot of money and time to build that brand presence, and even then you’re not really likely to generate direct leads from it.  The best you can hope for is that you establish some degree of name recognition in your market.

Here’s a better way. Create really happy clients.  Happy clients are the best marketing you could ever have.  Happy clients become referral sources.  They become testimonials and references that help you secure new listings. They create word of mouth.

People buy a house, invite their friends and family over to see it and people ALWAYS ask them about how they found it.  They want to hear the story and that story is generally going to include the buyers’ impressions of the experience they had buying the house.  If they’re happy, they’re going to tell everyone.  If they’re NOT happy, they’re going to tell everyone.  Either way the word is going to get out.

Multiply that experience by everyone who buys or sell a house with you and THAT my friends is a marketing program. Happy clients running around the country talking about how great you are.  No amount of money can buy that.

In the internet age, happy clients are more important than ever, because instead of just sharing their experiences with their friends and family, they’re actually writing stuff on the internet and sharing it with anyone who Google's your name.  The scary part is that the unhappy clients are even more motivated to find some online review site to talk about how much they hate you.

Bottom line is create happy clients. Instead of writing cheques to create a brand presence, put your back into giving great client service experiences to the people who buy and sell with you.  It’s hard, it takes a lot of work and it requires a lot of dedication, but it’s the best marketing you could ever do for yourself.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

Whenever Possible, Get Digits

The single most important thing you can do to build your estate agency business over the next ten years is simple. Get digits.  When you meet people, get their mobile phone numbers and their email addresses.

Why? Because even while we live in a world of “over-sharing” that has become increasingly open and less private, it’s actually tougher to reach people you don’t know than it used to be.  Years ago, if you wanted to track someone down, you called them on their home phone.  If you didn’t know their number, you looked it up in the phone book.  Easy, simple, foolproof.

Then what happened?  People started unlisting their home phone number.  Then they started screening their calls with their voicemail and Caller ID.  Then they simply stopped getting a home phone number. At this point, the phone book is simply a big, tree-killing doorstop for most of us.  I haven’t picked one up in years.

So now if you want to reach people, you either need their mobile phone number, their work phone number, or their email address.

Here’s the problem: there’s no directory for mobile phones or email addresses.  That might seem odd to you, since you plaster your phone number and email address everywhere you can online, in ads, on park benches, on supermarket carts, etc.  But that’s because you’re in “sales” and you want people to be able to reach you.

People who aren’t entrepreneurial don’t generally put their personal contact information out in the world for everyone to see. You’ve probably read somewhere that people are more likely to share than ever before on Facebook Twitter and LinkedIn and their blogs and all that.  What that really means is that they’re more likely to share with people they already know.  If you’re not already in their circle you’re not likely to find a good way to reach out to them.

Which is why you need digits.  You meet someone, you get their business card.  You get their digits. Every time.

If you get their digits, you now have something that most other real estate agents in the market don’t have …... a way to reach them.  You have a way to get them in a drip campaign, you have a way to give them a quick call, and you have a way to establish a relationship with them that could lead to a piece of business.  That’s a real advantage in today’s marketplace.

The person with the most digits wins.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

People Never Complain About Getting a Call From Their Doctor

You know you’re supposed to make phone calls to help build your business. They’re essential.  A personal phone call is truly the best, sometimes the only way to develop a contact into an active lead or cultivate a relationship with someone in your social network.  We all know that.

And yet many estate agents are afraid to make that call.  Indeed, call avoidance is one of the best ways to get everything else in your life done.  You’ll do your laundry, or clean your desk, or rearrange your files, or really do ANYTHING while you’re avoiding just picking up the damn phone to call someone.

Why is that?  Because you’ve convinced yourself that your call is unwelcome, that no one wants to hear from you and that you’re imposing yourself on someone else.  You don’t like it when people do that to you and you’re uncomfortable doing it to someone else.

The problem is all in your head because you’re thinking about the call in the wrong way.  You’re thinking that the only reason for the call is that you’re trying to extract business from them.  If you change the way you think about the call, you’ll improve the likelihood of making it.

So think of it this way. It's a call from your doctor.  Do you mind when you get a follow-up call from your doctor, or solicitor, dentist, financial planner or anyone else that you do business with. Generally, you don’t mind, because you perceive that call as a SERVICE to you and not as an attempt to extract business from you.  Even if the call is designed to maintain or cultivate the professional relationship you’ve developed, you still won’t resent the call.

That’s the attitude that you need to make when you’re reaching out to people. Stop thinking like a mercenary and start thinking about the service you can provide to whomever you’re calling.  Get into your head that you have a dual purpose in every call you make. One to generate business, and two to provide a service.  Obviously, every call you make is an attempt to build your business but that doesn’t mean you can’t also have the more altruistic, client-oriented purpose as well.

If you’re calling someone in your network or calling a potential lead contact, have something interesting to tell them about the community or the market.  Bring something to the table.  Provide a service. If you can legitimately find a reason for the call, you’ll find it’s easier to make the call.

Don’t think like a salesperson, think like a service professional.  Make the call.

Tom Benedict
Marketing Director,
@britainbesthome
Google+
www.britainsbesthome.com

People Love Giving Referrals, So Make Them Happy

People just love giving referrals. We love posting our favourite movies on Facebook or recommending someone if a friend's looking for  a plumber or an electrician or whatever.  Indeed, hugely successful websites like Britain's Best Home have been built around our natural impulse to share our opinions with other people.  Basically, it's just big databases of referrals that we selflessly take the time and energy to write for strangers, all for free.

Why is that? Why do we love making referrals so much? Part of it is that we just like sharing our opinions on stuff with other people.  Part of it is that we like to support businesses we like – we’ll write a review on Britain's Best Home about a new build or luxury home or tell people about it because we want it to succeed and or sell.  Another part of it is that we like the validation of seeing other people agree with our opinions.

But the biggest reason people like making referrals is simple, we like being the hero.  If I need a plumber, and you refer me someone great, I owe you one. If I was looking for a good, and you recommended one to me, I now have a higher opinion of your taste in food.  Basically, if you give me a great referral, you’re my hero.

And you’re not just my hero, but you’re a hero to the person you referred me to.  I have become a very active reviewer in my speciality, reviewing most of the luxury homes for sale that I like. Recently, when I went to a Chinese restaurant that I love, the owner’s daughter came over to tell me how grateful they were for my review on social media. Even better, they sent me home with a box of chocolates free!  Why?  Because I was their hero!

So the lesson is this. You need to stop being so self-conscious about asking people for referrals. Don’t be afraid to put it out there, because people absolutely love giving referrals.

Here’s the key, though. We only give referrals to people we think are really great at their jobs.  We don’t recommend estate agents that we think are just okay and we’re not going to refer someone to the estate agent who never returned our calls, regardless of how many refrigerator magnets they sends us.

People only refer the best.  So be the best.  And if you are the best, then don’t hesitate to give people the opportunity to refer you to their friends, family, and anyone they know.  If you are indeed really good at your job, they’ll refer you.  Not because they want to help you out, but because they want to be a hero.

Cheadle on the outskirts of Manchester and in the Borough of Stockport

Cheadle is a suburban village on the outskirts of Manchester and in the Borough of Stockport. It’s in Cheshire  and it borders Cheadle Hulme, Gatley, Heald Green and Cheadle Heath in Stockport, and East Didsbury in Manchester

Cheadle is situated 3 miles from Stockport town centre and 8 miles from Manchester city centre. It is very close to Manchester Airport, it’s approximately 4 miles away, and borders the Golden Triangle of Alderley Edge, Prestbury and Wilmslow. Cheadle is on the A560 road from Stockport to Chester and borders onto the A34 Manchester to Birmingham road as well as the boroughs of Didsbury, Heaton Mersey, Cheadle Heath, Gatley,  Adswood, Heald Green, Handforth and Cheadle Hulme

Cheadle's public transport is now confined to buses operated by several firms and it no longer has its own railway station, though there are stations in several neighbouring vicinities. Gatley railway station is approximately one mile west of Cheadle village. Cheadle is accessed by junctions 2 and 3 of the M60 Manchester orbital motorway.

A number of houses in Cheadle that were built in the 1800’s still stand today, in a conservation area in the centre of the village. There is also a Manchester overspill council estate that was constructed shortly after the Second World War in order to rehouse families from the Victorian slums of inner-city Manchester.

There are a number of primary schools in the area including Cheadle Primary School, Ladybridge Primary School and Meadowbank Primary School. The Secondary schools include The Kingsway School (upper) and the Independent school of Lady Barn House School.

As for estate agents, Maurice Kilbride Estate Agents is one of the premier agencies in the area and they have a wealth of experience of the local area. Homes in Cheadle tend to sell very quickly and the average price appears to be £185,000 for a detached home.