7 Top Character Traits of Successful Agents

What Characteristics to Adopt Before the New YearLucky seven

by Real Estate Coach Judy LaDeur

I recently heard that real estate sales is a 93/7 industry. That means that 7% of the agents are earning 93% of the money! I found that amazing! Why are such a small % of agents earning so much more that the majority of agents?  To find the answer, we did some research and found that successful agents have several common traits. Successful agents are:

1. Passionate: Successful agents are passionate about their company, the opportunities within their organization and passionate about the business. When your presentation is passionate, the person you are talking to knows that you believe in your company and are sincere about what you have to offer. Of course, there is a difference between being passionate, or trying to sell your services. No one wants to be sold. But the more you believe in what you have to offer, the more successful you will be in sales.

2. Great listeners / Attentive: The #1 key to success is to be a great listener. With buyers as well as sellers, from the moment you begin asking questions, you will learn what they want and what is important to them. Successful agents have good eye contact and keep their attention focused on the client. When you take the time to understand their concerns, past experiences and expectations, your job is much easier!

3. Patient: This one is tricky. By nature, great salespeople are not patient at all! But, great salespeople know that it is a process. It is all about the timing and being there when the time is right for them to make a move. So, a very important trait that we see in successful agents is that they have consistent marketing campaigns, designed to keep their clients informed and educated, and to stay in touch until the time is right. It takes patience and marketing, but it’s exciting to be positioned when they are ready.

4. Competitive: Successful agents hate to lose. This is a great trait. It means that they prepare properly for the appointment and fine tune their skills whenever the opportunity presents itself. If they don’t sign the prospect the first time they meet with them, they continue to follow up until they can get back in front of them again, but they don’t give up! This is where patience comes into play again.

5. Caring Nature: Successful agents truly care about others. This is a character trait that you cannot fake.  When you care about what others care about, it shows. I often say that even though it is tough…the best agents are always honest about what it will take, even if it means they don’t select that agent. You cannot be all things to all people, but you will have more success and less stress when your goal is to “help others make the right decision for them”.  In most cases, that will be you!

6. Strong People Skills: This is a relationship business. To be a great salesperson, you have to like people, and they need to like you too. Strong people skills come into play in several areas. It means having a strong relationship with the people in your client data base, as well as those in your office and your community.  The best agents prefer doing business with and selling the listings of the other great agents in the market.

7. Good Problem Solvers: Tenacity is a word that comes to mind. It is not always easy to get the sale closed, or to secure the financing that your buyer needs, but a great salesperson knows who to call and where to go to get the job done.  They do not look at objections as objections, but rather as challenges that have a solution, and they look for it!

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being outstanding, rate yourself in each category. If you have a total of less than 55, look at the areas that you can improve in 2015 and create some actions steps to make next year your best year ever!

The Profitable Sales Agent can help you consistently stay top of mind and build a strong business foundation with the right tools and strategies each month to help you move forward. Learn more here.  Our Profitable Sales Agent members will find additional scripts, tips, and tools in your membership platform.  Have fun with them! 

Brain Food…

What are YOU Reading That Can Help You and Your Business GROW? Library

While it is indeed the age of information and words, MP3s, Kindles, iPads, e-books, smartphones, streaming video and more are at our fingertips and downloadable 24/7 via that incredible internet, there is to me, still something to be said for curling up for a 20 minutes to an hour a day with a good old fashioned book.

I know, I know – lives are busy, going warp speed in a thousand directions and mine is no different. Believe me, there is tremendous merit to audiobooks that we can listen to on the go, but there is great satisfaction in building a library of your own that you can tap into and reference whenever possible for strengthening your skills, improving your mind or igniting your spirit.

So, whether you’re cracking the spine of a new hardback or downloading a new eBook on your iPhone,  as we head into the new year, I wanted to take the time to share with you just some of the book treasures we’ve found over the years and challenge you to start or add to a library all your own!

§ Good to Great by Jim Collins – Great for mastering the premise “Be the Best in the world at ONE thing.”

§ Little Red Book of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer – Terrific for short snippets, great ideas and reference-his e-zine Sales Caffeine is pretty good for daily jolt as well.

§ How to Become a Rainmaker by Jeffrey J. Fox – Learning to dollarize is a vital tool in our industry – Jeffrey Fox teaches it well.

§ Purple Cow by Seth Godin – You’ll find valuable Lessons in effective marketing.

§ Shut Up, Stop Whining and Get a Life by Larry Winget – We all loved this book. It’s as edgy as its title but drives home some must-learn points.

§ Be Our Guest by the Disney Institute – You have to hand it to those folks at Disney – when it comes to customer service – they have it down. Lots to learn here!

§ Swim With the Sharks Without Getting Eaten Alive by Harvey Mackay – An oldie but a goodie when it comes to classic life and business lessons.

§ Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi – Some great ideas on the power of social and business networking.

§ The Power of an Hour by Dave Lakhani – Time management guru Lakhani explains how to put some muscle into your time management and make those minutes count!

§ Hug Your Customers by Jack Mitchell – We liked this book so much, it became the theme for one of our corporate meetings! Spotlights the power of extraordinary customer service in any industry.

§ The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino – Truly one of my favorite all-time books. I re-read it often and what’s funny is that I have asked countless industry “icons” to name a favorite book throughout the years – almost all of them count this at the top of their list.

§ Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill – Another classic, must-read for anyone who wants to live abundantly and build a better life and business.

§ How to Become a Marketing Superstar by Jeffrey J. Fox – You have to love Fox’s books for their quick read and great references.

§ Better Than Good by Zig Zigler – Zig’s insight is always a welcome gift as he shares the power of a positive attitude in this game of life.

§ Winning by Jack and Suzy Welch – Delivers a solid career’s worth of this legendary leader’s management wisdom.

§ Wooden on Leadership by John Wooden – Extraordinary Coach John Wooden shares tremendously valuable insight on what it means to win with integrity in ANY game.

§ Built to Last by Jim Collins – Much like Good to Great, Collins shares the successful habits and visions of some of the greatest companies of all time.

§ Shift by Gary Keller – Keller shares what it takes to not just be a successful real estate agent, but how to truly treat your business as a business and effectively grow it without limitations.

§ Satisfaction by Chris Denove and James D. Power IV – A true spotlight on how listening to the voice of the customer can make – or break a company and career.

§ The Spellbinder’s Gift by Og Mandino – This well crafted contemporary parable by Mandino offers tremendous inspiration and wonderful reminders on how to live a better (happier) life.

§ The Age of Speed by Vince Poscente – This offers lessons on how to thrive in a world that runs at lightning speed.

§ Juggling Elephants by Jones Loflin and Todd Musig – A great read for all of us who sometimes feel we need to get our “act” together in the three-ring circus we call life.

§ The Fred Factor by Mark Sanborn – Sanborn teaches us through the true story of Fred – the mail carrier – how going the extra mile and taking the extra steps for our customers can turn an ordinary career into an extraordinary one.

§ Blink by Malcolm Gladwell – Fascinating book that illuminates how we can re-train our minds to instantly pull vital information from life’s moments.

§ The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey – definitely not the easiest book you’ll ever read, but if you can work your way through each of the “habits” and make them a part of your life and career, you’ll far exceed any goals in front of you!

§ 10 Ways to STAND OUT From the Crowd by Connie Podesta – This insightful book is filled with the practices and tools you need to always make sure you’re invaluable!

I do hope you will enjoy the lessons, laughter and genuine knowledge builders found within the pages of these book recommendations. It has been a fun journey to discover new books, new authors and new additions to my growing library of books for business. I do make sure there is room on the shelves for recreational reading as well, so you’ll find James Patterson, Sue Grafton and Patricia Cornwell books all tucked on the shelves next to the books above! After all, “work hard, play hard” can be a good motto for this aspect of life too!

So go and read your mind and expand your personal library for success. I would love your recommendations for our Book of the Month club! Feel free to add yours in the comments!

FSBO Myth-Busters

While there are tens of thousands of agents across North America competitively out-listing their peers by making FSBOs their niche market of choice, there are still some surprisingly pervasive myths floating around out fsbo signthere about working this demographic.

So, let’s put on our “Myth-busters” hat for a moment and take a look at some common misconceptions:

1.  All FSBOs are MEAN. Come on now – all of them?  In truth, most sellers who are trying to fly solo to get their homes sold are eager to save money, not well-informed as to what it takes to price right in today’s market and usually fairly motivated.  Are they distrustful of agents?  Sure, manay are — but that doesn’t make them mean – it makes them human beings.  It’s YOUR job to earn their trust, treat them with respect, develop a relationship and make them raving fans.

How do you help develop that relationship? Consistent communication, professional presentation tools and a can-do attitude.

2.  All FSBOs Are Overpriced. Don’t you just love sweeping generalities?  In truth, (again) – many probably are.  But surprisingly, with all of the internet information out there, and the fact that it is a buyer’s market — many for sale by owner sellers DO get pricing a property right. But more often than not, they don’t get that they can get MORE for their home, statistically, using a real estate professional – in fact, last year, according to NAR,  the average FSBO sold for $184,000 compared to $230,000 for agent-assisted home sales, so it’s your job to help them understand that!  

A great tool to use is the Merchandising Review from our friends at ProspectsPLUS!  As soon as you see that FSBO pop onto the market, you should contact them by telephone and attempt to use the Merchandising Review as a reason for them to set an appointment to talk with you.

“Hello, Mr./Mrs./Ms/Miss

__, my name is
__, and I’m with
_.  The reason I’m calling is that I see you have put your home on the market and I’m sure you’re eager to get the best price for it – right? (Wait for their answer!)

Wonderful!  I wanted to offer you a very special tool that we use called a Merchandising Review Form…have you heard of it before?  It is what I use to make a comprehensive analysis of whether a home is salable in TODAY’S market and what you can do to guarantee that it will sell for a great price and terms.

What I’d like to do is set a time when we could sit down together and go over the Merchandising Review.  No cost or obligation – just something that can help you get your home sold.  It takes about 20 minutes. (Set a time.)

Walk them through each item and negotiate the issues that were might keep the property from selling.  Correct these issues, and ask if they would allow you to show them your marketing plan.

3.  FSBOS can just do this on their own. I love this one.  Truth is, statistically, most FSBOs do end up using an agent.  In fact, last year, only 9% of the homes sold according to NAR were FSBOs. And of those – 31%  don’t even market their properties. So, they NEED someone like you to lend them the expertise to not just get a great price, but to make the process as headache free as possible.

Most Difficult Tasks for FSBO Sellers:

  • Understanding and performing paperwork: 18%
  • Getting the right price: 13%
  • Preparing/fixing up home for sale: 12%
  • Helping buyer obtain financing: 3%
  • Attracting potential buyers: 3%
  • Selling within the planned length of time: 7%
  • Having enough time to devote to all aspects of the sale: 6%

FSBO’s really are the “low hanging fruit” for many agents – why?  Because they’re usually still motivated to sell!  But the keys to success are that  you have to consistent (can’t show up just ONCE – remember MOST deals are sealed after the FIFTH contact), timely (most successful FSBO experts make reaching out to FSBOs a DAILY business practice – no half-stepping it!) Know your business and your market (practice, drill and rehearse your presentation and you’ll create a presence as the turn-to agent in your market for FSBOs.

So go ahead – go after those FSBO’s and start maneuvering, out-selling and out-smarting the competition in your market place!  And remember -we’re here if you need us.