Tag Archives: Sales

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How Physics is Similar to Your Business

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The Avengers came out yesterday.  Big moment for my family.  I would be Iron Man – coolest cat on the planet.  My wife is a big fan of Thor.  I’ve tried to pull of that accent but it doesn’t do it for her.  My 10-year-old would be Captain America, and he should.  He already has that True North sense of right and wrong.  My 6-year-old goes between the Hulk and Hawk-eye.  My daughter still doesn’t understand the rules and ran into the living room with a Spiderman costume on.  It is futility explaining to a 3-year-old that Spiderman wasn’t an Avenger – not to mention he didn’t have a pony-tail.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I bring up the Avengers for a different reason, though.  I feel like the Hulk is sitting on my face.  I have the distinct pleasure of having both nostrils out of commission.  So, I’m going to tell a quick story and then ask a few questions.  Then I’m going to bed.

 

The Story

This may be hard to believe, but my favorite subject in high school was physics.  I am a thinker.  I’m not sure why.  I’m not much of a feeler, a bit more of a doer, but definitely a thinker.  I want to know why stuff works the way it does.  Physics was full of ‘Aha’ moments for me.  I remember when Mr. Claypool showed me the formula behind why a curved road is banked at a certain degree.  This was super cool to me.

I remember toying with actually majoring in Physics in college.  Turns out that I majored in playing guitar into wee hours of the morning and dropping class….  My youngest brother is currently studying physics at my college right now.  In some ways I envy him.

But enough about physics.  Do you know how Physics is like Commercial Real Estate – or any other business?

If A=B and B=C then A=C

What do I mean, you say?  Consider this about your business.  What works?  What led up to that big sale – that big deal?  Did you know that if you repeat certain patterns you will get certain desired outcomes?  My business of CRE is just like yours in this regard.

The question is how do we do more of those patterns to get more of those desired outcomes?  You need a formula that works.

In my business and with my coaching clients, we call these systems.  I understand that if I send out this many letters and follow-up with this many cold calls, then I will get this many meetings.  If I get this many meetings, I will win this many assignments.  This is prospecting, and it needs to be a system.

Repeat certain behaviors to achieve desired results.

A Few Questions

Why don’t you systematize your business?  One of my hero’s in the business spends 2 hours a day cold-calling.  He’s the boss of is office.  He is working a system.  And he’s killing it.

Have you ever sat down with your team to brainstorm what works – and what doesn’t?  You’d be shocked at what you find out.  That is, if you’ve created a team that trusts enough to tell you truth.  Break things down to their smallest parts.  Delegate.  Maximize efficiencies.  Spend more time with clients and prospects.  Let your staff do anything that they can do so that you can do the tasks that only you can do!  Systematize!

What’s keeping you from taking that time needed to work ON your business instead of IN your business?  Something to think about:  top performers have accountability and coaches.

Let me hear your thoughts.

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How to Get You and Your Agents to Make More Calls – These 3 Easy Ways

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Commercial Real Estate (or any) sales is about calls:  cold calls, warm calls, personal calls, and so on.  He who makes the most calls generally does the most deals.  Making calls is also a lost art.

I recently had a review with one of my agents.  He was not making enough calls.  He and I had spoken a couple of times about this subject with no change.  Then it dawned on me.  Performance flows from leadership.  The problem was with me.

When I was in college I had a mentor who would teach me things by this method.  Teach me why.  Show me how.  Do it in front of me.  It was incredibly effective.  Answering the questions ‘why’ deals with casting the vision for the desired future outcome.  And this is rarely about making money.  Teaching the ‘how’ is the book smarts.  Demonstrating how introduces the street smarts.

I had been neglecting the third step.  So Friday morning, we went into my office and I spent nearly an hour making calls – on one of his deals.  I believe doing this on a regular basis is going to reap rewards.  More deals will be done, sure.  But there will be growth in our team in this area.

Here are 3 easy ways to make more calls:

1.  Block out time on your calendar.  This seems like such a no-brainer, but we don’t do it.  Prospecting for new business is the key to healthy deal flow and sustainable cash-flow.  Yet, it is the activity that is the most dreaded and overlooked. Block out time every day to make prospecting calls.  A top producer I know, who owns his company, schedules two hours a day on his calendar.  He gives his team the green light to ask him to get busy calling when he gets distracted by another task.  He knows that making calls is the absolute best use of his time.

2.  Keep the calls short.  The first call I made on Friday lasted 20 minutes.  I know better.  This should never happen.  The purpose of a prospecting call is to get a meeting.  If you get a talker, politely transition the conversation after 4 minutes to scheduling a meeting.  If they want to talk, do it face to face at a later date.  Remember that prospecting calls are a numbers game.  The more calls you can make, the more meetings you can get.  Challenge yourself to a certain amount of calls in your scheduled time.  Don’t let one talker derail you.

3.  Schedule an office wide calling blitz.  Most agents do not like cold calling.  Some of the weird ones, like me, do.  But most salespeople are ultra-competitive so make it a game.  Schedule a block of time once or twice a month when everyone in the office is making calls at the same time.  Make it a competition.  Have a prize for the winner.

So what other ways do you encourage more calls?  What ideas have I missed?  Let’s see how many great ideas we can come up with!

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