What Do I Do Now?

by Russell Shaw

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Below are two emails I’ve received in the past week. One is from a successful veteran agent in Texas and the other is from a young man from Canada in the business just over a year. Their stories are a bit different but my response is going to be the same to both.

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From the veteran agent:

I just wanted to say Hi and wondered how things are going in your market?

Our market has seemed to turn into a foreclosure market and a significant chunk has come from that direction! 90% of listings are over-priced…but one story homes and REALLY nice homes are selling.

Interest rates are causing the market to fluctuate…and the stock market seems to be doing the same thing.

At best my business is breaking even after paying me and my wife’s salary of $200k a year….which I guess is good. If things continue then my profitability will have dropped over 50% this year. We generally NET $420,000 -$470,000 per year on sales of 1 Million.

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Much longer when from the new agent:

Hi Russell,

Thank you for returning my call and giving me the correct email address. I have a lot on my mind with this career called real estate and I need a real person who understands the psychology of the business and who can point me in the right direction. With your proven track record I know I can use what you have already applied and take it to the next level, because the company I work and the broker’s are not seeing the big picture that I am seeing and it is a little frustrating. There are great trainers say that “if you want something go out and find people that is doing what you want to be doing, and start to do what they do on a regular basis”.

Just to give you a little bit about me and to get you up to speed on where I am at in my career, and what I am looking to accomplish. I have been in Real estate for a little over a year and my first year Gross sales were $75,000. My Business came from 3 Open Houses, 1 Cold Call, 1 Referral, 1 Agent Duty walk-in ( BUY & SELL ),1 Call Sign, 2 Family Referrals. I started Late February 2007. I was told through my office in June 2007 I was recommended to take a course called the Leader’s Choice Program ( Which is a cold calling course) and I did enjoy the program and I start to do what they program said to do was pick up the phone and call. Since then I have been studying this program for the last seven months and I know the dialogue in and out. I am actively on the phone prospecting, calling FSBO’s but I am not seeing that I am getting anywhere. I know that you don’t get excited about Tommy Hopkins or the man with the last name Ferry and they sound like a sleazy salesman, and these scripted sales people almost always talk to much and not focused on what the customer wants. I figured that if I talk to enough people someone’s is going to say ”yes! Come list my house tonight.” Now after month of prospecting on the phone and going on listing appointments, and getting belly to belly and talking with potential clients it seem likes no one is selling anything at all! Or I am just a really bad real estate agent. It seems to be turning into a buyer’s market in Canada because “Cautious Canadians” are worried about the American Housing market, but at the end of the day someone is going to sell something, and I just can not get them. So I come to you to see how I can turn this around.

I am always constantly looking for ways that successful agents have used to get the results that they have, and use it to get results that I want. I while ago my partner that I work with he told me about BloodhoundBlog and told me there was some valuable information that we could use. So I started watching your pod cast and you started to talk about numerous things that I started to try right away. I even wrote the notes that you put on the board so I could see exactly what you were speaking about at the time.

There was one presentation that you did for conference call talking about how you use the internet to generate leads, and also #1expert and how it all work to get buyers to you see your listings and then buy your listings. After seeing the presentation at my office with my partner I look in to how I could control the buyer on the website. So I fixed my website to capture leads www.justdewit.ca and I started a home buying program called www.ontariohomesearch.com. I now needed the internet traffic to get there so I went a head to GOOGLE and set up ad campaigns. I had no idea how to do this but I set them up and started to get pay-per-click on my website.( Which was expensive!) I know you said on one of you pod cast that to generate more business you need more leads. You need 6x the amount of leads coming in.  I set it up with the budget for online advertisings and start to put my listings on free websites to trying to get more leads. After I you mentioned to get more business to pick up the phone. So I started to pick up the phone and prospect for people who wanted to sell their house today. If I got the right price and the right terms I would take the listings, because I am better off playing cards or doing something I love then having an over priced listing. After months of Cold calling and changing my listing presentation to the supply and demand and showing how we get the property sold by using the internet I am still at the same spot 2 current listings as of right now. I am doing a deal every 5 weeks on average. I am so focused on getting business there seem to be none coming in.

I want to become the next Russell Shaw in Canada , and I am committed to becoming the best, and the only way to become the best or the most recognised in the province of Ontario Canada is to work with the best. I will be attending this year STAR POWER in Orlando and will be talking to some of the leading experts, however July is too far away and I need to do something right now.

You have mentioned to me a couple of month ago on the phone to give 150 people that I know something that would make me go “thanks, that is a cool gift”, and right before I leave turn around and say “oh by the way I am in real estate if you know of any one looking to buy or sell, give me a call” (Something around that format).This I idea that I came up with would be giving the a TEN dollar gift card from TIM HORTONS. ( Big Coffee Province loves this coffee) because almost every person in Ontario go to Tim Horton’s Coffee shop at one time or another. Do you think that this gift would work for what you are talking about? How do you feel about the amount being spent on the gift or is there a certain amount you should spend?

The Next question that I have is do you use a canned listing presentation, do you have a process from start to finish during the listings presentation that you use, and what is in your listings presentation? (Could you forward me your listing presentation so I could see it)

What is the best ways to really isolate the buyers on the internet?

Is there internet tool such as Programs, companies, Website Designers, Ad Words campaigns, that I should use or anything else that would work for this effect to capture more leads?

What should I be doing different to get better results? My brokers say I am too hard on the phone only because she thinks that I “always trying to close people” however she doesn’t hear how the conversation is going. She told me she doesn’t like to be cold called so that is why I think she is saying these things.

I am working so hard to work my way up to become the best and the vision I have for the future is bigger then what 98% of what my office thinks they can accomplish. It’s like I work with people that are not that inspiring or motivated to be come there best and that there is always a excuse for something, and I think differently. I know that I can become the Next (YOU) Russell Shaw and that I can one day share my story with STAR POWER and be the one of the leading experts in real estate in Canada.

All I need is a mentor to help me along this journey, and I ask for your help. Will you guide me through this journey?

I am committed to becoming a leader in the industry and I will fly from Toronto to Arizona to meet you in person and discuss what my inspirations are for my future and then there you could make a decision if you could assist me. I promise you one thing that if you take time to meet me I am 100% committed to becoming a Leader.

Look forward to hearing from You!

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As you are both with KW, I will start by pointing out something I learned from Gary Keller: your goal would not be to have a good year but to have a great career. There is no one in real estate who didn’t get a big whack by the market this last year. No one. Many companies have gone completely out of business and shut their doors. National discount companies that have not gone completely out of business have had hundreds of their offices shut down completely. Nationally, several hundred thousand agents have dropped their membership in in their local, state associations and the NAR. They are no longer in the business at all. And this does not take into consideration the 1/3 of the members of any given MLS across the country that sell nothing in a year. Read that again. One third of all of the members of the NAR have NO sales in any year. It isn’t always the same 1/3 but the 1/3 is pretty much a constant. This includes “good years”. No sales. The fact that you have survived says something about you. You are still in the game.

So you made less. So did I, about 400k less. My gross and net income was down just a bit over $400,000. I am not saying this to get sympathy nor am I going to feel sorry for you. The company I am with has lost almost 150 agents. They had almost 900 and now are down to about 750 agents. There has simply been less business to go around in 2007 than there was in 2006. My fixed (hard costs) overhead is well over 110k a month. Any month I get less than 110k in net commissions (my share) we are paying for the privilege of being in business. In the 4th quarter (and therefore my first quarter earnings are down, as well) we were grossing around 30 – 35k a month in commission income. We were paying 75 – 80k a month to get to sell real estate.

Oh it’s fun, but not so much fun that anyone would want to keep doing it for long if that part wasn’t going to change.

So what to do? Lets start with attitude. Ignore anyone who says or (even worse, without saying) gets you thinking you aren’t going to come out of this just fine. Do whatever is necessary to get that kind of crap out of your head and straighten out, blunt or cut any communication line that has you “wondering”. It isn’t that all of those people have it in for you but as they themselves are failing, it just wouldn’t be “right” for you to do real well. Anyone spewing failure, succumb or any of that stuff in all of its various guises can be safely ignored. Whatever the activity, if you don’t feel “more up” as a result of doing it or being there, stop it. Real estate offices can be a giant cesspool of contaminating failure. Stop watching the news and stop reading it in the papers. If there is something vital you won’t be able to stop hearing about it anyway.  People, places, things and activities that make you happy – do them. A lot. Every day do something just for you.

Production is the basis of morale. You want to have a high morale? Produce. Find a statistic that you can control. That is vital. Find something that can be measured (number of new contacts, for example) that you can control. Every day work on getting that stat up. Do not focus on the deals or listings you don’t have, focus on that stat. From the Bible, it is Leads, Listings, Leverage. Right now you are only working on leads. Cut out all “lead generating activities” that cost money that are not productive. If it works, keep it in. If not, change the “button” and make it work or get rid of it. You are in the lead generation business. You have no other job.

If you really want to come to Phoenix and talk to me, the very best time is going to be BloodhoundBlog Unchained. I will be there all three days. There isn’t going to be a better time for me to set aside to chat. I will also be at Starpower in Orlando.

But you don’t need to wait. See yourself achieving your goals. Work out specific affirmations. Lots of them. Send them to me. I will do a quality control on them for you. Make them specific and always “positive” and always “now”. Go to Tips for Success and read the articles. Read a new one every day.

Anything that works for you is “good”. Anything that does not is “bad”. This includes Mike Ferry or Tom Hopkins. I learned many things from both of them. Take whatever you need from wherever it is workable for you. It makes no difference what I don’t “like” or what anyone else does not “like”. What is works for you? This includes your broker and anyone else in your office or anywhere else.

ALL of your “problems” stem directly and only from “maybe”. There are three possible answers: Yes, No & Maybe. The problem is always the maybe. Get rid of maybe. Yes or no. In or out. Are you a Realtor? Are you going to survive quite well, regardless of “market conditions”? Well, are you?

It makes no difference what has happened. That is the past. Live in the future. Create it.