by Dirk Zeller, Special to Realty/Builder Connection
Your success as a real estate agent is dictated by a few fundamental rules for the profession. Keep an eye on real estate market trend indicators and the ratios that demonstrate your success as a realtor to stay competitive. Successful Realtors have a variety of skills, including prospecting, closing a sale, hosting a successful open house, and managing time wisely.
Whatever your reasons for becoming a real estate agent and however you stay motivated in your profession, practice these basic principles for achieving success in the real estate market:
• Show up. Show up early and consistently. Make real estate your full-time profession and put in the hours it takes to achieve success.
• Focus mentally. Whether prospecting, following up, selling, or closing, continuously improve your focus, philosophy, and intent to succeed.
• Tell the truth. Be upfront and realistic with sellers who want to overprice and with buyers who want to underbid.
• Don’t be attached to the outcome. If you lose a listing, a transaction collapses, or a client you thought was loyal buys from another agent, yell out the four-letter word, Next!, and move on quickly.
• Set a daily time and place for prospecting. Don’t work your prospecting around your day. Instead, work your day around your prospecting.
• Fight off distractions. Turn off your e-mail, cell phone and pager. Hold calls and bar visitors from your office. Say you’re in a meeting with a prospect.
• Follow your plan. Know which calls you’re going to make and set a goal for each call. Rehearse scripts, dialogues, and objection-handling techniques and then recite a few affirmations. Finally, smile and make the call.
• Be faithful and finish what you start. Don’t quit until you complete all the prospecting calls you set out to make — down to the very last one.
• Get a leg up in the real estate market by researching and understanding the trends in the marketplace. Keep an eye out for these market trend deciders:
— Number of home sales and total sales volume this year versus last year.
— Number of listings this year versus last year.
— Average sale price this year versus last year.
— Percentage of increase or decrease in average sale price year to year.
• How do you make your performance as a real estate agent stand out? These points are gauges that demonstrate your success and stake your competitive place in the real estate world:
— Average list price to sales price. This ratio exhibits your effectiveness at achieving the result that your client expects when you price a home and place it on the market.
— Average days on the market. This ratio shows your ability to sell a home quickly. It conveys your skill and success level and also indicates your knowledge of competitive pricing.
— Average listings taken versus listings sold. The higher the percentage of listings sold, the lower the risk a seller assumes when choosing to work with you to sell a home.
• Increase productivity by increasing intensity. Establish and meet deadlines with no option for procrastination.
• Devote most of your time to your most productive activities, including prospecting, lead follow-up, listing presentations, buyer interviews, showing property, and writing and negotiating contracts.
• Set an 11 a.m. rule. Get into the office early and complete your prospecting and lead follow-up before 11 a.m., which is when the world around a real estate office gears up and the distractions begin.
• Time block your way to success. Schedule your week, reserving and protecting blocks of time for the following activities: personal activities, direct income-producing activities, appointments, administrative tasks and flextime, which you can use to put out fires, make emergency calls and handle unscheduled tasks without losing control of your overall schedule.