Tag Archives: SIP

Curing Mondayitis: The first steps to becoming a Sales Star in real estate!

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This is it, the last straw; it is the season for change. Your current career is not challenging you, nor motivating you. And someone hit you on the head for saying this but you are sick of getting paid to kill a 9 to 5 Every. Single. Day. Of. Every. Single. Week

So your morning routine probably starts off with something like this: “*Disgruntled moan* Another boring day at work!” When Friday comes you sing along to that terrible “Friday song” by that terrible teen. Come Sunday anxiety rises and your body feels a little heavier.  So why are you still there? Well because it’s normal to go: “Don’t we all hate Mondays? Aren’t we all bored endlessly by work?” You just don’t have a choice, right?

…Not right. You do have a choice. A choice to (finally) step out, turn things around, revolutionise your world.

We know you have seen them, pulling up in a fast car, professional and sleekly dressed, closely shaved (for the men) or for the ladies, wearing those pair of heels you have had on lay buy all year? These People-that-radiate-confidence walk out holding their “For Sale” sign, and you think “They are working on a Saturday….what torture!”

But do they look like they’re being tortured? They’re smiling, beaming with confidence, shoulders back and heads held high. They don’t look like underpaid, grumpy employees forced to work – no, they’re victorious and loving it. They love what they do because they know they are first-rate.

Ok…fine, not all real estate agents look like this, but those that do are “THE STARS”. Franchises are fighting over them, people are buying from them, and YOU wish to be them. But the fact is that these stars are only 10% of the population. That’s right, only 10% who started a career in real estate actually have the ability to sell!

They are rare individuals in the commercial world, and they are cannot settle within a boring job where they are not exploiting their full abilities. Does this sound like you?

We know it is not easy, sales in real estate can be hard and risky; with a high failure rate in recruitment it can be a bit disheartening. On the other hand it can be one of the most rewarding and well-paid jobs you will ever have…if you get it Right.

So what if we told you if you could be within the 10% of people in the population who CAN in fact sell, in real estate terms, “a Star”, and you might not even know it yet!

Why waste you’re time wishing and wondering what if? When you could be among the few out there who do it RIGHT.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to pursue a career in real estate but you are unsure because you don’t have the experience or it’s so different to your current field that you think no one will take you seriously?

We can help you!

Before committing to a career in Real Estate let us answer these questions for you, before you waste a single day job hunting or working in the wrong job!

  1. Can I sell (even if I never have)? How can I know this NOW, both for my own confidence and for the confidence of the employer?
  2. What specific training do I need to really get my career going?
  3. Which office is the best for me to start my sales training and invest my career in?

So you’re thinking you want in?

Now there is a way of clearly knowing your sales ability and fit for Real Estate selling (or alternative products) before you even walk into the offices of a Real Estate agency for an interview or waste thousands of your own dollars getting your Certificate of Registration and basic sales training.

We have an independent, industry accepted, standard test for Sales IQ that you can take to ensure that you are suitable to take this journey. This assessment is called the Sales Inventory Profile, or SIP.

Many real estate businesses across Australia are using SIP to hire new agents.

Take control of your career and plan your own sales training program.

What you get when you complete a SIP

  • The Comprehensive Report is a 14 page document that will clearly answer that first question “could I become a Real Estate agent?” You can show this report to prospective employers in place of a Résumé (CV) or include the SIP Certificate of Sales Potential with your résumé or CV.
  • We have also given you the first of a five-part training program called “Emotions in Selling” to help you begin your sales training.
  • We will also provide you with a guide on how to assess which agency you want to work for and how to present yourself to the Principal to ensure that you get the job.

To find out if you can be a star in Real Estate start the assessment now!

Go to www.salesinventoryprofile.com

Scroll to the bottom right hand side of the home page and click inside the 3rd grey box.

Press the blue ‘Start Now’ button and you will go to a registration page.

Once you have started the questions it is best to do them all at once, the average time to finish is 30 minutes but some folk do take longer. You can stop, log out and come back anytime if you need to from the top of our home page by entering the username and password you choose for yourself when you completed the registration page.

Only when you finish all the questions will be transferred to complete the payment and then you will need to log-in again on your home page to:

  1. See your report and download as many copies as you need at any time in the future
  2. Use your login to apply for jobs that require a SIP
  3. Below the report on your SIP log-in screen will be a link to the first Emotions in Selling education module
  4. You will receive your ‘How To Get Started In A Career In Real Estate Guide’ in a separate email from us. When the Guide is updated you will automatically receive the latest versions for free.

What is the real upper limit for personal income in Real Estate?

Many recruitment adverts for real estate agents say things like ‘uncap your income’ or ‘unleash your income’ or ‘rocket boost your income’. But is that really feasible?

Actually yes. There are plenty of real estate agents in suburbs across every city and the smallest country towns whose personal income is $500,000 or more per annum before tax. That is possible for the truly well suited and you will know from your SIP score if you are in this group.

That is the top 10% of all the people who ever started in real estate that are that well suited and after 5 or more years in practice they are earning that level of income. There is a further 10% of all starters who may take longer to reach their potential and will then be earning around $300,000 per annum, also a very good income compared to a doctor or a lawyer who also invested 5 years in learning their profession.

But if you are in the other 80%, give yourself a break. There are plenty of other great products to sell where the sales capable range is much broader and you can still earn $100,000 plus in the same time period. Join a different industry, with a product that is better suited to you and be much happier.

Check out some jobs from our Jobs section and press the APPLY NOW Button to start your assessment. I truly hope you find this journey of taking control of your career as exhilarating as we do!

All the best for your Success.

Maya Saric, Sales Psychologist | Connect with me on Facebook    

More info about SIP here

Check out our Sales Jobs listings for your next big opportunity

The Value of Recruiting with SIP for the Real Estate industry

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Do you know how the costs of hiring the wrong people for your company? It’s not a pretty sight going far beyond the money spent on recruiting and training. Think of your own time wasted and the energy levels of your business as more of the wrong people join the team.

Here’s how SIP will ensure you avoid those costs and hire effective sales staff…

The first mistake hiring managers make is to assume that all sales people fit all sales roles. They may do a great job of selling themselves at the interview but how good will they be at selling your service?

SIP scoring system helps identify people with each of the different selling styles  for the following positions:

Sales

  • Listing Agent (this one is the hardest for you to spot in advance because of the high need for prospecting which is a very rare capacity, so this role carries the greatest risk of miss hiring)
  • Buyers Agent or Partner Agent
  • Commercial Agent

Property Managers

  • Property Managers
  • Property Officers
  • Leasing Officers

Sales support

  • Receptionist (this really is a listing agent style but with need for the prospecting capacity)
  • PA’s to listing agents or Property Managers
  • Other – i.e. anyone who helps at Open’s or otherwise relates regularly to either buyers or vendors, or supports the sales process, like manages marketing programs

Once you have clarity on who you really need for your role, the SIP Candidate Management System (CMS) will save you time on recruitment and analysing candidates. Here’s what we do:

a) All candidates are visible permanently in one place and not scattered over many weeks in your in-box. This ensures that they are:

  • Quick to find
  • Accessible by all managers not just the one who has their email on the advert
  • No double handling (i.e. forwarding to each other)
  • Never deleted
  • Keep track of all communication by everyone with each candidate,
  • Includes resume and cover letter in one file per person.

b) Bulk communication facilities.

With a few clicks you can communicate with the entire candidate population by sending either standard emails that notify them of the progress of their application or write your own emails to suit your situation.

All emails sent to each candidate are in their ‘Notes’ and visible as a status against their name so you need never wonder where you are up to with each one.

We understand that your Brand is highly important. So SIP allows you to get the above all easily and quickly done, whilst still maintaining your professional image:

a) Applying through our website (a structured form followed by a serious test) clearly shows your job is a serious one with a professional sales organisation which is much more satisfying for a candidate embarking on an important new career, rather than sending an email to an unknown organisation through SEEK.

b) Candidates receive two auto-emails from the SIP website to identify the progress of their application; when they complete the registration form and when they complete all the questions.

c) The bulk action emails, especially the ‘sorry’ one, gives them closure on what happened or is still happening to their application.

Get your name out there with our Advertising Service! Writing professional copy for advertising is a skill that has a huge direct effect on the outcome of the recruitment process. Lifeless, short adverts focused on what is important to you don’t attract high quality individuals no matter how strong your brand is. There are hundreds of adverts being launched everyday by your competitors and you need to stand out amongst them to speak directly and effectively to the people you need for your business.

We write hundreds of specialist adverts a year so we definitely know what we’re doing and what’s involved. Here’s what you get:

a) Emotionally engaging adverts that sell you and your position to attract more AND better candidates who are keen on you, and not just ‘having a go’.

b) Fresh adverts for each new role type tailored to appeal to people who are suited for that sort of work.

c) Work load management so you won’t need to do a thing after the advert is written as well: we load the advert to SEEK, track advert effectiveness, make changes if necessary and respond to stray candidates who apply directly to ensure all candidates are processed equally.

Want to know more about SIP? Have a watch of our short SIP Report Comparison or read our User Guide if you’ve already got one.

Watch some videos on SIP:  https://mayasaric.com/2013/05/20/best-sales-recruitment-tool/   Want to get started? More information here: https://mayasaric.com/2012/09/19/sip-report-comparison/     https://mayasaric.com/2012/01/28/sip-sales-recruitment-training-coaching-programs/

A Brief Guide to Starting a New Residential Real Estate Agent

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Ensuring the new recruit realises all their inherent capacity without getting demoralised or exhausted before they reach their full potential.

By Maya Saric

Managing Director Corporate Coach Australia P/L  | 0407 005 290

Introduction

The purpose of this document is to outline a specific model for how to help and organise a new person entering the world of real estate listing so they can learn the process and make a respectable income towards the end of their first year. The process outlined here may take more than a year considering the nature of the market, their energy and the assistance that an experienced agent is able to give them.

If you have used SIP to recruit your new sales person then they should have the energy and style to succeed; the remaining variable is the quality of the training they receive in their first year.

The method we are proposing here is only one of a number of methods to induct new staff into a residential listing role. However we believe this method has the highest likelihood of success.

Defining a separate territory for the cadet

Define a set of streets that will become the new cadet’s territory and which will be prospected exclusively by the new agent. They will be provided with all office generated leads in this territory within three months of starting and the defined territory will remain the agent’s indefinitely.

Effective territory definitions are very important to creating harmony in a sales office and allow for easier lead dispute resolution. It is best to define your entire geographic area into individual territories of equal worth before hiring additional staff. We suggest defining the worth of each territory by the number of and sale price of the total transactions in the previous year.

If your business has a large enough reach then set each territory at a maximum of 2000 doors. The objective is to have territories that can generate adequate personal income while being small enough for the cadet to engage each household personally every quarter. A territory that is bigger than 2,000 doors – especially in the first 12 months – is not a good idea as it will dilute the agent’s effectiveness and or the territory’s viability.

List street names on a sheet/spreadsheet or copy a map and highlight the boundaries. Be as clear and as specific as possible.

Partnership with an Experienced Agent

The trainee agent needs to be partnered for a planned 12 months minimum with an experienced busy agent who is either the Principal or an experienced agent who is good at listing, but may not be actively prospecting.

Why partner the cadet with the principal?

Principals will have the greatest interest in the development of this person. As principals want this person to succeed as quickly as possible so they will spend the time helping them analyse each situation they have just participated in and plan new activities for the cadet that re-enforce learning. The Principal is also the most willing to have them fly free at the end when they show an interest and the ability to work as an independent agent.

Are they a cadet or a PA?

Having the cadet work as a simple helper or admin support person to the experienced agent will not provide enough exposure to the sales process to allow for effective learning to become a listing agent.

If you have hired an effective listing agent, (i.e. SIP hunter style,) but do not allow them to get stuck into learning the components of their ultimate role quickly they will lose their energy and may leave your business before exhibiting their real capacity. Also people with stronger hunter profiles are not inherently well suited to being in an administrative role and will make mistakes and underperform, further disillusioning themselves and you. You have hired them to become a listing agent and they need to be in that processes as fully and quickly as possible within the effective control of an experienced agent.

When to use an independent coach?

Many principals do not have a strong background as listing agents having come into their owning businesses from property management or commercial real estate. If they were once a listing agent and are now just too busy with the daily running of a large office to go back into a proactive sales role. In this case I recommend you use an external coach so that the cadet has someone to turn to on a daily basis in the first few months.

When to use an experienced agent who is not the principal?

An experienced agent who is not doing enough prospecting is often motivated enough to have a trainee partnered with them, someone who can set up appraisals for them. While they will need to share their commissions with the cadet (see section below) the extra appraisals will still make this attractive.

But this has the drawback of having poor habits rub off on the trainee. It is for this reason that this option is suggested last, if a selling principal or independent sales coach is not available.

The other problem is that an experienced agent may not be interested in the trainee’s long term development, only wanting them to prospect, for more appraisals and thus listings. To overcome this you may hire the new person with the intention of them being a long term partner agent with a cadet style phase so there is no loss to the experienced agent when this person has become effective. The issue then is forming effective long term partnerships.

Finally a busy experienced agent does need a real PA. However putting the cadet in that role will fail to give the experienced agent adequate support and will in turn demoralise the cadet because hunter style cadets are not well suited to administrative work.

How long does this partnership last?

The partnership stands for a minimum of 12 months or until it has listed AND sold a minimum of 10 properties or a minimum of 12 months. This will then have given the new agent two advantages:

  1. The cadet will gain enough experience with variations of appraisals, listing meetings and buyer negotiations to be able to deal alone with the majority of complications that they will face in the market.
  2. Ten examples of their selling capacity to validate their ability to potential vendors in the future (i.e. their name on ten boards and old marketing material samples). This can be critical for them in responding to vendors who want “the local real estate stars to sell their property, not some unknown rookie”. This success with 10 properties in their own territory removes the ‘rookie’ tag!

We don’t suggest a maximum duration. It is acceptable for this partnership to last longer if the two individuals so choose with a title change from cadet program to partner selling, to give the cadet a sense of progression.

First two listings: Who will do each part?

Open for Inspections: Together, i.e. cadet with experienced agent.

First buyer phone follow up after open homes: Cadet only as they are already experienced on the phone. (Ideally within the same day of the open and to a script agreed with the experienced agent).

Private inspections (especially return viewings): Together.

Negotiate close with serious buyer: Experienced agent with cadet listening if possible.

Prospecting

It is very important that you get staff into the habit of doing two hours of prospecting every day from the beginning. There is nothing more important to learn or habit to develop. If staff do not establish this habit early in their career with you it will be near impossible to achieve later.

The first two weeks

The focus of the cadet’s work from the first day is learning how to prospect. Ensure you have a few tested sample scripts, a database and even a professional coach ready for the first week the cadet starts with you.

Go through the sample scripts with the cadet and provide examples of wording in your own style to get them going. Be sure to explain that he or she needs to evolve their own style and to use the sample scripts and your style as starting points.

The first three months

The most important mission in establishing an effective listing agent is to teach them to prospect and develop good work habits for a career in selling.

When to prospect and how much?

Ideally 2 hours on the phone and 2 hours on the road each day.

One of these sessions should be in the morning the other in the afternoon/early evening for summer time, with the review meeting with you and other administrative tasks in between. Be careful not to give the cadet too many administrative tasks to hide inside of.

Letter box drops do not count within this prospecting time so should be done before or after working hours. Doing your own letterbox dropping is a great way to get to know your suburb and see relevant changes but it is not effective for the generation of MA’s which is the priority in the first stage.

Mix up the routine each day of which activity is performed at which time to help the cadet identify a pattern which suits them and gives the best results in their target market. If you are phoning mobile phone numbers, within reason it may not matter what time of the day it is, but you will find better days and times of the day for catching vendors at home for door knocking depending on the demographics and size of your suburb.

How to teach prospecting?

All forms of prospecting feel weird to anyone who has never used them before. Acknowledge this with the cadet in the first week and assure them that with a few weeks practice they will settle into a comfortable groove with one or more of the recommended methods. Within six weeks they will think it’s easy and boring. The boring element remains forever.

Start the cadet off with a few types of prospecting methods only until they develop their own style and you see their strengths. They will have no strengths when they are first starting so they will need to use the same system for six weeks before deciding it doesn’t suit them. The only real definition of which style suits them is the one that gives them the three MA’s or more per week in the least amount of time.

Three prospecting methods

Cold Calling using a public database of property in this territory. Develop a script with them.

Door Knock inside their own territory (See survey style prospecting system from SIP as an example method).

Previous Buyers in this territory or from agents no longer in the business (if no conflict exists with another agent). That is, old open for inspection sheets. How old? The return (chances of locating a listing) on people who were looking in the last six months is more likely (i.e. they haven’t bought and thus sold yet) but any age is possible and it’s a good excuse to establish contact.

How long to stay in prospecting only mode?

The first two weeks are basic training. Then we recommend a minimum of ten weeks or longer if they are not consistently achieving 3 MA’s per week.

We call this 12 week period the “prospect” only stage and it has a different recommended remuneration plan.

Targets

Activity: 50 contact calls (Phone- cold, cold MA’s, old buyers or door knocking) per day.

It is better to state this as a daily target rather than 250 per week. A weekly target looks daunting to some and gives others a sense of their being ‘plenty’ of time

Outcome: Three Marketing Appraisals booked (i.e. time and day agreed with the vendor) per week.

Manage activity Reward outcomes

Set clear KPI’s for activity (see suggestions above) that is realistic for the first few months and reward for over achievement of these. Setting the performance bar low and having over achievement rewards creates a baseline or floor level of activity that is sustainable indefinitely while stating your expectations that you are planning on them to be doing more than this.

Manage their activity on a daily basis starting with a 20 minute formal in person review of their work. After a few weeks you may drop this to a formal sit down review twice a week plus daily ‘quick catch-ups’ ideally in the middle of the day which can be by phone or in person.

What time of day to conduct reviews

We recommend middle of the day, preferably before lunch and definitely before 1 pm. This is for both the formal 20 minute sit together session as well as the two to three minute quick chat. This has several positive effects:

  • There is less dread to starting the day if yesterday went badly
  • If the morning is going badly you may be able offer some wisdom to make the process easier for the afternoon, or suggest they change to a different prospecting method
  • Reassuring them after a few hours of work will give them additional energy for the afternoon

Salary and Commission

First one to three months:

Straight salary at the rate for administrative staff. Do not start cadets from day one on debit/credit as it’s too discouraging when they don’t have the skill to achieve listings. Being on debit credit too early means they are in catch-up mode for many months which reduces their feelings of success for the early sales. Given that positive re-enforcement from success provides the extra energy to achieve more success you do not want cadets feeling defeated by having completed a training phase. Without a training phase they are unlikely to succeed or help with existing listings no matter their suitability.

Prospecting only phase

This is before cadets start attending the MA’s they have generated and is designed to reward them for learning to prospect well. We suggest the admin salary plus a piece based incentive:

$50       for booking MA’s

$100     for MA’s they booked that becomes listings.

$100     for more than 3 MA’s conducted in any week. (‘Conducted’ still counts if the experienced agent fails to attend)

Cadet shadow selling with experienced agent

For the first ten properties sold where the original MA was generated by the cadet in the experience agent’s territory, share available commission 50/50 with the experienced agent.

This is no matter how little work the cadet has done toward closing the listing or the sale.  In the first few properties sold, the bulk of the work (after prospecting) is being done by the experienced agent. This ratio should reverse by at least by the fifth property sold.

In the case of other listings in the experienced agent’s territory not initiated by the cadet but where the cadet assists in the sale of the property (i.e. runs the open, manages buyers etc,) the cadet receives 20% of the experienced agent’s commission.

Cadet selling to own territory with help

Where the cadet continues working under the oversight of the experienced agent into the second year, (or for the duration of the partnership,) but is now working in the cadet’s own territory the cadet and experienced agent shall share available commission 50/50.

Where, after 12 months, the cadet begins working independently in their own territory they can choose to return to the 50/50 split with the experienced agent. The cadet and experienced agent may choose to do this irregularly for unique situations where the cadet feels insecure completely alone or for planned absences by either party.

Training Programs for the Registration Certificate

Real Estate Institute of New South Wales http://www.reinsw.com.au/

Real Estate Institute of Queensland http://www.reiq.com.au/

Real Estate Institute of Victoria http://www.reiv.com.au/

Real Estate Institute of South Australia http://www.reisa.com.au/

Real Estate Institute of Tasmania http://www.reit.com.au/

Real Estate Institute of Western Australia http://reiwa.com.au/

Real Estate Institute of Northern Territory http://www.reit.com.au/

Real Estate Institute of Australian Capital Territory http://www.reiact.com.au/

To grab your own PDF version of this Guide:

  1. Click on the link below
  2. You will be redirected to a new page – then, click on the link “Maya’s Guide to Starting a new Cadet Residential Listing Agent-PDF”
  3. Save your PDF copy
  4. Enjoy!

Maya’s Guide to Starting a new Cadet Residential Listing Agent-PDF


Q&A: What is the role of ‘High Expectations’ score in selling?

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Answer:

Having Expectations (EXP) at or over 73%  is the biggest component to being a mega ‘hunter’, i.e. someone who can sell new business in a big way regularly.

These are people that can drive themselves consistently through all the tasks and obstacles that is the daily grind of selling. The absolute biggest obstacles that slaughters most new business Sales people are inertia and boredom during cold calling. This hence explains why the old ‘self-starter’ is so popular. Many sales people are great at hitting their targets when they have clear and pressing deadlines, or work in a call centre with autodial – but leave them alone or give them undefined time limits and they slow down and get lethargic.

Many people can stomach the tough stuff intermittently but being able to do it day in day out as instinctively and unflinchingly as brushing ones teeth is what gets some to the very top. Only a small percentage of the people we have ever tested  with the Sales Inventory Profile are that high. In fact, cold calling are what Sales people find scariest.

To be able to stomach cold calling we recommend to all our clients that they hire candidates with EXP over 68% as a minimum and develop good sales management techniques run great sales meetings and have clear weekly KPI’s to help their ‘almost’ mega hunters still get mega results. But if your sales staff need to work alone from home or a remote office without daily sales management they will need EXP to be well over 70%, and ideally over 73%

Unfortunately, good sales management techniques are also rare in most organisations. So, if you work alone (either for yourself or from a distant office), or are the boss and still selling, then you’re dead without them.

Watch our SIP Comparison Report or access our User Guide if you’ve got any more queries!

Q&A: Is there a better day to start a job advert?

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thinking business woman standingAnswer:

Things I know about sales candidate activity on SEEK: Sunday to Thursday are better than Friday and Saturday.

There are less adverts released on both Saturday and Sunday. As more adverts are released your own advert gets pushed down. This is really important to the success of your advert as candidates don’t need to go past page one to find good jobs to apply for in most markets. For this reason we always pay the extra $20 to be at the very top for a full week even in categories where we don’t get pushed off page one for a week or more naturally.

So if the objective is to maximise candidate enquiry the longer you can stay at the top on a good candidate activity day the better…so combined that makes Sunday better (equally good day as Wednesday and Thursday for candidate traffic but lesser new jobs pushing us down). That is why we recommend we wait till Sunday if possible. I organise my adverts during the week and load them to SEEK but press ‘play’ on Sunday when I get up. It takes me 2 min.

All of that is my knowledge of how candidates behave in sales roles. I am assuming a similar pattern for admin roles as currently in Sydney there are 186 ‘ sales’ roles versus 150 for ‘Administration’.

Next Q&A: What does the “High Expectations” score in SIP say about Sales Skills?

No age limit for SIP

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Question: Is it okay for a 15 year old to complete a SIP?

Answer: There are no age components in the Sales Inventory Profile or SIP.

SIP will give you as accurate a result regardless of how much experience in the business world you have, including none. The test has been developed to a middle level of English comprehensive so a native English speaking 12 year old will be able to fully understand the questions.

I asked my family and friends with teenage children to do the test some years ago when we were validating it before the launch in 2008 and so I know it works for teenagers. The legal age for working is, I believe, 14 and ¾ years, so again a 15 is ok. I don’t think there is anything on the SIP site that specifies age limitations. We do ask for their birthday as a way to validate their identify but it is not used in any way for the calculations. I don’t tell my clients to think about the age as such when considering people for job applications, rather the life circumstance of the individual and how that impacts their ability to perform your job.

I encourage our clients to offer the program to all local high schools and TAFEs (or any other full time school institutions in your area) whether they are themselves hiring or not as a community service for free. The process includes the families to come to your office to pick up the reports in person so we can verify their identity and we are not releasing reports to the wrong person or allowing them to be read by others.

I suggest you staple a ‘with complements’ style page with your branding over my report as this document will most likely end up in being saved in the house for years as the kids finish school and start applying for jobs.

Want to know more about SIP? Watch our short video or learn more about SIP’s Value and Advantage, a video on SIP Reporting or have a look at our pricing list here.

What If the grass really were greener on the Other Side?

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Should you be in Sales?

Have you ever looked around you at work and thought; Why am I doing so much for so little money whilst those folk in the Sales Department seem to do nothing and are raking it in? I think we have all wondered why sales people make so much more than the rest of us.

The reason is simple.

They bring money into the business and for that we are all grateful.

But their lot is not as easy as it looks from the outside. As a salesperson they get to have their emotional systems battered for a living. For every ‘yes’ they get they have to hear 9 ‘no’s’ and those no’s are not usually polite, reasonable ones. Those folk get battered. So why do they do it? Is it just the money?

May it’s the money; maybe it’s the thrill of the chase. Maybe it’s a lifelong need for…?? Who knows why they do it really! It is obvious though that only for a small number of people is this continuous rejection acceptable. What’s worse they seem to be having a ball at it despite the rejection. How is that possible?

Some people are well suited to the selling process and for whatever reason are really able to manage the rejection part of it.

Could this be you?

You don’t want to give up a reasonable and ultimately, safe pay packet to free fall from the dizzy heights of the selling cliff. Selling is a death or glory business. Those that can get loads of money and glory and those that cannot die a rapid death emotionally and ultimately, financially.

Now there is a safe and accurate way to work out if you could sell before you actually take up a Sales job.

It’s called SIP.

That stands for Sales Inventory Profile. It’s a questionnaire that is looking to see if you have the attributes that are needed to succeed in selling. It’s based on a well researched pool of attributes that all successful sales people have.

If you knew you had enough of these attributes then the initial struggle to establish yourself in selling would be well worth it?

Sure it would.

Firstly, we all expect a ‘training’ or an ‘apprentice’ period in a new job. Plus if you really were suited to selling then you have that unknown reason for accepting immediate rejection and thus failure for ultimate success. That means you’d survive being useless at it while you learn the ropes. If your new boss knew you had what it takes, they would survive you being useless for the apprenticeship period while you got fully into it.

Watch this interview with one of our Sales team members on her sales career journey

Cold calling still the leading light in new business sales

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Real estate agents are not earning enough. Despite the real estate industry having some of the highest income earners in the country only a small number of real estate agents earn over $250,000 per year.With some many offices around the country why are there so few individuals at this level of personal success? Is it really that the way we do business has changed so much that our old ways do not work and we are yet to find our feet in the brave new economy?

A common path to success that has worked for years is cold calling. The question is whether this tried and true approach is still appropriate in today’s web-based sales world. A new study from the Keller Center at Baylor University reaches some interesting conclusions about this important issue.

The details of the study

“134 agents from 10 different geographic areas were divided into two groups. Each group was asked to set aside a different hour each day, for seven days to make cold calls. They used the same script and were asked to record the results of their calls in an on-line form so that the data could be collected in real time. For this study, cold calling was defined as dialing random numbers, from a certain farm area not previously marketed to by the agent. The result was 14 hours of lead generation over 14 days.”

The goal of the study

“The goal was to determine if cold calling as a baseline lead generation activity – cold meaning no experience, no contacts, no database, no marketing, no listings, and no ‘just-solds’ – would generate appointments for agents.”

The Results

71.6 % of all calls failed to reach a live person.
28.4% the agent did connect with a live person with the following results,

  • 14.8 % said they weren’t interested,
  • 2.1 % the agent to call back later.
  • 11.3% agreed to either an appointment or gave a referral
  • It took 208 calls (including all the wrong numbers and no answers)  to get an appointment or referral.

This means for every 60 people the agent actually reached, the agent would either receive a referral or schedule an appointment.

Conclusions from the results

1. If an agent can make 50 calls per hour, speaking with 15 people, it will take them approximately 6 hours to achieve one appointment.

2. Anecdotal evidence of conversion rate suggests a 2-to-1 appointment to closing (listing) ratio. That means for every 12 hours of calls, an agent can expect to achieve 1 listing.

Who can do it?

By the time the sample agents had spent 11 hours cold calling, all 134 had quit calling. Yet the data showed that it takes 12 hours of cold calling to generate a closed deal. In other words, the agents quit one hour short of reaching the 12-hour revenue generating goal.

What does this mean for you and your business?

The conversion ratios from the Baylor study show that 12 hours of cold calling consistently yields one listing. Or if you want to close one listing a week that’s 144 minutes, just on 2 hours, of prospecting a day, 5 days a week.

Is It Worth the Price?

The Baylor study concludes with this important point: “Spending 3 hours a day, cold calling, Monday through Friday can potentially yield $290,063 in total commissions in a year.” This is based on a single listing being worth $4,800 to the agent.

The question it would seem to be; are you willing to work 12 hours a week on the phone to make almost $250,000 personal income.  The answer for most agents is “No.”

But the research from own study of sales ability in Australia is that it is not a question of being willing to cold call but rather; ‘Are you able to Cold Call?’.

The assumption in this study was all sales people are equally able and that they simply  don’t have the inner fortitude. The assumption is if they just showed a bit more backbone or energy or ‘millionaire mindset’ or changed something easy within themselves then they really could do it. They just don’t want to make the extra effort. The assumption is we can change ourselves, or our staff, into effective prospectors with just a little more effort.

So we have focused our attention on hiring staff who want the money in the hope they will want to make the effort. But what if no amount of ‘wanting’ can make the difference when they simple are not suited to it.

As we discussed in a previous article Are your staff to scared to cold call, less than 15 % of people no matter how willing, how well trained or how well managed still CANNOT.

The issue then is not whether cold calling works but whether the individual can cold call. That’s something our Sales IQ Inventory can answer for you and your team.

More on calling:  Are your staff too scared to cold call?

But are your staff too scared to cold call? http://tinyurl.com/cumo6w3

Emotional Engagement during an Appraisal

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Selling without emotion is hard work!

Emotion stimulates the mind 3000 times faster than rational thought. The brain is structured in such a way that the emotional processing (instinct) starts responding first and creates much stronger chemical reactions then the logical processes, which are triggered much later. The emotional processes are designed to turn on the flight or fight (or freeze) mechanism and are on a 24/7 hair trigger for anything that creates fear.

It’s an emotional world we live in. Many people say we live in a rational world but nothing could be further from the truth. Emotions drive our behavior; the world is driven by emotions. Rational thought leads customers to be interested but it is emotion that sells.

Capturing minds is one thing; capturing hearts is quite another.

The most successful sales involve strong emotional connections between people. People don’t actually make life decisions on clear logical grounds. We often decide first and rationalize second. We are emotion based creatures that are first and foremost run by our fears and instincts. Our brain has been designed so that logic cannot easily override our emotions, especially strong emotions.

The better you target that human instinctual connection with the vendor the easier the sales process that follows will be. You need to start targeting their emotions the second you walk across their threshold. Given we sell Real Estate at a very intimate, personal level (in their homes) you have the opportunity to connect with them not in a brash, blatant way but in a simple and very profound manner.

To maximize your chances of getting the listing you must first connect with their hearts then later you can rationalize with their minds. Remember that the fear emotion has the strongest effect on the decision making process. You need to connect very directly with their fears in a way that explicitly helps reduce their fears.

So what are you selling that you need to be emotional about before you get the listing? Until you have secured the listing you have just one product: YOU.

Who are you? (some standard stuff, you need to tailor this to you):
• A committed member of your local community.
• A professional real estate agent of XX years standing.
• A highly experienced sales person who knows how to sell the value in each and every property.
• XX years young, e.g. through your own midlife dramas with plenty of drive and ambitions (people want personal content i.e. who are you?)
• You’re a specialist with Blue Bay Real Estate.
• A Licensed Agent partnered with one of the area’s most successful agents.
• Educated and raised in this community.

BUT of what value is that to them? How do you meet their emotional needs?
How does that make you the right person to sell their castle? How can you reduce their fears? You have to translate these things into specific benefits to them, in their context.

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