Prospect with Soul for Real Estate Agents (eBook)

Discovering the Perfect Prospecting Strategies for Wonderful, Extraordinary, One-of-a-Kind YOU

Jennifer Allan Hagedorn (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2011 | 1. Auflage
248 Seiten
BlueGreen Books (Verlag)
978-0-9816727-6-2 (ISBN)

Infos

In this third book of the 'Soul' series, Jennifer Allan-Hagedorn helps new and experienced real estate agents discover the perfect mix of prospecting strategies that best suits their unique personalities, strengths and goals. She accomplishes this NOT by insisting that they venture out of their comfort zones and implement strategies that feel unnatural (or even 'icky'), but rather by following the Golden Rule of Prospecting: Prospect Unto Others as You Would Like to Be Prospected Unto. In Prospect with Soul for Real Estate Agents, Jennifer examines more than a dozen Old School traditional prospecting methods and shows you how to'soulfully' tweak them to better apply and appeal to today's real estate consumer.

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In this third book of the "e;Soul"e; series, Jennifer Allan-Hagedorn helps new and experienced real estate agents discover the perfect mix of prospecting strategies that best suits their unique personalities, strengths and goals. She accomplishes this NOT by insisting that they venture out of their comfort zones and implement strategies that feel unnatural (or even "e;icky"e; but rather by following the Golden Rule of Prospecting: Prospect Unto Others as You Would Like to Be Prospected Unto. In Prospect with Soul for Real Estate Agents, Jennifer examines more than a dozen Old School traditional prospecting methods and shows you how to"e;soulfully"e; tweak them to better apply and appeal to today's real estate consumer.

Textauszug

“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”

—Judy Garland

Chapter One

Welcome to Prospect with Soul™

Forget everything you’ve ever heard or read about effective real estate prospecting techniques. If those ideas and advice had worked for you, you probably wouldn’t be holding this book in your hands right now. When we’ve finished our journey together, you are welcome to return to your old ways of building your business…or join us Soulful Prospectors who have found a better way.

A better way to what, exactly? Ah, glad you asked. A better way to inspire the people you know and the people you meet to think of you as their favorite real estate agent. A way to attract business to you without pestering anyone or jeopardizing the personal relationships in your life. A way to be wildly successful without sacrificing your soul (or your dignity) in the process.

A way to use the brains God gave you to build a thriving business you’ll be proud to call your own. One that will pay the bills nicely, while leaving you time to enjoy the lifestyle you’ve always dreamed your prospecting efforts would eventually result in.

A way to, get this, NEVER HAVE TO PROSPECT AGAIN!

This is the ultimate goal of building a career by Prospecting with Soul…to have generated the good will, the respect, the recognition and the reputation to NEVER HAVE TO PROSPECT AGAIN!

Well, maybe that’s stretching it just a bit. As an entrepreneurial sort, you’ll always have to ensure a steady stream of business to your door to keep the dogs fed and the toenails polished. And yes, attracting business your way will require some effort on your part. However, by the time we’re finished with you here at the Prospect with Soul Worldwide headquarters, you’ll be comfortably prospecting as a natural part of your day-to-day wanderings, without even realizing you’re doing it. So, yeah, you’re prospecting, but it’s almost as natural as breathing.

About Sell with Soul™ (SWS)

If this is your first encounter with all this real estate “Soul” stuff, you might be wondering what it’s all about!

Sell with Soul is the name of my first book and the basis for my entire real estate philosophy. Since we’ll be referring to SWS here and there throughout this book, here’s a little primer on what it means.

Sell with Soul: To enjoy a wildly successful career selling real estate by treating clients and prospects respectfully, as you yourself would like to be treated.

Sounds suspiciously like the good old Golden Rule of doing unto others what you would like them to do unto you, doesn’t it? Which, by the way, you’ll see as a common theme in Prospect with Soul.

An agent who Sells with Soul wants to earn the future business and referrals of his satisfied past clients because he is the best agent to have ever happened to them—not because he masters the art of referral-begging (see Chapter Four—Your Sphere of Influence). Because he’s so darn good at what he does, eventually he won’t have to prospect at all—with soul or otherwise—because his satisfied past clients will do it for him. Seriously.

To Sell with Soul also means that you respect and appreciate your clients, and therefore do not use tricks or strategies that are insulting or patronizing to them. SWS agents respect the intelligence of their clients and prospects and treat them accordingly. They don’t insult that intelligence with ridiculous scripts, pushy closing techniques or cheesy objection-busters. They are patient and kind. Empathetic and sympathetic. Respectful and appreciative.

SWS’ers (real estate agents who follow Sell with Soul principles) strive to place their clients in first position, where they belong, rather than lower on the priority totem pole to be dealt with after one’s prospecting is done. When an SWS’er is faced with a dilemma, he first considers the wants and needs of the client and makes his decision accordingly.

An agent who Sells with Soul wants to be competent before he sets himself loose on the general public. He believes that anyone who honors him with their business deserves more than a “fake it ‘til you make it” attitude. He thinks it only fair that he is qualified and competent before he asks for and accepts payment for his professional expertise.

An SWS’er can, with a straight face and sincere heart, make the following two statements:

1. “The clients I have today are more important to me than the clients I hope to have tomorrow.”

2. “I am, or intend to be, the best thing to ever happen to my client.”

Then, What Does It Mean to Prospect with Soul…or, Conversely, withOUT Soul?

Let’s go back to that definition of Sell(ing) with Soul—something about making lots of money selling real estate by treating people the way you’d like to be treated, right?

Therefore, the definition of Prospect(ing) with Soul might read something like this: “To build a real estate business using techniques and strategies that: 1) you’re proud of and excited about, 2) would work if used on you, and 3) don’t make you feel icky.”

So, let’s look at the elements of that definition one by one.

“To use techniques and strategies that you’re proud of
and excited about”

So many agents, particularly newer ones, get sucked into prospecting programs, systems and methods that they’re embarrassed by and certainly not excited about. It’s as if they assume that somehow they’ll be changed into a different person—someone who tomorrow will embrace ideas that seem silly and cheesy today—all because they’ve written a check or hired a coach. Even as their common sense whispers to them that the approach they’re contemplating is wrong (for them), they insist on giving it a try, just in case they’re wrong about being wrong!

No, no, no! Before implementing any prospecting strategy, be darn sure that it’s something you’re jazzed up, revved up and fired up to do. And not because some guru promised you the earth, moon and stars if you’ll just sign on the dotted line and turn over a chunk of your precious marketing budget. And never forget that only you can make the determination whether you should be proud of and excited about something; no one else can (or should) do that for you.

“To use techniques and strategies that would work on you”

Why, oh why do we real estate agents insist on implementing prospecting techniques that wouldn’t work on us in a million years? Do we really think our audience is that much different from us (or dumber than we are) that they will react positively to something we wouldn’t give the time of day to?

Oh, I know why we do it. Our brokers and trainers and associates swear by the techniques and tell us to “just give it a try.” We don’t have enough faith in our own gut instincts, so we give in. We’ll talk more about this later.

“To use techniques and strategies that don’t make you feel icky”

Why do we real estate agents insist on implementing prospecting techniques that make us feel icky? That give us the willies? That make our guts churn, our noses wrinkle and our eyes roll? This is the epitome of NOT Prospecting with Soul—to do unto others what would annoy us if done unto us.

Feeling icky about any activity should be a clear indication that there’s something wrong with the activity (for you). But, as with strategies that wouldn’t work on you if used on you, your brokers and trainers and associates tell you that what you’re really feeling is fear, not ickiness. That if you can just suck it up, get out of your comfort zone and Do It (whatever that “it” is you don’t want to do), you’ll eventually get over those feelings of ick and even enjoy the activity.

But there’s a big difference between being reasonably nervous about something you haven’t done before and feeling icky about it. Your gut knows the difference. Trust it.

And again, we’ll talk more about this later.

One more thing to toss in here about evaluating a prospecting strategy—never implement a strategy that insults the intelligence of your target audience.

It seems obvious that, when looking for business, you don’t want to imply you think your audience is stupid. Most people in the world have a high regard for their own intelligence (whether deserved or not), so when your self-promotional materials take the tone of a lofty, smarter-than-thou know-it-all OR of a cheesy, patronizing huckster, your audience will react in one of two ways (neither one positive).

One, they might be insulted by your insinuation that you’re smarter than they are or, two, they might think less of your intelligence level since your marketing material clearly demonstrates, um, a LACK of intelligence. What they won’t think is how awesome you are, how worthy of their business you are, or how much they respect your abilities as a real estate agent.

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Here’s a quote from one of my favorite books on the planet—Go-Givers Sell More by Bob Burg and John David Mann:

“You may have been taught that to be successful in sales, you need to ‘step outside your comfort zone.’ Let’s reexamine that idea. If you push yourself to a place that makes you uncomfortable, chances are pretty good you’ll end up making the other person uncomfortable, too. Consciously or...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.5.2011
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Spezielle Betriebswirtschaftslehre ► Immobilienwirtschaft
• ISBN-10: 0-9816727-6-0 / 0981672760
• ISBN-13: 978-0-9816727-6-2 / 9780981672762