The Lead Agent’s Primary Job
I often ask agents, “If you had to segment your business into two sections, what would they be?” Most of them initially want to negotiate for more segments. They don’t want to look at their business in such black and white terms. Here is how I feel the business breaks up into two sections. It would be sectioned off into creating customers and servicing customers. Those are the two major categories in a sales business. I then ask, “If you only had the option of being exceptional at one, which one would you choose?” For many agents, again, they really don’t want to look at the option of excellence in only one. One of the marks of excellence as a Champion Agent or Champion Team is excellence in both. I would contend that few agents and few teams achieve this.
When confronted with this tough decision, most agents would rather achieve excellence in customer service. They feel that is the pathway to a growing, sustainable business.
In my many years in real estate sales and real estate training and coaching, I have encountered few agents who reach the upper echelon of real estate sales with the exclusive view of customer service. Before you jump to conclusions of my viewpoint, it is essential to excel at both disciplines of customer creation and customer service in order to become a Champion Agent or Champion Team. While trying to climb the mountain of success, one of these sections will be secondary to the other. Your investment of time and energy will be larger with one than with the other. Your staff will pick up on your signals of which is more important to you and will adopt that prioritization, as well. The decisions you make in this one area will determine how quickly you execute your success plan.
In terms of earnings and income, I have met many agents who earn large sums of money who are world class in client creation and down right poor in customer service. While these agents don’t generate the referrals they should because of their customer service, they have developed viable business because of their top-notch skills in client creation. Again, I want to emphasize this is not the ideal platform for success. It is better than a limited focus exclusively on customer service. In the end, you must achieve a balance between these two areas. While climbing the ladder of success, your focus must be tilted to customer creation, however.
I have wrapped up the real word for customer creation in a fancy wrapper to make it more palatable. It’s like the exterior coating they put on aspirin, so it doesn’t upset our stomachs as much. Let me peel off the coating of customer creation and call it what it really is . . . prospecting.
As the leader on the team, your primary job is to be a Champion’s example; to be the model that all your other administrative and sales staff will follow. You need to set the example of prospecting on a daily basis. Let’s have a real truth moment in our relationship. The truth is you are in sales . . . right? Sales is a profession where we have to find prospects to sell our services to.
Champion Team Rule – Prospecting is the first step in the sales process. You are in sales; you need to prospect.
If you don’t prospect, you won’t find prospects. If you don’t find prospects, you won’t be able to make presentations to prospects to create customers. If you don’t have customers, there won’t be anyone for you to serve. You won’t be able to deliver exceptional service, so you won’t be able to create clients. These clients you don’t have won’t be able to send you referrals, so you can acquire new prospects easier.
We really have an unlimited supply of what we can prospect. Webster defines prospecting as “seeking a potential customer; seeking with a vision of success.” In the definition, it doesn’t say waiting for the phone to ring, sending out post cards, hoping someone calls me. It clearly says that prospecting is a seeking activity. Let me share a guarantee from ancient scripture. “Seek, and you shall find.” The guarantee is if you seek, you will find. I hear all the time from people, “Well, what if it doesn’t work?” You are assured it will work because seekers become finders.
The second segment of this definition is that we need to “seek with a vision of success.” Webster must have worked in a real estate office before. He knows how other agents can try to pull you down or away from prospecting. You could even have brokers who try to belittle you because of your prospecting. Webster was saying, get your mind to positive, expect good results, focus on that, and you will succeed. Don’t let others negatively influence your vision of success.
The quandary isn’t should I or shouldn’t I prospect. It’s what method should I use and how much prospecting do I need to do daily to achieve my goals in sales, income, and net profit? What standard do I need to set for my team? What sources do I need to invest my time in prospecting? What sources are most effective based on my market conditions? What creates the greatest short-term revenue? What source creates the most significant long-term revenue? These are all points to evaluate before you begin the disciplined process of prospecting.
