21 TRUTHS FOR NEW AGENTS – Last Day
Distractions. Shiny Objects. HEY, over here!!
We all get derailed by our distractions and it costs us money. As agents there are so many distractions and many times they are hidden from us by masquerading as something important.
Truth No. 21 – Your choice of CRM, logo, and headshots are distractions. I’d even extend that into your choice of a brokerage, the car you drive, the clothes you wear, and a plethora of other choices we have to make.
Don’t misunderstand me to say those things are not important but if they keep you from making your calls, writing your notes and getting face to face (once this situation passes) with folks, it’s a distraction that is costing you money. The cool thing about working for yourself is you get to make the decisions, so my point is for you to make them and get back to your lead generation activities. You can change your mind later if you find out something isn’t working out the way you hoped.
I hang out on a lot of new agent Facebook groups, work to answer questions and talk to new agents all the time. My goal is to provide a sane, calm voice in the noise. I can see agents who get frozen in time, choosing what headshot to use. Frozen by the logo design. Your brand is not your logo. I can prove it might be better to use our company brand if it’s a good one with a short story.
I was talking with an owner of an IHOP restaurant one day and handed him my business card. It looks like this.
He looked at my card and asked “Do you know Jeff Smith?”. (the name was changed to protect the innocent)
Now I thought that was odd so I asked him “Is Jeff’s name on my card?” knowing it wasn’t but I wanted to hear his answer. He said no, but when he looked at the KW logo he thought of Jeff because of advertising Jeff had done locally.
Now it’s funny to me because the back story is Jeff was trying to hire me. Prior to that time Jeff worked with KW also and had done a great job branding himself in the local area that this guy lived in, so much so that when he saw the KW logo, he thought of Jeff. That is the goal for us as agents. Getting people to think of us when they think of real estate, right?
Jeff had left KW and started his own brokerage. It was a smaller boutique company with a great presence in a small area but certainly not as big as Keller Williams. He had not gotten the same mindshare with the new company as he had with KW yet but he was working on it.
It occurred to me, I had gotten phone calls from folks in my database, just checking up on me because they’d seen a KW sign and thought of me. Not my sign, mind you, just a KW sign from another agent. I had achieved mindshare with my database by using my KW logo and our presence we have is much larger than any other company, period.
It was that conversation that caused me to stay at KW. I decided it was more important for me to continue to build mindshare with my database than it was to try and brand myself as anything other than an agent with KW who focused on working by referral. I wanted to be famous to a few and focus on referrals. It’s been my whole career focused on those two things that have contributed to my success.
Key thoughts to take away from this post is to be famous to a few, focus on referrals and give great service.
Seek out the smallest viable audience who will consistently refer you. It can be as small as 100 folks who refer and work with you to lead you to 20-30 transactions a year and you won’t be buying leads or working with strangers. Hone your skills to be the best agent in the transaction and it leads to a lot of satisfaction and removes much of the unknown in this business.
That’s enough on this one. I hope these truths are helpful and I’m happy to talk with you if you want to discuss them and it doesn’t have to be about these articles. In this current situation, I want to help.
If you’re struggling and need to talk to someone, I’m here and I’ll talk with you.
I mean it.
If you want to schedule a 30-minute call you can click on this link. It will take you to a calendar where you can request a 30-minute time block. I’ll accept and we’ll get on zoom to talk face to face.
It’s free and it might just help if you’re stuck. No strings, no pitch, just someone to listen and maybe get you unstuck.
I’m here if you want to reach out.
I hope you will.
Thanks for listening,
Jerry Robertson
678-616-1578 Direct Line