Gabrielle Jeans’s Weblog

If You Live By Referrals Only, Your Business Is Dying By Them Part 5

Your website need not be just about real estate. It should look at your farm areas as a whole and the various aspects of them. If you like Indian Food as much as I do, you might write a blog article about how much you enjoyed (or didn’t enjoy) a particular Indian restaurant in the neighborhood. Sometimes someone in the area looking for new restaurant ideas on Google who also happens to be interested in moving soon will find this article of yours. Who says a love of a certain type of food can’t bring people together? (more…)

Add comment December 8, 2009

If You Live By Referrals Only, Your Business Is Dying By Them Part 4

Here’s another common objection to having your own real estate website:

“I’ve never sold a thing to anyone who’s emailed me about a listing. These people aren’t serious.”

A great misconception. (more…)

Add comment December 7, 2009

If You Live By Referrals Only, Your Business Is Dying By Them Part 3

Most of the 80% think they should be real estate generalists and go after any real estate market in their region. Their rationale for this is, “I’ll maximize the number of opportunities by serving all the markets I can. Focusing on fewer markets will bring me fewer opportunities”.

In fact, the opposite is true: the fewer markets you focus on, the more successful you’ll be. (more…)

Add comment December 4, 2009

If You Live By Referrals Only, Your Business Is Dying By Them Part 2

I really can’t imagine what life must be like for people who are no longer interested in learning or trying new things. I like what Will Durant says: “education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.” In other words, when we become educated, we get a perspective on knowledge that the uneducated will never have. That perspective is this: there is no limit to how much knowledge we can gain in life. Those who think they know it all or act like it are simply vain, deluded fools. They don’t even know that they don’t know!

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite” – William Blake
(more…)

Add comment December 3, 2009

If You Live By Referrals Only, Your Business Is Dying By Them Part 1

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few” – Shunryu Suzuki

One of the most lamentable things I’ve found in my nearly 40 years in real estate is working with real estate “professionals” who have what I call the veteran syndrome. It’s that vanity and smugness that so often comes with elder age and much experience. When someone has the veteran syndrome you can’t teach really teach them anything. They’re know-it-alls. They have ways of doing business that have worked for them for years and brought them tolerable success. They’re simply not interested in changing because they see no reason to, so you won’t find them out there looking for ways to improve their business.

I recently had a lengthy chat with a veteran real estate professional from a very well known company. Here in Ontario all real estate professionals are required to take continuing education courses (I’m one of these certified instructors) in order to keep their real estate license. His company offers many online versions of these continuing education credit courses. He told me how he’d figured out a way to cheat on these courses so he didn’t have to do them and still pass all the tests and get all his credits. When I asked him how he’s getting new business, I predicated before he answered what he would say: “referrals”. I was right.

I’ve found a tell-tale sign of reps with the veteran syndrome are ones who take one of my continuing education classes when their real estate license expiry date is a week away. They’re the ones who are only taking my class because they have to take it: so they can renew their license. In fact, another educator of real estate professionals I know often asks her classes, “How many of you are here only to get your continuing education credits?”. She says usually about 70% of the people put their hands up. Isn’t it interesting that this number isn’t that far from the 80-20 rule. That is, 80% of real estate professionals make 20% of the money made by all real estate professionals. If you aren’t an active, lifelong learner, a seeker, you are almost certainly in this 80% group.

Add comment December 2, 2009

Are You A “No” Sayer At Heart?, Part 8

The next time you find yourself thinking about how to say no in some way, when you are trying to think of reasons for not doing something (anything at all), immediately stop yourself and pull the elastic out and let it snap against your wrist. The harder you pull it, the better. How far you pull it out is up to you, but consider this. The psychologist Abraham Maslow made the famous observation that people (when given the choice of receiving pleasure or avoiding pain), almost everyone will choose to avoid pain. With that in mind, it stands to reason that the more pain, the more people will want to escape from it. When you snap the elastic against your wrist, you are feeling pain to some degree.

If you snap the elastic every time you catch yourself thinking in ways that ultimately amount to “no”, you will start creating a mental association between pain, saying “No” and thinking negatively. That is the key thing. When you associate physical pain with negative thinking, it will help you stop thinking negatively. (more…)

Add comment December 1, 2009

Are You A “No” Sayer At Heart?, Part 7

In any case, it’s just not that memorable a flier. It wouldn’t get any more memorable if I received the same flier year after year for the next 25 years. I suspect Maria might have been doing promotion not much different than this for the past 25 years! I’ve always liked one of the Alcoholics Anonymous credos: “the definition is insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”. (more…)

Add comment November 30, 2009

Are You A “No” Sayer At Heart?, Part 6

Just imagine having the ear of 282,534 people who at least respected your knowledge if not trusted you and would readily refer you to others. That number of people reminds me of when I attended the Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto concert back in 2003, often remembered as “SARS-stock”. It was headlined by the Rolling Stones and featured a dazzling array of Canadian and international talent. It’s estimated 450,000-500,000 people attended that concert. One thing I remember being in the middle of that crowd is that from horizon to horizon, you could see nothing but people. In fact, there were so many people that you couldn’t even tell there were even nearly that many people there. (more…)

Add comment November 27, 2009

Are You A “No” Sayer At Heart?, Part 5

Now let’s take a look at a real estate professional who knows it’s more valuable to get new business than to rely only on past business. Let’s call her Susan. (more…)

Add comment November 26, 2009