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2. How to Become an Expert at Handling Buyer's Remorse

I've been writing real estate articles for years now and I figured it was probably about time to write one on this specific subject. After all, I've been doing coaching for more than 7 years, I've worked one-on-one directly with a great number of agents, and I feel I have a good sense of what agents really need and are looking for to improve their real estate businesses.

First of all, let me answer the following question you may have:

"Why would I want to hire a real estate coach?"

The short and sweet answer to this one is, "To produce better results in your real estate business and make more money than you currently are."

But what I notice in our profession is that many agents tend to feel that they should be operating their businesses completely by themselves. And I really think this has to do with the nature of those of us who are attracted to brokerage as a career. We seem to be very independent, and very very proud of it, too. But of course this can also cause us some problems along the way...

As real estate brokerage professionals, we have to wear many different hats in our business. We have to be experts in real estate, and at times also have a good working knowledge of accounting, legal issues, preparing contracts, marketing, promotion, psychology, and in commercial real estate, zoning and environmental issues, too.

Normally, if we were working in almost any other business, the company we worked for would have individual specialists to handle many of these arenas for us. But this typically does not apply in real estate sales and leasing. We as agents need to have solid knowledge of many different arenas, but we also must know when we need to refer our clients to experts in these arenas, too.

So when compared with salespeople in other industries, real estate agents have a much more complicated job when it comes to integrating all of these areas on their own and becoming successful.

So the bottom line is...how do you feel you're doing at integrating all of these activities and making the money you want for yourself? If you're very happy with the results you're already producing, and you're not very interested in improving your results to an even higher level, then real estate coaching is definitely not for you.

And while we're on this subject, here are two reasons why you may consider moving forward and hiring a real estate coach:

1) You recognize that working with a trained expert who will teach you to uncover more opportunities for new business will increase your income.

2) You know you're capable of producing better results in your real estate business, but you've been falling short of what you can accomplish. You recognize that working with a consultant who will bring out the best in you will lead you to more success than you're currently producing right now on your own.

When I ask my coaching clients what they're looking for in hiring a coach, many of them say "accountability." So in many ways the coaching relationship can be less about coming up with concepts and ideas you've never imagined before, and more about making sure you execute a game plan that produces solid results for you. And in some ways, it can be similar to why some people hire a personal trainer to workout with at the gym...You know what you should be doing but you're just not getting the job done. And once you hire someone to coach you, guide you, and hold you accountable, you suddenly find yourself getting much more productive and accomplishing your goals much easier.

It's interesting sometimes how when we're left on our own, we allow ourselves to slide more than we would ever allow an employee to slide who's under our direction. And it ends up costing ourselves a lot of money in the process, too. This process sometimes isn't even intentional, but it results from trying to integrate so many parts of what oftentimes feels like a very complicated business.

When you look at the world's most successful businesses, most if not all of them utilize business consultants on an ongoing basis. The owners and officers of these companies recognize that they need to work with people who can give them a more objective perspective on what they're doing all the time, and in doing so they know they'll maximize their effectiveness.

But with real estate agents, from my experience, many of us have this inner voice that says something similar to, "I really need to be doing this all on my own to feel successful," or "If I just keep working this same game plan for another six months, somehow my results will begin improving," or "Hiring a real estate coach is like needing crutches in my business, and I don't need crutches."

When I began real estate coaching, I really thought it would be the mediocre agents who would hire me. I just thought that these people would recognize that they needed to make changes in order to become top producers, and that they'd definitely want to work with someone to make it happen. But I quickly recognized that oftentimes mediocre agents are more committed to being mediocre than they are to becoming totally outstanding. Now this isn't a conscious decision that these agents make, but rather a decision that is made completely at the unconscious level. And most if not all of the time the agent is completely unaware that they've made this decision. But the proof that the decision has been made lies in the fact that the agent often doesn't want any help or direction on improving their business, they continually don't change their habits, and they become convinced that they're really just not as lucky as the top producing agents. They also oftentimes believe that what they really need to do is continue working the same flawed game plan they've been working for months or years more into the future. But they don't see the game plan they're working as flawed. They see it as a solid one, but their continued ineffective results year-after-year completely proves otherwise.

And as a manager, what can one do with a mediocre performer who is uncoachable and doesn't want to take direction? This definitely leaves one in a very difficult position. You either have to decide that the person is worth keeping around despite their shortcomings, or you just have to let them go entirely.

My experience has shown me that it's normally the good-to-outstanding agents who hire me. This is because they've normally been willing to change and try new approaches throughout their real estate careers. And this has been a very important ingredient in what has made them so successful, too. These agents recognize that working with a consultant is what successful business people do, and they know that working with a consultant themselves will lead them to making more money.

Now when it comes to hiring a real estate coach, here are some tips I recommend to you:

1) Find out how successful the coach has been at working with other agents. Does the coach have testimonials from agents they've successfully worked with? This is usually a good sign that they're a very good coach, which can also be a very good indicator of the results you can can expect yourself through working with them.

2) How much time did they spend working in their career as a real estate agent? The more time someone has spent in the business increases the probability that they'll better understand the nature of your own business as a real estate agent.

3) And when you're talking with the person, do you feel that they're someone who will inspire you to achieve greater success in your own real estate business? This is very important when deciding on the real estate coach you'll be working with. Just as great coaches in sports are people who inspire excellence in their players, you want your real estate coach to be someone who inspires excellence in you also.

Now on the other side, here are a few things to watch out for when hiring a real estate coach also:

1) It's more important that the coach has a good track record of success in working with their coaching clients, than it is for them to have been the top producing agent in their territory when they were working as a real estate agent. This is because you're hiring them to coach you, not to sell real estate. Because of this you want to check their track record at doing exactly what you're hiring them to do for you.

As an example, think of some of the top producing agents in your territory for a moment. Now ask yourself, "How good would each of these people be at coaching me in real estate on an ongoing basis?"

After a few moments, you may realize that some of the top producers you know might not be very good teachers of what they do. Many of them just don't have the personality and the patience to teach someone how to be an outstanding real estate agent on an ongoing basis. But they're absolutely brilliant at selling real estate themselves.

Once again, an appropriate analogy for this comes from the world of sports. The greatest coaches in history were often not the greatest players themselves. This is because being excellent at actually doing something, and being excellent at teaching it to others, are often two very different skill sets. With this in mind, you want to make sure you hire a coach who has a proven record of success in coaching other agents.

2) There are coaching companies out there who have tens of coaches on board with them, but these coaches are often not involved in developing new coaching business for themselves. The companies they work for locate agents who are interested in coaching, then these agents are directed to one of the company's staff coaches to begin working with them. And in the process, the company typically pockets 30-60% of the coaching fees paid by the agents, too.

While this may in fact be a great revenue model for the company itself, it can also lead you to a coach with questionable qualifications. After all, the coaches working under this arrangement are giving a lot of their coaching fees away to the company, and they're often not involved in proactively finding new business for themselves either.

I don't know about you, but anyone I would hire to coach me in developing new business, I would want to be completely on fire in developing their own business at the same time, too. I have no interest in someone trying to teach me how to develop more business when they're sitting back and waiting for someone to hand them their leads in their own business. It's my own feeling that you're much more likely to achieve success with a coach who is currently living in their own business what they're trying to teach you to achieve yourself.

So in summary, I wanted to give you some guidelines to help you decide if real estate coaching may be for you, and I also wanted to give you some guidelines to help you to select the coach who's clearly the best one for you, too. Normally when you begin working with a real estate coach, the money you invest will come back to you many times over just from the first additional transaction you close. But the real key to your success in a coaching relationship is your own internal motivation and drive to become hugely successful. This is the one vital ingredient that a coach cannot instill inside of you, and it's the engine that will completely drive your success in real estate.

When you're extremely motivated from within to become a truly outstanding agent, and you're willing to take direction from someone who will inspire you, you'll have one of the most powerful combinations imaginable to propel yourself to becoming the top agent you've always wanted to be.

Click here for downloadable E-books and live audio interviews with top-producing real estate agents. These interviews are with industry experts who show you exactly what they do to continually make hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year.

2. How to Become an Expert at Handling Buyer's Remorse

Ahh...buyer's remorse. It's one of the worst situations that a real estate agent can ever experience. It happens when a buyer (or lessee) has committed to moving forward in a transaction, then they change their mind and decide this isn't what they want to do after all. Or, if you're fortunate, the person may simply be having some concerns about moving forward, but with the right technique and follow-through, you'll have them back on track towards closing the transaction once again.

So what exactly causes buyer's remorse in the first place? Well, it's when a person's logic, emotions, and intuition are no longer congruent with moving forward and closing the transaction. In short, the person is experiencing disharmony with one or more of these factors internally, and it's causing them to have doubts about closing the deal.

So how do you as an agent address this in the best way possible to both take care of the client, and maximize the probability of successfully closing the transaction? Well, first of all, it's all about communicating to the client that what's most important to you is doing what's best for the client. Once the client is experiencing doubt and concern, if they feel you're trying to force them to move forward because you're concerned about your commission, you run the risk of not only losing the transaction, but losing the client, too. I mean what client would really want to continue working with an agent who they feel is more interested in their own pocket than taking care of them? And when a client gets this feeling about you while they're simultaneously in a state of doubt and concern, the negative feeling about you can become much more magnified.

As an example, there was a time years ago when I was concerned that the real estate market had peaked, so I signed a lease agreement on a home with an option to purchase it. And the owner agreed to allow half of all the rent I paid to apply towards the purchase of the home, too.

But the market began changing and the home was losing its value. Then there came a moment in time when I had to decide whether or not to exercise the option, and I decided to pass on doing this. It simply made no sense based upon the continually falling value of the home.

But the agent who represented me was insistent about me still exercising the option. The lease agreement called for me to exercise the option by depositing $5,000.00 into an escrow account, and I told the agent that based upon the revised value of the home, this was something I wasn't going to do. And the owner was not willing to reduce the purchase price of the home, either.

Well the agent became very angry with me and insisted that I deposit the $5,000.00 and proceed with the purchase. And it was at that moment in time that I completely lost any and all respect that I had for that real estate agent, too. There is no way that I would ever consider working with that agent again, because she made it clear to me that I should move forward and close a transaction that was bad for me, just so she could get paid.

When a client is experiencing buyer's remorse (or seller's remorse for that matter), you ideally w ant to talk to them as a friend and confidante who genuinely wants to do what's best for them. Make this very clear to them and tell them, "What's important here is that we make the decision that's truly the best one for you." And in doing so, you'll probably form a closer bond with the client and move their level of trust in you to an entirely new level.

Then sit down with the client and say, "Let's take a look at the reasons why you originally wanted to move forward on this transaction and see if they're still valid." Then begin asking them why they originally liked the idea of moving forward on the transaction, and as they mention each reason to you, ask them if that individual reason is still valid.

One thing that's very powerful about this process is it allows the client to tell you verbally the reasons why they may still want to move forward with the transaction, which then begins to move them in that direction. When the client begins giving you these reasons in their own words, it holds much more validity than you telling them all the reasons why they should still move forward and close the transaction. People don't want to feel they're being sold by someone when they're experiencing buyer's remorse. They want to feel from inside that moving forward is what's in their own best interest. So gently asking them questions that guide them towards deciding that moving forward is what they want to do, is the best scenario that you can achieve here.

But sometimes it becomes apparent through this process that moving forward is not what they want to do anymore. And that's OK too, but it just might not feel that way to you right now. What you want to do here is position yourself to represent them on their next transaction, whether that will be almost almost immediately, or months or years down the road when they decide they're ready. And when this situation arises you may simply want to say something like t his to the client when it's appropriate:

"I recognize that now is not the time for you to move forward. But can I ask one small favor of you?"

"Yes." (The client is responding to you here.)

"Allow me to be the agent who represents you on your next transaction when you're ready to move forward."

Usually in a situation like this, the client will feel indebted to you because they've backed out of a deal you were going to get paid on, and they'll almost always agree to let you represent them on their next transaction. But you need to ask them to do this right at the moment they decide they're not closing their current transaction. This is when you have the most emotional leverage with them, so make sure you utilize this opportunity because with all you've just been through you've definitely earned it!

Had the agent who represented me on the lease/option agreement mentioned earlier handled me in this exact same manner, my opinion of her would have absolutely skyrocketed. I would have both felt committed to working with her again in the future, and I would have also been actively looking for people to refer to her, too.

So when your clients are experiencing buyer's remorse, you ideally want to reconnect them with the original reasons they wanted to move forward, and find out if these reasons are still valid. And if you find that some of their original reasons are no longer valid, or if they have new reasons why they no longer want to move forward, probe a little deeper into these areas. You ideally want to find out if these reasons are now really valid ones, or if your client instead is just experiencing a normal case of the pre-closing jitters.

In closing, when you reconnect your clients so that their logic, emotions, and intuition are all firing in unison towards moving forward once again, you'll close the transaction, and you'll build a closer relationship with these people in the process, too.

Click here if you'd like more information on my one-on-one coaching program to take your real estate productivity to the next level. One-on-one coaching is available for both real estate agents and company management.

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