Read by more than 30,000 agents

3. Why You Must Be Congruent with Your Image

1. Are Great Agents Born or Can They Be Developed?

Do you ever notice how some agents seem to succeed easily in this business while others seem to struggle a lot? And in using the term "succeed easily" I'm not talking about agents succeeding while coasting and not doing their work. I'm talking about agents who work hard in this business who also produce outstanding results in the process.

So what do you think? Can anyone learn to become a highly successful agent in our industry? Or is success only reserved for a certain kind of individual who is born with the right capabilities?

And can the skills for success in our industry be taught to both new and veteran agents? Or are some people born with these skills and abilities already in place, then moving on to become the top earners in our business?

In my opinion, there are both people who come into our industry with many of the proper skills and abilities already in place, and others who may not have these same skills and abilities who can learn them. But also in my opinion, not everyone can learn to become a highly successful real estate agent in our industry.

To begin with, a person must have the right stomach to work in this business for many years and make a successful career out of it. If you've been an agent in our industry for many years, you know that this can be a business of wild emotional highs and lows. One week you have eight transactions in process, the next week three of those transactions fall apart, then the following week you have two new transactions in the works that didn't even exist last week.

Then, one week later, one of the transactions that originally fell apart is showing new signs of life, but two of the other ones that looked good last week are now looking doubtful. And then three days later you sign two new listings that you're very excited about.

I personally know of no other business that has the incredibly wide emotional mood swings that we experience in our industry. I would imagine that a number of the people who work on Wall Street and in the financial arena experience wide mood swings like this, but our industry is truly one of the unique ones when it comes to experiencing these ongoing wide emotional highs and lows. (And of course, the general public thinks that we're overpaid while we continually experience this throughout our careers.)

So in a nutshell, it takes a certain kind of individual who can tolerate working in a profession like this, which is why so many people end up leaving our industry within their first 2-3 years of working in it. Living through a constant rollercoaster of ups and downs combined with working on 100% commission definitely takes its toll on people.

But both the people who come into our industry with natural skills and abilities, and those who end up l earning those same skills and abilities in order to become successful, have one thing in common...a burning and unyielding desire to become hugely successful in our industry. And if you've ever read Napoleon Hill's legendary book, "Think and Grow Rich," you know that this burning unyielding desire to become hugely successful is the most important ingredient anyone can have to achieve the financial success they've always dreamed of.

With this in mind, whenever people contact me to discuss my coaching services, there are always two things I must assess about them immediately:

1) Do they have a burning, unyielding desire to become highly successful in our industry?

2) Are they willing to be coachable and take direction in order to achieve this success?

If they don't have these two qualities, I'm not interested in working with them.

And from my experience, people can definitely learn how to become highly successful in our industry. It all comes down to how strong their desire is to make it happen, and whether or not they're willing to take direction from the right person to get them there.

As an example of this, one agent, a veteran, approached me some time ago asking me if I could help him achieve his goals. And I could definitely tell that this man had the burning desire to make it all happen. In the beginning of our relationship together he wasn't as coachable as I would have ideally liked him to be, but there finally came a moment when he completely let go of doing things his way and began taking direction from me much more effectively. And as a result of this, his income went from $200,000.00 a year to $1,000,000.00. So I know with certainty that people in our industry who have that burning desire can be taught the proper ways to dramatically increase their income.

So there are people who come into our industry with many of the natural talents to become successful, and others who come into our industry with not very many of these talents already in place. But with the burning desire to become successful, and the willingness to take direction from the ideal person who will guide them towards the success they want to achieve, these agents who aren't born with the natural talent can go on to become the top producing agents they want 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. Here's Something I Thought You Might Like

For about eight months now I've been a subscriber to Netflix, a great service that delivers DVD movies to your home so you no longer need to go to the video store to rent them. My friend John had been raving about their service for a number of months, and he sent me a special offer for two weeks of free DVD rentals with them so I could see if I liked their service.

Well I must say that John was absolutely right. I really love no longer going to the video store looking for DVDs only to find that they don't have the one I want. And I also love no longer having to wait in lines at the store to rent my DVDs in addition to never needing to return them to the store, too.

The reason I'm mentioning this to you is that Netflix just sent me an offer to give to my friends that entitles them to receive free DVD rentals for one full month. This means that if you like to watch movies, you could end up watching 10-15 movies for free with this offer while you're deciding if you really like their service.

You can research just about any movie that was ever made through their Web site including what the critics had to say about it, and when you're finished watching a movie you simply mail it back to Netflix in the postage prepaid envelope that they provide for you.

OK, so I figured if they're inviting me to make this offer available to my friends, I might as well make it available to the tens of thousands of people who are my closest ones..:) And as you'll see when you click on the link below, they mention that quantities of this offer are limited, so this offer may or may not still be available to you by the time you click on the link.

For more information on this offer, you can click here.

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.

3. Why You Must Be Congruent with Your Image

The search engine Google has created quite a controversy on the Internet within the past several days. Throughout this last week, and up to and including the time of me publishing this article, something very unexpected happens when you do a Google search under the keyword "failure." When doing a keyword search under this term, the #1 result in their search engine has been a link to the biography of President George Bush on the White House Web site.

Now if instead when doing your search you selected Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button rather than their "Google Search" button when doing this search, you'd then be taken directly to the President's biography page on the White House Web site.

Now I can't say with certainty that this has been created intentionally by someone at Google, but I also recognize that the mathematical probabilities against this happening purely by random chance according to Google's normal algorithms must be quite astronomical. Especially when you take into consideration that the word "failure" does not appear on the Web page featuring the President's biography, or in the underlying HTML title and meta tags on that page.

Whatever the case I would imagine that some of Google's more influential shareholders will soon be talking to people within the company and voicing their own opinions about whether or not this is good for business.

Political opinions are so very polarized today in America. And as an agent doing business you really must watch yourself in expressing these opinions around your clients and prospects. Unless you know for sure that one of your clients or prospects agrees with your political point of view, it's probably better just to keep your views to yourself. And at this point you might even have many political views in common with the person you're working with, but one of your views that you think may be inconsequential to your relationship with the person could be one that they differ with you on considerably. And you voicing your opinion on what you thought was just a small matter could immediately change their opinion of you.

So in getting back to what I mentioned about Google, why they would leave these search engine results exactly the same for days and maybe even weeks is beyond my comprehension. I mean why run the risk of offending some people and have them decide to simply start doing their searches on another search engine instead?  (You may remember in 2003 when the lead singer of the band The Dixie Chicks made some rather strong comments about President Bush. As a result of these comments their music was banned on radio stations all across the country, and the sales of their CDs suffered also.)

And as we get to the heart of the matter, this really has very little to do with anyone within the company's political opinion. But it has everything to do with maximizing the success of a business.

Even if the search engine results for the word "failure" listed the White House biography page for former President Bill Clinton, this would be a bad business move. I mean why would a company want to risk alienating 40-50% of the population from their business? Would you as an agent even consider sending out a mailer to your clients and prospects that directly insulted the members of one of our two major political parties? In all honesty, there are much better ways for you to build rapport with people and increase the probability that a higher percentage of them will want to do business with you.

And as we're relating this to your business, it's very important for you as an agent to completely walk your talk and constantly present the best image imaginable of yourself to your people. You want to make sure that the message you continually send to your prospects through your marketing materials is congruent in telling them who you are and why they should hire you. This is one reason why I recommend sending marketing materials that educate and inform your people about things they'll want to know before entering into and closing their next real estate transaction. Things like the difference between title insurance coverage with a standard title policy versus with an extended one, how to properly price their property when putting it on the market, and what they can expect in terms of closing costs.

When you provide people with information that is both helpful and informative to them, you begin to establish a relationship with them as an expert consultant, even though they may never have met you. And this certainly beats the heck out of the agent who continually brags in their marketing pieces about how great they are.

So make sure that your marketing pieces define clearly to your prospects what kind of real estate you specialize in. As an example of where agents can go wrong in this arena, I just received another postcard from a husband and wife real estate team who sell single family homes in the area I live in. The general area I live in is known for its wineries, but the wineries are actually miles away from me. But still these agents continue to send me postcards with their photo superimposed over acres of grapes growing in a vineyard. And this photo covers the entire side of a 6" X 9" postcard.

Now if I was in the market to buy a winery, I might be inclined to give them a call. But the main visual message on their postcards conveys to me that they specialize in selling wineries or properties with plenty of extra land for grapes, which has nothing to do with selling normal single family homes in this area. And as a result, there are other agents I would call before these people when I have a need to buy or sell a single family home. This is despite the fact that the husband and wife look like intelligent, polished, professional people in their photo. (But now when I look at the flip side of the card, it has a blurred photo of a home they've sold---the only photo on that side of the card and the main focus of the reader's attention---which is now leading me towards a more negative impression about their professionalism.)

So make sure that your marketing pieces clearly reflect the type of real estate you specialize in, and the type of image you want people to have of you.

And as far as Google is concerned, they're at the top of the search engine mountain right now. They have truly become the darling of the search engine arena, but any of us who have been around the Internet for ten years or more remember all the companies who once had a solid presence in the search engine arena, only to have seen it fade away. And with consumers being so fickle nowadays, intelligent business people need to be focused on how to keep people interested in their products and services, not in running the risk of having them want to utilize their competitors instead.

So you'll want to make sure that you're always congruent in the message you're sending out to your people, and constantly be sending them the all-important message that that you're the first person they'll want to call whenever they have a real estate need.

Subscribers to my E-newsletter receive FREE online training. My training course is designed to take you to the next level in your real estate sales career regardless of where you are currently at in your career right now. If you're not currently a subscriber to my FREE E-newsletter and you'd like to subscribe and receive my FREE 7-Day Online Real Estate Training Course, click here.

Click here for More Testimonials

If you arrange for me to lead a seminar or training for your real estate company you qualify for FREE coaching! Call me or email me for more information.

Please forward this E-zine to anyone you know who is interested in becoming a better, more productive real estate agent.

To subscribe to Jim Gillespie's 
ADVANCED REAL ESTATE SUPERSALES E-ZINE
 click here
and send a blank E-mail.

To unsubscribe and bring tears to my eyes follow the directions below.