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Dear Friend,

Do you have a goal?

I mean do you really know Where you’re going… and how to recognize it when you get there?

So often, I meet people who are so busily focused on working, working, working…I believe they’ve lost sight of what they’re working towards.

It’s unfortunate, because most of the time the reason they are struggling is because of short term thinking, and looking

for the NEXT transaction…wherever it is.

This week, I’m going to focus on sharing the mindsets you’ll need to build a stable, predictable, profitable business.

The Shift In Thinking: Stop only thinking about how to make money in the moment, and start thinking like you would if you were an investor and you were looking at your business as an investment opportunity.

If you were someone coming in from the outside the real estate industry, would your business look like an attractive investment?

Is it obvious to an outsider that your business is a place that is a stable money-making machine?

Is it obvious that you dominate your market?

Does your business have a look, feel, and identity that uniquely differentiates you?

If you were to tell me that you wanted to build a successful real estate team, one of the first things that I would ask you is “What’s your goal?”

The first thing I want to know is what you want your team to look like when it’s ‘finished,’ how many agents and staff you’ll have, how many transactions you’ll do per month, what your average sales price will be, what your profit margin will be and so on.

I once read that Thomas Watson Sr., the man who built IBM into the powerhouse business that it is today, said that when he started the company he first made a vision and a blueprint of what IBM would look like when it was finished, and then he went to work to make it real.

I recommend that you do the same.

There is great power in creating a vision for the future, then going to work on the vision to make it real.

I read a great book once called “Stop Setting Goals” by Bob Bheil.

This book basically said that about 80% of people are not motivated by setting goals, and that only about 20% of people are energized by goals and the process of setting them.

The other 80% are motivated by solving problems.

Ever since I read “Think and Grow Rich” over 20 years ago and started using goals for myself, I’ve been a big believer in goals and goal setting.

Now, I realize that most people don’t like goals and think that they’re unrealistic and not based on reality.

Well, the fact is that most of the really successful people that I’ve met are goal setters, and even if you don’t like setting goals, I believe that they will help you enormously.

So if you’re a problem solver, it’s time to start flexing your goal setting muscle.

And what is the real goal here?

What does a successful real estate business look like when it’s finished?

Most agents believe that being successful equals doing a lot of transactions, a lot of gross commissions and getting a lot of awards.

I’ve met and worked with a lot of top agents all over North America,and I’ve never had one say to me “My five year goal is to have a team of 7 agents and 3 staff doing 20 transactions a month with an average sale price of $250,000 at 3% average gross commission, a 35% net profit, and a branded system that is worth $4 million dollars.

I’ve never heard anything like it.

I usually hear things like “I want to do 300 deals next year” or “My goal is to do $1 million in commissions.”

Of course, I always ask all the other questions about profit and long term goals, to which there is rarely a reply.

The sad truth is, most top agents I know have no idea what their profit margin is from month to month (they wait until the accountant tells them at the end each year).

And the really sad part is they never think far enough in advance to plan a business and a branded system that are valuable and marketable.

There’s a big buzz going around about being able to ‘sell your real estate business’ at some point.

I’ve seen a few people try, but the closest they usually come is bringing on a partner and letting them take over the business in exchange for a percentage into the future.

I’ve only seen a few real ‘sales’ of real estate businesses.

And these are usually a whole company that’s sold to a franchise or bigger company etc.

I believe if you want to build a business that you can sell, you’re going to need your own duplicatable branded system, not just your own clients.

What’s the difference?

Well, when one of your clients calls you, who do they ask for?

Who do they want to do business with?

Of course, it’s you.

Your name is your brand.

When someone calls Dell computer to buy a computer, who do they ask for?

Most don’t ask to speak to Michael Dell, the founder of the company.

They’re happy working with whomever answers their call.

A problem that many agents face is not knowing how to create a ‘brand’ outside of themselves, so that future clients will be happy working with a team member, and not them personally.

The main difference is in several years, if you want to sell your business and pocket a few million dollars, the person buying the business is going to have to believe that they can continue to make money when they own it…or when YOU want to step away from it and be an absentee owner.

This brings me to another point.

As you can probably tell, I’m a big fan of planning, and planning your branded system is possibly the most important plan you can make.

My goal for you is that you not only have a business that makes you a high monthly income, but also has a value in the millions of dollars when you go to sell it (if you choose to).

And the only way that you’re going to be able to do that is by having a valuable branded system.

Some agents choose to grow their business by farming an area and building up market share, some choose to network at social events, and some prefer advertising and direct mail.

There are many ways to grow your business, but the key to growing a business that you can sell is finding a way to get the business to come in without you doing it personally.

I just want to make sure that you’re thinking about the future when you implement marketing strategies, referral programs, and the like.

If you PLAN to have a valuable branded system, you’ll be much more likely to have one in five years than if you don’t plan it.

The first step?

Shift Your Mindset To Results.

There are two major concepts going around today in business.

These are ‘Cost of acquisition’ and ‘Lifetime value.’

The idea is to know how much it costs you to get one new customer, and how much that customer will be worth to you over their lifetime in purchases, referrals, etc.

I’d like you to start thinking in terms of what it costs you to get one new client.

If you look closely at your business, you’ll probably find that you have a few main ways that new clients come to you.

This may be from referrals, advertising, the internet, etc.

First, write down how many transactions you’ve done in the last 12 months.

Then write down all the main sources of these clients, and list how many new clients came from each of these sources.

Finally, calculate how much you spent on each different business source and divide the number of clients that came from that source into it.

This will tell you how much you spent to acquire a customer from each area.

You’ll most likely find that there is a big difference in cost from one area to the next.

Many agents that I have spent time with never realize that some ways of generating new clients cost three or four times as much as other ways.

My mindset is: Put your resources into the areas that work best and do MORE of those!

And always test new ideas small before rolling them out.

Next, I’d like you to look at the lifetime value of one of your clients.

Do you know how many referrals you get, on average, from each client?

Do you know how many of your clients repeat with you?

If you can calculate this, then you’ll know what the lifetime value of one new client is to your business.

Knowing this will give you a new perspective when you have to spend $500 to make a good client happy… and it will also give you a way to show your team how important it is to pay attention to all the details.

If, on average, every new client refers two others, plus repeats once, and your average commission is $5,000, then the lifetime value of a client is $20,000

(Not counting the repeat and referral business of their referrals).

Another valuable mindset is to…

Shorten Your Mental Time Frame To Monthly

This last mindset is based on my observation that focusing on shorter time frames keeps you on your toes and helps you solve problems and grow faster.

I suggest that you start looking at your profit and loss monthly, and setting your transaction and profit goals on a ‘per month’ basis.

“By July 1st, the goal is 15 transactions a month, by October 1st, it’s 17 transactions a month, and by January 1st, 19”

How would it change things if you started thinking like this?

You’ll find that the month-to-month variation that naturally occurs might force you average each quarter or so, but I think you get the idea.

If you’re looking at all of your numbers every month, including where your business is coming from, you’ll be able to take advantage of trends, anticipate changes, and make adjustments much better than if you wait to review your business and set goals each year.

With one of my clients, I look at many of the numbers in his business every week.

This helps me see what’s going on and gives me warning of changes the are required far in advance.

The biggest opportunity for leverage in your business is in improving your Marketing and Advertising.

I mean getting better results from what you’re already doing.

You’re already spending the money…why not maximize it?

I’ve personally taken an ad that pulled 12 calls one month, and by changing the design, layout, and copy, had it pull 132 calls the very next month.

The same size, placement and same general content, just stated differently pulled over ten times as many calls.

Which leads me to a very important marketing concept:

Test Everything

I’ll put it another way.

Never run an ad, send out a letter, or engage in any other marketing activity unless you know what your response is likely to be.

And if you don’t know, then test small until you find something that works, and turn it into a system so you’ll be able to repeat it in the future.

My rule of thumb is: Don’t spend more than a couple of hundred dollars testing an idea.

If it works, keep using it.

If it doesn’t, find something that does work and stick with it.

You may have to spend a couple of thousand dollars testing, but you’ll find ads that work every time you use them.

Another big, huge, gigantic, humongous mistake that many agents make is running an ad, having it work incredibly well, then changing it.

There are ads that have run for over forty years with virtually no change because they continued to work.

I have created real estate ads that run over and over in the same place, in the same publication for years that continue to work consistently.

When you find an ad that works well, put it into your marketing arsenal and make it part of your business.

This will not only make your business more predictable, but it will also make it more valuable if and when you decide to sell it.

The Shift In Thinking: Stop thinking like a real estate agent who needs to write an ad, and start thinking like a prospect who’s getting ready to buy or sell a home.

I could write a whole book on print advertising, and a whole book on direct mail marketing, as well as one on all the other types of marketing available to you.

Whatever you choose, I would highly recommend that you consider the price range of the homes that you’re selling.

In my experience, it’s often easier to sell one $500,000 home than it is to sell five $100,000 homes.

As a matter of fact, it’s sometimes easier to sell one $500,000 than it is to sell ONE $100,000 home.

People who buy more expensive homes are not usually as concerned with small charges, repairs, etc. and usually know other people in their economic bracket who they can refer to you.

So when you’re considering your target market, I would recommend that you consider aiming at the upper middle to upper home prices as your target market.

You may have to learn new skills and a new area, but this one shift can really make you a lot of money.

One of my clients increased his average sales price from about $140,000 to about $200,000 in one year, and enjoyed a 50% increase in profit as well.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to share with you some powerful marketing techniques.

But I want to warn you:

One of the best ways to waste money is running great marketing campaigns, then having a poor follow-up system.

Most of the prospects that call from one of your ads or marketing pieces are not going to act now.

Most of the people that call are anywhere from thirty days to a year away from taking action.

Most real estate agents make the mistake of discarding these people and thinking of them as poor quality leads.

If there’s one thing that I could teach you to increase your marketing results, it’s to put all of your leads on a long term, trust building follow up marketing program so they call you when they’re ready to buy or sell.

Sound simple enough?

Most agents I tell this to nod their head “Yes” but few actually do it.

If you build a pipeline of several hundred prospects that are going to act in the near future, and then you market to them with compelling, trust-building communications, you’ll have so much business that you won’t know what to do with it all.

Every month I host large conference calls and coach real estate agents in marketing and advertising.

Here’s a typical dialogue that would occur on a call:

“Hi, Dean, this is Joe Smith in Cleveland, Ohio. I ran one of the ads that you gave us here, and last month I got 200 calls.

But there were so many coming in, that I couldn’t call them back, and I’ve only done one deal from those 200 calls. What should I do?”

I’ll tell you the same thing that I have always advised others:

Make sure your follow up systems are in place BEFORE you turn on the marketing.

I’ve seen different studies showing that at least 50% of all the people that contact a real estate office for information wind up closing on a real estate transaction within 12 months of that contact.

How many calls of various kinds do you get from prospects?

Somewhere around half of those people are taking action in the following twelve months.

How many are currently slipping through your fingers?

The way I see it, you have an amazing opportunity to meet them, give them information, and begin to build trust in advance so when the prospect is ready to take action, you are the natural choice.

Most agents want only the ‘right now’ buyers and sellers.

While I agree that you should look for these, you have to remember that the ‘right now’ buyers and sellers are also more likely to be interviewing other agents.

The ‘right now’ prospects are much more sought after, and therefore harder to find.

Much better to build trust over time with the many prospects that are calling you, so you’ll be the natural choice when they’re ready to take action.

So what’s the best way to do this?

Good question!

Tune in next time…when we’ll talk about how to set up a lead conversion system that could TRIPLE your results, and the PROFITS of your marketing.

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Make My Life Better Day

Welcome back to another Make My Life Better Day.

This week want to talk abut a great way to make your life better.

In fact – this week could dramatically improve one of the overlooked areas of your life.

Most of us spend nearly a third of our lives in bed and often, according to surveys don’t get the restful, rejuvenating sleep we need.

A few years ago when I first started thinking about the concept of “a perfect life” one of the first elements I turned my attention to was my sleeping environment.  My wife, Sony, and I went in search of the ultimate sleep environment.

For us we prefer a plush mattress over a firm mattress so we found the perfect individually rapped independent coil mattress – and then, we bought a 5-inch thick feather bed to put on top of the mattress. We covered that with a quilted mattress pad and got the softest cotton jersey sheets and pillow cases.

The cotton jersey sheets are so soft and comfortable I can’t wait to lay my head down on the pillow.

I spent a lot of time to find just the right pillow combination.

A firm flat pillow underneath and a thicker feather pillow for the top combine to just the right height to support me as a side sleeper.

To complete the experience, we’ve got the perfect down comforter with just the right weight to keep warm without getting hot.

We keep the temperature cool (okay, arctic) at night, so we can bundle up under the covers without getting hot.

I got that dies from a book called Super Sleep that suggested a cooler room is optimal for sleeping.

In the book I also learned that we basically sleep in 90-minute cycles and if you want to wake up most refreshed you can back into the perfect bed time by timing it so you wake up at the end of the cycle.

For example if you have to wake up at 6 am for some reason you would be better off going to sleep at midnight that you would at 11.

Midnight would give you six hours which is 4 complete 90-minute cycles.  If you went to bed at 11 pm you’d be waking up in the middle of a cycle, and you’d be much groggier throughout the day.

Try it for yourself.

Try to time your sleep so you either get 4 or 5 complete cycles and see hoe it works for you.

Spend some time this week really looking at what you can do to improve your sleep and I guarantee, it will make your life better!

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Calamity Proofing Your Life

Now, let’s talk about another idea to Calamity-Proof your life.

What would happen if you lost your keys today?

Do you have a spare set in an easy to get to location?

Take some time this week to swing by your local hardware store, or Wal-Mart, or Home Depot and make yourself a spare set of keys to keep in a safe place.

If you do this simple things when you don’t need to you’ll be much better off when you do need it.

That’s what calamity-proofing is all about little things now that pay big dividends later.

That’s it for this week but come back next week, and we’ll talk about more ways to make your life better, and calamity proof!

Until next time…

PS – Last chance to join me for the GettingListings.com Teleseminar on September 14th — make sure and register today.