Did you realize that many of the people in your sphere of influence, past clients, friends and family could actually invest in real estate right now even though they don’t think that they have the money?
Think about this for a moment. If you were going to spend a day knocking on doors or planned to send out a farming campaign to an area trying to solicit business, wouldn’t you rather knock on doors and mail out to people that had a twenty to thirty percent chance of buying or selling in the next six months? That means that for every door that you knock on, about one in three or one in four people will actually be in need of your services. This is a stark contrast to the past when we would send out a farming campaign to five hundred houses and if one seller replied with a “maybe” or “I will keep you in mind” we were ready to kick our heels together and proclaim success!
The second area REALTORS must master going forward is the ability to leverage what I call Intellectual Property. To do this you must step outside of the box, have a firm grasp on your market conditions and current events, and understand what solutions are available to take advantage of your market conditions. There is a great question I ask REALTORS from all over the world which is, “Are you a facilitator or an educator?” If you are merely a facilitator then you can’t get upset that many of your consumers want to fight you over commission because they don’t see any real value in what you offer. But if you are an educator, it is your job to educate them on possibilities that are available to them that they may not have known about. That will provide value you didn’t have before.
For example, recently the National Association of (NAR) released their monthly home affordability index and found that it was at its greatest point in the history of the index since it began in 1971. That means that when you hear your customers say that they wished that they had bought a home in the year 2000, it is actually an even better time now. This takes into account median price points, interest rates, income and many other variables. When you couple this index with the 107 percent increase in loan originations for multi-family and commercial properties from the first quarter of 2010 to the second quarter of 2011 and the instability of the stock market … there is an opportunity here.
Did you realize that many of the people in your sphere of influence — past clients, friends and family — could actually invest in real estate right now even though they don’t think that they have the money? According to the IRS code, you can invest portions or all of your retirement money through self-directed IRA’s to invest in assets other than just the stock market. Better yet, it is penalty free with no capital gains tax. With so many people afraid to look at their monthly reports or getting sick from watching the volatility in the stock market, this is a great option. I am personally aware of one person that just did this and purchased three multi-family houses that are netting him over $8,000 each month now. Take that, stock market! They are investing their retirement in stocks and mutual funds currently anyway, so why shouldn’t your clients at least know that they have other options? Especially if it has the potential to create new business for you instead of just sitting back and waiting for things to get better.
Going forward 21st Century Top Producers are going to be agents that stay ahead of the trends, implement them into their business, and educate their consumers on what opportunities are available to them according to what is going on in their market place. In general, we are a people that love to draw lines in the sand as to what we aren’t going to do. We did this with cell phones, computers, email and now social media in many cases. But I ask you, how many of you don’t now have cell phones and email? Don’t take this approach going forward. Be an innovator of change while still recognizing that the industry has not and will never change, but how we get to the point of conversion will continually change. Are you on board to remain a 21st Century Top Producer?
JARED JAMES IS AN INTERNATIONAL SPEAKER AND BEST-SELLING AUTHOR. HE WAS FORMERLY NAMED IN THE USA UNDER AGE 30 AND NOW TRAINS SALES PEOPLE AND ENTREPRENEURS ON HOW TO INCREASE THEIR INCOMES AND REMAIN RELEVANT IN A DYNAMIC ECONOMY.
LEARN MORE ABOUT JARED ON HIS WEB SITE,
WWW.JAREDJAMESTODAY.COM,
FOLLOW HIM ON TWITTER AT
WWW.TWITTER.COM/JAREDJAMESTODAY,
OR FIND HIM ON FACEBOOK AT
WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/JAREDJAMESTODAY
OR
WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/JAREDJAMESENTERPRISES.
12 I GEORGIA REALTOR JANUARY I FEBRUARY 2012
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