The most important skill in sales is qualifying. It is the ability to separate the non-motivated buyers and sellers from the motivated ones who want to do something now. Top-producing agents know how to do this quickly and efficiently. They have a specific step-by-step series of questions that remove the unmotivated people from their lives. We are going to delve into the skill of qualifying buyers.We must develop a series of questions that will ferret out motivation. The focus is to find out their time frame and level of passion to move. One question that tests motivation is, "How long have you been looking for a home?" The longer the time the buyer has been looking, the lower the motivation. We have to wonder why a buyer has not been able to find a home in six months.
Are they looking for something that doesn’t exist? Are their expectations too high for the marketplace? Do they just enjoy the process of kicking foundations? (When someone said to me that they had been looking for more than 90 days, I wanted to know what they were looking for and the reasons why they hadn’t found it yet.) ... full article

Your ability to plan, set goals, and create action plans to accomplish your goals is the mark of someone who is truly successful. This skill to set goals is a life-long endeavor. It is a habit that must be cultivated daily for a lifetime. This single activity will have the greatest impact on your life over any other achievement skill.To be disciplined in setting goals is to sit down with paper and pen and make a list of things you want to acquire, attract or accomplish in the next several years. Earl Nightingale said, "The problem with people is not achieving the goals we set, it is actually the process of setting them in the first place." We are all goal seeking organisms. Your subconscious mind will work on the goal you give it until it is accomplished. You must only set this vast powerful computer in motion by setting the goal. ... full article

Recently I was reflecting on what it took to be successful in real estate and life. My mind recalled a movie from the early 1980’s called Buckaroo Bonzai. One of the characters in the movie had a saying that caught on in my circle of friends at the time. The saying was “where ever you go…there you are.” Now it was a cute little saying at the time, but the truth is most of us have to struggle to live it.
How many times have we gone to show a property, list a home, go to work, spend time with our family, and we weren’t really there? “Where ever you go…there you are.” But are we really there? We are certainly there in physical body, but are we mentally there?
Let me share with you the four rules of real estate. ... full article