Who knew? Golf does matter- with Thanks to Sean O'Hair and the Golf Digest of July '09 and his article about the 10 Rules he had learned on tour.



Like pro golf, real estate is a performance career. How you perform in front of buyers, sellers, potential clients and other agents and staff will totally determine how well you do in your version of the "Pro Tour." Here are the rules adapted for real estate.

1. Be comfortable in your own skin: focus on what you are good at and work on the areas you need development in but be who you are and feel good about it. "Self esteem isn't everything, but without it, there is nothing else." Gloria Steinheim

2. Learn to recognize confidence: This can be taken two ways. Recognize your own confidence and recognize confidence in other people ( clients, agents) that you deal with. What seems like confidence is sometimes bluster, over compensating for lack of confidence.

3. Play money matches: Whether it is your best friend or your mother, treat every appointment or client seriously and professionally. Take nothing for granted. Treat every appointment like a "money match".

4. Travel well, play well: Real estate requires mobility, not only physically but mentally as well. Be flexible and be prepared for whatever the day demands.

5. Go slow on equipment changes: Take the time to really learn and get trained in new technology. Embrace it but don't throw it into your performance until you are ready to do so.

6. Listen to the sand/thump vs. splat: Really listen to what the client is saying. One of the biggest complaints about agents is that they don't listen or pay attention. They are too concerned about talking and not asking the right questions and listening to the answers. If you listen, you will know how to handle the situation.

7. Don't depend too much on video: You can obsess about what you did or you can use your experience to learn to do better going forward.

8. Trust your caddie: Don't ever think you know all the answers. Run things by another experienced person, your manager, another agent or the ever popular training director. All can give you good insight.

9. Soak up your favorite player's rhythm: There is always someone in your office that you may admire. Maybe it is how they conduct themselves and their business. It is not always the "top producer" but someone who is successful and does truly good work. Get a sense of their attitudes and philosophies.

10. Life cannot revolve around golf: Life cannot revolve around real estate either. It is waaaay too short. And real estate is fickle, at best. Learn to put the highs and lows into perspective and then go home and enjoy the people and things you love. Tomorrow is another day. (Thanks also to Scarlett O'Hara for that one. )

The Summer of Our Discontent

It was supposed to solve all our problems. It was the "bridge over troubled waters". It was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
What????
The tax credit. The tax credit which was supposed to totally re-vitalize the housing market.
Now along with the oil leak destroying tourism and property values in the Southern coastal states, we hear of 1400 prison inmates receiving almost 9 million dollars in tax credit money (???) and with the thrust of the tax credit stampede dying back ( and at this moment, no extension on the final closing date requirement of June 30th) we have to quickly face reality again.
Okay, we were able to bury our heads back in the historic sands for a while but the sand is being blown away.
If ever there was a time to evaluate how we do business and what skills have we learned, it is now.
If you thought the stimulus was going to rescue you from actually being dragged into the 21st century, you were wrong.
If you thought we were going back to the "good old days", you were wrong.
If you thought you didn't have to be sharp, skilled or educated ( I hate the word "trained"- it makes us sound like monkeys), you were wrong,wrong, wrong.
How it frustrates me as a manager who recruits and talks to new and experienced agents to see how little value is placed on what they need and must learn and maintain as a learning level. (See my blog "No Diplomatic Immunity Here) I guess I cannot blame them. Few other companies out there put any value on it either. Split is everything, education, nothing.
If this attitude is as prevalent in other industries as it is in real estate, I guess we shouldn't be surprised that oil "professionals" cannot figure out how to stop the gusher.
How depressing.

ESPN and Real Estate Career Paths

Twice now, in the last two weeks, the sports world has been rocked by women athletes behaving like.....ummmm, well, athletes. The first incident was the Canadian Women's Hockey Team celebrating their gold medal victory in their locker room with beer and cigars???? The IOC was appalled. " Not the image they wanted to promote..." Not being good role models, etc, etc.
The second was last weekend when, during a women's basketball game, one player landed a punch into the face of another. Players and tempers flared and there was a little bit of a brawl.
The sports world ( and supposedly the rest of us) are supposed to be aghast.
I loved the sports commentators on ESPN Sunday morning when the one suggested a certain amount of female superiority because at least the player was actually able to land her punch.
The point here is- why are we surprised or why do we expect women athletes to behave differently from the other gender? It has been a long, long road for women's athletics to gain even grudging acceptance. Now it is almost there. I do not remember another year in which women's basketball is getting the attention that it is now. Why then are we surprised that they celebrate, get mad, get physical, you know, just like the boys?Apparently we are still expected to be "ladies" whether on the court, the ice, or in the locker room.
Alas, another double standard has now reared it's ugly head. Let's just be grateful we haven't resorted to dog fighting or having multiple "mistresses". (?) ( I don't know what the male equivalent of "mistress" is......paramour, lover??? What?)
What has all of this to do with real estate, you might and should ask?
Well, historically, real estate was not a welcoming career path for women. For example, here in Columbus, women were not allowed to join the Columbus Board of Realtors until 1964. 1964!!!! But then there have been few welcoming career paths for women except maybe the scrubbing floors ones , emptying bed pans ones or the ones we don't talk about in polite society. ( You know, there is a pasta sauce named for them.) And yet, women are wonderful at real estate.
Women understand the concept of "home" and "where the heart is". They get the nesting thing and the importance of having a respite from the world. They don't have a problem with holding a client's hand through the process, listening to the emotions that go along with moving to a strange city, closing and selling a parent's house, moving on with life after divorce and relocating children. They understand the joy and excitement of the new baby, the wedding, the job promotion.
More and more, women have found real estate to be an extremely satisfying career both personally and financially. There are actually more women in the sales force than men.
Things change drastically when you go to the next level though.....management. It is still deja vu all over again. Some things never change. You really didn't think this was going to have a happy ending, did you?

No Diplomatic Immunity Here

Just a few years ago when I would talk to recruits or potential recruits, I was able to say with some assurance that really, there were only two brokerages in town who trained: Big Red and Big Blue. Pretty much everyone else paid lip service to the concept but no one else actually did it, as in having a training department, a training director, and a full slate of classes both at the corporate and branch levels in addition to a start up program for new agents.

Today, I am sorry to say, it is down to only one game in town, Big Blue. I am sure, with some outrage, I will be chastised for this, but, in truth, I am correct.

With the easy (?) markets of recent years, the importance of actual training has taken a hit. Who needed to know what to do when deals were falling out of the trees?( I guess in some peoples' worlds this was true.) And so it came to pass, that everyone, except Big Blue, gave up their training programs and Big Blue was despised for forcing agents to have to know what thery were doing. After all, isn't that the attraction of most brokerages these days? You don't have to show up, you don't have to do training; you don't have to attend those pesky sales meetings every week. You don't have to do anything remotely responsible........except fail.

And shame on the brokerages that have allowed this to happen.

Now when I talk to potential recruits, I don't even try to play nice. I challenge them to ask whomever they are interviewing with, exactly what type of training will be available to them every day of the week. Is it script classes? Weekly workshops? On line classes? Coaching? Ask what is available everyday.

Actually, I can save time. They won't be able to give an answer because they don't have any.Somewhere along the way, the broker forgot that he was responsible for teaching the new agent the business part of the business. Now that the whole world has changed again, that unfortunate agent is already two steps behind.

And don't fall for that "mentoring" BS. ( see my blog on "The Lie of Mentoring"). That is no fair substitute for a real program.

Moreover, not to let the recruit off too lightly.......remember, it is still an inherent responsibility to take advantage of the training offered. It could be the best program in the universe, but it will be worthless if it is not taken advantage of. It is part of the growing-up discipline to be in this industry.

See? No diplomatic immunity here.

On Being a Better Bozo

After 23 years as a real estate sales manager, I am proud to announce that I have moved from being an Unconscious Incompetent to the great status of Conscious Incompetent. Now I know what I don't know and certainly what I have not known for the last two decades.

In all honesty, I wasn't far off but not quite there. I remain a work in progress, but the key word is "progress".

About two years ago, the management group in our company began intensive training on teaching scripts, business oriented coaching and interviewing tracks for experienced and inexperienced agents. This has changed my whole outlook on the job.

Along the way, we were taught to plan out and work a formal schedule and post it outside our office doors so that our agents always knew what we were doing, where we were and if we were available. As elementary as this sounds, it has done me a world of good. Unless you lay things out before you, everything seems overwhelming and especially if they keep adding to your work load. You feel that you just keep getting farther and farther behind. I teach scheduling to my agents and yet, never held myself as accountable as I expected them to be.

I like holding myself accountable to each day and what has to be accomplished. I rarely get off track and the new skills that I have obtained have made the parts of my job that I lacked confidence in, so much easier.

Historically, agents deciding to "slow down" opted for management. ( I don't know whose job they were watching.) The term " Bozo" came from Steve Friedman with whom I have trained several times through the years. "Most managers are bozos" was always Steve's mantra and he was right. In today's environment, agents need active, intelligent and hard working managers who expect as much out of themselves as they do their agents. If we teach structure, we need it ourselves. If we teach scripts, we need to know them and to use them ourselves. If we teach prospecting, we need to be prospecting for recruits ourselves.

This is the hardest and yet, most satisfying career I could ever think of having. I am grateful for the opportunity to do it and most of all, I am grateful for the opportunity to learn to "Be a Better Bozo". With apologies to Steve.

The Lie of Mentoring

Frequently in the process of interviewing new or prospective agents, they mention that they have talked to Broker X who, while running a small brokerage, will make them a fabulous deal on their split and throw in their personal services as a mentor. Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? Answer: it is.

Understand, they have no formal training program. This is a cop out. But what a great thing to be personally mentored by the BROKER him or herself! Not.

This is the most famous scam in the real estate world. Let me tell you why.

In the first place, they run a small brokerage. They still have to list and sell. If a choice is to be made between training you and going out and getting a listing or showing a property, whom do you think will win? Not you.

My second favorite thing about "mentoring" is that you get to be their personal gofer. You know, "go-for-this", "go-for-that" ? It will be wonderful experience for you to learn to pick up somebody's dry cleaning so that they can look good on their next appointment. If you are practicing to be someone's personal assistant, this will stand you in good stead. However, if actually being trained as a real estate agent is your goal, this isn't going to help.

I also prefer that you not learn all their bad habits. Not that you won't develop some on your own but at least start out in a situation that is teaching tried and true methods. Start with a clean slate, in other words. I am constantly amazed at what "experienced" agents/brokers in this market do not know and I can only imagine what they pass on in this selfless act of "mentoring".

So, you might not get the "fabulous" split at a full service,structured, education conscious brokerage, but what you might get will be far more valuable. Remember, a transaction may make you a living but a skill will make you a fortune.

The At Risk Agent

Amid all the doom and gloom that has been swirling around for the last year and intensifying in the last few weeks, regarding the stock market and of course, the national housing market, is it any wonder that some are questioning the survival of that strange animal called the Real Estate Agent? Are we headed for extinction? Or just a severe culling of the herd?

My opinion is that, yes, there will be a culling of the herd and we know from numbers from the last two years that this process has already started. In our local market, we believe the real fall out will be visible at the first of the year ( when local board dues come a calling). If we were to project the groups that might be most likely affected, whom do we think they might be?

Conventional wisdom usually starts off with the "older" group, the agents having been in the business for more than twenty years. You know, those agents who existed before computers, fax machines, cell phones, text messaging, blogging, etc. These are the agents who have been dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century and yes, still miss their weekly MLS books.

My thought here is this is probably not the most at risk group for a variety of reasons. First, they have seen very bad markets before. Think the late 70's into the early 80's. I find it constantly surprising the media today never reflect on how really bad that market time was. Interest rates were at an almost inconceivable (now) high. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one percent were the going rates. Talk about cutting the Affordabiltiy Index into smithereens......there it was. And yet, a stalwart group survived. Combined with some innovative products from lenders and other ways around the barn, some business managed to be done. But just for comparisons, in 2007 our local board of Realtors closed just under 27,000 properties . Back in 1981, the same board closed less than 6,000. Whining anyone? GOI.

And we learned how to use loan assumptions, wrap loans, blanket mortgages, and the adjustable rate loan was born. So those agents still doing business at that time learned things the hard way.

The next most likely pick would be the new or newer agent in this market, the ones who have come in within the last two to three years. While they may not have the interest rate concern to deal with ( yet), they have been bombarded with all the media telling them what a horrible market they are entering and why on earth would they want to be getting into this career? And yet, many have chosed to do so and quite frankly, the ones who went with companies who actually train and school their agents consistently are doing just fine, thank you very much. There is a caveat in there.

No, the truly AT RISK agent is that agent who entered the industry during the time period from about five to fifteen years ago. Times were "good" or so we are told. Business was booming. Money was easy to get (or so they say ) right up to the time where we saw lenders making loans to people who had no money, no credit and sometimes, no income. How easy was that? Many agents have never had to learn to do that nasty thing called prospecting and unfortunately, most existing brokerages have allowed this ignorance and laziness to exist because hey, it was easy for all the players. The brokerages also did not invest in technology tools and most are now too far behind. They relied on the agent to pay the tab and most didn't. Now that it is time to "go to the mattresses", they don't know where to start.

I have some suggestions. First, get yourself to a company that will actually spend time and resources training you. And I mean every day, not just sporadically or once a month. I mean everyday either in the form of a class, a workshop, script practices or personal coaching. If you are interviewing, ask to see a schedule. If they are organized and really doing it, they will have one. Second, learn self-discipline. Make yourself do the prospecting activities that will put you in front of the necessary number of people to get the necessary number of appointments that you will need to obtain the necessary amount of income. Third, have someone hold you accountable for your activities whether it is your manager, your coach or your significant other. Put that person in place. Fourth, treat this like a "real" job. You know, show up for work everyday.

Real estate is hard work. It is stressful and emotionally and physically draining. No, this has not changed in the thirty-four years that I have been doing this. People just kidded themselves for a long time that this was big, easy money. The joke is over.