Have you ever noticed that the most successful salespeople are always the most successful salespeople? The exception would be if someone is doing something unethical and it eventually catches up with them, but the true, top people are always at the top. And, in fact, they’d be at any company in any industry because what leads to sales success at one company is what leads to sales success at all companies. Winning, like losing, is a habit. There’s a momentum behind it and that momentum is caused by one primary thing: the winners keep doing the things they need to do in order to win, and the unsuccessful people keep avoiding the things they know they should do that would make them win. The winners set their most important activities as priorities and get them done no matter what, while the unsuccessful salespeople get distracted from and avoid the most important activities.
It reminds me of a story I once heard from the owner of a real estate company. She went to the annual State Realtor Convention and made note of the people who were there from her company. Afterwards she went back to the office and pulled the last 12 months income numbers for those agents. Guess what she found? Exactly. The numbers of those agents were significantly higher than the agents who didn’t attend. In fact, on average they were more than ten times higher.
That reminded me of another story I heard from a real estate manager from the local office of a major real estate company. He said that during a recent major blizzard, when there was a state of emergency, everything was shut down, and everyone was at stuck at home, his top agents were making phone calls to prospects because they knew they had a captive audience, while at the same time the rest of his agents were posting pictures on Facebook of the cookies they were baking. Uh, huh. And do you know what he would have found if he compared the sales numbers of the two groups? The same thing the owner in the first story found. ‘m only saying it because sometimes we feel like we are too good for training because we’ve been in the business for many years. But statistically, the BEST agents are the BEST because of their ability to remain open minded about new and better ways of doing business. I ALSO tell you this because I’ve spent two decades trying to figure out how I become as good as or better than some of the greatest broker owners of our time…. and what I’ve learned is that the EASIEST way to do that is to MIRROR their behaviors. So, if I wanted to be an agent making an average of $164k a year, I’d be doing EXACTLY what $164K a year agents do … and ONE of the things they do is find the time to learn, learn, learn. Lastly, I tell you all this because are there are INCREDIBLE real estate events coming up in the next 90 days…. NAR convention, LAER November sales rally, LAER bootcamp and MORE! I know there are ten million little reasons why you are too busy to attend… trust me, I understand busy. But there’s one reason you SHOULD attend and it trumps every single excuse you have. Here it is – the best version of you hasn’t been born yet. You can be, do, and have EVERYTHING in the world you want…. but you are not going to get it by doing the same old thing you did last year. Get out and explore a little. Take some classes. Sign up for NAR…. and make one teeny tiny step forward to unleash the amazing potential you were born to be.
Look, you know what sales success takes, it takes making the calls you need to make to the people you need to make them to in order to make the sales you need to make. It also involves being prepared and getting the work done, meaning you know what to say and what to do in each sales situation and you’re prepared for any situation that can arise before, during, and after the sale and you take action and execute. It’s making those things and your sales career your priority and working hard on mastering those items. Yes, your family is always more important than your sales career, but outside of emergencies and other significant life events, your job will many times take precedent.
As a final note, if I were to ask you what you could do to increase your sales, you could probably give me a minimum of ten items if you had a little time to think about it. The bottom line is, you know what to do, stop avoiding that work and letting yourself get distracted by less-important items or by bright, shiny objects that promise to magically increase your sales with no work or effort.
John Chapin is a motivational sales speaker, coach, and trainer with over 37 years of sales and sales management experience. For more sales help or to have him speak at your next event, go to: www.completeselling.com or email: johnchapin@completeselling.com. You can reprint provided you keep John’s website and other contact information in place.