Rob Minton - Renegade Millionaire Real Estate Agents

The "Farmer" Report

I just completed a new 15-page report that you can download right now. I call this new report the "Farmer" Report because it includes a simple lesson from two farmers that helped my business dramatically. I honestly didn't "see" this lesson. My mentor, Dan Kennedy, opened my eyes with a short story. I've included Dan's story in the report.

You can download the PDF right now at:

The "Farmer" Report (PDF)

After Dan shared the farmer story with me, I vowed to make a big change in my business. I share exactly what I did in the report. I continue to use what Dan recommended in my business today. Dan does, too! Many real estate agents "see" this operating in my business but don't copy it in their businesses. Hopefully this new report may motivate you to do something similar in your business. 

You'll find a lot of great stuff in this new report. In fact, you'll read about...

- How to lock clients to you for life

- The only 2 things you need do have a successful real estate business

- How to insure your database

- 6 questions you must answer about your business

What I've shared in this new report is extremely valuable. It's not a new secret by any means. As soon as you figure it out, you'll probably think "Oh, that's nothing new. I've heard that a million times." And you would be 100-percent correct. The problem is the majority of you aren't doing this in your business even though it's one of the most important things you can do. Or if you're actually doing this in your business, you're not very consistent with it.

Download this report now at:

The "Farmer" Report (PDF)

Is a database of 500 prospects enough?

Last week, I received a great question from one of my Renegade Report members. The member asked the following question:

"My database has around 500 prospects. Every now and then I send them deal alerts but very few respond. I've only been able to generate a few appointments and a few offers to date. At what point (1,000? 5,000?) can I expect people to make offers and actually buy?"

This is an excellent question, isn't it?

First off, if you're marketing to your database of 500 people via email, you have to understand that only a small percentage of people will actually read your emails. This is because of spam filters, dull email subject lines, and competition over your prospect's inbox by other marketers, friends and work-related issues. Let's assume that only 10 percent of those in your database read your emails. A database of 500 prospects would indicate that 50 people read what you've sent them.

In marketing, 50 interested prospects isn't a very large number.

This doesn't mean that you won't sell, it just means that you're not going to generate huge results through email marketing, unless you build a larger database. With 50 interested prospects, you can assume that 5 percent to 10 percent of them might respond to your offer. This would translate into two to five responses, depending on what you're marketing and how you're marketing it.

As you can see, marketing is all about numbers. The larger your database, the more responses you'll receive. You shouldn't expect 100 people to respond to something you offer via email if your database has only 500 prospects. It simply won't happen.

This is why building a large database is so critical for your success. I constantly preach that you should generate 100 leads a month for every full-time agent on your team. My monthly lead-generation goal was 400 leads. Throughout a year, my database grew by 4,800 prospects. Unfortunately, not many agents are listening. In fact, I get negative comments from agents who say 100 leads a month is too many for one agent to handle. Simply not true! In fact, it's a major limiting belief.

Imagine how your marketing would change if you had 10,000 prospects in your database? One email would be opened by 1,000 prospects (10 percent) and 50 to 100 (5 percent to 10 percent) would respond to the offer made in the email. The game changes dramatically.

Everything gets easier.

As you start to think about 2010, make sure your marketing focus is on building your database. It's the best investment you'll ever make. If you need a little help, I strongly suggest downloading my program titled "31 Days to a Larger Database" for just $12.95 available at:

http://www.31daydatabase.com

Oh and don't wait for January to start implementing new strategies for your business. Let your competition blow off November and December waiting for the New Year to start.

Begin implementing your 2010 goals now and get a head start!

Use "Sales Assets" to Build Your Dream Business

Most real estate agents do not focus on creating assets within their businesses. They simply focus their time and attention on trying to sell homes to generate income. This is fine, but it's not the best long-term strategy for your business because it forces you to continually sell, month after month. You have zero leverage.

A better strategy to consider would be to focus your time and attention on creating what I refer to as "Sales Assets." I define a “Sales Asset” as a sales tool that can be used to generate sales without your day-to-day physical involvement.

My very first “Sales Asset” was a sales letter that compelled prospects to apply to become one of my clients. Once the sales letter was written and tested, it could be relied upon to deliver a certain number of new clients each and every month. This sales letter transformed my business. The best part about the sales letter was that it wasn’t dependent upon me or didn't require any of my time. I simply hired a part-time high school student for a few hours a day to mail the sales letters and client applications magically appeared in our fax machine. These client applications were given to my agents, who then met with the prospect, signed them to an exclusive agreement and then sold them a home.

The next “Sales Asset” I created for my business was a free class presentation that compelled attendees to become our clients. This included all the marketing to get a prospect to register and attend the class, as well as the actual presentation for the class. The class presentation was designed to motivate the attendees to become our clients. In other words, it was a tool to convert prospects into signed clients.

This was a lot of work, but the work had a large payoff because once perfected, it was another “Sales Asset” for my business. I personally taught the first few classes and worked the bugs out of the system. Then after the “Sales Asset” was providing predictable results, I delegated the class to one my agents.

At this point, my business had two powerful “Sales Assets” that could be significantly leveraged. As an example, if I wanted more clients, I could simply run more lead-generation advertisements that would put more compelling sales letters into play. Or I could schedule and market additional free classes
that would be taught by my agents.

Both of these assets operated without my direct involvement. My responsibility was to generate leads and then make sure the "Sales Assets" delivered the expected results. I was able to work from home in a T-shirt and shorts. My agents worked with our clients and I was able to enjoy complete control over my schedule.

The reason is because I focused on creating "Sales Assets" instead of selling homes. Your role shouldn't be to sign clients or sell homes. Your role should be focused on creating and leveraging "Sales Assets" for your business.

It’s far more profitable to build “Sales Assets” for your business than it is for you to sell homes yourself.

These assets give you the ability to create new clients (income) at will. They can be engineered to provide a consistent flow of new clients from week-to-week, eliminating the roller coaster income we’ve all experienced. More importantly, “Sales Assets” give you complete control over your time
because they don’t require your manual labor after they are created, tested and in place.

Here are two questions for you to ponder:

1.    What “Sales Assets” are you using in your business right now?
2.    What “Sales Assets” are you testing or experimenting with for your business for the future?

6 Steps to Generating FREE Leads on Craigslist

This is a guest article by Josh Schoenly.

After years of trial and error using Craigslist, I finally created a system for consistently generating quality leads for my business, and I’ve decided to share the steps in this article. 

Step 1: Create An Account
This is the easiest step by far, but it is critical to getting the best results and to track your results as well. All you need to do is go to Craigslist.com and click on the login button. Then on the next page, if you don’t already have an account, you’ll click on the area that says “Don’t already have an account.” You just fill in your information, name and email, and you’ll be sent an email to confirm. Once you receive the email, click on the link in there and, voila -- you have an account you can start to use. 

Step 2: Pick Your Campaign
Here is what I mean by picking a campaign: If you are going to generate leads on Craigslist, you need to do it with a purpose. You must choose the kinds of leads that you are looking to work with. Here are some ideas: foreclosure buyers, lease option buyers, apartment building buyers, luxury home buyers, first-time home buyers, buyers in a particular school district -- you get the idea. 

Step 3: Create Your Campaign
This step can be a little time-consuming (really only 30-60 minutes), but the good thing is once you are done, it’s done for good. You may want to go back from time to time and tweak, but most of the work is complete. Here is how to create a campaign for Craigslist lead generation. Once you have picked your campaign, you then need to create several different ads to post and generate traffic. Craigslist doesn’t allow you to post the same ad over and over, so you’ll need several different posting titles and posting descriptions (you’ll also want variations for the location and price boxes as well). By creating different titles and posts, it allows you post frequently, which allows you to consistently drive traffic to your landing page or squeeze page (never send the traffic to your main Web page) or to e-mail or call you. 

Step 4: Implementation – Posting Your Ads
Here is where the rubber meets the road. Now that you have your campaigns created, you need to start posting. I recommend to post twice daily during the week and at least once a day on the weekends. You will want to be posting when there is a lot of traffic to Craigslist because the longer your ad is up, the farther down the page it goes. So you probably don’t want to post at 5 in the morning, as it’s not likely that many home buyers are surfing Craigslist at that time. Now, it is critical to be consistent posting your ads. This literally takes just a couple minutes a day, but it will become one of those things that after some time becomes a bore to do. If you really can’t stay diligent with it, have your assistant (if you have one) do them for you or you could even hire one of your kids to do it. I know I am stating the obvious here, but if you don’t post, you won’t get leads, so make sure you stay consistent. 

Step 5: Follow Up
Here is where it starts to get exciting. Depending on the information you collect from the leads you may be able to follow up in several ways. If you are just collecting name and e-mail, obviously that means your only form of follow up will be through e-mail. If you are collecting phone numbers, which I would recommend, then you can make outbound phone calls. If you are able to collect full contact information, including address, I would highly recommend sending a sales piece, ideally a sales letter, enticing them to work with you as a client. Your follow-up must also be consistent and scripted. If you are offering a free list of homes, whether they be fixer-upper or foreclosures etc, make sure you are regularly sending out the list. For example, in my business I send my free lists to my leads every Thursday morning. This does several things -- keeps me on a schedule and creates an expectation from the buyers that they’ll be getting their new list each Thursday. In order to get maximum response from your list, you need to make different offers to them. Here are some ideas for offers you can be making to get them to raise their hand to work with you: teleseminars, homes tours, group open houses, live seminars, etc. 

Step 6: Track & Improve
The last step is the least glamorous, but might be the most important of all. You need to be tracking your ads and results from the start. If you don’t track, you’ll have no idea what’s working and what isn’t. Here are some of the things you need to track: which ads are getting the most response, how well your landing page is converting, how many leads you are getting daily, how many leads turn to clients, how many leads open your emails, and more. Now this part of the business isn’t much fun, but you can only improve what you track, and if you aren’t tracking this information you have no way of improving your results. 

Josh Schoenly has literally cracked the code to lead generation on Craigslist. Over the last 3+ years he has generated over 7,000 leads using his own system. For a limited time you can download Josh’s Craigslist Marketing Matrix and accompanying 30-minute video explaining exactly how he does it at www.CraigslistMarketingMatrix.com.

Selling One-to-Many

Photo by campru [farem vacances!]

I got my real estate license in the mid 1990s. Times have certainly changed since my journey into real estate began.

Real estate has historically been a one-to-one sales process. We get a lead, work to get an appointment, and then we sign the prospect as a new client and help them with their real estate transaction. In each step of this process, we are only working with one client at a time. In today's environment, we need to learn how to sell to many people - all at the same time.

The home sale numbers are not pretty, and it's harder and harder to find quality clients. We don't have the luxury of wasting a lot of time with someone who won't buy or sell a home. To eliminate this from our businesses, we need to deploy one-to-many sales strategies.

To give you a few ideas of what I mean, consider the following:

1. Is it better to give a listing presentation to one seller or one presentation to 10 sellers?

2. Is it better to meet with one buyer or to meet with 10 buyers at the same time?

3. Is it better to show homes to one buyer or to show five buyers homes?

These three questions should lead to some dramatic shifts in your thinking. What could happen in your business if you began selling one-to-many, instead of one-to-one?

A lot.

Selling one-to-many can be applied in numerous ways. A few ideas for you to consider would be specialized classes, teleseminars, webinars and home-buyer tours. 

The key word above was "specialized," meaning you have to offer something that your target prospect would want to attend. If your target prospect is a buyer looking to buy a luxury home, you would want to host a class, teleseminar or webinar on how to buy a luxury home, or maybe offer a luxury home tour.

When you stop and think about this, you'll realize that it makes a lot of sense. You'll find many benefits to this approach ...

• Massive time savings because you're selling to groups of people
• Dramatic increase in dollars earned per hour
• Ability to sign multiple clients at once
• Huge increase in the number of homes sold
• Instant expert positioning because you're viewed as a teacher instead of salesperson
• Social proof of demand for your services

These one-to-many selling opportunities can be used as a lead -conversion tool for unconverted leads in your database by marketing your class/webinar/teleseminar or tour to your database via mail or email. This will allow you to sign more clients and extract more sales from your existing database.

Or better yet, market your class/webinar/teleseminar/tour to the public and attract new prospects to your business. Wouldn't it be great to convert prospects from your database and attract new clients at the same time?

Very, very powerful!

Overt plug: In my Ultimate Foreclosure Boom System, I include step-by-step tools that you can use to to host foreclosure tours, foreclosure classes, foreclosure webinars and more. If you'd like to save a tremendous amount of time learning how to sell one-to-many, go to Ultimate Foreclosure Boom.com

How to Find "Great" Real Estate Agents for Your Team

Post Written by Rob Minton
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One of the questions I receive on a consistent basis is "Where can I find good agents to join my team?" This is a very important question because your team will ultimately dictate the success of your business.

Bad Team - Bad Business
Average Team - Average Business
Great Team - Great Business

Isn't it a little bit odd that this little secret is really the key to success in real estate, but nobody ever bothers to tell you? I didn't learn this in my licensing or continuing education classes. I learned this the hard way. At first I recruited "bad" agents and my business suffered. Then I started to recruit "average" agents and things got a little bit better. Finally, I began to recruit "great" agents and my business exploded.

Bad Agents

Bad agents are people who suck a lot of your time without selling any homes. They actually make your business worse because you have to deal with all of their problems, complaints and/or issues. When you ask them why they didn't sign a prospect to an exclusive agreement, they'll almost always give you some sort of excuse.

You can easily attract bad agents to you by running a "Help Wanted" advertisements in your local newspaper or on Craigslist. You might not believe me, but it's the truth. If you stop and think about it for a minute, you'll quickly realize that a great salesperson wouldn't be looking at the help wanted advertisements. Why? Because they would be too busy selling. 

Average Agents:

Average agents are agents who do alright. You can count on them for a sale or two every so often. An average sales person simply takes the cream off the top meaning that they sell homes to the easiest prospects. They really don't do a very good job following up with prospects. Sales simply fall in their lap and they go through business at this pace without much effort.

You can easily find average agents by recruiting agents from other companies. I can still remember a meeting I had with an agent from a different brokerage several years ago. This agent wanted to join my team, but couldn't leave her brokerage because she owed them $7,000 in commissions that had been advanced to her. Would a great agent be negative $7,000 in commissions? Certainly not.

The problem with average agents is that we always hesitate in letting them go. We think about the sales they do bring in and calculate the commissions generated. We worry that if we let the average agent person go, we'll lose out on the commissions they do generate. This thinking is incorrect because it comes from a scarcity mindset.
For some reason, we look at what we stand to lose instead of what we stand to gain. It is always better to replace average agents with great agents.

Great Team Members

Great agents are agents who turn dirt into gold. They rarely make excuses and consistently perform at high levels.They have the ability to really "hear" a prospect or client. They can "feel" what the prospect wants and they simply deliver. They adapt and adjust depending on who they are working with and they ALWAYS self correct. They are not afraid to close and typically have the highest conversion and sales numbers.

The challenge with great agents is that they aren't easy to find. You can't find them running "Help Wanted" advertisements. You also can't find them working in other real estate companies. If they were already great agents, they wouldn't be interested in working on your team. They would have their own team...

To find "great" agents you have to look outside of the existing pool of real estate agents. The trick is to look for great people, not great agents. Here is where I found the majority of my best team members:

Past Clients

As I would help someone with their real estate transaction, I would have the opportunity to get to know them really well. I always asked myself if this client would be a great real estate agent??? After the transaction completed, I would set an appointment with them and explain that I thought they would be excellent in real estate sales. I highlighted how my business operated and explained the opportunities available to them. I then suggested that they get their license and offered to help them through the licensing process. 

This little strategy led to 5 great agents and 1 great office manager. 

To make this strategy work for your business, you must always be looking for great people. Most agents wait until they need a new agent and then try and find someone for their team. This is a BIG mistake. You must do the exact opposite. If come across someone good in your day-to-day journey, figure out how to make a spot for them on your team.

Remember "great" team members build "great" businesses.

The Real Road Less Traveled

Photo by: by wykwan

This is a guest post from the legendary Dan Kennedy. I think you'll find it fits in perfect with the recent theme in my blog about failure. Enjoy!

Sticktoitiveness” is a strength of character, a philosophical position, a consciously valued and directed behavior, a habit. In any business category, fewer than 5% of the owners create extraordinary incomes, wealth, security and independence; 95% flounder, frustrated for life. If you spent 25 years chronicling the behavioral differences between the mediocre majority and high-achieving minority as I have, the most striking distinction you would find is this: winners stick to things, losers give up easily, flit about randomly. Losers waste all the years of their lives looking for the unicorn of modern fantasy, the easy button. Winners find winning strategies and stick to applying them.

Sylvester Stallone was rejected as an actor by every Hollywood studio. The script he wrote for Rocky was also summarily rejected by all but one – and they agreed to buy it for a flat fee; Stallone, broke at the time, refused to sell it unless he could star in the movie and receive customary compensation. He made the rounds again and again. He persisted until he finally got his way. There must be thousands of better actors and thousands of better script writers who were working as waiters then and are still working as waiters now. The difference is not talent. In my 30 years’ business experience, I’ve found talent to be the most overrated of all things, less likely to lead to success than most things.

By comparison, staying stuck like super-glue to an objective; acquiring the needed know-how at any cost; ignoring others’ criticism; refusing to take no for a permanent answer, fighting, scrapping, studying, figuring out one more piece then one more piece; these behaviors are behind the true stories of the rich and famous. Sadly, most people don’t stick. At much of anything. Their grade on life’s report card is “Incomplete”. Their home has books purchased but never read, how-to courses with the outside plastic wrap unbrokn; projects begun but never finished. Their business’ files, nooks, crannies populated with worthy ideas still-born in procrastination, strangled in disorganization. They, themselves, displays of poor discipline: intellectually uncurious, uninformed, in poor physical shape. Turns out, the rewards for good intentions are small. The rewards for unfulfilled talent just as small.

The reasons people don’t stick to anything long enough to succeed with it are many and varied. Some are psychological, revealed in a book I recommend, The New Psycho-Cybernetics, which I co-authored with Dr. Maxwell Maltz. It and the prior, original edition combined have sold more than 30-million copies worldwide. Some are circumstantial; people who permit themselves and their time to be ruled by others’ priorities, events as they occur – antidotes offered in my No B.S. Time Management For Entrepreneurs and No B.S. Guide To Ruthless Management of People And Profits books. Some are sinful, like sloth. Too many people lust for rewards without personal responsibility. Whatever the reasons for the losers’ lack of sticktoitiveness, the winners’ reality is refusal to be deterred or distracted from their objectives and aggressive pursuit of them. Successful pursuit and achievement of exceptional objectives usually involves two key elements: sticking to a course of study, acquisition of information, learning relevant methodology even if, at first, uncomfortable, foreign or difficult; sticking to self-imposed requirements for implementation of what is learned.

The WHY PEOPLE FAIL articles are provided by Dan S. Kennedy, serial entrepreneur, from-scratch multi-millionaire, speaker, consultant, coach, author of 13 books including the No B.S. series (www.NoBSBooks.com), and editor of The No B.S. Marketing Letter. WE HAVE ARRANGED A SPECIAL FREE GIFT FROM DAN FOR YOU including a 2-Month Free Membership in Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, newsletters, audio CD’s and more: for information and to register, visit: http://www.FreeGiftFrom.com/robminton

Are you holding back sales?

My recent survey asking real estate agents why we fail generated many responses. You can read a few of the responses received here:

If you would like to know the top two reasons why agents fail, check out this blog post.

Below, I have included one specific response that I wanted to write about in today's blog post. Here it is...

Lack of a system to keep them focused, motivation, a feeling of disappointment in a down market dealing with buyers who are not motivated and insecure. I think there are a few of us also that may have a hard time being concerned when representing a buyer that what a buyer is considering is not a good buy when the market is still not at its bottom. I know I have this trouble as I am so committed to the right ethics of a real estate person that sometimes I miss sales due to the fact I don't feel it is a good buy and I am honest with that fact. In being honest we are still waiting to find the right house. It takes patience to do so and not get discouraged. So at present I have three wonderful qualified buyers still working with me but waiting as we haven't found just the property. I could have sold them something but it would not have been the right purchase.

I really admire the agent who submitted this answer to my survey. Why? Because they were 100% honest. Why? Because they sincerely want to do the right thing for their clients. However, I'm not sure their thinking is 100% correct.

Several years ago, I had a similar mental challenge in my business. In my business, I niched to help real estate investors buy single family homes. There was a period of time when I operated under this mind set:

If I wouldn't invest in this home at this price, then I shouldn't let my clients invest in it either.

I would set unreasonable purchase prices with my clients and then spend hours trying to get this price through negotiation. I put my clients through a lot of stress trying to help them meet my investing criteria. They walked away from many good investment properties. They wasted a significant amount of time with me trying to get homes at prices that weren't obtainable.

Now, I did all of this with the best intentions for my clients. I really wanted to get them the best investment properties with the best terms. The problem was that my investment goals were not the same as their investment goals. Many of my clients worked full-time jobs and didn't want to spend months looking for one investment property. They wanted to find a nice home with a reasonable rate of return quickly so they could get back to spending time with their families. They didn't want to spend week after week looking for the deal of the century.

My mistake was assuming that my goals were their goals. They weren't. The same goes for the agent who submitted the response above to my survey. Our job as real estate professionals is to help our clients meet their goals. Our goals don't matter. This agent wants to help their client buy a home at the bottom of the market. Is this really their client's goal, too? Or is the client's goal to simply find the home of their dreams?

You see, if the client's goal is to find a home they love, then this agent is actually holding their clients back by trying to wait for the bottom of the market to hit. We need to remember that our job is to put the client's wishes first. What do your clients really want? Did they specifically say, "We want to buy a home at the absolute bottom of the market?" Or did they say, "We want to find our dream home and buy it at an attractive price?"

Before I wrap up today's post, I want you to think through your client list right now. Are you holding your clients back because of your opinions or your goals? Think about what your clients really want and then go help them get it.

P.S. I'm working like crazy on my new membership for real estate agents. The launch of this membership is scheduled for Monday, August 25th. Check back to my blog on August 25th to learn more about this new membership. I'm going to show you how to create systems that help you generate leads and convert these leads into clients for your business!

The 2 Main Reasons WHY Real Estate Agents Fail....

Photo by by Diana Pinto

In my last post, I shared 20 reasons agents fail from my recent survey. You can read these 20 reasons here.

At the end of the post, I asked you if you could see a trend in the answers. I had the luxury of reviewing all 100 survey responses and the trend literally jumped out at me. Here are the two major reasons fail according to those of you who answered my survey:

1. Limited or no prospecting.
2. Lack of consistent follow up.

Now, we all know there are hundreds of reasons why someone could fail in real estate. Selling homes is not as easy as it sounds, especially in a down market. However, it is helpful for us to focus on the top two reasons. Why? Because of the 80/20 Rule. The 80/20 Rule states that 20% of the causes generate 80% of the effects. This means:

• 20% of your activities generate 80% of your income
• 20% of your clients generate 80% of your income
• 20% of your clients suck 80% of your time
• Only 20% of the reasons why agents fail generate 80% of the failures

Hopefully, as you read the short list of 20 reasons why agents fail, you began to think:

"How can I avoid this from happening to me?" or "What can I do to not make this same mistake with my business?"

The answers on failure actually tell you what you need to do to be successful. It could be very overwhelming to look at the various reasons why agents fail and then try and create an action plan for your business. This is where the 80/20 rule comes into play....

Simply focus on the top 20% and you'll insulate your business from 80% of the causes for failures. Several month's ago, I asked agents to complete a different survey. In the survey I asked them what their biggest challenge was for their businesses. The answers they provided boiled down to one BIG challenge, which was:

Getting New Clients

It's easy now to see how all of this comes together. Agents are unable get new clients because they don't consistently prospect and they don't follow up with the prospects they do have. I could end today's post by simply telling you to prospect and follow up more. However, if you're not good at prospecting now, how do you get better? If you don't systematically follow up with your prospects, what can you do to improve? Challenging questions, I know. I faced these exact same questions in my business.

Since the first survey, I have been working on a new membership for real estate agents that will help you generate new leads for your business. More importantly, I'll show you how to convert those leads into clients using compelling sales letters. And don't worry, this new membership is very affordable. You won't need to invest a lot of money to join. I know times are tight right now.

I'll be launching this new membership on Monday, August 25th. Mark your calendars and watch for an email from me on this date that reads "Doors Open" in the subject line. You really will want to read my email on the 25th!

My "Renegade Agent" story is now on iTunes...

I've just been told that my Renegade Agent story from the Phenomenon is now on iTunes and is available for free! If you have an iPod, go ahead and click on this link:

Rob on iTunes

This training is a great resource that you'll love - and it's video too!

The Phenomenon Project has quickly become a phenomenon for many of us. I've been thrilled to be a part of it and I'd like to tell you about a new way to get Phenomenon content quickly and easily - and without spending a dime.

Did you know The Phenomenon is now on iTunes? You know iTunes - music, movies, television, and now TRAINING!

Rob on iTunes

If you have an iPod, simply click on the link above and you'll be taken to the special "Phenomenon Stories" page inside of iTunes. Click on the SUBSCRIBE button on that page and you'll automatically receive a new Phenomenon Story every two weeks or so.

These training courses come at no cost to you, automatically.

You can play them on your computer, your iPod (or iPhone), or even stream them through your Apple TV.

These are stories of people, just like you, who have seen the Phenomenon in their lives and in their businesses. The one in there right now is mine - and it's amazing. You'll learn how I was able to remove 99% of what I didn't like from my business - and how it enabled me to make more money than ever before.

The link again:

Rob on iTunes

To your next best 12 months!

P.S. And if you watch the current Episode, you'll hear a few words from me about what the Phenomenon has done for me and my business.

P.P.S. If you don't have an iPod, you can still watch these episodes by downloading iTunes. It is a free program and works on your Windows or Apple computer. Visit http://www.itunes.com for more information.

P.P.P.S. I don't know how long this Episode will stay online for free. Grab it now before its removed!

Want to play?

I have been a little slow with blog posts over the last few weeks because I'm enjoying summer. Really enjoying summer! Yesterday afternoon, I went to a birthday party with my youngest daugther. The party was at Playground World. I was the only Dad at the party. I think everyone must wonder what I do for a living because I'm always with my family. Last week, we took my oldest daugther to her first Orthodontist appointment. The Orthodontist was shocked because a "Dad" came to the appointment with the family.

It's too bad most Dads are working all day long.

The neighbors must think I'm a drug dealer because I never go to work. Right now, I'm "working" from my home office. My administrative assistant brings checks for me to sign and other items from the office to me at home. I never go to the office. Call me lazy :)!

Back to the birthday party...

Playground World is a pretty neat little business. Well, actually its a business within a business. Or one business that sets up sales for the other business. Playground World is a large indoor showroom for massive outdoor playgrounds. They must have 10 large playgrounds setup up for display in this showroom. The real business is playground equipment sales.

However, they created another small side business that delivers boatloads of customers to their store. The side business is a party or play business for kids. They setup a small party room for kid parties in the back corner of the showroom. They also host open play hours each day during the week. Kids love playing on all of these massive playgrounds.

Guess what happens when parents bring their kids to parties or open play hours?

They shop the showroom. This is exactly what my wife and I did. Here is a partial list of what they had in displayed in the showroom:

• Basketball hoops
• Skateboard jumps and related equipment
• Mailboxes
• Garden storage centers
• Trampolines
• Brio Toys
• Step 2 Toys
• Picnic Tables
• Rubber Multch
• Zip lines
• Oh and I forgot to list "Playgrounds"

We almost bought a $200 mailbox during the birthday party. I happened to pick up their catalog and noticed that their playground sets range in price from $4,000 to $42,000. Yes, a $42,000 playground. I asked the person working in the showroom how many playgrounds they sell to parents attending birthday parties and this big smile flashed across his face. He said, "We do pretty well."

Simply beautiful.

A small party business delivers buyer after buyer to the store. More importantly, they get paid for the parties. Most businesses try to reduce their cost per lead. This business figured out how to get paid to generate leads.

How can you use a similar strategy to deliver client after client to your business?

Happy playing!!!

Are you making this $10,000 mistake in your business?

Recently, a close friend shared a personal story with me. I found it very instructive from a business perspective. I thought I would share it with you today to help you avoid this same mistake in your business! I actually made this mistake in my business...

My friend wanted to have some cosmetic dental work. They watched a commercial on TV that highlighted the work they were looking for. My friend called to request the Free DVD that was offered at the end of the TV commercial. The DVD was a great sales presentation showing before and after pictures. (Note the automatic sale conversion from the DVD) My friend decided to move forward with the dental work after watching the DVD. They submitted the forms included with the DVD to take the next step. Soon afterwards, my friend received a call from a dental consultant. The procedure was scheduled. My friend paid a $1,000 deposit and was excited about their future new smile.

As the days rolled by, my friend didn't hear anything from the dental consultant. They tried to contact the consultant by phone without luck. They left several messages that were not returned. Next, they tried to contact the consultant by email. Guess what? No reply from the consultant.

My friend began to get cold feet. Who wouldn't? They finally decided not to have the procedure handled by this organization. Their perception of the organization changed because the consultant didn't return their calls. The total cost for this procedure was around $10,000.

I wonder if the owner of the dental organization knows that their dental consultants are blowing $10,000 sales? I'll bet they don't. They probably don't have any clue this poor customer service is happening in their business. Think about this from the owner's perspective for a minute. The owner is paying to run an expensive TV commercial. The owner is paying to mail free DVDs to prospects responding to the commercial. The DVD presentation actually works and people are signing up to have dental work handled by the organization. Then the sale is lost because phone calls were not returned by his employees. How expensive is this to the business?

Extremely...

I had similar problems on my team. I'll know we lost sales because my agents didn't return phone calls promptly. I made this exact same $10,000 mistake in my business. I should have had a friend mystery shop my business. They could have played prospect to see how my agents performed. I should have had more direct interaction with my clients to listen for poor customer service from my team. I didn't.

Don't make the same mistake with your business. Make sure you return phone calls and emails. If you have agents, pay attention to how quickly they return calls and emails. They could be costing you thousands of dollars in lost sales. Consider mystery shopping your business to see how prospects are really handled. Be warned - what you find might make you sick to your stomach.

Realtors, Kiss Your 6% Commission Goodbye

Yesterday, I stumbled across an article in the Yahoo Finance portal. The article listed comments/topics regarding the economy. You can see the entire article by clicking here.

One topic discussed in this article was the recent NAR legal settlement. Here is a quote from this article:

Realtors, Kiss Your 6% Goodbye!

This week, the Justice Department and the National Association of Realtors reached a settlement in the antitrust case against the NAR's monopolistic hold on home listing information. It's a victory for Internet-based and discount listing services and another stake in the back of traditional brokers attempting to recover from this downturn.

• Media expert Jeff Jarvis says this means good riddance to real estate agents' familiar 6% commissions: "The only reason... that Realtors could hold onto their high commission for such little value and work is that they kept information away from the marketplace, making it inefficient. This new economy can now come to real estate sales as information become freer. Oh, it's not fully freed yet. But I do believe that the combination of this settlement and what it does to empower discount players and the depressed real estate market will combine to finally shove dynamite up Realtors' rears."

• Calculated Risk looks at brokers' commissions as a percentage of GDP, showing that commissions "soared" in recent years as a function of the housing bubble. But as of the first quarter of 2008, commissions declined. "Now, with prices falling, transactions falling, and more competition, it is likely that total commissions will fall further over the next few years. Tough times for many real estate agents."

I'm not sure I want dynamite shoved up my rear. It doesn't sound very appealing. However, I do agree with the main point being made, which is:

We cannot continue to base our businesses upon "secret" MLS data. The MLS data will soon be public information. It's inevitable. Your prospective customers will have access to this information.

How will this impact your business? Have you thought about it? What are you doing to prepare for it?

Your business must provide value over and above mls data. Why should a buyer use you to buy their home? What do you bring to the table that other agents don't? Why should a seller use you to sell their home? What do you bring to the table that other agents don't? These are very important questions.

Your answer can't be - "Well - I have a team." Everyone has a team. It can't be - "I'm a millionaire dollar producer." Nobody cares. You must provide real benefits to your clients or you'll be out of business completely.

Please take this seriously. Take some time to think about what your business will look like when the public has full access to the MLS data. What will they need you for? They won't need you to provide a market analysis because they can do this research on their own. Your free home evaluation marketing campaign is on shaky ground. They won't need a full service agent because they can list their home for a low flat fee with a discount broker. Buyer's will also have access to the same listings you do.

Is this scary to you? It should be. Be proactive. Start creating benefits for your business that go far beyond MLS data. If you don't, you might just feel like someone stuck dynamite up your rear...

Do you take over priced listings???

Over the weekend, I watched one of those real estate "reality" shows. I don't remember the name of the show. It profiled two sellers and their homes.

The first seller owned a million dollar home. The listing agent recommended that he have his home staged. The cost for the staging was $2,000. The seller thought the home was fine, but listened to their agent. The staging went well and the home looked 10 times better. They never revealed if the listing sold. The lesson I took from the situation was:

Make sure your listings show well.

This is even more important in a slow market. If you can get a buyer through your listing, it better look show well! There is way too much competition to mess around these days. Many homes sit on the market for months. If I were listing homes (and I'm not), I would probably require that all of my sellers have their homes professionally staged. Don't let your sellers call the shots. They don't know what they are doing. Your the expert. The listing agent on this show did an excellent job by having his clients stage their home.

The second seller had found their dream home. The home was more expensive than they could afford, which meant that they needed to sell their current home for top dollar. Two agents (partners) met with the seller and provided a listing price range of $450,000 to $475,000. They explained that pricing was key in today's slow real estate market. The seller said they needed to sell the home for a minimum of $525,000 in order to be able to afford their dream home.

Well, what would you do? Would you list the seller's home at $525,000 knowing that it was substantially over priced?

These agents did. They listed the home at $525,000. They then had a broker's open and regular open houses, too. They spent money advertising the home in the newspaper. They spent a significant amount of time preparing for and hosting the open houses. Guess what happened?

Nothing. Hardly any showings. Zero offers.

The seller finally realized that they couldn't afford their dream home now. They took their home off the market. My question is: Why did these agents bother listing the home? It was obviously not going to sell. It was overpriced by at least $50,000. It was a complete waste of time and effort.

Your time is extremely valuable. Every second you waste on overpriced listings costs you money. These agents could have used their time to design a new marketing program. Instead, they spent close to 10 hours sitting at an overpriced home. They could have used the money spent advertising this over priced listing to test a new marketing campaign. They didn't...

Don't fall into the trap of taking any old listing. Don't set yourself up to fail. This is a very COSTLY mistake. Only take the listings that you can sell. It will save you a significant amount of time, money and stress. Let your competitors waste their time listing over priced homes. 

Rob Minton

www.RenegadeMillionaireStrategies.com

8 Lessons on Success for Real Estate Agents from Jay Leno

A few years ago, I read a story in Fortune Magazine about Jay Leno. The article was so good, I wanted to share it with you. Click here for the article.

For this post, I thought I would share 8 lessons about success from this article with you:

1. Funny is money. Now, I'm not the best at this myself. But, you should try to make it fun for your prospects and clients to work with you. Have entertaining stories, joke around with them and have a good time. Every single time, I meet with my mentor, Dan Kennedy, he tells me funny jokes and/or stories. Dan Kennedy works to have funny stories. We should too. In my Renegade Millionaire Strategies for Real Estate Agents, I wrote a chapter titled, "How to Profit from Your Newsletter." You might notice a few similarities from my chapter to this lesson on success.

2. Don't listen to people who tell you that you can't do something. One of NBC's casting directors told Jay that his face would scare small children. He didn't listen. He kept working and won over his audience. What are people telling you about selling homes in today's down market? Don't listen to them. Keep focused. Work a little bit harder. You'll eventually win too!

3. He consistently does a little more each and every day than his competition. "Jay just put his head down and wrote three more jokes every night... His talent was that he was willing to work long hard hours at it." Do you do a little more each day than your competition to market your business? I'm usually up working each morning by 4:30 am. I'm working on marketing, newsletters and more. Imagine what would happen to your business if you spent three hours every morning marketing your business?

4. He is constantly surveying his prospects to find out what they want. Jay runs a side business doing stand-up comedy. He uses his side business to test material for the Tonight show. If jokes get laughs in his stand-up, he then uses them in his opening monologue. In addition, his side job allows him to watch his popularity level. If he is selling out his stand up performances, it's a sign that he is doing everything right on the show. Likewise, if the attendance at his stand-up performances slips, he instantly knows something is wrong on the show. Jay Leno is a marketer. He is constantly testing and gauging his audience. He uses his stand-up performances as an opportunity to survey the market. He adjusts based upon survey results. Are you surveying your target prospects? What do they want? Do you know? Does your marketing reflect what your prospects want?

5. Grades don't matter. He struggled in school bringing home C's. He simply decided to work harder than everyone else. He said, "...my attitude is, sooner or later, the other guy is going to have to eat, drink, go to the bathroom,...take a vacation, and that's when I catch him...Once he was home working on the next day's monologue, he flipped on the TV and saw a rival talk show host at a Laker's game. "Gotha," he thought. "I'm working. You're playing." Are you working while your competition is playing? I am.

6. He always gives more than he receives. NBC executives feel that Jay's value to the network is tremendous. He is a team player and is easy to work with. Do you give your clients more value than they are paying for? If so, you're headed in the right direction.

7. He treats his staff very well. He calls his business a family. He said, "You pay people right, you treat them right, you get a good product." I agree 100%. I have always been very generous with my team members. Do you view your team members as your clients? You should.

8. He stays focused and clear headed. Jay doesn't drink alcohol or do drugs. I used to go to happy hour a few times a week with one of my agents. We had a lot of fun, but we didn't sell any homes. I finally stopped drinking and began to focus the time saved on marketing. Business exploded. If you study wealthy people, you'll find that a significant percentage of them don't drink. The increase in productivity is profound. Something to think about....

Rob Minton

www.RenegadeMillionaireStrategies.com