kelowna, Author at Wade Webb Real Estate Coaching

Hey Agents Have You Ever Googled Yourself?

kelowna on October 19, 2016

I am often reminded of the importance (if you have never done it before), of googling yourself. Actually sit down, open up google and search your name on google and look at what you see or worse, what you don’t see.

So let me ask you a question. When you google yourself, how do you rank?

When you google yourself, what else came up during your search? Anything? Nothing?

When I google myself I gratefully rank on the whole first page of the search but I found a solar company by the name “Wade Solar” and a judge in the mid-west with the name “Wade” in the search.

Now more importantly, how many results were about your business and would they make you want to work with you if you were a buyer or seller looking for an agent online? In February of this year, Inman reported that businesses with 10 or more reviews get 3.5x the attention and 6.5x the inquiries. Client reviews and testimonials help boost your incredibility with leads like crazy. They also help boost your credibility with Google.

So, if you’re not getting the results you want when you Google yourself and your business, that means Google doesn’t quite trust you yet. There are really only 3 ways to get traffic to your real estate website (Ads, SEO, and Social). This week we’re going to explore how your social media pages can help you rank better and higher in Google searches.

While Google may or may not use signals on Facebook or Twitter such as the number of followers you have to boost your placement, it’s clear that each platform still ranks and ranks well, at least for broad searches. If your content performs well and is widely shared, it can help drive more traffic and qualified leads your way for years to come. But let’s get back to social media. Social profiles are often among the top results in search listings for individuals and brand names. While your Pinterest page may not have the same impact as a 5-star Yelp review, it’s still a great place to start.

Think about it. If a lead only knows your name, they may start with that as a way to find out more about you and let’s be real – social media platforms are becoming just as much of a search engine as Google is. It’s likely future clients are going to want to learn more about you and the quickest way to connect is through social networks. If you’ve got a stellar Pinterest presence with several well-crafted boards full of useful information and a decent number of followers, you’re well on your way to making a great first impression and achieving your goal of gaining trust with your viewers and Google.

Whether you’re active on two or 12 social sites, here are a few practices that will easily increase your SEO and help push you to the first page of Google. Whether you have 100 or 100,000 followers on any given network, the way in which they engage with you will help establish you as a credible source. Growing your follower base is one way to do this, but they’ve got to be high-quality fans. What does this mean?

Well, for one, that they’re not bought. Buying Likes/followers will do absolutely nothing for you. Do Not Buy Fans. It’s not worth it and will ultimately decrease your chances of ranking on Google. As I said before though, there’s still a lot of conversation happening around whether your sheer number of followers even influences your Google ranking and whether it does or it doesn’t, how you interact with your audience totally matters. When thinking about increasing your reach, I want you to keep these three words in mind – Resonate, Relevant and Reach… let’s quickly break these down.

The way you will resonate with your target audience is by producing relevant content and these two things will increase your reach. Listen to what your viewers are saying. This could be one person or 10. It doesn’t matter. Because if you can help one person solve a problem, chances are there are many more people looking for answers to the same question. Help them solve it to increase your reach.

Optimize Your Posts – Again, this all comes back to content. To make the most of your updates, make sure you’re sharing strong, valuable content consistently. A detailed blog post, video or infographic will help you accomplish this the fastest. Make sure to also say something about the content you’re sharing in the post description and try and include a keyword or term relevant to that search.

You can also focus on optimizing your posts for your local community and having them show up in big search engines. Hint: This is how you can start to compete with portal giants such as Zillow and Truila. It is impossible for you to be a local expert like them, so get out there and make it happen. An easy way to get started on this, aside from making sure your actual profile is up-to-date with your location and services..etc., is to engage other local players. Try Googling “best pizza (your area)” and see what comes up.

Choose the top 3 and then check out their social media profiles. Try out each one for lunch or dinner over the next few weeks and write your own guide for newcomers. You can then tag each place across social media and begin engaging them on a more regular basis.

Whether you work with a team or are a one-agent show, you are your brand. The best way you can increase your brand awareness and authority is by publishing quality content regularly. Your online reputation is essentially built upon your social media presence. In order to generate and maintain a credible image, you’ve got to keep active. Your social media presence, though important, is really just a way to give you more visibility online and drive traffic to your site. That’s where the real action happens.

Strength and courage,
Wade

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What Are The Best Agent Transaction Tools?

kelowna on October 12, 2016

The transaction tools available for agents today have changed the way the real estate transaction gets done: “There’s no more signing deals on the hood of the car. Now you see a home, and the agent writes the offer on the spot, it gets sent to the client’s phone, who signs it, and it’s emailed to the other side. It can be close to immediate if you have your tools properly set up. And no more carbon copies or faxes.” Agents have no doubt that transaction tools have made their lives more efficient and technology has enabled them to do more deals.

However, agents still have a long wish list of how the transaction process could be improved, and they would like to see their chosen software interact better with the software preferences of others. Of those currently on offer, the most commonly used transaction tools are:

DocuSign – “DocuSign is convenient, easy to use, provides date and time stamps and is easy to forward to all parties involved in the transaction,” said one high-performing agent. Added another: “DocuSign is the only one I couldn’t live without; I could replace the others easily.”

dotloop – Dotloop, meanwhile, makes it easy to connect to everyone, said one agent: “In the office, at the listing, with a buyer at the chosen home, on the road or home at the lake. With the clients, the other agent, the attorney, the bank, the admin and the broker.” Added another broker: “Dotloop is absolutely the best tool out there. It saves me time daily, has a mobile version, is easy for clients, easy to manipulate, add, change, edit, initiate, it’s simple, effective and just overall the best tool of my business.”

zipLogix – zipForm®, by zipLogix, is a powerful easy-to-use real estate forms software program that has been helping real estate offices across the country.

Top Producer – Give your clients a complete, end-to-end buying and selling experience by adding Reesio transaction management to your systems.

TransactionDesk – A secure online forms platform and document storage system. The service includes online … hich includes InstanetForms, Authentisign and DocBox, among others.

SkySlope – SkySlope is a simple cloud based Real Estate Transaction Management software.

Also mentioned BackAgent, Nekst, appFiles, HelloSign, Realvolve, BoomTown, Brivity, Todoist, Referralmaker by Buffini and eEdge as part of their software solution.

For many real estate professionals, the challenge is finding the right suite of tools that will integrate well. “ZipLogix and DocuSign are just tools of the transaction, but managing it requires communications with client and date tracking, which Realvolve does.”

AppFiles was rated highly by some as it will do the job of all other systems for a large team. AppFiles is an extremely robust paperless office system that allows for all the features provided by the other platforms and more things they don’t provide. It is perfect for true real-time collaboration and support of a dispersed sales force. Basically, it is a one-stop-shop.

AOSdates is the go-to for one well-organized and successful agent. AOSdates creates a complete timeline of the transaction that gets emailed out to all the parties involved in the transaction. It also keeps both my clients and myself informed on the progression of the transaction with automatic email reminders so nothing slips through the cracks.”

For e-signature software, HelloSign is the easiest, most user-friendly, intuitive e-signature software out there. I never get frustrated, it always works. Some consumers way prefer it to DocuSign or DigiSign.

Agents are still looking for the magic combination. A large number of successful agents in the industry are using Form Simplicity, but wants to bring in more. Agents are still in the search for an end-to-end CRM solution. They all have bits and pieces but nothing that integrates my contacts, calendars, phone calls, texts and so on. We have to kind of manually enter everything.

So there you have it. I would love to hear what all of you are using and find that all in one solution for our readers and followers.

Strength and courage,
Wade

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Are You In Control Of Your Money Or Is Money In Control Of You?

kelowna on October 5, 2016

I will never forget the time I was sitting in a seminar presented by T. Harv Eker on the Secrets Of The Millionaire Mind and the crowd of nearly a thousand people were all asked to bring with them a $100 cash bill to the evening session of the seminar for an exercise to teach us about our mindset and blueprint we all have about money. We are all asked to hold up our $100 bill and if you were unable to bring that bill with you then you were politely asked to leave this part of the seminar and demonstration.

We then watched a few of the seminar staff line up in front of the stage with burning candles for the crowd to begin to line up and prepare to burn your $100 cash bill to prove to yourself you are in control of your money and money is not in control of you. As I sat there I saw a wave of emotion come over the crowd as some people are getting angry and others are starting to cry and others are really showing no sign of emotion of what they have been asked to do.

Personally I am sitting there saying to myself I can do this but honestly I wish I could give it to someone in need or it go to better use but if I need to do this to prove to myself money is not in control of me then so be it. They slowly have the crowd stand and begin to line up in front of each of the staff members holding the open burning flame and let the emotions and energy build and build in the room. Then at the very last second they say “ok, everyone sit down and put your $100 bill away and start journaling what you experienced and what you felt through that exercise.”

So how would you feel about doing that? Would the money control you or would you be in control of the money? Would it make you mad, sad or feel nothing? Here are seven powerful tips I used myself from Clason’s novel “The Richest Man In Bablyon” and strategies for you to implement and be in control of your money in real estate and not the money in control of you.

A Part of all you earn is yours to keep.
The most powerful and most important message you read and hear from all experts in financial prosperity. “PAY YOURSELF FIRST.” Clason refers to this as “Starting thy purse to fattening” He uses the story of the humble egg merchant. If the egg merchant put ten eggs in his basket each morning and take out only nine by evening. Eventually what will happen? It will in time become overflowing. Or how about every ten coins you place in your purse you take out and use only nine. Your purse will fatten and soon will build increasing weight and bring you great satisfaction. Create a second account that is difficult to access and take that one egg, take that one coin and let it build and overflow over time. Just like this merchant you too create an account at a different bank and set up automated withdraw into this account, that can’t be readily accessed to build up your purse.
Control your expenditures.
“BUDGETING” – All men are burdened with more desires than they can gratify. We have this false idea we can gratify our every desire. Clason states there are limits to your strength, limits to the distance you may travel, limits to what you may eat and limits to the zest you may enjoy. The key to controlling your expenses is taking the time to really identify your fixed expenses and eliminate or minimize your non fixed expenses. Discipline yourself to live lean and mean. Pay yourself your fixed expense amount at beginning of the month. Review Constantly – identify habits; implement cost savings i.e. basic cable or even no cable. Apply the same principle to your business accounts.
Make your gold multiply.
“INVEST” – The greatest opportunity and wealth building strategy we all have is buying what we know… Stocks, Bonds, Mutual, Commodities, Mortgages, Rentals, Loans etc. Clason states a man’s wealth is not the coins he carries in his purse but it is the income he buildeth, the golden stream that continually flows into his purse and keeping it bulging. Amortization in wealth building is key… Example: Only $5,000 per year or $416 / month Invested. Over 10 years – at 5% becomes 66K at 15% becomes 116K… Over 20 years at 5% becomes 173K at 15% becomes 589K.
Guard your treasures from loss.
“INVEST WISELY, CONSERVATIVELY” – Start by investing small amounts and learn to protect and grow those first. Clason said every man is tempted by opportunities where it would seem he could make large sums by its investment in the most plausible projects. So often we are urged by friends or family to eagerly enter these high return investments. Remember the risk or penalty is probable loss. TIP – borrowing to invest. Ask your advisor for their personal net worth statement. WORDS OF WISDOM – Invest only where the principal is safe and where the principle may be reclaimed if needed and where you will not fail to collect a fair return. Consult with wise men. Secure their advice and let their wisdom protect your treasures.
Make of Thy Dwelling a Profitable Investment
“OWN A HOME” – To a man’s heart it brings gladness to eat the figs from his own trees and the grapes of his own vines. To own his own domicile and to have a place he is proud to care of and put confidence in his heart and reward behind his endeavors. Discipline yourself to pay this home off. Blessings to the man who owneth his own home. Greatly reduces his cost of living and making available more of his earnings to build his wealth.
Insure a Future Income
“SAVINGS” – It behooves a man to make preparation for a suitable income in the days to come, when he is no longer young and to make preparations for his family should he be no longer with them to comfort and support them. It is important you maintain savings and have funds put away for many different reasons. Health, emergency expenses, major financial setbacks or economic down turn. You will get old. You may get sick. You will die one day and you should be prepared. TIP – wills, insurance life & disability
Cultivate, Study & Learn
“BECOME A STUDENT” – Constantly improve yourself and become more skillful. Act on these principles and have the discipline to learn and implement them. Then begin to teach them to others including your own children. Clason reminds us “There is more gold in Babylon my students than you could dream of. There is abundance for us all.”

So there you have it, 7 powerful financial laws that made a difference with my control over money vs. the money having control over me. I challenge you to implement these strategies into your personal and professional lives and take control over the finances and win the money game.

Strength and courage,
Wade

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Can You Find Your Five?

kelowna on September 27, 2016

Hey! Do I have your attention?

I ask because as a society we have become more and more attention deficit. Our over scheduled, stimulated and overwhelmed culture is conditioning us to become more and more A.D.D. We are actually creating a phenomena called A.A.D.D. which is “Acquired Attention Deficit Disorder”. This is caused by our multi-tasking and allowing ourselves to be in constant digital distraction. These activities are literally rewiring our brain and creating a condition that some of us need to take medication to alleviate it.

As entrepreneurs and driven sales individuals we are especially susceptible to this and become victims of our own ambition and enthusiasm to try to get it all done to be a success in real estate. If you are like me, I honestly find myself thriving on being busy to my own determinate and like I want to feel highly in demand and highly productive but it is really just me being busy, being busy. I run out of time to do the actual difficult or scary work otherwise known as my vital work that is needed to push my results and goals in business and life.

So here is this week’s challenge… Finding your five.

Hone in on the 5 things that are crushing your creative capacity and robbing you of precious time you should be allocating towards your greater goals and potential. There are probably at least five things you have done over the past three days you probably shouldn’t have… stop right now and jot those 5 things down.

I find myself getting caught up in too much visiting in the office. Hard to control when is time and when is not the time.
Going for unproductive coffee meetings with my peers and just having coffee and not with one of my clients and deepening relationships.
Going for lunch and taking an extended lunch with office peers or eating by myself instead of a working lunch sometimes or having lunch with a client.
Constantly having a tough time not responding and reacting to my emails at work and not designated small blocks of time a day to respond or use an auto responder during working hours.
Getting sucked into social media and constantly checking in case I miss something on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and not really being productive.

Now find (at least!) five recurring tasks that are causing you to be busy at the sacrifice of being productive and jot those down as well. Find your five things you will vow to stop doing and either delegate or delete them permanently from your task list. Make this an ongoing challenge for you:
To prune your calendar more and more of the tasks, obligations and commitments you should not be allocating your precious time and creative ability toward.

My top 5 are:

Saying “yes” too much. Need to learn to say “no” more and limiting my schedule.
Too often putting others before myself and being the people pleaser.
Feeling guilty about not having all my time scheduled to being busy and not finding windows of time to just sit and “be” and take time to just think.
Not tracking and measuring throughout my day and how I spend my time daily if the tasks are important or unimportant? Are the tasks urgent or not urgent?
Staying focused and on task and being constantly distracted by something or someone really causes me to not get stuff done and important business just keeps piling up.

Take the time to think what are going to be your “un-fab” 5? Your un-fab 5 are the 5 things you are committing to doing daily that will help you focus better and be more productive and help manage your energy levels throughout the week.

My un-fab 5!

Small, short, specific times in the day for checking my emails and social media.
Being in the moment and being present with the people I am with at the time.
Putting my spouse and children first
Working on my faith and spirituality
Working on my exercise and eating right

So what 5 things are you going to delete or delegate from your list and/or your calendar for this week? Declare a few of them in the comments below!

Strength and courage,
Wade

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How Do I Schedule More Real Estate Appointments?

kelowna on September 21, 2016

We all know in real estate communication is everything and how we feel on the inside is what is coming out to people on the outside through your words, tone and energy. We all want the client to feel good when we communicate with them so it starts by us feeling good ourselves! You can’t be a lean mean appointment setting machine if you are someone who is sad, angry, depressed or totally stressed out on the inside because that is coming out in some way on the outside to the people you are communicating with.

So get right on the inside so you can be right on the outside and really attract, engage and make people feel good and feel like you are someone they really need to get together with! Let’s give you some more tips on becoming that appointment setting machine.

1. Know your customers pain and know their problems.

Examples: market conditions, past purchasing experiences. There are only two things in our lives that “move” people to take action and that is the avoidance of pain and the desire of pleasure. What are the buyers and sellers challenges? Fears? Frustrations? When you begin to share with the client about their pain they feel you really understand them and feel like you are in tune with them and want to connect with you and hear the solutions you can offer them.

2. Know your dialogues.

If you want to be good then you have to practice! The most in demand type of training in our industry today is role playing but it is the kind of training that is avoided the most and not practiced at all in our industry. I hear so many agents say “I hate scripts” “I don’t want to sound canned” Sorry but these are the same agents who don’t do high volume and are not great communicators in the industry and this just makes it easier on the rest of us. When you know what to say and how to say it, you can be more in tune to your customers’ needs.

3. Get to the point!

Example “I’m calling today to schedule an appointment…” I love the line “Why sell with blah blah blah when you can sell with blah?” or “If you don’t ask and get to the point then you don’t get!” So many times we find ourselves talking too much about “nothing” and actually forget to ask for the order or get to the point of the conversation. Have the courage to ask for the appointment and get to the point sooner than later. My favorite technique is the alternate choice close when you give the client two options for setting a time. “Would tomorrow at 2 pm be good or Friday at 1pm be better for you?”

4. Stand up when you are making appointments and keep your hands free of objects including when you are on the phone (use a head set). Your body controls your tonality and your emotional state. It is amazing when you stand and your hands are free and open what it does for you and your energy levels. People are engaged by your energy, passion and excitement and want to connect with you when you have that kind of enthusiasm. Standing keeps your body, breathing and mental state at a peak level and has a huge impact on your conversion rate for appointments.

5. On the phone = 20% effective sensory communication. You need to remember when you talk you are only engaging in one sense out of five. It is critical you speak clearly and slowly and be on point throughout the discussion. This is so important because you don’t have the non-verbal communication components now which make up the majority of communicating. They can’t see your body language, facial expressions, eye contact and hand gestures over the phone. All you have is your voice, tone and inflections to get the message across when trying to convert the appointment.

6. Get the fear out of the way with these 3 questions: For a lot of us it is uncomfortable talking to someone we just met so knowing what to ask and let them do the majority of the talking makes this part so much easier. Here are three excellent and engaging more dialog questions to get you past the fear and awkwardness of converting sales appointments.

1) What’s the worst case scenario?
2) What’s the most likely scenario?
3) What’s the best case scenario?

In addition to getting better at sales appointment conversion you also have to make sure you have the best environment possible for making those appointment calls so here are some great tips for creating the right environment for converting more appointments.

1. Appointment Tracker – Visual. Make it visual; think big appointment calendar.

2. Appointment Setting Shrine. Use a foam presentation board. Put pictures of your family, how much money you want to make, and even a mirror.

3. Eliminate All Distractions. Things like the voicemail light, messy desk, or having the Internet open in front of you can be distracting.

4. Stand Up Vs. Sit. You sound more confident on the phone when you are standing up versus sitting down.

5. Music. I like Van Morrison, but find something that works best for you.

6. Plant. Having a plant in your office can help improve your mood.

7. Get a good headset! I use a wireless Plantronics headset.

When you put together all these steps you can’t help but get better on appointment setting and remember, by removing the client’s fear it is easier for them to take action and for you to set appointments.

Here are some action steps for you to put this into reality.

1. Review this content daily.
2. Get your environment set for making appointments.
3. Practice the communication tips above.
4. Set those appointments!

Are you ready to take your appointment setting to the next level?

Strength and courage,
Wade

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One Idea That Will Transform Real Estate Agents Results

kelowna on September 14, 2016

We’ve all heard the old adage, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” or “don’t tell me, you need to show and sell me.” but rest assured these old adages hold so much truth for Realtors. Let me ask you this question. Do you tell when you sell or do you show? Do you use images, graphs, video, stats and even pad and pen when you work? You may have heard the story of Willy Sutton the famous bank robber and when they asked him why he robbed banks he smiled and said to them “that was where the money was”.

Imagine if Willy robbed those banks without a gun? By using a visual like a gun it gave him the results he was looking for. Studies reveal that human beings process visuals 60,000 times faster than text. This is precisely why social media outlets like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest are dominated by visuals. People today are busy and distracted.

As real estate sales professionals, we have seconds compared to minutes to convey a compelling message to help people make a decision in their best interest. And visuals – but not just any visuals as I will explain – allow us to do just this. I’ve seen thousands of beautifully designed listing, buyer and pricing presentations and thousands of not so beautiful listing, buyer and pricing presentations – both with equal ineffectiveness.

This is the first point I want to make — beauty alone will not transform your sales presentation results. Incorporating charts, graphs and high quality images into your sales presentation will help you communicate a message in far less time than text and even a conversation. However to harness the real power of visuals which is to influence and help people make a decision – you need to incorporate contrasting or comparative visuals that tell a compelling, almost shocking, story. Here are some classic examples on how to do exactly that:

Instead of telling them how many more homes you’ve sold than the average real estate agent: show them statistics, images or lists of all of your career home sales.
Instead of telling them you sell 92% of your listings– compare this to the board average and provide them with hard data so they have a perspective of what that really means.
Instead of just saying staging is important to getting a home sold: show them images of a home staged and not staged along with a story or testimonial of how staging impacted the clients home sale.
Instead of telling people you will do a good job for them: show them written and video testimonials of past clients experiences of what it was like to do business with you.
Instead of telling people about all the marketing you do: show them samples of your brochures, postcards, flyers, magazine ads and let them touch the samples.
Instead of telling them about your internet marketing strategies: show them all the different websites you use on your computer and what their home will display like.
Instead of telling them about your social media strategies: show them all the different social media channels on your phone, ipad or computer and how their home will display there.
Instead of telling them you use a text mobile lead capture system: show them a live demonstration on how the lead capture technology actually works right in their living room.

The list of opportunities where so many agents tell their clients and not show and sell their clients is endless. Implement this simple, yet powerful idea into your business more and let me know some of your ideas and experiences on how visuals have impacted your business like it did the famous bank robber Willy Sutton.

Strength and courage,
Wade

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Tips To Finishing Your Final 2016 Quarter Strong

kelowna on September 7, 2016

I don’t know about you but my summer seemed to just fly by and I cannot believe it is September 2016. We are beginning the last quarter of the year and for sales professionals there are only two outcomes.

Will you finish in the red, or in the black? Will you finish strong or miss your targets and goals? Winning near the end of a game, quarter or year is a trait of all the best sales people I’ve ever met. Closing out strong is primarily the effect of a consistent quarter, there are still a handful of things you can do to strike off checkboxes in the win column to finish Q 3 and your 2016 strong.

1. Be Direct – There’s no substitute for being pleasantly persistent and respectfully blunt. Get out there and be straightforward. Taking action and getting after it is a choice and work on the high quality leads and not the low quality leads. Ask yourself “If you were me, would you forecast this listing or buyer prospect to buy or sell this month or in the next 90 days?” Remember, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Being direct will help you get real with your buying and selling customers and align yourself with the true sales cycle. It might also enable you to pull out a quick win.

2. Be Effective – For more than two decades now I have heard from thousands of top producing agents and almost 60% of their business comes from repeat and referral business. Focusing first on the people we already know, like and trust is working effectively and efficiently in this business. If you don’t have enough people that know, like and trust you then get out there and “S.T.P. – See The People” If you have a list of relationships in place that have not “felt the love” then get out there and see them and find ways to add value to them. Give them a call, email, text, handwritten note, small gift or even a coffee and just watch and see what happens with your last quarter.

3. Be Face to Face – Sales is a contact sport and we need to be belly to belly. Anyone of us making a large buying decision needs to know the person we deal with is someone we like and can trust. The only way we can sense if we like or trust someone is meeting them in person. Commit to the final quarter on sales activities that are primarily face to face and belly to belly activities like Open house, door to door, kiosk, networking, office duty, coffee, lunch, pop by, volunteer, client appreciation event or convention. This is a relationships business so get out there to create and deepen those relationships.

4. Stack-Rank Your Prospects – We will never be able to manufacture more time, but we can manufacture more focus. I recommend looking at your pipeline and grading each opportunity on a scale of 1-4 with 4 being “highly closeable by the end of the quarter.” Then, focus your closing efforts on the 3’s and 4’s ONLY. You don’t have time to waste. If you don’t have enough 3 and 4 prospects in the funnel then take action and increase your marketing plan and daily prospecting, lead generation with planned marketing, activities that bring the level 3 and 4 prospects into your pipeline to finish Q3 strong.

5. Purge Your Pipeline – Almost every sales pro has them. They’re those big opportunities in the pipeline you’ve been working for months. The one deal that constantly disrupts your focus or the need to take action. The buyer or seller who is the time and energy vampire but you let them suck the life out of you because you don’t have anyone else to work with. Every time you think about punting them, you get a glimmer of hope from them. It’s time……Remove them!! They don’t deserve to be on your radar right now. Coming clean with yourself will open new vistas and invigorate you to add more productive opportunities to your pipeline.

6. Start Planning for Next Quarter – How much revenue do you plan to book next quarter? Exactly how many new deals do you need to earn that amount? Knowing exactly what you plan to earn acts like a magnet to attract business your way. Having this exact number also allows you to project your required activities into month one of the new quarter. If you’re accurately measuring your deal metrics, you’ll be able to predict with some certainty how many calls, emails, appointments, presentations or opportunities you’ll need to make it rain. Ask for a review by management. Knowing your numbers is one thing, but to positively affect the business, it’s equally vital to understand your “why”, purpose and goals and have someone hold you accountable to them.

Bonus Tips: What NOT to Do in the last Quarter

1. Do Not Bring on Bad Fitting Clients Just to Make your Numbers – Any client outside of your ideal customer profile will complicate servicing, produce a higher likelihood of churn or failure, and ultimately cost you more time and resources than it will be worth. Instead, focus on filling the pipeline with high quality leads for next quarter. It’s never too early to start filling the funnel.

2. Never Give Away More Than You’re Comfortable With – It’s just not worth it. You only have one reputation for your brand and offering, treat it respectfully. Concessions can quickly become a crutch that hides other issues. Sell on value, not on price. Don’t cut your commissions, offer cash backs or any other silly incentives.

The key to closing out your quarter strong is to keep up the momentum that got you to where you are now. If you’re struggling to meet your numbers, it’s a time to embrace new sales insights and start building effective rhythm. Take the last minute shots on goal listed above, but remember to always be thinking about the bigger picture: Your reputation is the product of your past actions. Sales that allow you to produce predictable revenue are the future. Finish the last quarter and your year strong. I dare you!!

Strength and courage,
Wade

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It’s Your Time

kelowna on August 31, 2016

I had the privilege of attending a mentor and friend Tom Ferry at his summit the past week and something just resonated from his event I just had to share. For more than two decades I have seen so much disbelief with agents about this industry. So many REALTORS are thinking and saying to themselves there has got to be some easier way to be more successful in the real estate business, but the reality is, if there was an easier way then myself or someone else would be selling it.

To put it bluntly, all this disbelief just creates a story in your head and all these stories end up creating fear and justify why you don’t as an agent exercise your greatness and get into your own greatness. So the question you need to ask ourselves is “can I commit to being the greatness I was created to be” and then commit to being all in with everything in your business and life?

Can I commit with no apology or not care about what other people think of me because what other people think of me does not pay my bills but what does pay my bills is me going out against me and being as ambitious as I can and exercising every day to getting into my greatness and swinging for the fences.

How many areas of your life are you stuck? How many big decisions are you sitting on that are causing you loss of quality time, greater income or freedom to be who you truly are, or go out and do the things you want to do? We get stuck in indecision and in that moment we are all trapped in fear. Being stuck in your head and when you are in your head you are dead and there is no power!

Try to remember a time in your career where you saw the fear but you acted anyway? We have all been there before when we said “I am going for it anyway” and acted. One of two things happen when we step out despite our fears…

We succeed. Remember these times often and spend some time reliving them and allowing yourself to enjoy the feelings of excitement, pride and accomplishment for your courage and power to take action. Recollecting these moments remind you that you have what it takes to once again step out through your fears in the here and now.
We don’t succeed or we get shut down or rejected. In these moments it’s important to see although our plan maybe didn’t carry out as hoped we still succeeded in overcoming our fear and stepping into our power which is a huge success regardless how the plan turned out. Keep telling yourself unconsciously “I did it” and put yourself out there, took a little risk and that compound effect of putting yourself out there over and over again will bring you to the place where you wake up one day and you’re fearless!

The decision starts now. In the moment you decide to be fearless is when everything really starts and you begin working that muscle by making small (yet powerful) adjustments to your life and to your business. That muscle begins to get stronger and you become more confident to the point where you say to yourself “wait a minute… had I known this I would have made this decision a long time ago.”

This is your life, this is your time, you need to decide if you are going to choose to continue living in fear and in your head or are am you going to step up and be fearless and make that life altering choice? The decision is yours!

Strength and courage,
Wade

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Mastery

kelowna on August 24, 2016

Definition: mas·ter·y, noun 1. Comprehensive knowledge or skill in a subject or accomplishment.

I had the privilege and honor to spend two amazing days with a mentor and good friend of mine Richard Robbins recently at his “Secrets of the Masters” event. The event focused around the business fundamentals of real estate that work in any economy and market but more importantly what it means to be a master of your craft and the value you bring to the marketplace is what you get back in your income. There are six key areas in business and in life we all are striving to the level of Mastery.

1) Life Mastery – The ability to see things as we would like them to be, not just as they are today. Having the future focus ability of focusing our thoughts on what we intend to create in our future business and life. We are empowered, motivated and inspired to take action that will move us all in the direction of our goals and dreams. The future is where you spend the rest of your life and without a clear vision we repeat and live in our past. Hope of a better future inspires us to take consistent action toward achieving our goals. “Create a life that feels good on the inside, not just one that looks good on the outside.”

2) Lead Generation Mastery – The number one reason most agents and their business fails is their inability to generate new business on a consistent basis. Mastering lead generation is key to our success in real estate. We generate leads from only two groups in our lives. The people we know and the people we don’t know. Customers we don’t know are elusive, demanding and believe they know more than you do. “All things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to, those people they know, like and trust.” Bob Burg

3) Sales Mastery – Having the sales skills is important in any market or economy. Knowing what to say and how to say it is so important to any agents success. Change your words and you change your worth in sales. Sales is your ability to influence other people and the greater the influence the greater the success. You cannot make this business on personality alone but you need to practice and desire improvement. Will Smith said others may have had more natural talent but nobody had the sickening work ethic I had. “As soon as you stop wanting to be taught, mentored and coached you are in trouble.” Peyton Manning.

4) Planning Mastery – There are 5 simple planning secrets in real estate and in life.

1) Adjust your income to your dreams and not your dreams to your income. Budget for the life you want to live.

2) Make the big numbers small. Break everything down to the minimum. How do you eat an elephant? One small bite at a time.

3) Track the past to predict the future. Track your sources, return on investment, what works, what doesn’t work and set goals based on the numbers you measure.

4) Create a budget at home and at work. Know what it costs to run your business and your life and stay within those budgets.

5) Have a plan in advance for your sales and marketing. Who, what, when, where and how you are going to market to for the week, month and year and follow it!

5) Financial Mastery – When income from invested assets (not business income) exceeds your living expenses projected out over time, you are said to be financially independent or financially free as some call it. Financial dependence is when you do not have enough investment income to sustain your lifestyle. Learn to master your money and not let money master you. Have the discipline to be the money manager you want to be and to grow your wealth and become financially free!

6) Self-Mastery – How are you feeling mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually? Do you have work, life balance? Do you delegate and systemize and leverage your time and energy with something else or someone else? If we are not good then how can we be good for others. Og Mandino said the world’s greatest miracle is “you”. Do you believe you are the world’s greatest miracle or treating yourself like you are.

So there you have it the six areas of mastery in business and life. Take a bit of time each day to work in each of these areas and begin to master your business and life. Become that person the market truly values for what they have to offer and put out. I dare you to get out of your head and into your greatness!

Strength and courage,
Wade

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10 Traits Of Top Producing Agents That Require No Talent!

kelowna on August 17, 2016

I came across this fantastic photo on LinkedIn a week or two ago by Jonathan Tallinger and had to make it my theme for this week’s AgentsBoost post. So what are the top traits of a top producing agent that do not require talent and set you apart from your competition you ask? Let’s take a look at these killer traits in no particular order.

10 Traits of Top Producing Real Estate Agents

1) Be On Time – My family actually tells me I am a bit obsessed about this trait. One of my biggest pet peeves is that by being late a person is sending a message that their time is more important than the other parties time. This really is the message we send when we are late and how does that make us feel when someone takes the liberty to waste OUR precious time? I loved the time we were having friends over for dinner and sitting out on our back deck enjoying a nice dinner and my son who was only about 8 or 9 years old at the time is enjoying his meal and he blurts out to our guests “You’re late! My dad hates it when people are late.” We all awkwardly laughed it off but I smiled inside that I am able to teach my children something while I am here.

2) Work Ethic – I have to credit my own Mom for this one. She is the hardest working person I know and seems to never stop from sun up to sun down. You either have it and you are always working hard at everything you do or you don’t have it and you are always living your life just cruising along. Work ethic is a choice for us all and we all know what you put in is what you get out!

3) Effort – One of my favorite sayings is “How you do anything is how you do everything!” It is by our efforts in life and what we do on the outside and how we do things and show people our true character. Are you all in? Are you all in sometimes when it’s good for you? I am always reminding myself that my efforts and how I do anything shows everyone my true character and how I do everything in life. We are all creatures of habit but old habits can be broken and new ones can be created so it’s never too late to change!

4) Body Language – 86% of all communication is non-verbal. How we stand, sit, smile, walk and physically move through life sends so many different messages to so many people without us even thinking about it. We have all heard the saying “Are you happy? Then let your face know it!” Tony Robbins was the greatest mentor to me and how we all have the power to change anything by changing your state! Move, Jump, laugh, cheer, smile, yell and dance changes the way we feel about ourselves and the way others will see you as well!

5) Energy – The most important trait of a successful person is not time management but more importantly energy management. I hear people say it all the time “your energy is infectious”. How do you keep yourself so energized? Maintaining a peak state attracts others to you and attracts success and good things. Your energy and passion trump all in life and knowing how to intentionally maintain energy and passion is key to your success. Don’t think I don’t hit a wall, burn out or run my tank to empty. I do things to get me back on point and intentionally reload the tank to deliver the energy and passion for others.

6) Attitude – Do you see the glass half empty or do you see the glass half full? We all have the choice and the power to choose our attitude. We can choose to make it a great day or make it a bad day and we all get to decide. Having the awareness to check our attitude and have a healthy perspective in life is key to success. It is one of the biggest challenges in life is choosing to see the positive and opportunity in everything. It is there and I force myself or surround myself with mentors to remind me and keep me on point to maintain a positive attitude in life and in business.

7) Passion – My wife says “I wish I was a Montreal Canadian or a Real Estate deal” because you love them both more than anything in the world. I choose to live for the experience in life and to enjoy my journey in life. I have been blessed to find a career I can’t get enough of. We all deserve to do what we love and what ignites our inner passion and I encourage everyone to find those things like coaching, speaking, travel, hockey, golf, fishing, family, friends and real estate to ignite the fire within you and give you the passion to live!

8) Being Coachable – I have been a student for my whole life. Full disclosure… maybe not the best student during my high school days, whoops! One of the greatest traits of successful people is their hunger to learn, their humbleness to be coached and constantly growing themselves and seeing their income and success grow as they grow. We all need to be mentored and should be a mentor to others. I have been fortunate to have so many incredible mentors in my life and each of them have contributed to my success and now my passion is to share it all and give it all back!

9) Doing Extra – Are you meeting someone’s expectations? Are you always exceeding someone’s expectations? The trait of always doing more than what is asked of you is a powerful trait in all successful people. I am always trying to deliver the unexpected to others and constantly wow and awe people by delivering so much more than they expected. Don’t be recommended in life but be insisted in life and believe me there is a difference and it comes from doing extra in anything you do!

10) Being Prepared – Finally the last but still incredibly important trait of all successful people is they are prepared. Are you winging it? Are you taking the time to be incredibly prepared? Like being late the trait of being prepared is now different. We send a message to people, their time and what we are doing for them if not prepared is really not important to us. People can tell if we are prepared and can tell if we respect them and their time. Don’t be the person who wings everything and flies from the seat of their pants. Be prepared and be respectful in everything you do in business and life.

So there you have it the 10 powerful characteristics and traits of the most successful agents in our business and what they do to make them so successful. None of these traits or characteristics require any god given talent but simply a decision, desire and ability to live and take action with them all. I challenge each and every one of us to display these traits somewhere prominent like your screen saver on your phone, the bathroom mirror of even the fridge door and remind yourself of what you want to strive for in business and life.

Strength and courage,
Wade

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