CORE
Rules for CORE Agents #3: Everyone Moves Eventually
So you’re at an open house. You schlep over to the corner, put up your signs, tie up some ballons. You tidy up, set out your show sheets, and stand expectantly at the entrance waiting, hoping, PRAYING that someone will visit, staring at the door like a sad puppy waiting for his master to come…
Read MoreRules for CORE Agents #2: Everyone Needs a Real Estate Agent
Most people mistakenly think they only need real estate agents when they are buying or selling a home. They’re wrong, obviously. People need real estate agents ALL THE TIME. They need agents when they’re thinking of putting an addition on their home, and want to know whether it’s a good investment. They need agents when…
Read MoreRules for CORE Agents #1: Find Out What People Need, and Give it to Them
Over the next few months, I’m going to be setting out what I call the “36-1/2 Rules for Client-Oriented Real Estate Agents,” a collection of short takes on the CORE concept that I’ve developed over the years of discussing and teaching the system. We’ll count up to the 36th rule over the next few months,…
Read MoreIntroduction: 36-1/2 Rules for Client-Oriented Real Estate Agents — Stop Thinking Like a Salesperson
Over the next few months, I’m going to be setting out what I call the “36-1/2 Rules for Client-Oriented Real Estate Agents,” a collection of short takes on the CORE concept that I’ve developed over the years of discussing and teaching the system. We’ll count up to the 36th rule over the next few months,…
Read MoreBook Review: Michael E. Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
The E-Myth books are highly recommended by a lot of other business authors, and by a number of business people I have met. I found The E-Myth Revisited to be very flabby – lots of good insights throughout, but woven around a series of stories and staccato imprecations that made the book a tougher read…
Read MoreWhy Most Real Estate Agents Fail
According to the National Association of Realtors 2009 Member Profile, the average real estate sales associate in 2009 made about $27,000. That’s the average, meaning that for every top producer putting $200,000 or $300,000 in his or her pocket, there are a dozen agents making basically minimum wage. Put it this way: a receptionist in…
Read MoreClient-Oriented Real Estate in Action: The Guide to Grieving Your Property Taxes
The cornerstone of the CORE philosophy is that real estate agents should perform outstanding non-transactional services to their clients. We call these “courtesy services,” because they’re not necessarily services that relate to actual transactions — meaning that we’re not going to be directly compensated for them. But at the same time, they have the potential…
Read MoreBook Review: Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right — Achieving Operational Excellence in the Real Estate Industry
Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto is a powerful book, one of the best and simplest articulations of how to achieve operational excellence that I have ever read. Gawande’s message is simple: the world has become increasingly complex, and we need to actively create systems and processes that will simplify the tasks that we have to…
Read MoreWhat's the Best Way to Build Marketshare? Make Your Clients Happy.
I was asked to speak on a panel this week at the RIS Social Media Summit in New York, with several other brokers about how to generate marketshare in a competitive market. It was a great panel, moderated by the peerless Allan Dalton of RIS Media and Top 5 In Real Estate, and I tried…
Read MoreFive Things to Stop Doing in 2010
This past week, I gave a presentation at the Inman Connect Conference in New York with the great Steve Harney on “10 Things” real estate agents should do in 2010. My feeling was that agents are already doing too much, so I decided to talk about five things that agents should STOP doing. Given that…
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