Mike Kranz Group Call - ahas from Family Reunion
Today we discussed, inspired by Keller Williams Family Reunion:
Getting back to basics - focusing on mastery of what we are doing.
Giving up on control and perfection, when hiring and leading people.
Using our Unique Value Proposition to stand out when winning listings (and anything else in life.....)
Here's a link to the VISION speech for those of you who could not attend.
1. Wow, what a broad topic here. Jessica Estrada from Florida mentioned Making Peace with the Boredom of Mastery.
Many of us operating at a high level, can lose sight of the need (and often boredom) of doing the same thing in a repetitive fashion.
Jessica started a scripting group in her office. At 8.30am, 10 people get together and master their scripts every morning. She also keeps her prospecting time blocks every day. The scripting has made her more comfortable in most prospecting conversations, as well as her scripts for hiring people, as she is in the process of building a team. At Family Reunion, Jessica loved Ben Kinney's suggestion on a script, to call sphere and ask what their real estate plans are for the year, as you are making vacation plans.
Mind blowing? No. It doesn't have to be. Mastering something and sticking it at it, and measuring its effects for a period of time, will bring you great results. An average agent can win business faster than a talented agent, if the average agent has a great work ethic - and perhaps - even more importantly, tenacity and grit.
Will Frederick
Will is building a team, and experienced his 3rd Family Reunion. His 'aha' was working on tweaking and tightening what he has. We all hear a lot of the same things over and over, and if you are anything like me, you'll need to hear it a few times before the light bulb goes on.
We discussed how we are not necessarily wired to do the day-to-day management of a transaction, or general administration in real estate.
We are hunters
We are hunters - cavemen and cavewomen. Searching for a BISON. We stalk the bison. We kill the bison. Are we interested in the bison anymore, or do we want to hunt another bison? Who is going to come behind you and carry the bison back to the village? Who will prep it for the banquet? Who will save the leftovers in the cave so you can eat next month when the bison aren't around?
Control Freakism
What about our need for control? Many of us are control freaks. We think that no one can do it as well, or as fast as we can. The truth is, if you have the right person, they can do it better than you can. However, that answer may not be palatable to many of you, or may raise many other questions, so let me phrase it another way.
Does that person do it 80% as well as you do? If so, how many more bison could you catch, if you let them get on with their job? Why are they asking the same questions over and over? Is it something you can help with, perhaps by making a document named 'frequently asked questions' that you add your answer to each time? Perhaps you add a video using If you already have an operations manual, you could answer it there. Use a screen recorder if it is screen based, such as this one. Now you can take back ownership of much of your time.
You can do a similar thing with buyers and sellers. At the very basic level, create two google docs, one labeled 'Buying a home: Frequently Asked Questions' and another similar version for the sellers. Every time you are asked a question by a buyer or seller, slow down for 5 minutes and capture them on your sheet. Once you have a dozen questions on there, make a link at the bottom of your email 'FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS' - and link your doc to it. You can easily do this with a google doc by hitting file/share/view only. If you know how to add it to your website, even better! Imagine how you can use this when you have a buyer on the phone, as well as how your buyer agents - when you hire them - can use it. Imagine how you can leverage it on your websites / blogs and social media.
Think about what you LOVE and what you LOATHE. Write down the tasks and LIVE on the LEFT. You can use this for tasks. Do the same exercise for people. Remember, figure out how to leverage through people and systems, the things you prefer not to do. Limit your exposure to the people who drain your energy.
Leverage your hard work
Think about it as leveraging your hard work, that you are already doing. Showing a great home, that your buyers are not so interested in? Make a quick video, or write a few lines, and send it out to your pipeline of buyers. Keep answering the same questions for buyers and sellers, in long beautiful emails? This informs one person, whereas capturing that information allows you to leverage it to a much wider audience.
Unique Value Proposition
On a similar note, think about how to further develop your Unique Value Proposition. Imagine you are one of 4 KW agents standing outside of a home. The sellers are giving you a few minutes each to answer "why you".
What is different about how I offer my services?
What marketing programs do I run that (most) others do not?
What customer problems am I solving?
What do customers and clients expect as a ‘given’, for example, better communication?
While many may already hold the answers to the above questions, I’ve noticed that agents tend to hold on to information they’ve amassed through their training and experiences; very often, the information simply remains between their ears. Why? Perhaps this happens because in this way, they feel they can hold onto the power that information provides, and very often they only share that ‘power’ face-to-face, and usually on a one-on-one basis, for example, in a client consultation meeting or on the phone with them.
Are you sharing 'givens'?
Givens are not a Unique Value Proposition. So often they are presented as such.
‘Givens’ are the steps that your clients expect you to take.
When I gather a group of agents and discuss and ask for examples that they present as their Unique Value Proposition, the list usually outlines their Customer Service and the Quality of their offerings. For example, when agents are asked what they put forth at a listing presentation, they often develop a list along these lines:
Place the listing on the MLS within 24 hours
Price it properly
Great looking sign in the yard
Secure Lockbox on the door
Take good photos
Advertise in a real estate magazine
Advertise the listing on websites
Negotiate better
Communicate more often
Recommend staging the home These are known as ‘givens’. They are important aspects of how we do our business, however, it’s expected that we will offer these services. What’s more, most agents do offer them. They are not a point of differentiation. Customers expect going rates, reasonable levels of service and professionalism.
Once you have what you think is a strong value proposition, run it through my test - Can 80% of other agents offer this? If the answer is yes, go back to the drawing board. If it is 'no', does it pass the 'so what' test? Do you customers really care about this proposition or offer?
What did I miss from the call? Add your comments below:
