Category Archives: Communication

Communication

Strange place where inspirations come from….

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It is our choices…that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. – J. K. Rowling

Was the quote I thought of this morning after a email conversation with an Real Estate Agent from Alabama who truly has not fully read an email reply I had send her this morning.

How many times have we caught ourselves reading a portion of an emails, making assumptions on what the rest of the email will tell us, jumping to, possible the wrong, conclusions and after reading an email again, but this time in full, we were glad not to replied in haste and making a full out of our self’s?

I have caught myself several times. It happens especially when I have an email to read that is the length of a novel.

I had to go back several time to read it over and over again to understand the full meaning of what the author was trying to tell me. Sometimes I had to break the email down into small bit size pieces to make since of it.

Note of self;

When writing an email. Keep is short, sweet and to the point.

When reading lengthy emails, take your time and maybe ready it more than once. You might either miss something or misunderstand something.

Communication, tips

Voicing an option on line; is all in how you verbalize it

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With most of us being part of many online social networks, or having a personal blog’s it has become very easy to voice an option.

 

In a recent survey of the top College admission counselors it was announced that the country’s top 500 colleges were using social networking sites, such as Facebook or MySpace, as part of the admissions process research.

 

Looking into other fascias of work; many HR departments, and recruiters for any type of employment are more and more looking to the internet about postings an applicant has posted before they make the first initial call for an interview. Employers do look you up & judge you based on what you & your friends discuss & post. Also now many Background Checks Now Include Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites you are subscribing to.

 

When I am being interviewed by potential clients I ask them to please check out all of the agents, they are interviewing, online postings and make this part of the decision making process when picking an agent to work with.

 

Many times when you find that when an agent posts derogatory information about a past client (with full name or company information) once, the change is GREAT that they will do it again……

 

What is your personal BLOG, a message board posting of any kind or social network posting telling them about you?

 

Sure…post when you have an opinion about something, but it is all in the verbiage and how you say it.

Communication, tips

……..emails with Tiger tails…..

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In today’s times we are all connected to the internet at least 80% of the time through phones of all kinds, laptop, notebooks or the desk top. 

Many of us are sending out emails, blogs, newsletters, and twitter sharing info between us left and right. I think it is great…

I am with all of you right in the middle of this great communication age. I have noticed one huge downfall many of the recipients of any message are facing and this could be a great deal buster when you are in business of making money.

Bounce backs

I love to call theses ……..emails with Tiger tails…..

How many of you will receive a call from your clients, customers, or vendors letting you know that your inbox is full?

How many of your receive a call from your clients, customers, or vendors letting you know that you are not receiving emails due to prolong inactivity of your account?

……..most likely not very many of you! The scary part is when you do receive a call, how many of the clients, vendors, or customers have moved on to another service person not knowing whether or not you are still in business.

This happens a lot when you have one of the FREE email accounts. I have addressed the FREE email accounts in one of my past blogs “Is your email address as professional as you are?”. Many these accounts have very limited storage space and will fill up very quickly when you are not deleting past messages.

Here are some quick and simple tips to make certain you are keeping your inbox clean:

  • When you forward your email make certain that all of your attached email accounts are kept clean, up–to-date and active.
  • Respond and act on the email within a reasonable time and then just delete it.
  • When you need to keep the email, print it to file as a pdf or print out a hard copy.
Communication, tips

Is your email address as professional as you are?

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You are one of the many Professionals in this country competing for the business of a few. You have spent days or weeks to create your logo. You have pondered many hours over your stationary. You took a long time to create your business cards layout.

Now how much total time did you spend as you picked your e-mail address?

As a Professional, we are relying on our email to keep us informed, such as in front of potential clients with the Blogs’ we are sending out, and to help us market ourselves and services.

Our email is our doorway to the world and one of our main sources of contact to our clients, customers, vendors and others we communicate with on a daily basis.

In many cases a FREE email provider is used to set-up the email account with names that really never should be used as a professional communication tool. The email address is describing something that is not even is part of the business that is being advertised in the Blog or other communications.

When you use any of the FREE email providers, who are you advertising for, since their name is also in the address?

It is just like the car/truck Dealership sticker on the cars/trucks….how much is the dealership paying the car owner to have their advertising on the car?

There are so many great, very reasonable priced web hosts out on the internet, which you can register a professional website for very little money that will offer you email services with your new websites address.

Communication, Short sale, Team work, tips

Could you sometimes disclose information you should not disclose?

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Be honest with yourself.

 

When we as Real Estate Agents work with home sellers we need to disclose, by State and Federal Law, certain information about our sellers. How many times have you gone a step above and disclosed more then you really should?

 

Then have you ever thought of who you give any of this information to?

 

I don’t mean to outside agents that are showing the home and bring offers. This ruling includes to your internal staff as well. Did you realize that when you disclose any vital information, that you are not suppose to disclose, to an internal party that is part of your office but not part of any contract, like an administrative assistant or during a office meeting, you might be in violation of the federal disclosure rulings (privacy law)?

 

This is especially true when you are dealing with a lot of short sale or pre-foreclosure properties. Mortgage companies are not very keen on revealing information to a third party who has not been given an authorization to discuss the homeowners’ information and there is a reason for that.

 

Let me ask you just one question;

 

When you would be in the homeowners shoes, and you entrusted your personal information to someone you thought can help you. Would you want them to discuss your information with every person in the office including personal who might be your neighbor or a friend of a friend?

 

Think about it…..

commitment, Communication, planning

Do you recognize a prospect ….when you see one?

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This is a loaded question…I know, but I just had to finally put it on paper.

When you are given a possible contact name and number of a person that is interested in what you have to offer do you truly follow up with this person?

 

Be honest ………..

 

Every time …most of the time ….or occasionally?

Experience has taught me that about:

95% of the receptions are very eager to talk to the person.

55% take time to make the first initial contact over the phone or email with in 24 hours

30% will talk to the person during a one on one meeting only once

6% will close the deal

1% will keep of following up with the referral, prospect

The rest will just fall through the crack and never will be farmed or followed up on even after the first initial contact.  Talking with one of my investor Friends who uses his FSBO approach to weed out unproductive Agents has confirmed what I already know.

By now the 80/20 rule no longer exists…it is more like 10/90 or 5/95 at best.

commitment, Communication, planning

Building relationship and Follow-Up

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I have been quite for a while and world watch out. …….I am recharged.

……so you subscribed to a lead generating program and they are sending you homeowners to contact.

You make your first initial contact, left your info, and you wait….and wait ….and wait…

….I hate to tell you; just with one visit most of the owners will not call you. On the average it takes up to 5 personal visits before an owner will either open the door or call you back.

One of my great friends and Real Estate investors has made it a sport in weeding out the “fly-by-night Real Estate Agents” (his words not mine). He advertises his properties as FSBO when he is looking for an agent to sell his home in states other than mine.  He does not call any agent back unless he has heard from the agent in some form or fashion at least 5 or more times.

He gave me the following percentages from tracking the Agent’s activity over the last 10 years:

 

40% of the agents will not call or contact him for a second time

30% will contact him at least twice

20% will contact him at least 3 times and give up

9% will contact him 4 times and give up and

1% of the original agents who contacted him will contact him 5 or more times

 

He told me that it did not matter how the market was doing. When the market was good, bad, or ugly the average numbers were the same.

 

Sobering numbers? ….I think so.

commitment, Communication, Team work

“You can not always control circumstances, but you can control your own thoughts.”

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This quote from Charles Popplestown came to mind as I received a very long email from a possible Real Estate recruit, that in detail explained to me why she hates doing certain tasks in her current function and why she thinks she will not doing them later.

 

Do you know who your customers are and where do they come from?

 

It is easy for all of us to complain about this or that, him or her. It is so much harder to look at the problem and offer a solution and when a company is recruiting, that is exactly what they are looking for.

Most of the time when a company is hiring they are faced with an opportunity that has not been solved and they are now looking for the solution externally.

 

In our business we strive for referrals and for the referral business. Before we receive the referral business we have to earn it. Referrals and the referral business do not come without hard work, dedication, and offering of solutions to our current customers and clients.

 

This does not only hold true in the world of our business, this is true for all types of jobs and employment.

 

Be the solution to an issue and don’t become the issue and when you have an issue offer a solution.

commitment, Communication, organizing, planning, Team work

Can your client count on you?

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…..how many times have you told your client that you will have something to them by a certain date and you did not deliver?

…..how many times did you promise to call back by a certain date and you did not make the call?

……how often did you set time for a F2F meeting and you where late, even for 5 minutes?

…… how often did you miss a deadline, even less than a day?

…..how often do you read your emails only to be told that no one can email you because your inbox is full and no longer can accept emails?

….how often do you miss listening and clearing your phone voice mails only to be told that on one can leave a message because your voice mail box tells the caller your voice mail box is full and no longer can accept messages?

Sounds familiar?…..No……are you sure?

None of us are perfect……..a few will accept the opportunity that is given to them, tell on themselves and strive to make changes and adjustments.

 Where to start?

….recognize you overextended yourself and notify early. Don’t have it called out on you

….don’t make excuses. Own up to it.

commitment, Communication, Team work, tips

Are you truly listening…………..?

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I had several situations this week that made me think…..are we truly listening to the person who is talking with us on the phone or who is talking with you right in front of you?

 

With our busy life and work we all try to multi task and sometimes we forget to focus on what is important right at this moment.

 

…..have you ever had the situation that you where talking to a person, maybe at a meeting, and they checked their phone for messages during you conversation with them and not even ten minutes later they asked a question that you had covered with them not even ten minutes ago?

 

…..or where you ever in a restaurant ordering food and the server wrote down your order but had side conversations while taking your order and as you received your order, it was not correct?

 

….or have you ever been given a message from an email or phone that someone else took for you while you were out and as you followed up with the message it was not what the messenger told you or assumed  it was?

 

Things like this happen more and more often. We trying to do too many things at once might be the culprit. The more we try to do at once the less we accomplish and create re-work for ourselves and others.

 

Here some ideas to make certain that the person you are talking with understands and has listed to you.

 

On the phone:

 

  • Ask them open ended questions about what you just presented
  • Ask the person to paraphrase the information what you just told them
  • Find out if there are in the car talking with you, when they are, reschedule the conversation to a time when they are not driving or being driven. Cell servicer in some areas is not 100% and important parts of a conversation could be missed
  • Send an email with all of the discussion points and ask them if there are any more questions about the task at hand and ask an open ended question to make certain it was understood and they have to reply.
  • When they put you on hold during your phone conversation, reschedule the conversation after they return to your call.

 

When it is a face to face meeting;

 

  • Ask them to please put the phone down
  • Do not sit behind the desk, use a more casual conversation group

 

When it was an email message that was taken for you

 

  • Ask to have the original email forwarded to you
  • When something is unclear contact the original sender to clarify

 

Politeness is the art of choosing among one’s real thoughts.  ~Abel Stevens