Sam started his sales career selling vacuum cleaners door to door. With nowhere to hide, he learnt the power of persistence and confronting the fear of cold call selling, which has set him up for a super successful career in real estate.
His overall advice? Have a process. Learn the process. Follow the process.
Set and reach your goals.
Tip 1: Continually learn and develop your knowledge.
Sam constantly listens to podcasts and built his foundations listening to Lee Woodward, John McGrath and Think and Grow Rich. By doing so he brainwashed himself into becoming a top performing agent.
Tip 2: Visualise your goals
Sam visualises his future. When letterbox dropping, he imagines the For Sale sign on the property, when the sign is up, he visualises the SOLD sticker over the top, and when he was entering the office in the early days, he’d visualise the day it was his office.
Tip 3: Set your goals. Write them down. Go for them.
Each year set a goal (or a series of goals) that’s a stretch. In doing so, you plant the seed and you’ll be amazed at how often you’ll reach what you thought was unreachable.
Move the needle forward and celebrate the progress to the goals rather than beat yourself up if you don’t get there right away. You may not reach all your goals in the timeframe you set, but each day you will move closer and you will get there.
Tip 4: Know your numbers and your strike rate.
Don’t exaggerate it. Know how many appraisals convert to a listing, know where your appraisals come from, and strip it back to the basics. You can then use these number to reverse engineer what you need to do to reach your goals.
Tip 5: Set a reward for yourself.
Make sure you have a personal incentive for yourself and reward yourself for reaching your goals.
Sam’s prospecting tips
It’s not about the listing today. It’s about building the connections and database for the future.
It’s all about habits and work ethic. Sam put 10 years’ worth of prospecting into his first 3 years of real estate.
When he started out, he picked a niche area, completed a letterbox drop, then systematically called the streets he had dropped to. Taking the assumptive, he’d say “Hi, you would have seen a flyer in your letterbox. I’ve had some of your neighbours call for an appraisal and I’ll be in the area next week. Would you like me to pop in when I’m there?” If he got a “no thank you,” he’d follow up with a request to send them a market report and get their email.
He’d also hone in on properties that he saw another agent couldn’t sell and approached the vendor to list with him.
It’s all about momentum.
Now, after 10 years, building his name and personal brand, the momentum has shifted.
Today, it’s more about attraction and heavily based on social media. His property marketing, open homes, auctions and service are all world class. People now seek Sam and his team out to sell their property.
So what’s world class? It’s more about mindset than execution, creating an impeccable first impression and experience. Sam uses the 4 pillars – looks good, feels good, sounds good, smells good. The homes a flawlessly presented, and agents are well presented and welcome visitors with a smile and a friendly, warm greeting.
Auction vs Private Treaty?
“They are private treaty up to the auction day.”
Even when running an auction campaign, the house is for sale from the get-go. If the right buyer, right price and right conditions align before auction, they will sell.
If it passes in at auction, they then list with a price to get a sale and negotiate with the registered bidders.
Dan’s tip – the 1% of your greeting. A positive, friendly inflection in your tone can instantly warm up a cold call.
Sam’s Listing Tips, step by step.
- It starts at the first conversation.
- Mental image of money in the bank – adding value to his ability to list the property, and each touch point runs down the balance, so all have to count.
- Gratitude email or message – saying thanks to opportunity, confirm the appointment, and send a link to their digital listing kit.
- Pre meeting – send a confirmation, looking forward to meeting, and send a valuable piece of information (such as a recent sale in the area of relevance).
- In the appointment, have a structure and agenda, but don’t let it override what the vendor needs from the meeting.
- FORD – family, occupation, recreation, dreams. Talk to things that matter to them to build instant rapport.
- Match the vendors energy.
- Remember – they are looking for the person they connect with the most. They need to believe you and feel you’re the one to get the outcome they want.
- If there’s 2 people at the listing appointment, find out what’s important to them both. Make sure you ask both of them the same questions, so you’re covering their full agenda and both their needs.
- Listen, and confirm what you’ve heard. If you’re unsure or it’s abstract, ask them exactly what they mean.
- Don’t leave without a listing or a second appointment (if the listing isn’t secured).