To create the foundation of a successful real estate business, you need to focus on the three L’s: leads, listings, and leverage.
My original mentor in real estate, Gary Keller, wrote a book called “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent,” in which he describes a triangle of success. In that triangle, each side represents one of the three L’s: leads, listings, and leverage. At the center of this triangle is your value proposition. Once you find your value proposition, your next step is to build your business around the three L’s, and here’s how.
Leads: As Gary said, “Lead generation comes first, it comes last, and it comes always.” Gary also said that real estate is a contact sport, so agents should be prospecting-based and marketing-enhanced. Protect your daily lead generation time blocks—I recommend no less than three hours a day. I also recommend lead generating first thing in the morning while your willpower is still on will call. Also, try using scripts—I recommend role-playing scripts or real-playing scripts each day, every day, for the rest of your career.
Also, learn to make effective offers for immediate response. On the Stern Team, we call these “MOFIRs” (make offer for immediate response). They’re great for following up and getting an appointment. Start tracking your lead sources and your conversion rates and be sure to hold actions accountable to your results. Goals are dictators of actions.
“Find your value proposition and build your business around it.”
Listings: Setting serious goals for listing appointments and being accountable to these goals is paramount. For example, setting two to two-and-a-half appointments per day, five days a week, with a 75% conversion rate puts an agent on the path toward earning $1 million. Know the minimum number of listings you’ll need to hit your income goals you set forth in the one-page business strategy coaching video. Be accountable for hitting your minimum goals; raise your sales price if you need to be more effective. Implement a systematic marketing and servicing plan for your listings and consistently market seller leads for more listings. Get sellers to accept the specialist concept for those who are running teams now or in the future.
Leverage: There are two types of leverage—systems leverage and people leverage. To create people leverage, hire the right people the first time around. At Keller Williams, they teach a career visioning class that I think should be taken at least twice a year, every year, for the rest of your career. Learning to hire the right person and place them on the right seat on the right bus going in the right direction is something you need help with, so follow a lead generation plan and a follow-up recruiting process. Use compensation and opportunity as a competitive weapon. Hire unproven or emerging talent. Implement a 90-day action-and-results training program for your new hires.
So many agents are ill-equipped for this that they tend to hire and let the talent learn for themselves. Well, guess what? World-class onboarding and training processes is a must for talent if you want that talent to stay with you. Use the 1-3-5 (or GPS) plan and then use the 411 plan to create accountability with your new team member on a weekly basis. Finally, remember to topgrade and build a bench as you go.
The circle around the triangle is service, and service is key if you want to stay in business for the long haul. Exceptional service should be a given in this day and age. You should be servicing your clients to the point where they heartily refer you to everyone they know. When you close a transaction, remember—you don’t run away from your client, you run toward them. If you turn this triangle upside down with creativity, you’ll only get instability. This model will absolutely stand the test of time.
As always, if you have any questions about this topic or there’s anything I can help you with, please feel free to reach out to me. I’d love to help you.
