Elite Agents Real Estate Podcast With Debbie De Grote

Hello, welcome to Debbie's Tips. I thought what we should probably talk about today is e-blasts and video, and using that in your marketing. People ask me a lot, because they see me do a lot of email marketing and a lot of video marketing, “Is it really appropriate, necessary, to do much of it for my real estate clients? You know, do I really need to do that with my database and my lead pipeline?” And the answer absolutely is yes. Now, I do want to say though, that direct mail marketing to your great groups is super valuable. Because, think about it. I read somewhere the other day that the average person gets like, 110 emails a day, even if they only open 20%. And, even of the ones they open, they don't even read them all, right? So, we know that our impact on an e-blast is not as great as someone driving up in their driveway, going to their mailbox and taking out four or five pieces of mail, and right there is your fabulous mail piece. But of course, that's expensive. So, if you're looking at your mail marke

Hello, and welcome to Debbie’s Tips. How would you like an easy way to increase your referrals? Sound good, right? Everybody would like more referrals. Well, here’s a thought. Often, we miss great referral opportunities because the people that like us, past clients, sphere of influence, database, friends, family, you name it, they have their belief about the market that we serve. Or the price points that we serve. You know I’m right, because we’ve all had this happen, where we have that distressing conversation where someone says, “Hey, you know, my friend or my family member - guess what? They just sold their home.”  “Well, my goodness. I’m curious, why didn’t you have them call me? I would’ve loved to have helped them.”  “Oh, but I didn’t think you worked that area,” or, “I didn’t realize you covered that price point. I thought it’d be too low for you, or too high for you, or too far away for you.” And it’s so frustrating, isn’t it guys? You’re thinking, are you kidding me? I would’ve loved to have had that

Hello, and welcome to Debbie’s Tips. So something has been coming up a lot lately, and it’s the question: how do I establish my value with buyers? This may seem like a crazy question because we all know how hard you probably work to get a buyer into a home, close that transaction and hold their hand through the process, and yet, it seems that as buyers come in to open houses, they’re more reluctant to give their information. Plus, of course, we know how hard we chase them when they come in through an online lead portal. You know, if you get into their head, I wonder if it’s because they think they have easy access to information, so why do they need us, right? So if we can go to that thought and address that thought when we’re having that conversation with them – and you know, I was roleplaying with an agent today and we were talking about what our value is as agents. Well, in today’s market, it’s helping them beat the crowd to some of the best properties in town. It’s being willing and proactive to get out t

Hello, welcome to Debbie’s Tips. I wanted to talk to you today about something called, The Promise Technique. Now, some of you may have had training on neuro-persuasion. We often call it NLP, Neuro Linguistic Persuasion/Programming, and it’s really nothing specifically created for real estate. It’s actually just very powerful words, phrases, and methods of communicating that motivate, inspire, and connect with people psychologically. Now, there is a technique called The Promise Technique that I learned as I went through some NLP training. It’s very simple, and I’ll tell you how to apply it to your business in a very practical way. So, here’s the thought behind it: When you get someone to promise you, about 90% of the time, most people will make an effort to keep that promise. So, how can that help us in the real estate industry? Well, have you ever gone on a listing appointment and a seller said to you, oh my goodness. Great meeting. You are so professional. I’m looking forward to working with you. Yes. Yes.

Hello, welcome to Debbie’s Tips. You know, a lot of conversation is going on right now about how to get more listing opportunities. Because, of course, listings are so valuable. That’s the name of the game. And, across the country, we all know that listing inventory has been tight. So, as I travel around and meet with some of our best clients, some of the top listers in the nation, it’s interesting that an old-school technique has become very popular again. And what I’m talking about when I say an old-school technique is open house. In fact, I’m seeing a lot of the top-listing agents that, possibly for years, have not been actively holding open house, using that as an aggressive opportunity to attack that neighborhood. So whatever they need to do to navigate and set up the time, so they have a two-week opportunity to prepare marketing, get their ads ready, drive traffic to that open house, putting it on the MLS, but then doing it strategically, so that it’s not sold before the weekend of open house happens, g

Hello and welcome to Debbie's Daily Tips, it’s Debbie De Grote. And today we are talking about the disruption that’s occurring in the real estate industry. So I guess if I had to have a title for this particular segment, it would be, Will the Disrupters Make Real Estate Agents Obsolete? So, of course, my belief is absolutely not, and here is what I mean by the disruptors. So we all know that the major real estate portals are going after the seller leads as aggressively and as extensively as they went after the buyer leads. So, of course, that’s going to change the real estate game to some degree because a lot of clients are going to go online and do their searches for data and information there. But here is the reason that I believe firmly that there is such a great need and such a great value in what you do. You see, while data is important, knowledge, meaning answers to questions, is helpful. There needs to be that wise adviser, that wise adviser that pulls all of this information together, sorts through, s

Hello, it’s Debbie De Grote and welcome to Debbie's Daily Tips. So today I wanted to talk about closing techniques, classic closes. You know I remember watching a video once and I can’t even remember who the author of this video was, it was many, many, years ago and they had all these different classic closing techniques. Techniques like reducing it to the ridiculous, major close on a minor issue, the take away close. And you know as I was thinking about all of these different closes and I thought okay, what is the number one best classic close that’s also the most effective? And bottom line, it’s the assumptive close. So what I mean by that is because you are very good at what you do, when someone reaches out to you and let's say for an example you come and list their home and you go and meet with them, why wouldn't you just assume that you're going to take that listing? And therefore, why wouldn’t you prepare all of the paperwork? And as you’re having the dialogue with that seller, why wouldn’t you say, “Wh

Hello and welcome to Debbie's Daily Tips. And I have an interesting question to answer today, the question was, when I’m on a listing appointment, how much of the time should I be spending talking? Well, I thought a lot about that and I thought well, first of all, it shouldn't really be more than a 50-50 balance, right. 50% of the time I’m talking, 50% of the time they’re talking. If I'm not engaging them in the conversation, they’re going to glaze over, they’re going to get bored, they’re going to tune me out and I may not win the listing. So I think 50-50 is a good ratio to shoot for. Now inside of that 50% of the time that I’m talking or that you're talking, I feel that that should be asking powerful question. So 25% of the time, powerful questions, 25% of the time, statement and introduction, 50% of the time they’re doing the talking, they’re very engaged and inspired by you. So remember, it's not a pitch, it's not a sermon, it needs to be an interactive conversation. Okay, make it a great day and I'll lo

Hello, it’s Debbie De Grote and welcome to Debbie's Daily Tips. So I got an email this morning that said, “Help! I'm bored by my prospecting.” So here's my advice, because you as your listening to this today, you might be saying, me too! I'm bored with my prospecting too. So the first thing I would suggest is stop saying that. You know, I remember something I read a long time ago and it said that an airline pilot had commented in a news article that their job was about 98% sheer boredom and about 2% sheer terror. So bottom line guys, anything that you do a lot, anything that is repetitious, anything that you get good at it and it becomes easy and routine, it's going to get a little bit boring. My broker once told me, let repetitious boredom become your friend. Expect it, embrace it and that you don't have to be every day having so much fun making those prospecting calls, instead you’re going to have fun with the result that it gives you, right? So as I’m making these calls and I’m telling myself stop it, you

Hi and welcome to Debbie's Daily Tips. And today I have for you a book recommendation and it's actually a book that I often recommend, The E-myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. I believe that every entrepreneur should read this book because in this book Michael explains the entrepreneurial myth. Which is that just because a person excels at the technical aspects of a job, doesn't mean that they will ultimately be a good business owner. And I know this is true because I have countless agents coming to me who have tried starting a team. They try to expand their businesses and they need coaching because they feel that they’re failing. I encourage them to read this book as we work with them to create systematic and predictable processes for their business. So think about it like this, let's take a franchise like McDonald's. They all look the same, for the most part, the menus are the same, they buy their food from the same food supplier, they have the same uniform, there is a predictable process. Now I get it that

Hello and welcome to Debbie's Daily Tips. Today I wanted to talk to you a little bit about your listing presentation materials. You know if you're like many real estate agents that I speak with, you may have questions about your listing presentation materials. I’ve noticed that when clients join our coaching program, one of the first questions they often ask us is to help them clean up their presentation and to actually distill it down to something usable. See most of the major real estate brands have ready-made presentation materials for you to use and that’s great. The challenge that I see, however, is many of these company generated listing packages are often 50+ pages long. Agents get lost in them, clients get bored by them and then some of the great stuff never gets talked about. So today's consumer, as we know, they’re more impatient than ever and the last thing they want is to be pitched at. So we want your presentation to be well prepared, visually appealing, engaging, interactive and concise. And her

Hello, and welcome to Debbie’s Daily Tips. And today I want to challenge you to play the seven pennies game. Now here's what you do, you line up seven pennies on the edge of your desk as you’re prospecting. Each time you get a resistance, a no, I want you to move up a penny because you are pushing through with another question. So I’ll give you an example. Let’s say that you are talking to an expired listing and they say, “You know what, I'm not going to sell my house right now.” So you could hang up, right, or instead, you could say, “I'm curious, when do you think you'll try again?” And boom, I get to move a penny. And they might say, “You know I’m not, we’re going to keep it off the market for now, so I don't really need any help.”  “Okay, no problem. Before I let you go, may I ask, what do you think happened that caused your home not to sell?” Boom, I get to move another penny. “Oh I don't know I don't think the agent did what they should and the agent said it was too high, so we’re really discouraged.”  

Hello, this is Debbie and welcome to Debbie's Daily Tips. Today we wanted to spend a couple of minutes with you talking about how to be more powerful on the phone. You know I often talk to people who say, I'm really good in person but I just don't love the phone. Now I don't know that they’re necessarily talking about the fact that they don't love making cold calls, I think what they're saying is they just don't feel as confident in their communication skills over the phone as they do in person. And of course, that makes sense, right, because when you're face-to-face with someone, they can see your energy, they can feel the presence of you. So it’s not just your words and your tonality connecting with them. However when you're on the phone, now it’s all going to be relying on how much energy, how much passion, enthusiasm, and personality you can bring through that phone line. Now here is one of the challenges guys, you know when you are speaking on the phone only 15% of who you are, of that energy of you, get

Hello and welcome to Debbie's Daily Tips. And today I have an interesting thought that I wanted to throw out there to you. Is the fact that you are an independent contractor inhibiting your success? And here is what I mean. You know, the good news about the real estate career is that it does give you so much freedom and the flexibility, it gives you the freedom to earn whatever you choose, to pursue this segment of the business that you love most, there really are no limits. But it also gives you the freedom to get up late, to not show up at the office, to take too much time off when you're pursuing an aggressive goal. Because of course, there's no boss, there is no time clock, and that’s where the discipline and the accountability really have to come to play. Now when you think about it, if you look at the goal that you have set for your year ahead and you think about the amount of money that you expect and desire to earn, what if you were going to pay someone that amount of money to work with you or to work

Hello and welcome to Debbie’s Daily Tips. And today I’m going to answer a question: what is the difference between building rapport and establishing a commonality? And it’s actually a question because they are drastically different, neither one is bad but they’re just so different. And I want to explain that and show you where the attempt to establish a commonality could really create an issue for you. So let's say that I walk into a seller’s home and I’ve never met them before and as they’re touring me around, l happen to notice that they are a golfer and so I say, “Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Seller, I noticed that you're a golfer, you know I'm a golfer too. In fact, let me tell you about my golf game, and last week where I played and what my score was and my trophies,” and on and on and on. See what happens when I’m meeting someone for the first time or maybe the first couple of times, and I'm working overtime to establish a commonality, they see through that. They often see that for exactly what it is, a sale’s pers

Hi, this is Debbie and welcome to Debbie’s Daily Tips. What we’re going to talk about today is the pattern of acknowledgment and approval or as I like to call it, “the response pattern.” You know, it's not natural that we walk around all day giving people lots and lots of approval, and yet they absolutely love it and respond to it. Yet if it’s something we’re going to do it and do it a lot, we’re going to have to practice it, because it really needs to become almost second nature. So here's what I mean by the response pattern. I want you to write this down. Great, terrific, excellent, really interesting, good for you, tell me more, perfect. See if you're acknowledging someone, you're not necessarily telling them that they’re right. Or if you are approving, you are telling them they’re right, that’s great, right. But it all makes people feel good because you're listening, you’re engaged in the conversation and you're giving them that warm glow of acknowledgment and approval and that causes them to feel more co

Hi, welcome to Debbie’s Daily Tips. Today we’re going to talk just a minute about being a great listener. You know I was at an event today and someone came up to me, very, very, talkative. So talkative, oblivious to the fact that they were commanding all the moments in the room with their talking, right? And people are standing in line waiting to get to me and they’re just talking and talking and talking, and part of what they were talking about is while they are a new agent, they’re so confident that they’re going to be a great salesperson because everyone's always told them they’re such a great talker. You know, I took them to the side a little bit later and I said to them, “I want you to think about something, it's so much better to be a great listener than it is to be a great talker.” Now part of being a great salesperson is being a good communicator. That doesn't mean filling the room with your words, instead, it’s paying attention, asking great questions of your prospects, questions about things that ma

Hello and welcome to Debbie’s Daily Tips. I’m here to talk to you today about how to identify someone's personality style, because you know, we talk so much here at Excelleum about the DISC assessment, and really recognizing the fabulous people that we have the opportunity to coach and work with for being unique and understanding their style. So, therefore, we always have our clients take the DISC assessment. We encourage them to have their friends take it, their family members take it, and unfortunately we’re probably not going to be able to talk their own clients into taking it, but if you can, please by all means, go right ahead. Send them to my website, excelleum.com, right there on the free resources tab, it’s going to pop right down. And as you know if you’ve taken it, it only takes about 5 to 7 minute and it’s easy, right? It will get you a full report, all about you. But let’s say we can’t ask our clients to take it, so how would we know, are they a high D? A driver. Are they a high I?  Extremely expr

Hello and welcome to Debbie’s Daily Tips. Today we’re talking a little bit about the DISC assessment. So the DISC assessment is an incredible, simple but powerful little tool to identify your personality style, your strengths, your tendency, it’s really fabulous and so easy. So if you've not taken it, and you hear me mention it often, I want you to go to the website, excelleum.com and go to the free resources tab. Now here's what I want you to do - first of all, it only takes about 5 to 7 minutes to do the assessment. And please remember, there's no right or wrong answers, and don't over think your answers because who you are will shine through when you just answer instinctively. Now what’s really cool is, as soon as you push the button when you're done answering those very simple questions, it will tabulate your report and it’s going to send you back over a 25 page report, all about the real you. Now I’d like you to do this, I’d like you to then print it out and read it. Do what we call validating the DISC,

Hello, welcome to Debbie's Daily Tips. Today we’re talking about how we can actually, without meaning to, repel our prospects from working with us. I know repel is a pretty strong word, am I right? And yet thinking about it, have you ever been in a situation where you met someone and their personality style, their approach, their method of communication, was so uncomfortable for you, so repelling for you — and quite frankly, they really weren’t doing anything wrong, they weren’t being rude, they weren’t being obnoxious, they were just being themselves. And so here is the challenge, we all have our personality style, our trades, our tendency, it’s just who we are, it’s the way we were born. And that can work for us, and it can also work against us. So I’m going to use myself as an example. On the DISC, which you're welcome to take on our website if you haven’t done so already, free DISC assessment right there under the free resource tab. I am a 99% D, 99% driver. So here’s the good thing about my personality,