Tag: top coach

Team up with a partner (or several) for prospecting success

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By Amy Corr

As we head into the fall market, there’s no better time to begin building a pipeline of business opportunities for 2024. But facing low inventory levels, high interest rates and clients that seem to be sitting on the sidelines, prospecting can feel like a daunting task. This is when we need to dig deep to find opportunities where others see challenges. If you can do that, your efforts in the fourth quarter of the year are going to push you ahead of the competition.

When prospecting, it can be difficult to focus and stay committed to the task at hand — not to mention the challenge of finding consistent times to prospect that won’t disrupt your schedule. To help break this cycle and head into the coming year with a robust pipeline, try teaming up with one or more fellow agents to create a prospecting group. This shared commitment can help keep you on track, and working in a group gives you the opportunity to share tips, ideas and challenges.

Be creative

Set a day and time, whether in person or over Zoom, where you and your group can all prospect together. Rotate the task of planning how you’ll conduct your outreach each week and be creative! Look for ways to make things interesting, which will keep everyone focused.

For instance, one agent in our community organized an impressive virtual power hour with over 30 agents, all focused on setting up coffee appointments with their vendors. If they didn’t have specific vendors in mind, they reached out to clients within their sphere and asked for recommendations. In just one hour, they managed to schedule over 50 appointments for the upcoming two weeks — a great example of the power of collaborative prospecting!

Following are some additional creative ideas our agents have used for keeping themselves accountable:

• Lunchtime “speed sessions.” For example, call five past clients in 20 minutes.

• A weekly challenge: Set a challenge where the “winner” buys coffee/lunch for the other group members.

• “Pick a year” challenge: As a group, review your CRM and find the list of clients you helped with a real estate transaction in a certain year. Put together a communication to these clients about the value of their home, what the current market conditions are and how things have changed since they purchased or sold that year.

• Create theme days, like “Social Post Saturday” or “Testimonial Tuesdays.”

Set realistic goals

It’s important to set realistic goals that you and your prospecting group can truly manage. The key is to be consistent, even if it’s just 10 minutes per day. Ten to 15 minutes of targeted, focused prospecting is worth more than one hour with interruptions.

I suggest starting with short, achievable goals. Make sure to stay targeted and focused. For example, you could call five clients whom you helped three years ago, rather than simply calling five people from your database at random. And of course, regularly track your results and review what worked.

Be direct

Right now, your goal is to gear up your business for the fall market and beyond, so when you reach out, be honest with your contacts. While it may seem uncomfortable to bypass the usual “FORD” (family, occupation, recreation, dreams) questions, I suggest getting straight to the point.

Let your prospects know that you’ve achieved success for numerous clients this year and have the availability to take on additional buyers and sellers, and don’t hesitate to ask if they know anyone seeking advice or insight into the current real estate market.

• Other questions you can ask are:

• Do you know of anyone who recently had children going off to college who might be interested in purchasing a local property for visits — or for their children to use in the future?

• Do you know of anyone who might be looking to upsize/downsize in the coming year?

• If a prospect tells you they had a great summer vacation, let them know it’s a good time to purchase a vacation property.

Prospecting is nonnegotiable

In today’s real estate market, prospecting is critical. Teaming up with colleagues not only makes the process more enjoyable, but also ensures that prospecting is a top priority in your business.

Amy Corr is the executive vice president of culture and agent development for @properties Christie’s International Real Estate.

How I lost 240 pounds and grew my real estate business fivefold

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By Amy Izzo

We are all a work in progress. Some of you are suffering in silence, like I was. Everyone sees your smiling face, nice car, home, success, money, happy family, friends, highlight reels of deals closed, travel and life events that make others wish they were like you. Behind the smile and highlight reels, though, lie discontentment, uneasiness and maybe even a deep suffering others don’t suspect.

A trip inward may be scary because you’re not living up to your full potential. You know you can be more, but you continue to feel stuck on an ever-present secret journey of trying to figure out how to get over the hump or maybe even what is wrong with you. This vicious cycle will eventually leave you in pain, robbing you of living your best life, hurting your relationships and stunting your growth. I know this firsthand.

I was perceived as very successful by others over a 25-year corporate career and a more-than-10-year real estate career: a polished corporate executive who successfully transitioned to a top-producing agent, team leader, coach and speaker. All true, but also my truth: at my heaviest, I was 440 pounds, exhausted and unfulfilled, and my income was stagnant because I was unhealthy and, therefore, less productive.

Today, I am 240 pounds lighter; my income has grown five times what it was just three years ago; and I am a competitive ballroom dancer and running a thriving, growing real estate, coaching and speaking business. I work less, play more, feel more fulfilled than ever and make more money.

When you line up my success with my health journey, you’ll see my lowest-performing year in business aligns with my rock bottom in my health, and my explosive growth happened in the years I spent more time focused on myself, while playing more and working less. The more I pour into myself, the easier it is to scale my business and make more money, too.

Right about now you may be thinking: How is it possible to make more money by focusing on ME? I am a living practitioner of this, and I have the data and photos to prove it.

Here are three critical strategies that I practice to transform my life:

1. Be honest with yourself about where you are RIGHT NOW and what you really want.

We lie to ourselves and make excuses so we feel better. This behavior doesn’t move you toward the life you want. It keeps you operating small and away from realizing your full potential. Whether you are consuming too much alcohol, are overweight, live a sedentary life, function in a cycle of burnout-recovery-burnout, or whatever it is, you are living a recipe for disaster. When you don’t feel healthy and fulfilled, your productivity is lower, you work more hours, your relationships suffer and you make less money.

2. Make a decision TODAY to commit to one immediate action that will move you forward.

Decisive people take action immediately. When you choose one small action, something seemingly insignificant, so small that it appears IMPOSSIBLE to fail, and you keep that commitment to yourself every day, you create a trust within yourself that propels you to new levels. My road to a 240-pound weight loss, massive income growth and competitive ballroom dancing started with walking 15 minutes a day, every single day, no matter what.

3. YOU GO FIRST ALWAYS.

This has been the hardest lesson for me. You must come before everyone else. You before your partner, children, family, friends and clients. Self-care is not selfish; it’s necessary for you to BE your best for every person you serve. Once you really embrace that neglecting your needs and desires actually robs others of enjoying the best version of you, you will always prioritize your needs first so that you can serve the world better. Stop cheating the world of the best of you by cheating yourself out of what you really need.

True transformation comes when you get honest, make a real action-packed decision, stop shaming yourself and allow yourself grace without excuses. You will have tough moments, but living stuck is more painful than those tough moments. Reframe those moments and move your focus back to what you really want and to your one small commitment. You are not broken. No one is coming to save you. Be the hero you need. It’s time to rise and run into your next season of life with a smile on your face and a heart full of grace.

Real estate coach Amy Izzo, team leader of The Amy Izzo Group brokered by eXp Realty, has been a Realtor since 2014.