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NOW is the time for agents to work harder, smarter, and more strategically than ever. 

There’s a lot of chatter out there calling our current market “dismal”,  “impossible”,  and “challenged”.  

“There’s no listings!”  In other words, there is a lot of “sky is falling” talk.

It’s true that the market has gotten even more challenging since the pandemic, and we’ve seen it go through different phases. If you’re like us, you might be feeling like just when we thought we figured out how to help agents navigate a new real estate reality, there was a new one waiting in the wings to take its place.

Now, we find ourselves there again, and I wanted to share with you something I think may help agents. Right now, we’ve heard how inventory is low, but we’ve been hearing that for a while. Now, it feels like how much lower is it going to go? Every time we settle in and think maybe we hit a bottom, Bada Bing – we reach a new low again.

Agents are feeling scared, understandably. I want to share an analogy with you. In every sales business, there is inventory. For a car dealership, that inventory is cars. For a shoe store, it’s shoes. In a supermarket, it’s food. In our industry, as you know, it’s listings.

Imagine a car dealership with no cars. That’s a problem. Or a grocery store with no groceries. Big problem. Remember when the pandemic hit, and we saw empty shelf after empty shelf, and there was no toilet paper and no paper towels? Well, that’s how agents are feeling right now. They’re feeling panicked and worried because their “shelves” are empty.

So, here’s what we’re telling our agents. We’re telling our coaching members that this is not a buyer’s market. This is not a seller’s market. This is a WORK market, meaning all agents that want to stay in business need to get to work and work harder than ever. In fact, agents that came into this business during the last few years probably have no point of reference regarding how to navigate a challenging market like this. That’s where leaders need to step in and fill in the gaps.

This is a market where agents have to step up and do things (i.e. the hard work that, for some, they haven’t ever had to do). We don’t want them to be fearful – we want them to be skillful. We want them to be committed. We want them to succeed. That’s why we’re so passionate about helping agents get back to W.O.R.K.

Here’s what W.O.R.K. stands for:   

W – Walk the Pavement. Get out from behind your computer, get out from your social media, and go get belly-to-belly, face-to-face with people. Go to stores, coffee shops, restaurants, and businesses in your communities.  Go everywhere with your name badge on.  Strike up conversations wherever you are that lead to a real estate conversation. 

 That might look like this…

“Oh, you guys shop here often? Do you live locally? Oh, how long have you lived in there? What do you like best about it? Have you ever talked about moving? I’m a real estate agent. You know we tell our clients they should have an updated market analysis done on their property at least once a year. Just like you go for a physical. You should do that with your house because it’s your most important asset. Here’s my card, if I can ever be of service to you, please don’t hesitate to call.” 

O – Obtaining leads. Agents can’t sit and wait for business to come to them. Not now. It’s time for them to get aggressive. I don’t mean aggressive with the civilians (that’s what we call buyers and sellers); I mean aggressive with themselves and their business. What would happen to an agent’s business if they got on the phone one hour a day, five days a week, and called past clients, friends, family, vendors, neighbors, FSBOs, Expireds, old FSBOs, old Expireds, FRBOs, etc.? What would happen if they did that for just one hour a day, five days a week?

Do you think that would move the needle in their business? You bet it will. We have to shake the trees as agents today. We need to restock our “supermarket” shelves.

R – We couldn’t pick just one! Resilience and Relationships! Resilience because agents need to be resilient right now, find their inner strength and their ability to stay in the game, because it’s tough out there.

Relationships because this is not a market of “order taking” – it’s a market where agents are going to derive a lot of their business based on the referral relationships they cultivate. The old days of selling with a scripted approach, closing three times, and technique-ing people are gone. That’s not a bad thing. We are passionately against that approach. In our company, we teach our agents not to close people, but to coach people. To not sell people, but to serve people.

Building relationships is about planting those seeds. What do you do when you plant a seed? You don’t just say, “Okay, seed, do your thing”, and walk away!  You have to nurture that seed, water it, fertilize it, cultivate it. The same is true of our relationships.

K – Keep Focused. Agents need to keep focused and keep their eyes on the prize. This is an important time in our business to keep looking forward, not back.  Not bemoaning that things are “not the way they were” and getting crystal clear about being in the present, which also means not focusing on the kind of negative news headlines that can derail productivity. I get the need to be “informed”, just don’t set up camp and believe that every headline or story, like the recent announcement that NAR is predicting 250,000 agents leaving the business this year, means that everything in our industry is coming crashing down. I have an acronym for that! It’s N.E.W.S – which stands for Negative Events We See. 

Don’t focus on the news. Don’t focus on what was. Don’t focus on what everyone else is doing. 

Instead? Stay in your lane. Focus on the WORK that is right in front of you, such as getting out from behind screens and into your communities, daily prospecting for lead generation, building solid referral relationships, and staying focused on the high-priority activities that need your absolute attention right now.

If you’re ready to get to WORK in this market and prove that you’ve got what it takes to make it in any market, then know that my team and I are here to do everything and anything we can to help you every step of the way.  

Related reading:  Old School Strategies Generating Real-ime Results

Related reading: Shoe Store Analogy

Resources You Can Count On

Know that agents do NOT have to go it alone in this market. Our goal is to bring the tools, training, and coaching each needs to not only survive the shifts – but build solid, dependable foundations they can count on and help them build clients for life. If that sounds like a goal that can help you reach YOUR goals – then join us for our Free Weekly Real Estate Webinar Training Series! Click below to register for the next one! 

Darryl Davis is an award-winning international speaker, real estate and business coach, and best-selling author of three books, all published by McGraw Hill Publishers. 

For more than 35 years, Darryl has spoken to and trained more than 100,000 sales professionals around the globe to more than double their production year after year. His book, How to Become a Power Agent in Real Estate, tops Amazon’s charts for one of the most sold books to real estate agents. 

He was awarded the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation by the National Speaker’s Association which is given to less than 2% of all speakers worldwide. 

Whether from a stage or Zooming into a virtual room, Darryl’s extraordinary humor, relatability, and natural gift for teaching real-world, results-producing skills and mindsets to audiences have made him a client favorite throughout his career. 

Audiences will laugh, learn, and ultimately walk away better prepared for a changing world, with the tools, skills, and training they need to build their businesses with more ease and less stress and to design lives and careers worth smiling about. 

Bring One of Darryl’s W.O.R.K. Topics to Your Organization!

By providing your agents with the knowledge and insights they need to stay ahead of the game, you can ensure that they are equipped to handle any situation that comes their way! Contact us here to learn more!