Any talk can be customized for your specific market economies or time frames, but here are a few ideas to start your preliminary planning.
OUR MOST POPULAR SEMINAR RIGHT NOW IN MARKETS ACROSS NORTH AMERICA
Title: Bail Yourself Out
For the most part, real estate agents have been hit hard. Most were not prepared for a “different” market. Most are still operating under non-profitable assumptions. Their brokers, companies, franchises, and associations offer positive reinforcement to motivate or generate activity from the troops; however, they need and want tools that are easy-to-implement, inexpensive, and fun.
Walter Sanford has been through tough markets — one in the early 80′s, another in the early 90′s, and now. He was one of the most successful REALTORS® in North America. Financially independent from his commissions earned in tough markets, Walter is one of the few trainers that the top agents turn to in tough times.
Tough times do not last; neither do agents who continue to do the same stuff. Recoveries can be long, years, in fact. If agents do not start doing the “right” activities now, it will be hard for them during the next boom with the needed resources to take advantage of all the business. One of the most exciting times in real estate is when “doing” real estate en vogue again. The buyers need to get involved in real estate, and the sellers are not yet become greedy. Will your agents be ready? Will you be ready?
Below is a “hit list” of the items for which Walter receives the most “thank you” notes. Walter will present his best tactics to help the agents bail themselves out in a seminar that you can afford. This will be the items that are working now, things that your agents will do, and things that your agents will thank you for later.
1. Learning why there are more profitable avenues to pursue now if you don’t already have an REO business
2. Facilitating short sales in a more efficient manner and learning which ones not to take
3. Implementing five new systems that can double any agent’s listing inventory or seven new systems to triple their inventory
4. Using your listings to generate buyers and using your personal website to generate sellers
5. Doing your social networking in less time with more results.
6. Applying simple systems that generate more double-ended transactions
7. Knowing how to write contracts “with glue” when the buyers are nervous
8. Showing you how an assistant can earn five times his or her salary for you; if you don’t have an assistant, showing you how to get a team for FREE
9. Beating the competition every time with a listing presentation that earns you 1% more than the going rate, includes a transaction coordination fee, and is delivered in much less time.
10. Developing the exact plan for buyer to be worthy of your time giving you the tools to close a buyer over 90% of the time
11. Giving more to buyers and sellers without spending more
12. Handling all incoming calls, all outgoing calls, all E-mails, and all regular mail in two hours a day and have your clients love it.
13. Using a leveraged business plan so that buyers create sellers, sellers create buyers, and buyers and sellers create investment properties for you.
14. Getting your clients excited about your inexpensive but high-perceived value services and getting them to help you sell their property
15. Learning the exact letters, scripts, and systems that work now
Help your agents, associates, and members. Involve your affiliates as sponsors or have a trade show. Use this seminar as a recruiting device. We have several ideas on how to make a seminar affordable, fun, and profitable.
It is important to motivate the troops, but they do need the tools to “march forward” on their own. This market requires that new systems be implemented for the self-directed bail out.
KEYNOTE:
Breaking Through Barriers With a Grin: keynote to 2 hours
How to Get Your “Get Up and Go” Going Again! Sometimes this real estate business of ours isn’t all it was cracked up to be. No one ever told us that there would be flat-out grinding challenges — the client from The Black Lagoon, the closing from Elm Street, the late night hours. Lately, our get up and go has just gone. Where did our lives, and attitudes, take a wrong turn? How do we get back in the fast lane? After consulting and consoling with thousands of real estate agents and their clients, Walter Sanford deserves an honorary degree in human behavior. Most concerned with the lives and times of his peers in an industry he loves, he has infused this upbeat, insightful, and humorous session with workable and profitable systems to help real estate agents through their warrior modes.
GENERAL TOPICS:
Tough Market Strategy Podcast
Many areas of the country have been in a tough market for months now while others are just beginning to enter into a tougher market. Walter Sanford has personally worked through many tough markets. His personal experience allows him to give your attendees hope that you can actually profit during these times! His “Survival of the Fittest” and “Tough Market Strategies” seminars are our two most requested topics. This podcast offers a few of the highlights that Walter would present in these popular and timely seminars.
* To listen or download this podcast by Walter Sanford, please CLICK HERE.
The 44 Hottest Prospecting Systems at Work in North America :2 to 4 hours
There are several REALTORS® out there making a living. Few are making serious profit, and fewer still are having any fun doing it. Walter Sanford turns that around with a lively presentation of the 44 most successful prospecting systems that he’s seen at work and put to work in his own $72 million a year business. The ideas span the gamut, from new tweaks on old forms of lead generation to new technologies, and from smarter databasing to better use of delegation methods. The methods are updated regularly to stay current with technology and new discoveries!
Funnel Strategy: Six Ways to Double Sales NOW!: 2 to 4 hours
Let’s face it — you can always do better business, regardless of what your market reflects. Walter Sanford shows how just six areas of your real estate business can be shaped up in very little time and help you attain greater profitability by comparing your activity to the performance of a common kitchen funnel — a comparison that your agents will never forget! This seminar, more than any other one, has changed REALTORS’ ® lives.
Survival of the Fittest: Creative Strategies for Smarter, More Profitable Business: 2 to 4 hours
For the last few years, we have been trying to predict when the trouble will stop. It is not so much when the trouble will stop but rather when you need to change your systems to account for a different market.
There are a lot of questions regarding how much will technology increase our speed and reduce our time. Also, a big concern to many agents is which items should they implement in a tougher market. We are no longer order-takers! We need to write tighter contracts. We need to increase our inventory in order to produce more seller cooperative contracts and more buyer calls. We have to run tighter systems at a lower cost, increase our net and get ready to become financially independent at the bottom of the market.
This is an exciting, fast-moving seminar that will totally prepare newcomers, intermediate, and seasoned professionals for a slow down. If your market is not experiencing a slow down, then these systems will begin making your financially independent more quickly!
The Steps to Having A Super Star Assistant: 2 to 4 hours
Twenty-three years ago, Walter Sanford introduced the term “personal assistant” to the real estate industry. Although it was the craze in the ‘80s, Walter stated then, as he does now, that there are many options before adding an assistant to one’s overhead. In this session, he teaches how to work smarter with “unpaid” delegation, technology, and consistent systems then shows you how to hire properly for an added income stream. Once you have an assistant Walter will give you over 200 ideas on how to manage a profit from your new associate! This is a seminar by the guy who invented the concept of a real estate assistant.
Surprise! I’m Setting Up Shop in Your Town!: 2 to 4 hours
How One Agent Can Immediately Gain a Large Market Share
Think for a moment about how you’d really feel if you learned that Walter Sanford, mega-producing real estate veteran and top agent in the nation in the 80s and 90s, had just moved into your town. Whether you’re just starting in business or have been at this for decades, this undisputed champ of North American real estate tells you what it takes to increase your market share starting tomorrow! He actually takes you from day one on a ride to capture business even if you were just starting in a new town! Your competition doesn’t want your people to attend this one!
You’ve Helped Your Clients, Now Help Yourself — Building Your Own Investment/Retirement Portfolio: 2 to 4 hours
You work day-in and day-out as purveyor of the most profitable, long-term investment opportunity in North America . How well are you applying your unique knowledge to your own investment and retirement portfolio? Oddly, few real estate agents seriously take the time to plan a real estate retirement portfolio. In this session, Walter Sanford walks you past the “no-time” excuse and other terror barriers to show you how to put together a secure, always- appreciating real estate retirement portfolio. Also included are all the steps to make your “career” saleable when you want to retire on your investment portfolio!
Buyer Brokerage: Being The Good Guy And Making Money, Too: 2 to 4 hours
You’ve been hearing about buyer brokerage as a necessary new requirement for representation. We have new designations and even whole franchises entering the marketplace specializing in buyer brokerage! I’ve been disappointed because most of the emphasis has been on representation and agency. What is the business model, and why should an agent eliminate more than half of his clients (listings) to specialize in buyers? For me, this unique subject does not explain the way that we accomplish this new real estate business. Therefore, if buyer brokerage is truly an option, how do we make it profitable? What systems do we use? What do you do with the business from sellers and how do we apply technology to its successful implementation? Buyer brokerage could be a casualty of internet-offered services and the client’s use of technology, unless you offer Walter’s services! This fast paced seminar will show you how to stay in the middle of a transaction and provide inventory to the potential client that no one else can supply!
The Interactive Real Estate Program: 2 to 4 hours
Backed with his numerous years of experience and over 11,000 closed transactions, Walter Sanford “wings it” using a list of questions, barriers and difficulties submitted by the audience prior to the event! This is great for getting them excited about the event! It will completely cater to your local economy and its changing needs. Walter addresses the issues with systems, strategies, and lasting solutions that are applicable both to your market and to your clients’ -changing needs. This seminar can show you the wealth of knowledge that only a long-term practitioner could bring to your stage. He actually gets twenty main problems from your audience and then solves each one to the complete satisfaction of everyone there! He will offer the solution to the challenge, “I only want to go to a seminar that affects me personally with a real action plan!”
Get Your Life Back — Planning Your Business and Your Life Together: at least 6 hours recommended
Until now, you’ve felt that you haven’t had the time to put your financial and personal life plan together. In this daylong session, Walter Sanford takes you through idea assembly and organization, strategies, implementation, and commitment to create a personal visual plan. No longer are you allowed to look back unless you determine that’s where you want to be going. Everyone walks out with a “personal business plan”! This seminar is highly recommended between October and January for goal/business planning. This is more than goal planning — it’s a specific time blocked action plan for your agents and other staff, too!
The Last Agent Standing – 2 to 4 hours
Would you rather move from your home town than continue to practice real estate with Walter Sanford moving in? Putting all egos aside, do you know how to stay live, be profitable and grow? Do you have systems to implement and maintain which are impervious to competition and roller coaster market commissions?
Remember, you have to be the big fish at the top of the food chain. There are hundreds of opportunities in a down market, slow market, and sideways market. It is time to identify the chronological order of systems implementation so you can maximize results with a minimum of cost.
Walter Sanford is always positive about real estate but he is also a realist about the market. Let’s make the changes to excel and profit in any market.
ECONOMY-SPECIFIC TOPICS:
Taking Full Advantage of a Healthy Market — How to Increase Your Profitability in a Good Market: 2 to 4 hours
It’s easier to exploit yourself and your business practices in recessionary markets or booming markets than in a market that’s just going along at a healthy, even pace! In this two to four hour session, Walter Sanford explains the actions you can take to dramatically increase buyer/seller participation. We will inject easy to duplicate business systems and strategies to the equation! Sanford Systems takes pride in delivering ideas that your agents can use the minute they sit back at their desk! Let’s move your attendees to the next level of production!
Explosive Market Strategies — Strategies for Hectic Markets: 2 to 4 hours
You dreamed of living in a market like this since you first got your license — two-day listings, multiple offers, hungry buyers, fast commissions, and an even faster pace. Now that you have it, you’re still complaining! Are you already longing for that slower pace? Remember those days when you didn’t have to have the fastest car just to get the counter-offer signed? In this session, Walter Sanford tells you how to thrive, survive, and profit in these hectic times and also how to get more listings, stop the commission cutting, fix FSBOs, and still have a life!
The Last Agent Standing — Survival Tips for Down Markets: 2 to 4 hours
Would you rather move than continue to practice real estate in this town? Walter Sanford shows you how to stay alive, profitable, and growing by implementing and maintaining systems that are impervious to roller coaster market conditions. Remember, “big fish” are at the top of the food chain! There are hundreds of opportunities in a slow market and Walter will detail how to capitalize on them!
Market Watch — Strategies for Changing Markets: 2 to 4 hours
Do you know how animals can sense a fire? It’s time you learned to “sense” which way your economy is moving by monitoring the many trends behind the ups and downs. You need to know where those trends lie at all times so that you can mold your business accordingly, maximize your client’s satisfaction, and boost your continued business profitability. Remember, your business practices have to mirror the coming business trends. Walter will tell you what you have to get ready for! When your attendees leave, they will have the systems ready for the next market…way before the competition!
NON-AGENT AUDIENCES:
For Lenders, Title Reps and Escrow Agents:
Working With the Elephant Real Estate Agent — Strategies to Build Profitable Alliances with Top Producing Real Estate Agents: 2 to 4 hours
Forget the donuts and notepads — it’s time you formed educative and supportive alliances with the best real estate agents in town with RESPA’s blessings. Walter Sanford shows you how to target the best, approach them, close on their business, and then leverage that partnership for years to come with benefits to all. Your lender attendees will leave with an exact two year plan to capture or re-capture their REALTOR® business in town!
For Broker/Owner and Managers:
Messages From The Street: 2 to 4 hours
One of the most unique aspects of Walter Sanford’s speaking career is that he has twenty-eight years of high production real estate under his belt. He now has the privilege to network with over 3,000 agents per month. This is an advantage that we believe no one else has. Walter will be your national “sponge.” He categorizes the agent’s needs, hopes, wants, and desires then he shows you, the brokers, owners, and managers how to supply the satisfaction of these needs at the lowest possible cost. What else is better than to have a finger on the pulse of what your real client truly desires? Remember, your real client is a real estate agent sitting behind that desk around the corner from your office. This seminar will show everyone who interacts with the recruiting and management of today’s real estate agent how to systematically give what they’re asking for and it will provide a to-do list both for recruiting and management of the new and top-producing agent.
Hold Them Accountable for Market Share: 2 to 4 hours
After years of teaching high-producing real estate agents in North America and combing the country for new ideas and workable innovations put to use by broker/owners and sales managers everywhere, Walter Sanford shares his insights into the challenges real estate broker/owners currently face. He delivers clear-cut plans for market domination and profitability. He answers those age-old questions of policy and procedure in a smoothly-running office. This is best accomplished by setting up an office that is lead generation friendly and then training the manager, owner, and/or broker on how to hold them accountable to that lead generation! We suggest this seminar for your agents in the morning and your managers in the afternoon.
TECHNOLOGY
Wow! I Have All This Technology, Now What Do I Do With It?: 2 to 4 hours
This is the fearful agent’s guide to having a real estate career with today’s new technology. The information overload of new technology and “tekkie” companies vying for our attention is scaring us to death! If we don’t buy now, we’re dead in the water, right? Maybe yes, maybe no. Here’s an idea of where today’s hottest technologies can be implemented into your business where some will waste more of your time than save it. Every agent will walk out of the seminar with an action plan of what to do first and what technologies make the most money. This seminar is for pros and beginners alike!
The Internet Is Really the “Outer”-net: 2 to 4 hours
In this non-techno speak seminar, Walter will show how the internet needs to be integrated with all your other forms of promotion, marketing, and systems. He will revamp the agent’s business using the internet, from the initial interview to the follow-up on a past client database. Expect your forms, direct mail, telemarketing, assistants, prospecting, and promotion to all include facets of the internet and email. Walter will show you how to integrate these systems with technology. You will leave the seminar with a things-to-do list on how to make yesterday’s most profitable real estate systems congruent with the new technology that is being presented to us this minute!
Tell Your Web Designer, “Make it Profitable”: 2 to 4 hours
Oh, those web designers! They want pretty pictures and glowing resumes of fantastic lengths, but have you ever considered the profitability of your website? In the “old” days, we used to say, “We have a website,” but now every agent is screaming — “I have a website but how do I make any money with it?” Walter travels the country interviewing agents and evaluating websites so that you can take the most profitable aspects of those sites and implement them immediately. How do you get the clients to fill out those forms, and why should they ever come back? What drives a buyer or seller to actually call the agent after viewing the site? Walter will take the very best of the real estate websites and show your agents how to use technology for profit — finally!
Samples of Custom Seminars for the National Association of REALTORS® and Other Organizations
Higher Production And Have a Life: 2 to 6 hours
There is more to life than just real estate. We have been pointed to a kinder and gentler new time. Suddenly, people are reciting “F” words like family, friends, faith, fun, fitness and how all these fit with finances. Maybe for the first time, here is a seminar that covers the exact procedures on how to do more in less time and decide what’s really important to you. Balance makes everyone happier and more profitable. Get out your pencils and write down the simple techniques that allow us to live not only the most productive life, but also the happiest life that real estate can bring us while still paying the bills.
Listing Your Clients Hearts and Minds: 2 to 6 hours
Walter Sanford will show you how top producers are bringing technology and heart into their business. In the age of the mega-producers, Walter will show you the secrets of the superstars including how they control the inventory and their clients. He will show you how to increase your listings, all while having more time for yourself and your family. Walter will show you how to set the pace for listing every property you want to have in your inventory, while organizing your office and marketing for a smooth transition to sold. Learn how Walter’s pre-Listing packet involves the seller from the start and makes them aware of what they should expect as the marketing begins. He will share with you how to handle feedback from showings, how to setup price reductions, and how to overcome other objections that can streamline the selling process. Walter has developed no fail follow-up procedures including the all-important reclaiming and maintaining clients for life system that makes repeat and referral business easy. Make the choice from ordinary to extraordinary. Lock into all the strategies and secrets Walter shares from his twenty-eight years of experience.
Job Duties of The Modern Day Assistant: 2 to 6 hours
Remember when you were just happy that your assistant had a pleasing personality and could type? Well, the list of job duties for today’s mega-producer assistant just got longer. What prospecting systems should they immediately take over and what aspects of your internet presence should they be responsible for? Should they control the flow of your systems in your office and provide your clients with automatic and consistent follow-up? How about database maintenance and networking? Where do they fit in? When an agent and/or assistant leaves this seminar, they will have an immediate list of the most profitable and client-pleasing activities. This will lessen the amount of training that an agent has to perform for an assistant to maximize the effectiveness of any assistant. Walter has been the master of assistant training for ten years. Let him show you what he’s learned. To get everyone up to speed, Walter will also include the ten steps that you must complete before you “step” up to an assistant.
