It’s Tuesday morning and everyone knows they need to be there for the office meeting. Most office meetings are a combination of the announcement of new listings, new rules imposed by the office, board, or state, legal updates, and maybe a quick snippet from a local affiliate. If you’re at all like me, you don’t look forward to these mornings. I didn’t want to repeatedly hear about the merits of a home warranty program, a re-hash of announcements already emailed to me, and listen to Sally talk about her overpriced listings.
Early in my career, I suggested to my broker that unless the office meetings were profitable that I was going to spend my time in proactive business activities, guaranteed to increase my bottom line. With an interest in new and exciting ways to capture business, my broker questioned me as to what a successful office meeting should include. Below are the items that I suggested to make the office more profitable, engage the top producers, and be another reason the competition would want to come over.
1. Everyone should announce their new listing. As part of this “presentation,” each agent should include the seller’s motivation for selling, why they thought the pricing was good, whether they were looking for another property to move into, and how the listing was obtained. Sometimes, trade secrets are hard to come by, but it would be nice to see what works in seller lead generation. The moderator should keep this time frame short and snappy!
2. Next up in the meeting should be a mutual sharing of new buyers. As part of this presentation, each agent should talk about their buyer’s motivation and specifically items like whether they were pre-approved, under contract (no buyers should be brought into discussion, if they aren’t under contract), and their down payment capabilities. Then talk about their “hot button.” Once again, keep it short and snappy! Also, at this time everyone should try and match available listings with the buyers that were announced.
3. The agents would then have TEN SECONDS to share their best buyer and best seller with the other agents and share why that person was going to quickly buy or sell. Solutions were solicited quickly from the audience.
4. The broker would share a particular topic/item that she had been researching all week.
5. We would then hear a quick presentation from an affiliate. Instructions had been given to the affiliate that he or she could not make any presentations that didn’t include a way to help a real estate agent increase his or her business. By enforcing this “rule,” the selling of their product was minimized, but using their product as a method to increase the agent’s business was maximized.
After the agents had an office meeting in this format, each agent felt as though they had spent their office meeting time wisely. Attendance was strictly enforced; in fact, those who didn’t attend received sanctions ranging from mandatory opportunity time at open houses to a restriction of referrals that came directly into the office.
It’s time that we started creating synergy in our offices by having agents think about teaming up for transactions. In fact, it’s really the only reason for an office to exist! Brokers and managers, you need to step up your game and see how you can increase the transactions per week. I think everyone will be more excited to be there at 9am!
An oil and gas lease lottery millionaire by age 16, Walter S. Sanford was in massive debt by the time he was 22. Taking his winnings, he invested in over 400 units and found that high leverage real estate can be detrimental to your financial health.
Obtaining his real estate brokerage license during the 80s, Walter went on to become what some believe to be one of the top agents in North America. He built his career on systems that are in demand by virtually ever major franchise and top producing agent in the world. 1995 was Walter’s best year, in the midst of a real estate depression in Southern California, where he personally closed 316 transactions.
Walter Sanford now coaches some of the top agents and travels internationally to deliver his seminars based upon systems with velocity increased by technology. He is the author of 10 ground-breaking books and software that assist top real estate producers in not only beating the competition but also providing lasting estates for their future. Systems are his passion.
Walter has been buying or selling real estate for the past 35 years. It took a long time for Walter to find balance, but today, he runs a successful coaching and training business. He enjoys life in “small town America” with his wonderful wife and two darling daughters.
Many speakers and trainers have never been involved in real estate brokerage aspects and none have ever been involved to Walter’s extent. If you would like to know more about Walter, please visit www.waltersanford.com. You’ll find more information about how to hire Walter as a speaker or coach and how to obtain his ground-breaking products for your library. Walter can also be reached at 800.792.5837 or walter@waltersanford.com.
