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When I coach, we set up consistent, inexpensive lead generation activities for sellers. Some require a complete overhaul, and some require only small tweaks. Do you look for the small tweaks? You know, tweaks like those easy-to-include, natural moves taken within a mundane (but necessary) real estate activity. I have devised hundreds of these "tweaks" over the years. Proven and tested, each produces a new client when implemented. You have to be smart in this business while trying to get it done well - all within 50 hours a week. This is why efficiency is so important. Here are a few of the hundreds of small tweaks that don't add much to time or overhead but will produce big results...

Having a coach can provide the right answers when you need it. Below is an exchange with one of our coaching clients and it provided a little “911” for his current situation...

The real estate boom early in the new millennium created many wealthy REALTORS® and lenders. The owners of huge brokerage companies started thinking they were geniuses! Huge homes, second homes, vacations, and cars were on everyone’s lists. When the bubble burst, real estate prices along with many other asset classes plummeted. Many investors and real estate companies declared bankruptcy; many owners found themselves upside down. I had personally been through two other “big bursts” in my 40-year real estate career.

My coaching clients are always working not where the puck is, but where the puck is going just like the hockey greats. If you have been watching the premier home builder Toll Brothers, then you see a lot of new hires and new stock prices. Building will be coming back.

Maybe you don’t achieve success because you wrote that goal down incorrectly. With everyone telling you to set your goals and to write them down, too -- why don’t you get everything you want?

There should be more profit-refining rather than adding a new layer of overhead or technology. Sometimes, the basics are not addressed when looking to increase the company’s or individual agent’s net returns.

Frustration with internet buyer leads turning into closed business is increasing. With internet leads, you have people who just want to look around but have never really been “sold” on working with you. Once you have their email address, it is time to get these prospects to call you so you can close them into a relationship. Get them to answer some questions. Get them pre-approved. Get them to meet you in the office to sign a buyer-brokerage agreement. You will like them more and do a better job if you are more convinced that they will turn into a commission. This little drip system has been working to generate incoming phone calls from anonymous buyers. Try it!

My goal in real estate was to leverage my time so that I was getting the maximum amount of income out of every exertion of energy. I never liked showing property much, but I really wanted the listing. In fact, I did whatever was ethical to become the most recognized REALTOR® in my area. This system is a little aggressive, not for the faint of heart. I never considered it solicitation of a seller, just feedback; however, the results were many sellers ended up knowing me and paying more attention to my expired solicitation.

The real estate business gives a lot of opportunities for pain from other people: sellers who waste your resources with unrealistic expectations, buyers who cannot pull the trigger, cooperative agents who don’t do their job, and peers who usurp your clients. Many times, you cannot foresee the pain from a client, and it becomes a necessary part of our business that comes from us working for free until closing. Coping strategies become necessary.

One of my coaching clients recently had a listing client who was annoyed with her regular listing emails. Below is the exchange including the message we used in easing his frustrations and assuring him that work was being done to sell his house.