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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.

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...

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...

Many times, new coaching clients don’t know what to ask for. They don’t get “turned on” until they hear what others are planning to get. Real estate sales is like a buffet -- almost anything you can imagine. My clients tweak lead generation, answer objections with value, speed up the process, and don’t get involved in bad deals or with low/no profit individuals. They start seeing their needs met and then seed capital for the future.

Sanford Systems has the best systems for making money in real estate. Sometimes, our clients forget how to stop discounting and to instead raise their “fee.” This month, we’ll cover five ideas and next month, we’ll share five more.

Through the years, I have discovered that more and more agents are fearful of meeting face to face. Some agents hoped that technology would put a barrier between them and rejection, but all they found was a smaller income. The top earners still know how to find what people need and give it to them. Some of my top coaching clients are actually doing a few open houses to re-introduce themselves, face-to-face, with the neighborhoods that made them famous.

Agents are always leaving the business no matter if the market is great or rotten. In great markets, they leave because they move or retire. In rotten markets, they leave because they were never trained or they do not have the motivation to find the systems necessary for a tough market.

In 2005, we, the real estate community, saw interest only loans with no money down. We knew the banks were going to own a lot of property. I started systems that built relationships with banks so our clients would be in first place when short sale and REO listings would be considered. Now, the market is hot in some areas and getting hotter in others. One of the many trends in this environment is the growing “for sale by owner” inventory. The FSBOs still don’t have a ton of equity but are sure they don’t need a REALTOR®. Each of my coaching clients is great in re-educating FSBOs on the fact that they probably can net the same with one of our customized marketing plans, but the indoctrination always works better with a relationship.

Last month, we covered the first five ways to increase your commission, and we’re wrapping up the year with the last five ways to increase your commission.

Walter Sanford has championed checklist systems for over 30 years. He has a time-saving checklist for everything you probably will ever do in real estate.