We asked top producing real estate professionals across the country about the daily habits they’ve developed to help them succeed. Now, we’re sharing their insights to help brokers better train and motivate agents who might need a helping hand.
Here are five tips to share with your team.
1. Top professionals have unbridled, passionate optimism.
Optimism is more than seeing the glass half full. Optimism includes confidence, assuredness, enthusiasm and hopefulness. Unbridled, passionate optimism is being able to express that confidence, assuredness, enthusiasm and hopefulness in all your actions and words—which are part of your daily habits.
Even in the face of huge challenges and disappointments, expressing yourself with optimism makes a difference in both business processes and outcomes. W. Clement Stone, author of The Success System That Never Fails, said, “There is very little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. That little difference is attitude.”
One way to protect your optimism in the face of what may seem like an insurmountable challenge or foregone “blown deal” is to internalize the phrase, “It’s too soon to tell.” Just as situations and deals can sour, they can also regroup, revitalize and bloom. By internalizing and expressing “It’s too soon to tell,” you’re leaving yourself and your clients with open-ended options. And no one ever knows where open-ended options will lead.
2. Top professionals have superior market knowledge.
Superior knowledge of your market goes well beyond pricing, comps and market trends. Superior market knowledge includes developing relationships with companies (via your strong networking skills) that are in the process of or planning to move executives in or out of your specific market. Superior market knowledge involves knowing which financial options are available to your clients on all tiers of the wealth spectrum. It is your ability to find inventory even when there is no inventory listed on your local MLS.
3. Top professionals are relentlessly upgrading their skills.
Top professionals know the skills they used in the past that rendered them successful will not work as well, if at all, in this current market.
Top professionals are consistently upgrading their presentations to sellers and buyers alike. Just as tech companies are constantly upgrading their apps and software, top professionals are constantly upgrading their technical skills so they can capitalize on improved and enhanced apps and products. Top professionals are also upgrading their social media skills and are relentlessly improving their remote presentation skills. Top professionals know that remote work and servicing their clients remotely are here to stay, and they act accordingly.
4. Top professionals say yes more than they say no.
Top professionals are willing to say yes even if they don’t know how to do what it is the client is asking them to do. Top professionals educate themselves through research or find a source that can meet whatever want or need their clients have.
And, it goes without saying, that the more you learn about whatever it is, the more confident, self-assured, enthusiastic, and passionately optimistic you will be about serving your clients.
5. Top professionals lead rather than follow.
Top professionals are proactive rather than reactive. They are versatile, stable and don't stand for unnecessary drama. They do not let their emotions eclipse their purpose, which is serving their client at the highest level, while at the same time expressing compassion for their client and their client’s interests.
This habit of leading rather than following is well served by the expression we previously mentioned: “It’s too soon to tell.” It reinforces that unbridled, passionate optimism and it gives you permission to stay calm and neutral regardless of someone else’s emotions, mistakes, or omissions.
The bottom line here, brokers, is to help your agents row their own boats by reinforcing the above habits of top professionals. If you’d like to learn more, check out our podcast, where in each episode, we break down what it takes to be a successful real estate practitioner..