Renegade Millionaire Strategies for Real Estate Agents · E-book, “Renegade Millionaire Strategies for Real Estate Agents.” It’s yours free! This is a $495 value! By owning

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Renegade Millionaire Strategies for Real Estate

Agents

How You Can Create and Build a Multi-Million

Dollar Real Estate Business Using Simple Proven Strategies

By Rob Minton

With

Dan Kennedy

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Contact the Authors

The authors of this book can be contacted at the following addresses:

Rob Minton Minton Publishing, Inc.

31811 Vine Street Willowick, Ohio 44095

Phone 440-549-5960 Fax 440-918-0347

http://www.RenegadeMillionaireBlog.com

Dan Kennedy 5818 N. 7th Street #103

Phoenix, AZ 85014 Phone: 602-997-7707 Fax: 602-269-3113

http://www.DanKennedyRealEstateSales.com

Renegade Millionaire Blog

Looking for daily business building advice? Get plugged in to the Renegade Millionaire Blog for Agents at: http://www.RenegadeMillionaireBlog.com

http://www.renegademillionaireblog.com/

http://www.dankennedyrealestatesales.com/


You can learn all about the latest, up to date, tips, strategies and expert recommendations – all for FREE!

Free Resell and Redistribution Rights

to this E-book!

Congratulations!! You now own the reprint and redistribution rights to this E-book, “Renegade Millionaire Strategies for Real Estate Agents.” It’s yours free! This is a $495 value! By owning the reprint rights you can reprint, resell or redistribute this e-book for any price you’d like (the suggested retail price is $16.95) and you keep 100% of the profits! Or, you can use the e-book as a free bonus or premium and give it away. It’s your choice. The only restriction is that you cannot modify the e-book in any way (that’s it).

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Copyright © 2008 By Rob Minton. All rights

reserved.

Rob Minton is not a licensed attorney, or tax advisor. He is a

licensed real estate broker in Ohio. Anyone considering implementing the ideas presented in this book is

advised to seek professional advice concerning all legal and tax matters.

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Chapter Index Introduction………………………………………….....…….7 1. How I Created a Real Estate Business That

Operates Without My Day-to-Day Involvement….……..8 2. How to Create an $80,000 a Year

Passive Income Stream for Retirement………………….13 3. How to Recruit Agents

And Train Them to Be Leaders……………………..…..17 4. How to Double Your Sales and

Triple Your Income in 24 Months……………..…...…...26 5. Why Specializing With Real Estate

Investors Could Make You Wealthy…………………....33 6. Identifying and Leveraging Your Real Assets……...…..40 7. How to Get Your Prospects and

Clients to Operate On Your Terms……………….…….50 8. The Single Most Important Tool

You Should Use to Build Your Business…………...….57 9. How to Profit from Your Newsletter……………...…....66 10. Can One Number Really Change Your Life?..................76 11. How to Apply Your Base Earnings

Target to Your Real Estate Business…………..……….84

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12. Selected Time-Management Strategies…………….......92 13. Bonus Section: Resources for Real Estate Agents……..99 14. About the Authors……………………….………….…..101

Introduction

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This book contains some eye opening ideas and strategies for real estate professionals. I would venture to guess that this book could very well change your life. It focuses on big ideas and big concepts. My goal is to change the way you think about your business. If you change the way you think about your business, your business will change too. When your businesses changes, your income changes. When your income changes, you wealth changes, too. If you apply the lessons I will share with you in this book, you will create an extremely valuable real estate business. You will create a business that you will ultimately be able to sell for big money. In order to accomplish my goal, I have to change the way you see and think about your business. I personally have gone through the transformational thinking I’m about to take you through in this book. I share my journey as a real estate professional in this book. I share some extremely valuable lessons. These lessons are big lessons. I learned many of these lessons from my mentor, Dan S. Kennedy. You will see the lessons I learned from Dan unfold in my business throughout this book. This book will not… Teach any secret telephone scripts. Reveal any new fancy PowerPoint listing presentation. Show you how to sign more buyers to buyer’s contracts. This book will… Help you see your business as an entrepreneur Help you see new income opportunities for your business. Help you build a business that has real value Help you create a business that runs without your day to day involvement.

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How I Created a Real Estate Business That Operates Without My Day-to-Day Involvement As a real estate broker, I own a small company called the Paramount Wealth Group (formerly The Home Selling Team, Inc.). It is not what you would consider the traditional real estate office. My company is basically a team of agents who assist with my sales. Last year, we sold 269 homes without taking one listing, without making one prospecting phone call and without working with a single regular home buyer. We generated $1.4 million dollars in revenue. I worked at my office about one day per week on average. I do not work evenings. I do not work weekends. When I do work in my real estate sales business, I’m usually working comfortably from my home office in jeans and a T-shirt. Before getting my real estate license, I graduated from college with an accounting degree and became a CPA with a large public accounting firm. In this accounting firm, I was in the auditing department. Our role as auditors was to review and analyze our clients’ financial statements to make sure they were reporting accurate results. The shareholders of the companies wanted an independent assessment of the company’s numbers. I worked as an employee in the accounting world for about five years. In my last year or two, I began investing in real estate. I started to buy multi-family housing, commercial property and single-family homes. These investments began to generate what everyone calls “passive” income on the side. I, like most of us in the real estate business, realized that I could earn the commissions on the properties I was buying. This would increase my return on investment and possibly reduce the amount of money needed out of pocket to invest. So, off to real estate licensing school I went. My license was held by the real estate broker who helped my wife and I buy our first starter home.

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His company was very small. In fact, there were a total of four people in this brokerage – my broker, a secretary, and myself and (some mysterious agent that never was around.) In addition to my own investing, I soon began helping some of my accounting co-workers with their real estate purchases. Word spread that I was investing in real estate, and all of a sudden they wanted to invest, too. With my first commission on a sale to one of my co-workers, I began my life as a real estate professional. By the way, my first client (co-worker), Matt Bobbey, went on to buy eight investment homes with me. For me, that first commission check was like an addictive drug. I showed a few homes and made a few phone calls, which I loved doing, and – bingo! – A big check. My fate was sealed with that first commission. I would soon be out of the accounting world. I would soon let my CPA certificate go “inactive.” Imagine the look on my mother’s face when I told her I was leaving my Senior Accountant’s position at one of the largest public accounting firms in the world and letting my CPA license go to become a full-time real estate agent. I think she felt I was making a big mistake. In hindsight, it was a pretty gutsy move. If all went well, I would have been a partner in the accounting firm in eight more years. Instead, it would be a long time before I saw another check as an employee again. At first, I lived off a few sales from my friends and family. My broker gave me a few of his clients to work with to keep my head above water. I followed this approach for about two years and was getting pretty fed up with not having a consistent flow of sales. I then went searching for a solution to this problem and ended up trying every sales program available. This included listening to, studying and attending the high-priced seminars of Tom Hopkins, Brian Tracy, Craig Procter, Brian Buffini, Chet Holmes, Jay Abraham, Mike Ferry, Tony Robbins and many more. Through each person, I learned more and more and implemented changes in my business. About two years ago, I found Dan Kennedy and made some massive changes in my business. I have literally tripled my sales as a result. Dan has taught me to think like an entrepreneur, not a real estate agent. This radical change in my thinking and

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business allowed me to accomplish more in 12 months than I had in the previous 12 years. This transformation was profiled in detail at http://www.rob.in12months.com Everything was going as expected in my life when I first got into real estate. My wife and I had our first child, a daughter. I was working every night and weekend, just like every other real estate agent. I missed my wife’s baby shower because I was showing homes to a buyer who never actually bought a home. I was killing myself trying to be everything to everyone. I was trying to list homes, help investors and work with home buyers. I was still an agent in the same small real estate brokerage. Then it happened. The “it” occurred in July of 2000. The “it” was reading Robert Kiyosaki’s book, “The Cashflow Quadrant.” Within three months of reading Robert’s book, I obtained my broker’s license with plans to own my own business. I had also hired a part-time assistant and a full-time buyer’s agent. I was going to build my own real estate company. My goal was to build a business that operated without my day-to-day involvement. A business that would provide consistent, recurring passive income. An asset that would provide income and wealth for the rest of my life. I wanted to live my life in Robert Kiyosaki’s “I” quadrant. The “I” Quadrant is the investor’s quadrant. One of the major challenges we face as real estate professionals is this: Our income is limited by our own production. Our production is limited by time. We can only physically work a certain number of hours per week. Because our time is limited, our income will always be limited, too. This is a terrible limitation. Another major problem with being a real estate agent is that our income is completely dependent upon our activity. You have to sell a home to earn a commission. This means your income quickly disappears if you are hurt, sick or unable to work. When I became a father, this income risk seemed to be severe. My choice to be a real estate agent and earn the majority of my income as a commissioned sales person was actually putting my family in jeopardy. I was one

http://www.rob.in12months.com/



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injury away from a complete loss of income. I was one injury away from bankruptcy. So are you if your income is solely dependent on your sales. Robert’s book opened my eyes as to what was possible. It also gave me the answers to the challenges I was facing. I had to become a business owner. This meant I had to build a company from the ground up. I had to recruit, train and assemble an entire company. I had to learn to be a leader. I had to make some tough decisions. I had to give up sales so that my team members could experience success. I had to completely reinvent myself to become a true business owner. My first taste of being a business owner came when the buyer’s agent I hired sold his first home. This was the first time I generated income that was not dependent on my actions. Business income is generated through the work and efforts of others. My business was not profitable at this point, so the income generated was used to pay for my business’s expenses. This is when I realized what my true role was in real estate. My role was not to sell homes. My role was to build a business. I would argue today that if you are going to work in real estate, you should be building a business, not selling homes. Why go to work each day to sell homes when there is no leverage or wealth available? Instead go to work to build a business that operates without you. This provides you with massive leverage and higher level of wealth. After starting my business, I spent the next six years building it. During that time, my business’s income exploded. I ultimately removed myself from selling homes and focused entirely on growing the business. I stopped taking new clients and turned all of my clients over to my team members. I began to pay myself a salary. However, this time it was from a business that I owned. Now my salary was not at the mercy of my employer, as it was when I was an employee at the accounting firm. When I removed myself from selling and focused entirely on building the business, our sales tripled. Here are some of my numbers:

2003 2004 2005 2006

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Homes 84 108 192 269 Sold Sales $10,117,800 $12,473,757 $23,556,561 $33,962,057 Volume Total $279,572 $407,040 $855,168 $1,265,197 Commissions Other 0 $506 $25,400 $139,369

Note: I sold my real estate sales business in July of 2007. If you would like to learn how to create equity in your business, subscribe to Renegade Reports at: www.RenegadeOneDollar.com Income

Note: The sales double and income triple from 2003 to 2005.

Note: The second sales double and income triple from 2004 to 2006.

As you can see, I have been successful at growing my business. Remember, the nation also fell into the dreaded “market bubble” in 2005. In 2006, the number of homes sales nationally dropped by over 11%. During this same period of time, we grew our sales by 40%. In addition, we increased our revenues by 59.5% in 2006 as compared to 2005. Any requests for listings are now referred out to other agents outside of my company. No one but my family has my cell phone number, and I do not compulsively check my voicemails or e-mails. I do not do any prospecting; I do no cold-calling or door-knocking. I don’t try to convert leads into appointments using some high-pressure phone “sales script.” I have built a System for my business that attracts prospects to us. These prospects actually chase us and apply to become our clients. I have finally built the business that operates without my day-to-day involvement.

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How to Create an $80,000 a Year Passive Income Stream for Retirement

A little more than two years ago, my daughter, who was 5 at the time, wanted to start karate lessons. I began to ask around and finally found a really good martial arts school. I signed my daughter up and began to observe her classes. This school does some amazing things with its students. After about six months, my daughter was asked to lead the class in certain activities. These were small roles, but they were extremely important for her. She was very nervous and needed help in her leadership role. Of course, I was the proud father on the bench watching. I was so impressed that this school was teaching my daughter how to lead at such a young age. They put all of their students through these leadership drills. In some of the classes, my daughter was leading higher ranking students. In addition to self-defense, she was learning self-confidence, respect, discipline and leadership all at the same time. At first, I didn’t realize the impact of what the school’s instructors were doing. But then it finally hit me. As this school taught its students how to lead, the school was developing future class instructors. All the instructors at the school were students. This school continuously spawns leaders who can run the business for the owner. This is so extremely important that I will say it again:

The business was designed to create leaders to run the business. Most real estate agents build a business that is focused 100 percent on selling more homes. But your business should be focused on creating new leaders and selling more homes at the same time. Why is this so important? I’m glad you asked. This strategy is so important because it allows you to build a business that can be sold for millions of dollars or led by others while you spend your time elsewhere. Most real estate agents do not train anyone to lead their businesses. In fact, most real

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estate agents’ businesses are completely dependent on their own efforts. This is risky for many reasons, as was highlighted in Chapter 1. What value does your business have if it is dependent on you? Would you be able to sell your business? Probably not. You might be able to receive referral fees on clients handed off to other agents, but you wouldn’t be able to sell your business for any real money. This simply means that your real estate business is a job with no equity. Every day you go to work to earn a commission. Wouldn’t life be better if you earned a commission and created equity at the same time? The main difference between a business with equity and one without equity is the leadership. Let’s consider two scenarios for a second: Scenario Number One: You’re an agent who hustles. You sell a lot of homes, but you hate to delegate. You realize that you can do everything better than anyone else and don’t want to waste your time hiring and training others. You make a nice living but work your tail off. You also feel as though you couldn’t hand off your clients to other agents because they would mess up and you would lose the clients. Your retirement plan entails saving money from your commissions to support you, when you decide to stop selling. The problem is you’re not saving any money for your retirement because your income is not stable. Or your plan is to sell homes until your ticket is called. Businesses Value: $0 Retirement Income Potential: 30-percent referral fee on clients turned over to new agent (This income stream may last a year or so, tops). Scenario Number Two: As you’re growing your business, you’re hiring and training agents to service your clients. You give your team the flexibility to make their own decisions and learn from their mistakes. You don’t micro-manage. You understand that your results

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might be lower because you’re not doing the task, but you’re training others to run your business. You understand that this is the price you have to pay to have a business that runs without you. Your agents are all put into leadership positions on various projects. The sales in your business do not require your personal involvement. You promote one of your agents into the president’s role and he or she now handles all of the day-to-day management functions. Your business is based upon systems that are handled and managed by others. Your retirement plan is the sale of your business. Business Value: $1,000,000 with you providing owner financing to the buyer Retirement Income Potential: $1,000,000 at 8 percent a year is $80,000 annually The point of this little exercise is to have you think of your business from a prospective buyer’s shoes. What would someone who was interested in your business want to buy? They want to buy a system that operates like clockwork. The more your business operates like clockwork, the more valuable it is. The less your business is dependent on you, the more valuable it is. If you are your business’s most valuable asset, the business’s value is much lower without you. Obviously, my scenarios are at far extremes, but the lesson is still the same. Another question I would pose is this: Do you even have to sell your business if yours operates like the one described in scenario two? Answer: NO. You can keep your business and retire, travel, help charities or whatever you want to do. By continuously building leaders in your business, you give yourself the opportunity to have choices down the road. You also create equity in your business. Equity really is the name of the game. The problem is that most agents don’t even think about equity. Their focus is entirely on income. Income comes and goes; equity is sustainable. In the long run, what is more important, the commissions you generate this year, or value of your business? I would trade income today for equity tomorrow. Would you? This is really the choice I’m suggesting you make. I’m suggesting you take some of your commissions and pay someone to lead your business. I’m suggesting that you buy management.

The president of my real estate brokerage receives a salary. I’m trading commission income for his management. I’m trading income for equity. This investment in his management has instantly increased the value of my business. This investment has also bought time for me. I now have time to build other businesses. I now have time to write this book. I now have time to help agents one-on-one through my Renegade Millionaire coaching program. Have I made my point yet? I hope so, because building leaders is one of the most important roles you have for your real estate business. It could mean the difference between a business with substantial value and one with no value. It could mean the difference between a business that works you to death 24 hours a day, seven days a week or a business that runs without your day-to-day involvement.

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3

How to Recruit Agents and Train Them to Be Leaders

I coach and guide agents across the country. One of the biggest challenges they repeatedly have is recruiting good agents to join their team. This chapter will highlight the steps I took to build my team of leaders. One of the most important steps is to:

Always Be Recruiting In the movie “Glengarry Glen Ross,” Alex Baldwin plays a tough sales manager. He gives a fiery speech to a small real estate office. He teaches them the ABCs of real estate. Alex’s ABCs were:

Always Be Closing I absolutely love Alex’s scene in this movie. The best line is “Coffee is for closers!” If you haven’t seen it, you should rent it! It’s a classic movie for our industry. I have obviously spun Alex’s strategy to be Always Be Recruiting. Yes, I’m trying to be funny, but the point is still extremely valid. You should always be looking for good people to join your team. Over the years, my very best team members have been recruited because I was constantly looking for new agents. I have recruited past clients, title agents, martial arts instructors and salespeople in other industries. To give you an idea of what I mean, I’ll share a story with you. A year or two ago, I was shopping for a new suit. I stopped in a men’s clothing store for my suit purchase.

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By the time I was checking out, I had two suits, a new pair of shoes, two new ties and a very expensive wrinkle-free shirt. The salesman at this store was simply fantastic. He up-sold me several times, and I was blown away by his salesmanship. At the cash register, I immediately tried to recruit him for my team. He explained that he had built up a large clientele and would have to start over back at zero if he changed careers from menswear to real estate. I understood his point. I struck out in that recruiting attempt. However, I was paying attention. Just last week, I had dinner with my family at a local restaurant. The waiter was fantastic. He brought toys to our table for my kids. I noticed that other customers were specifically asking for his section. I would be willing to bet that he makes the most tips out of all of the waiters and waitresses. What do you think he would do in your real estate business? Most real estate agents would have missed this opportunity. Because they are not always in recruiting mode, they do not see opportunities to recruit good salespeople. Good salespeople are all around you. You simply have to start noticing them. Every time a salesperson tries to sell me something, I pay attention. Right now, there is an insurance agent trying to sell me insurance. I do not know this agent. I never requested any information from him. He read a newspaper story about me and has been cold-calling me now for four or five weeks. I receive two or three messages each week from him. I’m impressed at his follow-through. I’m now thinking of recruiting him. Many agents make a big mistake in thinking that they will wait and recruit when they have a need for a new agent. They incorrectly assume that they shouldn’t recruit anyone unless they have sales to turn over to them. I was at one time guilty of this thinking, too.

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One of the major lessons I learned from Dan Kennedy is to build opportunity around good people. In other words, if you find someone good, they will make things happen on their own. Good people make things happen. It’s not the other way around. Don’t wait for the opportunity and then try to find a good person. Find the person and make the opportunity. Good people multiply your business. Do you think the salesman at the clothing store would have figured out a way to sell homes in my business? Of course he would have. Over the years, I have tried many avenues for finding new salespeople to join my team. Newspaper Advertising: There are two basic strategies for advertising in the newspaper. The first is to run a targeted advertisement in the real estate help wanted section. An advertisement in this section generates calls from licensed agents. The benefit of these prospective recruits is that they are already licensed. This saves you a great deal of time. The negative of these prospective recruits is that they are probably crummy salespeople. If they are licensed and looking in the help wanted advertisements, they must be struggling with their own sales. Use a very good screening process when advertising for agents in the real estate help wanted section of the paper. They usually aren’t very good. The second way to advertise in the paper is to advertise in the general sales help wanted section of the paper. Your goal is to find a good salesperson that is stuck in a bad company. The negative with this approach is that you have to help the person get his or her real estate license. You also have to train that individual on all of the basics. The benefit is that such salespeople tend not have the usual bad habits of established real estate agents. They also have a higher probability of being better salespeople. Word of Mouth:

One of the best ways to identify good agents is to ask for referrals from professionals you work with on a daily basis. Ask home inspectors, title representatives, loan officers, mortgage brokers and other agents, too. These professionals get to see agents perform. They know who is good and who isn’t. They can save you a great deal of time with your recruiting efforts. Put the word out through your network and see what happens. Your Sphere of Influence: Grab your family’s phone book. Look through everyone listed, and you might be surprised to find a few individuals who might make very good team members. You have to look in order to find. Agents You Co-Broke With: If you sell a home and co-broke with other agents, which we all do, you should pay attention. If the agent is good, recruit him or her to your team. This is probably the best place to find good agents because you get to see them in action. You get to see how they handle their clients and negotiations, and you get to follow them through the entire sales process. You’re Newsletter/Database: One of the easiest and best ways to attract new agents to your team is to advertise for them in your monthly newsletter. Every time I have put a help wanted advertisement in our newsletter, we have hired someone to join our team. The people who respond already know you. They already like and trust you. They understand how you operate because they get to see it month in and month out. Plus, this is basically free advertising, right? You already have to pay for the newsletter. A simple help wanted advertisement in your newsletter doesn’t cost you a penny extra. Here is a sample advertisement for your newsletter:

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HELP WANTED I’m looking for a new sales agent for my team. We operate in a fast paced, energetic and fun environment. New team members must be hard-working, honest and willing to learn. I will help the selected person obtain his or her real estate license. If you or someone you know would fit this description, please give me a call at 123-1234.

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As you can see, I described our environment. I also described the type of person whom I would like to recruit. I also asked for referrals too. Since your newsletter is free, you could obviously be even more descriptive than I have been in this sample advertisement. You could also indicate income potential, number of hours required and any skills you would like the ideal candidate to have. By the way, if you’re willing to accept part-time agents, I would strongly recommend you list this in your advertisement. Every single time I have advertised for a part-time position, we have been bombarded by calls. When recruiting unlicensed people, be careful about offering free tuition for their real estate licensing. The first two times I offered free tuition, I got burned. I actually made the check out in the person’s name for his first real estate licensing class. He was supposed to use the money I gave him to pay for his first class. Guess what happened? He disappeared. The next time, I got smart and paid the school directly. I paid for all of the classes as the new recruit took them. Guess what happened this time? They couldn’t pass the test. I lost even more money. Now I have finally learned to reimburse a new recruit for licensing classes in the new agent’s first two sales. I will reimburse half of the total tuition with the first sale and the balance in their second sale. This strategy works much better because they have to earn their reimbursement. They also have to actually get their license, join my team and sell a home. You never go negative in the deal! Once you’re in recruiting mode all of the time, you should understand that finding good agents is a numbers game. Over the years, I have found that I have to hire five

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agents to find one good one. I do have high expectations, and I won’t keep dead weight on my team. I’m also always taking out the weakest link, too. The truth is most agents simply don’t make it on my team. I don’t have time for non-performance. I don’t have time for excuses. I don’t have time for complainers. I only have time for performers. I only have time for people who want to learn. In order to speed up my recruiting process, I now try to recruit five new agents at a time. By recruiting multiple new agents at once, I’m more likely to get one good one. Think about how much time is saved by recruiting more agents at one time …

1. You don’t have to hire, train or fire sequentially. 2. You can train them together as a group, saving you hours of one-on-one

time. 3. You get better performance because they are competing with each other. 4. When interviewing prospective new team members, you can hire the top

five and not risk making the wrong choice. They will weed themselves out once they are on your team.

5. You don’t have to run five different recruiting advertisements. 6. You don’t have to run five sets of interviews.

To be perfectly honest, I began to try to recruit like Donald Trump does in The Apprentice. Donald picks 15 of the best applicants and then lets them weed themselves out going forward. This is actually a very smart recruiting strategy. Most companies cannot afford to have an apprenticeship program. We can because our new agents are 100 percent commission. If they don’t perform, it doesn’t cost us a penny. The challenge is the time we invest to train them. However, if you are training in group format, then you do not run the risk of lost time. This is a big lesson for you! The point I’m trying to get across is that you should run your own apprentice-type program for new agents joining your team. Bring five new agents on at a time, and then let them compete for the one spot on your team.

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Once you recruit new agents for your team, follow these steps: 1. Constantly train team members. One of the ways to leverage your time is to try to have one of your new agents with you every second you are working in your business with a client. It doesn’t matter if you’re meeting a new prospective client, or an already-signed client. You can and should be training someone every single time you are selling. This means you get two outcomes from your efforts. First off, you’re hopefully selling a home and earning a commission. Secondly, you’re training someone at the same time. The best way to train a new agent is:

1. Explain what needs to be accomplished. 2. Have them shadow you while you are performing the task. 3. Role-play the task with them and give feedback. 4. Shadow them performing the task and give feedback. 5. Let them handle on their own and provide feedback after reviewing

results.

You don’t need any fancy formal training program. In my opinion, these are a waste of time. It is better to train them as you sell. Or as your team grows, you can have your existing agents train your new agents in the same fashion. As your agents are selling, they are training new agents for your team. Last year, one of our clients, Bill Bissett, expressed an interest in joining our team. He obtained his license and began shadowing one of my agents exactly as I had outlined above. He obtained his license in May of 2006. By the end of the 2006, he had sold 41 homes. This is an average of 5 sales a month. So far in 2007, he is averaging 6.6 sales a month. 2. Once they are trained in the basics, give them leadership opportunities. What is leadership? I define leadership as “getting results through others.” How do you teach people to get results through others? You train people to lead by giving

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them the opportunity to get results through others. The best way to accomplish this is to create projects for them to lead. The outcome of the project really does not matter. What matters is they lead. What matters is that they learn to take responsibility, make decisions, handle failure and treat your business as if it were theirs. The projects can be small at first and then grow into something larger down the road. You could have them set up a new referral program, or a special client appreciation event, or a testimonial contest. Try to make sure that the project makes your business better in some way. Cleaning out the office cabinets won’t have much of an impact. Think big, and your business will grow big. 3. Let them make decisions. Once a project gets turned over to them, they will more than likely begin asking you questions. Try your best not to directly answer these questions. Instead, respond by asking “what do you think is best?” If you answer their questions, you are not allowing them the opportunity to lead. They must learn to make decisions on their own. When you answer their questions and give them the answers, you’re still leading. Don’t make this BIG mistake. 4. Give feedback after the project is complete Take some time and meet with them to discuss the project. Ask how they felt the project went. What went well? What went wrong? Give them feedback from your perspective. Give them positive recognition for trying. One of the hardest parts of training leaders is not freaking out when mistakes are made. Mistakes are to be expected. It is part of the process. This is how they learn to lead. This is how they learn to operate without your day-to-day input. Mistakes are normal. Don’t scare them when they make a mistake. Scaring them will make them indecisive. This is to be avoided at all costs. 5. Repeat the process.

If you have multiple agents, you should be running multiple projects at the same time. I would also recommend that you slowly begin turning over your responsibilities. Make a list of all of the tasks or activities you handle on a routine basis. Start to look for tasks that can be reassigned to your new leaders. Some tasks you shouldn’t delegate, such as signing checks. However, most responsibilities can be turned over to others. Understand that these tasks will not be performed the same way you would perform them. It doesn’t matter. What matters is you are not performing them. In this chapter, I have revealed the key to owning a business that operates without you. I have also given you a high level overview of how to do it in your business. The only question that remains is: Will you do it for your business? I bet everyone reading this realizes that I’m right. However, only 10 percent of you will actually build a business that creates leaders. Only 10 percent of you will build a business with real value. Will you be in the 10 percent?

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4

How to Double Your Sales and Triple Your Income in 24 Months

I am going to suggest an idea in this chapter that can double or triple your real estate business in just 24 months. You might wonder how I could make such a bold statement. Well, I’ll tell you how … I, like most agents, started in the business copying what everyone else was doing. I began looking for any possible client or sale. If someone had a pulse and was interested in buying or selling real estate, I was their guy. What did I know? I was simply copying what I saw others do. As a single agent, I was chasing all potential business, including:

1. First-time buyers for single-family homes 2. First-time buyers for condos 3. Trade-up buyers for single-family homes 4. Trade-up buyers for condos 5. Listings for single-family homes at any price range 6. Listings for condos at any price range 7. New construction listings from builders 8. Sales outside of my geographic area 9. Sales inside my geographic area 10. New construction buyers 11. Resale buyers 12. Investors buying distressed homes 13. Investors buying multi-family homes 14. Investors buying apartment buildings and commercial properties

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I could obviously go on and on with the business I was chasing. I think you get the point. I would also bet you have been down the same road with your business, too. There are many problems with this business plan. In essence, I was trying to be everything to everyone. This is simply impossible. The plan was destined for failure. Though it’s tough to see when you’re in the middle of all that, looking back, it is very clear that this is a bad business plan. The statistics on agent turnover indicate that somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 percent of new agents leave the business within the first year. I don’t know if that estimate is exact, but the turnover percentage is very instructive nonetheless. Think about it for a minute. The majorities of new agents gets their real estate licenses and immediately begin copying other agents in the industry. This means they automatically begin to copy the same flawed business plan, too. It would make more sense to start in this industry and do the opposite of what everyone else is doing, especially since the majority fail.

Don’t copy failure – copy success. The main problem with trying to be everything to everyone is that you gain zero competitive advantage. You are unable to set yourself apart from all the other agents. If you cannot truly set yourself apart from other agents, why should a buyer or seller hire you? You can double or triple your business in 24 months, simply by picking a segment of the market and specializing only in that segment. Specialization gives you a competitive advantage. Consider the following: Who makes more money in the medical field?

General Practice Physician Or

Brain Surgeon Who makes more money in the legal field?

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General Practice Attorney Or

Copyright Infringement Attorney

The answer is obvious. Those who specialize increase their incomes. They increase their incomes because they have less competition. There are many more general physicians than there are brain surgeons, right? The basic laws of supply and demand come into play when you specialize. The less there is of something, the more in demand it becomes. The more there is of something, the less in demand it becomes. There are many benefits to specializing in one segment of the market. Here is a summary of a few:

1. You save enormous amounts of time. 2. You have less pressure on your commission rates. 3. You can create special benefits just for your market segment. 4. Your response rates from targeted marketing improve dramatically. 5. Your sales presentation conversion rates increase dramatically. 6. You become a true expert in your segment because of your focus. 7. Other agents won’t compete with you.

Let’s walk through a hypothetical example to give you a clearer picture of what I’m talking about. Let’s say you love to swim and have a pool at your home. When you sell a home with a pool, you are very persuasive because you have one and you live the lifestyle. You can give real-life stories and you’re very passionate about how much your family loves your pool. Based on my suggestion in this chapter, you decide to focus your entire business on the swimming pool market. You let all other home sale opportunities go by referring them to other agents. This means you no longer list any homes without swimming pools and you no longer work with any buyers that are not interested in having a pool

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at their new home. Think about the amount of time you just saved by making this choice for your business. This time savings can now be invested into creating some really powerful benefits for your targeted clients. Here are a few ideas:

1. You could write a monthly column for your newspaper about homes with pools. You can give tips on how to sell or buy homes with pools.

2. You could write a monthly newsletter full of info on pools. You can include tips for saving money on maintenance.

3. You could create a swim club and go on swimming adventures. 4. You could create a pool party club, and each family could host a

monthly pool party at their homes. You could invite your clients and prospects to these monthly pool parties.

5. You could feature families with pool pictures and fun stories in your newsletters. I can picture the kids in their new pool with big smiles right now. These pictures would be indirect testimonials, and they would be extremely powerful in your marketing.

Are you starting to see how powerful nich-ing can be for your business? How could you focus your marketing on this niche?

1. You could write targeted advertisements for the newspaper that specifically get sellers with pools to call you. See an example below.

2. You could write targeted advertisements for the newspaper that specifically get buyers looking to own a home with a pool to call you.

3. You could send postcards to families with children on swim teams or in swim lessons. These postcards could offer them a free list of beautiful homes with swimming pools. You could also say something like: “Imagine not having to drive your kids back and forth to the pool five days a week?”

4. When someone moves into his new home with a pool, you could host a pool party at their new home for all of his friends and family. Everyone

will want a home with a pool after your party. This will lead to referrals and many future sales.

WARNING FOR POOL OWNERS

Do not list your home for sale before you read this new free report which details the 8 costly mistakes Sellers make when selling homes with swimming pools. You can have this free report shipped to your door by calling 123-1234.

Broker.

Could you create other income opportunities from this niche? Of course you could. Stop and think about the other business opportunities that would come to you. How about selling pool-cleaning and maintenance supplies to your clients? What about starting a pool-cleaning service for your clients? How about a new pool installation service? Most homes with pools need fences, don’t they? These businesses would all be back-end sales opportunities for you. I would venture to guess that you would actually make more money from these opportunities than you would from the commission on the sales. There are many other advantages, too. From my understanding, most agents purposefully stay away from listings with pools because they correctly believe that they are harder to sell. These listings typically take longer to sell because the listing agent does not have a targeted list of buyers who want to own a home with a pool. However, you would have this list because you have been running targeted advertisements for buyers wanting homes with pools. You could easily market your pool listings to your targeted buyer list. This means your listings will sell faster and you could possibly have both sides of each and every sale. If your list of pool buyers

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was big enough, you could probably sell most homes before advertising them to the public. Can you see how you have quickly set yourself apart from your competition? Can you also see how you have saved time, created some great benefits for your clients, built targeted mailing lists, increased commissions, increased referrals and new business opportunities? Can you see how you actually could make more money in less time by specializing? We haven’t mentioned referrals, but it is safe to say you would receive many more referrals as a pool specialist than a regular agent trying to be everything to everyone. Because you do so many special things for your clients, they are raving fans of yours. They will talk about you more because you stand out. Hopefully this chapter has opened up your thinking. Many agents incorrectly believe that they will lose sales by specializing. This is definitely not the case. I would suggest you study successful companies or businesses outside of real estate. I think you might find that the most profitable companies specialize. They do not try to be everything to everyone. Here are a few final examples to prove my point: Disney Specializes with Only

Families Lexus Specializes with High End

Luxury Car Buyers Progressive Insurance Specializes in “Auto”

Insurance Only Progressive Insurance has become one of the country’s largest insurance companies by specializing. They don’t even try to compete with home owner’s insurance or life insurance. They purposefully let this part of the market go and they have built a competitive advantage.

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5

Why Specializing With Real Estate Investors Could Make You Wealthy

Before I summarize my niche, let me share some thoughts with you about the real estate business in general. As mentioned earlier, 80 percent of the new real estate professionals quit the business within the first year. That doesn’t count the agents who maintain their licenses but don’t sell any homes. Why do so many quit the business? They are tired, frustrated, burned-out and NOT MAKING ANY MONEY. With the recent market bubble, many more will, unfortunately, be forced out as well. Many real estate professionals have to start from scratch each month ... living commission check to commission check … always worrying about where the next sale is going to come from. You know that feeling. Hoping that your listing sells or that your buyer doesn’t find a nice “For sale by owner” home and cut you out of the transaction. We all know it happens all of the time. In my area, approximately 48 percent of the homes listed for sale do not sell the first time they are listed. You and I know the reason why – overpriced homes. If you play the listing game, you kill yourself to get the listing. You spend your time advertising and promoting the home and 50 percent of the time, you don’t get paid. There were many times when I would list a seller’s home and then spend my weekends showing that seller homes to move into, only to lose both sales because the seller’s home never actually sold. Two potential sales became NO sales. This was pretty painful for me both in lost income and time. It was very frustrating to be in this position. I hope this hasn’t happened to you, too! If you don’t have a steady stream of sales coming to you, you do NOT have a business. You have a job with no guarantee of a paycheck – the worst kind of job! If you want to avoid, possibly even eliminate, the frustration and burnout that sends 80

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percent of all new agents out of the business and the remaining agents suffering in agony, there’s a very simple requirement: You have to somehow find a way to steady the “income ship.” That means you must end roller-coaster income. You must end anxiety. Replace anxiety with certainty. And you must regain control of your time and your life. Everyone talks about this, but most real estate professionals shrug it off as hopeless. A silly pipe dream. They resign themselves to long, long hours working seven days a week, fighting for every piece of business, putting a lot of time into a listing then losing the commission because the home doesn’t sell. In fact, many agents are literally living in fear – the fear of losing a client if they don’t leap up and answer their cell phone anytime it rings, morning, noon or night, dinner time, wherever, whenever. If a buyer client wants to see homes on Saturday and it’s your child’s birthday party, you are fearful that they will find another agent if you say no. This, you believe, is simply how it has to be. It is just the way it is done. The nature of business. Many spend as much time apologizing to their spouse, son, daughter and friends for missing or being late to ball games, school plays, birthday parties, even wedding anniversaries as they do selling homes! Every time they have to “take this call,” they shake their head sadly and say “It’s just the way my business works.” You see, the big mistake that almost every real estate professional makes is trying to get a client who only produces one sale, two if lucky. What I mean is you are focused on getting a new buyer client. Once you sell a home to this buyer and receive your commission, you are back to square one. It’s time to start the lengthy grind all over again. Wouldn’t you agree that if you are going to spend any time trying to get a new client that you should focus on clients who represent multiple sales? Let’s face it, if you have to get a client, get one who puts multiple commission checks in your pocket, not just one measly check. A few other things for you to think about … For many agents, their business is seasonal. In my market, most agents are very slow from Thanksgiving until about March. We have cold winters with snow,

and sales are very, very slow. Do you think that real estate investors care if it is winter? Do you think they care if it is too cold to move? No. In fact, I teach my clients that winter offers better opportunities to find motivated sellers. In essence, I can make my sales fly through the roof in the winter when all of my competition is waiting for spring to arrive. Many of these sales are second, third or fourth sales to the same real estate investor. Oh, incidentally, I receive far more in commission on each sale than does my competition. In my marketplace, the average buyer’s agent commission is 3 percent of the first $100,000 and 2 percent above that. In most cases, I average a 3.5-percent commission, plus a $595 administrative fee. We just recently increased our commission to 3.75 percent. This means that I make more per sale than my competition. Oh yeah, and I also still make the $595 administration fee on top of the 3.75 percent. Most real estate agents actually run screaming away from investors. This is NOT about helping investors find homes that need to be fixed up and re-habbed. This is not about showing 50 homes and writing 15 low-ball offers. This isn’t about showing crummy, beat-up multi-family homes. I do none of these things. I help my real estate investor clients buy nice single-family homes in nice areas. Once my clients own these nice single-family homes, they use my System for selling these homes to hungry tenant/buyers. When the tenant/buyers purchase the homes from my investor clients, my investors use their sales proceeds to purchase more single-family homes. Each client member I have not only buys several homes a year from me, but I have built-in multiple future sales when their current investment properties sell to their tenants. In fact, each sale for me today typically results in a minimum of two future sales with the same client. I’m leveraging my clients as buyers to their fullest potential In other words, I am banking multiple future sales.

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Once I decided to niche with real estate investors, I became so busy that my team and I were forced to implement an application process for these investors who wanted me to help them with their real estate investing. Now, when someone calls me at my office, we send them a package with an application that they must submit to be considered for one of my client openings. Each day, we get several applications via fax or mail. For the year 2006, we received 259 client applications. Now understand that this isn’t just a lead. This is a person actually sending a real estate professional an application to become one of his clients. Imagine that! Also remember, these are 259 applications from investors who represent multiple sales, not just one sale. Prospects really do chase us now. Here is what I mean:

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In the letter above, this prospect faxed us his initial application. Then faxed in a second application and then mailed us a letter. Who is chasing whom? Make sure that you realize throughout this entire process, I have not once picked up the phone to call this prospect. How hard do you think it will be for me to sign this client to an exclusive buyer broker agreement?

Above, I mentioned that we received 259 applications in 2006. Compare this to 259 listing appointments. First off, could you possibly go on 259 listing appointments in one year? Let’s say that you were able to go on 259 listing appointments. Think 259 CMAs. If you converted 50 percent of your listing appointments to actual listings that would mean that you would take about 129 listings from these appointments. You now have to do all of the work to process those 129 listings including… lockboxes, feature sheets, pictures, MLS info, showing appointments, listing

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advertisements, and open houses. Then you have 129 cranky sellers calling you to complain about advertising their home, missed showings or more open houses. I have none of these issues to deal with in my business now. You wouldn’t sell each of these listings. In my market, you would sell around half of them or 65 homes. When it all boils down, you have to go on 259 listing appointments to sell 65 homes. Now what seems better for your business – listing homes or working in a niche with real estate investors? I think I have proven that…

“You have to list to last”

Is complete crap. Don’t fall for this garbage. The real lesson or strategy that I’m trying to teach you is…

You have to niche to last. In the previous chapter, I wrote that you should spend time creating special benefits for your niche. We provide many special benefits to our niche. For example, we created a special investing club for our clients to join. As members of our club, they receive and are entitled to many benefits. Some of these benefits include:

1. Personal coaching with their investments from experienced investors 2. Special national level conference calls 3. Free training classes in our office 4. Detailed monthly newsletters with tips, strategies and ideas. 5. Access to special events 6. And many more

We have over 400 clients in our club. Club members pay $29.95 a month for their membership benefits. Stop and think how powerful this is for our business. We have 400 clients signed to exclusive buyer broker agreements. These clients are paying us

a grand total of $11,980 per month ($29.95 X 400). This income can be reinvested into additional marketing or into new club benefits. How can an agent compete with us? Because we have specialized and focused our time, we have set ourselves apart from every other agent. We have no competition. If someone was thinking about investing in real estate, they have no where else to go. In fact, our club benefits are so compelling that they would be crazy to quit and go elsewhere.

Quick Tip: The voicemail system that I use is a toll-free hotline system that offers 99 different mailboxes for different targeted marketing campaigns. In addition, prospects can request and receive a fax automatically from the system. You could have a sales letters automatically faxed to your prospects from the System. All this could happen while you are sleeping! Another nice feature with the system is that it can automatically email you with all messages. The fee for the system is only $24.95 per month and you can find more information on this system at http://www.HotlineSystem.com

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http://www.hotlinesystem.com/

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6

Identifying and Leveraging Your Real Assets

What would you say if I told you that you had diamonds all around you? Would you believe me? Probably not. Hopefully, you’ll be able to see these diamonds in this chapter. First, I would like to start with the definition of an asset. An asset is defined as: Any item of economic value owned by an individual or corporation, especially that which could be converted to cash This is an important definition for us because it states “any item of economic value.” What items of economic value do you own or control? I would like to ask you to block some time and think through all of your assets. For this exercise, use the definition above, which states any item of economic value. Don’t blow off this simple exercise. If you take the time to dig up these items of value, you will be able to leverage them into increased income and wealth. For this exercise, block out a full 60 minutes. Do not take any calls or read any e-mails. Force yourself to search, think and find every asset you own or control. The first time I did this exercise, I was quickly able to list the most obvious assets I owned or controlled within the first five minutes. However, I soon began to uncover assets that I didn’t even realize I had. The assets that I began to uncover were extremely valuable assets too. Up until this little exercise, I didn’t even realize I owned or controlled the asset. It was like having a savings account in the bank and not collecting any interest. I would bet the same will happen for you. You will uncover assets that you will be able to leverage in your business for increased income or wealth.

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Below are some of the assets I was able to identify in the first five minutes of my “Asset Exploration” exercise:

• Current clients • Past clients • Leads in my database • IRA – retirement savings plan • Real Estate investments • Real estate sales business

My list of assets turned out to be a lengthy list. Yours will too. Your job as an entrepreneur is to grow your assets over time. In order to be successful, you obviously need to know what your assets are. The problem for many of us agents is that we do not see all of our assets. Because we do not see them, we do not utilize them effectively. It is safe to say that your income and wealth will grow as your assets grow, right? Each month you advertise and attract more prospects to your business. This growing list of unconverted prospects is an asset. As you sign some of these leads into exclusive agreements, your list of current clients grows. As you sell homes to your clients, your list of past clients grows. You are automatically growing some of your assets each month as you sell homes. The problem is that you are ignoring many opportunities to leverage your assets further. If you study the wealthiest people throughout history, you will find that they leveraged their assets.

Wealthy People Leverage Their Assets. Think about Donald Trump. Is he leveraging his assets? You bet he is. In fact, he is a master at leverage. His biggest asset is his name. He now leverages his name through licensing. Here is a quick list of some of the things licensed under the Trump name.

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• Real estate investing courses (Trump University Online) • Men’s clothing – suits • Board games • Books – seven best sellers • New real estate developments • Trump Magazine • Trump Travel Agency (GoTrump.com) • Bottled water • Vodka

I highlighted new real estate developments because this is the key to Donald’s wealth, which was recently assessed in a September, 2006 Forbes Magazine article. Here is a quote from that magazine story: “The most valuable piece of the Trump empire by far is his real estate brand licensing business, run by his two oldest children, Don Jr. and Ivanka. In exchange for the use of his name, Trump gets 8% to 15% of other developers' gross condo sales. He normally puts up no money; he usually gets upfront payments of several million dollars. At the moment, there are three dozen such franchised condo buildings under way. The units will carry a total asking price of $10.7 billion.” In Forbes’ analysis of his wealth, Donald’s real estate brand licensing is the single largest component. According to Forbes estimates, it is 19 percent of his total wealth. Believe it or not, it is more valuable than his actual real estate holdings. Here is a little more from the article: “Trump's kids are signing up a new development just about every month (there were almost a dozen new projects in negotiations recently). And as long as their dad stays famous, they're likely to keep signing up more. They view this as a going concern that requires very little capital to run. Since it's a business that

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virtually can't lose money, they think investors would value it at a high multiple, like many franchise businesses are on Wall Street.” I don’t know if Trump actually sits down and lists his assets, as I’m suggesting you do. It doesn’t matter if he follows this exercise or not. What matters is that he intuitively knows what his assets are. He also knows how to leverage his assets. Would you have believed that his licensing business is more valuable than his real estate investments? Where would Trump be today if he didn’t see the value of his name? The key is seeing the asset. Wealthy people see assets that others do not see. It is imperative that you see your assets too. One of the best books I have read is Andrew Carnegie’s biography, “Andrew Carnegie,” by David Nasaw. This book will show you how one of the wealthiest men in history leveraged his assets. Carnegie’s major asset was his connection to and knowledge of the railroad industry. He leveraged this asset into a billion-dollar empire. Same thing goes for John D. Rockefeller in oil refining. Carnegie saw his asset and exploited it. Below, I have included a few assets I found in my first “Asset Exploration” exercise. You may have listed these as assets in your exercise too. I will also include a few ideas on how to leverage these assets into further income. Here goes… Lead Generation Advertisements: Any advertisement you have that successfully attracts prospects to you is an asset. It is your job to exploit this asset. You exploit the asset by using it as often as you can. You should also realize the value of creating new lead generation advertisements, too. Each new advertisement that is successful at attracting prospects instantly becomes a new asset. Are you taking time to create new lead generation assets weekly? I would recommend that you consistently write and test new lead generation advertisements. Lead generation advertisements are very, very valuable. Lead Conversion System:

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What happens when you receive a lead for your business? Do you have a system you use that converts a certain percentage of your leads into signed clients? If so, your lead conversion system or process is a major asset. This asset is leveraged by putting more prospects through your system. In fact, you should always create more demand for your services than you can handle. If you don’t have a system that converts prospects into clients, you should get one fast. You can build your own system by testing different approaches. Or you can purchase or license a successful lead conversion system from someone else. The lead conversion system I use in my business consistently converts 7 percent of the leads into signed clients. If you have a system that produces a consistent percentage of signed clients, you have a very valuable business asset. For example, do you have a certain phone script or dialogue you use to call prospects back? Does it successfully, consistently convert a certain percentage into appointments? Your dialogue or script is an asset that should be leveraged. You leverage this script or dialogue by having more calls made to your prospects. These calls do not have to be made by you. You could hire someone to make these calls and use your script. This is leverage. What would Trump do with this asset? Would he exploit it? Do you send your prospects information when they call your office? If the information you send them consistently converts a certain percentage into appointments, your mailing package is an asset for you. In my business, we mail prospects a compelling sales letter that makes them desperately want to become our client. This system is a major asset to the business. You can leverage this asset by mailing more and more packages. If you would like my help creating lead conversion systems in your business, consider subscribing to Renegade Reports. I’ll give you systems you can install into your business. See http://www.RenegadeOneDollar.com for more information. Happy Clients:

http://www.renegadeonedollar.com/

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Your happy clients are a major, major asset. Are you using this asset to your maximum advantage? Are you getting detailed testimonials from your clients? Are you getting pictures of your clients in their new homes? Are you interviewing your clients and turning your interviews into audio CDs that can be mailed to your leads? A client saying something about you is much better than you saying something about you. You may or may not know that strong customer testimonials in advertisements double and triple your advertising results. Wouldn’t it be nice to generate double the leads for the same price? Your Professional Relationships: You probably have business relationships with many professionals. I would bet that you recommend insurance agents, CPAs, carpet cleaners, painters, landscapers, interior designers and other professionals to your clients. You should leverage these relationships with each professional you refer by asking them if you can mail a letter to their database. The letter would be from them to their database endorsing you as the real estate expert in the area. You could create a special offer special for their customers. This offer would be an asset. This asset could be leveraged from professional to professional. Your Monthly Newsletter: In this book, I summarize the value of a newsletter. If you follow my advice, your newsletter will become a very valuable asset for you. You leverage your monthly newsletter(s) by mailing them to more prospects. You could rent a list of targeted prospects and put them on your monthly mailing list. This is a super way to leverage this asset. You’re Knowledge & Experience: What do you know that is valuable to others? Could you use your knowledge to exploit a certain opportunity? When I first began my business, I had a lot of experience investing in real estate. I had learned a great deal from trial and error. This experience was very valuable. I ended up building my entire business around it. Could your knowledge be turned into a class offered in your area? Could you record the class and turn it into a DVD or an audio CD?

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Celebrity Endorsement: Many companies pay celebrities to endorse their product or service. To jog your memory, think Proactive Solution (Jessica Simpson), Nike (Tiger Woods), NutriSystem Weight Loss (Dan Marino), etc. Celebrities help businesses sell more products and services. Hiring a celebrity to endorse your business allows you to easily set yourself apart from your competitors. In fact, you earn instant trust when you are endorsed by a celebrity. As real estate agents, we see this happening all around us in almost every industry. However, we don’t copy this marketing strategy. You can buy this asset by hiring a celebrity to endorse you and your service. Imagine what would happen to your business if you did hire a celebrity to endorse your business. Would you have a competitive advantage over other agents in your market? Of course you would. The use of celebrities would multiply your commissions tremendously. If you had a celebrity endorsement, you would leverage this endorsement by adding it to everything you do. You would want every person in your market place to think of you with the celebrity. Imagine having a celebrity in your newspaper advertisements? Imagine having a celebrity on an audio cd that you send to prospects endorsing you. What impact would this asset have on your business? Above, I listed a handful of assets you probably have at your disposal. I also gave you one big idea for a new asset – celebrity endorsement. In addition, I have also given you a few ideas on how to leverage these assets. I promise if you take the time to do the “Asset Exploration” exercise I suggested, you will identify many more assets. Next, I would suggest you take out a blank piece of paper for each and every asset that you have identified. Use one blank piece per asset. Using the blank piece of paper, list every possible idea you can think of to leverage this one asset into additional income.

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This part of the process will lead you to a super advanced wealth-building strategy. This advanced strategy is:

Combine Your Assets for Accelerated Wealth

To apply this advanced strategy, review your leverage ideas from each asset. Think about all of the different ways you can leverage these assets. See how you can combine ideas from asset to asset. Here are a few asset combining ideas from the assets I highlighted throughout this chapter: 1. Host a monthly Teleseminar exploiting your knowledge or experience and have a few of your happy clients on the call. Your knowledge and the lessons you’re going to teach would attract prospects to the call. Your happy clients would provide indirect testimonials during the call. The Teleseminar would become an effective lead conversion system. This new asset would be leveraged by recording the call and replaying it over and over again for new prospects. You could also offer this Teleseminar to your referral partner’s databases. Your insurance agent could promote this Teleseminar to his or her database of clients. You could repeat this marketing campaign with your accountant, attorney, and mortgage lenders. 2. Above, I suggested recording interviews with your happy clients. Have these interviews transcribed. Use your client interview transcriptions to create new lead generation advertisements. Your lead generation advertisements would include a picture of your happy client with quotes from their interview. You would leverage this new asset by creating new lead generation advertisements for each and every happy client. Talk about accelerated wealth-building – this is it! 3. How about turning your audio CDs and DVDs into mailing packages to be sent to leads? These assets can be used to create a systematic lead conversion system. You could turn these into a series of mailings, which would move more and more prospects into signed clients. 4. Think about combining some of the ideas we just discussed with your newsletter. How can you leverage your assets through your newsletter? Market your CDs and

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DVDs in your monthly newsletter. Prospects requesting these freebies would be indirectly telling you that they are closer to making a decision on their move. You could also market your monthly Teleseminar in your newsletter, too. Or you could package old newsletters, audio CDs and DVDs into an info product and sell these to your unconverted leads. This could create a new income stream for your business. 5. Could you use one of your audio recordings or DVDs to create a special offer for a joint venture campaign? You could have your joint venture partner offer a free audio CD recording titled “How to Sell Your Home for Top Dollar in a down Market.” This recording would be you interviewing your happy client. Your client would be telling everyone how good you are and how happy they were with your service. 6. Finally, you should definitely use these videos on the internet. Lately, we have noticed a significant increase in response to our online marketing from the simple use of video. I hope you are at least starting to see how many assets you truly have at your disposal. The best part about these ideas is that your list of assets should grow each and every month. Each month, you are creating new lead generation advertisements, testing new lead conversion ideas, generating new leads, obtaining new testimonials, writing new newsletters. The combination opportunities are endless. You will begin compounding your assets at incredible rates. If you’re like most agents, you probably didn’t even realize all of the assets you have available. The first step is seeing your assets. The second step is exploiting all of the assets that you see. Have you ever heard the Acres of Diamonds story by Russell Conwell? In the story, you learn that riches are most likely hidden beneath your feet. Conwell shares a story about a man who searches all over for diamonds. His extensive search brings him no luck whatsoever. As it turns out, he had diamonds on his property. He was searching for wealth everywhere but at home. He had the asset, but he didn’t even realize it. Because he didn’t realize it, he didn’t leverage it.

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The same goes for us, too. What assets do you have that you are not noticing? You have wealth at your fingertips. The way you unlock the wealth is by identifying and leveraging your assets. Where would Donald Trump be today if he didn’t understand the value of his name? You might be tempted to blow off this asset exploration exercise. I know you’re busy. I promise that this exercise will increase your income. I promise that you will not regret taking the time to see your assets. Before you forget, block time in your calendar now. If you don’t, the idea will slip through your fingers.

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7

How to Get Your Prospects and Clients to Operate On Your Terms

One if the biggest challenges real estate agents face is controlling their time. Week after week, we work days, evenings and weekends. I remember having to show homes to a first time buyer during my wife’s baby shower. She really wanted me to be at the shower with her. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say no to the client. I needed the commission. I spent the entire afternoon showing them homes. Guess what? They never bought a home with me. I’m still, to this day, irritated about them. First let’s take a few minutes and really analyze why we cannot control our clients and therefore our schedules. I believe this happens for many reasons. Here are a few: 1. Our clients can easily replace us. We realize that there are many other agents

competing for our clients business. These agents would gladly cater to our clients schedules. If we don’t say yes every single time a client asks for something, we feel like we could lose them. The feelings are real and justified. We do lose clients all of the time. Clients are not loyal to one agent anymore.

2. We need the commission. Every sale and every commission is important to us.

Most agents do not have the luxury of letting a sale slip through their fingers. We have bills to pay and we need the money. Because we need the money, we do what we have to do to keep our clients happy.

3. We have trouble saying no. Most agents work extremely hard to get a new client.

Because they work so hard to get the client, they don’t want to do anything that would cause the client to be unhappy. In order to keep the “hard to get” client happy, we say “Yes, I will show you homes on Friday night from 5 to 9pm.”

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There are many other reasons why we have trouble controlling our schedules, but these would probably be the top three. The good news is that there is a strategy you can employ that will help you completely control your schedule and turn the table on your clients. The strategy is to become irreplaceable in your clients eyes. If you were irreplaceable, your client would happily work on your terms. If you were irreplaceable you would feel comfortable saying no. You would happily say, “I’m unavailable on Friday night. Let’s make it 10am on Monday morning.”

How do you become irreplaceable? Become an expert in your prospects eyes. If you achieve expert positioning, you become irreplaceable. Think about this scenario… You slip on some ice and fall. During the fall you break your right arm in multiple places. You go to the hospital and they say your arm requires a surgery with pins, plates and other scary stuff. The emergency room offers you a choice. You can choose to go into surgery right now with the emergency room doctor or you can wait two days and have your arm operated on the orthopedic bone specialist. Which would you choose? You would obviously choose to wait for the specialist, right? You wouldn’t trust this major surgery to a general practitioner would you? You would more than likely want to wait, in pain, for the specialist. You need to become a specialist just like this surgeon. Prospects and clients must be willing to wait for you because of your experience and the value you bring to their transaction. They must feel like they would be at a disadvantage if they don’t wait for you. In the scenario I outlined above, you probably felt that the emergency general practitioner would put you at a disadvantage. The easiest way to achieve expert positioning is to write a book. How do you think prospects would view you if you were a recognized author? Do you think you might

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become irreplaceable? Do you think they might be more willing to wait until Monday for their appointment to see homes? You bet they would. Obviously, you have to write a real estate book. You can’t write a children’s book and get the same positioning. The book should also be focused on the niche that you selected for your business. Earlier, I gave the example of becoming an agent that specialized in swimming pools. If this were you, your book should be about selling and buying homes with swimming pools. The title could be “Avoid These 8 Costly Mistakes When Buying or Selling a Home with a Pool.” Your book could have 8 chapters, one for each costly mistake. You could also write about the quality of life you obtain from your own private swimming pool. You could include quotes and testimonials from your clients. You could include real life stories about your clients and their pools. Once you finish your book, you can self publish it. My book was self published through a company called Authorhouse. The book is available on all major websites including Amazon.com. This simply means you don’t need to find a publisher for your book. You can self publish faster on your own. Remember, your purpose for writing your book is not to be a best seller. Your sole purpose is to obtain expert positioning. As soon as your book is finished, you can now add “Author” next to your name in all of your advertisements, business cards, website, and correspondence. You could also include a picture of your book on everything you send out. You could promote your book in your newsletter and throughout your community. You could draft press releases and have your local newspapers write stories about you and your new book. How many agents in your market have written a book? I would guess none. Can you now see how writing a book would position you as the expert? Can you now see how your book will set you apart from your competition? Can you now see how your book will increase your sales and allow you to control your schedule? Can you now see how your book will make you irreplaceable? Here are some secrets about your new book:

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1. Prospects must know about your book before you meet with them. This

means you should have your book sent to them prior to your first meeting. This would be before your listing appointment or your first buyer meeting. You should also focus your advertisements around the fact that you’re an author. You have to become like Donald Trump and shamelessly promote your book. Books don’t promote themselves. Don’t make the mistake of writing a book and then keeping it a secret. Your book will not be profitable in and of itself. However, it will lead to many large commissions.

2. Your book should really be one long sales letter for your real estate business. You should study other authors who promote their businesses in their own books. Author Michael Gerber wrote a fantastic book titled “The E Myth.” Michael owns a consulting business which helps small business owners run their businesses based upon systems. It is a great book and I highly recommend it. As you read the book, pay attention to how he writes about one of his consulting clients. He is indirectly letting you, the reader; know that he can help you with your small business. I guarantee that his book has delivered thousands of clients to his business’s door.

3. Your book must look and feel like a book. It can’t be perceived as a long report or pamphlet. Pamphlets and reports do not give you expert positioning. Anyone can write a report. This means that your book has to be thick. You can change the font and page layout in order to give you extra pages. Don’t get cheap and try to save printing costs by eliminating pages. Your goal is to add pages. Your goal is to have a book.

4. Your book does not have to be perfect. Most people waste so much time trying to make their book perfect. I remember interviewing a person for an administrative job on my team. During the interview, he told me he was writing a book. He went on to describe his book. I learned that he

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had been working on his one book for two years. Your book can and should be written in a very short period of time. Remember, you’re not going for a best seller. You’re going for a book. An average book is better than no book. I will even go one step further and say a bad book is better than no book. My original book, Income for Life, has many spelling errors. The draft version was printed instead of the final version. A book with spelling errors is better than no book. By the way, I didn’t hire the guy who took two years to write his book…

There are three different ways that you can have your own book. The first way is to do it the old fashioned way. The old fashioned way is to sit down and write. You need to block time in your calendar and just get it done. When I wrote my first book, I would take my laptop to a local coffee shop for two hours every other day until it was finished. I was finished in 4 weeks. You can have a local graphic artist design your cover. Most good printing companies employee graphic artists. Check with your printer and see if they can design and layout your cover. Just make sure that you own and control the rights to the cover they design for you. Or you can have the self publishing company design the cover for you. The cover of my book, Income for Life, was designed by Authorhouse. The second way for you to have your own book is to hire a ghost writer. They are pretty easy to find with a quick search on the internet. I recently shopped around for a ghost writer and found that there prices range from $15,000 to $40,000 to write a book for you. Many of the books by top business people were written by ghost writers. They simply pay to have a book written for them. This is a very smart use of their time. It usually will take between 60 and 120 days to have your book written by a ghost writer. The third way is to license someone else’s book and reprint it as a co-author. This is probably the fastest and easiest way to have your own book. In one day, you could be an author. I haven’t researched book licensing opportunities, but I would have to believe they exist. The idea is to pay another author for rights to re-print their book with you as either the sole author or a co-author.

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Super Co-Author Secret Strategy: Make a list of professionals that you work with for your real estate transactions. This list would more than likely include:

1. Mortgage professional 2. Tile agent 3. Home inspector 4. Attorney 5. Accountant 6. Insurance Agent 7. Professional decorator

Setup a meeting with these professionals and explain that you would like to put together a multi-authored book. Each professional needs to write a chapter for this new book. They will each be featured as a co-author. You will self-publish this new book for speed. In addition, you will make one larger combined order to drop the price of the book down dramatically. Think about how powerful this multi-authored book strategy could be for your business. First off, you should be able to get free publicity for this book very easily in your local newspapers and media. This would make an interesting story for the news. The publicity would give you free exposure throughout your entire marketplace. This is good, but it gets better. I would recommend that your professionals send a free copy of your new multi-authored book to their databases. You would do the same to your database. On the surface, this might not seem like a big idea, but it is. You would automatically be perceived as the expert agent by each person in each professional’s database. You would get a free ride into thousands of new clients. The other professionals would get the same free ride too. This is a very big idea. It also saves you time from having to write the entire book yourself. Less work, more exposure. Dan Kennedy teaches…

Money follows speed

Your multi-authored book could be finished very quickly. You would need to give each author a deadline for his or her chapter. If they miss the deadline, let them know you’re going to pursue other professionals in their field. This will keep them accountable to your project. To summarize, expert positioning can happen very, very quickly. The speed with which you can obtain this positioning depends on how quickly you can have your own book. You should evaluate your writing skills, content, time commitments to determine if you should attempt to write your own book. In addition to writing your book, you will need to spend time editing, formatting and laying out the final version. You will also need to have a cover designed or design one yourself. To learn more about how to create joint venture relationships with professionals in your area, visit: http://www.ReferralsOnSteroids.com

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http://www.referralsonsteroids.com/

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8

The Single Most Important Tool You Should Use to Build Your Business

When I first got into real estate, I had no idea what was critical to my success. I definitely made some incorrect judgments. In fact, I have made countless mistakes over the years. One of the biggest mistakes I made for years was not sending my database a monthly newsletter. I realize you probably have heard this before. Stay with me because I will show you some extremely valuable ideas and concepts. I promise. In fact, for the first four years of my business, I didn’t even track my contacts. I simply spent my time trying to sell homes to anyone that had a pulse. This was a massive mistake because I was not leveraging any of my work. Leverage is a key component to building your business and wealth. One of the definitions I found of leverage was: strategic advantage, or the power to act effectively. My definition is getting maximum result with less effort. When I first started selling real estate, I did not use leverage to my advantage. This simply meant that I was not extracting maximum value from my daily efforts. I was not working smarter as the old saying goes. One of the most important assets you should leverage is your contacts. You should have a database management system for your contacts. In fact, I’m going to recommend that you sort all of the people in your database management program into different categories. Here are a few of the categories for your database: Sphere of Influence – Your sphere of influence is your friends and family. This is basically your family’s address book. Most agents are taught to focus their marketing activities on their Sphere of Influence. I have found this to be a little awkward. I

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don’t like trying to sell my friends and family. It feels uncomfortable and could damage my relationships. Therefore, I don’t personally solicit my friends and family. However, I have attracted a large number of them to my business because they are interested in real estate investing. This means they initiate the conversation or contact, not me. This is a much better position to be in with this category. A few of my best friends have also become my best clients. They are buying home after home with me. This process started with them contacting me first. The same thing is happening with agents launching my System. They are attracting their friends and family as clients. A Clients – These are your very best clients. This group would be considered devoted fans of yours. They trust you and follow your advice. They were completely happy with your service and refer others to you. In my business, we created a special group for this category. I mail this group a special package each month with interesting news articles, special reports, and sometimes books. I have monthly conference calls with them and quarterly meetings. I send my A clients special weekly emails. I also send them our regular full client newsletter. I touch my A clients a minimum of 205 times a year. This group of clients, which total around 40, is responsible for 70% of our sales and income. I would further estimate that each of my A clients has a lifetime value to my business in excess of $25,000. This group of A clients is worth at least a million dollars of gross income to my business. Doesn’t it make sense that I do special things for this group of clients? B Clients – This category is for all of your other clients. When I say client, I mean they have signed an exclusive representation agreement of some sort with you. The clients in this group would be considered regular fans. They are extremely valuable to you. We have over 360 clients in this category. We touch this group of clients a minimum of 131 times a year. I would estimate that the average lifetime value of a client in the B category to be $5,000. This group of B clients is worth around $1.8 million dollars to my business in future income. My job is to turn the people in this group into raving fans and move them into the A client category.

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Unconverted Leads – This is the group of prospects who have contacted you for various reasons. They may have contacted you from an advertisement, a listing, a referral, or through any other source. The people in this category are not yet fans. They are sitting in the parking lot of the stadium waiting for you to win them over. They have not yet signed an exclusive representation agreement with you. In my business, we have thousands of unconverted leads. We touch the people in this category a minimum of 20 times in the first year and 12 times each year thereafter. My job is to turn the people in this group into regular fans. As you may be starting to see, each of these categories of people has different values to your business. The first lesson for you to see is that I have sorted my contacts based upon their value. The second lesson for you to see is that I treat each category differently. I invest more into my A clients than I do for my B clients. I also communicate differently with each category. Most agents group all of their contacts into one category and then communicate the exact same way to the entire category. This is a big mistake. Your newsletter, as you will soon see, should not to be taken lightly. In fact, your newsletter(s) are the most important tool you have to grow your business. The reason your newsletters are an important tool for you is because…

Your newsletter is a sales letter Sales letters are little sales robots that work for you while you’re doing other things. The more sales robots you have working for you, the more homes you will ultimately sell. The problem is that most agents view a monthly newsletter as an expensive hassle. The reason they view the newsletter as an expensive hassle is because their newsletters are not sales letters. A true sales letter will provide you with a return on your investment. This simply means that you should profit from your monthly newsletters. If you’re not profiting from your newsletter, you’re not sending the “right” newsletter. Here is a tip for you, if your newsletter has a recipe in it – your newsletter is not a sales letter. Well, if you decided to specialize in homes with gourmet kitchens, you might want to consider recipes for your newsletter!

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There are a few rules that you need to follow when drafting your newsletter. These rules should be used to turn your monthly newsletter into a template. This template then is followed month after month. This way you automatically create sales letter after sales letter. The most important goal for your monthly newsletter is that it must be read by the person you send it to. This is a simple rule that most agents don’t even consider. For the record, when I say newsletter, I mean a hardcopy newsletter that is sent via snail mail. I don’t mean newsletters sent via email. To make sure your newsletter is read, you need to study other successful newsletters or monthly publications. What newsletters have the highest subscription numbers? First, you would need to study subscription rates. Second, you would need to study single copy sales rates. These rates would give you an idea of what the market values. You should pay attention to what the market values. What are some of the key components in these magazines and monthly publications? Can you use these same key components in your monthly newsletter? Even better, could they become part of your template? To save you time, I have performed a study of the top selling monthly publications for you. Here are the top ten subscription magazines/newsletters: (Circulation Data obtained from Circulation Data provided by Audit Bureau of Circulations - www.accessabc.com) # of subscribers

AARP Magazine 22,270,073 AARP Bulletin 22,270,073 Readers Digest 10,228,531 TV Guide 9,016,188 Better Homes and Gardens 7,268,424 National Geographic 5,468,471 Good House Keeping 4,623,113 Family Circle 4,372,813 Ladies Home Journal 4,108,619

http://www.accessabc.com/

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Woman’s Day 4,060,610

Here are the top ten single copy magazines: (Information obtained from Audit Bureau of Circulations – www.accessabc.com)

Cosmopolitan 1,945,296 People 1,561,386 Woman’s World 1,407,355 First for Women 1,262,581 In Touch Weekly 1,227,350 US Weekly 978,285 Family Circle 867,008 O, The Oprah Magazine 866,884 Glamour 861,006 National Enquirer 812,686

Remember how I have suggested you pick a niche for your business? Are any of these monthly publications targeting a specialized market? The single largest subscription publication is the AARP Magazine and Bulletin. These publications are targeted to the senior market. Notice how they dominate their competition? Let’s take the Reader’s Digest and study this magazine. Now, the reason I’m focusing on Reader’s Digest is because it is one of the largest subscription magazines. This means that consumers pay to receive this each and every month. Also, because this is one of the top selling subscriptions, you can feel pretty certain that the people receiving actually read it. This is something you should pay attention to when preparing your monthly newsletter. In fact, I’d suggest you study and learn from the format of each monthly magazine. They have a proven formula. From my quick review of this magazine, I noted that each magazine seems to have the following: Articles surrounding the following topics:

1. Finances 2. Family

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3. Health Care 4. Stress/Clutter Organization 5. Celebrity Interviews

The magazine also has the following sections:

1. Quotes 2. Jokes/Funny Stories/Comics 3. Mental Challenges 4. Readers Comments

In addition, the magazine features multiple advertisements and photos. Let’s now take a look at the TV Guide. Here are the Departments they feature each week:

1. Moment of the Week 2. Hot List 3. You Tell Us! – Comments from Readers 4. Behind the Scenes 5. Cheers & Jeers 6. Roush Review – Review of TV shows 7. TV Listings 8. Celebrity Gossip – similar to People Magazine

This magazine also includes many photos. These photos are used to increase readership and improve retention. The photos are entertaining. In addition, it should be noted that both magazines feature multiple advertisements running the gambit. If you take some time and study these two magazines side by side, you might note a few similar items. For example, you will notice they both feature the following:

1. Interesting photos 2. Comments from Readers 3. Celebrity info

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4. Interesting or entertaining articles 5. Advertisements

What does this mean for you? It suggests that you should model your monthly newsletter with similar articles and sections. Now, I’m not suggesting you copy any of their material. I’m simply suggesting you learn from their format. You could layout a four page newsletter with various sections. My newsletters include many of the items outlined above. The reason you should study these magazines is because they are proven winners. Don’t spend time trying to reinvent the wheel. Follow success for your monthly newsletter. By following their successful formats, you know in advance that your newsletter will be effective. In other words, your newsletter will be read by those you choose to send it to. In fact, your newsletter should be so good that your clients anxiously await it each month. To show you what I mean, consider the following notes I received from some of my clients: “I always look forward to reading your newsletter every month. As a person who reads about 10-15 newsletters a month, I believe I can honestly say that your newsletter is probably the most heart-felt and honestly written newsletter I read every month. You always provide us with practical information to help us take our investing to a higher level!!” This card was signed – “Client for Life” Travis Moore “We get so much information and knowledge from the monthly newsletters. They help us stay on track and inspired to squeeze the most out of work and life everyday.” Devin & Kris Murray “I anxiously wait for your monthly newsletter. Each issue is packed with new information and terrific insights that are invaluable to my investing.” Chris Thomas It should be instructive that I actually receive testimonials, notes and cards about my newsletter. Newsletters have become the foundation of my real estate business. I

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spend a great deal of time writing my newsletters. In fact, I spend more time each month on my newsletters than most agents do on their advertising. I take them very seriously. There are many reasons I take my newsletters seriously. As stated earlier, they are sales letters. In addition to bringing in more homes sales, they allow me to continuously deepen and build the relationship I have with my clients and unconverted leads. Newsletters have become so important that we now mail four separate newsletters each and every month. People in different categories receive different newsletters. For example, if the person is in the unconverted leads category, they get a specific newsletter focused on moving them into the B client category. In one of my recent monthly newsletters to my unconverted leads category, I was able to move 32 prospects into the “B” client category. Can you see how this newsletter is actually a sales letter? This newsletter is focused and targeted specifically to this category. If a person is in the “B” client category, they receive a different newsletter than someone in the unconverted lead category. The goal of the newsletter sent to B clients is to move them into the A category. If you stop and think about it for a little bit, you will see that it is impossible to send the same newsletter to everyone in your database. This is because you have different objectives and goals for each category. Newsletters are very powerful if you know what you’re doing. If you’re not sending a monthly newsletter, start one now. It’s one of the most important tasks for your business. Agents launching my business System have my “done for them” newsletter targeted to the categories mentioned above each and every month. This saves them a great deal of time. This has been a very powerful chapter. I hope you picked up on the key lessons. The key lessons are to sort your database according to different categories. You have different goals for each category. You should send a different targeted monthly newsletter to each category. Each and every newsletter is a sales letter and should

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ultimately bring money in the door. See the next chapter for how to bring more money in the door using your newsletter(s)!

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9

How to Profit from Your Newsletter Agents who truly understand the importance of a newsletter for their business will see ways to profit that other agents do not see. Agents who view their newsletters as a sales letter will be constantly searching for new services or items to sell. In this chapter, I’m going to highlight how you can create multiple profit opportunities from your monthly newsletter. These new profit opportunities should also help motivate you to start sending a monthly newsletter immediately. Newsletter Profit Strategy #1: Converting prospects into clients I realize this profit strategy is plainly obvious. The purpose of sending a monthly newsletter to a prospect is to get them to become a client. Well, what strategies are you using to help this process along? Do you haphazardly put your newsletter together each month, or do you plan ahead with a detailed sales approach? In my business, I’m converting, on average, between 10 and 20 prospects into clients each month. I plan this process and write the newsletters to accomplish this goal. At first, I wasn’t good at this process. However, after testing different strategies each month, I’m getting better. You should be too. If you’re sending a newsletter each month and are not turning any prospects into new clients, you’re not sending an effective sales letter. I learned how to make my newsletter into a prospect conversion tool by studying other effective newsletters. I subscribe to and read over 15 different newsletters on a monthly basis. I’m constantly watching how these newsletters sell to their subscribers. I have extracted some very valuable ideas and strategies. In fact, I subscribe to all of Dan Kennedy’s newsletters. I learn from his newsletters on two levels. I learn the ideas and strategies he plainly teaches. I also learn from how he

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writes, what he writes and how things are positioned in his newsletters. Each newsletter he writes is a well crafted sales letter. You should subscribe to his newsletters and study them accordingly. Visit http://www.DanKennedyRealEstateSales.com for a free trial subscription to Dan Kennedy’s monthly newsletter. There are many ways for you to use your newsletter to convert prospects into clients. One of the best ways is to include testimonials from your current clients. You could profile a new client each month and write about them. This profile is indirectly selling you and the services you provide. It is providing social proof and letting your prospects see other clients that have chosen to use you for their real estate needs. Make a list of your top 10 clients. Call them and ask them if you could write about them in your next newsletter. Setup a phone appointment to interview them and prepare a list of questions that will help you write your story. You can ask them questions like:

1. What were some of your concerns before moving? How did we help address these concerns for you?

2. Why did you decide to use the services of a real estate professional? 3. How did you initially hear about me? 4. Why did you select me as your real estate professional? 5. What was the biggest benefit from our service? 6. What were some of the other benefits you received? 7. How did we do with your negotiations? 8. What advice would you give others thinking of buying or selling a

home? 9. If you had to move again, what would you do differently?

Your questions help you to write your newsletter story each month. The answers received are directly and indirectly selling you. You might be surprised, but you will actually learn a great deal about your business from these interviews. You will learn where your top 10 clients came from. This information should be extremely valuable for you. You could then focus on attracting more clients like your top 10. I would


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also recommend getting a picture of your clients in front of their new home or the home you helped them sell. Pictures are extremely valuable in marketing. If you have decided to niche as recommended in this book, try to focus your interview and pictures around the niche. For example, a picture of the family around their new pool would be priceless for you. Newsletter Profit Strategy #2: Getting referrals This strategy is very obvious. However, what strategies are you using to get referrals? Believe it or not, you need strategies. Referrals won’t come unless you specifically market for them. There are several ways to get referrals. One way is to give recognition to clients that are referring to you. You could profile a client in your story that has referred clients to you. You could then profile the client that was referred. You probably have heard of the 6 degrees of separation theory? The theory is that everyone on the planet can be traced through a chain of people to anyone else on the planet. The average number between two people is six. You could follow the chain of your referrals and write about it. The client would hopefully say, “Thank goodness Charlie referred me to you!” Another big idea is to promote a client appreciation event in your monthly newsletter. You could ask your clients to bring their friends or extended family members. This event would give you the opportunity to meet and form relationships with their friends. We hold a large client appreciation event each year. Last year, we reserved a big park. We had rented bouncy houses for the kids. We had clowns making balloon animals. We had an ice cream truck at the party the entire time. Guests could just walk up to the truck and get whatever ice cream they wanted. We grilled hot dogs and hamburgers. We even had a hot dog eating contest. You could have a face painter for kids. We raffled off some nice prizes and it was a great success. We deepened our relationship with our clients and stimulated many referrals. The event was expensive; however, one of our lenders helped by sponsoring part of the event. As a co-sponsor, she was able to attend the event with her team. She got to network with all of our clients. By attending, she was able to generate leads for new investor loans.

You would obviously write about your client appreciation event in future newsletters. I included a few of the pictures from one of our events below. I also used these pictures and more in our monthly newsletter too. If anyone refers new clients to you at the event, you could include a special thank you page in your newsletter and list each referral separately. By giving them special recognition, you will set yourself up to receive additional referrals from other clients too.

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Newsletter Profit Strategy #3: Sell other products or services You could promote other products or services in your monthly newsletter. I have promoted several different services in my monthly newsletter with amazing success.

This is our client winning the hotdog eating contest. I have a

handful of cash for him! This is Dennis Ames on my team with two clients.

Dennis is now the President of my business.

This is Dennis Ames’s daughter, Morgan. She’s holding a balloon

sculpture from the clown! This is a picture of me with some of our best clients.

These clients are in our “A” category!

The first service that we offered in our newsletter was a property management service. One of my clients started his own property management company. We

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promoted his new service in one of our newsletters and he quickly had 26 properties under management. For conversations sake, let’s say that the property management fee per property was $100 a month. This promotion in your newsletter would generate $2,600 of monthly income. The lesson learned was that targeted services can be profitably marketed through your newsletter. As I write this chapter, I’m in Hilton Head, South Carolina on vacation with my family. We are looking at investment properties for weekly rentals to vacationers. From my limited observation, it seems that most of the real estate companies also offer property management services. They will help attract vacationers to your property. They will handle all of the paperwork, deposits, repairs and weekly cleaning. This service can be promoted without cost through their monthly newsletters to their existing client database. Some of these property management companies charge 30 to 50% of the gross rental income. If a property generates $30,000 of gross income a year, the property management company generates $9,000 to $15,000 of income. They actually make more on the management than they do on the commission for the sale. Last year, a client of mine started a new mobile home investing business. I’m a part owner of this new business. For this business, he will buy and resell used mobile homes as passive investment for our clients. This business is extremely profitable for us and our clients love it. They are earning attractive returns on their mobile home investments. The new business will generate over $100,000 of income within the first 12 months. Better yet, this business was launched and marketed to our existing clients which make it extremely profitable. Are you starting to see how your newsletter is one of the most activities for your business? If you would like to learn more about our mobile home investment business, visit http://www.NewMobileHomeBusiness.com You can purchase our mobile home business in a box for $297 and start a similar business in your market. Remember the swimming pool niche I mentioned earlier? What services or products could you promote in your newsletter if you targeted this niche? I would think you could promote the following:

http://www.newmobilehomebusiness.com/

1. Swimming lessons 2. Swimming pool installation 3. Weekly cleaning and maintenance 4. Swimming pool supplies and cleaners 5. Swimming pool accessories 6. Decorative fences to surround the beautiful pool 7. And more…

Make sure you don’t violate any RESPA laws with this strategy. Discuss these ideas with a good RESPA attorney.

You could setup a joint venture with these companies and profit from your client’s purchases of their services. Or you could own these companies outright and build multiple businesses around your real estate sales business. The pool supplies, cleaners and accessories business would probably be very easy to launch. I would image you could simply become a distributor for some companies products. These supplemental businesses would all have value and could be sold separately for large paydays down the road.

The real value in selling additional products and services in your newsletter is that you virtually eliminate your marketing costs because your services are promoted through your newsletter. Remember, these services are targeted to your clients. More than likely, you will generate enough business through your newsletter which means that you won’t have any advertising costs. This makes the sale of additional products and services very profitable. Competitors to these new businesses will have a tough time competing because they have to cover advertising expenses to attract new clients. You don’t. I realize that many of you probably don’t want to specialize in homes with swimming pools. What are some other products or services you could market in your newsletter? Stop and think about the products and services your prospects and clients need. My guess is that most home owners need the following services:

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1. House painting 2. Home decorating 3. Carpet cleaning 4. Carpet installation 5. Landscaping and lawn services 6. Home repairs 7. Home staging 8. Home cleaning 9. Organization and de-clutter services

In my marketplace, there is an agent who specializes in selling country type homes. These homes are typically situated on larger lots. Because the lots are larger, it is cheaper to have asphalt driveways. Her husband owns an asphalt company. I would imagine she markets her husband’s services to her database. Asphalt driveways need to be re-surfaced every few years. They have built in future income generated through her real estate business. Very smart. Who do you know that could offer any of the services above to your clients? Could you start a new business as a co-owner and begin marketing the business through your newsletter? Newsletter Profit Strategy Number #4: Seminars Last year, we started a seminar business. We began marketing our first ever wealth-building seminar in our newsletter. The price to attend the seminar was $999. We had 60 people sign up for this seminar. The seminar itself generated over $60,000 in registration fees. The speakers for this seminar were professionals. We had a CPA teach tax reduction strategies. We had an estate attorney teach our clients how to minimize their estate

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taxes. We had an asset protection attorney teach our clients how to protect their assets. We had a self directed IRA expert show our clients how to invest their IRA accounts into real estate. We had a 1031 exchange expert teach our clients how to defer capital gains taxes when they sell their investment properties. We had assembled such a great roster of speakers that our clients really wanted to attend. Most of these professionals charge very high hourly rates. My clients would have had to invest thousands of dollars to meet with these professionals on their own. They also would have had to setup and travel to 15 different appointments. The speakers answered questions and gave their professional advice. We brought all of the professionals into one room, which saved them a great deal of time and money. It was a win/win all the way around. Guess what? We recorded the entire event. This event can now be packaged into an audio program and sold in the newsletter. I also had all of the recordings transcribed and am considering laying out a new multi-authored book from the speaker’s presentation. Each speaker would be featured as a co-author. See the chapter titled “How to Control Your Clients and Your Schedule.” Newsletter Profit Strategy Number 5: Sell Investment Properties You could sell properties in your newsletter. You could have a section on the best value of the month. This could be a home priced below market and would attract the investors in your database. You could also present the best rental property home available on the market. Or you could highlight and present a multi-family or apartment opportunity. This strategy seems fairly obvious, but most agents make a big mistake. They feature one of their listings. In most cases, your listings won’t appeal to your newsletter recipients. You should select a property that appeals to a higher percentage of your newsletter recipients. If your clients just bought their home four months ago, they are not interested in the 5-bedroom colonial you just listed. They could care less. However, most people are interested in opportunities to increase their incomes, so investment properties make the most sense. Consider adding an investor’s corner to your newsletter. Don’t worry about promoting your listings. Promote listings that make the most sense from an investor’s point of view.

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If it happens to be your listing, super. If not, who cares? Sell the home and earn the commission. Profit from your newsletter. If you don’t want to mess around with investment properties yourself, you can simply refer your clients to an agent who specializes with investment properties. This would allow you to collect referral fees with absolutely no work on your part. Newsletter Profit Strategy Number 6: Weekly Vacation Rentals My real estate business operates in Cleveland, Ohio. Many people in Ohio like to vacation in South Carolina. There are many reasons for this, which are not important for this book. The idea, which is important, is owning a vacation property that you could rent out to prospects receiving your newsletter. Wouldn’t it be nice to own a property, where your family likes to vacation, and you could promote, through your newsletter for weekly rentals? In most cases, you simply need to rent your vacation property for 12 to 15 weeks a year to cover all of your costs. Depending on the size of your database, you could easily rent these weeks out with some attractive promotions. You could include pictures of your family enjoying their vacation in your vacation property. Your newsletter recipients would be paying off the mortgage on your vacation home. Not too bad don’t you think? This might just make you wealthy. If you purchased a $300,000 vacation condo and implemented this strategy, you would profit each year from the mortgage pay down, tax benefits, free family vacations and property appreciation. If your condo appreciated at 10% a year, you would lock in $30,000 a year with just this one idea. You can really profit from your newsletter. Or you could offer free weeks to your “A” clients. This would be one of the special things you do for your best clients. They would absolutely love you. I would bet that they might just refer more clients to you too. Well, in this chapter I have highlighted 6 different strategies you can use to begin profiting from your newsletter. Please don’t take these strategies for granted. They

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can and will have a major impact on your business. Now put this book down and go start on your next newsletter!

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10

Can One Number Really Change Your Life?

(Excerpted with Permission from No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs)

By Dan S.Kennedy http://www.DanKennedyRealEstateSales.com

From Rob: I have selected this chapter from Dan’s book because it had a profound impact on my life. I extracted an extremely valuable lesson from Dan’s “Base Earnings Target” explained in this chapter. I applied this number to my real estate business, which you will see in the next chapter. If you are interested in learning more time management strategies, I would suggest Dan’s Renegade Millionaire Time Management Program found on his website at www.DanKennedy.com. In time management books and in time management seminars, authors and speakers love to show off charts and graphs depicting the dollar value of each workday hour, depending on your income or the income you want to achieve. Maybe you’ve sat through one of these little graph-and-pointer sessions before. You know, Mr. Lecture up there, laptop computer wired into the overhead projector, lights dimmed, even a laser beam pointer in hand, so he can show off his beautiful five-color bar graph. If you use his numbers, for example, based on eight-hour workdays, presuming 220 workdays, earning $200,000 a year requires that each hour be worth $113.64. And that looks great on the chart. And everybody in the room busily calculates what their hours have to be worth. Somebody who wants to make $100,000 a year figures $56 an hour – hey, I can do that. Plumbers, dentists, accountants, sales-people, most business people say: cakewalk. Unfortunately, it’s all a pile of seminar room B.S.


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Here’s why: it’s all based on eight-hour workdays. Eight hours a day. But there’s not a soul on the planet that gets in eight productive hours a day. Not even close. You see, the workday hour is one thing, the productive hour – or what I call the billable hour – is another. Now, if you happen to be an attorney, none of this matters. It seems lawyer’s bill out hours whether productive or not. Rodney King, famous for getting beat up by the Los Angeles police, had attorneys who billed for such things as escorting King to his birthday party and even thinking about the case while commuting. Here’s a joke: 35-year-old lawyer in perfect health suddenly drops dead. He gets to Saint Peter at The Gate and argues: “You guys screwed up. You pulled me up here early.” Saint Peter checks his clipboard and says, “No sir. Judging by your total billable hours, you’re 113 years old and we’re late.” Lawyers. But the rest of us can only collect on genuinely productive hours.

Can One “Number” Change Your Life? So let’s go back to the math game and assume that $200,000 is your base earnings target. (We’ll talk more about what that term means later.) How many of your hours will be genuinely productive, directly generating revenue? How many will be otherwise consumed: commuting, filling out government paperwork, and dealing with vendors, emptying the trash cans, whatever? Let’s say its one-third productive, two-thirds other. That’s pretty generous, by the way. One study of Fortune 500 CEOs locked in at an average of 28 productive minutes a day. Lee Iacocca once told me he figured top CEOs might average 45 productive minutes per day – the rest of the day fighting off time-wasting B.S. like a frantic fellow futilely waving his arms at a swarm of angry bees on attack. But we’ll say: one-third. Roughly, only one of three hours counts as “billable” or income generating. So you’ve got to multiply the $113.64 times three, to get $340.92. This becomes your governing number for $200,000 a year. My personal number is a bit higher, but if the $340.92 were MY governing number, as it was a couple of years ago, here’s how I would have to use it.

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First, it’d be on my mind constantly. Is what I’m doing worth $340.92 an hour to do it? Second, it puts a meter on others’ consumption of your time – which unnecessary 12-minute phone conversation just cost $68.18. This exercise is extremely beneficial. This forces you to think in terms of “investment” and “expense.” It helps you quantify what is going on in your life. Third, for me, it sets the base cost for hours given to a speaking engagement, consulting assignment, copywriting assignment, and other things I do that are directly billable. And if you do anything but earn a fixed salary, you have to weigh this base cost against every activity, to set your fee or to decide whether or not to bother. A few years ago, I was charging about $3,500 to write an advertisement or sales letter for a client. Today, it starts at $15,000 to $21,000, and runs as high as twice that, plus royalties. But let’s say I still charged a client $3,500 to write an advertisement. The naïve would say that I just made $3,500. After all, I didn’t have any “hard” cost; I just sat in a room and thought, then just sat at a computer and wrote. But if you think that way, you’ll never make big money. If it took me six hours to write that ad, there WAS a “hard” cost of $340.92 times 6, which equals $2,045.52. If it took me twice that long, I lost money. From Rob: Before I learned this concept about time, I didn’t realize that I probably lost money working with some clients. I bet you have had clients that you have invested 60 plus hours helping them find their new home. If your hourly rate is $200 and your commission was less than $12,000, you lost money taking this client. Some clients are better for your competitors. There is an opportunity cost to working with time consuming clients. If you travel in your business, you’ve really got to watch this. As I write this, I live in a couple of different places. If I’m in Phoenix, a business meeting in Los Angeles will take, at most, two days: one half day to travel, a day for the meeting, one half day back. Maybe even less. But if I’m in Cleveland, a meeting in Los Angeles will

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take three full days. One full day more. Using the $340.92 hour number, it costs $2,727.36 MORE to go to the meeting. I’ve learned to think about this a lot. For example, as of this writing, my one-day, basic consulting fee is $8,300 (plus expenses) if I travel to the client but only $7,800 if the client comes to me. Why? Because it’s worth money to me to stay home! I’m buying time. I’ve maintained this sort of fee differential for years, but beginning in 2002, I started simply refusing to go to clients and only offering available dates in cities where I live. Many of my clients and Inner Circle Members have adopted some variation of differential pricing in their businesses. An attorney, Mace Yampolsky, charges a higher fee to personally handle your case, a lower fee to supervise the handling of your case by his staff attorneys, and yet a lower fee to only consults with your attorney regarding your case. Dr. Charles Martin charges different fees if he personally performs the dentistry rather than if you use other dentists also providing Martin Method Dentistry. From Rob: You can use this idea in your business. If a client wants your personalized service they pay a higher fee. Otherwise, they can work with one of your team members for your regular commission. If you have expert position as suggested in this book, you may be able to dramatically increase your commissions using differential pricing in your business. Many years ago, when I was in the field, selling, I quickly figured out that you could fit in two, three, four, or five appointments per day, depending on how you routed yourself. A salesman half as good at selling as a competitor but twice as good at efficiently routing himself and clustering prospects makes the same amount of money. Today, when I get on an airplane, I have “clustered” as much productive activity as possible into that one trip. By working at home, as a writer, consultant, and tele-coach, as opposed to going to an office, I make a lot of money each day just by not commuting. I have conditioned myself to go directly from bed to shower to work in 15 minutes. If I were leaving the

house to go to the office, I’d have those 15 minutes plus another half hour maybe an hour commute, than another 15 minutes getting settled in at the office. Not to mention the commute at the end of the day. From Rob: I work almost exclusively from my home office. I have a fax machine, business line and can operate 100% without interruption. I can schedule appointments in my real office if need be. However, I eliminate at least an hour a day of unproductive time by not going to the office. Throughout the course of a year, this probably saves me over 1,200 hours.

Calculating Your Base Earnings Target

In whatever ways you can, in your business, you need to seek leverage. In terms of work productivity, leverage is, in essence, the difference between the base cost of your hour and the amount of money you get for it or from it. One good way to evaluate your personal effectiveness is measuring and monitoring this differential, hour by hour, for a week. Now, let’s go back to the term: base earning target. Since you are your own boss, you write your own paycheck, and you decide how much that paycheck is going to be. For most entrepreneurs, that number is-whatever’s left! This is a huge mistake, for two reasons: it indicates zero planning, and it means you pay yourself last, the number one reason entrepreneurs wind up broke. So let’s reverse all that, and start with the planning. You’ve got to decide how much money you’re going to take out of your business or businesses this year, in salary, perks, contributions to your retirement plans, and so on. What is that number?

Base Earnings Target $_______ Divided by 1,760 _______ (220 days X 8 Hours) =Base Hourly Number $_______ Times productivity vs. Non-productivity multiple X______ = What your time must Be worth per hour: $_______

I’ll tell you this: eight out of ten entrepreneurs I ask cannot come up with this number.

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Anyway, if you do not have a base income target, then you cannot calculate what your time must be worth, which means you cannot make good decisions about the investment of your time, which means you are not exercising any real control over your business or life at all. You are a wandering generality. Is that what you want to do – just wander around and settle for whatever you get?

Now, you may not have a situation that lends itself to clear-cut billable hours as I do, so how can this strategy work for you? It has to. It’s even more important to you than to me. Let’s say you own six stores. Each store has a manager. Hey, this is complicated. Well, you’ll have to decide how much of the business’ bottom line profit goal will be provided by the managers whether you sleep or work and how much is still inextricably linked to you. If you want $500,000 at the bottom line, and you figure half is dependent on you, you’ve got a $250,000 target.

Entrepreneurs should think about the purpose of business. A lot of business owners lose sight of that altogether. The purpose of business is to make the owner rich. The first responsibility of the owner is to extract money from the business, not leave it locked up in it or, worse, put money into it.

For me, it’s reasonably precise. For you, it may not be such an exact science. But that’s OK. I promise you that coming up with a number, even if it is arrived at through some pretty questionable calculations, is still a whole lot better than not having a number at all. Having a number is going to make such a dramatic change in so many of the decisions you make, habits you cultivate, and people you associate with, that the benefits will be so extraordinary, it won’t matter if the original method of getting the number had a technical flaw or two buried in it. At least for the sake of our conversation, in this book, get a number. YOUR base earnings target for the next full calendar year. Divide it by the number of workday hours. Multiply it to allow for unproductive vs. productive hours. If you haven’t a better estimate of that, use the three times multiple I’ve used here. Now you have what your time is supposed to be worth per hour. Divide by 60, per minute. That little number may just change your life.

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It’s sort of like a heart attack – or, in my own case, a diabetes diagnosis – being required to really get somebody to change their eating and exercise habits. A lot of your decision-making gets easy with this number staring you in the face. It’s hard to con yourself with this number staring you in the face. In fact, I suggest having it stare you in the face a lot until you internalize it. Write your number “$________ Per Hour” on a bunch of colorful 4 X 6-inch cards, in bold black letters, and stick those cards up in places where you work and will see them often. Generally speaking, two business life changes probably come to mind immediately, with this number staring you in the face: First you realize that you’ve got to surround yourself with people who understand and respect the value of your time and behave accordingly. This is not easy. And they will forget, over time. Familiarity breeds contempt. Periodically, you will have to re-orient them. You also must get people who do not respect the value of your time out of your business life. If you let people who do not understand and respect the value of your time hang around, you won’t even have a fighting chance. Second, you have to eliminate the need for doing or delegate those tasks and activities that just cannot and do not match up with the mandated value of your time.

If you don’t know what your time is worth, you can’t expect the world to know it either.

How Low Can You Go In Valuing Your Time? I grew up in Ohio, where people spend their weekends shoveling snow in the winter, cutting grass in the spring and summer, and raking leaves in the fall. Used to make me crazy to drive around and see somebody in my sales organization out shoveling, mowing, or raking. I’d say: if your time isn’t worth more than the $8 an hour you could give some neighborhood kid to do this, you should be shot. Plus, you’re robbing some kid out of the money. When I moved to Arizona, I envisioned sand, rocks, and cactus; nothing to shovel or mow. Guess what? A bunch of folks bring grass with’em and stick it everywhere, then alternate between watering it and mowing it. Others, with “desert land" litter boxes! What conclusion did I draw from

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all that? Most people will find ways to avoid constructive productivity and will waste their time, even if they have to work at it! Well, my “philosophy of time valuing” can be boiled down to this: every one of my working hours has to be worth a certain amount of money; I do everything I can to create and protect that value; and anybody screwing that up had better watch out. From Rob: Do you know your clients value? Each one of your clients is worth different amounts of money to you. I purposefully built my business around investors because they were worth a great deal more money than regular buyers and sellers. I think you may have seen this lesson applied in my business by sorting our database based upon the value to the person to the business. Another, related issue is “project valuing” or “opportunity valuing” or “account valuing” for salespeople. In short, a “thing” has to be worth X- dollars, whatever you decide X must be, for you to even touch it, think about it, or be involved with it. Many of my best clients have adopted this idea and now have their own litmus test, helpful in quickly and decisively saying yea or nay to whatever comes along. Many sales professionals hang onto clients and accounts that consume far, far more time than they can ever be worth. Better to send them to a competitor. Most entrepreneurs perpetuate projects that consume far, far more time –theirs or employees’ than they’re worth. I’ve done it more times than I care to confess. But I’m getting much better at NOT doing it with each passing year.

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11

How to Apply Your Base Earnings Target to Your Real Estate Business

Today, as I start this chapter, I’m sitting in the Cleveland Clinic hospital waiting room. My mother is having a minor eye surgery. I have brought my laptop with me in hopes that I may get an hour or two of productive writing time. Today is also the day after the Virginia Tech massacre in which a gunman killed 32 people. The waiting room for surgical patients is equipped with a TV tuned into the news on this sad event. Each and every person in the waiting room is completely glued to the TV. I chose to find a quite place without any distractions or interruptions. I am purposefully blocking this horrifying event out. This is a conscious choice. Managing your time for massive productivity is also a conscious choice. Some may argue that I’m uncaring or messed up in some way for purposefully blocking this event. Other than using the tragedy to sense extreme gratefulness, I cannot see any other reason for spending hours watching the details unfold.

I cannot help law enforcement with their work in any way. I do not know any of the families involved. I have no connection to the college. I cannot remove any of their grief. I cannot change any of the outcomes whatsoever.

I can choose to use my time productively and focus on what I can change. I would bet that today, many real estate agents are watching the news for instant updates on this sad event. This, I believe, is a mistake. In the previous chapter, Dan Kennedy detailed how to calculate your base earnings target. Let’s now apply your number to your real estate business.

Time management is basically a choice. The better choices you make with your time, the more income you generate. Today, I choose to write and be productive with my time. Others haven’t made this same choice. Tomorrow my income will be larger because of my choice today. Those who have not made the same choice today will not experience the same increase in income tomorrow. The real trick is living based upon your hourly value. Making choices based upon your hourly value. Choosing not to spend time on tasks that are not worth your hourly value. Most real estate agents spend more time on lower-dollar activities and less time on higher- dollar activities. This is why most agents don’t make any real money in the business. They make big out of little.

Time Management is Linked to Integrity If you have integrity, you take your every commitment seriously. Most people do not take their commitments

seriously. This tells you what to expect from them. Dan Kennedy

Shannon Tanner, a fantastic performer at Shelter Cove in Hilton Head, South Carolina, said his grandparents had a

happy 50-year plus marriage. When asked how they did it, his grandfather responded: “Don’t make big out of little.”

The relationship advice from Shannon Tanner’s grandfather is very valuable time management advice, too. Here are 10 of the little things agents consciously spend their time on that should be delegated to others:

1. Installing signs and lockboxes 2. Delivering keys

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3. Bookkeeping and tax return preparation 4. Feature Sheets for property listings 5. Attending closings 6. Working with unqualified or uncommitted clients 7. Attending weekly referral networking meetings 8. Cutting their grass or shoveling their snow 9. Cleaning their homes or offices 10. Answering the phones and taking all incoming calls

When I say consciously, I mean that agents realize these are lower dollar activities, but they continue doing them each and every week. I have asked agents why they spend time on these lower-dollar activities. Do you know how they respond? They typically respond with …

I can’t afford to hire someone to do the lower-dollar activities.

Here is the real truth: You will never be able to afford to hire an assistant if you keep spending time on little activities. The only way you can afford someone is to focus on high-dollar activities. There is a closed loop in action here. You cannot get to the other side of the loop unless you delegate. Once you start doing the higher-dollar activities, more money comes in, which allows you to pay someone for the lower-dollar activities. Every single real estate agent who has a successful thriving team or business has been in your situation. The successful agents realize that this “not enough money” to afford an assistant is a temporary situation. They realize that if they can figure out a way to pay for an assistant during this temporary situation, they would increase their income very quickly. They would soon be able to afford this assistant. Another way to think about this would be to consider it as an investor evaluates an investment. Smart investors don’t focus on temporary negative cash flows. They focus on their overall return on investment. The decision to hire someone is similar to investing. Here is an example:

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Let’s say you find a really nice investment property. You want to buy the property, but don’t have the money for the down payment. In addition to the down payment, you need money to cover the first two or three months of ownership while you look for a renter. If the property was attractive enough, an investor might consider borrowing enough money to cover the down payment and carrying costs. They see that the negative cash flow situation is temporary and will be eliminated once the renter is in place. The investor will use the borrowed funds to cover the down payment and the temporary negative cash flow. They understand that the profits from the property will pay back the loan. They are focused on the overall return on investment, not the negative temporary negative cash flow. Can you now see how this is the exact same situation as hiring a good assistant for your business? Growing your business and managing your time productively requires that you evaluate decisions from an investor’s perspective. You must make decisions based upon overall return on investment, not temporary cash flows. Real estate investors borrow money to buy properties. They leverage other people’s money to build their own wealth. Renegade Millionaire Agents borrow money to leverage their time into more productive activities. These activities bring higher income and a more valuable business. Once real estate agents see their time from this new investor’s perspective, they begin to ask themselves the following question: How can I cover the cost of an assistant for three months? A good assistant might cost $7,000 to $8,000 for three months. Could you borrow $7,000 to $8,000 to cover your assistant’s salary for three months and focus intensely on more productive activities? During the three months, you would increase your sales because of your increased productivity. This increase in sales would continue forward providing you with a long term return on your investment because you will keep your assistant. Now that your thinking has changed, we should talk about specific strategies you can use to increase your productivity.

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Let’s start with five activities that you can completely eliminate from your calendar. These activities do not need to be delegated to your assistant. They need to be completely replaced with more productive activities. I guarantee that if you replace the following activities with more productive activities, your income will increase significantly. This increase in income will completely cover the cost of your assistant very quickly. 1. Participating in your local real estate associations. I’m going to get mail from this suggestion! Renegade Millionaire Agents do not participate in association committees, fundraisers and social outings. I realize this might not be how you think, but these are not high-dollar activities. Take a look at the agents in your association who spend the most time on or at association functions. Now, try to guess at their home sales and income. I would be willing to bet that the majority of them do not sell many homes. I would also be willing to bet that they are not in the top 25 percent of sales in your area. Now study the top agents in your area. Are they leading committees in your association? The answer is no – they are too busy growing their business. The only reason to spend time at these events is if you are trying to sell to agents. Title agents and lenders should spend time at these events, but not real estate agents who value their time. For the record, I have attended two or three association golf outings with my team. My purpose was to spend time and have some fun out of the office with my team. It was not to network with under- performing agents. Once your income hits the level you desire then you can allocate time to participate in association activities. 2. Broker opens and tours. Unless you have a client who is interested in the specific home held open for a tour or a broker’s open, you’re wasting your valuable time. How can seeing a home for which you have no client be productive? It would be more productive for you to preview homes meeting your prospective client’s wish list on your own. Wouldn’t it be nice to call a client each week after your own preview time to say, “Guess what, I found your dream home today?” For broker opens, wouldn’t it be better to be at the listing with your client? Why would you spend time going with another agent?

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You’re not going to sell the agent the home. Don’t get sucked into this weekly time wasting activity. 3. Networking, talking or having lunch with low-producing agents. You are a product of your environment. Everyone around you influences you, whether you realize it or not. It is deadly for your business to spend time with agents who are not making any real money. You must search, hunt and even pay to be around agents who are more successful than you are. They will influence your thinking, which will ultimately influence your actions. I participate in several mastermind groups. Members of these groups are action-oriented empire builders. They influence my business choices and my overall income and wealth. My mastermind group elevates me to a higher level of thinking. They also inspire me to do more. Unproductive people have the reverse impact on your business. They drain your thinking and sabotage your efforts for improvement. Has one of these under performing agents ever told you, “Oh, that won’t work?” 4. Prospecting for new clients. Clients do not want to be chased. They do not want to be sold. Prospecting will make you poor. Prospecting is time-consuming and not very productive. Cold-call agents have to make 100 calls to get one appointment. Focus on attraction instead. Renegade Millionaire agents attract clients to them. Renegade Millionaire agents make clients chase them. They reverse the process. Take the two hours of cold calling and replace it with a two-hour presentation to your local chamber of commerce. Your presentation will attract more clients to you than 500 cold calls. 5. Attending buyer client’s home inspections My team does not attend our clients’ home inspections. I realize this might freak you out a little bit. But if you really think about it, it is extremely unproductive time. You have already sold the home, right? How can you increase your income at the home inspection? You can’t. I know you might think that you can keep the sale together if a problem arises. Guess what, you can keep the sale together after the home inspection with sound negotiating. You don’t need to be at the inspection. Use this time to write a new marketing campaign to attract more clients. You can double or

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triple your income with a new marketing campaign, but you can’t at a home inspection. You might enjoy one or more of the 5 activities I listed above. It doesn’t matter; you should still eliminate them from your schedule. They are not productive and you’re losing money each and every time you engage in one of them. I’m serious. Cut these activities out. Don’t listen to what anyone else says. This is your business, not theirs. This chapter wouldn’t be complete without listing productive activities. Here are a few BIG activities that you should spend most of your time on:

1. Selecting your niche and writing targeted lead generation advertisements. Study direct response marketing, and use these principles in your advertisements.

2. Learn to write sales copy for the prospects contacting you from your lead generation advertisements. Your sales copy should compel them to want to do business with you.

3. Writing and developing your monthly newsletters. Notice I wrote “newsletters.” Plural. Remember, these newsletters are mini sales letters. You should strongly consider writing two newsletters. One for prospects and one for clients. Each newsletter should have a different goal.

4. Hiring and attracting good assistants and agents to help you sell homes in less time.

5. Speaking and giving presentations that attract qualified clients to you. I typically break tasks between two categories. The two categories are: sales and service. I try my very best to delegate ALL service-related tasks. I only allow myself to work on sales tasks. If the task involves an already-signed client, it should be delegated. You should not personally handle client service. Your role is getting more clients for you business. Your team’s role is servicing the clients you get. Well, believe it or not, I have pretty much finished this chapter in the secluded waiting room at the hospital. My laptop battery is about to die, but I made it. Others

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are probably still glued to the TV, and I finished a chapter in a new book. Can you see the difference? To summarize, get an assistant even if you can’t afford one. The money will come. If you don’t have an assistant, you are one. Second, consider completely eliminating old out-dated unproductive activities. Third, delegate all client service duties.

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12

Selected Time-Management Strategies In this short chapter, I will share three of the best time-management strategies I use daily with my business. These strategies, if implemented, will dramatically improve your productivity. Let’s get started! Strategy Number One – Proper Planning: The one question I get asked the most is “How do you get so much done?” Easy – no sleep. Just kidding. Well, it is part of the answer. The real answer is in how I have learned to plan my week. Notice I said “plan my week,” not my day. Most people plan their days. I know others, like Dan Kennedy, who plan their months. Every Sunday morning, I sit down with a hot cup of coffee. I list all the things that I want to get accomplished during the upcoming week. This list includes everything, not just business or investing projects. This could be from dropping a pound or two to planning a new marketing campaign. In most weeks, this list has 10 to 12 major items. Once I am finished with the list, I go through it to see if there are any items listed that can be delegated to others. If so, I block time in my schedule during the week to delegate these items. Some items can be delegated with a quick phone call, while others require a meeting. I also try to spend time determining if I really need to go after the idea on my list. With each passing week, opportunities change. Opportunities that first looked fantastic may not turn out so. Just because something was once a great idea or opportunity doesn’t mean it stays that way. This means some of the projects or ideas may get crossed off entirely. If I think of a new opportunity during the week, I write it immediately on my page for Sunday. This way, I don’t lose good ideas. They are captured and reviewed in my weekly planning session.

Someone once said, “Good ideas are like slippery fish.” This is very true. You need a system for capturing good ideas. I still use the big paper Day Timer time-management system. Everything goes in this book. I can easily flip back from week to week and review ideas, projects, messages within seconds. I tried a Palm Pilot and a Blackberry, but they were not nearly as effective as my current method. I am becoming a technology dinosaur at the age of 36. The next step in planning my week is where all of the money is made. Once I am finished listing my ideas or projects for the week, I schedule them into my week. I literally write them into my days as if they were firm appointments or meetings. I block time out of my schedule to work on all the important projects for the week. On the surface, this might not seem an important part of the planning process, but it is. I have been using this planning approach for roughly two years. There are some weeks in which I do not get a chance to have my Sunday-morning planning session at all. Other weeks, I have listed all of the projects, ideas and opportunities, but I didn’t schedule them and actually block time during the week to work on or implement. In both cases, my production the following week was limited. When you don’t prioritize the important things in your life, you don’t do them. Little things creep up each day and somehow become false priorities. Have you ever spent a day “putting out fires?”

When you block your schedule with the most important tasks for the week, it forces you to make big out of big. Remember, most agents make big out of small.

When you block time to work on your priorities, you have less time to put out fires. This means your time doesn’t mysteriously get eaten up and disappear. Your time is controlled and, more importantly, focused on your priorities. This is the same for our family’s vacations. They are scheduled and blocked way in advance. In most cases, a year or more in advance. We have our next three vacations planned and blocked already. The last part of this process is having the discipline to follow through on your pre-blocked appointments. Something invariably pops up from day to day, and you are

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forced to decide: “Should I put out the fire, or work on my idea as I planned?” The right answer is work on my idea. It does take a certain amount of discipline to follow through with your plan. Here it is in a nutshell:

1. Have a weekly planning session 2. Block time throughout the week to work on your ideas, projects or

priorities 3. Have the discipline to not get pulled off course

If you implement the three steps above, your productivity will explode. I promise. If you don’t believe me, implement this idea right now and try it for the next four weeks. I will bet you $10 that you will accomplish more in the next four weeks than you have in the previous six months. You can send the $10 to my office at … Just kidding. Send it to the Make a Wish Foundation! Strategy Number 2: The Principal of the Slight Edge: It has taken me many years to fully understand and live this principle. To be honest, I am not sure if I can even communicate it properly! However, I am going to give it my best shot. Let me start by saying that little things can make a big difference. The slight edge is the little things you consistently do differently. Here is the principle in a nutshell:

If you consistently do a little more than others,

you’ll consistently have more than others. Just recently, I was on a conference call with all of the real estate professionals around the country who are launching my System. One of them said “Rob you are a very energetic guy.” Everyone laughed on the call, including myself. I am not sure if everyone realized that she just gave away the secret of my success. On the surface, it might look like I am doing a lot today, but in reality I have been doing just a little bit more than everyone else for several years. When you compound this little bit more over time, it looks and feels like a lot. In fact, it is a lot.

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To show you what I mean, let’s pretend for a minute that you are a competitor of mine. To be very blunt and honest, my goal is to dominate you. My strategy is to work harder than you every single day. These little daily differences will compound over time and allow me to prevail. I can almost assure you that I will be up working each and every day before you. By the time you get to your office at 9 a.m., I will already have put in three hours of completely uninterrupted work. In addition, I will have worked out for at least an hour. The exercise will give me more energy and allow me to make better and faster decisions. Studies have proven over and over again the benefits of exercise on mental performance. Now, everyone intuitively knows this, but they don’t consistently use it to their advantage. By reading a few more books than you do, I will have the advantage of knowledge. Each and every week, I will know more and as a result do more than you. So while you’re out celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, I am reading a book on wealth creation, leadership or marketing. You will be hung over in the morning, and I will be working. You see, for me, practicing the slight edge is fun. Knowing that I just got two more steps ahead of you puts a smile on my face. Think about what would happen to your business if you were to consistently write more lead generation advertisements than your competitors? What about reading one more book on marketing a month? Or you can get involved in a mastermind group with other successful agents. You could acquire my System for your area. Or better yet, you can do all of the above. Understand that applying the principle in your life is not easy. It takes guts, courage and an incredibly strong worth ethic. But I can promise you that if you apply it exactly as I have suggested, you will grow your wealth by leaps and bounds. In fact, your wealth will compound at astonishing rates. Now if you don’t apply this principle, your wealth can ONLY grow sequentially. This isn’t bad, but simultaneous growth is a heck of a lot better!

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In summary, I encourage you to read more work more, do more, and invest more than your competitors. The returns provided by the slight edge will compound over time. Strategy Number 3: Massive Action Have you heard the term “massive action?” I first heard this term from Dan Kennedy. Dan teaches the principle of massive action. You must apply massive action to your business to achieve something remarkable. Let’s first define massive action. According to several dictionaries, the words massive and action are defined as: Massive: A monumental scale; large in comparison to the usual amount Action: The state of doing; organized activity These two definitions could be combined as “doing on a monumental scale.” When I first heard the term, I thought I understood what massive action meant. I was wrong. I had no idea. I thought I was taking massive action. I wasn’t. To be perfectly honest, most people don’t take massive action. They use limited action and incorrectly believe that they are doing everything they can. What does massive action look like? What does massive action feel like? I will try and share real massive action with you right now. Let’s use an example for this chapter. I usually recommend that you apply massive action to your biggest challenge. What is your biggest challenge right now? How about lead generation? What 20 things can you do to increase the number of leads you get?

1. Write and test new lead generation advertisements 2. Try your advertisements in new media (new newspapers & magazines,

etc.) 3. Joint venture marketing campaigns with other professionals 4. Obtain free publicity 5. Write & promote your own book 6. Write & submit articles on the real estate market to your local

newspaper 7. Buy online traffic for your Web site

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8. Test new Web sites 9. Test a banner advertisement on your local newspaper Web site, directing

traffic to your Web site. 10. Have a client appreciation event or party 11. Offer free classes in the newspaper 12. Speak at your local chamber of commerce or rotary club 13. Set up free home buying and selling classes with some of the local

businesses in your area. You can offer these classes during lunch breaks. 14. Test a radio commercial 15. Test a TV commercial 16. Host your own radio show 17. Test direct mail 18. Start a blog 19. Read and study books on direct response marketing 20. Study other companies’ lead generation and test similar strategies in

your business. 21. Write and create a free e-mail course and advertise your free course

I could literally go on and on with ideas. I’m sure you could, too. Massive action is implementing all of the ideas at the same time. Notice I wrote at the same time! I know what you’re thinking – are you crazy?… How am I supposed to implement 21 new lead generation ideas at the same time? The answer is – you work your ass off. This is massive action. This is how you build a million-dollar company in two years. Massive action feels insane. It is extremely stressful. It creates chaos. It frustrates your employees and agents. It is also required for success. Massive action rigs the game in your favor. Some of the ideas listed above will work. Some won’t. When you implement all of the ideas, you are guaranteed success because you built failure into your plan. If you were to only try one or two ideas, like every other agent, you would probably not succeed. If your first try doesn’t work, you might be frustrated and give up on other ideas. You must throw many balls in the air, knowing ahead of time that a few of them are going to tumble to the ground. The problem is you don’t know which balls are going to fall when you start.

I highly recommend that you make your massive action list on Sundays in your weekly planning session. The ideas and activities you identify for your massive action plan should be scheduled into your day timer. Each and every day you should practice the slight edge and implement additional ideas. Renegade Millionaire agents handle more activities at the same time. Broke agents’ struggle trying to do one thing at a time. They can’t seem to handle too much in their businesses. Renegade Millionaire agents have multi things going on at the same time. They plan for failure by using massive action. They push their team members and get more accomplished in a day than other agents do in a month.

If you would like additional help implementing any of the ideas presented in this book, consider subscribing to Renegade Reports. As a subscriber, you’ll implement one new business system in your business each week. You’ll also have Rob’s help through the Renegade Reports e-coaching program! Visit http://www.RenegadeOneReports.com for more information!

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http://www.renegadeonereports.com/

BONUS Resource Section A $798 Gift from Dan Kennedy: http://www.DanKennedyRealEstateSales.com

To download 52 “Done for You” Follow-Up Emails You Can Send to your Database: http://www.52FollowUpEmails.com 31 Days to a Large Database. Follow this 31-step formula… one step a day, and you’ll build a large responsive database of new clients. http://31DayDatabase.com To get help implementing lead generation and conversion systems in your business: http://www.RenegadeOneDollar.com To Stay Plugged in to Rob’s Renegade Millionaire Strategies for Real Estate Agents be sure stop by Rob’s blog each week at: http://www.RenegadeMillionaireBlog.com

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http://31daydatabase.com/

http://www.renegadeonedollar.com/


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About the Authors

Rob Minton quit his job as a Certified Public Accountant for one of the largest international public accounting firms to be a full-time real estate entrepreneur. He started and built his real estate brokerage, The Paramount Wealth Group, from the ground up. Rob is the publisher of several monthly newsletters which provides tips, strategies, and wealth building ideas to real estate investors and professional. Rob’s unique approach has made him an in-demand author, speaker, and real estate consultant. For the last eight years, real estate investors and real estate professionals have turned to Rob to create wealth in their investments and businesses. Noted for his insight, Rob is a member of the American Institute of CPAs, The National Association of Realtors, and The Ohio Associations of Realtors. Dan Kennedy is internationally recognized as a millionaire maker helping people in just about every category of business turn their ideas into fortunes. He has been called the "Professor of Harsh Reality" because he's provocative, irreverent, sarcastic, and tells it like it is in a humorous, but chilling, serious fashion that cuts to the core of the issues in a way no other marketing 'guru' does. He is a leading consultant in direct marketing, copywriting, internet strategies, and profit improvement systems. Dan Kennedy has shared platforms with other famous speakers such as Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Mark Victor Hansen, Joe Sugarman, Ron LeGrand, and Corey Rudl. Dan Kennedy is the author of over eleven books, the latest being his NO B.S. series.

Documents

Renegade Millionaire Strategies for Real Estate Agents · E-book, “Renegade Millionaire Strategies for Real Estate Agents.” It’s yours free! This is a $495 value! By owning