Happy Sunday Everyone-
I was teaching a class in Texas last week around messaging in this market w/ my friend Phil Puma (Realtor). Fair to say this market is a bit more challenging than where we were 18 months ago. I started the class by saying we’re going to have to be twice as good to make half as much. I don’t know if this is 100% accurate but I do know anyone in lending or real estate will need to be better than they’ve ever been to come remotely close to the income levels they’ve earned the past couple of years. There are times for pep talks and then there are times for the cold hard truth, which is if you’re not really good at doing your job, you’re going to struggle to make a living in this profession the next couple of years.
A few weeks ago, I had a response from one of my Sunday Thoughts from a great past student. She’s highly successful but was beat down. One of her Realtor clients had said to her “you’re not as valuable to me as you think you are”. That’s not something any of us want to hear but it’s a truth we all need to hear, me included.
Anyone that’s been a student of mine has heard me say it 1,000 times, for my business partners- “you need to believe you’ll be more successful using us as your lender, or you shouldn’t use us”. To our buyers “you need to believe you have a better chance of home ownership with us as your lender or you shouldn’t use us”. Those aren’t just taglines, there is a poop load that goes into our process and structure for those statements to hopefully become a reality, but it’s how we check ourselves i.e., do they in fact feel this way or not, and if not, why not? I have business partners reading this right now, I’m 100% aware that some do not have the belief they’ll be more successful with us as their lender but it’s the chip on our shoulder we carry all day. My question to the class and to so many reading this is, when was the last time you thought about the details of why a client chooses you? Why are you more valuable to a client than someone else? The truth is so many of us don’t know those answers, and if you don’t, you need to find them. I’m not going to do a sale pitch on “our value”, but you have to think about things far beyond “great service”. I’d say for any of us it’s a combination of our ability to execute, how do you handle people’s fears/concerns? how reliable are you? how do you communicate (proactive vs. reactive), how knowledgeable are you? do you study our market? are you learning? are you a student of the business? do you care? do you get feedback and make changes accordingly? do you adjust? do show gratitude? How do you handle problems if they come up?, how is your follow up process? are you transactional or relational, or both? Do you have your process mapped out from lead intake to close, and beyond? Those are some of things that come to mind as I’m sitting here.
For all of us, for any business we’re in, I think we need to take time to ask “why would someone use me over someone else, what is my value?”, and unless people are raving about your service every single time, I think “you’re not as valuable to me as you think you are”, is a healthy chip to carry on your shoulder. Some might say it’s too negative, but to assume you’re more valuable than you are, is a kiss of death in business. Most people aren’t going to say what my past student’s client said to her, they’re just going to go away and never return.
This is a hard but healthy exercise. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!