Are you uncomfortable asking for business? I know I was. I have been working with my real estate clients on what to say when are meeting with someone in your sphere of influence (or a stranger for that matter). Every sales trainer in the world, your managing broker and your coach tell you to ask everyone you know for business. Sometimes it just frightening.
And anyway you are asking your friend to switch gears from talking about their weekend in the mountains and how exciting it was to your business. It is hard and often perceived as rude.
Ask people, "who do you know who is the next person to move?" Those who have practiced this a few times before saying it have found that it helps your contact narrow the brain-search from the 200 folks that they know to just a few.
They are getting leads.
Let me know how this works for you when you use it.
To your continued success,
Reg Gupton
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
What Housing Bust?
A while back I noticed that the cover of one of my favorite trade publications, Business 2.0 was covering real estate. The lead article was entitled The New Rules of Real Estate. When time permitted I sat down to read it and found a great resource.
One of the pull out cards listed 7 additional resources which ranged from a movie, Chinatown, (water battles in southern California), a couple of books, a blog Housing Doom, and a research web site by Torto Wheaton Research.
Check out these valuable resources. What are you using to gain perspective on your market? Let me know. I am very interested.
To your continued success,
Reg Gupton
One of the pull out cards listed 7 additional resources which ranged from a movie, Chinatown, (water battles in southern California), a couple of books, a blog Housing Doom, and a research web site by Torto Wheaton Research.
Check out these valuable resources. What are you using to gain perspective on your market? Let me know. I am very interested.
To your continued success,
Reg Gupton
No more late payments with money in the bank
Today during a coaching call, my client and I were speaking about Quicken, cashflow and how to make sure that bills were paid on time.
We had previously discussed how to record expenses and revenue in a way that made it possible to run a profit and loss statement easily, quickly, and frequently. That we had under control.
He mentioned that occasionally he was charged late fees on various credit card accounts when there was plenty of money in the bank to pay them. What to do??
We explored various ideas for having him not impact his credit by having (and paying) late payments.
I suggested a plan that I have used successfully for quite a while. Here it is. Put a repeating to-do in your electronic reminder system (mine is in my Palm) for about the 20th of the month to give you an alarm (reminder) to pay your bills.
I use this reminder to reconcile all credit cards and pay the amount owed. It is easy for me as weekly (every Monday morning) I post all receipts, checks written and income rec'd to Quicken. This takes me about 20-30 minutes.
This is time well spent. Saves your credit rating and eliminates those late fees.
If you don't do something like this, what system to you use to pay your bills? I would love to hear.
To your continued success,
Reg Gupton
We had previously discussed how to record expenses and revenue in a way that made it possible to run a profit and loss statement easily, quickly, and frequently. That we had under control.
He mentioned that occasionally he was charged late fees on various credit card accounts when there was plenty of money in the bank to pay them. What to do??
We explored various ideas for having him not impact his credit by having (and paying) late payments.
I suggested a plan that I have used successfully for quite a while. Here it is. Put a repeating to-do in your electronic reminder system (mine is in my Palm) for about the 20th of the month to give you an alarm (reminder) to pay your bills.
I use this reminder to reconcile all credit cards and pay the amount owed. It is easy for me as weekly (every Monday morning) I post all receipts, checks written and income rec'd to Quicken. This takes me about 20-30 minutes.
This is time well spent. Saves your credit rating and eliminates those late fees.
If you don't do something like this, what system to you use to pay your bills? I would love to hear.
To your continued success,
Reg Gupton
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Google takes the mystery out of Blogs (again)
This evening while noodling around I found another great resource from those folks at Google.
About Google Reader
I did.
Reg Gupton
About Google Reader
Google Reader makes it easier to keep up with your ever-expanding reading list of content from across the web. You can:
- Automatically get the latest news and updates from your favorite sites.
- Sort your reading list based on what's most relevant to you.
- Organize what you read with labels and stars.
- Quickly share interesting items with friends via email or by blogging them, directly from Reader.
I did.
Reg Gupton
The secret way to receive the latest information on your passions.
Ever since I read about Blogging several years ago, I struggled with how to find information written in the Blogging style. I was unwilling to take my time to search out content on topics that were of interest to me. What I wanted was a service hopefully free that would let me know when there were postings to some Blog somewhere on topics of interest me. If you are as busy as I am, I am not going to visit a Blog without knowing if there is new content.
The other day another blogger sent me a request to link to my Blog. I was honored.
I called him to learn how he found me. What was the process? I hoped that it was simple. Was I glad I got in touch with him.
He said that Google has a system called Google Alerts that allows you to specify the topics or words that you wish to learn about on Blogs and other Internet related sources.
Here is what Google has to say about their new system.
Welcome to Google Alerts
Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.
Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:
- monitoring a developing news story
- keeping current on a competitor or industry
- getting the latest on a celebrity or event
- keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams
Visit www.google.com/alerts to start having too much fun. Let me know if you like this powerful new service as much as I do.
Friday, December 22, 2006
There are more things to negotiate than you think
There are more items to negotiate than you think in a real estate transaction. Not in real estate, this is for you too. You buy and sell property don't you. Read on.
I wonder if you know of a property for sale for, let's say, $300,000? I wonder if the seller would take $900,000 for it? Before you say anything, listen closely. I will pay $900k for the property but I get to chose the terms. I will pay $1.00 per week for 900,000 weeks.
In most purchases the main and often only focus is on price. Price is only one of the items that you can negotiate.
Jim and Millie are in the motel with the kids, dog and cat. Jim has already started his new job and is working 12 hour days. The money provided by his new company is running out is 10 days. Do you think that they might pay a little more for a piece of property that they can move into in a week? You bet they will.
Here are the 5 things that can be negotiated in the purchase of most anything.
1. Inclusions: What comes with the purchase. I have had numerous clients who walked away from the closing table with little or no cash. If their new (to them) condo was without a stove and refrigerator they would have been cooking on a camp stove and storing food in their cooler. Since the stove and refrigerator were included they were willing to pay a little more since they could finance these necessary items.
2. Contingencies: What must take place before the purchase can be completed? Does your 45 year old dad have to die so you can inherit his money for the down payment?
3. Possession: See Jim and Millie's story above.
4. Terms: See the $900k story above.
5. Price: And last but not least there is price.
Focusing on items other than price takes some practice. But practice this tip so you and your clients can buy and sell more.
To your continued success,
Reg Gupton
I wonder if you know of a property for sale for, let's say, $300,000? I wonder if the seller would take $900,000 for it? Before you say anything, listen closely. I will pay $900k for the property but I get to chose the terms. I will pay $1.00 per week for 900,000 weeks.
In most purchases the main and often only focus is on price. Price is only one of the items that you can negotiate.
Jim and Millie are in the motel with the kids, dog and cat. Jim has already started his new job and is working 12 hour days. The money provided by his new company is running out is 10 days. Do you think that they might pay a little more for a piece of property that they can move into in a week? You bet they will.
Here are the 5 things that can be negotiated in the purchase of most anything.
1. Inclusions: What comes with the purchase. I have had numerous clients who walked away from the closing table with little or no cash. If their new (to them) condo was without a stove and refrigerator they would have been cooking on a camp stove and storing food in their cooler. Since the stove and refrigerator were included they were willing to pay a little more since they could finance these necessary items.
2. Contingencies: What must take place before the purchase can be completed? Does your 45 year old dad have to die so you can inherit his money for the down payment?
3. Possession: See Jim and Millie's story above.
4. Terms: See the $900k story above.
5. Price: And last but not least there is price.
Focusing on items other than price takes some practice. But practice this tip so you and your clients can buy and sell more.
To your continued success,
Reg Gupton
Reg Gupton reports another problem with Top Producer 7i
Recently I discovered and reported on a problem with Top Producer and its ability to print "detailed closing reports." TP does not allow you to change the orientation of the report from portrait to landscape. See my other post.
After I faxed the report to my client, I deleted the closing guessing that all the "to-dos" would disappear from my "today's business" as was the case with Top Producer 6i, which I had used for too long.
Guess what? It does not delete items from your calendar after the closing is deleted.
I chatted with tech support on this too. They said that there would be a call from another group in the company to discuss.
Let's raise the heat on them to fix these minor and yet important problems. You can communicate with them at programsuggestions@topproducer.com.
Users will love you. Me too.
To your continued success.
Reg Gupton
After I faxed the report to my client, I deleted the closing guessing that all the "to-dos" would disappear from my "today's business" as was the case with Top Producer 6i, which I had used for too long.
Guess what? It does not delete items from your calendar after the closing is deleted.
I chatted with tech support on this too. They said that there would be a call from another group in the company to discuss.
Let's raise the heat on them to fix these minor and yet important problems. You can communicate with them at programsuggestions@topproducer.com.
Users will love you. Me too.
To your continued success.
Reg Gupton
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