"Expect More"

I've been thinking a lot about the fact that maybe my slogan should have been "Expect More", instead of "Your Real Estate Ace." A little more canned, but a little less cheesy, perhaps. But it definitely communicates something that I feel important to communicate.

In all the research into the industry that I've done, I've learned that many people have serious complaints about their agents. And, you know what, very few of these people complain about how much money a good Realtor makes, as much as they complain about lack of competency and lack of service.

People will pay for value...which is why they'll pay for Heinz ketchup over the generic brand, and why they will pay $45 for a good haircut as opposed to $10 for Aunt Jance to do it with her broken scissors. But if you hear a lot of these discount brokers talk, they act as if agents are out there just robbing the consumers blind, offering little in return.

Meanwhile, the more people complained about bad service, the more they started to expect bad service. Over time, more and more people stopped paying more expecting great service (and being disappointed) and started paying less expecting bad service (and getting what they paid for). The problem is with real estate, paying less for bad service often will mean paying more in other ways.

A good Realtor puts more money in your pocket, reduces your stress level, directs a transaction competently and thoroughly, and follows through on their promises. In simplistic terms, a good Realtor gets you from Point A to Point B in your life in a wonderful way. Now, when it comes from getting to Point A to Point B on a daily basis, driving around in a beater may mean your monthly car payment is low, but it will also likely mean that your car's efficiency is terrible and the risk for repetitive maintenance is high; instead, driving around in a nice Benz or a Beamer may cost you more per month on the payment, but the luxury and peace of mind it brings is usually worth it if you can afford it (and you can realistically expect to save on maintenance and other associated costs). Real estate is similar (now, for all you people out there that like to poke holes in metaphors - and I am one of you people - please just see the point I am trying to make in this paragraph for what it is worth :) ).

When asked about discount brokers, one of my real estate trainers says, "They serve an important place in the industry by serving people that can't afford to pay for premium service." I'd add, "But the good thing is that premium service serves to pay for itself for those that can afford it." I work harder with more tools and more follow through...therefore paying for myself in the process - period.

So, that's my rambling thoughts about discount brokers, and how it pays (literally and figuratively) to use a full-service broker that lives up to that moniker. Seriously, getting back to where this rambling began, I think the majority of the public needs to learn how to "expect more" from their Realtors...and then do their homework in finding themselves a Realtor that's not going to disappoint.

Peace,
Greg

having my character questioned...

So, I just went through a situation that I think shows very well some of the parts of this career and this industry that the average person does not think about too much. Being an agent in an ultra-competitive real estate industry while trying to earn listings while also negotiating your salary in commission percentage is a very difficult task, one that can often result in tensions with acquaintances and friends who are interviewing other agents for the same job. Most of what is below is an e-mail correspondance between a potential seller-client and me, and I hope that my last e-mail is especially informational to whoever is reading this as they think about the role of an agent and why to hire one agent over another...

So, what happened? Well, a couple of weeks ago, an acquaintance of mine from church invited me over his house to interview for the job of listing his home. I thought the meeting went pretty well; usually at these meetings, the sellers I speak with are pretty impressed by the comprehensive nature of my marketing plan and I put myself in the driver's seat to get the listing.

At this listing appointment, I found out that this acquaintance from church and his wife were also interviewing a local agent who had sold a property down the road just the month prior. My appointment with them was on a Wednesday; they were meeting with the other agent, who works as a team with her husband, the very next day on that Thursday. Now in competing situations, I make it a point to try to educate the consumer on what factors are most important in comparing one agent to another, and I definitely did so on this occasion. At the end of the meeting I told the sellers that I would follow up the next day with an e-mail, and then follow up again on the following Monday, but the sellers said they would be ready to make a decision as soon as they were finished with their meeting the next night.

So, Thursday came and went. Now, normally, if you don't hear pretty early that you have the job in a situation like this, you likely have already lost the job, or you are definitely not in a favorable situation. In light of this, I wrote another e-mail on late Friday afternoon. Here is pretty much the entirety of that e-mail with all specific details taken out:

Dear SELLER,

I know I said I would wait until Monday to contact you again but in my experience, if I don’t hear the day after the last scheduled agent interview, that’s usually “bad news” from where I sit. If I am wrong here, great; it will be my pleasure to work with and for you in the upcoming weeks and month! If not, I would like to clarify that I think this is not only “bad news” for me, but for my potential clients as well. If I didn’t think I was the best guy for the job, I wouldn’t be much of a Realtor. Correspondingly, if right now you are leaning toward (or have tentatively agreed to) use another Realtor, let me know what it would take for me to earn your business.

SELLER, this e-mail is not out of desperation, but out of a passion for the job that I hope you saw on Wednesday; I genuinely like what I do and I don’t like missing out on opportunities like this one! The other agent that you interviewed last night may have sold another home in that subdivision in just one weekend at $xK earlier last month, but that home had x bedrooms and was...in immaculate shape from the pictures... How will THE OTHER AGENT do with a home that requires a little more finesse when the only other competition is $xK less and has been on the market for x weeks?

I guess what I am saying is, if you are leaning toward the other agent, do so because you think THE OTHER AGENT has a more comprehensive marketing plan, while being careful about assuming that your home will sell quickly simply because where it is. Indeed, this might be the case, but it might not! In my opinion, with your desired timeline, counting too much on a quick sale without having a comprehensive marketing gameplan in place is a risk that I would strongly recommend against taking.

If nothing else, SELLERS, if you have decided to list with the other agent and that decision is final, please give me feedback on why I didn’t earn the right to your business. I am consistently working to improve my marketing plan and how I communicate the many benefits of it to my potential clients, and your feedback in exchange for the time and energy that I put into preparing the materials for our meeting on Wednesday would be greatly appreciated.

So, I look forward to hearing from you no matter what within the next 2-4 days or sooner and, in the meantime, have a great weekend.

Sincerely,
Greg

The reply I got two days later shocked me:

Greg,

When I was first trained in hiring, which is how I treat this situation, I learned some key points to look for. Later, I heard someone summarize these same points as the three C's -- competence, character, and chemistry.

As for competence, I have no reason to question you. Character, until I received this note to which I reply (more on that later), I hadn't had reason to question.
But chemistry wasn't there and you seem to put little value on chemistry.

This note of yours confirmed the decision not to select you, as it makes me wonder about your character. You seem to question the competence of another agent. Anyone who must build themselves up by tearing another down, or implying as much, leaves me uncertain about the character issue. And it does smack of desperation. There are also the implied questions of our ability to judge between two agents.

Greg, worry about your competency, not that of other agents, and work on the personal relationships, and realize not everyone who is selling a house perfectly matches you as a part of a team...

SELLER

In reply to this, I sent a brief e-mail apologizing to the seller for obviously offending him in some way, making it clear that I knew that I didn't get the job, and then asking him if he would be willing to call me, as e-mail seemed an impersonal way of responding to the issues he brought up. When I didn't hear anything in reply, I wrote the following e-mail last night, at around 2am when I had finished up everything that I needed to do in the office:

Hey, SELLER,

When I didn't hear from you after requesting a phone call, I planned to let everything just drop. However, as the days have passed, something doesn't feel right about not responding a little more thoughtfully to your e-mail to me. I honestly feel like you did the Biblical thing in your e-mail: you had "something against your brother" and you informed him of it. Now, knowing that you have "something against me", I feel it unwise and unBiblical not to go to you in return.

It is not my intention to go through your e-mail point-by-point, as I feel that doing so would be ill-advised and make this e-mail seem to be more of a "defense" as opposed to something more heartfelt and sincere. I really do apologize to both Hope and you for any way that you might have been offended by anything that was communicated to you by me. The e-mail I wrote that seemed to cause the most offense was written when I felt (apparently correctly) that I had nothing to lose from a business standpoint in making one last attempt to earn your business. As a second-year whom, although very accomplished considering my short time in the business, still must make the most of every opportunity that comes my way, letting any piece of potential business go without making sure that I truly tried everything I could to earn that business is unwise. Of course, in writing the e-mail, I didn't want to lose your respect, as I obviously have if you are now forced to question my character, and I regret that development. There are people who would have seen that e-mail as revealing a level of dedication and "fire" that they want in their Realtor; I apologize for not taking my audience more into consideration in this instance.

I also apologize for unintentionally implying that you are incompetent to make your own choice of Realtor; I think the next couple of paragraphs will really help you see the real estate industry as I see it. In this business, 10% of the agents do 80% of the business, and the other 90% of agents really aren't very good agents (or they are still young in the business and establishing themselves). I understand that, to you, me saying something like this is "tearing down" the other agents, and I really don't know how to respond to this impression that you got of me as someone who "must build themselves up by tearing another down". In all honesty, I don't think that comments like this are vindictive or self-serving at their core, as much as they are really describing the nature of this industry.

As I compete for business, I try to make it a point not to "bad talk" my competition (and I apologize if I really did fall short on this point), but I often will raise questions that must be asked in evaluating competency. Even so, I aim to leave the door open for another agent having a superior marketing plan and a superior ability to get the job done, and to indicate in some manner that these are good reasons to use one agent over another (in contrast to the issues of commission splits or promised sales prices which are often very poor reasons to use one agent over another; in my opinion, anyone that lets these latter issues be their "guide" often really doesn't understand how a real estate transaction really works and/or what the role of the agent is in a real estate transaction).

Let me put all of this another way: I live in a very competitive industry that is very confusing to the average consumer and I admit that I don't think that average consumer is very good at making proper decisions in who to use as an agent. And, SELLER, this belief of mine even applies to clients who have used me! I have clients whom have chosen me because they know me from poker games, or I happened to answer the phone when they called my office, or they got a letter from me in the mail, etc....I even have one client who chose to work with me because she read on my website that I have two cats. How are these good reasons to choose the person that is going to be a fundamental part of the buying or selling of the most valuable physical asset in your life? In truth, as I see it, these reasons aren't very good, especially when all it takes is a credit card and the ability to pass a test that one can take an unlimited number of times to be a Realtor. In all seriousness, while most of the Realtors in Maryland are very nice, well-intentioned people, most of them are also not very good at their jobs, which is why 60% of the agents in Maryland handled 4 transactions or less last year.

What this means for me is that, when I go out and interview for a job, I am usually competing against agents that don't do one-third as much for their clients as I do and, in my mind, this is why I feel free to say some of the things I do about how to truly evaluate agents. In this case, I competed against an agent-team that is clearly in the top 10% (I have looked up the Catons' statistics and the results that they have gotten in their career and they are quite an impressive team) and I am truly glad for you that you have the ability to be represented by such a good agent-team.

Maybe the paragraphs above do nothing but give evidence to the main complaint that you seem to have against me: when the rubber meets the road, I place far less value on chemistry than I do on competency (even my extensive client-appreciation program and relational marketing systems are all built around me establishing myself as a competent agent that can be counted on to get a job done). Perhaps ironically, I believe that the relationships I build with my clients are often very meaningful, to the point that my primary lending partner, who has been in the business for 6 years, has told his boss, "Greg becomes better friends with his clients than any agent I have ever worked with!" Of course, these relationships normally happen over the course of a transaction, after I have established myself in my clients' minds as an ethical, hardworking, and trustworthy professional. If I focused too much on showing you this professional part of myself in our meeting, and not enough time showing you that I also wanted to be your friend, I apologize for that, too. You can rest assured that words that you have shared with me in your last e-mail will certainly cause me to question the place of "chemistry" in my business model in the months to follow and I am grateful to you for this, even if I ultimately decide not to make many changes.

I guess that's really all that should/could be said at this time. As you can tell by the time, I have been very busy lately, the major reason that this e-mail has been delayed until now. I do hope that you feel able/willing to respond when you get a chance, but I will not hold it against you if you don't...

Thanks again, SELLER...

Sincerely,
Greg

If you got through all of that, I trust that you found it interesting to some degree. Thanks for reading, and I'll post again soon.

Peace,
Greg

Cool Little Listing Thingy :)

So, check out the "mini-listing" of a listing of mine. I'm starting to mess around with different options as I get as much web exposure for my listings as possible. It's pretty cool how many tools are out there, and now it's just a matter of me learning how to take advantage of them all for the sake of selling my listings for my clients.

Well, I've been up for a couple of hours working already, and I've got lots more to do before a 12 o'clock meeting down in College Park.

Peace,
Greg

Heavy Lifting

"This is the heavy lifting time of the business." -Dean Cottrill

LOL...I feel like Jerry Maguire having a flashback to his mentor. Dean, gone a whole 7 days at this point, is already this mythic sage whose past words are what I draw on. :)

For real, Dean used to always say some form of the above, and he has a good point. For a comparative metaphor, I'll say that a plane uses 80% of his fuel on take-off (this is true). Starting a business in a highly competitive market is similar. The mistakes are costly, the learning curve is steep, the margin for error is small, and the building of marketshare is expensive and time-consuming. I joke with my clients when I first meet them while telling them the story of how I got in the business: "And I did my research and found out that 84% of agents don't make it past their first 18 months in the business, and I said, 'Sure, sign me up!!' (Insert hardy chuckle, and turn page.) But, seriously..."

So, here I am...at the office at almost 2am, 30 minutes from home and needing to be in northern Baltimore at 10am, and I took some time to eternalize this moment for anyone who might happen to stumble along this blog at some point. :) What am I doing here at almost 2am? Well, the "heavy lifting" of being a second-year agent. I'm in that funny place where the 40+ hours of marketing and self-promotion that I needed to do to survive and establish myself in the business is meeting up with the 40+ hours of client care and meetings that happen when you are successful in the business, and I'm having to figure out how to do everything I do better, yet quicker, all at once. Tonight, I was actively directing 3 transaction, thinking about 6 others, writing e-mails to a wide array of leads, clients, and friends, planning my next client appreciation event, preparing and printing off almost 1,000 letters to be mailed out over the next two weeks, etc. I laugh when people talk about how over-paid Realtors are...the average one who believes that just has no idea.

'But how come discount brokers and redfin can do it for cheaper??' Well, they don't do what I do...simple. In some situations, discount service will get by and, when it does, it can put a little extra money in some peoples' pockets; however, when it doesn't, discount service is (more often than not) terrible costly (there are studies done by a wide variety of organizations to back this up with hard figures; contact me if you are interested in more information here). 'But homes are 3 times more expensive now than they were 20 years ago; why should you get the same percentage commission?' Yeah, and gas is more expensive, printing, Realtor dues, marketing tools, photography, internet marketing, showing services, client gifts, lead generation...blah, blah, blah. The price of homes going up does not mean that the salaries of Realtors should exist in a vacuum, because nothing else does; or, should we only be competent and professional enough to handle the sale of a several-hundred thousand dollar home with no hope of ever being able to afford one for ourselves?

Oh, man, it's too late for a normal no-holds-barred "Greg-rant". One day, maybe I will re-approach the topic of discount brokers and why I feel so strongly about being a full-service broker (short answer: I pay for my own salary and give my clients more all at the same time!), but not today (or, should I say tonight...um...early this morning...whatever time it is :) ).

Now, I go home and snuggle up next to my wife and sleep for a little.

Peace,
Greg

Good ole' AACAR Convention

Ah...Realtor conventions. Before I start, I must say that there are many Realtors out there that I have great respect for and I have friendships with a couple dozen Realtors that I highly value. Still, being trapped at a conference with hundreds of Realtors has never been an experience that I've enjoyed. Maybe it's not the Realtors themselves, as much as the whole environment. Okay, imagine this: stand in a room with hundreds of people who have has their very goal to have a 10-second to 5 minute interaction with you that is so memorable that you are going to remember them the next day when you might need to give them a call. Forget the fact that I have a lender who treats my clients and myself like gold, a home inspector who is very good and very professional, and a title agent that takes care of business and who is well-liked by my clients...I'm going to use you, Mr. Convention-Attender, because you gave me a notepad, a stress ball with your logo on it, and a blinky pen and allowed me to spin your "wheel" that gave me a chance to win a 3-day vacation but instead I got a coupon that I can give to my clients to save money on your services. Right. (I apologize for the run-on, but the desired effect of that sentence would have been lost otherwise :) ).

So, that's breaks at the AACAR convention, and the breaks serve as the over-riding structure that brings continuity to the different continuing education classes that you take. I actually missed my first class ("Fair Housing"), because I ended up having some work to take care of before I left the house; unfortunately, that was the only CE req. that I have left to fill before the end of the year, and the rest of the classes I took were really optional. :( The first class I attended was called "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Realtors," but it should have been called, "Come Watch This Guy Creatively Sell You on All of His Technology Products While Hoping You Don't Realize What He Is Doing." The next two classes were at least interesting. The one was on the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) that is going to have a drastically positive effect on the real estate market in Anne Arundel and the surrounding counties for years to come (22,000 jobs are being created at Ft. Meade, which will in turn bring even more jobs to the area; there are major concerns about this whole process, especially in regards to school capacities, but people are working hard to ensure that the BRAC happens as smoothly as possible). The last class was on selling water-front properties which was somewhat useless, even if it was informative; the woman was like, "Here are all the things you need to worry about," but then gave no practical advice on how to "worry" effectively in gathering information, etc.

All in all, I had some good times re-connecting with some of my old colleagues from Odenton. As expected, they are busting my chops about coming back to Odenton, now that I lost my office manager. Several times yesterday, agents in my old office that I wasn't especially friendly with (not that I didn't like them, but that we just never really built a friendship) would come over and say, "So, I hear Dean left?," with some smug grin. Seriously, they might as well say what they really want to say: "Don't you feel like an idiot for leaving when Dean left?? HA!" Yeah, yeah. For my part, instead of saying, "Look, dummy, I learned more from Dean in 6 months in his office than you suckers will learn in 6 years where you are!," I just smiled and nodded and said, "Yeah...I've got some decisions to make." And, of course, I do...in a few months, as reacting too quickly would be a mistake.

Anyway, I'm going to cut myself off here, although it's surprisingly tough. Sara is in Florida for the weekend, so maybe I'm bored tonight. But even beyond that, I've started to have several trains of thought that are recycling through my brain as I go throughout my day that I feel would make some good material for this blog. So, you'll have some good things to look forward to in the next couple of weeks, likely starting with either a rant about "Redfin," or a story of how a potential seller-client totally shocked me by calling my character into question over an e-mail I wrote. Goodie, goodie.

Well, thanks for reading.

Peace,
Greg

important business change

You probably remember me saying how I switched from the Odenton office to the Severna Park office of Long and Foster a few months back. The reason behind that switch was that I had been looking for an office that was going to help me go the next level in my real estate career. The success I was experiencing at the Odenton office was great, but I didn't feel like I was in a place that was going to be most helpful in building upon that. So, I left the office where I was Top Producer of June 2006, and found myself in a new office that I wouldn't be Top Producer of for a very long time (due to the level of production that my new colleagues have). :)

The biggest factor that drew me to the Severna Park office was the office manager, a guy named Dean Cottrill. Dean was the 2006 Anne Arundel County Realtor of the Year and he is a tremendous motivator and mentor to the agents in the office that take advantage of the value he brings to the table as a top-notch office manager. I have had weekly coaching sessions with Dean since I moved to the Severna Park office, and I cannot tell you how much these sessions have helped me provide better service for my clients, thus growing my business through more referrals and other means. Well, after a long process of decision-making, Dean announced yesterday that he is leaving Long and Foster to assume a regional manager job with another brokerage company. I think this is a great opportunity for Dean, and I wish him the best; at the same time, admittedly a little selfishly, I have had to ask myself the question what (if anything) this means for me.

For now, I still believe that the Severna Park office is a great place for me to be. Even without Dean, it provides me with 4 very good support personal (for the most part, the Odenton office only had one), and I am surrounded by some of the best colleagues I could ask for. Still, there is going to be a gap in regards to continued coaching; a gap that I am going to want filled. Any long term decisions will depend a lot on who is brought in a couple of months from now to replace Dean; in the short-term, we do have an interim office manager that I can turn to if a situation arises that I need some extra counsel.

So, that's what's new with me from the professional side of everything. Personally, I have my wife "back" for a little while she is in between her first-year of medical school and her month-long trip to Malawi to do malaria research, so that's been nice. The spring-summer market has meant playing a little less poker for a while, but I am having some fun there. All in all, things are going well.

Peace,
Greg