Why You Don't Like To Prospect in Real Estate
How To Like Prospecting in Real Estate
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Rev Real Estate School. The podcast with quick tips and actionable advice to help you sell more real estate in today's world. And now your host Michael Montgomery.
[00:00:10] Hello and welcome back to Rev Real Estate School. I'm your host Michael Montgomery. Today we are talking about why you hate prospecting why it's no fun. And what we can do about it.
[00:00:22] To kick us off: not everybody hates prospecting not everything about prospecting is bad but typically when we think about it we know it's important. However we also know that it's going to be a challenge.
[00:00:33] Why do we dislike it? From a psychology standpoint it's because we're interrupting people we're interrupting people and we are concerned that they may not like us. And if they don't like us then we are an outcast from the group. It comes back to more primitive psychology where we truly want to be liked. We want to be included and we do not want to be excluded from the group. That's oftentimes where it comes from. It can also just be plain tiring and potentially boring. What we oftentimes say is if you're tired or you're bored then keep going through it because tired and bored will ebb and flow. You may become tired you may become bored with doing certain prospecting activities but you will get your energy back.
[00:01:19] Now what you need to be doing in order to enjoy your prospecting? You need to be doing things that you enjoy. Again not everything about prospecting will be enjoyable but you need to be choosing activities that are enjoyable. Let's jump into what exactly I mean by this.
[00:01:37] If you are not a phone person that doesn't mean that you can't use the phone at all in real estate but it does mean that you can tailor your prospecting efforts more so to say in person or a text message or even email. If you are very much a face to face person but you don't really like interrupting people then you may be great at door knocking but if you don't like interrupting people then that is a skill that you're going to have to learn. You want to do the activities that you find enjoyable because chances are you will continue to do them. But that being said, not everything about the activity will be enjoyable and that is OK. It's all about perseverance and consistency in order to get through.
[00:02:23] Another strategy that you can use if you find yourself challenged by prospecting in something that I use consistently is gamification of it. Gamification is this concept where you're doing something that might be a challenge but you're making a game out of it which makes it more enjoyable.
[00:02:38] An awesome example of this and if you've heard our podcast on habit formation or done any reading on habit formation you may have heard of Jerry Seinfeld's daily joke. He had a goal to write a joke every single day. And if he wrote a joke that day he would put an X in the calendar and say X would make a chain over the course of time. It became this game for him because he did not want to break the chain. So he game fied his work which was writing jokes we can do the same thing you can game a fight in the same way where you do not want to break the chain when it comes to prospect. You do not want to miss a day or you can do what we've done recently.
[00:03:19] We assign a point value system to the prospecting activity that we have and we're going to talk more about this on another podcast. I got this from an amazing agent in a market near mine where what she does is at the end of every day she needs to get a certain number of "points" in order for it to be a successful day. If she hits that number of points then she knows she's had a successful day off prospect. Now we are going to have an episode all about this because it's a very cool concept but you can just do this right off the bat and you're assigning a point system to say number of phone calls so a phone call is one point. An email is one point. A conversation is five points a lunch is 12 points and you have to hit a certain number of points at the end of every day in order for it to be a successful day of prospecting. Why this works is because you are a gamifying it. Another challenge that we saw right off the start with prospecting is we become tired and bored of doing it. When we game a fight we make it more interesting. If you're able to hit that certain number of points for the day and you're able to hit it by say like 10a.m. then awesome. You have already put in a solid day of work next.
[00:04:31] Another really good trick is when you are prospecting like we said off the start. We get this feeling that we don't want to interrupt other people because we think we're being and knowing that's the thought process that we have in our head now it's not accurate. If before your prospecting or before you make the call you think in your head that you are about to call your very best friend. You treat the person on the line whether that be a FSBOr whether it be a past client anything you treat them like they are your best friend it makes prospecting so much more fun because instead of calling and having this thought in our back of our minds that we're interrupting and we're not wanted it becomes more of a conversation of yeah. You're just my friend and we want to have a quick conversation and it changes your mentality about it. So always think of the person on the other end whether it's somebody you've never met before or a past kind or anything as your best friend. The conversation will go so much more smoothly.
[00:05:29] Finally start treating prospecting as the most important activity that you can do that day. And even more important than say signing a listing agreement or going out and showing properties prospecting is the action and those activities are the result. Just focus on the action and understand that the most important thing that you can do today is you can set aside time to prospect. We recommend two hours. It's doable. Everybody can do it! And if you follow these tips it becomes so much more enjoyable to get out there and prospect every single day.
[00:06:08] Thank you so much for listening. This episode I really appreciate. Remember you can ask a top producer anything all you do is write and review the show and then head to the free coaching section on our website. Simple as that a top producer gives you a call you can discuss anything on your mind. Thanks again for listening and we will see you in the next episode.
[00:06:26] This episode of Rev Real Estate School has come to a close. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you back here for the next lesson.