By Michael Kies

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Structured tenacity and how it can help real estate agents to make more in sales while working less hours

Structured tenacity is systematically finding our way around problems and objections in prospecting, listing, reducing and selling.

Throughout my entire career in real estate I was asked to develop discipline and persistence on many occasions from almost every trainer in the industry. The problem is, what if we develop discipline and persistence around the wrong tasks or actions.

The problem is often in implementation. Some people are habitual learners, which is fantastic, but if what is learnt is not implemented, it’s a bust.

These agents are characterised by working every given hour and not producing the results that they really want.

If they stay on this path they will develop the feeling that real estate takes their life away and then blame the real estate industry for being broke.

But those who develop the attitude of structured tenacity, astound themselves by what can be achieved. They have the option to either work less and make the same or work the same and make even more; the choice is theirs.

Steve’s story: structured tenacity to clinch a listing that went on to produce years of referral business

The obstacles Steve faced:

• His client had a real dislike for real estate agents
• There was a mix up with timings for the listing appointment. The client was expecting Steve at 10am, Steve had the appointment in his diary for 2pm. After a phone call detailing all the issues with real estate agents in general, Steve was able to re-appoint.
• Steve was determined from this point onwards to list the property.
• At the listing appointment the client made it plain that he was a stubborn person who was difficult to deal with which lead to listing the property at $650k when Steve thought it would sell at around $610k.
• 5 inspections over 7 weeks with feedback at high $500k’s.
• Steve finally received an offer of $610k from a buyer who saw it in the first week it went to market.
• The client deemed this offer way too low, but Steve was able to help them to understand that an asking price of $625k was more realistic.
• Steve went back to the buyer to negotiate them up to $615k.
• The clients were still hesitant; the husband was doing a lot of the talking and was unable to see the sense in taking the offer, but his wife was very quiet which gave Steve hope.
• The next day the client rejected the offer as they were happy to wait.
• Steve asked the client to wait 15 minutes as he was going to come and collect the contract. As he left he said to his team: “I’m just going to slip on my new concrete boots and see how they feel!”
• Steve asked to come in and when they were settled he said: “I’m not leaving until you sign this or convince me you are making the right decision by not signing.”
• 2 hours into this conversation the husband turned to the wife and said: “Well maybe I’ll just move to the coast by myself then?” to which she replied “No you won’t!” – Steve realised he had been selling to the wrong person and he needed to focus on helping the wife to make the right decision.
• After a further half an hour in negotiation, the client asked for 10 minutes to discuss the situation, so Steve went to his car to make some calls.
• 10 minutes later both the clients were ecstatic to be moving and getting happily on with their lives.

How many obstacles can you count in this negotiation? Do you see how having structured tenacity allowed Steve to come face-to-face with an obstacle, and then manoeuvre around it, repeating this process over and over again?

This couple are raving fans of Steve now and he was able to change the agent haters into happy vendors which is quite a feat.

• With this comes excellent referral business.
• Referral business = less prospecting.
• The ability to clinch tough listing appointments means less listing appointments attended to list properties.
• Less listing appointments = less prospecting
• Overall less time spent at work per listing

Structured tenacity and the swerve factor

Many trainers talk about tenacity, they say “be tenacious”, but what if we are tenacious but work with a broken strategy, will we succeed?…… its unlikely.

It’s way too simple to just ask agents to be tenacious – there is more too it than that.

So I prefer to advocate for structured tenacity and the swerve factor.

The three principals of structured tenacity to employ to clinch the tough listing, to get the adamant vendor to reduce the property, or to get the buyer to increase their offer enough that you can get the vendor happily moved:

1. The problem
   The problem: in many scenarios in real estate we are faced with an obstacle. All the training I have done on real estate talks about persistence and discipline, but what if you have built the discipline to be persistent in the wrong tasks? This is where tenacity comes in.

2. The swerve factor
   This is the difference between tenacity and persistence. Being tenacious means you find a new way to do things that makes you more successful where as being persistent means doing the same and expecting a different result. This can be applied in prospecting, listing, reducing and selling.

   For example: Think of the last time you walked out of a listing presentation when the seller said they want to think it over. Think of how much work you went to, to get that listing appointment.

   By not getting it, it means you are doubling up and working long and hard to get low results because you haven’t learned how to overcome the objections at a listing presentation.

3. Personal priming
   If you have cultivated the swerve factor, and built it into your attitude, quite often you will win, because you will find a way around any obstacle.

   But personal priming comes in when you learn the tools you need to avoid the obstacle in the first place. For instance, my strategy for raising the professional fee early on in the listing presentation helps to overcome the fee objection before it is even raised.

   So by being relentless on becoming the best and working harder on yourself than anything else you will be a great success. See most people come into real estate with their legal qualifications but not their practical qualifications and that’s to study the art of selling and being relentless at developing their skill levels to mastery.

   It’s like a doctor, they have to do years of practice guided by their mentors before they are let loose on the public. You don’t have to do years of learning, you can make a decision today to become the best and start right now.

So be tenacious, believe in yourself and accept that you deserve a better life. You deserve to enjoy more freedom. When you have these three keys in place, then you are on your way to great success in real estate.

Obviously the tools within the sales process play a massive role in growing results.

For this reason, I have recorded a more in depth one hour training session aimed at helping agents to add an extra $100k per year to their personal income. Click here to view the training now…

Feel free to leave a comment below or send me an email at support@michaelkies.com.au.