As a sports guy, this is pretty cool. I recently spent a day with more than 150 leaders at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky – literally a town of athletic champions. It’s the home of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs and the new Men’s NCAA Basketball Champions, the University of Louisville Cardinals. Incidentally, the college’s Women’s basketball team also made it to the finals.

Talk about the perfect backdrop for ERA Real Estate’s Regional Connections event – an opportunity to learn from the best of the best – because champion athletes and business leaders possess many of the same characteristics, including the never-ending pursuit of learning and a willingness to share their own knowledge to help turn others into leaders and champions.

I had the distinct pleasure of opening the event with a quick industry update explaining that all signs still point to a slow and steady real estate recovery with the National Association of Realtors and Fannie Mae both forecasting about a 7% increase in units year over year and between 5-7.5% increases in median sales price.  The challenge remains the lack of inventory. In a balanced market, at least 6 months of supply is available but currently it’s at around 4 months – this is a hurdle we need to overcome. So naturally, as thought leaders, we concentrated on leads, listings and inventory.

Speaker and author Zan Monroe led that discussion with an eye-opening plea to agents: start thinking like a business owner! Believe in your expertise and become a trusted real estate advisor rather than a sales person. Why? Because business owners get paid for results; employees get paid for time. You want results.   Camera 360

In his quest to study champion behavior Zan polled some of the top real estate professionals and offered several best practices – centered on mindset, skillset and action – for becoming a winner:

  1. Have the right mindset. The way your mind operates is the first key to success. One realtor starts his day outside of the office with a disciplined approach: a work out, daily affirmation, giving thanks and eating healthy. That puts him in the right frame of mind to start and foster relationships.
  2. Be disciplined. When building a business, managing your database is critical to cultivating relationships. Have the discipline to actively update your database and record information (birthdays, milestones, etc.) that will enable you to engage with your customers. Use it to provide relevant real estate information and create meaningful dialogue – crucial to developing a great relationship and becoming a trusted real estate advisor.
  3. Have a plan. According to one agent, some people have a plan but they do not believe in it. Some people believe but they do not have a plan. Successful people have a plan, believe in it and follow it. Write your plan, review your plan, and create a weekly plan that will help you reach your overall goal.
  4. Go toe to toe. One realtor emphasizes the importance of face time – getting out there and meeting your clients in person. But nobody said it better than ERA Real Estate’s own Denise Strother of ERA Strother Real Estate who said, “Like a doctor, you have to see people. You have to get out there and go toe to toe.”
  5. Take action. There are different ways to gain contacts and generate leads. For example, one realtor gets involved in her community by attending local events and introducing herself to new people. Another realtor – and this is brilliant – he actually puts a line in his listing agreement that states that his commission is x% of the sale PLUS two leads. He has active clients out there making calls on his behalf!
  6. Be prepared. Knowing your market and honing and practicing your listing presentation will make you an effective educator. Armed with information, get out there, meet people and show properties. To get listings, talk to people. Find unique ways to meet with people and provide them with a real estate review to explain what is happening in their market. This could lead to listing opportunities.

Fittingly, we ended the morning with our Mastermind Workshop – a brainstorming session where our agents and brokers, the best of the best who said, “training and knowledge sharing is important to me,” – collaborated together.  Camera 360

This is where it all came together for me. Here we were in this legendary town, where champions are made, further developing our own champions – the ERA Real Estate leaders who are disciplined enough to manage their business, have an endless thirst for learning, share best practices, build relationships, make a plan and practice it, and then share their knowledge to help others succeed. That is what true champions are made of and I am proud our leaders are such an active component of ERA Real Estate’s unique culture.

I’ll leave you with this last thought that I had while I was in Kentucky. Less than two weeks ago, an underdog horse named Orb came from behind at Churchill Downs, under muddy and dangerous conditions, to win the 139th Kentucky Derby. For months, Orb and his jockey prepared to win. They stuck to their training plan and believed they could win.

The race wasn’t easy. Orb and his jockey were muddy and they were at the back of the pack. But they navigated a sloppy track and in those final moments of this two-minute race, Orb went toe to toe, or in this case hoof to hoof, with the competition and won. It took discipline, hard work, training and confidence. But in the most important two minutes of his life, it all paid off.

Start planning, put in the effort, get into the right mindset and take action. Become a trusted real estate advisor and an industry champion.

Note: More details from Zan Monroe’s presentation and his suggested approach to creating a Marketing Monday in your office can be found here.