Start A New Ritual

      Rituals, like habits make life easy to navigate.  January is a great month to start a new ritual. 
     
      What if you started a new ritual of running the expired listings off  the computer every morning. You got out of bed and ran today's expired listings off the MLS.  What if you started doing that every day.  You kept that up for about a month.

      You didn't call them or mail them or anything stressful like that.  You just ran them off the computer every day and looked at them.  If you did this for some time, it would become a ritual.  It would become something that it is easier to do than it is to not do it. Who knows?  If you kept it up, you might decide to call one.

      Look at the rituals in your life now.  Everyday, you--------------- fill in the blank, Go to Starbucks, read the sport section of the paper, check out the facebook news.  Rituals are like habits.  They are easy to do, hard to not do.

      Why not create some rituals  that will put money in your pocket?  Post a blog post every day.  That could become a ritual

      Read the FSBO ads every day.  That could become a ritual.

      Go to the Clerk of the Circuit Courts website and see who is being foreclosed on today.  Maybe you could help them with this huge problem.  That could get to be a ritual after a short time.

      Maybe you could start a ritual of stopping in to visit with a foreclosure victim on the way home every day. Just say hello and maybe ask if  they would like to read an article you wrote about deficiency judgements. Maybe if you stopped in to visit with a few every week, one of them might need some help.

      Rituals Can enslave you or serve you.  Create some positive, lucrative rituals.now.  You will be glad you did later.

Ask Questions For More Rapport

   If you want people to like you, understand this.  The more they are like you, the more they like you.  In sales training at Climer School of Real Estate, we call this common ground.  Discover common ground between you and your prospect.  Discover that you both collect stamps or you both belong to the same group or you both like antiques or whatever.  How do you discover this?  Ask questions. 
   The magic word is discover. To discover things, ask questions.  Form a habit of asking questions.  If you are going out to visit a new listing prospect for the first time, ask questions.  Ask lots of questions.  Ask open ended questions.  That is questions that can not be answered with a yes or no.  Questions like:
Where are you moving?
Why are you moving?
When you visited there, what was it like?
What is your new job?
   Ask people questions about their stuff.  If they have an antique, where did you find that?  If they have a boat, where do you go fishing?  Catch anything?   As long as you are asking questions, you are building rapport.  When you are asking questions, the other guy is talking.  Most people would rather talk than listen. The more they talk, the more you listen, the better they like you.  If your goal is to establish rapport, let them talk.  Listen.  Be interested.  Do not worry about being interesting.  Be interested.  That is enough.
   They do not want to hear your stories.  They want to tell you theirs.  You can tell if they want to hear your stories.  They will ask you.  Until they do, remember why we are here.  This is not play.  This is work.  Work at establishing rapport.  Work at getting people to like you.  If it was easy, they would lower the commission.  Work at it.  It is worth the effort