Over the years many of you have heard my buddy Joe Niego talk about not having a spray and pray approach when it comes to the focus of your business and how to generate a lead…and he is so right. That’s why we teach the working by referral system – to help you maintain your focus.

However, in order to get an offer accepted today, the rules have temporarily changed. Helping a buyer has always been a process of elimination. You educate a client in a geographic area and start eliminating homes that they don’t want until they find the one or two they like the best. You then write an offer, negotiate, get it accepted and work on getting it closed.

Today if you write an offer on a short sale or a foreclosure you have approximately a 1 in 4 chance of getting it accepted – even if it’s the best offer. You have a 1 in 3 chance of even getting a response. Many of us are frustrated because this is not how the business is supposed to go. Well folks this is how the business is going today. You need to educate buyers that we’re going to follow the spray and pray approach.

“We’re going to find a home you like, write an offer and there’s a pretty good chance we may not hear back. There’s also a pretty good chance the offer will expire without hearing back so immediately after writing an offer, we’re going to look at more homes. We may have to write offers on five homes to get one accepted.”

This is not how I like to do business and I’m sure it’s not how you like to do business but right now we need to have different expectations and so do our clients. As long as short sales and foreclosures are the first choice of buyers we have to educate them that they going to have to put up with a season of frustration for the opportunity to get one of these deals.

As I told a young buyer the other day; you’re buying this home for $100K less than it sold for a year ago…it will eventually regain it’s value and how long would it take you to save $100K?

So yes we’re going to have to spray a lot of offers into the market but don’t forget to pray. You’ve got to have faith in this market: Faith that things are going to work out; Faith that the market will turn; and faith in the intrinsic value of real estate itself.

I have faith in you.

It’s a good life!

Brian

If you’ve been following the national news recently regarding the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the stock market getting hit and Fannie and Freddie being taken over by the government, these are all the classics signs of the bottom of a market correction.

Right now, we don’t have so much of a real estate problem as we do a banking one. Prices have mostly stabilized across the country and in the short sale and foreclosure market we’re seeing multiple offers. Although I do believe there are a couple more banks in trouble and there’s not yet a full complement of mortgage products to satisfy all the buyers in the market, trust me that will get sorted out. For thousands of years lending money has been one of the most profitable businesses in the world. Banks make money by lending; not by deposits. So they will figure out ways to package loans and get cash into the hands of consumers. I believe this is the final cleansing process and in the next six months we’ll start to come out on the other side of this.

Make sure your clients don’t get caught in the “cudda shudda wudda” of taking advantage of this market. Make sure all your investor clients are fully aware of all the deals that exist and if there’s any way possible, see if you can pick up one of these real estate deals as part of your own investment strategy. We won’t know what the bottom is until after but I believe it’s pretty close. Keep your head down working hard.

It’s a good life!

Brian

On my travels this year, I’ve noticed a lot of people working harder than ever to make the same or even less money. And myself and the staff at Buffini & Company have been doing everything we can to try to encourage, motivate, challenge and train all of our great Members. However there’s one element that you must introduce regularly to your mental diet and that’s a good belly laugh.

Studies have shown its physiological healing qualities, researchers have analyzed its psychological benefits, however it just seems to me that at times like this there’s nothing like putting your head back and allowing yourself to have a good laugh. This was part of the thinking that went into the "Referral Brothers" skit Joe Niego and I did this year at this year's MasterMind. We had just received the first copies of our new book, Work by Referral. Live the Good Life! and we wanted to come up with a creative way not only to gift our audience with the first edition, but also provide some comic relief and allow people to throw their heads back and just enjoy.

So make sure you put yourself in an environment or spend time with someone you know will provide a good laugh. And if you don’t have anything planned for today, check this YouTube clip out and maybe it’ll do the trick.

Keep working, keep trying, and keep laughing.

It’s a good life!

Brian

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

- Rudyard Kipling

Some say that Rudyard wrote this poem to encourage soldiers in the war. It seems rather applicable for Realtors®, lenders and those working in the service industry in this market.

It’s a good life!

Brian

The demands of the current market environment require us to be a highly skilled professional. The higher our skill level, the more leads we’ll generate, and the more income we’ll earn. Oh, by the way…we’ll have clients so satisfied with our services that they’ll become advocates for our business.

So the skills we develop are the tools of our trade. It’s true in other professions also. For a carpenter, it’s a hammer and saw. For a painter, it’s a brush and roller. For a pianist, it’s their fingers and keys.

For us…it’s what we say, and how we say it.

Using the right words at the right time with a seller is the difference between a sold listing and an expired one - a frustrated client or an advocate. The ability to master our dialogs and phrases is what makes a professional. So a word to the wise: use your words to build up; not tear down. Use phrases that inform; not infuriate. And most of all, be mindful that the words we use each and every day are often the difference between failure and success.

It’s a good life!

Brian

Pessimistic, optimistic, cynical and satirical people all have one thing in common; when it comes to our schedule, we’re all overly optimistic. We overestimate what we can get done and underestimate what it takes to get it done.  

The biggest problem with this is that we set ourselves and others up with false expectations. With our schedules so tight it’s easy to be constantly late for appointments. With so much to do we often don’t execute very well on the task at hand. I’m all for optimism, but I’ve had to learn the discipline of developing a healthy skepticism for my own schedule. 

What helped changed my perspective on this subject were the words of a late mentor of mine by the name of Dr. Alex Lackey. He shared that “Every time you’re late, Brian, you make a small withdrawal out of your clients’ trust account.” When we break promises at home, we do the same thing. 

I still struggle with this on a regular basis but if I find myself stretched to the max, I need to choose realism; not optimism. 

It’s a good life! 

Brian

Humble pie is the pastry that’s never tasty. I don’t know where I heard that but I like it. The word humility has its roots in the Greek word, humus. Humus is the soil that is 6 to 9 inches below the surface. Typically this soil is nutrient rich and extremely fertile. That’s why when a farmer goes to plough his fields, the blades on the plow will dig 6-9 inches deep and turn the soil. This way, the most fertile soil is now on the top ready for planting, fertilizing and optimal growth.  

Personal humility seems to operate the same way. When we’re in a state of not having all the answers, not feeling completely confident or if we are full of ourselves, it seems we are then most primed to grow. Sometimes we do things in life that bring about a humbling experience. Sometimes circumstances conspire together and turn our world upside down. Whether self-inflicted, or a consequence of circumstance, know this; coming to the end of yourself can be the best place to be.  

I’ve been on both sides of this equation. Today, my mindset is to try to put myself into a state of humility so that I’m constantly learning, questioning and growing. I must admit, humility has never been a natural state for me. But as I like to say, be humble or get humbled because that’s the only way to truly grow.

It’s a good life! 

Brian  

You’ve heard this expression many times before but in owning your own business, this may be the difference between success and failure. There’s always something to do, tasks unfinished, deadlines to be met and opportunities for improvement everywhere. And as a trainer, I’m often guilty of pointing those areas out. However, sometimes we’re so busy in our lives that we forget to have one! 

At our corporate HQ at Buffini & Company, we have this beautiful 87,000 sq. ft. building which sits atop the famous Carlsbad Flower Fields – a spectacular display of nature’s repertoire of colors with row upon row of red, yellow, orange and white tulips. As you stand there taking in the view of the fields, your sprits are lifted by the additional backdrop of the Pacific Ocean and buoyed by its fresh breezes.  

As fantastic as that sounds, I had a conversation with a staff member the other day who in the four years we’ve been at this location has never once taken the thirty yard walk across the street to take it in. “I’m just so busy and I have so much to do.” As his boss, I’m glad he’s working hard, but I know one simple truth: by May 1^st, the tulips are gone and his opportunity of seeing them again won’t come for another ten months.  

There are seasons for everything in life – whether it is kids’ or grandkids’ ballgames, weekend trips, vacations or just five minutes to take a break and smell the tulips. 

It’s a good life! 

Brian

Recently at a Turning Point, one of our cameramen, Mario, gave me a couple of containers of his home-made honey. He gave me a colorful description of how his bees fly miles and miles every day, flower to flower, to gather the pollen…how they bring it back into the hive, and then the extraordinary process of how their labor over time yields one of nature’s greatest foods. For the size of the bee and the amount of work, it’d be the equivalent of running a marathon every day and then lifting weights for six hours. 

Thank God we don’t have to work that hard to provide for our families! But this noble insect is a role model for work ethic. It’s time to bee busy so you can bring the money home to your honeys. 

It’s a good life! 

Brian

That was the phrase I heard most growing up as a child. My mother was consistent and relentless in encouraging me to believe in myself. As a young boy, I was very small and slight for my age. (I’ve filled out nicely in recent years!) I was also put into school early and I was typically a year and half to two years younger than my classmates. My mother didn’t want me to know I was small or young or had any other potential shortcomings or excuses. She just consistently championed me to believe in myself.

 

A funny thing happened. I guess it worked! I can never remember a time when I didn’t believe in myself. In fact not having many pictures of my youth, I don’t ever remember being small or thinking of myself as small. Today, one of my youngest children is very small and slight, but I’ve kept up my mother’s winning ways by telling him he’s unstoppable and there’s nothing he can’t do. At every turn, his stature is an advantage to him. When he plays basketball, we remind him of the diminutive Spud Webb who at five foot seven was an all-star in the NBA.

 

Maybe you didn’t have a cheerleader growing up, but there’s nothing to say you can’t be your own cheerleader today. Not only that, but I have found it even more empowering to become other peoples’ cheerleaders. A word of encouragement spoken at the right time can be life-changing for someone.

 

The words we say to ourselves and others can make all the difference in the world. Make sure you’re building up; not tearing down, encouraging; not discouraging, strengthening belief and not causing doubt. You can do it…

 

It’s a good life!

 

Brian