Sales Management: Faith, Hope and Helping Yourself...

Today, there are lots of market-related questions for which there are no answers. Up or down market, rates drop, rates climb...no one knows for sure. Humans are fickle and have been known to go against all statistical wisdom at any given time. What was that game that we all played growing up that foretold the future? Ouija or Magic Eight Ball...get them out if you're willing to cast your fate to the wind. Or, you can institute some pro-active initiatives to give you control regardless of where the market ends up. Create your plan for the next year and have it ready by Nov. 30. If you do it correctly, it will take some time to ask yourself the right questions and to analyze what is, and is not, working for you. There's great wisdom in recognizing that only those things that we acknowledge are we able to change or augment. Something to think about...take the gross revenue of your best year and deduct the gross revenue of your worst year. The difference is the cost of mediocrity. Can you afford that? Realtor.com president, Allan Dalton, a man I admire greatly, once chided me for complaining about a lack of business. I was talking about the market being "soooo tough." He grabbed a yellow pad and wrote on it, "Something works, nothing doesn't." He shoved the pad at me and said, "Advice you need to follow." I've kept that piece of paper as a reminder that he was 100% right. Pro-active initiatives are the only cure for "slumps" or periods of feeling that you are in a constant uphill climb. The holidays do not begin with Halloween and end in January. Put motivated sellers and motivated buyers together and you have real estate magic.