Three steps to make your prospecting pay off

Give this activity the proper attention and you will get great results.

by Dirk Zeller   Most agents know deep down inside that they need to do a better job of prospecting to increase business. They know that true long-term sales success is built through the work of looking for new business, but they don’t put in the work.

If you want to succeed, you must do more than provide service to clients once you have acquired them. You have to acquire them before you can serve them at all.

Prospecting rule one:
Schedule a time to do it

You should schedule your prospecting block for the same time daily. Make it a time when you are the sharpest, at your peak performance. For me it was early in the morning. I did my prospecting calls first thing each day, because that was when I had the most energy. Your peak time may be different.

For most of us–including myself–if prospecting is not
scheduled, it doesn’t get done. You must treat time for prospecting as if it were a listing or buyer appointment. None of us would ever think of being late for or skipping either of those. You can’t afford to miss a prospecting appointment. The prospecting appointment feeds your listing and buyer appointments. By sticking to your schedule for this activity, you will have many more listing or buyer appointments.

Prospecting rule two:
Stay the course

When you get busy–and you will–don’t stop prospecting. Stay the course. Agents who stop prospecting ride the roller coaster of income: one month is great, the next brings nothing. These income ups and downs are caused by inconsistent prospecting. Resolve today to keep up the momentum and continue to prospect no matter what.

This problem happened to an agent I recently worked with. She was doing a fantastic job prospecting, and she created more leads and business than she could handle. She then stopped prospecting. You can guess what happened; she took the big swan dive. We coached her to "raise the bar" instead of stopping what’s working. What I mean by raising the bar is to qualify your leads with higher standards. You have the opportunity to select better clients. You have earned the right through your prospecting to work only with highly motivated buyers and sellers. The more-motivated people will treat you better, respect you more, and listen with greater attention to your advice. What a great reward for prospecting! More money and easier people to work with. Who wouldn’t like that?

Prospecting rule three: Don’t worry about what you can’t control

Don’t worry about the people who are not home when you call. Don’t worry about the people who are negative. Don’t concern yourself about the best time to call. Don’t worry about the conditions of the field–just play. The field conditions are the same for us all. Nobody takes seriously the football coach who says that the rain caused his team to lose–was it raining only on his side of the field?

Focus on what you do have right now. What you have is the person on the other end of the line. Focus on serving this person and seeing if you can solve this person’s problem, whether you’re dealing with an expired listing, a FSBO, or some other situation. If you are making a cold call, or if you are calling someone in your farm, try to connect with the person and check for motivation to sell. If you find someone who doesn’t have motivation, move on to the next person. There is a four-letter word that successful salespeople say all day. It’s next!

To be effective at prospecting, you must make a firm commitment to do it daily without fail. It’s amazing what a few calls every day will yield after a year. Start today and stay with it. Stay the course through the ups and downs. Don’t worry about things out of your control. Regular prospecting leads to control of your business and of your income. It frees you to work the schedule you desire.

Dirk Zeller, president of Real Estate Champions, is a top coach in the real estate industry. His coaching systems are built around his success in the 1990s as one of the top agents in North America. Copyright© 2002, Dirk Zeller. All rights reserved. For information about his keynote presentations, contact the Frog Pond at 800/704-3764 or e-mail susie@frogpond.com

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