"The codfish lays ten thousand eggs,
The homely hen lays one.
The codfish never cackles
To tell you when she's done.
And so we scorn the codfish,
While the humble hen we prize.
Which only goes to show you
That it pays to advertise."
I went to a seminar once where I got one, and only one, thing out of it. This quote. And it is one of the most important things you need to know. I have spent years in real estate. And I am not a salesperson. But I have always done very well. Even when I was having, for me, a bad year. Because I couldn't sell hundreds of houses, I concentrated and learned to sell only one thing. I never sold a single piece of real estate. I sold me. When someone decides to buy a house, they are going to buy a house. You cannot go out and find people and convince them to buy a house when they don't want a house. That is the big mistake people make, in every industry, and they just end up annoying people. So what you need to do is make sure the people who do want to buy houses find you and buy those houses from you. You market you. You get out there and cackle.
Marketing starts with a plan. You need to know the numbers for your particular industry. It takes X number of contacts to make 1 deal. So first, I teach you the numbers and then I give you the various options to make those numbers and then we write a business plan that you can work with, follow, achieve success with. Then we work on your cackle. Build you an image. From your business card to your letterhead to your website to your various media advertising.
And I will give you the end of each deal for free. No matter what you are doing. People forget to say "thank you". They close the deal and that is the end. Big mistake. No matter what your business, that is where people make their big mistake. They forget the thank you that brings the repeat business. Contact me to find all the steps that come between (I do not believe in linking you to websites I have designed, marketing plans I have done. If you are smart, you steal. If you think you are smart, you attempt to steal then do the whole thing badly. You contact, we meet, we talk, then we decide if we work together.) - from the cackle that brings the client in to the end, the thank you. You need to say thank you. Because you didn't make the deal. You didn't sell the house or the stock or the car. The client gave that to you. You made your mortgage payment, paid your medical bill, put your kid through college, because whatever it is you do, your client came to you. Sometimes your "client" is someone who works under you. And they need a thank you. Remember to say thank you:
Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.
Charles Plumb, a US Naval Academy graduate, was a jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.
One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!"
"How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb.
"I packed your parachute," the man replied.
Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man grabbed his hand and said, "I guess it worked!"
Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."
Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb kept wondering what the man might have looked like in a Navy uniform. He wondered how many times he might have seen him and not even said good morning, how are you or anything, because you see, he was a fighter pilot and the man was just a sailor. Plumb thought of the many hours that sailor had spent in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he did not know.
Now Plumb asks his audience, "Who is packing your parachute?" Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day.
Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down. As you go through your week, month, year, recognize the people who have packed your parachute and enabled you to get where you are today!
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