Your Million Dollar Year Day 33 cold calling fear and loathing is upon us. A person in CA gets upset about being called by agents when his cell number is listed on the Do Not Call list and he still gets calls.  He wants the courts to punish those who call when they are not supposed to.  He had his property on the market and it did not sell. This fact indicates his first agent was not able, or not capable of understanding the market well enough to get this gentleman's property sold in the time allowed by their contract.  So instead of trying to understand from his layman's point of view why his property didn't sell he balls all his anger and resentment into a lawsuit to punish the entire industry.  Welcome to real estate, it is not for the weak.Life has certainly changed and the real est... 04/22/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 32 Thought Leaders group is not a new idea and it has value. Getting together a group of professionals discussing the profession, its rules and regulations, tips and techniques and more will always be a worthwhile spending of time.  Most agencies call this MasterMinding. One franchise demands you attend a group of your financial peers rather than having an opportunity to hear from a tier above you or above that. The goal is for those who are good at what they do have a chance to share that knowledge and to discuss it with those in the room.  A mind is a mind, a group of minds becomes the Master Mind. You will always learn more in a group of like minded, open people. I am putting together such a group of people in my area right now. Here are some topics I wa... 04/21/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 31 Resiliency is a chief component of any successful life. It is not a matter of if something bad, or unfavorable will happen, it is a matter of when. When that moment hits you have several choices as you do every moment of your live.  You can grow or die. You can learn or wallow. You can complain or strategize. You can win in this loss or you won't. My hot water heater broke, my car died and I lost out on a sizable commission I truly need and want and worked for, and this was just yesterday.  This is a lot of body blows in one day.  I have to say I feel horrible about myself and my predicament.One thing I learned a long time ago is to pay attention to the questions you ask. For instance, What can I do right now to learn and grow from this is? This is so mu... 04/20/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 30 Features 2.With more than 316,437 members, ActiveRain is the largest and most active professional social network in the real estate industry. We are a community of real estate agents, brokers, home stagers, inspectors, lenders, and other industry professionals who are committed to learning how do to our jobs better, building connections, and having some fun along the way!ActiveRain is the world’s largest storehouse of real estate knowledge with over 4 million blog posts on all things real estate. Our members come to ActiveRain to share their best practices, learn from others success, and get free high caliber training through ActiveRain University. The joy of learning and doing Members Only   Featured 04/19/2013 161 13 0 — Taking a Punch Members Only   Fe... 04/19/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 29 Features. I also blog on Active Rain a platform for all things real estate. Some of the top people in the industry sharing the newest ideas and best practices. I am an Ambassador for the group but I have never been invited to any dinners. I am happy to answer questions and engage if sharing ideas freely. Yes we compete in that we are in the same business, but we all know the prospect becomes the client often well before you make your pitch.  I have had Is the Grass greener? Public   Featured 05/21/2015 861 24 5 — Boston Area Spring Meetup-The competative edge Public   Featured 04/24/2015 861 7 3 — Home delivery milkman's son's story about real estate Public   Featured 04/23/2015 1867 26 6 — Active Rain Meetup-Opportunity for Growth Public   Featured 04/22... 04/18/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 28 A month of days. Take a look at the numbers for the month. How many listings taken on.  How many houses have you previewed and discussed real estate with their owners. How many new people have you contacted, what are the numbers and how do they compare to your plan. The answers for me are mixed. While I have not been into as many houses or discussed real estate with many owners, but I am having discussions on listing 20 lots in a new development. Should the terms be reached on this and get started, from one client I top my goal considerably. Then the goal is to get them closed. So my results are mixed. Yippee and get going to see more people. A single client providing all your output is a precarious situation to be in. There needs to be enough in the pipe... 04/15/2019

Your Million Dollar Day 27 #Agent4Agents. Thought leaders New England real estate is an idea I have a couple of weeks ago. The real estate industry is changing rapidly.  Technological innovations and tech companies see the opportunity in the Billion dollar plus real estate business and are looking to cut out pie for themselves.  You almost can never fail to attract people by discounts and the consumer is happy to look at a discount in one area and not realizing they are being gouged in another.  Discount agents provide discounted services, insight, training, and skills and so you will pay too much as a buyer and get too little as a seller. The Discount firms like Zillow, Purple Bench, Redfin market themselves as being for the consumer, but are they? They are certainly not when you comp... 04/14/2019

Your Million Dollar Day 26 get your group, find the people you admire and create an opportunity to sit and talk with them  This is a personal story. Any time in this business with a level of success and you will end up in some kind of Mastermind group. A Mastermind is a collection of minds all discussing a topic and what comes from that collections of minds is the Mastermind.  I am concerned about Agents in the real estate profession. I think some agencies and systems care more about their brand then they do the Agents who are keeping their brand alive with large caps and so many fees.Franchises and Systems are built by the people who do the work. In real estate the people who do all the heavy lifting, all the actual work are the Agents.  Agents give to their Agencies a portion of their... 04/13/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 25 top 10 issues affecting real estate as stated by the Councilors of Real Estate® for 2018-2019. All of these issues are national and they affect the individual communities in differing ways. You will not be surprised to see interest rates, taxes and construction costs coming from a real estate publication. Before now there were really two demographics the industry paid attention to, the first time home buyers and the rest of the groups. The first time home buyers were younger and the rest are older. Now the industry is segmented into four groups and it makes so much more sense.  You still do have the first time home buyer and now you have the second property home/condo buyer.  The move up is in age and price point and size of home. The next group has large... 04/12/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 24 Take someone out for coffee. Early on in the Walter Sanford book, If I Could Start Over Again, he instructs you to find people who are truly amazing in this industry and ask them out for coffee.  Most of the time people are complimented by this and will make time. It is Spring and good people are really busy right now and I have found the truly busy people can find time in their schedules to meet.  I have also found that people who tell you they are busy and don't have time for months are not. They are not busy, they can not control their time and they do not focus on the fleeting time, just saying to themselves moment after moment they don't have time to do all they should. They are spending the major amount of their time doing minor things with no resu... 04/11/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 23 Where are you now? Constantly reassessing where you are right now in comparison to where you wanted to be or where you can be. This isn't to dissuade you, make you feel pressure for not doing what you said you would do, but to re-align yourself.  The metaphor that gets used in the discussion is a pilot leaving the east coast for LA or SF on the west coast. They have the route but they need to constantly assess where they are along that route and sometimes make adjustments to correct the course.  Do so often with your real estate career.In this case, my case, I am further along in the transformation to being a better agent, a better manager, better teacher, instructor and mentor, but I am behind in the number of new listings I have brought in.  I am behind... 04/10/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 22 Bootstrapping is the way many agents start their careers.  Often it is said that it takes 6 months of reserve money to begin a career where you don't get paid until you have completed a transaction with clients. I have witnessed lots of people start up without these funds, but it is tight.  In the real estate business everyone has their hand in your pocket and is offering you a new shiny object that if you just buy, subscribe, join us you will be successful. When they say "you will be successful" they are really talking about their own business and not necessarily that you, the buyer, will be successful.As you begin your business make sure you have a handle on where and how you are sharing your hard earned commissions.  Franchises will take the most from... 04/09/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 21 Can I drink now. I don't know what the average person expects of their real estate agent, I know what my experience with average people tells me they expect. Everything. From the moment we meet in person there is the expectation that you will actively be providing value.  You know some history of the building, the area, the builder something they don't know, couldn't know unless you did this kind of thing every day. You know the traffic patterns, the best walkable restaurants that fit the lifestyle you describe. Expectations are one thing, the other is performance. There are specific legal and timely forms that need to be taken care of. Time is of the essence is at the heart of real estate. Nothing happens for the Realtor® until both parties are satisfie... 04/08/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 20 GREEN I AM. And thanks to Craig Foley for his insight and wisdom during the two day course.  There is such a wealth of information packed into these two days, it will take months to digest and learn it all.  Building healthy efficient homes should be a mandate in our building process and it already is in some communities.  Here are resourced provided by Craig to the class, they are useful for any builder, Realtor® or consumer interested in healthy, efficient homes.Additional Resources NAR Green Designation NAR RESOURCES:NAR Green Resource Council: http://greenresourcecouncil.org/NAR Realtor Sustainability Program: www.nar.realtor/topics/sustainabilitywww.nar.realtor/reports/realtors-and-sustainability-2017NAR Smart Growth Program: www.nar.realtor/topics/s... 04/07/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 19 GREEN Designation. Understanding how your house envelope is put together is a critical new piece of the knowledge puzzle that agents need to understand how to better assist buyers and sellers of  GREEN homes. This is not just about new construction, but retrofitting older homes as well. Here in the Boston area our homes can be as old as our country.  Houses in this area can have been built before there was electricity and running water.  Understanding how houses are put together is vital information when you consult your clients on how best to market GREEN initiatives in a home or how to best direct a new home buyer in the savings of buying a Net Zero energy efficient home.New England has been a leader in the technology of GREEN homes in part because of ... 04/06/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 18 Put in a Happy Thought. Driving home last night after completing a very good day of real estate activity I was focused on what didn't get done and why I couldn't do it and it was making me miserable. I was going round and round and getting deeper and deeper. I could feel it's weight. In a flash another thought came to me. I got a call back from 2 expired and canceled people I called and left messages with.  I also was not hung up on and was able to preview 4 houses. That is a good day. Why am I allowing my thoughts take me to another place?An Agents life is filled with countless rejections in a day and it can wear on you. You can easily focus on what is not working without realizing some people are letting you in and listening to your message.  Focus on w... 04/05/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 17 Gratitude gets more done. Flat tires happen on sunny days when you have no where to go too, as well as when you are late for a meeting.  Life is random, and for successful agents it just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because they are prepared with a daily practice of getting things done. This is one reason why women are such natural agents. They already know how to juggle and remember so many things, but let's not digress. Life's random and ever present flat tire, or rainy day they still will do the same things they always do, they get things done in a day.Many people wake up with Gratitudes to get their day started with the right mindset. Others count their Gratitudes at the end of the day for what they have done. Maybe the key part of Gratitudes is... 04/04/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 16 Moving without the ball Larry Bird used to say when explaining why he was always where he was supposed to be. He said he worked as hard without the ball as I did with the ball. In real estate the same path to success applies. An agents moving without the ball is when they sit down at the phone and begin to speak to people about real estate. The usual prospecting is calling on your friends and family to your neighbors and people you do business with. Ultimately you get to the general public. Talking to the general public about an emotional, legal and financial transaction is not easy, nor should it be. It helps me to think of people I have already helped as the phone is ringing, That image evaporates when a new voice comes on the other line. Without an un... 04/03/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 15 review refocus refine and deliver. The first two weeks delivered a lot of "off the ball success". Getting the cards created and in my hand, re-desiging and reprinting all the brand material. Updating all the social media sites and reviewing archived and available content on the web. That is a lot. That is not the essential work of a real estate professional. Farmers farm and agents live in their farm as well.  You have to know the streets, what is going on in the neighborhoods and that takes presence and awareness. I need to prospect. I use Vulcan 7. My theory is that 2 hours a day with the tool will create 80% of my activity in a day and all of my results in the year. I need to be speaking with more people. In the next two weeks I will measure this, this... 04/02/2019

Your Million Dollar Year Day 14 Earn your Badges. Real estate is a business where you get paid nothing until you have completed, COMPLETED, something. Every day you make your living helping people, some of them are clients, most of them are prospects you hope to be clients.  There are no badges in real estate, well that isn't entirely true, there are badges.  Badges that signify the areas of further real estate study that are interesting or significant to you.  My extra badges include Luxury and GREEN homes.  What I mean by no badges is that there is the close or not, that is all. That is when you receive some compensation for the time, information, insight, and all the activities that are involved with the purchase or sale of a residential property.According to my goals written 15 days... 04/01/2019