Table of Contents
Foreword
If you are in the real estate business or considering making real estate sales your career, you need to read this book. Marilyn Sullivan brings a new and refreshing perspective to the real estate profession. As a past president of the National Association of Realtors, I can attest to the fact that the real estate industry is experiencing phenomenal change in the way we do business from the ground floor up. As a result, there is a need for a kind of refurbishing of the way real estate professionals represent and communicate with their clients. Marilyn Sullivan is able to address these issues from many vantage points through her expertise as a real estate broker, lawyer, author, and entrepreneur over the past 25 years.
Marilyns legal background gives her the tools to define the job of the real estate agent as more of a professional client advocate instead of a salesperson geared toward selling a client on a product. As a broker and lawyer who has analyzed the legal obligation of the real estate agent to her client from both perspectives, she is able to introduce you to The New Ideal in the way real estate professionals represent their clients. This important book tutors you in this updated and upgraded model of providing ethics-based, client-first service to clientele. The New Ideal as presented in this book is an about-face from salesperson mentality to professional real estate practitioner as the image of the real estate agent evolves with its changing marketplace.
The real estate industry is both rewarded and challenged by technological innovation. The handshake of yesteryear has turned into high-tech methods of conducting business. The business of real estate sales has become so directly linked to the Internet and to a well-organized contacts database, by virtue of its endless stream of people, that technology must be the mainstay of your business. This book shows you how to stay in step with technology and to incorporate it fully into your business, yet still retain the personal touch, which is so important in the real estate business.
Real estate professionals are entrepreneurs in every sense of the word. We work under a companys logo, but we are the owners and operators of our own small businesses. If you come to real estate with an entrepreneurial state of mind, you will have the best chance to achieve maximum success, personal fulfillment, and optimum profit. In this excellent new book, Marilyn coaches you to set your limits high and reach them. Her approach is both practical and philosophical, incorporating high ideals, creative thinking, and practical solutions.
As an innovator of deal-making strategies, Marilyn mentors you to sharpen your creative mindset for forging your own specialties and making deals happen. Home staging is emphasized as a valuable way to advance your listing package and increase the market for residential listings. She also shows you a method of reverse farming whereby your market finds you 24/7 through scrupulous building and indexing of your website.
Marilyn also shares her proven technology-based marketing technique called the referral stream system to help you build a business that is entirely referral-based. Her future income stream strategies will cause you to view your earnings as long-term investments instead of short-term sources of income, transforming you into a profit-earning investor. You will be motivated to adopt an investor state of mind as you are tutored to become a Top Dog in your field.
While many other books have been written about how to achieve success as a real estate agent, this book is a treatise on how to practice real estate in a more productive, professional manner. Let me say it one more time; if you are in the real estate business or considering making real estate sales your career, you need to read this book.
Richard Mendenhall
2001 President of the National Association of Realtors
Introduction
Careers in real estate are appealing to a wider group of people now that the real estate market has earned its reputation as a powerful and reliable sector of our economy. With the real estate markets enviable long-term appreciation and favored tax treatment, real estate as an investment has become enormously attractive. Compared with the stock markets dismal performance, the real estate market has claimed a leadership position.
The market is not the only aspect of real estate that has experienced influential change. Its workforce has undergone a dramatic shift. Not so long ago, a career in real estate sales was the second profession of the homemaker or teacher. In recent years, with the downsizing of corporate America, real estate professionals now include upper management and technology professionals. More and more people are recognizing that the independence afforded the real estate sales professional coupled with the potential for unlimited income make a career in real estate sales quite attractive.
The real estate markets consumer has also transformed as investors move funds between the stock market and the real estate market depending on where the gains are found. The weary stock market investor has found that he can wear both hats, gaining ground as either a real estate or stock market investor. Market jumping has become more common as real estate has gained its leadership position in our economy and as investors gain real estate expertise. This is where we agents confer a professionalism and proficiency required by an industry that has claimed market share.
These revolutionary changes mark an important crossroads in the real estate industry. No longer do economic trends and statistics remain solely within the purview of the financial planner. A more savvy real estate consumer now requires that real estate agents have this important data at their fingertips. No longer do agents write offers on the hoods of cars and bait their clients with sales pitches. Todays agent serves an entirely different consumer and is expected to work faster, smarter, and more efficiently. Mobile technology has replaced the hood of the car, and a more professional client relationship has replaced the old sales routine. Outdated mailers and cold calls no longer create markets, having been replaced by 24/7 web technology and agent specialization. This book addresses the many changes occurring within the real estate industry, and bridges the gap between the real estate industry of yesteryear and the one that is before us now.
In this new edition of this book I have featured two new innovative products that may change the face of real estate marketing. Chapter 13 features a high-tech, automated multimedia Master Marketing Model that will generate leads without you. I have also featured a program called the Lead Projector that tells each agent exactly how many leads they require to meet their income needs. Just input your unique information and your bottom line lead requirements are set for you. Without exception, the state-of-the-art strategies I have developed and shared in this book make it possible for you to gain unparalleled momentum no matter where you are in your real estate career.
What You Will Learn in This Book
The Complete Idiots Guide To Success as a Real Estate Agent, Second Edition, is written in six parts. Each one addresses a different aspect of the real estate business.
Part 1, First Things First,
