I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with a lady who called me and said that she is dropping out of our program and going with one of our competitors. The first thing I said was, “Thanks for letting us know,” and then I asked the proverbial question … “Why?” She said there were two reasons she was doing this … first, the company she was going with told her that she doesn’t have to do the prospecting that we ask her to do. They’re not asking her to use the scripts we teach, they told her she doesn’t have to work the kind of schedule that we suggest, and told her, “We’re going to look at what you do and then just make it better.”
I asked her how many transactions she would do this year and she said 9. I then asked her, “Is your goal to enhance the 9 you’re doing or to do more business?” She looked at me with a strange look and said, “What do you mean?” I said, “If your goal is to do 9 transactions, you’re going to pay them money to keep you doing 9, but do them a little better. That makes no sense.” I asked her what the second reason was for quitting. Listen to her comments …
“Your competitor called me and sold me a ticket for $400 to attend their seminar and at the seminar they’re going to teach me all the methods they use to help agents be productive." I said, “They cold called you and sold you a ticket, correct?” She said yes. I then said, “They cold called you, sold you a ticket, and you’re going to go to a seminar with them … so they can teach you, specifically, how NOT to do what they just did to get you to go to their seminar?” She looked at me with a very, very unusual look. I then said, “You don’t understand, do you? They are going to teach you how not to do what they did to get you to buy a ticket. They cold called you, they followed a canned presentation, and they did this with a structured time system.” I then said to her …
“It’s unfortunate that you’re not a smart enough salesperson to figure out what they’ve done. Quite honestly, I believe you should be working with that company, and I wish you lots of luck,” and I hung up.
Isn’t it sad to think that we as Real Estate people can be gullible enough to believe we can make money without understanding the sales process and actually working? I admire this competitor … because I know who trained him … I did.
Mike Ferry
CEO - The Mike Ferry Organization
800-448-0647
