It’s amazing how many agents have difficulty with prospecting. It seems to be almost a dirty word in the real estate sales arena, but prospecting is one of the most profitable, inexpensive ways to increase your business. Before a sale can be made, some type of prospecting must be done. Prospecting is an integral part of the sales process. Prospecting can take many different forms. It doesn’t always have to be over the phone or in person. It doesn’t have to be cold-calling, expireds, FSBOs or knocking on doors. Successful agents prospect in many different forms. Anyone who tries to sell you a prospecting-free program is not telling the truth. There is no way to success in sales without prospecting.
I know there are a lot of speakers and trainers trying to sell you the "magic system" that is prospecting-free. I have seen everything available to you as agents today. There is no "magic system," no place on earth in sales where success precedes the work of prospecting. There is an old saying: "The only place where success is found before work is in the dictionary." Zig Ziglar said, "Life is like a cafeteria line – first you pay, then you eat." Zig is exactly right. Any one of us who assumes that we get to enjoy the cafeteria line of life without payment is mistaken. To think that there can be selling without prospecting is pure folly.
There are ways to improve your success in prospecting. There are less rejection-oriented ways to prospect. There are less confrontational approaches to prospecting. The secret is to find the techniques and systems that work best for you. Not everyone should pick up the phone and call expireds or FSBOs. But we all should be calling and training our past clients to work for us in generating new business. We should all prospect our past clients for friends, neighbors, and co-workers that we can help.
I often find the reason people don’t prospect is they don’t see the benefit to themselves. They don’t see in a tangible way how prospecting will improve their standing in life or business. The perceived pain of prospecting then becomes far greater than the reward of prospecting consistently. Since they cannot see the benefit, the thinking goes, why even attempt the perceived pain? This is the same reason why the American public is overweight and eats a high-fat diet. Most people see little benefit at 30, 40, 50 to eating right and exercising regularly. Unfortunately, in their late 50s and early 60s they pay the price for their lack of self-control. People need to see the benefit in order to be motivated to make the change.
The biggest benefit an agent receives from prospecting is the ability to select the client. If an agent prospects enough, he can qualify -- or rather, disqualify -- the marginal client. The marginal clients for me were always the ones who: weren’t interested enough; wanted too much attention; would never be satisfied; were unrealistic about themselves, their homes, the value of their homes, or what my job was; saw no value in a realtor; or thought they knew more than I did about sales. These types of people were automatically excluded from my life and business. My staff also didn’t have to deal with these people. I could exclude them because I was able to choose from many better clients, by extensive prospecting.
Now I want to be perfectly clear: The fact that I excluded these people did not mean that they were bad people. It just meant that I couldn’t help them without dramatically compromising my philosophy. When you prospect with regularity and produce enough leads to disqualify people, you can focus on those whom you can help and be true to your philosophy of business.
Being true to your philosophy leads to less stress and to more income, happier clients, more referrals, and ultimately less time spent working. If you are in tune with your philosophy, you will thrive in real estate sales. Take the powerful step to prospect daily so you can apply your philosophy more evenly, and you will have found the magic answer to sales success.
