Leverage ’23 was an extraordinary event beyond expectations! Over three days, 350 real estate pros networked, learned from each other, and had a load of fun. Sixteen speakers captured the audience with insights and actions they could implement as soon as they returned to the office.
The speaker takeaways were abundant – here are some key highlights.
Training to Win
Dan Clark has been a high achiever, inspiring many, for his whole life. At just 12 years old, he was on a weekly TV series. An extraordinary athlete, he’s flourished in champion boxing, skiing, football, baseball, and motocross. For 25 years, he was personally mentored by Zig Ziglar, has been inducted into the Professional Speakers Hall of Fame, and was named one of the Top 10 Motivational Speakers in the World.
In his Leverage presentation, Dan focused on the importance of perspective leadership which has a three-step strategy including expanding beliefs, elevating expectations, and empowering behavior. “We can’t make you get better or invest in yourself. Only you can do that!”
While it’s easy to be overwhelmed by self-improvement and aiming to be a stronger leader, a mindset change can make improvement and performance easier to achieve. “In the perspective of time to improve your overall performance, think about a 1% improvement. There are 1,440 minutes every day, 1% of that is 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes every day to strengthen your mental toughness, are you willing to do that? Every day matters. Every ‘right now’ matters.”
And for those looking to get ahead of the competition, what’s the key? “Competitive advantage is never created by doing more than your competition. Competitive advantage is always created by doing what your competition is not willing to do.”
How to Re-Humanize the Sales Process
An energetic, wickedly funny sales guru, Shari Levitin, founder of the Shari Levitin Group, has helped create more than $1 billion dollars in increased revenue for companies in over 40 countries. Shari helps sales teams bridge the gap between beating quotas and selling with her authentic, heartfelt approach.
She is the bestselling author of Heart and Sell: 10 Universal Truths Every Salesperson Needs to Know, which focuses on the importance of building connections and using proven sales skills without losing your authenticity. The highly regarded book is an official textbook for Harvard’s Strategic Selling course. Shari is a regular contributor to Forbes, CEO magazine, and HuffPost.
“Are you connecting with your potential customers, your current customers, your employees,” she asked? Developing truly genuine relationships in a world that is increasing digital is an essential element in success in sales and real estate. What are these relationships built on? According to Shari, they are a blend of empathy and competency.
Empathy gets you in the door, Shari explained. It’s what you need to lead with. And then competency, combined with reliability and integrity, keeps you there. Competency demonstrates you know your product and industry; empathy helps you know your customer. Ask questions, find out what a person’s motivation is, and listen to the emotion behind their words.
Performance Beyond Gold
Dr. Delatorro McNeal II is an internationally renowned peak performance expert, keynote speaker, and bestselling author. His books include Shift into a Higher Gear: Better Your Best and Live Life to the Fullest, Platinum Presentations: 52 Tips to Speak with Confidence, Win Your Audience & Grow Your Bank Account, and Thriving Through Your Storms: 12 Profound Lessons to Help You Grow Through Anything You Go Through in Life.
Dr. Delatorro has spoken in 49 of the 50 U.S. states and throughout the world, delivering 3,000+ presentations to major corporations, professional associations, pro-sports teams, and leadership conferences.
During his presentation, Dr. Delatorro spoke passionately about actions to take to cultivate the right mindset to succeed in today’s real estate environment. “A positive, opportunity-focused mindset is key to maximizing success in this industry,” he said. “Be adaptive and keep growing.” Change is what brings progress. As we work on our new mindset, it takes a serious commitment to change now more than you ever have. It also takes a shift in attitude and interpersonal leadership to perform beyond your goals.”
Dr. Delatorro emphatically encouraged attendees to be done with excuses that are holding them back from achieving the “best you” possible. Instead of finding an excuse or reason why you can’t reach beyond, make a positive declaration that will shift your mindset to a peak state. Remember, what you get to do every day is a privilege, you don’t “have to” do something, you “get to.”
Fearless TEAMS
Matthew Werner, Special Warfare Combatant Crewman (SWCC), U.S. Navy (Ret.), has had a multi-faceted career as a highly respected Naval Special Warfare (NSW) leader and operator otherwise known as the “SEAL Teams” for 25 years. A selected and trusted senior operator, he has operated directly with the National Mission Force, the CIA, FBI, DEA, and other special agencies both foreign and domestic. He is also a licensed Helicopter Pilot and USCG 100GT Captain.
A born strategist with an extensive background in team development, Matthew has a strong ability to solve complex problems within extremely high-pressure, uncertain, volatile, and ambiguous environments.
“Ask yourself, as a leader, are you the thermometer or the thermostat? Are you the person who just takes the temperature of your team or are you the thermostat, using your leadership skills to set a positive tone and direction, leading to good work and a positive climate in your business?” Matthew encouraged the attendees to be the thermostat and influence their team through dependability, competence, predictability, and consistency.
As you work to elevate your mindset to leverage future success, you need to shift away from negative thoughts influenced by the flood of negative information coming at you every day. Matthew explained that it’s imperative to gravitate away from the negative if we’re going to achieve growth. Steering away from negative thoughts will strengthen you as a leader.
And in a world where it’s easier to blame someone else, be accountable to yourself and your teammates. Set your standards high for yourself and expect accountability from those you surround yourself with.
What’s Going on in the Marketplace?
Workman Success Systems CEO and Master Coach Verl Workman was joined for a session delving into the current state of the real estate industry with Alvaro Erize, the CEO of CINC, a leading real estate lead generation and conversion CRM platform for teams and top agents. Alvaro is responsible for the strategic direction of the company, as well as ensuring CINC continues to nurture their team that makes them unique and dedicated to its clients. He is passionate about developing teams and products that change people’s lives.
In their time together, Alvaro and Verl addressed how the challenging economy can tempt real estate professionals to cut back on their marketing, such as lead generation, social media, and SEO. Maintaining your marketing spend may not only hurt your business and your brand today but also set you up for revenue loss in the future.
Even if lead conversion is slow, agents need to stay focused on nurturing each lead and relationship. For example, in this environment, aiming for a 1% conversion rate – with a goal of improving over time – is realistic. Having 100 leads that result in one sale is still a sale.
And no matter what the economy, there will be people who need to buy and sell homes as marriages, growing families, or relocations for work will always take place.
Predictable Greatness
Leverage ’23 came to an end with a final presentation by Verl Workman. As someone who leads by example, Verl brings his leadership, coaching, and real-estate experience to each of his business relationships. His extensive experience and expertise span sales, marketing, promotion, management, and technology.
In an environment experiencing economic upheaval, is it possible to have any positive predictability in real estate? Absolutely! According to Verl, when you commit to consistently tracking your number of initial contacts, appointments, listings, buyer agreements, and closings, you can achieve predictable outcomes that will help you level up average results into greatness.
“If we track the right things, we know how many doubts they could have from a conversation, how many conversations it takes to get an appointment, how many appointments it takes to get a listing or a buyer agreement, how many agreements it takes to get a closing,” he said. “We understand the numbers, and then we know we have it.”
With the right systems and mindset in place, you have the power to choose your desired level of performance. If you can’t be bothered to track activities or follow up with leads, your results will reflect this mindset. Tracking metrics allows agents to course-correct activities to achieve their ideal sales goals. But implementing and committing to tracking and following could be the key to transforming your results from average to great!
