Continuous
Improvement...
Get
Better At Everything You Do
Continuous
improvement results in continued success in your business.
If
you continue to improve
at everything you do, you will also
continue to
attract new business. As a result, you will do more than simply survive
in your business...you will thrive!
Starting Your Continuous
Improvement
Given
the enormous
scope of your day-to-day work, it can be daunting to know
where to
start improving everything you do.
The best and most
effective approach is to continuous improvement is to focus
on one factor at a time.
Once you have
improved that factor to an acceptable level, work on another. As you
continue this process, you will add continuous improvement to the
actions that you perform automatically.
Continuous improvement is the return on your
investment of tracking results. As a result, the
most logical approach to improving process
to review of your past results.
What
specific results would you like to improve? If like most people, you
probably want to earn more money without working harder.
Simply wanting more money won't automatically generate more revenue.
You'll need a good plan to get there.
Ideally your plan will identify which if three basic approaches you
will follow in generate more income:
- higher commissions
requires a different niche market that offers higher
commissions
2. more clients
3. both of the above
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Your Clients'
Contribution to Continuous Improvement
How well have you satisfied your clients? What areas
have your client satisfaction surveys identified as
opportunties for improvement? How can you add more value to your services?
The more you continue to satisfy clients, the more your business
will continue to grow.
In
addition to specific client-service improvements, here are several
other ways in which you can practice continuous improvement.
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Dilgent...
Passionately
committed to your goals, you are tenacious in doing
whatever it takes
to achieve the results you want.
Similarly, a passionate commitment
to helping your clients achieve their goals, will lead to your doing
whatever it takes to help them achieve the results they want.
Diligence means many things to many people. Among other things,
diligence is:
- careful attention to
all details
Buying
and selling real estate is a very complex detail-loaded process.
Successful outcomes depend upon careful attention to each and every
detail.
- concentration
on clients’ goals
As
well as wasting time and energy, diverting attention from your
clients’ goals jeopardizes your relationship with them.
Some
transactions are like sprints and require a short intensive blast to
reach the finish line. Others are more like marathons that require
constant energy to complete them. As an agent you will be involved in
both kinds of transactions: make sure you’ve got the energy to stay
the course
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Flexible...
Just
as things
change in your life, things change in your clients’ lives. After
having been in the market for some time, buyers’ interests continue
to develop and evolve.
Properties that might have satisfied them at
one time no longer meet their needs. And what once could have been
their ideal home is no longer appealing.
Perhaps houses that were now
out of their price range are now affordable, or conversely, they can
no longer afford what they once thought they could. The reasons for
the change are not as relevant as the reality that change will
happen.
Changes are
stressful for your clients. They
neither need, nor do they appreciate
your resisting the changes in their lives.
When clients experience
change in their lives, accept these changes and continue to help them
respond to their new circumstances.
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Better
Listener...
Helping
clients involves a lot of talking.
In your work, you talk to people, update them on what’s
going on in the marketplace and tell them countless other things.
Most sales people are good talkers. But the most successful
sales people also listen closely to what people tell
them.
Continuous
improvement also includes listening
carefully
to what prospects and clients say allows you to clarify and
understand exactly what they are looking for.
This means giving
full attention to what they are saying and taking the time necessary
to completely understand the points they are making.
It also means
asking appropriate questions and not interrupting at inappropriate
times.
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Helpful...
For
service
providers there are three degrees of helpfulness:
At best annoying, at
worst it’s useless.
It’s being ignored by be serving you and helping meet your needs.
From
a client perspective, too much helpfulness is almost as problematic
as too little. Too much helpfulness is, in a word,
intrusiveness.
If
you don't know how much help specific clients expect, ask them. If you
guess, you wil have 1 chance in 3 of being right.
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More Patient...
Your
connection with clients is like the apple
farmer’s connection with his trees. He starts his
connection with new trees when he selects and plants them.
This
connection continues as he nurtures his orchard. This nurturing is
not passive, nor is it aimless. Nor does it produce instant results.
In a regular and consistent manner, the farmer proactively
looks after his trees to bring about a very specific outcome: a
maximum yield.
Your
client
connection starts when you begin to learn what they need.
Your
role is neither passive nor aimless. You must proactively
look after your clients to bring about a very specific outcome:
satisfied clients.
And like the farmer looking after his
trees, you can’t expect instant results from your efforts. It takes
time. You need, and clients expect, patience.
In
the simplest of terms, patience is calmly waiting for something
specific.
And like the farmer who has done everything he can
for his crops, after having done everything you can to satisfy your
clients, waiting is the only thing you can do.
Crops need
time to ripen, clients need time to make
decisions and take action.
From another
perspective, the farmer's crop is much like your client pipleline. In each case, with
proper nurturing, the farmer and you will both enjoy a life-time value of the
inputs.
Once you and
your clients have
agreed how much time they need, and who will initiate contact, give
them the gift of time and space.
And to keep from worrying
yourself crazy, do something else: update your knowledge about your
market or clients, do some prospecting or connect with other clients
or contacts.
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To Learn More- about continuous improvement strategies, click here.
If you would like some help building on your core values, I'd be happy to help by coaching you through the process.
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