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Superstars…

Last night I had the pleasure of attending the Oklahoma City National Memorial, honoring the Oklahoma City bombing that occurred on April 19, 1995.  It was, perhaps, the most impactful memorial that I’ve ever visited, and I highly recommend that you put it on your “to do list” of places to visit.

There was so much to take in during the tour of this memorial.  There are artifacts and remnants of clothing, equipment and buildings.  There are photographs and stories and newspapers and news casts all around as you walk through a maze that tries to recreate a morning that started like any other and ended like no other.  And the actual memorial that’s outside, constructed in place of the Murrah building’s setting, beckons feelings of reverence and peace and humility and respect and pride.  However, part of the power of this memorial comes from sitting on a stone wall, in front of the reflecting pond that separates you from the famous lawn of bronze and glass chairs that sit in honor of each and every victim of the bombing, while a U.S. Park Ranger tells you all about the bombing and how the memorial came to be, and what every aspect of it means. 

The reason I’m writing about this is because I think that one of the most important ingredients in the power of this memorial is the U.S. Park Ranger and his obvious love for what he does for a living.  To look at him, he is very unassuming.  He resembles a computer nerd in a Park Ranger’s uniform, complete with the “Smokey the Bear” hat.  I peg him to be somewhere between 25 and 30 years old.  He has big teeth that stand out due to his large smile.  Yet, however unassuming he is, when he starts to speak he captures your attention with a spirit that clearly feels honored to be the person making an impact on you today.  Every single word he says commands your full attention.  He makes the bombing feel like it happened “just the other day.”  He makes the entire memorial come to life by explaining how every little detail of the experience has a distinct, thoughtful, and powerful meaning.  And he makes you feel wonderful about all of the good that exists as a result of such a tragic event.  As I listened to him, I couldn’t help but wonder how many times he’s said the exact same thing.  Hundreds?  Maybe even thousands?  Throughout his 20 to 30 minute presentation, he never said, “um.”  It was presented with the skill of a Shakespearean actor on Broadway, passionately delivering every line.  He was obviously not winging it.  And I got the feeling that the confidence he has in delivering the lines of his presentation allows him to focus on wrapping emotion and tonality around each word, in order to create the perfect mood for us to absorb the magnitude of what we were experiencing.  It was beautiful.  It was beautiful because he wasn’t selling anything.  He was coming from a place of love and contribution – love for what he does for a living and for his desire to enhance our experience with his level of skill in telling such an historic story.

If you’re wondering what this has to do with you, the answer is, “everything.”  The way you present yourself to everyone you encounter can be impressive or oppressive, inspiring or boring, sharp or dull, profitable or not profitable.  Knowing and mastering your scripts will help you help your clients, which, in turn, will help you help yourself.  Raving fans are not created by people who don’t love their job and who lack the confidence to see opportunity in difficult times.  Raving fans are created by people who can verbally create a visual that bridges the reality of today with the possibilities of tomorrow.  They are created by people who can take their client’s problems and turn them into past problems, people who can shine a flashlight on the pathway to freedom, security, peace, prosperity and equity.  Raving fans are created by people who enthusiastically come from love and contribution.  They are created by people who surprise others by exceeding expectations. 

That’s what you and I do every day.  We swim against the tides of mediocrity as one agent, making sense of the market and finding the people who are smart enough to listen and take action that will benefit them and their families.  How often are you picking up the phone and surprising your clients with compelling opportunities?  Once a week, once a month, once a year?  Are you properly communicating the opportunities of the market to people who come through your open houses, to your website, to your investment seminars, to your email database, your advocates and wealth determiners? 

The heroes of this market will be those of us who keep our eyes on the prize, and who harness the emotions of the market with compelling logic, which will require compelling scripts and dialogues.  Make your presentations count.  Every interaction you have is an opportunity to present well and change your future, or not.  It’s your choice.  You can choose to find opportunities and then find the people who are looking for those opportunities, or you can find people who are looking for opportunities and then find the opportunities they are looking for.  Either way, you have to get good at skills and scripts.  The better you get at them, the better you’ll be.  The better you get at them, the less resistance you’ll get.  What you have to say, how often you say it and how you say it matters. 

If a U.S. Park Ranger can create raving fans, then you can, too.  If you don’t, someone else will.

Your #1 Fan…

SHAUN

As your broker and the Operating Partner for The Rawls Group, I’ve never accepted an award that had more meaning and created such an overwhelming sense of satisfaction than the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “Best Place to Work” award for 2010.

Years ago, during a Team Leader mastermind, Mark Willis asked us to describe our market center.  I can remember eagerly writing about how awesome I thought it was and what a uniquely great environment that I felt like we had.  After we finished writing, Mark asked, “Now, how do you think your agents would describe your market center?”  A pregnant pause followed the question as we grappled with the idea that maybe we, as Team Leaders, were happier with our market center than our agents were at the time.  I certainly HOPED that my agents felt the same way I did, but deep down I was hoping so…I wasn’t certain of it.  I’ve never forgotten that, and I’ve always made sure that I try to compare my measurement of our offices with your measurement of them. 

Last year, at the Best Places to Work awards breakfast, we were unbelievably shocked, flattered and excited about coming in second place.  Just to be considered one of Atlanta’s best places to work, among such historic, well known and public corporations, was more than a “win.”  It was a huge signal that what we do and what we create can compete with any company, regardless of size or stature or profit or brand.  After all, Atlanta is home to some of the world’s greatest companies.  Coca Cola, The Home Depot, and UPS are just a few of the phenomenal companies that we compete with for this award.  To be honest, last year I was sitting there kind of hoping that we didn’t win because I wouldn’t have known what to say if we did!  I never really thought we could be ranked anywhere near the top of such an esteemed group of corporate competitors.  That shows you how much I know!

This year, however, I was worried about two things:  “What if we fell far below #2?” and “What would I say if we actually won?”  The first question is the one that kept me up at night.  But there we were, in the Loews Hotel, listening to the list of the Top 5 companies in the large category.  “Number 5 – Intercontinental Hotels Group;  Number 4 – Gwinnett Medical Center;  Number 3 – PricewaterhouseCoopers; and gulp…Number 2 – Marriott International.”  Our tables were stunned for a millisecond.  Then, someone, whom I believe to be Brad Feiman, grabbed my shoulders from behind and we erupted with enthusiasm.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been as nervous as I was heading to the podium to accept our award and say something that wouldn’t embarrass each and every one of you.  My mind raced.  “Don’t be too short.  Don’t be too long.  Don’t be boring!  Don’t forget to say ‘X, Y, Z.’ Make sure that everyone thinks better about Keller Williams when you leave the stage.  Don’t say ‘um.’  BREATHE.”   And just before I started to speak, I smiled thinking about Jeri telling me to do my Ricky Bobby impersonation and just say, “If you ain’t first, you’re last!”  If it weren’t for John Fountain, who recorded the whole thing on his FLIP video camera, I wouldn’t have a clue as to what I said at that podium on Friday.  Although I didn’t say everything that I wish I would have, it turns out that I didn’t embarrass anyone with my remarks.

There are so many things that I love about us winning that award…too many of them to mention.  But two things I do want to mention are:  (1) It means so much to me and to our leadership team to know that everything we do to try to make our offices great is both noticed and appreciated by you.  And (2), I love the validation that this award creates for everyone who is a part of this incredible team.  Many of you have spouses or significant others who probably wonder about why you work so hard and enjoy your company so much.  This award has got to underscore any answer you’ve ever given in response to such questions, and may, in turn, even create the slightest bit of envy for your partner!

For the more than 300 associates who took the time to fill out the Business Chronicle’s survey for Atlanta’s Best Places to Work, I thank you.  We would have never received this award without you.  Next year we will need you again! 

For everyone who calls The Rawls Group “home,” I want to thank you for being a part of this team and for allowing me to serve you.  Outside of my family, our associates are my #1 priority each and every day.  Striving to continually make our team at Keller Williams “the obvious and irresistible choice for real estate” gives me great purpose and pushes me to find bigger answers to bigger questions so all of us can have bigger businesses and bigger lives together.  I appreciate the confidence you’ve place in our market centers, in our leadership team and in me. 

I was working with Noble (my 9 year old son) this evening on his religion homework, and I was referencing my study Bible to help him answer a question about the book of Ruth.  I find this amazing and coincidental, considering Friday’s award.  It says, “We tend to think of blessings in terms of prosperity rather than the high-quality relationships God makes possible for us.  No matter what our economic situation, we can love and respect the people God has brought into our lives.  In so doing, we give and receive blessings.  Love is the greatest of all blessings.”

What more is there to say?  Thank you for the many blessings you have given me.

Congratulations on your award!  We truly are The Best Place to Work in all of Atlanta!

Your #1 Fan…

SHAUN

Superstars…
 
For many of us at Keller Williams Realty, last week was spent trying to absorb all of the wonderful displays of real estate mastery that poured from the stage at Mega Camp in Austin, Texas. While I love so many things about Mega Camp, I particularly love the fact that it always introduces us to people who find a way to harness the opportunities of the market, and who, by their very success, shine a light that exposes the average person’s “reasons” for not succeeding as nothing more than excuses.
 
Last week was no different. We saw people who mastered lead generation, people who mastered Facebook and Twitter and Craig’s List, people who mastered open houses, who mastered prospecting and marketing and personal branding, people who mastered first time homebuyer’s seminars and investment seminars, people who mastered farming and listing presentations, and people who mastered good systems and habits. And while everyone mastered something, no one mastered everything. What all of these people shared, regardless of their particular strategy for success, was the mastery of mindset. Every single one of the people that I watched were confident and optimistic and only spoke about “the market” in terms of how they were making it work for them. Clearly, no one on stage was willing to compromise their standards of success because the rest of the world was whining. One thing that has become ever-so-clear to me is that winners never whine, and whiners never win.
 
What if you made a new rule to “whine no more!”? What if you made that a rule from now on and actually stuck to it? That would mean that every time someone (including you) whines about anything, or blames anything or anyone, or comes up with an excuse for not “being able” to do/get/have what they want, you have to think of how you could use those excuses as leverage for success, rather than a reason for not succeeding. For the best in the business, the market doesn’t determine their success; it determines their strategy. And so it should be for me and for you.
 
I think that Gary Keller really struck a chord with people who have felt justified by blaming their lack of success on the challenges created by the market. Gary suggested that there’s “no bottom” and that people determine their own bottom. In other words, “Why don’t you decide that you’ve hit your bottom, rather than waiting for everyone else to hit theirs?” The fact of the matter is that you have the power to move in any direction you choose. You can go with the flow or you can swim upstream. Waiting, like most everyone else, for the market to determine the bottom will get you the results that most everyone else gets…and those results are average at best. However, you can declare that you’ve hit your bottom well before the market or the economy does, and you can get a head start on all of the people who are waiting for the weatherman to tell them what their forecast is. You can be rich in profit and poor in excuses or you can be rich in excuses and poor in profit. It’s your choice.
 
How committed do you think you are? If being committed to succeeding was a crime, would there be enough evidence to convict you? It’s an interesting question. What’s interesting to me is how easy many people seem to think the road to success is supposed to be for them. “Well, sure I want to succeed, but I never thought it was going to be THIS hard!” The truth is that none of us know how hard it has to be. And while we want to hope for the best, preparing a strategy to avoid the worst better be more than just lip service. Mark Willis recently said, “I’ve never been in a business where I didn’t have to prove my level of commitment to succeed.”
 
The real estate business is changing, and in many ways it’s changing for the good. It used to be that if you were a real “people person,” then you could be a great real estate sales person. But with the maturing of the internet and the dominant forces of social media and technology, the opportunities for success are being expanded and are being offered to many different types of people, both demographically and behaviorally. Success will always go to the determined, to those who drill an inch wide and a mile deep. Never before has there been a better time to generate huge success from a narrowed focus and game plan.
 
So specialize. Narrow your focus. Master the basics of lead generation and lead conversion. Harness the power and the opportunity of the market. Declare yesterday your bottom and tomorrow your top. Let the market determine your strategy, and find a way to win while everyone else finds a reason to whine. These are the ingredients of the most successful real estate businesses in the country. Why not make them your own?
 
Your #1 Fan…
 
Shaun