Over 21,000 agents opened (and read) the article “Top Ten Negotiating Rules for REALTORS®.” from the Pacific Coast Highway to the Hamptons; from the Upper Peninsula to Corpus Christi; real estate agents are eager to improve their negotiating skills.  It makes sense since REALTORS® negotiate all of the time, yet get little or no formal training in it. Here are a handful of quick tips you can begin using immediately.

Stay focused on the goal of completing the sale.  In other words, don’t let the buyer, seller, other agent, or anyone else distract you from the goal.  And, when others get fascinated by some minor issue, encourage them to keep their “eye on the ball.”

Don’t let the buyers and sellers come to a place where they dislike each other.  It is usually best to say little or nothing personal about your client.  Too often, your well-intended information is misunderstood and used as ammunition against the interest of the transaction.

When you hit an impasse, settle the issues where there is agreement and come back to the areas of negotiation later.

Take time to think.  Give your clients time to think.  Unless their decision  is a quick yes, and even then take the time to reinforce their decision.  Allow the clients to consider the options and the consequences of their decisions.

Be honest.  Integrity and courtesy always win.  Exaggeration and dishonesty are costly at many levels, for a long time.

Finally, negotiators are made, not born.  Negotiating is a skill that is learned, then strengthened with experience, education, and application.

If you love negotiating, make a commitment to learn more and get better at it.  If you dislike or fear negotiating, then realize that many of your normal strengths, like integrity, commitment to the client’s interests, and ethics work in your favor.  In real estate, unlike some other venues, intimidation tactics don’t work.

I am proud to work in real estate.  You, too, can be proud to work in a profession where integrity works and integrity wins.  That is particularly true in your negotiating.

Every year we enjoy watching the Tour de France, especially when fellow Austinite, Lance Armstrong, is racing.  The Tour de France is a grueling race that lasts for days.  The racers travel around the French countryside, climbing two mountain ranges.  While the goal may be to win the “yellow jersey,” on any given day there are a multitude of steps that the riders must take just to stay in the race.  The lesson here is that success doesn’t depend upon the ultimate goal — it is contingent on a multitude of actions the riders take each day.  While winning is the goal, in order to win, the riders must stay focused on the steps within the process.

The same is true for your real estate business.  When you focus on the process, rather than on the outcome, you greatly increase your likelihood of success.  Your success or failure in the long term will result from the actions that you take today.

If you want to make your goals a sweet reality, the following five steps can help you do so.

1. Clean out your goal list completely.  If you have had the same goal for more than one year and have not reached it, declare it complete no matter how much or how little you actually accomplished.  To do this, write each goal on an individual slip of paper.  Next, “clean the slate” by burning the slips of paper in the fireplace, burying them in the backyard, or ripping them up and throwing them in the trash.  Be creative — cleaning out your list of goals opens the door for new things to come into your life.

2. Write down five activities that supported you in feeling great about yourself during the last six months.  What really worked for you?  Be specific.  Keep these activities alive during the coming year, because they work.

3. Eliminate at least one activity that doesn’t make you feel great.  We all engage in behaviors that help us cope in the short-term, but have detrimental effects in the long term.  An example of this may be eating a chocolate bar when we’re depressed.  Unfortunately, this behavior often results in guilt.  Many people use guilt as a strategy to change behavior — “I know I shouldn’t eat this chocolate bar.”  A better approach is to be honest with yourself and take responsibility for your choice — “I am choosing to eat this chocolate bar.”  Notice there is no guilt or explanation.  It’s simply an acknowledgement of the choice.  When you say that you are choosing this behavior, surprisingly, it becomes easier not to choose it.

4. List your goals for 2011, and then eliminate 50-75 percent of them.  If you find yourself resisting this strategy, look carefully at your past to determine how many goals you actually set and then what percentage you actually achieved.  Setting too many goals can reduce your overall success, since your energy is scattered in too many directions.  In contrast, when you keep your energy focused on achieving two or three core goals, success occurs more easily.  Once you reach or discard your current goals, add new ones.

5. Make small changes over time.  Achieving goals is easier when you work with small steps over time.  Instead of setting a goal to save $10,000, it’s usually easier to take a series of small steps.  For example, “I’ll use coupons at the grocery store since it can save me up to $20.00 per week and I will put those savings in my bank account.”  It is easier to take action when working with small changes than when working with big changes.  By reducing the number of goals you have and by making small changes over time, your likelihood of experiencing success increases dramatically.

Finally, celebrate your victories each day, no matter how small.  This helps you to stay on track for the bigger goals you set.  As Lao Tzu once said, “A journey of 10,000 miles begins with a single step.”

Imagine learning to drive in a car with no speedometer.  You could drive and do pretty well, but you would have a handicap compared to other drivers.  You would have to judge your speed based on the speed of the others around you, and if you were on the road alone, you would always be worried and stressed about your speed.  That’s how most agents “drive” their businesses, because they have no “speedometer” to know how they are doing.

Now, imagine learning to wake up each day with no sense of purpose.  The first e-mail you read or the first conversation you have determines what you will focus on and how you will feel for the day.  It may not take an e-mail or conversation; just your first thoughts of the day to determine the quality of the day.

That is how many agents live each day.  They have the knowledge and skills to have a very good business.  It is not real estate knowledge, skills, or tools that are missing. In addition to knowledge and skills it takes a “speedometer,” and an accurate one.  In a real estate agent’s business, that means a method to know their “speed,” in other words whether they are winning or losing.  Like a car’s speedometer, the agent’s “speedometer” has to be in real time so the agent knows their speed each day, with confidence.  Most agents don’t have that method.

It also takes knowledge of how to create and control your attitude.  Notice that I did not say that it takes a good attitude.  That would be naïve.  Of course it takes a good attitude.  The challenge is learning how to create and control that attitude so that you are able to generate it at will.  And, I am not talking about repeating an affirmation that has little real impact on you.  I am talking about shifting your mindset and your emotions at a level that motivates you deeply.  And, knowing you can create that, at will.

Why do Agents fail soooo often?  Because they are always working on just one of these three aspects of their business; the three are: knowing your accurate numbers, controlling your attitude, and your skill set.  Agents learn the skill sets and spend little or no time on knowing their numbers or learning to control their attitude.  Unfortunately, this means that many of those that produce good sales numbers are not stable, confident, or comfortable with their business.

Build your business on a foundation of all three of these aspects and you will succeed more quickly, with greater control and satisfaction.  For more information on how we coach and teach agents to do this, go to www.BestCoachingOnEarth.com and join our Daily Coaching Program.

Now it’s getting personal, as well it should be.  I’m referring to your real estate education.  For the longest time, boards, associations, real estate companies, and franchises would hold “sage on the stage” training for large groups of attendees.  While I laud these efforts and feel that there is nothing that can beat being able to have a one-on-one communication with the speaker, education is changing.  It’s getting more personal.

With the advent of the webinar, literally hundreds of new topics and sessions are available on a monthly basis and at very affordable rates.  The other advantage of the webinar is that of convenience.  It can be taken from home, from the office, or wherever you are.  Another advantage is that they are typically recorded, so you can retake the session over and over again.  Actually, the webinar has many different uses, such as:

1. As a “trailer” or video to assist the potential attendee to know who the speaker is and what will be taught
2. As the education itself for a particular topic for many people
3. As a coaching device for a more intimate group of people who can ask questions of the coach
4. As an instructional tool to show and explain how something is done on the computer such as using Facebook, blogging, etc., where the viewer and “coach” both see the same screen.
5. As a recording device.  Sometimes you just want to get a message across or record a problem that you’re having on your computer.  If you have access to webinar software, you can record your message or the problem that you’re having and send the file off to tech support to give them a better idea of what is wrong.  By the same token, you can do this in reverse, where tech support invites you into the webinar and you then take control to show the problem.

With video editing software, music, voice-overs, and special effects can now be incorporated into the “show”.  Much of this type of software such as Microsoft’s Windows Movie Maker comes free with the operating system.  Other software programs of this nature are either free or inexpensive on the Internet.  I like to use inexpensive Vegas Movie Studio to edit everything from webinars to professional videos.  While it takes a little practice, the ability to “layer” video, sound, voice-over, transitions, and text are only limited by your imagination.

Finally, you don’t have to wait for the topic of your choice to come to your town or office to be presented.  Go to the REALTOR® Learning Library’s Webinar Center at the following address: http://tr.im/Ashy.

Yep, now it’s getting personal.  You can now personalize your education to what you want, when you want it.

Are your students nodding off as the day goes on?  Do you frantically wonder how to keep their attention all day?  The answer is not what you think it is.  Last week, I taught my Instructor Development course to real estate professionals and affiliates.  I’ve taught this course for about 15 years.  Here’s the biggest misconception students come in with:

If I just learn how to be a more captivating speaker, I can keep the students’ attention for hours on end.

NOT!  In today’s frantic world, the person in front of everyone cannot hope to hold students’ attention for more than 10 minutes at a time!  If you think I’m wrong, just count the number of commercials in a TV break.  These commercials are down to about 15 seconds a piece.  The images go by so fast you can scarcely count them.  In fact, we’ve become a society of easily distracted, multi-tasking, not very focused beings (watch pedestrians or drivers in action with a cell phone).

All the Focus Doesn’t Have to Be On You

So, what are you going to do to hold students’ attention?  You are going to implement some teaching methods called alternative delivery methods.

Alternative delivery methods include all methods used to teach that are NOT lecture-based. Examples include: town hall, task force, case study, role play, and action plan.

Give your Students some Credit

People who lecture their way through a day (or days!) either:

1)    Just don’t have any repertoire of alternative teaching methods,

Or,

2)    Just don’t think the students can be involved with theirs and others’ learning.

How to Teach through Student Involvement

Instead of talking through each point you have on your PowerPoint slide or on your outline (boy, is that riveting!), use town hall, task force, case study, and role play methods to teach the lesson.  In order to use these methods, you may need to take an Instructor Development course, which will each various instruction methods — then practice using them in class.  You’ll find your students know much more than you think they do about what you’re teaching.  You’ll be able to clarify points of concern, use the talents in your class, and actually provide a stimulating, active learning environment.  The result, your students will be energized all day.

Resources: Knock Their Socks Off: Tips to Make your Presentation the Best Ever and The Ultimate Real Estate Trainer (visit: http://carla-cross.com/)