If you are an experienced real estate sales agent, or even a novice agent, you will enjoy and benefit from reading famous real estate author Danielle Kennedy’s newest book, “Double Your Income in Real Estate Sales, Third Edition.” It is filled with sage advice based on the author’s long career as a top-selling realty agent, brokerage manager and sales trainer.
Well-known for her real estate books and training courses, Kennedy’s newest book sets the goal of increasing the reader-agent’s real estate sales income by 100 percent. Kennedy has been involved with residential sales for more than 30 years, starting as a financially-desperate six-month pregnant future mother who knocked on house doors to obtain listings. She explains what works and doesn’t work for ambitious realty agents.
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In the book’s introduction, the author says, “When I was asked to write a book on doubling your income in real estate, it took me a long time to figure out how to explain that the only way to double your income is to forget about money and start concentrating on service.”
Service to buyers and sellers is the book’s theme. In each chapter, Kennedy focuses on a different aspect on rendering service to home buyers and sellers, with resulting sales success. Several times she explains how providing service to a buyer or seller, even when a sales commission doesn’t immediately result, often pays off in long-term sales income.
The book starts out very slow and, frankly, is dull. Although it’s a brand-new book, Kennedy still emphasizes old fashioned door-knock farming and phone calling to get listings. She barely mentions the new “do not call” laws, which prohibit realty agents from phoning millions of listed homeowners.
But the book gets better, page by page. The last few chapters are downright superb, filled with many actual real-life success examples from Kennedy’s trainees.
A major weakness of the book, however, is the lack of details how successful realty agents are using the Internet and their personal Web sites to increase house and condo sales. Kennedy doesn’t even mention widely used realty agent software, such as Top Producer and others, which most high-income realty sales agents now use.
In the early chapters, there is lots of motivation material, such as “I have always imagined my fate before it became a reality…if you cannot imagine yourself making twice what you are earning now, it is never going to happen.”
Kennedy has little good to say about most real estate brokerage managers. “Management is seen as a place to go to rest and get paid for it,” she comments, adding “Most managers hold nobody accountable, including themselves.” Then she suggests realty office managers should treat real estate sales as a serious business, not a hobby or money-making scheme.
Coming from the old full commission real estate background, she is especially harsh on so-called discount real estate agents. Kennedy’s seven reason list “why discount brokers don’t count” conveniently neglects to mention a recent National Association of Realtor survey, which shows the current nationwide negotiated sales commission rate is 5.1 percent, rather than the traditional 6 percent.
Chapter topics include “Willpower Comes First”; “Use Your Career to Grow a Life”; “History Proves That Real Estate is Still the Best Investment”; “The Leadership Management Formula: The Only Way to Run a Company”; “Niche Marketing and Building Brand Fast”; “Impact Listing for Dominating Market Share”; “High-Speed Promotion for Doubling Incomes”; “The Best Buyer Plan for Doubling Your Income”; “Closing Sales and Doubling Incomes”; and “How to Sell Your Value.”
Although a few early chapters are sleep-inducing, toward the conclusion the book picks up pace and becomes a compelling read. As Kennedy uses more real-life examples in later chapters, the book gains momentum. The last few chapters “save” the book, making it a “must read” for every serious realty sales agent who wants to double his/her income. On my scale of one to 10, this outstanding book rates a 10.
“Double Your Income in Real Estate Sales, Third Edition,” by Danielle Kennedy (The Career Press, Inc., Franklin Lakes, N.J.), 2004, $26.99, 307 pages; Available in stock or by special order at local bookstores, public libraries and www.amazon.com.
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