Takeaways:
- We strive to find the magic that will solve our business problems.
- We tend to seek continuing education to solve those problems and better our businesses.
- The knowledge to get business is already in our heads — we just need to stop long enough to define our unique ways to use it.
“Stop learning, start thinking” — words spoken by a teenager diagnosed with autism at the age of 2, Jacob Barnett. Barnett is a mathematician and child prodigy who defied the odds that were given to him at birth.
His TEDxTeen talk titled “Forget What You Know” highlights his encouragement of everyone to stop learning within established educational structures and start thinking from our own unique perspective.
This instantly struck a chord with me regarding real estate agents and our incessant need to go to another training. The desire to find that golden nugget that will transform our business, hear the next seminar or speaker, buy the CD set that will give us all the answers, or the newest gadget that will make or save us more money.
I think about how I have signed up for more training hours in a week than I have scheduled hours for prospecting.
Stop learning, start thinking
It’s about stepping back from the speed train you are on and deciding that what you already know is enough. Think about your passions for those things you have learned, and decide which of those get you jazzed up.
The knowledge to get business is already in our heads — we just need to stop long enough to define our unique ways to use it.
Sometimes after we learn something, instead of thinking about it and how we can apply it to our business in our own unique way, we even go to another training on how to implement the information we just learned. Then we go home and do it exactly how we’re taught and wonder why it doesn’t work.
We think about how we didn’t really feel like ourselves while we were doing it because it wasn’t our style, but we never stop long enough to ask ourselves what our style is. Ask yourself: What do people already love about me that I can use to enhance my communication, delivery, execution and retention of my clients and customers?
Jaromir Chalabala / Shutterstock.com
Listening to our inner guidance system
We know when we are being too harsh with a customer even though that is exactly the script we were taught. We know that a business plan can simply be scratched on a napkin and still work. Attending another business planning workshop is not going to make ours manifest on paper any faster.
We know that the cold calling we have done for the past six months has produced no new business, but we keep going because that is what the trainer told you would work.
All of these things we learn do work, but have you put your unique spin on them to make sure they work for you 99 percent of the time.
Have you taken 10 minutes a day to quiet your mind and decide how you are going to create a new spin on the same things you were taught?
If not, try it. Today you are going to listen to your inner guidance that’s telling you that even though you might take the road less traveled, it’s still a phenomenal idea and you will do it.
Today you are not afraid to fail because that means you are one step closer to finding that perfect, unique way in which business will flow to you abundantly.
I have learned, better late then never, that face-to-face networking at unconventional events is a fun, energizing and lucrative way in which I obtain new clients and business both for commercial and residential real estate.
For years I have cold-called, mailed, emailed, paid for leads, etc., and I still do some of those, consistently. I love to help others be successful. I love to go to non-Realtor-focused events such as entrepreneurial startup groups, environmentally friendly groups, niche-focused writing groups and fitness related activity groups.
I have realized that I have a unique way about me that does not fit into the normal prospecting choices, and realizing that is bringing me more new clients and income than ever before.
Stop learning, and start thinking about how you can take what you already know and love and make your existing business a sought-after, highly referred, profitable and powerful, creative machine.
Cheryl Spangler is the principal broker and co-owner of FORBZ Real Estate Group located in Alexandria, Virginia (serving Virginia, D.C., and Maryland). You can follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.