If you work in Michigan real estate there is a good chance that you rely on commission sales to generate your income. That being said in the current economy, with real estate prices at some of their all time lows many real estate professionals in Michigan have had to switch to a quantity approach to continue to grow their businesses. Although quantity is very important to our business we always pride ourselves on quality first quantity second. We feel that quantity is an after effect of quality and really is dependant on reputation and whether or not people are buying homes.

Lesson 1: If you are able to always put an emphasis on quality transactions, larger quantities of sales will naturally flow. The caution lies in that if you only focus on quantity you can often get overwhelmed and at the end of the day end up with irrepairable reputation and image problems.

Lesson 2: If you focus only on quantity you lose focus. If every new client is just a number that you need to get to the next level you often become blind to everything else around you because speed becomes the focus. It is important to talk and learn from each customer otherwise you could find yourself out of touch with the people who you so rely on. Taking a quality approach will actually let you develop relationships with the people you are working with and relationships are much more fruitful then cold calling, and almost any form of advertising.

Lesson 3: The spice of life lies in the quality aproach, those people who practice only quantity often get burned out.

Lesson 4: You cant do it all yourself! Quantity doesnt just have to mean sales, it also means the things you want to do in a day. It is definitely a good thing to have lofty goals but it is important to prioritize. Maybe some of the things you do could be done with more quality by an assistant or intern? This might even leave you more time to focus on what you are good at, in our case building quality relationships with our home loan customers and business partners. In the end by accepting what you do, and have someone else do you will gain higher quantities of customers, and profits.

(If you feel that you have too much on your plate and need help marketing your real estate business, Treadstone offers solutions free to michigan realtors, contact us for details!)

Posted on December 15, 2011Comments: 1

Whether you are a realtor, a salesman, or American Airlines for god sake try to use common sense when engaging in PR. Regardless of your stance on last week’s American Airlines v. Alec Baldwin scandal, the fact is that American practiced very bad PR in the minutes after the event. Sure, so did Alec but is it really going to harm his reputation?

Since many of us are neither celebrities nor nearly bankrupt airline companies what lessons can we extrapolate from this mess?

1. Public Relations is more than the head of PR coming up with a strategy, its a company’s mission statement being practiced from the CEO to the janitor. PR transactions take place every second, and to do your company justice always have your mission statement in the back of your mind.

2. Think about what you have to lose/gain, and if its worth it. What did American have to gain by making Alec Baldwin turn off his game? They did what they were supposed to do and enforced the rules, but could they have done it in more of a “southwest airline” style? By that i mean used a little more friendliness in the request. Flying often is uncomfortable as it is, why not be happy? What industry do you work in? We work in real estate and things can get pretty anxious and tense, a home is often the biggest purchase of a person’s life. Knowing that people are already uneasy about the purchase we try as best we can to give great service, that is both re-assuring and friendly. We don’t get upset when small mistakes are mad, but rather we listen.

3. Listen– Both Mr. Baldwin and the airline staff could have saved some reputation by listening a little better to eachother. Open communication really does go a long way to help reduce tensions in a situation. When people dont understand what is going on (like alec not understanding why the plane wasnt beginning take off but yet he had to turn off his device) they often are reluctant to follow rules. Although this is no excuse for bad behavior it does show that a little communication could have potentially avoided or lessened the blow of this situation.

4. Get Off Your High Horse! The 2 entities in this situation Sir Alec, and American both need to get a dose of reality and realize that they are not emperor’s of the world. Alex hasnt had a hit movie in years, and American is on the verge of bankruptcy. Both should have realized that they are not above the rules.

5. Where there is mis-behavior there will be consequence: If you own a business or have a job always think about both the concrete and abstract consequences for your actions. Alec who already has a pseudo-bad boy reputation will have an even worse one now. Although fans might think its funny, he will lose respect from professionals and colleagues may realize that his highness is hard to work with. American who already has a reputation for horrible customer service will lose even more customers to their friendly neighbor in the skies Southwest.

How could this situation be applied to the industry you work in? What type of customer service advice would you give to Alec or American?

Posted on December 12, 2011Comments: 1