Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Four years in the making, associates at the Arlington, Va. market center celebrate raising $150,000 for their local food bank

Provided By KW Blog

Since 2008, when the first of four benefit fundraisers was held, the agents from the Keller Williams Arlington market center have raised approximately $150,000 for the Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC). With their annual party extraordinaire, the agents have accomplished their mission to help the Arlington Food Assistance Center to pay off the mortgage on its food warehouse and distribution center.

The event is held each November at the Clarendon Ballroom, a local hot spot. Local and national politicians have attended. Television celebrities such as HGTV’s Sabrina Soto, and The Chew’s Chef Carla Hall have been special guests and auction items have been donated by the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Chris Rock. This year they were able to secure tickets to the sold out Broadway musical, The Book of Mormon as one of the live auction items! All this has made the “Pay It Forward Pay It Off!” fundraiser one of the “must attend” events of the year.

Congressman Jim Moran and Redskins legend Gary Clark were in the house this year and the Mistress of Ceremony was the lovely television anchor, Cynne Simpson from ABC7/WJLA. Great food, wonderful live entertainment and serious bidding during the auction kept the party lively from beginning to end. “We had no idea when we started brainstorming about a fundraiser at a KW Cares meeting in the summer of 2008 that a bunch of full-time real estate agents could pull off something so fabulously successful and raise so much money for such a worthy organization.” These are the words of Keller Williams Arlington agent Gayle Fleming, who along with a core group of dedicated agents worked tirelessly to make the event a success each year. The 2011 event on November 10th raised $45,000—the most ever from a single event.

They were rewarded when Beth Kiley Johnson, director of AFAC’s Permanent Home Campaign, said: “We are pleased to announce that our mortgage has been paid and the funds borrowed for the down payment have been replenished.” The Arlington market center has been the largest single donor to the $1 million campaign. “No community partner has worked as tirelessly on this effort as the Community Outreach Committee of Keller Williams, Arlington,” said Moran, in a Congressional Proclamation on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in June.

Although this particular goal has been met, the Arlington agents are already thinking about what worthwhile community organization they want to help next year. Serving the community has been an important function of the Keller Williams Arlington market center. It has unified the agents in a common goal and displayed the culture of caring that sets Keller Williams Realty apart from any other company!

Monday, December 19, 2011

Rockwall KW Class Schedule

Monday Dec 19th
11:00-12:00 Profit Share (Ryan)

Tuesday Dec 20th
9:00-10:00 MREA (Sharon)
10:00-11:00 Sales Meeting
12:00-1:00 What to Say to Your Database (Jason P)

Wednesday Dec 21st
10:00-11:00 Win Win Contracts (Ryan)

Thursday Dec 22nd
10:00-11:00 KW Technology (Pam, Eliot)

Friday Dec 23rd
Office CLOSES at 12! Merry Christmas!

Thursday, December 15, 2011

The Importance of Staying Present

Provided By KW Blog


With more than 10 million books sold and over fifty years of experience under his belt, Harvey Mackay has plenty to offer in the way of sales advice. I was lucky enough to receive an advanced copy of this legend’s most recent book, The Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World, which recently landed the No. 1 spot on the Wall Street Journal’s Best Seller list, and would like to share an aha.

In the book, Mackay tells of his experience seeing Billy Crystal’s one-man show, 700 Sundays, not once, but twice. “Both were sensational!” He talks about Tony Bennett singing the same song, over and over and over again, for more than fifty years. “It’s exciting every single time!” To Mackay, these guys are pros. Every show is treated as the one-and-only time they will ever perform. Even though the audience knows there were seven, thirty-two or 119 shows before the one they’re seeing, there’s no contest this is the best performance yet.

Mackay credits his aha moment of this working model to his college golf coach, who said: “Every drive you hit… every approach shot you make… every putt you stroke… you say to yourself, ‘This is the last drive I will ever hit. This is the last approach shot I will every make. This is the last putt I will ever stroke. Therefore, it better be my best.’ ”

Sales is repetitive. That’s all there is to it. Your only option is to be completely present in every single conversation you have about your business. You must be passionate and treat every opportunity as if it is your last. Every potential client must be treated as a precious resource. It’s easier said than done. Time and again when we interview the best-of-the-best we observe they aren’t necessarily doing extraordinary things, but rather bring extraordinary effort to the monotonous everyday task that lead to extraordinary results.

What are the areas of your business where you are making a commitment to be present every time?

–Jay Papasan

p.s. As a thank you to Keller Williams Realty’s continued support, Harvey is giving us access to his book “Harvey Mackay The Network Builder.” I encourage you all to go check it out. Here’s the link: http://www.harveymackay.com/bonus/

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Older Entries Are You Surrounded by the Best?

Provided By KW Blog

If I had to pick one defining moment in the history of Keller Williams Realty, it would have to be a conversation that I had with a consultant back in 1994, when I was trying to map out a strategy for expanding our company outside of Texas. He said, “You know, I’ve looked at your goals; I’ve looked at your organization, and it’s going to take about 14 or 15 people for you to hit your goals.”

At the time, I thought it was going to take about 60,000 people, and when I told him that, he drew an organizational chart that showed me how I could make it happen with the right 14 people who would hire and empower their own teams of people and so on. He was right, and he’s still a consultant for us.

This was more than a pivotal lesson in hiring. It was the conversation that sparked our company’s whole philosophy of succeeding through others, as well as our understanding that the people we surround ourselves with, make all the difference in our success or failure. Without exception, I find that the most successful people in real estate and in life are those who are very intentional about seeking out and surrounding themselves with the very best.

I often think back to that turning point in our company’s history during conversations with mega achievers, so it’s no surprise that it came up when I had the pleasure of visiting with Greg Harrelson, founder of The Century 21 Harrelson Group in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

In 2010, The Harrelson Group’s 18-person team closed more than 700 deals. Even though Greg says he now functions as more of a coach for his team than as a real estate agent, he personally closed more than 100 of those deals. At the age of 40, he’s clearly doing a lot of things right and has been very focused on surrounding himself with the right people. His passion at this point in his career is simply to fuel the success of those in his inner circle.
Here are some of the highlights of our conversation:

On standing on the shoulders of giants

At the age of 27, after four years of working for his Dad’s real estate team, which was doing about 120 deals a year, Greg says “The ego was kicking in and I started seeing that there was a lot of upside in me becoming the No. 1 decision-maker on the team. My Dad agreed and the next thing you know, we are doing 160 deals a year, 180 deals a year, 240 deals a year, 300 deals a year, 330 deals, all the way up to 484, which is the number of deals we closed in 2004, the year my Dad retired. And that was my mission – a secure retirement for him and my Mom. I recognized that he brought me into this business and he guided me and trusted me and supported me when I was going in all of these different directions. He was my No. 1 team man and we did it together to 484 deals. My next goal was to build a team with the highest per-person production in our market.”

On leverage

“Tony DiCello was my coach when he was with The Mike Ferry Organization and one day we divided my day into income-generating activities and income-servicing activities. Once I looked that list I declared that I would never do income servicing activities again, and that concept now carries through my entire team. Income generators do nothing but generate and income services do nothing but service. Our current teams consists of eight listing agents, six buyers agents, a closing coordinator who takes over once the contract is signed, a listing coordinator who is currently handling 550 active listings, a broker/manager, and an executive assistant. ”

On lead generation

“Cold calling FSBOs and expireds represents about 10 percent of our business. We’ve built a huge data base over the years and the goal is to turn cold calls into warm calls, warm calls into a sphere of influence, and the sphere of influence into advocates. I’m doing that by communicating a lot and serving as a resource for information. We’re really concentrate on giving value to our database. One example: a few weeks ago we sent out a letter to our entire database concerning our county’s five-year reassessment of property values, letting them know that our staff was on hand to mail the appeal form to them if they needed it, as well as a list of the previous year’s closed sales out of the MLS. That spread virally through our market. People were forwarding it and we got a lot of calls from outside of the database – which expanded our sphere.”

On talent

“I look for someone who has a strong desire to succeed, someone who has a systematic approach to doing business, and someone who is coachable – willing to do whatever it takes. If those three things are there, I invite them to ‘test drive’ in our training center. We have a large room where everyone prospects together – no individual offices. If they show up a second day, that’s a good thing and then we talk about whether they feel comfortable in the environment. If they want to keep going, I hand them all of our scripts and before they can go to work, they need demonstrate that they know the scripts. No one starts working without being script certified.”

On growth

My intention is no longer to grow my personal business. I’m really focused on helping my people to grow their businesses. When I was coaching with Tony DiCello, we had two years in a row when we did 300 deals and when we looked at what went wrong, why we hadn’t grown, we decided that I needed to stop setting monetary goals and needed to start setting goals of how many people we were going to help. We took money out of the equation and started to focus on making a difference and serving people. That was the point at which we broke through.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Four Rules For Your Financial Future

Provided By Realty Times

Most Agents begin their real estate career with the hope of gaining financial independence. They are attracted by the possibility of earning large sums of money. Even when Agents make more than a six-figure income, the vast majority have not dramatically improved their financial balance sheet. After looking at hundreds of agents’ profit and loss statements and personal spending habits, I’ve determined that real estate agents are poorly prepared for financial independence. Why should real estate agents be any different from the American population in general?

According to the Social Security Administration, statistics indicate that, out of a randomly selected one thousand people from age twenty-five to age sixty-five:

•190 would have died – 19%
•150 would have incomes over $30,000 – 15%
•660 would have incomes less than $30,000 – 66%
Let’s look at these numbers. There are more people who have deceased than are earning something even close to a decent quality of life. Of the people still alive, 66% exist on less than $30,000 per year. My question is which group do you want to be in? Which group are you heading for based on your financial plan, investment choices, and savings plan? These are the top three reasons people fail in their finances:

•They never create a financial plan.
•They make poor investment choices.
•They put off starting a savings plan.
Let me share with you a few simple rules that will ensure that you don’t join the 66% group. I have used these rules with hundreds of agents to transform their financial picture in a short period of time.

Rule #1 – Track your expenses, both business and personal

You must know where your money is going. Separate your business expenses from your personal expenses. Establish a business checking account and pay all business bills through it. Too many agents co-mingle their business commission checks and business bills with personal and household expenses. It is more difficult to control your money when you can’t track it. Enter all of your expenses and revenue in an accounting software program. I think the easiest is Quicken. Quicken will allow you to accurately track your costs to run the business, then you can run a monthly profit and loss statement to see where you are spending your money. The money you earn in real estate can come in bunches. It can become very easy to spend that large commission check that’s burning a hole in your pocket.

When we have money, a want looks like a need because we have the ability to buy it. We begin to rationalize our wants into needs. For most of us, a want is something that our neighbor already owns, so it becomes a need.

Rule #2 – Adjust your lifestyle

Spending less than you earn makes up 90% of financial planning. The premise involves saving money and making sacrifices. The ability to pay now, in the form of adjusting your lifestyle and saving the difference, will allow you to play later. To play later, you will need more than $30,000 per year. Thomas Stanley, who wrote the book The Millionaire Next Door, summed up how the vast majority accumulated their millions: “They lived well below their means.” Living beyond our means is a national epidemic. Consumer credit card debt in the United States is in excess of $528 billion. Roughly two-thirds of Americans who have credit cards do not pay off their monthly balance. We are clearly living beyond our means. Take a close look at your monthly obligations and evaluate where you are spending your money.

Rule #3 – Aggressively reduce your debt

There is an old Proverb that speaks of a borrower being a servant to the lender. The weight and pressure of debt can be crippling. I have seen this happen to Agents for years. I have even seen it manifested in my own life. I have not always made the wisest choices with my money. Fortunately, I have made more wise choices than foolish ones.

If you have credit card debts, make a decision to pay them off. Start with the highest interest rate credit card first. Decide on a monthly amount that you can commit to start reducing your debt. If you stretch, you will be able to find a few hundred dollars per month to pay towards your debt. Most credit card companies require you to pay 2% of the balance owed monthly. Let’s look at that practice. Let’s say you have a debt of $2,705 with an interest rate of 18.38%. Your 2% toward the outstanding balance would take you twenty-seven years and two months to pay off. You would pay $11,047 of total interest. How do you feel about eating out more often now? If you increased your payment to 8% or to $216.40 per month, it would take two years and one month to pay it off. You would pay $94.00 in interest. You need to accelerate your payments to reduce your debt. You must adopt a cash mentality. This cash mentality will allow you to charge only what you have funds to pay for.

Rule #4 – Create a savings plan now

The biggest enemy in financial planning is procrastination. People wait too long to start saving. The truth is becoming a millionaire is not very difficult. The power of compounding interest will take care of your needs. According to Investors Business Daily, a twenty-year-old person only needs to invest $1,014 per year, or $2.78 per day, with an annual return of 11% to have $1 million saved by the age of sixty-five. Look at the daily number of $2.78. Who couldn’t save that amount per day, even at the age of twenty? Even someone working for minimum wage could do that with ease. My mentor, Jim Rohn, used to say, “What is easy to do is also easy not to do”. It’s easy to save the $2.78, but it’s also easy to buy a latte every day at Starbucks instead of saving. That’s all we are talking about here – choosing financial independence planning rather than the latte.

We need to create a system to automatically remove the money when we receive it. We need to transform ourselves into savers. Savers pay themselves first. It’s amazing how little you miss money that never comes into your possession. We are not a nation of savers, although we really need to be. On average, Americans save less than 5% of their disposable income.

The secret to saving is writing the check to savings first. Do it before paying other bills and obligations. Savings is a habit to be forged. Here is the formula I used on each of my commission checks for many years:

•20% went to a tax account
•10% went to a retirement savings account
•10% went to a business savings account
These percentages ensured that my taxes were always current and my retirement account was always fully funded.