This may best be illustrated by mentioning the shift in how I’ve observed hotels asking me for my own E-mail address when I’m making reservations with them. It used to be that years ago when I had just completed confirming my reservation with them on the telephone, at the very end of the conversation they’d ask me, "Do you have an E-mail address you’d like to share with us?"

"No!" I’d say back to them, having these visions of all of the E-mails I might begin receiving from them, as well as all of the E-mails I’d begin receiving from all of the companies they’d be sharing my E-mail address with, too.

But in recent years hotels have made a shift in the scripting they’re using when asking me for my E-mail address, which has me now want to actually give them my E-mail address instead.

At the end of my telephone conversation with them, they’re now asking me something very similar to, "Would you like to receive a confirmation of your hotel reservation by E-mail?" And that’s definitely something that I want to receive from them! I want to have something I can print and have in my hands, so that when I check into the hotel, if they can’t find my reservation, I have the reservation right there on paper for them.

So similarly, when you ask for the E-mail addresses of your clients and prospects, you want to be scripting your question so they feel that they want to give their E-mail address to you. Say something similar to, "I publish an E-newsletter keeping owners like you informed on important trends affecting the value of your property. Is this something you’d like to receive from me?"

This is much more powerful than asking something like, "What’s your E-mail address?"…or… "Can I have your E-mail address?", which could have them wondering exactly what you’re going to be doing with their E-mail address once you get it.

When you have the right scripting for many different situations in sales, your life becomes so much easier as a salesperson. So when you begin asking for people’s E-mail addresses in the way that has them become more interested in giving them to you, you’ll start building a more powerful, accurate E-mail database for your brokerage business.

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Click here for my commercial broker prospecting scripts that tell you exactly what to say to the receptionist, to the decision maker, and how to leave powerful voicemail messages that get more clients and prospects calling you back.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to send me an E-mail.

"After 20 years in real estate I needed to revive my business and look at new options and ideas. Together Jim and I evaluated my entire business plan, designed new strategies, and implemented a game plan that’s now making more money for both me and my team."

Bill Ukropina
Coldwell Banker Commercial

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

Today, Wednesday, August 18th, I’ll be hosting a teleconference where I’ll be interviewing a top commercial listing broker on the subject of "Becoming a Master at Getting Exclusive Listings". If you’re not already registered for this teleconference, and you’d like to join me for it and get the audio CDs, written transcription, and highlights of the teleconference all sent to you in the mail, click on the following link to learn how to do it:

http://realestatesalescoach.com/innercircle1.htm

When the mail and E-mail you’re sending to your clients and prospects focuses mainly on what properties are currently available on the market, you’re not really doing much to stand out from your competitors. Some or many of your competitors will be sending out very similar information, so why should any of your clients and prospects think that this information makes you stand out as the one broker they should be working with? In an industry where you want to be differentiating yourself from your competitors, you may be looking very similar to them if this is the kind of information you’re sending out to your people.

While sending out information about what’s currently available on the market can definitely be appropriate at times, what your clients and prospects are really looking for is a broker who tells them the market trends, where the market is headed, and important information about what’s happening in commercial real estate that they’ll want to know about. In addition, they’ll want you to be a broker who they feel confident will protect their own best interests, and a broker who projects certainty in his or her own opinions.

And you can’t transmit this image to people when you’re just mailing and E-mailing them information on which properties are currently on the market, or which properties have just leased or sold. This is because when doing so you’re simply relaying information that’s easily available to your people…something any broker in your market can do…and many brokers in your market are probably already doing this right now, too.

So you need to be different in order to position yourself in the minds of the people you want to be doing business with, before they become ready to begin working on their next real estate transaction.

And it’s definitely not easy to fully differentiate yourself during your prospecting calls either, as oftentimes prospecting calls are just for a brief, limited amount of time. But you can do a solid job of differentiating yourself through what you’re sending your people by mail and E-mail. (And if you’re interested in sending the newsletter I’ve created for commercial brokers to send to their clients and prospects every month, click here for more information on the newsletter.)

So send articles, a newsletter, and/or postcards showing people that you know the important trends and events impacting your marketplace. When you do so people will begin to feel that you really know what’s going on, and that you have the knowledge, ability, charisma, and character for them to want you to guide them all the way through the closing of their next real estate transaction.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to send me an E-mail.

"My work with Jim is making me more effective at finding new business with the kind of companies I want to work with."

Larry Crumbley, SIOR, CCIM
Fickling & Company

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

With all of the negative news being broadcast to us today, it reminds me of what I heard comedian Woody Allen say once a good number of years ago. At the end of one of his comedy routines he said something very similar to:

"In summing up, I wish I had some kind of positive message I could leave you all with. Would you take instead maybe, two negative messages?"

So what we’re left with today is trying to keep a good, positive attitude amid constant negative news. And if you don’t keep a positive attitude, it can definitely impact your productivity.

With this in mind, see if any of the following thoughts have been going through your mind in this market:

"This market is really tough."

"I can’t believe how difficult things have gotten."

"I really wish we were back in 2007 again."

"Why should I bother? Everything I’m trying isn’t working."

"I don’t know if this market will turn around again."

When you have thoughts like these going through your mind, they can drain your productivity, and they can set your mind on a course that will lead you towards disappointment and failure.

So what’s the solution to all of this? Reframing how you’re seeing the situation, and asking yourself the following simple question:

"How would I be approaching this differently if I were allowing it to be easy?"

I heard this question recently during an interview with best-selling author Alan Cohen. While having a Ph.D. degree in Clinical Hypnotherapy, and being both a Master Practitioner and Trainer in the field of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), I’m constantly looking for more effective language patterns to utilize when communicating with people. It’s this study of utilizing effective language patterns that led me to developing my prospecting scripts for commercial real estate agents. (Click here for more information on these scripts.)  And the better you are at understanding how your language patterns influence people, the more successful you’re going to be in sales.

So you can utilize this question I’ve mentioned whenever you notice that you’re being negative about this market and negative about what you think you can accomplish in it. This question can help you to reframe your mind and look at the situation differently, because I can almost guarantee that the brokers who are producing the best results right now in this market, are the ones who are convinced that they see opportunities, not difficulties.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to send me an E-mail.

"Jim has helped me to organize a game plan and work it with the tenacity that’s producing a greater number of transactions for me in my marketplace."

Scott Wilcott
NAI Capital

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

Click here to see the video.

In addition, here’s an article discussing the incident from Realty Times, which also does a good job of describing the importance of brokerage companies now having their own social media policies, so that any potential liability is minimized.

Click here to read the article.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to send me an E-mail.

"My work with Jim has given me better scripting and new approaches to get more listings and exclusive right to represent agreements signed by my clients and prospects."

Mike Spedden
Preston Partners Commercial Real Estate Services

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

But this is really just postponing the inevitable, as more and more properties have now transitioned into being upside down, and the lenders are recognizing they’re going to have to tackle this problem head on.

What’s emerged because of this is the opportunity to buy lenders’ notes on properties without actually buying the properties themselves. This is because the lenders see that eventually they’re going to have to foreclose on many properties, and finding an exit strategy that will relieve them of this process is starting to sound very good to them.

Imagine the following scenario…You’re a lender with a portfolio of $200 million in non-performing real estate loans. And in looking down the road, you realize that having to go through the foreclosure process from beginning to end on every single one of these loans will be a major, major headache for you.

So a white knight rides up on a horse in front of you with an interesting proposition…The knight wants to buy your entire portfolio of $200 million in non-performing loans, relieve you of any further obligation of having to chase the borrowers on these loans, thereby saving you from having to go through countless bottles of aspirin for all of your headaches along the way.

This is one example of what recently happened with a lender actually holding a portfolio of $200 million in non-performing loans. They couldn’t resist this opportunity, and the buyer of the entire portfolio just couldn’t resist the deal. And the buyer ended up paying just $1.4 million for the entire portfolio!

“How could this be?” you may be asking yourself. “How could a lender let go of $200 million in non-performing loans for only $1.4 million?” Well the answer has to do with fractional reserve banking and how lenders create money for borrowers in the first place, and that’s a subject that I recommend you read about in another article that I’ve written by clicking here. But know that sometimes making great deals like this one for investors is exactly what lenders will do.

And in follow-up, here’s the best part—the broker involved in the transaction told me that the buyer of the portfolio sold it to another investor, doubling his money and selling the portfolio for $2.8 million, while agreeing to provide all the loan servicing for the loans for the new investor through his own servicing company. This relieved the second investor of any headaches in having to chase these borrowers for the money himself, and he was able to buy this $200 million portfolio for just $2.8 million.

So recognize that these opportunities are now coming available within the marketplace, and if you’re a broker with investors who are interested in these kinds of opportunities, the coming months could become a very interesting time to both find and capitalize on these kinds of investment opportunities.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to send me an E-mail.

"I have had so many responses to the marketing letter I’ve mailed out that you wrote for me. Sellers have called in on properties they would like to sell, and the total dollar value of these properties so far is $56,000,000.00. I am blown away by the success of this program. One seller has an $8,000,000.00 property that we may already have a buyer for. Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Lisa Godley Gilstrap
Lee & Associates

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

Earlier this year during my monthly Million Dollar Commercial Real Estate Agent Inner Circle Teleconference, I interviewed a broker who clearly recognized a huge opportunity and has taken advantage of it. While finding investors here in the USA who are excited about buying commercial property isn’t easy right now, this broker recognized the opportunity that was awaiting her in working with international investors. You see, while things aren’t looking so great in commercial real estate to those of us who live here in the USA right now, to the international investor our properties are looking better than those in most every other country around the world. This is because so many other countries have experienced much worse economic downturns than what we’ve been experiencing here. So while many investors here in the USA have been thinking, "I’m going to wait and see what will happen with this real estate market", there are international investors who are thinking, "I need to buy more real estate in the USA right now."

And with this in mind, the broker I interviewed has been going to Canada, booking herself to speak in front of commercial real estate investment audiences, and as a result her business has completely exploded! At a recent event in Canada she returned home with leads from more than 300 real estate investors, people interested in buying commercial real estate here in the USA right now…and when I interviewed her she had the incredible total of 48 sale transactions going on! And when I asked her, "So is it safe to say that there’s a recession going on but you’ve decided not to participate in it?" She responded by saying, "As far as I’m concerned, there is no recession." And she’s now become so successful at doing this that she’s moving into building relationships and closing transactions with investors located in both Japan and Germany, too.

So if you’re having difficulty finding investors who are ready to buy commercial real estate right now, consider going after investors who are located outside of the United States. In many cases they’ll be more knowledgeable about how solid USA real estate is as compared with real estate in many other parts of the world, and they’re probably more likely to take action now instead of waiting to see where this real estate market will be one year from now.

And if you’re looking for a place to get started, take a look at the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to send me an E-mail.

"Jim’s coaching and training has assisted our company in landing millions of dollars of new real estate business."

Pat Hall
Told Partners

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

As commercial brokers, we oftentimes don’t have the luxury of having ongoing transactions throughout the year with our past clients, particularly when the clients normally close only one real estate transaction every 3-5 years or more. On the other side of the coin, these same clients will be interacting with their attorneys and CPAs on an ongoing basis throughout the year, and unless those professionals make a major mistake, they’ll most likely continue doing business with their clients on an ongoing basis year-after-year.

So your job as a commercial real estate broker, if you want to generate repeat business from your past clients, is to create the feeling within them that you’re always their commercial real estate broker, even when they don’t currently have a commercial real estate need.

And thinking that you can accomplish this by dropping out or reducing your communication with them, while your competitors continue on communicating with them, is hugely unrealistic. But it’s where many commercial brokers continue on playing the game.

1) Socialize with your past clients. Take them to lunch or to events throughout the year, and tell them how much you appreciate their business. This will help to create the feeling that you’re more of a friend to them, and it’s very difficult for people to ever stop doing business with their friends.

2) Give gifts to your past clients 2-4 times a year. Giving gifts to your clients shows your heartfelt appreciation for the business they bring to you, and it creates the feeling within them that there’s an ongoing business relationship with you during the year. In addition, it’s very difficult for people to ever work with another broker when you’ve constantly been giving them gifts over the years.

3) Call them on a regular basis. Continue calling your people throughout the year, beginning soon after you’ve closed your most recent transaction with them. Check in with them, see how they’re doing, and see if there’s any additional service you can provide for them. They’ll appreciate you showing that you care about them.

4) Mail to them on a regular basis. Send them thank you notes, greeting cards, and/or a newsletter throughout the year. Even if you just sent them a greeting card or a personal note once every quarter, this will help to build and maintain a solid relationship with them. But if you also mail to them once or twice a month, providing them with important information they’ll want to know about on what’s going on in your territory, you’ll position yourself within their minds at a much deeper level.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to send me an E-mail.

"Within 7 weeks after beginning my work with Jim I landed new business worth over $500,000.00 in commissions to me!"

Mike Giuliano
Lee & Associates

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1) Will there be another financial collapse coming in the months ahead?

2) Why haven’t we seen a "fire sale" with distressed commercial properties yet, and when we can expect to see these properties coming onto the market?

3) A simple approach that will help you beat your competitors when going after distressed properties.

4) Three important resources for understanding both the current economic trends, and where this economy is headed right now. (And if I haven’t already told you about these resources personally, I can almost guarantee that you don’t know about them.) 

Click here to download the MP3 file of the interview. 

And if you’d prefer, you can click here and listen to this interview by simply clicking on a "Play" button on my Web site.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to send me an E-mail.

"My work with Jim has helped my team, my company, and my development business to perform at substantially higher levels."

D. Alex Rhoten
Coldwell Banker Commercial

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

But it’s who John Wooden was as a man above and beyond his basketball accomplishments that really counted. And it’s why, outside of my own father, that he’s always been my personal hero.

To give you an idea of what an outstanding human being this man was, in 1998 I wrote him a letter in care of the UCLA Athletic Department, telling him how much he’s meant to me, and how much he had inspired me over the years. And I also told him that I would like to take him to lunch sometime.

Then as only a world-class hero would do, his response soon came to me in the mail. It was a handwritten note thanking me for the kind words I had said to him, along with his home phone number within the note, telling me he would like to have lunch with me also, and that I should call him and we’d schedule the lunch together.

And if you’re not familiar with this man and what his accomplishments have been over the years, here’s a list of some of them:

As a high school basketball player in Martinsville, Indiana, his team reached the state finals during three consecutive years, winning the state championship in 1927…and Coach Wooden was named to the All-State Team during all three of these years.

As a college basketball player at Purdue University, his team won the national championship in 1932, and Coach Wooden became the first player ever to be named as an All-American in college basketball for three consecutive years.

While coaching the UCLA basketball team, his teams won 10 national championships during his final 12 years of coaching. And no other college basketball coach in history has won more than four national championships.

He was the first person ever elected into the National Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and as a coach.

The annual award given to the best college basketball player in the country is named after him…The John R. Wooden Award. It’s the college basketball equivalent of the Heisman Trophy, which is given annually to the best player in college football.

He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award that the United States can give to one of its civilians.

And this is the same man who wrote me back with a handwritten note, giving me his home phone number, accepting my invitation to go to lunch with him.

But Coach Wooden was about so much more than this, and his players continually talk to this day about how much he taught them about life, and how much he prepared them for life also. There are so many different lessons and expressions of his that I could mention to you here, and here are just a few of them:

"What you are as a person is far more important than what you are as a basketball player."

"It is what we learn after we know it all that really counts."

"You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you."

"Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming."

While he represented the greatest level of excellence and achievement imaginable in basketball, it was his love of humanity and the people around him that formed the true foundation for his achieving excellence.

Over the 25 years he continued living after his beloved wife Nell passed away, every single month he’d visit her grave and write her a love letter on the 21st of the month, the monthly anniversary of the date that Nell had died. And all of these letters continually rested on the pillow next to him on the bed where she had slept with him for more than 50 years, before she passed away.

When UCLA told him they wanted to name their basketball court after him, he told them that they could do it, but under one condition…they had to include Nell’s name along with his on the court, and her name had to come before his own name on the court, too. And because of this the basketball court at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion to this day is still inscribed with the words, "Nell and John Wooden Court".

And when I got together for lunch with Coach at his favorite restaurant, it was a truly amazing experience. Afterwards he invited me back into his home, and into his private study. It was there that he showed me all of his awards and memorabilia from his many years in basketball, and where he had me listen to something that was quite unexpected…He played me a recording of one of his former basketball players, Swen Nater, singing Bette Midler’s song, "Wind Beneath My Wings" to him.

So here I was listening to someone who was 6′ 11" tall and a former professional basketball player, singing this soft, emotional song as his heartfelt tribute to his Coach. And Coach was just sitting back in his easy chair, getting a bit misty-eyed, and taking in the beauty of the moment.

It completely blew all my pictures of who anyone needed to be in their own personal life, in order to be one of the greatest competitors and greatest champions in history.

And as I keep reaching for the tissue box here on my desk, I’ll close in saying this:

There will never be another man like John Wooden, and maybe that’s why God had him live among us for more than 99 years. I am honored to have been inspired by him, honored to have met him, and I’m honored to still have his principles to follow in the best way that I can, when I’m putting one foot in front of the other one, just trying to live my life.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to send me an E-mail.

"Jim has me much more focused on doing the activities that generate new listings for me, in addition to doing the activities that have me sell those listings."

Chris Sands
Marcus & Millichap

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.