When you sign up for my Wednesday teleconference, where I’ll be interviewing an SIOR Past President who’s already received 16 awards for the largest transactions closed by all SIOR members, you’ll receive two presentation packages totaling 72 pages from one additional top SIOR broker. In addition, you’ll get the audio CDs, MP3 file, and the written transcription from the teleconference all shipped to you…for just $19.95!

If you’re not already registered for this teleconference,  click here for more information.

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How One Top Commercial Broker is
Developing More New Business 

You may have noticed something within recent years. The volume of commercial real estate transactions closing in most geographical areas, and probably within your own geographical area, isn’t what it used to be. But how can you develop more new business and more income for yourself despite this drop you may be experiencing in your transaction volume?

You can do what my coaching client Dan has been doing, which is finding opportunities to do consulting work, while he’s still working on closing his normal "commission" transactions.

Dan is a very successful broker, and he’s a member of both SIOR and CCIM. (Dan isn’t really his name, as I want to potentially save him many phone calls, E-mails, and questions about how he’s successfully accomplishing all of this.) While Dan, like so many commercial brokers, is having his challenges around closing transactions within this market, he noticed that his clients and prospects were having problems with their commercial real estate, even though these problems might not necessitate closing transactions. So Dan recognized an opportunity that he could capitalize on…

Some of these problems involved tenants wanting to reduce their rent, owners needing to reposition their properties within the marketplace, restructuring existing debt, and getting advice on both repositioning and restructuring entire real estate portfolios.

When Dan began approaching his clients and prospects about doing some of this work for them on an hourly basis, many of them really liked the idea, and they began paying Dan an hourly rate for his consulting services.

In addition, Dan has now located opportunities to speak in front of local chapters of building owner asociations within his area, and the response from these owners has been outstanding. During his presentation, Dan tells the owners about the consulting work he’s been doing with other owners, and the problems that he’s been solving for them. Since many of the owners who are in Dan’s audiences are having these exact same problems, they then often approach Dan right after his presentation to discuss hiring him to solve these same problems for them also.

So in addition to getting paid guaranteed money on an hourly basis to consult with all of these commercial real estate principals, Dan is accomplishing something else that’s also very important…he’s building a working relationship with these same principals, showing them that he’s an expert they can count on, and he’s positioning himself to work with them again on their "commission" transactions…whenever they have these transactions in the future.

So if you’re looking for opportunities to make more money in this market, and position yourself better to work on more "commission" transactions in the future, consider approaching your clients and prospects about doing some consulting work for them right now.

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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 contact me.

"With Jim’s coaching I landed $1.7 million in new business in my first eight weeks!"

Mark Whitman
Dorin Realty

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

About 45 days ago I watched the Academy Award-nominated movie "Moneyball", starring Brad Pitt, and I was completely mesmerized by the movie. I was so mesmerized, in fact, that I’ve watched the movie three more times since then.

To me the movie is about redemption, and let’s face it, there are a lot of brokers looking for redemption right now. They’ve been dealing with a market that really stinks when compared with how it was maybe 5-6 years ago, and they want redemption.

Brad Pitt plays a character named Billy Beane in the movie, who in real life was touted as being a "can’t miss" prospect for Major League Baseball. He was offered a big signing bonus to turn down the scholarship he had been offered to go to Stanford, and he accepted the big signing bonus, becoming a professional baseball player right out of high school. But he never became a successful Major League Baseball player, and this continually haunts him throughout the movie.

But he became a successful General Manager of a Major League Baseball team, and he implemented a revolutionary approach to the game to achieve that success…becoming massively ridiculed for this approach until it finally produced absolutely incredible results for the team.

At the end of the movie his success brought him an offer to become the General Manager for the Boston Red Sox…for $12,500,000.00. Should he take the money, move all the way across the country, and become completely separated from his young daughter…who he loved dearly? Or was his life now coming full circle once again, and he now had the chance to make the right decision around going for the money …or not?

We all have moments in our lives that define who we are as human beings, and it’s been my experience that whenever I listen to my intuition, and let it guide me through my decision making, things always turn out the best for me. They may not look like they’re turning out the best for me immediately, but in the end, they always turn out the best for me.

Here’s one story I experienced years ago that the movie really reconnected me with, that I’m going to share with you…

When I was a kid in eighth grade, I was the quarterback on our football team, and I had dreams of one day playing professional football. During our final game of the season, we lost to the team that became the state champions, and we definitely knew that we were one of the best teams in the state.

Now flash forward to beginning high school the very next year, recognizing how violent all the contact was now becoming in the sport at this level, and my gut-level intuition now telling me that it was time to leave the game behind.  I knew, even at that time, about the long-term effects that were being observed in the bodies of the men who had played football their entire lives.

I left the football team and began focusing on the other sport that I was very solid at…basketball…but I was quickly reminded of how when you know you’ve made the right decision, other people still might not like that decision…

Soon after I left the football team, I saw a friend’s mother at school and I said "Hello" to her. Her son had been our star running back on the team the year before, and he was now playing on the high school football team. The mother was very disappointed that I had decided not to play the game anymore, and when I spoke to her she turned, looked at me and said, "I’ve decided to never speak to you again."

But in talking with other friends of mine who continued playing football for their four years in high school, I still know today that I made the right decision. They tell me of the horrible pain they still experience from their injuries from playing football in high school, the stiffness, and the surgeries they’ve been through to try to deal with the situation. One of my old friends who played on that final team that I played on, who’s the son of a former NFL head coach, turned down multiple scholarships from major universities in order to leave the sport behind him, too, but at the end of high school, not at the beginning of it. He’s still in great pain as a result of the injuries he sustained from the game in high school, and he’s told me the names of some of the greatest players in NFL history, who have all refused to let their own sons play football.

In addition to this story, the movie "Moneyball" reconnected me with many other decisions that I’d made in my life, too. In 1990, I became the first broker anyone had ever seen in my territory utilizing a personal computer and contact management software. I got teased for it, but I knew where everything was headed. The brokers who insisted that wrapping rubber bands around their business cards and their index cards…was still all that was really necessary, are now utilizing contact management software within their own brokerage businesses. When I was watching "Moneyball", there were scenes where baseball veterans were arguing with Brad Pitt about his game plan for success, ridiculing him for it, and it reminded me of exactly what these brokers were saying about utilizing computers within their own businesses back in 1990.

My point in telling you all of this, is that there’s an intuitive side within you that always knows what the best decision is for you. Your mind will jump in sometimes and lock antlers with that intuitive side, telling you something very different, but I’ve found that throughout my life, listening to that intuitive side has always produced the best results for me. Sometimes you just need to do what you know is the right thing to do, even when other people are telling you otherwise.

So right now, when you listen to that intuitive side of you, what is it telling you to do? What is it telling you to do in your business, and in your personal life, to live the life that you’ve always imagined?

Listen to that intuitive side of you, and act on it.

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3 Special Bonuses for You

If you order my Commercial Broker Newsletter right now, the newsletter that you can customize and mail or E-mail to your clients and prospects on a monthly basis, you’ll also receive the following three special bonuses:

1) A special, dynamic 170-page E-book titled "The Magic of Newsletter Marketing", by Jim Palmer. This book contains everything you need to know to send a solid newsletter that brands you in the minds of all of your clients and prospects.

2) My highly-acclaimed special report titled, "How to Explode Your Real Estate Prospecting Now!", featuring my prospecting scripts that tell you how to get past the receptionist, how to get the decision maker to talk to you, and how to leave voicemail messages that compel your prospects to call you back.

3) Access to listen to my 57-minute radio interview titled, "How to Prepare for the Coming Commercial Real Estate Market". During this interview I’ll tell you the true underlying phenomenon that’s driving our commercial real estate market, where this market is headed, how to reposition yourself for what’s coming, and what properties you’ll get burned by if you’re still holding them.

In addition, you’ll get two months of my newsletter for the price of one in your very first month when you order the newsletter right now. If sending a newsletter to your clients and prospects is something you want to begin doing, click here for more information. When checking out in the shopping cart, include the word "Bonuses" in the Comments section to get all of these special bonuses sent to you. 

__________________

We can transform your brokerage business by doing one-on-one coaching work together. If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial brokerage business to the next level, click here and contact me.

"Just one marketing idea Jim gave me produced $14,500,000.00 in new listings for me. His coaching program really works!"

Mark Groves
BRC Advisors

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

When brokers need to find more business, they often understand that they need to be prospecting in order to find it. But one of the greatest problems that occurs within our industry is the following…

A broker wants to find more business, they begin prospecting, and then when their plate is full of activity and they’re busy working on all of the leads they’ve now generated, they quit doing their prospecting.

This seems logical at times for many brokers. They’ve already generated a lot of leads, and doing more prospecting seems like it will only get in the way of them working on transactions, closing them, and getting paid.

This is a huge fallacy.

When you stop doing your prospecting, you’re very likely to then have a big hole in your pipeline weeks or even months down the road, where you won’t be closing many transactions, and you won’t be making much money, either. This is because of the lag time between beginning your prospecting once again, and it leading to new, closed real estate transactions for you. So if you don’t find a way to continue on in doing your prospecting when you’re already busy working on transactions, there will probably be a big gap in your income somewhere down the road, and you’ll end up making less money because of it.

In addition, there are other reasons why you want to continue on in doing your prospecting once you’re already busy, too:

1) When you continue on in doing your prospecting once you’re already busy, you’ll find new and better leads than some of the ones you’re currently working on, and you would’ve completely missed out on these leads and in closing these transactions had you stopped doing your prospecting. Finding these new leads lets you let go of the more marginal and lower-commission leads you’ve been working on, and it lets you replace them with these new and better leads, where you’ll be making more money.

2) Continually prospecting once you’re already busy working on leads, increases the average commission you’ll be earnng per transaction. This happens because you’ll be letting go of the more marginal leads you’ve normally worked on in the past, and you’ll be replacing them with better leads, where you’ll be closing larger transactions and making more money. In doing so you’ll be increasing the average size of commission you’ll be earning per transaction, which will have you making more money every single year.

But none of this would have ever happened if you had stopped doing your prospecting. You would have had holes in your pipeline where you wouldn’t have been making very much money, you’d have wondered why you couldn’t generate a greater abundance of larger transactions than the ones you’d been working on, and your level of activity would have seemed like it was hot at some times, and then cold at other times.

When you continually get your prospecting done, no matter how busy you feel when you’re constantly working on transactions, you’ll upgrade the quality of client you’re working with, you’ll make more money, and you’ll constantly be swimming in an abundance of solid brokerage activity.

____________________  

3 Special Bonuses for You

If you order my Commercial Broker Newsletter right now, the newsletter that you can customize and mail or E-mail to your clients and prospects on a monthly basis, you’ll also receive the following three special bonuses:

1) A special, dynamic 170-page E-book titled "The Magic of Newsletter Marketing", by Jim Palmer. This book contains everything you need to know to send a solid newsletter that brands you in the minds of all of your clients and prospects.

2) My highly-acclaimed special report titled, "How to Explode Your Real Estate Prospecting Now!", featuring my prospecting scripts that tell you how to get past the receptionist, how to get the decision maker to talk to you, and how to leave voicemail messages that compel your prospects to call you back.

3) Access to listen to my 57-minute radio interview titled, "How to Prepare for the Coming Commercial Real Estate Market". During this interview I’ll tell you the true underlying phenomenon that’s driving our commercial real estate market, where this market is headed, how to reposition yourself for what’s coming, and what properties you’ll get burned by if you’re still holding them.

In addition, you’ll get two months of my newsletter for the price of one in your very first month when you order the newsletter right now. If sending a newsletter to your clients and prospects is something you want to begin doing, click here for more information. When checking out in the shopping cart, include the word "Bonuses" in the Comments section to get all of these special bonuses sent to you. 

__________________

We can transform your brokerage business by doing one-on-one coaching work together. If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial brokerage business to the next level, click here and contact me.

"Jim has me much more focused on doing the things that make me more money and he holds me accountable to make sure that I do them."

Greg Barsamian
Coldwell Banker Commercial

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

There seem to be two different schools of thought within our industry around leaving voicemail messages when you’re doing your prospecting. One group says that you should leave voicemail messages, and the other one says that you shouldn’t.

It seems to me that the advantages of leaving voicemail messages definitely outweigh the advantages of not leaving them. The only real advantage I can see for not leaving voicemail messages, is that the person you’re trying to contact might not feel that you’re bothering them, if in fact they feel that you’re bothering them whenever you’re leaving them voicemail messages.

But on the other hand, leaving a voicemail message lets the person know that you actually called them, and it allows you to leave a compelling message with a solid reason for them to call you back. In addition, when you leave someone several voicemail messages over a period of time, before you end up hearing back from them, many people will begin to feel that they really owe you a return phone call…as long as you’re being courteous and professional when you’re leaving your voicemail messages.

This is especially true with entrepreneurial people and business owners, who understand the value of prospecting to develop one’s business. Some of these people may even begin thinking, "If I could just get my own salespeople to prospect like this person, our company would be making a lot more money!"

So leave voicemail messages whenever you’re doing your prospecting. Otherwise your prospects will have no idea that you’ve ever called them, and they’ll have no reason to call you back.

__________________

We can transform your brokerage business by doing one-on-one coaching work together. If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial brokerage business to the next level, click here and contact me.

"Jim’s coaching has assisted me in coming up with a brand new game plan to maximize my productivity in a transitioning market."

William Hugron, SIOR, CCIM
Ashwill Associates

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

All day long we walk around talking to ourselves within our own minds. What we focus on in our day-to-day thoughts, including the questions that we we ask ourselves, determines the overall quality of our lives.

My friend Michael Russer, who was named as being one of the 25 most influential people in real estate, recently wrote an article on this subject that I’m going to share with you. Within this past week Michael has launched a new business venture called, "The Outrageous Movement", and you can read more about Michael’s new venture on Facebook by clicking here.

When reading this article, notice the difference between how you feel when you’re asking yourself the first set of questions within the article, vs. asking yourself the second set of questions. You have the power to determine the questions you’re asking yourself throughout the day, and the questions you’re constantly asking yourself will determine the quality of your life.

We end up getting what our thoughts are focused on.

Here’s the article:

What If …

“What if” are two simple words that have the power to stop you cold or open up possibilities you never dreamed of. It’s what comes after the ”What if" that makes all the difference.

Most people it seems use “What if” to identify everything they can think of that could go wrong.  For example:

“What if that deal doesn’t close next week?!”

“What if I don’t make enough money for my kids’ college education?”

“What if I buy that motorcycle and I end up dead, or worse – crippled for life!?”

“What if I never find the love of my life?”

“What if I’m not the number one agent in my company?”

“What if I don’t achieve my goals?”

“What if I don’t live up to my own expectations?”

“What if this is all there is?”

It should be pretty clear that everything in the very short list above has one thing in common –fear of some undesirable outcome in the future. And the worst part is that people who think this way (usually often) are spending their precious present moments literally slamming the door on possibility.

Now how about asking “What if” this way:

“What if I eat to live rather than live to eat?”

“What if I time-blocked my work days so I can prospect every day?”

“What if I took took two vacations a year of at least 2 weeks each?”

“What if I spent more time with my family rather than watching TV?”

“What if I surprised my spouse with flowers and a dinner for no special reason?”

“What if I saw everything that happens (“good” and “bad”) as a blessing?”

Same two words, yet very different outcomes. When you ask “What if” in this way the world seems to be a brighter, more exciting place filled with possibilities rather than dread. And other people (i.e. prospects, clients, family and friends) will find you to be a much more attractive person to be around. They aren’t particularly interested in your dread, they have enough of their own.

So what if you were to start asking your “What if” questions like this from now on –just think of the possibilities…

__________________

We can transform your brokerage business by doing one-on-one coaching work together. If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial brokerage business to the next level, click here and contact me.

"Through working with Jim I’ve developed new strategies and approaches that are getting me more market share with the type of companies I want to be doing business with."

Guy Eisner
Travers Realty Corporation

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

Something that I’ve often observed throughout my 30-plus years within our industry, is that top producers don’t spend much time complaining about how difficult it is to make money. They don’t spend much time complaining about how tough it is to close transactions, no matter what they’re experiencing right now within their own brokerage business.

Your state of mind within your own brokerage business determines much about your success. When you live in a state of excited passion, convinced that you’re about to uncover another solid opportunity within your brokerage business, you’re much more likely to find it.

Contrast this with having the attitude of the broker who doesn’t really want to come into the office, doesn’t want to make their prospecting calls, and doesn’t feel there’s much opportunity for them in today’s real estate market.

Who do you think is more likely to produce the better results?

The top brokers have more passion for the business. They enjoy the business more than everyone else, and this shows within their attitude every single day. No matter what happens within their own business, they usually just brush any disappointment aside and move on, convinced that they’re about to uncover another opportunity.

Turning now to your own brokerage business, how much time do you spend living in this state of mind? If you find there are times when you’re not living in this state of mind, do what you can to get yourself into it. When you’re living in this place moment-to-moment within your own brokerage business, you’ll find more opportunity, you’ll go after the opportunity with more passion, you’ll let disappointment bounce right off of you, you’ll have fun, you’ll enjoy yourself more, and you’ll make more money.

A friend of mine forwarded me this two-minute video that I believe really illustrates what I’m talking about here. Watch this video of the two-year-old boy dancing in front of his audience. He shows us such passion and fun while he’s dancing in front of everyone, and he even shows us how to take a proper bow right at the end of his performance.

Find this little boy inside of you within your brokerage business.

Click here to see the video.

__________________

We can transform your brokerage business by doing one-on-one coaching work together. If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial brokerage business to the next level, click here and contact me.

"After just weeks of working with Jim I’m getting much more done now with far greater ease, and he has my agents completely on fire and much more passionate about their business!"

Mike Spears, SIOR
The National Realty Group

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

One of the most important activities you can do as a broker is to stay in contact with your past clients, and continually follow-up with them to see if there’s anything else they need. So many commercial brokers make the mistake of dropping out all communication with their clients soon after they’ve closed transactions with them, and this paves the way for other brokers to begin forming more solid relationship with these clients.

In addition to continuing on with solid follow-up with your clients, consider sending "thank you" notes to them, too, showing them your appreciation for their business.

Two to four times a year, consider sending a "thank you" note to your clients similar to the following one:

"Thank you for letting me be your commercial real estate broker. I greatly appreciate the business we’ve done together, and I look forward to working with you again on our next transaction together."

This shows genuine gratitude towards your clients, and people love to work with others who express their gratitude towards them. In addition, this implies that there’s a continuing broker-client relationship that’s now in place with them.

When you combine this with you staying in contact with your people, keeping them informed, and asking them what more you can do for them, you have a simple yet powerful combination for getting more business. Combine this even further with giving your clients gifts 2-4 times a year in addition to socializing with them, then you’ll have an unbelievably powerful combination. All of this combined will have your clients feeling that you’re always their agent between transactions, and this is exactly where you want them to be.

But just for now, if you’re not giving gifts to your past clients and socializing with them, doing what I’ve initially recommended here is a powerful way to start solidifying your relationships with them.

So many brokers spend their careers constantly hustling for new business, and constantly hustling to find new prospects, but they’re not solidifying their relationships with their past clients to get constant, repeat business with them.

Don’t be one of those brokers.

____________________________

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

"We own a commercial brokerage company, a real estate development company, and a property management company. With Jim’s help we’ve now substantially reduced our overhead, and have implemented a marketing approach that’s bringing us more quality transactions than we ever would have imagined."

Jeffrey Weitz and Matt Schweitzer
North Rim Partners

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

Trying to predict what will happen with the economy in recent years hasn’t been easy. It appeared several years ago that we were going to see a flood of distressed properties and foreclosure sales hitting the market, but then "extend and pretend" was implemented by our lenders, severely limiting this activity. But as you can see right here in this article I’m linking to, there are warning signs that more foreclosures and distress sales with commercial properties may be on the way.

With so many companies laying off workers, closing locations, and having a more difficult time remaining profitable, it leaves people scratching their heads wondering why the stock market has been performing as well as it has been. But when you read an article like this one I’m linking to here, and you then discover that the total amount of the bailout wasn’t really $700 billion, but more than $16 trillion…more than the entire one-year Gross Domestic Product of the United States, you begin to recognize that throwing this kind of money into the economy will definitely have an impact.

In addition, as I’ve mentioned in a previous edition of my E-newsletter, when you look at the information provided by the people located at ShadowStats.com, you learn that the true inflation rate, as it used to be calculated, is really double the rate that’s been reported to us. You also learn that the true unemployment rate, as it used to be calculated, is really 22-23%. This is what happens when the method utilized to calculate these indices has been changing in recent years.

With so many changes happening behind the scenes, it’s not easy predicting, on an apples-to-apples basis, where everything is headed economically. However, it’s easy to understand that with these approaches being implemented from behind the scenes, they’re not being implemented because things are looking really solid.

Keeping this in mind, apartment buildings are the darling of the commercial real estate industry right now. I’ve read articles and have seen videos of people within our industry discussing this, proclaiming that this is a sign that our economy is finally turning around. But what they’re not telling you is that the demand for rental housing has increased because people have been losing their homes, and they’re looking to rent places now instead. So the increased demand in rental housing has been driven in a big way by the worsening of our economy, and this really isn’t a signal that the economy is turning around.

The lenders, recognizing this trend and the increased demand for rental housing, have been responding favorably, and they’ve been willing to provide more financing for multifamily investments. But they haven’t been nearly as excited about lending on office, industrial, and retail investments.

With companies downsizing, laying off people, and closing locations, office, industrial, and retail investments are a greater risk right now to lenders. But with every single person still needing a place to live, and with more people looking to rent nowadays as compared with just several years ago, multi-unit apartments now represent a safer investment for lenders when compared with other types of properties. In addition, in the absence of all of us experiencing another financial or economic meltdown over the coming months, this will probably remain the same for awhile.

Keeping this in mind, apartment buildings will do better in the near future as compared with other types of real estate investments. But there’s one more criterion that’s extremely important for us to factor in here…

Location.

Investors should own their apartment buildings close to where the greatest abundance of jobs are…which usually means within the major cities. The cost of commuting great distances to work by driving is getting more expensive, and in outlying areas where there’s no public transportation to utilize to commute into the central business district, this will become a big problem. The price of gas right now is already cutting into people’s budgets. But imagine what it will do when gas prices reach $5.00, $6.00, and $7.00 a gallon, which they will definitely do…over time.

When this happens people living within the outlying areas where they have to drive great distances to work, will need to move closer to the central business district. They just won’t be able to afford the cost of gasoline for the long commute anymore.

As this happens, if you own apartment buildings within the major cities, close to where many of the jobs are, you’ll be poised to reap the benefits of this increased demand for rental housing, because your buildings will already be located where a great abundance of renters will want to live.

But here’s a big warning…Owning investment properties within the outlying areas where people must drive great distances to work…is extremely dangerous. As the price of gasoline increases, people will no longer be able to afford driving these great distances to work, and the demand to live in these areas will decrease.

So whether it’s office, industrial, retail, apartments, or land being owned, recognize this changing, underlying dynamic that will be going on, and own properties in areas closer to where the jobs are. No one wants to own properties in areas where the people will start believing that they can no longer afford to live there, because the cost of driving to work, when compared with the amount of money they’re making from their job, just doesn’t allow them to pay their bills.

__________________

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

"After just 4 weeks of working with Jim, my team has developed more new business than we have in the past 6 months."

Mica Berg
Colliers International

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

We’ve all heard how important it is to make a good first impression on the people we want to do business with, but have you really recognized how important this is within your own brokerage business? One of the best ways to recognize this within our own lives is to ask ourselves the following question:

When someone has made a less-than-ideal first impression on me, how often have they then turned it all around to the point where I now believe they’re making a good impression on me?

The answer to this question for many people is probably somewhere between "never" and "very rarely".

The first impression that a salesperson makes upon someone in the business world, has the prospect concluding who the salesperson is and whether or not they should be working with them. Once this first impression has been made, if it’s a bad one, it’s very difficult to overcome this impression within the person’s mind.

The clients and prospects you’re dealing with in commercial real estate brokerage are making some of the biggest, most important decisions of their lives. Because of this their radar is up, and they’re looking to determine if you’re someone who they can trust, who has the knowledge, expertise, and professionalism to guide them through their next transaction. So if you don’t make a good first impression on them, their immediate response will oftentimes be to begin looking for another broker.

The following questions can help you to create a solid first impression on your people:

1) When you meet your prospects for the first time, do you look and dress in a manner that conveys that you’re the top broker within your market?

Because if you don’t, and they meet with one or more other brokers who do, those other brokers will now have an advantage over you.

2) Do you drive a car that conveys the message that you’re the top broker within your market?

When people are making decisions worth either hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, they often want to be working with someone they feel is very successful. The car that they see you driving in, and the car that you drive them around in, projects a certain image of you. Make sure that the car you’re driving projects the image of you being the best broker they feel they could ever work with within your market.

Yes, it would be nice if we lived in a world where the car that we drove didn’t make a difference in people’s minds. But that’s not the world that we live in. As an example of this, ask yourself the following question:

How would I feel if I were meeting with a financial planner for the first time–the person who I want to have guide me to my long-term financial success through their investment advice–and the person drove up to the meeting in a subcompact car?

First impressions are extremely important, so if you’re committed to maximizing the amount of income you want to make during your brokerage career, make sure that the first impression you leave on your prospects is a good one.

_____________________

3 Very Special Bonuses for You

If you order my Commercial Broker Newsletter right now, the newsletter that you can customize and mail or E-mail to your clients and prospects on a monthly basis, you’ll also receive the following three special bonuses:

1) A special, dynamic 170-page E-book titled "The Magic of Newsletter Marketing", by Jim Palmer. This book contains everything you need to know to send a solid newsletter that brands you in the minds of all of your clients and prospects.

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In addition, you’ll get two months of my newsletter for the price of one in your very first month when you order the newsletter right now. If sending a newsletter to your clients and prospects is something you want to begin doing, click here for more information. When checking out in the shopping cart, include the word "Bonuses" in the Comments section to get all of these special bonuses sent to you.

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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 contact me.

"I was skeptical at first, but after working with Jim I’m now producing much better results in my real estate business. His coaching program definitely produces fast results."

Bob Hoyer
Delphi Business Properties

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When you’ve been in our industry for a long time, you see some wild things happen that can completely take you by surprise. In addition, some of these things can then become part of your repertoire of stories that you tell other people many years down the road, too.

Well, here’s one of my stories…:)

Back in the mid 1980s there was an investment property that came on the market for sale in my area that I thought would be of interest to one of my buyers. So we immediately wrote an offer on the property, and were then met with some stiff competition from a few other buyers also.

But lo and behold I put on my best real estate agent running shoes, got the listing agent more interested in having my buyer get the deal than the other people, and we soon signed an agreement for the purchase of the property for $850,000.00. (I’m now guessing that the property is worth over $2,000,000.00 in today’s market.)

So once we began moving forward with the due diligence on the transaction, my buyer informed me that he was bringing two partners into the deal along with him. One of the partners had never even purchased an investment property before, and he was very cautious and worried throughout every step of the transaction.

Well after moving through the contingency period and getting the financing, we were all set to close the transaction 90 days later. But a few days before we were scheduled to close, my buyers announced that they needed one additional week to close the transaction. One of them had a CD maturing that he was going to utilize for his down payment, but he now realized that it wasn’t going to mature until one week after our scheduled closing date.

Upon hearing this the seller went ballistic, saying that he had already obligated himself to purchase another property with the money he would be receiving, and that my buyers were endangering his other transaction with their request for a one week extension. But he soon gave in and granted my buyers the extension.

Flash forward now to one week later on the day the transaction was scheduled to record. I live in California, which is an escrow state, and typically in this situation the escrow agent will call the real estate agents informing them when title has successfully changed hands and has been recorded in the names of the new buyers.

So at 10:00 a.m. on the morning of the closing, our escrow agent called to inform me that the grant deed had been recorded, and congratulated me on successfully closing the transaction through her. So, needless to say, I put the phone down and began feeling good about closing the deal and the approximately $20,000.00 that was coming my way as a result of it. Then something completely unprecedented and unexpected happened that would never happen again throughout my entire 20-year career as a real estate agent…

The escrow agent called me back again about 20 minutes later, telling me that we now had a problem. I responded with, "What do you mean we have a problem? The sale of the property has already been recorded. How could we possibly have a problem?"

She then responded with, "The title company just ran another search on the property, and they’ve picked up a new $300,000.00 trust deed that’s just been recorded on it. I’m going to follow-up on what caused this and I’ll be getting back to you."

So, as compared with how I was feeling 20 minutes earlier, I was now wondering what this all meant in terms of this deal actually closing. But about 30 minutes later, our escrow agent called me again with a new update…

"Hi Jim. Here’s what happened. Our messenger was on his way to deliver the seller his check with the proceeds but we got a hold of the messenger in time and stopped him before he reached the seller’s office. I just got off the phone with the seller, and when I asked him about this new $300,000.00 trust deed he responded to me with ‘What $300,000.00 trust deed are you talking about?’ But when I told him he wouldn’t be getting any of his proceeds from the sale until this new $300,000.00 trust deed was removed from the title, he quickly responded to me with, ‘Oh THAT $300,000.00 trust deed!’"

So what the seller had successfully done was borrow an additional $300,000.00 from a private party the week before when we were originally scheduled to close the transaction, which was why he was so irate about the one week delay in closing. He was planning on that private party taking several days to record the new trust deed, which is exactly what happened. But in this situation the $300,000.00 trust deed was recorded just as title was being transferred on the property one week after its scheduled closing time.

So the seller immediately paid off the trust deed through escrow, his lender signed off on the reconveyance, and everybody was back to where we were supposed to be once again.

But from my experience as an agent…Wow! What a wild set of circumstances we went through at the last minute that I hope to never, ever experience again!

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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 contact me.

"Through working with Jim I’ve developed a system to locate a greater number of new prospects to work with in my area."

Walt Arnold
Sperry Van Ness

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