Wow! What a great session of the RealNex Webinar Series and User Group. In this combo event on July 9, “Beau Knows: Why Investors rely exclusively on this Top Producer”, we hosted a panel including RealNex power user and top producing agent Beau Beery, CCIM, industry veteran and preeminent CRE coach Rod Santomassimo, CCIM and our own VP National Business Development Matthew Smith. The session was chock full of golden nuggets, best practices and high impact takeaways.
To start Beau shared what drives him and highlighted two primary factors. First was fear of failure. He operates as if he has no money. Since he came from little wealth and has earned quite a bit, he is driven to maintain the lifestyle and earnings he needs to maintain it for himself and his family. Next, he cares deeply about what others think, he strives to more than please them but to overwhelm them with value. He loves the accolades when he impresses his clients and hungers to hear their praise. To this point he shared the concepts from the book The Five Languages of Love. Beau falls under the category of Affirmation – he wants to hear about his admiration, while others like his wife don’t care as much about words, they need action. They are characterized by Acts of Service. For them you need to get stuff done. He advised listeners to learn from this book and find out what drives your clients and relationships to discover how to convert them to be your biggest fan.
Beau is a perennial top producer. Even working from tertiary market, he out-performs most agents in major markets year in and year out. But he wasn’t always producing at the top of his potential and he was running himself ragged working 24/7. With the advice of coach Rod and the support of RealNex CRM he has been able to accelerate his career and realize greater productivity year after year by specializing, knowing his market cold and diligently and systematically cultivating his target market. As Rod put it, “If you aren’t using a CRM, you have a hobby in CRE, not a business.” And Beau has used his RealNex CRM to become a well-oiled high-performance machine.
Among the keys to Beau’s success is what he calls “Ferocious Transparency”. Before he takes on an assignment, he knows everything about it…the good, the bad and the ugly. Not only does he know everything he possibly can, he shares his perspective with the client so that there are no surprises in the heat of negotiations. This up-front work enables scenario planning and preparation for the inevitable adjustments that may be needed to close a deal. Next he focuses on delivering value, not selling. In every communication he offers something of substance – a research report, comps, trends, perspective. And, because he tracks the market better than his competitors, he can add more value more frequently, so his calls aren’t cold, but rather welcomed.
A key to Beau’s success is knowing his market better than anyone. Beau is a specialist. He focuses only on apartments in Northern Florida. His RealNex CRM maintains a database of every building and every owner in his territory. He knows there are 960 owners and 1182 properties. And, he meticulously updates his CRM to know everything he can about each property and each owner. To assure his system is the best it can be he hired an assistant to leverage his time. He advises to hire an assistant just before you can afford one! He is convinced that without the valuable help, you will never be able to break through to the next level of productivity. Rod echoed the sentiment with a quote from the book Hyper Sales Growth, “If you don’t have an admin, you are one.”
With his RealNex CRM built and his prospects profiled, Beau ranks each A, B and C. He characterized the A’s as people you a lot of business – you love them and they love you; the B’s you do some business with but they work with you and others from time to time; The C’s are the ones you are getting to know, you think may be good clients but you haven’t worked with yet. These rankings are used to set up a minimum call frequency. A’s are schedule for monthly calls, B’s quarterly and C’s 1-2 times per year.
Now it’s time to get to work. Beau has a very consistent routine. He wakes up at 5:15, does a morning work-out, gets to work by 8:30 and spends 9-11 with his most important work of the day, he takes a lunch break, then spends 12-3 on follow-up activities and 3-5 prospecting. He is done work for the day enjoying dinner and activities with his family by 6:00.
From what was an 80-100 hour per week grind, Beau now enjoys a very focused balanced lifestyle with even greater financial success. The ability to find this balance comes from his focus on “Deep Work”. When Beau gets to work each day, he knows exactly what he needs to do. His RealNex CRM dashboard, tells him who to call, why to call them and everything he needs to know to be as prepared as possible. His calls are therefore timely, focused and productive.
To learn about the habits and best practices of a top producing agent access the replay of the presentation.
