Why Strategy Matters

Yesterday I had the pleasure of watching somebody have an epiphany and understand completely what I do for a living. I had been out house shopping with my wife. We looked at a couple of homes with the exact same floor plan, and with very different selling conditions. The first house was a short sale where the people had already moved out. The second home was priced 22% higher and the homeowner was very clear that she was not going to budge on price. She also said she was going to stay for quite some time if necessary.

We decided to discuss the two houses with the real estate agent at the local Starbucks. In doing so the agent asked what I did for a living. When I told her that I was a Business Strategy and Marketing Coach the puzzled look on her face gave me the opening to continue. I said "I help people narrow their niche and find their business strategy so they can become better at what they do, make more money and work less."



After a moment she said "So you don't really do anything for real estate agents?  I mean we really don't need much business strategy you know."  When I asked her why she thought that way, she told me that real estate sales don't really have any niches. It was an odd conversation since earlier in the day she told me that she was a "short sale specialist". So I simply asked her "So, was the whole short sale specialist thing just a ploy?". Right then and there the light came on, she said "You know you are right, since we started focusing on short sales gotten much better at them and we have been making more money doing short sale deals."

We then continued to discuss the niches and differences between a buyer's agent and the seller's agent, and why there's a benefit to being one versus the other or both. A buyer's agent can become extremely proficient at asking the right questions and reducing the amount of time buyers need to see the right house. A seller's agent or sometimes called a listing agent, has to know how to stage a house, convince homeowners to hide or get rid of the excess stuff and convince buyers and appraisers that the home has the highest possible value. The listing agent also needs to know how to present the home buyers agents. If the listing agent can't write decent copy to put into the MLS system, buyers agents may never stop by.

The discussion continued on to a short sale specialist attorney. This attorney was helping the agent negotiate with banks on the short sale deals. Over time the attorney had become much better at these short sale negotiations and was now her "go to guy".

Within a 15 min. conversation, she had discovered three different ways a real estate agent can focus into a deeper niche, and how one attorney had completely changed his business because of the niche that he was focusing on.  She also realized how having a coach could help her go deeper into the niche more quickly. She admitted that she didn't really like writing the copy for the MLS and it would be nice having someone to help her with writing the copy.

Your challenge is to focus your strategy a little more. As you head out this week, take a look at your life and your business and see what you can specialize in to create more value in less time and achieve a higher level of success.   If you don't know where to start, try my book.  Maybe you can help me come up with a better cover?