Bernice L. Ross, Ph.D.

"First I wanted to say that Bernice's Classes at the Long Beach Real Esate Expo were the HIGHLIGHTS! I took so many notes, I thought my pen was going to catch on fire!"
~ Jack Young

"I've heard Bernice speak several times before. The session she did for us today I got over $100,000 of new ideas for our business."
~ Rich La Rue
President Realty Executives Southern California

"When Bernice speaks the industry listens."
~ Donna Lee
Unique Global Estates

"I received my license in Jan 2005 and found myself at a very slow start. The me, me, me attitude this business presents was very difficult to weed my way through. (I’m from the South, we just don’t act that way.) When I began to question, is really when I began to have trouble. I decided to hang on thinking if I could just get past two years it would reveal itself. Well, that didn’t happen and life always throws us what we ask for, doesn’t it? (Bernice breaking her arm!)
 
I am finally starting writing down goals of what I needed to have happen and what I would do if it did. I knew I needed a coach, but it is very expensive. Just about that time,  Dilbeck introduced us to you at the rollout of our new technology. When I saw you, I knew someone had heard me. I found a way to pay for it regardless of my situation.
 
You adapted our system within your coaching, and I have never experienced someone doing that. You always have to adapt to their methodology. Your  “Give to Get” system and way of thinking really hit home with me about going back to my roots of who I am and how I was raised. I was already involved with two escrows when joining your class and gained a lease again from my previous client, and from that gained 2 more qualified leads that I just completed finding that new lead a house today.
 
It works if you stop trying to reinvent the wheel and get out of your own way. Thank you so much for coming to Dilbeck and spending the time to stay committed even with such a small turnout. It was well worth your effort and greatly appreciated. I look forward to my new success and I love the 17% statement for full commissions, it is truly powerful!"
~ Stefanie Y,
Realtor

Browse Bernice's speaking topics designed to enhance your skills, build on your strengths, conquer challenges, and increase your profits. For more information on sponsoring a seminar or class contact us.

1. You Snooze You Lose: Trends to Take Your Business to the Top in 2009 NEW
2. List and Sell Real Estate Like Crazy: The 22 Secrets You Need to Make Your Business Soar NEW
3. Build a Successful On-line Business for Less than $2.00 per day
4. Coach Your Office to Increased Profitability NEW
5. Don't Call Them Wealthy: Secrets to Working with Affluent Clients
6. Get Balanced or Get Crazy!
7. How to Create and Sell a Saleable Real Estate Business
8. Ready, Set, Go— Negotiate Your Way to More Real Estate Dough™! NEW
9. How Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z Will Revolutionize Real Estate Tomorrow
10. Unleash the Best Kept Secrets of Stellar Real Estate Success
11. Waging War on Real Estate's Discounters
    (Earning Full Commissions in a Competitive Environment)
12. Why Didn't You Just Text Me? -Nine Secrets for Bridging the Generational Communication Gap

"We met before your session in the audience and I had the privilege of sitting in your session in Orlando last weekend. I just wanted to say great job. Your delivery and message was excellent and very entertaining."
~ Broker owner of a Franchise in western Canada

1. You Snooze You Lose: Trends to Take Your Business to the Top in 2009

Changes are coming at us at a dizzying rate. What trends matter? What should agents and broker/owners implement and what should they ignore. In this fast-paced, highly practical session, participants will learn which trends will have the most impact on their business in 2009 as well as how to turn those trends into a competitive advantage.

This session may be delivered in a 90, 120, or 180 minute format.

Learning Objectives: Participants in this session will learn:

1. Twelve trends and twelve opportunities to grow your business in 2009.
2. How to improve your personal communication skills based upon your level of technological sophistication and generational differences.
3. How to implement the latest technological trends into your business including syndication strategies, blogging, and social networking.
4. How to use innovation to keep your business strong.

Session Outline:

I. Economic Trends

1. Trend #1: REALTORS® DO have the power to fight the constant negativity in the press. The real story about the foreclosure market. Opportunity #1: Become a distressed property workout specialist
2. Trend #2: Real estate—still the best shelter
   Opportunity #2: Get first time buyers off the fence and under contract
3. Trend #3: More investment sales
   Opportunity #3: Look for opportunities with 2-4 unit properties—retirement builder, college fund, Gen Y investment goal.

II. Demographic trends

1. Trend #4: Different age groups require different styles of communication
   Opportunity #4: Communicate the way your clients want to receive information.
2. Trend #5: More single women purchasing real estate
   Opportunity #5: Make Single Females an Important Niche in Your Business

III. General Technology Trends

1. Trend #6: Welcome to My Cloud—how the "Grid" will revolutionize the web
   Opportunity #6: Say hello to digital transactions—dump your box computer and go mobile with a tablet PC.
2. Trend #7: Crackberries and iPodification
   Opportunity #7: Obtain a dot-mobi address that uses short links rather than descriptions. Market using "SMS" technology that optimizes your listings for cell phones. (Transpera.com, VFlyer.com, or Realbird.com)

IV. Real Estate Technology Trends

1. Trend #8: More efficiency, less cost
   Opportunity #8: An hour per day drives business your way—Ten ways to market your business at little or no cost.
2. Trend #9: Mash it up and make it sticky
   Opportunity #9: Make it sticky
3. Trend #10: Video apps—the hottest new application
   Opportunity #10: Ten ways to use video in your business and get more Google juice!

V. Houses of the Future

1. Trend #11: What's old is new and what's new is surprising!
   Opportunity #11: Niche your business to specialize in helping owners implement "green" solutions when they build or purchase.

VI. Two surprising technologies that may find their way into your business

1. Trend #12: 3-D Interactivity Married with Nanotechnology

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2. List and Sell Real Estate Like Crazy: The 22 Secrets You Need to Make Your Business Soar

Overview of the course:

Today's "new" real estate environment requires an entirely different skills set. Good old fashioned prospecting, negotiation skills, and superb service are not only back in style-they're a necessity! In order to list and sell real estate like crazy, agents need the best of the "tried and true" as well as innovative ways to implement today's technological advances even on a limited budget. Conference Brochure Description: Innovations are hitting our industry at a dizzying pace. Rather than being overwhelmed by the change, this session will reveal the 22 secrets you need today to list and sell real estate like crazy tomorrow.

Format: Three hours Continuing Education (160 minutes of instruction plus 20 minutes for breaks)

Learning Objectives: Participants in this session will learn:

1. How to implement 22 different strategies to help them list and sell real estate like crazy
2. How to increase their rate of return from their marketing and prospecting efforts by modifying traditional lead generation strategies to match the wants and needs of today's consumers.
3. The strategies they need to more effectively assist consumers by using "give to get" and multisensory marketing.
4. How to integrate the most effective traditional real estate strategies with new technologies including syndication strategies, blogging, and social networking.
5. How to adjust their communications to best fit consumer needs.

Session Outline

I. The Key Shift to Make: Discuss Value, Not Price.

II. Key strategies to differentiate your services from the competition, obtain more signed listings, and earn more full commissions.

III. The best buyer's market in 70 years

1. Plenty of inventory, historically low interest rates, and a considerable amount of great bargains due to foreclosures.
2. Three reasons to buy now.

IV. Get buyers off the fence and under contract

V. Marketing to Different Generations

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3. Build a Successful On-line Business for Less than $2.00 per day

Budget tight? No problem! In this fast paced, cutting edge technology session you will learn the secrets of creating a successful on-line real estate business for less than $2.00 per day! If you’re not marketing your listings on over 40 different websites, at least fifteen different video channels, “linking in,” and tracking where your leads originate as well as how many convert, this session will show you how. You’ll learn how to capitalize on viral marketing, make your website super sticky, and become the “Mayor” of your own zip code. Best of all, you don’t need to be a geek to do any of this. It’s as easy as “point and click.”

Learning Objectives: Participants in this session will learn:

A.How to implement the latest technological advances into their business including syndication strategies, blogging, and social networking.

B. How to generate and convert web leads—effortlessly!

C. How to leverage Web 2.0 for business development and efficient customer service.

This session may be presented in a 90 minute, 120 minute, or 180 minute format.

Results: By learning how to identify and implement technological innovations, participants will reduce their marketing costs, improve customer satisfaction, and increase their bottom line. This fast-paced presentation provides specific strategies that will provide participants with a significant competitive advantage in 2009 and beyond.

Designed for: Broker/owners, managers, and experienced real estate agents. The broker/owner presentation demonstrates how to capitalize on the latest trends to increase office profitability and improve recruiting. The agent presentation focuses on how to market more effectively on the web, create better customer satisfaction, and increase profitability. Both versions will help participants to identify key strategies to implement for 2009.

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4. Coach Your Office to Increased Profitability

What do agents want today when you try to recruit them?  EVERYTHING!  The market is slow, budgets are tight and many agents are exiting the business.  This session gives you concrete, inexpensive steps that you can take to provide your agents with cutting-edge technology, plenty of leads, while simultaneously building your profitability.

Your audience will learn:                     

1. Traditional and Internet marketing strategies to increase your profitability
2. Five recruiting strategies to attract more high quality, productive agents
3. Pricing strategies to help your agents cope with a changing market
4. The best stealth strategy to recruit Gen X and Gen Y agents to your office
5. A simple coaching model to improve profitability

Session Outline  (Topics may change to fit time parameters)

1. The profile of real estate success
2. Recruit to what’s missing: diversity needs, demographics of your area, price ranges
3. Hot recruiting niches
4. Discard strength-weakness model in favor or strength-strength model.
5. Replace the old centric models of real estate with the collaborative approach Gen Y demands.
6. Managing and retaining across the generations
7. Post closing survey—customer experience, retention mechanism, and risk management tool
8. Getting more bang for your advertising buck—multisensory marketing plus the secrets to writing great ad copy
9. Tech tools to increase profitability and attract the best young talent
   a.  Market on over 40 different websites
   b. Video marketing on 15 different video sites
   c. Dot-mobile marketing
   d. Voice to text and click to call technology
   e. Blogging made simple
10. Two stealth strategies to reach Gen X and Gen Y recruits
11. The power of social networking
12. Analyze analytics
13. A simple six step coaching model to help your agents become more effective and more profitable

Designed for Broker owners and managers, this session may be presented in a 90 minute, 120 minute, or 180 minute format.

Results: Your agents will be more effective as well as more profitable once they identify their strengths and eliminate non-revenue producing activities. This fast-paced presentation provides proven recruiting and retention strategies that will provide you with a significant competitive advantage in 2009 and beyond.

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5. Don't Call Them Wealthy: Secrets to Working with Affluent Clients

Ninety-two percent of today’s millionaire’s are self made—don’t call them “wealthy’—they call themselves “successful” members of the middle class. If you represent the top 10 percent of clients in your market area, this session will unlock the best kept secrets you need to know to represent the most affluent real estate clients in your market.

Don’t call today’s millionaires “wealthy’—they’re “successful” members of the middle class. This session unlocks the 12 best kept secrets you need to know to represent the most affluent clients in your market.

Designed for: Broker/owners, managers, and experienced real estate agents.

Goal: To assist participants in doing a better job of providing the utmost in customer service to their clients not only in the luxury price range, but in all other price ranges as well.

Learning objectives: Participants in this session will:

1. Be able to integrate the four pillars upon which luxury branding and marketing rely.
2. Tap into the unconscious buying triggers that motivate buyers in all price ranges.
3. Market more effectively to international clients based upon their “culture code.”

Session Outline:

1. Dream-weaving: You’re not in the real estate business.
2. You attract who you are: how the Attraction Principle plays out in the luxury market.
3. “It pays to be seen in the right places.”
   a. The four pillars of branding your real estate business.
   b. Making the connection and keeping it strong.
4. How to avoid the one mistake that will kill your luxury business in a heartbeat.
5. Why Miami rather than Beverly Hills? When knowledge of the local inventory is not enough.
6. Unlocking the luxury buying code: secrets from the Fortune 100’s leading marketing guru, Clotaire Rapaille.
7. Shark aquariums and James Bond rooms: what today’s buyers really want.
   a. Multi-sensory marketing.
8. The Russians Are Coming: Tapping the buying codes from other cultures.
9. Never make another referral again: the proper etiquette for introducing your best clients to the best service providers.
10. Discreetly marketed properties—it’s all about your network.
11. Strategies for Slaying the Dragon in the Deal: when product inventory and market statistics are critical.
12. All you have to do is to move your clothes—providing the ultimate real estate customer experience.

Length: This session may be presented as 90, 120, or 180 minutes.

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6. Get Balanced or Get Crazy!

Training shows agents what to do and how to do it. Coaching removes the blocks that keep them from doing it. This interactive session shows agents how to attract high quality clients, how to create more time and money in their lives, and how small changes today can create huge results tomorrow.

During this session participants will experience:

1. How to create more time and simplify their busy schedule.
2. The high cost both physically and emotionally of running on adrenaline as well as how to break this costly habit.
3. Hold off “Psychic vampires” (i.e. clients, friends, and business associates who waste your valuable time and drain your energy) with your own brand of “garlic”.
4. Don’t jog—laugh! Easy self care strategies to help you feel and look great!
5. How to create reserves in all areas of your life, including financial, mental, spiritual, and emotional.

While many people promote themselves as a coach, few of them have been formally trained. Even fewer hold designations. Bernice is one of a handful of coaches who holds the Master Certified Coach designation from the International Coach Federation. Experience what it’s like to be coached by one of the best in the business!

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7. How to Create and Sell a Saleable Real Estate Business

(1.5 to 3 hours)

How will you close the biggest deal of your career—your transition from active agent to retiree? If you want a smooth "closing" that will net you money for years to come, attend this session to learn what to do now to maximize your future retirement income. Topics include how to brand your current business, how to strengthen, document, and transfer your book of business, and strategies for producing income even though you are retired.

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8. Ready, Set, Go— Negotiate Your Way to More Real Estate Dough™!

Negotiation skills are pivotal to real estate sales success and yet, agents have little opportunity to practice these skills except when they’re in front of clients. Now imagine a session where every participant practices their negotiation skills in at least 20 unique scenarios that change constantly throughout a lively and challenging real estate simulation game. Real Estate Dough™ Negotiation is the most exciting and fun way to hone negotiation and sales skills. In addition to improving negotiation, Real Estate Dough™ also reinforces the following core real estate skills:

1. Win-win negotiations:
   Real Estate Dough™ rewards collaboration rather than competitive play.
2. Referrals
   Agents earn “escrow dough” by making referrals to other players throughout the game. This referral behavior translates into “real dough” for their real estate business. 
3. 1031 Exchanges
   The game encourages trades between the players and can be used to illustrate how to do both simple and complex property exchanges.
4. Business planning
   Real Estate Dough™ forces players to make decisions about which opportunities will provide the most return for their business. It also forces them to evaluate financial priorities when faced with having to cancel an existing escrow (i.e. cancel an existing deal that is under contract.) It dramatically illustrates the importance of paying attention to what’s closest to the money.
5. Generational differences
   Real Estate Dough™ assists members of Gen X to be more collaborative, since this generation focuses on doing it “my way.” It also assists members of Gen Y, who dislike confrontation or face-to-face negotiations, to become more effective at in-person negotiation. The game can also be used to break down generational barriers by creating teams that pair younger players with older players.
6. Niche marketing
   Real Estate Dough™ rewards players that identify a niche and build it. This translates into applying niche marketing techniques within one’s actual real estate business.

In addition to these benefits for players, managers can use the game to uncover the following:

1. Negotiation behavioral style: the game quickly reveals who is collaborative and who does not play well in a team environment.
2. Real Estate Dough™ can be used as a powerful recruiting tool that allows managers to get to know potential recruits better, uncover how they work with the office team, and do so in a non-threatening environment.
3. The game reveals who struggles to understand new concepts as well as who learns easily.
4. Real Estate Dough™ helps managers identify their agents’ attitudes to rules and policies. The game reveals exactly how well players follow the rules or attempt to change them. 
5. Real Estate Dough™ provides a vehicle for strengthening existing teams. It can also be used to stimulate cooperation in areas where there is conflict. For example, if the sales staff and the administrative staff are at odds with each other, pair members of sales and administrative on the same team. Working together, even if it is in just a game, is one of the best ways to strengthen the entire office/company team.

Designed for: Broker/owners, managers, plus new and experienced real estate agents

Results: More closed transactions due to agents mastering the power of win-win negotiations, less generational conflict, increased number of out-going referrals, improved business planning skills, plus increased awareness of the value of various types of transactions.

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9. How Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z Will Revolutionize Real Estate Tomorrow

For the first time in history, the age of our clients determine not only how we will communicate with them, but the strategies that they will use for buying or selling their home. This session can be a stand alone or combined with the "Why Didn't You Just Text Me" session to create a full day of training. This session may be delivered in a 75, 90, 120, or 180 minute format.

I. Learning Objectives: Participants in today's session will learn:

1. What works across all generations and what doesn't.
2. How to improve your personal communication skills based upon technological expertise and generational differences.
3. Twelve new web resources to boost your profit.

II. The Great Divide: Age. When it comes to real estate, there is a BIG generation gap.

III. For the first time in history, your marketing messages must fit the age of your target market.

1. Web Resource #1: Meet them on their own turf—Twitter and Facebook
2. Adapt Your Style to each generation
3. What Gen X Demands: Stop Telling, Start Questioning
4. What Gen Y Demands—collaboration
5. Go for Win-Win Negotiations
6. It's about the Results
7. Web Resource #2: Communicate the way that your clients want to receive information—Jott.com—voice to text.

IV. Do you have a Gen X/Gen Y mindset?

V. Five Steps to an Effective Marketing Campaign

VI. Web marketing 2.0—Wow! This site is about me and my lifestyle!

1. Web Resources including Gasbuddy.com, Eventful.com, Walkscore.com, RottenNeighbor.com, Point2Agent, and Obeo.com

VII. The hottest new niche market: Solo females

VIII. Video—the HOT new application for 2009

1. HDTV virtual tours
2. Web Resource #10: Syndicate your virtual tour videos to 15 different video sites including YouTube.com, Google Video, and Yahoo Video through TubeMogul.com.
3. Ten ways to use video when working with Gen X and Gen Y clients

IX. 21st Century Floor Time—Insights from Gen X

X. Body language—what they're really saying

1. Buyer Buying Signs
2. Negotiation

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10. Unleash the Best Kept Secrets of Stellar Real Estate Success

Have you ever wondered how some people seem to achieve sales success with such ease? The secret is not in their sales techniques, their websites, or even their behavioral style. In fact, stellar success has its roots in another place entirely. If you’re ready to make it to the top, this session will show you how to remove the blocks to your success and make your business soar beyond your wildest dreams. 

What your audience will learn:

1. The #1 secret for attracting high quality business effortlessly
2. How to expand their reach to serve more customers and hence, increase their income
3. How to create an on-line presence that attracts rather than repels web visitors
4. Six proven principles that attract high quality clients
5. The five “laws” of stratospheric success and how to implement them in your business

This session may be presented in a 90 minute, 120 minute, or 180 minute format.

Designed for: Broker/owners, managers, plus new and experienced real estate agents.

Results: Participants will uncover factors that block their success as well as learning proven strategies that will improve both their business and the quality of the clients they attract.

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11. Waging War on Real Estate's Discounters
(Earning Full Commissions in a Competitive Environment)

The media and the so-called alternative business models have hammered the point that commission is the only factor to consider when hiring a real estate agent. The strong market of the past few years has allowed these models to prosper at the cost of the full service model. Nevertheless, only 15 percent of consumers choose their broker based upon the commission rate. Five percent want and will pay for premium service. The other 80 percent want value, which is a combination of both commission and service. The issue facing full service brokerages is how to educate sellers about the benefits of using a full service brokerage. Research collected from across the country consistently shows the same pattern: a skilled real estate broker who charges a full commission normally nets the seller more money than using a broker who discounts.  

Results: More listings taken at a full commission, increased profitability, better market exposure for your inventory, increased referrals, and improved customer retention. If you’re tired of having to defend your commission at every turn, Bernice’s presentation will show you how to reclaim your power and start earning the full commissions you deserve.

Designed for: Broker/owners, managers, plus new and experienced real estate agents.

Your audience will learn:

• The key strategies for earning full commissions from Bernice’s book, Waging War on Real Estate’s Discounters.
• How to create a Premium Marketing Plan that uses technology, competitor reconnaissance, and guerilla marketing strategies to differentiate their services from the competition and thereby convert their clientele into raving fans.
• Over 25 ways for agents to create their personal “unique selling proposition” that will assist them in overcoming both discount and traditional brokerage competitors.
• Proven scripts and dialogues to overcome the discount objection.

Purpose: To help full service agents who charge a full commission create a unique selling proposition that net sellers the highest price possible in the shortest amount of time.  

Special Features: Waging War on Real Estate’s Discounters (Alternative Title: Earning the Commissions You Deserve in a Competitive Environment) is a fast paced program packed with proven scripts and strategies to help agents earn the full commissions they deserve. Participants will walk away with over 25 strategies to make their marketing plan unique. This session can be presented in a 90 minute, half-day, or full day format.

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12. Why Didn't You Just Text Me? -Nine Secrets for Bridging the Generational Communication Gap

For the first time in history, the age of our clients influences how we will communicate with them. This is especially challenging for the real estate industry where the median age of Realtors® is 52 and the median age of first time buyers is 32. This session unlocks the secrets of communicating across the generations.

Agent version: focuses on how to communicate more effectively with clients.

Manager/Broker/Owner version focuses on how to work with and recruit agents from different generations.

This session may be delivered as 75 minutes, 90 minutes, 120 minutes, or 180 minutes.

Learning Objectives: Participants in this session will learn:      

A. How to improve their personal communication skills based upon technological expertise and generational differences.

B. Strategies to be more effective with all clients, no matter what their age.

C. How to implement the latest technological trends into their business including syndication strategies, blogging, and social networking.

D. How to convert more web leads by responding more quickly to website inquiries.  

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For more information on sponsoring a class email us.

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