Words to Never Use When Negotiating
If someone were to ask you, do you ever call your clients or someone else’s clients names, most agents would say, “I would never do that!”
Nevertheless, how many times have you heard another agent describe a buyer or seller as being “greedy,” “a bottom feeder,” or a “low baller?” 
If you have ever used any of these words when negotiating, you are probably creating a serious roadblock that could result in losing the deal. So, what should you do instead?
First, avoid using these terms. Instead, remove your judgment by simply stating:
My buyers have elected to make an offer substantially under the asking price.
There’s no need to justify or explain. Be sure to follow up by also saying,
About 50 percent of the time, we can put these deals together. Let’s keep the negotiation going to see if this is part of that 50 percent that will ultimately close.
Three Criteria Every Buyer Should Meet
As we move into a slowing market, the number of buyers searching for homes is dwindling. As a result, it may be tempting to work with buyers you would have never considered working with over the last few years. Nevertheless, the real estate basics never go out of style, regardless of what the market does. 
Now it’s more important than ever that you carefully screen your buyers and then set them up to win on the house they ultimately decide to buy. Consequently, be sure each of your buyers meets the following “must haves” before you spend any of your valuable time trying to locate property for them:
- They must have a written pre-approval letter, or even better, a fully underwritten pre-approval (i.e., all that is required to close the loan is the appraisal and title work).
- They must be willing to work with you exclusively.
- They must also have the desire, need, and ability to purchase in the next 30-90 days.
If they don’t meet each of these criteria, there’s a good chance they’re not serious about buying. Don’t waste your time!
How to Still Keep Your Income Strong in a Slowing Market
As we move into what is increasingly looking like a major downturn in the market, here are three critical steps to take to keep your income strong, even as there are fewer transactions.
To succeed in a slowing market, focus on the prospecting activities that are creating the best results. Failure to track where your leads originate or to follow up on every lead generated is a costly mistake. To identify what is
working best in your business, go through every transaction you have closed this year and write down what prospecting activity generated that lead. Next, spend at least 80 percent of your time engaging in the top two or three prospecting behaviors that resulted in closed transactions.
In a market downturn like the one we’re currently facing, it’s critical to double down on prospecting your sphere and past client database. Top agents typically generate 50-60 percent of their business through referrals from their past clients and sphere. Using social media, text, or some other type of communication, contact five of your contacts every day of the month (that’s your top 150 contacts). Also, make sure you see them face-to-face at least quarterly.
Our “new normal” is a back-to-basics market. Focus on lead generation activities such as open house, door knocking, or holding client appreciation events that put you in face-to-face contact with potential new clients.
Lag Time
Have you ever wondered why changing some of your behaviors is easy and changing others is so difficult? One of the primary reasons may be due to “lag time,” the time it takes between taking action and experiencing the result of that action. 
Psychological research has shown the best time to “reinforce” a new behavior is right after the behavior occurs. Yet most of the changes we would like to implement in our lives take time to create. In fact, activities such as earning a college degree, raising a child, or fulfilling your life’s purpose can take years.
Since obtaining reinforcement often takes more time than we are willing to spend, we often give up on the new behavior before the full effects have a chance to take hold. One of the primary sources of frustration occurs when we want instant gratification and life simply doesn’t cooperate.
If you would like to avoid being trapped by life’s lag time, here are three suggestions.
- Let go of the idea that change will take place instantly. In most cases, whatever distresses you in life took a fair amount of time to get that way. Obstetricians routinely tell women it will take nine months to totally lose the weight from their pregnancy. It takes 3 years to totally return to the state the mother was in prior to the pregnancy. Consequently, it often takes an equal, if not greater, amount of time to remove the source of your distress.
- A major obstacle in dealing with lag time is focusing on the goal rather than the process. Imagine you are driving from Los Angeles to New York. If you only focus on how quickly you can get to New York, the time on the road will be both an inconvenience and a frustration. In contrast, if you focus on the process of making the most of each part of your drive, the drive itself becomes as fulfilling as reaching your destination. Thus, focus on making the most of each moment rather than focusing exclusively on how quickly you can arrive at your goal or destination.
- Recognize small changes over time lead to huge results. For example, eating an extra sandwich a day doesn’t seem like much. Yet, if you maintain this behavior for a year without changing your exercise or other eating habits, you will gain 52 pounds.
Small, incremental changes over time, whether positive or negative, can produce extraordinary differences in your life.
Two Ways to Build Your Referral Network
Real estate agents usually meet lots of potential leads. The question is how to build a connection. Here are two tried-and-true approaches that have withstood the test of time.
First, you must know what the group where you are prospecting is most likely to want and then make sure that’s what you give them. For example, if you’re door knocking in a specific area, most people are interested in knowing what has sold in their neighborhood.
On the other hand, if you’re involved in building a referral database from a charity that raises money for medical research, send monthly updates on new advances in research. Providing people with information on their interests is one of the best ways to turn them from leads into clients.