The Most Important Lesson I’ve Learned From Coaching

The Floyd Wickman Team blog by Mike Pallin

“FAITH IS THE ASSURANCE OF THINGS HOPED FOR, THINGS UNSEEN.”

 People who have faith are enviable. Faith in God. Faith in our country and our leaders. Faith in the economy. Faith in the inherent goodness of our fellow man. Faith in the laws of physics.

I believe you are fortunate if you find someone or something to believe in and have faith in, because faith is a source of hope. We all need hope. Encouragement is another source of hope. That’s one of the reasons we encourage our students to send out Good News Reports to their teammates whenever they put something together. As Zig taught Floyd, who taught us, “Encouragement is the fuel of hope.”

Coaching has taught me to have faith in the numbers. Floyd calls them SMART Numbers, because, “Numbers take the guesswork out of it.” Sometimes it takes a coach to get us to look at our numbers and learn from them, and sometimes it takes a coach with an objective point of view to interpret those numbers for us.

The first SMART Number that coaching made very clear to me was the law of averages. It goes something like this…If I talk to enough people who say no to me, eventually I will find someone to say yes. There’s a little bit of hope in ‘eventually’.

It’s almost funny, but it's really tragic, how few salespeople ever apply this fundamental principle. As Floyd says, “I didn’t invent the principles. I was just dumb enough to be smart enough to apply them.” Every successful career in real estate boils down to having enough conversations with the right people.

BUT WAIT, IT GETS BETTER. THERE’S EVEN MORE HOPE!

If you track your SMART Numbers over time, something even more valuable than the law of averages will appear in the relationship between activity and results. We call them ratios, and they can be the wellspring of hope.

Here is a for instance. Let’s say I look at one year’s worth of SMART Numbers and I see that in 12 months I went on 72 listing appointments and took 24 listings. That’s a 3:1 ratio. If my average commission is $3000, that means I am literally earning $1000 every time I go on a listing appointment. That’s encouraging.

By the way, I understand that no one is actually writing me a check for $1000 just for going on a listing appointment, but we’re talking about hope here. What if someone actually did write you a $1,000 check for every listing appointment? How many would you go on next week?

Now, let’s take it a step further. Let’s say I look at my 12-month SMART Numbers for conversations, and I had 1,152 conversations. Whew, that’s a lot. But if I divide 1,152 conversations by 72 listing appointments, I can see a 16:1 ratio. 16 conversations to every 1 listing appointment.

To continue with our hypothetical benefactor, that means I earn $62.50 for every conversation. Or what’s even more encouraging, I don’t have to wait for ‘eventually’ to hear someone say ‘yes’. I only have to hear ‘no’ 15 times before someone says yes. That’s encouraging.

How many numbers do I have to dial to have one conversation? How many people do I have to meet? How many posts, likes, shares, comments or tweets? How much time does that take me?

Once I know how long it takes to dial the numbers to have the conversations to schedule the appointments to get the listings that sell and close - that’s when I have real, visible, count-on-able HOPE.

Imagine this. You get on a call with 7 other like-minded agents from 7 different offices, and your team's coach. Everyone reports their SMART Numbers out loud and hears of their progress toward a goal. Then you each get a turn to offer an idea or technique that’s working; or ask for advice on how to solve a challenge, problem, or obstacle.

You are encouraged, supported, helped, and motivated every week. We call it R Squared Coaching and it’s $165 a month. Teams are forming right now for the new year. You can find more info by clicking here.