How Hope Plays a Role in Your Sales Success By Mary Johnson

Today is a great day to renew your sense of HOPE.  Why?  Because this is the perfect time of year to build listing inventory and reinforce the relationships that strengthen our business.  Let’s face it, we are nearing the season when most of our competition begins to snooze.  Sometime after Halloween and right up to Super Bowl, many Realtors “buy in” to the idea that everyone is waiting until spring to move.   What a great opportunity to prospect and get listings!

But hard work alone won’t cut it.  Our work must be infused with inspiration!  And that begins with HOPE.  Keeping hope alive is an ongoing process, so if we’ve lost it, how do we go about finding it again?

The book that Floyd Wickman and I just published, LESSONS FROM MY BROTHER ZIG, features a chapter on creating and maintaining hope.  Within it are nine ways to find encouragement.  Here are a couple of them – to get you started on your way to your best-ever fall market!

1.  Use affirmations to improve your self-talk

When you catch yourself thinking negative thoughts, use an affirmation to turn your attitude around.  An affirmation is a positive statement, made in the present tense, as though it were true.  When you affirm what you want, you begin to change your mind and ultimately, your behavior.  Choose a phrase or a prayer.  My friend, Maria Vaill, says part of The Master Salesperson’s Pledge:  “Everything that happens – happens in my best interest.”  In The Floyd Wickman Program, we teach our students to say:  “If anyone can, I can!”  What phrase will work for you?  Say it often!

2.  Form or join a group

Find a group of like-minded individuals and meet to sharpen your skills, to learn, and to share your successes and challenges.  If there isn’t a group you can join, create one by thinking of people you enjoy working with, then suggest getting together to help one another increase production.   You might consider inviting a few new agents to join you.  Their enthusiasm will rub off on you, and in return you can share your hard-earned wisdom.

No one succeeds alone.  When we encourage others, we find encouragement ourselves.  As Zig Ziglar told Floyd:  “Encouragement is the fuel of hope.”   It may not always seem like it, but all around you are those who believe in you and want you to succeed.  Build a strong belief in yourself and in them.  Nurture HOPE.  When you do, you establish a strong foundation so that as you face adversity, you are able to weather the storm and come out stronger on the other side.

Learn more about the extraordinary lessons Zig Ziglar taught us and how they can change your life as well!