Craig Proctor, Real Estate Agent Coach | Getting The Motivation to Succeed

This week I’m joined by Craig Proctor, he created the “your home sold, guaranteed” program, one of the precursors to the current iBuyers.

 

In year three of his real estate career he was one of the first REALTORS to offer an upfront written guarantee to the seller. That moment he says he completely separated his unique selling proposition from all of the other REALTORS as was named the #1 ReMAX agent in the world that year. It basically worked like this, if they bought any of his listings he would guarantee the sale of their house. Today we know this is something sellers want.

 

A lot of real estate agents when they hear about guaranteed sales or iBuyers have a negative perception of these. We have to understand the reason they exist is because this is what sellers want! Usually when agents don’t like it they say something like it's a bait and switch, or you  give the seller a really low offer, they just don’t understand how it works. With the guaranteed sale program we are not offering 100% of what the house would market for, but we are offering an aggressive number because we want the seller to take it and buy Ione of our listings. 

 

“The only vote that counts is the customer.”

 

A lot of agents did not like the program, I really did create an unfair advantage for myself, buyers and sellers loved it and other agents didn’t understand it.

 

“To be successful real estate agents need three things - Systems, Intellectual property and technology.” 

 

Most agents think of a real estate coach as someone who will hold them accountable, or maybe share some ideas, or maybe a motivator. What we do is very different, it is a systematic way we teach  agents - A lead generation system, a conversion system, a presentation system, a recruiting and training system … Every part of growing a large real estate team. We leverage the agent in three different ways, we fix their lead generation system. Then interdict technology to increase capacity. Then we teach them how to hire the right people. Eventually the real estate business starts to run itself, that is when you have a business and not a job.

 

Everything you want to do in real estate has already been done by thousands of people. If I wanted to learn to play golf, I'd find a good golfer to teach me. The problem in the real estate industry is a lot of coaches and trainers have never held a real estate license … and big names too! They have never had a buyer in their Carr, never negotiated an offer. Because I was a successful agent for 20 years I probably understand agents better, because eI was in the trenches for so long. It’s hard for a coach or a Guru to understand the life of a REALTOR if they have never been a REALTOR.

 

In the beginning I knew nothing about marketing, I wasted thousands of dollars on advertising that did nothing. Then I attended this conference and learned about direct response marketing, and that the only reason you should spend even one dollar on marketing or advertising is if it is trackable, and you can test it and show a return on your investment. I took some of these concepts, they asked what sets you apart from the other agents, I didn’t know! I talked to my dad(he’d been in real estate for years) and asked what would be the boldest offer I could make to a seller? His answer was If I don’t sell your house, I’ll buy it. I started advertising “Other agents will promise to sell your house, Craig Proctor will guarantee it, in writing.” I think in my career of order 25 years I’ve only ended up buying two houses.

 

In real estate the pricing algorithms are getting better. We used to have travel agents and stock brokers … Now my 82 year old dad doesn’t use a stock broker and he outperformed my broker last year. What is happening in real estate is technology is getting a better handle on what houses are worth. This is going to be a bigger thing, people want convenience. Social media, the way we deliver our message, the way we retarget, the omnipresence - It’s just an exciting time to be a marketer.

 

“In order to make a quantum leap in your business, you first must make a quantum leap in your thinking.”

 

When REALTORS come to me they typically say Craig I want to do better, but I don’t want to change what I’m doing. I tell everyone on day one, you didn’t come to me to learn how to do what you do now a little bit better, you came to me because you want to learn radically different ways to get exponentially better results. For that to happen we undo what they have learned to do and we’ve got to start all over again because how we think controls what we do, and what we do controls the outcome. If you think the wrong way you’ll never do the things I teach and you’re never going to get these results. You may be very good at what you know, but  getting better at what you know will only give you incremental gains. To get exponential gains you have to learn what you don’t know, so be curious and don’t immediately judge a concept or an idea. We want to know what is going to be big and to be ahead  the curve on it.

 

If this resonates with you, set up a free call with me and my team, go to proctorcall.com. this is not a big sales pitch, I’ll ask you some questions about your business now and about your vision for the future of your business. If after that 45 minute conversation you want to work with us, great! If not you’ll be on your merry way and keep doing what works for you.