Ever heard any of these in your office?
“The interest rates have slowed down buyers.”…
“The bad weather stopped some buyers from coming out today.”…
“The other agent’s charging a cheaper commission.”…
“I only do private sales because auctions don’t work here.”…
“The vendor just won’t change their minds.”
It’s very easy for us to justify why someone or something else has caused us to lose business to a competitor, not sell a property, or not obtain vendor-paid advertising.
Unfortunately though, it’s a mentality that is reaching epidemic proportions in our industry, and if we don’t call these excuses out for what they are (at every level) then agents are simply sitting ducks for either an elite agent, a third-party aggregator, or…the ‘dreaded’ AI!
So where do these excuses stem from, how has this ‘excuse culture’ grown, and how can we generate some accountability which will lead to better-ran businesses within Real Estate?
No one likes to be wrong!
Ever since we were little, our minds have been designed to find ways to escape blame, with our ego acting as a protective force around our fledgling identities.
It’s a human trait that is quite unique in my opinion, because it instantly shows us whether someone has either an accountable, growth mindset, or whether they’ve not quite worked on that awareness piece of the puzzle that allows them to see past their ego in order to progress their work or life.
Now, for a lot of people (I have faith in the humans within our game), I do believe that this is a trait that people can be guided towards, but making excuses is something of a habit/addiction so it’ll take patience in order to make that switch.
Attitude reflects leadership
This one might cut into a few egos…!
If you look across the way in which the leadership within the industry is broadcasting information, not just internally but also when reporting the macro conditions of the market, there’s a clear gap that allows for excuses to creep in.
Whether it’s the reactionary way in which we tend to coach, the vernacular/importance that we put around changes in market conditions (internally or to the greater population) and our sentiments around them, or the monotonous nature of our training programmes and conferences, us leaders have a lot to answer for when it comes to the current state of play.
I’m including myself in this, because another big contributor towards it is the lack of guts to stick our necks out and go against the grain for the betterment of the industry.
Instead of telling the industry what they need to hear, we tell them what they want to hear and throw a line like ‘this will make you more money’ in front of it.
How are we improving the industry if all we do is pat them on the bum and tell them it’s all going to be fine if they just keep sticking to scripts and dialogues that existed since the naughties?!
We’re too quick to ditch new processes
This one is more understandable, because when trying something new seemingly costs you business…the resolve to try it again gets tested!
With so many new technologies, software solutions and various platforms, one area that is barely talked about is a solid ‘test & learn’ process that we need to develop greater understanding around when adopting and adapting our business to suit the evolving landscape.
Managing expectations, mitigating risk, assessing potential losses and projecting potential wins should all be a part of the process when assessing and onboarding new kit, but in reality we’re lucky as a business to ask more than 5 questions before we ‘give it a go’!
Why learn, when ‘easy’ is available?!
Taking a path less trodden is obviously more challenging than remaining on the path you’re on.
But…you’ll always get what you always had if you always do what you always did!
Sticking to what is familiar is a very common thread in our industry, and it’s understandable when we have enough stresses and strains without having to go through voluntary inconvenience.
Whether it’s our mentality towards customers, whoever we go to for guidance and coaching, or finding ways to improve but staying within our industry to find it, we go through similar cycles when trying to find answers to challenges.
Change is such a pain in the arse for the majority of us, and the challenge with it is that we struggle to see past the initial pain in order to see the better destination on the horizon.
There’s a diagram called the ‘Kubler-Ross Change Curve’ that shows that we go through 7 stages of emotion whenever we’re faced with change…that’s annoying!
As we all know though, a lot of the time it’s on the other side of change that we find progress, and we can’t keep hiding from it.
So how can we switch this around?
The simple reality around improving ourselves is this – if our reasons for improving outweigh our excuses for staying as is, then we’ll find the energy and focus to make the necessary improvements.
So maybe we’re looking at it the wrong way.
Perhaps if we look for better reasons for improving instead of just finding ways to plug holes in deficiencies, then maybe the excuses might not feel as valid?
For example, we’re constantly told that ‘more’ is the answer.
More appraisals, more calls, more knocks, more emails, more posts on socials.
It’s one thing to increase our numbers, but to be constantly hammered with this is plain tiring, and increases inefficiencies by ignoring our %-conversion rate on the efforts we are putting out there.
We were then given these brilliant platforms that used AI to actively predict who may be more likely to sell, but for many, it led to more rejection because they got in the door, but still lost out.
It feels like these things are packaged up as solutions, but all they provide us with are excuses because we’re ‘doing what we’re told’ but not getting any further…sound familiar?!
So instead of incessantly flogging our guts out and getting told that rejection is a good thing, why don’t we improve our conversion skills to make all of our existing efforts worthwhile?
I mean, wouldn’t it be way better for our business (and our ego) if we were way more impressive to customers more often?!
Isn’t that a better reason for getting more education and coaching around listing presentations?
Opportunities are generated through effort, and when our effort isn’t rewarded we find it easier to make excuses that aren’t of our own doing.
But cultivation and conversion…that’s a learned skill, and it’s our learned skills that really make the money we’re after.
If we realise that it’s conversion that makes us money, and have control over improving that, then isn’t that a greater reason for improvement as opposed to mindlessly spinning our wheels for opportunities?
My point is this: in order to create better problems like having too much business, we need to resolve our existing challenges by looking at them in a different way.
We can’t keep allowing for the same excuses by constantly being fed the same rhetoric and buying into it, it’s only holding us back as an industry.
And if making more money isn’t a strong enough reason to improve for you, then look at the things or people you love… and make all the effort worth it for them by focusing on improving your skills instead of finding excuses for letting them down.
As Jim Rohn famously said – ‘Don’t wish for things to be easier, wish that you were better.’
In other words – stop the excuses, and find the right reasons.
