Hard Tasks Pay

In 30 years I have interviewed countless winners, and have noticed one big difference between winners and their mediocre counterparts:

Winners do the hard tasks. Winners understand that the hard tasks pay.

In truth, the ‘hard’ tasks aren’t hard at all. Simply, salespeople don’t like doing these tasks so they avoid them. In their minds, they make these tasks seem harder than they really are. They invent excuses for not doing them. When asked by their leader, “How much prospecting have you done this week?”, they reply, “I’ve been too busy”. This is nonsense, and a fundamental cause of low results.

I doubt that there is an occupation where people love every task they are asked to do and this is certainly true of Sales. Salespeople do not like certain tasks, but like them or not, some tasks are important and must be done.

How much better would your results be if you did more of these important tasks?

• Chasing new business – good old-fashioned prospecting.Speak to 40 potential sellers every working day. This would lead to more listing appointments – an activity salespeople love to do.

• Practise your listing presentation – winners practise their listing presentation and constantly tweak their presentation materials. Listing isn’t about getting a signed authority; it’s about listing a property under the right circumstances. Market price needs to be discussed openly and honestly, with sellers set up for the need to price their property to sell.

  Gone are the days when we take on sellers who say, “If I get my price, I’ll sell”. Leave those clients for desperate salespeople who don’t prospect. Choose motivated clients and give effective listing presentations. The better your listing presentation, the more saleable your listings will be.

• Coaching sellers – passing on market feedback to your sellers, discussing the current asking price and whether it’s working. Recommend repositioning the price as necessary: this would make more of your listings saleable. Overpriced stock does not sell.
• Qualifying buyers and conducting property presentations with buyers who are motivated to buy now. Qualified prospects buy. Nosey neighbours and lookers, prevalent at open homes, don’t buy. Devoting more time showing qualified buyers through properties at market price is a sure-fire way to more sales.

• Negotiating sales – salespeople love doing this activity, butto be involved in more negotiations, you must do more of the activities that lead to negotiations.

This brings us back to prospecting – talking to people – delivering good listing presentations, better seller coaching, and working with qualified buyers. One activity links to others, and all lead to more negotiations and then to more sales.

The Reward

The reward for doing the actions that most salespeople avoid is that you get results that most salespeople don’t get. The hard tasks pay!

The market often gets blamed for poor results, but it’s not the market: it’s low knowledge, low skill and low action levels that cause poor results.

I can’t control the market, but I can control me. I can study and learn. I can practise and hone my skill. I can do more of the right actions – those tasks that mediocre salespeople call ‘hard’.

And so can you!