Hi Everyone;

As many of you know, CIR Realty sent almost the entire CIR Management Team down to NAR to learn new ways to better serve you. I wanted to share with you my favorite speaker and I have also included some notes if they are of interest to you. CIR Realty has ordered the audio tapes and they will be posted soon so you will be able to listen and learn from the talented speakers in the comfort of your own home.

Did you know the first 30 seconds of a meeting sets the tone? How do you do in the first 30 seconds? Tips below will ensure you make the most out of every valuable second. These valuable seconds lead to positive negotiations and money in your pocket.

A little about the speaker I loved……

Daniel Shapiro, Ph.D. Dealing with Emotions in Negotiation: Five Practical Tools

Emotions are the other half of all negotiations! Attendees learned how to deal effectively with the five core emotional concerns that significantly impact negotiating success. Drawing on years of research at the Harvard Negotiation Project, Shapiro described how appreciation, autonomy, affiliation, status, and role affect negotiations – and how they can be used for mutual benefit – whether a presenter, recipient, or influencer. Dr. Shapiro is co-author of Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as you Negotiate.

How to chart a winning course in negotiation.

2 major goals to excel at negotiating:

1. Maximize substance (price)
2. Relationship (seen as trusted advisor)

You need the following 2 tools to negotiate efficiently:

Reason – assess the value of the specific home. Study house values and comparables.
Emotion - How do you deal with your emotions, your clients emotions and the sellers emotions? Did you ever stop to think that you actually need to pay attention to everyone in your transactions? Think about the last time you were in a negotiation? Did you pay close attention to the emotions of everyone involved?

So how do you deal with emotions?

Here are some common suggestions we often hear when having to deal with emotions:

- “Don’t get emotional”
- “Don’t let your emotions get the better of you”
- “Deal directly with emotions”

You are not a robot! You can not ignore emotions!

What are the causes of emotion? What do you do with emotions? Sometimes, emotions are overwhelming to deal with.

In order to better understand and deal with emotions, you must focus on the 5 core concerns because they trigger many emotions!

Five Core Concerns

Appreciation

- Appreciation is powerful. No one likes to feel devalued or unheard. It has a BIG impact on emotions.
- When a client is upset, understanding the other’s point of view in not enough. Find merit in what they think, feel or do.
- Make sure you have communicated that you understand.

Autonomy

- The freedom to make decisions without impositions from others. For example: If someone went to your house this afternoon and rearranged all your furniture you might be upset and you would probably change it back. However, the other person may have felt they had the freedom to do that for you. Remember, it is not about the content, it is about the process. Remember the unwritten rule: ABCD “Always consult before deciding”.

Affiliation

- Emotional connection between you and another. Affiliation has a powerful impact on emotions. Fact: The same part of your brain responds to physical hurt but also hurt caused by rejection. That is how powerful emotions can be.

Role

- We play pre-established roles. Shape your roles and the roles of others. How can I make my role more fulfilling? How can I make my clients roles more fulfilling?

Status

- Your status in relation to another. We all have areas of particular status.

Understanding these five core concerns will help:

- Understand your clients emotions
- Stimulate helpful emotions in others and yourself

Build structural connections. Reduce personal distance. Structural connections hold us to our clients. Be sure to build a personal connection. How does a porcupine stay warm? By getting just close enough! So ask yourself ….Am I getting too close or not close enough to my clients?

Wishing you successful negotiating as you use the power of emotions to get the results you want!

Sincerely,

Anne Clarke
Marketing Manager

CIR Realty
anneclarke@cirrealty.ca  

Anne Clarke

NAR 2009 Day 4 – Sugar Ray Leonard delivers a Knock-Out performance!

The very last session of the NAR 2009 conference turned out to be one of the very best sessions of the entire conference – Sugar Ray Leonard.  That’s right, the legendary boxer has turned professional speaker and motivator.

As far as motivational sessions go, the basic messaging doesn’t really change - motivation must come from within, work  harder and smarter than your competition, don’t let other’s tell you you can’t do something, etc.  What was special about Sugar Ray’s session was how he adapted his boxing career into his talk.  After talking about something specific like “don’t let others tell you what you can’t do”, then he would show a video clip of one of his fights to drive home the point.  It was very well done and he received a standing ovation at the end.

Sugar Ray also happens to be a very nice guy too – he offered to take photos with anyone who wanted one after the session (about half the people attendance went to line up for that).

It was a fantastic wrap-up to the NAR 2009 conference.

I highly recommend all Realtors seriously consider attending a NAR conference in the future.  The conference is always in November and it moves to different cities – 2010 is in New Orleans, 2011 will be in San Francisco.

Ray

Monday was another very busy day at NAR, but the organizers forgot to include these sessions in the conference schedule. If they had, the number of attendees may have been 50,000 rather than 25,000 or so.

7:30am – Using Accountability to Achieve Your Goals

My first session started at the San Diego Athletic Club. Now… while I don’t consider myself to be a very motivated person… I do talk about going to the gym a lot. Pretty soon, I had people asking me “if” I went to the gym in the morning and people asking me to text them when I was going. I learned very quickly that when people are relying on you, that accountability can be a profound motivator to “put your money where your mouth is” and go to the gym, consistently update your blog each day, finish business tip videos or complete any other task you may have been putting off.

11:00am – Solidifying Trust and Credibility in Your Business

This session happened at the Riverwalk Golf Course (I thought the location for a session was pretty weird too). We were divided up into smaller groups, or a foursome as they liked to call it (only 3 in ours though), and we did an extremely powerful exercise that required us to spend 4 uninterrupted hours with the same people and play golf. At the beginning, everyone was a little nervous (my first shot went straight out of bounds), but after a half hour or so, everyone began to converse, high five, encourage each other and our real personalities shone through. By the end of the session, I felt a substantially stronger bond to the other 2 people. I trusted them, and realized that I would unequivocally refer my future business their way any day of the week.

5:00pm – 12 Brains Are Better Than One

The last session of the day started at our hotel, but ended up at the Altitude Bar in the Gas Lamp Marriot in downtown San Diego. In total, I personally attended 11 sessions at the actual conference center out of the approximately 130 available. After talking to our group of 12 people that had ultimately accumulated, I found out that as a group, the number of unique sessions we attended was around the 40-50 mark. After brief conversations, I quickly had 12 different perspectives on sessions that everyone attended. From revolutionary negotiation strategies, to the direction brokerages are travelling, to new thoughts on internet buyers. The collaboration and mastermind type interaction of the group enabled me to duplicate my efforts, and multiply my knowledge, with key points of the most impactful sessions in just a couple hours.

Way Beyond the Classroom

In case you haven’t caught on yet, I didn’t attend a single session today. NAR has two very clear takeaways and neither can be ignored. The academic style sessions are obvious, but business and life occurs outside the classroom. From figuring out ways to achieve your goals through accountability, to leaving your elevator or sales pitches at home and simply having real conversations with your clients on golf courses, and in informal environments to build long term trust and credibility. And let’s not forget the power of learning from others who have walked the path before you, and can share some of the most important things you need to know along the way.

We’ll see everyone at NAR next year, and the year after that, and the one after that, and after that….

– Lindsey Smith
  Corporate Training Manager

  lsmith@cirrealty.ca
  www.cirrealty.ca

Lindsey Smith

My only criticism of the San Diego NAR Convention, up to this point, has been that 1 out of 3 sessions seem to be another spin on Social Media (Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, LinkedIn). Don’t get me wrong, Social Media is one of, if not THE… biggest trend emerging online and involving the way humans interact. We are seeing REALTORS® flock to it and make enormous efforts to adjust and adapt.

I believe it is time for a serious reality check.

Social Media cannot be ignored; however, as Jim Collins illustrated in his book “How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In”, businesses that neglect their primary source of business have a tendency to begin a slow decline that can sometimes end in disaster.

In John Moore’s NAR session on “4 Ways to Measure Word of Mouth Marketing”, he displayed the following stats regarding consumer interactions. Here is a breakdown of the way people actually discuss products and your services (this is what leads to the all important referral):

•  90% of the interactions happen OFFLINE (75% face to face, 15% voice to voice)
• 10% of these interactions happen ONLINE  (7% email & text, 2.5% social media)

Not sure if you caught that or not, but the conversations that we want our clients to have about us are happening 90% offline and only 2.5% of the total conversations are coming from Social Media.

When you look at your marketing plan, ask yourself if what you are doing is going to get people talking about you… AND understand that the conversation your clients have about you is going to be happening human to human in an offline environment. While Social Media cannot be ignored and will continue to grow, the tangible service part of your business must be remarkable enough to stimulate face to face conversations. This is still the primary source of real estate business.

– Lindsey Smith
  Corporate Training Manager

  lsmith@cirrealty.ca
  www.cirrealty.ca

Lindsey Smith

NAR 2009 – Understanding the Internet Buyer

Spencer Rascoff, COO of Zillow, gave a great talk on Internet buyers – trends and statistics. He also gave some basic social media survival skills which were some of the most sensible ideas I heard at the conference regarding SM.

Today, 84% of buyers use the Internet as a significant part of the buying process.

Internet buyers spend more time researching the market before they start working with an agent, compared to traditional buyers. However, Internet buyers spend less time working with an agent to find the right home, compared to traditional buyers, because of the advance research they do.

AGENT RESPONSE TIME IS BY FAR THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR TO AN INTERNET BUYER!

36% expect INSTANT response from agents now. A further 20% expect a response within 30 minutes. Unfortunately, average response time from agents today is 10 hours, 16 minutes.

Ray’s personal insight: The only way you can possibly satisfy the response demands of today’s buyer is with an iPhone, blackberry, etc. If you don’t have one of these devices yet, you must get one! Like it or not, consumers today are conditioned to receiving instantaneous communication, and their expectations from real estate agents are no different.

The momentum has clearly shifted to the iPhone over other devices. Over 19.5 million iPhones have been sold since June 2007. No other mobile device has had that kind of adoption rate.

Social Media Survival Skills:

1. Read twice as much as you comment (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

2. Comment twice as much as you blog.

3. Say goodbye to the hard sell, long live the soft sell. Hard selling with social media is disasterous.

4. Use links as the soft seller’s up-sell. IE; insert links to your website or blog rather than directly promoting your listings, services, etc.

5. Imagine your virtual communications in real life.

6. Acknowledge your bias. Transparency + consistency + thoughtfulness = credibility.

7. Be yourself and have fun.

Ray Stader

Some photos of the San Diego convention centre, the water front, and Seaport Village.

cirrealtyblog.com

NAR 2009 – Top Technology Tools for Today’s Real Estate Broker/Agent

This was today’s most fast paced, information packed session! In just two hours, John Mayfield covered over 30 software applications – all cutting edge and relevant to real estate agents.

I can’t possibly go into detail on each one with this blog post, so I’m just going to list them here. The keeners can simply Google anyone of these and you’ll find the website with all the information you need. Many of these applications are either FREE or cost very little, making them attractive to any agent.

iPhone Apps:

Evernote
Sketches
Yelp
FileMagnet
Voxie
RulerPhone
NearBuy

Software and Web Based Applications:

1. Wordpress – for blogging.

2. YouTube – not new, but ever more powerful. 2nd most popular search engine after Google.

3. Picasa – for organizing photos and also a way to create an animated photo presentation on YouTube.

4. Whalemail – a way to send email with very large attachments.

5. DropBox – sync your files online across multiple computers.

6. Carbonite – for backing up your data online.

7. Drop.io – sharing, collaboration and presentation software.

8. Google Docs – an entire software suite online. An alternative to Microsoft and it’s free.

9. YouMail – create personalized voicemail greetings and also voice to text.

10. Tablet PCs – a great tool for writing and signing contracts.

11. SnipIt – easy way to ’snip’ sections of a website and paste into email, word, PowerPoint, etc.

12. Wireless Projectors – great for doing presentations without the fuss of cables.

13. ISI Technologies – for creating online brochures.

14. Zmags

15. Desktop Author

16. P2FTurn – turn PDF files into page turning docs.

17. Google Alerts – set up on your own name so you can monitor what others may be saying about you!

18. Jing – add a VoiceOver to a PowerPoint presentation.

19. EyeJot – video email in a blink.

20. ScreenCast

21. Game Show Presenter

22. Auto-Play – for creating CD Roms

23. PresenterPro.com – create a PowerPoint, then email it out to clients and monitor who views it.

24. FriendFeed – aggregates various social media platforms.

25. Ning

26. Xobni (Inbox spelled backwards)

27. ZooKoda – convert your blog into a newsletter.

28. InBoxFX.com – custom design email stationery.

29. PostLets

30. Jott

Check out our blog at cirrealtyblog.com

Ray Stader

On the second day of NAR 2009 (in San Diego) I did attend 3 sessions including Paul Martinelli on “Levels of Decision Awareness” and an inspirational talk from Dr. Condoleezza Rice, but I wanted to briefly discuss a fundamental shift on the horizon, in the way that we do business.

Getting Your Head into the Cloud

Until now, in order to be on the cutting edge of technology, you needed a top of the line computer, the most recent, updated versions of software, and a vast amount of knowledge to ensure that you could utilize even a fraction of the functions available to you. This is all changing at an alarming pace.
For the Calgary real estate industry… I would like to introduce the idea of Cloud Computing. The concept is simple. If someone else has a powerful computer, the software programs, and the huge storage space, and if you have an internet connection, you can now access everything they have. This vast internet network of storage, processing, and applications is called the Cloud.

How Will the Cloud Explode Your Power?

Web based client management software (Prospects.com, Top Producer, Google Calendar), accounting programs (Quickbooks), online data backup & storage, video editing, and outsourcing can all be done through the Cloud. In fact, if all these applications and power are able to be accessed through the Cloud, the computer you own will not need software or updates. The hardware needs to be very simple, only get you online, and everything will be done through a browser type interface (not unlike the current IPhone).

Picture this… you get a listing signed up (signed on your laptop using a Wacom Bamboo tablet), take some photos, a 1.5 min video tour on your digital camera and write down a few point form notes on some key features. With your USB internet stick, you upload the contract, the pictures, the video and the text bullets points to your online data center (no hard drive space or back-up required). Your virtual assistant in Dubai takes the files and sends them to your real estate brokerage, uploads the listing on your behalf, edits and uploads the photos and video, uploads everything to Facebook and Youtube,  sends the file to a professional copy writer to complete the comments, and inputs the listing information into Homefeedback.com to track your showings.  Furthermore, the feature sheets are created and sent to a local printer of your choice, and couriered directly to the seller the next day. Total cost $50 or less & 30mins of your time.

The Next Evolution of DIY

If you wanted to do this all yourself, but don’t have the software, you can use the Cloud to access services such as picnik.com (photo editing), box.net (file storage), jaycut.com (video editing), execsheets.com (free feature sheets) and elance.com (copy writing). The power is awesome and growing quickly.

Get your head in the Cloud and tap into virtually unlimited power for your business.

– Lindsey Smith
  Corporate Training Manager

  lsmith@cirrealty.ca
  www.cirrealty.ca

Lindsey Smith

NAR 2009 EES Session: Dealing with Emotions in Negotiations – Five Practical Tools

Daniel Shapiro gave us a very powerful, dynamic presentation on the emotional component of negotiations.

Instead of focusing on specific emotions in a negotiation, Daniel suggests focusing on five ‘Core Concerns’:

1. Appreciation

Understand the other person’s point of view. Find merit in what they think, feel and do. Communicate your understanding.

2. Autonomy

The freedom to make decisions without imposition. ACBD – Always Consult Before Deciding.

3. Affiliation

The emotional connection between you and another. Affiliation has a powerful impact on emotions. Turn an adversary into a colleague by building structural connections and reducing personal distance.

4. Status

Your standing in relation to another. There is social status and particular status.

5. Role

Shape your roles and theirs. How can I make my role more fulfilling? Theirs?

1. ‘Reason’ is important
2. So are the matters beyond reason
3. The five core concerns may trigger emotions.
4. Use the four core concerns

Daniel has written a book on this subject called Beyond Reason:

http://books.google.com/books?id=lBpaAAAACAAJ&dq=daniel+Shapiro&client=safari&output=html_text

Ray Stader

1. People love to hear from you on Facebook.  (Max Pigman)

Realtors who have decided they don’t have time for Facebook should take note. Max Pigman demonstrated in his session on Marketing in 2010 & Beyond, that your Facebook “Newsfeed” is a powerful way to fill your friends (and someday clients) with positive excitement each and every day. In only 15 minutes during the day, you can simply send a “Comment” to a few people telling them why you like what they “Posted”. Their immediate reaction (aside from the excitement of seeing someone comment on their Post) is: “Wow… Lindsey likes my photos of the sunset. Geez… I like Lindsey.” Keep the positive comments authentic and genuine.

2. Start less and complete more. (Richard Flint)

3. Sophisticated buyers require sophisticated data. (Bruce Kink)

When working in the luxury property marketplace, or with sophisticated buyers, you need to ensure that you know the specific numbers on a neighborhood, house and surrounding area extremely well (not just “Calgary real estate stats”). Remember, these clients accumulated wealth by making very smart, intentional investments based on factual data. Their home will be no different. Know your numbers inside and out.

4. Every house has a USP. Find it. (Carole Smith)

Every home in the Calgary real estate marketplace has a feature, amenity, or something that makes it stand out from the rest on the market. Carole Smith discussed finding a home’s Unique Selling Proposition (USP) to promote the property better. It’s a powerful idea and something specific you can carry through all of your marketing on the property to set it apart from the rest. 
 
5. Network with people who work with your clientele. (Anita Rich)

If you are trying to find buyers for your listings, or new people you can add value to, Anita Rich brought up a fantastic point about keeping in touch with people that your potential clients work with. This can be accountants, lawyers, hairdressers, or in her case… celebrity agents. This can be a great way to build credibility and your network.

6. Write relevant, easy to read Web site content. (Michael Russer)

By showing what was ineffective on real estate web sites, Michael Russer made it clear that we all need a “web site make-over”. One of the keys is to ensure that your content does not talk all about you, but focuses on relevant value for the consumer. Also, a lack of interesting headlines will deter the reader from even tackling the task of reading any further (even if the content is amazing). Lots of great headlines and relevant content, specific to the reader’s needs, is key.

– Lindsey Smith
    Corporate Training Manager

    lsmith@cirrealty.ca
    www.cirrealty.ca