What If the Things We Think Are Weaknesses are Actually Our Greatest Strengths?

What if the things we consider weaknesses are blessings in disguise?

What if the things we try to hide are exactly the gifts the world needs us to share?

For me, being diagnosed with ADHD felt like that. A weakness. Something to hide. An obstacle that would stand in the way of my success in business.

But that’s not how I feel about it now.

I was recently featured on the Women & ADHD podcast. Click below to hear my conversation with Katy Weber about how I turned my ADHD diagnosis into one of my greatest strengths.

Burned Out? Ready to Change Brokerages? Ask These Questions First.

If you’re feeling burned out and ready to change brokerages, be sure you ask your prospective new brokerage these five important questions before making the move.

Do you offer 24/7 training? Not only local-level coaching and training, but training you can access anytime, online. Keller Williams does, through our KWConnect platform. It’s like YouTube for Keller Williams agents.

Do you offer multiple income streams from day one? What opportunities does this brokerage offer for leveraging the power of a real estate license for more than just selling homes. For example, a robust agent to agent referral program, in which you receive a percentage of an agent’s commission when you refer a buyer or seller to them. Keller Williams offers the world’s largest referral network, with migration patterns to make it easy to ensure that you can make the best possible match between agent and client.

Will you teach me how to run my business like a business? From how to incorporate as an LLC, to when to hire and how to train your support staff, to how to actively lead generate, to how to manage your limited time effectively; will this brokerage treat you like a salesperson or as a business owner? It should be the latter.

Will you teach me how to become a real estate investor? Investing in real estate can be a great addition to your portfolio. Knowing whether the brokerage you join is positioned to help you take advantage of this income stream is an important consideration. At Keller Williams we have classes, books and mentors who can help you do just that.

Will you reward me for helping the company grow? As you help their company thrive, will you share in the profits they realize? Keller Williams market center owners share their profits with their agents on the 21st of each month. This is passive income that will outlive you—you can will it to your children or other beneficiaries. It’s an amazing wealth and legacy-building opportunity.

To take a free assessment and find out which lead generation opportunities would bring you joy instead of drain your energy email rebeccad@kw.com for a private confidential conversation.

Curious How to Handle Multiple Offers? Check Out My Tried and True Tips!

This week I received 20 offers on one of my listings. Many of them within the last hour before offer review. It was intense and exciting. But it can easily become overwhelming and stressful, for you and for the agents representing the buyers offering on your listing. I jotted down the things I do for every offer, every time.

✔️ Reply to confirm receipt of every email offer

✔️ Call to speak with every agent who submitted an offer to say thank you

✔️Call to speak with every loan officer

✔️ Once I had 5 offers in hand, I update the agent-only remarks on the MLS to say, “Multiple offers received. Please call listing broker before writing an offer.” This is simply to save agents time and save the buyers heartache, if they aren’t in the running. If they choose to submit anyway, at least I did my part to communicate the status.

✔️Prep a multiple offer spreadsheet, present all the offers and let the seller choose the one that works best for them.

✔️ Email all the agents to say thank you if they didn’t win, and give feedback on the winning terms. I also call all the agents back and personally check to see if anyone wants to be in a back-up position.

A quick story…

Hours after mutual acceptance, I was finishing dinner and received a call. This was from an agent checking on the status of their offer. I didn’t recognize her number or her name. Because I never received her offer. The takeaways for her, and for all of us who do this work are:

1. Always call the listing agent to confirm receipt of your offer. If they don’t answer, leave a voice message and send a follow-up text.

2. Always request that the agent on the listing reply to confirm receipt of your emailed offer.

3. Always copy your client’s loan officer in the offer email you submit. This makes it easy for follow-up by the listing agent.

4. Find creative ways to make yourself memorable to the listing agent. Add emojis to your texts, mention if you have something in common or a shared acquaintance. Professionalism is important, but you can inject your personality into your exchanges in small and appropriate ways.

5. Don’t think your job is over once you’ve pressed the “Send” button on your email. Our office requires that the firm’s brokerage email address is copied on all the offers we submit. It’s not considered “delivered” otherwise. In addition to this, I always blind copy myself, so I can be sure it was sent and didn’t get lost.

Is all of this over the top and obsessive? Maybe. But I don’t care. I’m doing what it takes to provide exceptional service to my clients.

Want a copy of our multiple offer spreadsheet? Simply fill out the form below and Rebecca will be in touch!

Need to Write a Bio? Not Sure How?

If you’re a real estate agent you need to have a written bio. Copying someone else’s, or just using the placeholder bio that comes from your brokerage, doesn’t cut it. As someone who doesn’t particularly love writing, and who finds it a bit awkward to talk about myself, I did not consider that good news. But I did it. And I’m sharing the secrets to a great agent bio below to save you from making some of the mistakes I’ve seen other agents make. And the mistakes I made along the way too.

Be Real

People respond to authenticity, above all else. You are a complex unique person and you bring your personality and perspective to your work. For example, I’m a bit of a goofball. If you know me you know that’s true! It took me a while to stop being afraid that if I showed that side of my personality, people wouldn’t take me seriously. I know someone who, for years, stopped herself from putting exclamation points into her emails for the same reason. But the truth is that people want to connect with people they like and trust. If you aren’t being authentic, it shows. Are there people who won’t work with my friend because she puts exclamation points in her emails? Maybe. Or who won’t work with me because they saw a photo of me in goofy holiday classes on Instagram? It’s possible. But that’s okay. Those people will find someone else, and my people will find me. The things that make you, you, need to be reflected in your bio.

Get a Life

When you’re not selling houses what are you doing for fun? Who is in your social circle? What are some interesting facts about you that people might not know? Where are you from? What did you do before real estate? Your life outside of the office has a place in your professional bio.

Know Yourself

Can you think of three words that best describe you as a professional? If you can’t, text a couple of colleagues or co-workers from previous jobs and ask them. Use these three words in your bio and expand on them and how they translate into your work with clients.

Have More Than One

When you sit down to write anything for an audience outside of yourself, you should be writing with that group in mind. For example, I have a bio I use to promote myself as a real estate agent to buyer and seller clients. But I also have a bio I use to promote myself as an instructor and speaker. I have yet another that I use for my work as an author. Each are different because the intended audience is different, so the things I highlight and reference are different.

Make It Timeless

There are a few simple things you can do to ensure that your bios are evergreen, saving you the hassle of updating them constantly or the embarrassment of having a glaringly outdated bio on marketing materials. One example would be, rather than listing your experience in number of years—i.e. “Rebecca has been a Realtor for 18 years”—use dates instead. So, the alternative would be, “Rebecca has been a Realtor since 2003.” See the difference? The former needs to be updated every year. And depending on how many places your bio appears, that could become a time-consuming annual task. Another to be wary of including would be rankings. For example, you may rank in the top 10% of agents nationwide in transactions closed in 2020. If you are going to include a ranking in your bio, make sure to note the year afterward. That number could be higher or lower in 2021, rendering your bio outdated in a matter of months. Think about that as you read through your bios. Have you included anything that won’t be accurate one year from now? Save each bio and name them for what they are—Agent Bio, Teaching Bio, Author Bio, etc.

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For more content like this, please join me for one of my live classes! Click here to see a list of what’s upcoming.

Attention Flight Attendants...

Before I became a real estate agent I worked for several years for an airline. I loved it! Many of the skills I built in that job have served me well in my real estate career.

There are so many professional backgrounds that translate well to real estate and I’ve spoken about some of them here before.

But with the furloughs happening in the airline industry at the moment, it seemed timely to reach out to people in that industry. Flight attendants and (other roles in the airline and travel industries) make great real estate agents!

Even if you anticipate going back to your airline career when circumstances change, it still might be worth looking into real estate. There are several ways to operate as a part-time agent (on a team), a referral agent, or to leverage Keller Williams profit share program, as other streams of income.

If you’re interested, email or call me and we can talk about possibilities.

rebeccad@kw.com | 253.576.7707