Active Agents will stay on top

Mark Dwyer’s certainty on the future of real estate agents is unsettling. He says over his 21 years in the industry he has witnessed a steadfast decline in listing and sales numbers for individual salespeople and this has occurred during a long running market boom! Worse, he is concerned that this negative productivity trend is set for a steeper slide as the market tightens on the back of an economic recession. As sales turnover drops a purging of sales jobs will be triggered and, says Mark, fewer salespeople will make more sales. Those few, according to him, will be the trained sales professionals schooled to be expert marketers, skilled negotiators and effective communicators. 

Sales Trainer is the platform from which Mark teaches his selling system. Sales Trainer Active, the latest addition to an already comprehensive resource suite, is what Mark claims will be the answer to prospering in tough conditions whilst others languish in the downturn.  Sold Magazine spoke to Mark Dwyer about what agents can do to stay ahead in the current market.

Mark, you not only worked in the real estate industry during the last economic recession, you actually set sales volume records. Can real estate agents still build their careers and become successful in the current market?  Absolutely. It was in these very conditions that I forged my own career. A price boom doesn’t always support an increase in productivity but it does attract a herd of salespeople eager to make a quick dollar. As is evident of the last decade salespeople in number are up yet the average sales volume per head is down. The drop has been sustained purely on the back of the average fee increase in line with rising property prices. So now as house prices continue to fall so will commission averages with even further pressure to discount fees coming from distressed sellers. This all adds up to fewer salespeople in the industry as jobs are lost or people leave amid the sales revenue decline.

However, there is an upside to this situation. With this recession comes rising unemployment and unsustainable mortgage debt. Irrespective of the fall in interest rates, no job means many property owners will have no income to meet repayments. Mortgage stress results in more listings, more sales. I remember, as the last recession was made official by newspapers, blazoning the headline across the front page, salespeople panicked believing sales would dry up with nobody wanting to buy. I saw the opportunity since I reasoned that there would be many more people wanting or having to sell – and this was right! The focus must be toward sales turnover and now there is real opportunity for career-oriented salespeople to flourish. 

Is there any sense in the notion of “just riding it out” or just waiting for conditions to improve? What should agents be spending their time on right now?  Waiting is not an option. This is as foolhardy as an owner withdrawing their listing until things improve. There is nothing to suggest that market prices will improve in the short term. Some markets have been propped up by the first homebuyers grant that I believe has created a ‘false-economy’ and it is unsustainable. Even if the grant is extended beyond June the pool of first homebuyers won’t have grown. No, attempting to ‘ride it out’ will prove devastating. 

Now is the time to adapt to the conditions by firstly accepting them and then learning the necessary skills to prosper within the given environment. Property prices are falling, an agent needs to learn how to communicate this, to have your owners understand that a lack of activity is usually the result of too higher price expectation. If your owners understood the market as well as you did then they’d make the same decisions you would, so the challenge is to get them to understand the market. Learn how to control expectations, learn how to list property without an emphasis on price. Learn how to negotiate, become a great negotiator to control buyers and have them make the decisions rather than procrastinate. Don’t just talk about marketing, become a great marketer and understand its relevance in selling property. Above all become a better communicator by remembering it’s not what you say it is what is understood that is the measure of successful communication. 

Sales Trainer has been successful for some time now, what prompted you to create Sales Trainer Active?

As a public speaker I hope to be interesting, entertaining, inspiring and motivational. I like to have people feel good after listening. As a sales trainer I like to improve their performance. The Sales Trainer Live seminars achieve this in varied results. Sales Trainer Active was created as the mechanism to develop practical application as the tool that ensures implementation. 

A one-off training session or product is great, but most people need constant mentoring to keep on the right track, or someone knowledgeable they can bounce ideas off on a regular basis. How do you address this need?

I think the constancy of mentoring is up to the individual be it daily, weekly or monthly but all ambitious salespeople learn to become great salespeople, they don’t start at the top. The journey is made easier with four ingredients, training in both live and recorded mediums, support by way of hands on mentoring and advice, a resource centre that contains documented reference and recognition that facilitates a healthy competitive environment. With Sales Trainer Active we’ve combined these with technology into one comprehensive product that is part web-based to assist professional development in real time.

You’re using a regular blog and Twitter as a means of communicating daily with members. How are agents responding to the use of these?  Slowly. We have members that joined Twitter the same day we set it up and others that are struggling to upload information to their user profiles! It is an ongoing process educating salespeople in merits of using technology efficiently. Let’s face it they are still answering their mobile phone after all these years of me explaining that great salespeople make calls they don’t take them, so it is tough! Nonetheless we are currently using my blog to direct people to new information on the website and how to get the most out of membership. Twitter gives little sales prompts or reminders as to what they ought to be focused on. The same goes for regular emails, and we are thinking of using video and sound for scripted dialogue training as well. We also have Facebook, YouTube and myspace on the radar in the near future.      

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, but which particular skills must be strengths in order to become or stay a leader in the current market? 

Communication and negotiation are essential although the first creates the second. These skills combine when it comes to managing price expectation, which is easily the most desirable and profitable discipline a real estate salesperson can acquire. The ability to reduce asking prices and negotiate sales between buyer and seller would be my exclusive focus in preparation for the market ahead. 

You can register your interest in Sales Trainer Active and then receive a passport to enjoy a FREE browse at www.salestrainer.com.au/active