During this episode of Erin Bradley's Pursuing Freedom Podcast we covered a lot of ground including digging deep into my philosophy for creating raving fans and building a referral based business by leveraging tools and technology. 

Episode Description: 

In this episode of Pursuing Freedom, Jim joins us to share his story and teach us how to create abundance through the simplicity of action. 

It’s All About Relationships

Before Jim got into the real estate business, he was working at a lumber mill and was going to college full-time. When the opportunity presented itself, he quit everything and jumped into real estate with both feet. It took him a while to accept that he couldn’t achieve the level of success he wanted on his own, so he sought out coaches and mentors, and started building his tribe—that’s when Jim’s career transformed! He listed over 150 properties his second year and devoured every resource he could get his hands...

What do you do with a disloyal client?

Barbara Brown an amazing principal broker told me a story that can help all of us. It's a story of forgiveness. She had a client that she had worked with for years, be disloyal and list their house with another agent. It hurts but we have all had it happen.

When the holiday season came around, she said to herself - Should I delete these people off my database list and not send them a holiday card or should I keep them on my list?

She struggled with the decision and thought about it for a long time. Finally she decided to take the high road keep and them in her database. She sent them her traditional Holiday Card.

Guess what happened?

Those disloyal clients circled all the way back. Their listing didn't sell and they called Barbara to come list the property. Of course Barbara had to ask the question - Why didn't you call me the first time?

Turns out in their previous transaction with Barbara there had been some little rub around closing...

Looking for a new strategy to start conversations with homeowners around your new listings - try this amazing technique that starts the conversation before you put a sign up in the neighborhood. This strategy will make your phone ring with more appointments and opportunities!

I picked up a tip from my marketing director, Tiffany Wilkerson. She had a flyer delivered to her mailbox. It came from a tree trimming company. This company was going to do some work in the neighborhood, but before they arrived, they sent a mailing to everybody in the neighborhood announcing that they were going to be coming soon to the area.

I thought it was a brilliant idea.

It said very simply: "Hey, my company's logging crew will be doing tree work near your home in the next week or so. If you have a large tree, multiple trees need to be removed, trimmed or need clearing work done, this would be a great time to save on that project. Please call me now for a free estimate." And then it had a handwritten...

Land is a unique animal in the real estate industry. It is the last area to heat up in a busy market and the first thing to cool off when the market takes a downturn.

So how do you effectively market land? Let's start with a technique called roof topping. Roof topping comes from the commercial side of the business. It means if you were to go to the roof of any commercial building you are trying to sell and you were to look out over the horizon somebody in that horizon is highly likely to be the buyer for your building. The same is true for land. By targeting people that own land now around the property you will may quickly zero in on your ideal buyer as these landowners will either be a buyer themselves or may know a buyer.

Next talk to the immediate neighbors and ask "if they would like to take control of the property before someone else builds on it?" This simple question can be very motivating for a adjacent land owner.

Next attempt to find financing for the property....

Every transaction you enter into will be the result of a recent conversation that you've had in the last two weeks. Yes, your business is the result of your ability to have conversations on a regular basis. A great rule of thumb is this - for every 30 conversations you have you will average one closed sale.

Two quick techniques that can help you improve your conversation skills - first when you're having conversations get in the habit of asking this question:

"Hey, I'm in real estate so I always have to ask what's your housing situation look like right now?"

And now you're in the conversation. You're in the opportunity.

Almost everybody aspirationally is thinking about making a change at some point, right? Which leads to the second technique, which is even more powerful, which is to always ask this question.

"Hey, I'm in real estate. I always ask people if you could live anywhere in any kind of home, what would that look like for you?"

When they answer the question, you can...

Quick notes on professional persistence. For many agents when we are going to do follow up, we feel uncomfortable with it. We feel like we're going to be annoying with clients and or potential clients. So we don't make the calls, we don't send the email, we don't send a text. And what happens is we lose those opportunities to our competitors. Here's the reality - 80% of all sales are made after the fifth contact or follow up, yet, most salespeople will give up after the first or second. In fact, 50% of all real estate leads are never followed up on!

We don't want to fall into that gap trap, right? We want to be someone that is following up consistently, but we need to think about it in a different way. Professional persistence is different than just being annoying. One personal example for me personally is Matt. Matt had been working on me for months and months and months to sell me his product. I would get a weekly call, a text or an email from him and about 80% of the...

When you have a listing that goes pending or sells most agents do a just sold or just pended postcard to the neighborhood, which is a great idea because it can trigger people to make a call to you.  But recently I heard a great twist on this approach which I thought was brilliant. 

This agent still did a postcard but he tied it back to his last open house. What he said on the headline of his postcard was this "At my last open house. I had 27 attendees and this house just went pending. All of those buyers are still looking in your neighborhood. Please give me a call. If you have any interest in selling."

What a brilliant concept because it ties the message to urgency and the last marketing you did for the house, which was an open house. Plus it shows off that you are getting results and you have real world buyers that are interested.

When you look at in the NBA, the NHL, or the NFL, what do great teams do before an important game? They sit down and study the competition. They look at the plays that have been run by their competitors. They look at the defense, the offense, they look at the individual players and how they are going to approach this game.

We need to do the same thing as a corporate athletes.

We need to be looking at our competitors and define how we can compete at a high level. What can we learn from what they're doing? What can we avoid that they're doing wrong? What can we do to get better than we already are?

Once you've identified your top five competitors. Start by reviewing their personal website. Check out their their bio or about me section, study the content, the structure, and the brand elements of how they have written their ad copy. Who is it speaking to? How does it come across? Next look at the photos. Are they using multiple photos throughout the website? Are they using video...

If we printed it out every transaction you've done over the last 12 months, you would likely see clusters in your production. This means you would see transactions that are done relatively close together, then a gap, then another set of closings, then a gap, and so on.

Why do we have gaps in production?

The answer is because we have gaps in lead generation. We get busy and we stop lead generating and every single time we say to ourselves, "I've made it. I don't have to lead generate anymore."

I know I've been there. And then we run out of escrows. So we panic and scramble, we quickly begin lead generating, and the cycle continues and continues and continues.

But this approach to your business creates anxiety. It creates stress. It creates turmoil in your business, and it's not a great way to run your business, or live your life.

The good news is we can eliminate those gaps. If we do something really simple and you already know what it is - we need to lead generate every...

For my recent Birthday my wife bought me a trip to raft the Wild and Scenic section of the Rogue River. This is a guided trip where we stop at lodges along the way and they serve dinner and breakfast - so not exactly roughing it - but still an adventure.

When we set out on the trip we were told that cell phones would stop working almost immediately, there is no wi-fi, tv, or phones at any of the lodges, and no amount of crying about it will fix it - you are going without communication to the outside world for three days.

I kind of shrugged it off - set all my platforms to out of office, recorded my voice mail messages explaining the situation, and figured it would be the ultimate way to get away from it all.

The truth is I felt way, way more anxious about it then I thought I would. When I checked my phone on our first lunch break 12 texts and about 40 emails had come in just during the first hour on the river that we still had service (none of which I could respond to). What would...