Photo: Stuart Miles – freedigitalphotos.net
By Debbie Hanlon
Have you ever been absolutely right? I mean that 100-per-cent positive, bet the house, certain you were right about something that other people were unsure of. Whatever it was, you knew it and everybody knew you knew it. You had that confidence about you. That comfort level that only comes from the power of possessing that knowledge at that time.
We’ve all experienced those golden moments and how great it feels to be that certain, that confident and, let’s face it, that cool. Imagine feeling like that all the time. Well, you can and it’s not that hard to do.
The term people use for those moments is “a position of power”.
Knowledge, as we all know, is power, so if you have it you are in a position of power. It’s that simple. I remember clearly the first time I experienced it in my real estate career. I was still a relatively new and inexperienced agent and my self-confidence wasn’t that great. After all, who was I to think I knew more than agents who had been in the business for so much longer? How dare I question them? Even when I thought something they said was wrong, I would never have the nerve to correct them. That went on for months until one evening I was at a get-together at a friend’s house.
It was her birthday and quite a few people were there helping her celebrate. Some of them I knew and others I’d never met before. At one point in the evening I was introduced to a young couple as a real estate agent. There’s someone you can talk to, the person doing the introducing said and left me with the two of them. They were recently married, expecting their first child and in the preliminary stages of looking to buy a house. They didn’t have an agent, which was the first question I asked them out of professional courtesy. After some small talk they let loose with questions they had no doubt been thinking and talking about for a while.
Well, I must say they had done their homework and knew the exact questions to ask. It was like they had attended my First-Time Home Buyers talk I held a couple of weeks before and had written down all the questions I encouraged first-time buyers to ask their agent. Luckily for me I had done my homework as well. Between the home buyers talks and press releases I was sending out to the media regularly about the state of the local real estate market, I was quite comfortable fielding their questions.
At one point, I remember thinking to myself, wow, I know a lot about real estate. I was certain and confident in my answers – and looking cool while I did I might add.
By reading everything I could find on real estate, checking my local MLS listings daily, visiting agent open houses, doing walk-abouts of the new listings in my farm area and searching for information for my press releases, I had accumulated a lot of knowledge. A lot of power.
Soon, other people joined our conversation with their own questions and comments. I was able to hold their attention because I knew what I was talking about. There was no bluffing involved, no deflecting questions or stammering for answers. Everything just rolled off my tongue. Standing there in my position of power was an amazing feeling and one I’ve strived to maintain ever since.
Keep in mind that this was long before the Internet and Google. I couldn’t find answers and information on a smartphone while I ate lunch. Today it is so much easier for any agent to be in their position of power. In fact, there’s really no excuse not to know your business. All it takes is dedicating as little as 10 minutes a day to doing research.
That small investment of time surfing the net and checking your local MLS listings can yield huge paybacks. That young couple have been my clients ever since that evening we met and they’re on their third house now. Plus they were more than happy to recommend me to their friends and family.
So I’m going to challenge you to a 10/10 task. Spend 10 minutes a day for the next 10 days studying your local real estate market. You will feel your confidence growing and at the end you won’t stop. You’ll be enjoying your new-found position of power too much.
Debbie Hanlon is a real estate broker who has helped train hundreds of sales reps and brokered and managed a national real estate franchise. She also founded an independent real estate firm. Currently she coaches sales reps all over the world. She is a three-time top 50 CEO winner and was named one of the top 100 business women in Canada. She is the CEO of All Knight Inc. https://www.facebook.com/missdebbieandfriends
Debbie Hanlon wears many hats (and sometimes a cape)! She is the award-winning Realtor, owner, broker and creative driving force at Debbie Hanlon Real Estate, based in St. John’s, NL. Debbie is also a very active city councillor, keynote speaker, published author and children’s entertainer. In her spare time she is completing an MBA and enjoying an active, happy life with family and friends at home in historic St. John’s. Contact her by email.
