Sales Mavens

Real Estate Success in (short sale maven) a Downturned Market

By Janet Giacoma

 Today’s real estate professionals face challenges that the industry hasn’t seen in years, perhaps in the entire history of selling real estate. New housing starts are down as builders struggle with their own issues of rising costs, and a lack of interested or capable buyers. Homeowners, flush with cash from the sale of overpriced homes a few years back, bought houses that they really couldn’t afford using variable rate mortgages. These mortgages, of course, were issued when interest rates were low. As the rates began to rise, mortgage payments became untenable and these expensive homes were put on the market. As the law of supply and demand dictates, the glut of homes on the market drove prices down drastically, forcing homeowners to sell at less than what they paid, and in some cases, less than what they owed.

Compounding all of this of course is the meltdown of the sub-prime mortgage market. Greedy lenders, in their pursuit of massive financial gain, granted loans to people who really didn’t qualify for them. As these people began to default on their loans, the lending institutions were in turn forced to default on their own obligations. The result - today’s economic morass that is being called the worst global calamity since the Great Depression, if not in the entire history of mankind.

In short, it’s not a good time to be selling real estate. So what’s a real estate professional to do? How do you go about finding success in a downturned market? The short answer is easy - sell something else.

Increasingly, people who make their living selling real estate are seeking alternative careers. In some cases, they seek to supplement their declining incomes as they wait for the market to come back. Others, perhaps the more pragmatic, are moving on altogether. Real estate training notwithstanding, these people realize that they are in fact sales professionals, and that there has to be a better way. Earning an income in real estate is no longer a realistic profession.

As these professionals evaluate career alternatives, many are looking at internet based direct marketing opportunities for a number of reasons. Apart from the huge potential that the internet represents, a home-based direct marketing business can be started while still continuing with current employment. So someone who realizes that change is necessary but isn’t quite ready to make the leap can simply ease into it. However, once these individuals see the success that awaits them in their new endeavor, many simply give up real estate and become full time internet network marketers.

Changing any career is not easy. But if you are trying to eke out a living today in real estate, now might be the time to consider it.

Janet Giacoma is a business coach and marketer who assists serious entrepreneurs in building a profitable online business with multiple income streams. To contact Janet visit: http://www.TheAbundantAlliance.com and http://www.TheAbundantAllianceBlog.com

Your Source To Becoming The Maven Of Sales

Cold Calling’s Dark Side
By Frank Rumbauskas

 Have you ever wondered why sales managers are so insistent that you cold call?

Have you ever wondered why many companies will not even consider a marketing budget, and instead mandate cold calling, make it a job requirement, and tell you you’ll be fired if you don’t do it?

Doesn’t it seem a bit strange that you’d be paid so much in salary just to run around collecting fifty business cards a day, or making fifty telephone calls when your talents are so much better than that?

There is a reason for all this insanity. It’s the dark side of cold calling, and the real reasons why many companies still force salespeople to engage in this old, antiquated method of doing business.

First of all, cold calling doesn’t cost the company money. It costs you money. They get to avoid spending money on marketing, and instead they let you do the hard work of cold calling. This is in spite of the fact that cold calling has the lowest returns of any and all sales activities, and therefore leaves you with the lowest possible paycheck.

Second, cold calling doesn’t cost the company time. If they wanted to put together a marketing plan they’d either have to hire more employees to do it, take current employees away from other duties, or hire an outside firm to implement it. Instead, they tell you to do it. This saves manpower and eliminates the need to either hire new employees or hire an outside consultant. The end result is that is costs you time and forces you to waste your valuable time on the lowest-percentage sales activity instead of on something more productive.

The insanity of all this is that trying to save time and money by forcing you to cold call ends up costing the company huge amounts of time and money! It obviously isn’t profitable to have salespeople cold calling when it consistently has the lowest returns of all sales activities. However, they do it anyway, with the belief that it’s a smart way to cut corners. The fact of the matter is that having salespeople cold call is penny-wise and pound-foolish. It lets companies cut corners in the short term, but with very dire long-term consequences. Cold calling, when relied upon as the main source of new business, frequently leads to lost profits, downsizing and even bankruptcy.

Companies that are succeeding today don’t bother with cold calling. They implement a marketing plan that generates qualified leads, and they provide those leads to the salespeople, who simply go out and close them. This is the only sensible way to do business in the twenty-first century.

Frank Rumbauskas, the New York Times best-selling author who redefined selling, has taught tens of thousands of salespeople and small business owners how to stop cold calling forever! Get 10 free chapters of Frank’s breakthrough home study course at http://www.nevercoldcall.com

Tips For Finding A Roommate
By Jerry Glynn

 Choosing a roommate can be a nerve wracking experience, but if you plan ahead, it does not have to be. Before you start interviewing prospects, take a minute to decide exactly what you want, and do not want in a roommate. For example, do you have a preference for gender, or are you flexible. Do you prefer a non smoker, a smoker, or either. How do you feel about pets. How many. Which types. For some people, gender, sexual orientation, and moral values are the most important considerations. For others, cleanliness, personal hygiene, and dependability are more important. Only you can decide what is the most important to you when it comes to choosing someone to live with.

Make sure that when you are interviewing potentials, you are as honest and upfront about yourself as you would like your new roommate to be. Do not pretend to be a neat freak if you are really messy, and do not pretend to be a partier, or not a partier if you really are (or are not) because eventually, anyone who lives with you will discover your true personality. The best way to find someone who is enough like you to be fun but enough of an opposite to be interesting is to be as honest about yourself as possible. Ideally, you want to find a roommate who shares your interests and is easy to get along with, but again, how many of your interests a potential roommate needs to share with you is completely up to you. You will definitely want to make sure that you do not end up sharing an apartment with a horror movie buff if you are terrified of monster movies, or a tarantula aficionado if you are afraid of spiders, and vice versa.

Before you sign a new lease with a roommate, even if they seem like your new best friend forever, make sure that you have checked their background as thoroughly as possible. If you can find a former roommate of theirs to speak with, by all means take the time to do it. Searching for a new roommate may take time, especially if you search wisely, but in the end, finding a compatible, fun person to live with, not to mention split the cost of your rent with, makes the whole process worthwhile. Keep a positive, realistic attitude, and only respond to people who have the qualifications that you are looking for, and eventually, you will find just the right roommate.

If you are looking for one of the best websites to search free advertisements and post online classified ads, the author recommends Geebo Online Marketplace.

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Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under sales. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.