Around this time last year, I wrote a blog entry inviting Real Estate industry professionals of all levels of experience to join me in 2007 on one of my free weekly conference calls where I interview leading industry figures and share from my 30+ years of Real Estate industry experience. As if sent on cue, I received the following email message just a few minutes ago:

From: Poncie McDearmon
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 10:41:28
To: Ralph Roberts
Subject: Thank you and Merry Christmas

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage
Phoenix, Arizona

Seriously folks, I cannot make this stuff up, even if I tried!

“Making it Great in 2008” is my motto for the upcoming year, and comments like Poncie’s give me faith that we’re heading in the right direction. Information about 2008’s line up of conference call topics will appear shortly. In the meantime, here’s wishing everyone a safe and happy Christmas and New Year!

The days of the lonely door-to-door salesman are over, thank goodness, but I often observe salespeople who have placed themselves in a sort of self-imposed exile. By falsely assuming that nobody can do it better than they can (whatever “it” is), they end up working themselves to a frazzle and never achieve the sales success they really deserve. The fact is that you can do more and do it better by harnessing the power of people.

If you need proof, just look at any major corporation. They never would have been a major corporation had they not hired people. Think of yourself as a mini corporation–You, Inc. Hang out a Help Wanted sign. Start interviewing people. Establish productive partnerships.

Fuel your sales with people power:

1. Find out what’s missing. What do you want to do that you can’t do because you’re lacking the time or expertise? As soon as you know what you need and don’t have (time, expertise, resources), you have a pretty good idea of the people you need to hire or partner with–people who have what you need.

2. Do what you do best and hire out the rest. Figure out how much you earn per hour. If you earn $50 an hour selling and you’re cleaning your house over the weekend when you can hire someone for $10 an hour to do it, that’s borderline insane… unless, of course, cleaning your house is therapeutic or something you enjoy doing.

3. Hire an intern. Colleges and even some high schools have internships or co-op programs in which students are willing to work for free or for a low wage in exchange for job experience. Look into these programs for some cheap and often highly qualified workers. Many of these “kids” are very tech savvy and can teach you a thing or two.

4. Hire the talent you’re missing. Salespeople rarely hesitate to invest in a gadget or service they think they need, but when I recommend that they hire an assistant, they immediately find all sorts of excuses. The fact is that hiring an assistant has never been easier. You can even hire a virtual assistant. A virtual assistant works as a freelancer, so you don’t have to deal with messy payroll issues and benefits. For additional information, check out the International Virtual Assistants Association Web site at www.ivaa.org.

5. Cash in on R-Commerce (Relationship-Commerce). As Terry Brock (www.terrybrock.com) explains, on its surface, the economy is driven by the exchange of goods and services, but beneath this surface economy is the real economy, driven by relationships. By focusing on your relationships with customers, colleagues, and even your competitors, you can grow your sales infinitely more than by focusing solely on the exchange of goods and services.

6. Team up with a personal partner. It’s far too easy to skip out on your responsibilities when you’re accountable only to yourself. As Terry Wisner explains, by teaming up with a personal partner to set goals and keep one another on track, you can achieve much higher levels of success than by acting alone.

7. Get connected with a mentor or coach. Success leaves big footprints, so follow those footprints by taking on a mentor or hiring a sales coach to advise you. A mentor or coach can often point out shortcuts you may have missed, expose you to new opportunities, and make sure you’re doing everything you need to do to stick to your plan.

8. Become a mentor. You may think that mentoring a student or a salesperson who’s less qualified, less experienced, or less successful than you would be a huge expenditure of time, and perhaps it is, but what you get in return usually makes up for it. A younger student can often teach you a thing or two about using the latest technologies or expose you to new marketing and sales techniques. In addition, if you establish a solid relationship, your student promises to become a major networking asset later in his or her career.

If you start to feel the urge to fly solo, think again. When you open the doors and start connecting with people, you soon discover infinite opportunities. Try it!

A while back, I realized that my last name, “Roberts,” spelled backwards is “Strebor,” and I designed a system for effectively implementing any plan for success.

When you’re ready to put your plan into action, follow the Strebor System:

S: Sticktoitism is the dogged determination required to ensure that you follow through on your plan.
T: Training provides you with the know-how and skills to properly execute your plan.
R: Results are what you build on as you attain higher and higher levels of success.
E: Enthusiasm provides you with the ambition and energy required to follow through.
B: Benefits give you the motivation to succeed.
O: Optimism is the confidence that enables you to overcome obstacles.
R: Reach is your commitment to taking risks and seizing opportunities that make you grow both professionally and personally.

The Strebor system starts with a positive attitude that gives you the enthusiasm, optimism, commitment, and sticktoitism required to pursue and ultimately achieve your goals. Although some people are born with eternal optimism, others of us have to work at it. Here are some suggestions on how to put yourself in a better frame of mind:

Identify your sales heroes. Success leaves big footprints, so follow the trailblazers to lessen the burden of your journey. Over the years, I have followed in the footsteps of my heroes, including Julia Rowland (my grandmother), Tony & Noel Fox of Fox Brothers Real Estate (my first mentors), Ira Hayes, Tom Hopkins, Zig Ziglar, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, Art Fettig, Joe Girard, Ed Keim, Lee Iacocca, Norman Vincent Peale, Mark Victor Hansen, Og Mandino, Tom Antion, Les Brown, and a host of others.

Shadow top producers. Network with the top producers in your area and ask if you can observe them for a day. You can pick up a wealth of information and new techniques in a single day in addition to discovering a new source of motivation.

Write and repeat positive affirmations. Negative self-talk can drag you down into the depths of self-defeatism. Replace that negative self-talk with positive can-do affirmations. Mr. Positive, Dave Boufford, made his own leap to pursue his dream of guiding others in developing and maintaining a positive attitude through his inspirational e-zines Positive Thoughts and Positive News. Let Mr. Positive pump you up by visiting www.MrPositive.com.

Surround yourself with positive people. When I am around someone who has a negative attitude, I can feel the energy and enthusiasm being sucked right out of me. Positive people bring me up, make me believe in myself, and encourage me to strive for higher and higher levels of success. Avoid people who drag you down, and gravitate to those who lift you higher. This includes family, friends, colleagues, associates, and supervisors.

Wake up with a positive plan. The first 15 minutes of any day can make or break it for you, so spend that first 15 minutes developing a positive plan. Once you have a plan in place and the sticktoitism to execute it, you are well on your way to a productive day.

Define “success” in your own terms. Don’t let other people dictate what “success” means to you. Spending more time with friends and family, getting involved in your community, and pursuing other interests may mean more to you than earning millions of dollars. Of course, doing all of those things and earning millions of dollars are not mutually exclusive.

Reward yourself. I reward myself in two different ways: I reward myself upon achieving a specific goal, and I reward myself in anticipation of achieving a specific goal. Some people don’t understand that second approach–why should I get the reward before I achieve the goal? Well, once I reward myself, then I know I have to work harder to pay for the reward. I usually charge the reward on my credit card. That gives me the added motivation of earning enough to pay for the reward before the balance comes due.

Tip: If you are a part of a Real Estate agent team, make sure that everyone on your team is contributing to creating and maintaining a positive attitude in the workplace. Deal immediately with any conflicts that arise, shut down the gossip mill, and find a way to relieve tensions and create an environment in which people are eager to come to work the every morning.

I encourage you to put the Strebor system into action in all areas of your life. I have found it effective for achieving both personal and professional goals. Remember, however, that it all begins with a positive attitude.

As I discussed in Part 1 of this article (see the previous post for Part I), my “Hour of Power” began as a networking tool designed to boost referrals. Every weekday, I devote one solid hour to calling 100 people I know just to touch base. Although my Hour of Power is dedicated to placing phone calls, the primary reason it is so effective is that it focuses my time and energy on performing a single task in a limited amount of time. It enables me to do something that most people would never conceive possible-calling 100 people in 60 minutes.

Most salespeople hate making phone calls, so they procrastinate. They may look at a list of 100 people to call and think, “This is going to take me all day!” So, what do they do? They put it off, and it never gets done. By setting aside 1 hour to make those calls and removing all distractions, you force your mind into a tunnel in which the only way out is to place the phone calls. You force yourself into “the zone.”

The source of power in the Hour of Power is focused energy. Instead of taking an overwhelming chore and setting a “realistic” timetable, you take an overwhelming chore and tell yourself, “Okay, now you have only 60 minutes to do this. Get going, the clock’s ticking.”

This same technique can be applied to any aspect of your business-the more you hate performing a particular chore, the better a candidate it is for an Hour of Power.

Consider extending your Hour of Power to different aspects of your marketing plan. Set aside an Hour of Power once or twice a week for writing blog postings or articles. Set aside another Hour of Power for contacting reporters. Spend an Hour of Power reviewing your marketing plan, improving what works, and removing what doesn’t. Spend an Hour of Power networking with other professionals in your industry or sending greeting cards to past clients.

When establishing an Hour of Power for any activity, keep the following key points in mind:

1. Expand work, condense time. Pack as much work into that hour as possible, so the task seems nearly impossible.
2. Set a clear, measurable goal. You can’t get much clearer or more measurable than 100 phone calls in one hour.
3. Stick to one hour. Do not fall for the temptation of giving yourself more time. At the end of the hour, stop.
4. Schedule a specific hour of the day or week. If it is not written down on your calendar, it is too easy to push off your schedule.
5. Eliminate distractions. Devote your hour to a single task.
6. Keep accurate records to keep yourself honest. You need to hold yourself accountable for your Hour of Power commitments.

When I coach people, I tell them from the very start that I can offer them many ideas and systems for boosting sales, but they have to put these ideas and systems in action. I require all those I coach to submit weekly Hour of Power reports, showing the number of calls they made each day. I often receive only apologies and excuses. Apologies and excuses do not boost sales.

One word of caution concerning your Hour of Power. Apply it only to tasks that you need to perform to generate business-what I like to call dollar productive activities. You should not be wasting your time on chores that do not generate sales. Your job is to market yourself and your business and meet with prospects and clients. Hire out everything else.

The Hour of Power is all about maximizing your efficiency in carrying out dollar productive activities. Identify the activities that are going to generate the most business but that you often put off, and set aside a fixed amount of time every week to carry out those activities.

Remember, becoming a top producer is not easy. Sales gurus often claim to offer seminars, books, and CDs that reveal the hidden secrets of sales success, but the fact is that there is no secret. You have to work at it. Start today. If you need help, call me at 586.751.0000, or e-mail RalphRoberts at RalphRoberts dot com.

Every weekday, I spend one hour making 100 phone calls. I call it my Hour of Power. I select a group of people I want to contact. The group may consist of the people I work with on the Macomb County Voice (a community blog I created). It may be the top selling Real Estate agents I know through STAR POWER Systems. It may be people I sold houses for or those I sold houses to. I tell everyone in the office that my Hour of Power is about to commence, and they know not to disturb me. Then, I shut myself in my office and start dialing.

If someone answers, I deliver my energetic greeting, ask them how they’re doing, and perhaps mention one of the details I’ve recorded in my contact management program — maybe it’s their anniversary or one of their children’s birthdays. If nobody answers, I move on to my next call. If I get the answering machine, I leave a message. I may even sing “Happy Birthday,” wish the person a happy St. Patrick’s Day, or say something goofy right off the top of my head that I think will make them smile. What you say isn’t all that important, but it can’t be about selling — NO SELLING. The Hour of Power is about connecting on a personal level. It’s about leveraging the power of the rule of 250 — that each person knows at least 250 other people they can tell about you.

When you’re doing your Hour of Power, you cannot be interrupted. Make sure anyone who may be tempted to interrupt you knows not to. If you call someone and leave a message and that person calls back, someone in your office should answer the call and take a message. NO interruptions. You can call the person back later, after the hour is up. Your goal is to make it through your list of 100 people, and you have only 60 minutes to do it.

I strongly recommend that you implement the Hour of Power strategy, regardless of what you sell. If you make 100 calls a day, five or six days a week, I can almost guarantee that you will begin to see a dramatic boost in sales in a relatively short period of time. When you are ready to take the leap and implement your own Hour of Power, keep the following important points in mind:

• Keep a log sheet, so you have a record of the number of calls you actually placed.
• Strive to achieve the goal of 100 calls a day. When I coach people, I have them turn in their call logs to me at the end of every week. Making the bare minimum of 25 calls a day delivers some benefit, but the truly successful salespeople are those who do closer to 100 calls a day.
• What you say when you call is not all that important. What is important is that you make the call and establish contact. Leaving a voicemail message counts as contact.
• Do not sell. The Hour of Power is about building relationships.
• Do not get into a lengthy conversation. You have an average of 36 seconds per call.
• Limit yourself to five or six days to avoid burnout.

The single most important thing about the Hour of Power is that you do it. Keep a log and hold yourself accountable or team up with another salesperson you know and hold one another accountable. No matter what you are selling, you get pearls called “referrals” when you make these calls.

Greetings! Thank you for visiting my Blog. In the days, weeks, months, and years to come, I’ll be blogging about the work I do as a REALTOR®, author, business consultant, motivational speaker, trainer, expert witness, and business coach. In the meantime, if this is your first time visiting a Blog, here is a primer on what this “Blogging” thing is all about.

The term “Blog” is a blend of the terms “web” and “log”. A Blog–that’s what this section of AboutRalph.com is–is a frequent, chronological publication of thoughts and links, presented in reverse chronological order, with the option for anyone—including you, yes you–to leave a comment.

Authoring a Blog, maintaining a Blog, or adding a posting to an existing Blog is called “blogging,” and as the owner of this site, I, Ralph Roberts, am the site’s “blogger.” Feel free to chime in with a comment or two, and if you’d like to know more about Blogging, feel free to ask!