Murfreesboro Information and Resources

John gives a brief review of Michael Maher's book The Seven Levels of Communication: Go From Relationaships To Referrals. The book is not targeted specifically for Realtors, but rather has a much broader audience as a work of fiction that explores how any salesperson can generate more referrals by intentionally farming the relationships they already have.

Tuesday Morning Coffee is also available as an iTunes Podcast HERE

View on iPad/iPhone HERE

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones here today with another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  Glad to have you here.  Today, guys, I’m talking to anybody out there who’s selling anything.  I just read a great book that I want to give a review on.  It’s called The Seven Levels of Communication.  It’s by a good friend of mine, Michael Maher.  Michael and I are a part of the same Star Power Mastermind group, real estate Mastermind group.  Michael’s a very successful real estate agent in Kansas City or Overland Park, Kansas.

And it’s called The Seven Levels of Communication: Go From Relationships To Referrals.  And I know he’s a buddy of mine, but I’ve gotta tell you it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read on sales.  It’s real.  It’s the basics, but yet, he puts it in a way that is so easy to read and fun to read.  Basically, it’s a fiction book based on a character by the name of Rick Masters who’s kind of a struggling, downtrodden real estate guy who’s coming through this bad economy who happens upon a mortgage rep who’s kind of calling on his business who is just doing extremely well.

And she kind of lets him in on a secret.  Anyway, it’s just a really neat story that really tells you as a salesperson the things that you need to know to take relationships to referrals.  And it’s basically the backbone of any good salesperson is relationships and referrals.  I’ve always said or it’s always been said that people want to buy things from people that they like.  And I think that we’ve gotten away from that the last few years.

I know in the real estate business we have.  We spend all this time on advertising and branding and doing all this stuff kind of trying to buy the business when in essence, the best customer or the best client you can work with out there is that referred client from a third party who has said nice things about you.  But there’s an art to managing those relationships.  There’s an art to keeping in touch and adding value to people’s lives so they are in a position to give you referrals.  And this book puts it all in a nice package and puts a bow around it and makes it very easy to understand and very easy to implement.

So if anybody out there needs a boost right now in your sales career, I’m telling you, read this book.  There’s no magic pill here.  It just is a very effective book in showing you the importance of managing those relationships that will allow you to get more referral business.  So Michael, you did a great job on it.  I’m very impressed with it.  We’re going to put the website up right here (www.7LBook.com) where you can go order this book from Michael, and also I’m sure you can go to Amazon and type in The Seven Levels of Communication by Michael Maher.  Thanks and we’ll see you next week.

In this episode of Tuesday Morning Coffee John Jones shares his pricing strategy for the current market.

Tuesday Morning Coffee is also available as an iTunes Podcast HERE

View on iPad/iPhone HERE

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones here with another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  Today, we’re going to talk about pricing and pricing in the market and how buyers actually buy homes.  And the point that I want to make is I had a situation the other day that’s not uncommon, happens quite a bit.  I was sitting there with a seller and we’re going through the comps and we’re going through the absorption rate and we both were pretty much in agreement where the price for this home would probably ultimately sell.

Probably somewhere between 185 and 190.  Well, after discussion a little bit on where we should price it, they wanted to go higher, like $209,000.  And I asked them why would you want to go that high.  And they said we would like to leave a lot of room for negotiation.  We think if somebody’s going to come in here and make us a lower offer, we have negotiating room.  And there you know I see where people think that because we get that all the time.

But let me tell you how people buy homes.  People buy homes by comparing them to the other homes for sale.  So for instance, let’s take the house we were just talking about.  Let’s call it house A and it’s priced at $209,900.  And the house down the street, which is house B, is priced at $199,900.  First of all, a lot of people may not even look at price A because they may have parameters where they’re only going to $200,000.  They might not even come across that house.

So you miss a whole pool of buyers if you price out of the market.  Secondly, even though house A is sitting there with owners sitting there saying that they would accept 190 for the home, they don’t get the offer because home B looks like such a better value to them at $199,900.  Home B might end up getting marked out at 193 where they could have come over here and bought home A for 190.  The problem is, home A was never in the game.  It never got a chance to participate in the comparison because it looked so much higher than home B.  So home B got the offer.

Now the question is: “But what if they come in there low?  What if that person came in there at 180?”  What if they come in at 175?  It happens every day.  What we do know is 70% of the people that make offers on a home are going to end up buying that home.  Now they may try.  They may make you kind of a low ball to begin with, but if the home is priced right, stick to your guns.  Negotiate a little bit and at some point, you just have to say, “Hey, this is what we’ll accept for the home.” 

You’d be amazed at home many people step up and buy the home because they’ve been around; they’ve seen the market.  They’re emotionally tied to the house.  They made an offer, and chances are 70% of the time they’re going to end up buying that home even though they came in and made you a crazy offer.  So pricing in the market is very critical because buyers compare homes before they make offers.  And they’re going to make the offer on the home that appears to be the best value to them.  If you have any questions about anything, please call us, 867-3020.

John Jones shares the Rutherford County Tennessee real estate statistics as of August 2010.

Tuesday Morning Coffee is also available as an iTunes Podcast HERE

View on iPad/iPhone HERE

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones with another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  First of all, today, I want to give a shout out to my good friends who watch us every week from Idaho, John and Heather Fischer, and they grew up here in Murfreesboro.  And I’ve been informed that they keep up with what’s going on here locally and watch Tuesday Morning Coffee, so how are you guys doing?  I hope you’re doing well.  And they live out in Idaho right beside the Wyoming border out there.  But good friends of mine.

Today, we’re going to talk about July home sales here in Rutherford County.  They were down quite a bit.  We kind of expected it because of the hangover from the tax credit, but here locally in Rutherford County in ’09 we did 366 units.  This year, we did 263.  That’s down 28% over last year.  Pendings were off 24% over July of last year, which means August is probably going to be down a little bit as well.

Overall, for the year, still positive news.  Home sales are up 10%.  They took a big whack.  They had been running about 18 to 20%, but this month kind of took them down a little bit.  Another interesting statistic, for the year, closed home sales, we averaged last year in closed price of $169,662.  This year, it’s at $165,676.  So our prices are staying pretty close to where they were last year.  Thank God.  And I hope that continues.

I think in the upper price range we’re still seeing some devaluation, lower price ranges not so much.  Maybe 100 to 130 to 140.  I think they have pretty much stabilized.  Our inventory is 2,200 homes on the market, which is about exactly where we were last year with 2,257.  So our inventories are coming back up a little bit due to the last month or so, but my predictions here on out, I think next month is going to be weak.

And I’m hoping that the fall weather kind of cooling off a little bit will help us get more people out looking around, and it’s still depressed pricing, lowest interest rates we’ll ever see.  It’s still the most awesome time to buy a home that I’ve seen since I’ve been in the business.  So if you have the opportunity to buy or are thinking about it, definitely, definitely do it.

But if you should need anything, please give us a call at 867-3020 or you can reach us on our website at JohnCJones.com.  And one other thing, if anybody knows someone—and I think almost everybody does—that is facing foreclosure, please have them give us a call, 867-3020.  We’ve been able to help a lot of people in the last 24 months avoid foreclosure.  Please give us a call and we’ll see if we can help them, 867-3020.  Thank you.

In this episode of Tuesday Morning Coffee John Jones interviews Phil Cavender, an investment and retirement specialist in Murfreesboro. They discuss building a tax free retirement.

Tuesday Morning Coffee is also available as an iTunes Podcast HERE or you can watch this episode on your iPad/iPhone HERE.

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones here with Tuesday Morning Coffee.  As I’ve told you guys many times before, I always love to learn from people that are a lot smarter than me, which isn’t hard to find.  But today, it’s definitely the case.  Phil Cavender with the Cavender Financial Group is here today with us, and Phil’s a good friend of mine.  And Phil has done some amazing things to help people build wealth and also he specializes in tax-free investments.  Is that fair to say?  In a nutshell, Phil, tell people kind of what you do.

PHIL:  Well, John, mainly we’re managing people’s I guess you’d say their money in safe money instruments; 401Ks, IRAs, SEPs are such a large part of what people have placed their money in, so you naturally have to look at those instruments and manage those.  However, I think the greatest benefit that I offer really is more tax-free incomes that people are not aware of, something like a Roth IRA.

JOHN:  Right.

PHIL:  Or some other things that actually outdo a Roth.

JOHN:  Right.

PHIL:  So those are the things I look at.  I try to get people on the idea of tax-free retirement income rather than taxable retirement incomes.

JOHN:  I got you.  In fact, we were just talking—pick up that book—talking about the tax man and the IRS.  Phil is part of a group called Ed Slott’s Elite IRA Advisor Group, which you’re probably the only guy in Murfreesboro or maybe one of the few in Middle Tennessee that’s even a part of this group.  They get together—

PHIL:  Twice a year.

JOHN:  —twice a year and they go over—just this right here is one year of tax law changes, just in one year.  So this guy is on top of this stuff.  But what was interesting is a few weeks ago, Phil and I were having lunch and I looked at Phil because I’ve been thinking about this.  I said, “Phil, every year I’m told to put as much as I can into my IRA.  I’m told to just man, really pump that up.  That’s how you’re going to get wealthy, retirement income.”

And I was thinking about it and I said, “Okay, I’m taking every dime I can muster to put it in here because I’m supposedly saving taxes, tax savings in this current year.  But it’s going to grow and it’s going to grow—hopefully—although it hasn’t.  And then when I pull it out at 59-1/2 I’m going to be paying taxes on it.  Correct?”  And he said, “Yeah, You’re right, John.”  And I said, “But Phil, I don’t know what the tax rates going to be then.  So is this really smart?  I don’t know.  I’m uncertain.”

And he made the greatest analogy that I want him to share with you today, and it really hit home with me.  And that’s about the corn.  We’ve got corn here, guys.  There’s a reason.  We’ve got our props.

PHIL:  You know, I might, John, add to that it would be like you with one of your clients and they’re buying a house.  And they go to the bank to get the loan and the banker says, “Sure, we’ll let you borrow the money, but we’ll set the interest rate later on that, what that will cost you later.”

JOHN:  Yeah.  It’s kind of an unknown out there.

PHIL:  I don’t know that many people would be taking advantage of that.

JOHN:  Right.

PHIL:  But my point about my illustration that I told you about a few weeks ago was I compared it to a 401K or IRA plan to a farmer who gets ready in the springtime of the year to do his spring planning, so he goes to the co-op and he goes to buy seed.  And the co-op manager that year says, “John, this year, if you want to you can pay the tax over here on the seed.  And if you pay the tax over here on the seed, then when the harvest comes in over here, all that money will be yours tax free.  On the other hand, if you want to defer the tax over here, then when this comes in at the end, you’re going to be taxed on all of that money and we don’t know what the tax rate’s going to be in the future.”

That’s the deal we have with our government.  And so the point there about all the tax law changes, this is the tax law change in one year.  And so it’s constantly changing.  It’s manipulated.  It’s kind of like social security when it all began.  If you go back and look at the tenets of how it began, it was going to be tax-free money; it was going to deductible, the amount that you put in.  None of those things are true today because the government makes the rules.

It’s like former President Gerald Ford, back when he was living, I had lunch with him one day in Nashville.  And I was talking to him about what I did, and he said, “Just always remember this.  Any government big enough to give you something is a government big enough to take it all away.”  And I’ve never really forgotten that.

JOHN:  That’s very true.

PHIL:  And it’s certainly true in 401K, IRA distributions, SEPs and any other qualified retirement plan where somebody’s getting a deduction.  There is no tax savings.

JOHN:  Right.

PHIL:  The terminology’s wrong, and yet I hear everybody say they’re going to save taxes.  The terminology’s wrong.  They’re deferring taxes.

JOHN:  They’re deferring it to a later date on the growth, and we don’t know what the rate is.

PHIL:  It’s the harvest there.

JOHN:  The harvest.

PHIL:  And then you’ve got many people that have risk instruments, so in our illustration here today, you could take away half the basket of the harvest here because that’s where a lot of people are right now.

JOHN:  Right.

PHIL:  They’ve got half of what they used to have, and yet that half hasn’t been taxed yet either.

JOHN:  Wow.  That’s interesting.  That’s good stuff.  Phil, if somebody wanted to contact you what’s your phone number out there?

PHIL:  Our phone number is of course 615, but the number is 895-7773.

JOHN:  What about your website?

PHIL:  The website’s CavenderFinancial.com.

JOHN:  Phil, thank you so much.  I love your wisdom.  I think it’s very powerful, and I think it makes a lot of sense.  And I think your clients have done pretty well over the last few years compared to most.  Wouldn’t you say?

PHIL:  We haven’t lost a dollar of anybody’s money.

JOHN:  Well, maybe I should have found you a few years ago, but Phil, thank you man.  I appreciate you so much.

PHIL:  You’re welcome.  Thank you.

JOHN:  Okay.

In this edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee Rob "Peanut" Janson sits down with CEO of Star Power and CDPE Alex Charfen in Murfreesboro TN to discuss the Star Power 2010 Conference which was just held in Murfreesboro at Embassy Suites featuring Dave Ramsey as the Keynote Speaker.

Tuesday Morning Coffee is also available as an iTunes Podcast HERE or you can watch this episode on your iPad/iPhone HERE.

Transcript

ROB:  Welcome to another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  Obviously, I’m not John Jones.  This is my first time ever being the man in front of the camera instead of behind it.  But we’re going to do this special edition, STAR Power edition, and John doesn’t know about it.  And I think he’ll be pretty surprised when he sees this.  I’m Rob Janson, better known as Peanut.  I am marketing and technology with our company.  And I have with me the man who needs no introduction in the real industry, Alex Charfen.

ALEX:  Thanks for having me, Rob.

ROB:  So why did you choose Murfreesboro as your spot for the event here? 

ALEX:  Well Rob, there were several considerations.  One was we had Dave Ramsey as a keynote speaker.  We wanted to make things convenient for him.  And we also wanted to choose an area where we could get a hotel that we kind of controlled the whole hotel.  So everybody was in one place—the vendors, the participants, the speakers—everybody kind of got to spend a lot of time together.  It was very close quarters, which we wanted.  We wanted people to really be able to interact.

We knew it was going to be a smaller conference, and in order to get everything you could out of it, you really could spend a lot of time with each person.  Also, it helped a lot that John and you and Joe are here in this area.  And John, I can’t thank you enough for all your help with this convention.  You really helped make this possible.

ROB:  So, you didn’t foresee the flood?

ALEX:  Can you imagine had we booked at the Grand Ole Opry, we wouldn’t have an event right now.

ROB:  I appreciate you coming even if it’s not just because I’m here.  But tell me a little bit about how you got Dave Ramsey as our keynote speaker.  That’s pretty interesting for all of us in Middle Tennessee.

ALEX:  My Dave Ramsey story is one similar to many people.  I found his information through my wife who started reading it probably about 3-1/2 years ago—maybe a little longer.  I’m not good with timelines.  But when we went through a personal financial reversal, we used Dave Ramsey’s materials to get us through that and we read his books.  We read his books; we bought Financial Peace University.  You get hired at my company—you might even get one when you interview at my company—we hand everybody a copy of Total Money Makeover.

Even people we haven’t hired.  If we can tell that they need some help, we give it to them as a gift.  And it has been an absolutely revolutionary thing for our business.  And to show you just how amazing it is when you’re doing the right thing, within about two years or three years of reading those materials, I was invited to speak at Dave Ramsey’s Accelerate Conference.  And we spoke at accelerate; we saw that there was tremendous synergies between our two companies.  Their company has been incredibly gracious about helping us and supporting us as a company.

And from Accelerate to our entire executive team spending the week with the Ramsey Company down in the Bahamas, we asked Dave and he committed to speak here, and I think he shared information that will absolutely change the 500, 600 people, however many showed up to that presentation, I think it will change their lives.  And it’s amazing to me that somebody that in two hours can change paradigms, shift belief systems, and really get people started on the path to financial freedom.

ROB:  I have never actually seen him speak, and I can say on a personal level he really changed my life.

ALEX:  Sure.  Oh, I know exactly how you feel, Rob.  We go through our lives with such a low level of financial confidence, and everything that Dave teaches is common sense.  And everything that he teaches, any one of us can apply.  And for me and for Katie, we went through the seven baby steps in about a year and nine months.  We went all the way through and now we’re in the wealth-building stage.  We haven’t bought a house for cash yet, but we’ve saved all the money to do that.  And I can tell you that when you start going through those steps, it changes your relationship with money.

And it changes the outcome with money.  And you start budgeting and doing all the things that you’re supposed to do.  And really, money changes with you.  And the amazing thing is people say money isn’t everything.  But I’ll tell you, it sure does make things a lot easier, and I can tell you that financial stress makes things harder.  So while money doesn’t buy happiness, the lack of money absolutely buys pain and suffering and all the other things that you just don’t want to have in your life.  And that’s why it’s such valuable material.

ROB:  Not on a business level, on a personal level, he really spoke to me as a—I’m financially irresponsible.

ALEX:  The decision to change your life can be made right now.  And if you commit to it right now and you decide that you’re no longer going to be financially irresponsible and you start looking at the value of running your life in a financially prudent way, you can change your life right now.  And your life changes.  We’ll see the effects in a year or two.

ROB:  Right.  After being in Murfreesboro, what did you think of our city?

ALEX:  You know, I think it’s awesome.  It’s great.  The people here were incredibly supportive.  We went around at a local restaurant, and they were amazing.  This is one of the best hotel staffs that we’ve been able to work with.  And I think that from an attendee point of view and from our staff’s point of view, I don’t know that we could have been treated any better here.  It was absolutely fantastic.  And no major hang-ups with the hotel.  Anything that we needed done, they fixed it.

The local restaurants even brought in additional staff and additional people and additional cooks to deal with our convention.  So what a great city.  What a really nice population.  I mean, they’re just a supportive, salt-of-the-earth population.  And I’ll tell you, I know I already said something, but you, John, Joe, everybody at John Jones Real Estate really helped us pull this off.  And I can’t thank you guys enough.

ROB:  I’ll tell you what, The Star Power Conference is such an inspiration to us.  What is your inspiration?

ALEX:  I’ll tell you, Rob.  My inspiration is the fact that for some reason, and sometimes it shows itself and sometimes it doesn’t, but for some reason I’ve been blessed to connect with and be influenced by and spend time with people that it’s just not normal to be able to do that.  Then it’s amazing.  The people who are just giants of the real estate industry and really any industry for some reason I have had the privilege of connecting with those people.  And on a daily basis, I think my inspiration is living up to the responsibility that having that kind of mentorship provides.

And really I think that every day I wake up in the morning with a simple intention.  And anybody who’s heard me speak has heard it.  It’s to be the best husband I can be, the best father I can be, and help as many people on a daily basis achieve their goals as I possibly can.  And that’s my inspiration.  Seeing people come to an event like this and grow and be challenged and have personal revelations like the one that you had.  That is inspires me like you wouldn’t believe.

ROB:  Any closing words?  What’s coming down the pike for Star Power?

ALEX:  Well, there’s some amazing stuff coming up, and we are really excited about it.  We actually may have sold out at this conference.  I’m not sure.  But if we didn’t sell out, we’re very close.  We’ve got two new events coming up.  One is CDPE All Access.  And that’s CdpeAllAccess.com.  It’s going to be held in Austin, Texas.  Both are in Austin right at our headquarters.  We’re doing two very intimate events.  High profile, high-definition video recording, full camera shoot, full camera crew.

ROB:  Ahh, you’re talking my language now.

ALEX:  Yeah, it’s going to be exciting.  So we’re shooting our distance courses and we’re doing it in September and October in Austin.  So the first one is CDPE All Access, which is a very intimate rerecording of the CPDE with a whole bunch of extra stuff, a three-day event.  The second one is the launch of the CIAS or the Certified Investor Agent Specialist.  That’s also in October.  Those two launches are going to be tremendous for us.  The latter is really going to be interesting.  Brand new product never seen in the market before.

We’ve spent about eight months in development or heavy development.  It’s been on the drawing board for about a year and a half.  When CIAS comes out, I think it’s going to be just as impactful on the real estate as CDPE was.

ROB:  Is there websites we can go to?

ALEX:  CIAS.com.  So it’s Certified Investor Agent Specialist, CIAS.com.  And we launched it here.  We didn’t want anybody to know about it until they heard about it here at Star Power.  And that website will be up and running in the next two days.  We’re loading everything onto the server right now, and we’re really looking forward to launching that product.

Firstly please let us apologize for the late edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee this week. While the episode was delivered Tuesday morning as schedules to those subscribed via RSS feed, iTunes Podcast, www.DNJ.com, our www.JohnCJones.com homepage, and all the various video and social media outlets, we know many of our viewers prefer to get their weekly fill of Tuesday Morning Coffee right here on our blog. The good news is the late posting to the blog is due to a very exciting (and hectic) week here in Murfreesboro. The annual Star Power real estate conference just wrapped up at Embassy Suites here in Murfreesboro. As the host city our team was able to play hosts to a large contingent of the nation's top Realtors, as well as a number of local real estate agents who were in attendance to gain inspiration and network with a Who's Who of the real estate industry. We certainly came away with a renewed vigor and intensity after spending four days sharing and learning from the best in the industry in sessions covering every aspect of real estate, six of which featured members of The Jones Team and a very inspired keynote address by middle Tennessee's own Dave Ramsey. You can expect some great content in the coming weeks. So without further adue here's this week's Tuesday Morning Coffee.

In this continuation of last week's episode Murfreesboro Realtors John Jones and Debbie Flowers sit down to discuss lead generation and follow up.

For more Tuesday Morning Coffee visit www.TuesdayMorningCoffee.com

Tuesday Morning Coffee is also available as an HD iTunes Podcast HERE or you can watch this episode on your iPad/iPhone HERE.

Transcript

JOHN:  All right.  Hey, John Jones back with you from last week.  We’ve got Part 2, Debbie Flowers, the broker team leader with Keller Williams here in town and my old colleague.  We used to work together for many years at Snow and Wall Realtors.  And last week, we touched on lead generation.

DEBBIE:  Right.

JOHN:  But we really didn’t go in depth.  Talk to me about what you’re training your folks on lead generation.  When we say “lead generation,” how are we generating these leads?  I know it can be different for everybody.  Tell us a little bit about what you guys are doing.

DEBBIE:  Okay.  Well, first off, I want to say that lead generation is very, very critical to your business.  You and I both know that.  Lead generation it’s your business.  It’s what you do.

JOHN:  Sure.

DEBBIE:  You have to go out and get the lead, but you’ve got to find ways that work for you.  One of the things we teach our agents is you have to talk to 10 live people a day about real estate.  Now you’ve got to find what works for you.  Is it social media?  I have agents that love Facebook.  They get a lot of leads from social media.  Is it past clients?  Is it going out passing out your business cards every day, meeting people in the community?  Is it door knocking or cold calling?  We have agents that do nothing but cold call all day until they get their leads.

But you’ve got to talk to 10 live people a day, 50 people a week.

JOHN:  Right.

DEBBIE:  That’s one of the things.

JOHN:  And I agree with that.  I remember when I was new in the business, there was another agent that started the same time I did and she was a female.  And she was excellent on the phone.  I mean, she would just call for sale by owners daily and she could work them.  I wasn’t so good on the phone, so I really used open houses.  I was more a face-to-face person.  I did better in front of people. 

So like for instance when we’re talking about this, I would be someone that would probably want to do more social events or breaking breads, taking people out to eat, open houses—wherever I could get in front of people, that would work better for me.  There’s some other people that they’re animals on the phone, and I think you do have to find the perfect fit.

DEBBIE:  Right.

JOHN:  Database follow-up.

DEBBIE:  Wow.

JOHN:  Or touches.  Let’s talk about touches.  Everybody has a different thing on this.  All right.  Let’s say that you meet somebody at open house.

DEBBIE:  Right.

JOHN:  You have a pretty good rapport.  They’re not working with another agent.  What do you guys say as far as how many times do we have to touch somebody before we’re going to bring them in to build that trust?

DEBBIE:  Thirty-three touches.

JOHN:  Thirty-three touches.

DEBBIE:  Yep.

JOHN:  In 33 touches, how long is that spread out over?  What kind of timeframe?

DEBBIE:  I’d say in a year.

JOHN:  You want to touch them 33 times.

DEBBIE:  Oh, yeah.  Immediately, they need to get a thank you for coming to your open house.

JOHN:  Sure.

DEBBIE:  You know, immediately.  And then follow up with them.  And one of the things too is you’ve got to categorize your buyers that you meet at these open houses.  They might not be an A buyer.  It doesn’t mean as an A buyer they’ve got to buy and be in a house tomorrow.  But they may be a B or C buyer where they have a house to sell.  They’re going to move in the future.  You’ve got to categorize your buyers.  But you’ve got to set them up in a touch program so when they get ready, they think of you.

JOHN:  Yeah.

DEBBIE:  Does that make sense?

JOHN:  I think one of the biggest mistakes we make as agents, and I know I have over the years, is I work my A buyers real, real hard.

DEBBIE:  Oh, yeah.

JOHN:  And if I’m working a lead and I realize they weren’t an A buyer, then I put them over here and eventually they’d fall into the garbage can.

DEBBIE:  Yep.

JOHN:  But then I’d look around 10 months later; I’d see these folks buying a house somewhere.  And boy, it just hurt my feelings, but then I’d just have to go look in the mirror because I did nothing to stay in touch with them.

DEBBIE:  Oh, yeah.

JOHN:  The key is plug them in the system because some people might walk through an open house and then it be 18 months before they’re a buyer.

DEBBIE:  Before they buy.

JOHN:  But if they’re in a system—and I think you have to have a system—

DEBBIE:  You have to have a system.  I do Top Producer.

JOHN:  Top Producer is a great one.

DEBBIE:  Yeah.  Top Producer’s great.

JOHN:  And I think what we’re both saying is it doesn’t matter if it’s Top Producer, Agent Office, Real Pro or whatever—even ACT!—have something where it systemizes a way for you to touch them.  Today I’m supposed to call them.

DEBBIE:  Yeah.

JOHN:  Next Thursday, they’re getting an e-mail.

DEBBIE:  Yeah.

JOHN:  The following Wednesday, they’re getting a postcard, whatever.

DEBBIE:  I think one of the things that agents forget too is when you’re out there selling, you’re not selling a product; you’re selling yourself.  People like to know if they like you.  They want to know if they can trust you, and really you’re selling yourself.  You’re not selling real estate or a product.  You’re selling you.

JOHN:  Right.

DEBBIE:  So I think that’s something you have to remember.

JOHN:  I think we all want to do business with people we like.

DEBBIE:  Yeah.

JOHN:  You know what I mean?

DEBBIE:  Yeah.

JOHN:  I think you and I both know we could probably go out and find somebody that could give us a little bit better deal on a haircut.

DEBBIE:  Yeah.

JOHN:  Or we could go find somebody that might give us a little bit better deal on a car somewhere or clothes.

DEBBIE:  Yeah.

JOHN:  But we end up gravitating back to people not so much because it’s the best deal or whatever.

DEBBIE:  Yeah.

JOHN:  Because we like them and we trust them.

DEBBIE:  Because you like them and you trust them.  Absolutely.

JOHN:  That’s right.  That’s right.  Well, this is great stuff.  We could go on and on for hours.

DEBBIE:  We could.

JOHN:  But we don’t want to spend too much time of your day.  But thank you, guys.  Thank you, Debbie for all that you do for your industry here, constantly doing things.

DEBBIE:  Thank you, John.  Thank you for being a leader.

JOHN:  So anyway, thank you guys.  If you need us, JohnCJones.com.  Thank you.

In this episode of Tuesday Morning Coffee John Jones interviews Debbie Flowers, the Broker/Team Leader of Keller Williams Realty in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. In part one of this three part series they discuss the importance of staying positive in a down market and the nuts and bolts of the real estate industry, lead generation.

Tuesday Morning Coffee is also available as an HD iTunes Podcast HERE or you can watch this episode on your iPad/iPhone HERE.

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, John Jones here with another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  It’s with great honor and privilege, I have an awesome old friend—not old.  Great friend, Debbie Flowers, with me today.  When I started in the business, Debbie was at Snow and Wall Realtors here in Murfreesboro, and I worked with her for several years.  And now Debbie is the broker team leader—

DEBBIE:  For Keller Williams

JOHN:  —for Keller Williams here in Murfreesboro.  Just wanted to make sure I got the terminology correct.  And let me tell you something about Debbie.  Debbie is one of the most positive people that I’ve ever been around in the business, and I can see where she is really doing a good job over there.

DEBBIE:  Thank you.

JOHN:  She was a great producer.  She’s gotten out of the production mode for the last five or six years and is more into managing and coaching and training, and she gets right in the middle of it.  So I wanted to have Debbie on today because I wanted to talk about the things that they’re doing over there and we were going to kind of share with some things I’m doing here.  And this will work for any industry.  Anybody in sales I think will benefit from this.  So it’s a real treat and I’m glad to have you, Debbie.

DEBBIE:  Thank you.  Thank you, John.

JOHN:  What I’m going to start off with today, Debbie, obviously the media is telling us that we’ve been in a recession now for 2-1/2, 3 years and there has been a shift in the market.  And it’s not the same market that you and I knew the previous 15.  And running a business, and as many agents as you guys have over there, what do you do to deal with that?  What do you do to train against the negative and keep those people upbeat.  Tell me some things you guys are talking about over there.

DEBBIE:  Well, first off, it like you and I discussed before.  You can’t listen to the media.  You’ve gotta just stop watching the news.  If we all listen to the news, we’d just stay home in bed and never get up, right?  Don’t you agree?

JOHN:  I would go jump off a bridge.

DEBBIE:  So I think mindset is so critical in today’s market.  Ninety percent of everything you do is mindset.  You’ve gotta have a passion for what you do, and you’ve gotta really care about these people because they have a lot of sellers and buyers out there that are struggling.

JOHN:  That’s right.  You were talking about affirmations.

DEBBIE:  Affirmations, yes.

JOHN:  And I know a lot of people think that affirmations are goofy or whatever, but I’m a big believer in affirmations.

DEBBIE:  Absolutely.

JOHN:  I’m a big believer in that.  In fact, I was telling you earlier I used to have laminated cards in my shower that every day I would sit there and say, “I’m a listing animal.”

DEBBIE:  I’m a lean, mean, listing machine.

JOHN:  A lean, mean, listing machine.  Do you believe in affirmations?  Do you talk to your people about that?

DEBBIE:  Absolutely.  Absolutely.  Affirmations every day.  You’ve got to speak positive every day.  “I’m a lean, mean, listing machine.”  “Buyers and sellers are attracted to me.”  “I have what people want.  God loves me, and no one can take that away.”  Those type things.

JOHN:  That’s good stuff.  I love that stuff.

DEBBIE:  Thanks.

JOHN:  Talk to me about the knowledge and the education stuff y’all are doing.  With the shift in the market, it’s not the same market.  I mean, in ’06 I derived about 80% of my commission dollars from new construction.

DEBBIE:  Right.

JOHN:  And about 20 from existing.  And for me that’s flip-flopped now.  So what are you guys talking about as far as where the market is and how to articulate that to your clients or whatever?

DEBBIE:  Well, one thing I always say is when you get out of the learning business, you get out of the earning business.  Always remember that.

JOHN:  That’s awesome.

DEBBIE:  Always remember that.  Education is so critical, and knowledge is power.  If you want to have the right mindset, get all the education you need to be a professional in whatever business you’re in and then your mindset is so comfortable that you feel comfortable with what you’re doing.  But lead generation, as you know, we talk about it.  Real estate is a lead generation business.  It’s how many people can you talk to every day about your business.

JOHN:  In fact, we both know the quote from your CEO, Gary Keller, your founder and leader.  And he says in his book Millionaire Real Estate Agent, “We are not in the real estate business; we’re in the lead generation business.”

DEBBIE:  We’re in a lead generation business.

JOHN:  It’s not too hard to help somebody find a home once they choose you to work with them.

DEBBIE:  Right.

JOHN:  The hard part is getting them to choose you to work with them.

DEBBIE:  Yeah.

JOHN:  We both had the good fortune, which was kind of unheard of 17 years ago and 23 years ago when you got in the business.

DEBBIE:  Right.

JOHN:  We had a leader, Howard Wall, at Snow and Wall, that was big into training.

DEBBIE:  Yeah.

JOHN:  And you didn’t get that back then.  And we were very fortunate.  But I can remember something Howard told me because when I started I was 24; I was scared to death.  And he said, “John, once you get through this training, you will know more than 95% of the people you’re going to come in contact with.”

DEBBIE:  Absolutely.

JOHN:  And that really gave me that armor to go out there.  When I had that knowledge, it gave me that armor and confidence to go out there and really have a shot at succeeding.

DEBBIE:  Absolutely.  And I want to give a kudos to Howard Wall.  You know, in your business you’re going to find—we call it the ring of five.  There’s five people that got you where you are today, and I want to say that Howard and Sally Wall are the people that got me where I am today because he gave me training knowledge that we did not get anywhere else back then..

JOHN:  No, it is incredible.

DEBBIE:  And it was how to get on the phone.  It was about lead generation.  It’s about passing out your business cards daily.  And if you remember, back in the day, he would have us go out back then in 1990 and pass out our business cards every day and come back and report to him of whose names and information we collected.

JOHN:  Yeah.  He held us accountable.

DEBBIE:  He held us accountable and we were doing the basics back then.

JOHN:  Right.

DEBBIE:  Before we even knew that that’s what we should be doing all along.

JOHN:  Right.  It’s amazing.  Well, guys, thank you for watching today.  Debbie, thank you so much.

DEBBIE:  Oh, you’re welcome.

JOHN:  And you know what?  We are going to follow it up with a part two that you’re going to see next week because this stuff is so good.  So anyway, thank you.  If you need us, call us or hit us at our website.

A comparison of the Murfreesboro TN area real estate statistics from June 2009 and June 2009 as well as the year-to-date numbers. John Jones explains why the statistics support that the Rutherford County real estate market has finally stabilized.

Tuesday Morning Coffee is also available as an HD iTunes Podcast HERE or you can watch this episode on your iPad/iPhone HERE.

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, John Jones with another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  Thanks for tuning in.  We’re going to go over June numbers today that came out last week.  I was interested to see what June looked like.  June we had 8% more closings this June than we did last June.  I still feel like that is part of that carry over from the tax credit.  Remember, those had to be closed by the end of June.  They did extend it a little bit to be closed; I think gave them 90 days, but for the most part, everybody was in at that point.  So they were up 9%.

Now an interesting statistic that I was really more concerned with, what were pendings for the month?  Pendings for June were 17% less than last June.  And I know that’s less, but quite honestly, I was surprised it wasn’t more and I’m happy to see it was not more because the tax credit had run out, we knew there were going to be less pendings, but I honestly thought that number would be higher than 17%.  So let’s kind of recap the last few months.  Okay, you had April, which was kind of a record month as far as closings, 54% up over last April.

A lot of that had to do with the tax credit.  May was 21% over last May.  There again, a lot of that had to do with the deals that were written before the end of April for the tax credit, and June was slightly up as well.  I think we’re going to see some small decreases for the next few months as far as closings compared to last year.  But I don’t think they’re as bad as what maybe I anticipated or at least I hope not.  The pendings for this month give me hope.  Another interesting statistic.  Our closed sales price was almost dead even year to date with this time last year.

Year to date last year we were at $165,587 average close price.  This year, we’re at 165,538, so I mean it’s like $50 off, which is incredible.  That tells me that maybe we’re kind of stabilizing on evaluations here a little bit.  Another thing, year to date, we have closed on 21% more homes this time this year than we had this time last year.  Twenty-one percent, so we’re still on an increase there.  That’s about all I have.  If you guys have anything or need anything real estate-related, please call us at 867-3020.  We would love to help.  And you can see us on our website at JohnC.Jones.com.  Thank you. 

In this edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee John Jones explains how the Craigslist scams that have recently become rampant on Nashville Craigslist work and what to do if you come across an online scam.

Tuesday Morning Coffee is also available as an HD iTunes Podcast HERE or you can watch this episode on your iPad/iPhone HERE.

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones with another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  Kind of bummed out that the USA lost this past weekend, but I’m going to get over it.  But I thought they did a great job in the World Cup, and that was very exciting, especially from a guy that knows absolutely nothing about soccer.  I was really, really into that event, as I guess a lot of the country was.  But guys, what I’m talking about today is Craigslist scams.  Here’s something we’re experiencing right now in the real estate industry, and I just want to let you guys know about it so you can be very mindful of it.

Here’s how the scam works.  Scammers are combing legitimate websites finding properties for sale on real estate websites.  They’re actually for sale.  Usually properties in pretty good neighborhoods or a little bit higher-end neighborhoods with lots of pictures.  Then they’re putting a rental posting out there on Craigslist with these pictures at usually a very below market rent so it looks almost too good to be true.  They get people to call in on the properties and then it does two things.  They’re trying to get your money and they’re trying to get your identity.

So they’ll try to get you to go ahead and do an application so they can get social security numbers, things like that.  And they’ll also try to lure you in to secure the property, send them a deposit.  And this has been going on quite a bit.  If the potential tenant actually drops by the property, sometimes they’ll call on the real estate sign, which is out in the yard and that’s sometimes where the scam will end.  But if they don’t do that, then a lot of times these people are sending them the money and sending them a lot of personal information.

And the scam absolutely wreaks havoc on a person’s life.  So I just want you guys to know about it, kind of have an awareness of it.  Also, any of your friends, let them know what’s going on.  If you have been victimized by one of these scams, please call the Federal Trade Commission or go to their website at www.FTC.gov/complaint and please let them know about it.  But it has been very prevalent in the Middle Tennessee area, so be on the lookout for that.  Thank you guys, and we’ll see you next week.

In this week's Tuesday Morning Coffee John reviews the May 2010 foreclosure statistics for Rutherford County and compares them to the national and state foreclosure rates.

Tuesday Morning Coffee is also available as an HD iTunes Podcast HERE or you can watch this episode on your iPad/iPhone HERE.

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, John Jones with Tuesday Morning Coffee, guys.  Coming to you today very excited about the weekend sporting events.  Those of you who know me know I’m not a soccer guy, but I actually love watching the World Cup.  And I’m really excited because tomorrow at 9:00 in the morning if the USA wins, we’re going to the next round and I really enjoy watching the World Cup.  Anybody that says soccer is a non-contact sport has not watched a World Cup event.  Those guys get after it, and I love watching it.

I do wish they’d get rid of those daggum horns they’re blowing.  It’s driving me crazy.  But anyway, I think that’s a South African type thing there.  Hey, we’re talking about foreclosures this week and we’re talking about how our foreclosures locally, in Rutherford County, stack up to the state and to the national averages.  Okay, the way they figure the foreclosure rate is by housing units, so right now, currently in foreclosure where the process has started, the banks have actually started the foreclosure process, 1 in 521 homes in Rutherford County, 1 out of every 521 are actually in foreclosure.

That’s a 0.19% rate.  To give you an idea of the state average, it’s 0.14.  So it’s a little bit lower than our Rutherford County average.  But the national average is 0.25, which is obviously quite a bit higher than our local levels.  Why are we higher than the rest of the state or why is our averages higher?  It’s because we’ve had more growth than most of the state.  During the last five or six years when this exuberance period was going on we were the fastest growing county in the state.

So along with that comes some of the bad stuff too, which is a lot of homes that were bought on zero down financing and people lost jobs and they can’t hang onto their homes, which is very sad.  For the month of May, we had 194 foreclosure filings.  That is up from April of 180, but our highest month that we’ve had I think probably forever is 250 in March.  That was a very high month for us.  So foreclosures are here.  We’re dealing with it.  Our unemployment is over 10%.  When you see that unemployment number coming down, you’ll see foreclosures coming down.  When people have jobs, they can hang onto their houses.

Remember, we’re only talking about foreclosure filings here.  We’re not talking about people actually behind on their mortgage.  When we put that into effect, that rate really jumps up, okay.  I don’t have the local statistics on this, but one out of every six mortgages in America are behind on their payment, and that is kind of an alarming number.  What does that mean?  I think it means that we’re in this for a while.  Values are going to stay stagnant if not decrease for a while.

I know that’s not what anybody wants to hear, but I’m always going to tell you the truth.  We will probably I think see two or three years’ worth of foreclosures before they start to decline.  We have a job problem and we’ve got to create jobs.  And until that gets fixed, which I think it’s going to kind of take care of itself, I don’t think there’s a whole lot the president can do to fix that right off the bat.  And I think that we’ve got to get that back on track before we see this go down.  This is very serious.  Everybody knows at least one person out there who’s behind on their payments.

Please, please, please let them know their options.  Have them call us.  We have the best short sale staff here locally that I know of.  We’ve gotten lots of training.  We’re CDP certified to help people.  There are options out there.  Most people wait until it’s too late.  Don’t do that.  There are ways to help salvage your credit in this tough time.  Bring them.  Tell them to call us.  We’ll sit them down.  We’ll get powers of attorney authorizations to speak to the bank on their behalf.  We’ll take a lot of this burden off of them.  And we have helped a lot of people to date go through this process.  So please, if you need us, JohnCJones.com or 867-3020.