By Jay C. Rosen
What a loaded question! It’s also a crucial question for the success of any sales career. Where do clients come from? Try looking at the question this way; What influences a buyer or seller to call and hire you? This is perhaps a more accurate and useful question to answer. Last year, my best friend started talking about this TV show, "Rescue Me". He believed it was the best show on TV and absolutely insisted I watch it. I’d seen some trailers and even thought about tuning inonce or twice , but never did. Sam kept on me about how awesome the show was, and kept retelling scenes and stories from the show. He was relentless! Finally, I made it a point to watch the show, if for no other reason than to get Sam off my back about it. Now, I am going through painful withdrawal as the season is over and I want to know what happens after the cliffhanger season finale. I’m completely addicted to "Rescue Me"! Why did Sam bug me so much about the show? What was in it for him? Why should any of you reading this essay care about the TV show “Rescue Me”? This exchange between friends is THE MOST IMPORTANT PROCESS TO YOUR CAREER!!!!!!!! I could have watched the best produced and perfectly aired advertising in the world and still probably not tuned into the show, but it was the opinion of my friend, an independent third party with nothing to gain, that gave me the drive to watch. My action was predicated not on expensive advertising, but the direction and influence of my “sphere of influence”. There’s that phrase, “SPHERE OF INFLUENCE”. We hear it all over the place. We hear it from our broker, from multitudes of motivational speakers, from other agents, from everyone! In our business, it’s a mantra. (in a monotone voice) “I will work my sphere of influence, I will work my sphere of influence, I will work my sphere of influence”, and on and on. For now, let’s shelve the answer to the question of why my buddy pushed so hard for the benefit of the show and look at how he influenced my decision to tune in. It’s all about trust. Trust is something we Americans have very little of. We are bombarded with advertisements that extol the benefits of this product and that product. We are continuously enticed to act, to buy; to believe such crap that we are automatically skeptical. But when a friend leads us to something by direct referral, we believe, we act and we buy. It’s all about trust. We trust those in our inner sphere. These inner sphere endorsements are what we need to be to be successful. Fortunately, everyone in our inner sphere has their sphere of influence, most of which is different than ours. So what do we do with this knowledge? We learn to spread our services and products like a common cold virus…person to person. They also call it “grass roots” marketing. It works, here’s what we need to do! WE GET THE PEOPLE IN OUR INNER SPHERE OF INFLUENCE TO PROMOTE US TO THEIR SPHERE OF INFLUENCE. To quote Shakespeare, “Here in, lies the rub!” In getting our inner sphere to promote us to their sphere, we lose control over the message. So the key here is to control the message as best as we can. Let’s get back to our earlier question of why my best friend pushed the TV show so hard. It’s all about ego and validation. Humans by nature are social animals with a herd mentality. Most of us care what others think. Without others thinking along with us, we begin to question our choices. My buddy Sam bugged me to watch “Rescue Me” because if I liked it, he’d feel better about liking it. The more people he got addicted to the show, the better he’d feel about liking it himself. In the words of TV commercials….“But wait, there’s more!” When the show won multiple Emmy awards, Sam was so exited he couldn’t contain himself. It was as if he’d won the awards himself. Why so proud? Because he felt partly responsible for the success of the show. After all, he got 7 of his friends watching the show. He is responsible, right? I don’t care if Sam’s responsible…… I do care, however, that he feels like he’s responsible. I do care, however, that he worked so hard to promote something he believed in even though he had no monetary benefit from its success. I do care, however, that I get him that emotionally vested and involved in my career so that he does the same thing for me as he did for TV. Emotionally vesting your inner sphere of influence in your career the key to success. This is the goal we all need to work for. We need to get those in your sphere of influence to be vested in your career and to vigorously promote you while taking pride in your accomplishments. This works much better and is much cheaper than spending thousands of dollars on fliers, newspapers and knick-knack giveaways. We need to be spending our time and our money courting and educating and including our inner core, sphere of influence. This brings us to the next logical question, HOW? How do we invest our friends and family in our careers? Let’s look back to the TV show. Before Sam began to sing the praises of “Rescue Me”, he watched at least 4 or five episodes. He got to know all the characters and sub-plots and became a pseudo expert in the show. To be successful, we need our sphere of influence to be pseudo experts in us. We could take them with us on client appointments, we could give them books to read and other stuff, but I doubt any of that would work. It all lacks the involvement. What if your cousin helped you learn something? What if your kid’s best friend’s mother were involved in your training? Hmmmm? If they were involved in helping me develop my skills, they would be entitled to take some of the credit for my success. If they stood to take some of the credit, they would be vested in my success and promote me vigorously. I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER!!!! I believe the answer to all of this lies in role playing. All that your cousin Jim knows about you is that you have a real estate license. Big deal! He also knows three other Realtors who clearly can’t tell the difference between a hole in the wall and their own backside. You need to get Jimmy intimately involved in the experience that he is going to promote to his sphere of influence. Unless Jimmy’s buying or selling his house, that’s not going to happen without role play. Just like most everyone else, I love fantasy. I love to be someone else, doing something exciting or daring or dashing. Most of us do this only in the privacy of our own heads, rarely getting the opportunity (beyond our childhood) to act on our fantasy life. Here is their opportunity. Give cousin Jimmy a personae to be. “Jimmy, you are rich and famous and interviewing Realtors to sell your 3000 S.F. Penthouse at Turnberry.” Some of us like to be dirty…..”Sarah (sister), you are a stripper, making most of your money in tips and other things I’d rather not know about. You want to buy a $350,000 home in Green Valley .” Make it fun and exciting for them. Now you’ve set your appointment, you’ve prepared your materials and you’re ready. While they’re having fun giving you a hard time, they are also learning how incredibly knowledgeable you are. While Jimmy is acting like a snob, he’s also seeing your team of lenders, escrow folk, home warrantee people and broker, etc. These team members come with you, in spirit, to the appointment. As Sarah flirts and talks dirty, she sees that you handle yourself like a professional in truly weird situations, and that you have solutions to quite difficult real estate situations. While your actors are having fun and messing with you as best they can, they are also becoming intimate with your skills. They are becoming vested in your career. They are joining you as your most valuable sales force. You are on the way to success. IT’S VERY HARD TO DO…. It’s hard to bare your professional soul to those closest to you. What if they don’t think you’re any good? What if…….. I have two words for you……BE PREPARED!!! If you do your job, if you know your paperwork, if you’re prepared for objections and tough questions, you will not fail. First and foremost you need to know what you are doing. You need to know your paperwork, your theory and have a presentation planned and internalized. Your presentation doesn’t have to be great; you can even stutter and stammer through your material. As long as you understand it yourself and have a plan to impart that knowledge to your client, you’ll be fine. This is the true path to success. This is how it’s done. It doesn’t come easy and it doesn’t happen quickly, but when the train gathers up speed, it’s impossible to stop.
Jay C. Rosen. Broker/Owner
Rosen & Company West, Inc. 2670 Chandler Ave #5 Las Vegas, Nevada 89120 P: (702) 739-8820 F: (702) 446-6145
http://www.rosenandcompanywest.com/ Bio: Jay C.Rosen is the owner and broker for Rosen & Company West, part of a group of family owned and operated real estate and auction businesses since 1917. He was raised in the business in Cleveland, Ohio and moved his family to Las Vegas in 2001. There he used his degree in education, combined with his real estate knowledge and experience to teach and headmaster real estate schools. Jay still gives real estate education classes for CE credits, but spends the bulk of his time managing his Rosen & Company West, Inc.
Back in 2000 when Unita Akins and her husband Dr. Joseph Akins moved from Chattanooga to Murfreesboro, Middle Tennessee State University was a new experience for both of them. Dr. Akins had accepted a teaching position in the Recording Industry of Mass Communication, and Unita accepted a position working in the Dean's office there. 
