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Agent Rise Podcast

Welcome to Agent Rise, the podcast and movement hosted by Neil Mathweg, the founder of Agent Rise, and co-hosted by Agent Rise Coach Mindi Kessenich. Agent Rise is dedicated to empowering real estate agents to rise above the ordinary, find clarity in their business, and create a thriving, fulfilling career. In a world saturated with noise and conformity, Agent Rise stands out as a beacon of inspiration and innovation within the real estate industry. Neil and Mindi believe that being uncommon is not just a goal; it's a necessity for those who aspire to build a business they truly love. Join Neil and Mindi as they embark on a journey to redefine real estate, one episode at a time. Through insightful conversations, expert interviews, and practical strategies, they'll guide you towards a path of success and abundance. Their mission is simple yet profound: to help you build a business that not only serves your financial goals but also aligns with your passions and values. They're here to prove that you can make a greater impact while eliminating the stress and overwhelm that often plagues our profession. Whether you're a seasoned agent seeking fresh perspectives or a newcomer eager to learn the ropes, Agent Rise, with Neil Mathweg and Mindi Kessenich, is your trusted companion on the road to success. Together, they'll break through barriers, shatter limits, and unlock the true potential of your real estate career. Tune in, take action, and join the Agent Rise movement. It's time to awaken your full potential and create the real estate business you've always dreamed of. Agent Rise Podcast is also available in video podcast at youtube.com/agentrise Agent Rise was formerly known as the Onion Juice Podcast.
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Now displaying: June, 2019
Jun 24, 2019

All of us who work as real estate agents know that we’re supposed to ask quality questions of our customers. But do we really know what that means? I’m convinced that most of us don’t know how to do it. Why am I so convinced? Because I have been geeking out about this topic - studying it, reading lots of stuff about the quality of questions we can ask to help buyers move their decision along - and I’m telling you, this is powerful stuff. That’s not an exaggeration, it’s fact. On this episode of Agent Rise, I am going to walk you through the principles behind asking the right kind of questions and explain why it’s a vital skill for every agent to learn.

When you ask quality questions that lead a customer to share openly, everybody wins

Let’s consider the average listing appointment. As the listing agent, you’ve got lots to say right? You need to explain your process, inform the customer about what to expect, address legal issues, and more. But should you launch right into your prepared speech? Maybe a better question is this: Should you have a speech at all?

I suggest you learn to ask quality questions that get your customer talking - because when your customer talks, you have the opportunity to learn exactly what they are looking for. That provides the insight you need to serve them extraordinarily well. When you ask questions that get your customers talking, you can...

  • Determine their personality type - which tells you how to best communicate with them
  • Learn their expectations - and get the opportunity to address concerns
  • Set expectations - help your customers know how you plan to serve them
  • Hear what NOT to do - from the past experiences they share with you

Asking the right kind of questions makes the conversation better, which leads to serving your customer better. All of that adds up to a really happy client, and we all know what ecstatically happy clients do - they refer others.

Assessment: In your last listing appointment, how much did you talk compared to your customer?

You may be doing a great job when it comes to asking the right kind of quality questions. But I’ve found that it’s easy to think you’re doing great when you really aren’t. How can you know? Here’s a quick way to get your finger on the pulse of how you’re communicating with clients…

In your last listing appointment, how much did you talk compared to the customer? Most agents I ask, say they talked 70% to 80%, to 90% of the time. If that’s you, you need to learn to ask better questions. When you are doing all the talking you don’t have time to find out the crucial things you need to know in order to set the stage for a supremely happy customer experience.

On this episode, I explain a little bit of how I avoid talking so much at listing appointments. My process focuses on doing the “talking” in bite-sized chunks the customer can digest - and NOT doing it all during the listing appointment.

People pay attention to the things you ask about

One of the most powerful things to know about developing the skill of asking quality questions is this: People pay attention to the topics that you ask questions about. When you know that, it opens the door to all kinds of opportunities to guide the conversation where you know it needs to go.

There’s another secret power of asking the right kind of questions and it’s this: The right kind of questions enable people to drop their guard and truly engage with you on a heart level. THAT is the kind of response you want because when you get your customers talking on that level, you’re going to find out all kinds of things that will help you serve them well.

And be sure you pay special attention to that last part - this is all about service. There’s no manipulation or coercion involved in what I’m talking about. Asking quality questions is you helping your customers let you help them. Read that last line again…. It’s a bit confusing but vitally important.

Ask the difficult questions to experience the biggest wins

Perhaps the toughest part of asking quality questions is that sometimes, they are the hardest questions to ask. Why? Because the places you feel tension in your interaction with a customer - or the subjects that the customer seems least eager to get into - are often the places where the greatest needs exist. And remember, your job as an agent is to meet your customer’s needs, to solve their problems. You can’t do that if they won’t talk about things.

So - you’re going to need courage to step into the awkward questions waters. You’re going to need to care about your customer more than you care about your own comfort. Serving people isn’t easy. It takes commitment, willingness to sacrifice to help them accomplish their goals, and willingness to wade into the waters that you know are the most troubled. But often, the greatest rewards come from those places.

Outline of this great episode

  • [0:38] TOPIC: The quality of your questions determine SO MUCH!
  • [3:09] My latest geek-out topic: Asking quality questions
  • [8:20] The thought process behind asking the right kind of questions
  • [12:20] You can experience a curveball when working with spouses
  • [15:51] A challenge for you: Ask the HARD questions - they lead to big results
  • [17:40] Knowledge only becomes powerful when you put it into practice

Recommended Resources

Resources and Links mentioned in this episode

Connect with Neil!

Schedule a free 30 minute breakthrough call with Neil, schedule your call at neilmathwegcoaching.youcanbook.me

And connect with me on ANY of the following social channels. I LOVE social!

And finally, if you would be so kind - leave a rating and review for the Agent Rise podcast on Apple Podcasts (formerly iTunes)

Jun 17, 2019

The idea of a mastermind group has been around for a long time. In fact, it was Napoleon Hill who first coined the term “mastermind” in his 1925 book, “Think And Grow Rich.” Masterminds have been used by successful people all over the world, even before they were called that. I’m in a mastermind group right now and I can’t tell you all the ways my participation in the group has changed my life and improved my business. It’s been that kind of benefit to me for a long time, and I can’t believe I’m just now telling you about it. But better late than never, right? So listen as I explain what a mastermind group is, why I’m in one (and a huge fan of them), how it benefits my business, and so much more!

You hear about “masterminds” all the time, but what are they?

A mastermind group in the context that I’m discussing on this episode is a group of professionals who get together on a regular basis to seek and give advice to each other in relation to what each of them is doing in their business. They can be structured in many ways but the main goal is for each member to share their expertise and insight - AND for each member to glean valuable insights from others.

As you might imagine, a mastermind group can become very close relationally speaking, as each member becomes intimately aware of what the others are doing in their businesses and are committed to holding each other accountable for the actions they commit to during the group time. That means you also receive the benefit of friendship and referrals. Listen to learn more and to hear how my mastermind group is structured.

What does a mastermind group look like?

There are no rules about how a mastermind group is structured, but those who have taken part in masterminds for years have learned that without a clear structure everyone will feel their time has been wasted - and the group will be ineffective. In the case of my mastermind group, we meet quarterly - which I really like, and we meet for 3 hours each time.

Here’s what we do each time we meet:

  • Each person shares a recent win - 10 to 15 minutes
  • Everyone is held accountable for their action items from the last meeting - 10 to 15 minutes
  • 6 people are on the “hot seat” and are able to ask for help and advice about a particular situation in their business - 25 minutes
  • Everyone in the group shares a final action item they intend to work on before the next meeting

Listen to learn how this meeting agenda helps us stay on track and move our businesses forward.

If you want personal and professional sharpening, a mastermind is for you

It’s hard to build a business by yourself, primarily because every one of us will have blind spots that limit our effectiveness. We need the help and insight of others to keep us on track and moving in the right direction. There is nothing like meeting regularly with a group of people who are also eager to grow and succeed - and who are willing to hold you accountable in firm but loving ways - to put yourself on the fast track to growth.

The opposite is also true: If you are not willing to be honest about your successes and your failures, don’t want others seeing and speaking about what you’re doing in your business, or are unable to receive feedback so that you can grow, you may not want to get into a mastermind group. I, for one, think you’re crazy if that’s how you feel about it, but hey - to each his own!

How do you know who to invite to your mastermind group?

Every mastermind group will have its own unique mix of people - in terms of professions and types of business as well as with a diverse mix of personalities and backgrounds. In my mind, that’s exactly how it needs to be. You don’t want to be in a group with a bunch of people who are just like you and who do exactly what you do. You want varied perspectives to maximize your potential for growth.

When it comes to the type of people you want to involve, my only requirement is that they need to be people you look up to in some way. You want to ensure that the people there are people you want to learn from and people you want to help. When that’s the case, everyone benefits. Listen to learn more. I can’t encourage you enough to get into your own mastermind group as soon as you can.

Outline of this great episode

  • [1:32] The launch of the Agent Rise Summit - Oct. 24-25
  • [7:10] What does a mastermind group look like?
  • [10:02] How a mastermind sharpens you and keeps you on track
  • [12:53] The agenda for a powerful mastermind group
  • [17:01] Why a mastermind serves entrepreneurs so well

Recommended Resources

Resources and Links mentioned in this episode

Connect with Neil!

Schedule a free 30 minute breakthrough call with Neil, schedule your call at neilmathwegcoaching.youcanbook.me

And connect with me on ANY of the following social channels. I LOVE social!

And finally, if you would be so kind - leave a rating and review for the Agent Rise podcast on Apple Podcasts (formerly iTunes)

 

Jun 10, 2019

This episode is one borne out of frustration - because the leadership lessons I’ve learned throughout my career and am still learning, seem to be misunderstood or poorly applied by most leaders in the real estate industry. Hear me now - I’m not holding myself up as one of those leadership gurus who can do no wrong. Not at all. But I CAN look back over my career as a leader and see how I’ve grown. I feel it’s my responsibility to share the leadership lessons I’ve learned. I hope you understand that's the heart behind this episode.

This recording features some of the lessons I’ve learned about the effective use of competition within a real estate office, why promoting shiny object syndrome in your agents is a terrible idea (and how you may be doing it without knowing it), how to let vulnerability lead the way in your leadership, and more.

Performance scoreboards promote a scarcity mindset

One thing I’ve found in my journey is a leader is that a scarcity mindset within a team is like poison. It works its way down into the souls and psyche of your team members and breeds an inner pessimism that is hard to overcome. But let’s back up - you may not even know what I mean when I refer to a “scarcity mindset.” It’s a belief that there is only so much to go around. It's a mindset that leads to unhealthy competition and an unwillingness to share and collaborate.

That brings me to performance scoreboards. It’s common practice in the real estate industry to post “leader boards” in the office, showing which agent has the most sales. If the motivation behind posting these boards was simply to encourage the leaders, that would be fine - but scoreboards also highlight who on the team is struggling or lagging behind - for everyone to see. Scoreboards promote a scarcity mindset. They encourage unhealthy competition among agents on the same team that fosters stinginess, not collaboration. Listen to hear why I think leaders should be promoting a different kind of competition among their real estate agents - and how you can implement it immediately.

The poison of shiny object syndrome is rampant among real estate offices (and leaders)

An outgrowth of the scoreboards we see posted in real estate offices across the country is that agents who are not performing well become distracted from the proven fundamentals they need to improve. They start questioning, second-guessing themselves, and getting pulled away from the very things that will provide success over time - because they are trying to imitate those in their office who are more successful. The problem is this: The things those who are more successful are doing may not fit the personality and gifting of the new or stuck agent. But they'll try to apply them anyway.

The leadership lesson I want you to take away from this is that what will make your real estate team more effective is not competition, but collaboration. Working together, sharing resources, building cooperative efforts is what makes the team more successful. Listen to learn how a cooperation saturated environment in your office will beat competition every time.

Leadership Lesson: Vulnerability in leaders is POWERFUL

There’s a myth that’s made the rounds in our culture for a very long time - that leaders can’t express weakness or vulnerability. We tend to believe that leaders need to be strong, unshakable, examples of strength and reliability. While some of that is true, it doesn’t mean that any leader can be perfect, or lead perfectly without the normal stresses, doubts, and failings we all experience as human beings.

As I’ve said often, people can’t relate to your perfection. That goes double for leaders. Before long those you lead will resent you because you’re putting on a face that reveals no weakness, while deep down those who follow you know you aren’t really that way - because nobody can be. That is exactly why vulnerability is so powerful. As a leader, it’s your job to show your team how to move forward and achieve in spite of being imperfect. They need to learn how to be a flawed human being who is still able to accomplish great things - and they need to learn it from you. Listen to this episode to hear about the resource I’ve been drawing this lesson from, and how you can learn it as well.

Let’s change the leadership practices in the real estate industry

I’m tired of hearing the same old thing from real estate agents - that the spirit of secrecy and competition in their real estate office is demoralizing them instead of empowering them. I’m tired of seeing promising, talented, competent agents run down and discoured through bad leadership. I’m definitely not a perfect leader, and maybe that’s why I can see what’s going wrong in the way real estate managers are leading their teams - because I have done the same things. But I’m learning, I’m growing, and I’m changing to a new leadership approach that is empowering and equipping my team in significant ways.

I hope you’ll take the leadership lessons I share on this episode as encouragement and not criticism. I don’t want to see you perpetuate a failing model any longer. If something I share on this episode were to help you make a change that makes you a better leader or empowers your team to a greater level of personal or professional success (or both), I’d be so happy.

Outline of this great episode

  • [0:29] Why leadership is a tricky thing - and talking about it is, too
  • [2:15] How this episode flows out of a sense of frustration I’m feeling
  • [4:10] Who should agents really be competing against?
  • [11:10] Shiny object syndrome is rampant among real estate agents
  • [15:24] Why vulnerability is powerful as a leadership characteristic

Recommended Resources

Resources and Links mentioned in this episode

Connect with Neil!

Schedule a free 30 minute breakthrough call with Neil, schedule your call at neilmathwegcoaching.youcanbook.me

And connect with me on ANY of the following social channels. I LOVE social!

And finally, if you would be so kind - leave a rating and review for the Agent Rise podcast on Apple Podcasts (formerly iTunes)

Jun 3, 2019

We all know what it means to do client events. They could take the form of a ball game, hosting a bar-b-que, or holding a “client appreciation party.” That’s great, we should appreciate our clients, but we can do so much more - and do it in a way that broadens our reach and connects us with pre-clients. The ideas I’m having around this topic flow out of what’s been happening with the “I Love Madison” meetups my team has been putting together. Such amazing things are happening, I want to share it with you and encourage you to do get your own brand of community events going. Listen to learn more!

People have more ability to connect than ever before but are still lonely

You know what I’m talking about - Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, LinkedIn - all of the social media platforms are incredibly helpful and useful in a variety of ways. But the remote nature of how they work often isolates us even more in real life. Instead of being better connected, many of us wind up feeling lonely.

I believe this is a growing problem that Realtors are uniquely positioned to address. How? By hosting client events, and even better - community events. On this episode, I want to explain some of the dreams I have for the “I Love Madison” meetup events and give you some ideas that you can use in your own community. Who knows what could happen if we all do our part to bring our communities together? Maybe someone will meet their new best friend through an event you host. Maybe love will blossom as a result. Maybe you'll find 2, 5, or 10 new clients. You never know what could happen!

As Real Estate Agents we have a huge opportunity to bring people together

Real Estate agents are uniquely positioned in the community to host unique and appealing events that people really enjoy. Why? We know the community, we know the happening places, we know the things that newcomers to our cities need to know about and become connected with. That means we have the potential of being a huge asset to the people of our communities. Why are we not taking advantage of that fact?

Listen to hear about the results of our “I Love Madison

meetup group and how we are pulling it off with very little effort, almost no overhead, and are getting great results. I’m meeting more people every month through these simple groups and my network continues to expand. Most importantly, it’s exciting to see what’s happening as people connect and exciting to be so involved in making it happen.

What are the events people will want to come to?

I recently heard Gary V. talking about the idea of psychographics. I didn’t even know what the word meant so I looked it up. Here’s the definition:

The study and classification of people according to their attitudes, aspirations, and other psychological criteria, especially in market research.

What does that mean for us as Realtors? It means that the better we know the way the people in our communities think, what motivates them, and what their hopes and dreams are, the better we can serve them. We need to become students of our communities. Then we can host events that are designed specifically for them and invite them to come. The I Love Madison Team is working on plans to do a concert series featuring local artists. Why? Because we know that people in our community often gather around music, so we’re going to take full advantage of that (in a good way). Listen to learn more!

Focus on the stage, not the age

It’s easy to think that demographics and targeting for client events like I’m talking about in this episode has to do with age, but it doesn’t. One example I mention is that a 28-year-old could be married or they could be single. They could have kids, or they could not. They could be employed in a white-collar profession or a blue collar job. There’s no way that age is a clear enough indication of what a person is like to bank on it when it comes to planning events.

Instead of looking at age, we should be considering “stage of life.” By doing this we’ll be much more effective at discovering interests, hobbies, and preferences that a wide range of people will enjoy - and we can host events that are “beyond client events” - events for the entire community. Listen to learn why I think these events are are so powerful and to hear what the I Love Madison team is cooking up for the city of Madison.

Outline of this great episode

  • [3:30] The thought of bringing people together is inspiring to me
  • [6:08] Why are more realtors not doing client meetups?
  • [8:50] Cool things can happen when you bring people together
  • [12:20] Find holes in the city and bring them to life with your events
  • [14:40] Take the word “client” out of your client events

Recommended Resources

Resources and Links mentioned in this episode

Connect with Neil!

Schedule a free 30 minute breakthrough call with Neil, schedule your call at neilmathwegcoaching.youcanbook.me

And connect with me on ANY of the following social channels. I LOVE social!

And finally, if you would be so kind - leave a rating and review for the Agent Rise podcast on Apple Podcasts (formerly iTunes)

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