A recent survey of customers who didn’t stay connected to their salesperson found:
 
Why customers stop doing business with you:
 
•   1% Death
•   3% Move Away
•   5% Buy from a friend
•   9% Sold by a Competitor
•   14% Product Price
•   68% Perceived Indifference
 
That’s why we’re Blitzing. We want to make sure that during this Summertime Surge your customers know you’re fired up and enthusiastic about the business, you’re passionate about serving them, and you’re anything but indifferent to their needs. This is why we work by referral - to build long-term relationships with our customers so they not only do business with us again, but also are excited to refer us to their friends and family.
 
Make sure you’re signed up for our Blitz – the Summertime Surge - because we want to make sure all our customers know that we do care.
 
It’s a good life!

Brian

Aloha! I’m writing to you from the Big Island in Hawaii where Peak Performers is about to kick off. But it’s not the only thing about to kick off…The Summertime Surge is getting close and registration is open! Have you registered yet?

The Blitzmaster, Joe Niego, and I have been working hard on the design of this Blitz to maximize your personal energy and your business productivity. Let me tell you, you’re going to love the daily activities and love how they impact your business. Here’s a taste of what’s to come:

• Week 1 – Popping-by with a Dose of “Sunshine”
• Week 2 – “Cutting the Cord” on Calls
• Week 3 - Beach Blanket your Database
• Week 4 – Iced Coffee and Calls
• Week 5 – Making Lemonade
• Week 6 – Defeating the Dog Days of Summer
• Week 7 – Morning Time Mixer
• Week 8 – Blitzing the night away

As you can see, this is a whole new Blitz with 60 days of concentrated fun in the sun so it’s time to get registered, get ready and get Blitzing! Go to the Member’s area today and make sure you don’t miss out on heating your business up with The Summertime Surge.

It’s a good life!

Brian

A couple of weeks ago I wrote from the Santa Clara Turning Point that Brian had ‘finally gotten it.’ Well last week we traveled to both Dallas and Boston and guess what…he’s still got it! The new Turning Point is packed with powerful content giving a perspective you’re not going to hear anywhere else. Weaving his way through the last century and right up to today with historical data, Brian offers a different way to view the current market and how to not just weather this storm, but come out on the other side with a great business.

The new Turning Point is a combination of education, motivation, and inspiration all packaged in good old Irish wit. I know I’ll be at the next one!
 
David Lally

When Buffini & Company launched The Blitz we obviously thought it was a good idea and truly believed it would work. But if we made one mistake it was that we underestimated the level of tenacity, drive and determination that you, our Members, would display.

Less than two weeks into the Blitz over 250,000 Pop-Bys have been completed, more than 200,000 personal notes have been sent and 200,000+ phone calls collectively have been made to your databases.

So far, you folks have generated over 20,000 referrals for your businesses in less than two weeks. Apparently you guys have decided not to participate in this recession, are ignoring the doomsday brigade and have embraced the concept that a “recession is a terrible thing to waste.”

Each day Joe “The Blitzmaster” Niego and myself go over your emails, comments and stories. In the 13 years of Buffini & Company, I can honestly say: this is the most fun I’ve ever had; this is the most rewarding the work has ever been, and I’ll never again underestimate you guys.

Now don’t forget…it is a 90-day Blitz, not a ten day one. Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. So keep up the good work. Let’s break records together. It looks like you guys are going to be just fine in 09.

It’s a good life!

Brian

Have you been living vicariously through the candidates, checking the polls, and watching the early returns? Well it’s time for us to get back to work. Just think...if we can apply ourselves and do just 2% of the Pop-Bys, handshakes and mailings these candidates did trying to get people to vote for them, we’d have such a big business we'd need help taking care of all the leads.

Reality is, the election is over and whether your team won or not, America is an eagle: it needs its left wing and its right wing in order to fly. We all need get down to work. Whether we’re euphoric or we’re down in dumps, let’s go flap our wings by doing our calls, writing our notes and getting out to see our best clients.

Working by referral is a trailing effect, so store up for the winter and get ready for a blitz in the New Year. Our goal is to help your business fly in ‘09.

It’s a good life!

Brian

I just returned home from a week in the fabulous city of Toronto. I’ve said this many times, but I truly believe it’s vital to get out of our environment on a regular basis. Visiting another country helps expand your thinking and broadens your horizons. It invigorates you by introducing you to a variety of new experiences…from different foods, different phrases to a different way of looking at the world. Getting out of the country also gives you a great appreciation for the things you enjoy most about your own city, town or neighborhood. And in that leveling of our perspective grow the seeds of contentment.

Right now, with so many people worried about their finances, the market etc. it’s very easy to forget all that we have and all there is to be thankful for.

So, my encouragement to all of you is sometime in the next 12 months, get out and about - as the Canadians say - and go visit a foreign shore. It’ll expand your horizons and be good for what ails you.

It’s a good life!

Brian

Oh, by the way…people have been requesting the fun facts and figures I’ve been talking about recently so they can respond to this market. Feel free to utilize these numbers and maybe together, one client at a time, we can educate the market!

Some facts to know:

• More than 1000 banks closed in 1930 – only 14 U.S. banks have been taken over in 2008
• There are 76 million households in the U.S. that own their home - 24 million of these homes are free and clear
• There are 52 million homes with mortgages - 97.2% of these are not in foreclosure, 93.8% of these homes are current on their payments
  

On a sobering note:

• Over 20% of homeowners with a mortgage owe more than their home is worth
• 40% of all foreclosures are non-owner occupied

How did we get here?

Decade    Homes Sold High    Homes Sold Average

1970’s      3.9 million               3 million
1980’s      4 million                  3.3 million
1990’s      4.9 million               3.9 million
2000’s      7.1 million               5.6 million
Resale numbers – the above does not include new home sales.

Sources: Wall Street Journal / Moody’s Economy.com / RealtyTrac / NAR / Forbes

For some compelling stats on the Canadian market, visit the Economics Publications section on http://www.scotiabank.com

Over the years many of you have heard my buddy Joe Niego talk about not having a spray and pray approach when it comes to the focus of your business and how to generate a lead…and he is so right. That’s why we teach the working by referral system – to help you maintain your focus.

However, in order to get an offer accepted today, the rules have temporarily changed. Helping a buyer has always been a process of elimination. You educate a client in a geographic area and start eliminating homes that they don’t want until they find the one or two they like the best. You then write an offer, negotiate, get it accepted and work on getting it closed.

Today if you write an offer on a short sale or a foreclosure you have approximately a 1 in 4 chance of getting it accepted – even if it’s the best offer. You have a 1 in 3 chance of even getting a response. Many of us are frustrated because this is not how the business is supposed to go. Well folks this is how the business is going today. You need to educate buyers that we’re going to follow the spray and pray approach.

“We’re going to find a home you like, write an offer and there’s a pretty good chance we may not hear back. There’s also a pretty good chance the offer will expire without hearing back so immediately after writing an offer, we’re going to look at more homes. We may have to write offers on five homes to get one accepted.”

This is not how I like to do business and I’m sure it’s not how you like to do business but right now we need to have different expectations and so do our clients. As long as short sales and foreclosures are the first choice of buyers we have to educate them that they going to have to put up with a season of frustration for the opportunity to get one of these deals.

As I told a young buyer the other day; you’re buying this home for $100K less than it sold for a year ago…it will eventually regain it’s value and how long would it take you to save $100K?

So yes we’re going to have to spray a lot of offers into the market but don’t forget to pray. You’ve got to have faith in this market: Faith that things are going to work out; Faith that the market will turn; and faith in the intrinsic value of real estate itself.

I have faith in you.

It’s a good life!

Brian

If you’ve been following the national news recently regarding the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the stock market getting hit and Fannie and Freddie being taken over by the government, these are all the classics signs of the bottom of a market correction.

Right now, we don’t have so much of a real estate problem as we do a banking one. Prices have mostly stabilized across the country and in the short sale and foreclosure market we’re seeing multiple offers. Although I do believe there are a couple more banks in trouble and there’s not yet a full complement of mortgage products to satisfy all the buyers in the market, trust me that will get sorted out. For thousands of years lending money has been one of the most profitable businesses in the world. Banks make money by lending; not by deposits. So they will figure out ways to package loans and get cash into the hands of consumers. I believe this is the final cleansing process and in the next six months we’ll start to come out on the other side of this.

Make sure your clients don’t get caught in the “cudda shudda wudda” of taking advantage of this market. Make sure all your investor clients are fully aware of all the deals that exist and if there’s any way possible, see if you can pick up one of these real estate deals as part of your own investment strategy. We won’t know what the bottom is until after but I believe it’s pretty close. Keep your head down working hard.

It’s a good life!

Brian

On my travels this year, I’ve noticed a lot of people working harder than ever to make the same or even less money. And myself and the staff at Buffini & Company have been doing everything we can to try to encourage, motivate, challenge and train all of our great Members. However there’s one element that you must introduce regularly to your mental diet and that’s a good belly laugh.

Studies have shown its physiological healing qualities, researchers have analyzed its psychological benefits, however it just seems to me that at times like this there’s nothing like putting your head back and allowing yourself to have a good laugh. This was part of the thinking that went into the "Referral Brothers" skit Joe Niego and I did this year at this year's MasterMind. We had just received the first copies of our new book, Work by Referral. Live the Good Life! and we wanted to come up with a creative way not only to gift our audience with the first edition, but also provide some comic relief and allow people to throw their heads back and just enjoy.

So make sure you put yourself in an environment or spend time with someone you know will provide a good laugh. And if you don’t have anything planned for today, check this YouTube clip out and maybe it’ll do the trick.

Keep working, keep trying, and keep laughing.

It’s a good life!

Brian

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

- Rudyard Kipling

Some say that Rudyard wrote this poem to encourage soldiers in the war. It seems rather applicable for Realtors®, lenders and those working in the service industry in this market.

It’s a good life!

Brian