Category Archives: The Quote

Thinking About Downsizing After You Retire?

Is This Your Situation:

No matter if it’s you or your parents or grandparents, older homeowners have different needs than the average homeowner.


Family
Having relatives close by grows in importance for many. If family members have moved away from the family home, a relocation could be in order. Or, for those with family nearby, this could simply entail downsizing or rightsizing to a smaller place across town.


Roots
Many older homeowners choose to stay put because they want to maintain their existing friendships and community connections, meaning home needs may change but the zip code may not.

Size
Some homeowners in larger homes find the time and money necessary for its maintenance to be too much and simply look for a smaller home or a condo/townhouse that doesn’t require the same level of upkeep—or the same square footage.

Finances
Many homeowners stay in the same city or state in which they raised their family despite the fact that a change in climate might be inviting. Many retirees examine their financial situation and the tax implications of moving to another state and realize it may not be a wise move monetarily.

Emotions
Before any move away from family—and a family home—can succeed, both the owners of the home and their entire family must be able to make an emotional break from the home. This will make the transition for the owners easier and the transaction simpler when all parties realize that the move is a business matter and not about a memory-filled structure that is being “lost.”

Don’t make this Decision Alone!

Give me a call today if you’d like more information on the process of downsizing to a smaller home. You have options. Let’s explore the options best for you.


Terry McDaniel
Real Estate Evangelist
925) 766-7077
Terry@TerryMcDaniel.com

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May 27, 2020 · 5:29 pm

Trusted Advisor

Excellent article.  We live and work with those like us.   Item #2 resonates with me….. BP2…. Bless and prospect your client before profits….. You must give, expect nothing.  Your bread/goodworks will return 100 fold.  Enjoy the article and sign up for his blog and emails

Becoming a Trusted Advisor
by Donal Daly

During the recent economic turmoil, what happened was a deep recession and a fundamental restructuring of the economic order. This is a good thing! It has forced everyone to focus on true difference versus positioned differentiation. It re-aligned a focus on values and ethics, and it has underlined the value of the asset that is trust.

The unfortunate reality is: trust in business, between companies, employees, customers and suppliers, is at an all time low. A recent study shows that the percentage of people who trust business dropped from 58% in 2008 to 38% in 2009. Only 29% of people trust what the CEO of a company says! Customers are almost twice are likely to take a recommendation about a product from ‘someone like them’ than from a company representative.

So, now what do you do? Well, unless you want to give up, you need to be part of the ‘recommendation chain’. You must establish trust, and the customer must see you as someone more ‘like them’, than a representative of your company. But, the threshold is high because in the end, you’re going to ask them for their money, right? Being ‘like them’ breaks down some barriers, but it’s not enough. It earns you the right to give advice that they might listen to, but the advice better be good, and for that to happen you need to work hard. I will get to that journey in a minute but first a story.

The most successful salesperson I ever met lives and works in a small city in upstate New York. Matt has four very large customers whose headquarters are based nearby. Over the 15 or so years I’ve known Matt, he has had three different employers, but he has always retained the same four major customers. The companies are in similar sectors, and Matt is considered locally to be an expert in that industry. He is viewed as a thought-leader even though like all of us, he’s just a bag-carrying sales guy. Every year, Matt worked with his customers to develop their vision for the coming year and they looked to him for guidance and advice. He wasn’t playing the numbers game. He worked with his customers to develop opportunities that he can win. They viewed him as their ‘go-to’ guy to help them deliver on their business initiatives. He successfully transcended the relationship barrier to become a trusted advisor, rather than being perceived just as a vendor. He always exceeded his quota and the customer never, ever focused on price.

Matt is the perfect example of a Trusted Advisor someone who is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the Vendor, and who has advanced though the levels of Credible Source, and Problem solver on the way.

Would you like to be viewed that way by your customers? When you do, you are insulating yourself from competition, you have longevity in the account, you’ve great revenue predictability, and you’re not drowning in the madness of the ‘numbers game’.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Understand your customers’ industry and their business. If you’re to advise, you must be a subject matter expert.

2. You need to give value first and expect nothing in return. You building a relationship for the long term, and it’s only ok to ask for something from the customer when you’ve earned the right.

3. You need to be authentic, honest and fair in everything, always particularly if you are building a relationship based on trust.

4. You must focus on areas of mutual value, where what’s good for the customer is also good for you in that order. Explore the customers business strategy, understand or suggest business initiatives to deliver on that strategy, can when you find an area that will make a real difference to the customer, see if you have a solution to their problem. Start with the problem, not the solution.

5. Choose your customers wisely, only apply the resources to customer for whom your products or services can truly deliver value. Don’t try to force-fit your solution. It will only end up in tears.

6. Make sure that your efforts are matched by the customer’s commitment otherwise you’re wasting your time. This forces you to interact with people in the customer’s organization who can commit or apply resources. Spending time with anyone else is not productive.

7. Recognize that some customers don’t want this level of attention – the level of relationship needs to be appropriate to the business opportunity

8. It boils down to value, and value propositions needs to be business based, not feature based, addressing the critical success factors for key business initiatives which means you need to understand the customer’s business.

Sit in the customer’s chair and ask the question: Would I buy a – insert product name here – from this company? If you answer that question honestly it will guide your actions.

Remember, customers don’t need you to learn about your product. They can get all of the information they need from the Internet. They don’t need you to recommend solutions they can get that from their peers. Your opportunity is to help them shape their needs, identify or suggest initiatives, and then attach your solutions to those initiatives. For that you need to be a Trusted Advisor. There really is no other way.

Donal is Founder and CEO of The TAS Group. He started his first company – Software Development Tools in 1986 which was acquired by Wall Data. He also founded and sold NewWorld Commerce, The Customer Respect Group and Select Strategies. Donal is the author of four books including the best selling Select Selling Sales Fieldbook. He can be found on his blog at www.sales20network.com or on Twitter @sales20network.

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5 Secret ways to find All Cash Buyers

Join us tomorrow at 2, as we share 5 smart prospecting tips how to find “all cash buyers” using predictive analytics. Get ahead in the crowd….

5 ways to connect with the invisible all cash buyer. Join us as we show you where they live and how many homes them have purchased. Maybe you call them and ask them if they would like to buy more….
Join us, tweet back at @terrymcdaniel or email me terry@realagile.com and we’ll send a private invitation back….
Terry

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The Right Question, at the Right Time, Produces the Right Results.

Of all the questions to ask, the Open-End question produces the most insight and sales intel.  Let your client talk.  Be Quiet. Turn your listening ears on. Enjoy their conversation.  On JustSell.com, I came across an article about Open End questions I think you might enjoy.  Click on Open End Questions and read more…… Talk with you soon… Terry

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Smart Prospecting for Hidden Real Estate Investors.

Wouldn’t it be great for your business if you could determine who is the most likely to invest in real estate? Absolutely.

5 Steps to contact Non-Owner Occupied property Owners
1. Make a list of non-owner occupied properties owners.
2. Send a letter: “Would you like to buy more or sell this property?”
3. If no response, send a short list of active & sold of similar properties.
4. Call or send a follow-up letter to ask: ” Do you have any interest?”
5. Do this 5 times a year.

Simple steps to create a proactive prospecting system. T

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Smart Prospecting Expectations

Lay a firm foundation of knowledge and skills from stones others have tried to dash your dreams. Terry

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Pick your Friends Well!

Pick your friends for the long Haul

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7 Strategies to Avoid Distractions at Work

Quick pointed to-dos….. You will like this… You can apply right away….Terry

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http://realagile.com

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Say it LOUDER…We need more Evangelists.

Word of Mouth: Powerful and something we all need to practice and perfect.  It worked so well I stopped doing it.   Today, we need to turn on the after burners to fire-up our prospecting…. We need more people in our sales funnel.  Comment by Terry

Types of Word of Mouth Marketing

Word of mouth marketing encompasses dozens of marketing techniques that are geared toward encouraging and helping people to talk to each other about products and services.

Common types of word of mouth marketing are listed below. This is not a complete list — we’re publishing it as a means to begin a dialog toward standardization, and we welcome your comments. (Not everyone agrees that each of these should be part of word of mouth marketing, and many marketers use different terms to describe them.)

  • Buzz Marketing: Using high-profile entertainment or news to get people to talk about your brand.
  • Viral Marketing: Creating entertaining or informative messages that are designed to be passed along in an exponential fashion, often electronically or by email.
  • Community Marketing: Forming or supporting niche communities that are likely to share interests about the brand (such as user groups, fan clubs, and discussion forums); providing tools, content, and information to support those communities.
  • Grassroots Marketing: Organizing and motivating volunteers to engage in personal or local outreach.
  • Evangelist Marketing: Cultivating evangelists, advocates, or volunteers who are encouraged to take a leadership role in actively spreading the word on your behalf.
  • Product Seeding: Placing the right product into the right hands at the right time, providing information or samples to influential individuals.
  • Influencer Marketing: Identifying key communities and opinion leaders who are likely to talk about products and have the ability to influence the opinions of others.
  • Cause Marketing: Supporting social causes to earn respect and support from people who feel strongly about the cause.
  • Conversation Creation: Interesting or fun advertising, emails, catch phrases, entertainment, or promotions designed to start word of mouth activity.
  • Brand Blogging: Creating blogs and participating in the blogosphere, in the spirit of open, transparent communications; sharing information of value that the blog community may talk about.
  • Referral Programs: Creating tools that enable satisfied customers to refer their friends.

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