NEW BEGINNINGS...

Beginning or Ending?  It is up to you to decide…

I went to look up the Quote, “The Only Thing that is Constant is Change” and Google told me that this quote goes back to ancient Greek times and the originator of the quote is Heraclitus.

This is life.  This is business.  Change is Constant.

You’ve heard this too is that the only thing you can control is your reaction… be it a positive or a negative you can control the event or the change, but what you can control is your REACTION and your ATTITUDE about the change. 

There has been a lot of ‘change’ in my world in the last 2 months that I’ll get to in a minute and ultimately, I know that I’m on the hook for the changes because I am the one that has assembled the puzzle pieces, but then last week it hit me…

Are you an optimist or are you a pessimist?

To me when this change occurs, this inevitable change happens do you look at the event as the an ‘Ending’ or do you look at it as a ‘New Beginning.’

For me, I sulk for a day or two and then I regroup and look at it as a new beginning.  I tend to be on Optimist, that with every situation it is a chance to look at what should be done to fine-tune to improve that situation.

In business this has led to always innovating and testing new methods to help our clients.  This trial and error led to our Documented Approach to helping sellers achieve superior results that we have documented in our Book, The Psychological Approach to Sell Real Estate.  Always looking at and tweaking our system.

Nearly 2 years ago, I started our new Company with a vision.  I knew how to build, foster, and strengthen relationships at a level that is unheard of.  By learning how to properly tell my ‘Story’ my business to grew 508% in a 30-month period.  Using the 3-C’s that I always talk about; Consistent Compelling Content the growth happened without 1 cold-call, without begging, without pestering.  All sales techniques talk by low level thinkers. 

As I spoke yesterday ‘building a house with a foundation’ the 3-C strategy is a long-game strategy.  It takes a while to build up that foundation, but a year, 2 years, 3 years each building on another the business comes to you easier and at an increasing pace. 

Not that the ‘begging and cold-calling’ doesn’t work because it can.  It just tears at your soul.  Getting rejected 97 out of 100 times.  You’ve gotta like torture.  And the business that you get by pestering is usually one-time business, there is no relationship, there are no lifelong referrals.  It is just churn and burn new business.

My hypothesis was that I could use that same strategy that saw 508% growth with agents in my new company to help them with their business.  We would be partners.  I would take care of delivering the content and all the back-end systems and strategies and they would take care of the client. 

For the last 18 months I devoted my time to my partners, and you know what?

It worked!!!  My partners saw growth was hockey stick like growth.  They established themselves with their content as a ‘someone’ in the eyes of their audience and the business grew.

I thought that I could have partners all over the state in different locations, so we could service more people and help others.  We spanned from the eastern shore to the mountains of western Maryland. 

But in the last 2 months I’ve had 3 partners decide to leave as the distance, the physical distance between us was too great to overcome.  And yes, there was support from the office.  SueMart did an excellent job helping partners manage their transactions and I was ALWAYS available to give advice, answer questions, help my partners. 

Some would look at those 18 months that I spent devoting to my partners as a failure because, ultimately, they left.  I tend to look at is as a positive.  My hypothesis was correct.  I was able to help them establish and grow their business through ‘Story.’

Now, our Organization has gotten smaller.  I still have SueMart, my right hand man, that takes care of keeping me straight (which is a full time job) and dotting all our I’s and t’s in real estate.  She is absolutely the BEST I have ever seen at this!  Still have Hashie (Brittany), SAS (Stacy), and Katie.  And they are all local, we see each other multiple times a week.  So distance isn’t an issue and we continue to help them grow their business.

But losing 3 partners it gives me the chance to re-evaluate the direction of the organization. 

Instead of dwelling on losing 3 partners, I look at it as a new beginning…  I can delve into Operations and how we can better serve our clients.  I can make sure that we put in systems and safe guards so that this doesn’t happen again. 

We can modify the structure so that there is long-term success and like I said yesterday it is MUCH easier to do with a company in its infancy.  If I had 30-40 partners a pivot would be nearly impossible but being less than 2 years old and with a small team I can adjust our system and operations.

Now, back to the drawing board.  I will spend the next 60-90 days reviewing everything and building operations… The end goal is to make sure the client experience is 5 STAR across the board. 

So, when change happens in your life, I’m curious… Do you look at the change as an ‘Ending’ or a ‘New Beginning?’

Cheers!!!