In a previous article, I wrote about “The 50th Law” by 50 Cent and Robert Greene. It’s a good book with many lessons for those of us in sales – especially real estate sales.
For this article I thought I would share a little more from the book about fear. The reason I decided to write this article was because I have had many private phone conversations with real estate agents over the last few weeks and these agents, for the most part, are fearful. It is easy to understand why many agents are operating in fear. The real estate market has been brutal and we have no idea what is headed our way in the next 2 to 3 years.
From the book…
“Fear creates its own self-fulfilling dynamic – as people give in to it, they lose energy and momentum. Their lack of confidence translates into inaction that lowers confidence levels further, and on and on.”
When we operate our businesses out of fear, we make many subtle changes that continue to hurt the business going forward:
- We stop advertising to attract new customers
- We stop communicating with our sphere of influence and database
- We stop recruiting agents to help us in our businesses
- We focus more on cutting costs rather than growing revenue
- We begin to miss “opportunities” because we stop seeing them
Slowly but surely, our businesses are dying a slow and painful death. This is sad, but true. It’s important to examine ourselves and see if we are operating our businesses from a position of fear. To do so, we must be honest with ourselves and ask some very challenging questions.
- Do I really believe I can increase my home sales this year?
- Do I really believe I can increase my commission income this year?
- Am I generating enough leads each week/month to meet my sales goals? If the answer is no – why not?
- Am I working to build a better team?
- Am I testing new advertisements?
- Am I talking to enough qualified prospects each day?
- What new opportunities am I pursuing right now?
By answering these questions honestly, you should be able to “see” if you’re operating your business out of fear.
Remember Roosevelt’s speech?
” So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
In The 50th Law, the authors wrote…
“What Roosevelt sketched out in his speech is the knife’s edge that separates failure from success in life. That edge is your attitude, which has the power to help shape your reality. If you view everything through the lens of fear, then you tend to stay in retreat mode…. you will give disproportionate attention to the negative and manufacture the very adverse circumstances you dread. If you go the opposite direction cultivating a fearless approach to life, attacking everything with boldness and energy, then you will create a much different dynamic…. something strange and remarkable can occur – that margin of control over circumstance increases.”
In reality what we fear typically isn’t as bad as we might initially believe. Think about whatever it is you’re worried about in your business and ask yourself what would happen if it actually happened? I can still remember how scared I was to buy my first rental property many years ago. To conquer this fear, I made a list of everything that could go wrong and what I would do if the item listed did go wrong. I quickly realized that what I was afraid of wasn’t very scary at all. You might find the same thing regarding your real estate sales business.
It’s more important today than ever to operate our businesses from a position of strength. I realize it’s not easy, but it IS necessary.
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