I discovered two sets of skills many years ago when I first started in real estate.
The first set of skills I was exposed to were technical skills known as the scripts and dialogues of sales.
I started memorising these scripts for the just sold, just listed, expired, past market appraisal and listing presentation scenarios.
Let’s be honest, we’ve all seen and used these scripts.
After 12 months of implementing and using these scripts, I couldn’t connect with the prospect, and my conversion rate suffered severely.
Rejection after rejection did little to boost my failing self-confidence, and I began to doubt myself and my ability to sell in the real estate market.
I had two choices, either continue what I was doing with no success or hire a coach.
I’ve always been the type of guy who goes all in.
Failure was not an option, so I bought my plane ticket and flew halfway across the world to the US.
In the mid-’90s, there weren’t any real estate coaches in Australia.
A keynote speaker at one of Sydney’s real estate seminars suggested I go to the US and learn from one of the best real estate coaches at the time, Mike Ferry.
I attended his Superstar Sales Retreat in Palm Springs, and at the end of the conference, I had a discussion with Mike about my low conversion rate even though I was using his scripts.
He grabbed a piece of paper and wrote an address down, and handed it back to me.
“Go to this address and they will help you,” Mike told me.
Driving down Highway 91 towards West Hollywood, I begin to feel excited as I thought I was going to meet some amazing superstar real estate agent who was going to share some tips and help me improve my conversion rate.
What I got instead was the address of a Hollywood acting school.
Confused, I called Mike.
He laughed when I questioned the address, the relevance of the acting school and my plight.
All he said was “perfect”, and so began my journey into mastering the soft skills in West Hollywood.
What are soft skills?
They are your ability to master and amplify the most powerful instrument you have – your voice.
The art of acting taught me how to communicate and build rapport with people using voice and body language.
By marrying the technical and soft skills, I was able to master the ability to connect, influence and persuade others using the five communication pillars in the voice.
1. Rate of speech
2. Tonality
3. Volume
4. Pitch/Melody
5. Pause
Our voice can connect and attract people if you learn to amplify it.
Your confidence is directly linked to your voice.
From the classes I took in Hollywood, I learnt how to apply the soft skills in my listing presentation and discovered that for every minute an actor is on screen, they practice and rehearse for two hours.
To put this into perspective, a 30-minute listing presentation would require 60 hours of learning.
You may think this is overkill, but the question we need to ask ourselves is, “How important is winning the business and making an impression?”
How much is the way you communicate and speak costing you?
Soft skills are about our ability to connect, our emotional intelligence, our ability to persuade and communicate effectively with others.
These skills are some of the most valuable tools you can have in an ever-changing world and marketplace.
When you can communicate on a much deeper, richer and meaningful level, the magic happens. You get them and they get you.
It’s time to learn how to amplify the best parts of you.
