Clip from Episode 28: Top Real Estate Agent – Brandy Finnessey – Closing a Deal a Week:

Get connected with somebody who’s been doing it for a while and learn from them. Because I think that there is a lot to learn and I think that you need to get rid of your pride a bit. No matter what industry you came from or how awesome you think you are. I think that you will have something to learn. And I think that if you are fortunate enough to even have someone in your office where you work or whatnot that is a very solid good agent trying to get to know them a little bit try to get to know their secrets try to get on their good side they might actually feed you a deal here and there if they like you and they see you trying hard. But more than that even if they don’t give you a single deal you’ll be able to kind of learn kind of what their secrets are and what they did and how they implemented things and they might be able to kind of coach you along the way a bit. And I think that that’s important in real estate because when you’re starting out you’re just trying to eat at that phase you’re just trying to make a nickel and you feel overwhelmed and everybody’s telling you to spend all those nickels and you’re sitting here thinking how how am I going to get how am I to get it through how am I going to get any of this. Well try to do some things around you that maybe don’t cost you anything but require your time and your ears and your open mindedness.

 

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Clip from Episode 28: Top Real Estate Agent – Brandy Finnessey – Closing a Deal a Week:

For buyers and sellers both I provide them each with documentation that’s kind of a next step book. It’s like what to expect during the process. And I joke but very serious about it that some clients will that’ll be something that just collect dust next to the bedside and that’s totally fine. But there’s a lot of clients that want to grab a hold of something and look at something when they’re freaking out at night or whatever the case is and what’s going to happen next. They really gobbled it up and then some of them that could care less but that’s fine for those that don’t want to read it or look at it or do anything like that. I say don’t worry about it. I’m here I’m going the next step you the whole way through and I’ll do it one step at a time so I won’t overwhelm you. But this book is just for in case you get paranoid or want to look ahead a few chapters. This is this is what’s going to happen in the process.

 

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Clip from Episode 28: Top Real Estate Agent – Brandy Finnessey – Closing a Deal a Week:

I always say to my clients everybody’s heard me say this I am a next step kind of gal and I take that very seriously. I don’t ever want my clients to be blindsided by something. So whether we’re just starting the process early on or we’re into negotiations I’m already giving them kind of when we start negotiations. OK. This is where I think we should counter back at this is what I think they’ll likely counter back at or ask us for. And this is what I think we maybe do they might do this but this is what I think they’re going to do and so forth. Because if we’ve done this enough times you start to see a lot of trends. So we as the professionals should be able to convey that in a nice way to our clients so that they can get prepared because this may be the first time they’re ever doing it and they don’t know what to expect. And I think oftentimes no matter what business you’re in. We take for granted that our customers know what’s going to happen and they don’t they don’t know what’s going to happen most of the time. And we we do because we live and breathe it every single day.

 

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Clip from Episode 28: Top Real Estate Agent – Brandy Finnessey – Closing a Deal a Week:

This job is hard and you get beat down a lot. So I think it’s really important to be mindful of what you’re taking in as a positive that it’s resonating in that positive fashion. Because I think so often times we get surrounded around a lot of negativity whether it’s at the office or maybe in our personal life or the call we just got off of or whatever the case is and then letting that kind of dictate where you’re going that day. So I would say I’m very mindful about that so I tend to read and associate with things that either are helping me from a sales perspective or I’m walking away going OK I got this really great nugget I’m going to see how I can apply that in my business or if I really need that pick me up because it has been that country music kind of day. Then I’ll try and put something on that’s a little bit upbeat that maybe kind of grabs me and says OK well come on persevere let’s let’s push through this. And then as far as like a book I would say that one of the best books that I’ve read in a long time was Hug Your Customers. It was completely unrelated to real estate at all. But I thought it was really amazing and really brought perspective of just simple things that you can do just little tweaks on how to make that personal interaction with your clients and then how much that magnifies through your business.

 

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Clip from Episode 28: Top Real Estate Agent – Brandy Finnessey – Closing a Deal a Week:

And I think that it’s very powerful for you to put that mirror if you will of your business up on the board in front of you and then really look at it and be honest about it and look at your transactions up there because it will very black and white show you where you’re doing really well and where you’re not. And my first year when I started doing this my slow months when I looked back at the couple months before that they were my high months. And they also didn’t have anything major that I was doing that quarter for my clients and past clients or any networking functions or whatever. I didn’t do anything so it made total sense that I like most agents got really busy and overwhelmed and fell apart and didn’t talk to anybody during that time I just kind of sat in my office and worked and that’s what I did. But those transactions essentially ate me alive. Well that’s what happens on the back end is a quarter later or two quarters later you have this huge lull where there’s nothing going on even if the market is pretty decent.

 

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Clip from Episode 28: Top Real Estate Agent – Brandy Finnessey – Closing a Deal a Week:

You have to have a good operating calendar and pick what works for you. But I think that you really need to block out your week your month your six months your year. I do a yearly meeting with my team in November every single year for the following year and we block out on a huge white board every single month and all the different touches that we’re going to do with clients and where we’re doing things so that we can see it at that level and be able to see where the holes are and see where there’s big gaps in time where maybe we’re not doing anything or we’re not connecting or then we then we put them on the bottom of that. But still where we can see on the board how we did transactionally throughout the year how many closings we did each month this prior year. So this November I’ll be doing it for 2017. And I look at that and I go back through and say OK well what happened and this month why why are we so much less than the month before or why is this quarter less or whatever the case says it means that maybe we need to beef something up you know a quarter or two quarters before that. And how do we fill that in to make sure that we don’t have those highs and lows in the.

 

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Clip from Episode 28: Top Real Estate Agent – Brandy Finnessey – Closing a Deal a Week:

Hand written notes. I feel like that that is a dying profession or dying what do we say nicety if you will a courtesy. It’s very unusual to get a handwritten note and even I saw the other day somebody it was actually my assistant brought it to me and said Hey what if we typed something up but it made it look like handwritten. And I said no it totally defeats the purpose. The idea is to really sit down and handwrite the note and very specifically don’t just write some cheese ball line that you write in every single card but really write something that is genuine to that person otherwise why bother doing it? So again it’s about really making those connections with your people and I hand write notes to everybody I hand write notes to and I’m not old. Those of you that know me I’m I’m not an old lady and Scott could attest to that. So it’s not from that it’s because I actually believe that it’s a really nice gesture that people still today are surprised and taken aback by you taking the time to actually do. And it really does mean something. So I I would say that that’s one routine that never goes away. Me personally I write about 30 a week.

 

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Clip from Episode 28: Top Real Estate Agent – Brandy Finnessey – Closing a Deal a Week:

I would say the hardest time is managing the chaos because the reality of real estate is it’s highly emotional. Almost everybody even in the most blissful of transactions has a lot going on. They’re moving at the most simple of levels so let’s say that the transaction is perfect but they’re in the process of moving or relocating or you know changing their kid’s school or all of this. It’s just a highly highly volatile time. And as agents we’re supposed to be the complete neutral party and the very calm one and sometimes on the other side you have an agent that maybe isn’t calm and being that neutral party. So trying to manage the other side as well and then trying to make sure that you still get in your daily tasks. What I see most with agents whether it be on my team or in the real estate community overall where I see agents really stray is they have these real big highs and lows in their business all the time. And the reason why that is is because when the chaos is going on they’re not doing their day to day activities that they should be doing whether it’s connecting with their past clients or you know going to some of these functions or going and looking at property tours or whatever the case may be they lose track of all of that because they’re allowing the chaos to take over and I’m not saying that you don’t have to deal with it you have to deal with the chaos but it’s about really trying to kind of put perspective on all of that and make sure that in your day even if you are exhausted that you’ve got to push through and do these one or two or three items still so that you kind of get rid of that major high and low.

 

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Clip from Episode 28: Top Real Estate Agent – Brandy Finnessey – Closing a Deal a Week:

You’ve had a lot of success. Accomplished a lot in your career. What are you most proud of? I would say and I’ll try not to get kind of silly emotional about this. I grew up very humbly and I would say that a lot of what I do and why I do it is to provide a difference for my family. Specifically I have two small boys and really being an entrepreneur really making a point to be involved in charity and giving back and letting my two boys see that through me and be a part of all of these events is probably the thing that hands down I’m the most proud of to see my oldest who’s now nine which is still really young. But to see him really getting excited about some of the charity events that we do and talking to teachers or different people like that about you know what we’re looking forward to doing and why he’s looking forward to it really really says OK yeah that’s why I’m doing all this.

 

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Clip from Episode 28: Top Real Estate Agent – Brandy Finnessey – Closing a Deal a Week:

As an agent, or any sales profession I would think, you would want to categorize very early on to see who you should be talking to. As far as your raving fans. I use a very simple system which a lot of folks use which is like an A+ is anybody who’s referred me more than two deals a year. An A is someone who’s referred me a deal a year and then a B is someone who would like to refer me but maybe didn’t this year. And then C’s are folks that either I’m still cultivating and trying to get there or just met or just started doing business with.

 

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