Leads are for LOSERS!

Almost a year ago, on a coaching call, I said, “Leads are for losers. Clients are for Closers.”

Real estate is this simple: Do you want a list of 200 leads or 200 clients?

Stop looking for leads! Look for clients!

How do you look for clients? Great question, because that’s what my next book is about (sort of).

I have been telling people about the book, and many people were not too captivated by the title I was using. Especially my kids, one of whom said regarding my original title, “That’s dumb.” Not that they are experts on book titling. However, yesterday morning, I had an incredible breakthrough on the book title (and very obvious in hindsight):

Leads Are For Losers
Being a Professional Worth Hiring is Where It’s At:  The 13 Virtues That Transform Your Business Relationships

I don’t know if this title will stick. I mentioned this to one of my coaching clients yesterday, and he thought the title should simply be, “Leads are for Losers, Clients are for Closers.” I love that line, but I am not sure it’s right for the book title, so for now, I'm going with what I laid out above. 

Having said all that, the moment that I declared the title would be ‘Leads Are For Losers’ - I hesitated.

It’s obnoxious. It’s brazen. It’s a little clickbait-y. It’s risky because it’s open for massive misinterpretation. It could give an initial impression of something and someone that I, and the book, are definitely not. On the other hand, I love it!

Why do I love it? Because salespeople are obsessed with leads! Again, nothing wrong with leads. But, and you should never start a sentence with but, it’s like the famous Wayne Gretzky quote: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

You don’t really want leads; what you really want is clients. In our business, for the most part, clients come from relationships. Even if you meet new people at your kids' school, at open house, at the doors - where you go from there is almost exclusively a function of the relationship you build. Specifically, the quality of the relationship, and while the quality of the relationship can be broken down in many ways, I am going to simply say that the fundamental quality of the relationship is trust.

Here’s another truth bomb to drop on you: “If real estate were certain, you wouldn’t need trust.”

Instead of trust, what most people have is ‘cordial hypocrisy’ (coined by Solomon and Flores in their book, “Building Trust in Business, Politics, Relationships, and Life”), which is trust on top of distrust. It’s going along with the flow, being nice to seemingly ‘keep things pleasant’. It’s also not speaking up, not addressing issues before they blow up. It’s being nice instead of being responsible and courageous.

The opposite of cordial hypocrisy is authentic trust (also coined by Solomon and Flores), which is a type of trust that is created by two or more people. It is a distinct, intentional act. Trust ebbs and flows in relationships, and when authentic trust is present, the parties take responsibility for restoring trust when there is a breach or betrayal of trust. (That’s where the courage part comes in!)

If you have been in any of my workshops or have been reading my posts for a while, you know about the 13 Virtues. The whole point of the virtues is to create (business) relationships that work. When you have high-quality relationships (i.e., high levels of trust, or possibly ‘authentic trust’), your business goes more smoothly, faster, and it’s more profitable. The 13 Virtues are characteristics that you can point to - that you can embody - to create authentic trust. At the very least, it enables you to be more trusting and more trustworthy (those are two distinct things). When you fulfill on these virtues and create relationships with authentic trust, dare I say that you will experience more profound satisfaction in your business?

Unfortunately, those high-quality relationships don’t happen automatically. It is intentional, it requires work, and as I said, it requires significant levels of responsibility and courage. What are two things most people don’t feel like doing: demonstrating responsibility and courage!

Much better to take the “easy” way. Buy leads. Get a paycheck now. One and done. Who wants to talk about “relationships?” Or worse, here is the absolute number one complaint/pushback I get from real estate agents:

“I don’t want to call people.”

If I had a dollar for every time a real estate agent told me that... It’s INSANE! You are in a business about relationships, and you do everything you can to avoid being in strong, foundational, profitable, fulfilling, and satisfying relationships!

It’s not actually insane; it’s simply human beings being human beings. Comfort and survival is how we are hard-wired. Easier to be checked out and emotionally uncommitted. Seems easier to go find another ‘new’ client than do the work to be connected to the clients you already have.

Here’s another thing that I keep coming back to: 

“A shortcut is how little can I get away with doing, and I think the real question is, how much more can I give?”
  - Rick Rubin on Lewis Howes The School of Greatness

It’s natural for us to look for shortcuts. However, if you want to be profoundly satisfied in your business, how likely is it that shortcuts (buying and chasing leads) will give you that experience? 

Instead, what more can you give to your relationships? 

What more can you give to yourself to be better in how you show up in your client relationships? (And of course your personal ones too!)