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The Importance of Training Your Mind for Commercial Real Estate Excellence Right Now

By Jim Gillespie | August 5, 2010

There’s so much negative news being shoveled at us that it can be difficult to rise above it all and still determine your own destiny in commercial real estate brokerage. Yes, transaction volume is down considerably since 2007, but did you know that the total dollar volume of commercial real estate sales transactions in the U.S. rose by a full 58% during the first half of 2010, as compared with during the exact same period back in 2009? This information comes from Bloomberg and Real Capital Analytics, but it comes within an article that, in keeping with the current trend, has a negative headline as its title! (Click here to read the article.) So no matter what other news you may hear today, if you focus on this one piece of information, you may feel a little better.

With all of the negative news being broadcast to us today, it reminds me of what I heard comedian Woody Allen say once a good number of years ago. At the end of one of his comedy routines he said something very similar to:

"In summing up, I wish I had some kind of positive message I could leave you all with. Would you take instead maybe, two negative messages?"

So what we’re left with today is trying to keep a good, positive attitude amid constant negative news. And if you don’t keep a positive attitude, it can definitely impact your productivity.

With this in mind, see if any of the following thoughts have been going through your mind in this market:

"This market is really tough."

"I can’t believe how difficult things have gotten."

"I really wish we were back in 2007 again."

"Why should I bother? Everything I’m trying isn’t working."

"I don’t know if this market will turn around again."

When you have thoughts like these going through your mind, they can drain your productivity, and they can set your mind on a course that will lead you towards disappointment and failure.

So what’s the solution to all of this? Reframing how you’re seeing the situation, and asking yourself the following simple question:

"How would I be approaching this differently if I were allowing it to be easy?"

I heard this question recently during an interview with best-selling author Alan Cohen. While having a Ph.D. degree in Clinical Hypnotherapy, and being both a Master Practitioner and Trainer in the field of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), I’m constantly looking for more effective language patterns to utilize when communicating with people. It’s this study of utilizing effective language patterns that led me to developing my prospecting scripts for commercial real estate agents. (Click here for more information on these scripts.)  And the better you are at understanding how your language patterns influence people, the more successful you’re going to be in sales.

So you can utilize this question I’ve mentioned whenever you notice that you’re being negative about this market and negative about what you think you can accomplish in it. This question can help you to reframe your mind and look at the situation differently, because I can almost guarantee that the brokers who are producing the best results right now in this market, are the ones who are convinced that they see opportunities, not difficulties.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to send me an E-mail.

"Jim has helped me to organize a game plan and work it with the tenacity that’s producing a greater number of transactions for me in my marketplace."

Scott Wilcott
NAI Capital

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.


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