What These Massive Government Bailouts Really Mean for You
By Jim Gillespie | September 22, 2008
I don’t ever remember a time when there’s been so much volatility and concern over what’s been happening in our financial markets. And in addition people have been asking questions like, “Are these bailouts really necessary?” and “How will these bailouts affect me personally?” And both of these questions are really good questions to be asking right now.
The focus of my article here will really be on answering the second of these two questions, as you’ll be hearing countless experts both on TV and in other media debating both sides of the answer to the first question for months to come. And at the end of this article I’m going to give you a resource that I believe is the best one I could ever give you for having you really understand the underlying cause of these current conditions in our economy right now, too.
So let’s look at the mechanics of what’s really going on here. We oftentimes hear that bailouts are going to be paid for with taxpayer money, but what does this really mean? And if these bailouts will be paid for with taxpayer money, and the government is already spending more money than it’s receiving in taxes, where will the additional money come from?
And before you begin to answer that question by saying something like, “We’ll be borrowing the money,” do you know exactly who we’ll be borrowing the money from, and the mechanics that will actually create the borrowing for us? This is oftentimes a very nebulous arena that’s never really been explained to us. And if you’ve never really studied how our banking system works, fasten your seatbelt and get ready to learn something that will really surprise you…
What our banking system will do to handle these bailouts is create money that’s never, ever existed before. Since the bankers have the ability to create and add money to these companies’ bank accounts, this is what they’ll be doing. The money will be electronically placed into both bank and financial accounts to the sum of hundreds of billions of dollars, and all of this money will then become part of our entire money supply that’s now in circulation. There will be certain administrative procedures, paperwork, and details that will be followed around the timing and transfer of the money, but for all intents and purposes, this is the way it’s going to happen.
And of course in exchange for all of this money, our government will be taking over all of the bad loans and investments from these companies, too.
So the ways that we as taxpayers will all lose out because of this is:
1) The dollars that we’re currently holding onto ourselves will all become worth less through inflation, because they’ll be diluted by the new money being added into the system. And over time as this new money begins circulating, people will have more money in their possession and will begin spending it, causing prices to rise as a result of this.
2) We as taxpayers will be charged interest on the hundreds of billions of dollars of new money that will be added into the money supply, because we’ll be deemed to have “borrowed” it from the banking system. And this interest will then be added to the annual deficit and become part of our national debt…along with the hundreds of billions of new dollars that will be created and utilized for the bailouts themselves.
So has all of this now become crystal clear to you?
And if your head is spinning a little wondering how something like this could happen, my head was definitely spinning when I first began studying all of this stuff years ago, too. We’re used to thinking that money is something more tangible that’s exchanged for goods and services, and the concept that it could be created out of thin air in such huge numbers electronically, can sometimes be very hard for us to swallow. But I’ve read quite a lot of books about the banking industry and about the history of money throughout the ages, and I’ve studied these subjects quite extensively. And I can tell you with absolute certainty, that this is how the system works.
But the truth of the matter is that explaining in every detail how the system works is not something that’s really possible for me to do here in the context of this one article. And with this in mind, there’s a lecture that I recommend you listen to, and I’ll make an audio recording of the lecture available to you for free right now. The lecture is titled “The Creature from Jekyll Island”, and it’s based on the book of the exact same name. While in some ways the title may sound like a mystery novel, Jekyll Island is the island where our banking system was created many years ago. The lecture was given by G. Edward Griffin, the author of the book, and there’s no one who can explain how our banking system works in more down-to-earth, easier to understand terms than Ed.
I can’t emphasize strongly enough to you the importance of listening to this lecture. When you listen to it you’ll come away from it with an entirely new understanding of our banking system, and an understanding that will be quite a profound one, too. And as these government bailouts continue to mount in the coming months, you’ll have a much better understanding of what’s really going on underneath them, which will help you to make better financial decisions.
The lecture itself is 70 minutes long, and I know this is a long time to sit next to your computer listening to a lecture. But just begin by listening to the first 35 minutes of it, and once you do I can almost guarantee you’ll want to listen to the second 35 minutes of it.
I’ve had people worth millions of dollars who have listened to this recording on my recommendation, and every one of them has told me it’s made a profound shift in both their knowledge and understanding of everything that’s financial. And if you feel after listening to this recording that you’ve learned a great deal from it, I recommend that you buy Ed Griffin’s book of the same title. Because I guarantee there’s a lot more you’ll learn in the book that there really wasn’t time for him to discuss within the time allotted for the lecture.
Click here to begin listening to the lecture.
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Sending Effective E-mail Marketing to Your Clients and Prospects–Part 2
By Jim Gillespie | September 15, 2008
Here are two big mistakes commercial brokers make in their E-mail marketing that’s costing them a lot of money:
Broker Mistake #1:
Relying primarily on sending out information on properties that are currently available in the Broker’s marketplace
Any broker can do this, and most brokers who send out E-mail to their clients and prospects are relying primarily on doing this, too. But this does nothing to differentiate you from all the other brokers in your territory, especially if they’re all sending out similar information to the same people.
You need to brand yourself in people’s minds as the intelligent, insightful broker they’ll want to work with whenever they have their next commercial real estate transaction. So send them articles about the trends you’re observing and what these mean in terms of where your market is headed right now. Write articles about any proposed changes or new real estate developments and what these will mean in terms of both the desirability of the area, and the value of people’s properties.
Anyone can copy and paste available property data into an E-mail. This does nothing to differentiate you from all the other brokers in your prospect’s minds. And if you don’t differentiate yourself from all the other brokers, there’s no compelling reason for your prospects to work with you.
Your people want to work with the commercial real estate broker who they feel has the best knowledge and insights on what’s going on in the area, and someone who has the ability to guide them in their next commercial real estate decision. And you can’t convey that you’re this broker by just sending them information on what’s currently available in the market, or by sending them information on what’s recently sold or leased.
Your people want to know what all of this information really means, and by writing articles with your interpretation of the information, and giving your projections on where the market is headed, you send the message to your people that you’re the broker who really understands everything, and that you have the ability to guide them through their next transaction. This will help differentiate you from all the other brokers when your prospects are deciding on which broker they’ll be working with exclusively the next time.
Broker Mistake #2:
Not including a photo of yourself in all of your E-newsletters and E-mail marketing to your clients and prospects
People need to feel they’re forming a connection with another human being in order to begin a relationship with them. And when they don’t know what you look like, or they’re not being reminded of what you look like, their relationship with you won’t feel as strong to them. This is why you’ll want to include a photo of yourself in all of your E-mail marketing, and in all of your printed mailings, too.
Maybe the best example I can give around this happened when I was speaking at an annual conference of one of the top commercial real estate brokerage companies in the world. I was discussing the subject of including your photo in both your E-mail marketing and in your printed mailers, and a very successful SIOR broker raised his hand, stood up, turned and faced the audience and said, “Jim’s right on this one. He’s been coaching me to do this in my one-on-one coaching program with him, and since I’ve been doing this I’m treated like a celebrity now sometimes when I walk into people’s offices. ‘Oh you’re the broker who’s been sending us all of the great information on our real estate market,’ they’ll say. ‘Please come in, sit down, and let’s talk with each other.'”
So no matter what other people tell you, when you include your photo in your E-mail marketing and in your printed mailings, people will feel that they know you better. And this will lead to more closed transactions for you and more commissions in your pocket.
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Sending Effective E-mail Marketing to Your Clients and Prospects–Part 1
By Jim Gillespie | September 8, 2008
E-mail offers us some great opportunities to market to our commercial real estate clients and prospects. And it also offers us great opportunities to misuse it, too.
I constantly receive E-mails from brokers I’ve never met or talked to before telling me about the properties they currently have available in their own markets, and sometimes their own market is more than 2,000 miles away from me! So I’m not interested in receiving marketing E-mails from any brokers who I don’t know personally, but the E-mails just keep on coming.
With this in mind, you really shouldn’t be sending your marketing E-mails to people you’ve never met with or spoken with before. To drive this point home even more, how would you feel if an insurance agent you’ve never spoken with begins constantly sending you information about their company’s insurance policies? And your answer to that question will pretty much sum up how other people will feel when you send them unsolicited commercial brokerage E-mail, too.
Obtaining people’s permission to E-mail them on an ongoing basis can be as easy as adding one simple question to your prospecting conversations. Ask them a question like “Bob, I send out an E-mail newsletter to property owners in the area keeping them informed on important trends impacting the value of their properties. Is this something you’d want to receive from me?”
When you phrase the question like this you’re more likely to have people want to give you their E-mail address than if you had asked the question instead like, “Can I have your E-mail address?” The latter question may instead have them worried about what you’ll do with their E-mail address if they give it to you. The former question, though, tells them the reason why they should want to give you their E-mail address, and you’ll successfully receive their E-mail address from them a much higher percentage of the time.
In addition to this, if you’re doing your prospecting regularly throughout the year, constantly contacting hundreds or thousands of your clients and prospects, you’ll have hundreds or thousands of new people you’ll want to work with receiving your E-newsletter from you within the year. You’ll just need to add this one simple question to your prospecting repertoire.
So adding this one simple question, phrased as I’ve suggested, to all of your prospecting conversations with people, will make a huge difference in the number of people opting in to receive your ongoing E-mail communications.
In my next article I’ll discuss the two huge mistakes commercial real estate brokers are making when E-mailing their clients and prospects. These two mistakes are costing these brokers tons of money, and I’ll tell you what you need to be doing differently in your E-mail marketing instead.
Topics: Marketing, Prospecting, Uncategorized |
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Living the Lives We’ve Always Imagined for Ourselves
By Jim Gillespie | August 25, 2008
Oftentimes people get into commercial real estate brokerage because they want to make a lot of money. And they usually want the money to allow them to experience a certain quality of life, too. But many brokers just work, work, and work even more, and the quality of life they’re living isn’t exactly what they had imagined for themselves when they decided to get into the business.
With this in mind, what do you have planned that you’re excited about doing in your life between now and the end of the year…outside of working? Do you have any vacations planned in places you’d like to visit? How about a nice 3-day weekend trip to somewhere you’d like to go just to relax and unwind?
You see…if we don’t plan and make sure we’re living the lifestyle we want to live along the way as commercial brokers, we could end up constantly just working and only living a lifestyle that we really don’t want to live. Yes, I understand that the real estate market has changed now. But at least one or two 1-week vacations could be in the cards for you between now and the end of the year if you really just decide to make it happen. Or even at the minimum, how about a couple of 3-day weekend trips?
I’m always looking for another reason to go to Hawaii again, and thanks to a phone call and a special offer I just received from Hilton Honors, I’ve just found it. So I’ll be going to Hawaii along with my family again later on this year.
And in mentioning my family, being a father is definitely a very interesting experience for me. Before I became a father, whenever I’d ask people what it was like for them to be a parent, I never understood what they meant when they’d say something like, “It’s the hardest work I’ve ever done, but it’s also so very rewarding.” But after I became a father I began to understand what these people were talking about.
My daughter Jamie is a wonderful daughter and I feel very fortunate to be her father. Sometimes when I do something like bump my elbow on a cabinet door inside the house, she’ll come running across the room, ask me if I’m OK, and then kiss my elbow. And then there are those times when I’ll ask her to do something, and she gets stubborn about it, and then she has no problem at all going toe-to-toe with me about it in the process.
I can’t help sometimes but think that my father is up there somewhere laughing, remembering the times when I’d play golf with him as a teenager, and I’d throw my golf club down the fairway once in awhile when I’d hit a bad shot. I now realize that I didn’t make him feel that great whenever I did that back then, as we’d usually be walking down the fairway with two other men, oftentimes two men we’d just met that same morning.
But my daughter Jamie is only five years old now, and her teenage years are still years ahead of her. This is all the more reason for my father to be even more entertained when those teenage years finally get here…
But in talking about living the quality of life that we want for ourselves along the way, being a father brings forth some truly incredible experiences. As an example, I took this photo of Jamie at Disneyland when she was wearing her “Belle the Disney Princess” dress, and giving her new friend a hug. And it really touches me to see the smile on her face in this moment, and know that I had something to do with creating it for her:
Click here to see the photo.
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How Can You Get Owners to Sell at Realistic Prices?
By Jim Gillespie | August 11, 2008
One of the most frequent questions I get asked from brokers nowadays is “How can I get owners to sell at realistic prices?” And when I hear this question it oftentimes comes from a broker who’s never worked in a slow real estate market before.
When the market was really hot in many areas, owners could ask unrealistic prices and eventually get them. A broker could take a listing that was 10-20% overpriced and during the listing period the appreciation would finally catch up with the asking price. Someone would end up paying the asking price, and in the process the buyer, seller, and broker would all be very happy. But we’re in a different market in most areas right now. Owners still want more than fair market value for their properties, but there’s no appreciation around to catch up with their pricing demands anymore. And a lot of brokers are just left scratching their heads.
Unless you’re still in a market that’s experiencing solid appreciation, overpriced properties aren’t moving. But there are many brokers who experienced years of solid appreciation in their markets and were selling properties very easily, and now many of them are just feeling confused. But now we’re dealing with different times, and we can’t utilize those wonder years as our benchmark for what our real estate market is going to be like right now.
In today’s market, where appreciation will simply not catch up with the unrealistic asking prices of owners, true sellers of properties are selling because they have a bona fide reason to sell. A reason outside of simply “only if you can get me this (ridiculous) price.”
These bona fide reasons for owners to sell can include:
1) Wanting to trade into another property
2) Being tired of managing a particular property and wanting to trade into a property requiring less management
3) Needing or desiring cash and wanting to sell just to take the money and run
4) The dissolution of a marriage or a business partnership
5) Estate planning
6) Needing a larger or a different building for their business
7) Feeling that they’d better sell now before their property loses more value and their equity erodes
So an owner who will only sell if they can get what you as a broker believe to be an unrealistic price, is not a real seller in today’s market. But they were real sellers when the market was constantly catching up to their unrealistic pricing demands. But those days are gone now.
A real seller in today’s market is someone who has a genuine underlying reason to sell, and they’re going to sell their property for whatever the best price is that they can get for it in today’s market. With this in mind, here are some questions you can ask property owners to determine if they’re really sellers in today’s market:
1) “What’s the reason you’re interested in selling your property?”
If their only reason for selling is because they want to get an unrealistic price, then they’re not real sellers in today’s market.
2) “I feel that your property is worth “X”. If it turns out that “X” is the highest price that a buyer will pay you for your property in today’s market, will you sell it for “X”?
This question can give you more insight into whether or not the owner has a real underlying desire to sell their property outside of price alone.
3) “What will happen if you don’t sell your property right now and you continue to hold onto it for several more years?”
This is referred to as future pacing, taking them out into the future in their own life and envisioning what life will be like if they still own the property in the future. If they answer with something similar to “It doesn’t matter to me. If I don’t get my price I’ll just hold onto the property for another 5-10 years,” you may want to immediately run to your car, leave some skid marks, and hurry back to the office.
If they instead answer the question with, “That wouldn’t work. We have to sell the property within the next several months,” that could be a very good sign for you.
The truth of the matter is that right now that there are fewer transactions closing in the majority of the commercial real estate marketplaces nationwide as compared with one or two years ago. So you need to be closing a higher percentage of the transactions going down in your market right now just to make the same amount of money that you did one or two years ago. With this in mind you have to be utilizing your time more effectively, and you may want to begin by refusing to work with owners who want unrealistic prices for their properties. They’re not real sellers, and they’ll just drain both time and energy from you that could be much better spent finding the sellers who really want to sell.
I have an upcoming teleconference titled “Becoming a Master at Getting Exclusive Listings”. Click here if this is a subject that interests you.
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So You Think Your Real Estate Market is Tough Right Now…
By Jim Gillespie | July 15, 2008
In Robert Campbell’s most recent Real Estate Timing Letter (which is available at www.RealEstateTiming.com), he mentions that there are more than 23,500 homes currently for sale on the Multiple Listing Service in Detroit, and that more than 1,400 of these homes have asking prices of less than $100.00. Yes, you read that right…less than $100.00. So unless you’re an agent who’s working in Detroit, you probably are in a market that’s doing better than that one right now.
But with your market most likely having transitioned over the past two years, and your principals most likely not being as excited about doing transactions as they were before, what’s the most important tip I can give you to maximize both your income and your success right now?
Master your state of mind, and live in a constant state of certainty expecting that you’re just about to uncover some great opportunities and put together transactions that you’ll be absolutely thrilled with. Because when you live in this state of mind you maximize the probability that this will happen to you.
You’ve probably worked around some agents who are mostly negative and who are constantly talking about how bad the market is, and how unlucky they are. And these people never become top producers, either. Because when you’re convinced that there are no opportunities out there for you, your mind tunes most opportunities out and misses them, and other brokers will find those opportunities instead of you.
Have you ever been with a top commercial agent who constantly complains about the lack of opportunities they’re seeing in the marketplace? I certainly haven’t, because top commercial brokers are constantly convinced that they’re just about to find more great opportunities for themselves.
With this in mind we often get what we expect in life, and what we expect is determined by what we’re focused on thinking about. So when you’re convinced that you’re about to uncover some great opportunities for yourself in your brokerage business, you’ll not only feel much better, you’ll be emulating the thinking of the brokers who are already the top producers in our industry. And when you’re thinking just like a top producer, you’ll maximize the probability that you’ll perform like one.
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Jim Gillespie for President in 2008!
By Jim Gillespie | July 11, 2008
I’ve finally had it with our politicians and I’m taking matters into my own hands. There’s an excitement now on the Internet as my message of “Full Commissions for All Commercial Brokers” is finally being listened to and acted on by the people.
To see what I’m talking about click on the following link for the news report:
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The Importance of Your Prospect Database in Commercial Brokerage
By Jim Gillespie | July 1, 2008
The quality of your prospect database is an important foundation for your success in commercial brokerage. If you have every prospect you want to do business with and every decision maker’s name, phone number, and mailing address in your database, you have a major advantage over your competition. As most commercial brokers are currently missing a lot of information in their databases.
If you only have 40%-60% of the prospects in your area that you’d like to be working with in your database, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities, because as of right now you can’t even contact these people to do business with them…But your competitors can contact them.
So no matter what kind of condition your database is in right now make a commitment to get it in the best shape imaginable, as it will pay huge dividends for you. I know it will probably take some work for you to do this, but if you’re missing 20%, 40%, or 60% of the people you want to do business with in your database, that’s 20%, 40%, 60% or more money you can be making in your brokerage business if you just get these people into your database and begin contacting them.
So get your database in great shape, contact everyone in your territory that you want to work with 2-4 times a year when doing your prospecting, and watch the difference in the results you’ll be producing throughout the year in your business.
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The Impact of Gasoline Prices on Real Estate
By Jim Gillespie | June 27, 2008
CBS News reported yesterday that a new energy report indicates that the price of gasoline may reach $7.00 a gallon by the year 2010. These rising gasoline prices are the result of a global phenomenon known as Peak Oil, which you need to learn more about, because its implications for both business and real estate are unbelievably huge.
Over two-and-a-half years ago I wrote an article on Peak Oil that brought in many “thank yous” from both real estate and petroleum experts from around the world, as it was the first article bringing the subject of Peak Oil to our real estate industry.
As these implications from Peak Oil are so huge for both business and real estate, I recommend that you read my article if you haven’t already done so. Three weeks after I wrote the article, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Resolution 507 stating that “The United States, in collaboration with other international allies, should establish an energy project with the magnitude, creativity, and sense of urgency of the `Man on the Moon’ project to develop a comprehensive plan to address the challenges presented by Peak Oil.”
Here’s link to my article, and at the bottom of it there’s a link to the full U.S. House of Representatives Resolution that I just mentioned:
http://www.realestatesalescoach.com/peakoil.htm
In addition, here’s a link to an audio interview I recently did discussing Peak Oil and its coming impact on both business and real estate on the radio program “Income Property and Investment Talk”:
http://www.realestatesalescoach.com/Energy_Interview.htm
Again, I strongly recommend that you learn more about Peak Oil and its coming implications on both business and real estate.
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Royal Bank of Scotland Issues Global Stock and Credit Crash Alert
By Jim Gillespie | June 23, 2008
If you have clients who are convinced that the stock market is a better place for them to invest their money right now when compared to real estate, you might want to have them read the following article.
The Royal Bank of Scotland, founded in the year 1727, is advising its clients “to brace for a full-fledged crash in global stock and credit markets over the next three months.”
To read the entire article on this subject click here.
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