TopOriginatorUnderground - Should You Just Go Away Till September?

CRICKETS? YOU NEED TO READ THIS...

August is usually a pretty slow month in most parts of the country.
People are on vacation
Some are getting ready to go back to school.
I am sure you can name a few other excuses…

IT REMINDS ME OF MY DAD -
He had a shoe store in Baltimore that was in a neighberhood…
There are so many lessons I learned from him about business and what I did and DID NOT want to do in life!

Here are a few:
COMPETITION:
On this one block in Baltimore City there were almost 10 different shoe stores.
Now you would think that much competition would be horrible and it was tough.
So we decided to STOP COMPETING!!! ( yes please re -read that)

This was an area of town known for many eastern European - Russian and Polish immigrants. They were hard working blue collar people who lived and raised their family in row homes. ( now called townhomes)

BUT GUESS WHAT THEY ALL HAD IN COMMON!
WIDE FEET!!!
sounds crazy- but it is true

So while the other stores took care of men and kids and carried all sizes of womens shoes … we decided to specialize ONLY IN fashionable womens shoes in wide sizes..

THAT’S HOW I LEARNED TO PICK A NICHE- BECOME THE EXPERT AND LET EVERYONE KNOW ABOUT IT!

This was during the 70’s and early 80’s and the new “thing” was shopping malls but we were also in a very bad recession - btw rates went up to almost 18 % ( not a misprint)

So I would see my father outside the store smoking .. and he would say
1. It’s too cold for customers to come out
2. It’s too hot for customers to come out
3. It’s raining
4. It’s snowing
5. They are checking out that new mall and they will be back.
6, They don’t have any money
there were a few more but I think you get the point

SO I ASKED HIM— WHEN WILL WE HAVE THAT PERFECT DAY with no rain - mild temp - etc ???

THE LESSON:
Instead of saying all the reasons WHY things are slow.. the better question is what can I do to increase my share of business.
In his situation
How about buy 1 pair get the second half off
Or
Buy a pair of shoes and get a FREE PAIR Of pantyhose
Or specialize in PROM SHOES or WEDDING SHOES

There were many other ideas…

IF YOU ARE SLOW… and many of us are DON”T PROVIDE REASONS
Doesn’t matter if they are real reasons or not
PEOPLE ARE STILL BUYING AND SELLING HOMES

GET YOUR SHARE
Hold an educational event for agents
Teach at your board of realtors
Do homebuyer workshops on your own and with agent partners
Get some PR for yourself on radio- tv-
Call some of those agents you haven’t spoken to in a while
Send a referral letter to your database- and also prime them for refi coming up

POINT IS - you can bitch about it or do something about it— but rarely do you do both

WOULD LOVE YOUR THOUGHTS

PASS IT ON TO SOMEONE WHO NEEDS TO READ THIS

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Dedicated TO Increasing YOUR Production
Brian Sacks