The Lars Group Coaching & Training Podcast

Interested in a New Career Path?

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 16:28:00 -0500

Looking to improve your real estate career? I'm here to help you make a smart decision when it comes to growing your business, improving your bottom line, and choosing a place to work in real estate sales. If you'd like to learn more about working with The Lars Group, contact me at (704) 800-1200 or Lars@LarsRealEstate.com.

Our team is growing quickly and we need help! This is a direct call to action for folks that want to become a part of the awesome growth here at The Lars Group. In just a few years, we have gone from me doing 60 sides a year as a solo agent, to doing 425 sides as a team this year.

The average productivity for an agent on our team is 40-50 sides, but our agents aren’t working around the clock. We have developed great lead generation, marketing, and follow-up systems so our agents can focus on the dollar producing activities of prospecting, lead follow-up, appointments, and negotiating transactions.

We are looking for everything from showing agents and inside sales people, to buyer specialists, listing partners, and even expansion partners right here in Charlotte. If you are looking to work for one of the top teams in the area that can give you a life you may not thought was possible in terms of your earning potential, reach out to us. Give us a call or send an email to recruiting@larsrealestate.com.

We would love to chat with you over a cup of coffee and see if you are the right fit. It’s completely confidential, off-the-record, and it will just be a chance for us to talk about your goals and what you want out of your career.

So give us a call or send us an email if you or someone you know might be interested, and we’ll go from there. We look forward to speaking with you!

Why Should You Be Working with a Team?

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 17:52:00 -0400

Today I am excited to talk to you about the benefits of working with a team. Of course, I’m a little biased, being a team leader of one of the largest teams in Charlotte. The benefits of working with a team as opposed to by yourself are numerous. Here they are:

What I’ve done on my team is taken the job of an agent, and broken down each of the tasks an agent has into an individual role. On our team we have buyer specialists who only work with buyers, listing specialists who only work with sellers, ISA’s, showing agents, admin staff,and more. We have set the team up in a way where are sales people can stay focused on sales activities.

Our agents average about 45 to 50 sides because we are focused on giving our agents the piece of the pie that relates to the sale, so that’s what they focus on. This is why our agents take home more than 97% of agents out there as well.

If you have any interest in a confidential, off-the-record conversation about your career, your business, or your goals, feel free to reach out and give me a call or send an email over to recruiting@larsrealestate.com. Until we talk again, take care!

Do You Need a Boost To Your Morning Routine?

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 13:46:00 -0500

Today I'm coming to you from Everlasting Changes. I wanted to share with you a routine that I've begun to adopt recently, which is a vigorous workout to begin my day.

It's really given me the energy I need to perform well throughout the day, and it's made me adopt an overall healthier lifestyle. It's helped to improve multiple facets of my life, whether it's business, family, or overall health. I would encourage you to give it a try.

Please give this place a look. Brent Kasmer is the owner, and he and his staff are really excellent at what they do. They've made such a profound impact on my life that I just thought I'd share this with you.

If you would like to learn more, please don't hesitate to contact me. I'm always willing to speak with you to find ways to improve your business.

How Do You Convert Buyer Leads to Face-to-Face Appointments?

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Wed, 7 Jan 2015 09:33:00 -0500

It's not difficult to generate a buyer lead - there are hundreds of systems designed to do just that. The question is: How do you best convert a buyer lead into a face-to-face appointment and convert them into a loyal client of yours?

We use a very simple script here at the Lars Group called LP MAMA. It stands for location, price, motivation, agent, mortgage, and appointment. Here's what you need to know about each:

Location and Price: When you're on the phone with a lead, you need to determine the location and the price range they're working in.
Motivation: You need to find out whether they want to rent or own. Know whether they plan on making a move in the next three months or if they're planning for a move down the road.
Agent: Ask them if they've looked at any open houses. You don't want to come right out and ask them whether they're working with an agent, as they might get the impression you're looking to sell them your services. You want to ask questions around the topic to see how they're going about their search.
Mortgage: Are they planning on paying cash for the property or are they planning on getting a mortgage? Ask them whether they've talked to a mortgage professional to get an idea of what their monthly payment will be.
Appointment: After getting the above information, now's the time to ask the potential buyer to a meeting. Let them know you would like to go through the home buying process, give them a market overview, and set up a time to look at homes.

This is a very simple script, or structure of a call, that is effective in getting buyers on the other side of the phone face-to-face with you.

If you want to chat about how you can change your business for the better in 2015, don't hesitate to reach out to me. We can have a confidential strategy session to figure out what you can do differently to take your business to the next level in 2015.

Best of luck in 2015, I hope to hear from you soon!

Attention Agents: Double Your Income in 2015!

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Thu, 18 Dec 2014 16:35:00 -0500

Thanks for joining us again. Hopefully you saw our last blog, and were able to pick up a copy of "Dominate your day, Win your week". This is a great resource for anybody who wants to succeed in business and we hope that it is making a great difference for you and yours.

Today we are issuing a call for your help. We are in the fortunate position to have too many opportunities coming in through our front door. We have yard sign calls, internet leads, and appointments that we can't service with the amount of agents we currently have.

This is why we are currently looking to hire 2-3 quality buyer specialists to join our team. If you or somebody you know is interested at all, we would love to chat with you about joining our team. We are looking for someone who is an achiever and someone who is looking to ear a significant income in real estate.

We are so confident in our team and the systems we have in place, that the people we hire will earn $60,000 minimum in their first 12 months working with us. If you don't earn that much on commission alone in your first year, we will pay you the difference. There is no other team that can make that claim or that offer, but we can get you plugged in and productive quickly. After 12 months of working with us, every one of our agents this year will make more than 6 figures.

If you have any questions about the position, or about our team, feel free to visit our website RealEstateCareersInCharlotte.com.

How Can You Increase Your Productivity?

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 17:31:00 -0500

How Can You Increase Your Productivity?

Welcome back to our training blog. This is where we like to provide info for local agents on how to better their business. Today, we have got a great topic that we are very passionate about: How the decisions you make every day with your time impact your productivity and the amount of money you earn in real estate.

We have a tool that we use every day called "Dominate your day, Win your week!" This is a daily reminder tool that can help you succeed in the real estate business. There are 3 sections to this tool:

1. The Top 6
The first sections is a list of time management strategies. The key here is approaching every day with intention.

2. Positive Focus, Go Big
As you are going through your day, it's important to keep a positive focus, and capture all the positive moments throughout your day. By the end of the day, you should remember 10 great things from that day, but the end of the week, you will have 50. Instead of focusing on the drama that comes along with the real estate industry, you can intentionally seek out those positive things for yourself.
You also have to "Begin In Gratitude." Be thankful for what you have, and that will allow you to see things more clearly and positively.

3. Notes/Insights for the Day
Write down any key takeways or insights. What have you learned about yourself from going through this exercise?

You can download the PDF by clicking here.

We would love for you to take advantage of this tool. Give us a call or send us an email if you'd like us to send over a copy. There's no agenda here, we are just trying to help more of you succeed by learning from our past experiences.

Social media tools to grow your business

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 18:30:00 -0400

Referral Marketing Tips and Resources
Today's topic is one that is near and dear to my heart, referral marketing. Most of my business comes from referrals, especially referrals through social media. There is a way to do this kind of marketing efficiently, and there is also a way to waste a lot of time doing things that don't work. Many agents in Charlotte spend their time on social networks constantly updating and bombarding followers with news that most of the time gets ignored or even blocked due to excessive posts.

I have a very simple strategy for generating interest from both buyers and sellers in Charlotte who are connected with you via social networks. We subscribe to a service here called keepingcurrentmatters.com, a service that not only provides up-to-date and current information on the real estate market, but it also provides easy-to-use graphics that you can share with all of your clients via social media. Our team views this material at least once a month to remain up-to-date on the market.

We then take those handy graphics from the site and post them to our various social media pages so that people in Charlotte are up-to-date on all of the latest trends. This service only costs $20 a month, but more than pays for itself when you use it correctly, especially on social media. They give you great tools on how to generate actual buyers from social media sites. These simple tools, which link to your site, really start the conversation with potential buyers by grabbing their attention with information and reeling them in with supplemental facts and knowledge.

If you have any questions about your business, please give me a call. Let's grab a cup of coffee and talk about whether we would be a good fit. There is no obligation, just simply a preliminary meeting that could hopefully lead to a mutually beneficial partnership.

Until next time,

Lars Hedenborg and The Lars Group

My Proven Coaching Methods Produce Results!

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Wed, 28 May 2014 14:59:00 -0400

My Proven Coaching Methods Produce Results!

When it comes to helping my agents attain their goals, The Lars Group does not take the traditional route in doing so. Here is a little context of what I’m about to delve into: our agents are already averaging 24 sales, with one of our agents eclipsing 50 sales!

I ensure my agents are dialed in on spending the most amount of time on dollar-productive activity, which can be broken down into the following P.L.A.N.:

Prospecting
Lead follow-up
Appointments
Negotiating contracts

In terms of coaching in general, I hold a 10-12 week “boot camp” for our new recruits to ensure my agents are up and running quickly. Just last April I had two brand new agents join my team and by the end of the year, they had collectively sold 60 homes!

What we do works –we utilize simple accountability tools and a “buyer pipeline report” to keep your business in front of you.

If you have any other questions and would like to confidentially discuss your business further, simply reach out to me. I would be happy to take your income and productivity to the next level!

Master Personal Productivity and Increase Your Profits!

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 14:23:00 -0400

Master Personal Productivity and Increase Your Profits!

Personal productivity has played a key part in my success as a real estate agent, especially at the beginning of my career. Here are a few tips that can immediately impact your day:

Pay attention to where you spend your time. This means knowing what your most profitable task can be at any given moment. Many real estate agents may think they’re busy, but they are really only working on low-dollar producing tasks such as running signs out to a property or entering a property onto the MLS.
P.L.A.N. or Prospecting, Lead Follow Up, Appointments and Negotiating. As a real estate agent, you should be spending 80% of your time on prospecting calls, following up on leads, appointments or negotiating contracts. It will make you a much busier agent, but it will also allow you to gain leverage and bring additional resources onto your team. My team’s Buyer Specialists average 40-50 sales a year and our Listing Specialists average 55-70 sales a year – this is because we remove the low-dollar producing tasks from their plates.

If you would like to meet and discuss your business, we can confidentially do so. I would love to partner up with you and grow your business. Thanks and have a great day!

Attention Agents: Take Advantage of an Abundance of Buyer Leads!

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 13:16:00 -0400

Attention Agents: Take Advantage of an Abundance of Buyer Leads!
Today I wanted to speak with you about an opportunity on our team and a good problem that we are having. We are currently generating 1,200 buyer leads per month and we are drowning in opportunities to work with some great buyers! We are searching for 2-3 buyer specialists – beware that our rigorous training program is personally conducted by me.

We begin with a mini “boot camp” which is followed by a 12 weeks of continuous training to ensure that you are profitable and selling homes right out of the gate. With so many buyer leads, we have a team that is dedicated to setting appointments with those leads to ensure maximum productivity.

If this opportunity is something you may be interested in, please feel free to contact me. If nothing else, we can chat about what you do to improve your business. Thanks and have a great day!

How to Overcome the 2 Biggest Pitfalls of New Real Estate Agents

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Sun, 23 Feb 2014 13:37:00 -0500

Hello, welcome back to my video blog where I'm going to be talking about how to break through the real estate market if you're looking to become an agent. Statistics are kind of scary for new agents, as less than 20% of them are renewing their licenses after one year of practice.

However, I coach real estate agents across the country and I think I have some good pointers to guide you to success.

The #1 problem for new agents is lead generation. There are 8 agents on my team and we generate 1,200 leads a month using an automated system where we can see the metrics and know exactly where our leads are coming from.

However, leads can be very expensive if you're a new agent working individually. This is one reason why working with a team can be beneficial because I spend $20,000 every month on 4-5 different marketing and lead-generation systems. So it's not cheap to find leads, and if you're new to the industry it can be daunting.

The #2 problem that most new agents encounter is lead management. Once you have a lead and they're not ready to perform, what sort of system are you going to put them into that will follow up on them? Are you sending property alerts or using an email drip system? You need to stay in contact with your leads to perpetuate other ones.

These are some things that I've noticed most new agents struggle with, and if you have any questions or would like to talk with me about how to succeed in this business, then call me at (704) 800-1200 x 106 or email me at Lars@LarsRealEstate.com

Is Your Social Media Strategy in Need of Saving?

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 15:34:00 -0500

Looking to improve your real estate career? I'm here to help you make a smart decision when it comes to growing your business, improving your bottom line, and choosing a place to work in real estate sales. If you'd like to learn more about working with The Lars Group, contact me at (704) 800-1200 or Lars@LarsRealEstate.com.

Today I wanted to speak with you about social media. Essentially, I will tell you the good, the bad and how to use it in your business by making it productive and lead to sales. At this point you should know my main goal with these videos is to provide help and as much educational content as possible. If you’re thinking about making a move or just want to sit down over a cup of coffee to go over your business plan confidentially, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

In terms of your social media strategy, the usual contenders like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. can be useful; they can also be a huge time vacuum. To avoid this, we have very specific and deliberate ways of coaching our agents on how to properly use social media in order to connect with people and build rapport. You should not be selling your services via these channels.

As for making time for social media in your day, you should aim for two time blocks throughout your day that are a minimum of 15 minutes to dedicate to social media. We try to make social media a more personable experience; this could be like congratulating a client on a recent closing. We also use Facebook to post listings and generate traffic by linking those posts to Twitter and LinkedIn. Yelp has been great for reviews and generating traffic as well. My warning for social media is that it is not the “end all, be all”. Each of our agents average 40-50 closings per year and only a small part of those come from online activities.

At the Lars Group, we do things differently and you would be surprised on how much enjoyment our agents get out of what they do! Until next time, God bless.

Is Your Life Truly in Balance?

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 10:20:00 -0500

Today I wanted to speak with you about the importance, and the challenge, of balancing work with your personal life. No matter what stage of your career you may be in, real estate tends to be that type of profession that can really seep into all areas of your life. If you’re busy selling homes, your schedule is certainly busy and hectic. On the contrary, if you are not producing, the stress of inconsistent income and lack of results will seep out into your personal life.

To help keep the two facets of our lives separate, our entire team practices fundamental tools and strategies around time management and time blocking. Time blocking is probably the best thing you can do for yourself. For those growing their own business and don’t have the luxury of having a team prospect and setting appointments for them, this can be especially difficult. To handle this, we have tracking systems and other tools that allow our agents to organize their time and turn off their business when they leave the office so they can spend time with family and friends.

You should have a schedule that includes critical tasks you need to complete for the day like prospecting, lead follow-up, showing and listing appointments. The area you must consider is leverage in the form of technology, marketing, people and systems. The agents on our team are highly leveraged in these which helps their work-life balance so they can avoid handling small tasks at inconvenient times.

If you want to sit down with me to optimize your schedule so you can produce more, or if you’re looking for a different way to practice real estate, we are always look for top talent. Our buyers agents will close 40-45 sales per year on average and our listing agents will sell from 50-70 homes. I would love to help you and your business grow and our meeting would be confidential.

Thanks and have a great day!

Are Your Goals Set for the New Year?

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Thu, 2 Jan 2014 17:39:00 -0500

It’s that time of year again; it’s time to talk about goals! In real estate, we’re selling 30-45 days out and our team is going through the process of goal setting. We have 6-7 buyer’s agents, two listing partners and a group of inside sales people that are all in the process of goal setting as well. 2008 was my first full year in the business and I’ve managed to grow my team to sell 325+ homes this year. To do this, I’ve always had a roadmap for success that is broken down into quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily goals. This helps me stay accountable to myself.

The importance of goals really boils down to some level of accountability. If you’ve been in the business for a long time and you’re not achieving your goals or if you’re new the business and have big plans, you have to do a few things really well. We go through a process with most of our agents in which we identify four pillars or areas where they get there business and we focus on specific action items in each of those areas.

Doing this also helps to give you a clear vision of what you want your life to be like. It’s not all about business; if you don’t have an idea of what you want your life to look like, you won’t get to your destination if it isn’t laid out ahead of time. Everyone’s heard of goal setting but to actually go through the process and writing down concrete goals. I like to use the old acronym, S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measureable, attainable, relevant and timely). Make sure your goals fit that criteria or else attaining them will be a frustrating process.

If you would like to get together confidentially and go over your business plan how I can help achieve your goals, please contact me. Take some time to view the article below for six reasons why you need to set goals. Have a blessed holiday season!

On The Importance Of Goal Setting: 6 Reasons Why You Need To Set Goals

How Can You Maintain a Personal Relationship With the Increase of Technology?

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 13:21:00 -0500

Today I wanted to cover something that has really come about in the last 5-6 years as the increase in freely available real estate technology and tools online for both buyers and sellers. How does the immergence of these tools impact our position as an expert advisor and if personal relationships with buyers and sellers even matter anymore? This is actually an awesome thing for us as experts (not every real estate agent is an expert). If you have your skillset dialed up with more information online, consumers need someone to figure it out for them. Technology does not impact our business one bit.

With the online home evaluation tools like Zillow, everyone thinks they know the estimate for their property. However, this doesn’t affect our ability to come in as a pro and do an equity evaluation on their property, educate them on the different ways to value property, how the market direction and interest rates can factor in, showing reports, price bracketing, tax analysis and a square footage analysis. We look at everything way more than Zillow or any other site can ever look at.

This goes for buyers as well. Every buyer has their go-to website they look at but this doesn’t mean they are able to go through the 200 homes that are they favorites, what they want/need, what they can afford, potential appreciation in their property and where the market has been. I think it is an awesome opportunity with the new technology that is out there to serve our clients on a personal level and deeply impact their lives and the lives of their families. The Lars Group has all the tools available to consumers allowing them to come into our fold and establish a business relationship. Many people fear technology and feel that the business is going away but we embrace it; we use it every day.

If you have any questions, call me at (704) 800-1200 ext. 106 and we can see if I can help you with your business of if you’re a fit for our team. God bless and go sell some houses!

We Invest So You Can Succeed

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 15:51:00 -0500

Today I wanted to talk to you about how we utilize technology to further our business. Early on, I learned a fundamental business principle about how to get people to take action. To do so, we use direct response marketing. The challenge when you’re a new or struggling agent is marketing your personal brand, but that’s not the basis of the business. Our marketing is done through a few channels; one of them is Boomtown, which we spend $3,000 a month to generate leads and appointments for our agents. The other channel is a newer option called Commissions Inc. This platform costs another $3,000 that has a great interface for generating leads as well.

This year, our average buyer agent will sell 35-40 homes and our average listing agent will sell 50-75 homes. We’re a really productive team and we attribute a lot of the success to the tools we invest in.

If you have any questions, feel free to call me and we can grab a cup of coffee. God bless and thank you!

Great Reads for Great Agents

Lars@larsrealestate.com (Lars Hedenborg) — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 11:00:00 -0400

Hello and welcome to my new real estate training and coaching video blog! On this blog, I will share with you the keys and strategies used at The Lars Group that have given us the advantage to dominate our market. The Lars Group is always looking for ambitious, hard-working agents to join our team. If you are interested in becoming a member of The Lars Group, give me a call at 704.800.1200 or email me at Lars@LarsRealEstate.com.

Today I wanted to go over books we have used because they’ve proved to be very helpful. The first book I wanted to mention is a book we just recently went through together and it’s called The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon. This book outlines 10 laws or rules to get the most out of life and work to ultimately build a team environment. This book was a hit in our office because we have many agents who are competitive and sell a lot of homes, but in the end it’s all done for the good of the team.

The second book is called The Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews. It’s an awesome book that details 7 decisions that determine personal success. This book is a quasi-guide that we use to hire agents with. What’s special about this book is that it reads like a fable, so it is very easy to grasp and it provides a very cool way to run our team. Another book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, is the cornerstone of personal development books and encourages you to turn your thoughts into reality.

Our last book, one that we really work through as a team, is called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick M. Lencioni. This book also reads like a fable and is really cool because it relates your team to family, which we are here. We appreciate open communication, challenging each other and accountability.

Check out the website, learn about the team and contact me if you would like to get a cup of coffee. Thanks again and check back in for more tips to sell some houses!