This is part two of a 2-part post on the 14 leadership traits of the Marine Corps, and how they can apply to your business. You can find Part 1 here.
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This is part two of a 2-part post on the 14 leadership traits of the Marine Corps, and how they can apply to your business. You can find Part 1 here.
Last week marked the eight year anniversary of my honorable discharge from the Marine Corps. It also marked the eight year anniversary of the start of my career in Commercial Real Estate.
My family also moved into a new home last week. It has been a while since we last moved. I feel like a bomb exploded in my new home. The important thing, however, is that my wife and I are both parking in the garage!
Today, I was organizing my closet. Hanging there next to my ties and dress shirts were my old Marine Corps uniforms. They caused me to think back 8+ years to my former life. So much of my life now is influenced by my enlisted years. Just as the old meets the new in my closet, so much of the USMC leadership traits apply to running a business.
There are 14 Marine Corps Leadership Traits. You can remember them by the acronym JJ DID TIE BUCKLE: justice, judgment, decisiveness, integrity, dependability, tact, initiative, endurance, bearing, unselfishness, courage, knowledge, loyalty, and enthusiasm.
Let me hear from you. Of these first 7 traits, which one describes your leadership the best? Which one could use the most improvement?
In case you missed them, here are the top posts from October.
How to Shave 30 Minutes A Day Managing Email – If you are like me, you have learned to hate email. I remember when email was the “new thing.” Getting email gave you that warm and fuzzy feeling. It made you feel important. Remember the movie You’ve Got Mail? Read More…
The 5 Steps to a Paperless Office – All my data is in the cloud. All my data is accessible to me anywhere my iPhone has a signal. I can access it on the fly. It means I can jump on opportunities with lightning speed. And speed kills. In today’s post, I am going to share with you what you need to achieve the paperless office, and the steps to take to get there. Read More…
12 Keys to Becoming a Top Producer – Faster! Part 1 – The Commercial Real Estate industry – or any industry really – is often so different from the Marine Corps. I’m specifically thinking about advancement – growth – achievement. In the Marines, there was a formula for promotion – at least at the lower enlisted ranks. I knew exactly how to earn a promotion. Read More…
12 Keys to Becoming a Top Producer – Faster! Part 2 – The path to success is not clearly marked. It is muddled. It is foggy. You realize you have gone off the path as you get up from the ditch. In this 2-part post, I want to help shed light on the path to success by sharing the 12 keys to becoming a top producer – faster! In this post… Read More…
5 Steps to Crafting a Powerful Elevator Speech – In a previous post – 12 Keys to Becoming a Top Producer – Faster! – I shared that one of those keys is reading. I mentioned in that section that I had wanted to improve the impact of my elevator speech so I read Small Message, Big Impact by Terri Sjodin. Great book. This is a must read for anyone in sales. By the way, we are all in sales… Read More…
4 Reasons Why Debriefing Should be a Staple of Your Business – Admittedly, I was the Marine Corps geek. Every Marine is a rifleman – I get that. But I was an intel weenie. I remember a particular exercise where my company went on a 5 mile hump. A hump is basically a forced march. You wear “Boots and Utes” and carry a pack of some amount of weight. On this particular exercise, I believe I was carrying 50 lbs – pretty light… Read More…
Admittedly, I was the Marine Corps geek. Every Marine is a rifleman – I get that. But I was an intel weenie. I remember a particular exercise where my company went on a 5 mile hump. A hump is basically a forced march. You wear “Boots and Utes” and carry a pack of some amount of weight. On this particular exercise, I believe I was carrying 50 lbs – pretty light for USMC norms.
I had bought new boots the day before. Do you remember getting new shoes before the first day of school? How excited you were? That was me as a 24-year-old Sergeant Idiot. I wore those new boots on this hump. When we made the turn at the half-way point, I knew I was in trouble. By the time we were done, my feet looked like hamburger. My feet were so jacked up that I had to wear civilian clothes for a week before I could get my boots back on.
After this particular exercise, we did what Marines always do – debrief. On that day, my CO (commanding officer) looked at me and said, “Barron, bad move with the new boots. Smack yourself.”
Debriefing is a staple of the Marine Corps, and it should be for your business as well. Formal debriefs allow for your team to pause. It is a forced and scheduled pause, really. Too often we jump from one task to the next without slowing down or taking a breath. Valuable lessons that could be learned fall through the cracks. We don’t learn from our mistakes. We miss opportunities to improve. We stop growing.
This post is not about how to debrief – it is about why. However, I have four rules to guide a debrief.
Now let me hear from you. Is the debrief a staple of your business? Share a story of a lesson learned during the pause of a debrief.
I need to confess. I am a huge University of Kentucky basketball fan. Huge. I have managed to successfully brainwash my children as well. My parents met while attending UK. I have been going to games my entire life. If you don’t know already, after Louisville, Duke is the most hated rival that we have. Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley….makes me feel icky.
So at this point you are wondering why am I talking college basketball? Because I am excited about going to Duke University next week. I never thought I would say that.
Next week is the Commercial Real Estate Broker Owner Success Summit (CRE BOSS) put on by the Massimo-Group at Duke University. I will be there facilitating the Summit in my capacity as a coach for the Massimo-Group.
I’m excited because CRE BOSS is something new – fresh – different. This isn’t the same old conference with the same speakers. BOSS is something else. This summit is an exclusive first-class event for Broker/Owners and has two goals:
Not only is the focus of the Summit to benefit the broker/owner, but the speakers are world-class achievers themselves. We will get to hear and learn from the likes of:
Be on the lookout for some post from CRE BOSS next week!
In a previous post – 12 Keys to Becoming a Top Producer – Faster! – I shared that one of those keys is reading. I mentioned in that section that I had wanted to improve the impact of my elevator speech so I read Small Message, Big Impact by Terri Sjodin. Great book. This is a must read for anyone in sales. By the way, we are all in sales in some way.
Cory Spanko commented on that post asking if I would share that elevator speech. So this is my response to his request. (Thanks Cory for giving me the idea for this post! DM me your address on twitter – I’d like to send you this book.)
About a year ago, I was in Chicago for the Sperry Van Ness National Convention. It is always a great event. I leave with dozens of actionable ideas from the first-class advisors that attend. This convention had a competition called SVN Idol. The premise of the competition was 4 advisors would compete in giving “The Presentation.” The winner won $1000. I was one of the four. I was going to win that prize.
We were told in advance that we would compete in giving the canned SVN listing presentation. (I don’t like canned presentations, but that is a topic for another post.) We were not told that there would be round two. In round two, we had to give an elevator speech. I was not prepared. Transparently, I tend to be good when I’m prepared. I’m not awesome on the fly. I did well in round 1. I bombed round 2. My good friend Henry Hanna left victorious. I left knowing that I had a few books to read.
The key to a powerful elevator speech is that it gets you a meeting. That is all it needs to do. If I’m in line at Starbucks and have an opportunity, can I get a meeting with a prospect in 90 seconds? Not only must it be powerful, but it needs to be adaptable. Too many people look for the magic bullet – if I say these 3 things, I’ll get that meeting. No. You need a powerful framework that can be custom fit to the prospect.
That framework is Monroe’s Motivational Sequence (MMS). Thank you @terrisjodin for writing a fantastic book! MMS is a logical and sequential 5 step process to motivate someone to take action. This method does not have to be an elevator speech. It could be much longer. It works brilliantly for a super short speech, however.
As a parting example, watch this video of my dad making his announcement speech to run for office. It is short and sweet. See if you can pick out the steps above. [Skip to the 4 minute mark]
I’d love to hear from you in the comments below. Share a story of an elevator speech opportunity that went well. Or that bombed. What other elevator speech methods have you used with success?
Those who say it cannot be done should not disturb those who are doing it. – Chinese Proverb
The path to success is not clearly marked. It is muddled. It is foggy. You realize you have gone off the path as you get up from the ditch. In this 2-part post, I want to help shed light on the path to success by sharing the 12 keys to becoming a top producer – faster! In this post, I cover the second 6 keys. (You can find Part 1 here.)
In my last post, I introduced the first 6 keys to becoming a top producer – faster! Before I share 7 – 12, let me briefly review the first 6:
7. Use Technology for its Time Management & Efficiency Benefits – I am not the tech geek that can explain to you how things actually work. I just love using technology to squeeze more productivity out of a day. Top producers are fanatical about time management and efficiency. I have written posts that go into more depth about this:
8. Build a Team – Top producers are team oriented. Top Producers are not loners. They don’t try to do everything. They understand the value of a team. And not only just having a team, but maximizing the production of that team. Rod Santomassimo discusses this in his best-selling CRE book – Brokers Who Dominate. Beyond the fact that I am profiled – along with about 22 others – this is must reading for any CRE practitioner.
Top producing brokerage teams are generally made up of a Senior Producer (Rainmaker), and Junior/New to the Business advisor, and an administrative assistant. The key to the best teams is hiring/recruiting well and assigning tasks according to the strengths of the team. The best teams run like a well-oiled machine (or the Colts offense in the 2nd half of Sunday’s game!). They do so because everyone knows the plays. They know their roles. Systems and communication are vital. Read more about systems here.
9. Treat Your Business Like a Business – The alternative is treating it like a hobby. You’d be shocked at how many brokers treat their businesses like a hobby. I can look at your books and tell you in 30 seconds whether you have a hobby or a business. The difference? Brokers that treat their business like a business invest in it. They spend money hiring a coach. They advertise. They go to conferences (see key #4 above). They hire talented team members. Brokers that have a hobby tend to whine about not having money to put in their business. It is really that simple. Top producers invest in their business.
10. Focused and Positive – Top producers work while they are at work. This seems so simple, but it is not. Top producers don’t spend much time chatting with others in the office. They are not found at the water cooler. They never take an hour “off” for lunch. They may have a lunch meeting, but they never shut it down for an hour in the middle of the day.
They also have unwavering positive attitudes. PMA – positive mental attitude. They choose to be positive – optimistic. They understand the message of Dead Poet’s Society because they live it.
11. Specialization – In retrospect, specialization should be #2 on the list. Top producers are not generalists. They specialize in an asset vertical or at least a geography. (I have to throw the geography part in here because I am a small town geographical specialist – at least in part.) This allows them to create presence as an expert – to be the go-to guy. If you are the broker who will work on anything – stop it. Pick a lane and become the subject matter expert in that lane.
12. Passion – Top producers bleed passion. It oozes out of their pores. They can’t wait to get to work in the morning and absolutely love what they do. Everyone has tough days, but passion is what top producers rely on to persevere. Passion is the ingredient that brings the other 11 keys together into a sum that is much great than its parts. Passion sells – it is obvious to your clients whether you possess it – or you don’t!
If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try. ~ Seth Godin
This post is the first in a two-part series on Top Producers. You can find the second part here.
The Commercial Real Estate industry – or any industry really – is often so different from the Marine Corps. I’m specifically thinking about advancement – growth – achievement. In the Marines, there was a formula for promotion – at least at the lower enlisted ranks. I knew exactly how to earn promotion.
Time in Grade – Time in Service – Physical Fitness Test (PFT) score – Education. Add it all up, and you were ranked against all your peers. You always knew where you stood.
Not so in CRE – or any other industry I’ve seen. The path to success is not clearly marked. It is muddled. It is foggy. You realize you have gone off the path as you get up from the ditch.
In this 2-part post, I want to help shed light on the path to success by sharing the 12 keys to becoming a top producer – faster!