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CRS: Being the Best of the Best

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After three years in the real estate business, I attended my first CRS course. It was CRS 201, Listing Strategies and it was taught by Mike Brodie. As an ex-teacher, I was impressed with Mike and the information he shared. Already having my GRI designation, I could tell I was in the middle of something better: better stuff, better instructor, better classmates. It was the best.

In the subsequent years, I have acquired a plethora of other designations, I also teach a multitude of certifications and designations to tens of thousands of agents every year. I meet A LOT of fantastic agents. I am blessed by choice and by circumstance that I only hangout with the best agents. You know them. They are the ones that WANT to be in class, they don’t HAVE to be there. They are the best.

Having said that, teach a CRS class and you’d notice the difference. Go to Sell-A-Bration and you’d notice the difference. The difference? The difference is the difference between the Best and the Best of the Best. What makes someone the best of the best? What characteristics create someone at the top of his/her field? I’d like to suggest 7.

1. They are Self-Motivated. Daniel Pink wrote a great book called “Drive” in which he drove home the point that the only real motivation comes from within. He said, “Intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity.” Creativity makes great agents.

2. The are Driven. Sales guru Ron Willingham asserted that within each of us is what is called Achievement Drive. That drive is often the catalyst in striving to be the best you can, the best in the company, the best of the best. Each of us has this drive, but the key is that, like motivation, it can only be internally unleashed. You bring it out in you.

3. Growth Mindset. There are essentially two mindsets: fixed and growth. The CRS agent has the growth mindset. The constant quest to be the best assures that they are consistently growing, identifying strengths and deploying hard work against them, working on important weaknesses for improvement, and knowing which things don’t matter. The growth mindset is what finds the 30 year veteran in class absorbing that tweak in the way they do their business that could make a difference.

4. Empathy. Worried about Zillow? You shouldn’t be. The best of the best differentiate themselves by employing empathy in their business. They understand how someone else feels and uses that information to better serve, to better understand, to better represent. Pink said, “Empathy is about standing in someone else’s shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource or automate, but it makes the world a better place. Gary Vaynerchuk said (and pay atention to this one…),  “if you can understand what the other person is thinking and what their goals are, you can reverse engineer those aims and map it back to your goals too. That knowledge sets you up to win. You’ll both win.”

5. Knowledge. You can have all the instincts in the world, you can be driven to be the best ever, you can be self-motivated up the ying yang. BUT if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re out of luck. Knowledge is the other reason a CRS agent sits in a class, takes a webinar, engages in conversations about best practices. Louis L’Amour said, ” Knowledge is like money. To be of value, it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and hopefully, in value.” That brings us to….

6. Sharing. The CRS agent understands that while there is power in information, the biggest power lies in sharing information. Go to any CRS event, and the best share; as much as they can, with as many as they can. Sharing is at the core of the Residential Real Estate Council. It is at the core of the instructor cadre. It is at the core of the CRS agent. We do this readily because as Father James Keller said, “The candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.”

7. The Letters: CRS. Nope, CRS doesn’t stand for Can’t Remember Stuff. It stands for the Commitment Rarely Seen in the sales business. Any sales business. It stands for being the Best of the Best.

While every week is CRS week. Happy CRS week.