Lean times require you to lean in. Here’s how

In March’s Marketing and Branding Month, we’ll go deep on agent branding and best practices for spending with Zillow, Realtor.com and more. Top CMOs of leading firms drop by to share their newest tactics, too. And to top off this theme month, Inman is debuting a brand new set of awards for branding and marketing leaders in the industry called Marketing All-Stars.

Adam Hergenrother is the founder and CEO of Livian. He believes that business is nothing but a conduit for personal growth and embraces the company’s vision to Love How You Live. When he’s not leading and growing his organizations, you can find Adam either in the mountains or out in nature with his wife and three children.

We are in a shifting marketing, one where real estate professionals will be required to do more in order to achieve the same results they were getting before.  The “do more” market is what I like to call the “lean in” market. We all will have to lean in a bit more to our fears, the uncomfortable, the hard things, that no one else wants to do. But this lean-in mindset will be your competitive advantage. 

Here are five ways to lean in in today’s market. 

1. Lean into a singular activity

The concept of leaning into a singular activity isn’t new. Gary Keller wrote in The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results:

Success demands singleness of purpose. You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects. It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world.

In Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Gregg McKeown wrote:

Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.

In today’s market, it’s not enough to understand these concepts but to put them into action. What single activity will help you produce the highest return on your investment of time and energy?

• Is it creating social media content?
• Is it spending one on one time with each team member?
• Is it holding daily sales training?
• Is it calling past clients?

Decide what that focused activity is for you and then lean in.

2. Lean into making peace with lead generation 

Real estate is a sales business. And there are no sales without customer and client leads. How you acquire these leads is up to you. But you have to make peace with the fact that you are in the sales business with requires lead generation.

Let’s work on changing this language. Leads is an impersonal label for what you’re doing as a real estate professional. What you are doing is meeting people, developing relationships, and helping people achieve their goals of homeownership, selling a property or making an investment. Sure, real estate is a sales business — but it’s a people business first.

Lean into it. Bring the humanity back to the real estate business. Now, more than ever, clients and customers want and need a personal experience, backed by expert industry knowledge, streamlined systems and enhanced with technology. Lead generation is a major part of your role as a real estate professional – make peace with that, and lean into the human connections along the way. 

3. Lean into ‘Do the 2’  

One of our core agreements at Livian is what we call “Do the 2.” This means to hold two appointments per week. What is an appointment, you ask? An appointment is a consultation (not a showing, not having coffee with a friend, not meeting someone at a networking event); an opportunity where an agreement was discussed and there is the potential for either a signed listing agreement or a signed buyer representation agreement.

Is setting two appointments a week easy? Nope. But it is simple. Maybe that’s the singular activity that you need to lean into. And it will certainly help if you lean into lead generation. We know that by “doing the 2” (at minimum) our agents will be able to hit their financial goals and love how they live. Keep it simple and lean in. 

4. Lean into purposeful conversations

Clients and customers need real estate professionals in their corner right now. Lean into learning (and staying on top of) all the market data in your local economy, as well as the implications of global events. Understand how this impacts the real estate market and what it means for your clients. Be the expert that they can rely on. The shifting market is going to require different conversations.

In addition, the shifting market is going to require you to lean into and learn different prospecting and objection-handling conversations that match the market and the needs of today’s buyers and sellers. Lean into having face-to-face conversations as much as possible.

Does this mean that sometimes you will need to go above and beyond to meet potential clients and study the market? Yup. But leaning into these purposeful conversations and connections will help you thrive, not just survive.

5. Lean into the 200 percent life

I couldn’t leave you without at least mentioning a little bit about the 200 percent life. Too many of us are chasing after money, significance, fame, love or other material things to make us feel happy. But at some point, you’re going to hit a wall where the search for “more” just doesn’t do it for you anymore. You start to look around and realize there may be another path to get what you’re after.

You will never be able to find true happiness and fulfillment by chasing external successes and material items. After all, the external world is only 100 percent of the puzzle. 

There is a whole other 100 percent of life that we ignore or deem too insignificant to put any real effort into, but it actually has everything to do with our fulfillment and happiness. Your inner world is the other 100 percent of the puzzle. It’s by working on the internal world that you will ultimately unlock everything that you’ve been looking for all along. We live in a 200 percent world.

We have all lived almost exclusively in the 100 percent external world for far too long. We will not forget the external world. It will still be there for us to enjoy and play with; it’s why we will continue to sell real estate, lead teams and build businesses.

But it’s time to lean into the 200 percent life. It’s time to expand our awareness, open our hearts and dive into a whole other world that is available to us where we will find true happiness and absolute freedom. 

Today’s real estate market is requiring that we lean into the hard — lean into focused activities, lean into lead generation, lean into holding two appointments a week, lean into purposeful conversations, and, of course, lean into the 200 percent life. After all, business is nothing but a conduit for your personal and inner growth.

Adam Hergenrother is the founder and CEO of Livian, the author of The Founder & The Force Multiplier, and the host of the podcast, Business Meets Spirituality. Learn more about Adam’s companies and culture here.