Don’t Be The Circus Elephant In The Real Estate World

We all come with different comfort levels when it comes to talking to clients or writing to them. We even make assumptions before we talk to them. To be frank, at some point we do lack the confidence and courage.

This reminds me when I went to visit a Mexican circus that came to town. I happen to go early, and decided to look around and experience the circus atmosphere from behind the stage.

While looking around and walking around the perimeter, I noticed that they had the elephants tied using a metal bracelet around their ankle connected to a wooden stake in the ground using thin chain. A 12,000 lbs Elephant capable of pulling a grown tree from the ground. Ties to a wooden stake.

Makes you wonder why would he not jerk the chain and pull himself free doesn’t it?

The answer is amazingly simple. You see, when the elephant is just a baby, they tied him the same way. But when he was just a baby, he was not strong enough to yank himself free. In fact, as a baby elephants will try hard. They will try and try till the metal brace around their ankle cut through their skin and cause them pain.

The baby elephants quickly learn how painful it is to try to get free, and more importantly how useless the attempt was. They grow up with that notion in their head. Ffter all elephants never forget. They never attempt to try again because the thought of yanking that chain reminds them of the pain it will cause.

That story breaks my heart because I am an animal lover, and knowing they suffered hits me hard. But for the sake of education, I decided to use the story to make a point.

We, humans, are not much different. We base our assumptions on our own experiences and knowingly or unknowingly to us, we shy away from things that caused us pain or embarrassment in the past.

I meet so many Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Investors who are convinced that they are not good at writing sales letters, or testing a marketing campaign. They will find all kind of excuses, reasons, and in their own mind, facts to justify thenselves.

Now I am not saying learning how to write an effective Real Estate Sales Letter is a simple task. There is a lot of education, writing and rewriting and rewriting till you get one right. But unless you start, you’ll never start.

As humans, we tend to gravitate to wards our comfort zone, and anything new pulls us out of that comfort zone and unless we exert extra effort, we will gravitate back to our comfort zone and never improve.

The good news however, is that our comfort zone changes with every successful experience. We become comfortable with new things all the time, so there is hope for you after all!

The other challenge we face is our pre conceived notion or assumptions about  prospects. We assume they would or would not do something because of our own experience, so we give up before we even approach them.

We don’t walk in their shoes, we put them in our shoes and try to see the world from that point of view.

The reality is that everything is possible and you will not know until you investigate, or instigate. Would a For Sale By Owner list with you, an agent? would someone who had his listing expire… TWICE! want to talk to you, an agent? Would a home owner give you, an investor, the house and walk away?

The answer is always yes. Sure not everyone of them will, and not every experience may turn out to be pleasant one. But some will and you will not figure out which unless you approach them all.

For example, not only did a home owner call me and give me his house in exchange for $20 for his equity. He even referred a buyer to me the very next day! See, It doesn’t have to make sense to me for me to accept the deal.

Always challenge yourself and get out of your comfort zone. Stop making assumptions about others, you will never know what they would accept or want unless you ask them. You will never improve unless you accept the fact that you can do it and it is just a matter of time to get it done.

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© 2008 Fadi Zeidan's Articles.