On my journey of self-education, I stumbled across a fact that adults will forget 80 per cent of everything they hear, discuss and learn. Yes, 80 per cent! At first I thought this was a bit of a stretch until I tried to remember some movies that I had seen a few months before. I couldn’t remember the names, let alone what the movies were about.
It turns out our brains are so sophisticated that although we can have trillions of thoughts and memories we can only process one at a time. If you haven’t used some sort of system to retain the information, although it is in there somewhere, you cannot retrieve it. It is even harder to find if the information is not about you, but about someone else.
Just think about this for a while. Consider every conversation we have with buyers, sellers, a boss, co-worker, a team member or employee. What about loved ones? Perhaps this is why my wife always says I do not listen – it’s not that I’m not listening, I just simply don’t remember 🙂
If you are thinking “at least I remember the important stuff”, you would be wrong. You may remember the things that are urgent, but if they are not urgent we tend to forget even the important tasks or activities. This is a huge dysfunction in our business, and in our lives, and can have huge ramifications on both.
What to do?
Don’t panic, there is a solution and it is as easy as creating some simple systems in your business and in your life so you never forget.
The best way to start is to WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN. And I mean everything!
If you are with a client, colleague, boss or employee, just make a point of writing everything down, whether it’s on paper, or on your phone, tablet or laptop. This is an absolute game-changer. Writing things down reinforces them – it not only records the conversation, but helps tattoo it onto your brain. In most cases, just because you have written it down, you won’t even have to refer to it because you can now remember. This is very powerful.
The other great benefit of writing things down is the person you are with feels important and valued because you taking the time and effort to make a note of what they are saying. This builds quick rapport and also gives you time to process and ask the next pertinent question. It’s a double whammy!
After implementing this simple system early on in my career, I began to notice that when I was with certain people, such as buyers, I was asking the same questions. Or when I was taking an enquiry, the questions were relatively the same.
So I started creating templates, questionnaires and agendas to use at different meetings.
I also began developing those tools and perfecting the questions in order to extract the correct information to give me an advantage in winning the business and, more importantly, give me the insight into how motivated the client was so that I could prioritise my business.
I now have a full set of resources that help myself and my clients fast-track our success and do a better job. I am happy to share these with you at my training sessions which you can register for by clicking the button below. Otherwise, it’s time to begin to build your resources so you can ask the right questions and remember the answers, so you qualify better, don’t waste time, build trust super quickly, and do more volume.
Whatever you choose to do, do not rely on your memory, because no matter how good it is, you will forget 80 per cent of everything you hear or read unless you have a system.
Come along to my upcoming FREE half-day Real Estate Brilliance webinar by clicking the button below.
