How to Be Resilient in Challenging Times

How to be Resilient in Challenging Times

In today’s episode of The No Limits Selling Podcast, we have Eric Berman, Licensed Realtor at Compass.

Eric Berman’s Tip: “You got to be able to put your ego down and make sure that you're putting the team first.”

Guest Bio:

Eric Berman graduated from the Berklee College of Music with a degree in Music Performance and Business. Eric would enter the Real Estate world using all of the skills he learned formerly, to forge a Real Estate business truly built out of bricks.

Working with Eric gives you not only a powerful real estate agent in your corner, but also a network of teams and vendors all well equipped to provide the smoothest, least stressful real estate process possible for his clients.

Find Eric Berman: Website, LinkedIn

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Summary

Eric is a powerful and resilient real estate agent who talks about the importance of mindset and resilience in business, particularly in real estate. He emphasizes the value of being valuable and providing help to others in a way that feels good and is not pushy. He stresses the importance of systems for follow-up and organization, including the use of technology tools. Together Umar and Eric discuss the need to take responsibility for one's actions and outcomes, avoiding a victim mindset, and limiting exposure to external noise, such as sensationalized news headlines.

To build resilience, individuals should focus on developing a positive mindset, embracing adaptability, strengthening their support networks, practicing self-care, setting realistic goals, and learning from past experiences. By cultivating these qualities, people can increase their resilience and thrive in difficult circumstances. Eric suggests that it is better to focus on basic principles and forge relationships with people to succeed in a challenging market.

[Podcast Transcript Using Artificial Intelligence]

Are you ready to become awesomer?

Umar Hameed 0:01 Are you ready to become awesomer? Hello everyone! My name is Umar Hameed, I'm your host on The No Limits Selling Podcast, where industry leaders share their tips, strategies and advice on how you can become better, stronger, faster. Just before we get started, I've got a question for you, do you have a negative voice inside your head? We all do, right? I'm gonna help you remove that voice and under 30 days guaranteed, not only remove it, but transform it. So instead of the voice that sabotages you, there's one that propels you to much higher levels of performance and success. There's a link in the show notes, click on it to find out more. All right! Let's get started. Umar Hameed 0:40 Hey everyone! Welcome to another episode of The No Limits Selling Podcast. Today, I have Eric Berman with me today. He's a leader of a team. He's in Long Island. I did a really bad accent there. Eric, welcome to the program.

What were your thoughts when it looked like the real estate market was dead?

Eric Berman 0:54 Hey, what's going on? Thank you for having me. My name is Eric Berman, with Compass Greater New York, here in Long Island, as people like to say.Umar Hameed 1:02 What's kind of interesting is, just how different the world is today versus two years ago? Two years ago and change at the beginning of the pandemic, there was like a real estate was dead. And it looked like all of you guys are going to be unemployed, never to work again. And then just a couple of months into it, the market took off, as you know, from longtime veterans, 30-40 years, they said it was the second best market they've ever seen. What do you think was the, what were your thoughts, especially when you lead a team? When it looked like, "Oh my god, where "F". That like this is not going to turn around for a long time?" And how did you keep the morale up? And then when it started accelerating, how do you get the team to stay focused on what they needed to do when it became a super hot market.Eric Berman 1:49 So at that time, I was still a solo agent. And, you know, it was basically all about just staying focused. Because I've gone through enough tumultuous times in my life that I said, "Here we go again." You know, you can't let yourself get distracted by the things that you can't control. And to be honest, I spent a lot of my time reading and just doing what we call sharpening the axe. Umar Hameed 2:19 Yeah, very much. Eric Berman 2:21 So I spent a ton of time doing that. And watching webinars and speaking with realtors around the country and just kind of piggybacking off of things that they were doing that was working, and I actually was still selling homes. In the pandemic, when we were locked down, you just had to get creative. That's when prior to the pandemic, I don't think I ever used Zoom. And you know, that had to change, you have to be able to do listing presentations and buyer consultations with people. Because inevitably, regardless of market conditions, there's going to be people that need to buy, they need to sell, whether there's you know, death, divorce, things like that there's people that just have to so unfortunately, you have to be able to help those people. And in being super communicative with my clients, past clients and other agents around the country. We were able to help a few people but tons but like, during that lockdown period, we were able to help some that was out.

How to keep the morale of your team focused on the basics of real estate.

Umar Hameed 3:24 More in Baltimore, I was living in Baltimore back then. And after the first two months of panic, my realtor clients, they were busy all the time. It was like a ton of transactions, super hard market. And so those trials, right, when you come up against hardship is if you stay focused on the basics, you get through it and you kind of go, "Hey, was wasn't that bad wasn't as bad as I thought it was." So now that you've got a team and interest rates kind of fluctuating, how are you keeping the morale of the team up? How to keep them focused on the basics that they need to do?Eric Berman 4:00 We're just like you said the basics. So my whole thing, the way I look at this, I'm excited when I saw the rumors of rates going up when I saw them starting to go up, when I saw them hit seven and a half. My reaction is great. Bring it on, because this is what makes you strong. So with my team, we're just focusing on keeping our boots to the ground and just doing the basics, talking, having conversations with the people that we know that like us, trust us with potential clients, you know, outreach, just getting in front of people and having conversations because at the end of the day, that's the name of the game in real estate. It's how many conversations can you have because the conversations lead to appointments, and appointments lead to signed contracts. So it's really you know, don't we, what we're doing is not focusing on how bad the market is or how complicated challenging it is, but just focusing on it. How can we speak to more people? How can we increase our conversations per day?Umar Hameed 5:06 Absolutely. I think a lot of real estate in life is about the relationships we build and the conversations we have. It doesn't have to be a sales conversation, just checking in, "Hey, how you doing? What's going on what's important in your life?" And there's so little contact, or meaningful contact in people's lives that a good phone call at the right time, helps them get better, stronger, and helps you as a realtor. And then later on when they're thinking about doing something or somebody mentions, "Hey, I've got a buy a house" and "Oh, Eric, call, Eric." And do you find that to be true?Eric Berman 5:42 Absolutely. So I think about this all the time, there was a quote from Jim Rohn, I'm sure he quoted from somebody else. But saying that, "If you want to make more money, be more valuable." So this business, well, people think it's just about selling houses. I mean, yes, it is obviously, we are salespeople at the end of the day, but I find that it's more about figuring out what you can do to help other people, figuring out you know, what challenges are you having and what can I do, you know, within, you know, nothing crazy, we're not, you know, we're not Superman, but we can try to figure out ways that we can help people's lives, help out their families, whether it be involving us getting business or not, because, first off, it just feels good to help people. And then like you said, you know, without being too salesy, and pushy in every phone call to be like, "Hey, you're buying, you're selling, you're buying, you're being of service," and then when the time comes, and they want to buy something, they want to sell something, they're already thinking of you, because you've been there all along as an asset.

The importance of having systems in place for follow-up.

Umar Hameed 6:44 Absolutely. And I think one of the things that is one of the most painful things is if you happen to be a real realtor, or any other salesperson, and you eventually get around to calling one of your clients to check in like six months, or eight months later than you should have, they're like, "Oh, my God, Eric, I just listed with another agent, I totally forgot." And it's not their fault. It's our fault for not staying in touch. So yeah, that's like a painful lesson, right? Have you ever had one of those?Eric Berman 7:12 Of course, of course, and you're like, why didn't you use me? Oh, I forgot. But that's why you have to have systems in place. Systems for follow up. And you have to actually do it. Because you know, we speak to so many people. And if you're not organized with it, your brain is a scary place. We all have no matter who's who we're talking about. We all have a lot going on inside here. And obviously, you can't remember everything. I mean, I don't have a photographic memory. So I have to rely on systems using my CRM, keeping notes, reminding myself I'm constantly inside of my calendar. And you know, you just You do whatever you have to do to be able to increase that mental capacity, even if it means using the Alexa to set things in your calendar.Umar Hameed 8:01 Absolutely. I mean, there's all these amazing tools out there now that allow us to be so much more productive, and be on time. But like you said, you got to use them if you don't use them. And there's no point getting a process if you don't use it. Eric Berman 8:14 Yes. Umar Hameed 8:14 And I think using processes are essential to success in any endeavor, because you can diagnose what the problem might be, or get somebody smarter to look at your process and know I'm getting okay results. I wish it would get better as Oh, no wonder you've got step three, where it should be step one, and say, Oh, thanks. And they'll just turn it around on a dime. And you'll get something that's incredibly valuable. So Eric, as we're sitting here, today, what I'd like to do is to talk about resiliency, because you know, everybody is super fantastic at happy times. And when business is falling, you don't even have to pick dial anybody they're dialing you. But when things get tough is the ability to be resilient is important. What do you think are the essential elements? If you and I were designing a course, what would be the process to be resilient? What are some of the skills that people need to have?Eric Berman 9:05 Well, I think first and foremost, it comes down to your mindset. You know, if you fall into the trap of having a victim mindset, and making excuses for yourself constantly, it's going to be really, really difficult to pull yourself up when times are hard because it becomes so easy. And I've been there before.

The importance of having systems in place for follow-up.

That's why I can definitely speak to this where you're like, "Oh, I didn't get this break." "This always happens to me." Of course, of course it would go that way because it's me and I have the worst luck. As soon as you start turning that around and taking ownership for literally everything somebody on your team quits some deal falls apart this is once you start making the transition to being like, "What can I do to impact this?" "How can I do it better?" "This is on me," and put everything on your own shoulders. Things start to change because I was in a place where that was me. I was, you know, a woe is me type of person, I went through a lot of stuff. And he'll blamed a lot of other people. And it put me into like a really, really dark place that it took me literally years to get out of, and I was just a straight up a loser and was just sucking at life. And when I really just was able to turn my mindset around magical things happened. You know, just, it really almost is like magic. Because I think it was in the book, The Richest Man in Babylon, they say they were saying that procrastination is the enemy of luck. So once you start taking ownership of your life and taking action towards everything, all of a sudden, all these lucky things started happening to you but it's not luck. It's that you're just going and leading with your own life.Umar Hameed 10:52 Yeah. Two things to add to that. Number one, I'm a firm believer in useful lies. Like, when you take a look at science, there is no truth in science. It's like this is the best model, we know, now of how the universe works. And you know, 20 years later, there's somebody else going, "Oh, we got a better model." Snd it wasn't that the new model is the truth now is just a better truth. So as you said, taking responsibility when an agent leaves, you can blame them, you can blame a whole bunch of stuff, and it disempowers you or you can say, "Okay, I had a role in that. So I'm going to accept responsibility for that." Even if that happens to be a lie, just by doing that, it allows you to go, "You're in controlling and figure out what you need to do." But if you're blaming other people, other things, you give up your power and nothing's ever gonna get fixed. Eric Berman 11:41 That's right. Umar Hameed 11:42 There's a quote, I'm not sure who said it, it was, you know, "Success is all about luck. Ask any failure," which is exactly what you said.Eric Berman 11:52 That's amazing. That that's awesome.Umar Hameed 11:55 All right. So number one is basically, you know, taking responsibility for what's going on is one of the steps for becoming resilient. What would be step two, once you take that responsibility, what would be the next step, do you think?

What is the third step to being resilient?

Eric Berman 12:07 Keeping your head down and limiting your exposure, if not block it out altogether, the outside noise. You know, I don't and this is a personal decision, I'm not really into watching the news, because I feel like it's all doom and gloom, and it's just distracting. It's also a lot of fabricated reality. You know, I'm not gonna say that all the news is fake or anything like that. But let's face it, everybody is selling something, and they're selling advertisements. So they will often write things to sensationalized headlines to get you to click so that their advertisers can get paid. It's a business at the end of the day. So if you're worrying about like for, for example, being resilient in this current real estate market, where the inventory is still low, and rates are higher, if you spend all of your time worrying about the things that you can control, and paying attention to the news, instead of just really buckling down. And like we were saying before, going back to the basics, forging relationships with people, making phone calls, not scaling back on your marketing, because you're scared of what may or may not happen. I feel like those are all things that can really either hold you back or push you forward.Umar Hameed 13:23 Absolutely. So we've got to take ownership, head down, is there a third step?Eric Berman 13:29 To being resilient? Just don't stop. Umar Hameed 13:33 Yeah.Eric Berman 13:33 It's like anything. It's like anything in life, you know, like the old adage of digging for gold, and the guy who's digging and digging and digging, digging forever. And then he gives up and then the next guy comes over and just gives a couple got a couple of picks, and gets right...Umar Hameed 13:48 MIndset, yeah.Eric Berman 13:48 ...because the first guy should have just kept going, but he didn't.Umar Hameed 13:52 So here's my process for resiliency. Number one, you only need it when things are going wrong. And when things go wrong, the first question to ask is, well, the first thing to do is take a breath, because the only thing you do control in the entire world is you. And the first thing you did when you entered this world was take a breath. So just literally stop from them and go, "Ah," take a breath. Number two, when the bad thing happened, ask, "What is the universe trying to teach me out of this event?" Agent leaving or losing a deal, and you'll always get a message. And once you've got that message, I advise people to go okay, what is the smallest step you can take in the right direction? Not the big one, not have a complex plan. Just take the smallest step and by taking the smallest step, it gets you unstuck and it starts creating momentum. And once you've got the momentum, all that you said, you know, "Hey, take responsibility. Keep your head down, work really hard, keep on going," it all comes from that getting unstuck part. So that's basically what I'd add to your formula is that and I think there's many ways to get it and this is one that I found really well. And dear listeners, if you come up with better ideas, send an email out to Eric and I will actually add it to our toolkit. So Eric, how many people on your real estate team?

The importance of having a ninja sales team as opposed to a big one.

Eric Berman 15:11 I'm just a small team, we are to two agents. underneath me, there's about to be a third one coming in and admin and a virtual assistant. So pretty small team. So I'm just recently stepping into this role. So it's actually very exciting. Been working with my team on exactly what we're talking about now about preparing for war about getting ready, and just doing the things that need to be done to move us forward.Umar Hameed 15:44 Absolutely. I think one of the things as you there's a good chance that some of the processes you have Eric are like good, not bad, right? Well, they might be brilliant. But I know one thing is, in the next six months, you're gonna get better because you're going to tweak whatever needs tweaking. And I think just having that small team, walking down the processes really getting them to function really well. And then expanding the team is so much easier than you're halfway through the first two hires and obviously, you're getting more people in more dynamics. So going back to what you started with, you know, process is incredibly important.Eric Berman 16:18 Yeah, yeah. And right now, I'm more focused on having a ninja sales team, as opposed to growing a big one, because I want to establish a culture, of caring, and really taking the time necessary necessary to really focus on helping my agents to sharpen their skills, because, you know, so many business models, they're just, you know, bring bring on every license, as many as we can. And then, you know, my bottom line will be great. But are the agents going to be, you know, providing for their family? Is it going to be the best thing for them? And the answer is, maybe, but I want to be sure that everybody's families are provided for that everybody's not just like, receiving leads, and just like, "Okay, I can close," but like, learning how to fish, I don't want to just give them the fish, I'm teaching my agents how to hunt, because I want them to be independent.

Defining the culture of your team and expanding the team.

And you know, at some point, I fully expect that everybody's going to leave me and they'll go on and do bigger, better things themselves and I fully accept that. But I want to establish that culture that we're here to grow together.Umar Hameed 17:25 Nice. I was working with the Michael Schiff Home Team in Baltimore and they were at a crossroads. And we basically help them define their culture. And one of the things that came out of it was we are hunters. So everybody at the retreat, got an arrow, just as a reminder, and one of the things they ended up doing was every Thursday... Eric Berman 17:45 That's right. I'm gonna write that down. I love that.Umar Hameed 17:47 Every Thursday, they do, you know, do their phone work together as a team. They call every day, but Thursdays they do together. And this one particular Thursday, they decided, "Okay, there's 10 agents, and we're all going to have 100 conversations today." So not 100 dials, 100 conversations, it was a long freaking day. But they just, you know, they're hunters so that was just something they did that quarter. And on that particular day, the amount of business they generated from that day was just mind blowing. Because everybody was in the zone, they had breakfast, they had lunch. And they all walked away with a ton of leads and a ton of opportunities and they brought them home. And I think whatever your team is, you need to define the culture. And the best way to think about it is this is, if you remember back, Eric to maybe elementary school, you may have done this science experiment where the teacher got a magnet, a little bar magnet, put it on the table, put a white sheet of paper on top of it, and sprinkled our iron filings on top of it. And soon as they hit the paper, they moved to the lines of flux of the magnet so you could see the magnetic fields. And what that represents for you and I is this, is that the paper is your team, the bar magnet is the culture of the team and the iron filings are the behaviors and the attitudes of the team members. And so it doesn't matter if you take one of the iron filings and move it to where you need to move it. Because as soon as you let go, it slides back to where it was. To create change, you need to change the culture. And that comes at a level of beliefs. And when you do that you got a team that's 100% committed to each other. They know exactly where they're going. They've got a defined war cry and it just makes your job 100 times easier. And once you've got the systems to back that team up, then expanding the team when you're ready is super easy to do because people are knocking on your door saying, "Oh my god, I want to work for you. Because this is home this is what I want this kind of vibrant environment." So thoughts on that? That metaphor of iron filings and paper?

The best piece of advice Eric has ever received that allowed him to be a better agent or a better team leader.

Eric Berman 19:56 That, that is an incredible analogy. I really really love that. That's, that's very memorable.Umar Hameed 20:02 Nice. So before we part company, Eric, two things, number one, being an agent, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received that allowed you to be a better agent or a better team leader?Eric Berman 20:14 Well, I mean, in terms of leadership, you know, just remembering that leaders eat last. Umar Hameed 20:20 Yeah.Eric Berman 20:21 Obviously taking that from the title of the book. But it's, it's super important, you got to be able to put your ego down and make sure that you're putting the team first. Because at the end of the day, if you are doing all that you can to look out for them, they're going to look out for you.Umar Hameed 20:38 Absolutely. And I think, ultimately, you know, when I help teams come together is what we're looking for is, like, if you take a look, the US military, the average soldier in the army doesn't really care about the commander-in-chief or the general that's, you know, X number of ranks up, but they deeply care about the people in their platoon and will do heroic things put their lives on the line for their teammates. And ultimately, when we build teams, what we want is people fully committing to each other and you just happen to be the leader. And if you can get that you get a team that transcends you and the walk through fire to do amazing things. And that way, it also allows you to kind of be that servant leader, one of the books, if you've not read, have you read "Good to Great"?Eric Berman 21:24 No, I have not.Umar Hameed 21:25 Add it to the list. And I think, because you're a reader, and I think that's going to help fill in some of the gaps. So here's the final question, Eric. Eric Berman 21:33 Sure.Umar Hameed 21:34 What is one mind hack that you'd like to share with our listeners and viewers that would allow them to be more productive, sexier, taller, have better hair whatever that thing is for you? What would you like to share?Eric Berman 21:45 So the mind hack?Umar Hameed 21:47 Yeah, like a little technique you use to be just be more effective.Eric Berman 21:51 I don't know about mine. But I would just say like really, really digging into your schedule, and your calendar, time blocking things out. You know, it's sounds so simple but you know, just making time for the events, not only professional but personal just having it up in visual and seeing it. I think that that's one of the most impactful things in my career. It's just so basic and I wish I had a cooler answer for you. And I'm sure I think if there was like a new agent listening to this, so many people just go fly by the seat of their pants and having everything like literally, like when you go to the gym when you're making phone calls, when you're going to have lunch when you're going to you know, see your your father for lunch or something like that. Umar Hameed 22:39 That's something that most people don't do and that's where they get in trouble. So thank you for reminding us all to do that. Because there's always at the end of the day, the basics that count, like relying on, "Oh, I got this fancy new thing that's gonna save my career" or it's like, "No, just do the basics, and you're gonna be fine." So Eric, thank you so much for being on the show really enjoyed the conversation, and I'm looking forward to our next.Eric Berman 23:02 Alright. thanks so much. This was amazing.Umar Hameed 23:09 If you enjoyed this episode, please go to iTunes and leave a five-star rating. And if you're looking for more tools, go to my website at nolimitsselling.com. I've got a free mind training course there, that's going to teach you some insights from the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and that is the fastest way to get better results.

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