News

Decision-making and loss as a result of decision-making may afflict every individual, industry, and profession. However, decision-making and loss are not the most pleasurable experiences. In fact, decisions are often described as painful...

For real estate professionals, the word value comes up in professional conversations everyday. However, value can oftentimes be very narrowly defined from the firm’s perspective, prompting the agent to miss opportunities to connect the broad definition of value to the real estate purchase experience...

Recent academic research shows that two types of salesperson or agent behaviors play important roles in creating successful sales organizations. The question motivating our research is: what can the people who lead sales groups do to further encourage these behaviors?

Our decision-making processes utilize two systems in our minds that function very differently, yet work together to help us analyze situations and draw conclusions. Dr. Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow explores the interaction between the automatic system and the conscious system...

For most people, sales agility is a new term. Top sellers are agile learners who know what it takes to dive into a new situation and figure it out quickly...

We make connections every day, in person, over the phone or email, through Linkedin, and even via Snapchat. Every opportunity we have to meet people is another connection to a new prospective client.

Is there a connection between neuroscience and selling real estate? By exploring key functions of the brain's decision-making processes, Simon Hazeldine has discovered a way for sales professionals to increase the likelihood of closing a sale.

Sellers want to find a good home for their most cherished possessions and may be willing to sacrifice personal profit to ensure that this objective is met. Their willingness to accept an offer can depend on whether they agree or disagree with how the buyer plans to use the product.

Michael L. Mallin, PhD Sales managers have a vested interest in hiring, developing, and retaining sales professionals who have a propensity to be proactive since research shows proactive behaviors among salespeople as a key factor in generating higher levels of sales performance.

Communication, the effective conveying of information, is a critically important buyer-seller activity to achieve successful interpersonal sales performance.

Predicting consumer behavior is crucial to success in any business, including real estate. Our research identifies that a key way to predict consumer behavior is through a consumer's level of what is called lay rationalism, which refers to the weight a consumer gives to feelings versus reason in the decision-making process.

Companies spend over $3,300 per hire on recruiting and the cost of not recruiting well results in poor performance, dissatisfied employees and high turnover. Little research has addressed sales force recruiting at this stage of career and the motivations of a millennial salesforce in their job searches.

As much as we might like to think that we are wildly different than everybody else, our DNA is actually 99.9% the same as everyone else’s. We’re 99.9% average. As odd as it may seem, our individuality and personality only makes up .1% of us.

When entering the work force, new employees face a learning curve associated with their new positions. Real estate agents face the task of establishing themselves as a credible assets in the community and understanding the dynamics of working with clients.

Have you ever imagined yourself in an exotic vacation location, experiencing all the benefits of a luxury resort? Real estate agents use strategies while persuading buyers to invest in a house. The implicit belief behind these sales strategies is that consumption-related self-imagery is a powerful persuasion tactic.

The goals in professional selling are to build relationships and to sell value resulting in win-win outcomes. To do so, certain critical skills are required, including: relationship management, effective communication, and value-adding capabilities.

Acknowledgments and thank yous are given every day in nearly all professions, from real estate to acting to retail shopping.  Though such thank yous are common, people rarely put much thought into how various forms of such acknowledgements might be received differently. 

When it comes to the art of selling, there are two sharply opposed views: some view salespeople as individuals who are born with the "right" attributes, who can easily sell different products and move from firm to firm with little difficulty, no matter what is being sold.

How do you convince potential clients that what you’re selling is best?  How do you bridge that gap between real estate salesperson and my real estate agent?  Ron Willingham says it is in how authentic you are with your potential clients.

This article features sales expert Andrea Dixon, Ph.D., executive director of Baylor University’s Center for Professional Selling and the Keller Center for Research in Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business, who advises salespeople to narrow their customer databases and develop “personal touch portfolios,” which rank the best candidates for a salesperson’s most personalized marketing and highest level of attention. “We are limited in bandwidth as individuals,” Dixon says. “You want to target the people who it makes the most sense for that individualized follow-up — those for whom seeing, hearing and feeling from you will evoke a positive personal response.

By treating the commercial real estate buying decision as an investment, these buyers are unlike residential buyers who often make purchase decisions by relying, perhaps unwittingly, on less rational dynamics like emotion.

The salesperson having a dynamic, learning or growth mindset is managing from the perspective of incremental productivity progress and potentially unimaginable opportunities.

Strong communication, good group dynamics, and collaboration are all cohesion goals for which real estate professionals and their team members strive.

Professional selling is a learned intellectual skill where more knowledgeable sales personnel, ceteris paribus, should be expected to be more productive due to their superior client interaction and persuasion skills.

Search engine tools such as Yahoo!, Google, and Bing, as well as international versions of these such as Baidu in China or Yandex in Russia all provide consumers with answers to any of their questions in a matter of milliseconds.

John Tran, MBA Candidate In the Generosity Generation, we can spend our time, energy, effort, and money on people we actually like and trust. In the end, those are the ones who are most valuable to our business.

When a millennial is confronted by someone trying to sell them something, he or she almost immediately becomes closed off.

The effectiveness of salespeople depends on how they interact with customers. Sales organizations recruit and train salespeople so that they can identify and satisfy customer needs in the long-run...

Salespeople constantly seek ways to communicate persuasively. Storytelling is a type of communication that you and I use every day. It is so common you may not even think about it when telling or hearing a story. Stories are such an important part of the fabric of human communications that failing to use them effectively in sales can be a serious handicap...

With the advancement in storage technology and the rise of Internet and social media, more and more information is becoming readily available to both customers and agencies. Today, customers are able to get almost all the information they need to make a purchase decision through websites both of the focal company and their competitors, feedback and ratings of other customers and users, through blogs, online product reviews and social media...

According to the Borrell Associates report, 2013 Real Estate Outlook, real estate advertising was projected to grow by 9.7% to $27.2B, while the online advertising category was projected to grow by 16.9% to reach $15B in spend. These estimates make the real estate industry number one in the online advertising marketplace...

It’s a fairly common experience - that desperate moment when you search the crowd for whoever said your name. We are constantly clued into our names, especially when it’s added to personalized greetings or comments. People use our names as a way of engaging with us and getting our attention...

Research by Saber (2014) highlights the challenges facing residential real estate agencies as additional information becomes available to consumers. Saber outlines strategies for agents to emphasize the value of services they provide to their clients, and the importance of “keeping the agent’s name and good work in the mind of the client” even after the real estate transaction has concluded.

As cognitive beings, we possess a unique ability to recognize and understand non-verbal communication. We have the ability to study and analyze the non-verbal signals of our friends, family and clients, and then use that information to communicate more effectively with each other...

Real estate professionals can and should leverage social-media platforms to humanize their branding efforts and connect with consumers. Utilization of visual storytelling will drive consumer engagement with the brand, encouraging traffic, referrals, and ultimately loyalty and revenues...

Do you check your cell-phone every 6.5 minutes and up to 150 times a day? Do you have 6,234 Facebook friends? Or, spend the majority of your waking hours with your cell-phone on your body?

Are you curious about the likelihood of clients using your real estate services in the future given pervasive '"e-information?" There is definitely a mouse in the house and action is imperative...

Communication skills are the single most important determinant of effectiveness in both sales and sales management. Poor listening behaviors by sales personnel contribute significantly to performance failure...

The real estate industry is fiercely competitive. Since the 1990s it has not only been a competition between individual agents but one between agents and realtor teams...

On April 30, 1943, at the height of World War II, a fisherman stumbled across a corpse floating in the water off the coast of southwestern Spain. The body was that of an adult male, Major William Martin of the Royal Marines...

What makes your work satisfying? Does what drives you to succeed ultimately lead you to be satisfied with your job? Compared to most other things, which of these best describe what motivates you to reach your goals?

Bridging current academic research and the real estate practitioner audience, the Keller Center Research Report plays uniquely in the knowledge marketplace. Our Keller Center team identifies cutting-edge rigorous research with interesting implications for the real estate market...

Do you have a balanced work and family life? For many, this question is difficult to answer because the definition of “balance” varies. Regardless of the definition, it is clear that the demands of work can impact an individual’s...

Are extraverts are the best candidates for sales positions? Despite the proliferation of this assumption in numerous sales organizations, studies have shown that there is a weak and inconsistent relationship between extraversion and sales performance. In fact, recent studies indicate that...

Efficiency, process improvement, and value creation are not just buzzwords in today’s business world; they have become the foundation for real, sustainable competitive advantage. However, the path to achieving or improving upon these fundamental concepts is not always clear...

Internet-based applications are very commonplace within business and personal contexts. Online banking, chat-based customer service, and shopping are just some of the e-functions that permeate our day-to-day lives. Some consumers, though, show great resistance...

This article is written to help “unmask” the qualities of high-performing salespeople in the context of task and time management preferences to help managers and agents achieve the greatest business outcomes. Understanding an agent’s task and time preferences can help increase...

When looking to add new agents to your agency, finding individuals who can add value immediately is important. Additionally, finding the right person who will fit your job and your agency will increase the probability of...

Previously, providing information was a key way that salespeople created value for clients. Now, sales professionals must adapt the value creation process to address changing client needs by...

Real estate professionals must understand that it is important to focus on each of the four dimensions of Market Orientation. While maintaining a strong focus on customers, it is equally important to...

For real estate professionals, neutralizations are of great relevance. A sales role presents challenges and pressures that may sometimes cloud good ethical judgment. Given the knowledge of neutralizations and the principles presented, real estate brokers and agents can begin to...

Understanding how to push your products, services, and ideas to catch on is essential for success. To do so, users need to discover how to...

The real estate agency leader can make a marked difference on agency outcomes by creating, enhancing, and changing connections between...

For realtors and other providers of professional services, customer referrals are one of the most important sources of new business. As service providers, we want customers saying...

How can a salesperson improve her performance? This is a question that sales management researchers have spent a great deal of effort and time trying to...

With social media becoming the fastest growing area of marketing today, real estate professionals can attract more clients by expanding their reach across...

Profiles International has promoted former Keller Center Graduate Assistant, Dr. Amanda (Holmes) Howard, PhD, to the role of Chief Research Officer...

The Keller Center for Research published an article on forgiveness in the December 2013 Keller Center Research Report.

The Keller Center for Research recently published an article on decision-making conducted by Hankamer School of Business' Assistant Professor of Marketing, Dr. Ann Mirabito..

When you think of cold calling, does a knot immediately form in your stomach? How often do you use cold calling to generate new leads for your business? For many real estate agents ...

Due to the pervasive technique of inbound marketing and exponentially increasing consumer demand for content-driven promotions and advertising, the sales paradigm has changed. But has your selling approach changed? If not ...

Delivering high-quality services first requires an effective service design process. Intentional service design ensures ...

Even the best relationships can be marred by misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Although forgiveness is often considered in the context of ...

Sales control systems play a critical role in directing, evaluating, and monitoring the activities of an organization's salespeople. Sales quotas, for instance ...

Have you noticed that some clients will stay with their realtor, even if the realtor does not provide results? Clients in real estate relationships, as well as other service relationships, often ...

Critiques of modern societies often include the loss of community due to increasingly weak connections with local places and changing modes of social interactions. Sociologists believe that ...

Attunement, buoyancy and clarity are the new requirements for influencing consumers in the 21st century...

The information age was supposed to kill-off the role of the salesperson. Any potential buyer could go out and, with sufficient research, discover a solution that...

Real estate agents who create strong buying routines help clients move toward successful purchases. The changing nature of information sources in residential real estate may be...

With the increase in the number of blogs, consumer websites, and word-of-mouth outlets available to homebuyers, consumer-generated media is attracting...

Does expending more effort make consumers smarter? We question the intuitive assumption that consumers will make better decisions based on the...

Have you ever watched your clients make bad decisions that cost them tens of thousands of dollars, even though you did your best to steer them to better decisions?

Consumers are faced with choices each day. Marketers try desperately to influence our decision-making process, capturing our attention and appealing to...

As we navigate the information overload of 21st century, we dedicate this issue of the Keller Center Research Report to current research that promises new insights for agents and...

LinkedIn is a powerful networking tool that can help real estate professionals build relationships and prospect for new clients ...

Organizations must not only have the capability to accurately measure performance, but they also must be able to understand how these metrics are managed to drive revenue ...

In sales, retailing, or service businesses, employees' performance during personal encounters is the most influential driver of customer satisfaction ...

With such a potentially large influx of younger sellers entering the workforce, there will inevitably be generational issues to contend with as they attempt to ...

Curtis Schroeder, MBA Candidate - Associate Editor, Keller Center Research Report Achieving extraordinary results and happiness is simple. In fact, each of our personal and professional ambitions should point back to ONE question...

As minorities and immigrants are the fastest growing home-buying segment, real estate professionals must understand and learn how to leverage ...

"Success depends on building relationships with your customers!" But, do your business customers really want a relationship with you and your company?

On Friday, May 17, 2013, 2013 Keller Center Graduate Assistants Dennis Thé, Mark Tarro and Jacob Christie, celebrated their MBA Masters Hooding Ceremony at Baylor University.

Real estate professionals looking for grab-and-go expertise are excited about the newly-launched website and email format for Baylor's Keller Center Research Report (KCRR)...

The effectiveness of cold calling as a lead generation tactic is still a much-debated topic in B2B marketing and sales circles. Many thought leaders and practitioners contend that cold calling is no longer an effective and efficient way to generate new sales leads. It's also clear, however, that many B2B companies still rely heavily on...

Baylor's Keller Center for Research is looking to hire an undergraduate PR intern for 2013-2014...

The condition of your local housing market dictates which approach will ultimately lead to more sales. Research from the Keller Center at Baylor University shows that...

According to the National Association of Realtors ®, existing U.S. home sales in December 2012 were well above the level recorded for the previous year...

In a recent issue of the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, four scholars report on a research initiative involving sales practitioners in the United States and the United Kingdom. Exploring the role of technology and social media in the selling process, the authors identify six major themes of interest to the academic community: connectivity, relationships, selling tools, generational, global, and sales/marketing interface.

In November 2009, The New Zealand Government introduced the Real Estate Agents Act 2008. This new act replaced the Real Estate Agents Act 1976. The main purpose of...

In the first decade of the 21st century, a profound shift has occurred in the way people shop for real estate. Unlike past generations, this new generation of consumers...

Today, the smartphone is central to the lives of most consumers regardless of age, gender or education level. In fact, many consumers cannot seem to live apart from...

Questions are a part of our everyday life and we can often overlook the importance and power of questions we ask. This is often because the person being asked...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the major components of spending - food, housing apparel and services, transportation, health care, entertainment, and...

Many international and US firms are developing a global real estate focus. US-based firms, including Coldwell Banker, Keller Williams Realty International and Century 21, are...

In the final semester of her senior year, Baylor alumni Sydney Garcia completed an important online readership survey on behalf of Baylor's Keller Center for Research. The survey was distributed to the readers of the Keller Center Research Report, a journal of academic research positioned for the real estate industry, and uncovered important insights that are helping the Center refine the editorial strategy and improve the journal's usefulness to practitioners...

Whether in retail sales, business-to-business sales, or home sales, conventional wisdom suggests "the customer is always right." Identifying and meeting customer needs is also ...

Think about the last time you purchased a book or selected a movie to see. How did you go about it? The chances are that your decision was influenced by what someone else ...

Productivity, as it applies to sales organizations, is not uniformly defined. Simply put, productivity is maximizing sales results (output) by minimizing resources expended ...

Finding and retaining high performing salespeople continues to be the #1 challenge for most sales organizations. Organizational commitment has garnered considerable ...

Have you ever wondered how Pandora processes your musical preferences and recommends other music you might like? Or how Amazon finds and suggests the exact ...