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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 ReportAchieving 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 ...

Promotion and lead generation are two essential functions for a successful real estate agent. However, many agents lack the time and financial resources to promote ...

In The Art of the Sale, author Phillip Delves Broughton conveys the primary role that sales plays in business and in life. As a graduate student at Harvard Business School ...

Internet marketing and cold calling are among the topics in the fall edition of the Keller Center Research Report, published by Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business. The Report is an online source of academic articles focused on residential real estate research and summaries of scholarly journal articles and books relevant for real estate sales agents...

Baylor University's Keller Center for Research in the Hankamer School of Business has published its latest Keller Center Research Report, a web-based journal of academic research targeted to the real estate professional. The report addresses topics that are relevant to the real estate industry. This quarter's issue includes a study on the effectiveness of cold calling: "Has Cold Calling Gone Cold?" by Dale Lampertz, lecturer in Marketing at Baylor...

Senior Aimee Gomez was recently chosen for the 2012-13 Keller Center for Research Public Relations Intern position in Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business...

Service is a critical factor to business success now more than ever (Bettencourt forthcoming). Research shows that improved service drives customer loyalty and ...

Deeply embedded in real estate agent training and development literature is the directive to be constantly engaged in lead-generation activities. Lead-generation is an essential ...

As the sales process has gradually evolved from a transaction-driven model to a relationship-driven and collaborative approach, the underlying methods driving ...

The sales environment is rapidly changing. The real estate sales environment is also becoming more complex and competitive, and is being driven by a rising number of...

Long-term customer relationships are the building blocks of a firm's success. Practitioners and researchers have long recognized the positive effects of close customer ...

Imagine the 60-foot-long boat of the U.S. women's national rowing team cutting across a crystal-clear lake in a heated 2,000-meter race. As the team synchronously rows their ...

In his book 100MPH Marketing for Real Estate, author and real estate veteran, Mitch Ribak, details the formula for Internet marketing success in a no-frills approach that ...

Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business has published its latest quarterly Keller Center Research Report, an online source of academic articles focused on residential real estate research and summaries of scholarly journal articles and books relevant for real estate sales agents. The report includes topics such as seller financing, social media, and customer relationships and sales performance through moral judgment...

To be successful in today's challenging economic conditions creates significant pressure on salespeople's ethical behavior. Moral judgment, a precursor to ethical behavior ...

In many service provider-customer or seller-buyer contexts, it has been assumed that the service provider or seller must exhibit a positive attitude towards customers, and may...

Many sales organizations focus on measuring or tracking outputs or results with less emphasis on inputs, which is akin to telling a football team to stop the opponent from scoring without working on essential defensive skills such as tackling and pass coverage.

Pinterest has all the elements for a right brain, visual thinker. Images, pin boards, minimal word content and high quality visuals that makes staying on the site feel like you are ...

With banks applying stricter guidelines to conventional real estate mortgages, many buyers have found it difficult to qualify for home loans. It is estimated that forty percent ...

Today's customers are savvier than ever before, largely thanks to growing accessibility to information through technology. Selling to these customers has become a challenging ...

The Greek philosopher Socrates identified happiness as the ultimate goal of all human activity - everything we do is with this end in mind. And, because happiness is the ...

In real estate, as well as other sales-related jobs, creating strong partnerships between buyers and sellers is one of the keys to business success. Understanding the types ...

Buying a house is a complex and involving process. The process is much more significant than just deciding on a location, a space, and a set of features. The home purchase ...

Both buyers and sellers desire win-win outcomes; however, most salespeople have a natural bent toward win-lose thinking. Our culture has too often indoctrinated ...

Loyal staff, engaged clients, impressive brand recognition; these are adjectives that managers and leaders hope to ascribe to their business. In his book ...

Rachel Watson, JD, MBA Candidate Due to the recent downturn in the economy, the use of short sales has risen in the real estate market. A short sale occurs when a property is sold and the lender...

We are inviting you to participate in a study concerning how real estate professionals help home buyers navigate the process of buying homes.

Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business has published its quarterly Keller Center Research Report, an online compendium of academic articles focused on residential real estate research and summaries of scholarly journal articles and books relevant to real estate sales agents. The report takes a look at distinct marketing approaches to...

Given the highly competitive market in which real estate agents work, striving to attract and retain valued customers is important. Understanding what makes a client want to ...

When it comes to utilizing professional services, consumers have a choice: perform the service for themselves or outsource the job to a service professional. The purpose of ...

What is the right approach method for the professional salesperson to lead a buyer-seller interaction and achieve effective, efficient and consistent sales results? The pragmatist ...

As a culture, we encourage young people to sample and engage in a variety of activities. The goal is, in essence, to understand one's gifts and talents, thereby finding those...

By now, most consumers are familiar with social media. It is easy to track how many Facebook friends, Twitter followers and LinkedIn connections exist on an individual ...

Whether a consumer knows it or not, using a search engine to browse content on the Internet automatically engages him with the world of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) ...

Over the past 50 years, groups of people in the United States have been classified into generational categories to better understand how age groupings tend to behave ...

Joe is a highly successful broker in northern Virginia. Until a month ago, his life seemed ideal. He enjoyed a professional reputation for integrity and insight. Scores of agents ...

Real estate agents must undertake a variety of tasks to establish, sustain and develop a clientele base. Acknowledging the complexity of their job, most agents recognize the ...

Charles Fifield, MBA Whether it is the first or a subsequent meeting, salespeople must have a clear understanding of their call objectives and how they plan to achieve their desired ...

Leslie K. John, PhDWhy does a plane ride create such an intimate setting, often inspiring strangers to exchange life stories and share intimate personal information without regard for privacy ...

Any salesperson will tell you that the ideal method for generating new clients is through word-of-mouth and referrals. No advertising or cold calling is necessary with this strategy ...

The Baby Boom Generation, born between 1946 and 1964, has played a dominant role in the residential real estate market over the past four decades. As this generation enters ...

How have you set yourself apart from other agents in your market? Consumers have many options to consider when selecting a real estate agent. Experience level, services offered ...

When a salesperson commences a face-to-face sales interaction, certain call priorities must be the central focus of the early interpersonal exchange. First, the salesperson ...

In competitive selling environments, brand identity is an important differentiator for both the sales professional and the consumer. For service industries such as real estate ...

In order to overcome the challenging housing crisis, real estate professionals have had to become more innovative in the way they reach prospective customers. One of ...

Would you like to receive more referrals? In his 2010 book The Lunch of a Lifetime, the world's most referred real estate agent, Michael Maher, reveals his secrets to ...

Customers have more power in the buyer/seller relationship than most people think. The relationship is dependent on how a customer relates and reacts to the salesperson ...

In today's fast-paced, competitive marketplace, effective information management is arguably the most powerful non-employee lever to trigger sales productivity and ...

With a constantly changing market and a new generation of home buyers on the rise, value-based service quality will play an important role in customer satisfaction. Service ...