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With the quick availability of online listings and resources, some buyers may feel they no longer need the specialized services of a real estate agent. Have you considered how the content and design of your web site might help you reclaim competitive advantage, while connecting with potential clients on a deeper level?

Although much research has been focused on a salesperson’s externally directed behavior, we found that political skill and intrinsic motivation have effects on adaptive selling and sales performance. In light of this evidence, we recommend that every sales manager assist his/her salespeople with developing these intrapreneurial abilities.

As a real estate agent, you're familiar with managing your own business. In this Insider article, we explore Cliff Lerner’s Explosive Growth strategies to help you grow your real estate business and stay ahead of the competition.

Your clients are more informed now than ever when making purchase decisions. Our research offers insights on applicable adaptive sales techniques based on the consumers’ perceived informedness about high-involvement purchases.

People understand ideas better when they are close and connected to a source of information. This research suggests using easy to handle media, appropriate detail, and physical distance may help captivate audiences and increase your outreach effectiveness.

Social media has become increasingly important in driving sales. Our research suggests that understanding who receives your outreach is just as necessary as what you post.

A critical success factor in the salesperson-customer relationship is cooperation. The purpose of this research is to analyze how salespeople’s actual cooperation efforts influence how customers perceive cooperation, and how customer-perceived cooperation influences relationship outcomes.

Zachary R. Hall, PhD, Ryan R. Mullins, PhD, Niladri Syam, PhD, and Jeffrey P. Boichuk, PhD Understanding the changing dynamics of customers and competitors in your market is a cornerstone for maintained success. This information, known as market intelligence, helps improve decision-making, especially in real estate. But how do we utilize it in an agency context to bolster sales?

Jackson Price, MBA Candidate According to Scott Stratten and Alison Kramer, authors of Unselling, sixty percent of all purchase decisions are now made before you ever get a chance to share your pitch. In short, the majority of your potential clients have already decided on a real estate agent or firm before they even know they need one.

Xuehua Wang, PhD and Hean Tat Keh, PhD There are many possible applications of cross-selling for real estate, all of which have the potential to add value for the client and the agent. This article examines why some consumers are more susceptible to cross selling and how you can create a win-win for yourself and the buyer.

Meredith E. David, PhD In real estate, the ability to connect with and build successful relationships with a client is based on the ability to predict a client’s preferences. However, there is a difference between predicting preferences and social projection, which could lead to misinterpretations of your own preferences as those of a client.

Keller Center for Research Executive Director Randy Hacker shares advice to sellers on HomeLight.com on how to test their real estate agent's marketing plan.

In the growing social media marketing landscape, interacting with customers on Facebook is at the forefront of businesses’ higher spending, but are your Facebook page likes actually driving client engagement and spending?

As a sales person, you must always be ready to embrace the challenges that the selling environment poses in your professional life. In Sales Insanity, Cannon Thomas recounts unique sales blunders which highlight the importance of adapting to the ever-changing sales environment.

In real estate, it is universally agreed that strategic pricing plays a huge role in determining how quickly a house will sell; yet there are still questions on how pricing affects different people.

A strong social media presence is critical to cultivate relationships with potential clients and build credibility in the public eye. Effective use of social media platforms will help convert views into sales, retain those clients over long periods of time, and build a lasting business.

Viral ad campaigns have become a necessity in the digital world. Our research examines the key factors driving valuable virality and shows how the sharing of an ad and brand evaluation of a product are dependent on ad content.

A well-defined and consistent personal brand can elevate agent recognition, generate leads, and build authority and credibility. It can also help agents develop a unique value proposition, identify target customers, and humanize marketing campaigns. Does your personal brand communicate the right message?

In the simplest of transactions, the exchange of goods and services between a buyer and a seller develops a relationship that is dependent on trust. This study examines how direct and indirect impressions influence the development of trust in social relationships.

Social media has revolutionized communication and advertising and is a useful tool for keeping up with news, family, and friends. As a real estate professional, though, understanding how to best use each social media platform can have a positive impact on your business.

Buyer and seller markets are now comprised of multiple generations that not only see the world differently, but also value vastly different lifestyles. While the differences between generations provide obstacles to overcome, it is also important to recognize the accessibility, innovation and collaboration these differences provide for the workplace.

When a customer clicks the like button on a brand’s Facebook page, what happens? Do these likes have value to a company, or are they merely the click of a button?

Differentiating one's self from the competition is crucial to the success or failure of the business. In his new book, Listing Boss, Hoss Pratt discusses the changing environment and shares insight that will empower you to exceed your sales goals by transforming the way you approach your business.

The Value Game is not just your normal game encounter, but rather a real-life experience in which sellers and their supporting teammates, the sponsoring company and the products/services being offered, engage with prospective buyers to reach a win-win game outcome.

Do you take the time to request feedback from your clients and customers? If not, you could be missing out on an opportunity to boost repeat business. Research has shown that merely soliciting a review from customer increases repeat business.

The need for fantastic sales professionals is greater today than ever before. Increasingly, clients demand sales professionals provide exceptional customer service that coincides with meeting those desired results. To this, motivation is key.

Our research examines how a consumer's view of this theory can affect his/her preference for luxury, and how advertisers, marketers, and real estate agents can use this information to increase the likelihood that consumers respond positively to luxury, increasing your chances of a sale.

In his book, Fearless Public Speaking, Patrick King explains exactly what it takes for you to confidently prepare for a talk or presentation and command the stage once you're there.

Delivering an effective sales presentation to a prospective real estate client will impact attaining your desired outcome for most client interactions.

Predicting others' preferences can result in a distinct advantage for a salesperson, especially through creating choice sets based on clients' implicit and explicit wants and needs. Oftentimes, these predictions must be made with almost no information about the client's preferences, so the salesperson may have to rely on previously observed behaviors.

Throughout our daily lives, we have many options. We can change our jobs, our bosses, our cities, and try endless news sales methods. However, unless we undergo personal transformation ourselves, external changes will not propel us where we want to go or help us become who we need to be.

In every field of study, there are moments when looking back helps us better understand where we are now and the path forward. In an effort to uncover key takeaways for salespeople, we reviewed the lessons gleaned from the past 35 years of sales research.

Salespeople will be more successful when they understand that the point of selling isn't selling. A salesperson's job is to help his or her customer make a better buying decision.

During the housing crisis, many homeowners continued to ask unreasonably high prices for their homes. This reluctance to lower asking prices created an excess supply of more than 6 million homes.

In their new book, Sales Growth, authors Baumgartner, Hatami, and Valdivieso lead the reader through a series of strategies designed to help sales executives and their organizations continue to grow in a continuously changing world.

A basic objective to any selling engagement should be the buyer’s success, however that may be defined by the buyer.

Boasting by real estate agents can produce negative and positive reactions from their clients. However, boasting combined with a strategy to develop trust can be advantageous to a real estate agent.

The modern real estate agent's business relationships today transcend obvious interactions with customers and now also include the internal business team and external business partners. The successful agent must skillfully manage these three relationships to complete the transaction.

In his book So, You're New to Sales, Bryan Flanagan lays out every detail, step-by-step, that is necessary for the novice to become a professional agent.

Decision making is all too often an aversive experience. In fact, work in cognitive neuroscience shows that decision making is often interpreted in similar ways as actual pain.

Do you know that what people say about you on the Internet impacts your business? Having a strong online presence is becoming increasingly important. So, how do you accomplish that?

Professional services sales encounters are a two-way street between the client and the service provider. Such encounters require input from both parties to mutually find the best fitting professional service for the client.

Salespeople’s roles are far from failure-proof. In fact, approximately 50% of salespeople fail to reach their annual sales targets.

The buying center is comprised of various individual influences that shape the buyer’s purchase decision. Since a successful selling process is about enabling the buyer to make a quality purchase decision, understanding how to productively manage the buying center’s influences and efficiently guide the decision-making process can be critical to the final buy or no-buy outcome.

It is well documented that real-estate markets fluctuate over time, but since the financial crisis, real-estate markets have begun to fluctuate across geographic regions as well. One leading contributor to this disparity is public policy that seeks to encourage entrepreneurs and business leaders to locate in a state, or a specific community within a state, over another.

Every relationship has moments that define the expectations and feelings of the individuals in that relationship. Business relationships are no different. Specific events act as fundamental building blocks of those business relationships and are essential in shaping the relationship development.

Failure can have a profound impact on a salesperson’s effectiveness. Research has shown that failure affects a company’s bottom line through salesperson performance and turnover.

Common wisdom and psychological research alike advise that it is critically important to make a good first impression: the human mind is adept at drawing inferences about others from even the slimmest amount of information about their actions or appearance, and these impressions can impact decision-making.

Standing out from the competition by initially capturing the attention and the imagination of the buyer can oftentimes decide the fate of a sales call. Sometimes referred to as the attention getter or the opener, the theme offered at the beginning of a sales call is vitally important.

People develop attitudes and opinions toward many different things, but we know that not all attitudes guide our behaviors.