Research Report

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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?

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?

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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

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 ...

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 ...