Highlights from IREM/CCIM 2017 Economic Forecast Meeting Keynote Speaker Rod Santomassimo, CCIM

Let’s talk about prospecting. We’ve found in our national survey that the vast majority or you and your peers prospect sporadically and/or you’re really not sure what to say.

Prospecting is asking for business

Letters, physically mailed letters work. Put a nice value proposition in there, support it with success story. Don’t support it with a case study. Case studies are spelled N-Y-Q-U-I-L.

People do make phone calls. By the way, do we always leave messages? Absolutely, yes. You leave a message, you leave a nice value proposition, you leave enough persistently and professionally.

When you prospect, don’t just throw out features. Prospect with purpose. Prospect for your target audience. Know who you’re going after. Know the value proposition. Repeat it. Repeat it. Repeat it.

Presence is important for a number of reasons

Either you have no market presence…your presence is limited…you have presence, but it can be enhanced…or you truly are the market leader for what you do.

Presence is paramount. You have to have presence. The Presence Pyramid™ absolutely works.

    The Massimo Group Presence Pyramid™

First you have your Personal. Building relationships. Who are the top 100 people in your market who have the greatest impact on your career? It doesn’t matter if you know them or not.

If you go on one, two, or maximum three “presence meetings” a week, you will maximize your income. Some of you go on presence meetings all week long and you’re not prospecting. And that’s the problem…always going out and getting known, having a great time, not producing.

Physical presence matters. Send out one piece every month to your top 100; they could be clients, prospects, influencers, affiliates. You’ve got to do it every month. Don’t send out twelve postcards; send out three postcards, three success stories, three market updates and three white papers in a year.

How do you do a white paper? Grab your spouse, grab your dog, grab your cat, whatever. Have them interview you for 10 questions and record it. And then send it off to Rev.com and they’ll translate it for you for pennies-on-the-dollar. The next thing you know, you have this white paper in front of you!

Digital is set aside for Presence, not for prospecting. Digital works, but you got to get it every month. Without a doubt, the number one thing you should do is write a blog. Most effective is Personal; the least is Digital. So, understand the relationship.

Personal Growth

Most of you spend most of your time having no idea what you do. Did you schedule your day…or do you just react to the whirlwind? Get out of the whirlwind. Allocate time to work on what’s most productive for you.

If you work on these three buckets, you will make more money:

  1. Do a Deal
  2. Work on Your Business
  3. Have a Life.

Most of you do this, “Deal, deal, deal, deal, deal, deal.” We call that the transaction treadmill. How far have you gone? You’ve gone nowhere. Get off the transaction treadmill.

Just because you do something faster and better, it will not make you wealthy. I’m really good at Excel pivot tables. That makes me no money. Go hire someone to do pivot tables.

Remember this, you are the CEO of your company. Forget the market, forget politics…forget all that. You are in total control of your future, it doesn’t matter what happens. 2017 is going to be your best year!


Rod Santomassimo, CCIM, founder and president of The Massimo Group

Related survey: 2016 DNA of the #CRE

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