Robert Ringer wrote Winning Through Intimidation in 1973 and renamed and relaunched it in 2002. The name change was a good move because winning through intimidation was never Robert’s intention. How to survive in the jungle and overcome the intimidating tactics of its inhabitants is the real purpose and it is expressed much better in the new title.
Robert Ringer assumes the alter-ego of a tortoise and pits his wits against the metaphorical hare. He keeps going, he never takes his eyes off the finish line and something will happen to stop the hare and very often the tortoise will trudge down the stretch.
Robert talks about his early days in the real estate business and the different kinds of intimidating rogues he came up against. He lost a few battles early on, but was able to classify bullies and use the lessons learned to overcome similar tactics on later occasions. He refers to this period of education as his time at Screw U.
Robert basically came to assume that all property sellers were happy to use his services, take their time and spend, but when it came time to pay, he always seemed to have a good reason to keep some or all of Robert’s money ( to which he refers). have tokens). Some set off early on with every intention of stealing your chips and some found good reason in closing the deal and did so with a heavy heart, but nonetheless it’s safe to assume no one was happy to pay a real estate agent the fee. owed. That commission could be quite a large sum and what the hell could make a real estate broker think he was worth that kind of money?
Robert learned very quickly to put legal matters in order. After a couple of mistakes, he would always get a commission agreement signed before doing any work. If for some reason there was no agreement, he would leave.
He learned the hard way to always have the correct broker’s licenses in whatever state he was operating in. Intimidating sellers knew the law and would always test loopholes first. Alerting prospective buyers to properties, he quickly learned to send all paperwork by certified mail so it could never be said that he didn’t introduce the buyer to the seller. Would people really behave that way? All time.
And in a masterstroke of legal maneuvering, Robert decided to always have his own legal representative at the closing of every deal, a move that always caught buyer and seller by surprise and relied on the code of honor among lawyers to ensure that He received a payment. “It was one thing to make a sale,” Robert frequently said in the book, “but it was another thing entirely to get paid for that sale.”
We’ve covered the basics so far, but for good reason, because a lot of people don’t do the basics right. However, there were three big revelations that really made a difference to me, and for which I will be eternally grateful and for which I would have gladly paid much more than the cover price of the book. $14.95 by the way.
Disclosure 1. Not all deals can come to a successful conclusion. In many cases, it is obvious from the outset that no agreement will be possible. Robert decided to fix them early on and leave them alone. He focused his efforts on the deal that had a high probability of going through instead of chasing every possible opportunity and clinging to the desperate hope that one of them would work out. Most of us do that, I was doing that, but now if I see that a deal is not going to result in a win win situation, I walk away, no regrets, no looking back and becoming a pillar of salt, just saves so much time, money and heartache.
Revelation 2. No need to work your way through the ranks by learning slowly and waiting for others to die so you can take their place. No one has the right to stop you if you have the ability to pass them. Other realtors were less than kind to Robert and most were eager to fill her mind with his discouraging words. If he had listened, he would have given up and taken a job at a fast food restaurant and would have had one less competitor to worry about.
Instead, Robert Ringer set out to learn the skills, develop the skill, show no respect for industry leaders, and put into practice what he calls ‘The Frog Theory’. In a nutshell, he says this: “It’s my own decision to get to the top of this industry in the shortest time possible, and in order to do so, I need to educate myself and make certain changes, first in my way of thinking.” about myself, and second to other people’s perception of me. And that brings us to revelation 3.
Revelation 3. ‘Change your position’. If you feel second class, you’ll act second class and get paid second class money if you’re lucky enough to get paid. In the mind of a homeowner looking to sell, the realtor was a necessary evil and Robert Ringer was just another realtor. That was the perception he had to change. He set out to not only appear to be more than just a real estate agent, but to elevate himself so much that the buyer or seller would not have the audacity to even suggest that he was a real estate agent.
His first step was to create a unique business card. A full color brochure with a high gloss black finish, hardcover that costs almost $5 each to produce. I’ll spoil the book if I tell you more about the pamphlet, or about the series of private secretaries that eventually came along, or the private jet to visit clients and inspect properties in other states.
Suffice it to say that the tortoise passed the hare and left it in its dust. In his first full year after adopting these principles, Robert Ringer closed deals that resulted in $849,901 in fees, and that was a long time ago. A couple of years earlier, he was struggling in the hope of picking up the odd $1,250 and too often burned his fingers for even that.
There is much in this book that any marketer can use. Like all businessmen, I need sales leads to keep my business thriving. Since reading this book, I’ve figured out how to order and wait for the best deals and focus on them and not go after every fleeting promise. It’s not that I’m idle, active sorting makes my life busy, but I’ve figured out how to do it in the most efficient way. Because I am not chasing, I have developed the posture that draws the right people to me. Thanks to Robert Ringer.