The Wholesaling Hammer

You’ve heard it before, when you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail. And in your wholesaling business, you are on the product-side of the industry, so you talk about products.

But like in any successful venture, it’s not about you, it’s about the customer. And your customers aren’t thinking about product 100% of the time. In fact, I would argue that with a few exceptions, your advisors are thinking about something else 95-99% of the time.

This includes business problems, staff issues, client acquisition frustration and so on…
So if you’re having trouble getting in the door or building up  enough reciprocity to move advisors to action, then consider getting significantly better in the non-product side of things.

A great place to start is listening to the VAR Strategy audio at the link below.

Why Your Wholesaling Business Might Be Stuck

If you saw the wholesaling world from my vantage point… That is, talking to wholesalers day in and day out for years… 

Here’s what you’d see… 

Despite discussing and learning about the same tactics and giving wholesalers access to the exact same resources… 

Some have used them to rise to the top, while others haven’t improved much at all. But I’m not surprised, because I know why.   I know exactly why. 

People are confused about what it means to “learn” something. 

You see, when I do a training on quick hit calls, or writing emails advisors respond to… 

Some wholesalers think they’ve “learned” how to do a quick hit call… But they haven’t… 

They’ve “learned about” how to do a quick hit call. You don’t learn something until your behavior changes when confronted with the same situation. 

And you don’t “Improve” until you’ve put in enough reps, so that your behavior changes now result in a better outcome. 

But in order to improve, you must be willing to be bad, before you’re good. 

You need enough reps of the new behavior to give you the feedback and data to dial it in. 

My “mediocre” wholesaler coaching sessions are when a client “learns about” something. 

My GREAT sessions are when we discuss the feedback they’ve gotten from their reps so we can work on making the next set of reps better. 

How to Innovate in Your Wholesaling Business

As much as I want to believe I’m an original thinker… I’m not

But it doesn’t keep me from innovating inside my own business and it shouldn’t keep you from innovating in your wholesaling business.

Innovation rarely comes from “original thought”…

Rather it comes from applying something from outside your industry into your industry.

If you change the tuning of your antennas and start to look at how other industries do things, you will be flooded with new ideas.

The funny part is when they are successful, hindsight will make you feel like they were obvious.

A great practical book on the subject to start with is “Not Invented Here” by Ramon Vullings Link is Belowhttps://www.amazon.com/Not-Invented-Here-Cross-industry-Innovation/dp/9063693796/

Stop Smiling

Ok, don’t stop smiling, but be careful with the message you’re sending. You walk in their office (or join a zoom) smile, have a great convo, You laugh together.. 

You invite them to an upcoming event, “would love to see you there!” 

They request support for an event and you give it… You tell them after “happy I could help!” It’s the holidays, so they get a plate of cakes for the office… Maybe you pay for lunch… 

Here is the message you’re sending… 

Everything is great! Everything is ok! And why wouldn’t they believe you, I would. 

Don’t get mad at them for not doing enough business, you’re signaling you’re happy with the current situation. 

It’s time to have some clarifying conversations, that is, if you want to move out of the “friends” zone! 

Check out my free audios and video on the topic at PGWholesaling.com And for paying NLW members, make sure you watch the video training along with the script book at NextLevelWholesaler.com

Traits of Top Wholesalers #4: Having a Scalable Strategy

Top wholesalers put their effort into designing and executing on scalable strategies.  A scalable strategy means the only thing between you and your next goal is time and pressure on a pre-determined plan.  Your business consistently improves over time and you are not constantly “starting over”.

Although I am partial to both the Pillar system and VAR strategy, these are not the only effective way to operate.

So how do you know if your current strategy is scalable?  Simply answer the following question honestly. “If I do exactly what I did the last 2 working weeks, for the next 50 weeks, do I know beyond a shadow of a doubt my business will continue to grow?” If you can’t confidently say yes, you are still winging it.

If you find yourself constantly changing your approach or “getting back on track” there is a good chance you do not have a scalable strategy.

One way to approach developing the strategy is to create it like you have an employee with your exact skill set. Figure out exactly what you want them to do every week. This will keep you from avoiding a commitment to activities or strategies that are out of your comfort zone.

Traits of Top Wholesalers #3: Keeping Score The Right Way

Top wholesalers build a business, they don’t work a job. The result is they set goals that are trackable and then objectively track them.  When an average wholesaler sets goals, they usually just add some random percentage to their previous years gross sales. The rest of the year is spent checking their sales to see if they are on pace. If not, they get frustrated and commit to “doing more” and “finding good ideas”.  By the last quarter they internally justify why they aren’t going to hit them.

Although top wholesalers will set gross sales goals as a starting point, they focus on 80/20 goals such as how many advisers they need doing a minimum of a certain amount of business. Then they track weekly how many advisers they have on pace which is a more accurate reflection of their business.

However, the biggest difference between how top wholesalers and average wholesalers keep score has to do with weekly lead and lag indicators. Average wholesalers look at their weekly gross sales (lag indicator) as a reflection of whether they had a good week or not…knowing full well weekly sales are not a direct reflection of that particular week’s work.

Top wholesalers evaluate their weeks on lead indicators. That is, did they execute on the weekly activities that are guaranteed to move their business forward? (e.g. How many future meetings did I schedule, how many non sale touches did I drop).

One of the keys to doing this is to correctly identify your weekly lead indicators (pillars if you work with me) and develop a custom accountability system to make sure you hit them. Identifying them is a matter of selecting the activities that you already know how to do, but if you just did more of, or were more consistent with, would have the biggest impact on your business. This process is identified in the Pillars report and audios at PGwholesaling.com.

Traits of Top Wholesalers #2: A Focus on High Leverage Activities at the Expense of Everything Else

In any wholesaling business there are more things to do than time. So, why do some wholesalers stay busy all day without moving the needle while others seem to make leaps and bounds without breaking a sweat?

An objective look at both groups reveals a pretty clear distinction. The latter group identifies high leverage activities and then focuses on them at the expense of everything else. The former group spends most of their time “doing” and “reacting”.  Whether intentional or not, they prioritize activity over results.

At first glance the shift into the successful group seemed simple – just identify and prioritize high leverage activities. However, as I worked through the process of helping myself, my partners and my clients transition, I realized that most people don’t have the skill set to correctly identify their high leverage activities. And even when they did, they lacked the ability to consistently execute on them over long periods of time without falling back into their old ways.

If this is an area you could use some help in, let me encourage to read the report and listen to the audios on the pillar system.

Traits of Top Wholesalers: #1 A Real Incentive to Change

In an industry where you can make multiple six figures being average, there is not always an incentive to change. Sure everybody wants to make more money, but we also hate getting out of our comfort zone. If the average sales person doesn’t consistently ask for the business they struggle financially.If the average wholesaler doesn’t consistently ask for the business they can still pay their bills and then some.

One trait of top wholesalers is they have an incentive to change (get better). They don’t focus on the short term discomfort of getting better, but the upside potential.

Alternatively, average wholesalers are open to change as long as it is an event instead of a process.They love “best practice” talks because they are always looking for the shiny object or business hack of doing something simple with big upside. They are notorious for finding something that works, but then overtime reverting back to the comfort zone and old ways.

If you find yourself in the latter group then your first job is to connect with a REAL incentive to change (Your Why). I am not talking about something that sounds good or makes sense to others. I am talking about something that connects with you!I recently had a client tell me his WHY was taking care of his son. Sure it sounded like the right thing to say, but he has a healthy son, a great family and enough money in the bank to weather many storms. We dug deeper and found a true why that drives him day to day. If I wrote what we came up with, it probably wouldn’t resonate with you, but it does with him and that’s all that matters.

For some, their incentive to change will be what they can do with the money (charity, family goal etc.). For others, it is proving certain people wrong or crushing the competition .It doesn’t really matter as long as it connects with you.

If you don’t have a real incentive to change, the rest of the characteristics listed will be of no value. It starts here.