My Date With Jeff Turner

Jeff Turner and I finally connected.

I have been looking forward to talking to Jeff Turner (of RealEstateShows fame) for a few weeks now. We spoke briefly on Twitter and via email, but I knew (for some reason) that this was a conversation I needed to have. I respect Jeff, think he’s funny, and know that his name carries some weight in RE.net circles. He’s just one of those people who’s reputation proceeds them. So I was looking forward to chatting a bit about RealEstateShows and maybe chat a bit about nothing at all. And that’s exactly what I did.

Jeff is in sales.

Jeff is a businessman, just like the rest of us. He has a service to sell us all. He needs business to keep his company going. If all agents said “no,” his company wouldn’t be successful. I’m sure he would still be, but his company wouldn’t. So he needs to sell to guys like me. He needs to convince me that his product is better than the rest and worth every penny. I’ve stated before that I’m cautious with the cash, so you can imagine how I wouldn’t want to spend money on his product. In calling him, I fully expected to get a sales pitch of some sort, maybe not the typical high pressure sales pitch, but one none the less. At least a few words about his product and what it could do for me.

Jeff blew my mind instead.

I think we did mention RES once in our hour long conversation and I think I brought it up. Instead we talking about everything else. Real estate. Sales. Social Media. People. I wish I had recorded it all and I even suggested that he tape calls like this one, so that he could sell them as “coaching.” I was inspired to say the least, so I asked him permission to blog about it.

The nuggets of wisdom I got from Jeff.

I don’t have a photographic memory, so these aren’t quotes, but rather ideas I walked away with. We spoke a lot about the tech vs. human side of sales. Tech is a means to generate the human side, but can not replace the human side. Its a tool we can use to bring people close to us, but with out speaking/seeing/touching them on the human side, we will never get to know them, trust them, and work with them. We talked a lot about Twitter and how some people don’t get it. I recently removed an agent who’s online tweets involved what he was willing to pay for referrals. On the Twitter side, the most important thing Jeff said was that sometimes you need to listen on Twitter, more than you need to talk. Listening will lead you to knowing when to join the conversation. Listening will allow you to join and have something of value to say. We spoke at length about the “hard sell.” We came to the conclusion that it does work. Its not for him and its not for me, but it does work. Otherwise, it would have fallen by the wayside years ago. On a side note, Jeff and I came up with a way to generate $50,000 in a few days, but neither of us cares to implement it. We will not share our secret to success, because we don’t believe in the method. He spoke a lot of passion and because of that, we spoke of my musical background. Its one of the reasons I left. I had lost much of the passion for it. I have a new passion – real estate.

The results?

After an hour, I was sold. Not on RealEstateShows, to be honest, I was already sold on the concept. What I was sold on was that Jeff Turner was a man I could trust. I know now, through that one simple phone call, that I can call on Jeff for advice or opinions. That if I needed to bounce an idea off of someone, Jeff would be there. Jeff impressed me and I will always remember his name. Our tweets on Twitter will have a new meaning, not just “oh hey, there’s that guy @ResPres.” I know I have a friend that I can rely on.

Now go back and read this entire post, but replace Jeff’s name with your own and replace RealEstateShows with “real estate.” Imagine this is your client’s post about you. Do you see how conversation is more important than the “sale?” I’m sure most of you do, but it really hit home to me in our conversation.

And guess what I did?

Yep. I signed up for RealEstateShows about five seconds after I hung up the phone. I’ve already whipped up two shows and I don’t plan on stopping there.