Jennifer Henry | The Locker Room Southeast National Director

Halloween is right around the corner and with that come all the ghosts, goblins and monsters. Add to that the haunted house decor and gory costumes and you have all the makings of a national “spooky” month!  So, in honor of this spooky season, it would be appropriate to address your agents’ FEAR…the real kind of fear though. The kind that keeps you up at night and grips your heart in its fist! The fear of …… FAILURE. And there’s nothing fun about this, is there? 

What if we told you that this very fear of failure could be a power tool in your leader’s toolbox to help motivate your agents to succeed like never before?

One of the most common concerns we hear about as coaches at The Locker Room is that agents just are not motivated. We get asked a lot to help brokers and real estate leaders motivate their agents and we’re here to tell you…you can’t motivate your agents. Yep, you heard right. Motivation comes from within and is, in large part, driven by the subconscious mind. So, unless you have a direct line to the subconscious, you’re just spinning your wheels thinking you have even an ounce of control over your agents’ motivation levels! 

So, what in the world is one supposed to do then? 

Well, the answer is, we can MOTIVE-AID! It’s called inspiring, energizing and leading by example and it’s handed out through the art forms of coaching, consulting and training. 

One of the most effective ways to do this is to know, with certainty, the Big Why of each of your agents and to be able to remind them of it when they show signs of frustration, fatigue and low motivation. 

• What drives them to get up and do the hard work required to be successful every day? 
• What are they trying to prove in the work they do? 
• What do they stand to gain when they do succeed? 
• In what ways does his/her life change and improve when they achieve what they set out to do? 

These are just a few examples of questions that you, as a leader, can ask to better understand the true motivation behind each of your agents’ business goals. 

“A person should set his goals as early as he can and devote all his energy and talent to getting there. With enough effort, he may achieve it.” – Walt Disney

But what happens when an agent doesn’t know or is resistant to his or her BIG WHY? 

This happens a lot. They can’t articulate it. They don’t feel it’s big enough. So, they hold back or they don’t want to share. They keep it small and make it all about an immediate goal, such as, paying off a debt or going on a vacation later this year. 

What do you do when an agent plays small and why does this even matter? 

Typically speaking, an agent’s actions day in and day out will be in direct proportion to the depth and breadth of their BIG WHY. So, if he or she isn’t acting like they’re very motivated, it could be because they don’t know or understand their own WHY. 

Here’s where FEAR comes in…

The truth is that when it comes to human action or lack thereof, many people will feel most comfortable moving towards achieving something that excites them while others will prefer to approach life with a large degree of caution and take actions that will cause them to avoid danger or pain. This is the spectrum referred to as “Pain versus Pleasure”. 

So, when an agent demonstrates resistance to move towards pleasure, try this…Ask him or her “What will happen if you DON’T succeed?”  Interestingly, the very agent that could not picture his BIG WHY and could not dream big, will readily know, without a doubt, the answer to this question and will be able to express it in great detail. You know why? 

Because he has spent a great deal of time, consciously or subconsciously, dwelling on it. He knows because it’s his greatest FEAR!   

“The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.” – Aristotle

When you, as a leader, are able to know what they FEAR in detail, you hold the keys to questions and statements that have the ability to MOTIVE-AID like nothing else could. Particularly when people feel despair or crisis, it is more common for them to think and express themselves in terms of what they don’t want as opposed to what they do want. 

• When you can remind an agent that she is working this hard and doing these hard things because if she doesn’t, she won’t be able to pay for her son’s college tuition, you not only change the mindset game but you challenge her like only a leader can. 
• When you bring back to focus that if he doesn’t make his calls this week, that 90 days from now he will be back working that dreaded 9-5 that he left last year, you gain the ability to guide him to pivot his thoughts from whatever is holding him back to what actions he needs to take right now! 
• When you intimately know what will happen if they don’t, you become someone that no one else can be for them and you take leadership to a whole new level!

This is, after all, what agents need most…LEADERSHIP! 

However, in the interests of balance and fairness, we don’t want to sound like entirely operating under this perspective is the ONLY way.  As with anything, it is about knowing it is available and accessible when the occasion presents itself. This means that in some instances it may be exactly what you need to MOTIVATE when traditional thinking or actions aren’t working and when the promise of all that is possible in the amazing industry of real estate sales just doesn’t seem to be cutting it! 

And so, as this spooky holiday approaches, appropriately use the power tool of FEAR to give certain agents the right about scare and fright to keep them moving towards their goals!