A prosperous 2024 starts with what you choose to read these holidays

Since 2021, my final podcast episode of the year has been a series of book recommendations for the upcoming holidays.

You can get the full list of books I’ve recommended over the years at cresuccess.co/books – and I’m continuing the tradition in 2023 with an emphasis on books about selling.

One of the titles on this year’s list is "The Little Red Book of Selling" by Jeffrey Gitomer. It's more than a sales book; it's an instructional guide on how to earn higher commissions.

This gem looks at things from the customer's perspective; it's based on long-term relationship-building, and it’s also about value-driven selling.

Join me as I share insights, stories, and the massive impact this short list of books can have on your professional results, in episode 170 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership.

Episode transcript:

Always exciting! It's the final episode of 2023 and we're talking about the three books that I recommend to commercial real estate leaders and agents who want to improve their sales skills.

So, if you want to sharpen the axe when it comes to your ability to sell, I've got three fantastic books to recommend. Don't go anywhere.

Hello, and welcome to episode 170 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership.

I'm your host, Darren Krakowiak. And I help commercial real estate leaders to scale their businesses beyond their own production.

And this is the final episode for 2023. We will be back in 2024.

But we're just going to take a short break. And I do encourage you to do the same so you can recharge, reflect and come back re-energized in 2024.

And while you're on the break, you might be looking for some good books to read or some good content to consume.

If you prefer to listen, all of these books that I'm going to recommend for you are available as audio books.

And all of the books are also available for you at cresuccess.co/book, so you don't have to sit there writing down or stand there or stop what you're doing, you can listen to this episode, and then go to cresuccess.co/books

And not only are the three books that I recommend today going to be listed for you, but also the books that are recommended in Episode 118, which was 52 weeks ago, which were the books that are recommended for leaders.

And then a full 51 weeks before that, I did an episode about the books that I recommend for commercial real estate professionals.

So, there's a total I think now of 13 books, including the original eBook that I released, a little mini eBook when I launched the CRE Success brand.

So, there'll be plenty of recommendations there. But let's focus today on these books about selling that I want to recommend to you.

There are three books; there's one called the 'Little Red Book of Selling'. Now this is the oldest book that I'm going to be recommending. It's from all the way back in September 2004.

There's also a relatively new book, which is called '$100M Offers', by a man who I referenced in an episode a couple of weeks ago, Alex Hormozi. He published that book in 2021.

And the third book I'm going to recommend is by an Australian Author named Tony Hughes, and it's called 'Combo Prospecting'. And that book was released in 2018.

So, let's start with the oldest book that I'm recommending the 'Little Red Book of Selling'.

And if you speak to many sales gurus, this is one of the books that they will recommend that you read.

It's by Jeffrey Gitomer. And it's a very, I guess, concise guide. It's not particularly long, it's about sales success, it's quite practical, it's sort of delivered in a no-nonsense way.

And he emphasizes the importance of looking at things from the customer's perspective and also on building relationships.

So, he talks a lot about value driven selling, which really emphasizes the importance of providing value to your prospects, and also to your existing clients in the interactions that you have with them.

He's very much about building relationships and long-term relationships, as opposed to just short-term sales.

So, from that perspective, it's very much consistent with what we're trying to do in commercial real estate.

And he also talks a lot about the importance of understanding the buyer, what drives their decision making, and I think understanding the 12.5 (you'll understand what I mean by point five, when you do open the book principles in the book) is essential for commercial real estate leaders, for agents, for anyone who is client facing and revenue generating.

Because your success, I think, often hinges on your ability to establish and maintain long term client relationships and to deliver value beyond just what it is that you have to offer, which is the properties that you are leasing, or selling.

So that's the first recommendation. The book is called 'The Little Red Book of Selling' by Jeffrey Gitomer.

The next book that I want to recommend is called '$100M Offers' by Alex Hormozi.

And in this book, some people call this book the Bible, because it is just so comprehensive in terms of the way that it presents information around creating irresistible offers.

Some people call these Godfather offers, and it's the offer that a customer cannot refuse.

It's making an offer to a prospect that they feel stupid for not accepting because it is so compelling.

And it's all about drastically improving the value proposition of what it is that you have to offer. You could use this when it comes to marketing the properties that you have on your listings.

But I think this is more about how you market your services as an agent.

And he talks a little bit about the psychology. And also, he focuses on, like making things bigger, but he makes it bigger by being better.

So, creating irresistible offers is a big part of this book. And he goes through all the different elements that an offer should have, in order for it to speak to the customer to stand out in a crowded and competitive marketplace.

And, you know, one of the things that I hear a lot from commercial real estate agents, is the fact that there's a lot of competition out there. And it's hard to stand out.

This book addresses that problem. It talks about the importance of understanding the client's needs.

So, what is it that we need to identify, and then address in terms of the specific needs of the people who we want to do business with, and also how we can leverage value.

So, adding value to what it is that we are offering to ensure that we enhance client satisfaction, but also to make listing with us more attractive for the vendor, and for the landlord.

I think applying these principles can lead to more compelling pitches, when you're in presenting for the ability to list a property.

It's going to increase retention. So, for clients that you already have, if you apply the strategies in the book, it's going to make these clients more likely to do more business with you.

And it's also going to be a way to grow your performance and the performance of people around you.

So, '$100M Offers' by Alex Hormozi is the second book I recommend.

The third one is Tony Hughes, the author and it's called 'Combo Prospecting'.

And this book focuses on the power of combining different prospecting methods to create a more effective sales strategy, particularly focusing on digital aspects, which I think is important.

Because a lot of us in commercial real estate sometimes are a little bit old school and maybe more focused on traditional methods and the idea of digital as, 'Well, we will send them an email as opposed to just picking up the phone.'

But Hughes really talks about multi-channel prospecting. So, I've talked about creating a sales cadence and using different channels before. And this book is the, I guess this is the OG of that idea.

It's about a blend of traditional and digital methods to reach and engage with potential clients.

And really, we want to be able to reach them on the channel, which they prefer where they're more likely to be listening, and be likely to respond to us.

It talks about building a sales pipeline. And we all know we need pipeline in commercial real estate.

So how can we create a sustainable pipeline of opportunities? One, they continues to be filled with new opportunities.

So even when we are busy, we're continuing to bring new opportunities into our pipeline. So, when we finish all of that busy work, we've still got new opportunities to work on.

And the other thing is about technology. And he just, I think, really presents a compelling case about why it is that we should be using more digital leveraged technological prospecting tools that are available to us in this day and age, including CRM.

So, if you've got a whiz bang CRM system that you are just not utilizing, because you prefer your Frankenstein method, or if you just don't have a CRM, I think a lot of what is covered in this book is going to give you the principles, the reasons, the case for using that CRM.

Because being adept in multichannel prospecting, and leveraging technology for sales, I think can give you a significant edge in this industry, because a lot of our competitors in this industry are still doing things the old school way.

So those are the three books that I want to recommend to they're all quite easy reads and enjoyable, at least I believe.

And if you're at all interested in sales, and being better at sales, and improving your performance, I think that you'll agree, you can find out more about those books.

Now, as I mentioned at the top, we're taking a short break for the holidays, I do encourage you to go back and listen to previous episodes.

I've got the full list of those books and all the books I've previously recommended in past episodes at cresuccess.co/books

If you're on our email list, we'll be sending out occasional emails just inviting you to go back and have a listen to certain episodes that we believe are relevant.

But if you go to cresuccess.co and click on podcast or on blog, you can find more information about past episodes that may be of interest to you.

But don't worry, we'll be back in early 2024 with more new content for you.

For now, I want to say thank you for listening. I really do appreciate it.

I really, really do appreciate if I can do an episode on gratitude and just the fact that we appreciate you for listening. So, as I always say, thank you so much for listening. And I will speak to you soon.