Steve Hoffacker's Sales Quips

It's time to say goodbye to another month. May has been a good month and has seemed longer than many of the other months this year. Maybe it's because spring was in full swing and we felt energized and got more accomplished than in other months. Maybe it was because of all the racing (auto, cycling, and horse) to look forward to - or the baseball (MLB and college), softball (college), and basketball (NBA). Maybe it was because of the continuing NFL saga. Maybe it's because of the long holiday weekend.

For lots of reasons, May was a good month, but we are down to the end of it.

So now we have no choice to say goodbye to May and hello to June. Like it or not, the calendar will change at midnight.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other bloghomesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

The first quarter of 2011 is history. It ended last night.

It went by entirely too fast, but it is history nonetheless. Three entire months already past in 2011. It seems only a few weeks ago we were beginning the year.

Welcome to an exciting second quarter.

It's totally spring now - with hints of summer. Let's enjoy the fresh weather and the new growth. Let's have a great April and second quarter.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Today starts the 13th week of 2011. If that doesn't register. consider dividing 52 weeks by 4 and you get 13. Put another way, this is the beginning of the last week of March - also a way to measure the end of the first quarter.

This is our last possession of the first quarter. The shot clock is off. We are going to hold the ball for the last shot. Let's make it count so that we can start the next quarter with a little momentum.

It doesn't matter what the score is at the end of the first quarter as long as we can score on our last posession.

The year does seem to be moving along at a very fast clip so let's make every day count.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Today kicks off the 9th week of 2011. So as we turn the corner and head for spring, how is it going?

Winter packed quite a punch this year - for nearly everyone. We had freezing wether even here in South Florida. Record snowfalls from Oklahoma to Maine. Now our focus is spring.

We are over one-sixth of the way into 2011, so we should start to see some progress on oyr goals. We may need to readjust a little, maybe add something, maybe scratch something. We should be making decent progress toward those goals - if we have the right goals to be puirsuing. They can still be changed a little if necessary as we work through them, but we have to have goals in mind for the year.

As trees begin to bud, as flowers start poking through the ground and coming back to life, as we get ready for the springtime renewal, let's put the winter behind us and tear into March like a lion.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Yesterday concluded the first 6-week grading period of 2011. Today begins week number 7.

So, we have to sit down and fill out our grading report for the first grading period of 2011.

Let's see how we did.

Goal setting - did we set realistic, achievable goals? Are we on pace to accomplish them? Did we make reasonable progress toward them? Do we need to make any adjustments?

Lead generation - did we have a goal for new lead generation? Was it in general terms or by media such as website, social media, direct mail, referrals, prospecting, phone calls, campaigns, advertising, or events? Are we on target to meet enough people to sustain or business or do we need to adjust our marketing plan and our efforts?

Lead conversion - do we have specific numbers in mind of how many leads we need to turn into actual customers and then convert into sales or listings? Is that number realistic? How well did we do?

Appointments and presentations - how did we do with this? Are we on schedule or do we need to increase the focus on this?

Sales? Cancellations? Referrals?

This is just the first grading periood of 2011. We have plenty of time to get better, but we should have scored reasonably well - if only in some of the areas.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Today starts the 6th week of 2011. Six weeks is often used as a milestone, a benchmark, a measuring device. Many projects are scheduled for 6 weeks. Many follow-up calls and appointments are scheduled for 6 weeks. Doctors often like to use 6 weeks as an approproate amount of time to try a particular therapy.

So we are entering week 6 of the new year - meaning that by this time next week we will closed the opening 6 week chapter of 2011.

So how will our first 6 weeks be recorded? A slow start, a rousing success, a mixed review, some progress? We still have a week to influence the outcome. Let's make it count.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Just four weeks ago today, we all were celebrating the arrival of 2011 with big hopes and dreams for the new year.

Now we are saying goodbye to the first month - it doesn't take long for time to go by. The older we get, the quicker it seems to go.

So how did the first month go? Do we need to make any adjustments?

This week that we are embarking on now is a different kind of one. Technically we still have 2 days of January, but it really seems like we are already in February.

February is the shortest month of the year so we will to make extra sure that we account for out time well.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

The month of January, the first of 2011, essentially came to a close today.

While the month doesn't officially end until Monday night, we tend to think of a business month as consisting of 4 full weeks or 28 days even though 11 of them have more than 28 days.

And today marks the end of the 4th full week of January - essentially of first month of 2011.

I hope the year has gotten off to a good start for everyone.

Onward to February!

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

We just began 2011 three weeks ago, and already we are preparing to complete the first month. It just doesn't seem possible.

Today begins week number four of 2011 - the last full week of January.

January has been a growing and stretching month - shaking off the cobwebs of all the year-end celebrations and work slowdown. It's been a time of getting back to work and allowing those that we want to work with to do the same. Now, everyone is back into their routines.

We're in good shape holiday-wise. We had Martin Luther King Day this past week, and in another month we have President's Day (and the Daytona 500). In the meantime, except for Groundhog Day (wasn't that a great movie?) and Valentine's Day, we have a solid month of work activity.

This is a week we should be at maximum speed and preparing to make some real progress.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Friday is the end of the traditional work week. Since we often work weekends, we don't celebrate Fridays as much as people who work a traditional Monday-Friday position.

Nevertheless, Friday makes a good scorecard for 2011 since January 1st was a Saturday.

Thus every week in 2011 will end on a Friday, and every new week will commence on Saturday.

This is a very convenient way of keeping score. We can simply look at the calls we made, the appointments or showing we had, the emails and postcards we sent, the new contacts we made, the sales we made, and all of the other activity through midnight Friday. That activity concludes the previous week, and we get to start a fresh one from that point forward.

So as we review week number 3 of 2011 - that ended at midnight Friday - we can look forward to creating some good momentum for week number 4 this weekend.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.