Bring Life to Your Business Using These 3 CPR Methods

 

Is your business flat-lined? Does your Pipe-Line look more like a Sewer-Line?

These three CPR methods can pump life back into the heart of your Real Estate Career!

 

1.     Current Prospecting Re-Commitment:

Many Real Estate Businesses would greatly improve if we would just recommit ourselves to daily prospecting activities. 1-2 hours per day, 5 days a week, dedicated solely to looking for new business and filling our pipeline. This alone will turn a sluggish business into a thriving one. Time Management and particularly “Time-Blocking” becomes the corner-stone of this CPR step. Schedule an appointment each day you plan to prospect for the time allotted for business building, and keep the appointment no matter what! Become self-aware of your business activities and self-accountable to yourself. 

2.     Current Prospects Re-Grading:

Once you start to see prospects filling your pipeline you need to re-grade each one of them on a weekly basis. This process will force you to know where each prospect is in their buying or selling process. Even though Bill and Mary Smith stated they were 5-6 months away from a purchase, something may have happened this week to move their time-frame closer. You have to stay front of mind with each prospect or when their time comes they may choose to use someone else.

Use the “Pipe-Line Management Radar” PMR© to visually show where your prospects/clients are in the process.
Click Link to go to PMR
Use the Radar to track the current position of your prospect/client in the 90-30 day time frame…the center of the radar is the projected date of written contract (listing or purchase)

You can also use the radar to track your current listings and when you project them to go pending or close.

The chart below the PMR can be utilized to show actual names of prospects and commission amounts attached to each when they close. This allows you to manage your projected income…or in some cases “lack there-of”!

3.     Current Prospecting Returns:

The third phase of Prospecting CPR is knowing what is working and what is not. There are many forms of prospecting activities… We advocate the top four: Face to face “pop-by” contacts, Personal Phone Calls, Hand Written Follow-up Notes, and Items of Value Electronic Campaigns. Track each activity you do separately for cost/time verses return. 

Each prospecting activity is wasted time unless you remember to ask for the referral during the activity. Proper dialogue is critical to your prospecting success…Practice, Practice, Practice so you will feel comfortable knowing what to say and when to say it…(Coaching Tip: The dialogue sound like you, make it your own…you will feel more comfortable saying it) 

Hopefully these ideas will help you to focus on your business building activities and turn your pipe-line into a constant flow of qualified buying and selling prospects!

Eddie Brown ©2013

History of Taxation and Housing: 100 Years

Feb-25-1913 The 16^th amendment was ratified by Congress. It gave them the power to collect taxes on personal incomeOctober 1913 The US Government enacted its first permanent tax law …The 16^th amendment was 164 characters long, the current tax code has over 4 million words. The first 1040 form was only 1 page with 8 questions about your income…(see right)
the current 1040 with instructions and all supporting schedules stands at 214 pages.

 Tax payers and or their advisors spend a whopping 6,000,000,000 (six billion) hours per year preparing IRS and State tax forms.

 The highest tax rate in 1913 was 7% for those individuals making over $500,000 per year, which is equivalent to $11,630,303 in today’s dollars..

(See below chart)

1913 Nominal Rate		1913 Adjusted for Inflation to Today
Tax Rate	Tax Brackets	Tax Rate	Tax Brackets*
1.0%	$0 to $20,000	1.0%	$0 to $465,212
2.0%	$20,000 to $50,000	2.0%	$465,212 to $1,163,030
3.0%	$50,000 to $75,000	3.0%	$1,163,030 to $1,744,545
4.0%	$75,000 to $100,000	4.0%	$1,744,545 to $2,326,061
5.0%	$100,000 to $250,000	5.0%	$2,326,061 to $5,815,152
6.0%	$250,000 to $500,000	6.0%	$5,815,152 to $11,630,303
7.0%	$500,000 and more	7.0%	$11,630,303 and more

 

 

Today’s highest rate is 39.6%...in 1913 there were not 2 classes of taxpayer (single or married) like there is today.

Tax Rate	2013 Taxable Income
	Single Filers	Married Joint Filers
10.0%	$0 to $8,925	$0 to $17,850
15.0%	$8,925 to $36,250	$17,850 to $72,500
25.0%	$36,250 to $87,850	$72,500 to $146,400
28.0%	$87,850 to $183,250	$146,400 to $223,050
33.0%	$183,250 to $398,350	$223,050 to $398,350
35.0%	$398,350 to $400,000	$398,350 to $450,000
39.6%	$400,000 and up	$450,000 and up

In 1963 if you were married, filing jointly, and earned between $100,000 and $120,000 your marginal tax rate was 75% … if you made in excess of$400,000 your rate was 91%! Imagine working 332 days out of 365 to pay your taxes.

In 1913 the population was a mere 97 million…in 2013 the US population has grown to close to 315 million… that is an average of 3.1 million per year since 1913.

The national debt in 1913 was 2.9 billion…today it stands at 16.8 trillion and growing by 3.86 billion per day…If every US citizen today paid $53,443 the national debt would be retired.

Cost of a stamp in 1913 was 02 cents…currently 46 cents …coffee was 30 cents a pound and bacon was 25 cents a pound. And my favorite… pork chops were only 18 cents a pound!

Unemployment in 1913 was 4.3%...current unemployment is 7.7%

Life expectancy in 1913 was only 55 years where now it is nearly 80 years old. The U.S. started collecting Social Security tax in 1937 after President Roosevelt Sign the Social Security Act in 1935. The Social Security age in 1940 was 65 years old (the first year benefits could be collected)…today the age is 67 …only 3 years more than in 1940 while the average life expectancy has risen approximately 23 years.

The number of Americans over 65 in 1940 was 9 million… at the last census that number was over 40 million.

In 1913 there were 1.1 million registered automobiles in the US…(one per every 88 citizens)… in 2013 there are 255 million registered automobiles (one per every 1.25 citizens) ...almost every state has a requirement for taxing personal autos through either property tax, registration fees or fuel taxes and surcharges.

Currently there are 132 million (63%) homeowners in the US…in 1913 approximately only 46% of the population owned the home they lived in…The average household in 1913 was 4.5…today it is 2.4 …less than half…The average square feet of living space in a new home built in 1913 was 900…in 2013 the average square footage is 2100… more than double ….(down from 2520 sq. ft. in 2007)

In 1913 Only 16% of homes had electricity and 20% had toilets inside the home.

A house that sold for $7,000 in 1913 ($80,000 -inflation adjusted for todays dollars) would sell for $175,000 in 2013 (considering location and condition as mitigating factors)

A deduction for any interest paid on borrowed money was included in the 1913 tax code…(which included mortgages)…but unlike present times 98% of all homeowners had no mortgage…no credit cards, student loans, etc. It was mostly a cash society. In 1986 with the tax reform only the interest paid on primary and secondary home mortgages was kept as a deduction…the MID deduction is now under examination by Congress to further limit use by homeowners.

In 1818 Illinois was the first state to enact a property tax… in 1868 North Carolina joined the ranks who taxed residents who owned property in the State. During the depression years, many properties went into foreclosure not because of default on mortgages, but due to the owners inability to pay the property taxes.

Disclaimer: All the above data is accurate to the best of my ability to Google…

My prayers go out to the victims and the families of those who were injured in the horrific Boston Marathon bombings yesterday. Our world is now a dangerous place with enemies both foreign and domestic. I pray for peace throughout the world, but I am also realistic in understanding there are some who do not say the same prayer… For those who wish to bring terror upon the American people…When they find you …(and they will find you)… I truly wish peace upon your soul.

Eddie Brown- April 16 2013