Aaron

I sometimes train the new agents. My plan for training is to tell people what works for me, explore what might work for them, introduce them to resources that can help and then throw them to the winds. I’m not real big on structured instruction agendas.

I helped a woman that we will call Rosie. My haphazard training and Rosie’s fastidious brain did not mesh.

The first problem was that she needed to know exactly what to do, exactly when to do it, and precisely how to go about it. If I said, “Rosie. Every day write a letter to a FSBO or an expired listing,” she wanted to know what time she should write it, (“3:31 PM, Rosie.” “Okay!”) should it be handwritten or typed, if handwritten then what color of ink should she use, on letterhead or not, which sort of stamp would be best……………….
Then she would finally write it and I would red-line it and she would re-do it and then bring it to me and then to the Broker and then back to me and then back to the Broker and the silly letter never did make it to the mailbox.

We made each other crazy because I don’t think like Rosie. (I confess that in my secret brain, and in my most private thoughts, I called her Rainman.)

The second problem was that I had competition for that meticulous mind of hers. One time I got exasperated and snapped “Quit thinking about it and just go bring me a freakin’ letter!” Rosie stumped away and then circled back with a marvel of a farming letter. It was awesome! Amazingly, she also had 3 other letters, all of them dealing with different real estate situations. These were wonderful letters. I coveted these letters.

Rosie did not write them. I knew that she didn’t write them because they started out:
Dear [Recipient Name]: My name is [REALTOR® Name], and I am associated with [Company Name].

“Rosie! Where did you get this? It’s perfect!”
“Aaron gave it to me.”
“Wow! Well, get it in the mail! Wait – fill in the blanks first.” She did, and good things started happening for her.

So one day I asked Rosie to do something and I told her how I thought that she should do it and she pops off with “But Aaron says that I should do THAT in my 5th week of training. Aaron says that I should do THIS in my 3rd week.” Pretty soon it’s “Aaron says this……..” and “Aaron says that……...” and tiny puffs of smoke are coming out of my ears.

My gripe is that Aaron’s suggestions are excellent, and certainly better thought-out than mine. This Aaron guy is starting to irritate me. He seems to have unlimited resources, unlimited time, and unlimited patience for Rosie. Aaron is making me look bad.

One day “Aaron said” something brilliant and I noticed that my left eye was twitching. “Rosie. I would like to meet this Aaron guy. Could you go call him right now and see if he would come to an office meeting and share his wisdom with all of us?”

“Oh, I don’t know Aaron.”

“Then how did you get all of this information from him? Where did this letter and all of this good advice come from? Why is Aaron giving you things? What have you done, Rosie?”

“Aaron is in my computer. He has all of this stuff, and he likes to help me. Some of it is free and some of it costs. I only get the free things.” Rosie showed me where Aaron is in her computer.

Turns out that Aaron is aaronline.com.

Rosie had gone to the Arizona Association of REALTORS® website and from there accessed NAR’s “Right Tools, Right Now” and found free letter templates and downloaded them.
http://www.realtor.org/archives/website200505021?presentationtemplate=rmo-design/pt_articlepage_migratedcontent_print&presentationtemplateid=06ad608049e7ba93ab3dab87f8d337ee

She had been watching training webinars at http://www.realtor.org/prodser.nsf/RightTools/OnlineTraining?OpenDocument

she was starting a free REALTOR® blog at http://blogsignup.realtor.com/learnmore.aspx

she was learning about short sales at http://www.realtor.org/prodser.nsf/RightTools/ShortSales?OpenDocument

she was figuring out Facebook and Twitter at http://www.realtor.org/rmotechnology/Articles/2009/0909_socialnetworking_virtualrealities

and pretty soon Rosie was doing the right things without any input from me at all.

Rosie started doing really well, which relieved me immensely. She became a self-starter, or at least an Aaron-inspired starter. She established a farm area and got some very well priced listings, which sold.
Once Rosie developed some confidence, she was able to stop clenching quite so hard and she started specializing in short sales. Once she understood the process, we found that short sale listings suited her linear brain.

While I taught Rosie a few things, she showed me something, too. She didn’t introduce me to Aaron, but she did make me decide to get to know him a whole lot better.

Aaron is a good guy to know. Go to www.aaronline.com and see.