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Ready for Anything
Ready for Anything

Mark Leader equips real estate professionals with a full arsenal of tools for today?s market

By Maria Patterson

As most would agree, there?s no silver bullet for succeeding in today?s real estate market. That?s why Mark Leader has built his Toronto-based training company, Mark Leader Courses, around the premise of giving agents a full range of skills, tactics and strategies to choose from, readying them for any situation in any real estate climate. Here?s how Leader went from top producer to top trainer and why he feels his approach is the right one.

Maria Patterson: Tell me about your background. How did you first get into real estate?

Mark Leader: I went to licensing school in Ontario and started selling real estate when I was 18. I had been in sales for a long time, however. I first started selling clothing for my father at the age of 9?I sold women?s apparel and then helped my father in the family food business through high school. Having worked so hard with my parents and watching them go from starting with nothing to living a comfortable lifestyle, I decided that going to college just for the sake of going to college wasn?t the right thing for me to do.

My older brother, Chris (who is currently the number-one trainer at Mark Leader Courses), had a real estate license and he said, ?Why don?t you come and sell real estate, even just for the summer, and I?ve worked with my brother ever since. At 19, Chris and I bought a Century 21 franchise that served most of northern Toronto.

MP: Why did you switch from owning your own real estate company to the coaching and training sector of the business?

ML: I owned the real estate company from ages 19 to 28 and was then recruited by Floyd Wickman into the training business because of the sales I had done. I listed over 1,000 homes for sale in a 10-year period and averaged 93 closings a year without a personal assistant or a team. I was raised to believe that it?s not your gross production that matters, but how much you net?how much money is in your pocket at the end of the day.

MP: Had you utilized real estate training programs in your own career?

ML: I recognized the value of training to success early on in my real estate selling career. I?d listened to and learned from all the top speakers in the business. I took the Sweat Hogs program three or four times. In my best year, I closed 153 transactions.

MP: When and why did you decide to venture out on your own into the training world?

ML: I worked with Floyd for five years until he sold his company. At that point, I knew it was time to get back on my own. My vision was to write a program that would motivate and train a whole new generation of Realtors to become successful business persons. That was the start of Mark Leader Courses and Leaders Choice?May 25, 1999.

MP: How many clients does your company serve, and in how many states?

ML: We do training for all of the major franchises across North America, as well as a large number of the top 100 independents. With a dozen trainers teaching Leader?s Choice, we even have the ability to reach out to smaller companies all across North America. We?ve graduated more than 17,000 students through Leader?s Choice, who have averaged a better-than-200% increase in productivity, numbers that are audited by the companies we do work for. There is no other company out there that can offer audited stats that can substantiate what they do.

MP: I understand your courses are also available through NAR?

ML: The ?Red Hot Rookie? and ?Maximum Velocity? Mark Leader training programs are available online via the National Association of Realtors and Learning Library?s Realtor University at www.realtor.org/ realtoruniversity. Realtor University is the National Association of Realtors? Internet-based online education system where real estate professionals can take courses online for continuing education credit, professional development and designation certification. You can take the courses offered by Realtor University in your home, your office or while traveling?24 hours a day, seven days a week?with just a computer and an Internet connection.

MP: How does your training stand out in the marketplace?

ML: Leader?s Choice is our flagship program. One of the things that I always recognized in all my years of selling and owning an office and doing training, is that speakers would come to town and say, ?I?ve seen the future and here?s the system to use.? Some would say spend millions of dollars on marketing, others would advocate door knocking, others referrals?and none of that is bad; in fact, it?s all pretty good.

But I believe that ultimately knowledge is power. You can teach anyone a specific system, but if they don?t enjoy doing it, the results are short lived. Instead, if you could teach people every possible system, then they could pick the two or three they really enjoy and do them on a regular basis.

We teach every possible way there is known to man to build a real estate business. For instance, we teach people how to do referrals, how to work a sphere, how to work expireds and FSBOs, and how to market on the Internet. We teach 12 different ways of prospecting and building inventory. Then we say, ?Now you know as much as anyone does, so pick two to three strategies that you will enjoy.? When they enjoy doing it and begin to see successful results, they will end up doing it long after the program has ended.

MP: How is the Leader?s Choice program structured?

ML: It?s a nine-week spaced learning in-class program. We hold the class one day a week for nine weeks. Generally, we start at 10 a.m. and finish at 3 p.m. Over those nine weeks there are six areas that we work on, including: how to build inventory and get listings; attitude control; time management; objection-handling skills; marketing to stay in touch with past customers; and how to write the buyer quicker and separate the looker from the buyer.

MP: What does your system teach that enables agents to increase productivity by 160-350%?

ML: We teach them that they have to be a good business person before they can be a good salesperson. A good business person needs to be goal-oriented and needs to know how to be accountable to him or herself.

MP: How is your company poised for the future?

ML: We have some initiatives that are going to launch soon, and we?re going to be introducing our new and improved online university. This December, I am joining forces with Bob Proctor and introducing Leader?s Life Success Coaching, a program that will help people understand why they are not doing what they should be doing, and then help them shift their inner paradigms to move them to take the actions needed.

Ultimately, we?re not here to sell you a book, a coaching session or a seminar. The culture of our company is based on building clients for life. RE

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Plight of New-Home Marketing Companies: Struggling to Survive?

By George W. Mantor
RISMEDIA, November 21, 2008-Lost among the bank failures and resale downsizing has been the plight of new home sales and marketing companies. Once the high-flying benefactors of an explosion of new home sales, they now find themselves wondering where future closings will come from.
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