Creating a Cold Calling Process That Works

If you were to ask what the core of the OneSource business operations is, I could give you a simple answer.  Cold calling.  When we have someone new start on our team, we get them started on one task their very first week.  Cold calling.  Cold calling is the best thing you can do to grow as a salesperson, a broker, or just a business person. It’s also often people’s least favorite thing to do.  So many people struggle with cold calling, opting for cold emailing instead or simply refusing to do any cold outreach at all.  This is a huge mistake.  Your business network will reach a ceiling quickly if you don’t actively work on expanding it. And attending social events and tapping your friends and family will only…

6 Things on My Desk That Will Help You Become More Focused and Efficient

With the exception of the Covid-19 pandemic, I’ve spent the majority of my career working in large office spaces. I have seen a little bit of everything, from modern, creative spaces to large blocks of gray cubicles. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a business and its employees by looking at their desks.  Family photos, disorganized stacks of files, old coffee mugs, post-it notes, we accumulate many items over our careers, not all of them useful.   There’s a quote from organizational guru Marie Kondo I find particularly insightful:  “The space in which we live [or work] should be for the person we are becoming now. Not for the person we were in the past.”  The items that live on your desk, the things you see and touch…

5 Things You Need for the Perfect Home Office

After over two years of a pandemic that sent most office workers home, there is still a large portion of the workforce working remotely. Whether this is the new normal or still only a temporary solution, it’s past time to ensure you have a home office that can support you and the work you do.  Between Zoom meetings and emails, your home office is the new board room, and your chance to present yourself to employers, direct reports, and potential clients. A dim room with a fuzzy screen and glitching audio aren’t going to do the trick.  Here are 5 items I used to outfit my home office that you should invest in to create a professional space that matches the quality of your work.  Camera Almost every computer today…

How to Build High Performance Teams

Building High-Performance Teams I realized pretty early on that no man or woman is an island in the world of business. We all need a team around us to support us, grow with us, and take us further than our own limitations. When we began building up OneSource, we knew early on that we needed a high-performance team to help the business grow.  Actually building that team, however, was a whole different ball game.  Long-Term Commitment It’s easy to make mistakes when building a team. Oftentimes we bring on the wrong people who fizzle out quickly, or we hold onto the wrong people for too long, not realizing until it was too late that they were holding the business back. But building the perfect team doesn’t happen overnight. Our team…

Respond Mode vs. React Mode

Anyone who works in the Commercial Real Estate industry is familiar with react mode. It’s a vicious cycle that keeps you one step behind, unable to get ahead. You work through the weekend, catching up on emails and updating your to-do list, but when Monday morning rolls around, you get a call at 8 am that completely changes your day. Now, you’re spending the rest of the week being pulled in multiple directions, falling behind on all the tasks you had intended to accomplish.  But that’s part of the business, right?  Yes and no.  The unexpected will always happen, but how you approach those distractions determines your success. Are you approaching your work in react mode or in respond mode?  React Mode vs. Respond Mode Reacting is guided by emotion,…

How to Hack Your Conversations to be More Productive – OBC

Communication is the glue that holds teams and businesses together. Without an effective communication strategy, you’re at risk of falling into a few common traps. From meandering meetings that run way too long to pointless check-ins, lost emails and tasks that slip between the cracks, leaving the important things up to chance is a risky way to run a business. Years ago, I was introduced to the concept of Objective Based Communication or OBC, and it has forever altered the way our team communicates, both internally and externally. This one simple system is the key to our productivity success (and a core value at CRE OneSource). Objective Based Communication OBC is a direct and focused approach to all conversations — in person, emails, sales presentations, written letters, product demos, onboarding…