It's time to take the next step.  I think it's time for all of us in commercial real estate to think bigger...about how to give our customers, as well as our employees, what they want and need, even if they haven't told us what that is yet.  Here's an interesting statistic.  It seems that because of the two-year average annual turnover in mobile phone contracts, smart phones now account for nearly a third of the mobile devices that we use.  And most estimate this percentage reaching 50% by the end of 2011.  As a result, I know we'll be really surprised at the mobile applications that retailers around us are going to have out by the end of the year.  Big Picture.

 

Here's the most important part of that whole thing.  Mobile devices are used by people all day long.  They are on and connected.  Always ready to go. There's virtually no learning curve.  Soon, few of us will be sitting at a desktop or laptop doing what I refer to as the "boot and wait" experience of days past.  Like the invention of instant oatmeal in 1955, (which I swear started everything moving faster in this country), everything is going to be a lot more "instant".  Did I really just compare mobile computing to oatmeal?  Wonder if my publisher will let that fly?  But I digress.  We really will be truly mobile while we're computing.   And frankly, people won't refer to it as computing.  They're just simply connected and they're making and expecting those connections to be easy.  Note above, I said no learning curve.  It's instant.  It's where we are.  It's where we're going to continue to be.

 

And so while all around us we continue to see this explosion, with most of it taking place in the retail and consumer worlds, it's going to happen in real estate.  Trust me.  Like most things digital, the residential real estate market is and will continue to be way ahead of us.  I saw it years ago.  Wasn't hard to see.  The residential real estate world has always been form driven, making conversion into the digital world so much faster.  But those of us that specialize in commercial real estate have great opportunities to lead and prosper in our market.  Most of it starts with connections and service to users within our buildings and continues as we go through the process of commercial development, where we work with a wide variety of constituents. The other place it's going to be incredibly useful is for vendors who service our properties.  I know of a fire alarm inspection and testing provider who is using Force.com so they can manage hundreds of buildings easily and for less money. They can view floor plans and check statuses of devices within the buildings they serve from their mobile devices, so gone are the days of using Excel spreadsheets on laptops, CDs, thumb drives or e-mail to transmit information.

 

I know as we start to crawl out of this deep recession, it's hard to think about the big picture.  We've had our heads down working hard and being more efficient than we've probably ever been since that invention of instant oatmeal in 1955.  (There I go again.)  But I urge you to do a little bit of research and poke your head into the emerging landscape of "everything mobile".  Those with vision and guts, armed with what's been learned over the past few years about how to get things done with minimum resources, are going to be best positioned not only for themselves, but for their customers.  Do your research and see if you don't see the same picture that I do.

 

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Your success is nothing more (or less) than what you envision it to be...and your determination to act in a manner consistent with that picture.  If success has eluded you thus far, perhaps it's time to change your picture, and then press on.

 

Your mindset has more to do with your success than almost any other single element.  There are plenty of salespeople who possess extensive product knowledge, have numerous influential business contacts, are well-spoken, and have appealing personalities, yet their sale performances are average... sometimes, only marginally acceptable.

 

Then, there are salespeople who have just enough product knowledge to get by, have few business contacts, don't always articulate their thoughts in the most artful manner, and don't have particularly sparkling personalities, yet their sales performances rank in the top ten percent.

 

How can that be?

 

Success in sales, or almost any endeavor, is not simply a product of one's talent, education, personality, or contacts (although, those elements can surely help), but rather the result of one's attitude-the natural tendency to have a positive outlook and maintain positive expectations.

 

But, it's more than just being able to see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty.  It's the ability to see possibilities...coupled with the resolve to take the required actions to turn those possibilities into realities.

 

Some people will view a challenge, and after analyzing the positive and negative aspects of it, choose to focus on the positive.  They see possibilities and envision success.  The more they focus on the positive aspects, the stronger their belief grows about their ability to successfully meet the challenge.  And, the stronger their belief grows, the more resolute is their judgment to take the actions necessary to achieve their goals.  They press on, regardless...and they succeed.

 

Others, will view the same challenge and focus on the negative aspects-all the reasons (real and imagined) that the challenge can't be met successfully.  They only see limitations, and envision only failure.  The more they focus on the negative aspects, the stronger their beliefs grow about the improbability of successfully meeting the challenge and the futility of investing any effort in its pursuit.  They give up, or at best, make a half-hearted effort...and they don't succeed.

 

SandlerBrief® is a monthly e-newsletter provided by the Sandler Training® network of trainers. For more information on Sandler Training, contact  Rusty Fox.