Why Self-Belief Is the Missing Key to Real Estate Sales Success

Dan Rochon (00:00)
Haha, it’s the one you don’t want to hear but it’s belief. 100 % belief. Yeah, 100 % belief. In fact, in the book, 158 pages out of 255 pages is the belief pillar. It is so vital that it’s more than 50%. If you don’t believe in yourself, then you’re going to be, you you’re going to be…

you know, probably over promising, under delivering. You’re to be skipping follow ups. You’re going to not understand your customer needs.

Michelle Kesil (02:02)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil, and today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Dan Rochon, who is a Virginia-based realtor, sales coach, and author of the Teach to Sell book and method. So excited to have you here today, Dan.

Dan Rochon (02:27)
Thanks, Michelle.

Michelle Kesil (02:30)
Perfect, so let’s dive in. First off, those not familiar with you and your world, can you share what your main focus is?

Dan Rochon (02:39)
Sure. My name is Dan Rochon. I’ve been a sales agent since 2007 and I’ve had a lot of experience in real estate sales. I owned a rather large with Keller Williams Brokers for 10 years and I’ve, you know, different joint ventures, title companies, mortgage companies, et cetera. But I would say my claim to fame in real estate sales specifically is that I’ve had no broke months as an agent since 2008. Many of those months, 10 plus transactions and to have that consistent closings, you know, through different

seasons to different sales cycles. It’s something I’m pretty proud of and that’s where I outline how to do that in my book Teach to Sell. I would say my biggest claim to fame is consistent predictable income.

Michelle Kesil (03:25)
and what you feel have been some of the main keys that have allowed you to have that consistent income and to grow.

Dan Rochon (03:34)
Well, there’s really four pillars to it. There is to be able to believe in yourself and you know having a deep foundation of belief that whatever problem may be presented in front of me, whatever opportunity may be presented in front of me that I believe that I can figure out a solution to it and I’m unwavering about that.

And then once I really got that belief at a strong, strong level, then it’s okay. How do I then find my business or find business for myself? And so it goes from belief to lead generation and then lead generation could be marketing, it could be prospecting, it could be networking. And then on top of that would be building an organization to scale. So having the right virtual assistants, having the right team members, having the right systems. And then finally about leadership. so leadership is what I’m

that infinite opportunity. And my definition of leadership is to teach somebody else how to think so that they can get what they want. And so it’s the four pillars and I’m happy to break down any one of those four pillars into specifics if it’s helpful to you, but it’s really those four pillars that have allowed for me to have consistent predictable income.

Michelle Kesil (04:46)
Yeah, and out of those four pillars, which one do you think people miss the most?

Dan Rochon (04:54)
Haha, it’s the one you don’t want to hear but it’s belief. 100 % belief. Yeah, 100 % belief. In fact, in the book, 158 pages out of 255 pages is the belief pillar.

It is so vital that it’s more than 50%. If you don’t believe in yourself, then you’re going to be, you you’re going to be…

you know, probably over promising, under delivering. You’re to be skipping follow ups. You’re going to not understand your customer needs.

to be ignoring objections. You’re going to be maybe not qualifying your leads early enough or well enough. You’re going to be not, you know, focused on rapport. And these are some of the symptoms of not believing in yourself. And it’s so vital and so few agents, so few salespeople even want to talk about it, right? It’s like, how do I, what’s the, what’s the magic pill for me to find business? Say, well, the magic

magic

pill for you to find business is first setting the foundation that you can find business. And then if you don’t, then read a book like Teach to Sell to be able to guide you to show you exactly how can I believe in myself? What are the actual methods to do so? And then once I believe in myself, how do I then find business and what are the step by step steps that I’m going to take to do so?

Michelle Kesil (06:58)
And how do you guide people into believing in themselves?

Dan Rochon (07:04)
So there’s a thing called the self-coaching model that is a good foundation. There’s 17 different ways in the book that I guide them. So I’ll give you one. And so the self-coaching model is understanding that your circumstance is going to create, that you’re going to perceive your circumstance through your senses. And then when you, you know, something happens, you perceive it through your senses, and then you assign meaning to it. Then you have a thought.

That thought will then lead to a feeling. That feeling will drive what type of action you deliver and the action will then derive or drive the result that you have. So it goes from circumstance to thought to feeling to action to result back to circumstance. And so when you understand that, then it’s how do I have better thoughts? Part of that is, you know, having an awareness of what I just described to you. Every day, I’m going to give you a little hack.

It’s a little bit of a weird hack, you know, we all have a natural alarm clock. It’s our bodies. At five to seven times a day, we find ourselves, you know, in the restroom. When you wash your hands, and please do wash your hands after you use the restroom, and that water hits your hands, I want you to be an anchor to remind you to say, what am I thinking? What am I feeling? What am I about to do? So these are some examples of different ways that people can derive belief for themselves ⁓ and teach to self.

that will then give you actionable like tools. It’s not just like rah rah like hey believe in yourself believe in yourself believe in yourself. That’s great to have a positive attitude but it’s not necessarily actionable.

Michelle Kesil (08:48)
Yeah, absolutely. And so how does one then move into becoming great at sales once they master that self-belief?

Dan Rochon (09:02)
So then after belief, then it’s going to be lead generation. And so when we’re looking at lead generation, we first want to sit there and identify what you’re really skilled at doing. What are your superpowers? What does your wife say? Your husband, your spouse, your boyfriend, girlfriend, mom, dad, son, daughter, best friend. What do you say you’re great at doing? Then once you identify your superpower, your strengths, like maybe he’s a great thinker. Maybe he’s direct. Maybe he’s so

you know, whatever the case may be, then look at what are all the ways that you could find business. So, let’s say we’re talking to a real estate agent. Let’s say somebody you’re very dominant, and you’re direct, and you’re don’t have a you’re fearless. We all have some fear, but let’s say you’re mostly fearless, and you’re willing to you know, bang out the phone calls. Well, what are all the different ways that we could find business? Well, one way could be call expired listings. Well, that behavior that I just described to you,

would appeal to somebody that’s going to then want to call expired listings. Let’s say you’re very touchy feely and you walk into a room and everybody feels great about you and you make other people feel great about themselves. Well maybe you go back to your list you see open houses. Well maybe doing an open house would be your way to generate business. But it starts with identifying what you’re really skilled at doing what you love to do. Then what are the ways I could find business and then one to three hours a day five

days a week I’m going to commit so I’m going to commit or quit those are the options I’m going to commit to doing one to three hours a day of whatever my choice is in regards to my lead generation efforts so again I’m giving you a recipe of if you are not getting the results that you want right now then it’s probably because you don’t have the directions of easy foots to follow steps

that I go through and teach to sell for you to be able to get what you want. And those are the ways to be able to set yourself up for success in lead generation.

Michelle Kesil (11:42)
Yeah, absolutely. And so, when you coach people, what are the biggest struggles that they come to you with?

Dan Rochon (11:53)
The biggest struggles that they come to me with are the symptoms and not the disease. And so the symptoms would be, I don’t have enough money, I don’t have enough time, I don’t ⁓ have enough success. It’s gonna be one of those things, right? And so if you’re looking, let’s say you’re in business, the first question to ask is, are you getting enough business? If the answer to that is no, then the only thing for you to do is go find business.

That’s it. And I just gave you the directions, you know, just a few minutes ago of how to do that. If you have enough business, then or enough leads coming in rather, do you have enough leads, you know, to reach your goals? And the answer to that is no, go get more leads. If the answer to that is yes, are you converting them at a high level?

If the answer to that is no, then it’s going to be either your skill or it’s because you’re spread too thin. So let’s say you have the skill. Now it’s going to be, do you have the right method to be able to hire the support around you and the right systems to be able to allow for you to do what you’re skilled at doing, which is to find business. So it’s either going to be an opportunity of I don’t have enough leads or I don’t have the right support. And then what you understand is if you’re not reaching your goals, it’s going to be one of three things.

You’re

either not saying it often enough, you’re not saying it to the right people, or you’re not saying the right thing, or a combination of one to three of those. So these are the questions that I ask in the book for the reader to be able to identify, well what is it that is my most common goal, right? So you asked me what’s the most common thing that people ask me in coaching, it’s always going to be around those things. It’s either going to be, I don’t have enough business, or I don’t have enough talent to be able to scale.

and then it’s just dissecting well those are the symptoms of the disease now what the cause of the disease the cause is going to be I’m either not saying it often enough I’m not saying the right thing or I’m not saying to the right people or one to three of those and now we look at that

Michelle Kesil (13:55)
Yeah, absolutely. And what are some of the obstacles or challenges that you’ve had to personally overcome to reach success?

Dan Rochon (14:08)
⁓ Well, many. ⁓ I’d say my biggest obstacle has been ⁓ hiring. know, so you take a business and you look at it, there’s really three, so there’s three pillars in the business, there’s four pillars of the business belief, but then the building the businesses, lead generation, organization, building and leadership. A lot of times people are really skilled in sales, then want to go build a team and not to, and they don’t recognize that building an organization takes different skills than

business. And a lot of times, they may be skilled at finding business, and they may be skilled at leadership, but not skilled at actually hiring people. That was my greatest challenge early on. The way that I’ve been able to overcome that was going back to say, well, what are my skills? What are my strengths? What are my values? What are my beliefs? What’s the way that I want to be able to get business? I look at myself internally before I make my first hire.

Then once I understand who I am, then I hire to me to be able to supplement my weaknesses, to be able to complement my strengths, and to be able to leverage all the things off my to-do list, because there’s millions of them, to be able to put myself in my highest priority activity, which we call CPI time, consistent predictable income, which is to lead generate, convert the leads to meet with you, attend the appointments to get hired, negotiate, and then practice your

So once I realized that my biggest struggle, my biggest setbacks were making the wrong hires. Like I’ve hired people that have come into work drunk. I’ve had people that have bezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from me. I had a guy running out and I came to the office in the middle of the night and he’s running out of his office in his boxer briefs, right? And then like Kramer from Seinfeld and then looking at me and slamming the door in my face, right? To hide that he had a guest in his office.

had so many different things that happen along the way, but I would say once you figure out who you are, you figure out the right way to hire, then ⁓ understanding that you want to be able to retain talented people and get out of relationship with the wrong fit quickly.

Michelle Kesil (17:05)
Yeah, absolutely. And what are you most focused on solving or scaling to next?

Dan Rochon (17:16)
Right now my mission is to help 1 million people to be able to have consistent predictable income by following a proven methodology methodology that tens of thousands before you have followed and that’s the method that I go through in the upcoming book teach to sell why top salespeople never selling what they do instead

And the reason for that, Michelle, is because those million people, they make an impact for their families, they make an impact for themselves, for their friends, for those people that rely on them. And I believe that every freaking salesperson should be able to have a guide, a faith in themselves, and a knowledge that if they just simply follow the directions, they’re gonna have the success.

Michelle Kesil (18:05)
Yeah. And so you mentioned any salesperson. So does this book apply to people outside of real estate?

Dan Rochon (18:15)
Absolutely. I believe that real estate sales is probably one of the toughest sales gigs in the world. And if you can master and be successful and have consistent predictable income as I have for almost 20 years, then, and if you can then lay that out in an easy and simple recipe book for others to follow, the things that I have discovered in my sales journey, the things that I have led others and I’ve observed in others, and the things that have been documented of truisms,

Like there is truth in you do A B and C you get the outcome There’s truth in that it is it is it’s proven right? But the problem is is that far few salespeople are ever shown the way we’re not giving the directions We’re just basically saying hey go out of the world and figure this stuff out right well That’s yeah, that can work or you can just get a guide and say okay Follow the freaking direction step by step, and you will have success quicker

Michelle Kesil (19:16)
Yeah, absolutely. And so let’s say someone reads the book, would the next stop be like personal coaching or what does that look like?

Dan Rochon (19:25)
We do offer that, right? But that’s really not… ⁓ It’s not… We offer that because, you know, once you… It’s sort of like if you… In any vocation that you have, you can get the directions, ⁓ but then it’s like, how do I then follow the directions? If anybody’s interested in how I could personally help you achieve your success, either through group coaching or one-on-one coaching, you could go to my website, NoBrokeMonths.com, and you can learn about the different ways that we can help you. But really, what I really would invite for…

me to do before they even go to the website NoBrokeMonths.com is to get the book at TeachToSellBook.com that’s TeachToSellBook.com as like here’s the instruction guide, read the book, implement it and then when you find that you need some help you know connect with me the author of the book so that I can be able to help you and there’s many ways that we can do so.

Michelle Kesil (20:18)
Perfect. Thank you for sharing.

Dan Rochon (20:21)
You’re welcome.

Michelle Kesil (20:23)
Well, before we begin, to wrap up here, someone wants to reach out, connect, and learn more, where can people find you?

Dan Rochon (20:32)
As I mentioned, the two websites that I would invite them to write down would be www.nobrokemonths.com and www.teachtosellbook.com to be able to get your copy today. Oh, and when you get your copy, I’m going to give you $10,000 of free digital training that goes with the book for anybody that goes to that website. You can get it from Barnes & Noble, from amazon.com, etc. But if you go to the website, teachtosellbook.com, you’ll get the $10,000 of digital training to be able to explain

in the four pillars in video and written format and exercises as well.

Michelle Kesil (21:08)
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining the show and sharing your story.

Dan Rochon (21:14)
You’re welcome, Michelle.

Michelle Kesil (21:16)
Great. And for those tuning in, if you got value, make sure you have subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators like Dan who are building real businesses. And we’ll see you on our next episode.