“It is easier to act yourself into a better way of feeling than to feel yourself into a better way of action.”
O.H. Mowrer

Enthusiasm works like magic!

I can’t say it any simpler than that. In fact, if you don’t get a single thing from this book besides the value of enthusiasm, you will have gained more than I can possibly explain!

Have you ever sat with a group of people in a meeting and suddenly one person enters and everything changes? That person is enthused. A truly enthusiastic person exudes positive energy: you can feel it in the air. Despite yourself, your mood brightens, your interest increases, you find yourself smiling and you don’t know why…

That is the power of true enthusiasm! Once you’ve become enthusiastic you will draw positive people and elements into your work and life. As you learn to apply that enthusiasm to your clients, get ready for a rental boost you wouldn’t believe!

I have converted literally hundreds of clients thanks to my enthusiasm – clients who would have otherwise left said “yes!” to the apartment because of my exuberance and positive excitement! How do I know? Many of them have told me! I’ve had clients come back to me after renting and say things like:

“Your enthusiasm was the only reason I rented from you.”
“Gary, I believed in the apartment because you believed in the apartment.”
“I decided to say yes because I had such a great feeling about the apartment. You were a big part of that.”
“We liked you before we rented the apartment.”

You’re actually selling yourself to clients initially. Once they’ve bought you, it’s easier for them to become sold on the apartment. If you want to sell yourself, you’ll need lots of impassioned enthusiasm. It’s so effective, you’ll think you had a hypnotic wand that makes people smile and say, “Yes!”

I’ll admit, the first time I tried it I trembled with the fear that my clients would think I’d gone crazy and needed to be institutionalized. But I was wrong! It worked like a charm! And believe me, it wasn’t as though I was getting better at everything else at the same time. When I introduced real enthusiasm into my client interaction, I was still making so many mistakes that if my manager knew, he probably would have suggested a career change! It was the transformation in my demeanor that made all the difference.

Once I knew it worked, I went bonkers! I was enthusiastic about the sunlight, the compactor, the 6th floor walk up, the tiled kitchen, the laundry room, the video intercom, the package room. As a matter of fact, I was high-fiving my clients for no good reason and performing like my life depended upon it!

Fifteen minutes into a presentation one afternoon my clients, two young female professionals, shouted at me and said, “Stop, stop!” They literally had to shout because I was so enthusiastic!

One of them looked at me and remarked, “Do you know you are crazy?!” And then she said, “But we will take the apartment, we have never met anyone like you!” Still riding the wave of enthusiasm, before I could stop myself, I went and hugged her! (By the way, don’t do this with clients unless you like being sued for harassment!)

I made $3,422 from that deal!

“How Did You Become That Enthusiastic?”

Act it and the feeling will follow. That’s it. If you want to be enthusiastic you have to act enthusiastically. You don’t have to literally shout, but you do need every fiber of your being to scream YES to the world around you – to the client, the apartment, the air, the city, life! You should be a bundle of energized excitement. Fully enthusiastic people change the room as soon as they step through the door and influence everyone just by their presence.

Having trouble? Start with the basics. Forget how you feel, just act the part for now.

• Smile more.
• Nod as you’re speaking.
• Only say positive things – never be negative, pessimistic, or critical.
• Rave about every single feature in the apartment.
• Pretend you’re showing a friend your dream home.
• Act excited!

Once you start acting, you will start to feel it, and your clients will too.

Consider it a performance. Broadway performers channel all their energy into a 1-2 hour performance every evening. Well, you’ve got roughly the same time with your client, from the first call to signing the lease. Those 1-2 hours are worth, on average, $3,000 to you. Doctors and lawyers don’t make $3,000 in a 1-2 hour period! When you have the potential to make $3,000, it’s worth being a little excited about it, wouldn’t you say?

The first time being enthusiastic earned me a commission check I could not sleep. Buzzing with excitement, I tossed and turned in bed till those big red letters on the alarm clock read 5:30 am! I had stayed up all night thinking about what had happened that day. I recalled how I had read “How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success” by Frank Beggter, where he describes how enthusiasm took him from a failure at age twenty-nine to a millionaire at forty! I took him on his word that enthusiasm was really that powerful! Then I read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie and he said the same thing.

As I worked on my enthusiasm, I still made my share of mistakes. But I soon discovered that it didn’t matter, enthusiasm overrode any other shortcomings I might have with a client! If I didn’t know the square footage, or the pet policy of an apartment, they didn’t hold it against me because I was so engulfed in my conviction for the apartment.

The energy that you create with you client will be a MAJOR factor in closing the deal. They say energy is always in motion. When you charge a room with the current of your enthusiasm, you shake everything up. You affect others in the room in a way that’s almost physical. Be positive, energetic and enthused about the apartment and your clients will respond positively. It’s magical and it’s contagious. It’s also going to make you a whole lot of money!

“If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.” – Vince Lombardi