Creig Northrop : The Need To Be Pushed

Creig Northrop has a team philosophy and a philosophy of life that is one of the reasons he has risen to his level of success, he believes in winning through others even if said others need to be pushed along. “We all need to be pushed.” I used to think that people don’t need to be pushed. They just need to find their motivation to do things. However, after thinking it over, I realized that people indeed need to be pushed. Not just in the same manner though. Some get pushed by their desire to achieve, others by their need to succeed or by their hopes and aspirations. A lot of us, do not want to be pushed. A lot of us want to be in the comfort of our easy chair and this type of living will eventually be our downfall.

With over 25 years of experience in real estate and a multitude of awards to go with the years, Creig Northrop has made it a point to excel in client satisfaction by providing outstanding and unparalleled service. I learned quite a few things from this man during our brief interaction. First, I remember him saying that as agents, we need to be better coaches. I was thinking that coaching is something a Team Leader would do; something a supervisor would need to accomplish to better the performance of his or her team. But the way Creig views it is agents need to coach not only fellow agents but customers as well. Some customers do not know what they want. As agents, we need to ask the right questions and lead our customers to self-realization. This would make our jobs easier instead of just showing the customers one house after another. Let’s face it, some customers aren’t that expressive. It then becomes the agent’s job to help them. Just like coaches.

In the book “The Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod, the author identifies the very thing that all of us have in common – we want to improve our lives and ourselves. We want to become better versions of “us”. In real estate, we always aim to become better sales people because we are only as good as our last deal. Creig tells us that in order to be better sales people, we have to go out of our comfort zones and push ourselves. Some real estate agents are not comfortable speaking in public; this is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for. We have to turn our weaknesses into strengths and our strengths into foundations. In the book I mentioned earlier, it talks about everyone having unlimited potential. We just need to unlock those. We make a habit and change our lives to make ourselves better individuals. It doesn’t happen overnight. We need to push ourselves and at the very moment when you decide to give up, remember, that is the very time when you should push the hardest.

Creig talked about making things easier for him. While people always say that we should work hard, Creig tells us to work smart. And I agree with that. With the advent of technology breakthroughs, a lot of tools are made available to us almost on a daily basis. It’s just a matter of identifying which ones work for you. Creig uses salesforce. It stores leads and information. It makes his life easier. Other people are afraid to try something new as it might upset their routine. I tell you. Try something new. The whole point of living is to experience life. Trying something new is part of it, it’s how you grow.

When I wake up each morning I always have a list of things to accomplish. I make it a point to try different approaches in accomplishing tasks. Who knows? I might be able to find an easier approach. It’s called working smart. We don’t have to work hard, we have to work smart. Then, at the end of the day, I jot down on my journal what worked, what didn’t, what was smart and what wasn’t. Sooner or later, I will look back and think of these days. As Benjamin Franklin so uniquely said, “I didn’t fail, I found out a hundred ways to do it wrong.” He woke up each day with a goal in mind – to be better.