Where’s Waldo? How to use neuroscience to filter what’s important. Source: Playbuzz.com

Are you familiar with the popular series of children’s books “Where’s Waldo?” Each colorful book invites us to look at pictures crowded with people and we are challenged to find Waldo by looking for his distinctive red and white striped shirt. in the exercise of looking, we become totally focused, filtering out other colors and images until we find Waldo.

“Where’s Waldo” is a great metaphor for how we handle leads and  filter information.  Regular prospecting creates a large database of potential buyers and sellers for lead follow up.  As agents, we try to discern which one is Waldo, the brightest prospect who will pop out and gain our focus and attention. Our Waldo is a viable lead who will take action in a reasonably short period of time…if we can find him.

As an example, let’s look at an agent who is skilled and diligent at setting a daily lead generation goal and starts hitting big numbers in terms of contacts. This creates increased demands on the agent’s brain and scatters his or her attention, as the agent tries to focus on multiple leads at once. Which lead deserves focus and attention? Often agents will start to follow up randomly and haphazardly instead of taking the time to pay attention to ONE CLIENT.

In the book, The Organized Mind, the author says, “To pay attention to one thing means we don’t pay attention to something else. Attention is a limited capacity resource.” In other words, we cannot possibly give the attention to everything at once. We need an attention and intention filter.

On a recent coaching call, I worked with an agent who is successfully using an auto dialer to make prospecting calls and has an opportunity filled database for follow up. And yet, how does he get to them all?

It’s important to put attention on the  leads within your database based on WHEN they will make a decision to list or sell. Push the long range leads back and have an assistant sent them a handwritten card. When you can use your attentional filter to focus on your brightest and most motivated leads, your Waldo’s come to the forefront.

Find the leads, Filter the leads, Focus.