Speaker1: Well, welcome to Mike Ferry TV, we are very fortunate today to have a long, long time, she looks much younger than one time lady with us today, with Cydney Fullen on a great agent, a great broker owner, a great coach for The Mike Ferry Organization lives in Little Rock, Arkansas. A beautiful part of the world. As Cydney knows, one of my longtime best friends from Earl Nightingale company lived in Little Rock and she even knows where the house is he lived in, which is kind of fun. So welcome, Cydney. Nice to have you with us. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker2: Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here today.
Speaker1: So, question and I didn’t think of this till minute ago. How long have you been in the real estate industry? Because I think it’s been a while.
Speaker2: So, this is my 38th year in Real Estate.
Speaker1: 38th year and you have Jack Benny’s age at thirty-nine. You started younger. That is great. Really? Thirty-eight years. Wow.
Speaker2: I almost don’t want to tell anyone that because it ages me.
Speaker1: Well, I mean, you can pass for a young lady. But thirty-eight years and you started when you were 10, that makes you forty-eight years old.
Speaker2: If only that were true, if only that were true.
Speaker1: And how long have you been involved with The Mike Ferry Organization?
Speaker2: You and I met thirty-two years ago in Dallas, in Irving, Texas, at the Harvey Hotel.
Speaker1: Gosh darn it, I can’t remember that because there’s so many clients and customers and friends that I met at that, I think it was an action workshop.
Speaker2: It was, and I had been in business for six years and I was doing OK, but just frustrated with the working with a lot of buyers. And when I went to that first seminar, it changed everything and I’ve been with you ever since.
Speaker1: Good for you. So how long have you been working full time as a coach? Because you’re one of our top coaches and I think all of us that work with you understand that. How long have you been working as a coach?
Speaker2: So here in about two months, it’ll be ten years that I’ve been a full-time coach.
Speaker1: Good for you. And then how long were you a part time prior to that?
Speaker2: I started off as a full-time coach. I started with you when we had the in-house coaches and I moved to Las Vegas to be a full-time coach.
Speaker1: That’s right. So, it’s been a while. Good for you. Now, I will say to all of our great clients that being a coach is a wonderful profession, but it certainly not as you and I know this as glorious as it looks, and we want to talk about that because, you know, most of the good brokers today and you’ve identified this so well are doing some type of coaching to help their agents.
Speaker2: I would say that they’re trying to do some coaching, I think that the coaching that they provide is very different than what we provide as a company. Ok. It’s difficult for a broker to offer the same type of accountability and direction that a Mike Ferry Coach can offer. And so we’re very fortunate that a lot of our great brokers, they direct and encourage their agents to join our coaching.
Speaker1: Which is great. So how many agents do you coach at this time?
Speaker2: Well, I have 64 clients at this moment and it’s broken up. I’ve got about a third of them that are agents. I’ve got a third that are small teams and a third that are broker, owner, managers and recruiters.
Speaker1: So you got the whole spectrum in the course of an average day.
Speaker2: It makes for a lot of fun and I’m tired a lot of times at the end of the day because I’m switching from one type of person to another. But that’s what makes it challenging and I’m never bored.
Speaker1: Well, you know, it’s interesting. You should say that because we talked to a couple of weeks ago to Tim Rohan, somebody that you know well and I had failed to ask him this question is there are there days when it’s virtually exhausting because a good agent that’s doing a lot of business, it’s an exhausting business. Do you find the same for yourself?
Speaker2: I find the same, and it’s very common that in the evenings I don’t talk on the phone. I’m very quiet in the evenings because I’ve used a lot of it’s not a physically exhausting job, but it’s very mentally exhausting because, you know, when we show up, we want to give 100 percent to the clients. And so it’s all about them and helping them in their business.
Speaker1: So you have a lot of people that have done very well brokers, managers, recruiters, agents, team leaders, etc. What are some of the characteristics or qualities that they possess? Let’s take the agents because we have a lot of viewers every week on Mike Ferry TV and the majority are either a broker with their agents watching together or virtually thousands of agents. So let’s look at it from an agent perspective.
Speaker2: I identified three and there’s probably many more characteristics, but these are the three that really resonated with me the most. I think that of the top agents, the superstars, as we call them in The Mike Ferry Sales System, they are fanatical about their time management, and they are experts at prioritizing what they’re supposed to be doing every day. What I mean by that is they generate business everyday, new business every day. They’re not going to deprioritize the prospecting. They’re going to work on those income generating activities first. So I think that is the number one characteristic is they know how to manage their time and they spend time doing the most important things.
Speaker1: And is that usually a five-day workweek, a six day workweek for a good producing agent?
Speaker2: Usually, our best producing agents work five days. Rarely do they work weekends because if they work very efficiently during the week, there’s no reason for them to work on the weekends. And I know that some of our viewers will find that very hard to believe. But the higher the production of the agent, really, the less hours they’re working.
Speaker1: And I’ve seen that for virtually forty-six years. So one is fanatical of time management. I wrote that down because that’s critical. What’s number two?
Speaker2: The superstars understand that this is a sales job.
Speaker1: Oh, great point, and tell me what you mean by that, because I think everybody that gets the license thinks they’re automatically qualified as a salesperson.
Speaker2: They completely understand that they have to work on their communication skills. Skills are important and that every single day they are focused on their lead generation. Ok. You know, our business, we can’t wait. They know that they can’t wait for the business to come to them. They’re going to do something every day to generate new business and that separates them.
Speaker1: I have to interrupt you because know, as you know, I play a lot of golf and I have for a long time and we constantly are meeting people that we play golf with. And if they’re in sales, I always ask them, what is your priority? And they always every profession says lead generation. And then yet if you and I talk about that to Real Estate people, they get mad at us. Mm hmm. Why? Why did they get so upset?
Speaker2: Well, I think that most people, when they get in the business, they have a very unrealistic view of what this business is all about. And I can speak for myself the first six years before I met you. That’s what I was doing, and that’s what created all the frustration. Once I got that point that I understood that this was a sales business. It literally changes your life. It gives you the freedom. It gives you the income that you need. And as you’ve always taught us, it makes the business predictable. If you are constantly going out and getting new business, you know when you’re going to take your next listing, make your next sale and get your next paycheck.
Speaker1: So of course, you and I both know that in today’s world, social media, the internet is a predominant factor, not the predominant lead generation factor, but a predominant factor. And yet so many of the agents that we meet at our seminars because you and I are a lot of seminars together. The first thing they say is, Well, what tips do you have on social media? My attitude is always, don’t expect any big results, start talking to people. Does that make sense to what you’re saying?
Speaker2: Absolutely. Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I think one of the challenges of the industry today is social media. It’s one of the things that’s holding agents back from their success.
Speaker1: Because?
Speaker2: Because they’re relying on what they think is a is a lead generation technique. And while it may create an inquiry or create some interest, it’s not prospecting. You can’t prospect unless you’re actually having a conversation with someone.
Speaker1: Yes.
Speaker2: And so anyone that thinks they’re going to put an ad on Facebook or buy an internet lead? And just by having the lead, it’s going to do something for them. That’s not logical, even if it was a lead. You have to pick up the phone and call them, which means you need skills and you need a schedule.
Speaker1: So and it’s so much fun because I always say to agents you because as we both know, so many agents purchase leads off the internet, mostly buyer leads, and then they cannot ever seem to follow up because they don’t know what to say. And I say to agents all the time the most the buyer leads call you or do you have to call them? And that usually ends our conversation. Is there a third thing that pops up?
Speaker2: I do, and I this is, I think, the most important one. The top producers are committed to the goals that they’ve set for themselves, and they will do whatever it takes to achieve those goals. So if I have someone, then this is very common. Someone comes to a Superstar Retreat and they say, by golly, this year I’m going to do 50 deals and they come back and they have. There’s no follow through. They they’re speaking the words, but they’re not committed. Someone said to me once that a goal is something that you want to do, a commitment is something that you will do. So, if there’s no commitment, nothing is going to happen when I’m working with the best agents, if we have a coaching call and I say, how many listings will you take this week? They say, I’m going to take two. They come back to the call the following week and they’ve taken two listings. That’s what makes them different. An average agent says, Well, I’m going to take two listings, and when they come back to the coaching call, they said, Well, I really didn’t work very much this week.
Speaker1: Yeah, or I had a buyer and we had to look at thirty-two homes, and write five offers and that type. We hear that story. So much of the time, don’t we?
Speaker2: That’s all the time. The top producers are committed, they’re disciplined and they’re committed to the goals that they set for themselves.
Speaker1: So I wrote down fanatical time management, understand that it’s a sales position or job, which I love that the way we say it and then committed to achieving what they set out for themselves. So what is the most common challenge that you see agents face on being productive, especially in the crazy, exciting market we have today?
Speaker2: Well, I think the majority of the agents in our industry, their sales skills are very, very low. You know, the training, for the most part, is very poor in our industry, and most of the brokers out there don’t really teach the agents how to sell. They teach them how to write a contract and how to post things on Facebook. So the skills are very low. And so what ends up happening is these agents are focused too much on buyers. And I will tell you if they focus on buyers the past 18 months, it almost has driven them out of business because it’s been so competitive. But even in a normal market, the agents that focus on listings, that’s who controls the market. If you want financial freedom, if you want freedom with your time, focus on listings. The challenge is they won’t take the steps to learn what to say in prospecting or making a presentation and so they don’t take any listings.
Speaker1: And you know, it’s interesting you say it that way because the number of agents, at least in the U.S., can’t speak for Canada has increased by three or four hundred thousand in the last six, eight, 12 months. So we’re not adding as many transactions as we are agents. So the division between those that know how to do it and those that don’t is widening the base. So that’s why I like what you’re saying is that if they don’t understand that it’s a sales job, J-O-B, it’s not just a place to sit back and collect big checks, which we would love it if we could do it. It’s a tough one. You’ve had the good fortune of being at probably three or four events a year for twenty-five years. So you’ve also been on stage with me time and time again sharing your insights. So what would be two or three thoughts that you would give our audience today if they said I am committed to making the last part of this year great. What would you say to them?
Speaker2: Well, this is an easy one because this is what I’m working on with virtually all my clients. We’ve got today, we are sitting towards the end of August, so we’ve got really 90 days to produce income. December, we want them to work, but we won’t probably produce any income. So what I’m doing is having everyone write a very strong, detailed 90 day plan, and I’m saying to them how much money, more money do you need to earn between now and Christmas? And we’re working through the numbers. We’re identifying their best sources and we’re committed again. We’re committed for the next 90 days to finish this year, strong. We’re also putting emphasis on the fact that because of the 90-day cycle, what we do the next 90 days is setting us up for success this year. But it also is determining how we begin the year next year. So if we always say, well, this is the most important 90 days, this is the most important 90 days of the year. Yeah, and they follow their plan, then it’s going to be a great twenty twenty-one and a great twenty twenty two.
Speaker1: You know, it’s interesting. You and I have experienced this working with brokers, managers and agents that often January February from an income perspective, is the worst two months of the year. And they always say to me, I can’t believe it’s our worst two months. I said, Well, what did you do in September, October, November? And that’s really what you’re identifying that if they really put in the time. September, October, November, December, January, February is going to be fine.
Speaker2: Absolutely. The other thing I wrote down is, you know, we’ve just come out of COVID and we’re having live events again, and we have three really great events that are happening all over the country this next three or four months. Every single person that’s watching this should go to the website and should come to an event. That’s a great way to stay connected, to be accountable and to stay excited about what we’re doing in the real estate industry today.
Speaker1: Well, it’s funny you should say that because I had a couple of days ago an email from an agent saying, Tell your sales team at the company to quit calling me about your events. I wrote back why? And the gal said, Because I attended one of your events a couple of years ago. And I went oh my gosh, that that is the challenge in the industry, you know, you think you go to a two or three day event and you got it figured out. And yet the professional pilot goes back to training twice a year. Doctors are forced into training and of course, they can’t wait to be there because it sharpens their skill and saves the patients. And a Real Estate person gets upset with you and I, if we say, maybe you should attend one of these events. And so I want to say thank you for saying that, because that’s obviously very critical. So Cydney, obviously we, you and I have over the years seen a couple of wonderful real estate agents and coaches put themselves in a position to retire. Ok. And that’s one of the joyful things that you and I have experienced, and we hope that for everybody. I hope you’re not planning on retiring soon.
Speaker2: I am not. You have me for several more years, I promise.
Speaker1: Well, you know, my doctor for Sabrina and I is my age, and I said to him, When are you going to retire? He said, when you do. I said, you better keep working.
Speaker2: That’s a deal. I’ll tell you what. I’ll keep doing this as long as you keep doing it.
Speaker1: Well, we’re going to have fun together, as we always say. I want to thank you for years and years and years of being a great client and of course, a great friend because we’ve done a lot of personal stuff together. You and I and Sabrina and thank you for all your good advice to all these great agents, and I hope that they all do as I say this every week. Watch this interview every day this week and make Mike Ferry TV a benefit to you. S Cydney, Thank you. You’re the best and you know that we appreciate you a lot, so we’ll talk to you and see you very soon. Thank you.
Speaker2: Thank you.
