Welcome back to Mike Ferry TV. My name is Tony Smith, Vice President of The Mike Ferry Organization, and we are in the middle of a two-part series. If you were here with us last week, we went through the first ten points. Today we’re going to go through the second ten points of how to become more productive starting right now. Would you like to be more productive? We think about this all, all the time. Productivity. At the end of the day, you were either productive or you weren’t. And if we can really focus on being productive daily, then we’ve got a fighting chance of really increasing our income and our profit. Right? Think about our motto here at MFO, increasing your productivity and your profitability. We’re talking about the productivity part for today. Right? So you may have to rewind for the four last week for the first ten, here’s the second ten points on becoming more productive.

So number 11 on this list … Have the courage to get really good with For Sale By Owners, Expireds, your database, Just Listed, Just Sold. Do you have the courage to get really good with those? Right? Not so-so, not average, but I mean world-class. Can you become one of the best For Sale By Owner agents in your area? You know, an MFO at live events will often ask, “Hey, raise your hand if you’re the “For Sale By Owner” king or queen in your area.” Do you know how many hands usually go up? Zero. Okay. So do you want to become the “Expired” champion? How about “Expired Listings?” Boy, those things are coming out more and more with the things that are going on to be productive. Can you get really good at the dialogs? The objections with Expireds? How about with your database? I always think about it. We ask that you contact your database four times a year minimum. Every time you start to contact your database, don’t you have a chance to do it better than the last time you called them all? Don’t you have a chance to come up with a stronger approach to getting referrals than the last time? What if every time you went through your database for another round you did a better job? What does that mean for you this time? I put down here, How important is it for you to sell your home in the next 30 days? Are you open for professional advice about the changes in today’s market? Are those strong questions? Are those strong questions that maybe you should consider asking some potential clients? I think so. It’s called getting really good with these sources I put down, Are you clear on all the reasons why someone should list during the holidays? Man, here we are. You know, we’re hardly getting near the holidays, I hope. But the truth is, people start talking about this stuff earlier and earlier. Go to our website. You can pull this stuff out of there.

Number 12 on this list … The more I cut back on advertising, marketing, branding, direct mail and buying leads, the stronger my mindset will become. Now many of our competitors, “Hey, buy more leads, do more advertising, do more marketing”, right? You know, that’s the easy approach that tends to be expensive and doesn’t work as well. How about going out and earning it every single day? You have three choices. Okay, I can buy leads, I can wait for them or I can go out and find them every day. If you think about where you need to cut some expenses, are you buying some leads that aren’t working anymore? Do you have some advertising that you’ve just simply been paying for because you could and maybe you need to cut back on it? Is there some marketing that you’re doing that just quite honestly isn’t working, but it’s just a habit. If you cut back on some of those things and it turns up the heat on your ability to go find business, but oftentimes it’s the right thing to do. Focus on talking to more people, focus on improving what you say to them. Does that sound like Mike Ferry? This is Mike Ferry notes. If you focus on talking to more people and focusing on improving what you say to them, that’s pretty affordable to do by the way. All it does is take time, energy and skill.

Number 13 on this list … Perfect your prospecting and your presenting skills first before you work on your systems. We don’t need complicated systems; we need systems that handle the production we have. So think about this. Are you one of those agents that’s inclined to always be on sophisticated systems, some crazy lead follow-up systems and really sophisticated listing and pending systems? Shouldn’t you perfect your prospecting and your presenting first? What’s the use of having some really high-tech system on the back end, if we’re not generating on the front end and we’re not turning out the business. Do you need to maybe take your eye a little off of all the crazy systems and put a little more emphasis and focus on your prospecting and presenting skills? We think so. Interesting, right?

Fourteen … Create an intense, tight schedule for the next 90 days that leaves no option but to do more business. If you want to become more productive, increase your productivity, it’s almost always centered around our ability to manage our time, isn’t it? Can you create or maybe recreate an intense, tight schedule for the next 90 days from now through the holidays, Christmas, New Year? Create a schedule that leaves no room but to do more business. Are you okay with that? Have you already decided the days you’re going to work between now and the end of the year? If you decided, isn’t it about working productively in that time and it often comes to a tight schedule. The simpler it is, the better. The key to a great schedule is simplicity. All right, let’s track blocks of time, not minutes of time. You know, oftentimes when we say create a tight, really ironclad schedule, people go, well, I’m going to do it by the minute. It’s not what we’re looking for. We’re looking for tight blocks of time that you can work. Usually the minute approach fails. Make sense? I hope so.

Number 15 on this list … We must get a true understanding what the real price should be on every listing we have. Are you starting to understand what the real price needs to be on the listings? Do the Sellers like the real price? Do the other agents know the real price? Probably not. Are you spending the time studying so you know the real price? I wrote down fair market value is determined by Buyers and Sellers, not by Real Estate Agents. You know, the last couple of years, we could all, you know, toot your own horn pretty good about being the masters of price. It’s probably the market, okay? Now more than ever the Buyers and the Sellers are going to be the judge of price. Do you know what it is? It’s interesting. Rate your inventory every month. We have to go back to this. We have agents that inventory is growing and growing and growing. Are you taking the time to rate your inventory every month? You know, condition, location, motivation of the Seller, show ability, right? The pricing. Should we start going back to reading our inventory every single month, taking a look at it? You know, oftentimes our inventory could be divided into thirds. You know, the top-third that we just are sure is going to sell.

It’s priced right, it’s right there. The middle-third, we’re unsure but boy we need to look at what specifically like a little plan for each one of those listings. They’ve got to clean up that front yard, they’ve got to drop the price, maybe they need to offer a bonus to the Selling Agent. Right? Maybe we need to redo the pictures in the MLS. Little mini plans for that second-third. And then the bottom-third. Unfortunately, the bottom-third may not make the cut. We may have to learn to start giving some listings back if they’re not motivated and prepared to do what it takes. We’re talking about increasing productivity here. Let’s look at our inventory every week. Let’s consider rating it every month to make sure where we are. Excellent.

Sixteen on the list … Study both what is selling and what is not selling for at least a couple hours a month. Yes, we need to preview properties. I hope you are. Yes, we need to do the proper research for the listing appointment we have. Of course you will. But are you studying for a couple of hours a month? Really coming to understand what properties are selling and what properties are not selling? You know, it’s good to understand both sides of the coin. Isn’t that what Sellers pay us for? Isn’t that what people expect us to know? We believe that people expect us to know what values are. It’s one of the reasons they want to pay us a commission. We’re supposed to know. We can’t do this much studying and expect to know, right?

Seventeen on this list … Remember, there are three questions every Seller wants answered. Look, we’ve got to go back to this. There’s three questions every Seller wants answered. Number one, What is my home worth and how much will I net? What is my home worth and how much will I net? Number two, How long will it take to sell? How long will it take to sell? And number three, What are you going to do to get the job done? Okay? We have to remind ourselves that that’s what the Sellers need. Now, for the last two or three years, honestly, when you think about these three questions, what’s my homework more than ever? How long will it take to sell? Seconds? What are you going to do to get it done? Put it in the MLS, okay? And that’s all that was required for productivity. Today, we’re going to have to be able to present these three things better, aren’t we? Aren’t we going to have to present what it’s worth better? It’s a little more challenging today. Are we going to have to present how long this is going to take better? It’s taking longer. And are we going to have to present better what we’re going to do to get the job done? Yes. Boy, that will increase your productivity for sure.

Eighteen on this list … We must know what to say before we have a real chance of expecting what we will do. Now this is a little tricky the way that’s worded. If we don’t know what to say, we always fight with what to do. I’ve already given you a whole series of things that we can do in this in this two-part series, right? But we fight with the leading edge of doing more is knowing what to say. You know, we’re not really thrilled to go out there and knock on some more doors if we don’t know what to say when we get there. We’re really not thrilled to go and call leads one more time if we’re not sure what to say. We’re really not comfortable having a listing for five weeks without an offer if we don’t know what to say. So then we end up not doing what we’re supposed to do. Do you see the theme here? Skills. Learning what to say. We haven’t had to dig in this hard for a while. It’s time to dig back in on it for sure.

Nineteen on this list … Set your ego aside. Set your ego aside. If you want to become more productive, set your ego aside. Mike would put it like this … “We have to stop buying into our own press releases.” You know, for the last two or three or four years, “I sold another one, I sold another one, I’m the smartest. I’m the smartest. Look at me. Look at me. My money. Most money ever.” Well, when a market gets a little more normal, it has a way of affecting and correcting our ego at times, doesn’t it? “I have five listings and they haven’t sold. Oh no!” But the reality is respect your clients, both present and past. The best way to respect your clients is to contact them all the time. Respect your Broker, respect your affiliates, respect your vendors, respect your team. Let’s get our ego out of the way. The market did support us really well for a long, long time. Thank you, “market.” But it wasn’t all because of how great we are. And you can appreciate this, right? So where is your ego gotten in the way a little bit? Where are you buying into your own press releases? Let’s go back to work. Let’s get humble again and let’s do those things.

And then 20 on this list of increasing productivity … Develop and use the strongest plan system for learning. We know that when you are improving on yourself, the self-doubt you have reduces. Now I’m biased. I’m biased. But I believe the strongest plan system for learning is The Mike Ferry Sales System. Mike Ferry has spent 47 years of his life aggressively figuring out every imaginable way for you to increase your production and your profitability. Why not simply stick to the sales system that works? I believe this is a little braggadocious. We have the answers for you today and we’re happy to share them if you’re willing to take them. Thank you so much for your time for tuning in to another edition of Mike Ferry TV. Thank you.