7 Useful Real Estate Rules For 2023

*Original aired on 1/23/23*

Welcome and good morning to Mike Ferry TV. It is the week of the 23rd of January. We’re almost at the point of one month down 11 to go. And of course, my question is how have you done this first month? It is not uncommon at all for agents to delay the start to a new year, especially as we celebrated the holidays, especially as we celebrated what you have done this past year. The problem is when you start a new year, you started zero, even though you’re carrying, in many cases, one or two listings and a couple of escrows are pendings. I’ve had a lot of requests for different types of messages, and I saw something last week.

In fact, it was sent to me by one of our Coaching Clients, and it was called, “7 Good Rules For Living Life In 2023.” And we all understand as Real Estate professionals that we’re balancing at all times our personal life and our business life in this business, as we both know, can be very time-consuming. You know, you get a couple of good leads and you’re following up and you’re preparing. And whether it be showing property or trying to list property, there’s a lot of time, energy spent on that. And that sometimes takes the balance of life a little out of whack. So this particular thought that I want to share with you today. I thought was pretty good for helping us balance out our life and keep a sense of humor about us as we proceed through the year. And probably most importantly, just keep us on track.

But I also want to say, “Congratulations” and “Thank you” to the large group of you that attended our Production Retreat in Las Vegas last week. It was a huge success for the clients and prospects in the audience. A huge success for my company because we had a great audience, got very involved. You got to watch a lot of live role-plays, which I think was really impressive. And for all those people that were involved in the role-plays, we have a big hats off and a big say “Thank you” for what you have done.

Rule 1: Let it go

So 7 Rules for 2023. Rule number one, let it go, whatever it is. And then this author says, “Never ruin a good or great day by thinking about a bad yesterday.” Because in life, in Real estate, there’s going to be some really good days. There’s going to be some days that aren’t so good. It’s called “normal.” But he says, “We have to get up each day and let what happened yesterday go.” And we think about that. That’s really good advice for keeping a sense of humor, a sense of balance and most importantly, keeping ourselves engaged in working and Real Estate.

Rule 2: Ignore them

But number two, he says, “Ignore them.” And when I saw number two, “I thought, I wonder what he’s going to say after, Ignore them.” “Don’t listen to other people. Live a life that’s empowering to you.” The nice part about Real Estate is everybody has an opinion. There’s hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of smart people that are doing training and coaching. There’s a lot of ideas. It’s one of the few industries as you’ve probably caught on where in a working for IBM or for Microsoft or for American Airlines, there’s a pretty narrow and direct path you have to follow to succeed. In Real Estate, that path is miles wide. Everything from being an expert on social media to being an expert on calling on For Sale By Owners. Everything from getting a lot of referrals to becoming a strong listing agent. Ignore all the words that are out there. Live a life that empowers you to achieve the goals you’ve set. I thought it was an interesting thought.

Rule 3: Give whatever it is you’re doing a little more time

Number three, he says, “Give whatever it is you’re doing a little more time because everything takes more time than what we anticipate or expect.” And it’s so interesting to me is we’re in a business where we get a license or we change companies or we go to a seminar and get excited and we expect instant results. And I’ve always taught in Real Estate what we refer to as a 90-day cycle. From the time you generate a lead to in most cases, getting a contract signed. There’s a series of events and cycles you go through and it normally takes 60, 75, 90 days. So the anticipation when you’re generating leads one, two, three leads a week are that they probably are not going to be under contract 60, 70, 95 days, or in essence, give it a little more time.

Rule 4: Don’t Compare

Number four, he said, “Don’t compare.” And of course, I’ve stated this for years to all of our clients. Don’t compare. He said, “The only person you should try to beat is the person you were yesterday.” That’s a very common theme. Most of the great motivational speakers and thinkers share that thought on a regular basis. The person you want to compare yourself is to the person in the mirror. You did your job yesterday. Now let’s see if we can duplicate that and do it two or three or five days in a row. Comparing yourself to somebody else is almost always going to lead to lesser results and a lesser feeling of satisfaction.

Rule 5: Stay Calm

Number five is a difficult one at times. Stay calm. Stay calm. He said, “It’s okay not to have everything figured out. Know that in time you’ll figure most things out. Stay calm in the process.” Last week, when we were talking about doing 50 transactions a year, I mentioned the fact that the hardest part of Real Estate is keeping the emotion and drama out of your transactions. Because Real Estate is an emotional business. Think about a buyer buying a home. It can be very emotional. This is the home of our dreams. Or think about a seller selling a home that they’ve lived in for many years or their family was raised, their children went to school, they played with the neighbors and now they’re leaving that. That’s an emotional decision. So therefore, we have to be, and this came from Joan Pate many years ago, great agent from Salt Lake City. “We have to be the calming force in every transaction.”

Rule 6: “It’s on you”

Number six, when I first read it, I didn’t clearly understand it. I gave it a few more thoughts and I started to understand what he was saying. “It’s on you.” Only you are in charge of your production, your income, how you feel about the day, the happiness that you experience or don’t experience. We’re in charge. It’s on you. Now we’re very lucky. A lot of us, to have some very inspirational people around us that we admire, look up to and listen to. And in many cases, your broker, your manager is a very inspiring person. You might be involved in some type of a coaching program with ourselves or somebody else, and that can be very inspiring. But it really comes down to you and I doing what has to be done each day to make that happen.

Rule 7: Smile

And the number seven was just one word, “Smile.” And I wrote, “Comma … Maybe a little bit more than you have in the past.” He said, “Life is short. Enjoy it while you have it.” Because the truth is, even though I saw an article a couple of weeks ago that the average age of a person in the US and I’m sure they Canadians are probably the same or very close, is now up to like 77.6 years. Well, if you’re 25 in Real Estate today, 77, which happens to be my age because I’m turning 78 soon. 77 seems like years and years away. It goes by pretty fast. So the more you smile, the more you enjoy the experience. “Well, Mike, sometimes these transactions get a little uncomfortable. How do you smile?” Well, you smile about the fact that you’re a professional. You’re good enough to solve the problem. Get the whole transaction put together, get closed, have a happy seller, a happy buyer, somebody that’s going to give you referrals in the future and you get paid a paycheck. And that should bring a smile to your face.

So hopefully these seven rules for 2023 will make this year a little better. I probably would suggest you watch this particular MFTV a couple of times this week, write down the seven rules, put them on a 3×5 card. Carry it in your pocket, your purse, your wallet, your briefcase. Keep reading them to keep living them to have what you want out of the business. Talk to you next week. Thanks for today.