Welcome to Mike Ferry TV the week of March 24th. If you were with us last week, my lovely wife Sabrina had a series of questions that she asked me and it was based upon this little cassette program. Now, a cassette is something that the younger people don’t know what it is. It was a recording device that we would keep track of things and have messages produced. And this particular cassette program was called 253 Questions and Answers. And I said to Sabrina. I have no idea where the questions came from, but there’s 253 questions and answers. And she has selected last week and this week, 2 or 3 questions that we thought might be of interest to all of you in helping you enjoy finishing the first quarter of 2025 and starting the second quarter of 2025 in a few days. So, my wife Sabrina.

So yes, we actually talked about some of these questions. And I’m asking you questions that are in this cassette program. And for anyone who signs up for our Superstar Retreat, which will take place in July, you get this for free in the month of March. So, the next question that I have taken from this is very simply, what is the most costliest mistake that people need to avoid in their prospecting?

The time between calls?

You should probably say that one again, the most costly mistake that prospecting.

It’s like driving by a for sale by owner. It’s you know, I’m going to meet Mrs. Smith at her home at 2:00 to talk about an evaluation of the property. And in the process, I see two For Sale By Owner signs. I slow down so they can’t catch me if they come out the door, but I keep on going. See, it’s the time between contacts is the biggest mistake. You know, we were talking about somebody a week or so ago, and I apologize, I can’t remember who I was talking to, but their sales team makes 8 or 9 contacts per day. Wow. Per day. And I said, what language are they doing it in? I said, that doesn’t even make sense. And I said, how long does that take? And the fellow said, about three hours. I said, three hours. I said, what are they doing? Are they using a rotary phone? You know. I mean, it doesn’t even make sense. So, I’ve always said, if you are going to prospect and you continually do it quickly, you get into a rhythm that will keep you prospecting because you’re not looking for the no. You’re looking for the yes. The no’s are the stepping stones to the yes. So, if you’re getting told no and then you hesitate and you’re looking through your book and you’re trying to find a phone number, and you’re trying to find the right number that makes sense to your head. You’re never going to make it. You’re going to make 4 or 5 contacts a day. And based upon the work that we do and the knowledge we have, you’ve got to make 20, 30 contacts a day to keep your business growing on a regular basis. And that is coming from some of the best, most productive agents.

This part’s always a little bit embarrassing, because I’ve shared before that when I met you, I was a real estate agent, and for me, prospecting didn’t come easy. And I remember Mike coached me for 90 days and then got rid of me. And that’s always, I guess it was a little bit more of a handful on some of these things. But you used to say to me all the time, quit stopping. And it would be I’d make a couple of calls, and somebody would say something to me, and I was upset, and I took it personally, so I would hang up and not continue on.

And then a couple of days you would make a couple calls, and you’d get a good response, and then you’d have the luxury of celebrating.

Yes, but those were more fun. Yes.

But they also slow down the process dramatically.

Yeah. I kind of remember that, too. I think it was the dance of joy does not need to be part of your prospecting routine, but it is so hard to develop that rhythm. And yet I can see now, like when I finally started to understand that the no’s are just the steppingstones. As you said, you can’t get to a yes without a no. So why are you so upset about that? And it takes time to understand that, internalize that.

But if you want to achieve your goal bad enough, you’ll make the calls repetitively.

Yeah.

Because if you can get it over with quicker, you can get under another part of your day, your lead, follow up, your pre qualifying, putting together your pre-listing package, etc..

On one of our old cassette programs, you used to do this little thing about how badly do you want something and what price will you pay to get it? And I certainly see that now as being one of the most costly mistakes that agents make when they start prospecting is that they start and stop. So that that really is a challenge. So, you just stay focused on your goal.

Yes, but just commit to making the number of contacts that you and your coach have devised as being the right number of contacts. And, I mean, I prospected all day, almost every day because if I didn’t have appointments, I had nothing to do. And it just didn’t make sense to me that you would sit in the office. Now, we didn’t have computers in 1970 when I was in real estate, you know, the technology didn’t exist. Technology was a pencil that was sharp with a big eraser on the end. That was your technology. So, you know, I always felt that if I didn’t have an appointment and I didn’t have somebody I was trying to list, I should be finding somebody that day to do it. So, I prospected all day. It was just very common. I would start at 8:30am and stop at 4:00pm, and you’d take a couple breaks and then somebody would say, oh gosh, it was so hard. I made five contacts today. Five, I made five, every 15 minutes, you know. So, it’s just a matter of a mindset more than anything else. But the people that were making the fewest contacts, by the way, made the least amount of money.

I think that’s still the case.

That has not changed in 50 years.

That’s amazing. Because, you know, in listening to you talking about this, I remember that one of the pieces of advice you gave me, because let’s see, you probably coached me going on 30 years ago. Now. It’s been a long time. And I remember complaining to Mike. Nobody’s home. Nobody answers the phone. Sound familiar? Everybody. And I don’t know if you’ll remember this, but here’s what you actually said to me. You said, well, just call the people who are home then. And I was like, but they’re not answering. And your whole point was your mindset is in the wrong place. You’re expecting people not to answer. That’s right. And it was such a simple switch that you just sort of go, all right, just keep dialing, keep looking for the people who are home.

Well, you know, people ask me all the time, if you went back on real estate today, would you knock on doors? Would you? What would you do to prospect? Well, in 1970, with the rotary phones, dialing a number was a hassle. In fact, what’s kind of fun? Several years ago, at the retreat, we set up a mock 1970s office at the retreat, and there was a rotary phone on it and it was so much fun. I would walk by that little part of the retreat during the breaks, and there’d be people looking at the phone wondering what it was, and they knew it was a phone, but they couldn’t figure out how to use it. So, you know, my belief was it was easier to knock on the door because I always wore a suit and tie. Even in the summertime, you know, you’d knock on the door, you’d take a couple of steps back and you give them a chance to look out the peephole, to see that there is somebody at the door that they would answer and talk to. They won’t answer their phone good. Then knock on the door. If they wouldn’t answer the knock on, answer the door, call them on the phone. But if you’re not talking to people, you’re not in real estate.

Well, that was the other big thing that you always used to say. There are two kinds of people. Those you know. Those you don’t know go talk to the bigger group, which is those you don’t know.

That’s right.

And that was just one of your very basic things was always talk to people. So, this is off script a little bit. But with all the technology, how do you feel about technology replacing all these conversations with people?

Well, I mean, I got an email a couple days ago that a guy, one of our coaching clients said that, you know, I can now make the call, have the conversation, record the conversation, forward it to you. If it’s a positive response. And I’m thinking, this guy is so analytical that he would probably try this. And I would say to him, if he was sitting here, I will challenge you that I will beat you like a bad stepchild if we’re going to compete to try to get a listing and a sale, because human contact is always going to be required when it comes to listing and selling homes. And human contact starts with prospecting, lead, follow up, pre-qualifying, etc. so, you know, technology is great for storage for getting information back quickly to you. You know, it has a hundred advantages, maybe a thousand advantages, but nothing beats a good conversation better than a good conversation.

Still, that human contact.

Human contact.

Totally. So, another question from this program was will my definition of a lead change?

Well, I’ve had this conversation recently with one of the people that I’m working with, and we were talking about the fact that your definition of a lead is in direct proportion to the number of transactions you want to do. The more transactions you want to do, the more defined the lead becomes. If you’re trying to do 4 or 5 deals a year. A lead definition can be this big. You can hold on to it for three, six, nine months and work it, work it, work it. Which to me makes no sense. But if you want to do 50 deals a year, your lead definition is this big because you have to expedite and move a lot faster through the names. Watch. Either they’re going to buy or they’re not going to buy. Either they’re going to sell or they’re not going to sell. Our job is to find out quickly which category they fall into. Now, again, if you want to do 5 to 10 deals a year, you can define a lead as somebody that wants to do something in the next 3 to 6 months. If you want to do 40 deals a year, you’re going to define a lead as somebody that wants to do somebody in the next 3 to 6 weeks. If you want to do 100 deals a year, you’re going to look for people that want to do something today. And I say that tongue in cheek, but there are people that are listing and selling homes, meaning sellers and buyers every day. Our job is to interrupt that flow with somebody else and put us in that position.

So, it will always change based on your business and what you want to accomplish. 100% sure. And that’s kind of the goal then, right? Yup. So, as the numbers, as your goal gets higher, your definition of a lead should be tighter.

It shrinks.

It shrinks. Okay. Perfect. So, what is the percentage of the appointments that I go on should result in a signed contract if I was an active agent.

Right now, we are a listing-oriented training company versus a buyer oriented training company. So, there’s two very different answers. So, I can’t speak to buyers because I don’t know the numbers that an agent would play with. But the average is probably about two contracts signed for every ten presentations industry wide. Wow. Our average at The Mike Ferry Organization is seven out of ten contracts signed and with our clients that we have coached and work with this on a regular basis. Excuse me. So, I would say that you need to track your appointments for 30, 60, 90 days. Track the number of contracts you get signed. If you’re working on listings and then say to yourself, all right, I’m averaging 40%, four out of ten. I would like to get to seven out of ten. What changes do I have to make? And I will tell you, in most cases it’s the lack of pre-qualifying. They don’t ask all the questions. It’s the lack of strong follow up lead follow up to set the appointment. And then it’s not having a good script on the appointment, which includes handling their questions and objections. But if you do those three things, if you pre-qualify, do good lead follow up and have a strong presentation, your numbers are going to work higher and higher in your favor. Well, Mike, some people will not be happy if you’re coming on too strong and some are not happy if you’re too weak. So, if you’re going to be accused of something, I’d rather you be accused of being too strong, because that’s the demonstration of the service you’re going to offer the seller. Because I’ve said to sellers more than once, you know, you may not like my approach, but this is the approach I use to get the most homes sold. And if you don’t care for me, I’m okay with that. It’s the service that I offer and the approach that I take that causes the home to sell.

You know, it was interesting. A few weeks ago, we had a live prospecting clinic here at the office, and I spoke with one of the attendees during the lunch hour, and her challenge was lead follow-up. She said, an appointment or she has somebody who is interested, but almost was afraid to follow up because it was like, oh, it’s too good to get two wins in a row. Meaning I got somebody who was interested. Now I don’t want to follow up with them in case they say no to me. Why do we do this to ourselves?

Listen, I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m not a psychologist. I’m a speaker or a trainer and a coach. If I knew the answer to that question, we wouldn’t be sitting here. We’d be sitting on 150-foot boat in the Bahamas. But you know that it’s just it’s the background you have, the experience you have and your ability to understand. You have to change your attitude and behavior to change the results.

So just get over it and do it.

Yeah. Just watch call them back. Because if they say no, you can toss it or you can work it more later. But if they say yes and you can’t even find the yes because you won’t pick up the phone and call the lead.

Yeah.

I’ve had people in seminars where they’ll say, okay, how many leads do you have? I’ll point to a person, I have five, and I know the answer because there are Mike Ferry co-chairperson. Then I’ll point to another person. How many do you have? 92. Yeah, 92 leads. How many deals are you going to do this year? 12. Okay, let’s leave you alone by yourself in a box. Okay. And then close the box.

It’s funny. Years ago, there used to be a book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.

Yes.

And it was just simply that. How much power do you give fear in your life? And you’ve said this a million times. The number one killer of your dreams and your goals is the person in the mirror.

Yeah.

And you just got to get over that. Okay, so we’re talking about listing presentations. How often should someone record it or should they. How do you get better at your listing presentation?

Practice, practice, practice, practice. But understand that a poor script is poor practice. So, you’re drilling into your head the wrong things to say and do. So it’s critiquing your own Listing Presentation. So, you know, we’ve got a couple dozen listing presentations from professional agents online. Download a couple of those and then record your presentation. Just sit down and record it as if you had a seller, and then compare the two and see which one is going to get you to 70 to 80% completion ratio. You got to practice. You got to practice. I mean, you didn’t practicing. You have to practice. I said to somebody, it was about two weeks ago. I said, are you a basketball fan? And he said, I like the Utah Jazz. I said, well, that’s a great team. They haven’t won a lot of NBA championships, but they’re a great team. And I said, how often do you think the team practices? He said, well, probably every day. I said, what do they do in the off season? Well, they have to work out in practice. Oh, so they get paid millions of dollars, and you don’t. And they practice all the time, and you don’t. Have you seen any correlation between the results? No, he didn’t like that. You know he was upset when I said it. I said, well, don’t get mad at me. You’re the one that doesn’t practice because it’s really practicing a good script.

So, do you suggest that our superstar agents continue to practice and record themselves?

Do you think that Michael Jordan continued to practice after he won six NBA championships? Yeah, they never stop. Okay. That’s what they do. Professionals practice. Amateurs don’t.

Period.

Period.

It’s just that simple, man. It’s amazing to me how complicated we can make everything versus taking the approach of just doing what you’re supposed to do.

Well, remember, if we make it complicated so we don’t have to proceed.

That one, you probably should hit the rewind button and just pull that little snippet out and play that over and over and over again for yourself. For myself. So. Well, those were the questions that I had for this episode. Thank you for taking the time to do this again. I’ll remind everybody, get registered for our Superstar Retreat. It is going to be an amazing gathering and celebration. We are inviting alumni, former coaches, everyone to come together and celebrate this milestone, and we’ve got a whole bunch of really great surprises and things lined up for this event because Mike Ferry 50 years, 50 years.

Not bad since I’m only 48 years old.

Pretty good.

What the heck? Thanks for watching. Talk to you next week.

Thanks everybody.

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