Become the Ultimate Real Estate Professional: Traits Mike Ferry Teaches

Welcome to Mike Ferry TV. My name is Tony Smith, coach and speaker for the Mike Ferry Organization. Thrilled, as always, to spend time with anyone that would listen to Mike’s thoughts as we move through this time of year. So, the thoughts I want to cover might take a couple of weeks. This might be a two-part series, and this series of thoughts is what does it take to be the ultimate professional in Mike Ferry’s eyes? Okay. And if you if you notice Mike Ferry, he’s built his entire career on the 180-degree rule. Let’s study what the mass of real estate agents do. Let’s go in the opposite direction, because we’re probably going to benefit by doing that. Why? Because the average agent doesn’t produce much and Mike Ferry trained agents do. All right. So here’s a series of traits from Mike. If you want to be the ultimate professional in the career you’ve chosen.

1) A professional agent sets very strong personal and business goals for themselves

The first one Mike asked me to present to you; a professional agent sets very strong personal and business goals for themselves. All right. So how strong are your business and your personal goals for yourself right now? You know, it’s pretty easy to set a production goal for a month or a quarter or even for a year, at times, pretty easy to set an income goal. Sometimes you’re feels like you’re maybe pulling a goal out of a hat, right? But you have to recognize that the stronger the personal goals you have for yourself, the easier it is to stick to and maintain the activities to achieve some business goals. Right now, at this moment. How would you grade yourself on your business goals and then how clear, exciting, and direct are your personal goals that you have for yourself right now? What’s the driving force? Is the driving force of goals strong enough to get you to do what you need to do to sell a lot of homes? What is that one big personal goal that gets you up in the morning and gets you to go into work? Consider it for yourself. Ultimate professional.

2) An ultimate professional agent creates a workable, realistic business plan.

Look at number two. An ultimate professional agent creates a workable, realistic business plan. All right. We are in the later part of the year. Obviously, this is the time in our world where we start doing some business planning. But at the same time, have you been operating from really strong, uh, monthly mini plans for yourself? Have you been operating from strong weekly mini plans for yourself? How strong would you say you are at staying connected to realistic business plans? You know, most of the world in small business does not operate from a business plan. Certainly, most real estate agents don’t operate from a business plan. But how would you grade yourself? Do you have a strong business plan that includes the amount of prospecting you’re going to do and the amount of listing appointments you’re going to go on, and the amount of listings taken and listings sold and buyer sales and income. Do you have some action steps that you need to be working on? Have you? Do you have the big challenges that you’re facing and solutions to those challenges? How would you grade yourself on sticking to this year’s business plan? Professionals in our world would do that.

3) A professional agent follows a daily schedule that focuses on productivity

Look at three. A professional agent follows a daily schedule that focuses on productivity. All right. Productivity. Mike would ask us to create a schedule that is focused on us producing. And there’s really only 3 or 4 activities that earn money and a whole series of activities that service the money we earn. So does your daily schedule. Does it accommodate the right amount of lead generation? Does your daily schedule accommodate the right amount of lead follow up? Does your daily schedule accommodate for the appointments you should be attending to list and sell properties. Does your daily schedule? Is it centered around earning money? We say that 7,075% of your day should be spent earning money, and 2025 30% of your day maximum be spent on all the administrative duties. Are you operating under a working daily schedule that actually satisfies your production? What changes need to be made to your daily schedule? Isn’t this the time of year to really work out any kinks with your daily schedule? You know, think of it like the big dress rehearsal. We’ve got, you know. You know, three really solid months in front of us to produce a lot of income. And then we’re facing the calendar year of 2026 right down the road. All right. Wouldn’t this be the time to iron out any challenges you have with operating from a really strong daily schedule? Professionals would do that.

4) Professional agents have the discipline to role play and practice intensely each day

Look at four, professional agents have the discipline to role play and practice intensely each day. All right. Right. Now, how strong would you say that your role play and practice system is set up? Do you have 4 or 5 strong role play partners? Do you have some really strong accountability to working on the skills of our trade? Are you recording yourself? Are you recording your prospecting? Are you recording your lead follow up? Are you recording your pre-qualifying? Are you listening back? Are you really have the discipline to improve your skills? All right. Most of the real estate industry, for some crazy reason, is not interested in improving their skills. They simply don’t have the discipline to do it every day. If you were to score yourself. Okay. Are you scoring yourself high in your desire and the ability to improve your sales skills? We say it like this. Professionals practice. Amateurs do not. So, what’s your score as a professional agent, are you practicing and role playing like you should be?

5) A professional agent makes very; very specific prospecting and lead follow up commitments

How about five on this? This is five. A professional agent makes very; very specific prospecting and lead follow up commitments. All right. There are 90 workdays left in the year 90 days left in the year. How strong are your prospecting and your lead follow up commitments. You know now would be the time of year that we recommend turning up the heat a little bit. You know, this time of year we would say maybe add 20, 25, even 30% more to your lead generation efforts. If you’re making 20 contacts a day, you probably should increase it to 25 and maybe even 30 contacts. Now is the time of year. If you’re going to add a source of business, maybe it’s time to add those for sale by owners into the mix. Maybe it’s time to add Expireds into the mix. How about calling around your listings and sales? How strong are your lead generation commitments right now? And then lead follow up. Okay. Have you accumulated a whole bunch of leads that aren’t doing anything? Is now the time to work through all those leads and see who’s real and who’s not? Do you have a very specific lead follow up times in your schedule? Are you making some of those evening lead follow up calls? Some of those weekend calls to those leads? Are you doing what the market demands you do with lead follow up? Professionals have strong commitments in those two areas.

6) Professional agents are scripted in all conversations

Look at number six. A professional. This is where it starts to get a little different. Okay. Professional agents according to Mike are scripted in all conversations. Okay. What hangups do you have about really being canned and scripted in all the things you do? Have you ever seen Mike Ferry come to a workshop or a presentation without his notes in his hand? Have you ever seen any of us without our notes in our hand. Okay. Does it bother you to be scripted in all the conversations you have? Are you using our Mike Ferry scripts? Are you using our pre-qualification script? How close are you following our Mike Ferry Listing Presentation. process? Professionals are scripted in everything they do. You know, the professionals that get paid the most money in any and any other industry are usually the best at delivering a canned presentation. Okay. The best news anchors, the best actors, the best musicians, the best athletes. And of course, us as business professionals get paid more by our connectivity to being scripted and everything we do. Let’s flip it over. Where in your job are you not scripted in your conversations? Where are you? Just winging it. Okay. Probably what? 90% of what we do should be canned and scripted. Makes sense.

7) A professional agent is prepared for every sales situation with a buyer or a seller

Look at seven on this list. Professional agent is prepared for every sales situation with a buyer or a seller. All right. This is a big deal today. You know, you have a listing appointment coming up in a couple days. Are you putting in the preparation that you need to? Are you studying the market stats? Are you reviewing those comparable sales that you’re going to present? Are you putting together that strong pre-listing package and getting it in the hand of your client? Are you preparing like you should be for the size of the commission you expect to earn? You know, it’s not uncommon to have, you know, ten, 12, 15, 20, $30,000 commissions. And then we hear agents basically running out on a whim with no preparation at all for a $20,000 commission. Okay. What is the size of your average commission? Are you preparing properly for the appointment you have? If you have a buyer appointment, are you preparing to get that agreement signed? Are you preparing readily for those showings on that buyer? You know, um, we know that a lot of amateur agents don’t prepare. They just wing it. We would like to think that you’re preparing properly for every single opportunity that you go on. Maybe even a little more so today. Okay. So, what I decided to do is break this into two separate parts, because I think there’s 14 or 15 different traits that professionals have. Pay close attention to these, maybe even grade yourself with it. Maybe talk to your broker, manager or coach about your grades in these following traits. If you will fix the professional traits that we believe you should have, it equals more income and more pay for yourself. Thanks for your time.