Grow your skill of Discipline in Real Estate

Welcome and good morning to Mike Ferry TV. It is the week of June 5th.

Gosh darn it, the year is coming up on being 50% done. How are you doing on your business, your numbers, your production, and your business plan, and what you’re trying to accomplish? Earlier on Friday, I think it might have been Thursday or Friday of this past week, I had the good fortune of doing a podcast with two long-term great friends and clients Ren Jones from Vulcan7, and Sarah Close, who is a large KW broker in the greater Cincinnati area. And on this podcast, Sarah asked a great question. She said, “Mike, of all the different characteristics of a top-producing agent, what do you think is the most important?” And that was a great question because I had been asked that question a couple of times over the last few weeks because the division between those that are listing and selling a lot of homes and those that are not is becoming wider and wider every month of this last 12 months. So I said to Sarah and Ren, “I think the most important word is the word discipline.” And that discipline applies to all aspects, not only of your personal life and what you’re trying to accomplish but your business life in listing and selling Real Estate. You know, the discipline to get up on time, the discipline to do some exercise, the discipline to get to the office at a certain time based on the schedule that you’ve set, the discipline to follow up on your leads, the discipline to say, “I’m not going to show the property to this buyer until I have prequalified them, and they’ve been pre-qualified by a lender.” The discipline to learn how to make a strong presentation on a listing. See just basic disciplines that when you put those into effect in your Real Estate career, you’re going to have more success.

“You know, the discipline to get up on time, the discipline to do some exercise, the discipline to get to the office at a certain time based on the schedule that you’ve set, the discipline to follow up on your leads”

Well, Sarah then said, “What about the word skills?” And I said, “Well, one of the skills is the skill of discipline.” And the skills in Real Estate revolve around knowing what to say and what to do. The stronger we are in knowing what to say, the more confidence we have and the more respect the person we’re talking to will have for us. Even though at times they may not agree with anything we’re asking them to do, they will respect the fact that you have basic skills and in Real Estate, the skill of knowing what to say and the skill of knowing what to do are the two most fundamental skills that a Real Estate agent has to have. Well, as I was saying this to Sarah and Ren then, then Ren made a great comment. Ren Jones from Vulcan7 said, “Well, Mike, what about the word consistency?” I heard you bring that up in a seminar a few weeks ago and I said, “Well, consistency is vitally important, meaning that we have a routine that leads to an end result that is productive for a buyer, for a seller, and for you as an agent.”

Find consistency in your routine 

So the consistency of the routine that you have and if you really look at the people listing in selling in volume, whether it be 15 or 25 or 50 or 100 transactions a year, they’re very consistent in their routines. So I guess the question I would ask each of you is how consistent are you in the routines you have and do you have the discipline to follow a schedule each day? So the third word I wrote down for today after discipline and consistency was the word schedule.

Because the truth is, everything comes back to what we can get done and accomplished in the course of a day. I said to Ren and Sarah, I said, “One of the common things that I’ll say to Real Estate people is on the left side, we have somebody that wants to sell a home. On the right side. We have somebody that wants to buy a home. Our job is to get in the way of those two people and put that transaction together.” And that takes a schedule because we have to set aside the time to get out there and talk to people every day because people are buying and selling Real Estate in spite of the ups and downs we’ve experienced really since June of last year.

“One of the common things that I’ll say to Real Estate people is on the left side, we have somebody that wants to sell a home. On the right side. We have somebody that wants to buy a home. Our job is to get in the way of those two people and put that transaction together.”

My belief is that all of 2021 and the first half of 2022 were an aberration. They were not normal, they were not common. You know, we did over 6 million transactions in the US in about a 12-month period of time and now we’re back to that 4.5, 4.6, 4.7 million depending on what happens on a given month. So the truth is there is a lot of business to be done. You need to schedule your time where you can be talking to people that could be involved in those transactions because somebody is always buying and somebody is always selling.

Talk to your database frequently

So they asked me then on this podcast, “What is the best method of talking to people?” And really the truth is today, of all the methods we could use to find a buyer or a seller, the best is the use of our database. Really digging in and talking to your database because these are people that know you, that understand what you do for work and probably have a level of trust with you at this time. And most people, if you really talk to them in your database on a regular basis, either are going to think about buying or selling or know somebody that is. And somebody is calling your database names because they don’t know they’re in your database. So the question is, “Are you willing to schedule the time to talk to people?” For example, people in your database?

Take Action Daily

But then I also wrote down a fourth thought on this next to discipline and consistent schedule, I wrote down the ability to take some level of action every day, whether it be simply taking a lead that you have and calling and trying to get an appointment or diving in and calling 5, 10 people in your database and explaining to them what’s going on in the market because everybody wants to know what’s going on in your local market.

“So why buy the leads when you could go out and generate them at no cost to you and take action every day?”

Or maybe it could be just sitting down and saying, I’m going to spend 30 minutes reviewing what I say to a seller on a listing presentation. You got to take action every day. And if we don’t take action every day, well, has brought up a great point, Ren said, “Mike, a lot of people in the marketplace today, which is certainly understandable, are buying leads off the internet.” Very common. And my response to that is, “You still have to call them because they’re now calling you. You have to text them because they’re not texting you. You have to email them because they’re not emailing you.” So at any given point, the leads you’re buying basically are cold calls. So why buy the leads when you could go out and generate them at no cost to you and take action every day?

2023 Super Star Retreat 

So I want to close today’s short Mike Ferry TV. We’re at the 7.5, 8-minute mark, July 18 to 21. If you’re not registered, you should call my office and get registered to attend our Superstar Retreat. I say every year, “This is the best Retreat we’ve ever had in our 35 years of doing Retreats.” This will be the best ever. And there’s never been a time when agents don’t need the skill set, the strength of the mindset that they need today in this crazy market, we’re involved on July 18 to 21 at Caesars Forum. We’re going to use their beautiful Forum Convention Center.

Don’t miss your chance to grow your skills

I’m going to cover three things in depth. Number one, on day one and part of day two, I will give you 100 specific thoughts on increasing your productivity. And they’re going to be preprinted in the workbook. So you’re not going to be spending a lot of time writing. Number two on day two, I’m going to talk about developing customers and maintaining them for a long time or developing customers for life. Because that database should be your private goldmine. And then day three and four, I’m going to present both a 25, a 50, a 75 and 100-year plan step by step of what a person has to do in the marketplace today to take 25 listings a year or 50 or 75 or 100.

So it’s going to be a very intense, very exciting, very skill-driven Superstar Retreat. Our 800 number is (800) 448-0647. So I want to say thank you for participating the first half of the year in Mike Ferry TV. We have a lot of great stuff planned for the second half of the year. We get to see some of you in July at our Superstar Retreat. Consistency, discipline, schedule and taking action are the name of the game. Put these ideas to work. Have a great week. Talk to you next week.