Mike Ferry: And welcome to Mike Ferry TV, we are excited today to continue this fun series of events we’ve been going on with Mike Ferry TV, talking to some of our great clients and coaches and trainers and speakers, and today we have somebody that all of you know, because he’s been in front of us that are three and four day events and run those events for years and also at all the Production Retreat Superstar Retreat. Mr. Ron Cronin. So, I’ll be the first to applaud.

Ron Cronin: Run by Mike

Mike Ferry: Mike Ferry TV and thanks for being with us today.

Ron Cronin: Thanks. This is an honor. I’ve never been in this side of the camera before. I’ve always been interviewing before, but never over here, so I’m really excited.

Mike Ferry: Oh, that’s good. Thank you. So first of all, Ron, you’ve been with the company in many great capacities for a long time. How long have you been associated with this now?

Ron Cronin: So, you know, I had to think about that, Mike, when you asked me that, but I first started as a client in 2003. Wow. And I became a salesman for your company in two thousand and four. And then then I started coaching end of 2006.

Mike Ferry: Good for you. Yeah. So, you’ve been at this a long time. I kiddingly say when I met you, your hair was all black and now it’s not.

Ron Cronin: Yeah, exactly. No, it was all black. And watching some of those videos like you do yourself, you look back on yourself and it’s just kind of funny and makes you smile.

Mike Ferry: Well, as you know, and this is on a personal, Sabrina has all these pictures in the house of she and I, and I keep looking at the pictures. Who’s the guy with the dark hair? Of course, it’s me.

Ron Cronin: Yeah, thank goodness for hair gel or it would be a different story.

Mike Ferry: So how long have you been coaching full time?

Ron Cronin: Well, Mike, you know, it’s been off and on. I’ve been full time coaching since 2006. I did several years. Then you and I worked on some projects, I was sales manager a couple of times, the president of business development. I was either coaching or working with the company staff. Good. So, it’s been 16 years.

Mike Ferry: You’ve coached a lot of people, a long time. A lot of the clients that watch Mike Ferry TV, quite honestly, are saying, let’s go back to Mike doing a lecture because I’ve really had a lot of fun during this series interviewing all of you folks. What is the biggest frustration that I want everybody to know that I submitted to all these great people list of questions, that is typical. I don’t always ask all the questions that I submit, which puts them on the edge a little bit, which I understand. But what is the biggest frustration that you experience working with agents as a coach?

Ron Cronin: Well, that’s an easy one to answer, Mike. It’s seriously watching them struggle when they don’t have to. You know, watching them struggle in the business, when they could simply follow our system, follow your system and their business would get to where they want it to be. But because of certain things and issues and situations, they don’t. And then we have to watch them struggle through that. And what could take someone a month to align or correct in their business? Well, it could take a year or two before they finally put it in place and then they enjoy the benefits, but it’s hard watching them struggle.

Mike Ferry: Yeah, I would. I’d have to say I had never seen that perspective, meaning I never heard it said to me, the way you just express it, which was great. But I would have to say that probably is. Do you think it’s probably more because they’re independent contractors than anything else that allows that crazy path so many of them take?

Ron Cronin: I think so, and I can say that that has affected me personally before, because if you’re, you know, I would say this if Real Estate was a company, and the broker was the boss and you had to punch a clock and be there. I think everybody would be far more successful than when they’re working on their own under their own devices and their own habits that they struggle with. So, yeah.

Mike Ferry: It’s a tough one. You know, I don’t know how many of our great clients that watch Mike Ferry TV have ever had a real job before, but if I’ve had a real job, you start at a certain time, you take your breaks at a certain time, you go home at a certain time, you have certain responsibilities you have to fulfill. You and I both have had jobs, so we understand that. Yes, it’s tough. I wrote down the question How many agents do you coach at this time?

Ron Cronin: I currently coach 45 great real estate agents in North America.

Mike Ferry: That is. I love the answer. No, I don’t think the people know that Ron has has come to Russia with Sabrina and I and done seminars in Russia for us. He and Michelle and Sean came to Italy and London with us. Which we had a ball together, and he spoke to our Italian coaches and did training for them, which is really fun because they don’t speak any English. Ron has a lot of experience. What are some of the things you see as being the key characteristics or qualities of a person that is succeeding because you coach new people, you coach people that are marginally good and you coach some of the best. What are some of the qualities you see?

Ron Cronin: Yeah, you’re correct, Mike. I have everyone from brand new people to people that have been in, you know, twenty-five years doing high level of service. I’ve been looking at this lately as to what are the common denominators of people really succeeding in the business. What are those factors that they all possess? So, a couple of them I jotted down was they’re passionate about the service that they’re offering. Passionate about their service, you know, Brady Sandall is known for this. He is, you know, all about the service and his customers are sending him repeat business referral business because of it and when the agent is focused on improving their service. Well, Mike, I’ll say this, you answered a question in the car for me years ago. We were in the car and I said, Mike, what’s one thing I can do quickly to improve my or to raise my production? And you quickly said, improve your service. As a way to make more money and do more deals and it’s easy for people to do so. I wrote that down. I think that is a really great thing for agents to focus on versus what’s the latest and greatest and sexiest thing there. How about we just really get our service as impeccable as it can be, and then it’ll our business will flourish because of it.

Mike Ferry: Do you have a second thought you wrote down? Because I’m making notes of what you’re saying, I think that’s great.

Ron Cronin: I put in capital letters, very strong with time management. Very strong with time management. I mean, you and I have both seen. I mean, here, can an agent sell 10 houses a year without a schedule? Yeah, I’d say absolutely. Can you sell 20? Yeah, probably. But how about 30 or 40 or 50 without a schedule, Mike? Never. Right? It just won’t happen. So very passionate with time management. I wrote down, those folks are the ones who ask the most questions.

Mike Ferry: Boy, that’s critical.

Ron Cronin: They ask the most questions of everyone that they can. They’re seem to be very resourceful, looking for ways to get improved. And then one last thought I jotted down something you’ve taught me is they make decisions quickly. Right, the make decisions quickly.

Mike Ferry: And it’s interesting because those decisions are anything from following their schedule to the decision to, I’m going to make my service the top service in the area. To I’m going to I’ve made the decision, I’m going to ask questions instead of talking all the time. It’s so much fun for me because you and I talked to so many people, either in the seminars or doing our coaching and often, I’m saying this to all the people watching this today, with Ron and I, you know we’ll start a coaching call and say, did you accomplish what we set out to do? And sometimes agents talk for 30 minutes straight and never ask a question. We could almost take a nap for 30 minutes, OK? Because it’s the old you talk so much you worry me to death. Yeah, I think that decision to ask questions is a critical one. What’s the most common challenge? You brought up this whole issue that they don’t always follow the system as we started this call. What’s the next biggest challenge you see agents facing today? Because we’re in a changing market today, there’s no question about it.

Ron Cronin: Well, you know, Mike, I would say I wrote this down. I wrote down developing the habits of the next level.

Mike Ferry: I’m writing this down. I hope all of you are writing them down to.

Ron Cronin: Yeah, I can see that if you if you take put production into chunks, you know, like zero to 20 and 20 to 40, and if you kind of block it out that way, you see that there’s different habits of those different levels of people. Yes. Habit, their work habits, their personal habits, they’re what they focus on, what they do. I think we have a hard time when we’re trying to get to that next level, understanding what are the changes or new things that I have to implement now to get there, right? I think that’s a struggle developing those habits, whatever that level may be. Maybe they’re going from 50 to 75. I think that requires a few more time management habits than it took at 50. Right?

Correct me if I’m wrong, when we did the Production Retreat virtually, we had 50 people in the room socially spaced back. I think it was February or March of this year. If I remember correctly, you did an hour or two on that very thing about some of the habits of each of the different levels of production people go through. Yeah, that’s critical. Have you got a second thing that you deal with in terms of challenges?

Ron Cronin: I wrote down adapting. I apologize, Mike. I was speaking over it. I’m sorry.

Mike Ferry: I don’t know. I said there’s probably 50 things you could write down, but shared the second one

Ron Cronin: I wrote down adapting to the market conditions.

Mike Ferry: Oh, that’s big.

Ron Cronin: Adapting. You know, Mike, I can remember it was over a year ago now. I think it was June of 2020 right in there. You started telling everyone to shift your prospecting activities to calling Just Listed Just Sold because this is where we’re going to find business. But I saw it took agents three, six, nine, a year, nine months to a year before they finally adopted that you know where they if they would have just listened before, they could have enjoyed the benefit of that. So I think with different market conditions, or Mike, do you remember, we’ve done seminars before getting your listing sold. You know, it’s a full-blown seminar and we haven’t had to do that in years. Right? So, adapting to do we need to be able to work on those things now or where does our focus need to be? I think adapting to market conditions and then lastly, I wrote down starting and stopping seems to be so common at lower levels.

Mike Ferry: I’m writing that down, starting and stopping. That is that is the first time I’ve heard this on this series of interviews, and I think that is vitally important. You know, somebody said to me a couple of days ago, I feel like it’s a sprint, and I said, No, it’s a marathon. But you run for twenty six miles. I don’t like to drive a car that far, but I understand the concept. But if they start and stop, it takes too long to restart.

Ron Cronin: Yeah, so why do they stop? I’ve noticed that agents that get in our program, they’re involved. They prospect real hard and then they generate leads in business. And then it’s like, well, hold on now I have to handle all of this business and they stop making calls or generating leads anymore, so they experience the start and stop for different things like that.

Mike Ferry: Well, I think that also has to do with the fact that they’re not used to having four or five transactions under contract at one time or having three or four good sellable listings at one time and they get overwhelmed.

Ron Cronin: Absolutely. Or they don’t have the schedule to support it if they’re on their own.

Mike Ferry: I remember Pat McVeigh and I think you met Pat probably several years ago at some of our events, but my first broker or my only broker. Pat used to sell all the time, listen, if you have five transactions in process, maybe you’re going to spend two hours a week working on them and let the mortgage, the escrow, the title, do their job and used to pound that into us because, you know, you get four or five deals going, and all of a sudden you’re trying to take care of everything and your business stops. Yeah.

Ron Cronin: So, I jotted down one more thought if I could share. I jotted down that, it seems that agents are distracted trying to figure out how they’re going to get to their goal or how they’re going to get to their production versus just following The Mike Ferry Sales System. I mean, they’re a part of it why don’t they just follow it as best as they can? They don’t need anything else. We don’t need leads. We don’t need social media. We don’t need any of those things if we follow the system.

Mike Ferry: I don’t know if I spoke to this Ron, but way back in the early nineties at the Superstar Retreat in Palm Desert, which you’ve been there and of course, a lot of yourself. I had lunch one day with a group of agents and one of them said, why don’t you take some time and actually present the system step by step? And I remember I smiled and said, Well, OK, no problem. And then everybody left the room and I’m going. Then I went well. Time management starts there, then it’s prospecting miniature database, and then it’s your lead generation and lead follow-up. And then I went right through and read out about 10 steps, and that was really the origination of calling it a system. Because you’re right, it is, you know, remember, the old Productivity School is Ron? And I would say to an agent, you can start on Tuesday and a Productivity School, and by Friday, you’re going to come out at the end as a professional agent because we’re going to do what to say, see the confidence to do what you’re supposed to do. Yes, most people are looking for an easier way and I have to tell you, Tony Smith said to me a couple of weeks ago, you know, Mike The Mike Ferry Sales System is pretty simple. But it’s just not easy to follow.

Ron Cronin: Right. But if they would follow it there, things would change for them real fast.

Mike Ferry: Yeah, no question about it. It’s a challenge. So, the last question I wrote down is what are one or two pieces of advice you can share? If we had a group of 25, 50 people in the room and I said, Ron, spend a few minutes with them. You know, so everybody can leave our Mike Ferry TV this week with some good ideas.

Ron Cronin: Well, you know, Mike, as you know, in our coaching program right now, we’re working heavily with our agents on having the best end of year possible. I jot down three of maybe 30 things that I could have written, so I wrote down. I think it’s important that they’re very clear how important the fourth quarter is to 2022. They have to really understand how important it is. So that we start off 2022 with active listings, some pending deals so that we have income and production in the first quarter. We can’t start the first quarter from scratch if we don’t have to. So, the fourth quarter will be super important. Right. I jotted down external accountability around your end of year plan. External accountability. How about we tighten the screws for a couple of months, you know, and get real, get everybody looking at what we’re doing and get real public with what we’re doing and show everybody and get some accountability with some Mike Ferry people to hold you accountable to doing those things. So, you have a great end of year. And then a word that I’ve really been thinking about, Mike, since you said it a several months ago, but I jotted down to participate with MFO and MFO agents at a higher level. Yes. I mean, you are going out there. You’ve made plans to travel. You’re going to seminars to meet people on the East Coast and in Texas and California. So, you’re making the effort to get out there and they need to participate. It will really help them to be around like-minded people to see what’s actually possible for them if they can use the system to get motivated, to get focused. I mean, they have to get some role play partners come to some of our events, look at our virtual events. I mean, Mike, I could go on and on. I don’t want to take more time.

Mike Ferry: I think that last word, participate is probably one of the hardest ones. And that goes back to the fact that we’re independent contractors and nobody knows if I’m really participating or not. But you know, the people that are willing to say, this is my plan for January, February, March of 2022, and it’s going to happen because of what I do. September, October, November, December of 2021, and we’re in the middle of that now.

Ron Cronin: I have a question. Yes, Mike, how many times in your career have you seen the lone wolf? You know, the agent who’s isolated, who doesn’t talk to others, who doesn’t go to programs, doesn’t do training. How often do you see the lone wolf succeed at high levels?

Mike Ferry: It’s so rare that it’s almost hard to describe now at the same time. A lot of the people that are really successful have to become a lonely wolf because they don’t have people around them that are doing anything. But generally speaking, if you take that behavior pattern, it doesn’t lead to good things. I mean, this is a business of participation being involved with people. You know, I don’t mean to be social, but to be open, to be talking to questioning people. You know, that’s what our business is. And if we do that every day, you’re going to win the game. I guess it’s twofold. It’s a twofold answer, but it’s pretty rare, especially a new licensee or somebody a couple of years or less. If they’re not participating and getting involved, it makes the business really tough. The good news is we’ve been talking a little longer than we normally do on Mike Ferry TV, but I’m glad we had Ron Cronin with us today for this time. Ron’s got a lot of experience with us. I kiddingly have said to Ron many times, have I break my leg. He used to be on the podium speaking for me all the time and I don’t want to break my leg, but

Ron Cronin: All I need is this That’s all I need right here is.

Mike Ferry: All you need is a script, that’s for sure. But Ron, first of all, thank you for being a great coach. Thanks for being a longtime supporter. Thanks for being a great speaker. Obviously, thanks for being a great son in law. And I say this tongue in cheek because I have 10 or 11 great grandchildren, but we have one favorite little redhead named Sean Russell Cronin, which is your son and my daughter’s son. And thanks for all of that. And with that, I’ll say we’ll talk to all of you folks next week. Have a great week in between. Thanks, Ron.

Ron Cronin: Thanks, Mike. Good luck, everybody. Bye bye.