Tony Smith: Welcome to another edition of Mike Ferry TV. My name is Tony Smith, Vice President of the Mike Ferry organization, and I’m thrilled, as always, to be with you here on this episode. We’re on the week of April 18th. Time is just flying by. Doesn’t it always, though? Two sets of words that I really want to talk to you about today. First, I want you to look at the words, the accumulation effect. Accumulation effect. What we know in the Real Estate industry. And Mike has been trying to teach us for years the power and the benefit of the accumulation effect. Now, what we need to understand is the accumulation effect can work in both positive and negative ways in our life and business. You know, Mike is so eager to share that early on in his youth, he created a plan system for learning. And that basically blossomed into a space where Mike Ferry reads between 150 and 250 books a year. And he’s been doing that for 55 years. Okay. So can you imagine the positive effect, the accumulation of reading 150 to 250 books per year for 55 years? Right. If you take good vitamins every single day and you do that daily day in and day out for your entire adult life, will the accumulation of that work to your benefit? If you prospect consistently and you do that effectively for a prolonged period of time with the accumulation of that activity benefit you in your business? And then on the negative side, if you eat three McDonald’s hamburgers every day at lunch, will the accumulation of that be negative? If you watch negativity on TV and listen to negativity nonstop in your life, will the accumulation of that affect you in your life, in business? Yes, it will affect you on a negative side.

So what I want you to really consider here is we dig into the year. You know, we’re well past the first quarter. Move it into the second quarter. You have to ask yourself, am I still committed to the goals I’ve set for myself this year? And if I am, where is the accumulation effect working for me in positive and maybe even in negative ways, right? If you can find two or three places in your business that you can start applying the accumulation effect. You know, basically, if you’re going to prospect for a few minutes every once in a while, don’t you spend most of your career rusty at prospecting? So even though you’re putting in some effort towards generating business because you’re rusty all the time, you don’t accumulate good behaviors, good scripts, good dialogs, good closing habits, good skills, and it diminishes the results from the activity. Right. So I want you to think about the words, the accumulation effect and where should you apply or start applying more of the accumulation effect in your business.

Maybe even look at the negative side too. What have you been doing consistently or a lot of on a regular basis that’s not helping the growth of your business? Right. You know, the accumulation effect in my world from practicing scripts and dialogs. I cannot share with you how much benefit comes to me today from the accumulation effect of basically 30 years, spending time working on what to say and how to say it in every selling situation. If you don’t have the accumulation effect of that, can you expect to have great skills today? Right. The second word I want to look at is the word momentum. And you’re either in full momentum or you’re not. And, you know, in our business, we’re either in full momentum. We’re coming out of momentum. Right, or we’re flat. And so you have to ask yourself, where are you in momentum? You know, it’s been proven. And I wrote down, if you want to get in full momentum in your business, if it’s really a goal of yours and you can understand and appreciate the value of full momentum, think about a train sitting still on the railroad tracks. Right? A locomotive sits parked on the railroad tracks. You can place a penny in front of the front wheel of that train on the tracks.

And that train won’t go over that penny. Like, you know, the amount of force is required to move a locomotive over a penny on the railroad tracks. No momentum. But now think about that same train. That train is going 25 miles an hour, full steam with all that force in that power behind it. And there’s a penny sitting on the track. Right. The train basically obliterates the penny doesn’t even feel it. It blows right through it. In your business, it’s no different. If you have full momentum going in your business and there’s a little hiccup, a deal falls apart, a challenge. You can blow right through that because of the momentum that you have and you continue on towards your goals. However, if you have no momentum and you’re flat, it’s like that train being stalled on the tracks. An escrow that falls apart or a deal that goes sideways is devastating. So right out of the gate, I want to have you consider where is the level of momentum you have in your business right now? Where is it? And then I’ve written down six things to do, six steps if you want to create full momentum, if you don’t have it. And these are steps that have been proven over years of how to get momentum in your business. The first one, if you want to get momentum, you must know exactly where you are.

It basically means in order to get full momentum, you have to face the reality of exactly where you are. You know, how many transactions have you closed so far this year? How many pending transactions do you have? How many leads do you have at this moment? How much time are you spending working on your scripts and dialogs? Do you know exactly where you stand? It’s almost impossible to start getting momentum if you’re in denial or if you don’t know the reality of where you stand. Take a look at the money in your bank. That’s the reality. Step two, create a simple, clear game plan and remain committed to it. If you want to create momentum, create a simple, clear cut game plan and stay committed to it. Are you working from a short term plan? Are you working from a mini business plan that is clear, simple, decisive for the month of April? It’s really hard to get in momentum without a plan where that business plan that you created back in October, November, December last year, are you working from a plan at all? Certainly doesn’t help. Momentum. Step three set some very specific, measurable, attainable goals. Are you working towards some very specific, measurable, attainable goals right now? How many listings are you planning on taking in the month of April? What is your goal between now and the end of the second quarter? Do you have some personal goals that you’re really locked on to achieving? If you don’t have a target, if you don’t have an end zone, if you don’t have a goal that you’re striving for, momentum is almost impossible.

Look at step four. Stay away from negativity and work aggressively on self-improvement. If you want to gain momentum, you have to shut off the negative side of your world, all that negativity and work on self-improvement. You know, it’s been stated and we know this for a fact if you’re not in a very aggressive mode of self-improvement. It will cause a dramatic increase in self-doubt if you’re not actively trying to improve your skills or your schedule or your time management or your prospecting sources. If you’re not aggressively trying to self-improve, what happens? Self-doubt slips in. Self-doubt and the fastest thing to kill you from momentum is doubting and fear. So make sure that you’re staying away from negativity and in a really aggressive self-improvement plan. Step five Work both on your ability to focus and to increase your intensity of your activities. If you want to create momentum, you have to zero in and say, okay, I have this activity of role playing and practicing. I want to improve my skills. You need to lock on to am I intently focused on improving the skill today and then am I increasing my intensity? Am I just going through the motions or am I being intense at my desire to improve my skills that will improve momentum? And then the last, the six step, if you want to get full momentum, reward yourself for the hard work you’re doing and set some mini rewards for accomplishments along the way.

Right. You know, when I follow my schedule and I intensely role play and practice and hit my prospecting numbers for this week, we’re going to go out to a first-class dinner on Friday night. All right. Reward yourself if you can repeat this little series of activities. The next thing you know, you’re in full momentum. So take some time this week and look closely at yourself in these two words. How are you doing in the accumulation effect? Is it positive in your favor or working against you? And how strong would you say your momentum is right now? How much momentum is pushing you? And let’s use these steps to get in full momentum. For most of the country this is coming into the peak prime selling season. April, May, June, July, August. Right. The prime time. Wouldn’t it make sense to have the accumulation effect and full momentum in your favor going through the prime selling season? We think so. Have some fun with these thoughts. We’ll talk to you soon.