Optimize Your Real Estate Business With Mike’s 7 Rules

Hello and welcome to Mike Ferry TV. This week of November 20th, just two weeks ago, Tony Smith was leading the Action Workshop and I had the privilege of being there to watch him present all the great material Mike has written for that event. Included were Mike’s seven rules with all of you, hopefully. Getting ready for 2024. I thought this would be a perfect time to review those rules with you and help you think of ways to improve your business so that you can achieve all of your goals in the upcoming year.

Mike has always said, “In life, there are always rules we have to follow if we expect to succeed at a high level.” Now, I know that to be true. In my previous career, although it was close to 100 years ago, many of you know that I served in the United States Army for 20 years prior to getting into Real Estate and getting involved in the Mike Ferry Sales System. In the Army, following the rules could literally be a matter of life or death. Well, in Real Estate it’s really the same thing. And following Mike’s seven rules is really a matter of your financial life or death.

Rule 1) find qualified people to buy and sell Real Estate

So what are his rules? Rule number one, find qualified people to buy and sell Real Estate. You can’t have too many prospects. This is what we do. We generate leads so that we can do business today, tomorrow and the next day too. Spend less time celebrating the one lead you just got and more time finding more qualified people to help. When you consider this rule, how would you grade yourself on a scale of 1 to 10? And what should you be doing differently to improve?

Rule 2) Follow up with them daily

Rule number two, follow up with them daily. The more often the better. I mean, am I the only one who lost out on a sale because I did not follow-up like I should have? Can you think of that one lead you lost for not following up? Is it possible, just possible that someone may say, “I would never do business with you? You call too often?” Well, of course it is. But you haven’t lost anything because they weren’t doing business with you before that either. So keep calling. Like rule number one, how would you grade yourself on a scale of 1 to 10?

Rule 3) Prequalify them carefully

Rule number three prequalify them carefully. You can’t know too much about them. Like Mike says, “Ask 100% of the questions 100% of the time. No exceptions.” How many chances do you get to get a new listing? The better you know the prospects and their situations and their motivation, the better your presentation will be and the better your results will be. So prequalify and again. Now grade yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 to see where you are and how you can improve.

Rule 4) Go on presentations daily

Rule number four, go on presentations daily. If you want to be a strong presenter, you need to present as often as you can. How long has it been since you last qualified a listing presentation? And how big are the gaps between your presentations? During the Action Workshop, Tony recommended that you role-play the listing presentation every single day that you don’t have a live presentation to go on. And if you do that, how much will your skills improve? How much better of a presenter will you be? After all, you would be presenting each and every day if you did that. I think it’s a great idea and I hope you all consider it. Now grade yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 and see where you can improve.

Rule 5) Close them

Rule number five, close them, close them, close them. They will sign if you make a great presentation. We need to close them on price. We need to close them on commission. We need to close them on the length of the listing contract. You can do this. How would you grade yourself on closing? On a scale of 1 to 10, and what would you have to do to improve?

Rule 6) Handle the objection

Rule number six, handle the objection. If you do receive an objection, remember, an objection is simply a question that remains unanswered in the minds of the prospect. Are you praying that you won’t receive any objections? Or are you learning how to handle any objections you may receive? Have a strong objection handler maybe two or three for each different objection, and you’ll get the contract signed. Don’t forget to grade yourself on this one too.

Rule 7) Start at zero every day

Rule number seven. This last rule is the hardest. I’m going to ask you to put a star next to it in your notes. It’s the rule of starting over again every day. If you want to build a strong, predictable, duplicatable and profitable business, you must start at zero every day. Pretend you don’t have any listings. You don’t have any buyers, you don’t have any leads, and you don’t have any pending sales. See, most agents are either celebrating too long when they get that one lead or make a sale, or in the alternative, they cry too long or go into depression mode when they don’t have any business. Don’t let that be you.

Follow Mike’s seven rules and you will do more business. I can virtually guarantee it. Look at these rules daily. Yes, daily. If you do that, and you grade yourself and work to improve yourself, how good would your business be? For our United States clients, Happy Thanksgiving this Thursday. For everybody else. Remember, this is the workweek that’s going to be the best workweek of your career. Don’t let anything stop you. Remember what Mike keep saying. There’s a lot of business to be done, so let’s go do it.