Welcome to Mike Ferry TV. We are here on the week of April 11th and I want to suggest something to you. My name is Tony Smith, Vice President of The Mike Ferry Organization. And Mike had asked me to write one of our emails to our Coaching Clients a couple of weeks ago, and I think I struck a little bit of a nerve with it because we had a lot of responses that came back.

So, I want to suggest this to you. Real Estate Agents find themselves typically in one of four categories when it comes to generating business. So just follow through with me on this.

Four Types [Categories] of Real Agents

The first category is (1) an agent becomes really good at day-to-day prospecting. They call Expireds and FSBOs, Just Listed/Just Sold. And they have a pretty good solid grasp on that daily grind, except they tend to avoid calling their database at all costs. That’s the first category.

The second category of agents are (2) agents that resist the day-to-day prospect. They won’t call FSBOs or Expireds or Just Listed/Just Sold or any of the other sources, but they almost exclusively work with their database. They’ll talk to their Past Clients, they’ll go to lunches, they’ll socialize with them. And pretty much every single thing they do is centered around their Past Clients and Center of Influence.

The third category is the tough one. Unfortunately, most of the agents in North America today fall into the third category. (3) And that category is they won’t do the daily grind. They don’t prospect day-to-day. They won’t call FSBOs, Expired, Just Listed/Just Sold, they won’t do any of that. And they avoid their database at all costs. They virtually don’t do either, which means they’re not generating much at all.

The reason I say that most of the world falls into that category is because the average deals per person in the US this year is probably going to be around four or five. So, the average agent’s going to do four or five transactions, which means they probably don’t work a database and they probably aren’t very good at day-to-day prospecting.

And then there’s the fourth category, which is the category we here at Mike Ferry would love to have every single person get involved with at some point. They figure out how to prospect every day. (4) They’ll make those contacts, they’ll put a headset on or they’ll go door knocking and they’ll do that day-to-day prospecting and they get really good at working their Past Clients and Center of Influence effectively. So, I’m going to ask you straight up on Mike Ferry TV today, which category honestly, which category are you in?

All right. Now, I hope you’re in Category four. Most people are not. But if you’re in one of the other three categories, it’s okay as long as you’re willing to change a little bit here in the second quarter.

If you’re a great day to day prospector, but avoid your database at all costs, should you really focus and get committed to working your database? If all you do is work your database but you don’t do any day-to-day prospecting, if you want to take more listings, shouldn’t you get more committed to the day-to-day prospecting?

And then if you’re not very good at either one, you’re going to have to start working on both, aren’t you? But I want to spend a couple of minutes today talking about Past Clients and Center of Influence, because here at The Mike Ferry Organization, we have a strong belief that 40% of your lifetime earnings, 40% of your earnings each year, up to 40%, should come from your Past Clients and Center of Influence.

So, a major portion of your income in selling Real Estate should come from great Past Clients and Center of Influence referrals and them doing business themselves. It’s been proven in our system, right? We recommend that you put this database together and we recommend that you have this group of people together in a place where you can work it.

And then we say, okay, your database should be divided really into two groups. It should be your “A” group, which are the best of the best, maybe 10% or 15% of the total. Let’s say you’ve got 500 people in a database. Now, just me saying that, does that cause you some pain? Well, I only have 100. Our goal is to get you to have 500 people in your database with the next 18 months and eventually get to 1000 people in your database.

But what you should have is maybe 10% or 15% of that group should become what we call your “A” clients. You know your best of your best. So those are the people that are connected to you are already referring your business really that understand you as a Real Estate Agent. And there’s a little bit more of a relationship there.

We expect you to set your database up in that way. I’ve got 500 people in my database and I’ve got 75 over here that are my “A” group, my best and my best and the rest are in my “B” group. Well, what we recommend is that every quarter you do a couple of things. We recommend that you consistently mail out a simple postcard once a quarter. Did you mail a postcard out to your entire database in the first quarter of this year? When is the last time you sent a postcard out to your database? The consistency of sending a simple postcard to your database every quarter will consistently bring in a certain number of deals. If you’re inconsistent, it won’t.

Secondly, we recommend that you call personally talk to every person in your database at least four times a year. Did you speak to every single person in your Past Clients and Center of Influence database so far this year? You should have talked to everybody once and we should start working on the second go-around right now because we’re in the second quarter. How many people in your database have you not spoken to in four months, six months, eight months, ever? Okay.

I’m going to suggest that you really zero in and start talking to these people because they’re going to refer you such a large amount of the income that you’re going to get in your career. So now I’ve got my database, I’ve got it put together, I’ve got it separated into “A’s” and “B’s”. I’ve got a small group of “A’s”, and the rest of them are “B’s”. I’m going to call everybody in my “B” category once a quarter. I’m going to send a postcard to the entire group once a quarter. I would get those two things set up for the second quarter of 2022.

And then I’ve got the “A” group which the “A” group you might talk to six or eight, maybe even 12 times a year. These are people that you’re in constant communication with. Right? Our idea here is for you to become the center of their world when it comes to being a resource. Right?

They should see you as a resource. If something breaks in their house, they have one of the cabinets falls off the hinges. Right? Well, let’s call Tony. He knows a good cabinet person. Right? If there’s something wrong with the sprinkler system in their yard, I bet Tony has a good gardener that could take care of this.

We’re supposed to become the resource. Shouldn’t they call you if they want to know what’s going on in the market? Should they call you if there’s something they need fixed in their house? Should they call you if they want any information at all with Real Estate in general? Should they call you if they have family that lives across country that needs a good Real Estate Agent? I’ll bet you have a referral network.

Right? So, can you create a stronger environment where they see you as a resource? I made a note. What are you going to do to expand your database in the second quarter? Do you have a plan to expand it? You know, in Mike Ferry, if you go to MikeFerry.com, we have a little simple thing called a memory jogger. And all it is is a whole list of acupuncturists, accountant, architect, and it’s this whole list of these references. So that’s designed to jog your memory. Oh, bookkeeper. My bookkeeper, I don’t have my bookkeeper in my database. And all that’s designed to do is have you expand your database so it grows.

What are you going to do to grow your database in the second quarter? It’s a fair question to ask, isn’t it? I made this note. Can you get this group of people to see you as a resource? Can you expand it a little bit this year? Can you get it organized if it’s not? Can you start getting 40% of your money to come from it? Right? What’s important about this? The important part is you can either go out and try to find one deal at a time every time, one deal at a time for the rest of your career or you can set up an environment where you’re getting lots and lots of transactions coming to you because of your operation of a database.

I made a note. If you are going to call these people, which you should speak to every one of them, your job is to bring high levels of energy and enthusiasm to every call. Basically, pretend as if you’re re-auditioning for the job every time you’re going to talk to him. I’m reapplying for the job of becoming their Real Estate Agent. I’ve got to bring high energy. I’ve got to bring high value. I’ve got to bring high content. Right?

That approach to talking to these people will earn you the right to getting the referrals. Have you asked everybody in your database who else they know in the neighborhood that would like to sell their home? Have you asked everybody in your database who else at their place of work they could refer you that might want to sell? As you ask everybody in your database, what are their long-term plans or short-term plans for their Real Estate needs? Right? Have you asked everybody in their database if they would use you as a resource for vendors that you have?

There’s all this communication that needs to happen with this great group of people. One thing I know, yes, you can figure out how to go out and find a listing from an Expired or FSBO or Just Listed or a postcard that you send out to the world. Yes, but I also know it’s easier to get business from people that know you, that trust you and respect you already. The question becomes, are you going to actively work this database going forward?

Some of you, you’re listening to this message, you’re going, “Tony, I do that already”. Some of you need to pay close attention to this thought. You know you’re going to get what you’re looking for if you’re looking to grow a database to 1000 or 1500 people and get 100, 150 transactions a year from it, if you’re truly looking for that, that’s what you’ll get.

If you’re not looking to do anything with your database, you’re just going to get what you get from it. So, a little piece of advice from me as somebody in my early years, I used to grind. I used to hammer away on the phones in my first few years of selling, I would get business there. I used to avoid my database at all costs, and then Mike Ferry taught me to work both effectively.

So now I know how to go out and prospect and get business day-to-day. But then the real magic is when you work your database, you get that incoming business consistently, put those two together, you take more listings and hit your goals. I hope this helps. Just a little reminder for you. Get back involved with your Past Clients and Center of Influence database. It is your gold mine. Have some fun with these thoughts. We’ll talk to you soon.