Hello and welcome to Mike Ferry TV. I’m Ron Cronin … excited to have this time with you. 2020 has already started, as you know. We are in full swing … you should be back from vacation by now.

As you start 2020, let’s remember that the NAR, for years, has reported that 10% of the agents in the country are controlling 90% of the transactions. It’s unbelievable. 10% doing 90% of the deals out there … making most of the money. Well, how can you get into the 10 percentile?

A) By following the Mike Ferry System.
B) By doing what the 10% do.

The 10% … do you think that those are the Buyer Agents in the country? Or are those the Listing Agents in the country? Of course they’re the Listing Agents. So, for you to become a Listing Agent … or for you to make the transition to being primarily a Listing Agent, that is going to help you make more money, sell more homes, have more time for yourself … have a better life for yourself.

So, I wrote down six changes that anybody can make … or six activities, if you will, to become a great Listing Agent … and these activities and these changes I’m going to recommend … they’re virtually cost-free. They don’t cost anything … other than a little bit of your time. But when you write down these six things … when you apply these six things … you will be able to take more listings, be more attractive to Sellers and make a lot more money.

So, let’s write down the first change that I’d like you to make for 2020 is … this year, I would like you to have the scripts, the prospecting scripts, memorized and internalized.

1) Memorize the script.

You and I both know that you probably have the scripts mostly memorized … 90% … 95% … you’re almost there, but the truth is you’ve never tested yourself to see if you actually have it memorized. Remember, once your scripts are actually internalized where you can say them verbatim from memory, you no longer have to focus on what you say … you can now focus on your customers, what they’re saying, the tonality in their voice, their body language, mirroring and matching … you can focus on all of those important things. Step one this year is that you’re going to have those scripts memorized.

2) Develop for yourself a simple listing presentation.

If you want to be a Listing Agent, you have to have a presentation. I mean, which do you think is better … professional listing scripts or coming up with something as you walk up to their door? Develop a simple listing presentation. Again, a lot of you have been using Mike Ferry’s presentation for years … for decades some of you, but do you have it committed to memory? Can you do it with your eyes closed? I hope so. If you haven’t, remember, the listing presentation is on the website … it’s in most of the workbooks from events that you’ve attended … and it’s two parts … it’s the One Minute Presentation and the CMA Presentation. The whole thing takes no more than 15 minutes to perform it … and the best agents in the business use it … so why not you? This year, you’re going to develop a listing presentation and stop winging it.

Write down number three … this would be an important one and very easy to do.

3) Become an expert at the market statistics.

It never fails … every audience I’m in front of, I’ll ask them … raise your hand if you can tell me how many homes sold in your marketplace last month. This is what I get … blank stares. Nobody knows what’s going on … no one keeps themselves updated … I should say very few people keep themselves updated on what’s occurring in the market.

Hey, wouldn’t it be great if every Monday morning you pulled up the statistics in your marketplace so that you knew exactly what happened last week in the area that you work? You knew how many homes sold … how many homes were listed … how many homes closed … what’s the average sales price. What if you knew exactly how many people are reducing their price each week? Or expiring from the MLS each week? See, average days on market and sales price would be important for you to keep tabs on as well.

It’ll probably take you no more than 10 minutes a week to figure out what the data is. A lot of your great Brokers have been providing the statistics and data to you every month, but you may or may not use it. Become an expert at the market statistics.

Remember, you’re asking the Seller for a lot of money. You need to at least appear like you know what’s going on. And then here’s a thought for you … if in your work week, you are discussing with potential customers or just the public … if you’re discussing what’s going on in Real Estate and how the market’s doing and you’re not quoting data … well then, what are you talking about? Your opinions? Your feelings? Ooh. How about quoting data? Knowing the data?

What makes an expert? It’s their level of knowledge in that field and I want you to know what’s going on in the marketplace. So, become an expert at the market statistics.

Please write down number four. Number four would be important … it’s probably the hardest one on here.

4) This year, in 2020, learn to ask questions versus telling and talking.

What’s one of the fundamental rules that you learn at the Mike Ferry Organization? Selling is not telling. Selling is asking questions … and it’s hard. You have to learn some open-ended questions. You’ll notice that all of the scripts that we have are mostly questions, but you got to learn open-ended questions … yes or no questions … A or B types of questions.

You becoming an expert at asking questions is going to dramatically increase the amount of people you can work with … and then obviously the amount of homes you can list and sell and the amount of money you can make.

Remember, most people don’t care about your opinions or your expertise or your feelings necessarily, but they care about themselves and what they’re trying to do. Keep the spotlight focused on your customer … keep it on your customer … and you do that by asking them questions about what they want, where they’re going, when they need to be there, what their concerns are, what’s important to them. It shouldn’t be about what you think, what you’ve done or what you believe. Become a great question asker in 2020.

The next thing I wrote down would be important especially for new people … maybe some of the veterans as well, but this year I would like to know what is your personal value proposition.

5) What’s your value proposition?

I mean, for you to convey your value to a potential customer, you’re going to have to know what your value is yourself. If you can’t see it … how do they see it? So, what do you bring to the table? What separates you from the competition? What’s the reason they should hire you over everybody else?

As a brand-new agent … there may not be a lot … you may not have a lot of experience … you may not have a lot of production under your belt yet. Well that’s okay, but are you honest? Will you work hard? Will you have systems in place to make this easy for my family and myself? Will you tell us what needs to be said? Will you tell us the truth? See, these are all things that could be your value proposition. It’s not necessarily that you have your own helicopter that you’re going to show property in … I don’t mean like that … but I mean what do you bring to the table that others may or may not bring? Know what that is so when you speak about yourself or when people ask you, “Why should I choose you over everybody else?” You’ll have an answer this year.

The last thing I wrote down, which … I don’t know … I’d say probably a handful of you will do it … have ever done it … will ever consider it … but it will cause dramatic increases in your production when you … write down …

6) Video and record yourself often.

For 2020, let’s do it … let’s video yourself every month, every week, every quarter … let’s record yourself on the phone in sales conversations with people … just for the sole purpose of reviewing it and making adjustments.

You make a visual listing presentation. Well that would be something that you’d want to record … and watch … and then make changes based on what you see. You’ll probably want to make some changes. So, when you record your prospecting calls, it’s the same thing. You’ll hear things that you wish you hadn’t said … you’ll hear pauses … stutters … “ums” … and all kinds of communication habits that we all have.

When you study it and watch it … and it doesn’t have to be a lot … but just a little bit … you’ll make changes immediately because you’re not going to like what you see the first time. Video and record yourself. You’re a performer … you’re a professional presenter … and what you do and how it looks is important to the outcome.

So, let’s recap this real quick. This year in 2020, Ron requests that you …

a) Learn the prospecting scripts.
b) You develop a simple listing presentation.

Now those two right there … you can have done by … say the middle of February. It only has to be a week or two, maybe three, that you can get those things down and under your belt … cost-free.

Next two things …

c) Become an expert at the market stats.

Heck you could have that started in like 15 minutes from watching this video.

d) Learn to ask questions versus telling and talking.

Well, there’s some things … some of our training you can attend where you’ll learn that. That’s going to take a little more time because it’s an embedded, ingrained habit that you have … but you can start working on it right now.

e) Know your value proposition.
f) Video tape and record yourself all the time.

2020’s your year. Don’t let anything get in your way … and I look forward to talking to you soon. Thanks for watching.

Mike Ferry is the global leader in real estate coaching and training. Watch Mike each week as he discusses a variety of topics to help real estate agents and brokers. Grow your real estate business by improving your mindset, developing your skills and creating a plan of action to increase your production!