We aired this episode of MFTV back in October, but due to popular demand we are rerunning it… Welcome to Mike Ferry TV. It is the week of October 5th and I want to start by saying “thank you.” We had such a wonderful response to our virtual Superstar Retreat that took place virtually 10 days or so ago. It was a very unique event because doing something of that size virtually is always a challenge, and we were very fortunate with the technology that is being offered today to have a very seamless retreat. So we want to say thank you for all the support.

I don’t know how many people actually were there and previewed it because doing it virtually, we don’t always get the exact count, but I will tell you that according to our producers that produced the retreat, they were saying someplace in the neighborhood of 10,000 to 11,000 people viewed at some point, either Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or all 3 days. So if you were a part of that, thanks to you and a hats off to you, and I hope the information works and is useful to you.

I spent 45 years working on one thought, and that is how do we help an individual, like yourself, become more productive if your goal is to be more productive. And I say that respectfully because a lot of agents in Real Estate really don’t have the desire, which is okay, understandable, acceptable, etc. to do nothing more than a fair amount of business on an annual basis and create a nice level of income for themselves and their families. You know, yes … Mike Ferry’s belief is that we all have the opportunity … we probably have internally the ability … we just many times don’t exercise that ability to become more productive than we are. And that’s okay. Everybody has a choice, everybody has a different plan, everybody has a different goal, everybody has a different lifestyle that we want to attain.

But one of the things that I’ve done for 45 years is I’ve spent a major portion of my time reading, listening to, interviewing, talking to successful people in this industry … and I’m always trying to figure out the difference between the haves and have nots. I’m always trying to figure out, “Okay, so why does this person here do 20 or 50 or 70 or 100 or plus transactions a year, and this person over here … who is equal in personality and work ethic, etc. do 3 … 4 … or 5 transactions a year. And there is no clear answer. I tell Brokers all the time that if you have the ability to sit down with somebody in an interview to come to work for your company and you can magically determine this will be a potential big producer … superstar … if you have that ability, bottle it and I’ll sell it because that really doesn’t exist.

The nice part about Real Estate … it doesn’t matter what your background is … doesn’t matter where you came from … it really doesn’t matter about your education … all that really matters is the desire. It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, tall or short, old or young … and, you know, people tell me all the time … and I got this last week during the retreat … “Mike, you’re so old-fashioned,” and I smiled and said, “Well, part of that is true. I’m old.” Okay? That’s where it ends.

Learning how to sell is very fashionable, and if you were part of the retreat, I spent on that first day about an hour talking about the fact that you had to build a foundation before you built the house. You don’t build the roof before you put the foundation down or put the siding up. If you’re building a jet aircraft, you don’t build the engines and then hang them and then build the fuselage and wings to go around it. There’s certain things in selling Real Estate … and we don’t like to always hear … we don’t like to always see … that are simple facts … and that’s knowing certain things about how to sell.

So when I look at the differences between those that are successful and those that are often not … I look at the fact that first of all … and I’ve talked about this time and time again … and that is the fact that so many people come into our wonderful industry because it is … it’s a wonderful opportunity for people to do something with their lives productivity-wise, service-wise, feeling good about what they do-wise and, of course, money-wise. It’s a wonderful opportunity to succeed, again, at any level you want. But the biggest challenge we face is that this industry, from what I’ve seen for virtually 45 years, does not attract a ton of people, unfortunately, that have a direct sales background.

Now you’ve heard me say in the past … retail sales, over here … a store, a shopping center, a mall, you have a product or service … you have a location, you do marketing … you’re hoping people come in. If they come in, you try to do your magic and get them to buy your product or service, and that’s a wonderful series of events versus, of course, direct sales … where you have to take your product or service out and find somebody to buy it. That’s how you take and get a listing … and that’s how you convert a Buyer to a transaction.

So when you look at this business we’re involved in, Real Estate, the hardest part is getting that foundation down and understanding that you’re going to have to learn to manage your time … you’re going to have to learn to talk to people … you’re going to have to learn to follow up on leads when somebody says “I have an interest.” You’re going to have to learn to prequalify, Buyers and Sellers. You’re going to have to learn how to make a presentation on a listing and make a presentation on the house … and both of those probably today are being done virtually versus being live. You’re going to have to learn how to handle any objections and questions and concerns that come up during the presentation. You’re going to have to learn how to ask for the order, to get a contract signed for a Buyer or Seller. You’re going to have to learn, obviously, how to negotiate between the two parties to make the transaction work. And then, of course, you’re going to have to learn how to handle all the administrative side to the point of closing. And then the hardest part is once you succeed on a given day, you’re going to start over again.

So there’s a lot to learn, but what I want to do for the next several weeks is talk about some of the things that I’ve learned about so many of you that are so good at what you do, and that is the differences between the haves and the have-nots and what they do versus what they don’t do. So I’m going to go through this week, next week and the week after … I don’t know … I have 15 or 18 things that I’ve identified … and let’s see if any of those make sense, A … and B, let’s see if they’re something you could develop and have internally, which I believe you could … and let’s see, letter C, if some of these already apply to you and if we apply more of these thoughts to your business, maybe your production will increase to a level that you want.

So no order of importance on what I’m going to talk about, but on this first segment today, I’ve got one … two … three … four … five great thoughts for your consideration. Hopefully, some of them will apply and make your business and life a little better than it has been. Let’s be very clear … let’s be very honest …. the last 4 or 5 months have been very unique in Real Estate. We know that March and April were very, very difficult months. We were all learning worldwide, both the U.S. and Canada specifically how to deal with this pandemic. It seems that the lights went on the first part of May and May, June, July, August, September for many, many, many Real Estate agents and many, many Brokerages were record setting months. So part of that has to do with the fact the pent-up demand that the pandemic has created. Part of that is the interest rates being offered by all the great lenders around the country. And part of it is the fact that a lot of people in Real Estate, like maybe yourself, said “I’m going back to work,” and that is a very important part.

So the first couple thoughts I want to share. First of all, today, I wrote down the haves … those that are doing it do not suffer from complacency. Complacency is that level of satisfaction that people attain, and that’s important that they attain that level of satisfaction, and they never move beyond it. We have people that are complacent doing 3 or 4 transactions a year. We have people that are complacent doing 140 transactions a year. We have people that are complacent making 50,000 to 60,000 in commissions annually. We have people that are complacent, meaning they made the same amount … 1 to 2 million a year … year after year after year and can’t break out of that particular level they’ve attained. People that are not complacent, they’re moving forward … they’re improving, they’re growing … they’re not letting the circumstances of the market, the conditions of the economy … they’re not letting things get in the way of the path that they’ve created for the production they have. So complacency is a big issue for the have nots.

It’s not that you’re not satisfied because you are. You’re doing your 3 … 5 … 10 … 20 … 35 deals a year and you’re making a good income, but you’ve leveled off. So I guess the question I would ask you is “Have you leveled off in terms of what you’re learning? Have you leveled off in terms of what you’re doing? Have you leveled off in terms of your income and production?” Because when you have leveled off for a given period of time is when complacency sets in.

The second thought I wrote down, which is probably one of the most important … they’ve set long-term goals. The people that accomplish a lot … in any type of business … or any avenue they have in life, whether it be financially or spiritually or physically or mentally, emotionally, with their families … they have long-term goals. What do I want to accomplish 1 year, 3 year, 5 years down the road? But then I wrote down … but as importantly, they set short-term goals, and what I started advocating the 1st of May, when I started doing the webinars that I was doing for all of our clients in North America, and I’m sure some of you might have been part of those … I did 200 30 to 45-minute webinars between April 1st and September 1st … and I talked about the fact … and I’m going to reach down right here … I talked about the fact that this little 3×5 card became a wonderful support to short-term goals, meaning, I said to everybody on the webinars, especially heavily in July and August and 1st of September, if you take a simple 3×5 card and you write your name and you answer four or five questions as to what you’re going to do, how many hours are you going to commit to prospecting per day, how many contacts will you make per day, how many leads do you want to generate per day, how many appointments do you want to go on per day and for the week, how many listings do you want to take over the course of the next month.

So here we are in October. If you answer those questions for the month of October and you carry that card and you keep it in front of you and you tape one to the mirror so when you’re doing your hair or shaving, you’re looking at your goal. If you share one with your spouse. If you take one to the refrigerator, you give one to your assistant, you have one on your computer at the office. If you’re looking at the goals, short-term goals are very important. Top Producers … people that have them … are setting long-term 1, 3 and 5 year goals, but this little 3×5 card can become a very important part of the success you’re going to have, so the short-term goals become very important also. Never, never, never discount the fact that a short-term goal builds your confidence, makes you feel good about yourself and moves you forward.

The third thought … and I guess I’m only going to cover three today and we’ll continue this list today next week … they understand the value of delegation because it improves performance. One of the reasons people stay short, small, a lack of productivity, short of the goals they’re trying to obtain, is they get very wrapped up in their transaction. Now let’s get very clear … I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be involved in your transactions, your listings sold, Buyer sales, but in most parts of North America, you have great affiliates whose only job is to take care of the transaction once the contracts are signed. So what happens, the ability to delegate … delegate is to give away, give up responsibility, give somebody authority, get somebody else involved … let the professionals in that aspect of field take care of that particular transaction.

So often in Real Estate, we get a little bit too concerned, meaning we’re afraid that that person we delegate to might make a mistake. Well … see, I look at the fact that the affiliates are professionals. They’re trained to do their job and to get transactions closed. Now some of you will say, “But I gave it to this particular affiliate, and they made a mistake.” Have you ever made a mistake? I have. I make them all the time. How about you? Made a mistake? Well, your affiliates will make mistakes, but it’s not the inability to do things correctly, it’s the inability to not take care of the mistake once it’s made so you and your affiliates can work to delegate together because when you delegate, it gives you more time to create more transactions that you can then delegate and let them get better at what they do while they’re servicing your transactions.

So the first three thoughts for the day are complacency, long and short-term goals and, of course, delegations as being a big difference between the haves and have-nots. I believe that October, November, December in 2021 are going to be outstanding years for all of us that understand what we’re discussing today and each week in the future. It may be difficult for some, but yet, in the best of times, people have a difficult time … and in the worst of times, great people have great results. So I’m looking forward to seeing great results in October, November, December … and all of 2021. I just watched a short video from one of our competitors saying, “If you think that 2020 was bad, just wait till you see how bad 2021 is.” I don’t advocate that kind of thinking whatsoever. Thanks for being with us today. See you next week.