Welcome and good morning to Mike Ferry TV. It is the week of January 4th, 2021.

And I have to tell you, I’m sure a lot of you feel the same way. I thought that 2020 would never end and I’m glad it’s done and gone. We hope, of course, that all of you had a very, very wonderful holiday season, safe, healthy got to do some things and be with your family and friends and enjoy that experience. And most importantly, we hope that you’re ready for a very positive, strong, Real Estate career in 2021. What I’m going to do today is just go through a couple fundamentals. These are things that I think we have to remind ourselves of probably several times a year just to keep our business growing and moving forward. I’ve been talking about these things now for forty five years. You’ve probably heard me say them time and again. But I think at the same time, it’s often important to remember that we remember what we’ve been taught, so we keep using what we’ve been taught. So the first thing I want to say to you today as we start 2021, is this: Three words that really affect our ability to be productive on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis. The words attitude, the word  approach and the word expectations; attitude per Earl Nightingale is nothing more than a reflection of what’s going on internally, externally, what’s going on, on the inside showing on the outside, you can see a person’s attitude by many times just watching their body language in their face. The best example that Earl used to give all the time is you’re you’re going to an appointment, you’re on the highway. The traffic is kind of tied up and it’s getting behind and you’re watching your clock. And all of a sudden somebody cuts in front of you and you honk your horn. Well, that response is considered to be an attitude.

So what is your attitude towards 2021? What is your attitude towards the business? What is your attitude towards the goals you’ve set? Are you looking forward to having the best year of your career, which you should be looking forward to because every sign says 2021 is going to be a great year for real estate professionals like yourself. The second word is the word approach, and the approach is everything from the smile on your face to the firmness of your fist bump, because that’s what we’re doing today, to the clothes you wear, to the words you use, to the energy and enthusiasm you bring. This is all part of the approach, the professional approach of a true professional real estate salesperson. I’m so amazed. I mean, still today, you know, I go on LinkedIn twice a day, early in the morning, late in the evening to see who’s doing what. And it’s very informational for me. And I see all these Real Estate, quote unquote, Trainer professionals, you know, #1 in their office. And they’re sitting there in a t shirt and a hat on backwards in the three day beard. And I just don’t I just don’t see how that can be considered a professional approach. Now, if only you’re dealing with twenty five year old young men and women that have their hats on backwards and wearing t shirts, that’s one thing.

But that is not necessarily the world of buyers and sellers. So let’s upgrade our approach. And then the third word is the word expectations and expectations are exactly what it sounds and means. It’s The same thing when you approach a prospect. What do you expect? When you are going on a Listing Presentation – What do you expect? When you’re showing property to a buyer, etc. What do you expect when you’re doing lead follow-up? What do you expect? See, I always expect a positive response and you know, it’s not always going to happen. But my attitude is going to keep me doing my job even when I don’t get the expectations that I want. So think about attitude, approach and expectations. But second, I wrote down one of the toughest decisions we make as the New Year begins and this is probably one of the hardest you’ll make all year, is how you’re going to generate the transactions that you want to do business this year. Now, we know that let’s say your goal is to do twenty or twenty five transactions. We know a certain percentage of them will come from your database, your past clients, your Center of Influence. So I’m going to ask you to write down your goal right now. And let’s say your goal is 12 or 15 or 35. Then below that, write down how many of those transactions are going to be coming out of your database, your past clients, Center of Influence, and let’s say that your goal is twenty five transactions and you feel you’re going to get… 10 from your database. Well, I subtract ten from twenty five.

That leaves 15. Well, 15 is a magical number because that’s the number of transactions that you’re responsible for creating that are coming outside your database. Your database of course is the that people enjoy you, like yo, trust you, in some cases think the world of you for whatever reason, past clients, neighbors, friends, family. But now you have to create 15 transactions outside of that database. And the question is, what are you going to do in 2021 to make sure you finish in December with twenty five plus deals of which 15, 16, 17, 18 that come from your database; Your choices: sit in the office and hope somebody calls you, which is waiting. The most common thing in real estate that is being trained and has been trained forever is sit in the office, sit at an open house and wait for somebody to discover you. I mean, it’s like an actor or actress waiting to be discovered. In most cases, you’re not going to be discovered often enough to do enough transactions to make it worthwhile. But this industry trains people to wait.

Why? Because when you’re sitting and waiting, the amount of rejection you get is minimal at best. Well, the industry also is very, very big on the second phase, which is buying business, buying leads off the Internet, which is very common, doing Facebook ads, Google ads, very common. You’re buying people calling you because of what you’re posting on social media. Obviously, overpricing a listing is a method of buying business. Cutting a commission is a method of buying business. OK, obviously advertising in a newspaper, which is not as common today as it has been in the past, but a direct mail campaign, a branding campaign – getting known, so people will call you. And you’re trying to avoid that issue of talking to people outside of those that call you. But the third method, of course, is the Mike Ferry system, which is teaching you how to go out and find business on a regular basis. And I’m very, very clear that if we take in the United States 1.2, 1.4 – Whatever, that number of million of realtors are only about this percentage follow the teachings of Mike Ferry. However, they do this much of the business in the industry today, and it’s very, very profitable for them. Oh, yes, there are some people that buy business to do enormous amounts of business, but it’s very expensive. And if they don’t understand leadership and they don’t understand management and they don’t understand business, they get a lot of recognition for their production, but they’re not making the profits.

We have agents that we see today that are making six, five, eight hundred thousand dollars a year that are only making net pretax profit of one hundred thousand dollars. But they’re #1 in the office or #1 in their community. And the recognition is more important than the lifestyle. So we have to learn how to go out and find business. And that’s that’s the challenge. So I always get asked this question: If I’m going to take the Mike Ferry approach – big IF – and I’m going to prospect, how much prospecting do I have to do? And it’s a common problem. Knowing there’s multiple ways to prospect, go online to Mike Ferry.com, go to the report section, I have a report of every possible way to find a listing and I actually list 60 different methods of prospecting with an explanation next to each one of them. There’s so many ways to prospect summer, some are good, some are different. Some are great, some are poor. But you have to learn to prospect. We’re the only direct sales industry I’ve ever even heard of where prospecting is not required and part of the job function that we have as salespeople. I mean, go to work for IBM and don’t prospect you get fired, you know, go to work for Microsoft…if you don’t prospect, you’re fired.

Be on the sales team for Marriott Hotel and you don’t prospect you’re going to get fired, Real Estate – if you don’t prospect, you’re just one of millions that won’t do it. So at some point you got to commit to it. So how much prospecting should you do? Well, again, let’s take the goal of twenty five and let’s take the fact that ten of them will come from your database, and that means you have to create fifteen transactions this year. So here’s to Mike Ferry formula: If you talk to fifteen people a day, five days a week for the course of the year, you know you’re going to take some time off for vacations and holidays, attending events and so forth. But on your workdays, if you talk to fifteen people a day and after that, five days a week for a year, I can almost guarantee you that you will achieve the goal you set, because it’s almost impossible to fail because the numbers work in your favor. Well, my how much time does it take to talk to fifteen people? Generally speaking, if you’re just taking any of the scripts we offer you to use, you’re going to talk to eight to ten people per hour. So you’re going to invest in a place from an hour and a half to maybe two hours a day to guarantee the fact that you achieve the goal you’ve set.

I wonder if it’s a good investment of time. What is your attitude towards prospecting? What is your approach towards prospecting? What are your expectations towards prospecting? And if you’re going to prospect, are you going to wait by earn the business? And if you’re going to spend some time prospecting, you’ve got to figure out how much business you have to create. In this example, it’s fifteen transactions. So if I prospect about two hours a day and I have reasonably good scripts and I’m calling past clients, Center of Influence, Just Listed, Just Sold, I’m receiving some sign calls, maybe some advertising calls, I’m holding a few open houses and getting a few people to drop in. I’m contacting a couple For Sale By Owner and Expireds when they’re available in the community. You’re going to win the game. 2021 is going to be a great year. We just want it to be a great year for you as well as all of the people we know in real estate today. Mike Ferry Organization is behind you. One hundred percent. We’re here to assist. Here to help. Here to guide and here to coach. Here to train. Call us. We’ll do our job so you can do your job just a little bit better. Happy New Year.