And welcome to Mike Ferry TV the week of January 25th, 2021, I don’t know if you attended or participated in last week’s Production Retreat, but we had a huge crowd and we are very thankful to have all of you watching those that did watch. One of the first questions I have been asked almost every day, the month of January is what is 2021 going to be all about? How is there going to be different? Is it going to be different, et cetera? And I started the retreat by saying if we look at 2020, 2020 dot, dot, dot, comma continued because I don’t see a lot of changes outside of the fact that we have those of it that are professional sales people have gotten used to the circumstances of adapted to those circumstances and in most cases are doing very, very well. In 2021 should be that way for all of you that are willing to participate. So have you activated? Have you gotten going? Are you participating? Are you doing your job at the highest level every single day? At the Production Retreat last week, each day I asked the people that were participating and viewing to send me what they thought were their most two or three important thoughts from that day. And for those that you’ve I’ve worked with before, which is most of you, by the way, next week is a very special week.

I found out the next week is our 700th Mike Ferry TV, which is … I’m excited about the opportunity to present to you next week. But we talked a lot about a lot of information. And if you’ve been with me before, I present a lot of things to do, a lot of thoughts to possess, et cetera. And what’s interesting to me the most is the fact that so many people in Real Estate … (We love you to death or we respect you. And we’re glad your clients or prospects simply don’t listen…) A lot of the things that have been sent to me since Retreat – it was apparent that people were watching, which we thank you for listening, which we thank you for. But … not understanding. Not learning. Like one lady sent me a note and she said, I’m so glad that you told us at the retreat to stop doing mindset breaks every day to strengthen our mind. I’m so tired of doing that. Those words have never come out of my mouth because, see, when you’re talking to a prospective buyer or seller, there’s two issues involved. One is asking a lot of questions. Second is intently listening to the answer. But see, so often we listen so we can ask the next question instead of listening to hear what they have to say, which is why the communication between buyers and sellers and agents often breaks down within the first few minutes.

So I said to everybody, what is the three most important points?

And I tracked what we had. I’m going to guess a thousand responses plus to the three most important points. But there’s three of them that multiples of people responded to, which came from day two, which I think would have been Wednesday of last week.

I want to share them with you. OK, I was talking on day two about how to get off to a fast start, how to keep your business moving forward quickly, how to reactivate, how to participate, how to get business that maybe you didn’t think you could get. So here was one of the points I brought up: To keep your business moving forward quickly, we have to understand that rejection and failure… two big words, rejection and failure are part of the process, and you can’t let them stop you, because if you do, then rejection or failure wins and you don’t. Interesting thought, rejection and failure are part of the process. If you’re an active real estate agent, which I know that you are, you’re going to show property to buyers that don’t buy, you’re going to go on Listing Presentations where people don’t list. They’re going to ask you questions you can’t answer. They’re going to give you objections. This is part of the process. We wish that all of us could program our minds to be perfect.

There’s nobody perfect. But then I gave three thoughts after I gave this point. And the first came from my friend Neil Schwartz, who many of you have heard me talk about, Century 21 masters in the Los Angeles area of California. Never accept a “NO” when a yes is still available… Or in essence, a sellers reflex. No is buyers reflex no is normal, is natural. And what do you do? You continue your presentation. You ask a question to reengage them.

Second, succeeding is going from failure to failure with enthusiasm and as so often the case, I’ve seen that quote from Warren Buffett, I didn’t know that he was quoting somebody else. So when I gave the quote last week, I got three emails, obviously analytical, God love you, but you’re wasting a lot of energy and time. “That quote was not from Warren Buffett. It was from Winston Churchill. So there.” It was from somebody, but the quote is succeeding is going from failure to failure with enthusiasm, knowing that if we fail, we can’t stop what we’re doing, we have to keep moving forward. Then the third thought I responded to under this first point about rejection of failure, I wrote when a top agent was asked, how do you become great? He said, learn to fail. Learn to fail, because it is part of the process. The second point that a lot of people responded to; to create a faster start in the month of January and keep it going heavily in February and to keep it going throughout the course of 2021, decide today how you’re going to rate the quality of a lead. Remember, if you can’t get an appointment within seven to 10 days, you should either consider throwing it away, give it to somebody else in the office to work and take a referral fee, or if you have an incubation system in play, put them into the incubation system and then have a strong follow up system to follow that up. You can’t just keep shuffling lead cards or on your computer around your desk. You’re wasting your time. Ron Wexler, I referred to him at the Production Retreat last week. Great agent out of Chicago, had him on the stage one day at a Superstar Retreat. And Ron said, you know, Mike, the most important thing in good lead follow-up is a large trash can next to your desk because you’re going to throw away most of your leads because they’re not really leads.

Now, think about it.

In most cases, if you’re really good, you’re going to convert maybe one out of three or one out of four leads to a quality appointment on a contract. So to create a faster start, rate the quality of your leads; either put a short term limit on what you’re going to do. For example, if you’re using a sheet of paper for Lead follow-up, put the date you acquired the lead and then put a dash and the date you’re willing to either throw it away, give it away or incubate it so you don’t keep looking and processing leads that aren’t going anywhere at that time. We get bogged down in Lead follow-up. because we don’t have a definition for a lead. The third point that I got a lot of response to, is to make sure you’re not wasting your time in keeping our schedule moving forward, because the purpose of a schedule is to keep you actively involved in production seeking activities, to make sure you’re not wasting your time and measuring the depth of the motivation of each prospect you talk to, which is so critical. We discovered the depth of the motivation of the prospect by the amount and quality of questions we’re willing to ask. Before the presentation, it is called Pre-qualifying. It is what professionals do, it is how professionals operate. It is standard operating procedure.

I mean, it is 100 percent normal to have a good quality lead pre-qualified one hundred percent. It’s what the attorney does, is what the doctor does. What the dentist does. That is what the pilot does. It’s what the accountant does. They’re paid to Pre-qualify. Now, why do we not pre-qualify? We’re afraid we may discover the person we have as the lead is not valid or has no motivation, and we actually think we can go out with a buyer or a seller. And because of our magical touch, we’re going to convince somebody that doesn’t want to sell to sell. Find out before… Do the pre-qualifying. So that was the three points that came up the most often. Again, we’re so thankful for all the people that are part of the retreat. We’re working very hard at this exact moment to figure out which states in the United States, and at this time, we can’t do it in Canada because the border is closed, I said is closed going this way I should have ‘is closed this way.’ We’re looking for which states where we can start doing this calendar year some live events with 100, 200, 500 people socially distance wearing masks, following all the protocols, because quite honestly, the industry needs to get back to that. And whether it be myself or one of my competitors, we need to get back to doing live events and getting you engaged and getting you out and moving if you’re not out and moving. The most important message that I gave last week, participate, participate, participate! Get involved in the activities that lead you to productivity and whether you like me or don’t like me, if you’re participating, you’re going to win. Thanks for today. See you next week.