Welcome back to Mike Ferry TV. My name is Tony Smith, Vice President of The Mike Ferry Organization. It is not Mike Ferry today. Lucky you, you get me OK. Mike asked me to fill in today for Mike Ferry TV. I’m excited about a little topic that we have today. The reason I’m excited about it is these are some age old thoughts that still apply today. And over the last couple of years, have there been some interesting curveballs that have been thrown your way in the real estate industry? Of course. Has it bee interesting, to say the least, confusing, complicated, sad. At times. There’s been a lot going on. Right. But in the midst of all of that, in the real estate industry, what we do, there’s some things that have stayed the same. There’s some things that have just proven themselves once again for real estate agents today. And really this has been years ago. But Mike Ferry came up with this little list of the eight reasons that agents fail and the 11 reasons why agents succeed. And the fact of the matter is, is as you hear these points, you’re going to recognize that these things still apply today. They applied 20 years ago, 30 years ago, probably forever ago, and they still apply to us today. So if we can understand the reasons why we might not be doing so well in the industry and if we can get a clear understanding of what it takes to do that, we got a better chance of succeeding, don’t we? So here’s the reality.

The reality is today, just like it was 20 years ago, just like it’ll probably be 20 years from now, there’s eight reasons why agents fail in this industry. And what we know is that the failure rate in the real estate industry is actually growing. More agents are failing today than before in the midst of probably one of the most exciting Real Estate markets you can imagine in most of the world. So it’s interesting, isn’t it? But I wonder if these things are happening more now. And that’s the reason that more agents are failing, so listen to him first, and what I’d like you to do is if you can put your grading hat on, if you can be honest with yourself and you can sit down, give yourself an honest evaluation on these points, you’re going to be well ahead of the game. OK, so eight reasons why agents fail. I want you to listen to see if you’re doing this for yourself. The first one, they wait too much for repeat and referral business. OK, one reason that agents fail is they they spend way too much time waiting for repeat and referral business. How much time do you spend waiting? Do you wait for your past clients to call? Do you wait for the next lead to come through the Internet? Do you wait for somebody to email you that they want to sell their home? How much time do you spend waiting? I’m convinced that many agents are actually waiting more than ever now for repeat and referral business.

Hey, we love it when we get it right. We’re not going to deny that you want repeat and referral business. Of course we all do. But it really does come down to are you spending too much time waiting for it? Number two, they generate business in-consistently. OK, over the last couple of years, how strong would you rate yourself on consistently generating business in some regards? I think some agents have gotten even more inconsistent with their business generation. If you were to grade yourself, how would you grade yourself on your consistency of generating business each and every day? I was taught by Mike many, many years ago that you’re only in business on the days that you generate leads. OK, so how many days so far in the calendar year of 2021 would you have to say that you weren’t in business because you didn’t actually generate leads the opposite of waiting. Number three on this list, they don’t qualify their leads. Boy, more than ever today if you don’t know everything there is to know about a seller lead and you walk into that listing appointment blind and you don’t get the listing and you walk out, somebody else is going to get it more than ever.

Right. So does that mean that we need to know more about the leads that we have? I think we need to know more about the leads we have, we need to ask a lot more questions, OK? I wrote that they don’t qualify their appointments. Right, the fourth reason that agents fail is they don’t qualify their appointments. There’s nothing more miserable than going on a listing appointment and finding out that there was no listing to be had. You know, spend a couple hours of your your day preparing and getting set and getting the comps and getting everything ready, going over at seven o’clock in the evening and meeting the seller, only to find out that there was not a listing to be had. They weren’t going to move. They weren’t motivated. They weren’t prepared to sell. Why? You just don’t want to get kicked like that very often. That causes failure pretty fast, doesn’t it? Next, I wrote down, they don’t improve their skills. Ok, the eight reasons why agents fail. They don’t improve their skills. Be honest with yourself in the calendar year 2021 so far. How much time have you spent and dedicated to seriously improving your skills? I know we have a lot of long term Mike Ferry agents that watch this Mike Ferry TV every single week. For those of you that have been around for us for a while, be honest with yourself.

Has your skills improvement gone up or down or stayed the same? This is why agents fail. Number six, they spend way too much time on their marketing and advertising. How much time are you spending on marketing and advertising today? Boy, this is a license for failure. I understand you’re going to market and I get it that you’re probably going to advertise. I get these things. But the truth is, is if you are spending your entire day working on a social media campaign or a marketing campaign or some kind of advertising, you’re basically stretching out the return. OK, so there’s a mail out that needs to be sent, decide what to mail and send it. OK, there’s a post. I have a social media campaign and I want to make a post, decide the post and post it. How long do those things take? But if at the end of the day, the only thing you did was make two posts in your social media account and you got part of your idea for a mail out around your neighborhood, and that’s all you got done. You’re spending way too much time marketing and advertising, license for failure. I wrote down they don’t track or monitor their activities. Boy, if this isn’t true, I don’t know what is. OK, if you don’t understand tracking your activities, are you keeping track of the contacts you’re making? Are you keeping track of what time you show up to work? Are you keeping track of how many listing appointments you’ve been on versus how many you’ve taken? Are you tracking and monitoring your activities? In this industry we know for a fact that no one else is going to monitor or track for you.

It’s up to you. And so if you don’t track and monitor what you’re doing, how do you know if you’re getting better? Or how do you know if you’re getting worse? Right. You’ve got to track and monitor your activities. How would you grade yourself on that as a real estate agent? Are you tracking and monitoring everything you do? If you do, you’re going to find the places to improve. And then number eight on the list, they have no plan. They have no accountability and no structure. No plan, no accountability, no structure. I like to think that’s one of the things we do best at MFO is we help you create a plan, we help you with accountability, and we help you set up some structure to learning the system of selling real estate. So agents fail because they have no plan. How strong is your business plan right now? Are you still using the one you created at the beginning of the year? Are you sticking to it every week? Are you using short term plans, weekly plans, monthly plans? Are you reading those plans every day? How strong is the accountability for you right now? Do you have some way to be held accountable to the actions? You have to check it. And how strong is the structure of what you’re trying to achieve? Do you have a structured system? The Mike Ferry system is 21 points of a structured system to take your Real Estate business from here to here. Structure. OK, and then there’s 11 reasons why agents succeed.

So, look, we got over the hard part. Let’s talk about the good part now. OK, as much today as it has always been, these 11 reasons are still tried and true today. Do you want to succeed in this business? Listen to these. Grade yourself on these. Number one, they focus on business generation. Are you focusing on generating new business? Are you focused on prospecting and lead follow-up and new sources of business? Are you focusing on it? How would you grade yourself? Two, they prospect earlier in the day. This has just been proven with Mike Ferry agents, agents that are long term disciplined Mike Ferry agents, we’ve figured this out. The agents, that prospect earlier in the day tend to be a lot more consistent. They tend to get the job done a lot more often because the later the day goes on, the more distractions come in, the more problems, the more hiccups, the more things that you have to do.

Right. How early in the day are you getting your prospecting done? You have to ask yourself if you want to succeed, do it earlier in the day. Three, they are tough on pricing. OK, now I understand in today’s world, I understand in today’s world, the lid got pulled off of pricing. OK, maybe not so much today as it has been in the history of Real Estate. OK, but if you want to succeed long term, are you going to have to be tough on pricing? And ask yourself this question, Even with the pricing today and the speed of sales and multiple offers and prices going up, and even with everything we’ve been experiencing today, does it still seem like the sellers aren’t happy with the price? Do they still want more? Don’t they always want more? Aren’t you always going to have to learn how to have some little conversation, overcome some little conflict with the seller about price? Yes. Goes up 20 percent in a year. I want more. It’s just the way sellers are going to be for the rest of our time. So if you want to succeed in the business, you’re going to have to learn how to have that conversation about price, aren’t you? Most agents that don’t succeed spend their whole career. How much do you want? That doesn’t work, does it? Just doesn’t work. Four, they prospect for appointments, not leads. Boy, the most successful Real Estate agents, they get locked on to this idea of appointments, setting appointments.

The only thing I’m supposed to do is set an appointment. The rest of the world today is about accumulating leads. How many lead sources can you get? How many Internet sources and these leads coming in and coming in? How many buyer leads do you have right now? Are you accumulating leads or are you focusing on setting appointments? And I got to tell you, the last couple of years, agents have been buried in buyer leads. Have you focused on setting appointments? OK, it’s reason why agents succeed if you focus on the appointment, not the lead. Next, they track and monitor everything they do is the opposite of not tracking, right. So if you want to succeed, you teach yourself how to track and monitor everything you’re doing. Are you keeping track at your numbers, you keeping track of your successes and your failures, your contacts, your hours of prospecting, your listings taken to listing souled ratio, your listing appointment to listings taken ratio. There are so many things you can track in this business if you really want to. OK, but the agents that succeed are OK tracking, are you? I wrote down next they review their business plans at least every week. Are you sticking to a business plan or are you looking at a plan to take your business from here to here this year? Do you have a one year plan? Are you reading it every week? Where is that business plan right now? Is it on your desk because you just looked at it this morning or is it lost somewhere? OK, you have to really ask yourself a question.

Do I create good plans and do I read them every week? If you are, you’ve got a better chance of succeeding, don’t you? I wrote down they work on scripts every single day. The agents that succeed never get caught in that trap that they know what to say and that there’s no more improvement needed. Don’t get stuck in that trap. Boy, If you really take a close look at your skills, you can find places that need improved always forever and ever and ever. It never goes away. Your ability to prospecting skills, presenting skills, qualifying skills, objection handling skills. There are so many skills out there that need to be improved. How would you grade yourself on working on your scripts every day? I wrote down next. They stay on a schedule at all costs. The agents that succeed somehow, someway figure out how to stick to a daily schedule. Where would you grade yourself today on sticking to a daily schedule? OK, what part of the schedule is not working? Where are you most off track with your schedule? What is the biggest problem you have in your schedule? What are the biggest distractions keeping you from following your schedule? All right, if you want to succeed, you’ve got to figure out how to stay on schedule at some point.

Number nine, they maintain high standards. What are your standards? What standards do you have for prospecting? What standards do you have for Lead follow-up? What standards do you have for managing your time? What standards do you have for the clients you work with? What standards do you have for the commission you charge? What standards do you have for dress code? Right. What are the standards? If you want to succeed at a high level, set some standards because your competition won’t. OK, I wrote down number ten. They don’t get emotionally involved. If you hang around Mike Ferry for any length of time, you’re going to find out. Right. Don’t be attached to the outcome. Be attached to your effort, make sure you’re paying attention. Am I doing the things I’m supposed to do, but do not be attached to the outcome. So many agents that can’t stay out of the emotional side of it, the roller coaster ride up and down, why it is so hard to succeed for a long period of time if it’s constantly some kind of a roller coaster ride emotionally. How would you grade yourself on keeping your emotions between the lines? That’s an important one, and then number eleven on the list, they have a plan with accountability and structure to make their dreams a reality.

So the agents that succeed, they have a plan, they have accountability. They set some structure to make their dreams a reality. So do you have a good, strong, solid plan right now? Do you have some really aggressive accountability set up to hold you to what you need to do? You know, Mike Ferry and our coaching world and our simplest world of coaching our job and coaching is to have you see the things you don’t want to see, have you do the things you don’t want to do. So you can have all the things you want to have. And that is so true of a statement in understanding this. Do you have the accountability set up that’s helping you with the things you don’t want to do? All right. So do you believe after hearing the eight reasons people fail and the eleven reasons people succeed, is that still true today? It’s just as true today as when I started thirty three years ago selling real estate. OK, so the question becomes, what do you need to work on next for yourself? Decide which of these points you need to adjust and fix. If you do that, you’ve got a fighting chance to succeed at a higher and higher and higher level. OK, I hope you enjoyed our time today. Another edition of Mike Ferry TV. Thanks for spending it with me. We look forward to seeing you on future editions of Mike Ferry TV.