And good Monday morning, it is March 29, the week of March 29th. Welcome to Mike Ferry TV. OK, the end of the first quarter is upon us and of course, we are experiencing one of the best Real Estate markets probably most of us have ever seen. And of course, my question for each of you is, how are you participating in this market? It’s a difficult and challenging market we have today. We’ll talk about that more in a minute. But first quarter’s done. You had a goal to do X number of transactions for the year 2021. How far along are you? It’s not uncommon. So I want you to listen carefully. It’s not uncommon to be behind in the goal, as you’ve set in the first quarter, because, you know, on January 1st, we clean the board, we wipe the slate, everybody starts at zero. And, you know, yes, you’re possibly carrying some pendings over and some listings from the end of last year. But basically, you’re starting at zero. So it takes 30, 60, 90 days. We’re at the 90 day point to get momentum back in your favor. But if you’re not participating in your day to day activities. Probably way behind. So I wrote down how many listings have you taken, if any, how many buyer controlled sales or listings sold have you had, how many closings? Maybe they came from last year’s activities, but they’re still closing and you’re getting paid.

And how many pendings do you have? So I have a little bit of a different message today. I’ve had a lot of people, because of the length of time that I’ve now spent in this wonderful, exciting, crazy industry called Real Estate – A lot of people keep saying, so where did you come from and I go, “What do you mean where did I come from?” What is your background? Because I’ve been doing this virtually almost all my adult life. So I’ve written some thoughts down that I want to share with you. I was very, very fortunate from a very young age in my early 20s to have met and got to work with three really important mentors and coaches. And really they were involved in the first 60 years of my life until unfortunately, all three of them passed away. The first, of course, was Earl Nightingale that most of you have either read or heard or had exposure to. You know, I think one of the great minds that we ever had in our country, Earl Nightingale, whom I met through one of my of the best sales people I ever met by far, his name was Giles Cavanaugh. He sold me an audio cassette program called Lead the Field. Many of you have listened to it, seen it, heard it.

It’s a powerful program and it is still available today. OK, and in that audio cassette program, what Earl talked to me about was the following: The importance of continually reading, educating myself and then always remembering to use common sense as you operate your day to day life, whether it be personal or in business. And that message of common sense that Earl always talked about to me was one of the most important things. Now, do we always use it? No, because life gets in the way, emotions get in the way, distractions get in the way, people get in the way. But I kept saying to myself that if I keep reading and I keep educating and keep learning and using common sense, I probably am going to be farther ahead in my life than some other people that are challenging me and trying to keep me back. Earl introduced me to a wonderful man named Mike Vance, who really, up until he passed away, I spent a lot of time with Mike and I had introduced Mike to a lot of you because he spoke at a couple of our events and retreats. Mike taught me and I want to read it to you, the value of creativity in business and thinking outside of what is considered normal thinking or what he used to call the one 180 degree theory that Mike would talk to me about, as he said, just watch the direction of the crowd and then go in the opposite direction.

You’ll have very, very little competition. You’ll have very, very few people challenging you and you’ll have a clear path towards the destination you’re trying to achieve. Mike Vance introduced me to a man that had a major impact on my life, Dr. Gunther Klaus international management speaker, consultant. He taught me business principles, business strategies, organizational processes to keep the business growing and producing. I wrote the following: I wrote these three introduced me to a wide variety of people, which they did, including Larry Wilson, who, as many of you know, introduced me to the whole concept and understanding of the four personality styles. But they also pounded into my head the importance of thinking BIG, which, as we know, we’ve talked a lot about growing through reading books, which is to me still vitally important, whether it be an audio book or sitting and reading, reading people. Simply asking questions and learning about how people think, what they do and how they do it, and exposing my mind to things I knew nothing about, which is so much of what life is all about. You know, the things I’ve been most curious about and are many times were outside my comfort zone is what these guys tried to help me understand.

So Mike and Gunther were the two that mentored me on starting my own speaking business. Back in June of 1975 and in the month of June of this year, I’ll have completed my 46th year as a Real Estate trainer and coach. In October of 1988, As some of you are aware, I actually started and I understand it was the first in the industry, a process called Real Estate Coaching. And Ellen Dalton, who I’ve known for probably 35, 40 years, stated one time that Mike Ferry gave birth to an entire industry called Real Estate coaching. So I will tell you, first of all, I’m not here to say you’re coaching because it’s a very individual process. But I wrote down some words. I wrote down the word trainer, which had Real Estate. We get a lot of training. I wrote down the word mentor. The word coach. The word consultant, the word adviser, and then as I often do, I went to my companion, one of my best friends, called Webster’s Dictionary, and I looked at the simplest definition of each of these words because see the truth is, as an industry and I’ve said this time and time again, we’re probably the most overeducated industry with the amounts of information available to us to learn and grow, be more productive.

We’re probably the least educated industry. And that is proven by the turnover among agents, which is the highest we’ve ever seen or I’ve ever seen, the low per person productivity of the majority of the agents in the low average income, which means that simply we are not you and I taking advantage of all the education that is available to us. So first I looked up the word Trainer: Quote – A person who teaches or coaches, individuals or groups, on a specific topic, a trainer. Your company probably has a sales trainer. And boy, hats off to that person or persons. That’s a tough job, as we all know. Second word I wrote down is the word mentor, someone who teaches or gives help and advice often to someone less experienced as a counselor or a guide. And many of us choose to say, I’ve got a mentor. I’ve had many mentors, including the three gentlemen, Earl, Mike and Gunther, and many of the authors of the thousands of great books that I have had a chance to read. Third is the word coach; a private teacher who gives someone lessons in a particular subject, whether it be you playing sports in high school or grade school or playing independent sports, or you’re getting coaching of some type on some part of what you’re trying to do with your life, including selling Real Estate.

Fourth was the word consultant, which I thought was interesting. Quote: A person who gives professional advice or services to a company or individual for a fee of some type. You know, it’s very common that business leaders hire a consultant. I’ve hired hundreds of them over the course of my career running The Mike Ferry Organization because these people bring advice on the subjects the many times I’m unfamiliar with that make a big difference in the company. And then I looked up the word adviser to give an opinion or suggestion to someone about what should be done or in essence, to give advice. So here’s the big question for Monday, today: Why would every real estate agent not use a trainer, mentor, coach, consultant or advisor? And I think as Tony Smith and Sabrina, I know and all of your coaches know and your brokers probably know the best. There’s a multitude of reasons and answers. And I’m sure in each person’s mind those reasons or answers are 100 percent valid. Quote: I don’t have sufficient income to pay for this type of service. Certainly understandable. Quote: I’m not a coachable person. That’s a pretty tough one to really say out loud to yourself, because whether you’re dealing with learning how to cook or drive a car or sell Real Estate, somebody is probably coaching you. I wrote down, my company does not offer this type of service and I don’t know where to find it.

And almost every Real Estate company today offers advice on these types of topics. I wrote down, I’m an independent contractor, so you can’t tell me what to do, which is what we experience the most. I wrote down: I’ve been in business or I have experience in sales and I’m not interested in changing my behavior. A week ago, I sent that thought out to our coaching clients and many of them wrote back, ‘That is my challenge or problem.’ So I’ve been listening to and hearing those types of things since I started the company in 1975. So as we start the quarter of what appears to be once again a record setting production in Real Estate and at the same time … And listen carefully, one of the most difficult and challenging markets we’ve ever faced. What are you doing to move your business forward? Remember the simplicity of selling a home or taking a listing, which are the two primary sources of income for you as a salesperson, have never been more difficult to complete than they are today. Buyers are discouraged because of a lack of inventory and the fact that they are competing with dozens of other offers, that has to be for you as an agent and a buyer, a terribly discouraging situation.

Only a small percentage of the agents understand how to find a listing, a seller, and they make a presentation to be competitive with all those agents who are grossly overpricing the property today. Cut the commissions down to almost nothing and then still watching some of these things sell in spite of the circumstances. Then on top of both of these, everybody is preaching that you should build a team, which, of course, is the most common thing we see in real estate today. We talk about that more later. So you don’t have to work and let other people make you a lot of money. Does anybody really believe that? And I hope you’re not shaking your head, yes. So we coached dozens and dozens and dozens of highly successful teams, and it’s a challenging and very difficult business environment to operate in and to develop our profit in. So do you want to be an agent that does one, three, five transactions in the calendar year 2021? Would you like to be an agent that does multiples, whether it be fifteen, twenty five, fifty plus. The choice is 100% yours. But as I say to people every day when I talk to people, make the right choice. We’re here to help. Talk to you next week. Thanks for today. Let’s finish today strong and make April our best month of the year.