Tony Smith: Hello, there, welcome to Mike Ferry TV. My name is Tony Smith, Vice President of the Mike Ferry organization, and I’m excited to spend a few minutes with you today on Mike Ferry TV. Ok, interesting topic. Today we’re going to talk about the characteristics of a professional agent from Mike Ferry. One thing we’re sure about whenever we are around Mike Ferry, he gets very clear about his perspective on things. And at one point he had put together this list of what he believed were the characteristics of a professional real estate agent. Would you like to be a professional real estate agent? Hey, it’s pretty easy, most people have it on their card professional agent, right? I know we all wanted to join a professional career. So, when we look at this, let’s see today from Mike Ferry perspective, do you have the characteristics of a professional agent? It would be interesting to see. The first one that might put down a professional agent sets very specific business and personal goals. A professional agent sets very specific business and personal goals. Right now, here we are in the very end of November, working on the first week of December, right? Do you have very specific business and personal goals for yourself right now at this moment? Have you decided for the upcoming calendar year, a set of business and specific goals for yourself? Do you struggle at all creating very specific goals? You know, many people do. We’ve heard it time and again. People don’t have a problem achieving goals.

Tony Smith: They oftentimes have a problem setting them. So that’s one characteristic. How would you grade yourself? The second characteristic, a professional agent creates a realistic, workable business plan. Realistic, workable business plan. Well, at this time of year, if you’re in the Mike Ferry system, I’m going to make a big assumption right now. I’m going to assume that you have created your 2022 business plan and I’m going to assume that you have it in your hands of your coach. If you’re not in coaching, you have it in the hands of your broker or manager. I’m hoping you have this business plan created and in front of the people that need to have it. You know, I made a note. Our plan includes what did you do in the last 12 months and where are you going in the next 12? Does your plan specifically cover, what did you do this year? And does it specifically cover? Where are you headed next year? Professionals have a workable plan. Number three, a professional allows a daily schedule that focuses on productivity to be part of how they run their time. It allows, right, that a daily schedule focusing on productivity controls their time. Do you have a daily schedule that is focused on productivity? And are you allowing it to control your time? Or is it the other way around? Are the distractions controlling your time? Are you letting other people control your time? The schedule is supposed to control your time. Right? Professionals understand that they’re in charge of controlling their time.

Tony Smith: They design the schedule. Did you design a schedule for yourself for the upcoming year? You were in charge of designing the schedule. Now are you letting that schedule control your time? Right. Very common. I’m looking at my daily schedule, it says prospecting, but I’m not going to prospect right now I’m going to do something else. I’m looking at my daily schedule that says take a lunch break from 12 to one, but I’m going to take a break from lunch from 11:00 to 3:00. Ok, that is not the schedule controlling your time. That’s you controlling the schedule. Where do you stand in that regard? Number four a professional agent has the discipline to role play each day. How many times have you heard Mike Ferry say professionals practice amateurs don’t. Hundreds of times, right? Professionals have the discipline to role play each and every day. What is your current role play schedule? Do you have a schedule that’s locked in for the upcoming year? Are you practicing in role playing? Do you have different role play partners five days a week? What is your current role play schedule? If professionals practice, you should have role play be a very solid part of every single day you work. Where do you stand in that regard of professionalism? Next, which is number five a professional agent, makes specific prospecting and lead follow-up commitments. How specific are your prospecting and your lead follow-up commitments? Well, I know they show up in the schedule. If you open your phone and you open the schedule on your phone, does it say prospecting at a specific time?

Tony Smith: Does it say lead follow-up at a specific time? Professionals make commitments for those two activities every day. How strong would you grade your commitment to those two activities daily so far this year? Do you need to step it up a notch? Professionals do. Number six, a professional agent is scripted for all conversations, scripted for all conversations. Let me flip it over. What part of your business conversations are not scripted right now? What part of your business conversations are not scripted, are you not scripted when it comes to Lead follow-up.? Are you not scripted when you’re on a Listing Presentation.? Are you not scripted with the objection handlers you receive? Professionals understand that you are scripted for all the conversations you have. I’m scripted right here. It’s in writing. It’s one hundred percent scripted. Do you think Mike Ferry would allow me to come into the studio with no script and just wing it for Mike Ferry TV? We’re scripted. It’s what we do. It’s how we improve what we sell to you. Which is you OK? The next one I wrote down number seven. A professional agent is prepared for every sale situation with a buyer and a seller. Prepared for every sale situation with a buyer and a seller. Ok, we have a Mike Ferry five step listing process. Boy, does that prepare you for a seller? You’ve prequalified, you’ve sent a package you’ve called back and confirmed, right, that prepares you for every situation.

Tony Smith: And then with a buyer, we have all the pre-qualification scripts. We ask you to create a formal presentation with the buyer. If you’re in a formal presentation mode, aren’t you prepared? We ask you to take control when you walk in the house. These are all being prepared for the selling situation. Do you get caught off guard very often? I hope not. Ok. Number eight on the list, a professional agent operates from controlled emotions. That’s a big one. Ok, I made this little note when our emotions are out of control, we cannot accomplish the production level we want, period. When our emotions run high and low, hot and cold, up and down, it is nearly impossible to reach the levels of production you want. Ok. Where do you stand in that meter of controlled emotions? Professionals figure out how to do it. You know, you look at professional actors and actresses, professional athletes, right? Most of the time, professional athletes keep their emotions under control. Once in a while, you see them fly off the handle. But really, for us in our industry, is there really any reason that we should get too crazy with our emotions? Probably shouldn’t. Right? Number nine on the list, a professional agent asked questions and is curious. A professional agent asked questions and is curious. All you have to do is look into all the scripts and dialogs that we ask you to use in The Mike Ferry Sales System. They’re all questions and then we challenge you to be curious.

Tony Smith: What are you learning about? How many books are you reading? What are you studying? Are you studying the market stats? How curious are you about the trade that you’ve chosen, which is selling real estate? Professionals are very curious, have you ever met a more curious guy than Mike Ferry? Oh my gosh. If you get around Mike Ferry, he’s just going to ask you questions. I think that’s a very required characteristic of professional people. Look at 10. A professional agent is very intent when they listen and they look people in the eye. They’re very intent when they listen and they look people in the eye. How would you grade yourself on your listening skills? It’s pretty hard to listen when you’re talking all the time. It’s why we ask you to ask a question and listen. If you ask a lot of questions, you have to listen to the answers. All right. So, you have to really check this, you know, have you ever been graded on your eye contact? You know, some people really struggle making good, solid business eye contact with who they’re speaking with. Professionals are willing to check this out for themselves. Right. So, are you a good listener? Do you take good notes when somebody is talking? When you ask the prequel, are you writing down all the answers? Are you intently listening to hear what they’re trying to say? If you do that, you’ll become a stronger professional. How about next number 11? A professional agent never allows rejection to affect their results.

Tony Smith: Boy, we know this, we’ve heard it a million times, right? Never take a no when a yes is still possible. Don’t allow rejection to control your results. Are we going to get rejected? We’re going to get rejected all the time in this industry. You know, I put it like this. No, I don’t want to sell my home does not mean they don’t like you. Right. Rejection, oftentimes if somebody simply saying, no, I don’t want to sell or I don’t want to buy right now. Are we going to let that stop us? Does that mean they don’t like us? Of course not. They don’t want to sell their home, OK? The faster you get through all the people that don’t want to sell, the quicker you get to the one that’s a yes. Is rejection stopping you in any way? Where is rejection stopping you? If you want to increase your ability to be a professional agent? Rejection cannot stop you. And then the last one I wrote down number 12, a professional agent doesn’t allow negativity into their day. They don’t allow negativity into their day, into their thinking, and when it happens, they replace it. So professional agents, this is Mike Ferry perspective, OK, if you want to be a professional agent, you don’t allow negativity to consume your day. You don’t allow negativity into your thinking. And when it does, you quickly replace it. We have plenty of things to replace it with, right? I put this note, have you ever heard Mike Ferry say that when you’re thinking, you’re either positively thinking or negatively thinking, there’s no neutral? There’s no neutral, so your thoughts are either positive or negative, there’s no neutral, right? And whenever you recognize that some negative thoughts are in your head, you have to work really hard to replace it.

Tony Smith: Do you have good affirmations? Do you have a good business plan, right? Are you putting in massive amounts of positivity every single day? If you’re pumping positivity in, it sure pushes the negativity out. Right? So, this is an interesting little list of characteristics. I wonder how if you looked at each of these 12 characteristics for yourself, a professional agent has. How many of these do you have? How many of these characteristics do you need to work on a little bit? You know, the good news is any one of these can be improved if you recognize your missing one of these characteristics. All you do is commit to it. There’s a chance that maybe some of this information might show up as your business plan for next year as something you want to fix. If you fix it, you’re going to move to a higher level. Thanks for a few minutes with this, Mike Ferry TV is such an important part of what we do. I thank you for listening in, especially this time of year. Pay attention, right? Stay focused. Stay committed. Keep working when your competition is not and you will be rewarded for that effort as we go into next year. Thanks again for your time today.