Welcome to Mike Ferry TV: Week of June 24th

We have just a few days before the first half of 2024 is going to be in the books and done. I’ve been talking to our coaching clients and our coaches for the last two weeks about checking carefully where each of our clients, in this case each of you, is in relationship to the goals you set for the year.

Assessing Your Progress: Mid-Year Check-In

Let’s take an example. Let’s say you set a goal for 20 transactions for the year. Here we are almost to June 30th and you’ve completed four. So obviously we would either be making some adjustments to what you’re doing and or adjusting the goal that you have. But it’s interesting because I get asked every day what numbers should I be looking at?

Setting Clear, Specific Goals

Well, first of all, do you have a clear, specific goal for the year? Second, are you looking at that goal often enough to keep yourself engaged, involved, and excited about what you’re trying to accomplish?

Essential Metrics to Monitor

But then the numbers you would look at are, first of all, year-to-date closed transactions, second, year-to-date pending transactions, third, year-to-date number of listings that you have taken, fourth, number of listings that are still active and need to be sold. Then fifth, your buyer-controlled sales. And then if you really want to get into this, which I believe everybody should, then you look at your commitment to hours of prospecting per day.

The Importance of Prospecting

If you are a prospecting-oriented agent, you’ll look at the number of contacts you’ve had per day, and then you look at the number of appointments that you had projected to go on in the first six months, and then how many appointments, buyer or seller, you have actually gone on. And then, of course, the actual number of contracts signed.

Real Estate: A Numbers Game

Real estate is, has been, and always will be—and you’ve heard me say this time and again if you’ve been on Mike Ferry TV in the past—a pure numbers game. The more numbers that you play and play with, the better chance you have. I’ve used the example for years. You can be the worst real estate agent in history. You can have no clue as to what to say to a prospect and to a presentation. And if you do it often enough and you repeat the process, somebody is going to say yes. But if you only talk to a handful of people per month, 5 to 6 or 8 or 10, the odds are very, very narrow that you’ll only do a transaction probably occasionally, in fact, not narrow, almost guaranteed.

Adapting to Changes and Staying Consistent

We have to get into our head that in the second half of this year, if we’re not playing the game called numbers, we’re going to have a hard time, which is why agents do classified advertising. Old fashioned, but still being done, do a lot of branding and marketing, you know, postcard mailouts with no phone follow-up by a lot of leads off the internet, which agents are still doing every day.

Evaluating Lead Quality

I’ve heard some figures, and they’re almost hard to comprehend as to how many leads people like Zillow have sold to real estate people. They’ve actually sold more leads than there are people in North America, and that just tells you that they’re working hard to furnish leads, and we’re buying leads. That sounds like based on our transaction counts nationwide, they’re not very good leads.

Effective Lead Generation Techniques

What is the best way to get a potential lead or a potential appointment face-to-face and or on the phone? Using those two skill sets, knowing what to say is going to give you an enhanced chance. I used this example last week doing a couple of seminars in Los Angeles.

Crafting the Right Conversation

If you say to somebody and they go, hello, and you say, my name is Mike, I’m in real estate, do you want to sell your home? They’re probably going to say no. But if you knock on that same door a week before and you say, man, my name is Mike, I’m in real estate. When do you plan on moving? You’re not going to get told no. And you’ve opened the door to a possible conversation. If we can create conversations, we can create leads. If we create leads, we can create appointments. And as you know, if we create appointments, we can create contacts.

Enhancing Your Prospecting Strategy

Let’s enhance the game we’re playing by giving ourselves a better chance. See, I said to a fellow last week, if you don’t do this type of thinking and this type of behavior in terms of prospecting for leads, if you don’t do it, there’s a seller that doesn’t get a good agent, which is you, and you don’t get a good listing, which is them. Both parties lose because of our lack of direction.

Conclusion: Play the Numbers Game

Real Estate has always been a numbers game. It will always be a numbers game. Let’s make sure that we’re playing the game. Look forward to talking to you next week. Thanks for today.