Welcome to Mike Ferry TV. It is the week of April the 7th. What happened to the first quarter? It disappeared in about five days. Well, life is moving fast. Life is moving quick. And when I mentioned to you last week that this fellow from Orlando, Tracy Stine, wrote this great article on skills that will pay you forever. And when I read that particular article, I said, I’ve got to share this with all of our great friends through Mike Ferry TV. So, I gave you six of the skills last week. Let me give you a number seven in terms of the skills that will pay you forever.

7) Having the ability to walk away

Having the ability to walk away. Not every transaction, every listing, every sale, every buyer is going to work. And rather than go through the frustration of getting them to sign a contract, knowing that they’re going to fall apart, they’re going to back away, they’re not going to qualify. Makes no sense. Or even worse, you’re sitting on a Listing Presentation and they’re angry, they’re hostile, they’re upset. You know, they’re yelling and screaming. They’re you know, they’re convinced that real estate people are a bunch of crooks. This is where you smile, stand up, shake their hand, and you walk away. I probably, well, I’ve done over 7,000 presentations in my 50 year career to real estate people, and I’ll bet I’ve turned down over a thousand where they’ve offered me the opportunity. But there was something not feeling good or right about the conversation. So, I said, thanks for your time. Call Floyd Wickman, call Danny Kennedy. They’re great speakers. Call somebody that you feel more comfortable with than myself. I’ve never felt uncomfortable walking away from the tension and emotion and drama that often takes place when you’re negotiating a contract.

8) The ability to manage your time

But number eight on his list the ability to manage your time. You know, if you look at the Mike Ferry Sales System. Number one is the ability to manage your time to set a schedule that leads to productive activities, which leads to productive results. And probably the biggest challenge we face is the fact that we, as I have mentioned, are independent contractors. And as independent contractors, you know, we think that we can just about do what we want. And the truth is, it’s pretty close to true that you can just about do anything you want, whether it be productive or nonproductive. Having a tight schedule. So, somebody said to me one day, all right, I’ve written out the schedule for the week, but I’ve discovered after Tuesday I’m only going to complete about half of it. How do you feel about that? It’s better than no schedule is better than not knowing what you’re doing is better than having blank days when there’s nothing on your schedule to be attained.

9) The ability to stay positive and optimistic

Number nine on this list of. I think there’s 24 ideas that Tracy gave us, and we’ll cover all of those during our time together. Number nine, the ability to stay positive and optimistic. The ability to stay positive and optimistic. What is the advantage of being an optimistic? What is the advantage of being negative and the truth? There isn’t any. That’s why, for myself, I quit reading newspapers when I was about 21 years old. I don’t recall in the last 30, 40 years ever looking forward to 11:00 at night on the West Coast watching the news. Why would you want to watch the news before you go to bed to get a good night’s rest? All it’s going to cause is you to tumble and turn in your bed, because you’re going to wake up worried about what they have been saying to you on the news. So, the ability to stay positive, keep putting positive thoughts into your head. Keep reading books that inspire you, keep looking at positive podcasts, etc..

10) THE ABILITY TO MAKE DECISIONS BASED ON FACTS AND NOT EMOTIONS

Number ten the ability to make decisions based on facts and not emotions. That should be in capital letters. It should be printed on a three by five card. It should be issued to the majority of all real estate people, probably most salespeople in general, the ability to make decisions based on facts. All right. So, a friend of mine said to me one day, listen, I like to go into a listing presentation with the best facts and figures that I can find. I said, well, can you always find the facts you want? He said, no, I just kind of make them up a little bit. He said, I’m sure they’re pretty close. I said, I don’t think that’s a good idea because first of all, you’re not telling the truth. Second, if they question you, you have no support to back it up.

You know, one guy said to me, one day before I go in, I always ask a seller, how many people are you talking to in real estate? How many presentations do you have scheduled and who do you have them scheduled with? And then I will go online because you can do this so effectively and find out exactly how many transactions each of those people has done. I said, well, what if one of the people has done a lot more than you? He said, well, I don’t bring it up. Well, then you’re not disclosing the facts. But, Mike, I don’t want to get into these kind of conversations. So I just say what my presentation states for me to say. Make your decisions based on facts. Make your decisions based on a lack of emotion, and you’ll get a much better response from your buyers and sellers.

11) The ability to speak in front of a large audience

Number 11 on the list the ability to speak in front of a large audience. When I started speaking full time, I always had a podium like this, and I stood behind the podium 100% of the time because you would not be able to see my knees shaking so badly. I think at times that they would hit each other and you could actually hear that. But as I became more comfortable and I moved away from the podium, which, by the way, when you’re in the studio, you have to stand behind the podium because the, the person handling the cameras can’t move around fast enough in limited space.

So you’ve seen me speak or probably have seen me speak. And if you haven’t, we invite you to our retreat in July. But the ability to speak in front of a large audience, we had a fellow on our staff that really wanted to be a speaker badly, and he was handsome, well dressed to his well-spoken. And so we worked on him becoming a speaker. And I said, well, you know, we have a big presentation coming up in about a month. Why don’t you do a little 20 to 30 minute presentation on day two? And we had the stage set up with what is called a runway. So picture this stage is this way. The audience is out there. And then we had a runway out into the audience because we had several thousand people. So I introduced this young man. He walks out, I shake his hand. He shakes my hand. He has a big smile on his face. He walks into the runway. He looks up and sees 8000 eyes staring at him and smiling. He froze. I mean, he virtually couldn’t speak and I was standing back watching this take place, and I realized he had never presented in front of a large audience. So learn how to speak at a sales meeting. Learn how to present your ideas in front of the broker and the salespeople. The idea is you’re learning the ideas. You’re practicing the ideas you’re trying to use to become a better salesperson. And then at number 12 on that list, the ability to keep trying even after you may have failed.

Nobody wins all the time. People strike out playing professional baseball. They all the passes aren’t completed by a college football quarterback. I mean, this is called normal, but real estate people think they’re supposed to win all the time. And I tell people that you’re going to fail, but it’s not the failure that you’re learning from, it’s how quickly you respond and get back up from the failure that you’ve had. Somebody said one time, it doesn’t matter how many times you’re knocked down, as long as you get up, because as long as you’re getting up, you can stay in the presentation. And if sometimes you’re going to make the best presentation of your life to a buyer or a seller, and they’re going to buy and sell from somebody else. It’s called real life. Nar says that you are going to get a contract signed on a listing 2 to 3 times out of ten. If you follow the advice that Mike Ferry and his coaches teach, you’re going to get a contract signed. Seven times out of ten, you’re not making any more presentations, but you’re getting paid 4 to 5 more times than you would if you were not fully prepared and you weren’t letting failure knock you down. So enjoy this particular segment. We’re going to cover more over the next couple of weeks until we get all 24 covered. I think next week Tony Smith will be with you, and I’m looking forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks. Thanks for today.