Welcome to Mike Ferry TV. It is the week of April 21st. Last week we had Tony Smith do a little segment for us. Two weeks back we did part one and part two. And today we’re going to do part three. Next week part four of skills that will pay you forever in terms of the business we’re involved in which is selling. And these came from, as I mentioned before, a fellow named Tracy Stein, who is a wonderful author out of Orlando, Florida. And if you’re on LinkedIn, he produces a lot of interesting, fascinating, and very, very good materials for people like us to use. So, we did one through 12 in the first two weeks. And here is number 13 through 18.

13) The ability to invest money in yourself

Number 13, the ability to invest money in yourself. You know, it’s so interesting to me because real estate people have an interesting habit. They’ll invest in a lot of crazy things that they believe. And the question is, do they really believe it? And I think the answer is yes. They will bring them business without being involved in any types of conversations with people. So, they’ll invest in postcards to send out. They’ll invest in some type of a I call a gimmick, which probably in their minds is not a gimmick, but, you know, some type of a gimmick they’ll use to try to acquire a listing or a sale. When the truth is, if you take that money and you’re watching good podcasts and buying and reading good books and attending good sales seminars, that investment in yourself will pay you forever. I am a product 100% of not going to college. Barely made it out of high school. I flunked out of college my freshman year. I think some of you know the story. I tried to take two speech classes because I saw a guy on campus before I registered for classes my freshman year at San Jose State. And this guy was giving a speech, and he had a big crowd of kids around. The campus police came and broke the whole thing up. And I said to the guy, after everybody had left, I said, how did you stand up there without any notes in your hand and talk the way you did? And he put his hand on my shoulder, and I’ll never forget it. He goes, son, if you believe in what you’re saying, you’ll invest in yourself and you’ll always be able to say what you want to say with a lot of strength and conviction. So, I took that as a good sign because I was not a good student, and I wasn’t very confident in going off to college. And of course, as a result, I flunked out my freshman year and I flunked out two speech classes that I took. I did not pass either one. As the old joke goes, I was so bad at speaking, I couldn’t lead a group in silent prayer. But the ability to invest money in yourself is a tough thing to do, because there’s so much being offered to help us become better without being involved in investing in ourselves and talking to people.

14) The ability to do things regardless of the situation

Number 14 the ability to do things regardless of the situation. Well, you know, the best example I can give you of this is, you know, you get up in the morning at a particular time, you have your morning routine, whatever it is, you get to the office 8:30 or 9:00 should be a little bit earlier if you’re going to get ahead of the game, but you’re there at 830 and you have a list came in to you of by owners and expireds, you have your database of past client centers of influence, and then you find every reason you can think of to keep you from picking up the phone and making that phone call. The ability to do things regardless of the situation. Well, Mike, you know, there’s so much rejection in real estate that is called life. There’s rejection in life. But if you can learn to do things regardless of the situation, because learning to do things that you’re not comfortable with and do, learning to do things you don’t like to do, is what makes the big difference in your long-term productivity.

15) The ability to self-analyze

Number 15 the ability to self-analyze. Well, I tell people all the time, you have a schedule for the day. At the end of the day, critique your schedule. Did you do any of the things you had on your schedule? Did you do 50%? Did you do 75% the next day? Check it again. And if you find that there’s something that you’re avoiding every single day, consider taking it off your schedule so you don’t feel that negativity that goes with self-analyzation. So often what you’re looking for are your wins. That you can put down in your memory bank and say, hey, listen, I did my job this particular day to the best of my ability, and I completed 75% of what I said I was going to do.

16) The ability to learn how to learn

Number 16 the ability to learn how to learn. You know, learning how to learn is a big challenge because, you know, whether you’re taking a good book or taking a good seminar or watching a podcast of some type, or sitting down with somebody and you’re doing an interview with them, you know, we all have people that we respect and can learn from. And you’re chatting with that kind of person. It’s understanding to keep your mind open to the ideas that you get and are given and not critique them while they’re being given. So that gives you the ability to learn how to learn and become a smarter person, and more importantly, a better salesperson.

17) The ability to understand how others feel

Number 17 the ability to understand how others feel. We at some point everybody has to deal with their ego, because there’s situations in life where we’re called upon to take action, to lead, to speak up, to give an opinion, and often the ego gets in the way of that. So, the ability to understand how others feel is really the elimination of the ego in communication, conversations, actions that you’re involved in. Watch. If you’re good, you don’t have to tell them. They’ll recognize that you’re good. If you’re proficient at the work that you do, you don’t have to say, I’m proficient at the work I do. People will recognize that you’re proficient at what you do. I’ve said for probably the last 50 years, there’s so many great speakers out there that are certainly more talented than I am in terms of the speaking skills they have. My strength is the message. My strength is not my presentation. But some of these speakers are so good at the presentation. When you’re mesmerized by the presentation and then you try to understand why they do what they do and how they do it, so you can improve the quality of what you do also.

18) The ability to remain consistent

And the last point today, number 18, the ability to remain consistent. I’ve had people say to me for years, Mike, you’ve been talking about prospecting, presenting and closing for 50 years. Why don’t you talk about something else? I said, okay, mindset, skills, activities and action along with your prospecting, presenting and closing. There’s only so many things that a good speaker or good teacher or a good trainer or a good professor can advocate. And they usually have to advocate what they believe in the most. I believe that anybody can become a better salesperson than they are, but it takes certain fundamentals to make that happen. And the ability to remain consistent. Our business is a business about magic formulas. Magic answers. You know, a new twist nobody’s ever heard of. I always get a kick out of when I watch some of our competitors run an ad or a promotion where they say, first time ever talked about in a seminar, I’m going to give you some scripts that nobody’s ever used before. It’s almost impossible because the spoken word, the written word that is being used today, has been used in many cases for centuries. So, the ability to remain consistent in your message, which is why role play and practice is so important. So welcome to the third week in April. Let’s make it a great week, and I will look forward to finishing this segment on skills that will pay you forever by Tracy Stein next week. Talk to you then.