Welcome back to another edition of Mike Ferry TV. My name is Tony Smith, coach and speaker of the Mike Ferry organization, and happy to be here with you here on Mike Ferry TV. Okay, here we are. We have firmly planted ourselves in the fourth quarter of 2024. Are you excited about it? Would you like to take advantage of it? Is there any reason whatsoever you can’t have this be a spectacular time of year for yourself? I don’t think that there’s a reason in the world. So, let’s look at something right now. At this moment, you are in one of three positions in your business position. A: you’ve had a phenomenal year so far. From January through September, your production was up, your income was up, your transaction count was up. Phenomenal year. Position B: maybe you’ve been exactly the way you’ve been staying. The same production, the same income, the same number of listings, and have not experienced the growth that you were hoping for this year, or you’re in position C: which you maybe didn’t have the year that you were looking for, maybe your production was down, your income was down, some maybe not quite the banner year you set out for. You know, it really doesn’t matter right now what either one of those positions you’re in, if you’re interested in having a phenomenal fourth quarter this year, there’s still plenty of time to do so much in terms of growing your real estate career, isn’t there? So, it really doesn’t matter to this point.

What matters is from here forward, let’s not look backward one more second. Here’s what I mean by looking forward. The first thing I would ask you to do if you want to have a phenomenal fourth quarter, is I’d ask you to pull out the calendars, the monthly calendars for October, November and December. And then I would ask you to take a detailed look at the days you’re going to work, the time you’re going to take off, the holidays, the days off, vacations, any events that are going on that you know of. Decide exactly when you’re working. Are you going to work some bonus Saturdays or Sundays? Decide exactly when you’re working between now and the end of the year. You know, most of the world works on an 11.5 to 12 month year. Right. You know, department stores, are they gearing up for the holidays? Hotel chains. Are they planning on working through the end of the year? Business operators, do they plan on holding the restaurant open around the holidays? Of course. The rest of the world works 11.5 to 12 months a year. Only in Real Estate do we think that we can work 7 or 8 months a year and make these incredible incomes and not have to work much? All right, so it starts with a deciding when you’re going to work. Let’s get that out of the way and then let’s set some really strong, clear, aggressive production goals for yourself from now to the end of the year.

How many listing appointments will you go on the rest of this year? How many listings will you take? How many listings will you sell? How many buyer-controlled sales, how many closings will you expect and how much income will you make between now and January 1st? If you don’t decide, nobody’s going to decide for you. So, I’m asking you to decide and recommit to some goals for yourself. Here’s what we know… we know that the world operates in cycles. There are cycles in your neighborhood, cycles in your market, and then you have your own personal cycles. Do you want to be held to someone else dictating your income, some cycle out in the market, dictating your production, or do you want to be in charge? Do you want to be in control of your income, your production, your listings taken, and sales made? We like you to be in charge. It starts with you being in control of it. What we know is that the decline of real estate agents, mentally and physically, is always faster than any real estate transactional decline. If the sales in your market drop dropped five, ten, 15%. This time of year, we know that the agents will drop 50 or 60%, not only mentally, but physically. Does that mean that you have a mathematical advantage to win this time of year? Yes. It means that if you will put your head in the game, you can win.

So, here’s some specific thoughts I would ask you to consider your time and recommit to a daily schedule that makes sense. Isn’t this just a big dress rehearsal for the upcoming year? Like, why not rewrite? Recommit to the right daily schedule that’s going to work for your production? Why not work to implement it? Am I going to bed too late? Am I getting to work too late? Is my prospecting window inconsistent? How about lead follow-up.? Am I controlling my admin? Am I taking advantage of the afternoons the way I should? The first thing I would ask you to do is set your goals and set your time. Secondly, I’d ask you to recommit to a daily schedule that works and treat it like a dress rehearsal for next year’s production.

Third… skills. All right. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but with all the changes in our industry in 2024, have you noticed that the agents that are highly skilled are producing head and above the agents that don’t have sales skills? Where do you stand in your current sales skills? What needs to be improved? Do you need to improve some of your prospecting skills? Do you need to improve your lead follow up approach and the skills? Do you need to improve how to pre-qualify sellers? How about your listing presentation? Do you need to improve your ability to handle objections? How about closing for the sale? What skills will you address in the fourth quarter so that you don’t drag those weaker skills into next year? Let’s go on a skills improvement curriculum for yourself for the next three months.

So now I’ve got my time, I’ve got my goals, and I’m working on my skills. How about mindset? Okay, we know for a fact the fourth quarter brings up a whole slew of increased drama and emotion and distraction, right? It’s off the charts this time of year. The distractions that take place, the drama that rises up, the stress levels, all of those things. So, if we’re smart, we will improve our mindset approach. What should I be watching? What should I be listening to? What should I be affirming? How should I be attached to my goals? And then on the other side, what should I stop watching? Who should I maybe not hang out with what, you know, behaviors do I need to change to protect my mindset? We know the world will get trapped in this mindset trap. Don’t get trapped there, especially this year. Imagine an election year in the middle of it. Drama. Okay, stay out of it. I wrote down this thought: look at fanatically creating one week business plans. All right, what if you looked at, say, ten weeks remaining this year, and you took the ten remaining weeks. A little time for holidays and time off and all that. If you took ten aggressive weeks, one week at a time. Okay, what am I going to do prospecting this week? What leads do I have to convert this week? What listings do I need to address getting sold this week? Where do I want to pay attention to my time this week? Let’s just tackle this week.

When it’s over, we’ll tackle next week. I would recommend that you take a weekly mini plan each and every week the rest of this year, and zero in on it. It keeps you away from all of the other things going on. How about this one? Where am I working from? Insanity. Boy, this is the time of year to correct insanity. We all know the definition, right? Where am I doing the same thing? Over and over and over again, but expecting a completely different result? Okay, so here’s an exercise I would ask you to do. So, take a blank piece of paper and at the first at the top I want you to write what do I need to start doing immediately? Start doing immediately. Go down two or 3 or 4 lines. What do I need to stop doing immediately? Stop doing go down two or 3 or 4 lines. What do I need to do more of? What do I need to do more of and then go down a little more and right? What do I need to do less of now? If you’re honest with yourself, if you will understand insanity, and then you’ll sit and write 1 or 2 specific points in each of these areas, more of less of start stop.

And you have 1 or 2 points in each of these. Now you’ve isolated the seven or 8 or 9 places that you need to adjust. And if you isolate those and fix those in the fourth quarter, monumental results. So do that exercise. I wrote this down in the fourth quarter. What is that lead source? What is that place that you’ve figured out or you identified you locked on to this year that, you know for a fact is the next thing you need to add to do more business. What source of business do I need to, you know, add for sale by owners maybe Expireds into the mix? Do I need to do a much stronger Just Listed, Just Sold campaign? Do I need to do a much stronger work with growing my database or working on my center of influence? How about absentee owners? How about investors? How about probate? Trust attorneys? How about business professionals? We’ve got a lot. But have you figured out the 1 or 2 places that you know for a fact will give you more business? Let’s take the next three months, work it out with your coach, work it out with accountability partners, and let’s finally drag that source into the mix. It’s time. Do you want to start the year with a new source? I think it would be great. Okay, how about this one. Get out of the office every afternoon. Okay, The Mike Ferry organization has always promoted this thought. Figure out how to have a distraction free space of time in the morning to generate business.

The morning is for distraction free generation. Okay, the middle of the day is to control all the admin, the paperwork, the files, the phone calls, the research. That’s where you control the admin. And then the afternoons are for getting out and doing business in the world. And of course, we want you to be out on a Listing Presentation. But if you don’t have one of those, you need to get out into the world anyway. Maybe it’s a buyer presentation. Get out there. Maybe it’s go see some of those Expireds or fsbo’s in your marketplace. Get out there. Maybe it’s go see some of your database that you haven’t seen in a long time. Get out there. Maybe it’s time to go door knock around some listings or sales. Get out there. Maybe it’s time to start a brand-new campaign with a source that you get out there. Business owners, get out there. If you’re out in the office virtually every afternoon the rest of this year, it serves two purposes. You’ll do more business, you’ll meet more people, and you’ll stay out of all the drama and emotion and stuff that you know is going to happen in that company of yours in the afternoon. Get out into the world. Okay. I wrote this down. Is there an area of efficiency that I need to lock on to? See if you can become more efficient this time of year.

It’s going to pay you in loads. So, is it better contacts per hour? Is it a more efficient schedule in the morning? Is it to be more efficient with the leads you have? How about your conversion rate of listing appointments to listings taken? How about more efficient with selling the listings you have? Where specifically are you going to focus on improving your efficiencies? Okay, if you can get clear on it and you can zoom in on that and you can get more efficient in a very specific way, your production goes up. We know for a fact if you’re working on your skills, if you’re getting out into the world and you’re working on your efficiency, you produce more. So why wouldn’t we do that? Okay. I wrote this down. Upgrade everything. Boy, is now the time to upgrade. Clean out your office, upgrade your prospecting environment. Upgrade the materials that you send out to the public. Upgrade some of the computer technology that you use. Upgrade the message. Upgrade your clothes. Upgrade your house. Upgrade. You know what? If we go on a really massive project of upgrading everything over the next 90 days? Boy, you get inspired, you get fired up, you get enthusiastic, you get engaged, and if you are, you produce more. And then I wrote down this last thought for today. Isn’t this the golden opportunity to expand the production from your database? Boy, there’s all the events and there’s the connectivity.

Everybody seems to be open for a conversation. They’re happy to talk about it with the holidays and all that. So, what businesses do you need to meet? Do you need to sit down with every one of your vendors and congratulate them, but also challenge them for more business? Do you need to talk to more of your “A” clients, or meet with them and have a strong dialog about the business that you do and what they need? Right. Do you need to flat out put all the people in there that should be in your database that you didn’t get in there this year? Do you simply need to contact every single person in your database with a strong, excited, powerful message to wrap up the year? This is the time to really kick your database in gear. All right. So, do you want to have this be the best fourth quarter ever? Do you want to have this be the best quarter of your year? Is there anything stopping you from having this be the best quarter of your career here at MFO? Mike would say no. I say no, now is the time. So, let’s get this in gear. When everybody else is going one direction, we go the other direction and we do more business. Now is the time to get fired up. It’s time to get excited. Time to get reengaged. This business pays when you’re engaged. Have some fun.

Talk to you soon.