Tom Ferry: ‘Talk More to Gain More Clients

One of the challenges agents face today is that a new, more bullish market is developing. Huh? How is that a problem? Homes are selling. Short sales are closing. Bank-owned properties are moving. Demand is growing and interest rates are low. It’s all good.

Well, yes, it’s good, but it’s also a challenge – because even though agents are growing more hopeful, they’re also deeply rooted in fear that the whole thing could suddenly go south again. And when you live in fear, it’s hard to get excited and say, “I’m going to have a better year than I did last year. I have a goal and I’m fired up about it.” The trick is to eliminate the fear.

How? Through back-to-basics pipeline management.

TAG: YOU’RE IT!

What do I say to an agent who’s having a good year but is unsure whether it will last? I ask, “How many leads do you have? How many appointments do you have in your calendar? How many potential buyers do you have? How many potential sellers do you have?”

These are important questions, and if you have the right answers, no drop in the market can touch you.

“Agents who have appointments are going to win.”

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Consider the agents who wake up Monday mornings with no leads, no appointments, no listings and nothing going on. Even though the market around them is heating up and things are going well, their fear dominates them to the point where they don’t take action.

They need to play TAG – The Appointment Game.

In my 20 years of coaching and training, here’s one thing I’ve learned: The truest indicator of a healthy sales business is an agent’s ability to schedule appointments with a wide variety of potential buyers and sellers. That’s the essence of TAG.

Agents who always have appointments – whether they’re showing homes, giving listing presentations, meeting with buyers, whatever – are engaged in activities that lead to signed contracts and satisfied clients. Those agents are crushing it. They’re going to win, no matter what.

Of the clients we work with in the U.S. and Canada, the average agent sold 28 homes last year. On average, they went on one to three appointments with buyers or sellers per week. If you do the math, using 45 working weeks a year, that’s about 90 appointments – and they’re converting one out of three to reach 28 sales.

So how do you eliminate the fear? You get better at setting appointments and making them count! Plain and simple.

Schedule It!

You have to build your pipeline of appointments, and realize that even a lousy appointment is better than sitting in your office or at home doing nothing. Even if you’re talking to someone who’s only mildly interested, you still get to do your stuff and explain the RE/MAX advantage, and that’s much better than sitting by yourself. After all, every conversation is practice for the next one.

And the law of averages says that the more people you meet with, the more business you’re going to find.

Through our research, we know that the average agent makes one sale for every 49.5 new people they talk to. We’re tracking agents from the U.S. and Canada, and every 49.5 people they meet with – new Internet leads, people at open houses, people who are referred to them, people at a cocktail party, anyone- equals one sale closed.

The reason I share this is that the moment you know that you’re only 50 new conversations away from a paycheck, you become a little more bullish. You think, “I can go sit at Starbucks, and in 15 minutes I can talk to 22 people, because there are more people at Starbucks than there are at my open houses.” Every conversation, and yes, every rejection, moves you one step closer to your next closing.

If you’re not out there talking to people, what in the world are you waiting for?

TALK! Every conversation, and yes, every rejection, moves you one step closer to your next closing.

Success Is What You Make It

How you define success and achievement is up to you. But be fair to yourself. I talk to agents who say, “Tom, I feel like my business is always up and down, and I’m not as successful as I could be.” I ask them about their rules for success and find out they think they have to get every listing, close every transaction and never have a deal fall apart. It’s all or nothing, and they’ve put themselves in a position where they’re never winning the game psychologically. My advice: Rewrite the rules.

Ask yourself what’s important to you. Start with the phrase, “When I (blank), I feel successful, and I know I’m achieving something.” Only you can fill in your blank.

Many agents have a transaction number and an income number they shoot for, and that’s great. I’m all for hard work, accountability and quantifiable goals.

I hope, though, that these agents also measure their success by customer satisfaction. I hope they measure it by healthy days off – or by growth in their savings and investments. I hope they measure it by their relationships with the people they love.

For me, I’d like to get to the end saying, “I had a lot of fun. I learned a lot. I taught a lot. I helped people. And I did what I thought was right. I was happy.”

If I can say that, I’ll have no problem calling it a success.