What does it really take to achieve success in real estate? Is it a beautiful website that shows up in search and drives traffic? More, higher quality leads? A powerful personal brand that attracts your target consumers?
Mental toughness is a choice. It is a muscle.
— TOM FERRY
Certainly, all of these elements contribute to a profitable, growing real estate business. Nevertheless, plenty of real estate agents have a great website, a steady stream of leads, a solid brand. Yet only 26 percent of agents make $100,000 or more a year, while the same number make less than $10,000.
Tom Ferry sums the problem up in this way: “We have an epidemic happening in our industry…It’s the rich, and the rest.”
A New York Times bestselling author and the top-rated real estate coach on Swanepoel’s Power 200 list, Tom has a few ideas about what truly separates the most successful agents from the rest of the pack. It all starts, he says, with understanding your goals. “Too many people get caught up in innovation for the sake of innovation,” Tom pointed out. “I’m telling people all the time, ‘I don’t really care if you’re creative. I don’t really care about how you want make things look. Marketing is math, and the only job we have with our marketing is to generate appointments.’”
Once you have a clear objective in mind, the next step is determining how to get there. Tom’s advice? Keep it simple. “You’re just aligning your behaviors with your goals, and that’s hard for a lot of people to do,” Tom explained. “I’d create massive accountability around just one or two disciplines. Not 40 things: just one or two that would move the needle.”
Finally, the best agents not only set clear goals: they also have the mindset necessary to follow through on those goals, no matter how difficult. For Tom, the will to succeed isn’t something innate: it’s a skill that can be learned and improved. “Mental toughness is a choice. It is a muscle,” he told us.
As CEO of Tom Ferry – Your Coach, Tom has helped thousands of agents craft their personal definition of success and put themselves on the path to achieving it.
In this interview, Tom explains how ambition can actually get in the way of a successful real estate business, and points out why so many agents are leaving money on the table when it comes to nurturing leads.
- Matt & Seth
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