The missing ingredients

Many weeks throughout the year I travel and speak to groups of agents. After those sessions, some agents book a follow-up call with me. 

I immediately know who is a top performer vs. someone who is destined to remain in mediocrity - ie. underperformers.

Top performers show up to the calls they scheduled, prepared and ready to go. These people typically are busy because they have...production!

Underperformers show up late or forget they scheduled a call. In the latter case, they often never acknowledge that they forgot or missed the call. These people typically have little to no business.

You can see the irony here. 

This week I had a big aha - I do not want to work with underperformers.

Now, here’s the catch: you might be (or have been) an underperformer! 

If you haven’t deleted this email yet, then good news - I have something for you that can dramatically impact your results. If you are someone who already is a top performer, I invite you to take a deeper cut.

As you know, during the month of December, many agents have made - or are working on - their business plans for next year. Statistically, and also from your own experience, you know that most of these plans - and the details within them - will be forgotten before we even get to the MLK holiday in January. I am not saying business planning is useless. What I am suggesting is that the most important ingredients for your success may not be currently written in your business plan.

If you want to operate with more power in your life and have more results - you have to be someone who is powerful. I don’t mean force, I mean power. 

Powerful people are distinct in two ways: 1) they operate with integrity, and 2) they take 100% responsibility for anything and everything in their lives.

Operating with integrity means honoring your word. This is not morality. It means you can be counted on to do what you say, and if something comes up, you can counted on to be in communication to clear up and clean up anything regarding not keeping your word. Operating with integrity creates workability. Having both of those distinctions on your side increases your performance. You can read more about this here.

From my point of view, my job is not to remind people about calls they have scheduled or programs they have registered for (with pre-arranged call times). Do you need your client to remind you about when you have a showing or listing appointment? I mean, seriously...

Yet many people operate based on having other people remind them of their commitments. If no one reminds them, it's totally forgotten! That is not operating with integrity. That is not going to maximize your results. 

Another way to look at integrity: can you be counted on? Counted on what? To show up! To do what you say! If you make an appointment, you show up!

Responsibility goes hand in hand with integrity. Taking 100% responsibility for anything and everything in your life is just that - being responsible. It’s not blame or fault. It’s taking the point of view that I am “at cause.” In other words, there is no blaming, complaining, or excuse-making. If you are late, it’s not because of the traffic. It’s because you’re late. Period. Nothing comes afterward.

[BTW - if you have been late and always gave a 'reason' why you were late - this change in behavior is likely to be a real shock to your system.]

Would it be unfair to say that much of the real estate industry does not operate this way?

On the other hand, if you were operating this way, would that not distinguish you from almost every other agent?

If you operated with more integrity and took only 10% more responsibility in your life and business, would it be unfair to say that your next 12 months would be very different?

Or, you can pretend to follow what you put in your business plan. It probably had things like:

• Implement a new marketing plan
• Leverage AI
• Do more social media/videos
• Blah blah blah

You know, the things that you will likely forget before the end of January.

My recommendation: take a stand for yourself. Create a commitment to operate with integrity. Demonstrate to yourself and your clients that you take 100% responsibility for your results. I promise you will have an extraordinary year.

[One final note: this is hard to do on your own. Not impossible, simply much harder. Get some help!]