The Habits & Actions for 2024 Real Estate Success | Tom Ferry Podcast Experience

Yeah, it's all good. We can do that.

David Goggins just text me like, a week ago. Stay hard, motherfucker. That was it.

Yeah.

That's nice to hear from you, bro.

Yeah.

You want to do a speaking engagement.

With me sometime next year? Yeah.

I love that guy. All right, ready?

So here's the thing. Entrepreneurs, leaders, salespeople, we all want to create consistent, repeatable, and scalable ways to grow our business and our income. And we want to do it better, faster, and more seamlessly.

Why?

So we can actually enjoy our lives, take vacations, and spend the quality time we want with the people that we love. How do we do all this without spending a fortune or running ourselves ragged? That's the big question. And this show is dedicated to the answer.

Hey, welcome back to the show. Super excited. Patrick, how many times you've been on the show with me now?

4 or 5? 4.

I think you might be. You got to be top five. Like, certainly, like your buyer agency stuff.

Yes.

Your buyer scripting stuff, your new agent stuff. So if you're listening and you've never met Patrick before, Patrick, just give, like, two seconds, like, backstory who you are.

Backstory is. Well, I'm, by the way, his brother. And so that's kind of helpful, right? Yes.

But got the right last name.

Yeah. So, you know, I think I started 20 years ago, we, you know, with you guys, and I was, you know, a numb nut, you know, soccer player, nutritionist, and then I jumped into the family business. Yes. And then fast Forward in after 12 years of that, then I joined Tom's company, which has been fantastic. But I was a master of the basic lead generation and conversion. I loved it, obsessed over it, then jumping over with you in 2012 and now. So fast forwards. I've been with you for 10 years, and it's just been an absolute blast. Learning all of the other lead generation systems and strategies and, you know, what's going on in the modern world online. So it's been fantastic. 2014, I jumped into real estate and married a real estate agent. And then I helped that team. We went from, I think probably like, I don't know, 24 sales between Kai and Carly, maybe 30. And then we got up to 56 sales. And then we did phenomenal. I got it up to six sales. Six sales people, except for us. And then, then I went back to full time coaching and training. Carly came back in full time into real est sales. So I think I've been a full time coach now since 2020. Yes. And that has Been phenomenal. So I've been really just loving full time coaching, building all kinds of great systems for all my clients and for the ecosystem. So it's just been a blast.

I love it. I love it. And what you didn't say, and I'll, I'll say it. Humble, humble brag for you is there's like a waiting list to get into your schedule. You coach some of the most longest term Tom Ferry coaching clients, the Randy Oras of the world, the Jim Bishops, these like these legends that just adore you because you help them make money. So, so today, the person that now has a little more context for you, they want to make money. They want to have 2024 be better than 2023. So we talked about initially, like sort of this survival guide, but I thought it'd be interesting for you and I to unpack just in a sort of candid conversation. I'm telling everybody right now, just like I did during the pandemic, there's a couple basic rules you got to follow in a rapidly changing environment with whatever happens between NAR and what goes on there and then the doj, and we're talking about ultimately dual agency and buyer agency.

Yes.

What I'm telling everybody is you got to focus on the things you can't control. And I think there's only three things that we can control going into 2024 and throughout the entire year. Number one is mental toughness. And I would call that resiliency. So we want to talk about that. I want to know what you're doing, what you're asking your clients to do. Second thing is listing attraction at scale. I know that's your sweet spot. Yep. Third is how do we optimize buyer agency presentation? Start to create a better message for every agent on the planet so when they're out there talking to customers, they can clearly articulate the value that they deliver right to the customer. So let's start with mental toughness first. Like if I said to you, Patrick, what do you do to maintain mental toughness? And I said off camera, have you ever made your wife so mad she wanted to kill you? Because in that moment, you either fold or you step into I got this. You know what I mean? I got this. I'm gonna do it. I use that just as an example. Right. So what are some of the things you do to sort of maintain your own mental toughness in spite of what's happening in the world?

Yeah, I think if I were to tell everybody in my morning routine, that would probably turn A lot of people off, so let's. But, you know, it does start with some meditation, getting control over my mind. It starts with the basics of I focus on getting up at the same time every day. I take a ton of supplements. You know, if you guys seen Tom and I, it's just, you know, supplements.

Even what's going on over here, it's.

Really just, you know, kind of a commitment to make sure I bring my best self to the day. Really. That's what it boils down to. I want physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. I just want to bring forth my best self. That's how I'm going to get the best out of myself for my family, for my friends, for our clients. So to me, it's really about how do we optimize kind of the morning and the evening. I think the missing piece for me was making sure my evening was really good, so that when I woke up, I felt great, energetic. And by the way, thank you for the Helix 8 Sleep. You know, my sleep has been fantastic.

Second time they're not a sponsor of my show, but eight sleep, that is going to be favorite device. We've had it for a year. Cools you down, gets you really cold, makes you sleep better. It's bananas.

Yeah.

So.

So just on the basics, like, let's take care of. Let's take care of ourself. I come from the background of athletes. Right. If you're an athlete, you have to take care of yourself.

Yes.

So that you can go perform, then go get into the battle, then come back and recover as quickly as possible to get back into the battle and win the game and win the championship. So I don't think a lot of agents see themselves as kind of like an Olympic athlete. Right. Where they really have to have recovery, good nutrition, good mindset, lots of coaches.

Yeah.

You know, an Olympic gold medalist probably has six coaches. So, you know, we got to treat ourselves better. Is really number one. Number two, just on kind of mindset and perspective to me is we've got to find the best voice out in the marketplace that can give us an empowered perspective. Yes. Right. And you hold that voice for the agent community. When I go into things like the economy, I never go to the clickbait stuff. I never go. I always just go to who's. I find the smartest people out there. I read their books, I follow their podcast. I'm on their email newsletters because they're the ones that get. Give me that healthy perspective to be able to powerfully move forward through the day. And so I'm really, really picky about who I will give my attention to. Social media, podcasts, YouTube books. So I'm real picky. And, you know, that's kind of something we share. We're always reading the, you know, the latest book. And so if you guys aren't in a mastermind group, you know, where you guys are sharing the best books, the best podcast, you know who to be following. That's a huge mistake. Yes. We need the best, best voices right now to keep us mentally in the game and to give us the best perspectives.

I think about to plus and enhance that Dr. Dane, who is like my IV drip therapy guy forever now shout out to Mary here in Dallas, who is incredible with nad and drip bags and all this. If you ever see me, like, I have like noodles going in my nose and I do all kinds of nutty stuff. But again, it's a commitment to health and vitality. It's a commitment to excellence. But it was once framed for me very effectively by Dr. Dain. What he said to me was, every human being in every area of their life are sitting in only one of three places. And of course, when he said it to me, I was like, I think I had an IV in my arm. I'm like, tell me more. And I knew to grab my pen, which I hope you're doing. And he said, think about it. In your relationship, in your health and vitality, with your friends, with your teammates, the marketing side of your business, you can take any part of it. He says, you're only in one of three places. You're in dis ease disease, you're in wellness, which is where a lot of people get stuck, or you're in greatness. And he said, if you just thought because I had a 45 minute IV drip. And I was like, okay. He's like, write down, you know, with your mental toughness, where are you? Are you in a state of disease? Are you in a state of wellness? Are you in a state of greatness? And at the time, the market was really good. And I find that when the market gets good, some people, myself included, like, we sometimes get a little lax with the things that bring us greatness. So I had to acknowledge that. Then he said, okay, how about with Kathy? And I was like, oh, greatness, right? Like I'm, I'm crushing right now. Like the, you know, we're moving, the kids are out, you know, like it was. We're at a different point of our life. Every area of your life, ask yourself, where do you Find yourself in dis ease. He didn't say disease, he said dis ease. Then he said or wellness when greatness being the third one is available. And I would just ask my listener to think about mental toughness from the standpoint of resiliency. Have I introduced you to Dr. Julie Garner yet? No. Oh, for my friend listening on Twitter, now known as X Dr. Julie Gurner. G U R N E R. Just had our first face to face. She is. Do you remember the show Wendy Billions? Wendy, does that ring a bell at all? Any, any Billions watchers would remember? Wendy was the inside of this incredible hedge fund, right? The you know, Bobby and this incredible, you know, make believe show, but after a real person. She was essentially the psychologist in the office for all these crazy money makers.

Right.

So, and, and there was, it's kind of this fantastical character because she just had the. In the answer for everything. She would just cut through people instantaneously, put them back together and get them back out on the phone making money. Like that's what she did. When I first started following Dr. Julie, I'm like, this is Wendy in real life. So shout out to if you're listening this. You know, I love and appreciate you and thank you so much for our last conversation when I was in New York. She wrote this article recently and what it talked about was resiliency. And what she said was the very best people on the planet, what makes them unique is they've had their butts kicked, they've been punched in the face, they've lost, they've been hurt, they've been broken and they stood back up again to fight the good fight. And what that gave them was perspective. So she said people that are going through a changing market or a changing cycle or they get fired or something that happens in their life, if they've never experienced that loss before, they lack the experience to know it's not the end of the world. Yeah, but people like you and I, you know, we make our wife angry and upset. I married an Italian. That happens, right? And, and, and I have the resiliency to know I can recover from this. But the phrase that she said that I think could be the phrase of 2024 for people is I got this. I got this.

Yeah.

Like I got this. I know how to do it.

Right.

And there's just something about that phrase, like, I got this. And I think if we can, as an ethos, right. In our ecosystem, we can get everybody starting to say, I got this, I got this. Even if they're Lying to the act of, like, the physiology of. I got this is so much better than, like, oh, man, I don't know how I'm going to make it through this.

Yep.

So. So what do you. What, like, I say all that. What resonates for you? What doesn't resonate for you? How does the I got this thing? What does it mean to you?

Yeah, I think you're. I think you're right. Because my relaxed sense during this market cycle is only because I went through the 2007, 8, 9, 10.

Yeah.

And helped a lot of people succeed through that period. And so as I looked at this one, I was like, this is no big deal. We'll get through this. Right.

Right.

And you did a phenomenal job with everybody on that. So I think you're right. I think, you know, if you're going through a challenging time the first time, I'll say this as just a recent advice. You've got to reach out and talk to other people if you're going through a challenging time for the first time, because there's so many other people who've dealt with that scenario that they can be the encourager that you may need. And, you know, we recently dealt with that and it was a game changer when we held it inside. And I kept this one problem to my. And I didn't have anyone, any outlet, any group or any support. And so, you know, I, you know, the thing that I tell my clients, there's no problem that you experience today that there isn't 10,000 five star reviews on a book right now to solve that problem.

Podcast or solution.

Right. Or. And that person has a podcast with hundreds of hours of content directly speaking to you. We just got to, you know, kind of open ourselves up and get ourselves out there and find great resources to support us through that. Right. So anyways, I think, you know, I think you're right on the mental toughness part. And for me, it's also like, all right, you know, and you've been the preacher of this. Do we know where we're headed? What's the vision? Where are you going? And, you know, there's been a lot of talks about, you know, you're wise and a lot of this stuff.

Yeah. What's your motive for action?

Yeah, you called me and we had a good session the other day, and you're like, what are your goals? And I was just so excited to be able to report those goals just right off the top of my head. This is what I want. I want this. I want This, I want this. I want this. And I want these things for me and my family for this reason. And it wasn't some magical. Why. I was just clear about the basics. Right. Where I think a lot of people are getting stopped in their goal setting this year. Having that strong. Why, having that strong motive to act is they're not comfortable with a reasonable generalization of the thing. Yeah. So they're like, I'm not crystal clear to the point decimal 10 of what my goal is. It's like, who cares?

They're like, therefore, no goals.

Yeah. They get stopped on it. And it's like, we can't get stopped there right now. And, you know, a lot of people are. They're just not willing to tell people what the challenge is. So I'm asking a lot. Tell me what you want to accomplish and why do you want to do it? And they're like, well, you know, and they get a weird. I mean, these are great clients of mine. I'm like, stop. What's the simplest thing? Do you have any debt? Should we get rid of that? How much do you got? Just the basic stuff. Do you want to pay off your home or do you want more investment properties? What do you want?

Do you have an event coming up with a child or a family member that you want to take care of financially? Something that's going to drive stuff.

Right. I think people get lost in this kind of, you know, grandiose. So why, you know, sitting on the top of the hill meditating and achieving enlightenment? No, come on. Let's just. Let's get real, and let's just get focused on what you're trying to accomplish. And if that is more important than the challenges that you're faced with, should. I should not make this call to an expired listing in the marketplace right now? I'm uncomfortable with that. Well, which is more important? Is the discomfort more important or is achieving that thing for you and your family more important? And let's just get simple and real about it. That's more important for you. Then go do the thing. Let's get on with it. Right.

So a little bit.

Yeah, let's. So let's jump into. I think, where I want to.

I want to go there, which is attracting listings. But the way that I express this to people, and for my friend listening, it is first, it's like mental toughness and resiliency.

Right.

Control what you can't control. But under. When I say attract listings, there really needs to be like a sub point. And this is what it is. Those of us that are winning right now have a bias for action. Like, our natural go to is make the phone call, send the text, shoot the video. It's action, action, action, action, action. And what I'm sensing, anytime we see a market shift, anytime. I read yesterday a headline from some hedge fund that's studying everything that's happening right now in the market. They're saying, oh, real estate agents could lose 30% of the total gross commission. Now if the average person reads that, they're going to go, we're going to lose 30% of it. I'm like, well, okay, well, so still got $70 billion available. Why don't we list more houses? Like, so, so where do you find yourself? Do you find yourself. Do you have a bias towards like, I don't know and I've never. And I struggle and I'm kind of. Or do you find yourself with a bias towards action? We want to talk about a B towards action around listing attraction. So with that said, talk to me about you're working with somebody. They're going into 2024. What's the first step with them?

So right now we are in. I am pushing harder this year than ever before with my business planning. But the step is really the lead generation audit. I like that. And I am going deep with people. What I'm.

What does that mean?

Yeah. What I'm discovering in a simple way is that the agent doesn't actually understand the engine of their business. I asked the top agent, hey, what are you doing to generate? Oh, I just generate referrals. Okay, let's break that down for a hot second.

Help me understand.

Yeah. So I go, all right, so let's, let's start with your clients and thank you for that client repeat business. How much of it was client repeat? Because we all know that in 2021, a majority of the most successful agents, they, they sold their, their client's house and then sold them another house and they all made a fortune and then.

Sold and got a referral fee on the second home.

Yes. And so here we are in 2023. That number is still there. And we should talk about kind of what I would see as the bottom of the market. It's really, you know, the, the 7ds is the bottom of the market. Right. But anyway, so I'm like, well, let's take a look at client repeat. Now, what percentage is actually your clients referred you? And then when we look at that, I'm like, well, it's actually a lot of repeat, not a lot of referrals. So how you defined it to me in a general way is actually not helpful to us to figure out what your upside is. Yes. Then I'm like, well, let's talk about your sphere. Right. So what about your community? Right. Between social media, people that you know and acquaintances that you have influence over between the, the communities that you're involved in, Kids, school, church, whatever. Tell me a little bit about that and what percentage of the new business is coming from them. Well, now could you tell me a little about your sphere? Referring you business, your good friend, the neighbor, the, you know, you know, someone that you know that introduced you to an opportunity. What's that all about now? Well, how about this? What about the professional services, lenders, contractors, you know, your BNI groups? I have, I have a client who did 21 transactions from BNI this year. Right. Professional services. Well, what's going on there? Then I was like, well, how many of your clients are what I would consider a VIP? What's a VIP? Shout out to Glenda Baker, three transactions or more. Yes. How many VIPs do you got? Right. And let's take a look at those. Do you treat the VIP3 transactions or more the same way you treat someone who did one transaction with you and then left and has never referred you and you treat them the exact same way? Shout out to Glenda Baker because she's, she's the, the queen of this. Then in your sphere, do you have any advocates or in the professional services, what's an advocate? Someone that is constantly sending you opportunities. So if we just dig a little bit into the details, I can find all of your upside. Yes. This is where we can really grow and expand.

So I want to, I want to stop for a second because I think about for decades, how many A's, how many B's, how many C's?

Right.

And in marketing we refer to it as cohorts.

Yeah. Right.

So I've got this cohort of clients that my kids all went to the same school and I met all the parents. I got this court of clients, it's the professional services group. I got this cohort of clients that I met at an open house. I got this cohort of clients called Geographic Farming. But the megatrend that I'm pushing non stop because it's, it's so in the zeitgeist right now. Personalization.

Yeah.

What everybody wants is make me feel special.

Right.

Make me feel understood. And it's got to be about me. So it's not like, hey guys. Which when people do hey, guys on video. I just want to punch them in the face. Because no one's, like, sitting with nine people on their phone going, hey, look at this. Hey, you. Hey. Thank you so much for watching this video. It's that personalization. It's the Zillow Zestimate on your home. Not want to know what's happening in the market.

Right.

Like that subtle difference. So what I'm hearing is part of the audit is I should take my entire database and carve them into sections.

Yes.

Based upon, like, where does this person fit into my world? Is that what I'm hearing that correctly?

Yes.

Interrupting my own show with a quick little announcement. If you're like me and you recognize this is the time of the year when we've got to make decisions, we got to look back at what's worked in the past and decide what we want to have happen in 2024, then, yes, it is time for you to get your plan together. Now, if you're one of my coaching clients, you know, you just go inside of loom. You download the 2024 plan. You and your coach work on that together. If you are not one of my clients, go to tomferry.com There's a link below. Download a copy the plan, get to work on it. Use ChatGPT and other resources to answer the tough questions about the strategies you need to implement to ensure your success in 2024. So tomferry.com get your business plan, and let's get to work.

Now let's go back to the show and where my. My number one thing as a coach. Right. If you're a coach of anything, I want to see you on the field, watch your tape and see where you're the most successful. Naturally, yes. Like, where do you excel out on the field? And so when I'm auditing. Okay, let's take a look. You know, are you amazing really with your client referrals, or are you amazing with repeat. Are you amazing with your sphere? Are you amazing with your professional services? Like, where are you amazing? And let's honor that. Then step two is, where are you underperforming as a compliment? Meaning, I know you, Tom. You're amazing at these things. And looking at how your results are, where you're making all the money, it's super crystal clear to me that you could be performing so much better here. Right. Like. And you say this commonly, like, you know, great geographic farmers, amazing listing agents who will avoid the expired listing in their market. Drives me, like, again, underperforming. As a compliment. You're amazing at listing properties. You're one of the best agents in town. Here's a house that you're just ignoring it, and it's really.

It's because you have a bias. It's a bias.

I love your bias.

Expired means evil and bad and blah instead of like, that's an abandoned seller who tried to sell, chose the wrong agent. I'm a really good agent. I got this resiliency. Go. I want to remind you, were you at dad's event when we had Chuck Daly speak?

Oh, yeah, of course.

Okay, so Chuck, you know, rest in peace, right? So Chuck Daly, who was the coach of the Detroit Pistons, right? Who was the coach of the first Dream Team with Michael Jordan? Magic Johnson, that group. And I remember sitting with him at lunch that day and saying, how did you take, like, all of those egos, right? Like, think. Think about it. Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, you know, Carl Malone, you know, Gary Payton. They get the, like, the most extraordinary team ever assembled to go slaughter everybody in the Olympics. And they just annihilated everybody. He said it was really simple. Same exact thing I did with the Detroit Pistons when we finally started to win beyond our incredible defense. It was. I asked everybody to identify their automatic shot. I asked them to identify their automatic shot. And I'm so. I'm talking to my listener right now. If I said to you, like, metaphorically, when you get the ball, where are you most comfortable to make the basket a high percentage of the time? And what I'm hearing you say is, as a coach, you're like, I want to examine where you most comfortable that if I put you in that scenario over and over again, you will get the listing, you'll get the referral, you'll get the buyer sale, you'll get the deal. I talked to Andy C. Yesterday. His is open houses.

Yeah, open houses.

He said, you know, we try and do like 700 open houses a year. Think about that. Like he and his small little team. But he goes, I'm most comfortable when people are walking in and have a need. I can't find a good house for sale. Can you help me?

Right?

He's like, I. So I try and put him in that position as often as possible. Is that what we're talking about?

That's exactly it. And I think. And just, you know, for all the Tom Ferry coaching clients, you have to do the audit of your transaction history. And then I'm asking my clients this year, I said, look in the alum. I can see 20, 23 2022, 2021. But I said, hey, I want to see that in a spreadsheet, and I want to see it. It's stacked, ranked.

Right.

I want to see units, gci, and sales volume over five years. So I can just see the trend. Hey, look at that. Hey, look how good you are at this. Then from there, we can go into the total addressable market. Then we can go look at your marketing plan. What percentage of the marketing plan did you actually do? Did you not do that? Now I could see where your upside is. This is amazing. Look, you barely did anything. You made $150,000. You acquired, like, seven or ten clients, and we basically. You ignored this section. Right, right. Then in the audit, I'm also kind of going to that next level this year. I want all my clients to be accountable to every dollar that they spend. We're getting a 5x return. Yeah. And I'm also interested in how much time they spent on something. Yes. Right. And then, you know, for a lot of the, you know, the Tom Ferry community loves, loves, loves the next great idea, they go to the webinars, the mastermind. They go to this, they go to that. But there's a. There's a percentage of them where I'm like, you're wasting too much time kind of being out there learning the latest thing, and you're actually not executing on the thing that you actually. My favorite Tom Ferry quote. You were smart enough to write the plan, now be stupid enough to follow it.

Yes, yes, I think I did that in the context, and I thank you for that. That actually makes sound horrible, but I remember the first time I said that, it was. I was. I was doing, like, an office meeting, like, 18 years ago, right. And I was like, if Forrest Gump was a real estate agent and they were one of my clients, and I said, forrest, just run this play over and over and over. He would say, okay. And he would just run the play. And I go, you guys are always looking for the next shiny penny. Instead of acknowledging there's plays that I run that work. Yeah. I need to run them over and over and over and over and over.

Right.

Like Hector, I think about, like, sports, you run the play until the defense stops you.

Right.

And the same thing applies to real estate. Email works, you know? You know, it's remarkable. Right now, 229,538 text messages sent by 17, 19 of our clients. Every 19 text messages, they get a listing appointment. I'm sorry, like, is it hard to send a text message every 19. Now, what are they doing for my friends around the world? They're going to Zillow where the prices are wrong. And they're saying, hey, Patrick and Carly, I was on Zillow today or whatever the appropriate site in Germany or, you know, South Africa or wherever you find yourself today. But in the US it's easy. With Zillow, we say, hey, I was there and I was looking for a property for a client. I stopped by your property. Here's what it's saying. Your estimated value is. I've got my opinion. You give them the photo of it.

I've got my opinion.

What do you think?

Yeah.

That strategy. We have tens of thousands of people following that strategy. And they all say, I do seminars, all. And they walk up and they go, are you going to talk about that Zillow assessment thing today? And I'm like, yeah. They're like, dude, that works.

Yeah.

And I was like, yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. To the tune of 229,538, we've tracked in no more than about 65 days. And 11,845 appointments, 4,657 listings taken from that strategy so far. Now you might say 11,845 listing appointments. 4,006. That's a. Well, we're now in a normal market.

Yeah.

Where you meet someone in the fourth quarter and they say, we'd like to put our home on the market in January, February or March. Exactly. So we know that lagging number is going to hit. So I love that you're saying run plays at work.

Let me. Let me add something to that really fast. I did some research on. It's called Ahrefs. It's a. It's a SEO research tool. Right. So it, you know, I did some research for me. A, A H F E H S hrefs SCM Rush. Ahrefs. Yeah.

SEM Rush is the one, you know.

You know, keywords everywhere, all this stuff. Yeah. So I looked up how many people searched Zillow Zestimate into Google, Bing, wherever, and in one month, 44,000 times. Yeah. Then I looked at how many people.

And was that on a localized level or was that a national level?

National level.

Interesting.

And. But that was not it. What Ahrefs did is it basically said, every search that's related to this search. How much is my home worth? How much is my house worth? Actually, totally different. Zillow's estimate, Zillow value, blah, blah, blah. 340,000 times people searched on Google looking For more information about the value of their home. Yes. And people are like, well no, no one's interested. Yeah.

It's like my clients know their value. No they don't.

No. It's unbelievable. Now we're going to get to the, the digital, my, my home value digital farming strategy which is going to be amazing for everybody that did this exercise. We now have a follow up campaign that we just need to get our heads wrapped around. But can we go back one step for. I want to just talk to the new agents, my young agents out there really fast.

All veterans, you can just pause, check out kidding, do not have confirmation bias.

Keep listening to the next chapter. But for my, my young people, new agents, I just want to say something to you guys. We have to solve what I refer to as the riddle. Right. So I'm a lead gen expert. You're a lead gen expert. We, we've dealt with thousands and thousands of agents. We've looked at all of the buffet of the different options in you know, you could do Zillow, you can do this open house, you can do door knocking, you calls, you can do generate a client. No wrong way to generate lead. But then they go into the buffet and they, they kind of get a little bit, they don't know what to do.

Social media overwhelmed.

Yeah, immediately. So there's that then there's the market, right. What's happening in the market? So and then if you're, I was just working with a group in, in LA Valley and you know that very dynamic market in LA Valley versus you know, Des Moines, Iowa versus so on and so forth. So there's different trends, different demographics, there's different things that you got to learn a little bit about the market. It.

Right.

Which is a great broker, great leader, great coach can help you guys to figure that out, which is very important. But then there's you, the player. And this is where I'm trying to level up as a coach, which is okay, what are Tom's strengths? What are your weaknesses? Go ahead and tell me what you're not willing to do, but also tell me what you're willing to do. What's your training? What's your background? Are you tech savvy? Are you not tech savvy? Tell me more about that. Do you live it? Were you born and raised, you went to elementary school, all the way through college in the market or were you like me? I was a transplant into San Diego. You nobody. Do you have a big sphere? Are you know, do people really kind of. Do you have a Good brand amongst your community or do we need to develop no brand? Right. You have maybe a little, you know, a kink in your brand. Yeah. So the riddle is like, okay, I've got you the market and then I got the options. And what we, what the problem is is we're not just looking at this and going, this makes the most sense all in and going deep.

Yes.

Right. And we're like, try, try, try, try. I hate this.

Fail, fail, fail, dabble, dab, dab, dabble, dabble. Yeah. Oh, just like and like and never build anything. Never, never learn enough, never fail enough. It's, it's monkey first thinking. Right, Exactly. We talked about at the summit, if you've never heard this before.

One of the most brilliant mentors ever, the guy that runs basically the Google X, it's their investment wing. He once said, every time I get a new idea, I go monkey first thinking. And I'm like, what does that mean? And he said, so the goal is, if I had to take a monkey and teach it how to sing like opera while standing on a three legged stool, what should I do first? And most people try and do the easiest thing first. So they build a three legged stool. Well, the hardest thing is, can I teach a monkey how to sing, let alone sing opera? So he says, try and do the hardest thing first. Go after the hardest thing first because you're going to learn so many lessons. And will you get signals that say there's an opportunity here?

Yes.

But what happens is everyone's like, okay, I want to take on this new lead source. So what I'm going to do first is maybe select a new CRM. Then I'm going to need a new website. Then I'm going to need this. This is why every new agent, when they ask me on Instagram and like Q and A, like, what should I do? I'm like, you should call every for sale by owner. You should call every expired listing. You should circle door, knock. You should invite a top agent with you on every one of those appointments because they have a better chance of winning the listing. And you will leverage them and learn from them. But if you do the hardest things first, everything else is easier.

Yes, exactly.

Like getting a referral is easier. Doing an open house is easier. Do the hard thing first. See if you can teach the monkey how to sing opera standing on a three legged stool. But don't worry about the stool. You can buy one of those at Costco.

Yes, exactly.

Does that make sense?

Yes.

So that's what I'm Hearing you say, like, go deep. Yeah, but figure it out and go deep with it.

Yes. Go hard. Yeah. And it can be hard. And you know, some people, I think, I think the problem is, is people might go, you know, I like the hard thing. But also, like, I know now that I know what I'm really good at, you know, and, you know, you've asked this question of all the coaches and everybody in all the audience, you said, said, you know, where are you really good. Like, you've asked that question. What is your brand? How do you define what your brand is? And the more I did that, then the more I steered towards the things that, where I knew I would be successful based upon a clear assessment of myself and looking at the evidence in the market, the feedback is what's important. Yeah, right. So if you go into an open house and literally you're like, wow, that was great. I, you know, I talked to five amazing people and I, you know, got one in the car with, and I put one under contract immediately. That is a signal from the market.

Right, Right.

If you have zero discomfort with getting on the phone and having a conversation with an expired and you could sit there patiently and just talk to, you know, talk to 15 wrong numbers and then talk to the two right people and still, you know, get a listing appointment. That is amazing.

Do it all day long.

Right? So it's like, you know, let's, you know, in this season where we're looking at 20, 24, we have to be more clear about, about what are you really good at and go way deeper into it. For me, I'm like, what is their upside? Right? So let's, let's address the total addressable market. The tam. You have been, you've really helped me to see what the TAM is. And this year I'm like, all right, how do I determine what the TAM.

Is on this context? So if there's 143 million homes in America, 43 million homes in America. The TAM is the number of properties that will sell, not including new construction. Most are forecasting next year. Four million transactions. Right. So I don't know, I think it's like 3% of the market, essentially will put their home on the market. But you need to look at your micro market, the community, the, you know, the geography that you serve, how many homes are there, how many transactions, Breaking it down by condos, single family residents to two story, three bedroom, four bedroom. And when you look broadly at that market record, what you're going to start to see is I'm Just making this up. Four bedrooms don't really trade a lot, but when they do, they trade for a premium. Three bedrooms seem to trade the most in the marketplace right now because either it's too much space or not enough space. And I'm just giving you like a hypothesis. Two bedrooms, they trade, but they don't trade at a premium because it's not what people want.

Right.

So they get in and out. And like, when you start to see that, then you go broadly. Look at my market now. Where should I apply myself?

Yes.

Right. Like we talk about geographic farming, my old neighborhood in Irvine Terrace and Corona del Mar. People are like, I should farm your community. I'm like, why you want to get the three sales that happen in the MLS? 15 to 18 happen off market and there's 448 properties.

Yeah.

There's no addressable market for you to. You might get the three.

Right. You with me?

Or do you want to try and be the one that everyone just sells it to their neighbor?

Right.

Do you know what I mean? Like, that's so much of how the market is just done there.

Right, right.

Same thing here at Highland park in, you know, in Dallas, Texas. So what other advice do you have for people to figure out what the TAM is?

Well, this is where I think it's. I think geographic farm is the first easiest place to look. But this year, actually I'm, I'm very interested in. Of your clients. What was the turnover rate this year? Yeah, right. That's an interesting one. Right. Then I'm looking at, you know, we're, you know, hold on.

I'm going to give them an assignment. This. That is going to make them want to throw up.

Yeah, go for it.

Why aren't we saying them? It's you, you. I'm talking to you. Do you know that you could take your entire database, hand it over to your title rep and say, can you show me of all the people in my database, how many transacted this year?

Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

There's a, a company that I'm, I'm toying with, investing in and they do this for people. And the problem is the UI and the UX is horrible. But that's, that's here nor there. If you're listening, you know who I'm, I'm, I'm talking about you. And, but, but the idea was you, you basically activate it, you plug it into your CRM, it scours the entire CRM, then it scans all the tax records and it tells you in real time what we all Know which is most agents sell one house and lose four because of bad follow up on prospects. I'm not saying with your own database, your past clients in Sphere, but on prospects.

Right.

The typical is you sold one, but because you didn't follow up for the 115 days before the average buyer goes under contract or even longer for a seller, that you miss the opportunity. So I like the idea of them going and looking at their own database first because it'll, it'll make them so mad when they find out that a bunch of people that they met at open houses, soccer games, whatever else transacted and they had no idea.

Yeah, I think just seeing what their upside. So you know, I'm telling my clients, look, I don't want to judge yesterday. All I want to do is find what your upside is. That's all I want. And I want to see the hard reality. I don't want to, I don't want to fantasize. I don't want you to tell me your opinion. I don't want to tell me how you, you feel about it. Let's just look at the, look the facts. You know, even the Sphere is really the hardest one. So I did this with the, with Patrick o' Connor out in Columbia, not in South Carolina, Lexington. And we're talking about the BNI group. So it took a little bit of effort. Let's, I'm like, let's see, can we go from 20 transactions to 40? So let's just have a conversation about the total addressable market. How many people are in the BNI group? 150. Cool. Of the 150, how many clients do you think they have? Yeah. Oh, okay. A lot.

Thousands.

Well, how, how many referrals? You know, what's your referral conversion? Okay, cool. So I think within. If you're, if the, the turnover rate right now in the United States is, you know, whatever it is.

3%.

3%. So if we just take that rough number and we times, you know, by 3%. Hey Patrick, there's your total opportunity set. Now let's take a quick look at what did you do this year? You know, you kind of showed up and did the same script every week. Okay, that's fine. Let's, let's improve that. Did you interview a bunch of people? Well, you interviewed four or five people on your, your Facebook page and you're. That was good. What else did you do? Did you send anyone emails? No, we just added that this year, so. Wow. Patrick, look at this. Between this number. Between what we think is the opportunity between. You're already successful. If we just add a few more things this year. What do you think your UP is in 2024? So it's like. And we don't have to have exact numbers, but let's at least get some clarity around this.

It's clear.

Not just Tom. I'm just going to be more consistent. I'm going to be really consistent with my phone calls. Okay.

What does that even mean? Calling your mother.

Exactly. Yeah.

Call your mother. Yes, that's right. My mother.

Yes. Our mother.

So, Pat, there's been. Pat. Patrick, I apologize. There's been so much value. It's you and I kind of bantering back and forth. I think. I think the viewer is going to listen to this three or. Because you're saying some things. I'm saying some things. As always. There's just stuff to unpack. What I'm hearing overall, though, is if I want to not just survive, but I want to thrive, I got to get really clear on where my transactions are coming from.

Yep.

I got to start thinking about micro marketing plans to activate more of that. Absolutely. The strategy around knowing the addressable market in my area. What's the turnover? How well do you know it? Where do you want to spend your time and energy? And then I really liked your inside of mental toughness.

Great. Yes.

I mean, I think it's. It's doing things that you make you feel. How did you say it? I do things in the morning that give me the. Yeah, I need.

Yeah. I need physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually to bring my. Do everything I can to support me to bring my best self to the day. Yeah. Right. And I gotta give myself the gift of maybe some time for meditation. Give myself the gift of the best supplements I can find. Listen to the best podcast or audiobook for 10 minutes, 15 minutes. You know, write the journal. The gratitude. Just remind myself these are all the gifts to myself so that I can. Right. Be the best dad, be the best husband, be the best coach, be the best real estate professional. Right.

I love it.

That's the. That's the game. Bring my best self to the day. I love it, man.

Well, thank you so much. This is like the fifth time on the show. Always insightful, always nice to have my brother that's right on the show. And thank you so much for checking it. I can't wait to get your insight on this, like, comment and all that good stuff. And then if you have someone that maybe is struggling to figure out where to put their attention, I would absolutely send them this show and just say, hey, with love. Check this out because I know we answered a bunch of those questions today. So mental toughness, resiliency, bias towards action, and going after more listings, that's what it's all about. We'll see you on the next show.

If you want more information about this episode, including my show, notes, mentions, links and everything else, make sure you visit tomferry.com podcast that's tomferry.com podcast. Thanks again and talk to you soon.