If you are a real estate broker, lead a region or office, manage a mortgage team, or operate as a top producing agent or affiliate partner you are well aware that new agents sometimes earn a big win. You often ask yourself how they did that.
The answer is simple. They did not know it was supposed to be hard.
Lacking industry expertise can actually be your greatest advantage.
We often convince ourselves we need to know every detail and potential roadblock before we make a move. Innovators like Malcolm McLean, who revolutionized global shipping with the cargo container, and Ronnen Harary, who built the multi-billion dollar toy empire Spin Master, succeeded largely because they did not know the established rules. Unburdened by the knowledge of why something supposedly could not be done, they were able to solve fundamental problems that industry veterans were simply too entrenched to even see.
There is a brilliant thought from Shunryu Suzuki that captures this perfectly. He said:
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.”
When you operate strictly as an expert, you run the risk of talking yourself out of the very actions that drive growth. You know all the reasons a prospect might say no, so you do not make the call. You know the market is tough, so you scale back your efforts. A beginner does not know any better. They just do the work.
So I have a question for you.
What would you try next week if you did not know enough to know it was supposed to be hard?
Once you have that answer, you have to back it up with a relentless focus on the fundamentals. You need to strip away the overthinking and execute a daily Moneyball formula.
If you are a recruiter or team leader, your focus is TCF plus D, R, and H with total intention:
- Start with 12 Proactive Touches to build relationships and increase your network size.
- Those touches will naturally lead to a percentage of actual Conversations. Aim for 6.
- Those conversations lead to appointments. Your goal here is 1 or more new appointments with an experienced producer.
- Plus, you build for the future with 3 additions to your database, 1 or more referrals earned, and 1 or more hires made.
If you are an agent focused on sales, your daily tracking looks a little different but requires the exact same discipline. Think of Tom Ferry’s 5/5/4 contact formula:
- Have conversations with 5 people you know.
- Have conversations with 5 people you do not know.
- Execute 4 follow ups with your active leads.
Stop worrying about how hard the industry tells you this should be. Adopt a beginner’s mind, put your head down, and execute the math.
Your system will produce what a system will produce, nothing less nothing more.
