How are you doing as a real estate agent in a changing market?
In this video, Tom Ferry coach, Janet Miller will cover 10 essential ways to assess your performance as a real estate agent. Whether you’re just starting in the industry or have been working as an agent for years, it’s important to regularly evaluate your strengths and areas for improvement. Janet will walk you through 10 key factors to consider and by the end of this video, you’ll have a better understanding of how to evaluate your performance as a real estate agent and identify areas where you can grow and excel. So whether you’re looking to boost your sales or simply enhance your skills, be sure to tune in and learn from some of the best.
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Janet Miller 0:00
Hi, I’m Janet Miller. Like I said, I’m normally based in Vancouver, British Columbia. But today I’m coming to you from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, which is the capital of Canada with lots of snow here. What we’re going to do today, you’ll need a pen and paper. Or if you want to just use your phone and take some notes, we’re going to do a little quiz. And it’s going to be very interesting for you to see what your score comes up with. What I’m going to do is I’m going to be asking you 10 questions. And for each of the questions, you’re going to rate yourself on a score of one to 10. And then you’re going to come up with a total score out of 100. And I call this the gritty exercise. And what this is going to help you understand is a couple of things, it’s going to help you understand high five, I’m doing really well in this part of my business, I know I need to keep my head down and keep working on these things. This is what’s giving me success. And then what I also want it to do is create some awareness of, oh, you know what, if I’m going to thrive in 2023, I gotta make sure that I there’s that’s a gap in my business, I gotta make it better. So that’s what we’ll do. So I am going to share my screen and then, Kristina, I’ll just get your help. If I miss something in the chat just pointed out to me, but we’ll have some, we’ll have some time at the end. Okay, so let me share my screen. And if I go like that, okay, you guys can see my slides. Can I get a thumbs up if we can see my slides? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Okay, so now, if I tap on there, okay, there we go. All right. So here’s my quote for the year
2023 is going to be a really interesting year for us running a real estate business, right, we’ve had the past two years, that’s been lost, I don’t know if we’re gonna see that again, in the near future. So my prediction is, in 2023, there’s going to be three distinct outcomes for a real estate business, the business is going to survive, the business is going to take a complete nosedive, or the business is going to thrive. And the ones that survive the businesses that thrive are the ones are run by agents that are gritty. So what we’re going to cover is what does it take to be gritty? And how gritty Are you? So before we get into the quiz, I just want to remind us of what gritty means. And I don’t know, has anybody read the book, grit, or watched a TED Talk by Angela Duckworth, who wrote the book, grit. And she defines grit as this grit is passion and perseverance for long term and meaningful goals. It’s not talent, it’s not luck. It’s about having a goal that you care so much about, that it organizes and gives meaning to almost everything you do. So we’re going to take that, and we’re going to translate that into real estate. And understand what does it mean to be an agent who is gritty? So here are the 10 questions? Are the 10 characteristics of an agent who is greedy? Okay, number one, agents who are gritty have a growth mindset. So give yourself a rating on a scale of one to 10 that they you have a growth mindset. And what does a growth mindset mean? It means you embrace challenges, you persist in the face of setbacks. You know, that effort is the path to mastery, mastery, you know, you learn from the feedback you get, right you when you see others succeed, you are inspired to grow. And if you fail, to see that as an opportunity. So give yourself a rating on a scale of one to 10, how you would put yourself as having a growth mindset. That’s number one. Number two, as a gritty agent goes all in on repeat referrals and reviews, right? Repeat business referrals and reviews. So that means when you look at your results, half to two thirds of your business is coming from transactions from your past clients, referrals from that group, from your sphere referrals from that group, and from agent referrals. And what also ties into that is if I were to Google your name, I would definitely be impressed with what I see. So even if I haven’t met you before, if I google your name, I have enough confidence in what I read that I say you know what? I’m going to pick up the phone and call that agent. They’re the right agent to sell my home. Right? Or if I google best agents in And, and your area, your name is at the top of the list. So how would you rate yourself on a scale of one to 10? of going all in on repeat business referrals and reviews? Okay, so that’s the first two things. The next thing is your intelligence. And each of these intelligence, you’re going to give yourself a scale a ranking on a scale of one to 10. So the first kind of intelligence I want you to have is about intelligence about the market. Right? So a 10 out of 10 agent would give themselves a score of 10. If they studied the market every single day, right? They could, with confidence, answer the question, how’s the market, but not only that, it’s not enough to study it. And to know it, what you do is you also share that knowledge with your sphere with your followers, and it helps bring in new business, right. So if I go to your YouTube channel, or I connected with you on LinkedIn are I follow you on Instagram, I can see your opinion of the market. And actually, it’s even if I haven’t met you before, I’m so confident in the information that I see. Again, it gives me the confidence to pick up the phone and call you to sell my house, or to help me buy. So that’s intelligence of the market. The second type of intelligence is you have intelligence of products. And what that means is you’re really knowledgeable about the act of listings, and the sales in your area.
An agent who is intelligent about the products goes out and visits the active listings in that area where you want to be the expert, right. So if you have a farm area, or you have that area of the city where you want to be the absolute expert, you take the time and go visit the properties. And what that does for you is when you’re on a listing presentation, you can say, Oh, yes, I was in that one that sold down the street three months ago. And here’s how that property compares to yours. Right, it gives you a serious competitive advantage when you’re on a listing presentation. Because if I’m another agent, and I’m competing against you, and all I can say is, this is what the MLS shows, you have the advantage because you’ve been in that property. That’s what it means to be intelligent about products. And then also on the buyer side, if you’ve gone to visit those different properties that have been on the market. If you’re now taking a buyer through a listing that just came on today, you can say to them, You know what I visited that one that sold a month ago or a week ago. Here’s why I like this floor plan better than that one, it helps you speed up the conversion with your buyers. So what is your rating for intelligence of products, right gave yourself a rating on a scale of one to 10. So then the next type of intelligence you need is intelligence of your clients DNA. And what that means is you understand your client’s desire, need and ability. So it’s not enough if you go on a listing presentation to just understand, okay, we need to list it at 900,000. And this is how we’re going to market it. You understand their DNA, what is their desire to move? Right? What is triggering the desire to move out of their property? Right? Is it a job transfer? Is that a new baby coming? Is it there an empty nester and they don’t want the stairs? What is triggering that desire to move? Need? What do they need in their next home? Do they need more space? Do they need more parking? Do they need less stairs? Do they need to be in a certain school district? What do they need in that next property? And then a what is their ability to move? Can they move tomorrow if the right one came on the market? Or do they have to wait till the job transfer is finalized? Do they have to wait till the baby is born? Do they have to wait until the youngest goes off to college? Maybe they have to get their taxes done because they can’t get their pre approval until that’s all sorted out. So really understanding your clients D and A give yourself a score from one to 10 on that. The next thing you want to be intelligent about is your goals and conversion rates. So it’s not enough to know you know what I want to do 36 transactions this year, I want it to be down to the level of, I want to do 22, you know, 22 buyers and 14 sellers. If I want to put up 14 sold stickers, I’ve got to have 16. For sale signs in the ground, I’ve got to go on 32 listing appointments, that means I’ve got to go on 11 listing appointments by the end of this quarter. That means I’m going to average about one per week. So you know, your ultimate goal, but you can reverse engineer it to have targets for the number of listing appointments, and buyer consultations you need to do every single week. That’s what it means to be intelligent about your goals and your conversion rates. Okay. The last type of intelligence you need is you need to be intelligent about your profit situation. Right? It’s interesting in this industry, we put so much focus on GCI and total revenue, all these things. But guess what, at the end of the day, you don’t live on gross, you live on what’s leftover, right? And so you have to be intelligent about the profit. So if you want to be intelligent about your profit position, you’ve got to know not only how much revenue you’re bringing in each month, but you’ve got to know, how much does it cost me to run my business? How much does it cost me to run my life? What is my debt situation? How do I want to change that by the end of the year? Right? What are my savings goals? And, and and and what are my habits that helped me manage and understand my profit position? Right? So do you have QuickBooks? Do you have a bookkeeper? Do you review your p&l every month? Like do you understand your financial position? Every single month, so that sort of means to be intelligent about profit? So those these should have five different scores, right? So give yourself a score at a 10 on the market, on the products on the client DNA on the goals and conversion rate, and on the profit position. Right. All right. The next thing a gritty agent is really good at is they build and follow a time block schedule, right? They build and follow a time block schedule. So it’s not enough to just have it in your calendar. But you’re actually doing your hour of power when you say you’re doing your Hour of Power, right? That you’ve got time in there to do your workouts, you’ve got time in there to spend it with family and friends. You’ve got ce o time built in your calendar, right? So you’ve got time to work on those projects that make the business grow. And not only that, it’s not a set it and forget it plan, you have a time block in your schedule that at the end of every quarter, one of the things you do is that you look at it and you see does that schedule still make sense? Right? Do what about What time am I getting up? What time am I going to sleep? When are my office hours, you want to review that? Every 90 days. So how would you rate yourself on a scale of one to 10 on a time block schedule. Okay, getting to the last two here.
Kristina Kendig 13:45
Janet, going back to that I love that the last thing is that you review it every 90 days because something that’s working for me this month may not work like if you have children your schedule that you have now isn’t going to stay the same when they’re out for the summer. So I love that it’s like you’re reviewing it is this working is this you know fitting in my lifestyle. I love that.
Janet Miller 14:03
Yeah, and you know what else like? Yeah, so your personal demands also the the ebbs and flows of the business too. There can be certain times of year that a bit busier for the business. And you know, the the one that I deal with a lot is sunrise and sunset. In the winter months, I bear I don’t see sunlight till about 8am. But in the summer 5am 4:30am The birds are chirping, so that obviously has an impact of how I schedule my days and my evenings based on sunrise and sunset. So definitely give yourself grace to update that schedule every 90 days. Okay, so then the next one, a greedy agent is a tactical operator. And that means your operations manual is not in your brain. Right your operations manual is documented somewhere and the The way to test this to see if you truly have an Operations Manual is to think about the following question. If you go on vacation, let’s say I send you off to Hawaii for a couple of weeks or a month or whatever. And I say to you not to worry, I will run your business, right? I know real estate, I know how to run a business, I just don’t know how you do it. I just need Give me your operations manual. So I know what to do. When a buyer calls when a seller calls when a past client calls, what do you want me to do with your marketing, I need to have a document to follow. I need to have access to Asana or Monday or whatever system you’re using. But somewhere, it needs to be documented. So I know what to do every day, every week, every month, because otherwise, you and I are jumping on Zoom every single day of your vacation. So I can ask you my questions. Oh, and you’re going to have to keep your cell phone on you even if you’re on a boat or at the beach or wherever. Because I don’t know what to do if I don’t have an operations manual. So how much of a tactical operator Are you? Okay, so that’s the last letter T. So that’s number nine. And then the last one that you’re going to give yourself a score of one to 10 on is how well do you take care of yourself? Because a greedy agent knows that in order to take care of others, you’ve got to take care of yourself first. So they’ve got standards, and they’ve got a plan around their meditation practices and working on their mindset, their standards and practices for exercise, for diet, and for sleep. Right? How much water are you drinking every day? What are you drinking? What are you not drinking? What are you eating? What do you not eating? When do you get up in the morning? When do you go to bed at night? What’s your routine for the last 30 minutes to an hour before it’s lights out? When you get up in the morning? Are you energized and ready to start the day? Are you hitting the snooze button and just like dreading getting out of bed? So Bridie agents are very, very, very disciplined in terms of taking care of themselves, right? Like a handful of almonds at a Starbucks coffee is not a balanced meal. Like that sometimes can be the meal of a real estate agent. Correct. And so you take care of yourself in terms of meditation and mindset, exercise, diet, and sleep. So those are the 10 things. Right? Those are the 10 things. I’ve got them up here. So what I want you to do is add up your score. Okay, so I want you to add up growth mindset. what’s your what’s your number? Repeat referrals and reviews? What’s your number? Being intelligent about the market? Being intelligent about products? Being intelligent about your clients DNA, knowing your goals and your conversion rates. Probably Prophet building and following a time block schedule, being a tactical operator. And then the last one is you come first. So have you guys all added up your scores. Yes, can I get a thumbs up? You guys have added up your scores. Okay. All right. So what’s the outcome? Now, what I want to say is, what your score is your score is going to tell you if you’re going to thrive, survive or nosedive. But here’s what I want you to remember. It’s not a prognosis, if you get a low score, it doesn’t mean you’re doomed for 2023. All it means is that you’ve got the knowledge of what the habits are, that you need to work on, that’s going to take you up into that thrive level. Okay, so let’s see here. 80 To 100 You’re in the Thrive category 60 to 79. You’re in the survive category, and less than 60. You’re in the nosedive category right now. Okay, just right now, but I’ve done this exercise with over 100 agents now. And I’ve had people score as low as 27. And as high as like 87. And it’s interesting, the person who scored 27 They’re doing like 50 Plus deals a year. So it’s not like they’re not doing business. It’s just that they’re doing it in a much more complicated way than they need to right. They realize like they’re neglecting their health. They’re not Taking care of themselves first, they don’t have enough systems in place. Right. So that’s, that’s what I want you to remember, above your score. So what I like to do in the last few minutes is Help me understand. Let’s do a little troubleshooting. What do you need to work on first? Probably have time for a couple of questions. Right? What do you need to work on first? And let’s talk about how we can get that score up. So I’m going to stop the share. Let’s maximize this. And maybe just hit raised,
Kristina Kendig 20:39
unmute yourself, or if you have a question, you want to just drop it in the chat box. Yeah. In the office, if you have a question, just let me know. And I’ll ask her.
Janet Miller 20:48
Just yeah, hit the raise hand button, because I’m curious to know, either, what did you learn about yourself? Right, what did you learn about yourself? Or where do you need some guidance?
Who was in the Thrive category? Who was in the survive category? Okay, anybody right now in the nosedive category? Okay. So what questions you have, or Kristina, what popped into your head popped into your mind.
Kristina Kendig 21:23
So the thing that I loved personally, is the market knowledge, like sharing that, like all of us, you know, we get so much information, we follow so many different people, like but we’re, we’re not sharing that ourselves. And we always are stressing that, like, I may be following a bunch of people, but I’m following my colleagues, the people that are following me aren’t following those people. So they’re not getting that same information. They don’t have KCM. They’re not, you know, getting this good stuff. But the one that really, really stood out to me was the product. Like I’m in the MLS all the time, I know those things, but am I going to preview homes anymore? No, am I going to new builds No, I don’t have that true product knowledge. So I love that one. That one was really like, okay, that needs to change. And then I love how you phrase the DNA, the desire need an ability that was great.
Janet Miller 22:14
I’ll tell you what I’ve tell you what I’ve seen by by doing this to an having discussions with many, many, many agents, with the ones that you just flagged, come up a lot. It’s like, you know what, I either I don’t study the MLS enough, or I get you know what I study it all the time. If someone asks me how the market is, I’m a genius at answering that. But where they saw the opportunity was to simply share it more. Right. And the solution to that is really easy. You know, do it quick, real, once a week, do a midweek market update, every Wednesday or do a Weekend Review. Every Friday, just pick two to three data points, and have an interesting story about what you’re seeing in the market. It could be you know, the amount of traffic you’re seeing at open houses, or there’s been a change in interest rate, or there’s a change in housing policy, be the the expert, pick that day that you’re consistently every week, just putting out some data, putting out some data around the market. And you’re right with the products, the intelligence of the products, a lot of people were like, Yeah, you know what, I don’t get out to enough properties. But imagine if you started going out to properties more often, more often. And then you put the put it in your stories, right? You create a real, don’t say the address of where you’re going. But tell me the neighborhood that you’re in and telling tell me what you’re seeing. Because guess what I’m going to start to associate you with downtown or uptown or north side or west side, or townhouses or condos or new constructions or investment properties. It’s a really good way of getting the word out there, of where you are an expert, right? All you’re wanting to do with these tactics is attract people into your world. Like how great is it when someone you haven’t worked with before, picks up the phone and calls you and asks if you’re available to help them because they just they’ve got that know like and trust with you already. Because they’ve seen their they’ve seen your work, they’ve seen your videos, they read your listen to your content, right? So the good news is those are really really good ones that you can change instantly.
Kristina Kendig 24:39
And everybody can do them. Those ones are easy. We have one agent that asked if you have any tips for agents with small children how they can do the time block and everything.
Janet Miller 24:49
Okay? Give yourself grace. Okay. Do the do the time blocking that works for your life. So if you have small Kids, and let’s say you’re dropping them off at daycare, or let’s say, or let’s say you’re dropping them off, you know, or you have a nanny coming in, or whatever it is. Just give yourself grace, if that means you can’t get to the office until 930, that’s fine. But be consistent with that. And make the most of every hour. So let’s say you can’t get to the office till 930. And you’ve got to leave by 230 Or three, to pick them up. Make the most of every minute you have. So mornings are for you afternoons or for others, right mornings, or for you mornings, or for you for studying in MLS, doing your Hour of Power doing, you’re making your connections, reaching out, right, reaching out, don’t do, don’t do the admin work until at least late in the morning, don’t meet with people to at least late in the morning, control your day, up till at least 1111 30. And then leave the rest of the time for meeting with others that in itself can often help and just have the time blocks in your schedule for like four appointments, hey, this is what I’m doing coffee meetings or buyer consults or listing appointments, get them in there, even if you don’t know who you’re meeting with yet, get the time blocks in there. Think about when you call your dentist or your doctor for an appointment. They give you the availability slots. Right? And so I find when you do that, you control your schedule about 80 to 90% of the time. Okay. Are there are there any other questions in the in the chat or from the group?
Unknown Speaker 26:45
Janet, I have a comment and a couple of questions for you, by the way. Great stuff. Thank you so much this, this is amazing. You know, I, I used to have a similar survey of 10 items for improvement. And we used to have our agents during a quarterly review rate themselves on a scale of one to 10. And then at the end of our review, we would they would actually pick three items to improve on in the next 90 days. Because we try to improve on 10 Things we probably won’t even get through one right? Down. Yeah, you know, you know, in small pieces. And I know this is like a process. It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s like a one year process to improve in these categories. But my question to you as to you and your experience, what what what would you think is the one or two that are non negotiable? That should that should be worked on like now?
Janet Miller 27:38
Okay, so before I answer that, I just want to reinforce what you said, you’re banging on with what to do with this, right? So take this assessment, you don’t have to change at all, what’s the one or two things you want to work on? By the end of this quarter? review this again, at the beginning of April, pick the next one or two? Right and keep building and improving and improving? And see how you level up. So you asked like what’s the most important time block schedule? Definitely, right time block schedule, absolutely worked from that. And then just the ones that we talked about before, like just, you can make such traction, you can make such gains in your business by studying the market and sharing it like it just leads to so many other opportunities. Right, it’s going to help you get those listing appointments, it’s going to help you get those buyer consultations. So like to me those are the the most the the time block schedule and the knowledge of the market. Those are those are really key. And if you want me to come back at a future date and go deeper on some of the others, I can absolutely do that. But what I want you to take away from today is give yourself a score. Pick the one or two you’re going to work on right now. Reassess next quarter and keep leveling up. So you’re greedy because I want every one of you to thrive and 2023 I’m like Okay,
Kristina Kendig 29:10
thank you so much Jana always like amazing information. We’d love it when you’re on here.
Janet Miller 29:15
Awesome. Okay, I’ll see you guys again soon.
Kristina Kendig 29:17
Thank you have a good one. Bye.
