By Jefferson
REDX has been helping agents for nearly a decade now. During that time we’ve gotten to know our clientele rather well. Through the hundreds of interviews, surveys, and testimonials we’ve collected while in business, we are finding several common traits among our most prosperous agents. These characteristics reflect a certain discipline that agents making $250,000 or more per year possess and agents who were making $70k or less don’t. Learning this, a common phrase that comes to mind: “Successful people do what what unsuccessful people are not willing to do.” I’d like to dedicate this post to a few of the things driven agents do to earn more than twice the income their less-disciplined counterparts.
Exercise
I know you’d like to burn calories from putting signs in the ground all day but you’re going to have to hit up the gym to get the exercise we’re talking about. This may not sound related to real estate directly, but no matter how you cut, people who exercise are disciplined and people who are disciplined have success. There are studies all over the place indicating some kind of correlation between those who exercise and those who make tons of money. In real estate, it’s no different. In the data we’ve gathered and in the surveys we’ve conducted, we found that 74% of agents the rake in $250k or more, consistently go to the gym at least three times a week.
Rigid Prospectors
If you can push yourself to exercise, you can push yourself to prospect. And just like an effective exercise regimen isn’t a little bit of weights this week and maybe a little running next, effective prospecting is an almost-every-daily occurrence.
If you want to make the big bucks, our studies show that you need to be prospecting at least 4.6 times a week at 90 minutes per session. Most top producing agents begin calling every weekday at 8am. Most follow up in the evenings, trying to catch those they didn’t reach that morning. The highest producing agents even dedicate an occasional weekend to make contact with people who they’ve missed over the week.
Effective prospecting also requires effective messaging. Calling expired and fsbo leads shouldn’t be something you just wing. That’s why 81% of the agents we’ve seen making $250k or over are using scripts on EVERY call. Even if you think they’re cheesy, salesy, or stilted, you should probably get over your aversion to scripts and start practicing them.
Accountability
An awesome quote I once heard goes like this: “When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of performance accelerates.” Where am I going with this? Accountability. That’s where I’m going. And whether you like the idea of it or not, the accountability method of choice for the majority of $4250k agents is coaching. 73% of agents hitting the $250k mark have been receiving coaching for at least one year. 68% have been involved in a coaching program for at least 3 years.
So how does coaching provide accountability? Going back to the quote in the paragraph above, coaches are the ones you report your performance to. Having a coach in your corner helps disciplined agents set AND WRITE goals, draft business plans, and provide a clear vision and purpose.
Buckle Down
Gym memberships can be bought, coaches can be hired, and prospecting tools can be purchased but discipline is something you have to develop from within. The good news is that you don’t need to be born with discipline to have it. Just like any skill, it is something that can be learned and practiced. What can you do to start living a more disciplined life today?
