Welcome to this episode of Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent I’m your host. Jennifer Myers listen in. As I share exactly what I did to go from not being able to sell a house for years to becoming one of the top 1% of agents in the US to even opening my own brokerage full of agents, help me serve all the clients that were coming my way. I taught those agents at the same strategies I used and date two became the top producing agents. Now through this podcast and agent Grad School dot com, I’m sharing those same modern marketing and business strategies with you. Most of which I learned from looking outside of the real estate industry, no fluff, no theory, no outdated sales techniques or paying for leads, or just the exact steps to get you the real estate business you’ve always wanted. And the life outside your business, you’ve always wanted to let’s make it happen. And dive into today’s episode Today’s episode, What was brought to you by bench bookkeeping? 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Onto today’s episode, the coronavirus has us all staying at home right now, and from talking to real estate agents throughout country over the past few weeks, including our own agent Grad School students, as well as the agents who are a part of our free mastermind Facebook group called the art of being a Top Producing Real Estate Agent the general feeling is something along the lines of, I don’t really know what to do right now. And there’s this feeling of being paralyzed and just kind of like feeling like I want you to know, people want to sit still and watch what’s happening. And there’s worried about the future. So, so much, so many agents say, I’m not really sure what I should be doing right now. Clients are canceling contracts. There’s all this kind of feeling of panic in the air and this, this sense of like, I’m not sure exactly what to do or how bad this is going to get, but I’m going to give you a little tough love right now because I’m a real estate coach. I’m not a real estate cheerleader, those thoughts about not knowing what to do and having panic. And I’m not sure how this is going to go. And all of that has to stop immediately. If you’re going to want to weather this storm successfully, we are likely at a very crucial turning point in our economy, in our, in our real estate market, probably since in my opinion, probably since 2008, similar to where we were back then when those financial markets crash and The in the real estate market really took a dip. And there was a lot of agents who didn’t survive, but there was a lot of agents that thrive during that time as well. So I want to talk to you about what the difference is and how you can be one of those agents that thrives when the market shifts not kind of falls by the wayside and depending on how the next few weeks go, we very well meet. We very well might go even deeper than we did in 2008. And I really truly hope that I’m wrong, but based on selling homes for the worst real estate market in history and 2008, I honestly don’t think we’ve seen yet the worst of this downturn. And I’m not telling you this to scare you or alarm you, but I really want to be honest with you and warn you that they’re, that you have no time to waste right now. You absolutely have to definitively decide as a real estate agent, if you want a weather this storm, because during a downturn, all that happens is there is a huge spotlight put on what already exists. And so if your real estate business was not built on solid ground, and if it was not built with a concrete foundation that can weather the storms, if it was built on stilts with no real plan and you weren’t really doing all the things you, you know, you needed to do to grow your real estate business, but didn’t do it. This downturn could topple your business. And again, I’m not telling you that to scare you, I’m telling you that because I think we need to be really honest with ourselves right now. So the question we should all be asking ourselves as real estate agents right now is not if we can weather this storm. But once we decide that we want to not just survive this, but also thrive in it and be successful no matter what the market is doing out there, you know, at some point there’s ups and there’s downs in every market. And we have to be able to weather those storms successfully. If we want to have a career in real estate for our lifetimes, for our career. So the question is not if I’m going to be okay, if I, my business can weather the storm, if I’m going to be able to make it through this, the question we have to be asking ourselves is how, how can I do this? How can I be successful through this? Not only how do we stay in business, but how do we actually succeed through this? And so how, how exactly do we actually do that? I’m going to talk about four things, four concrete things that you actually can and should be doing right now in your business to survive and thrive through these unfortunate circumstances that we’re in. But first we’ve got to get into the right state of mind before we start taking action, because you can hear exactly step by step, what you should be doing to succeed now or at any time. But if you don’t actually have the right mindset and you weren’t telling yourself the right, the right things, and if you don’t believe in yourself, none of those tactics are ever going to work for you. And so I want to start there today. I want to start about how to get your mind, right? So that your actions can go to the right place. And so right now you cannot be in fear. You cannot be asking yourself whether you’re going to make it, and you cannot tell yourself, you are worried about the future. We must take full responsibility for what we’re telling ourselves and realize that what we’re telling ourselves is setting us up for that outcome. We are mulling over in our mind. And so, for example, if you have the thought, Oh, the market’s turning, nobody is going to sell houses. This is going to ruin my business. No one’s going to be like by herself. How’s that for months or years, I don’t think I’m going to make, make it through this. I don’t know how I’m going to pay my bills. You’ve got to catch yourself. And you’ve got to say, wait a second. Those are not the right questions. I should be asking myself because those kinds of questions aren’t going to lead me in the direction I want to go. I think it was Tony Robbins that I’d learned this from. And he says, the quality of your life has to do with the quality of the questions you ask yourself. And so those questions are not high quality questions. They’re not questions that are gonna get you in the direction you want to go, unless it is that you want to fail. We should be asking ourselves the question that are going to lead us to the outcome we want. So when that fear and that panic or a known or that I can, or I don’t know when all that starts, I don’t know about you, but it, for me, it sometimes feels like in my body, it feels like I’m falling. And I always like Alice in Wonderland, falling down that hole, right? You got to catch yourself. I always stop myself, catch myself. And I pretend like I’m catching myself from that, that falling free-falling feeling. We’ve got to say to ourselves, wait a second. I want to succeed through this. I want to help my clients succeed through this. And when I say the word this in this case write right now, we’re talking about Coronavirus. But depending on, you know, whenever you listen to this, there might be a different shift in the market. So what, what, what I’m really talking about is any time the market is shifting, is there, if it’s going in a downturn, if things are kind of not on it, going on an upward scale scene, kind of like in 2000, 2008, 2009, 2010. So for now we are talking about the Coronavirus, but this could apply to any time. There is a shift in the market on the downward. And so you need to catch yourself and say, wait a second. I want to succeed. I want to help my client succeed. Now, how do I actually do that? And what can I be doing to make sure my business is going to do well? And my clients are going to do well through this. The kind of questions you should be asking are, what could I do right now to put my clients at ease? What could I be doing in my business right now to put myself at ease and know without a doubt that I’m going to be a great real estate agent, helping my clients, guiding my clients, counseling my clients during and after this and that my business is going to succeed. I don’t know. Here’s what I know for sure. We don’t know how this is going to go. We’re kind of in the middle of it or in my opinion, in the beginning of it and what could be a very drastic downturn in the economy and in the real estate market. I don’t know. I don’t know. But what I do know is that you cannot be sitting on the sideline watching what’s happening, wondering what should I be doing? Or I don’t know what I should be doing. Would you ever work with any type of professional that had that kind of attitude? When things looked like a crisis, right? I would never work with a financial planner or a doctor or a lawyer or a dentist or anyone. Who’s a true professional who had that. Like, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make it through this mentality. And so you shouldn’t have that mentality either because your clients wouldn’t, they’re going to feel it. Your clients don’t want to work with somebody who has that mentality either. So you’ve got to be an example for your clients. And you’ve got to guide them through making decisions. You’ve got to keep them calm. Even the ones that aren’t going to be buying or selling any time soon, that is crucial. This is the time that you need to show up as their leader are, and truly a true expert, a true professional. And I’m going to show you exactly how to do that. And just a few minutes, but unless you are willing to believe in yourself and believe in your business and that you matter and what you do matters and what you have to say matters, and that your entire reason for being a real estate agent, isn’t just to sell homes for people who are ready, but to actually Help people With the biggest investment of their lives, Real estate And whatever tactics I tell you, aren’t going to work because you’ve got to believe in yourself first. Now hear me loud and clear, no tactic, nothing. I nor any other person in the real estate industry, no matter who you ask, what should I do right now? That anybody you look you’re looking at for guidance right now, whatever they tell you will not work. If you do not believe in yourself and your abilities and your capabilities. And so you’ve got to believe that you are capable and able and a true professional and a true expert, and you have to take action from that place. Not from the, I don’t know what to do to place somebody tell me what to do place, but from that place that I am the expert, I am the professional. That’s what you should be saying to yourself. So I want every single one of you listening to this, to know that what you do matters, what you say makes a difference to your clients and in your business and how you will, our, how you be. And what you tell yourself about yourself is exactly what your clients will think of you also, and what your clients need right now, more than ever more than really, probably a decade. What they need is your guidance and your support and your calmness and your expertise on how to weather this storm. You see it when the real estate market is humming, clients think they can do this themselves. They think buying and selling a home is easy. And sometimes it is. They think they don’t need us. Our value as a profession really starts to demission diminish. And that’s when things like eye buyers pop up. And that notion that we’re adding value starts to go away. It starts to erode, but it’s in these downturns that skilled creative out of the box, thinking agents actually thrive. And I can remember selling houses through that downturn in Oh eight Oh nine. And there were a lot of agents who got out of the business. And there were a lot of agents who sold more like me at the time. I had never sold more real estate than I did in 2008, 2009, 2010. And then my business skyrocket skyrocketed from there, what it actually turned around. And so that’s the opportunity here is to do the same during this dip. So in order to do that, you’ve got to stop telling yourself, you don’t know what to do. You’ve got to stop telling yourself no one is going to buy or sell homes right now. You’ve got to stop telling yourself there are no clients. This is it. My entire business Is over. You’ve got To start telling yourself that you’re the expert. You’ve got to start telling yourself that buyers and sellers actually need us real estate agents now more than ever, because it’s not going to be easy. Like it’s been over the last few years, you’ve got to tell yourself that you can be, and you need to start doing new things to get new results in this new economy. You’ve got to tell you yourself, your clients are waiting for you to reach out to them. You shouldn’t be waiting to hear from them. You should be telling yourself that they’re waiting to hear from you. You got to start telling yourself that there’s operating opportunity here to actually help people. And listen, I’m not telling you to tell yourself things that aren’t true. I’m not telling you to be Pollyanna about it. I’m telling you to tell yourself things that, that are true. Things that you know, are you into action and get you into the direction that you want to end up. ’cause you actually have that choice right now. You can either live in fan and fear, panic, and tell yourself I can’t do anything to change things. It’s the market. No one’s buying houses. No one’s selling. You can tell yourself that, or you can tell yourself that you’re going to find the opportunity. You could tell yourself that your clients need you now more than ever to make the best real estate decisions with their biggest asset. You can tell yourself that you’ll figure it out and you’re going to do what it takes to succeed. You could tell yourself that you’re going to find and lead the people, your clients through this that actually need and want your help. You could tell yourself that it’s your job to find those people. And again, regardless of what’s going on in the market, and this goes for now, or in the past are in the future. There are people that are going to be buying and selling houses, no matter what is happening in the market. Even if its taking a nose dive, right? Yes or no. Say this out loud with me, you know, in 2008, when the market was crashing, were there houses still being bought and sold? Yes or no? They absolutely were. And people who bought homes during Oh eight Oh nine, 2010. They’ve been pretty happy over the last few years because their prices have like probably doubled in a lot of cases. Right? And I can remember back in Oh eight, there was a lot of agents that went out of business and there was a lot of agents that made a lot of money and were very, some of them were even the more successful than in this market that we just went through. Those agents. A lot of them were helping banks sell their bank-owned properties. Those agents were so busy working for those banks when most agents were getting out of the business. And that’s where those areas that were most hard hit in Oh eight. And so it’s possible to weather a storm, no matter how bad it gets, it’s possible. There’s an opportunity there. It’s about finding it. And back in Oh eight, my niche was first-time home buyers. And back then, I don’t know if you remember, but there were so many stimulus packages for first-time homebuyers, they were practically giving away free houses to buy, to have first-time homebuyers who made under a certain amount of income. And that, that was my niche is why I went out there and I found every first-time home buyer program that I, and I told my job at that time was to find first-time homebuyers who didn’t think they could afford a house and tell them about those programs. And obviously not take advantage of anybody, but if they were in a good financial position, my job was just to say, Hey, you make enough money. You pay more than what you probably pay in mortgage in your rent. Take advantage of this $8,000 that you’re getting to buy your first house. Back then, one of our students was selling houses for Real developers, like condo buildings for developers in Oh eight. And we started talking about how the pricing strategies on how to get pot property sold when the market goes down. And she was so grateful at the time she was having a really hard time, but she remembers that pricing strategy. And she’s now going to apply it because she thinks that in her market, things might go down, but she says, I know how to handle this. I remember how to handle this because I have all of that experience from going through this market dip before. And I’m confident that I can lead my clients through this. And she didn’t even realize it until we started talking about kind of that dip. And she was getting worried and I’m like, well, wait a second. You’ve been through this before. You know how to weather this? All you have to do is grab those strategies. He’s from back in Oh eight bottom line, we might be in for a bumpy ride and it might be short and it might be long, but regardless, there are people that have to move that have to buy houses and have to sell houses no matter what the market’s doing. And so you need to be telling yourself that it’s your job to find those people right now and help them like, it’s your mission. It is your full-time job. And obviously, I’m not talking about trying to convince people who shouldn’t be buying or selling. I’m not talking about any of that. I’m talking about people who have made the decision to buy and sell or have two for life circumstances and who need actual help and actually need help. I’m a realist of expert, real estate agents who know what they’re doing because they probably need more help than they do now than they ever have in the past 10 years. And so we’re in that place again, we’re in that shift. We’re in that downturn whenever you call it. And we need to act as though it’s Oh eight again, because that’s where we are in you. You might not hear that elsewhere. I feel like a lot of the real estate news I’m hearing kind of makes it sound like it’s okay. And it might be okay, but you’ve got to be prepared and start getting back to basic tactics. And so the question is, what should you be doing? Well, first, we need to get our mindset in a place to succeed. So take a moment and tell yourself that you are willing to take massive action and always be an action in order to make your real estate business work. Whether the market’s go to the market’s bad, you have to have that mindset to succeed in the long-term and have a successful business. No matter what, you know, I think sometimes the best way to commit to a path is to give yourself no out that’s when we start getting creative, right? Like don’t have one half a day, one foot in and one foot out. If you give yourself no out and say, I have no plan B, this has to work. It will work. So don’t wait on the sidelines and you’ll be, or you’ll be chasing down the market. And I want you to decide to day whether you are an agent who was in this for the long haul and willing to do what it takes or not. And so that is what it’s going to take at this point is making that commitment to be an action, to be in the right mindset. And if you feel yourself falling just can just catch yourself and say, no, that’s not going to get me where I want. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Remember change happens when you take action. So apply what you learned today to your own real estate business. If this episode has helped you subscribe, leave a review and share it with all your real estate agent friends, and as always, if you want even more great resources to create the real estate business you’ve always wanted and have the life you want outside of your business, too, head over to the agent grad school.com and sign up for the free weekly trainings. You’ll get free classes, discounts, and other goodies that only go out to real estate agents on that email list. See you next week right here on Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent the Agent Grad School Podcast.