Customer Reviews

How to Develop a Six-Figure Income in Real Estate

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

While there are many good books about being a successful real estate broker, this one stands above the rest for helping you create a real estate brokerage business. Mr. Ferry has a business process in mind that allows you to be more effective with your time and money, and to reinvest some of that time and money to create even greater results. Mr. Ferry has been a successful broker, and has been a top trainer in the field (based on those experiences) for many years.

Only the top 3-4 percent or so of brokers made six figure incomes when this book was written, and this book is squarely focused on how to get you into that narrow area. I think this book will be of most value to those who want to make a high income, and are excited about trying new techniques to make themselves more effective.

Although I do not practice as a real estate broker (although I am licensed), this book fits my understanding of how that business works. The most productive parts are when you get a listing or make a sale. Mr. Ferry shows you how to get more listings in time and cost efficient ways, and to have the way you get those listings help you make sales more easily.

Here's what he has to say about this process: "It's not uncommon to see a salesperson's production double within months after starting to use the tools given here." " . . . [T]reat your real estate career as a busines. You can then use proven techniques for increasing your productivity."

The introduction gets the book off to a fast start with excellent ideas for setting goals for your psychological, spiritual, family, physical, and financial success. He then encourages you to create action plans for each goal area, and to start taking action in the first five minutes after writing the plans. People with written goals and plans like these outperform the rest of the world routinely. He also encourages you to break your old habits, to ask for help where it is needed, to be sure you understand what you should be doing, and to keep going whenever you get something to work. In this way, he wants you to create excitement that will overcome whatever procrastination you may have.

Willie Sutton said that he robbed banks because that was where the money was. Real estate brokers have to ask real estate owners about their plans to sell and buy all of the time -- that's where the real estate transactions are. He describes how to do this if you have a natural community to draw on (like your church or club). He also encourages you to try cold-call door knocking, and compare the results. For many new brokers, the cold-call door knocking will work faster and be less expensive. After you are more successful, you can hire someone to help you with this through mailings and telemarketing. He encourages you to do this prospecting all of the time. A recommended target is For Sale By Owner properties (most will eventually hire a broker). Expired listings are also a good source of new listings. You will find many scripts to help you with these contacts.

Once you have a lot of listings, you will make a lot of sales. Good processes for working with buyers are described here as well.

Once you have a lot of sales, it's easier to get listings because you can promote how many sales you make. Sellers are looking for top sellers!

Many brokers will be uncomfortable with his advice. But you can probably rewrite the scripts so that they feel authentic coming from you. That will also help you with procrastination, if you are like me.

He offers several plans for getting started. I suggest that you try one that is for an activity level you can stick with.

Chapter 12 has a number of examples of people who are getting great results. I found those examples particularly helpful, because it made it clear to me that you don't have to be a Mike Ferry clone to have more time for yourself, more self-esteem, more control in your life, and more income.

Good luck with improving your real estate business!

After you have been using his process for 90 days, I suggest that you take a look at where you have been most successful in getting listings and do more of that. Also, analyze the places where you have been less successful by asking those who turned you down how you could have improved in approaching them. If you do this every 90 days, you should get even better results!

I need to set the record straight, because I recommended this book in another of my reviews, and have since changed my mind about it. Chalk my previous thoughts up to newbie ignorance, I guess. Also, in the interest of full disclosure: I am no longer in real estate, after spending two years trying in earnest, but ultimately giving up (having burned through all of my savings and maximized my personal debt). Do I blame this book for my failure? Of course not! It's not that simple (Note that the reviewer who said this didn't attack my arguments, but merely impugned my character).

All that having been said, this book is worthless, for a number of reasons.

First off, he repeats the tired maxim that it takes 99 "No's" to get to one "Yes." So, the key to success, then, is that you've got to resign yourself to simply slogging through those 99 No's in some fashion. Ferry's primary recommendation is "cold doors," meaning walking a neighborhood, knocking on people's doors and asking them if they are planning on selling their home any time soon. He's serious about this! I took him up on his recommendation... in August... in Phoenix... it was not fun. All I got for my 100 "No's" was a lot of sweaty clothing.

A moment's critical thought will expose one aspect of the sheer idiocy of this recommendation: Assuming the 99/1 ratio is absolute gospel, how long do you think it will take you to knock on enough doors to speak with 100 people (if no one answers it doesn't count toward the ratio)? Best case, I found, was 8 hours. In that same period of time you could use the phone and speak to several times more people. Shouldn't efficiency count for something when you're "running a business"? (I agree with the other reviewer who said that this book describes making a "job" for yourself.)

So, what about "cold calling," then? Ferry doesn't endorse cold calling 100%, because it's not "face to face", but he doesn't discount it, really, either. He grudgingly admits that his readers are going to prefer it over cold doors. Unfortunately, with the new telemarketing laws, any realtor making cold calls is playing with fire. But even if we were to take his advice at the time it was given, it's absurd. Do you really think it's reasonable to believe that 1 out of 100 strangers you call is going to say to you "Yes, I'm glad you called! I'm planning on selling my house in the next month or two. Come on over!" I don't, either! (Don't think I didn't try this, however, because I did! "Skeptical" is not the same thing as "close-minded") But that's what Mike Ferry wants you to believe. Mike Ferry seems to want you to forget that real estate is a business about _relationships_.

Let's assume for a moment that you're the world's greatest salesperson. People just can't say "no" to your flawless pitch and your irresistible charm. Okay, Ferry advises us that roughly 3 to 4 hours of our days as Realtors needs to be spent prospecting for new business--cold doors or cold calls. Think about that for a minute: You're making 6 figures a year (according to the title of this book), which means that, at minimum, your hourly wage is $48. Do you know _any_ telemarketers who make that kind of money? Obviously it would make a lot more sense for you to hire a high school kid part time and pay him or her $10/hour to do it for you (with a little training from you, the master salesperson, of course). Does Ferry recommend this? No. The fact that he doesn't point out something so obvious is cause for concern, in my view.

So, Ferry recommends, in effect, that you spend the equivalent of $960+ per week (the value of your time) making cold calls. Why is it that he doesn't simply recommend setting up an aggressive advertising campaign with that roughly $4000/month? Not only would that be one massive campaign, but it would free up your time for other things. AND, people will call YOU (or your assistant) instead of you calling them--people who are actually interested in buying or selling real estate! Imagine that!*

Did you get into real estate to make cold calls for 3 hours a day (in the evenings, no less, since that's when people are home. UGH!), to harass and manipulate hostile FSBOs and expired listings, or to have free time and low stress?

Ferry also recommends against a geographic "farm" area, suggesting instead that you create a "people farm". I suppose there's nothing inherently wrong with this, except that farming a particular area has a number of distinct advantages: 1) You can become an expert on the area's trends and values; 2) You won't have to resign yourself to driving all over town to chase down that next listing; 3) It's much easier to set up targeted advertising, to maximize the effectiveness of your advertising dollar. None of those things are discussed in his book.

Another item conspicuous by its absence is any discussion of how to best determine the necessary size of your farm based on your goal income. It's a simple formula; something that any new realtor would find extremely educational and useful... nowhere to be found in the book. (Hint: You need to determine average home values for the neighborhood, yearly average turnover rates, your likely market share...)

Yet another of this book's oversights is any discussion of the indispensable referral network that all realtors must cultivate--that "relationship" thing again. Without exception, every realtor I spoke with who had been around for 5+ years told me that the bulk of their business volume came from referrals and repeat customers. Mike Ferry barely touches on this subject--probably because he knows his target audience is newbie realtors who won't have a referral base, yet. Nonetheless, I don't think that excuses leaving the subject out--especially given the title of the book!

What you do get a lot of in this book--aside from the bogus platitudes--is sleazy, manipulative sales tactics that would make your neighborhood used car salesman blush. I am sorry that I ever recommended this book.

Oh, one last thing--I want to speak to Donald Mitchell's asinine review above. His statements "Once you have a lot of sales/listings... etc." remind me of an old Steve Martin joke: "You can be a millionaire and never pay taxes! ... First, get a million dollars..." Hilarious, but certainly not helpful advice.

*Hint: a well-designed advertising campaign that focuses on your "positioning" [see the book by the same name] and doesn't turn you into a commodity--like those awful "Homes" magazine ads do--is probably the "best" way to grow a successful real estate business. I encourage you to do a Google search for "personal marketing".

This book covers basics in the real estate JOB from start to finish. Very straightforward in his approach, Mike Ferry explains how to do well in real estate and how to be committed to it and be organized and scheduled as if it were a regular 9-5 JOB.

Although there are many realtors that do very well in this JOB, (the Mike Ferry approach), this JOB is tiring, requires multitudes of commitment and is very, very, very repetitive and boring.

Most top producers do not treat real estate as their JOB, they treat it as their business. Gary Keller in "The Millionaire Real Estate Agent" explains how to make it a business, rather than just a JOB.

This is a great book for anyone starting out in real estate. But be warned it requires committment from you. Changed my life and my career. It helps you get what you want, in the time you want, won't that be nice?

More theory than action. No real benefit to my junior agents or experienced agents.

Mike Ferry is the best real estate sales trainer in the world.
The reason the reviewer went backrupt or maximized his debt is because he did real estate the traditional way. I used to do it the farming way, the advertising way, the referral way (giving lots of gifts and cultivating relationships). Mike Ferry's ideas are the first to treat the business like a professional business. Every successful agent I know has prospected like Mike Ferry. The reason why that reviewer is out of the business is because he didn't prospect for new business every single day. How can "Prospecting" put you in debt? You pick up the phone, learn some scripts and start calling. Its all the other crap that traditional brokers teach that causes you to go bankrupt. Spend $100,000 on mailings, spend $250K on farming, spend $50,000 on classified ads or harmon homes. Bus Benches and Billboards costs thousands a month. I know because I used to have all this stuff. We call people and get motivated seller and buyer leads daily. The point that mike always talks about and is not mentioned here enough is consistiency.
Mike has updated alot of his stuff from the time this book was published. The top 5 agents in my brokerage including myself as subscribed "Ferryites". Look, even if you did everything mike talks about in his book, you have to remember that true results happen after 18 months of implementing the system. You will get much better results before then, but it will take 18 months before you understand everything and do it a proficient practice. Good luck to all out there.

Meat and potatoes to real estate sales. If you have the discipline to pick up this book and do what it recommends, be prepared to have an additional 25-50 transactions over the next year. It is not just about cold calling. That is a piece of the pie. (You can only sell to who you know if you don't step out of that box.) Build a business around just this one book and you will do well.

Please allow me to start with one disclaimer... It does not work for Quitters!

I love the book, Mike's theory is very clear, concise and simple. The system works for those who are committed to make their career succeed. Most people who comes into the business wants a magic button, like Staples'((EASY)). But the reality is, you have to go out and find your clients.

I enjoyed reading and incorporated many of its chapters into my business plan. The book covers everything that you need to know to be successful in real estate. But the most important part for me, who is only in my first year in Real Estate, was the prospecting techniques. I have developed my own scrips, based on ideas from the book, and it works. I am here to warn you that the material in this book in not a magical wand that will make customers knock on your door... You have to go out and knock on their doors, and if you have a system, and do it consistently, it works.

This book saved my career, because I was on the path to spend lost of money on things that have a very low ROI. This system will cost you close to nothing, but will boost your career in Real Estate.

If you are listing and selling real estate, you must read this book. You cannot afford not to! Every chapter gets straight to the point on how to make you more money in real estate sales! I thought I had read some good selling books in the past until I read Mike Ferry's How to Develop A Six Figure Income in Real Estate...Now I know the vast majority of the other books were garbage. Finally I know exactly what I must do and,now how to do it. He has made it simple.

A no nonsense approach to real estate. Great strategies that really cut to the chase. Excellent tool for agents.