Foreign. Hey, welcome back to the Podcast! Happy! New Year happy New Year happy New Year Happy New Year I'm curious. did you spend any time over the holidays? reflecting? not just on 2022? Maybe maybe 2022, but maybe just your career I Had some time up in Park City with some friends and it was snowing and it was gorgeous and as always I have a tendency to wake up earlier than everybody else in the house and I found myself in just a reflective State thinking about what it means to be coachable, what it means for me to be coachable, and the impact that's had on my life, the impact that's had on my career, and I started thinking about all the men and women that pulled me aside, grabbed me by the shoulders, or offered a piece of advice that I said yes to and the impact that each one of those moments had and I thought I wanted to share some of that with you today, especially if you've been a long time listener and you've been following my content. Or maybe you've worked with me or seen me live in an event.

or you've just watched all my content which I'm always grateful for. to give you a little back story of how I got here because when I reflect back on now 33 years of being involved in this space, there's just been so many moments where something gets offered and you either say yes or you say no. And and when you look back over the totality of your career in your life, you see those moments and you you realize the significance of that, the significance of saying yes and then implementing that, the significance of saying let's go for it and how that plays out and there's no doubt. I could do probably a 40-hour show on all the mistakes I've made.

that actually would be a really good idea. According, we should just talk about every mistake I've ever made in business because it's plentiful. But I want to remind you you and I both know the same thing. It is only through our experiences that we gain real insight.

real called wisdom, right? It's usually from being punched in the face, making every mistake. Uh, you know, hiring the wrong person making the wrong decision. But that's not what today's show is about. Today is really probably an honoring of a lot of the mentors I have in my life.

So I'm just going to give you in moments of time insights times where something was offered I said yes and the impact that it had and I would probably have to start with the very first one which is a nod to my father Mike Ferry who I'm sure you know in this industry he's an absolute Legend Um, I remember just thinking how much he taught me about work ethic and I don't know if you think of yourself as having great work ethic, it's probably something I pride myself on more than most, right? I'm a good synthesizer of information I'm a good connector I Feel like I'm a good communicator. but the one thing I got above everything else outside of exposure and and a start with my pops was work ethic. He showed me every day what it meant to be an entrepreneur. When I was a kid growing up, my parents were separated and I would go there you know for Summers or for weekends and that kind of thing.

And inevitably my dad would say oh cool So uh hey, I'm glad you guys were all here and for whatever reason it was never my older brother or my younger siblings. it was always me and maybe just you know, he latched on the fact that I was free labor that's probably what it was and he would just say hey, I'm going to show you something really cool. See these: These are bags. These are shipping bags.

See these. These are my audio cassette programs that I sold at an event recently. What you're gonna do is you're going to put these cassettes into these bags, put a label on them, write the address, staple them all together and put them out for the UPS guy and for whatever reason I fell in love with that. and I you know I was like probably 10 out there basically just putting together and shipping out all the audio cassette programs.

that's dating this conversation. but that was the beginning. Like when I would see him leave on a Sunday and go speak somewhere on Monday somewhere on Tuesday somewhere on Wednesday somewhere on Thursday somewhere on Friday and then pick us up Friday Usually in a suit in a car that he left at LAX at the airport, pick us up and take us home, have a nice dinner, Be alive, be awake and I'm thinking to myself now as an adult, he was in five different cities in five different days and could have done up to 10 to 12 talks plus running his business plus making phone calls Plus checking in with his wife, plus making sure that everything was running well at his business that he was essentially an absentee owner of. he was basically working 70 hours a week 80 hours a week? Who in your life impacted you the most when it comes to work ethic.

I Know some people that got obsessed with things like the four hour work week and that was maybe the early thing that they read that changed the course of their trajectory. That got them to think, you know, how can I do a little and somehow earn a lot That never resonated with me. No, no, you know. knock on on Tim Ferriss I Think he's a brilliant author and a super great guy.

Um, but you have to look back at your life and ask yourself, who taught me how to work or who taught me how to be lazy. Think about it. now. if you study my content and you you watch whether it's mindset Monday or something else I'm always talking about like the tale of the two, right? and I love the story of the the two young men that when asked um, hey, tell us about your life one says well I don't drink and the the question was why and he said well because my father was an alcoholic and then the other one was asked well tell us about your life and he's like well, my life's been pretty miserable I'm an alcoholic I Really struggle with this addiction? Well why? Because my dad was an alcoholic so they were both raised in the same exact environment.

One chose not to drink, one chose to be just like his pops and drink like crazy, you get the choice. So if you're listening to this right now and you're like wait a minute, that's kind of heavy. Like you know who did impact me the most when it comes to work ethic, right? Who was that person for me? Did they teach me to work harder to be a grinder or a hustler or whatever you know, whatever phrase you want to use. That sort of exemplifies like someone is willing to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes until it works or not, you're still going to make the choice from today.

Moving forward, you could say I choose to outwork my competition or I'm going to put in uh, you know, one extra hour every single day, one more rep every single day inside the gym. Whatever it may be, it's your choice. But when I reflect back on the story of my career, one of the most impactful messages was does you have a choice to work hard or not? Now it was interesting. the sub sort of value that my dad delivered to all of us in my family was your income is always in direct correlation to the the value that you deliver to the marketplace.

Now later on in my life when I would listen to people like uh Earl Nightingale who's one of my dad's early bosses and one of his great mentors and really the guy that put the motivational speaking and training business on the map around the world Earl was the first person to really say that that you know your incomes in direct correlation to the value that you delivered to the marketplace. So you take the combination of work ethic and this early sort of value set of when I was 18, 19, 20, 21 constantly being beaten into my head. You don't like your income, You're not delivering enough value you want to figure out like how to become wildly successful whatever that means to you. figure out what are the problems that people have and figure out how you can service or solve those problems at Scale now.

I didn't go to college and I barely got out of high school, but that combination of work ethic and thinking certainly put me on a trajectory that was different from most. Right? Not good, bad, right or wrong. But I just as I start this, I have to give a huge nod to my pop. So Dad if you're listening right now I Love you and I can't wait to play golf with you and take your money.

All right, let's go to the second person that impacted my life. Uh, I Remember distinctly sitting inside my office and imagine we're in a high-rise building in Southern California and a young guy shows up now I don't recall if he had an appointment I think he actually just knocked on the door of the ninth floor of our high-rise and I was a salesperson, you know I think in my first year of sales I think I made like 67 500 bucks. Now when you're when you're 18 and or 19 and you're making that much money, you think you're just an absolute rock star, right? All my buddies were still in college, right? So I was just, you know, killing it and had my own apartment. Yada yada yada.

Um, but I Acknowledge that that first year in sales, it was only about one thing for me: I was just going to work harder, make more phone calls, and just be more enthusiastic than anybody else around me. Um, so I was basically a spaz I had no skills, there was no technique. The biggest problem I had was there was nothing that I was doing that could be replicated. I Just got lucky because I made enough phone calls and I was enthusiastic and very positive and uplifting in my experience.

I'm sure for some people I was annoying as all get up but that's how I was able to win. but then going into my second year it was basically the same thing I had set a goal to double my income and very quickly a couple months in I was on Pace at earned exactly the same amount of money. So it's that old line. like what got you here won't get you there.

So serendipitously, this guy knocks on the door at the office I happen to be walking by I forget the reception's name at the time and I meet this guy named Robert Stover and I'm like hey, how can I help he's like hey so I was you know told there's a bunch of sales people here and I'm a master sales trainer in a Thing Called Neuro Linguistic Programming and I'm like, oh, neural linguistic program like what's that and I remember him myself, my brother Matthew and a guy named Ray Tring Golly. Big shout out to Ray who also worked with us. Um, we all sat down with him for whatever I don't remember what the time was. 15 20 minutes an hour? Whatever it was and essentially he offered hey for 500 a month I will meet you every Saturday and I will teach you the principles and the techniques of NLP to put you in a situation where you can out influence everybody.

You could be the most influential person in the room. You will always know exactly what to say in every selling situation. The timing was right he if you remember the story I'm coming off year one I made 67.5 year two I set a goal to double my income and I was clearly on Pace to do exactly the same because my enthusiasm was only enough to get a few people to say yes I didn't know I'd ask good questions I didn't know how to discover problems and figure out you know solutions to these people's problems. and and for me it was that moment of saying yes so get I'm making 67.5 I'm living now at this point in my a condo that I bought I remember that like bought it at 19 my first house so I'm in there Jacob Sykes My roommate God bless him was paying a lot of my mortgage as rent which was great and 500 bucks a month felt like a bazillion dollars.

but I remember asking myself all right, what's the like worst case scenario like I do this. you know it wasn't like a I think it was just a handshake. it was just like I'll show up on Saturdays and and all you have to do is learn and write sentences that was basically the assignment I Remember saying yes in 18 months later after meeting this guy every Saturday at the office and the assignment was he would teach us two or three techniques. Here's a you know, embedded commands or double binds and all these different NLP strategies and then every single week we would have to write 15 to 20 sentences as many as 50 sentences a day, essentially embedding all this content into our unconscious mind.

And then throughout the week we would be practicing it. whether it was literally going to a bar because I was single and having fun and had a fake ID or on the phone presenting or just meeting random people and trying all these different techniques for 18 straight months, every Saturday everyday writing sentences, showing up and just grinding. when I look back on the impact of that, the confidence that that gave me was it NLP am I am I recommending to you NLP no Was it Was it saying yes and committing to something? The acknowledgment that I didn't go to college right? And even though I was reading books and because of my dad, I was exposed to all these incredible mentors and audio cassette programs and that's a whole other story. but this was I'm going to learn to communicate an effective way to be influential and whether that shows up in my career as a salesperson or as a leader, as a manager as a politician, have them forbid.

Could you imagine something like that? I knew I I Remember being told early on there's two great fears for people: death and dying and public speaking death. And Dot you ever heard that that line like deaf and dying in public speaking right and and public speaking I was certainly intrigued by because my pops deaf and dying I was like you're 19 or 20, you're not even thinking about that, it's not even a factor. And then I remember asking somebody like, but why are people afraid of public speaking and he's like, well, they don't know what to say and you can bring him a crowd makes him nervous and I'm like, oh, so if I knew what to say and I knew how to communicate, then I could eliminate that fear and I would eliminate one of two of the biggest fears that people face. like that sounds like a cool challenge.

So this isn't about NLP it's about saying yes and then it's about committing to something. In that case, for 18 months, that became a lifelong sort of mission. Um, so big shout out to Robert Stover Now I'm going to bounce around a little bit. Um, but whether you are 30 years in your career like myself or you're starting in day one, there are always moments in time where you feel like you're starting over.

So I want to fast forward to uh now 20 years ago and that was the first month that I started this business. So I'd been with my dad for 13 years, helped him take this little family business from three million dollars to about 45 million dollars in revenue and was very proud of the work that we had accomplished. Um, you know, changed a lot of lives, created what we now know as coaching in the real estate industry. Um, you know, groundbreaking, super fun work, lots of innovation.

but if you know my back story, it was time for me to go. So I started this company and I remember, probably like some people start the new year with what am I Really Gonna Do Like do you guys ever find yourself like like what am I gonna do like? That's the question we probably get the most on. how do I start? How do I I switch companies? What's the best strategy I Want to go from being a buyer's agent to a listing agent? How do I do that right? I'm an entrepreneur, how do I start my business and in the course of the time running my dad's company I we had an opportunity to sell the business multiple times, but one in particular that I think about I met a guy named Rick Kurtz So Rick if you're listening you know I love you and respect you and you're like like my brother from another mother man Rick Kurtz is one of the greatest platform presenters I've ever met. I would also argue he's probably one of the best promoters I've ever met in my life and I remember calling him and saying after a fierce negotiation he was the president of the other company and I was president of my dad's company and we were negotiating back and forth in the sale that didn't work out but he and I became dear friends and I remember asking him, hey man I started my new company what do you recommend I do to get started Now get this he says do you know what Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy and myself and he he named some local people in real estate Don Hobbs and Greg herder from Hobbs and herder.

he said do you know what all of us have in common and I was like what's that and he's like we all did office presentations to sell our events. that's how we got started and I was like office presentations to sell our events I'm like now remember I had built a uh, probably I don't know sub 300 person business with my pops on our management team. so I understood events I understood marketing I understood sales I launched Mikeferry.com in 1996, right? So I was you know relatively Savvy in email marketing and direct mail and everything else. and telephone sales and all this stuff that we do every single day and what a lot of businesses do.

But when he said that to me, I thought wow, Two things first: I could stay home because I'd spent the last seven years about 28 weeks a year on the road doing events traveling. When people say to me I want to be a professional speaker I'm like you have no idea what you you want people to clap when you speak Do you have any idea what it's like to leave your home for me young kids like on a Sunday and be gone Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday come back Friday usually exhausted and then have a business to run and have to be super dad and be I'm like you want that for yourself You're insane, right? But it was a part of what I understood. it was the way that I was going to deliver the most value. So I went out and did that and I did that for seven straight years, 28 weeks plus on the road away from my family, away from my friends, away from what I would call a normal life to literally living in hotel rooms and I said wow, I could predict where my events are going to be.

they could all be local Southern California and I could literally stay at my own home and drive to office meetings all over. Southern California And essentially I built the business on year one, doing three sales meetings a day, sometimes three to four days a week and did that leading up to all my events. Now, if you're listening to this and you go back to the work ethic conversation, it kind of makes sense. Get in the car, make phone calls, show up, do a presentation right.

It's kind of like you make phone calls. go on a listing appointment, leave that listing appointment, make more phone calls, go to the next appointment probably stop at Starbucks grab a quick sandwich, have lunch, go make another presentation at noon, and then go make another presentation at three. and I might now be three or four hours away from my house. get in the car and drive all the way home.

And I did that for three straight years to build my business. And the nod I give to Rick Kurtz because I was literally able to take from startup to just shy of 10 million dollars in Revenue in three years, 10 10 million in the actual third year, not 10 million combined over the three years. it was because he said look, Tony Robbins used to do this Brian Tracy used to do this and he was able to Anchor in me, mentors of mine, people that I had a lot of respect for. Now they did this for a guy named Jim Rohn if you don't know that name uh Jim was a another southern California or lived in Southern California Incredible author uh, professional speaker, great business person.

uh Tony sold for him Jim Brian Tracy sold for him so did Don Hobbs soda Greg Herder Pretty fascinating. So that was a moment in time and it really got me thinking like like think about for you like if I said to you if you're asking yourself, how do I start and I said Here's what I want you to do I want you to talk to 40 to 50 people a day over the phone then I want you to go make three presentations a day where you are presenting information to solve problems for the customers you're with. Do that three times a day. Do it for three straight years with absolute Blind Faith That was all going to work out and and also the recognition that no one cared if you were tired, if you were sick, if you aren't feeling well, if you got in an argument with your spouse, if you were behind on payroll, if you were stressing over money, no one cares.

So you have to show up at your absolute best every single day. That's why I started my business. That was the first three years which then gave us the juice and the capital to then go hire more people, grow the business. And oh by the way, the last year that was 2006 and I went right into Seven, eight, nine ten which we all remember but that's a whole different story so let me give you another one.

thinking about 2007. How many times in life have you been told you should create content? How many times in life have you been told you should create content myself? Jason Bantana Maybe a manager, maybe a friend? another YouTuber somebody on Instagram Tick Tock and everyone talks about Gary Vaynerchuk I have one of Gary's books right here. Uh who? I met like 2008 for the first time. Everyone says the same thing and yet even today in 2023, if there was 10 million real estate agents around the world, my hallucination would be no more than about fifty thousand.

Make content at frequency like at Scale. do it a lot and that might be a big number around you. Think about it, like how many people that we know like our community that just puts out content at scale. But it's not everybody.

it's this tiny percentage of them that really hit it hard. So I'm gonna take that number back and say it's no more than ten thousand agents that do it at Scale for me. I Always knew whoever gave out their material for free. Whoever put out more content was the educator.

We didn't call it back and we didn't call it content. By the way, my first Endeavor going to this was in 2005. I Was looking for a way to get the word out and I'd already written a paperback book. but the problem with the book was you had to sell the book or you had to print the book and and have costs and then just send the book out almost as a calling card and I was like there's got to be a better way and at that time I had a Blackberry remember blackberries and on blackberries I forget what the channel was on a black bear but it allowed you to listen to like audio messages.

it was like M MP3 whatever files something like that I'm looking at my team like I don't even know what it is anymore but you could like listen to these messages on your phone and I'm like that's awesome What if between the phone and there's blackberry in their computer what if I started sending audio messages to my email database, giving them scripts, giving them insights, giving them motivation, giving them business tactics. I'm like let's try it So I remember like going to I swear it had to be like Radio Shack and buying one of those like Globes like as a as a recording device like a microphone, plugging it into my laptop and learning like do you want to upload this yes and learning how to send that out via email to I don't know 15 000 people in my database and you know whether it was once a week that was a Cadence for a while or I was doing some 30-day Sprints where I'd have literally have 30 days of messages or 31 days of messages. It started to catch fire. It started more and more people started sharing that remember like sharing stuff via I don't even know like your AOL account you're gonna share this via email this Tom Ferry message.

It started to hit but then the market completely crashed right? So 2007 you know became just a very challenging time. As everybody remembers, I was helping people get REO accounts and short sales and all that other stuff. but that's a different message for a different time. But I was on the golf course one day and maybe you've heard me tell the story before.

Uh my buddy Ed Park Dr Ed Park who is just a super human being I walked up to him I'm like Ed how's it going he's like good Ed is a Harvard grad doctor very serious at that time in his life. very stoic. um not the most. and if you're listening I Love you Not the most fun person to be with on a golf course for four hours right? like I don't know, it's just too smart for me is the best way to describe it.

like he was just way too heady and and not a lot of emotion. and I'm obviously you know kind of a knucklehead and have lots of emotion but he says to me hey my buddy David un is here you want to meet him we should play golf together and I was like cool and I turn to David I'm like David nice to meet you you know what do you do he said I work for Google and I was like kind of a big company like where Australia Northern California like where are you he's like he's like I'm in New York City and I'm like oh you're on the media side like I knew that I was like that's cool what do you do there and he said I'm I'm in charge of the home page and I remember literally saying to myself I'm gonna grab his golf bag right now, put it in my cart and I'm going to drive this guy around for 4 to 11 hours and ask him every question I can about Google and we literally get in the car and I we start playing and just whatever. Nice guy and by the way Ed is a brilliant nice fun guy too. but David I was super obsessed with like this guy works at Google Google think about this, was like 2007.

this isn't today Google with 85 bazillion searches every single day they were still ascending and I remember saying to him so I do these audio messages and I sent them out to people via email and it's starting to catch fire and I'm excited about it and I said as a matter of fact, uh, Blackberry's parent company REM reached out to me and they want me to do an exclusive deal for the real estate industry. Think about this in like 2007 Blackberry wanted me to do this exclusive content deal just for them so all my content would only be on BlackBerry and he turned to me and he said essentially audio messages are stupid and I remember thinking to myself I've been doing this for like a year and a half, maybe two years and this guy at Google just told me that everything I've been doing is stupid even thinking about it right now I want to punch him in the face because I actually said to Brandon earlier. Could you imagine if I would have kept doing what we now refer to as podcasting starting in 2005 right? like Joe Rogan you got nothing on me right? like that would be bananas but in that moment I was coachable and I literally stopped him and said what do you recommend and he said well we just bought this company called YouTube and he said over time the bandwidth, the speed of the internet is going to pick up and YouTube is going to take over the world. he's like I'm telling you right now he said the home page of YouTube or excuse me the home page of Google this is what he told me, the home page of Google In the next few years you're going to see searches that are photo and then video and I was like photo and video like versus think back to like 2007 sidebar ads and then top of the bar yellow ads like I'm I'm dating myself a little bit for some of my old school people on Google you know what I'm talking about and I was like Wow photos yeah hand me that.

that's perfect photos and videos so he tells me. by the way, my team just handed me one of my old. these things were just Priceless flip video cameras he tells me this and I remember we played golf uh, he stole my 60 degree wedge reminder David you never sent that back to me and I think I actually just dropped it in his bag and I just forgot I probably dropped it in his bag unconsciously so I could get his phone number I think that actually is the real story and anyway so I never got it back. but it didn't matter because he, uh, he gave me just about 10 pages of notes that day playing golf.

Google wants you to be successful Google wants you to create more content we own YouTube YouTube is going to control the world. Video is going to be where everything is at. It's going to completely dominate the entire world. This is what this guy was telling me and you just think about that in 2007.

so I what do I do I Like Race home after playing golf I call probably John Wesley and I'm like we need a camera and we're gonna start creating videos and we're gonna put it on YouTube Now if you remember YouTube in 2007 it was like uh, cat videos Charlie bit my finger the dance guy like and it was wonky and it was slow and you had to dial up and it was just it just wasn't right. but when the guy at Google tells you it's going to take over the world I say to myself okay I'm on it So I literally shifted everything to YouTube I dropped the audio stuff which I'm pissed about I stopped blogging in the more classic sense and immediately 2007 started. It was like July 9th or something. started my YouTube channel and then started searching around, running to people like Gary Vaynerchuk and others that were early Pioneers people that were putting out interesting content all very nichy back then.

um but it's hard to catch fire and I realized wow I could shoot a video and I could email that instead of the audio file I could just email the link to the video and all sudden 300 people see it, 400 people see it, 500 people see it, people start making content or um, comments. um I can start interacting with people this what? it wasn't too far from there and help me if I'm wrong here guys, it wasn't too far after that that all of a sudden it was no longer Friendster in Myspace then it was Facebook right and then you could like link up I think much later link up videos on Facebook when they would let you do that versus how it's done today. It was just super impactful. But think about it in your own life.

in your own business, you have moments in time like the moments I'm sharing here that completely changed everything for you. Maybe maybe it was a manager? Maybe it was a broker. Maybe it was a top page in your office. Maybe it was a coach.

Maybe someone like myself who said something and Bam it just resonated about uh Glenda Baker oh you know, bless your heart Glenda Baker right? Oh my stars. Uh, in 2019 we were at the Elite Retreat and she walked out to me and she's like hey sweet Tom Ferry I think it's time for me to get a new coach and I was like I remember like grabbing her by the shoulders and saying good I'm gonna put you a Jason pantana and you're gonna start doing video. That kind of worked out for her. That was a moment in time now I'm not taking credit for that.

All I did was open up a door and put her with a different coach. She went all in on video and absolutely completely changed the trajectory of her career forever. Big shout out to you Glenda you took action So again, huge shout out to Uh to David and no longer at Google and just a superhuman being. Um, don't sign with Blackberry and audio messages are stupid.

Think about that. like how great was that in 2007. All right, let's go to the next one. Um, you have met people in your life in the most random situations that can change your life in a minute.

like for the better. Infinitely unbelievably one of those for me was like I said now be almost 12 years ago I was on a ski trip I'm a snowboarder with my buddy Claude Dan Chad Cooper and myself and I think we did like a cat track or something like this and I'm no like expert snowboarder and most these guys are pretty good skiers and I was a hack but I had a lot of fun. Um, but on this trip uh I remember being with Dan and at the end of each day we would both grab our laptops. we'd open it up and see if a company.

So I'm looking at the numbers and what's going on and checking in and emails and you know, working right doing all that stuff at the end of a super fun day and I look over at his laptop and it's like all these dashboards and I'm like damn, what do you do again and he's like I'm the chief Revenue officer for a company called Three Day Blinds and I was like oh yeah Three Day Blinds I'm like what is all this on your dash? like what are you looking at because I was looking like emails and spreadsheets and his look just far more sophisticated and he turned him and he said if you if you go, make me a cocktail I will show you how to 10x your business and bury your competition and I remember literally grabbing a napkin, putting it over my arm and saying sir, what kind of cocktail would you like now I didn't know his background I didn't know, we knew we knew each other kind of. It's probably like the second trip we've been on, but we didn't It's like life and kids and that was like the typical conversation not about work and I remember saying what do you want he told me I went I made him a drink I came back I sat it down and I'm like Dan what do you do like what do you go Well let me give you the backstory. he goes, you know Zillow right and I'm like of course though at that time was my partner and I'm like them and Bank of America promoting my events and I was like yeah of course I'm like why and he says well I used to work with Kelly Dumont of the Dumont project and I'm like I have no idea who that is and he says well that was the agency that Zillow hired the first I think he was there for like the first six or seven years to help launch them digitally. He said I ran ads for them on Google Facebook I tested their Twitter ads I did their LinkedIn ads I did all of that for several years managing that account before I left to take this job and now doing a very similar thing for Three Day Blinds and I was like holy I watched Zillow's rise and and I know you know a lot of the early Executives there friends and you know the founders and and never knew that they had outsourced a lot of their early growth to an agency let alone the guy that I'm sitting next to and snowboarded all day with and I was like so tell me more about that and what did you do and he started describing you know typical theories you know a B testing everything landing page is this acquisition cost of a lead eyeballs, you know conversion and I'm like fascinated and then I said now help me understand what am I looking at here and he says well at Three Day Blinds he said as the chief Revenue officer my number one job is to book appointments for my sales people across the country and I was like that makes sense to me for you the person listening for me in my own business having a sales team right I was like tell me more about that and he literally we opened up, looked at my laptop, went to my website and he said so when I go to your website, what is it you want me to do and I was like oh well I guess I want you to know like and trust me, maybe check out my events, maybe it was all stupid and loosey-goosey is the only way to describe it at that time I just didn't know and even though I launched my first website in 1995, 1986 with Mikeferry.com I I it just you know, like sometimes you know, but you don't do have you been there before and what you needed was some outside counsel to remind you of what you know to get it done and I was like oh this is making me really uncomfortable which means I'm growing.

This is awesome and then he said look at Threedayblinds.com He said the only thing I want someone to do when they go there after they watch the television ad listen to a radio ad saw a Google ad got an email whatever it is is I want them to schedule an appointment with one of my sales people and if you went right now to Threedayblinds.com I don't care if on your iPhone or your laptop what are you gonna see it's like here's some blinds and draperies and like half the pages. schedule your consultation here I was like man that is brilliant and then he asked me so how much money do you spend on Facebook to drive traffic to your company and I said oh man, a lot and he goes tell me about that I said yeah I started at like five dollars a day and I'm already now up to about four thousand dollars a month and I remember him asking me this question he said what do you want the most and I said well I want you know leads and I want appointments for people that are interested in my services and he said do you know your CAC and it was like the first time I'd ever heard that before and I was like cack he's like do you know your cost to acquire a client and I was like hold on let me write that down hack costume require a client I'm like tell me more about that and he said how much is an appointment worth to you think about this question for you, how much is an appointment worth to you and I said I don't even know how would I how would I gauge that he said well how about this if I showed you how you could generate 300, 400, 500 appointments a week or a month Whatever it is you desire, what would that be worth to you and I'm like are you pitching me right now and hiring you as a consultant he says no but if you buy me like a case of Rose I will come spend a day with whoever's in your marketing team which I think was one person at the time and I will show you exactly how to redo your website I'll show you exactly how to run ads on Facebook and if you want to Google and everything else and the rest is history I mean so I'm sitting with four people right now in my marketing department. You guys know we On Any Given month will invest 400 to 500 000 a month in advertising, right? Very typically right? And and I don't say that to to brag I Say it because every dollar I spend we end up making three. We end up making four.

Sometimes we make as much as seven. It became one of the most repeatable and scalable ways to grow my business. Now for you, as you're listening to this, you might be thinking I did that through direct mail I did that through Zillow or Realtor.com or Trulia back in the day or Home Light back in the day before they all switched to more of the you know commission model referral fee model. It makes a ton of sense that I want to say So that would have been 12 years ago, 12 years ago.

a moment in time sitting next to somebody completely random who I knew but I didn't know I never took the time to go deep with to really understand who they were, how I could bring them more value, How they can certainly bring me more value? Um Dan if you're listening I love you I love you I love you I love you and I'm always grateful for you. That put us on a trajectory for everything we're doing today. From the standpoint of digital when we were named number one coach trainer yada yada yada I would argue that was just as much our Facebook advertising and our Google advertising as it was when we were doing 100 seminars around the country or all over the world. right? Like it was the combination for the person listening you right now it was literally hey, Tom Ferry I see you everywhere and isn't that what we want from our brand? Think about it for you.

like don't you want to be that agent that that entrepreneur that when you walk into a room five or six people recognize who you are like I remember saying to my wife like I'm gonna become the most recognizable business coach in real estate on the planet everywhere I go and I remember writing that down and it probably felt a little egotistical even kind of saying. it kind of sounds a little egoy, but it was. If I could impact people in every country around the world like how freaking cool would that be like like the dash of my life you know, the day I was born, the day I died like there's just going to be all these little touch points. all these moments of my Life.

and one of them is like I don't know Being in the Czech Republic and walking into a cafe with my wife and my kids right over the Charles bridge and and literally someone going Tom Ferry let's do a self and the person didn't speak any English but knew my name and knew selfie and and my wife turned to me she's like holy like I think you actually did it like this is weird I'm like okay, he's a Remax agent, he's coming in by 7R tomorrow so he probably saw my promotion like it wasn't that great. But think about it, what Dan set me on the trajectory for was you could scale your brand all over the world and become that recognizable and you could do the same. and I hope you're getting that message from that conversation from David to Dan. All right, I'm going to give you I'll give you one more.

This is a fun one. So I have one of his books right here which is I think out of all the books he wrote, that's my favorite one right? So big shout out to Gary Vaynerchuk I Remember Lauren Arabia on my team said hey this guy just spoke at Inman he said the f word something like 400 times in a 90-minute talk but the audience really ate them up. We should check him out, which is a weird way to say we should hire somebody with like that kind of introduction. but I was like that's the Wine Library guy I go I've seen him on YouTube I'm like yes, I actually watched a couple of his shows.

we should hire him to speak at one of our events. let's see what that would be like. So he flies in the night before we uh, we get to have like a late dinner. just kind of touching base.

but there's like a lot of people there so it wasn't like a super social experience. The next morning we're backstage. um he's there hanging out early on his phone, you know, doing his thing and uh, and I'm you know, doing my thing and then I come backstage from the break. he's the last speaker on the last day and I remember, just kind of.

you know if you know Gary right? he's even back then like you kind of knew. he was special and different and crazy and willing to sort of push the envelope with people to get them to see what was possible. Like so many other people, the David Goggins of the world and all these amazing people that I've been Teresa Jabor huge out to Teresa one of my first coaches um just really pushed people. so back then he gets on stage, he does his thing.

it's totally electrifying. I'm actually I remember standing in the back of the room with my wife and Gary's just being Gary like this is 2008 and you know you know and you should get on video and beep Facebook and beep You know whatever like just just drop it on left and right. It was hysterical. Um I'm sitting in the back of the room and my wife who is somewhere between electrified and horrified while this is happening because she's very productive of our brand and very protective of me and she's like I'm not sure about this and then we see this client of ours from like Alabama walking up and she I would describe her without saying her name is somewhere between a nun and a librarian right? and I'm thinking oh God she's coming back here and she's been watching this presentation like this is going to be bad she comes walking up and she's like hey Tom Ferry uh can I ask you a question and like my wife is like you know what like your spouse has their hand like kind of behind you like they're like acting like they love you I think she had like a she was just digging like a pen into me like why did we hire this guy this is horrible I can't believe he's doing this and the woman goes is this message being recorded and I said yes it is she goes can I get a copy I'd really like to share it with my pastor I was like literally out of my mind I was like yes it's being recorded I will make sure I get a copy.

Are you sure you want to give this to your pastor like your priest like that like he's kind of cursy lersy and she was like no but his message is so on point like the world's got to go to digital social is going to take over the world like she got it so fast in that room. Then my wife I think the pen did come out of my side. there was probably a little blood there and she was like okay, this is going to be good but it was that afternoon I remember him saying from the stage I've never missed a Jets game ever and the seminar was over and the Jets were playing that night so it must have been a Thursday night game and the summit must have ended on Thursday and we went back to my suite and we tried to plug in my laptop so we can watch the old pong version of football because we couldn't get it on cable for whatever reason and and after like five minutes of that we both looked around. this is stupid.

let's just drink some wine because he's a wine guy. So I brought wine, he brought wine and we just hung out and we just chatted. But it was this moment when we were talking about Brand and he was asking me like you know who are the people that have impacted me I was talking about Mike Mike Vance and all these other people that you know really impacted my life and he said why coach and I said well you know I wanted to become the biggest coach in real estate and he said to me drop coach, just be Tom Ferry he said I think you'll find over time that being Tom Ferry has far more value than being coached on fairy Now at that point Courtney every Facebook page, every YouTube channel everything was coached on Very Coach Tom Ferry Coach Tom Ferry and I was branding that over and over and over and over and over again and uh he did By the way, help me get at Tom Ferry on Twitter because some like 14 year old had it or something and that was helpful. um but it was that Moment of clarity around even for you as a real estate professional or a lender or an entrepreneur as you're listening to this um how much weight your name can have in a Marketplace and what was interesting is I remember going back after that and starting to make all the changes.

it it was like what's what was the moment in the um The Social Network right when the character the guy that created um this is completely random on a podcast say again no it wasn't Zuckerberg he was he The guy said to him drop the on Facebook just be Facebook don't be the Facebook because it was The Facebook it was Justin Timberlake I was going to say that but that's not who he was. he was. Yes, yes it was that guy. You know the moment I'm referring to drop the the and they were hammered drinking Sushi or eating sushi drinking Sushi that's funny.

um anyway, no editing any of this. This is just totally random, but it was one of those moments where you're like okay, you're right, like your brand, your name means everything and then I went I remember going back and doing like some Google analytics searches that people were searching my name, not searching coach Tom Ferry they were like it was just the content I was putting out the things I was doing that became the brand Good good branding point for you to think about too. All right. So my last one Teresa Jabor I mentioned him earlier her earlier excuse me.

So Teresa was a business and life coach of mine for Gosh. Off and on for probably 15 years and today she actually coaches one of my senior. Executives I've referred her to a ton of senior Executives she worked for an organization that was affiliated with like Landmark Education Corporation if anybody's remember that uh, super powerful woman that's not how I met her I was actually referred to her by a client of mine in Toronto had who had worked with her and I remember having conversation with this woman like every week like we were doing a sort of classic coaching relationship about life in business and where I was going and leaving my dad's business and starting over starting a new. she was a part of that Journey With me helping me, you know, continue to take the high road, do the right thing, honor my dad and not ever go against him as I was building my own brand and business.

So big shout out to her! and Bill Mitchell for being the guard rails for me to keep me on track as I always knew take the high road but there was a moment in time that Teresa impacted me the most I had finished my book. we were going to do the final pitches with myself and Laura in New York City with all the big Publishers who had five meetings that day and I remember Landing in New York City took a red eye in and I don't know if you've ever had this moment I'm sure you have I know I'm not alone in this but I remember literally thinking to myself I'm not worthy of this like like it was all it was. Everything that I had written out was going to. it was gonna be a New York time bestseller I'd done ever I did everything leading up to get them to write us a big check to cover the cost of Laura I had sales and marketing ready to go I I guess you would almost call it like today we caught like the Imposter syndrome right? like I felt like I was an imposter like who was I to write a book like this who was like had I done enough to be worthy of this like that's what was going through my head that morning and I I remember like being on the plane and literally working myself up into like almost a panic attack.

it was the only way I would describe it like I don't know if I've ever had one of those but like you know, like in your hearts just racing and you're like holy this is gonna happen but I don't think it should happen I don't know if I'm worthy of this I don't know if this is the right thing for me and I remember just freaking out and the second the plane was on the ground I remember texting Teresa and saying can you talk and she called me immediately then go to the east coast she was up and I said Teresa this is what's going on this is what I'm feeling like I'm really I'm freaking out right now and I I don't know what to do and she's I'm I don't remember exactly how she said it but the essence of what she said was Tom take a big deep breath and answer one question for me. Are you willing to operate every day in your life In every meeting at a level 10 and never give a about what everybody else thinks and I was like say that again she's like are you willing to operate at your best self your version of level 10 every day in every meeting regardless of what anybody else thinks. if they reject you if they don't like it, can you live with that? Can you say it doesn't I almost went full Gary on you and said beep matter but you know what I mean like she literally said I'm asking you to be a 10 and stop giving a about what everybody else thinks. go into those meetings, be your best self, play your cards and if you win great and if you don't who gives a fight another day and I was like yeah like it was all I needed to hear.

it was just that moment of like I wrote about it in the book I actually remember adding it into the book which is every single human being is six moves from death and dying in every action that they take and I was there I was in that same moment of like absolute fear like what if it all happens you know what I mean Sometimes we set these like big bold crazy goals and you get close to the finish line and you self-destruct. and I think that's what I was feeling like Am I going to self-destruct? Am I going to be right there on the Finish Line ready to do this thing and somehow like self-sabotage the entire experience did any of you I'm talking to my team right now. Do you guys any of you ever remember or listen to Tony Robbins Original 30 Days to Personal Power Okay so so Idris yes the rest of you are too young. It's audio cassettes too Tony Talked about it a lot that that too many people get right to the finish line and then they quit right? You think about the sports examples or anything about like the film you're creating right like you get close and then it's like wait a minute.

this is getting real. Can I really handle this and you stop? That's what I was feeling in that moment and there was just something about the way she said it. Are you willing to operate at your best? Can you be a 10? Because that was something we always talked about like level 10. Like could you operate at level 10 and just not give a about what anybody else thinks? can you just be that person and I was like like it's all I needed to hear five straight meetings.

All five people wanted to buy the book right. three ultimately ended up. We put him in a bidding war situation and I remember calling. Side note: Brian Tracy Afterwards, Um, big shout out to Brian Tracy God bless that guy like one of my early early mentors.

I Remember calling. him before uh, right after I met with Laura right after I flushed out the book right after we started getting the initial meeting set before we kind of got the manuscript ready, calling him and telling him I was going to get a check for 250 000 to write this book and he laughed. So a mentor of mine freaking laughed in my ear right over the phone. He's like Tom new Authors Don't get that.

just just be happy with whatever they give you. Write your book because it won't be your last. You'll write many more blah blah blah blah blah and I remember getting off from being slightly pissed that someone that has always had my back gave me his best advice which was well, I never got 250 so there's no way you're gonna get 250 and I freaking got 250 000 bucks to write that book and I was pissed. Side note: I had a vision board in my home office in Newport Beach I wish God I know I have it someplace we got to frame it.

It was like a Shoots and Ladders game of if you remember the old game if you're only listening it was remember the Shoots and Ladders game except in this case it was just the shoot going all the way down to the goal. There was no ladder to climb back up. Um, and I remember starting at the top and saying I'm gonna meet the perfect person let me write the book I'm gonna get an offered advice and then I actually had one of my teammates create a fake check payable to me for the book for 250 000 bucks and that was on the vision board and then it was literally remember Tom Cruise when he was jumping on Oprah's chair talking about being in love so my team cut that out put my head on Tom Cruise and I was like on Oprah was the vision and of course Oprah if you're listening knucklehead, you canceled your show right after my book came out so it didn't it didn't work but like I literally visioned this whole thing out. So I remember telling Brian no I've got this Vision I'm gonna have 250 000 check I would be on Oprah it's gonna be a New York Times bestseller I Had every one of those visuals was on this vision board for the book and pretty much every one of those happened except I didn't get on Oprah Oprah What were you thinking? You should have kept the show was it was your fear of Crossing that line because you knew after that the success and everything.

it would be harder because a lot of people quit before they get to that Finish Line because they know like damn it's only going to get the stakes are higher after this you just I I think that is exactly it I think it was Jordan wins one right? crap now I Gotta get two Shaquille O'Neal Same thing you know I'm a huge NBA fan. Yes it is that. it's it's the Breakthrough moment I knew So now remember this is in 2009. the world was still in financial crisis right everywhere you looked it was.

at that point it was massive numbers of people losing their houses. It was foreclosures everywhere. um not just in the U.S around the world it was just Financial chaos and here I am writing I'll just say it, a self-help you can do it book during these times and and I knew I'm going to hit all these targets and I'm going to be on the map and then also I knew in the back of my mind I think it's why Teresa said it to me is you're also going to be a Target like you've never been before, right? Because you're You're going to go from this like tiny little real estate coaching company even though we were like one of the biggest in the space to on the map. New York Time bestseller USA Today and it was like are you ready for that level of notoriety and and I think that's where a lot of the uncertainty was.

You know what I mean like? there's definitely some of that. Let me take that back. There was a ton of that. But looking back I Have no regrets.

The upsets, the mistakes, the wins, the victories. When people ask me all the time, you know that question, people say like hey, when you were in your 20s, what do you wish you'd have done differently I'm like nothing nothing I'm so grateful for the life that I have for every mistake. every lesson, every time I got punched in the head and every time I had a success along the way. No regrets, Every every decision got me to where I'm at right now and you put yourself in those though.

that's what I take from all of that. Yeah, whether it be real estate, whether it be sports, lawyer, whatever, ego sometimes kills all of that because you are willing to put yourself with someone who knew more than you 100 and you weren't afraid to say that that's how you learn I think that's been I know we just shot shot some content earlier. Um, and we're talking about like mentors, right? and the power of mentorship or Mentor coach Socrates Plato it's been around for a long, long time. Um, I am a sum total of the mentors, the men and women that were willing to spend time with me whether they were alive or dead.

You know, because a lot of my mentors early on were just people that I could listen to on audio cassettes and I was like this person's talking directly Earl Nightingale was talking directly to me and he had been dead For you know, a couple years at that point. So yeah, mentorship exposure. But but the key, and I think all of us sitting inside this room and certainly you right now watching or listening it is the fact that we take action right? It's we we you know talking about the hey I'm going to create this piece of content or I'm going to do this film right Brandon Like that kind of stuff. Hey, I'm moving to Colorado like that.

Kind of like declaring that kind of stuff and then doing the work. That's what always impresses me with people because ideas are meaningless. Do what I mean So for my person listening right now, what did you? What did you hear here hear here here? H-e-a-r and then H-e-r-e-s What'd you hear here? Um, more importantly, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? And by the way, that was Idris so you should follow Idris Idris on Instagram ID r I S E R B A did I do that right? Should definitely fun you. Just by the way, we should do a podcast with you sometime and just to hear your backstory.

I'll give you guys a little. He spent seven years with a guy named Floyd Money Mayweather right, traveling as his videographer and then documenting his experience and then the Rock and like all these just like super celebrities and now he's slept in with me which I am so grateful. Foreign. he's like yes, I'm schlepping with you he did this to me once on stage I did he likes to call me out and I was like oh boy and then people walk out to him oh my God what's it like to be a Floyd Money he's like he's crazy yes bro no no no they're gonna ask him yeah they don't care about me.

they're like what's it like big rock people ask me is the Disney one because I was at Disney for a while yeah I have I would say every event 20 30 women ask me could I get their child a job at Disney oh yeah but they're dying to for sure Yeah for sure like Disney's the uh you're like yes they're they're hiring right now at uh Disneyland Orlando yeah by the way that we could we could do a whole other show just on Bob Iger being back at Disney that was a remarkable move. Okay we started this show totally random how Kelsey how nervous was I when we were starting the show I literally had to ask her six times like how am I how should I start this I don't know all right So you got to give me feedback. Let me know what you're thinking I love you Thank you so much for listening to the show. Thanks for letting me just be vulnerable and share some of the moments of my life in the business that have, uh have helped me become who I am today I again I owe so much to just a few of the mentors I talked about today and some of the special people that impacted me.

and I've got a list of 50 others that I could do shows on, so thank you so much for listening. Maybe send this to a friend or two that needs a reminder because maybe there's a lesson or two along the way and you know someone that was in a similar situation that I was in and it's time for them to get off their ass and get after it. All right? Thanks so much for being on the show! I'll see you soon take care foreign.