"The agents that are succeeding have a large database and they’re working it, and the ones that are struggling are the ones that have no database and no consistency in the communication with it." - Darin Persinger

"You’re fighting for them to open to open the email and their inbox." - Darin Persinger

"It’s easy to lose focus. It’s easy to get focused, but then it’s hard to keep that focus, and so this whole thing is about keeping focus." - Darin Persinger

"Going through this grind and dealing with this rejection and can I do this and will this actually work.  Bring some excitement back by reviewing your goals." - Darin Persinger

"The reason why it's okay for you to have personal goals in there instead of business goals is because the personal goals help you get to the business goals." - Darin Persinger

"I think there's a part of your goal setting that you need to be fluid with and not be so committed to." - Darin Persinger

"To think what that means when we hear media talk about real estate agents talk about that what that means is that homes are appreciating and it’s easy to make a sale." - Darin Persinger

"The millennials now that are having to sit and traffic and commute into work every day, when they start becoming the managers and the supervisors, they're going to go, "Let's go work from home."" - Darin Persinger

"You're more likely to do it if you take action within the first couple of yours. And then it just diminishes down to zero after 72 hours." - Darin Persinger

"Getting an audience is hard. Sustaining an audience is hard. It demands a consistency of thought, of purpose and of action over a long period of time." - Darin Persinger

"Are you calling a past client and just checking in on them, seeing how they're doing? That is different than trying to hound a for sale by owner with some script that's meant to demean them." - Darin Persinger

"Real estate investing is like the one thing, I think, is okay to have as a second job." - Darin Persinger

"Because I don’t think anything is ever a moment. It's always about the process and how it endures." - Darin Persinger

"The only reason why I wanted to put this together though is I think there is a lot lacking out there of how to do this, how to set goals as a couple." - Darin Persinger

"If you believe the interruptions, distractions are villains of productivity that they need to be slain then you need to go, develop an environment of productivity and get yourself into that place as often as possible." - Darin Persinger

"If you put something on a to-do list and you’re not willing to put it into your calendar and saying, “This is when I commit to doing it,” you’re not going to do it." - Darin Persinger

"Stop working on all of those things at the same time. Focus on getting one done and getting it implemented and then move onto the next one." - Darin Persinger

"Are you more passionate about the way that it's done, the way that you're doing it, or are you more passionate about the results and the outcome?" - Darin Persinger

"Well, I think that's a reality, and then we have to be careful about how we judge ourselves based upon our own appearance." - Darin Persinger

"If you can't monologue now, if you are not developing that skillset and you don't have a platform to do something like that, I think you're at a huge disadvantage." - Darin Persinger

"Do not get lazy. Do not think that this is easy. Do not take how much demand buyers have to want to buy something for granted right now." - Darin Persinger

"I can't play a video in my email. I could and use a service like BombBomb. But that's not what I want to do. I want to drive them back somewhere else because then I know where they're at." - Darin Persinger

"If you invest in great, video, great pictures, guess what's going to happen. You get engagement." - Darin Persinger

"I think you got it coming out from multiple angles, and you have to let go of this idea of “Oh, this might be annoying to them.”" - Darin Persinger

"What you'd find is you have a whole group of people that are just unaware of what it is, what you have and what you offer." - Darin Persinger

You are listening to the best of The Making Agents Rich Show and today is the final installment of the best of for this session.

We went back into the archives, the first 50 shows of Making Agents Rich and we picked out some of the cornerstone content.

Our key values to share with you so that if you’re new here you get to find out a little bit of what we’re about because we’ve done over 160 shows.

And if you’ve been here since the beginning, then it’s a reminder of what you should be doing.

So today I have for you “Why Realtors should pay themselves first?”

And this is the recurring topic we have talked about this in many different ways: the importance of paying yourself not just money but in time, in freedom, all that kind of stuff so that you’re able to run a successful business.

And this is actually the first show where we really talked about this in depth and I want to share it with you today because I think it’s super important, Darren says it’s super important, so it must be important.

So without further ado “Why Realtors should pay yourself first?”

You are listening to the best of The Making Agents Rich Show.

Darren and I got together and picked our four favorite shows from the first 50.

I can't believe that we've done over 160 shows so we went back and picked our four favorite shows from the first 50 Making Agents Rich Shows since iTunes has buried all that and we're bringing it back to you because this is cornerstone content.

This is what Making Agents Rich is built on and if you're new here then this is going to give you a deeper understanding of who we are and what we're about.

And if you've been here since the beginning, this is a kick in the butt and a reminder.

Today I'm bringing you the show that we called "Plan to Fail".

Why people plan to fail?

And the thing is failure is such an important part of entrepreneurship.

It's where your most valuable lessons come from and if you think you're going to be successful without failure then you have another thing coming.

So with that, let's dive in to "Why People Plan to Fail?"

You are listening to the Making Agents Rich show and again we're bringing you the best of. We started this last week because we noticed that iTunes has just kind of done away with some of our older shows and what Darren and I have decided to do is bring you the best of the top for the first 50 shows because we've done over 160 shows. And so today what I want to share with you is the idea of the minimum viable product. We talked a lot about this. If you've been here since the beginning then you have an idea of what it is. If you are new here then this is going to be some seriously good cornerstone content. It's what the Making Agents Rich show was built on and I'll just let you dive in and find out what the minimum viable product is.

You are listening to the Making Agents Rich show and today we're going to do something a little different in fact for the entire month, we're going to do something a little different. It seems that iTunes has changed things up yet again and they have buried our older shows and so Darren and I were talking and we thought that after doing over 160 shows it was time to kind of bring back some of the best of Making Agents Rich and share what I'd like to call or what we affectionately refer to as our cornerstone content, things that we repeat, recurring themes basically the stuff that Making Agents Rich is built on. And so the first one that I'm bringing you this week is going to be Think Speed, we talk a lot about The 72 hours Rule this was in our first set of shows and really if you're not thinking speed, if you're not following the 72 hours rule then you are wasting a lot of hard drive space in your mind. So I'm just going to let you guys dive in to it, if this is the first time you're hearing it then you'll know why we always talk about the 72 hours rule. If you've heard it before, it's a good reminder. So jump on in and enjoy.

"If you want to be productive, be in an environment where there's not going to be things to distract you." - Darin Persinger

"Ignore the little things in your personal life, your business life. Let it go. It's not that big of a deal. Focus on impact." - Darin Persinger

"When you're focused on the experience of things, you're being selfish but in a good way. You want to wow yourself and only you." - Darin Persinger

"All these other things that I'm about to go through with you, if we get a response off of it, then that should trigger another action." - Darin Persinger

"If you're the number one agent in the marketplace you don't have to acknowledge your competition because you don't have any." - Darin Persinger

"If you're struggling and you want help, I think you have two ways out: either go and add leverage with that team member or look to join a team." - Darin Persinger

"We use Facebook more for seller leads and Google search engines for buyer leads. That's what we find works best." - Darin Persinger

"To do business, you can either focus on proximity or you can focus on positioning." - Darin Persinger

"Don't confuse being systematic with automation. Too many people are looking for "I want to do it once and never do it again." That's automation. That's completely different than a system." - Darin Persinger

"But the reason I don't call it a "pitch" is because it's not meant to close the sale. It's meant to arouse curiosity and bond with your best prospect and you do that by sharing your struggle." - Kevin Rogers

"Bullets should not give it away. They should create curiosity. They should create intrigue. They should create mystique." - Darin Persinger

"What could be happening is people aren't spending enough money to see it really take hold and so they get stuck at 10%, because they get a little scared." - Darin Persinger

"Normal people live paycheck to paycheck. Real estate agents live transaction to transaction. The first step you need to do is get away from that." - Darin Persinger

"If they're willing to mislead and manipulate their co-workers around their office in order to sell a truck to you, what are they willing to do to you?" - Darin Persinger

"I don't know any relationship that I have that started off with misleading and manipulating on either side." - Darin Persinger

"You can write all of your own content if you have the time for that. I prefer to have my real estate agents that I work with selling homes and paying me to write their content because I think it makes more sense on their balance sheet." - Jen Miller

"We're getting too focused on the idea of a relationship, of like a one-to-one relationship versus building assets that can create that trust." - Darin Persinger

"Where are the content blitzes? I know we have call blitzes. Brokerages bring all the agents in, buy them pizza, and say, "Okay. Let's call and interrupt and annoy as many people in town at once as we can."" - Darin Persinger

"If you were able to start converting that middle 60% instead of just confirming with the people who are already ready to go." - Darin Persinger

"What they're saying is consumers rely on word of mouth two times to ten times more than paid media." - Darin Persinger

"When I sit down to think about my target audience, I’m looking at them on the spectrum level now and go: Are they sitting in avoidance or are they sitting in obsession?" – Darin Persinger

"As I got back into real estate sales here in the last nine months, the easiest people for me to talk to that I have immediate affinity with is the other business owners." - Darin Persinger

"A lot of real estate agents do is not necessarily focus on the things that are successful but the ones that are the most creative, the one that they like the most, or the ones that get the most hype." - Darin Persinger

"Lead generation is about you telling your stories. Lead conversion is about them telling you their stories." - Darin Persinger

"I think it's easy to sell that ego-driven thing to real estate agents, to go: The only way to succeed is to be well-known." - Darin Persinger

"I would ignore paying for buyer leads that are off of someone else's listings and turn around and take that money and go get myself some seller leads so I can have those listings now." - Darin Persinger

"You have to make sure that you have the right process in place, you have the right people in place to do that, and you're doing it at the right time." - Darin Persinger

"If your business deals with having to get one-to-one, face-to-face with someone and you're not approachable, you're sunk." - Darin Persinger

"Are people selling a fantasy or are they selling a dream? To me, when someone is selling the idea of getting into an orbit in your business, that's a fantasy. It doesn't actually exist in the real world." - Darin Persinger

"And I think that's what people are looking for in business. What's the one punch that I can throw that will knock someone out? I don't think it exists unless you're Mike Tyson." - Darin Persinger

"There's brilliance in the marketing of knowing your audience of: hey, what if I just tell people that they can do whatever they want and they'll still be successful?" - Darin Persinger

"Productivity is a very personal thing, no different than diet or exercise." - Darin Persinger

"How are you becoming the market leader if you look exactly the same, you sound exactly the same, and you do exactly the same as your competition?" - Darin Persinger

"But if I'm focused on only what happens in the next three months or six months of things then, yeah, everything's a big deal and I don't want that. I don't want to operate my business from a place of emotions." - Darin Persinger

"We're in business to help this person achieve this result or solve this problem. That's what your mission should be, plain and simple." - Darin Persinger

"So I think the biggest leverage point that you can add to your business is really effective direct response marketing." - Darin Persinger

"I think the biggest thing that you learn is how quickly you can change it and then also how automatic it becomes." - Darin Persinger

"Time is more valuable than money, but right now if what you have is time and you don't have money, use your time to make the money then use the money to buy back your time." - Darin Persinger

"So I just think debt is the biggest hurdle, the biggest roadblock that you are going to have to truly becoming rich." - Darin Persinger

"To move from stability to thriving is not going to get you there. You need to become an action-taker. You've got to do work, one of the Rich Habits." - Darin Persinger

"And you need to tell the seller how it's going to go. If you let them dictate the conversation, they're in control of it. If they're in control of it from the get-go, when do they ever relinquish it?" - Darin Persinger

"I think to me no is kind of like the same thing with the comfort zone. It's not, oh, step out of it. I think you step out of it still uncomfortable. I think it's about understanding your value." - Darin Persinger

"I don't think the thing is how do I get people on the phone more because the reality is is people aren't going to get on the phone with you any more than they currently are." - Darin Persinger

"Don't confuse emotions with passion because that does belong in business. But emotions are not the same thing as passion." - Darin Persinger

"I think budgeting is scarcity mindset. It's a poor person's mindset." - Darin Persinger

"So the subtitle here is "What to Really Ask Yourself to Eliminate Blame, Complaining, and Procrastination."" - Darin Persinger

"If you're not spending time trying to find a motivated buyer or seller then help them sell or buy a property, put a mutual contract together, and then get it closed, you're not doing work." - Darin Persinger

"That when things spiral a little bit out of control I think it's easy to get wildly out of control with our emotions." - Darin Persinger

"You can go deeper with those relationships and sometimes that's where the gold is, when you go deep enough, right? Instead of just sifting on the surface for the gold…" - Darin Persinger

"So I think you need physical resilience, you need mental resilience, and you need emotional resilience." - Darin Persinger

"The best type of help that you could get for yourself is probably just go help someone else." - Darin Persinger

"If you're letting other people tell you what problems need to be solved, then you're just stuck where you're at. You're a problem solve. You're putting out the same fires instead of starting to prevent the fires." - Darin Persinger

"I think it's more important to do small things every day than to do one big thing and then not do it again for another month." - Darin Persinger

"There's no such thing as procrastination. That's the idea of putting things off. You are actually not putting things off; you are choosing to do something else with that time." - Darin Persinger

"Getting out of your comfort zone doesn't actually make you a superhero or invincible or do more amazing things. It tires you out. It drains more emotion and energy from you." - Darin Persinger

"That's because justification of the why doesn't truly make any sense. We just do what we do because we want to do it." - Darin Persinger

"So it took me a long time to realize that there's nothing wrong with either category." - Darin Persinger

"Working too many hours, what they found is working too many hours costs you time and energy and money to fix mistakes in your work because you're not at your peak." - Darin Persinger

"Everyone has advice for real estate agents on what they should be doing for marketing and sales of their business and I'm just wondering why that is. Is there something that makes real estate agents insecure?" - Darin Persinger

"So I think a lot of people don't understand the ROI. They just see it as an expense." - Darin Persinger

"I think you got to figure out: what can I do that when I wake up tomorrow I'm excited about waking up?" - Darin Persinger

"I feel like a lot of real estate agents are only contacting their sphere randomly when business gets slow or after they sign up for a real estate training workshop and the trainer tells them to contact their sphere." - Darin Persinger

"You only need three segments in your database. Now, of course, you need buyer leads and seller leads. That is understood." - Darin Persinger

"When someone says "I get all of my business from Facebook," what you are really saying is you get all of your business from your sphere." - Jonathan Rivera

"If you're not getting enough referrals or referrals on a consistent, regular basis, it might be because you're not thanking people." - Darin Persinger

"If you're not learoi-making-agents-richving any content, any insider information, any analysis and advice just for them, they don't feel important. And when people don't feel important, if they feel like everyone, they're not going to give you referrals." - Darin Persinger

"Some of the most successful real estate agents, I think if we are to look at what do they have in common, I think they were entrepreneurial in their past." - Darin Persinger

"How many occupations really get paid on contingency now, that when an appropriate result that I'm okay with is achieved then I'll pay you?" - Darin Persinger

"I think age and money do the same thing. They make you more of what you are." - Darin Persinger

"The problem is that 85% of customers report being dissatisfied with their phone experiences." - Darin Persinger