Read the blog below:
Anthony: Skepticism is costing you millions of dollars, my friends and I actually mean it when I say millions, because, see, when you miss out on learning things, that could be years or even decades of not being able to implement those things that you’ve missed out on learning. Most of you know that we had a big event last week, a Crush It in Real Estate event. We had just under 700 realtors. We had just over 200 from Lamacchia and 480-something from other companies. It was a terrific event. It was a lot of fun. Even though we had a huge turnout, and everybody’s talking about the turnout, and if you look at the comments, you look at the pictures that have been posted, people have talked about what a great event it is.
That all sounds great, right? But, guys, there was hundreds and hundreds of people that didn’t come and why didn’t they come? Why didn’t they register when we said to? Why didn’t they get on the waiting list when we said to? Why were people blowing up our office the day before the event, so we had to shut the waiting list down? Because of skepticism. We’re in a business where we all cooperate with one another and, usually, most of the time things are friendly. That is something you should be taking advantage of. Too many people said, “Well, it’s going to be a Lamacchia promotion, it’s going to be a recruiting event. They’re just going to talk all about their company and tout their company.”
Then, I did a video a couple of weeks before on my own Facebook page. I said, “There will be no promotion of the company whatsoever.” I kept my word, for those of you that are watching. If you were at the event, comment and mention how I kept my word. We even had someone in our company who started talking about the company when they stood up and asked a question, and I said, “Nope, we’re not doing that,” and I took the mic. So, stay with me, don’t go away. What I’m getting at here is you’re costing yourself when you do that. You’re only hurting yourself. Let me tell you a couple of stories. Five years ago, a good friend of mine in another company, Dave McCarthy, owns Keller Williams, Boston, Framingham, Newton. In my opinion, the best KW operator out there, at least as far as the ones that I know.
He called me, he says, “Anthony. You want to come down to KW, I’m going in a few weeks? They’re having something on team-building and how their people can open teams in different areas of the country.” I said “I don’t know, Dave. You’re sure you’re okay with that, you know, my plan with my company. I’m going to keep building it and build it bigger. I’m not interested in going to another company.” He laughed and said, “Well, I’ve heard that before, but out of you, I believe it. I’m just telling you, you’re welcome to come. Gary likes us to invite people from other companies so that the crowd is mixed up and we can all learn.” I said, “Okay.”
So, June 2015, I got in a plane with Dave, flew down there, spent two days there. I thought it was awesome. Gary was in the room talking. I think Gary’s great. I admire him. He’s built a massive international company. Do I compete with them? Yes. Every day, we’re in a head-to-head with consumers. We’re in a head-to-head with recruiting, but they invited me in, so I went and I listened. They didn’t even showboat about the company at all. They truly talked about team-building and all those different kinds of things, and I enjoyed going.
When I think about my traveling days building the company over the years– There’s a reason I’m sitting by the fire, folks. Give me a minute on that. There were times that I used to travel and my wife would say, “Hey, was it worth it?” It became a habit. “Hey, was the trip worth it? Are you glad you went?” She said that because there were so many years that I would go on trips, and I would literally say to her 10, 12 years ago, “I don’t know if this is going to be worth it, but I’m going to go,” and we got into the habit of having that conversation. Well, guess what, more often than not, it was worth it. More often than not, I would get a nugget or two or three or four or five, from traveling and meeting new people and exposing myself to new things that I would bring back and implement into our business.
Television is one of them. Facebook advertising is another. Online lead advertising is another. Different things that we’ve learned for recruiting is another. The point I’m getting at is. I wouldn’t have learned all those things if I didn’t put myself out there, and sometimes put myself in situations where I didn’t know if I was going to a place that they were going to try to sell me something, but I didn’t care. I went to Craig Proctor conferences, Brian Buffini speeches at events, NAR events. I remember one time because I thought the right people were going to be there, I went to a commercial realtor event in Los Angeles. I remember when I arrived, I was the only person from the East Coast there. I was like, “This is odd.”
They actually said it out loud from the stage. They said we have someone that’s come all the way from Boston, and I was sitting in the crowd thinking, “All right, this was probably a waste of my time.” Now, that was an event that didn’t turn out to be the best use of time, but my point is, how would I know if I never went? You know many times I’ve gone on trips, thinking, “I don’t know if I’ll get anything out of this,” but I went anyways. My friends, a business is like a fire. You have to feed it, you have to nurture it, you have to add new things to it for it to work. If I stop adding logs to that within three hours, it dies down, if I pay no attention to it. Before, when I started I had to use paper, I used a fire starter. I had to start the fire. I went upstairs and it started going down. I have to feed it again.
My point is, this is a business. A business has to be constantly nurtured. You have to always have an open mind and look for things that will help you. If that means going to an event that a competitor is at, so what? Let’s say I didn’t stick to my word, which will never happen, because we’ll never have a Crush It event where I’ll go back on my word and talk about our company, but let’s say that at that event, the last half an hour was all about our company. Would anybody have died? Would somebody have come down with an illness? Would their business end? No. Not at all, but you would have got to hear what you wanted to. Do you understand what I’m saying here? Too many people are so Skeptical. They keep their guard up all the time, and all they’re doing by doing that is pushing things away.
I’ll make an offer to any competitor out there of any major company, because I know there’s some big ones that watch this. RE/MAX, KW, I don’t care who you are, you have a big event where there’ll be a lot of good training on things that I’m trying to improve our company to, you invite me, I’ll be there. I don’t care where it is in the country. Never mind locally. That’s what fascinates me when I hear realtors say, “Jesus, it’s in Framingham.” I heard a couple of Northshore agents say that. “Yes, geez, that’s far.” Guys, I drive to the airport, I get on planes and I fly places every three or four weeks. My wife’s doing this video right now and she’s shaking her head. Yes, I fly all over the country. In about 60% of the time I get on a plane knowing that I’ll get a lot out of it. 40% I get on a plane going, “I think it’ll be good, but we’ll see.” But, most of the time, it ends up working out.
So, take those barriers that you have up and put them down. Take the skepticism and get it out of your mind, because it’s only hurting you and costing you millions of dollars over the course of time. Skepticism gets in the way. It’s a big barrier and you have to get past it. I hope that makes sense. I know it was a bit of a rant, but I think it will help you guys if you think about this. If you do a better job fighting off skepticism and just opening your mind– maybe something is as good as it sounds. Maybe someone does offer something as good. Maybe a training is as good as they advertise. How do you know? I’ve been to Brian Buffini speeches at NAR events three different times. All three times, I sat there for 90 minutes and listened to him. Half the speech was the same, but I didn’t care. The next time I go, I’ll probably listen again, because I just go in, open my mind and I listen, I get ideas, I bring them back. I hope that makes sense. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.