SethMathers.com

We have all heard of the short story by Hans Christian Andersen. If you haven’t I’ll copy and past the brief write up from Wikipedia for you. “is a short story about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent – while in reality, they make no clothes at all, making everyone believe the clothes are invisible to them. When the emperor parades before his subjects in his new “clothes”, no one dares to say that they do not see any suit of clothes on him for fear that they will be seen as stupid. Finally, a child cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!””

Early in my real estate career, I started to bounce around from one real estate Guru to another, one marketing idea to another, from one magic bullet to another. None of them seemed to work and each just caused as much frustration and disappointment as the last. Most of you aren’t in real estate so you won’t know what some of these are but some of them you will.

Kevin Ward with Yes Maters Coaching

Joe Stumpf with By Referral Only

Tom Ferry

Mike Ferry

Door knocking

Cold calling

I was taught to F.R.O.G. family and friends

I wrote elevator speeches

I worked expired listings and for sale by owners

I wore a name tag like Scott Ginsberg to break the ice with people in public

Pop bys

I sent Bomb Bomb videos

Lived by the mantra that every no was closer to a yes.

While I didn’t invest money in all of these they all took my time. I invested my time. It is one thing if I choose to waste my time watching Good Mythical Morning on YouTube but if you monopolize my time that is different. I hated that I was wasting my time and I hated the stuff I was doing. I felt slimy. Gross. Like the way mini Lord Voldemort looks toward the end of the last Harry Potter movie.

I’m not saying I didn’t learn anything. I did, I learned a lot. I learned that I hate it when people knock on my door and cold call me. So why the hell would I do that to someone else? I learned the communication style real estate Gurus encourage agents to use on the public resembles some type of assault than it does the foundation of a relationship.

It finally took the investment of about $1,000 in one of these Gurus for me really to see what was going on. At $1,000 my lesson was cheap compared to some of the real estate agents out there. Agents are inundated with phone calls and emails. All claiming to be the cure-all. The magic bullet. All promising leads by the bucket full. The result is tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars lost to these Gurus.

I started to follow one of these Gurus closely. I thought that they were providing the information that was going to be the key to unlock my success. I thought they had all the answers. At their conference, they pulled people on stage that were having tons of success follow their methods. The more I immersed myself I started to see what was really going on. It was all a show. Now, I have learned more from the actual show than what is coming out of their mouths.

They wanted everyone to believe they had all the ideas. All the magic. All the answers. But I realized for the first time, they aren’t wearing anything at all.