Consistency.

There are no secrets to business success, but there are keys to business success.? And here is one of the most important ones. But first, a short story.

I had known this real estate agent for years.? She was one of the best in her brokerage, year after year.? Everyone knew her and she knew everyone.? We had a joke, “There are two types of people in the world, people who know Joy and people have yet to meet Joy.”? But, something happened a little over a year ago, Joy stopped selling homes.? Not that she meant to, she confessed.? Things just seemed to dry up for her, which had never happened over her 15 year career.

Sure there were a lot of factors that could have contributed to this situation…she listed off a few: The market has changed.? Homes are harder to come by.? The real estate agent market is flooded with new agents.? People aren’t referring out to me like they used to.? She even confessed to me that one of her close friends had sudden tragedy and she took time off to help him and to raise money for their medical bills.

All these factors could be seen as legitimate reasons for the downturn in her business…but the facts didn’t support her.? You see, I happen to have more than one real estate agent friend.? Other friends of mine were doing very well.? They were selling homes (some closing up to nine homes in a month).? They were getting referrals.? They had more work than they could handle, even though there were indeed an influx of new agents in the market (which happened during the Covid years).

Upon further conversations with Joy, I discovered that her biggest mistake was not in not selling homes, but rather in not doing the little things that she had been doing, with consistency, throughout her career.? She had stopped answering emails on time.? She had stopped returning phone calls in a timely fashion.? She had stopped attending networking events.? She had stopped marketing herself.? She had stopped calling on previous clients to check in on them, building top of mind awareness.? She had stopped actively marketing herself all together.

Joy told me that she had expected things to dry up eventually, but never this quickly.? And that she regrets her nearly six month “break” from her work, because it not only cost her those six months, but will cost her another six months to get her engine back up to full speed: so essentially a full year!

As I drove to my next appointment, I reflected over her conundrum, and I couldn’t help but think about the car that I was driving, as it gave me a great analogy.? If my car is going sixty mph, and I take my foot off the break, there is a good chance that it won’t stop immediately.? But, given enough time and the pitch in the road, it will slow down fairly quickly…and eventually, it’ll stop completely.? To get it back up to speed, will therefore take a lot of effort (gas) and energy and time. That’s why highway driving gives us a better miles per gallon rate, than city driving.? All the starting and stopping, hurts our momentum and efficiency.? And its much the same in business.

I have met with many business owners who have forgotten all the little, but yet important, things they used to do when they were first starting.? They have gotten away from action points that both humanized the business and build strong interpersonal relationships with others (B2B and B2C).? When they first started, they depended on these action steps, committed to them and saw them as a huge value.? And did them consistently.

I recently got off the phone with another real estate agent friend of mine, and we were discussing life, kids, music and business.? He has found a lot of success over the past 20 years, the kind of agent who sells 5 homes while on vacation out of town!? I told him about Joy and he could definitely empathize with her.? He then said, “You know everyone who does well in our business, all have one thing in common: consistency.? They do the small, yet essential things, day in day out, week in week out, month in month out, year in year out.? And thus they achieve the big things (success).? You see, there is no big thing, without all the small things.? If you take away the small things, you’ll for sure all take away the big things too.”

And thus, I’ll leave that sagely wisdom with you, dear reader.? If you find yourself in the same situation as Joy, recommit to the small things that you once did, early on in your business.? Use that time to rediscover who you are, your mission and vision and especially, your story.