It had been a while since I listened in live to a monthly conference call from my business coaching company (www.BuffiniandCompany.com), since I usually have a conflicting office meeting each Tuesday. Well, this day my meeting got switched around, so I headed to my office to dial in to the call, the subject: "Increasing your Personal & Professional Effectiveness".

I realized that dialing in live to a Brian Buffini conference call is much like watching Dancing with the Stars live. There is something about having thousands of people live at the same time vs. recorded, you just never know what is going to happen.

Well I had my surprise at the end of the call during the Q&A session. They say press *1, and you think someone will tell you you'll be next on the call and to get ready. But no, you are just listening and they say "Our next call is from..." and then you are live. When Brian said he had time for only 3 calls, I really didn't think I would get on and it turned out I was the first caller.

It turned out to be good though, because now I have no reason not to increase my productivity!

On a side note, I have to give lots of credit to my business coach, Roibin McFarling. He is excellent and has been my coach almost 7 years. He helped me build up database #1 in N. CA when I was new in real estate, and then he helped me 3 years later build a new database in S. CA! It has been great having consistency from someone who knew my story from Day 1. 

Roibin has his hands full with me because I love organizing, planning, and systems. He has to remind me to get out and go do! Without him, I wouldn't have stayed on track during martial arts (www.ErnieReyes.com) to go for Black Belt. I believe when I first started coaching (and real estate) I was still a yellow belt!

It has been a journey since then, I remember going to Turning Points and forever writing in my personal goals "Get to green belt...get to blue belt...get to brown belt...etc." It kept going and going, and sometimes I was at a certain belt level it seemed like forever and felt like I was never going to be good enough to get to the next level, let alone get to testing for Black Belt. At that point, on testing day, I realized that it wasn't about the Black Belt. It was about all of the other belts and working your way to get to that level. And you realize you are not that good, when you see the 2nd Degrees and higher doing their thing with precision and excellence!

Any rate, without Roibin coaching me along and asking how my training was going, etc. and he would not let me get away with not going to my classes because I was too busy with work! He would say (& as Brian says), "Schedule your family and personal appointments first, then schedule business appointments around it." I'm glad I listened to him, because it would have been easy not to do it. Thanks Roibin!

Back to the call, Brian asked me what is one thing I could do better to achieve my business goal of 20 transactions for 2008. I thought about saying "pop bys, parties, or notes", but those are things I am already pretty good at doing. I said phone calls (not knowing that would be my project for the next 6 months)! Now having committed to make 3 calls/day and ask for referrals is serious business. When I was making 10 calls a week before, I wasn't focused on the ASKING part. I figured I would let the "Oh by the way" stickers do that part for me.

It has been a week since my conference call with Brian. How am I doing?

That same day around 4p.m., I made 3 calls and asked for referrals. It wasn't so bad. The next day, I woke up at 3:30a.m. to start working on piles of paperwork so that I could make my 3 phone calls and ask for referrals that day. Silly huh?! I feel like there is much to do prior to making calls, so if I started at 3:30a.m. (I wake up early with no alarm clock, my inner clock gets me up when it's time to work!) I would be ready to make calls by 9a.m. You would think! I didn't get to my calls until later in the afternoon.

Now I realize that if I just get the calls done by 10a.m. daily instead of waiting for a convenient time and all the stars to be aligned "just right", I am free to go about organizing, planning, lunches, etc. GUILT-FREE! I am also getting to talk to people I have been "meaning to call" for a long time, and it's really great.

Thanks, Brian, for helping me rearrange my thinking about the phone calls. I see now that everything else gets done too. It only takes less than 20 minutes to make 3 phone calls, & it's pretty fun to catch up with people I've been meaning to call!

If anybody out there in Blog Land, Buffini Land, or any other Land knows of anyone looking to sell or buy real estate in the Manhattan Beach, Palos Verdes, Beach Cities/South Bay area, you know I'm never to busy to help your referrals!