I LOVED Karate Kid when I was growing up. The fight scenes were tame enough that my Mom let me watch, but cool enough to keep me interested. Mr. Miagi taught wimpy Daniel to take on a gang of jerks and in the end good triumphs over evil in the final showdown between Daniel and the guy who was willing to "sweep the leg." Really, what's not to like - well except maybe the sequels.
I found it a couple of weeks ago while flipping through channels and was mesmerized by the way that Mr. Miagi taught Danielson the art of karate. Do you remember how he did it? "Paint the fence, sand the floor, wax on, wax off!" These simple seemingly trivial actions taught the student how to defend himself against Miagi's attack, and laid the foundations well, for the sequels.
The metaphor was not lost on me as a real estate trainer and coach. In those small repetitive tasks, good agents become great by creating systems to do routine tasks effectively, and when the time is right, hand them over to someone else and focus on what they do best - sell houses. At times creating systems to file leads, follow up with prospects and manage closings and listings can seem ridiculously boring and unrelated to "taking on the gang of thugs." These are crucial to becoming a master like Miagi who convinces his audience that he really does catch the fly with his chopsticks.
Be the agent who does the job so well that it takes your clients 20 years to finally see the strings that made the trick possible. And make sure to produce a couple sequels too.
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