Do you have the desire to walk across the stage and get the recognition from your peers? To be recognized as one of the "top gun" agents in the country? If you do you need to start by taking dead aim daily. It is the disciplines we do each day that will mean the difference between being on the platform or being in the crowd come next year.

Start each day focused on the daily success of your business. You want to begin each day reviewing your business plan. Focus in on the daily activities that will lead you to the successful result you have set forth in your plan. Long-term success is built on top of achieving daily performance standards for weeks and months at a time. If your business plan is not broken down to the daily activities or daily performance standard, you should take the time to do so now. I call these daily activities "The Disciplines of a Champion." We each have activities that if left undone daily our business will suffer.

Some of the Disciplines of a Champion could be:

• Prospecting for a specific time period daily
• Doing lead follow-up
• Contacting a certain number of past clients
• Spending time in personal development
• Practicing scripts and dialogs

The disciplines of a champion are quantifiable and trackable. They are a specific amount of time or a specific number that must be achieved. To have power the disciplines must set the time frame or the quality. It is too easy for us to opt out and not accomplish our goals without concrete parameters.

Next, you need to evaluate whether you are ahead or behind for this week, then create the strategy to catch up if you are behind or focus on maintaining the current strategy and direction that has kept you on plan or ahead. Too often we know we are behind and let it go for too long without a change. You must react and change quickly to catch up. We often do not raise the level of our intensity or increase our work output until it is too late. If you get too far behind and are spending tremendous amounts of time inflicting wounds on yourself, change the plan.

Always have a Plan B. There is no embarrassment to working a Plan B. Often Plan B is the better plan because you can invest the mistakes you made in Plan A in Plan B. Thomas Edison tried over 10,000 different elements in his light bulb before he found one that one worked. What would have happened had he stopped after Plan A?

Zero in on your area of success. People are paid very well on the few things they do very well. That is one of the best things about the field of selling real estate. There are so many ways to earn an outstanding income. Do what you do very well. We coach our clients to develop 3 to 4 areas of specialization in the real estate field and work to project their skills in these areas. Do not be a generalist in a specialized world. The jack of all trades is also the master of none. You are highly skilled in a few specific areas of real estate sales. If you have only one or two areas, you need to begin to learn and add another area or two to give you balance. The possibilities are truly endless when you become a specialist. Here are some ideas of specialization:

• Expired Listings
• Out of Area Owners
• FSBO’s
• Relocation
• Tenant Occupied Properties
• REO Bank Owned
• Multiplexes
• New Construction
• Investment Property
• Empty Nesters
• 1st Time Home Buyers
• Divorce Situations (Prospect Divorce Attorneys)

There is an endless supply of opportunities to let your ability lead you to become the recognized expert in your area in a few categories. I could list three pages of categories, but you get the idea.

Your success in your real estate career must be built from the ground up. Pour a solid foundation of daily disciplined goals and activities. These daily disciplines or Disciplines of a Champion will set you on the path to success in your career. Review and analyze your progress daily. Do not be afraid to adopt a Plan B if needed. Create a few areas of specialty. Decide what you enjoy doing and do well. Then zero in and take dead aim for the target of being the recognized expert in your area.

This approach will enable you to one of the agents on the platform at year-end with all the hardware.

Published: August 1, 2000

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Dirk Zeller is a sought out speaker, celebrated author and CEO of Real Estate Champions. His company trains more than 350,000 Agents worldwide each year through live events, online training, self-study programs, and newsletters. The Real Estate community has embraced and praised his six best-selling books; Your First Year in Real Estate, Success as a Real Estate Agent for Dummies®, The Champion Real Estate Agent, The Champion Real Estate Team, Telephone Sales for Dummies®, Successful Time Management for Dummies®, and over 300 articles in print. To learn more regarding this article, please visit www.realestatechampions.com.