Hi guys. I hope everyone is having a great 2025. 

If you've seen any of my past posts, you know I live and preach establishing positive daily habits that will help you toward your goals in real estate (and in life) - basically, the Ninja Nine.  I do realize, however, that we have agents who are stuck and perhaps frustrated because the precursor to most of these habits is having a database of 50-200 people, who know and like you enough that you can have comfortable live flow with them regularly.

For those of you who do not have this established, you still need positive daily habits, but they may need to be adjusted to address your primary goal of creating a database that will feed you throughout your real estate career.  Here's an example of daily tasks that you need to make into habits if you're an agent who doesn't yet have a viable database.

1. Same as Ninja Nine - begin everyday with Mindset work.  Daily gratitudes, affirmations and positive readings. Do this before opening your emails, texts or social media.
2. Show Up! - come into the office. You may have asked yourself, "Show up and do what?"  Keep reading, there's plenty to do to help you reach your goals - not busy work, productive work. But the dirty word there is "Work" - without it, you will not succeed in this business.
3. Write 2 personal notes per day.  Not related to business - just putting positivity into the world.  

You'll do well to follow these first three habits for the rest of your life - working or retired.  These, along with an attitude of abundance and maintaining a player rather than victim mentality will help you focus on the positive in life, which in turn brings positivity into your life and allows you to have more joyful days. The business benefit is people are attracted to positive people;  if you focus on the negative, you will be negative and repel people and business.

I won't focus on habits four through nine in this article, but they become vital once you have started your database. One thing to remember, do not wait on perfection to get started - start TODAY.  Waiting for all conditions to be perfect equals never getting started - in which case, you'd make more money as a referral agent, which yields far less than your potential income - but doesn't really require work or discipline. Be honest with yourself about your work ethic and how coachable you are willing to be.

After #3 this becomes your morning routine - Finding and building relationships.

First, make sure to know this month's Vital Signs for your area. Then review the MLS for new listings - stay abreast of your market! Go back over the past six months in Paragon and read all Government Affairs reports for your area - read these monthly.

Then, block one to two hours a day TO BE SOCIAL. Find your spot(s) and hang out with your name tag on. Dress professionally. No work out attire, t-shirts, etc. Coffee shops are big here in Fairhope, but you'll need to find your spots near you or your office where folks congregate.

No ear buds. It's okay to bring your laptop so you don't look like a stalker, but don't focus on it. Smile at folks, introduce yourself and ask leading questions that allow them to talk about themselves. Listen well and make notes as soon as the conversation is over. Give them a card and try to get their card. Again, be knowledgeable about the market because they may ask you about it. If it's something specific, get their contact information, find the information and call them back by the end of the day. Make your goal to create at least one relationship per day to load into your database. 

Eventually, you'll be spending most of your day working "IN" your business, but if that business isn't here yet, work on your Skillset - go to open houses, preview vacant listings, etc.  

At the beginning of the week, find an open house or two to hold open that coming weekend. Once secured, your job is to become an expert in that neighborhood or area. Create an Open House flyer (Bellator Design House) and walk the neighborhood. Knock on 20-50 doors in the neighborhood handing out flyers and inviting the neighbors - ask if they might know anyone who may want to live in the neighborhood and offer to send those people an invitation/flyer.

Finally, before the end of each workday, enter your new relationships into your CRM, make notes of your conversation, set up Autoflows in your CRM (MCFL, Bellator digital newsletter, Market Searches, Social….) and create a task to remind yourself to follow up. I'd suggest a coffee within that first week.

The key takeaway here is regardless of whether you have or don't yet have a database, it is vital you instill the discipline and work ethic to show up daily if you are to achieve your potential in this or any other business.

The work is there to be done. The question is simple - Are you willing to consistently do the work?  Stay in-flow with your broker and ask questions. This is why we're here. We want you to succeed.

Thanks for your time, my friends. I hope this is helpful to at least a few of you. Enjoy your weekend and be safe.