Customer Rating: 
Summary: Mike Ferry one of the BEST
Comment: Mike and real estate go together like baseball and hotdogs. He has a great way of getting complicated concepts across in a smooth crystal clear manner. Beginning and established realtors can benefit from this book.
Work through some of his material and just try to not increase your income - I dare you!
Customer Rating:
Summary: This is the beginning of success.
Comment: Got $50,000 to buy a clientele? No? Then get this book, and get with a real business system in real estate.
Ferry starts with foundations--20 techniques that one needs to practice. Now, I would say only 18 of these are daily actionable. (#2 and #3 are general principles you can check yourself on every week or month.) Secondly, he deals with time management--the bane of the independent contractor.
Third--what everyone hates--prospecting. Ferry prioritizes prospects correctly, in two dimensions: First, high-impact versus low-impact prospecting; second, who to prospect. Now, this book is aimed primarily at people beginning, so its priorities are: FSBOs and Expireds; cold doors (now primarily phone); then---well, pretty much everything else is low-impact.
Let me address some of the criticisms levelled against Ferry in other reviews here. A couple people have said this is old-school. I dunno--when I started, no one told me about knocking on doors as a systematic practice (or using the phone to targeted groups). What they told me about were farming and direct mail (sometimes one and the same, but not always), and of course (and correctly) FSBOs. Door knocking and systematic phone calling are not common and not typical. And they are productive compared to (what Ferry calls) low-impact methods of prospecting.
One critic complained about Ferry's stated ratio, 99 no's to 1 yes, and said he didn't even get that. Well, all taken together, I do a lot better than that. Now, the legitimate aspect of the critic's complaint is this: It does indeed take a long time to get those 100 people. Today. Today it does; it was not so hard in 1993, when this book was published. Today, more homes are empty all day (and yes, I'm aware that a lot were in 1993; still, it is more common today). Today, people have Caller ID and many people screen calls (are you calling from your office? What's your CID say?). Today, there is the Do Not Call list. It is a lot harder to get hold of 100 people today by any method, or even combination of methods. Certainly by door knocking today it's impossible to do, or nearly so--it would take forever, and the critic's complaint about his 8 hours is justified.
So the unfortunate fact is that this book now has to be updated with two things:
1. Put your sphere of influence and past clients in the number one rank. This is something Ferry today advises in his training and coaching.
2. Door knock some--strategically, for your new listings or sales--but make the phone your primary tool. Again, this is something Ferry today advises in his training and coaching.
The fact is, this is an older book, which Ferry has not ever updated. **I am not saying to pass it up for that reason---I think it's still the single best book available on real estate business practice.** He has, however, done other things: He runs an entire coaching business, which is updated daily; and he has written another book, which, however, seems to be available only on his website.
So anent that area of criticism--"Door knocking takes forever and doesn't produce enough live bodies to talk to"--my response would be: That's true, and the answer is to use the phone instead; and furthermore put your sphere of influence and past clients (if any) in the #1 and #2 slots for high-impact prospecting targets; and stay up to date with Ferry's advice by reading his updated stuff on his website. Seriously, he GIVES IT AWAY. Not the coaching, of course, but he has a bevy of free reports, all of which are up to date and golden; and he gives away ALL of his scripts.
Another thing the same critic said was that much of Ferry's advice was like a sleazy used-car salesman. That is flat-out false. NONE of it is like that. There is NOTHING of manipulation in Ferry's methods. What there is: Intelligent questioning to get to the critical information one needs to do business and to do the best job for your clients. Maybe the critic thinks that closing on a prospect is sleazy; I don't know. If he's objecting to closings like "Do you want to close in 30 or 45 days?" or "Would you sign the contract please?" I kind of doubt he's ever going to transact much (wait--he already left the business), because he'll be too embarrassed to ask the client to do what the client wants to do--buy (or list) a house.
The same fellow suggested that you brand yourself. Like I said: Got $50,000 to buy a clientele? What Ferry did for me--I resisted buying his book, or looking into his methods, because I heard other agents telling me (falsely) "he's just a cold-caller" or he was dogmatic or "too salesman-y" (Hey, you know what? I AM A SALESMAN)--first was to show me that everything I was doing in the name of prospecting was not actually prospecting; it was blowing money to get my name on pieces of paper that would get thrown away without a second look or to talk to people who just wanted the two pieces of information and then to get off the phone or out the door: Farming (by mail, that is), floor time, open houses, image advertising, newsletters, etc. They cost a lot of money, and their hit ratio is more on the order of 1 in 2000 than 1 in 100.
Let's talk about that ratio: Look, every method of prospecting has a ratio of many, many no's and rejections to a single yes. But the ones that get you talking to 1. people you know and 2. (harder to do, and thus more important) people you don't know (there are more of #2 than #1), rather than sitting in your office and having some fulfillment house send junk mail out for you, or blowing hundreds (or thousands) on ads that are so unproductive that they can't even be measured as effective, are the ones with a ratio that can actually produce an income. And an income you can keep, rather than spending it all on more postcards, ads, newsletters, bus benches, shopping cart signs...
Now, is the book self-sufficient? No, not today; it needs the updating I mentioned above. And you can get all that for free on Ferry's website. But it is still the MOST useful book on real estate there is (beats Kennedy, Zeller, and everyone). So get this book--it will inspire you, and move you to actual business practice with a likelihood of actual production.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Excellent solid information
Comment: A great book for giving you good solid advice on improving your sales tactics to become successful. Explains steps from setting up a farm to how to deal with clients through Q&A's. Good for newer agents or for a "kick in the butt" for people in the industry that need "regeneration". Suited for anyone who truly intends to become very successful in the real estate industry
Customer Rating:
Summary: How to make the Author a 7 figure income....
Comment: More theory than action. No real benefit to my junior agents or experienced agents.
Customer Rating:
Summary: HOW TO DEVELOP A SIX FIGURE INCOME IN REAL ESTATE
Comment: I FIRST READ THIS BOOK 20 YEARS AGO AS A NEW REAL ESTATE AGENT. THE HOW TO INFORMATION AND METHODS ARE WELL PRESENTED AND CONTINUE TO BE VERY EFFECTIVE.
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