I am in sales and over this past weekend, I thought about all the brokers we currently have with our company and all the brokers I have hired and worked with in the past. I thought about what makes some brokers successful while others fail.

It is not education, age, looks, speech, background, polish, location etc. It is something far more simple than that. If you judged me by any of the above criteria, I would have failed on the first day 30 years ago.   What I tried to decide was if I had to boil down all the things you need to do in order to be successful in selling hotels and put that into one actionable thing, what would that one thing be?

It is cold calling three people a day, five days a week. That’s 15 people you talk to this week that you didn’t talk to last week. That’s it. Its that simple. That is the difference maker.

Let me explain. When you make a cold call, you might have some idea how you will start the conversation, but you have no idea where it will lead to. By its very nature you can’t plan the call, can’t layout all the strategy, can’t overthink it (what most brokers do,) rather basically, you have to be flexible and sharp because you don’t know where it will lead. It is like jumping off the high diving board. You might think you know what’s going to happen but when you’re in the air, things can change. You can end up with a gold medal finish or you can end up doing a butt flop. It’s being willing to accept either one.

So, what I determined this weekend was it is clearly not about training, exposure, talent, education etc. It is about the one ability you need above all others. Availability. It is the willingness to go into something where you may not know all the answers. That is the difference maker between some brokers standing the test of time and other running out of time. KT