Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: Hello everyone. Today on our podcast, we would like to talk about getting back to the basics and how the habits and mindset is actually what drives your business and success forward. really most people think that success in real estate comes from new strategies, better marketing, or even new lead sources. hear it all the time. And really the truth is much simpler. Success ⁓ comes ⁓

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: Thank

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: down to just a few fundamentals that people stop doing once things get uncomfortable. Today I wanna talk about five things, five good habits, five things that we need to focus on that separate people who stay stuck from the ones that just keep moving forward. morning, Peter, how you doing today?

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: Thanks. I'm doing great man, how are you?

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: I'm doing all right. mean, you know, change in time really gets to you though.

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: know, I know, but I'm excited that we're have ⁓ days now. It's not gonna get dark so early, which is always good. When I usually leave the office, it's always dark and gloomy and feels like the day's over. So it gives us an extra hour at least.

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: Yep. Gives us a little bit more time to make a little bit more calls, set up more meetings, go on more listing appointments. But I think that all ties into what we're talking today, right? Numbers, right? The numbers tell the real story, right? The amount of what you do ⁓ exactly what your business looks like. Like for me, for instance, I tell my agents all the time. I tell how successful you're going to be by the amount of calls that you're making, the amount of appointments are booking, even the amount of tasks that you have in the future set up for yourself. Now, being said, I know that you weigh heavily on ⁓ too, Peter. What do you think are the most important? What are you proud of? What are you not proud of? And really, are the ones that just move the needle?

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: Yeah, great question. And obviously when we're recording this podcast, this is the first week of March. So the first quarter of 2026 is already over. one of the things that people wait and do, and obviously everybody just goes very excited into the new year, set all these massive goals and they want to hit them. Right. But the problem is most people don't revisit their goals. what part of what we're to be talking about is a reflection of what are we proud of that we're doing? so far or what we've done so far, right? So the first thing I look at, which is very obvious, is like, okay, well, how many deals did we close so far this year? We really have maybe six months left to the year because the last three months is going to be the result of the activity that we've done, right? So we didn't even count the last three months of the year. So I tell the agents on our team, I'm like, hey, we only have half the year left. This has already started. mean, the first quarter of this year started in the last quarter of last year. So what does our activity look like? What's the result really that showed up in the first quarter? And how are we doing to make sure that we set closings and under contracts? So we look at closings under contract for the first quarter and then also the activity that's going to get us the results for the next quarter, which is like you mentioned, calls, conversations appointments. These are going to be the lagging indicators of business. and to make sure that we are progressing to get more deals under contract. What about you Shereed?

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: No, I'm going to have to agree with that. mean, the really the metrics is that we're proud of the ones that we talk about all the time, even every day, really, our phone calls, emails sent, text messages sent, but getting down into how many conversations you had in the day. Right. And from those conversations, how many actual appointments were booked. Right. I think those are very important numbers that everybody should be keeping track of. And really how much follow ups you're making right and how many new leads you're talking to on a daily basis. I think those are really the numbers that you need to focus on those are the ones you should be proud of. Those are the ones you should be increasing on a daily basis. Because you know, basically your results are reflection directly of your daily habits. So knowing your habits, knowing your numbers is one of the most important parts of actually moving the needle. Now,

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: You know, I'm sorry. I was going to say we do this exercise at least once a month. But one of the things that I noticed that our appointments have gone down by 15 % appointments set. And when I looked at what really changed, it wasn't really the number of calls that got dropped a lot, but it was the number of call attempts per lead. It went down by 50 % and that resulted into 15 % less appointments. And that was the only difference, the only metric that went down for us.

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: Go ahead.

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: everything else stayed the same, but just that number alone caused our appointment rate to go down, which obviously sounded the alarms in my head. like, guys, that means that we're going to get less contracts accepted, less offers accepted, less deals closed, right? So it's really important, like you said, Sharif, is to be revisiting these things. contact attempt per lead went down by 50%, that's a huge problem. We got to revisit this. We got to call more of the same lead two or three times a day. for different variations of reach outs, call, text, message, email, and multiple times, right? So that was a big eye opener for me I had my sales meeting last week, and we made sure that we fixed as soon as possible.

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: I totally agree with you. mean, knowing your numbers is essential, right? And great. I mean, you're able to analyze, you know, what position you're in or what the future is going to look by what's happening right now, right? Compared to what happened in the past. So it's really important to figure out what your your key numbers are and what habits you need to have in order to hit your goals. Right. So ⁓ that is, you know, the first thing that we want to talk about is definitely It all comes down to just knowing exactly where you are and where you want to go and increasing a little bit a daily basis to get there. But know, that's the first part. Another part that I'd love to, you know, dive into if we can Peter is body right? Your tone, things of that nature, because your energy and confidence speaks ⁓ way before words come out. And I know I had heard someone say this in the past, but you know, light travels faster than sound, right? So your presentation, your energy, all that is gonna hit before anything comes out of your mouth. So confidence is so important with that, don't you agree?

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: ⁓ a hundred percent. And it's, it's very big because, you know, when you go to an appointment, for example, you know, your shoulders are leaning forward or humped forward, or you're just dragging your feet the house. And, know, it just shows that you have no energy. You're not, there's no excitement of meeting this person. And let's face it, like if you were at a restaurant, right. And you get a server that is greeting you with that energy. How would you feel sitting down at that table? You're gonna feel like this guy doesn't even want me here and I'm gonna probably have the worst experience of my life. Like I'm taking time out of my day to go enjoy a meal for an hour so. Like I wanna see a great experience and it's the same exact way and this is how your clients will feel when you are showing up that way. So you have to learn no matter how you feel, what's going on in your days that you have to turn a different switch on or put a game face on or something. to show that you're excited to meet the client. You gotta show up with some energy, some excitement, and be approachable with those clients because that's how you're gonna get ghosted really fast too if you don't show up excited or wanting to meet a client or really to serve this client.

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: No, I'm going to have to agree with that. I don't even think it's even just the clients though, Peter. I think it's just like daily interactions with anyone, including agents and everyone else. Right. Like I feel it. I feel it when agents call us and they're not confident, right. They lack the energy. Like it doesn't, it doesn't equal a good conversation. And it's not a good reflection that they're presenting based on, you know, representing their client. So just know that, you know, your posture that is important, your energy.

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: Sure.

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: That is important. How confident you are in a conversation. That's probably one of the most important things, right? And if you show up timid and uncertain, people will feel that immediately, right? Like they'll see that before you even say a word. And then if you start stuttering or you don't know what you want to say and you start stumbling over words, it's not going to help it, right?

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: 100%. just experienced this a week ago. We were negotiating with an agent that he's got a buyer. I have the listing. I'm representing the seller. And we $5,000 credit and they were for a lot more, right? I can tell right away I won the conversation by in the first three seconds of what the agent told me. They were like, Hey, so I just wanted to ask, ⁓ would it be okay if clients gives us a bit more? I'm like, No. then that was it. was the conversation I won. I'm would it okay? Like, is that how you're to start negotiating with somebody and afraid to ask? Like, of course, of course that's not how you want to start a negotiation, right? You know, we've learned this from, you know, coaching and Shep Lac and he talks about this. He wrote a post about this too. He's like, you know, it's leadership language, right? With your clients, you know, how would you as a leader, lead somebody to do the next step, right? You're not going to say, Hey, would it be okay if you make your calls today? I'm like, no, that's not how I'm going to talk to my agents, but that's exactly how you need to talk to your clients or the agent on the other side. You know, you got to have that leadership language when you're communicating things like this.

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: Definitely. mean, when you do show up with confidence and conviction, that energy communicates before you even say a word. Right. like if someone's like, you know, kind of like stumbling over their own words and don't understand what they want to actually get out while you're on a conversation with them, like, you know, that's before you hear any type of words. Right. That's confidence that they have in themselves. And that's important. We're not talking about confidence in the business self, talking about confidence you have in yourself, right? And you might not know everything, but you should present yourself in a better fashion where people are going to, you know, basically understand where your stance is. Right. So just remember that you have to, you have to present yourself better. You got to make sure that you are, you know, standing up straight, you know, your, your, posture is good. Right. You have to be like I talk to my agents all the time about this too. Like even your energy on the phone, right? Stand up, be cheerful, smile while you're talking, People will feel that through the phone and definitely be confident about the information that you're presenting as well.

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: Yes. So true.

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: But you know, that's number two. I want to dive a little bit into number three and really success is built on behaviors, not on the goals that you set. You know, I mean, a lot of people set goals, but goals alone, they don't, they don't actually result anything, right? You can make all the goals you want, but you're not going to find the results. It's just behavior routine change results, right? So it's your daily prospecting. your daily follow up, really your daily improvements, you know, just trying to be 1 % better than you were the day prior. That's really what we pride ourselves on. That's what we preach all the time. And success is really one big moment. It's a result of consistent habits repeated over time. I'm gonna repeat that success is the result of consistent habits repeated over time. That in itself. really should be like interlocked in your mind and you need to understand you're not going to find success just by setting goals. You got to do little things that need to be done day in and day out every day consistently. Right Pete?

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: Yeah, no, and that's such a fire quote that you just put out there too. remember when I to, you know, in for, you know, weightlifting or bodybuilding and it was when I had a coach, right? And it was the same exact way. And this is one of the things that I was able to take all the way through to to real estate. It's ⁓ he had an sheet that had the workout plan and also my diet plan. And every, every day I had to log in. how many sets I did, how many reps I did, and what was the weight for each thing. And it was tracked weekly. We would revisit this on a weekly basis. Okay, is my weight up or my weight down? Or is also, how is my scale, my weight on the scale as well? But it's exactly that, right? It's like these little habits every single day that we had to continue to do track and improve on, and it just goes back to tracking. But goals are, again, dreams really if they're not. set into small habits every single day and we're not executing on them. We have to make sure that we're executing on these small things. know, a lot of people will say like, we had a bunch of agents on the team on the beginning of the year on their vision board said, ⁓ you know, somebody said I want to close a hundred deals this year. Somebody said that want to close 50 deals this year. Okay, great. But what are you doing every single day to track it and people forget it. And I remember that I believe it takes about 66 days for something to turn into a habit. So that's all you have to focus on. I wanna do this consistently for 66 days so it becomes a habit. And once it becomes a habit, you don't negotiate with yourself anymore. same goes for working out. I don't negotiate with myself if I wanna go work out. Now it becomes a habit. I'll feel off if I don't do the workout. I'll feel off if I don't brush my teeth, obviously, right? Everybody here brushes their teeth at least in the morning and at night, right? It became a habit since, hopefully. it something that, you know, everybody started doing at a young age on a daily basis. Now you don't think about it. You don't negotiate with yourself about it. So it's exactly what Sharif is talking about here.

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: Hopefully. Yeah, I mean, you understand what a habit is, right? Something that you do repeatedly over and over again until it becomes muscle memory, right? Like it's something that you just do naturally at that point. that's something that you really got to take your business seriously, because you got to figure out what habits you need each day, right? To repeat so that you can find success and hit those goals, right? And sometimes it's breaking down because some of the habits that you have are not good habits, right?

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: Yes, sir.

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: Like if you have a habit of grabbing your phone and just scrolling social media first thing in the morning, it's probably not a good habit to have. Right. If you you replace that with, you know, maybe reflecting on the day prior, figuring out what you're grateful for and starting your day off right, maybe working out, you know, having a good breakfast. Those are habits that you're actually developing yourself. Right. Then you break into your day. Right. If you have a habit of calling, say, Fizzbo's and expired first thing in the morning. That's going to come natural. Like you said, Pete, like after two months, you're not even you're not going to double guess this anymore. Right. You know that every day at eight o'clock in the morning. That's what your goal set is. Right. You need to actually call people that are expired, withdrawn or Fizzbo's your system or outside of the system. But to do it consistently every day so that you'll find success in the future. And look, No one starts off being great at anything, right? you start to realize that when ⁓ first start touching on certain habits and activities, you're not good in the beginning, right? And that's fine. You'll get better with time, right? know, practice makes not Practice makes something more right? Practice makes it that ⁓ you make it right? That's what we want. We want permanent. habits in your life that actually take you to your goals. And that's the important part that people don't understand.

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: I agree. I agree. It's the same, the same goes on. And it's funny because, um, on our last meeting, I wanted to show my, you know, the team, how much I sucked in the beginning, especially on video. So I pulled up a video from 2018 when I was started doing video content and I played it and I was like, Hey, this is a moment for you guys to laugh about me and how, how sucky I was on video and look at it. Right. It was a 36 minute, a 30, 30 second video. I sounded horrible. I didn't know what to say. But I'm like, look, this is where I started. And for you guys to see me on video today or me making the calls, I didn't start like this. This is not how I start because a lot of people also like, you know, we preach like you got to be more on social media. You have to be more out there. You have to make the calls. But everybody's so afraid of being judged by other people that they're not good enough. Right. And I'm like, look, who gives a crap? Right. Like just put the video out there. But it's just the start. You want to get into a habit. And then eventually, you'll be lucky if 10 % of your audience even see the video. But then the whole idea is that you do it enough time that it becomes a habit. And that goes along with everything that you do.

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: Yeah, I mean, that kind of ties into the next thing I want to talk about is execution beats ideas every day, right? Like there's, there's people out there that, you know, just go out and just research ideas, research processes, and again, to analysis paralysis, right? They don't do anything and everyone has ideas, right? New marketing strategy, new lead sources, new to grow their business. But ideas are easy. It's execution. That's hard. Right. And that's something that, you know, will differentiate just in regular agent from a top performer is not the top former knows more. It's they're executing on a daily basis, right? They're executing either small things or executing big projects, but they continue to execute. And, you know, it really, it really makes a difference your longterm goals, depending on how much execution you're actually moving forward with.

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: That's so true. mean, and I think it's pointless to have any other ideas unless you plan on executing on this one idea. And a lot of people, like you said, you know, just start analyzing and like, ⁓ how do I do this research and watch of YouTube videos before they even start? And goes back to something I've also learned over the And maybe it's a good habit or bad habit of mine, but it's just being like impatient with the that are ⁓ reversible. Right. Like if

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: You're impatient.

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: me, I know, it just, I just to get it done as soon as possible. But obviously things that are ⁓ a big decision, I'm not so impatient with, but the things that are small and I think are reversible. If they do money, money, I'm like, okay, whatever. Like, as long as we something from it, but I'm not going to wait there because I have a problem of occupying my mind. that I have to do this, I have to do this I'm not doing it. It kind of pauses me doing a lot of other stuff and that bugs me, bugs the crap out of me. So it's either that I get it done now or otherwise it's just going to limit me from doing what I'm supposed to do, all the other things. As long as it's in my mind and I have to do it, I got to do it even if I have to pay a little bit extra. And our friend Kyle Robinson, one the things ⁓ when I first him, he told me I pay for speed, right? And that stuck with me. But is, fortunately he has the capacity to do that, but I know not everybody has the capacity to do that. But he always says like, I'd rather pay for something if it's going to get done quicker. And that always stuck with me and I kind of took that and ran with it for the most part. And that's why he pays for coaching. That's why we pay for coaching as well, because we don't want to fail on our own. We rather pay somebody to tell us what to do so we get there quicker.

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: Yeah, I mean people who actually win, they shorten that time between idea to action, right? And they move quickly and focus on implementation instead of overthinking the process itself. So it's almost like you got a I know chat black says is is, you know, instead of ready aim fire, it's ready fire, then aim, right? You got to take action and then tune in where you're actually supposed to be going. So as long as you take that action first, now you're in the process of it, right? Now we can analyze what we did, try to figure out how to make it better for the next time around. But if you sit there and try to figure it out before you take action, you're just gonna be in like a cycle, right? You're just gonna go, know, just in and out. Basically, you're just looping. You're like a hamster in a wheel and you're not going anywhere because you're thinking too much about what you need to do instead of doing it and then figuring out how to make it better. And people really need to understand that you just have to take the action and then fix it. Right. I mean, I know we both had a coach in the past who would say, you know, we're basically flying a plane as we build it. And that's, that's what it is. Right. That's what it feels like sometimes. mean, you're almost flying with like one engine, one wing. You don't even have a tail to it, but going all over the place. But as you, as you start to settle in, you're starting to figure out, got to put a wing on here. Now I got to put another engine on there. I need.

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: Don't. all the time.

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: tail on there, right? And you start to find yourself where you're leveling out, right? And you're moving ahead.

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: Right. I agree. agree. it's also I've learned this from her Mozi too. He he always says like, you know, there's just two processes of decision making. this reversible? If it's reversible, we just take action. If it's not reversible, then take a little bit more time, right? Take as much time as you need to to take that action. So that that also helps with making those decision decisions like, you know, don't too much. The worst thing that you can that can happen doesn't go as planned and you either paid with it, paid for it by time or money. but that's reversible. But if it's irreversible, if it's a huge life event or, you know, let's say you move in or I don't know, whatever the case is, most decisions are reversible. Like, I don't know too many things that are irreversible over time.

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: No, totally, totally. And the thing is, also you just want to stay consistent, right? But staying consistent is easy when things are going well. It's hard to be consistent when things are going wrong. And let me promise you things will go wrong. I mean, I tell this to everybody, even the clients that I meet. And things won't always go according to plan, right? Deals will fall apart. Schedule will be disrupted. Some days just don't go right. I mean, that's just going to happen. But your tire goes flat, you don't slash the other three tires. You fixed a problem and you keep going. And the basis of it. You're always gonna have a tire that goes flat. You don't just give up and just abandon the car. No, you fixed the problem, you keep going. And that's the key is to understand that you gotta be consistent no matter what. You don't be consistent just because it's positive out there.

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: No, happens to a lot of people that I know and it comes from, and not just business, sometimes even an unpersonal level, right? Where people will sit there and dwell on things for so long that causes them to self-sabotage themselves or turn to drugs or alcohol or whatever the case is, right? But they're almost killing themselves at this point because something went wrong in their life instead of trying to fix it and move on. And same goes for our business, right? And that example is so good because that's what happens a lot of times. You know, one, one deal falls apart or one client decides not to work with you anymore. you, you guys like end up waiting for a couple of weeks, trying to get your mindset, right? Like, you know, if you had these habits in place, you would wake up ⁓ just move on and just continue to find new clients. And That's what this analogy is for and it's so good because it's a real life example. Most of you will stop and will fix the tire, put a spare on if you did have a flat tire outside. You're not going to go and slash the other three. And that's what, but the problem is most of you do that when you do run into problems, even if it's life or if it's in business.

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: I mean, it's so true to it's like you implode your business if one thing goes wrong, right? Or just totally give up. But it's, it's, we're not telling you, okay, it's easy, right? I know it's difficult and you know, just about building your habits and doing things when you don't want to do them. And it's if you miss your prospecting block, so what move into another time, right? ⁓ Be flexible yourself and then understand that you need to get it done, right? Even if you don't want to get it done. I mean, If you miss a day, pick it back up tomorrow, right? remembering that there's certain things that you have to do. And the key is not letting those small setbacks turn into long term bad habits. Right? So just remember that. Don't let the setbacks turn into a bad version yourself out there doing things wrong now. Right? Do things even when it doesn't feel like the time is right. when you don't feel like you want to do it. That's when the real winners shine, right? Is when you're doing things when you know you don't want to do them.

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: Yeah, and I just, this is a behavior that I feel like it does take some time for people to get used to, especially in the beginning. But it just goes back to emotional intelligence and just knowing, separating your emotions and your feelings from what needs to happen over time, because that's what gets in the way. You know, when you feel down or you feel upset about losing a client, like what is the time frame from that, from the time this happens to the time that you go back to your normal self? And as long as we're able to keep short in that time is the better you're going to get and this is the more successful that you're going to get because most successful people I know, have literally like maybe they from days to hours to to seconds, right? A deal falls apart or somebody wants to cancel, you know, before and I'll be honest, like in the beginning, probably took me a few days, maybe a week sometimes, but... Now I'm down to seconds, like maybe at most a couple of minutes, but I'm able to pick up and just continue to move on because I know just sitting here and not doing anything and just looking for more opportunities is not going to help me end up growing this business or continue to move forward. So that's the biggest thing.

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: No, definitely. mean, it's really understanding all these topics, right? And putting them all together understand that real estate success doesn't come from complicated strategies really, right? It comes from simple disciplines done consistently, right? Your success in real estate comes from doing the same damn thing every day in day ⁓ out, Stay honest with your numbers, show up with confidence. ⁓ Focus on daily habits execute quickly, right? And keep moving forward even when things don't go perfectly. That's real estate. That's success in real estate summed up in like five lines, knowing your numbers, being confident, focus on your daily habits, execute quickly, and keep going forward even it doesn't turn out the way you want it to and if it's not perfect. I mean, you can focus on those five things, you'll see your business inch up more and more every day.

Peter Boutros-StunningNJHomes: So good and appreciate you guys for listening in today. If you do like this podcast, please share it, comment below, let us know that you like it. Let us know if there are certain topics you want us to touch on. Go ahead and follow our Facebook group stay tuned for the next one. I'll talk to you guys soon. ⁓

Sharif Hatab - Sharifsells.com: Bye guys.