“Hey, you know how much money I make last year?”

ID-100146338What’s the one thing sales superstars have in common?

When they get hit, they just keep on going.

Barbara Corcoran, star of ABC reality show “Shark Tank”, who turned a $1,000 loan into a six billion dollar company told a story last week at the GKIC Superconference that really stuck with me.  (Some of the following details may be fudged where memory fails, but the gist is about right)

At a time when Corcoran’s fledgling real estate firm was just getting a start and she was desperate to recruit serious sales talent, she had volunteered to teach a course on real estate.

The sparse turnout for her first class was disappointing, but she pressed on, committed to giving her students an excellent experience.

One of the students, a Chinese woman (Let’s call her Rose) who could barely speak English piped up and asked, “Hey, you know how much money I make last year?”

$1.34 Million.

In New York City.  Easily THE most competitive real estate market in the world.  And this was a while back, when $1.34 Million really meant something.  

After Barbara picked her jaw up off the floor, she decided she was gonna’ make this the best class ever and that woman was going to be on her team.

Barbara did exactly that and Rose turned out to be every bit the Rock Star Barbara expected, one of her top agents.

But the real test came when the Hong Kong stock market crashed, annihilating the wealth of Rose’s following.  Not good for Rose.

On the day of the crash, Barbara tried to reach Rose all day, left voice messages, emails, faxes.  No answer, no response, nothing.

Next morning, Barb walks into the office, and Rose is already there with a couple dozen new contracts.  As soon as word got out about the crash, Rose hopped on the phone with her prospects and sold them on listing their properties with her before the crash hit their neighborhood.

Completely unfazed, she’d swung into action when everybody else was staring at the news, like deer in headlights.

Poetry in motion, as Barb said, is somebody who just doesn’t recognize failure, who keeps moving when the game gets rough.

She observed that this is the one trait common to all her most successful agents.  Everybody gets hit. Most take a breather to lick their wounds.  But the the top players keep swinging.  They just don’t know how to feel sorry for themselves.

Rose has moved on, but Barbara called her not too long ago.  Rose asked her again, “Hey you know how much money I make last year?”

$14 Million.

Next time you take a hit, ask yourself, “What does this make possible?”

And without missing a beat, take another swing.

To your success,

 – MIKE