The Secret of Success

I've started 2010 with a bang; business is better than ever before, and I'm ecstatic. The crazy thing now is people are asking me what the secret is. It wasn't that long ago when I was tracking down top producers, clamoring for the same answers.
I remember calling Sandy Magner up out of the blue. She didn't know me from Adam, but I knew she was one of the most successful agents in the area. Sandy is a great conversationalist. She can sit down for hours in a row and make dozens of cold calls. She also holds open houses like they're going out of style.
Next I asked Donna Gemborys, the queen of Eastham real estate. She sends out thousands of pieces of direct mail annually and has a paid assistant who manages the tedious aspects of the job.
Did they reveal the 'secret' to me? Well, I'm not sure. I'll call up the occasional homeowner if I know I can sell their house, and I do my open houses, but honestly I often sub them out to other agents in my office. And I send out postcards with every new listing and closing, and I'm even starting to 'farm' a couple of neighborhoods. If you were to ask me what I do that brings me the most business I would probably talk about my online presence and my person-to-person connections. But would that be my advice to you?
It's true; if you are phone prospecting for an hour a day, doing 2 open houses every weekend, cranking out a monthly mailing, hiring an assistant, hob-nobbing and blogging your brains out, it will be hard to fail. But I don't know anyone who does all that all the time. Not Sandy, not Donna, and certainly not me.
So then what's the damn secret??
It's actually not that mysterious. It's a lot less sexy than you might hope.
The 'secret' to success as I see it is: find the things that you are good at, that you like to do. And then do them--really DO them, with passion, persistence and vision. When something works, do it even harder. And for pete's sake, when something stops working, STOP DOING IT. Don't judge yourself by someone else's yardstick; chances are you're better than them anyway. Keep raising your own bar.
And blog. Definitely blog.