Keeping It Real Podcast • Secrets Of Top 1% REALTORS ® • Interviews With Real Estate Brokers & Agents

Welcome to the July episode of Learn with a Lender with Joel Schaub of Guaranteed Rate!

In this episode Joel discusses the rates going up and the importance of informing the buyers. Joel emphasizes the importance of agents checking their client’s profiles and making sure they’re qualified to buy property. Joel also talks about how agents should always inform their clients about the rates since it may affect their loans. Last, Joel talks about how new agents should always have information on their clients and a strategy for them.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Joel can be reached at [email protected] and 773.654.2049.

This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks.

D.J. Paris 0:00
Today you’re going to learn what top 1% realtors are telling their clients about rates in inventory. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show.

Welcome to a another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris, I’m your guide and host through the show. And today, once again, is our monthly series called Learn with a lender with Joel shop from guaranteed rate. Now, Joel is vice president of lending at guaranteed rate. And he’s been doing loans at a high level since 2003. It’s his 20th year, actually 21st year. And he got to that level because of what he does specifically for agents, which is that he gives back part of his commission to the buyer on every transaction. And last year alone, Joel gave back over $300,000 in closing costs to buyers who worked with him. And that puts Joe’s volume in the top 1/10 of 1% of all lenders nationwide. In fact, there’s 400,000 loan officers in the country. And Joel is currently ranked number 137 out of 400,000, which is amazing. Last year, he did a tremendous number of transactions, his highest amount ever, actually. But this year, he’s already closed 157 transactions purchase transactions for just shy of $71 million. And if you’re looking for a loan officer, we cannot more highly recommend Joel he’s the very best we’ve ever worked with and he can be reached. So I want everyone if you’re interested in reaching out to Joel, you should be because he’s fantastic. It you can reach him a couple different ways you can email him. So [email protected] [email protected] Simple enough, or send him a message on his cell, which is 773-654-2049. And we’re also going to talk about if you’re not currently receiving his weekly newsletter, which is fantastic because it gives agents really digestible talking points so that they can understand what’s going on in the world of lending with respect to rates, and maybe what the Fed is thinking and how the how the loan companies are reacting to that. And it gives you ammo so that you can talk more intelligently to your clients. And so definitely shoot Joel an email [email protected] asked to be put on his mailing list. And you’ll get those talking points every single week. Joel, welcome. Oh, I’m sorry. One more? No, that’s it. Okay. Joel, welcome to the show. Sorry, I

Joel Schaub 3:45
Am I no fanfare, but it’s just good to be back. And every single time I come on, it’s one of the best days of the month because we actually get to chat. We get to go through things that will help agents grow their business, and I’m just definitely happy to be here.

D.J. Paris 4:01
I’m happy you’re here too. And I it’s funny because Joel Of course, and his business is not immune to what’s going on in the market. We know it’s a challenging time for real estate with respect to low inventory higher rates than then we all would prefer. So it’s tricky. We know it’s a tricky year. But I loved I asked Joel just before on before he came on. I was like how’s your business? Because everybody I run into whether they’re a realtor, a loan officer and I almost everybody is like, Oh, it’s a tough year. And Joe’s like, you know, I know it’s a tough year but we’re actually doing really well. So I’m excited to talk with you because I want to hear about some of the things you’re seeing that’s working out there right now. Any edge that you can help give to an agent when they’re working. You know on the buy side or sell side possibly I’m sure you see opportunities both but let’s I guess maybe we should just first let’s let’s just get the rate question out of the way we know rates have crept a little bit up closer now to 7%. We know they were down a little bit last year. Last time we talked to in the mid 60s. So they’ve crept up a bit. How you know, what, what are your thoughts on rates and what realtor should be thinking about?

Joel Schaub 5:10
What’s funny DJ rate should have slowed buyers down, right if a payment on a mortgage on a 6.75% rate versus a 2.75% rate, but we’re just not seeing that we’re just still seeing buyers out there that are so strong. So in demand for properties, they’re just not finding properties. And that’s kind of comes back to the supply and demand issue. Right now, we’re having buyers still if it’s a hot property, coming in at full asking price and losing right or going above asking price, and lose. And I see this happening for the rest of the year until next year. We’re just not getting enough inventory to make it either a buyer or a seller’s market.

D.J. Paris 5:58
Yeah, it’s sort of that in between. And I wanted to read you something I found from Redfin. And no, you know what, I don’t have it in front of me. But Redfin did some sort of study. And I don’t know how accurate it is, I’m just assuming it’s accurate, where they said that they believe that once the rates get into the high fives, like I think, I can’t remember the exact specific number. But it was, it was, it was around five and a three quarter percent, right around there somewhere. And they said, as soon as that happens, and eventually we hope, of course, all of us hope it does, you were gonna see this mass influx, like that’s the that’s the buying temperature that people really want it to get to before buyers flood the market, which of course, if that happens, we have a whole nother set of problems, because then we have all these buyers flooding the market. So I think there’s a huge opportunity right now, and it’s a little bit of an uncomfortable, maybe opportunity. But I think the smart, the really, really savvy realtors are going to be talking to their clients about, hey, we know that rates are maybe a little higher than you would like. But here’s what happens when they go down. And here’s what happens couple of years ago, when they were at historic lows. Remember how hard it was to even buy a property then and we may see a you know, a duplication of that if rates even go down into the high fives. So I’m just curious sort of what your thoughts are, you know, we know the whole date, the rate marry the home, which I think is about as brilliant of a saying as exists because it is absolutely a smart play. But what are you seeing out there? What are you recommending to agents, buyer’s agents

Joel Schaub 7:31
are hear this all the time. And I want to make sure that we go through a concept where a buyer says, Well, I don’t want to buy it DJ, I want to wait until rates come down, right. And then just reminding the buyer that what happened when rates went down before now you have instead of three or four offers on every property you might have 10 offers on every property. So if you are able to make the payments on the mortgage, it’s still a good time to buy a piece of real estate. Now, if you can’t afford it, it doesn’t matter what the rate is, if you can’t afford the payment we shouldn’t be buying. So we want to make sure that we walk through the client’s profile and understand where they’re comfortable. Make sure that if they can afford rates that are in the sixes, when rates come down, they’ll have already owned the property, they’ll be able to refinance the debt even lower, and then just work with most banks that will allow you to refinance with no fees. Because that’s usually the next hurdle that people say is Well, of course I want to buy. But down the line, I don’t want to be charged 1000s and 1000s of dollars to refinance. And there’s plenty of companies not just mind that if you’re getting a mortgage, they will have no cost refinance rates down the line, we just don’t know when rates are going to drop DJ. And the feds are talking right now, as we’re getting ready to tape this, that by the time this airs, we’ll have another 25 basis point increase to the Fed rates. And we may still have one more to go. Looking ahead to 2024. There’s already calls for the first quarter of Fed cuts. So looking at March or April into next year is when we believe the feds will be cutting rates.

D.J. Paris 9:09
I think if I were if I were practicing agent based on what you just said, what I might do to talk to my on the fence buyers who are waiting for those rates to drop. I would I would go through the data and look back to when rates were in the threes and show the activity in my local market about what what what was the quantity of homes purchased in the price range of maybe what buyer that I’m working with. And look at the at just the production there. How many homes were listed, how quickly did they sell to make the case that maybe yes, maybe today of course rates are higher than they were when rates were much lower, but look at the activity now versus the activity that in other words, it’s a lot less competitive today to purchase a home. So I think there’s that there’s that a balancing act that Realtors need to think about is, let’s remember what rates were like sorry, let’s remember what what being a buyer’s agent was like, when rates were that low.

Joel Schaub 10:09
I just had a client last week call me and they already owned a condo, and they were getting ready to buy a move up property. And they were complaining to me that there’s just no inventory on the market. They just couldn’t find something that they wanted to buy. And then I asked him, I said, Well, what are you going to do with your condo, they go, Oh, we don’t want to list that. I have a rate of two and a half percent. I don’t want to list that. And I said, bingo. That’s the situation that you’re seeing. There are so many people that don’t want to list their home they have on it is now an asset. They are now below market. So why would we list this home, when I could collect rents on this home, right. And so this is where it’s going to change DJ, I truly believe there’s a lot of buyers that are in rates in the twos and threes, that there’s no way they’re going to trade up to a rate that’s going to be in the sixes and sevens, it’s too much to stomach. However, when rates drop down to the fives, it’s going to seem so much lower that sellers are gonna say, Okay, I don’t mind a five and a quarter percent rate, but I sure as heck didn’t want to take that 7% rate. And as soon as we see that, we’re going to see an influx of inventory. And that won’t be q1 of next year. But it’s coming, you guys, literally this is all cyclical. So we start to look and really think about what will happen in the future, there will be a lot more inventory on the market, when those rates come down to the fives. Because all of those sellers, just like my last couple that said there’s nothing to buy, well, they didn’t want to sell their home. So multiply that by 1000s and 1000s of other families doing the exact same thing. And the only time we’re gonna get additional inventory is when those rates come down. And that could be as soon as q2, or q3 of next year. So it’s coming.

D.J. Paris 12:02
Can we just quickly talk about and I know we’ve spoken about this before, but we do have new listeners every single month. Just really quickly for those that are uninitiated unfamiliar with this idea of a rate by down, which is a possible strategy to do right now, which will help make some of those buying those buyers a little bit happier for the next several years. Can we just quickly explain what that is and why an agent may want to explore that?

Joel Schaub 12:29
Well, a seller funded by down is the flavor and it comes in a couple of different varieties. But if the buyer themselves is paying for the rate by down, it doesn’t do the buyer any good, right. But if we can get the seller to give a credit, then the flavor that comes in and I like saying it like it’s a bunch of ice cream, right pick the one that you like, and it’s up to one rate by down which means in the year one, the rate would be 2% lower than the rate that was locked in. In the second year, the interest rate would be a full point lower than the rate that was locked in. And then years three through 30 The rates of the whatever we locked in. Okay, so let’s just take a perfect example, I had a client that was writing a contract on a $300,000 home, and they wanted to get a 3% credit to drive the rate down. Okay. So the interest rate at the time was 6.25. And if the seller were to give them nine grand, which is 3%, that more than covered a two one rate by down, which meant in year number one DJ, the rate the client had was four and a quarter percent. In year number two is five and a quarter. And then for the life of the loan going forward, it would be six and a quarter. And the strategy would be that sometime in the next two years rates will be lower than six and a quarter. Okay, we take it one step further. And I have a question for you. If the client is willing to pay nine grand more for the home versus not paying that nine grand. Do you think that the payment that they get on that mortgage would be better if they just took the lower price or use that to do a rate buydown? Well, that’s

D.J. Paris 14:09
what I was thinking and I I’m gonna I always guessed wrong, so I’m not going to guess but that was my way. My thought is why not just take the extra nine grand and not build it into the rate. So I’m loving. I can’t wait to hear your answer.

Joel Schaub 14:23
Well, on a $300,000 loan, your instinct was right. Okay. However, you’re going to be blown away by the dollar amount of savings of dropping the rate down to four and a quarter. So if they just took nine grand off the purchase price, right, and these clients were doing 20% down. So on a $9,000 reduction, their total payment dropped about $61 a month, right? Okay. I like $61 a month. But if they kept the nine grand as part of the purchase price, what we did was we used all $9,000 instead of spreading it out over 30 years. If we took it and put it into the first two years of the rate, that meant their payment dropped $410 In the first year, right, every single month, their payment was $410. Less. In year number two, the payment was still $224 A month less every single month. And then in year three, it was what they would have signed up for originally. And so it’s just a temporary solution to a real temporary problem. Okay, rates in the next two years, there’s no crystal ball, but we really believe that they will be lower, the Fed is indicating that they’re going to be lower. So let’s see if we can drive the rates down right now, during those first two years. If I’m an agent, I’m listening to this, what it means is, I might have been able to solve a problem for a buyer that said, I just can’t afford the payments with these rates. And you say, What if we got the seller to give you a rate reduction for the next two years? Oh, tell me more. I just heard about it on the keepin it real podcast, I know now how to do this. And you can actually pick up maybe one more buyer. Or if you have a listing that’s being on the market for too long, and it’s stale, why not offer this to the buyers, instead of doing a $20,000 price reduction, we could give a nine grand credit to drive down the rates for a buyer. So there’s all these things, if you can learn a little bit more, you’re gonna pick up another buyer or help a seller.

D.J. Paris 16:29
And this is a great time to mention that these are the kinds of tips and advice that you don’t just give us once a month on the show, which of course, we are so honored that you do, but also that you send these out to everybody in your database, in the form of these agent, sort of data points and Agent information on a weekly basis that any one of our listeners can subscribe to, to find this and literally get this force fed to them in their inbox once a month or sorry, once a week, so that they can then take that right to the to their client and seem you know, more knowledgeable and in the know. And so anyway.

Joel Schaub 17:03
Yeah, they’re hot. Yeah.

D.J. Paris 17:07
Now you’re making me hungry. But I would like I would always like some hot nuggets to be able to feed to my to my clients. And so the best way to do that, just shoot an email to [email protected] say, newsletter, please or newsletter, you know, just write newsletter in there, they’ll sign you up. And you’ll get this. And this isn’t a super long document that you get every week where you have to pour through it and look at so many things to actual, it’s really concise. It’s perfect for exactly what you need to know to be able to communicate intelligently.

Joel Schaub 17:38
Yeah, breaks it down and simple so that you can have one more piece of talking point when you’re out doing showings, you say, Hey, did you know about a rate by down? Or did you know that there’s other options in the market besides just 30 year fixed rate mortgages, right? Looking at Adjustable Rate Mortgages, looking at different terms on the mortgage. And in a way that’s not so cumbersome. We make it fun, we make it easy. And I’ve had such good feedback from agents that say I was actually able to get another buyer because of one of the information that you provided in the newsletter. So really, really powerful stuff [email protected]. And it’s as simple as if you’re driving, just sending a message saying add me to your newsletter, and then we’ll put you on and then you’ll get follow ups for weekly update, I want

D.J. Paris 18:23
to I want every one I want you to send an email to [email protected] get on his newsletter. And now I want to tell a story about you that I was just that just occurred to me that as you were talking, and I want people to really think about everyone listening, think about how to incorporate this into your own business. And so I apologize, I’m going to take over just for a moment because I want to share a strategy that I should be nervous. A little bit. No, no, no. So Joel was naked? No, he was not naked. So so this was during I want to say that in I can’t remember the exact timeframe. So Joel, you may need to correct me a bit. But But I noticed Joel was doing this, when several years ago when it was really It might have even been before rates went down. And we were kind of in COVID and everyone was struggling and no homes were transacting. And it was really tricky. And it must have been outside of COVID Because you were doing events. But regardless, this was a time in the market. I’ve known Joe for a long time. So I can’t again exactly recall when this happened. But it was a time in the market where it’s really difficult. So it’s kind of similar to now. And I was asking Joel cash, how are you doing? Because Joel is such a top one percenter that you know, any change in his business that dramatically affects his team and you know, he’s got a lot of responsibilities and and he goes you know, what we’re doing right now is we you know, yeah, in but you know, our transactions. This is years ago, our transactions are down, but here’s what we’re doing. And what he said was so simple and yet so brilliant. And it’s really paying off for him today. So I’m going to tell you something that is is is has worked for him to now be where most of the other loan officers are really struggling. Joel is actually thriving. So several years ago, I was asking Joel cash, you know, everyone’s down. And he goes, Well, what we’re doing is we’re putting our foot on the gas for a client appreciation events and Agent appreciation events. And I said, Okay, well, what does that mean? And Joel and his lovely wife, Christine, and their team that their team is amazing. They were doing you and Christine in particular, you guys are such a powerhouse team. You were doing events every single night, I think for a month straight, you had like two nights off, which of course, is a lot for anybody to handle. And I was like, Oh, my God, how are you doing? He goes, this is how we stay busy. During this time we do. We do events to make our clients feel appreciated. And we just hope that you know, down the road that ultimately will result in some business. And that’s not really the entire reason to do it. Joel loves giving back. He loves celebrating with his clients. And I thought, I don’t know any other loan officers that are literally doing events every single night for a month straight. And this is like kind of your life all the time. And obviously, not everyone can can do an event every single night. But I think this is the time to do as much of that stuff as you can, because you have some time. And I don’t mean Joel, of course, I mean, all of our listeners Joe’s already doing it. But can we just talk a little bit about the importance of these client events, I know they mean a lot to you, you really love doing them. And ultimately, you know, could that be one of the success secrets of your team?

Joel Schaub 21:30
It really is, it’s one of the things that if I’m an agent right now, and you have loan officers that are courting you reach out and find somebody who’s actually willing to do this with you. Okay, because the number one thing that you want is a true partner that will actually execute not just on the mortgage side, but also help you and RESPA compliant dollars to help marketing. So I can’t do it in every single state. But there’s so many realtors, where we are doing events for them, planning it, getting it set up, doing the invites, doing the catering, the food, the flowers, the bartender, and these don’t have to be major expenses, sometimes we get away with just a $600 event. And we split it, we each pay $300. I had one last week on South Michigan Avenue, a beautiful $4.2 million home and we spent about $6,600. But for that home for each of us to spend a little over $3,000 It really made sense. And so if I’m an agent, right now, I’m reaching out to one of those loan officers that I’m working with and saying, I want to do a party, I want to invite my clients, I want you to help me, and then find somebody that really will put their money where their mouth is. And this is why a lot of mortgage people don’t like me. Because I’m always the money preaching this go work with somebody that wants to support your business, all these loan officers call you and say I’m really good. We have great rates, I’m here to tell you, we’re almost the same. Okay, we really are. If you’ve been in the business a long time, everybody has good rates unless they have bad rates. Everybody’s fast. Okay, so what you want to do is partner with somebody that actually wants to help you financially, what a novel idea, right? And good loan officers will do that in droves. And it’s not so much having people come to the event DJ, it’s making the phone call and telling people, Hey, I have an event coming up. It’s the reach out in the touch. And that’s what makes all the difference if they can’t make it. Fine. But now you’ve connected with them. And you’ve done it in a way where you’re not asking for business. I mean, how many times can you call somebody and say, Oh, by the way, if you know anybody looking to buy or sell, send them my way. That’s old, that’s stale. That’s lame, go invite them to something fun, okay. And it doesn’t have to break the bank, but partner with a lender, or an attorney or a title rep or an insurance agent, get your team of people around you as an agent right now. And over the next couple of years. When you have people that are in your corner, you’re going to grow your business.

D.J. Paris 24:13
I want to just add to that to the team because I a couple nights ago was out in an event and talked to a divorce attorney and I always sort of forget about what it’s sort of an unfortunate position. You know, depending on on how you look at it. But you know, one thing we can say about divorces is they usually end up with somebody moving, maybe both people or certainly one person is going somewhere new and you know, in most situations, so I was talking to this attorney and I was and I said how did COVID affect marriage because of course it had to have some sort of measurable effect. And I expected him to say what he did say which was divorce rates are up. We all spent a little bit too much time with somebody that we weren’t I’m planning on spending in a smaller a small space. And some of us it bounded bounded us closer together and others about it took us further apart. And so my point is, is this is a great opportunity also to reach out to some divorce attorneys. They are very in demand right now. So it’s tough. But this is a great opportunity when you’re doing these events to say, hey, you know, would you like to participate? Would you like to come in and be there, and in a divorce attorneys again, are, are really, really busy right now. So that that’s an opportunity to to add somebody like that to your team. I wanted to also last, lastly, ask about oh, I wanted to talk about back to the client events for just a moment. Because one thing that I think Joel, you do exceptionally well, and I encourage everybody to follow Joel and I forgot to mention this earlier, follow him on social media, just called Joel is Instagram handle a Facebook as well just search for Joel, guaranteed rate just called Joe, you’ll find them and we’ll have links to it in our show notes. But you I want you to see the way that he takes these really generous events to really help you know, some some agents business, help their clients, you know, these appreciation events or parties. And I want you to see how effectively Joel makes sure that that he has people there that are photographing the event, he then takes those photos, he makes them look really professional. And then he sends them out via social media. And he tags the people in it. So they get notified that oh, I’ve been I’m in a picture with, you know, this event that I was just in, they may share it, they may comment, and you get a lot of marketing capital for just telling the story of hey, I just did this event. So it’s it’s, it’s the event itself, which is amazing for the people that are there. And then all the people that get to see this generous thing that was done. And you know, their friends are tagged in it or whatever also get to see the same thing.

Joel Schaub 26:49
It lives on more than just the night of the event. And that’s the whole point of this, right. So there’s a beat behind the scenes, which is leading up to it the phone calls and making sure that people feel invited to something that’s big and fun. And then it’s afterwards you have all the collateral, right? hire a photographer and the photographer’s don’t need to be expensive, okay? I think every time we do a photographer for an event, it costs us a couple $100 Max. And then they create the photos, they edit them, they get them back. And then I overused photos, I go back and I do photos from an event that I did three years ago, and I repost. And so I’m good about making sure that it lives on more than just the one day that you did the event. And as an agent, you can do the same thing to tagging your past clients and actually sending them out. During the holidays, a photo of themselves, there’s so many ways that you can leverage one event into something so much more so that you could literally be the man or woman in your community that people know when it comes to real estate. And again, it does not need to break the bank, you just need to get outside of this fear of Oh, nobody’s going to come or I don’t know what to do. Sit down and collaborate. Again, with a good lender lenders are big on helping so make sure that you find somebody that’s local that really works for you. And don’t be afraid, right? The biggest, you know, the biggest success stories were people that dared to fail. And I’ve done even just first time homebuyer seminars where one person showed up. But I’ll be damned if that person didn’t buy a home. And they did. So I’ve had first time homebuyer seminars were 100% of the attendees DJ, have bought a home and got a mortgage with me, right? And even if it’s just one, nobody’s too big to get one extra buyer. Okay, so go out.

D.J. Paris 28:45
And it’s kind of like going to the gym, right? You just have to commit to doing it consistently. And especially if it’s a client appreciation event, because you’re right, it could be just a weird weekend where you have this event planned and one person shows and you’re like, Okay, well this doesn’t work never doing this again. And Joel has done so many of these. He’s had massive successes, where everyone there, you know, is is buying and, and, and also big attendance. And then he’s obviously just mentioned low attendance stuff. And those are gonna happen to I mean, it happens on our podcast, some some episodes, we do get 10,000 20,000 listeners and some get 30,000 And then some get 5000. And I can’t tell you exactly the rhyme or reason to any of it. But if I if I looked at those numbers individually, I would cry or I’d be happy. But I don’t have a whole lot of control. And I think that’s the way you need to think about these client appreciation events. You do everything you can to get people’s butts in the seats, and you do enough of them to where you’re going to have some wins some losses. Either way, you just got to keep doing it.

Joel Schaub 29:43
I love that. And you just got to keep going out there and helping new buyers right. It’s not people that have already owned if you’re renting a place right now and you’re getting ready to buy. That’s one of the biggest segments of my business. It’s not people buying multimillion dollar homes. It’s truly somebody who’s never bought a home before, they’re just putting down 5%, or they’re putting down three and a half percent, and they want to feel taken care of they want to understand payments. And really what they want to understand is rates in this market, they’re fearful, am I buying in at the wrong time? And I always go through this analysis of what are they paying in rent DJ, and where we live here in Chicago, it’s very easy to have rent, that’s two or $3,000, right? It’s just not uncommon. And the interest rate on rent, I always like to say is 100%, right, the rate of return is 100%. Out the door, right? So none of that money goes towards yourself. And so I’d much rather have an interest rate of six or 7% than 100%, that’s rent to once we walk through that scenario. It’s something that you as an agent could use to, if you’re renting, every dollar that you pay in rent is interest. You don’t get anything back, there’s no tax deductibility. And you’re not building equity. So paying six or 7%, much better than 100%. And it leads me to this. Most people when they talk about rates, they’re just focused on 30 year fixed rates, but buyers really should talk to their lenders about all the options right now. Okay, because a lot of buyers since they won’t have rates for 30 years in this mortgage should look at adjustable rate mortgages. And I know that can be scary for a lot of people hearing that term, because they think back to the subprime days, where the rates were so low, and then they spiked up on borrowers in the first year or two. That’s not the case anymore. So an adjustable rate mortgage comes in three flavors, five, seven, and 10 are the most common. And having a mortgage that’s fixed for seven years, for example, that’s a long time. It really is. And we believe rates should be lower, probably in the next two years, even next year. So why lock in a 30 year fixed rate if you don’t need to?

D.J. Paris 32:04
And also, that’s a really smart idea. And also to I mean, I remember when I bought my first property, it was even in the coffers quicker. Sorry about that. I, I didn’t know anything about rates, the rate was what it was. And I think it was in the fives I think or fours, I can’t remember. But whatever it was, it was my first time buying I didn’t know that was high low. I just knew Okay, well, that’s what it is. Here’s what I can afford. And it just wasn’t even a thought because there wasn’t an option. I mean, I guess I could have waited, but I didn’t know anything about it. And so I actually think you’re right, I think talking to renters right now is one of the smartest things you can do because they most of them probably aren’t rate conscious. They’re not thinking about that. They’re just trying to figure out how do I move from renting to buying and, you know, they may be able to do it with these high rates right now. And again, less competition less buyers out there, they might get a better, you know, price on the home they’re going to go for because there’s less buyers. So I think this is I think that is such a smart idea to talk to everyone that’s renting and just ask them Hey, what are you thinking about in terms of buying? Are you thinking about wanting to do that? You know, forget about rates when are you thinking about when would you like to do it if we could wave a magic wand because it might actually be a good time right now. And that’s that’s the conversation I’d be having an I guarantee you nobody is calling those renters and saying that that realtors to pretty much only want to talk to renters when the renter picks up the phone and calls them and says I want to buy something. So here’s an opportunity to bring that to a renter who might not even have thought about buying at this time.

Joel Schaub 33:35
You’re exactly right, low downpayment deejay do not need to break the bank for those first time homebuyer programs. If a client is paying two grand a month in rent over the next year, they’re gonna spend $24,000. Let’s go buy a $300,000 condo, we’re all you need to put down as 15 grand. I’m telling you, if you can pay $24,000 over the course of a year, you can save $15,000 for a downpayment. Most people already do have it saved, but they’re still thinking that rates are too high, or they want to wait. And it’s not wrong. We’re just going to show them something that’s more right. All right. So there’s a lot of opportunities. Get out there as an agent, and speak to renters. Make sure that they know that there’s an opportunity to not be throwing all that money away in rent, buy something, subscribe to the newsletter. I’ll give you tidbits that will absolutely help you close more deals and we like to call them hot nuggets.

D.J. Paris 34:31
Well, to subscribe to those hot nuggets, go. Go to your email and type in [email protected] [email protected] send him an email, let him know in the subject line. You want to subscribe to the newsletter and he and his team will get you signed up and they do good good work guys. It’s really really it’s like it’s like getting an abbreviated revert Reader’s Digest style. Nobody knows Reader’s Digest anymore, but an abbreviated version of a lot of complicated information but with enough detail Al, where you’re not going to sound unintelligent or uninformed, you’re going to actually sound really, really well informed, but you’re not going to have to pull out the textbook and start studying because Joel and his team have done that for you. So go to go to your email, send sign up for that. Also follow him on social to see how Joel takes some of this marketing collateral through all these events and how he promotes that on social it’s a great masterclass in promotion. So please do follow him just call Joel is his his username, but you can find him on all social channels, just look for Joel shop, and we will have a link to his social in our show notes. But Joel, this is a great time to wrap up. Also, if you are an agent, and you don’t have a great relationship with a loan officer, or you’re kind of like, hey, maybe I’ll see what else is out there. also reach out to Joel and his team and see if you guys could work together you know, guaranteed rate of license in all 50 states, Joel and his team can help you in certain markets, other markets Joel know who to, you know, to pass you over to but this might be a great opportunity to build a wonderful relationship with a loan officer who will actually help you grow your business as opposed to just be there when you need, you know, a pre approval letter Joel and his team do a lot, lot, lot lot more than that. So reach out to him and see if you guys would be a synergy and work together. Joel, thank you so much for your time today. I’m glad to hear that you your team is still crushing it. It’s always so inspiring when I hear agents doing well in despite, you know, sort of somewhat difficult situation or circumstances. And I love hearing that it’s such a great positive breath of fresh air. And I know it provides our audience with a lot of value. So thank you, of course, on behalf of Joel and myself. We also want to say thanks to the audience for sticking it out to the end of the show. Please tell a friend about our podcasts. That’s the best way you can help us and also one thing I always forget to mention support our sponsors. They’re the ones who pay the bills. We love our sponsors. We have great sponsors, check out their services and consider buying or you know, investing in the products they have. They’re always for realtors that are looking to increase their business and we only choose sponsors that we think actually can help you. So reach out to Joel [email protected] Get on his newsletter. Follow him on social and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks Joel.

Eirik Gislason a Lic. RE Associate Broker at Brown Harris Stevens and MCNE Instructor, Real Estate Negotiation Institute, shares his 16 years experience as an Associate Broker, Trainer, Mentor, Coach, Manager, and Director of Sales. Erik discusses the importance of negotiation training for agents. Next, Eirik emphasizes that agents must know the core values of their clients get to know them very well. Last, Eirik discusses the importance of identifying your client’s needs to make better connections.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Eirik Gislason can be reached at 917-558-3992 and [email protected].

This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks.

D.J. Paris 0:00
Do you know that less than 1% of practicing agents have taken a course on how to negotiate effectively? Let’s get you into that 1% Today, stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solutions so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents. And for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top 1% producer and master trainer Eric David Gislason. Before we get to Eric, just a couple of quick reminders guys, best way you can help us at our show, if we’re helping you is by a couple of ways. Tell a friend think of one other realtor that could benefit like today’s topic is a lot about negotiation. And so we’re going to this is a topic everybody needs to be aware of. So send this over to other agents in your office, we would appreciate it and the second way to support our show is by supporting our sponsors. We have the greatest sponsors in the world. They pay the bills for all of us. So please check out their products and services. I promise you every sponsor we have on our show has been thoroughly vetted. They are the real deal and I wouldn’t put anyone in front of you that wasn’t going to help your business. So check them out, please. Thank you. Thank you. Alright guys, let’s get to the main event, my conversation with Eric Gislason.

Today on our show, we have Eric Davey Gislason with Brown Harris Stevens in New York City. Let me tell you more about Eric. Now Eric Davy gets listen is a master certified negotiation expert. He’s also a national instructor for the real estate negotiation Institute and founder of archway partners coaching. In addition, he’s a practicing associate real estate broker at Brown Harris Stevens with 17 years of experience in residential real estate as an agent, manager, trainer and director of sales. Eric is a well known speaker, panelist podcast guest and contributor on the subject of collaborative negotiation, value proposition and persuasion. He authors the blogs, unreal estate, and growing the pie and you can follow and subscribe. At Eric the expert, which is on all the social channels in particular YouTube and Instagram. We will have links to that in the show notes. But to see his video content on social media Eric is also originally from Minnesota and lives in Queens, New York City I will actually be coming to Queens in a month, maybe I’ll ask for some sort of advice for I go to the US Open and with his wife and two daughters. By the way notable award winner he is the world’s best dad 2012 through 2015 skipped a year but in 2017 wanted again skipped another year in 2018. But he was back to win it in 2019 through present day, please I’m gonna give you a couple of things to follow Eric on all of these things are really cool and interesting. So please listen, we will have links to all of what I’m about to say in the show notes. But what go to his coaching company for realtors, which is called archway partners inc.com Also, if you’re interested and you should be to become a certified negotiation expert, go to the regni.com That’s th e r e n i and you’ll see all the classes that you can attend there and then again follow him on Instagram and YouTube. Eric the expert which is e i r i k th e expert at YouTube, Instagram and everywhere else and we will have links to all of that so you don’t have to remember how to spell Eric in the show notes Eric, welcome to the show.

Eirik Gislason 4:59
Hey, TJ, thank you so much. Thank you for all of the plugs. And it’s a pleasure to be here. I am looking forward to our conversation. So thanks for having me.

D.J. Paris 5:08
I am looking forward to it as well. I would like to start, I guess, at the start. So I do that with with almost all of our guests. But I am really interested, especially with somebody who’s been in real estate for almost 20 years now. How did you get in and why?

Eirik Gislason 5:25
Well, I love telling the story. And many, like many of your guests as I listened to your podcast, you know, there’s, it seems like we all have these strange ways of finding real estate, you know, it’s not something that seems like is the beginning of our path as we grow up and go through school and into college. So I actually moved to New York City to be an actor back in 1998, after graduating from college and starting a theatre company in, in in Minneapolis before moving to New York. So I had dreams of becoming an actor. I was an actor in New York for about 10 years, I did the tour thing, and I did regional theater, and commercials and voiceover work. And then I met my wife. And we’re doing a regional theater job in Roanoke, Virginia. She was a dancer, I was a character actor and a singer. And, and shortly after that, I think I realized that the theater world gave me what it was going to give me. And when I found my wife, and I and I needed to make a change. I was not a successful actor, I was not making a great living doing it. And so shortly after getting married, I was recovering from an from a knee injury from knee surgery. And I was temping I was I couldn’t work in restaurants anymore. Because of my knee. I was not acting. And I met somebody who was at a temp job. But it was also taking phone calls for real estate. And he’s the first person that actually gave me a real kind of behind the scenes or, you know, under the hood, look at what real estate was. Without sugarcoating it without making it into this fantasy. And he said, Look, you see I’m here at this temp job, because sometimes you know, the money is flowing. And sometimes it’s not, I’m trying to go to law school. And so you do what you have to do. But here are the skills required. And here’s what will make a good real estate professional. And I left that temp job thinking, I think this is something I would be good at. And so the next week I signed up for pre licensing in New York, the pre licensing process is ridiculously easy. It’s a little bit harder now than it was but it was a couple $100.45 hours worth of course of classroom work and then taking your tests. So two weeks later, there I am, I’m a licensed real estate professional looking for for a brokerage. And I was lucky enough to align myself with a company, a small company that was really good at helping generate and acquire leads for their agents. So I didn’t have to do the whole Craigslist thing getting my own leads. And I was able to hone my craft working with a lot of clients because I was given opportunities I was given at bats, as we say. And so I spent 10 years at that company, 10 years at that firm before then leaping and and going back into brokerage after being a director of sales and development for five years. So I grew that firm. They were a small firm, and I grew that firm in management and then went back into the field as an agent. And then shortly after that, I was introduced to the real estate negotiation Institute. So I 10 years of experience in the business. And I took a continuing education course on collaborative negotiation through this company, the real estate negotiation Institute, and I left that class completely blown away blown away by the content blown away by these the style of the teaching blown away by everything and I shortly thereafter contacted Tom Haman who’s the founder and CEO of the real estate negotiation Institute and said I think I need to coach for you I think I need to be an instructor. So I so that started my journey being a master certified negotiation expert and a national instructor for the real estate negotiation Institute, which I’ve been doing now for almost eight years while also having a full time real estate practice at Brown Harris Stevens.

D.J. Paris 9:30
Wow. And we should mention too that you have a coaching company for real estate agents archway partners, Inc. Tell us tell us a little bit about that.

Eirik Gislason 9:39
Well, it’s interesting Mike I was doing when I teach my courses, my my negotiation courses, I always inevitably have a few agents who want some additional coaching Who wants some additional help. And what I started doing was doing more mentorship, consulting, I called it coaching and it wasn’t and it wasn’t until I went on the journey of actually going through a coaching program, I went through a program that coach you for for several months, and then got my own mentor coach, so that I could really learn what it is to coach what it is to walk alongside someone support them, and and be more of an accountability partner and a support for them in their journey. What is it that they want to achieve? What is it that they want to do with their real estate career? What are your core values? Where have you been? Where are you in? Where do you want to go? And when I really started to understand my role as a coach, it became this beautiful marriage because what we talk about in in the certified negotiation, expert designation courses, is this idea of value proposition, right, the cost benefit analysis, and what are your benefits? How do you develop that value proposition? How do you understand what you have to offer? Any decision maker, any purchaser? Any landlord? Right? So that’s our jumping off point. That’s our tangent point, the value proposition. And when we look at that through a coaching lens, there are so many places we can go with that when we understand who we are, when we understand what we offer, and then how do we tailor that to each and every client. So that’s where archway partners that you know, the idea of the of the archway the doorway and walking through to new possibilities came from and now I’ve had my coaching company for about 18 months now.

D.J. Paris 11:29
That’s an incredible congratulations on that I was I was thinking if I were an agent in New York City, one of the it really anywhere, but specifically because you practice in New York City. And I want to talk about what the benefits are to becoming a certified negotiation expert, and why collaborative cooperation is really a sorry, collaborative. I apologize for the the term that you use that I wouldn’t

Eirik Gislason 11:55
get cooperation. It’s fits right in there. So yeah,

D.J. Paris 11:58
I was thinking a couple of things I want to talk about with that. Because you’ve sort of sparked something that I hadn’t thought of before. But I do want to mention before I get too in depth that I always forget to mention this. But if you are an agent in the New York area in New York City, in particular, Eric’s team is always looking for talented agents to you know, add value and where they can add value to you. So I was thinking as you were talking, if I was looking for, for a team, one of the things that agents I think these these days, just behind the scenes for a lot of people, if you’re not sort of even haven’t figured this out, yet working as an agent, a lot of times the managing brokers of firms are have a lot of responsibilities, they have to recruit talent, they have to retain talent, they have to do all the operations and the compliance, and they have to also coach and train. So over the years, what managing brokers have kind of figured out is we have some really great teams, sometimes the teams can help take over some of those responsibilities, specifically, around training and coaching, right make sense. And Eric is a professional Coach and Trainer and a certified negotiation master trainer. So if I were an agent, and I was like, I’m not quite getting the love and training and support that I need in my existing firm, I would be reaching out. So definitely reach out to him again, easiest way is just find him online. You can find them at Eric the agent, again, that’s EIR ik the agent level I’m sorry, Eric, the expert rather, Eric, the expert, Instagram, YouTube, etc, we’ll have links to that if you are thinking this is the year for a lot of agents are moving. So I’d be remiss if I forgot to mention that. But here’s what I really wanted to thank you for your welcome. Here’s what I really wanted to ask you while you were talking about collaborative, this sort of collaborative training. You know, I was thinking, as you go into negotiations or when you go into a deal, I would think that the vast majority of agents who haven’t been trained on value proposition, are probably just thinking about their own wants and needs and thinking how do we get what we want? Without thinking as you were saying, sort of understanding the holistic deal? What is the other side want? What are their motivations? What are they willing to just sort of negotiate and bend on? And I think that is such a an important skill that really isn’t hardly taught anywhere.

Eirik Gislason 14:16
It’s so true, it is so true. And one of the things that drew me to the real estate negotiation Institute and this content is exactly what you just said, this is not something that we are taught in pre licensing. Some people bring it from their earlier career if they’re if, if, if a real estate is a is a second career for them, but it’s not something that we’re taught and, and frankly, to your point a lot of managing directors and office managers and sales directors and I was a sales director for a long time. You’re so involved with so many things within each and every deal that it’s hard to sit down and have time to really get deep and train on negotiation and buyer psychology and This idea of understanding the other side’s needs, not that you’re going to guarantee them anything, not that you can guarantee them anything. But when we when we integrate the other side’s needs into our strategy. This is what Tom Heyman calls, he calls it the enlightened self interest, when when I know what the other side wants, and I do my best to incorporate their needs their value elements into trades into exchanges in the deal, I can actually grow a bigger pie. And that’s the reason my one of my two blogs is called growing the pie. Because we’re not talking about just a fixed pile of value. When we’re talking about a real estate transaction, everybody values things differently. And if I can identify what the other side wants and needs, and identify ways to exchange things of lesser value to me, to get things of greater value to me from the other side and do that strategically, I can actually make that pie bigger. And I can and I’m not, you know, I want the other side to be adequately satisfied, I don’t need them to get you know, it’s not kumbaya by the fire, right, this is not split the pie 5050 I want them to be adequately satisfied. So I don’t deal with the retribution or the entrenchment, the things that come along with putting someone on their heels or rubbing their nose in the dirt or whatever the the imagery is, I need to adequately satisfy them. And when I do that, I can actually create more value on my side of the transaction and get more than I would if I were just trying to split that fixed pie. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 16:32
I agree. And that’s a skill set. And it isn’t necessarily something that we all just can instinctively or inherently know ourselves. It’s something there are in I studied DBT dialectical behavior therapy, and there’s one of their modules is called interpersonal effectiveness, which is like, Okay, what does that really mean? It’s about having difficult conversations with people. In real estate, we oftentimes have to have difficult conversations, and it’s about how to meet both people’s needs. But first, you have to understand their needs. And I was thinking, an example that I’m curious to get your thoughts on would would be, I have a buyer, we’re putting in a contract, maybe there’s a multiple offer situation, and I’m just thinking, well, highest and best is going to win, which maybe most of the time is true, but not always, of course, and knowing what the other side’s motivations are knowing what they want from a buyer, and maybe it’s just highest and best. Or maybe it’s we put a lot of work into this house, we sort of want the next family that comes in to sort of understand and appreciate and respect what we’ve done, because we want to we want to sort of create a little bit of a legacy here, even with our existing, you know, work that we did with the home. So I guess, would that be considered out of understanding?

Eirik Gislason 17:44
I absolutely. And and I’m you know, this is, this is such a part of who we are as human beings. And we forget it sometimes as real estate professionals, because we put everything into downpayment timeline. And, and highest price, when that is not how every human being thinks in fact, we it’s not like, you know, let’s say that you are in a highest and best and it’s a million dollar property. And you’ve got a few buyers who are above the asking price at 1.1. But let’s say that you are at 1.08 or $20,000 off of the highest bidder. But you have made some sort of an appeal that is not price related or downpayment related that that that is that is important to or that lands with that seller. It’s not that they’re giving up $1.1 million. They’re making a trade on $20,000. And the question is, what is that thing, that connection, the fact that somebody is going to come in and take care of that home the way that they took care of that home? Right? What is what is that one thing or that as Chris Voss for never split the difference? That he calls those black swans? Right? What is that black swan? If there’s something that I can find out by being ceaselessly curious, by asking questions of the other side, that gives me a window into what they really want, and what they really value, then they they might be happy to give up $20,000 To satisfy that need that value element that’s important to them. So we often mistake this idea that, that, you know, the price is the only thing that matters. Or if I’m not 100% If I’m not all cash, I can’t compete. It’s just not true, if we can understand if we can start with the other side, and uncover those black swans understand those value elements. So that’s a great example.

D.J. Paris 19:43
Well, thank you and I was it’s just the first thing that came to mind but I was thinking, you know, your, your sort of further example of, you know, being $20,000 under highest and best and still possibly winning the deal. It’s really an important thing because most times the other side isn’t going to be would go out and spend that 20,000 is cash, it’s probably just going into the next property. And you know, odds are, there may even be a mortgage on the file on the next property. So that’s just all going in to, you know, an extra 50 bucks a month or something. And in payment, it’s it’s kind of a really a nothing, if it’s only looked at as highest and best and yeah, maybe that’s maybe that that will make the difference. But understanding that, you know, yeah, we’re coming in a little bit under, but I sort of have an idea of what the owner wants, and, you know, and being able to meet their needs in a different way, and still get your clients a little bit less than, than maybe, you know, what, what everyone else would have paid, I love I love all of us. Again, to me, these are all skills, and we are not taught about these in high school. I didn’t learn them in college, I did study persuasion, and understanding rapport and understanding how to, you know, how to listen, and how to, you know, sort of extract information, you know, in an elegant way from the people I’m chatting with. So I would I would love to, but actually before, before we go any further I would, because you are a coach, you lead a team, you’re also practicing yourself, and you teach at a national level. This is a tough year for realtors, I did meet somebody last night at a party, one of the top agents here in Chicago, who said he’s up 50%. And he’s the only person I know, everyone else’s is pretty much struggling who’s been in the business long enough. And we were laughing and he’s like, Yeah, I know, everyone hates me, because, you know, they, they everyone else is down. But but it is a tough year, I think for a lot of us, and rates are up inventory is down. I know in New York, it’s really tough with inventory. So what what are you doing to keep? Or what are you telling your students as well as your teammates to sort of keep them motivated? And and you know, moving forward, when it’s so easy to just to kind of go like, Ah, this is just hard right now?

Eirik Gislason 21:49
Yeah, I really do believe that we have to have these conversations with ourselves about how are we going to move from where we are right now to a market that we know is going to get better? Right? So first thing is to understand that this where we are right now is temporary. The question is, can you last? Through that time? Is that an easy thing for you? Or is that a hard thing for you? Are you on your last dollar and and not earning a living for another three months? If you’re not doing deals? Is that going to crush you? If it is, then let’s either put a plan together so that you can find a different way to maneuver through this industry? Are you know, are you? Are you doing rental deals rather than sales deals? Are you working on the sell side versus the buy side? Right? Are there things that we can do to help you on a different path than you’re on right now? Right? And then there are other agents who are like, Yeah, I know, I’m gonna survive this. It’s not an issue, whether we’re going to survive this. It’s a matter of how long this is going to be. And what do I do in the meantime? And so what I tell agents is, first of all, there is and this is a almost cliche, because so many people are saying it, but it’s absolutely true. This idea that this is a skills based market, right, I’ve, you know, I’ve been listening to some of your other podcasts, and we’re, you know, you’re talking about that, you know, the people running through to 2021, and part of 2022, you know, you could just throw a, you know, a sign in the yard, and you’ve got 30 people making offers, right, it was a market that did not require as much skilled, certainly required skill, but didn’t require as much skill as the market that we’re in now, right now, not only are you competing to get that next listing and find that next buyer, if you’re on the listing side, but you’re competing with a smaller amount of business, and agents all fighting for that business. So how are you going to get a bigger piece? To your point, this agent who’s up 50%? How do you get a bigger piece of a shrinking pie? And that’s where you need to really focus your energy, in my opinion, is if you if you go through, you’ve already figured out look this this in this industry right now where we are, it’s not going to kill me, it’s not going to take me down. So I know that I can make it through it. Now the question is, what do you do with this time, and if you can focus on getting a bigger slice of that shrinking pie, that’s, that’s going to give you a goal to actually maneuver towards or move towards. So you start doing things like understanding in a in a more deep and, and and higher level way. You’re the idea of negotiation of buyer psychology of actually going into those pitches. And instead of getting one out of three, or one out of two, you’re getting every one, how are you going to increase your odds of getting each deal? How are you going to build loyalty with each and every buyer, so that they end up being a deal rather than losing buyers here and there as you might be accustomed to doing? So how do you maximize the business that you do have and make sure that you win? Each and every time right this go and this goes back to the highest and best two, there are going to still be highest and best. But if you’re more prepared, or if you’re if you can prepare your buyers better, you’re going to find yourself on the winning side of that highest and best more often than on the losing side. And my one of my old bosses used to call the spilling milk, right? We, when we’re busy, we have a lot going on. And we’re just trying to keep every keep everything you know, in our hands. As we run forward, we have spilling milk left and right, but we don’t really care about the milk that spills because by the end of the time, we’re stopped running, we still have enough milk to drink, right, we’re just constantly going going going well, in a market that we’re in right now, we don’t want to spill milk, we want to make sure that we have as much milk there, maybe less milk in the glass to begin with. So we don’t want to lose more milk. And we can end that same journey with the same amount of milk, we just haven’t spilled a lot of it. And that’s what that’s what I usually teach people in this market is look, let’s figure out how you’re going to make it to the next level, because there will be another great market on the other side of this. But we do need to enhance our skills, and create an environment where we win more often.

D.J. Paris 26:07
I agree, and I think this is the time to really focus on skill based activities, because number one, most agents have a little bit more time to spend with sharpening their their skill set their tools. And also this is a time where human nature for the most for the majority of us and I’m in the same category. So I’m not saying that this is a negative, it’s just human nature is to want to when things aren’t as well maybe retreat a little bit and and, you know, do less activity because maybe we’re a little bummed out or or we’re so this is the these are the times where you might have to force yourself to do a little bit more activity. But understanding that you’re really doing your future self a huge favor by doing things today, and most agents are not most agents, I don’t know what percentage of agents have have reduced their activity. But you know, I just know that when when things are tough, you know, it’s easier to not go into action. And so this is the time to get an accountability partner, get a coach, you know, and really work on those skills and those habits so that you know what you’re doing today, a year, a year and a half from now will start to yield fruit or however long, you know, the the sales cycle is. And but yeah,

Eirik Gislason 27:20
to add to that, you know, I think that oftentimes, when we when we do find ourselves here, we’re We’re retreating, like you said, and we’re doing a little bit less a little bit less work than we know that we should be doing at the time. Sometimes the reaction to that from a lot of coaches in our industry or a lot of managers is to tell you the things that you need to do. And oftentimes, they highlight the things that you are least likely to want to do, right. So they basically say, these are the things you’re not doing. And this is why you’re not not successful. So you got to get out there and do all those things that you don’t like to do, because that’s the way that you’re going to break the cycle. Where I you know, certainly we have to do things that we don’t want to do, especially if we’re sitting on a couch, and we find ourselves not working as hard as we should be working. But my approach is a little different. I want to identify the things that you love to do. And you may have found that your real estate career for two years, you’re running around like a chicken with your head cut off. So you’re just trying to just get to the next place and do the next deal. And you forget about what you love about this business, what you love about people what you love about your knowledge, what you know, all the things that make this an attractive business. So my approach is to sit down and say let’s start with the things that you love, and do a lot more of that. So I’d rather you do 100% more of something that you love, than struggle to do 25% more of something you don’t like, and it doesn’t have to be Yeah, I want

D.J. Paris 28:56
to pause here for a second because that is such a wise, a wise wise statement doing more about what you especially when you’re you’re in a more difficult position. Like we know a lot of agents are this year. Yes, we know it. We know it’s a little bit of a bummer right now. And it’s easy to retreat. So what we call it and DBT stalking positives, do the things that you already liked to do. And here’s why. And I’m not I’m not trying to tell teach Eric anything, obviously here. But well, the only reason I’m mentioning is I was just I just learned this so Gallup the people who do lots of polling there big polling companies, a lot of people know they have this strength and weakness finder, and we had a professor from from Northwestern come in who’s trained. And she assessed our strengths and weaknesses. And I think there was 38 of them. And she goes whatever you were your bottom five are, don’t even try to improve those because she’s like, the data is really, really clear that you can’t, you can’t It’s not how you’re wired. It’s really you maybe can make them incrementally better. But like for example her most her biggest weakness was empathy. And she goes, it’s kind of funny, I wish I wasn’t empathic. I’m just not, it’s how I’m built. So I don’t try to pretend that I’m empathic I, I tried to focus on all the other positives, things that I do have a strike, she goes, so if you come to me for empathy, you’re probably not going to get what you need. We but she goes, my partner happens is very high in empathy. And so she sort of balances, her wife balances it out. But the point is, is know what your strengths are, know what you like to do, because you’re right, it’s much easier to get into action with the things that you want to do and you like doing and then you can build from there.

Eirik Gislason 30:34
Exactly. You know, it’s funny, the StrengthsFinder, the Gallup strengths, their system, my brother and I are building online content for my coaching company. And he’s a certified Gallup strength. Oh,

D.J. Paris 30:48
that’s funny. Oh, what a small world. Yeah,

Eirik Gislason 30:51
the great, it’s a great assessment. And they’re right on, I mean, this idea of, of not doing the things that you don’t excel at, but understanding, and this is great for interpersonal relationships, too, as well. You’re right. I mean, when you when you are a manager, or a coach, or a team leader, or just an agent, having interactions with clients, when you can look across and identify when you know what your strengths are. And you can start to identify potential strengths or strengths that the other side has, then you start making connections. Or if they have different sets of strengths, you then can understand why, you know, if you’ve got somebody who’s low on empathy, or empathy is one of their lowest strengths, you can start to understand then why or how you need to communicate with them in order to have a more successful relationship, rather than always butting heads because your strengths are completely different.

D.J. Paris 31:43
Yeah, it makes sense. And also, like you were saying, assessing the other person, especially like, during presentations, you talked about buyer and seller presentations. And I think so many of us think about first, okay, we got to learn a script, we got to know what we’re going to do when we get there. And we’re probably, realistically, we’re probably doing the same kind of pitch, every single time because we we’ve committed to memory, we’ve done it hundreds of times, maybe if we’ve been in the business long enough, and it has a certain success level. And we’re like, Hey, I do close one out of every three listing presentations, I do. But if you’re doing the same exact listing presentation each time, there’s probably a missed opportunity there to get some feedback from the person on the other side of the table, and then adjust your your, your strategy to better meet that person’s needs, which probably means not doing the same presentation in exact same way every single time.

Eirik Gislason 32:38
100%. And this, I actually have a course that I teach throughout my archway partners called the decision makers. And it’s all about so going back to the first thing we talked about, which is starting with the other side, identifying the other side’s needs, what Who are they right? So when we do a value proposition, we have to separate that make a huge distinction between what value proposition is and what a pitch is, right? We do a listings pitch, we call it a listing pitch, it’s really a value proposition. The pitch is something you given an elevator, it’s generic, it could be to anybody, right? It’s that thing that sells your product or service the best? Whereas a value proposition is something a little bit or vastly different in that value proposition must be in order for it to be at its its most effective, it must be tailored to the decision maker to whom you are pitching. So are they an assertive driver? Are they a collaborative feeler? Are they an expressive humanist? Are they an analytic thinker? What type of buyer is this? Or decision maker? Is this? And how are they best influenced? Right? Are they data driven? Do they love stories? And this is a huge aha I think for any negotiator is that when you go in and you you’ve tailored that pitch, you know exactly what you’re gonna say when you’re gonna say it. It’s basically a script, you’re forgetting the most important part who the client is. Right? Who are they. And when you if you can hone that skill of identifying different buyer types or different as I call them decision maker types, you are going to find these, all of these new doors open up and now you have this menu of benefits. And just like looking at a menu in a in a restaurant, you can start to pick the five the six benefits that convey the most utility to that specific decision maker. And you will find that your hit rate, your success rate is off the charts because now you’re the person across the table feels like you’re speaking directly to them and you’ve got a window into their heart, their mind, their soul, whatever. You know, you’re just so much more impactful and persuasive. When you know who you’re who it is that you’re dealing with

D.J. Paris 34:58
it and it’s more are intimate. And when I mean intimate I mean connecting, because you have taken feedback from the other person, you are then processing that yourself and making adjustments to fit that person’s worldview, their beliefs, etc. They’re their values. And and I think, you know, if we think about this, because I hear Realtors talk about this all the time, which is I don’t like selling to a certain type of individual, I don’t like selling to an analytic person, because all they want is the numbers. It’s not emotional. Other people love it. My point is, is what if you could learn how to speak their language, you’d, you maybe you’d enjoy working with those agents or those clients more, but more importantly, maybe you just be more effective at it, which means you’d close more deals, whether you like it or not, you’re still going to come across people who aren’t have the same sort of way they process information and make decisions like you were saying the decision making sort of understanding the decision makers and the strategies. And then it wouldn’t it be cool to go into a listing presentation or buyer presentation, having like five or six different styles of pitches, and then knowing Oh, this is this kind of person, I think I’m going to push the conversation more towards this because I know that this tends to sort of, you know, tickle the ivories of that particular, you know, thought process of that individual. That is incredible power as opposed to just, Oh, it’s another one these analytics people, I don’t know how to do this.

Eirik Gislason 36:23
100% your absolute right. And, and, and coaching, we call that flexing right? So I can flex my approach to meet that person where they are. It’s not they’re not being a jerk. You know, whatever label we put on them, they’re a jerk. They’re irrational. They’re, they’re, they’re crazy, you know, we put all of these labels on people, because we don’t know how to connect. So what you’re saying is absolutely right, if we can flex our approach and go, Okay, this is an assertive driver, they don’t want to have a personal relationship with me, they’re not going to ask me about my family, and my kids and where I went to college, if they do ask me where I went to college, it’s going to be to that whether they believe the college that I went to, is suitable for their needs, right. And if I can, if I understand that about them, it’s they’re not mean, they come off as your typical negotiator, very competitive negotiator. But they are in the everybody acts in their own interests. And their interest is to hire the person that they believe is going to do the best possible job for them. They don’t want a shrinking violet. They don’t want somebody who’s going to wind around telling stories or or use puffery or BS them on, on on the answer to a question they don’t know. They want you to be direct. They’d rather you say, You know what? That’s a great question. I don’t know the answer, or? That’s a great question. I know that you’re going to want specifics, you’re going to want details. I understand that. So before I answer the question, let me get you the specifics and the details that I know that you want. So that I can give you an answer that’s going to be that’s going to satisfy your needs. Imagine, if our agent said that to us, we’re a buyer or seller, and we’re an analytic. And our agent said that to us, it would be like music to our ears. And now all of a sudden, that trust component is going through the roof, when you didn’t think you could build trust with that person at all, you don’t think they will trust anybody. And now all of a sudden, you’ve connected with them on their level. And so now they start to that that trust factor starts to go up and up and up, and you change the relationship.

D.J. Paris 38:32
Yeah, you just gave such a really specific, really excellent example, in my opinion, because this idea of like, you’re just using analytic people is, you know, saying to them, Hey, I understand you process information this particular way. I know you like a lot of information that’s important for you to make a decision. Therefore, I need to go back and put together this information in a way that’s exactly how you want to see it. So you can then take it digest it. And people who are analytic understand that putting that data together takes time. So it actually gives you on the other side of the deal, a lot less pressure to come up with the answer right then and there, which probably isn’t going to be sufficient to satisfy their curiosity. Because unless you’re just an encyclopedia of information, and you’re able to present it in the way that they want, but probably they want to look at something they probably want to hold a hold or at least look on a screen and see that you’ve put some work in so they can be like this person speaks my language. It’s actually brilliant because it’s a win win for everybody. It’s it gets lets you off the hook a little bit to feel like oh, God, I don’t know the answer right now you’re going to, you know, and you’re going to say it to them in a way which most of the time they’re going to go hey, that makes sense. Just get it to me in the next you know, day or two and that would be you know, all digestive

Eirik Gislason 39:45
100% a dj you said like the thing you said about there, they’ll want the time to go through the data, the research that you prepare, and this is where those these these moments where we understand that there’s a different way of doing things come from, right. So if we are the kind of person we’re like, well, I want to get, I feel like I need to get everything to them immediately right now. So if I say, I’m going to take some time, I’m afraid they’re going to be upset with me, well, if you really understand an analytic thinker, then you will know that they’re very slow to make decisions. Once they make a decision, they commit to it, and they’re full bore. But they want to take that extra time. In fact, what I say to people who take my decision makers class, when we’re talking about how to influence a an analytic thinker, you say you if you’re, if you’re going to meet with them at noon, don’t met, don’t plan a 2pm meeting, if you’re going to meet with them at three, ask them if they want to go out to dinner, after your three hour meeting, don’t plan something an hour after you have a meeting with an analytic thinker, because you are going to end up in the last 15 minutes of that meeting, whether it’s an hour later, or two hours later, going, oh my god, how am I gonna get to my next appointment, you’re gonna start to rush them sites, you know, subconsciously, because you’re rushed. And then you ruin ruin all the relationship building and all the trust that you’ve been building for two hours goes out the window, because you got to get out the door to another appointment. So if you’re going to meet with an analytic thinker, set the entire morning aside, or set the entire afternoon aside, they may not need it. But you’re not going to ever feel like you are rushing them to a decision. And to your point that with the data, they will accept the fact that you need time to put together the data and the research and the way that they want to view it and the way they want to consume it. And if they believe that we’re on a tighter timeline, they will let you know.

D.J. Paris 41:34
Absolutely. And these are these are things that again, we know our own worldview, we know our own processes for making this oil. Some of us know and others of us maybe aren’t aren’t as clued into our own ways in which we we make decisions. But this is really a skill set and a knowledge set that you need to consider adding, because it’s only going to make every interaction you have with a client or the other side of a transaction go hopefully more smoothly, because you’re going to be able to identify, there’s key identifiers in the way people speak in the way they reveal themselves to you, which sometimes is conscious versus unconscious. There’s, there’s lots of cues that somebody who is trained on how to identify these cues, verbal cues, nonverbal cues, that we can actually start to paint a picture, maybe without the person even necessarily being fully aware that we’re putting them in a category, we’re doing it because that’s that’s how human beings cloud, classify things. But it’s how we make it’s how we can make adjustments and say, oh, this person is starting to fall into this category, I’m getting a better sense of what they may want to see or hear. So all of this is it’s all skills. And these are things that I can almost assure you, you probably haven’t been taught unless you have sought it out on your own. And so this is a great point to to remind everyone who’s listening, if you’re an agent in the New York area, and you’re looking for a team with this kind of information that they can impart to you, or if you’re an agent from anywhere in the country that’s looking to get some coaching. Eric would love the opportunity to speak with you as coaching companies archway partners, Inc. And of course, his his team over at Brown Harris Stevens is always looking for agents in the area to possibly join up on the team as well. So please check those two places out. Eric, I wanted to ask you to about what what do you what were there now actors are taught how to do this I in your backgrounds and acting? So I know there’s you know, there’s different styles, or different philosophies of of acting. There’s sort of the Strausberg I only know a couple I’m not an actor, but there’s the Strasburg method. There’s there’s method acting, I think that’s Rosberg, but there’s Buddha Haagen, there’s, there’s a few of them, that

Eirik Gislason 43:50
there’s some good poles right here.

D.J. Paris 43:54
Yeah, well, I my knowledge is, is, is very shallow. So I know. That’s it. That’s all I know, I don’t know how to do any of it. But but this is important, because I was listening to some actress talking about how they really pay a lot of attention to the other actors in the scene, to then get cues on how to then react, what to do with their hands, what just how to sort of be in the scene, but really sort of memorizing their own lines, if they have them to then forget them so that they can be present for whatever’s going on in the scene and understanding that there’s an interpersonal play between the actors who are, you know, not just reciting lines and walking here and there when they’re supposed to?

Eirik Gislason 44:36
Yeah, absolutely. I don’t know. Keep in mind, I’m a real estate agent. So you may not want to trust my acting advice, because it didn’t work out so well for me, but no, you’re absolutely right. You know, we always say acting is reacting, right? And this is the same thing. This is one of the skills I think, why you see a lot of actors who who end up in the real estate world, because one of the attributes one of this skills they bring to this career is being able to read people are being able to react to people in a moment. And that’s there is a skill to that. So certainly I think that, you know, one of my, one of my junior agents on my team runs a, a women’s improv company, this woman is so so she, she spent a many, many years she was an actress and a singer. And now she runs an improv company. Well, her this idea of She Loves role playing. So when we are when we’re talking, and we’re working through a situation is working with a, with a client, and she’s looking for some advice, I will present some options for her some ideas, you know, for her and say, What do you think, what would you do? And so we’ll work through that. And then what you’ll always want to do, after we’ve settled on what we think the next move is, she’ll say, Okay, let me workshop this with you. And then she’ll go, and she’ll tell me how she’s going to say it, when she gets on the phone or in person with the client or the CO broker, or whoever it is. So she’s constantly role playing so that it sets it sits and it sinks in for her. So there and a lot of people, I would say that, you know, I’m a big fan of role playing in my in my negotiation courses, we end this certified negotiation expert, the core concepts course, with a with a big roleplay we roleplay a deal, right, I got buyer’s agents and listing agents, they get there all the the backstory of their client, they know the the subject property specifics and all the comps. And we have them negotiate a deal. And it’s, it’s how we culminate all of this. It’s the culmination of all of the learning in this course. So I’m a big fan of role playing. But if you if you are someone who knows an actor in real estate, or who is hung out with an actor, if you can use them as a roleplay partner, get out of your comfort zone. And this is when we talked about the at bats, right, you’re going to hit more singles, hit more home runs, hit more doubles, you’re going to hit more, if you have been practicing, before you step up to the plate, right? That is just that’s just something we all know if our prepared to have that conversation to deal with the objections, all of that stuff. And if we’re prepared when we get into a real life scenario, because we’ve been role playing, our rate of success, or our likelihood of success goes up significantly. So I would highly recommend to anybody, any of your listeners, if you’re not role playing if you don’t have an accountability partner or a manager that will help you roleplay through scenarios. Well, first of all, take my class, and then you’ll be in the whole Ready Advantage Facebook community and you can roleplay with other certified negotiation experts. But it’s a big, big help to be able to, to flex that muscle and to practice

D.J. Paris 47:57
it. Yeah. And role playing to me is, you know, the really the only way I know to practice it, because it’s funny, we were just practicing. We were getting media trained at our local association here, because I serve on subcommittees and occasionally we are asked to do media, interviews and things so and I was like, Oh, I do podcasts. I don’t even know how to do this. And so they gave us some tips and some things and I went okay, I kind of know all that. And then we roleplay and I sat with a fake reporter who was at a printing I was on screen for like a TV spot. And I said, I don’t need to practice this. I got it. I know how to talk I can. I can BS my way through this and about 30 seconds. And I was like, oh my god, I did not prepare it anything at all. For this. I am out of things to say. I thought I could wing it. And I’ve done 500 of these episodes doesn’t mean I’m a good inherently a good interviewer, or good interviewee, but I certainly was like, Oh, that’s right, you got to practice. So practicing is everything. So even if you’re, as Eric is 17 years in the business, role playing is still great, because it’ll it’ll force you to do the things that you’re not very good at. and cause you to, as you said, move outside of your x, your your comfort zone. I also want to mention one other just practical as I’m a marketer. So I wanted to mention why I think the certified negotiation expert is from a marketing perspective. And from a skills based perspective, it’s an absolute win. But even if you’re just looking at it as from a marketing perspective, as far as all the designations go in, there’s lots of wonderful ones. I’m not saying one is any better than another, but I and I shouldn’t say but and I do think the certified negotiation expert designation is a very marketable one because it allows you to actually say, Hey, I’ve got this thing and only maybe 1% Of all the realtors in the country have it or whatever the percentage is. It’s not much higher than 1% I suspect. So it allows you to really differentiate yourself to arguably one of the most important skills in the game of being a real estate agent, which is of course negotiation. So being able to communicate that to a client, and say, hey, it’s something that they can understand without knowing anything about our, our industry. And so there’s just a really nice, it’s very on the nose. It’s exactly what it is. I’m a negotiation expert. And then you can actually talk about it in a way where I think it will help sort of differentiate yourself from from other other agents.

Eirik Gislason 50:28
Yeah, that’s right. And you’re, it sounds like you were in you’ve been in my class, because that’s exactly how we describe it, right. And in some cases, the biggest value that some agents get out of my class, and I think there’s so many, there’s so much value in it, there’s so many things that you can, that you can take from this class, whether you’ve been an agent in the business for three decades or three months, is a class that that that is accessible for new agents, but it’s also high level for those who have been negotiating for for several years. But sometimes what my agents get out of the class is a new way to your exact point PJ, a new way to, to convey this information to their client to have the conversation to to explain how they strategize, and how they work through negotiation so that your client knows when they’re no longer in the room, when they’re no longer standing next to you, that you are going to be advocating for them that you are going to be cooperative, as you mentioned earlier, cooperative, but assertive, that you have a plan in place, and that you’re going to be able to execute on that plan. So just being able to convey your strategy to a client in a in a sound, cogent, effective way is very, very important. But but but this, I mean, this, this the see any designation, the logo is also just a door opener, right? So when they see it, it’s in your marketing materials, it’s in your auto signature, now you can have a conversation, it brings up the idea of negotiation. And now you can highlight the importance. And what studies show is, negotiation skills are more important to our clients than marketing than market analysis, it is the highest skill that we can provide our clients. Now, in practice, it’s one of the we score lower than most anything in negotiation skills in the eyes of our client. And that’s where there’s this opportunity, if you can learn this skill, if you can master this skill, you will separate yourself from, you know, to your point 98% of the agents and in this country,

D.J. Paris 52:47
I think to this other thing, I was thinking as you were saying this, that why why is the negotiation part so critical. And I think obviously, it’s because it’s about money, usually. But it’s about the transaction and winning, winning the deal or earning the deal. However, I was also thinking, maybe the certified negotiation expert, sort of skill set comes really into play when a transaction gets tough, because I would assume that the vast majority of the most stressful moments the most emotionally trying parts of a transaction have got to be during the negotiation. Because there there could be a time where the deal might fall apart, or it feels like it might fall apart. The client might be freaking out going, oh my god, maybe I’m making the wrong decision. Maybe I’m giving up too much. So that’s probably a highly stressful time. Emotionally. It’s the least fun time I would think for the client, usually, unless maybe you’re on the left side. I guess maybe if you’re selling a property, maybe it’s a little bit more fun. But on the buy side, certainly it’s tough. And so I was just thinking, I bet those skills come into play to help calm everything down. As you’re going through the stressful times.

Eirik Gislason 53:56
You’re right. You’re right. And we talked about the this comes out of the book Getting to Yes As William Ury and Roger Fisher, who wrote one of the seminal works in collaborative negotiation the book called Getting to Yes, and they talked about this what’s called the SAM model and you know this The S is the stand it’s where we positionally bargain, it’s where we you know, it’s no I won’t Yes, yes, we will. No, I want to it’s the stand that we all take to not be moved off of our position. We don’t want to be thrown in one direction or another. So we anchor in we put we take a stand I will not sell my apartment for less than $700,000 come hell or high water. Let’s just stand right I need to understand what the area actual area of concern is. And what is emotionally driving this, this stand. Right so that’s the S A and M the stand the area of concern and the emotional motivators the app. So you’re right. It’s about understanding people. It’s about when at when they’re at their most anxious, the most frustrated. It’s not getting caught in position. bargaining but understanding what their actual area of concern is by asking questions. And then it’s about communication and offering options. People do not like to be backed into a corner, they don’t like to feel like they’re backed into a corner, they want options. And so at the hardest moment of the deal, when you’re communicating well with your client, and you are looking at all the value elements, that could be a possible way to get successfully get the transaction done, when you’ve identified what we call it, as Harvard calls your BATNA, your best alternative to a negotiated agreement. If you have a strong BATNA, if you have a, which is Plan B, right, if you have a strong plan B, and you’re communicating, and you’re providing options, now your client feels empowered, and instead of feeling like they’re backed into a corner, or like they have no options, now you make them feel like, hey, if this doesn’t work out, it’s going to be because we didn’t meet our minimum goals. So if plan A is not going to work for us, let’s move on to Plan B, as opposed to getting into highest and best after highest and best and feeling like you’re just like a rag doll, getting thrown around, we have the power to help our clients remain resilient and empowered. And we do that by communicating with them in the hardest of times in the deal, just like you said,

D.J. Paris 56:24
and having, like you said, Having options. And also you said something very, very profound that I want to make sure our audience noticed. And if not, I’m going to I’m going to step on it a little bit in a good way is have is is we there’s a skill of DBT. We call it Cobra head, I almost forgot it. And basically, if this doesn’t go the way we want, here is what we will do, and getting their buy in client buy it hey, does this make sense? You know, I’m sure you’re getting buy ins all the time. But saying, here’s what we’re going to try, here’s what we’re going to do, here’s why we think it will work. If it doesn’t, here’s another alternative that we are going here’s our plan B right. And even just having a plan B is very empowering, because all of a sudden, now, when option A doesn’t work out, no big deal, we’ve got option B. And and it’s it’s most agents, I think, I don’t know, I shouldn’t speak for any other agents. But I think a lot of agents probably don’t have a plan B, you know, when they’re putting offers in, they haven’t or if they have when maybe they haven’t effectively communicated it to the client, because they go, I don’t really want my client to think that plan a might not work. So I just gonna I’m gonna mention if it doesn’t, if it doesn’t, I’ll deal with it when it happens, that’s probably not a strong strategy. Because there are going to be times when you obviously when you don’t get what you want, and making sure that the client already knows we have another option here. That that is profound. And I am really, really glad that you said that. These are all skills. Again, this is this is a skills based conversation. And we’re focusing a lot on it because guys skills when the game the found the fundamentals win the game. So these are all things you can learn. That’s the best part, you don’t have to be good at it, you just have to be willing to practice. And Eric, you know, he can teach you in a number of different ways. If you’re an agent in New York City, consider joining his team at Brown Harris Stevens, I mean, he’ll teach it to you one on one. He also if you’re not in the New York City area, which of course most of our audience is not, he can teach you any anytime. So you can visit his website, archway partners, Inc, I’m going to have links to all of this and you can become one of his coaching clients. And also, you should consider getting your certified negotiation expert certification, which you can do at at regni. And we will have a link to the regni. website so that so that you can see when their classes are available, you can take one from Eric. But Eric, I think this is a great place to start because I could talk to you all day, and you don’t have to speak to me

Eirik Gislason 58:54
now. Thank you so much DJ, this is so great. Oh, this was

D.J. Paris 58:58
so much fun. For me this is I would not say that I have necessarily the skills you’re talking about. However, I appreciate that those are skills that any one of us can learn. And we should consider learning those. And these are the soft skills that really can can win the game, push the ball over that one yard line. And there, they might even feel a little bit like magic once you learn them. Because you’re going to be unlocking things that are invisible to other people. And when you learn to unlock what’s the invisible which becomes visible to you. It just I think everything just becomes more fun and your your hit rate is going to go up, your success rate is going to improve your clients will be happier. It’s really it just makes it’ll make your life a little bit less hard. So if it’s if you’re not going to be motivated, do it because how exciting it is. Think about just reducing the stress and anxiety in your life. This will allow you to do that. So consider one way or the other, getting your CNA certification for whatever your motivation strategy is, but Um, this is the time to level up our skills, a lot of agents are leaving the industry, a lot of agents are pulling back on their efforts, because you know, they’re maybe a little bummed out. Now’s the time to find that grit within us and and do something fun, do something fun, like learn a new skill, do some of the activities, as Eric said that you do enjoy doing just to sort of get you up and up and add them. And then consider adding in some of these skills and let’s let’s all get a coach this year. Let’s, let’s let’s find a coach. Because this is the time we all we are all you ever have to think about is every professional athlete on the planet has a coach. So the very best athletes in the planet have coaches, you probably need one too. Let’s get one. And even if you can’t afford it, you know consider finding a way to afford it because this is going to help your skills and it’s coaching is mostly about skill. So let’s help develop everyone’s skill. Consider getting your CFP designation consider working with Eric directly whether you’re in New York to jump on his team or you’re anywhere else in the country and you just need a coach get a coach. So we will have Eric’s information all throughout our description archway partners. inc.com is where you can learn about his coaching program. The regni.com r e n i is where you can learn about becoming certified negotiation expert. There’s other designations they can teach you there as well. Eric teaches with them. And please follow Eric on his social media channels, Eric, the expert e ir ik the expert, Instagram, YouTube in particular, we’ll have links to all of that again in the description. Eric, I really loved chatting with you. Thank you so much. On behalf of our audience for coming on our show today. We appreciate you and your time. And on behalf of Eric and myself. We also want to thank our lovely audience who made its way all the way to the end of this great conversation, please, as always the best way you can help us tell a friend, they have one other agent that could use this skills based conversation and please send this to them. In fact, send it to every agent that you know, we would really appreciate it but just have to do it with one that’s all we ask. helps us continue to reach more people. So thank you. Thank you, Eric. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks.

Eirik Gislason 1:02:09
Thanks DJ

Diana Sutherlin with Sutherlin Group shares her transition from a sales agent to a real estate agent. Diana discusses how being a sales agent and former actress has taught her a very importance of learning from others and not having the need to show off. Next she emphasized that an agent should know a client’s personality and try to quickly assess their motivation and their needs. Last, DJ and Diana discuss the importance of listening to your client and letting them know they are both heard and seen.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Diana Sutherlin can be reached at (551) 998-8485 and [email protected].

This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks.

D.J. Paris 0:00
top producers understand the importance of connecting deeply with their clients. We’re going to show you how to do that today. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show, by the way, welcome to everyone who is new to the podcast and welcome back. Of course, to our returning fans and listeners, we love all of you. In just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with Diana Sutherland total superstar, top 1%. Producer, before we get to Diana, the best way that you can help our show if we’re helping you and I hope we are is by well, two ways actually telling a friend, you know if you can pause this podcast for just a second, send a link share it to to another agent in your office or somebody that you know that could really use some encouragement and some advice from a top producer this year. And the second way is by supporting our sponsors, we have the best and greatest sponsors. We love our sponsors. They are on our show because you guys purchase and use their services and products. So please check out what they’re offering. We’ve met them we know they’re awesome, and they’re going to help you grow your business. Alright guys, that’s enough. Let’s get to the main event, my conversation with Diana Sutherlin.

Today, my guest is Diana southerly from the Sutherland group in New Jersey, specifically Jersey City, Hoboken and up the Gold Coast. And let me tell you more about Diana. Now prior to a career in real estate Diana Sutherland produced sales training programs for Fortune 500 companies for nearly two decades. Her expertise in every area of sales, along with a background in interior design led her to a career that incorporated all aspects of her unique and invaluable background culminating in a sales volume of 18 million in her first year as a real estate agent. That’s an incredible number. As we all know now Diana and her team are distinguished Gold Coast agents that offer truly hands on full service sales and tailored marketing services. She’s partnered with developers since 2005 and has been the top selling new construction and waterfront agent for 18 years. She gets chosen by developers. We’re going to talk to her about that as well. Some of her projects have included 77 Hudson golds Cove phase one and two Trump Plaza Crescent court. 25 Senate plays Hamilton square and lofts. 222 Diana has received platinum level awards for the past 13 years from the NGR Circle of Excellence which is the New Jersey Association of Realtors, and the triple platinum award four years in a row at her previous brokerages. She closed on the highest priced waterfront condo in New York, sorry in New Jersey history in 2017 and continues to break her own records on top selling brownstones in Jersey City. Please everyone follow up Diana visitor website, a big fan of her website Sutherland group.com. That’s su t h e r l i n group.com. We will have a link to that in the show notes. And please follow her group on Facebook and Instagram which is Sutherland group and we’ll have a link to those as well in the show notes. Diana, welcome to the show.

Diana Sutherlin 4:51
Hi, thank you for the very lovely introduction.

D.J. Paris 4:55
Well I love doing introductions for people because it is always so awesome. auditioning to me about how, you know our guests have have really just accomplished so much. And oftentimes in a short amount of time, and I know you’re not new to the business, but even in your first year to do 18 million is really impressive. I know it’s not your first year in the business any longer. However, you have only gone up from there. So I am super excited to hear about how you’ve done that. And, and also, you know, what your overall philosophies are working with clients, I know you have certain thoughts of how you have grown your business that we’re going to explore. But the first thing I always like to know is how you got into real estate, you are a sales trainer prior to that, but but walk us through how you how you move from, from being sales, sales training program, sort of person to working in sales directly.

Diana Sutherlin 5:49
Okay. I, I ran a company for almost 20 years, and I trained fortune 500 companies in sales, all aspects, reading body language, overcoming objections, I loved I loved working with people, I loved drawing people out, I used to have to interview CEOs and high level executives on camera, and they’d be so nervous. And I just took pride in the fact that I would put them at ease, I’d ask the right questions. I just loved people skills. And, and I did that for a long time. Sometimes we like to reinvent ourselves, I went back to get my interior design degree, because I had always been buying properties, fixing them up selling them, and so forth. And I love design. So I was in just about ready to get my degree in interior design. And my girlfriend said to me, and I still had my other company, I’m very much a workaholic. So my girlfriend said to me, why don’t you get your real estate license? And I’m like, Oh, maybe I could do that part time. And she goes, Diane, I don’t know what you do part time you do nothing part time. I’m like, No, I get some I still had my other company open. And I was doing programs for very big corporations. And I thought, well, I’ll just do this, you know, on the side. And I literally I sold over 18 million in my first year I was I won Rookie of the Year for the northern region. I was a New Jersey, it was just crazy. And, and I thought why didn’t I was sort of taking all my skills, working with people, my sales skills, and my design skills. And I thought I should have been doing this years ago, years ago. So I just fell in love with it. And and I worked my butt off. I mean, I took you know, I always tell the story, but it’s really the truth. I worked I took two days off my first year, Mother’s Day and Christmas. And that’s it. And people laugh about it all the time. I mean, it really was two days. But um, you know, it’s it’s probably where I should have been all along. But all of those other things sort of led me to this.

D.J. Paris 8:24
Yeah, well, you clearly had the skills that you were training to different sales organizations to allow you to really flourish in so quickly. And on top of having not just a job but running a company, and then doing 18 million, and I suspect it wasn’t one transaction for 18 million, probably was a lot of transaction

Diana Sutherlin 8:47
transactions. And I didn’t even realize what I was doing. I was just sort of doing it, doing it doing it. And I used to do in my first year, I would get out there I did like three open houses a week, every single week. I was like oh, and I and I loved it. And I was learning it. And I was realizing that I was taking all these things that I had learned about communication skills, some of which actually came from a former life to a different. I started many, many years ago, in Manhattan, I was living there and I was an actress. And I had I still attribute some of the most important tips that I learned in every business that I’ve been in to what I learned in the acting world. Not that you’re acting or putting on a show, but that I actually I studied an acting technique that is very famous in New York, but it forces you to focus on the other person To listen to the other person to react to them hyperfocused and, and I took that into some of the sales training that I did. So many people are so self conscious, they want so badly to impress and show that I’m the market expert, or I’m this or that they’re not really paying attention to the person sitting in front of them. And you know, so that was a really big, big, big part of what I think that fed into my skills, almost more than anything else.

D.J. Paris 10:41
It’s interesting. You meant it’s interesting that you mentioned acting, because you know, and I don’t know, you know, where you studied, I was trying to think what are the, you know, I do know, like, there’s the Strasburg technique, there’s Gouda. Haga and there’s there’s a bunch of, I’m not an actor. So I have my knowledge is very limited, of course, but but that sort of training is so interesting, because as as somebody who’s not an actor, I think about what do actors really have to do? Well, they have to memorizing, and you’re right, though, there’s that whole other component that I don’t think about when I watch actors perform on TV, or a theater, which is listening to the other other actors and making adjustments along the way. So that it does seem like a connected experience. And I imagine that’s a really important skill set, especially when you’re sitting across the table from someone maybe who hasn’t worked with you before, as, as an old client, as a real estate client, and now is, you know, trusting you with a primary, very sizable purchase or sale.

Diana Sutherlin 11:39
Right? It’s, it’s interesting, because a couple of the things that you mentioned are, I had studied a couple of different of the biggest techniques, some of them actually make you more self conscious. And, and I can as an analogy, an actor’s can, an actor can some sometimes be so self focused, that they’re actually standing out side of themselves, watching their performance is very self conscious. And this was actually called the Meisner technique, and some teachers in New York teach it to this day. But it was all about focusing on the other actor, completely taking the focus off of yourself. And there’s something that I always there’s a little story, I want to throw in a little tidbit because I always whenever I am, I am training actors on my actors. And whenever I’m training agents on my team, I always tell them this story. There was a great great audition book in New York that every actor, it was their Bible, and it was called audition by Michael Shurtleff. And he talks about how self focused actors are, and that they can go into an interview, they can do this thing. They are so nervous about making a good impression, proving they’re the one that’s right for this job, that they’re not even listening or paying attention to the person across from them. And he told a story about how he was doing an audition up at the Ansonia Hotel in New York years and years. And you were going back a lot, two years. And he said, I saw 360 People that day, I think that was the number. And he said, I walked out of the day, lock the office, walked across Broadway. And here coming towards me is one of the actors that I had auditioned. And he said, I waved at him and I said, Oh, hi, you know, whatever. He looked at me, like he had no clue who I was. And this is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. I saw 360 People that day. And I recognized and

D.J. Paris 14:00
remembered him. Yeah.

Diana Sutherlin 14:02
One and he didn’t recognize me. And I’ve never forgotten that. Because when people sit in front of you, I mean, one of the things that I that I love about working with people in some of this had to do with personality assessments that I used to teach and I studied and so forth, but they’re all types of people and they’re all types of buyers. If if you some of them are very aesthetically motivated, they’ll walk into a home and they absolutely I love the wallpaper. I could just they’re emotionally connected to the home there I could see my family sitting in this breakfast room looking out the window when you know the Cardinals sitting in the tree you know is right outside the window. And and that is a very different personality type than the one who’s very analytical, what what, you know, has been the value increase in the last five years? Where do you see this going? Show me a spreadsheet, show me the comps. And sometimes you will have a couple that are you’ll have one of each of this personality type. And they’re vastly different. And you have to assess very, very quickly, who are you talking to? What is their motivation? What is their trigger? What are their buttons, and really, really pay attention. If if you’re trying to prove to them how great you are, you’re not paying attention that takes that takes real focus. And sometimes you’ll sit there in front of a couple, and you’ll have to pivot between those two communication styles. But you have to do an otherwise they you can see them glaze over. When you’re lost, you know, it’s done. And I love that,

D.J. Paris 16:02
you know, it’s, it’s Thank you. That is such an important thing, too. You know, I was thinking as you were talking, trying to think about myself, I’m not a practicing agent, but I talk to agents all day and a lot of my what I do is recruit agents. So it’s a similar, it’s a similar sort of thing, because agents want different things from different brokerages. But what you said is so important, because oftentimes, and even on this podcast, I can I can be very self focused. I can, I’m listening, but I’m really more thinking about what’s the next thing I have to say. So that there’s not alone, not with you necessarily, but with other with other people sometimes. And I realize I’m totally out of this conversation, I know what I’m going to say next. And that’s good. But it’s only because I’m afraid that if I focus in on this other person and really connect with my, you know, my client or my podcast guests, that I’m not going to know what to say going you know, once there is a break in the conversation, and the reality of it is I’ll have probably a much better connected things to say, by paying attention.

Diana Sutherlin 17:03
Absolutely. And that’s why I think so many people overlook that piece of it. Even even open houses, I always have my young agents shadow me. And I’m like you, if you don’t start asking questions, the minute they walk in the door. Oh, hi. Do you live in the neighborhood? Oh, where do you Where are you coming from, you know, and get in a conversation, draw them out, you’re thinking of maybe moving across the Hudson to Jersey City or to Hoboken. If you don’t engage and ask those questions, you you have to treat it almost like a mini buyer’s consultation. If you don’t, it’s a complete wasted opportunity. I’ve been in so many houses, where agents will just sit there and Oh, could you sign in, please. And you know, they don’t want to bother them or be in their hair. So they let them wander around, or they spend so much time and I love I’m I used to teach product knowledge. So I love talking about passionately talking about finishes. I love that. And I was in design. So that’s exciting to me. But that’s only a piece of it. So much of it is Who is this person. People want to work with who they connect with? You know, you don’t have to sit there and go, I sold X amount last year. That’s not what does it. It’s who you connect with? Did they hear me everybody wants to be seen and heard. And you know, it’s always always I kind of inherently knew that. But I always teach my agents that it’s a mini buyer’s consultation, you know, and they’ll remember you.

D.J. Paris 18:56
Yes, because you’ll be the one where they feel wow, this person understands me. And they were listening. And and you already have if you wanted to, for example, because how successful you’ve been, you could just rattle off all of your accomplishments. And maybe there’s a small percentage of people that would be like, I just want to be entertained. I want somebody to razzle dazzle me, and maybe that would work. But the vast majority of us want to feel, as you said, heard, seen, and I was thinking about this last night and I’ll give you this sort of unusual, or a Monday night. So I was not it doesn’t matter what I do. I was I was getting I was at the stretch this place called stretch lab where they stretch you out and it’s they just open one in my neighborhood. And so I was doing an evaluation because I’m very inflexible, anyway, and the way the reason I’m mentioning this is when they stretch you out, it’s a very intimate sort of physical act where, like, there’s this woman stretching me out and she’s kind of on top of me and touching me in a very professional way but also kind of an intimate, vulnerable place. And and it was and I was I had kind of a weird reaction to but not a negative reaction, just like I felt very connected to this person. And I go, and even though I just met them, and there was no, this was just her job and she was stressing me out. But it was interesting. And I felt like oh, the reason why I feel so connected to this person is she’s touching me in a very professional platonic way. But but touching me, and I’m a single person, I don’t have a lot of touch in my life. And I go, Oh, so I’m holding on to this going, this feels very satisfying. And it reminded me of being heard and seeing people have the same sort of reaction when they actually feel heard or seen, or in my case, I had got touched. And that was very fulfilling. Even though that wasn’t the intention, I was going for there. I was really just going to get stretched out. But I went, Oh, it reminds me Oh, I miss touch. And so this idea of being heard and seen, and and really, like I recognize you is so so critical, and it kind of flies in the face of old sales techniques of objection. And coming up with a way to overcome. Yeah,

Diana Sutherlin 20:59
I love that you said that, because I, I have always told my team, if you’re in this only for the money, forget it. Your net people know, they know when you’re trying to sell them. And what’s so funny is I actually cannot stand sales. I’m like, I go into car dealerships, and I get angry, I get angry. And the fact is, it’s so funny, because it very beginning of the business, I have such an aversion to that, and I’m so authentic, I like to really authentically connect with people. And I will never forget, I will never forget saying to this friend of mine, you know, I just kept people telling me to close them, close them, close them. And I’m like, you know, I can’t think that way because it makes me feel like I’m pushing somebody, I’m selling them. And my girlfriend said to me, but Tiana you that is so the opposite of you. And you are only helping them to achieve what they came to you to do. And I thought well, and something clicked in my head. I actually said that to one of my agents on my team recently. She’s like, I always have this hesitation that I don’t want to be the salesperson I said, but they came to you for this help you are making literally I know it sounds corny, but it really is a dream come true in their life. And the fact is, if you come from a place of wanting to do that, and wanting to serve in that way, it will always come back to you because people know it. They know when you’re sincere. So I really believe, you know, for young agents or newish agents, don’t worry about this one sold more than I have that one’s done, whatever, be authentic care about the people in front of you and come from a place. Yes, you have to have absolute knowledge of your market. Definitely. But I know so many people that have tons of knowledge of their market. And they’re really good at all the coaching techniques and closing closing. There are a lot of people who don’t respond to that. They can feel the antennae go up right away, and they can just sort of feel that they’re being sold, you know. And so you have to trust that if you know, if you know your market, and you’re sincere and you really have in your gut, the desire to help people it’s going to come across.

D.J. Paris 23:47
And I always think too, I agree. And for anyone listening who is newer to the business and doesn’t know everything yet, which of course is a lot of us. I always say you know, have this kind of this little phrase. Or you might even have a better one, Dianna, because I’m not out there in the trenches, like like you and our guests. But I always like this phrase, and I tell it to our agents as just as something to keep in mind. But you might even have a different suggestion. But if you don’t know the answer to something always have, especially if you’re new, and you’re not going to know the answer to everything. I always say have this this expression, which is just say, that’s an amazing, that’s a great question. I want to double check with my team, because I want to give you a really complete answer. So bear with me while I check, or I’ll get back to you in an hour or next day or whatever. But it’s okay to be I can authentically say I don’t know, I’m going to find out and that’s what a consultant does. I mean, consultants get paid a lot of money to say I don’t know, I’ll find out. I’ll come back to you.

Diana Sutherlin 24:42
And let me tell you, I’ve been in this business a while and they’re constantly things I don’t know. And I always say that because I they and they will value that the client will will will appreciate that. Absolutely. And if you Try to budget, they’ll know, I think they’ll know. Or worse yet, they’ll find out. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 25:05
they’ll look it up and say up, she doesn’t know.

Diana Sutherlin 25:09
And I’ve seen agents do that they’ll throw out an answer, and they don’t know what they’re doing. And I’m standing in front of them. And sometimes I’m like, are, you know, you don’t want to correct the agent. But at the same time, you don’t want them to get sued, either, you know, so. But I am constantly in that position. I think, you know, the day we stop learning, I work with a lot of developers, and they’re things that are on such a high level that I can’t possibly know, you know, it’s going to be an environmental attorney who might have the answer to that, there’s always going to be things I don’t know. So, you know, so that’s a perfect answer, you know, if I can improve on that.

D.J. Paris 25:58
I think this idea of listening is so important. And yes, I do acknowledge that it can be scary to again, when we’re sitting there in a presentation buyer or seller presentation, where we’re like, trying to try to win the business. And I just want to say these things, and also then recognize when we’re getting a little bit outside of ourselves, maybe, you know, this sort of third person looking in going what’s the next thing I’m gonna say, or he’s gonna say, then going back in and saying, focus on the person, you know, and if you practice your pitches, that information will be there anyway, when you need it. But under, you know, and I’m curious to when when you are in a buyer or seller, presentation, and let’s say it’s not, you know, a slam dunk referral, or a previous client, somebody who’s new to you that you have to win over in some capacity. You know, when you talked about really listening to them? What are some of the things you’re listening for? I’m just curious, what, what you’re trying to assess?

Diana Sutherlin 26:54
You want to find out? Number one, what their motivation is? Why are they buying? Why are they selling? What what are their fears? What are there fears and objections? Because, you know, and I used to teach this all the time, you can’t overcome an objection, unless you know what it is. So, you know, so many stores, you know, say, Listen, if a customer’s unhappy, and they don’t come up and complain, they’re not coming back. And they’re going to tell 10 other people, you always want to suss out, what what are your What are your, your questions and your fears about this particular property? Or, you know, find out as much information about, are they both on the same page do they both seem to want to get I get a lot of couples, one wants to go to the suburbs, the other one hates the suburbs. So you kind of and sometimes for sellers, it will take me two or three years to get that listing, because they’re not ready to sell yet. They’re still in that kind of, so you sort of feel and you hear both of them, you let the both of them kind of verbalize what their hesitancies are, you know, what are the pros and cons? You know, I think it’s, you know, the who, how, what, why, you know, you want to know, why are they selling, you know, sometimes they won’t tell you, but often they will. And, you know, you just got to you’ve got to understand motivations. And I think you you have to understand motivations and fears, you know, and what’s their passion, what would make them really really happy, you know, try to zero in

D.J. Paris 28:52
on that. And that’s really important because you just said something really important, what would make you really really happy because for some people will be just get highest and best price. You know, if I’m selling a property, I don’t care or if I’m buying give me the lowest invest. And then other people if they’re selling a property they go well I obviously want to get as high a price as possible. But what’s really important is that the family that’s coming in seems to have some appreciation for what we’ve done here. And what we’ve you know, the improvements we’ve made, I just want a good family in here or good you know, whatever. That’s sometimes come rises even above the level of here’s what you’re gonna get for it. And, and that and knowing that is really critical.

Diana Sutherlin 29:30
Well, they feel appreciated this home, particularly if they were emotionally attached to it. If they put some of their heart and soul into it, somebody walks in and they emotionally love it. That can go a very long way. You know, I think that’s that can be super important to some people. And there was something else I was thinking about about buyers that had to do with that I’m in now Oh, it’s escaping me. I might, I might remember in a minute. But yeah, for sellers, that’s very important.

D.J. Paris 30:10
Well, I have a question for you while you’re thinking, because I am trying to remember Yeah, no, it’s okay. Just interrupt me at any time. If it comes in, I was thinking, I was curious, because you had said something about, you know, sometimes I have a consultation, whether it’s buyer or seller, or you give the example of seller in this case, where they’re not really ready to sell and maybe two or three years goes by before they actually list with me. I am curious, because connection is so important to you. How do you stay in touch with them in between those, you know, those times, right? So, you know, you have your your consultation, you realize they’re really not ready at this moment, but I want I want to be their person when they are ready. So how do you stay in touch with them? What are some of the things you and your group do to make sure they don’t feel like oh, Diana forgot about me, right?

Diana Sutherlin 30:56
I, you know, that’s a tough one. Because I, I have had so many clients over the years, and I try my best I will 100% admit, I am not the best person at mining my database. If I had to say there was at that’s one of the most important things, you know, I do it as much as I can. But I part of part of the day I work with a lot of developers, and which is fabulous, fabulous. But part of the downside of that is it takes a lot of time and focus. And so we are constantly like I have a newsletter that we’re we’re doing, you know, constant things, I do a lot of press things. So I’ll send it to them. Not sure if you saw this article, whatever, I’ll try to reach out if I, you know, remember certain sports events that their kids are in or things like that, I’ll always try to do that. But I could definitely be better at that. I’ve, I’m I’m you know, it’s funny, I was talking to somebody about this the other day, so much of my business has been past clients and referrals from past clients that I’ve I’ve honestly never been a cold caller. I’ve I’m not as great as I could be. And I think, you know, with the, you know, calling my database all the time, my, you know, sphere. And I was telling somebody the other day because she said My God, Diana, if you did that, can you even imagine what your business would be? Which is true. You know what I’m trying to get better at that I know what I was gonna say, I just remember what I was gonna say, I had a developer years ago, and I, I’ve never forgotten it, because it was such a great compliment. And I wasn’t even that long in the business. But I was representing his building. And he watched me so much with different buyers. And he said, you know, you have the most uncanny ability to listen to a buyer and almost immediately know exactly the home that’s right for them. Like, exactly, he’s

D.J. Paris 33:17
the best, by the way, that’s like the best compliment you could ever have.

Diana Sutherlin 33:21
And when he said that, to me, I’ve never forgotten it, it made me feel so good. And he goes, How do you do that? And I was like, listen, I pay attention. And literally, it was true, it was almost immediately people would come to me and even if I showed them something, even if I showed them 10 More things, it was that one that I told them they were going to fall I knew what they would fall in love with. You know, and and I love that and I’ve never forgotten that and it was very early, you know in the business for me. But anyway, that was what I wanted to

D.J. Paris 33:55
know it’s it’s so important. I think about this a lot and people on our listeners probably sick of hearing me say it so I apologize. But because a lot of you have heard this before but if you’re new maybe you haven’t, which is I have this like fantasy when I think about the service professionals in my life for different industries, accountant, financial advisors, attorneys, you know, whatever anyone that’s giving me personal trainer, you know anyone that’s helping me in my life somehow and my fantasies are always like I want that phone call which never comes but but but I love that I would love the phone call and I’ll just pick on my accountant who I adore. She’s the best and she’s wonderful. And I’m not picking on her really but I would but if she’s got a million clients I’m if I were her only client she’d probably do this. But But I have this fantasy that she would call me up one day and just go I was just thinking about you. I have this new idea. You know if this happened to me just the other day at the hair salon, I would get my hair cut and my the person that get my hair cut same person for like 15 years. She goes, I have an idea. And I was like I don’t even want to hear it just do it because you this is what you do. And I love the fact that you were thinking bout me, outside of, you know, like, I don’t expect anyone to think about me ever. But, but But what do you hear it does feel like, wow, someone’s thinking about me they want to have doctors, this is where I found as I’ve gotten older, I love having good doctors, because a good doctor for me will come and say, Hey, man, you’re doing really well or you’re not doing well. Or hey, you know, I’ve been really watching you for the last few years. Here’s, you know, just feeling like my doctors care about me is really important. And I think Realtors obviously, you know, demonstrate care through listening and really understanding the client needs. Yep.

Diana Sutherlin 35:39
And also, if you there was a couple of things that I made certain to do back when the market the horrible market crash. And I have to tell you, it was like trial by fire. I represented four developers during that period. Oh, my God, it was brutal. It was brutal. But for my resale clients that would call me in my home worth what am I going to do? Should I, I convinced so many of them not to sell, I convince so many of them not to sell. And I was like, you know, I had the single mothers who had one trial, you know, they were raising their entire, they’re all their net worth was in home all. And I was like, Is there any way you can hang on? Do you have to move right now? And if you do, can you rent it for the time being? My brokerage time was yelling at me. Yes, it was me getting listings. I said, You know what, I go to sleep at night. And guess what, not only did they come back to me when they were ready to sell making a couple of 100,000 more than they would have Thank you very much. But they also referred me five other people, of course. And because they knew if if all you’re doing is following the money, I know agents who put people in the worst positions, they could have been sold, you know, single fragile women out very, you know, areas they shouldn’t be living in the you know, that were a bit dangerous, because the Commission’s were 5% co broke, you know, some new development out, you know, far away from and, and I can tell you never, and I’ve said to my my team, always you sell that person, what’s right for them, I don’t care what they’re paying out. Because it’s going to come back to you five times over,

D.J. Paris 37:42
it really will one way or the other good or bad, it’ll come back to you.

Diana Sutherlin 37:47
To you. Absolutely. You know,

D.J. Paris 37:50
I would be remiss if I didn’t, because I know our audience is frothing at the mouth to hear and I know there and I’m going to disappoint our listeners, some of our listeners who are like, I want to fast track to working with developers and there isn’t most likely these days. However, I would love for you to share any guidance that you might have maybe with team members that are that you work with or just agents in general, if they wanted to start heading down that I want to be on the shortlist of developer agents that developers choose because you have you are the developer, Queen of New Jersey. That is that is it really is such an amazing feather in your cap because you are chosen and you have earned that spot. And I am curious on what you might suggest to agents who want to start to go up that mountain.

Diana Sutherlin 38:43
So it it’s it I’m not gonna lie, it’s not easy. Sometimes you might want to put yourself you know, in a position where of learning where you gotta learn. There’s no way you’re ever going to have the knowledge of what they need without being exposed to it. And sometimes that might be being on a team for a while. For some agents. It’s working in a sales center, a leasing office, something for another organization. You learn so much from that. And I was very, very fortunate. I started working with developers from two months into the business. And they saw what I was just smaller. I worked with a smaller developer that was doing a lot of you know, boutique style properties. And I was selling them and my banners were all over and then K Hovnanian, which is a huge developer approached me to do a project and then another big one came out of that and then of course, I got to be kind of known in that area. I did have a lot of skills that were very unique. I had the this sales skills, but I also have the design skills. And now, you know, you show you have to show your value. And some of that is, you know, like you talk about market knowledge of a market, I don’t just have knowledge of a market by resale comps, I have to go out and really do spreadsheets and do a deep, deep, deep dive for the developers, the demographics of certain areas, this and that, all kinds of things. And start small start working with like I did a small developer, you can imagine what can possibly come out of that. If you have any kind of skills in terms of I do staging, also, if it’s a, if it’s, I have several, you know, storage, you know, people are screaming at me all the time on my team, you’re buying more, you know, but the thing is, I am, I love even the light staging, which is it, you know, can make an enormous difference. If if I need a gut furniture, if it’s if I had to do three brownstones at a time, I wouldn’t have enough. So why would bring in a staging company, but I love to do it, because it’s a creative, you know, part of what I do, I still get to play with all of that. But even even things be aesthetically aware, you know, hone your skills in that. Even accessories, I can’t tell you how much accessories will transform a space artwork, gorgeous throw pillows, I mean, I deal with, you know, I, I get challenged very often with some very plain bland kind of places that are, you know, in the beddings looking, I will literally transformed the space just with bedding, throw pillows, artwork, and people come in, and they’re like, Oh, my God, I can’t. And I do that, even for some of my smaller developers, you know, so I think, trying to hone your skills in that way. But I think being under the wing, you know, or the umbrella of another company where you’re going to learn, I know, other agents who’ve worked on sales teams, you learn so much that way, so much, and sale. And interestingly, some of those marketing companies hire newer agents, you know, sometimes you’re on a salary with just, you know, a small bonus on each unit. I, I I represented some developers during the downmarket that I made Brant, I mean, brand new buildings, 414 unit building, you know, and so forth, made very, very little, because it was a broker outreach, that’s where it kind of started, which was to drive the broker community to the builder. And, and I was, so sometimes it feels like, Oh, my God, I’m working so hard. And there’s so little return on this, that has been an annuity that has paid me to this day, because I sold units, and then I’ve resold them. And sometimes I’ve sold the same unit three times. But after all these years, I got known in these buildings, I got known by the developers, you know. But just keep in mind, it’s a lot harder than I don’t want to discourage anybody. You have to have a certain temperament for it. Because serving many masters, masters, and not only that, whatever, you know, if you have a client that’s nervous, and things have been on the market too long, or there would imagine that that’s times 300.

D.J. Paris 44:18
Sure. Yeah, stressful conversations, you know,

Diana Sutherlin 44:22
some stressful and you’re literally under fire, and it’s like, what have you done for me lately? You’ve got to constantly keep coming up with ideas. When the market crashed, we had to come up with things like you know, let’s do let’s do a trip to Paris, in addition to their good commission for the next sale, you know, let’s you know what, you’ve got to think out of the box and go to other properties visit as many of the competing types of properties as possible. You know,

D.J. Paris 44:57
that’s a brilliant that is something that nobody Out of 500 episodes, I think has ever said about working with developers is Go study other developments and what works, what doesn’t work and bring that to a developer say, Hey, I’ve been, I’ve been noticing around because they all know the other projects that are out there, I don’t like this, I don’t like this, etc,

Diana Sutherlin 45:17
you gotta shot them. You don’t chop them, you don’t know what your competition is. And you think it’s you think it’s important to know competition, up the street for your house, you better believe it’s really important to do because there’s nobody that looks at one building, they’re gonna go to all of them. So what can you do to stand out? You know, and what are they offering, if suddenly they’re throwing in window treatments, if they’re doing this, you must stay on top of it, see their product, know how their product compares to yours, whether it’s a three unit building, a 200 unit building, shop, that product, you know, so very important.

D.J. Paris 46:05
Amazing advice. I would also like to ask, and this is this is, I think, can be a trickier question. Because you have so much success over the years, people oftentimes see somebody at your level and think, Oh, she’s got it made. She’s got and obviously, you know, I know from talking to so many hundreds of agents, top agents over the years that they’re working just as hard usually today as they were when they started. But a lot of times, you know, people listening think, Oh, this must be, you know, Diana is not affected by the ups and downs of the market, because she has all of this, you know, business built in, because she’s been so successful for so long. But obviously you are you struggled just as any other agent, does market market conditions affect you. This is, you know, we’re 2023, half a little bit of more than halfway through the year. Look, we the reality of it is inventory is down in most markets, of course, rates are still high. This is not the easiest time to work with buyers, certainly not the easiest time really working with sellers, either. It’s either maybe easier to sell a property harder to get the next property. So so it is a tough time right now. And what are you doing? Or what are you coaching your team to do to stay motivated to stay productive? Like, what are some of the activities you’re doing right now?

Diana Sutherlin 47:27
Well, we have an unbelievable lack of inventory where we are incredible lack of inventory. But you know, back and I and I, you know, there are so many buyers that are really nervous, they’re like this is just in the beginning of when the interest rates started going up. I heard over and over and over again. You know, this is just like 2009 2010. This is the opposite, thank goodness, at least where we are at that time. And the reason I worked with so many developers, and this was in downtown Jersey City, there were high rises going up galore, they were condo buildings. They were all just starting sales, they had to fill up those entire buildings and the market crashed. That was an over supply and an under demand. What we have now is the opposite. We haven’t you know, we have a huge demand, very little supply. We’ve We’ve got so many people coming out of New York right now. And what I tried to do is you always have to you have to pivot with any market. If you know, I think, you know, you’ve got to see what’s going on, you’ve got to anticipate where this is going. People don’t want to sell because why are they going to leave, you know, under 3%, mortgage, you know, interest rate, you’ve got a tough sell. It’s a very tough sell. So, you know, you’ve got to find ways, talk to loan officers, what can we do to help, you know, some of my sellers, it’s like, will they offer a two one buy down, you’ll buy the interest rate down for the first two years 1% For the second year. And then it goes to with with the understanding that many people are doing arms right now or they’re planning to refinance. A lot of people talk to mortgage people talk to everybody that you can to find out what’s going to help me move this product. If if, if it’s if it’s for a seller,

D.J. Paris 49:47
you’re you’re saying I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pause you but I only want you because you just said something very, very profound. And we’re going to get to the buyer in just a moment. I don’t want to apologize for jumping in here. But you said something very important, which was you Get almost get creative, but you don’t have to have the answers. But you have to have a good team. So reach out to the loan officers and say, hey, this person, look, loan officers know, nobody wants to go from 3% to 7%. Mortgage. I don’t want to do that. You don’t want to do that. But, but sometimes there are sellers that can do the 21321. Buyer downs, I mean, you can kind of craft it any way you want. There are creative solutions. And that’s where instead of just going, well, obviously, nobody wants to go from three to 7%. Yeah, we all know that. Now, let’s reach out to our lending partners and say, Guys, give me a compelling argument that I can then bring to a buyer to say, here’s how we’re going to help this make more sense than

Diana Sutherlin 50:43
that. And if they’re afraid, oh, but the market, it’s going to tank, it’s gonna go, we didn’t go down where we are, everybody was like, oh, you know, prices are gonna go down XMen, we didn’t go down at all, really, we actually went up. And so much of it is every it’s always supply and demand, no matter at the end of the day, I don’t care where you are, what year it is, it’s supply and demand. And the fact is, there was so little, and there were so many people who wanted to buy. Now, the other thing too, on the buyers side is you’ve got to help them get over their fear I’m going to buy in the market is going to tank, you know, or you know, and they’re so freaked out about the interest rates. And I love that line, marry the home date, the rate, it’s fine, get the rate because that can change, you know, but if you find something you love, and again, keep them focused on how long are they selling? I mean, how long are they living there? If if they’re going to flip this in two years? Yeah, maybe not. But you’re gonna live there for the long haul, you won’t be at what show from historically, what has happened, and what always continues to happen. Even back during the market crash. Look, I bought some properties, when that happened in some of in the buildings that my developers were selling, because it was like they were giving things away, that was a very unusual time that I don’t think we’re ever going to see again.

D.J. Paris 52:19
And we probably won’t see 3% interest rates ever again, either. And that’s it, it’s okay. It was an anomaly. Reaction to COVID. It made sense at the moment. And now we’re a little bit hamstrung, because, you know, we have, you know, again, so it’s tough right now, you know, you have somebody who wants to sell their property for a premium, or to, you know, to recognize the upside that they’ve seen. And that, yeah, Oh, where am I gonna live next. And that is that is tricky, it’s a tough position to be very

Diana Sutherlin 52:51
tricky. The, the good thing is, sometimes they’re going into areas that are not that the inventory isn’t quite as low as it is here. You know? And, um, and then if sellers are like, and if they come to me, if sellers come to me in this kind of market and say, oh, I want to sell this off market, why would you who benefits from that? I do, but they certainly don’t, there’s so many buyers out there, there’s so many buyers out there, and you want to get it out there, you want to get it out there and get it out there. And there’s all kinds of, you know, ways people are doing them. By doing that. I know some agents are underpricing a bit to get bidding mores, you know, whatever, whatever your particular style is. But there are buyers out there, it’s just managing their fear, manage fear. And

D.J. Paris 53:50
also, I suspect, Diana, that you have said this more than once. And I want to, I’m sort of making up the story in my head. And I’d like you to clarify or correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s a really important one. Because right now agents want listings, because listings we know sell very quickly. However, buying the next property for that, that couple assuming they stay in the same market, looking for a comparable place, or maybe a step up or a step down, depending on where they are in their life can be very, very challenging. And I wonder how many times you have said to someone you know, we can sell your property in a day or two, or very quickly because of the conditions of the market. What I’m worried about is not finding you the next place. I suspect you have counseled people to say now maybe isn’t the right time to consider that. And you’ve probably turn down business as a result. I’m curious to hear Does that ever come into play? Especially right now where you’re like, you know, we have to think about inventory. Yes, we can sell the property. Yes. We’ll make a profit. I’m worried though about finding your next place.

Diana Sutherlin 54:58
Yeah, absolutely. loosely, I mean that definitely if they, if they don’t see that there are, there’s a little bit of a stream, even if it’s a small stream of things coming on the market of things that they could possibly do and marry the home date the rate, then, then maybe it isn’t the right time. I think. And that’s my point, again, about you give people the right advice, you may not get that initial, you know, commission, but guaranteed, I’ve seen this so many times, they’re coming back to you for years, and they’re referring you. And I’ve always said never, you know, it’s just like how you treat other agents, I’m very known in the business. And I’m very, very proud of the fact that I’m a really ethical agent, I know, agents out there right now that block other agents from seeing the properties, because they want to double it, we’re getting a lot of that they will double and, you know, buy and sell side. And it’s like you are literally destroying, you’re going to need that other agent. Yep, down the line, you are so short sighted. Because if you don’t play nice in the sandbox, and it’s one of the reasons, so many, so many of the developers came to me to do even the broker outreaches, because they knew I had such good rapport with so many agents, they come to me, I do an open house, they there, I mean, a broker’s open, they’re there do you know, and they support you, and they want to do business with you. And there’s a lot of kind of icky things that go on, you don’t want to be part of that. Always think long term, long term, you know, have a much bigger vision. And that’s exactly, it speaks to what you’re talking about, you know, sometimes you’ve got to be patient, and it may not be the right time. You know, if there’s I tell my clients all the time in a stacked building, meaning a high rise that has a whole line of the exact same unit, if two or three come on the market at the same time, do not listen now. Because it’s supply and demand. Again, you’re going to be competing with these two other people, not buyers know they can negotiate more in a situation like that. So I always encourage them, hang on, can you stay Can you rent for a year, whatever, whatever their possible options are. But you’ve got to be willing to not to let that immediate commission go. Postpone it or, you know, push it off a little bit. And and then they trust you. It’s all about, it’s all about building trust. It really is.

D.J. Paris 57:56
It is and it because it’s such a huge financial decision, you know, whether it’s somebody’s first time buying a home, or selling a home, or it’s their fifth home, either way, they are this is this, we’re talking about finances. You said something else about being in alignment or or being playing nice in the sandbox with other agents. I, I don’t suspect our listeners struggle with this, because I just assume our podcast listeners are the nicest agents in the on the planet. And I’m sure they are. But sometimes, but you know, there’s other agents out there who aren’t so nice to us, in particular. And I hate to even say this, because I wish I wasn’t saying it. But women get treated differently. Sometimes by sometimes by male agents, sometimes by other female agents. But regardless, women can be treated differently as well. I have a very good friend here in Chicago is one of the top agents he or she has been nicest person you could ever possibly meet. And sort of like when we’re together socially, she’ll go, you would not believe the way some men speak to me. And I’m like, as a man, I don’t recognize that. So as men, anyone out there who’s listening, who is a man, really, really understand that, that women sometimes do not get talked to in the same way that men are taught to and it is not easy to be a woman, not easy to be a woman in general, but certainly not easy to be a woman realtor, when men can can, you know, talk down to women? So I’m curious and when you see bad behavior out there happening to you, you know, you’ve probably experienced it as well. How do you process that and move beyond it?

Diana Sutherlin 59:34
You know, I, I don’t get that so much. But it could be because of how long I’ve been doing this and people around you’re, for the most part are aware of me at least, and my reputation so I don’t get that some but I did in the beginning. I did in the beginning. I actually will never forget this one agent saying and he was an old timer in the business here. hardly ever did any business. And I came in and you know, I guess he just assumed, you know, maybe I was a hat check girl before, who knows. But I remember one of my developers coming back to me and saying, What a nasty man, he just said, Oh, she just walked into everything. And I was like, oh, yeah, you know what? Yeah, I had, it really bothered me at first. But I learned to let it roll off my back. And with developers, every now and then I’ll get that kind of

D.J. Paris 1:00:38
advice club kind of,

Diana Sutherlin 1:00:41
can be a, but I am always one of them over, I’ve always with my knowledge, with my hard work with making them making their product project to success. And beyond what they ever thought, I mean, so many times, I’ve outsold their performance, you know, when they’re like, Oh, my God, you’re the best thing since sliced bread. And the fact is, sometimes you have to earn it. And I kind of know that, and I have to just, Okay, I’m gonna buckle up, and I’m going to show them, you know, and then they are completely the opposite. You know, there was a one of the big projects that I did every Wednesday, we would have our big marketing meeting. And every I was the only woman in there. And it got to be and the, the person who was the regional director was so difficult, everyone was terrified of him, terrified of him, even his own sales team was terrified of him. And it got to the point, we will walk into the meetings, the only person he ever talked to in there, or ask questions of was me. And the whole meeting, he just felt, and everybody else was kind of glad, because then they weren’t in the lineup, they were afraid, afraid, afraid. And I thought, I’m stepping up to this, I’m jumping in the deep end, I’m going to come up with some great ideas, I’m going to do the work that he’s asking me to do, do my research, think out of the box, you know, throw out some ideas here. And he respected me for it, you know, so you have to show your work, you have to know your worth, you have to know your worth. And then you have to show them. And sometimes you just have to prove it. I haven’t I have somebody right now that from the very beginning, he had a really bad, bad situation with a realtor prior to me. And it was so unfortunate, because I knew I was going to have to undo some of that damage, you know, in his mind with trust. And now it’s completely the opposite. But it was painful for for, you know, a few weeks. It was like God, he questions everything I do to see really think I don’t know what I’m talking about, you know, and it was really, really hard. Particularly after all the years, I’ve done this, and I think if he would just trust me, you know, we could get this done so much quicker and better. You know, and it took time, but I hung in there part of it is I like a child. You know, maybe that’s it. I like a challenge, you know, but we don’t get as much. We have a lot of women here that do real estate. And a lot of the top ones are women not all for sure. But a lot of them are incredibly intelligent women, you know, and I’m so good at what they do. And we all admire each other male and female alike. I think, I think the top agents always seem to kind of usually unless they’re just so hyper competitive with you. They seem to you know, um, you know, we have mutual respect most of the time.

D.J. Paris 1:04:14
I think that’s because you all know the amount of skill and effort that it takes to get to that level anyone can get there should they put in that amount of work and dedication, very few will go that that extra mile. And as a result, you’ve all you’re part of a community of people that have gone the extra mile now again, there’s outliers, there’s always the weird person at the top or you’re like I don’t like that person. But the vast majority are like we earn this spot we’d like that there’s compet healthy competition. We also by the way, are cooperating with each other it is called a cooperative commission. So it’s so it is so important inter Personal interpersonal skills with other agents, you know, if you, you know, right now, especially when you’re with buyers, so much competition, because obviously, there’s inventory challenges in most markets, this is the time to really build those interpersonal skills, I think between realtors, because, boy, you want you want somebody when they see your name on that offer to go out, I know Diana, she’s the she’s great, this is legit. And you

Diana Sutherlin 1:05:29
know what, you it’s it, you’re laying out a course for your business to be so much easier. You make enemies out there, let me and we all know the agents we see on a listing and we go, Oh my God, there’s gonna be a nightmare. And they’re gonna throw my offer in the trash or they’re, you know, or they’re going to use it to go get their own. But you we all know those agents. And you know what happens over time. People don’t want to work with them. They don’t want to work with them, because why would they waste their time? Their clients time? You know, you never trust anything they say, you know, and then you know, the ones you see their name, you know, man, this is a stand up person. We’re going to literally be professional to professional, and it’s a joy doing. It’s a it’s a pleasure doing business with people like that. So that’s why I’m saying don’t chase after that one commission here or that one commission here. I’ve had, I’ve had agents that have done lousy things to me, you know, I’m not gonna go badmouth them. But you know, when I see them coming, I’m kinda like, yeah, no, you know, I’m not going to seek out working with them. Let’s put it that way. And, you know, so it’s incredibly important. We’re here for the long term.

D.J. Paris 1:06:59
Yeah, I think, you know, we always want I always think like, whenever, my, somebody I’m calling when the phone rings. And now of course, it announces, you know, we’ve had caller ID since the 90s. Now, everyone knows the phone call who it’s from, you know, and I always want in any part of my life, whether it’s my family, my friends, you know, my, my work colleagues, my clients, I want, when the phone rings, I don’t want them to go deejays calling me I don’t want them to go, hey, hey, DJs, calling this is cool. Like, he’s probably got something fun and exciting to tell me or he’s, he cares about me, I want people to be pleasantly surprised. Like, I want them to see a smile on their face when, when, when they pick up the phone. And, and if and if you can, not you Diana, but if our listeners if we can think about as a realtor, you know, there’s always bumps in every transaction, there’s always something that goes wrong. And every single transaction, there’s always going to be some point of tension or stress. And if if you can still be every time that when you make those outbound phone calls to whether it’s another agent and attorney, a lender, loan officer or your client, and if the other person’s like, I’m excited to pick up the phone, you know, you’re doing a good job. That’s

Diana Sutherlin 1:08:14
right. And you sometimes have to be a mediator, we have to be mediators, we have to do conflict resolution, sometimes between couples, you know, members of a couple, we have to be therapists, when they’re sitting on the ledge, you know, constantly, we’re having to be therapists. And it’s like, and it’s part of the job. The other thing I will say is never be the smartest person in the room. Always keep learning. I am learning every single day. And I’ve thankfully, it’s always been my personality. I’m like a sponge. I never want to be that person that’s got to prove I know it all. I want to learn learn what and I’ve learned something, I learned something every day. And I learned something from almost almost every deal that I do. You know, and I look at everybody, as a team, my attorneys, my lenders, you know, you know, it’s like Teach me teach me the more I learned, the more I can serve my clients, you know, and then I know what I’m talking about, because I do know what I’m talking about. Right?

D.J. Paris 1:09:25
I the thing that we didn’t specifically talk about, but I think in encompasses Diana, your success has been passion, you clearly have a passion for what you do, helping your clients. And again, this sounds a little bit like marketing speak. But I know everyone who has listened to this episode by now can hear the passion that comes through in the way in which you communicate and so that is incredibly important, because passion is something that I think doesn’t get spoken about enough in this industry. And, again, because it’s such a heavy emotional decision whether somebody buys or sells a home game, it’s heavy financial decision, emotional decision, it’s stressful decision to have somebody on your team who is passionate for you, the client, having your best interests in mind. And being able it doesn’t mean you have to be expressive. Everyone’s different. Some people are introverts, some people are extroverts. There’s different ways to express passion. It doesn’t have to be in exactly Diana style, but it works really well for Diana. But notice how authentic she is. She works hard, she sharpens her skills, she’s constantly trying to improve all of these years later and learn and continues to learn her numbers and the market. The passion for learning, I think, is really what I get the most is that was probably the most I’ve gotten out of you is this, this continual hunger for learning, learning, learning. And I think that allows you to continue to grow. So I want to honor you for that. I also want to say to our audience, by the way, if there are agents out there who are in the Gold Coast area of New Jersey, Hoboken What else, sorry, Jersey City, Hoboken, up the Gold Coast, if you are an agent who is looking, you know, this is the year of teams, this is the year of recruiting, this is the year where agents are moving around, you know, this is a good time to explore other options, if you would like to possibly, you know, see what other options exist or if you think you could be a value to the Sutherland group, or maybe you would want to join forces with them reach out to Diana and her team, and they can see if might be a match. And also, by the way, if you’re an agent in another area, or another state, even who have clients who you know, come and go, possibly moving into New York City or obviously New Jersey, but Florida a lot of people retire to Florida from New York City, of course, and other areas as well. If you have these feeder markets going in and out, Diana would love the opportunity to partner with you to work with your clients as well. But I’m Diana, if there is an agent in your area or someone that wants to work with you directly what’s what’s the best way they should reach out to you?

Diana Sutherlin 1:12:22
Um, well, definitely, you can email me at Diana at Sutherland group.com. And my spelling is unusual, it’s su t h e r l i n group.com. You know, they can absolutely reach out to me there, I’m actually interviewing somebody this afternoon. So you know, it or referrals, I love referrals, we I send people back and forth. And that’s another reason to have great relationships with agents, you know, it’s very important, they have to know that you are going to take such good care of their client, you know, because it’s their reputation on the line too. So, so referrals, anybody looking to possibly join a team, you know, that, you know, maybe we can, you know, discuss whether it’s a good fit, but thank you for that DJ.

D.J. Paris 1:13:20
Well, thank you. This has been an incredible Episode You said so much knowledge and wisdom and strategy. And I think more so than anything, just your overall presence is so in alignment with the only word that keeps coming to me is authentic, this, this authentic willingness to to really want to help somebody make this, these these financial these decisions around what they buy and sell and where they live. It really comes through in your energy and I suspect is a big part of your success. You are clearly clearly into the the end result for your client you are you are on their team, you are their advocate, and you are listening and paying attention. So I love, love, love, love that. And that came through just perfectly I think today so Advic, everyone learned a ton from you. And so if you are interested in working with Diana and her team, obviously you can reach out to her Sutherland group.com, we will have a link to that in the show notes, follow them on social media as well. Sutherlin group will have a link to that as well. So you don’t have to write it down. And also, Diana, on behalf of our listeners, thank you for your time we know just how busy you are, you know, with all of the different groups that you work with developers, clients, your own team members, thank you for your time today. And also on behalf of Diana and myself. We want to thank our listeners for continuing to support our show. Yeah, thanks for sticking around to the very end. Please support our sponsors. Please tell one friend of On this episode, just one other agent that is maybe struggling or maybe somebody that goes, I would like to start to work with developers or or just I want to be more connected to my, my sphere of influence, send them a link to this episode, and that will help them so just tell one friend in your office about this episode, we would appreciate it and also leave us a review for you. Whether you like us or not, we love feedback. So please tell us how you’re finding these episodes so we can continually improve for you Diana, thank you so much for being on the show. We are honored to have you Diana Sutherland. Amazing total superstar Rockstar in New Jersey and New York City as well. Diana, thank you so much. We will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Diana.

Diana Sutherlin 1:15:42
Thank you. Okay. Take care.

Josh Anderson with the Anderson Group talks about his transition from the Army into real estate business. Josh discussed the importance of the power of networking and making new contacts. Next, Josh shares some tips for agents to use as their strategy in knowing their clients better and providing better value. Lastly Josh emphasized the importance of standards and procedures for an agent needs to follow.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Josh Anderson can be reached here.

This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and Modwell.

D.J. Paris 0:00
If everyone in your sphere of influence got 36 touches from you over a 12 month period, what would that do to your production? We’re going to talk about it today. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads into interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? We’ll find out why agents across the country come to real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering clients a real estate sales and marketing solution to generate more business and real geeks is super easy to use. Their websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for the end user. Real geeks is also mobile friendly delivering an excellent user experience on the go. Real geeks includes an easy to use CRM. So once your leads sign up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up triggers. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase your brand awareness. Do yourself a favor and please visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. This episode is also brought to you from manuel.io who can take your listings and quickly virtually renovate them to show prospective buyers what’s possible, making your sales much faster. And for higher price points. Guys, this is awesome stuff and I’ll be telling you more about Manuel halfway through the episode. But for now, go visit manuel.io That’s mo d w e. l l.io. And now on to the show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through this show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top producer Josh Anderson of Nashville. Before we get to Josh, just two quick reminders. Please tell a friend about this show. Think of one of the realtor that’s struggling right now and send them a link and send him over to our website keeping it real pod.com Or just have them pull up any podcast app search for keeping it real, hit that subscribe button and also please follow us on Instagram. We’re actually on all the social channels but we’re trying to grow our Instagram channel because we post really great content there a couple several times a week we post short form videos How do you find us top agent interviews so go to Instagram search for top agent interviews or that’s our handle and hit the Follow button. We appreciate it Okay, let’s get to the main event my conversation with Josh Anderson.

Today on the show our guest is Josh Anderson with the Anderson group Real Estate Services in Nashville, Tennessee. Let me tell you more about Josh. Now Josh Anderson is a highly motivated individual who is passionate about Nashville real estate and dedicated to serving his clients and community. Josh was born and raised in Nashville. He graduated from Louisiana State University graduated from Louisiana State with a degree in international trade and finance. He served in the US Army for eight years including a 10 month deployment in Bagram Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. These experiences along with his education have instilled in him a strong work ethic, discipline, and a desire to give back. With over 17 years of experience in the real estate industry. Josh has helped more than 2000 families achieve their homeownership dreams. He has also built a successful team that consistently ranks among the top five real estate teams in the southwest region. Now Josh’s unwavering commitment to client satisfaction is reflected in the fact that nearly 75% of his business comes from past clients, his sphere of influence and Agent referrals. Please follow Josh on Instagram and Facebook. There’s two places you can follow him on on social which is at sorry, tag Nashville. So that’s one of his accounts tag Nashville. The other is the real Josh Anderson. And by the way, we are going to have links to both of those in the show notes so you don’t have to even search around will tag right to it. Also visit his website at Josh Anderson realestate.com. And let’s all welcome Josh and thank him for his service to our country as well. Josh Welcome to the show.

Josh Anderson 5:00
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. I appreciate that.

D.J. Paris 5:03
Well, thank you for coming on our show. The hardest part of interviewing top 1% producers is finding time to do it. So we appreciate you and the fact that you’re not just, you know, running your own business, you have a whole team to to help as well. And we appreciate your time today. So thank you. I’m excited to chat with you, and would love to learn how you got into real estate. So you were a military guy. And then were you doing real estate while in the military? I actually recently interviewed someone who was, but I’m curious to hear your story.

Josh Anderson 5:36
Now, actually, actually, well, I’ll tell you, though, the after high school, I was smart enough to know that I probably didn’t need to go from high school to college. So I went into the military and did that. And then went to LSU. And I was actually in my junior year of college, when I got a phone call walking into my last final of the semester, that I was going to be going to Afghanistan for a year. And they actually didn’t know how long we’re gonna go. They told us three months, six months, it ended up being about 1110 and a half, 11 months, my goodness. And so it was, you know, it was like within eight months of 911. So it was back in 2002. And, anyway, so I got into real estate in April of 2006. It’s funny, it was actually April 1, so April Fool’s Day. And, you know, I graduated in finance and economics and worked at an investment bank. And I think I created a idea or a story in my head of what that was going to be. And it just, it wouldn’t fill in the buckets, I wouldn’t be mentored, I wouldn’t be challenged. And so I was getting my real estate license in the meantime, just because I’ve, I’ve always loved real estate architecture. And so I ended up, I ended up doing that. And within the first three months, I sold my first house. So I think I sold 23 or 24 houses my first year in the business.

D.J. Paris 6:59
That’s incredible. That’s an incredible amount of homes. I’m curious, because at again, I know, a lot of times people listen, and they’re like, well, it was different back in, you know, the early 2000s. Or I’m not sure it was so different. I know, client acquisition. I don’t think it’s gotten easier over the years. If you’re a brand new agent. So curious on how did you get that many deals done in your first year? I mean, that is truly a huge, huge as you know, a huge number.

Josh Anderson 7:25
Yeah, so I guess I did, I did those 23 transactions really in about eight and a half or nine months. You know, I think I kind of approached it with I approached it with the idea that it was really kind of guerilla marketing. So I was I was out networking constantly, I was having breakfast with people lunches with people, I was doing nonprofit and volunteering activities. I joined the Junior Chamber and the Young Leaders Council and all these different things. Because I was trying to add as many people to my database as possible, and I was shaking as many hands as possible. And you know, when you’re new, I always jokingly tell people, I, I knew that people weren’t going to necessarily just do business with me. So there were a lot of people I was like, hey, you know, when somebody has a property to buy or sell, who do you refer? And they were like, oh, so and so? And I said, Well, can I be your second place realtor? And no money asked love that. Yeah, so nobody asks that question. Right. So you know, how often somebody said no, like 0% of the time, of course and so I was always the second place realtor for so many people and it just requires the first place realtor did not answer their phone or not be available for you to become the first place realtor. And I one of my, one of my best sources. Now I was just gonna say my, one of my best referral sources is he told me he would never do business with me because he had his he had his team. He had his guy. Yeah. And that guy didn’t do whatever he needed, and then the referral source and the agent ever since.

D.J. Paris 9:01
So I’ve done about 500 episodes, you’re the first person to give that particular tip. And I think it’s one of the very best tips I’ve ever heard because, well, not only do I like it, but I have a little bit of a personal experience with that particular idea. My father is a paper salesman and he’s been doing it forever 40 years, and he’s like the least salesy person you’ll ever meet. He’s just a wonderfully nice human being. And because he’s not very salesy. I always was curious, like, how did how did you, you know, win these clients over who were already with other paper salesman, you know, they all basically have this access to the similar products and pricing. He goes, I just always told them like, hey, if your current person like screws up, I’d love the opportunity to help you out. And he goes, I just would wait and I’d wait for that and it it built a very nice career for him and obviously, for you as well. So I love that tip. So for everyone out there listening, let’s make sure we have that ret holstered and ready to pull out when somebody goes oh, you know, I already have a real Sir, but thanks be like, hey, that’s great. If anything ever changes or if you’re ever dissatisfied, you know, with with anyone service, I would love to have the opportunity to win earn your business. That is, that is a wonderfully wonderful suggestion. Thank you for that our audience needs you. So I’m sorry, I so so you. So I also want to make one other point, you actually said something else that was it. This is not something that that is this is commonly said, but it’s something that’s so important. I’m glad you said it, which is he didn’t assume that everyone in his current database was going to use him. Right. And you know, he’s a new realtor at this point. Maybe there’s a lot of his friends that are like, yeah, maybe I’ll wait a few years before I’ll give Josh, you know, my $700,000 home to sell or whatever. I mean, that’s not an unreasonable thought, really. And I’m not saying you thought that but but it could have been one at some people in your database has thought. So the idea of like, gosh, my friends aren’t really calling me. Right away? Well, yeah, I mean, I don’t know that I would call my best friend who just got their license. But But what he did is he said, I need to add people to my database. So he went out, he did lunches, he did breakfasts, he did a volunteering, all of those things, add people to your database. And that is really the name of the game when he gets started. So cheers to that. And obviously, it worked 23 transactions in your first year as in credible? And then how did you continue to grow from there?

Josh Anderson 11:20
Yeah, and so just just going on that on that first year piece, you know, I probably did 75 open houses. And I tell people all the time, I don’t think I did a, I don’t think I did a single transaction from an open house. But what I what I did get was really comfortable meeting somebody and having to figure out what you need to say in the first seven seconds of meeting somebody and not hovering over them, but being available being a resource. So yeah, I don’t think I actually closed any deals from open houses. But I got really comfortable in front of strangers. In a house that wasn’t mine, that I didn’t know a whole lot about. I mean, I, I could read the MLS sheet. And most of these weren’t, these weren’t my open houses, it is one of my listings for open houses, I was just doing activities to get in front of people. And so that those are things that get somebody goes, Well, I’m not going to do 75 open houses to get zero business. But then you look up three or five years later and go, my scripts are better than yours, my objection handlers are better than yours, because I’m out doing all these things. And so I’d say the best thing that I the best things that I did in 2006. And I would argue that 2006 was probably a not as good but similar market to maybe 2018 1920. And then 2000 789 and 10 are probably a little bit more like we’re in now where it’s like hard to tire and hard to hard to convert. You know, conversion is very different today than it was five years ago. But I got really comfortable and very good. Looking back on it. I didn’t realize how good of a job I did with the basics. And when I say the basics, you know, time blocking, I literally to this day, you don’t you don’t have like they’re all outbound phone calls from 830 to 1130. Every single day, five days a week. And

D.J. Paris 13:15
let me let me pause you on that because that you just said something that that again, a lot of people say and then when people hear that, they’re like, Well, okay, what happens when you get that emergency tax, that emergency phone call the email that from a client, I need to speak to you right now and you’re in a time block? Obviously, nothing is absolute, you probably would break that if you needed to, but but how? How important is it that you that you keep on track during those those outbound phone call times? And do you even allow messages to come in? Maybe you don’t? I’m curious to hear

Josh Anderson 13:48
so. So everybody on my team makes fun of me? Well, two things I would say one, everyone. Is it their 911? Or is it your 911? Right? Was it their emergency? I mean, everybody else thinks everything is so important to them. But is it? Is it a priority for you? And so, for me, there’s nothing in real estate and 17 years that couldn’t wait two or three hours, there’s literally nothing, not one single thing. Even if there’s an issue at closing, like my, my administrative team can take care of that they can figure it out. And so that’s how serious I got about lead generation and lead follow up. And people always talk about lead generation but really lead follow up really worth it.

D.J. Paris 14:33
Before we get before we get to lead follow up. I did want one more question I meant to ask a few minutes ago and I forgot. But being that you are a military man and military is about process, precision, discipline, obviously hard work. Going above and beyond. I’m curious if there were any lessons I’m sure there were but anything that that that you learned in the military that you were able to take with you back into your real estate practice that really you think helped push you maybe where somebody who might not have had those experiences might not have those skills?

Josh Anderson 15:10
Yeah, I mean, I think there’s certainly there, there are standards and procedures for everything. And there’s also hurry up and wait, which happens a little bit in real estate. And that’s maybe why I’m so good at follow up is, you know, it’s like, when I think about follow up, I will follow up. Somebody told me early on in the business, it’s like, you follow up with somebody until they buy or die. And I like kind of probably took that a little bit to heart too much. But I really do. I mean, there, there was somebody we listed a property for two years ago that literally was in our database since 2009. And he never responded to any text messages any voicemails, called me one day while I’m in West Palm Beach at the Four Seasons. And he’s like, Hey, this is Sean. And I’m like, Hey,

D.J. Paris 15:57
like, trying to figure out who Sean is.

Josh Anderson 16:00
Yeah. And I’m like, he’s like, over on Fairfax. And I was like, Holy crap, this guy’s finally calling me This is unbelievable. Because I literally had lifting, you know, probably four to six or eight messages via text, email or phone call. He was on a market report, or a Market Snapshot. Then when we had top producer, there was like, unbelievable that he was responding to me. Of course, I was on vacation, right. But we ended up listing his property and selling it and it was like, Well, was it worth it? You know, it was a smaller condo near Vanderbilt University $300,000 $9,000 for I don’t know. 20 voicemails and text messages overtop? Yeah. Yeah. When?

D.J. Paris 16:44
When sake nine grand for 20 different text messages. Sure. Yeah.

Josh Anderson 16:49
But I but I win so much, because of the simple fact that I’m willing to follow up with people forever. I’m not doing anything massively different than most other people, except the consistency of doing it over time.

D.J. Paris 17:06
Isn’t it nice to that you have these very strict processes, it really helps take the emotion out of it as well, right. Like, I know, for me, I never went to the gym for people probably sick of hearing me tell the story. So I apologize if everyone listening is like, Oh, we’ve heard this. But the only reason I now go to the gym is because I have a trainer and I have a set appointment three times a week. And I just that just works for me. I know I’m going to show up if I have an obligation to someone else. And so I am I you know, one nice thing about having the standard operating procedures, these processes you created is you don’t really have to think like if you know, every day between 830 and 1130, you’re making your outbound calls, there’s not an option not to do it really right. It’s just like this is just what I do during this time, it becomes less of a challenge to talk yourself into it because it just becomes a habit.

Josh Anderson 17:56
Yeah. And it’s easy, I don’t have to like, really, from a time blocking person, I know exactly what I’m doing every day from 830 to 1130. And it’s boring. What I like about it is super predictable. And I know that if I make a certain amount of contacts, I’m going to certain I’m going to set a certain amount of listing appointments, or work with a certain amount of buyers, whatever it is, it’s almost guaranteed. If I make 20 contacts a day, I’m going to do a certain amount of deals every year, every month, every quarter. Well,

D.J. Paris 18:32
before we dive into your follow up process, which I’m super excited to hear about. I also just wanted to make make an observation that our audience has already made about you, which is or if they haven’t thought about this consciously, I’m gonna put this in everyone’s mind. Notice Josh’s tonality, notice how his his his way of speaking his inflection. Notice if it’s a calming presence, or if it’s a an alerting presence, where it’s, you know, some people they speak and you get this like fight or flight response, like oh my gosh, it’s it’s a little too intense. Notice how Josh comes off. Imagine meeting Josh in an open house. He said 75 of them is first year. Imagine that would would would you if you were walking into a home where you didn’t know the realtor or any you know brand new person. Would you rather have somebody like Josh now that not everyone’s wired the same, of course. But Josh’s voice is incredibly calming and relaxing. And people everyone listening you can learn how to manipulate your tonality in a way that’s authentic and puts people at ease. Josh is clearly somebody and maybe it’s a southern accent kind of thing that he’s got from Nashville. He’s a born he’s a born and raised guy there. But boy is is that not a calming? I mean, imagine that versus like a different type of accent from somewhere else that maybe isn’t as calming. So I just wanted to make that point that you have a very relaxing and easy to listen to voice. Way better than mine for sure. But um, let’s talk about the follow up process because this is really, really like been the key to your success. So walk us through it.

Josh Anderson 19:58
Yeah, before I get through that, that’s also neuro linguistic programming classes and all the all the all the conferences and all the things that I’ve done. Maybe a little bit of southern southern charm, and I don’t know. Thank you for that. So So today we’re talking a little bit about, like, what our what our 36 Touch program is. And, you know, it’s not just one piece of our marketing, it’s kind of encompasses all things marketing, which is such, it touches so many different pieces of our business down to the phone calls and the text messages, you know, the client events, the giveaways, the agent reviews, or the Google reviews, the agent referrals. So I’ll break some of that down. But really, all of it starts with kind of, you know, once a year, we do kind of the 12 week year in the traction book, and meet from a quarterly perspective. But once a year, we get together for our focus day, and it’s our one day all tonight, and we really work on. And there’s more data than just that one for follow up. But it’s knowing what our numbers are. And it’s putting an entire calendar together of literally month by month, quarter by quarter of all of our marketing, client events, giveaways, all of our social media, all of our reels all of our YouTube videos. So if you’re if you’re wanting to put together a really good 36 Touch, start with the idea of calendaring it, that doesn’t, that can be overwhelming if you’re trying to just be like, Alright, we’re going to do this all at one time. This has been a process over the years that we’ve taken client events off that didn’t get the ROI, or didn’t have as many people show up. And some of our easiest and best events and least expensive events have been our best turnout and some of our fixed cost ones that cost $10,000. And we’re like, oh 36 people showed up that sucks. And then other events where, you know, we’ve had 400 people show up. So it’s one of those deals that start with a calendar and and decide what’s important to you from a from a marketing perspective. So we know that we’re going to like to all of our past clients, they’re going to get a birthday call and an anniversary call, and a home anniversary call. And then they’re going to get you know, 12 postcards a year and 12 newsletters. So I mean, these are all relatively basic things. If they own a home, obviously, if their client, they own a home, we put them on a market report. So they get that, you know, either every two weeks or every four weeks. But breaking all that down is overwhelming, until you start breaking it down into pieces of your business. So our phone calls, you know, we realized, for me, maybe I’m a little bit robotic phone calls are easy for me, because when I looked at it, I said, Okay, what’s the best way for me to get in front of the most amount of people, it was either big networking events, or like niche events, but I knew a bunch of people were going to be there where I can shake hands with a lot of people, but then follow up with all of them afterward to get coffee or lunch or whatever it is. But I said, you know, I can’t do the Northwestern Mutual where I go and have coffee like eight times a day or whatever their appointment setting is, I’d love to do that. That’s the best quality probably for me. But to get 20 contacts a day, which was my goal, back in the day, was 20 contacts a day, I needed to be on the phones. So I needed a time block that three hours of outbound phone calls every day. And it still works, I still do it. And then I’m just a little bit more. I make decisions on what networking events that I do. But, but just breaking down some of these different things. So where I was going with that is the phone calls. Were hard for team members. And so we started doing client events to make the phone calls easier, because then they could just invite their clients to the events. And then they could say, well, while I have you how’s the house? Is there anything you need? Do you need our

Unknown Speaker 24:00
I love that. That’s smart. Yeah.

Josh Anderson 24:02
So it made it simple for them. And then, you know, if people aren’t doing Google used, not everybody wants to do them. But we have 804 805 Google five star Google reviews. Online, we’ve probably had 900 to 1000. Some of them get taken away occasionally, whatever Google’s algorithm is, but 804 five star reviews. We we can track every year since 2018. We’ve done at least 30 transactions a year that we can track from Google Reviews. Our average price point $650,000. So 30 deals you do the math, it’s it’s worth the time we’ve put in to do $20 million a year in volume just from that one source.

D.J. Paris 24:47
Just quick, quick, quick pause question for you around phone calls because a lot of people have phone dialing reluctance or that’s called the there’s a cute term for it, but but the unwillingness to want Pick up the phone. And obviously, the younger generation doesn’t talk on the phone at all anymore. Very, very much if at all. And so a lot of times people, especially younger people, like I didn’t grow up jumping on the phone that much. So this is this is really a challenge for me. My question is what, today what percentage of the time when you call do you get a voicemail?

Josh Anderson 25:21
Yeah, it’s probably at least 50%. It might be 60 or 70%. I don’t think it’s 75. But we leave voicemails and I know, and one thing I’ll say, before I talk about these voicemails is it’s not call reluctance. It’s value deficiency. It just truly is. You’re right. And so people can, people can say what they want, but you’re not call reluctance, you’re just value deficient,

D.J. Paris 25:47
you don’t have a good reason to call them. So you’re like, I don’t want to have a good reason.

Josh Anderson 25:51
Right? Yeah. So you don’t know what to say to them. You don’t know how to like, one of the biggest things that we talk about our trainers on our team is What does value mean to different people? Because for you value might be something completely different than what I value in a financial advisor or CPA or a doctor or a realtor. And so it’s called it’s, it’s, it’s value deficiency, because you really don’t know how to add value. It’s not that you’re not willing to, it’s just that you don’t know what the hell to say to them, or how to add value. As far as the voicemails, I tell my team always leave voicemails no matter what, because if you don’t leave a voicemail, they definitely don’t know that you call him. Right. I mean, for friends, they see that you call and they might call you back, but we’re talking about internet leads, sign calls, whatever, I always leave a voicemail, because they might check it. And they might call me back. But if I don’t leave one, they’re definitely not calling me up.

D.J. Paris 26:50
Yeah, I think you made a really strong point about call reluctance, this idea of, you know, Oh, am I making a sales call? Or am I actually calling with some specific value that I’m going to be bringing to the person who’s going to be picking up the phone. And if you do have that value really does, I hadn’t ever thought of it that way. But you’re so right, it, it pretty much eliminates the call reluctance, because you’re actually like, No, I’m gonna, I’m doing a good thing by calling for the person not not just selfishly, for me trying to keep my contacts satisfied, I’m actually doing something for them. And it makes those phone calls a heck of a lot easier.

Josh Anderson 27:25
I think you have to flip the mindset and come from contribution and go, you know, I always think of it like this, if I don’t call these people, they have to work with an inferior agent. And I don’t want them to work with an inferior agent. And I know, that’s like, maybe, you know, kind of ego driven, but it’s not, it’s more like there are a lot of good agents out there. And there’s a lot more bad agents, just like CPAs, and doctors and financial advisors, there’s good and bad and all these industries. And I know what I can provide my clients, and I know what value we add. And I know that a lot of other agents don’t add any value, and they just want to get a commission, and they’re never going to follow up ever again. And where the majority of our business comes from as long term follow up, and inviting them to our client events, and trying to educate them on how to be better business owners by doing trainings on a monthly or quarterly basis for one particular class, and then we do a wealth building class every month. And that’s not even real estate wealth building. It’s, it’s, I mean, that is certainly a large piece of it, but it’s more like, we all want to believe that we’re always going to make more money. But that’s just not the case, not for it, you’re not forever going to make more money every year forever. So how can we get better at not paying taxes? And can we invest in real estate or do flips or short term rentals? Or can we put our kids on payroll, things like that? So we’re educating our clients on that stuff?

D.J. Paris 28:57
Yeah, it’s it’s brilliant, actually. So we’re talking about value. So when he was when Josh was mentioning client, client appreciation events, you know, I’m immediately thinking and probably our audience is thinking Party Party Party. And yes, you know, I’m sure you have those obviously, you do have those as well. But this idea of continually adding value that isn’t just so you want to you want to buy your first home, well, let’s let’s get you into a seminar, which is fine too. But having this like, Hey, I don’t just sell homes. I also want to talk to you about wealth preservation, wealth building, maybe you bring in a financial advisor to talk about investments, you know, outside of real estate as well. There’s an accountant maybe like you were saying to talk about opportunities to you know, maybe you started S corp or an LLC to you know, to get some pass through income and things like that. So that is an absolutely brilliant strategy. It’s not one that I see a lot of realtors doing it at almost everything I see that Realtors do as far as events are usually around buying or selling real estate and again you said part of yours is about you know hey there’s passive income you can earn with through investments, real estate invest Yeah, but this idea of continually adding value, I think is like I would go to that seminar.

Josh Anderson 30:06
Yeah. And it’s even things as basic as like, Why do you have your money in a bank account, earning zero when you could have it in a money market account making four and a half percent right now? Yeah. And maybe your bank offers that. And that’s great. But you have to go ask them to do it, they’re not going to automatically give you a 4% if they can give you point, point 1%. And so we’re, we’re going through all these, like, one of my classes is 25, wealth building ideas. And it’s just ideas, it’s putting your kids it’s maxing out your HSA accounts. And it’s so it’s a lot of it is real estate, but a lot of it is not real estate, it’s doing a cost segregation on your investment property. I mean, my parents are in multiple commercial properties, they don’t even know what Cost Segregation is. And so and they’re intelligent people, they just have, they don’t know what it is. Yeah. And so, you know, it’s, it’s trying to figure out that value might not mean any like that class, for a lot of people, they’re just like, whatever. But for the ones that care and do want to save money on taxes, and do want to build wealth, it’s invaluable. And so that’s what we’re trying to do is constantly, and we do have the dinner party client events, the VIP events, we have things that are, you know, one of our best cloud events we’ve ever done is pictures in the park, it literally cost us a couple $100. And everybody forgets in September in October, that they’re going to need holiday pictures further or further pictures for their holiday card. And we have massive turnout in the fixed cost is literally like, if we have 100 people there, and it’s only $200 for the photographer to come out. Like it’s like a couple of dollars a person, it’s crazy, it’s amazing. And it’s something that I have to spend, you don’t have to spend 1000s of dollars you can do, you can add on to other events that are already like sponsored, I mean, there’s so many, you just gotta get creative.

D.J. Paris 31:59
And a lot of times too, with with photography, you know, family photos, in particulars, a lot of that gets framed a lot of it gets hung up on walls or put on on dressers or, you know, the set out for people to see. And, you know, that’s it also a memory that would trigger Oh, that was a Josh thing like, oh, yeah, I remember we went to that thing that just brought us to, that is a nice reminder, visual reminder of, you know, what you do without saying, hey, I want to put a you know, account a calendar for, you know, the local sports team on your on your on your fridge, and some people like that some people don’t. But everyone likes a family photo. And it doesn’t also have your name plastered on it. But inherently, your name is all over it, because you were the guy that facilitated that. So and yeah, the ROI on that is incredible.

Josh Anderson 32:44
Yeah. And so there’s just little things like, you know, this isn’t really part of the marketing, but it plays into the marketing, like when we meet with clients, buyer clients. Especially, they come into our office, and we do you know, a consultation with them. And we do a VIP intake form. So we want to know, their names, their birthdays, their anniversary, their kids names, do they have dogs? Do they have animals? What is their dream trip? What’s their bucket list? What what is their occupation? So we want to do an event or we want to market to all of our probate attorneys in our in our database. That’s how we that’s how we do is we get this VI, P and

D.J. Paris 33:27
you Oh, I just got

Josh Anderson 33:30
Yeah, VIP intake form is talking about and intake. It just allows us to know what their favorite candy bars and all these things. I mean, just silly basic stuff. But you know, the thing that I’ve told people all the time is if you if you send a birthday card to their kids, or you know their dog’s name, and you send their dog a treat huge, you’re winning them for life. And so I think those are really important things that you can do really inexpensively. And I try to tell my team, we need to be like the Facebook’s and the Instagrams and the tiktoks. Like their data companies, yes, their social media, but they’re actually data companies. And that’s important to think about when we gather, we get all their other information. I mean, think about we get everybody I mean, between the title company, the mortgage company and the realtor, we get as much information as Facebook has actually probably more sensitive information. And so I think that’s really important for people to understand is we have we have the ability to really go above and beyond and create like a four seasons experience or like a Ritz Carlton type experience if we want to. There’s a lot of people that just want to do transactions instead of have relationships. But my my, my database is my database has really done a lot more for me than just income. I mean, you know, some of some of my best friends have come Out of being in, you know, the Junior Chamber or Young Leaders Council type, class. And then they become clients and they refer me for life, which is income. But it’s also, you know, my ultimate goal is to be able to hang out with all the people that are clients. And that doesn’t always work out. But, you know, when we have 2000 clients, we really don’t need any more clients, we just need to do a better job of following them on Instagram, checking in with them loving on our database, and ultimately, educating them about wealth building, so they buy more real estate, it doesn’t have to be a traditional deal. It’s what if, what if your top 25 clients bought one house a year from you? So January one, you know, those 25 people are going to buy 25 homes? And then what have you had 10 more people in your database that were automatically going to refer you three people a year. That’s another 30 deals. That’s the 55 transactions a year. Most people that are watching this podcast probably aren’t doing 55 deals a year.

D.J. Paris 36:03
No. And so So you’ve basically determined your database can support and sustain that with all of the information that you are collecting about them so that you have a reason to reach out, for example, and I just want to highlight one of the examples you gave actually highlight two of them, because they’re super easy to do. What is somebody’s wedding anniversary, which you mentioned, I mean, for everyone listening, if you are married, when’s the last time either either somebody outside of your closest friends who happens to know your wedding anniversary, which most of your close friends don’t even know that outside of your family? And maybe a few close friends when’s the last time somebody who shouldn’t even know your wedding anniversary picked up the phone and said, Hey, man, Happy wedding anniversary. Hope you and your partner have a great day today. Nobody does that. I mean, that’s a simple thing. Another another thing that Josh didn’t say, but I know he does. Well, he did say, but I have an idea of of one way to help automate this. If you know, obviously, you’re going to know where your clients work, right? Maybe if both people work, you’ll know where both of them work. But you could literally go into Google. Yeah, Popeyes a great idea. And think about Popeyes brilliant idea. Because you can meet other people at their employer at their place of employment too. But I was also thinking, put Google alerts for all of those businesses. And you’ll get those news stories when they come in, and a great reason to reach out. It’s like we have Boeing here in Chicago. So be like, Hey, I just saw Boeing close to an amazing, huge deal with the military just thought that that was really cool. I hope, I hope you know, whatever you you can just be you’re talking about Facebook, you’re a data company, Facebook knows, they know where you work, they know all of this info, and they’re going to serve you up information that they think is relevant to your interests. Josh is doing this individually. Brilliant.

Josh Anderson 37:43
Yeah. Yeah. And, and I’ve gotten away from this a little bit, but the pot buys. I was doing up until COVID. And I just haven’t gotten back into it. But it’s something I actually mentioned. In the last couple of weeks to my Director of Operations, I was like, I gotta start. Doesn’t have to be all the time. But for me, it was like, I’m gonna go have lunch with somebody on Friday. And then I want the rest of my Friday to be pot bus. So wherever I eat in town, I want to look at my database who, who’s in that zip code? And who who can I? Where do they work? And can I either stop by their house, and we’re literally talking five or 10 minutes. I’m not trying to like, hijack their afternoon. I just want to get some FaceTime of hey, how’s it going? I was in the area I just felt like stopping by. Done.

D.J. Paris 38:32
And that’s and again, Josh is so intentional. And so well thought out that you go okay, well, if I just show up at my clients, you know, place of employment, that might annoy them. It might be there. They’re in the middle of something. So Josh is like, Hey, I just was in the neighborhood. I was down the street, I thought I’d swing by and I knew I knew we were over. So I just wanted to say hi hope all as well. And nobody says that nobody is going to you know, have a bad impression of that.

Josh Anderson 38:55
I even tell people when they got leave voicemails, hey, I was just thinking about you. I was in your neighborhood for a final walkthrough yesterday. Just wanted to check in see how the houses Call me if you need anything. That’s most of the time. They don’t call me back, but they do get the voicemail or they read it transcription on their phone. And it’s good. So gosh, you know, this is just like, This doesn’t have to be rocket science in our business. It’s It’s relatively simple. It’s not always easy, but it’s relatively simple. I mean, we’re not we’re not performing neurosurgery or anything crazy. Like this is literally just contact sport relationships. And just seeing just just checking in on people. And really check. I mean, like, one of the things we did really good during COVID was we really checked in on people like, I know, you know, when you talk to somebody and you’re like, Hey, how’s it going, man? And they’re like, Oh, good. And it’s like, no, but really like, Yeah, are you doing good? Like, I know a lot of people are struggling right now. Is there anything we can do for you? Are you you know, Unlike we paid a couple of people’s mortgage payments through our nonprofit, during COVID, because they could work, or we would go to people’s, a couple of my clients that own restaurants, we’d go and just get big ass tips to people because we could. And it was, you know, we didn’t know 2020 was going to be one of our most amazing real estate years of all time, and 2021. And, and so we were fortunate enough that those people took care of us, when it might not have mattered as much. But now we can go take care of them. And instead of giving a 20% tip, we can give 150% Tip If we need to whatever it is, especially if it’s a small, like a lunch that’s $15 it’s like, well, what if we just leave them another $15? Right? I mean, that helps out? And if that’s a win for them, and whatever, like,

D.J. Paris 40:52
yeah, it’s it’s no, it’s brilliant. And at absolutely there, I think most, most of the best gestures that I’ve ever that’s someone has ever done for me, they’re almost always usually on the smaller, like, if you wrote it on a piece of paper wouldn’t seem like a big deal. But to me, it meant it meant the world. So sometimes it isn’t even about, you know, and giving somebody 100% tip or 150%, if that is significant, because even if it’s only 15 bucks to them, they’ve probably not gotten a lot of 100% tips or 150% tips, and it just shows that you care, it shows that you want to help and it doesn’t even matter how big the gesture is. So you’re absolutely right. But demonstrating care and compassion is always the win, I think.

Josh Anderson 41:35
Yep. Yeah. And so, I mean, this isn’t, you know, this is all stuff we’ve built on over the years. And it’s, it’s good, Ken. And look, we’re not at a 10 We’re not I mean, we’re never at a 10 I don’t believe in 10s. I, you know, are we doing it at an eight and a half or nine? Sure. I think so. But can we always talk graded and make it better and make it a either a better system and process? Or can we make it a better experience? And so yeah, that’s what we’re trying to do. I mean, we don’t need to send, we don’t need to sell 10,000 houses a year, we need to sell a couple 100 and make, you know, help a couple 100 families a year and really be able to help them. You know, we had a girl here yesterday for one of my trainings. And actually all the people at my training were they were all clients that came to class that I created called the acronyms boss, but it’s business owners sharing strategies. And they’re all either small business owners or in sales or an executive or something. And she bought her house six years ago from us, and we’ve stayed in touch with her. And they were they were all just kind of saying how they all get postcards and all these things. But our nonprofit paid for her house. After she moved in. She had structural issues. And we made it right. Cost, it cost me us the nonprofit 12 grand to fix it. But and I don’t think that her work. The commission that we got from our house was 12 grand to be completely honest. But it was the right thing to do and like they had married have kids, and we want people to live in a good house. This

D.J. Paris 43:09
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Josh Anderson 44:48
And I also Well, we were gonna sell it at some point.

D.J. Paris 44:51
Well that’s that’s true. And I would imagine and again, you’re not doing it for the you know, for the pat on the back or for the market. And, you know, collateral you get for that. But you certainly do get a lot of appreciation from the vast majority of people that you help to that degree. I mean, they’re going to, I would I would assume they’re going to tell everybody they know, well, it depends, you know, if they’re comfortable sharing that information, but they’re going to at least feel it themselves, you they are never going to work with another realtor, you are their client for life, or at least you probably are. And they’re likely going to tell a lot of people you know, not again, that’s not why you’re doing it, you’re doing it because as you said, it’s literally the right thing to do. And and you took action, and most people wouldn’t, and that that’s huge.

Josh Anderson 45:37
Yeah. Well, like you said, it’s the right thing to do. And we were in a position to do it with our nonprofit. And that’s why we created the nonprofits, so we can help either other nonprofits or people you know, every year, we kind of do a, our Anderson group day where we go out in the community and volunteer. And if we can, you know, one year, we helped a lady whose aunt, her sister and her mom died in the same year, and she acquired all their stuff, and she had leaks in her house. And we were fortunate enough to be able to spend $23,000, or whatever it was, and we spent the day in our yard, cleaning it up, because it was a mess. And it was awesome. It was a team building event. It was good culture. Yes, it was strategic, kind of PR strategic giving. But it was, it was awesome. It feels good to make enough money to go give it to people that actually need it. I’m not necessarily saying I’m handing out that kind of money to people on the corner. But if I can help my clients or friends of my clients, and they’re in a real true need, it feels awesome.

D.J. Paris 46:46
And what’s nice about it is it feels awesome, no matter what else is going on in your life. And of course, Josh has problems just like everyone else, Josh has struggles, he’s got his wins and his losses and his personal challenges and his business challenges. He is no different from the rest of us. But when you give you at least those some of those challenges and troubles personally, sort of take a backseat for a little bit where you’re able to revel in, hey, I got some problems in my own life that aren’t perfect, and I’m still helping someone else with maybe some of their issues. And that is a wonderful way to feel while we may be going through challenges ourselves.

Josh Anderson 47:23
Yeah. And so some of the other 36 touch that we do, I mean, we’re kind of doing the high level stuff. But, you know, one of the big things for us is, is also volunteering, you know, every month and every quarter, we do a certain amount of volunteering. And it is, again, it’s kind of a team building event, not everybody can make it every time. Sometimes we have clients that come in down, and they’ve got to bolt out and go show properties, and that’s fine. But we usually do some kind of whether it’s second harvest, or feeding the homeless or whatever it is, even, even if it’s just giving money to somebody that’s, you know, giving money is not the same as going out and actually doing it but, you know, buying coats for the homeless when it’s the middle of the winter or buying, you know, I’ll tell you one year what I did, which feels really good to be able to go to Walmart, and buy like two buggies worth of just toys and stuff for kids that aren’t going to get much for Christmas. Pretty awesome. Yeah, so you know, a good day, that’s never gonna do that for my kids. But, but I did invite them to to go with me. And I was like, what toys and they were just dumping stuff in it, but it feels pretty awesome to be able to do that. And look, there’s plenty of other things I could do with that money, trust me, but it again, it goes back to can you help out and give back because you were fortunate enough and it freakin feels great.

D.J. Paris 48:52
It, it does. And again, it’s it’s a guaranteed win for you, the individual how you feel about yourself. And if it you know ultimately results in better customer service or, or client satisfaction, obviously great too. But at the very least, it’s something that you get to lay your head on the pillow at night after you do these events and go like I did something good today, when maybe you know not everything else in life is going well. It’s a really nice way to just build it a little good feeling to how people feel. And I wanted to ask you one last thing and I know we’re coming in at the end. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t think about this, you have a very calming presence. And I suspect you learned some of that from being in the military where I know they teach you about managing your heart rate managing your your, your sympathetic nervous system so that you’re not in fight or flight because you’re not going to have access to all of your best resources when you’re stressed and anxious. So how important is that for you now in real estate to be able to handle client challenges or challenge in a transaction? Is that is that a critical part of you know, keeping everyone calm and collected while they’re going through these ups and downs? For sure.

Josh Anderson 50:01
Look, we do this every day. Most of our clients, if not all of our clients, other than a handful of investors don’t buy certainly don’t buy a house more than once a year. So that’s a small percentage. Yeah, the average person’s bought a house every seven to 10 years. And even with the first time homebuyers that think they’re only going to live there for three or four years, they inevitably almost always live in it for five or six or seven or eight. And yeah, so you do have to, I mean, we’ve seen everything, so nothing. It’s not that it’s not a big deal. It’s just that we know how to navigate it. And so sometimes we have to take a deep breath, or step away and come back to it. But we do have to just say, Hey, guys, like I had one last night, there was kind of a final walkthrough. And my client called me and was like, Dude, I’m pissed. They left the door unlocked and left the lights on. And he’s already moved out. And he was just like, you know, he’s like, I’m responsible for this property until July 31. And, you know, he just kept texting me. I said, Look, dude, I said, I will call the agent in the morning, we’ll get it taken care of. It won’t happen again. They’ll have no more access to the house until July 31. When when when they are buying, they are the new owners. And it just kind of diffused the whole thing. I mean, I can’t do anything via text message at eight o’clock at night. I mean, he can be mad all he wants, but there’s nothing I can really do. And there was nothing really he could do. So he was really, truly just venting to me. Sure. And, you know, I just had to take it. And it’s okay. It was like, Alright, man, I’ll make it I’ll, we’ll make it right, we’ll get fit. Yeah, it’s

D.J. Paris 51:36
just being like, I totally get it man, I would feel similar. I get it, I will take care of this. And then you take care of it. And that’s amazing. Well, I want to also tell everybody who out there works as an agent in the Nashville area. If you are raising your your virtual hand right now, I would encourage you to check out Josh is Real Estate Group and team. He is always looking for good talent out there. So if you think that you would like to work with someone like Josh, or maybe you work in another market, and you have clients that move in and out of Nashville, I mean, it is one of the most desirable areas to move to in the last five or 10 years. So there’s a lot of people moving there. And you probably would want to refer that business if you know your clients moving. So if you’re looking for a referral source, or if you’re in the national market, you’re like, I don’t get this guide of trading or support for my own my own company, reach out to Josh and Josh, if somebody either wants to work with you, maybe a client or another agent, or an agent wants to refer to you what’s the best way they should reach out?

Josh Anderson 52:37
Yeah, best email that goes to myself and my director of operations is info at Josh Anderson realestate.com.

D.J. Paris 52:46
Awesome. Well, I want everyone to follow Josh on Instagram, Facebook, all the social channels look for tag Nashville. And also the real Josh Anderson will have links to that in the show notes. Also go to his website, Josh Anderson realestate.com. I would I would be switching brokerages if I lived in Nashville, because I would want to work with someone like Josh truly. And I’m not just saying that because you’re my guest today. But Josh is awesome. And he just has processed for everything and his process. It makes perfect sense to me. I’m a marketer, I love process, and Josh and his team are doing it. And they’re just nice people. So how about consider working with them reach out to Josh, if you think you’d want to maybe join his team or you have a business that he might be interested in. I also want to on behalf of all of our audience, Josh, I want to thank you for not only for your service to the country for for many, many years, but also your service to this industry, and giving back and all of the different things you do to help make your community better it is definitely appreciated by more than even just the residents of that community because we all get inspired to maybe go out and do some more good. And I really applaud you for your dedication to that. And also on behalf of and also Josh’s time. He’s busy. So thank you, Josh, for coming on our show. And on behalf of Josh and myself, I want to thank our audience, we want to thank you for sticking around to the very end and best way that you can help our podcast grow tell a friend that could just one other realtor that could could hear us I mean, he just gave some really great tips today’s so this is an episode worth sharing. So just share it with one other agent in your office. Somebody that’s struggling this year. Guess what every realtor is struggling this is a tough year. It’s a whoo it’s a tough year. So let’s help each other by passing this podcast over to your friends and anyone else you know that could benefit so Thank you, Josh. We will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks. Thank you

In our July episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @properties and Christie’s International discusses and shares tips on referrals. Carrie explains how important the referrals are and how to make them aiming people that move all the time from state to state. Next, she discusses why every agent should pay attention to having an appropriate referral that will benefit and add value to their business. Last, DJ shares his tip on your backup agent.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Carrie can be reached at [email protected] or by phone at 312.961.4612.

Please follow Carrie on Instagram by clicking here.

This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and Modwell.

Julia Boland talks about her incredible experience of 22 years in real estate business and how she transitioned from a career in fashion into real estate. Julia describes how much she learned when she started working as an assistant for an agent. Next, she discusses the strategies to use as an agent with the clients and the importance of preparing your clients before the transaction. Last, Julia emphasized the role of training which she and her team deliver for the new agents.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Julia Boland can be reached at (917) 690-4861 and [email protected].

This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks.

Ali Garced was an Active Duty Air Force Major as well as a full-time Realtor shares her experience and how she got into real estate from the air force. Ali explains she started in real estate through investing and for that she listened to a lot of real estate podcasts to learn strategies and what a client really needs. Next she talks about how being in the military has taught her how to make connections and discipline. Last, Ali emphasizes that real estate it’s not just showing beautiful houses but it needs time and commitment on the agent’s side.

Contact Ali here to ask for her checklists.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Ali Garced can be reached at [email protected] and (914) 318-4918.

This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and Modwell.

To get a $250 credit on your first Enhanced 3D Listing click here.

Welcome to another episode of Video Boot Camp for Real Estate Professionals with Kim Rittberg.

Kim Rittberg is an award-winning video marketing expert. From the hundreds of real estate agents she coaches, she’s realized the biggest hurdle is getting on camera. Why? How do you fight that? And once you fight through then what?  What should you make?

Plus – if you want to totally revamp your social media and easily attract clients over just 4 days – Kim has a really exciting Video Boot Camp Summer Intensive.

She’ll teach you how to sell more houses through video! From stressed to totally in control and easily growing your client base. Spots are filling up so you can apply here!

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Don’t forget to grab Kim’s Free Download – 10 Tips to Amazing Video   and follow her on Instagram.

This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and Modwell.

To get a $250 credit on your first Enhanced 3D Listing click here.

Sarah Stone real estate expert and a top producing broker with Douglas Elliman’s Manhattan office, talks about her transition into real estate business. Sarah talks about the lessons from her past job and how she leverages them for her job in real estate. Next, she discusses the importance of being a good sales person for her. Last, she talk about the value of relationship with the clients.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Sarah Stone can be reached at 917.693.0957 and [email protected].

This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks.

D.J. Paris 0:00
Today we’re going to talk to a top producer who built an amazing business in New York City. Then life changed and she moved out to Connecticut and had to start all over again and built an even bigger business. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcasts made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris I am your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment we’re going to be speaking with top producers Sarah stone. Before we get to Sara, if you want to continue to help our show grow, we just ask that you do really well three things I guess I’m going to ask for a lot today. One is telephone think of one other realtor that could benefit from these episodes. You know this is a tough year for realtors, especially if you’re working with buyers. So let’s help our fellow agents as much as possible please let them know about the show I appreciate it also support our sponsors, they pay the bills and we love our sponsors and we choose them very specifically only if they if I think they can add value to your business so please support them as well. And then third, follow us on social media. Almost every day we post short form video clips on all the major social platforms Facebook, Instagram, tik, Tok, LinkedIn etc. Where we post little best of clips from our episodes usually 60 seconds with an actionable strategy. So find us anywhere, any social platform just search for keeping it real, we appreciate it but enough about that let’s get to the main event my conversation with top producer Sarah stone

Okay, today my guest is Sarah stone from Douglas Elliman, she’s in Fairfield County, netiquette Greenwich, Westport, and also in New York and Westchester as well. Let me tell you more about Sarah, Sarah. This is really an impressive biography. So I really want you guys to clue in on this because we’re going to touch about a lot of what I’m about to mention here. So Sarah was a top producing a broker at Douglas elements Manhattan office at 575 Madison Avenue for a decade. She was Rookie of the Year during her tenure there in Manhattan. She sold many many high profile properties including 65th East 76 800 Park Avenue and the world famous Dakota Building which is at one West 72nd. She has now taken her experience knowledge and famed sales experience expanded it from New York into the Connecticut suburbs specializing in the purchase and sale of fine homes in both Fairfield and Westchester Counties. Sarah also has a finite for exterior interior design. She’s an expert in staging and decorating a home she she’s resided and raised children in both Bedford, New York and Greenwich, Connecticut. She is the perfect guide to find or sell your own suburban splendor. A former nationally ranked tennis player which I would love to ask a few questions to improve my own game. Sara spends her free time playing tennis and also pickleball and I do want to talk about pickleball because I am the noise of it is my only issue with Pickleball is noise. But it is a fun game. In one of Greenwich, Greenwich his most beautiful town parks or clubs Sara can also be spotted driving around in her vintage Mercedes convertible I want everybody to follow Sara on her Instagram she has an amazing Instagram following Sarah stone style so s s s Sarah with an H stone style we will so at Sarah stone style. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes and also a link to her Douglas Elliman website definitely check her out on social she does some really super cool thing. Sarah, welcome to the show.

Sarah Stone 4:57
Well, thank you that was an extremely ordinary intro, I really appreciate that. Thank you very much.

D.J. Paris 5:03
We really appreciate you coming on. Thank you, we appreciate you. And coming on our show is a big deal for us. We know just how busy top producers like you are. And it’s been the biggest and lovely a surprise for me as starting the show like five or six years ago in thinking, Oh, none of these top producers are ever going to have time for this. And yet here we are, like 500 episodes later, and still being able to get top producers like you to give us some time that I know is in short supply for you. So thank you. Thank you.

Sarah Stone 5:35
Absolutely. My pleasure.

D.J. Paris 5:38
Let’s start at the beginning. So how did you get into real estate and why?

Sarah Stone 5:45
So my journey to real estate actually started, I’d say fairly early on. Relatively speaking, I graduated with a degree in economics from Tulane University down south. And I I, at that time, my goal was let’s let me get a job that will make me the most amount of money, the quickest. I wasn’t like, oh, what’s my passion and what am I good at? And you know, not I was like, let me get into Wall Street and let’s get cracking. And that’s what I did. I worked for a mutual fund called Lord Abbott. That was my first Sure. Sure. At that I was in the GM building on 58th Street, right across from the Plaza Hotel. And I got my series seven, my series seven and 63 I

D.J. Paris 6:51
had those both as well my first job as a financial advisor, so I know that world. Yeah.

Sarah Stone 6:57
So I was working as I was selling working with regional managers to sell our various funds. And I did that for a little bit there. And then I moved on to another bank DLj which is back from that sort of a 90s was a boutique kind of bank back then that was bought by Credit Suisse First Boston while I was there. When when I as I was working at DLj. You know, I worked as a registered sales assistant for the bigger brokers retail brokers there. And it’s it’s very fast paced, high pressure. male dominated,

D.J. Paris 7:47
especially sell sell sell. Yeah,

Sarah Stone 7:50
business and frantically paced, although, you know, not not to say that this business isn’t. But it was just, you know, it was something like, oh, is this really did I pick the right thing for me. And this is when my introspective examination of of my, my thoughts and goals to really and truly were and, and this is another bit of diversion, but I was always into I wanted to be into acting theater modeling, and that kind of thing. So I said, Okay, you know, I’m going to try, I’m gonna go for all that stuff. I’m gonna go for my dreams, but the pay isn’t so great. When you’re starting out. So I said, I’m going to subsidize that with I’ll be I’ll sell some real estate on the side, you know, I had gone through the process of, of renting an apartment in Manhattan and I saw I got a little bit of of a window into how all that worked. And I saw my I asked my broker a lot of questions. And in Manhattan, especially, I mean, you’re paying back then you’re paying a 15% commission to the to your broker. And

D.J. Paris 9:15
yeah, let’s let’s talk about this. Let’s Let’s pause for a second because this is a very important distinction. What Sarah’s like, oh, okay, I really am acting modeling. I want to pursue that and I’ll do some real estate on the side. What what she What if you don’t know real estate, if you don’t know rentals in New York City, one of the things that she’s explaining right now and I apologize for being rude and interrupting but I want to make sure everyone understands is very different from pretty much every major other major market, maybe Boston’s a little bit this way too. But Boston and New York I think, are the only two markets that do this where oftentimes the renter, the renter pays the Commission, which is a tough sell, right? That is hard. Oh, by the way, I need an extra $5,000

Sarah Stone 9:57
Yeah, on top of I mean, You know,

D.J. Paris 10:01
on top of first month, last month, first month

Sarah Stone 10:03
last month and your security deposit, and here’s another, you know, 15% of it of the years rent. So, yeah, definitely, it was something that that I made note of when I was going through the process like, oh, doing the math, you know, let’s see if, and this is just rentals. You know, I wasn’t even thinking about the sales game then. So, I had a friend, I had sort of a connection at Douglas Elliman and, and they walk, you know, they said, let’s give it a shot, do your thing. And that first year, I made 10 times what I made doing the acting modeling gig in real estate, so amazing. I found that I really had a knack for it. And not only that I really enjoyed, I enjoyed, get up because I just love New York City so much. And I found that I really had so much passion for just checking it all out and getting to know all the different neighborhoods. And you know, and like, how great is that, like, my job is just kind of cruising around the city and checking out all the all kinds. I mean, especially in those early days, you wouldn’t believe like, what I was, wasn’t all glamour, trust me, it was, you know, I was trying like to sell this studio that was above Subway sandwich shop.

Unknown Speaker 11:39
Now like smell like bread all the time subway

Sarah Stone 11:42
bread, I still to this day, I burned my son’s memory to Subway, I can’t do it just takes me back to like, you know, I was probably I must have shown that thing over 50 times. So I spent a lot of time in that department. But that’s sort of like how it was. It was definitely the money was great at that time. And, and it was, I found that I really enjoyed it. And it was something that I was really good at. So it I just sort of morphed more and more making that into my full time occupation.

D.J. Paris 12:21
And so so you really built your career in the city, and then you’ve then made eventually made a move. And so essentially, I mean, it wasn’t like you moved across the country. So it was neighboring, but still far enough away, where it’s a different world, at least a bit of a different world. And having to sort of start over essentially, is incredible. It’s almost like, it’s almost like an attorney who passes the bar in New York, and then all of a sudden is like you don’t think I really want to live in Arizona? It’s like, well, they don’t have to, they don’t have to go do it all over again in Arizona, right? You know, and so you essentially had a similar kind of experience where you were moving from Manhattan, which is insanely, a challenging market to be a realtor, and whether you’re doing rentals or sales. I’ve interviewed tons of people, even from your firm who work in New York, how challenging Of course, we all know how challenging it is. And then to then go somewhere else and say, Oh, I’m going to like start all over essentially. And I understand it’s not completely starting over. But essentially it is. So that is even more amazing is that you’ve sort of you were Rookie of the Year in New York, and then you know, back into the suburbs as as your life changed. And so what was that transition like like going to a new market, a new area and trying to build your business again?

Sarah Stone 13:38
Um, well, it was it I was I’m very grateful for my firm Douglas Elliman because that the fact that they’re the biggest mover of real estate in Manhattan, and and they had, they had opened up a an element office in Greenwich about five years prior to my joining so they have nice established referral thing going on, on their own. I stepped in with some a lot of pre existing relationships with brokers that I had worked with in Manhattan while I was there, and when while I was in the city, I should mention I was you know, I worked in three different offices while I was there, I was a 575. But I was also on the Upper West Side for a little bit. I worked at nine at Madison for a little while. So I really got to know a lot of brokers and and and in this business you’ll find I mean, people go 20 years in this business easy. So there’s a lot there was a lot of people that are still very much active in their careers that I have worked with back then. So it was a very I was very lucky to be able to light up those relationships and Knock on you know, not call call people up and say, Hey, I’m back in the game, what have you got? Let’s go. And and it was the timing couldn’t have been better obviously with that the start of the the pandemic and the major shift the demographic shift that we all saw from the city to the suburbs. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 15:21
was that really was good timing. Actually, it wasn’t it was accidentally good for you. Yeah. What a fortunate what a fortunate thing. And, and yet still, there’s still a lot of competition, of course, where you are, and there’s a lot of great realtors. And so, you know, you, you, I’m assuming you were able to take a lot of the sort of habits and disciplines and that you learned, you know, we’re Yeah,

Sarah Stone 15:46
I mean, I think, you know, being a good salesperson is being a good salesperson, you know, like, you remember the, the, the Wolf of Wall Street. And that last scene, you know, he had gone to, to the federal prison for for, you know, his his tax evasion and fraud, wire fraud and all the stuff that he had done. And he got out and then he was giving seminars across the country and holding, he said,

D.J. Paris 16:19
Sell me the patent. Yeah. Right.

Sarah Stone 16:23
And like, and that’s sort of the that that’s the spirit, you know, like when if you have this skill, it can, it can really work across a lot of different platforms. So while I was doing it, and I was, you know, a realtor in Manhattan selling coops and condos, it my skill set was very applicable as far as as selling homes here hear up in the suburbs. It’s just you know, we didn’t have to happen septic tanks, and we didn’t worry about that, like, sewer sewage and all that stuff, roof. There’s a whole other aspects of, of real estate that goes on here that isn’t necessarily I mean, that in the city, you have to worry about Co Op or packages, which forget about it. I don’t miss those whatsoever.

D.J. Paris 17:15
I always loved when my sister bought a condo, or sorry, Co Op, in the West Village, many, many years ago. And my sister’s kind of a little superstar in her own in the industry she’s in and she was certainly more than qualified to buy this Co Op. And she you know, they got the offer accepted. And I this is like a million years ago, and I didn’t know anything about real estate. She’s like, Oh, now I have to go for my interview. And I was like your interview. I was like, what is that and so if you’ve no one’s ever dealt with coops before, you can obviously look this up. But there’s typically an interview process to make sure that the because coops are slightly different its ownership share. So everyone’s kind of owning everything to a degree. So they want to make sure that you’re not some total Bozo who’s gonna screw everything up for everyone. And so oftentimes, you do have to go in front of the board and forget about forget about that you put 100% down or whatever. They’re not evaluating that they want to make sure personality wise that you’re not a total joke.

Sarah Stone 18:13
They want to know who your best friend was, instead, they want to know your blood type. They want to feel your bank accounts. I mean, they they want to know every little detail about you and you have a package about that thick in front of you.

D.J. Paris 18:27
Did you ever see Did you ever have a deal go south because the personalities didn’t line up? Did that?

Sarah Stone 18:32
Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was I learned that that game very quickly. It was a the my very first one of my first Co Op deals, I remember I was dealing with a building on the Upper East Side. That was a very snooty you know, consider themselves quite a an established and and you know, prestigious buildings a 50% down require you had to put down at least half and then you had to have at least three times the amount of the apartment in liquid assets

D.J. Paris 19:13
in liquid assets.

Sarah Stone 19:15
Yep. On. So I did have like $4

D.J. Paris 19:17
million sitting in cash.

Sarah Stone 19:20
Yeah. And then my I had a client who was like, I’m paying all cash. And PS I have $50 million in the bank account. Let’s Let’s rock and roll. The board came back and said, Okay, we’d like to do the interview in on July 15. They my client said nope, July is no good. What do you have in August? So that was all they needed that that was that? That was Yang.

D.J. Paris 19:52
Sorry. You’re not a fit. We need you to come in July. Yeah, I’m amazing.

Sarah Stone 19:57
That was that they said if this guy’s If that’s how he’s gonna play it for you, I mean, you have to as though you’re approaching you’re, you’re getting an introduction with the queen. I mean, that’s how you have to think of it like you have to be so honored. You have to like, if you’ve got plans, forget it. You don’t care. Let’s go. Like, isn’t that

D.J. Paris 20:18
amazing? Oh, yeah.

Sarah Stone 20:19
Different world you come? I learned that very quickly. Yeah. And you probably

D.J. Paris 20:24
have to have to then prepare your clients for those interviews and say, like, Okay, here’s, here’s some suggestions about like, don’t speak unless spoken, you know, or whatever. But, uh, you know, only give the right answer don’t, whatever, whatever the you know, that same sort of thing, if you’re going in for like being deposed by the attorney, don’t say anything.

Sarah Stone 20:43
But, like, happy and affable, and, you know, talk about your golf handicap and the tennis match earlier that day. And that’s about it.

D.J. Paris 20:55
So moving out to the suburbs, moving away from the co ops the condos, more of single family homes, and really kind of learning a new inventory, I’m guessing, you know, is going out there and really trying trying to learn that. Real quickly, though, just curious. I want to go just briefly back to your very first year doing, you know, rentals and maybe some sales in in the city in New York. How do you think or why do you think you did so much better than so many other rookies that year? Was there anything that that you can say, you know, I was really good at X, Y, or Z, or I just did things that other people wouldn’t do. Just curious in what you thought made the difference for you?

Sarah Stone 21:36
Well, for me, it was I worked as an assistant to one of the top producers and a legend and I was very lucky to work for this man. His name’s Robbie Brown. He is he’s no longer with us. He passed away a couple of years ago, but he is a legend in the industry, and an incredible guy and, and not at all, like a typical broker, like he was laid back, he rode a bike around the city, you would ride a bike to, you know, to your listing appointments. He was he was so cool and casual about it. But that was on the exterior. Meantime, he was hustling like nobody’s business, you know, he was he was a great networker. He went to every party, he went to the opening of an envelope, you know, he was there. He He nailed the world, you know, he had people working for him that he just grind at it to send, you know, postcards out, blanketing the city with with mailings. You know, like that old age old adage that we love so much, if you throw enough shit on the wall, some of its gonna stick type thing. This really applies when it comes when it comes to this. And the other thing that I learned from him is the value of relationships. She had certain clients that that he worked with that it like it always goes back to the you know, it being a referral business. Right. So like he had certain people that he that he worked with that that was provided a pretty steady flow of of listings. And one of those sources was from a state attorneys

D.J. Paris 23:39
huge, huge deal. Yeah.

Sarah Stone 23:41
And and I, I thought, you know, when I saw when I went out on my own, I emulated him to the tee and I first thing I did was I targeted attorneys are so smart. And I did and it didn’t take that it didn’t take too many you know, I had probably two or three estate attorneys and I have one divorce attorney kind of that I really worked on developing those relationships with I would show up in the their office with lunch I would send you know bring donuts in the morning I went around introduce myself dropping business cards saying hello to everybody in the office you know to the point where they started throwing me some listings you know smaller ones at first and then when those would go well it would they give me the bigger ones and that’s that’s how I ended up getting that Dakota listing was through this estate attorney. Yeah, so it really is it you know if you have if you think about it, it makes all the sense in the world if if you have a loved one that had died and owns a Manhattan apartment, of course you’re gonna go with who your attorney recommends you use, especially if you’re not if you you know, if you’re the benefactor of the estate, you don’t live locally or you just hand it right over. And so I would have to say that that was really the most, that was a critical move that I made that that differentiated me from the rest of my of my pack. Let’s call it my incoming class.

D.J. Paris 25:31
It’s funny, because I’ve, I’ve certainly heard of attorneys calling divorce attorneys and of course, estate planning attorneys make all the sense in the world. I don’t know why that wouldn’t have occurred to me. But I think you might be the first person and all the hundreds of episodes we’ve done that have mentioned estate planning attorneys. So I’m, I’m almost thinking they may be a bigger opportunity in certain ways, because a lot of agents maybe do think I should call a divorce attorney and get and you should do that, of course, should build those relationships, but estate planning attorneys maybe go a little bit a little bit forgotten

Sarah Stone 26:03
about the radar, but yeah, absolutely. That’s brilliant. Yeah, that’s 1,000% that even more so than divorce attorneys, I’d say because, you know, divorce can get complicated. And, and typically, especially if they’re two people that are two parties that are have vested interest in in that apartment, usually, you know, somebody knows somebody, they lived in the town, they’ve got somebody they want to use, you know, you’re they’re less likely to need the referral than an estate attorney rate

D.J. Paris 26:37
point, because a lot of times when mom and dad pass, and the kids now are to deal with all the estate stuff, or one of them is people are either moving, or they living in different places kids live

Sarah Stone 26:50
in Wisconsin. Yeah, they don’t want to know from that they just, you know, it goes to the probate court and goes through probate probate, I should say, and, and they’ll, they’ll trust their attorneys to handle it for them. And that’s a really good spot you if you have a few relationships with with some very, you know, successful attorneys that have quite a few clients or estates that they handle it. Definitely that that is a huge place for for inventory.

D.J. Paris 27:28
I could see I could see two people, realtors doing webinars or in person, you know, events, where it’s like, Hey, if you haven’t done your estate plan, I’m gonna bring my my my estate planning attorney, and we’ll do a little combo of like, you know, a little present. Right, right. I could see that being

Sarah Stone 27:46
that shares. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, totally. Definitely, that that’s very much the case. Again, with you know, your with attorneys, you know, it’s you’re not supposed you can’t, technically you cannot get they are not entitled to a commission on that. So like, you can’t say, oh, well kick it back to you, you know, but you can in other ways, you know, tried you have had them benefit from from your business as you are from from theirs. And that is one way is bringing them in for something like what what you’re saying like a seminar or recommending them to your audience or your sphere of influence? You know, that’s definitely,

D.J. Paris 28:31
it’s actually even more brilliant in a way that I’m thinking, at least from my perspective, because everybody who owns a home needs a will. Right? So it’s like, every single person you work with could potentially be a referral to I mean, you know, depends on what that Estate Planning Attorney What kind of client they want. But like, every single person who owns a home should have some sort of estate plan in place, even if it’s just some, you know, easy well, that that they could do, but it’s a really smart because not everyone gets divorced. So it’s just like, Well, somebody’s getting divorced, I can certainly refer them to my to my, the attorney I like, but everybody needs an estate plan. So it’s actually you everybody, such as

Sarah Stone 29:11
a few things, you gotta pay taxes, and you gotta die. Those two things are

D.J. Paris 29:16
and we don’t know when. Yeah, yeah. Let’s let’s talk about I want to talk about the state of the market today, because you’re a huge producer. And the market is, at least I’m in Chicago. We have about 800 agents here at our firm. All I hear about in our agents are great. I’m not here criticizing them at all, but I hear a lot of people being nervous about rate where rates are with lending, obviously are higher than then. I mean, they’re always too high for anyone really, but they’re certainly higher today than they were, you know, two or three years ago. And you know, we’re approaching the sevens for you know, most 30 year fixes and fixed and then and then also inventory being because there’s This disincentive to move right now. Right? So if like, if I have a 3% mortgage, which I do, you’d have to really make a strong knot you but but a realtor would have to make a very strong case for me to go, I want to go from 3% to 7%. Like, that’s a tough, tough thing to swallow a tough pill to swallow. And what are you? What are you experiencing? And how are you coaching some of your clients through this, so that they so that there can, it can make sense for them to make these decisions?

Sarah Stone 30:29
Well, it’s, it’s been, it’s been tough, and that it really is a double whammy, because we’re just coming off of COVID, you know, the pandemic surge, where a lot of people that were sort of teetering are on the fence about selling, you know, it was in their five year plan, let’s say, and then this thing happens, that drives the value of their of their investment up some 20 30%. And you’re like, Well, gee, I better cash it. So we had a lot in the last two, three years, we’ve had a, we’ve seen a lot of that where people are, are cashing in their chips. So you’ve got a pause in, in the, in the action of of those, those people that would have been putting their homes on the market they’ve already sold. So we’ve got, we’re taking a hit from that side. And then we’re taking another from the interest rate side, because, like you said, to me, people are sitting, enjoying their two 3% rates, but they’re not seeing a dip in prices to incentivize them to if they if they want to, you know, downsize get something bigger, if they weren’t, you know, we’re just not, it’s just not, there’s no incentive for them to move unless you’re moving to an entirely different area. Or if you, you know, let’s say you’re in a certain zip code, because of the school system, and, you know, you want to move to a town where, or a different part of the country where the cost of living is much different. It’s, or it’s really, like, it’s not a choice, like you got to move because of your job or because of a divorce or it’s just, you know, one of those instances. So we’re really suffering with the inventory, and buyers are frustrated, it’s a really tough time. I mean, I can’t even imagine, you know, I have I’m working with buyers right now that are in, you know, in, I’ve got buyers that are in the 5 million plus range. And then I’ve got several buyers that are in the like, one to three range. And the one to three range is just

D.J. Paris 32:58
for get it is so much competition,

Sarah Stone 33:02
so much competition and they’re in they’re going in, they’re putting in offers, they’re waiving contingencies, you know, mortgage contingency appraisal, contingency inspection contingency, forget it, you know, we’ll pay, like, we’ll pay all cash, we’ll close when you want. Well, like, you know, we’ll, we’ll put a statue of your family in the backyard for the rest of us for the end of time for us to worship at your feet. I mean, but you’re, you’re going against 30 other applicants, like there that you are in a bidding war amongst, you know, there are literally got, we’re going against 2025 different bids. So how do you win? I mean, it is so so tough. So a lot of times like right now when I’m dealing with my buyers, as I’m looking at, you know expired listings, and I’m looking at you know, I’m knocking on doors, I’m I’m trying to go off market, because once you get involved with all of that craziness when when you are first to four weeks to market on the MLS, if you’re priced appropriately, it’s going to be a madhouse, I mean, if you’re overpriced, you’re overpriced, and that’s that you can’t do anything about that. But like if you’re, you know, your listing and that the one to three range, it is going to be an absolute zoo and you’re competing against the same people over and over and over again. It’s incredibly frustrating.

D.J. Paris 34:39
Are there any any tips you have to stand out in those offers? Any suggestions of you know, obviously, you don’t have a ton of control over all those multiple offers, but just anything that has helped you get a little bit of an edge when you’re submitting, you know, an offer that you know is getting a dozen or more other offers. so

Sarah Stone 35:00
well. So again, this is where relationships do play a big part. Because when you start to do a lot of business and a certain market, you get to know all the players, right. So like, if I know the listing broker, I know I’ve got an advantage because I can I can talk or, even better yet, if I’ve done a deal with that listing broker and we know each other, we can trust each other, then I know that I can go to I can, I can talk with that listing broker more frankly, and get more information for my client than then some than an unknown. So that’s where experience really is crucial. If you want to work with someone who’s been around the block a few times to know, because knowing the landscape, knowing the players really makes a huge difference. Because if it’s between you, and your client, or you know, Joe Schmo that, from some firm you’ve never heard of,

D.J. Paris 36:02
with the exact same offer, you’re gonna, you’re gonna win

Sarah Stone 36:05
equal, right, you’re gonna get it. So I would say that, that does play a part, for sure. The other thing I recommend doing is, you know, the family resume always helps like that. Cheesy, kind of, like, we love your house. And we like the love letter. Yeah, right. And the photos with the family and like, you know, because people, you know, homes are very, they’re very sentimental, meaningful things to people who who’ve raised a family and a home and spent decades of their life caring for this home, they really want to make sure that that home goes to somebody who’s going to do the same thing. You know, that’s just, it’s almost like, there is such a powerful emotional connection to, to a home that you’ve lived in and raise your family. And you really, you don’t want to sell that home to like a developer, you know, or some investor, like, you know, somebody representing like a, some guy in, you know, in some Russian oligarch, or something, sorry. You know, like, like, if you’re a nice, nice, you’re nice people that that have, you know, like you, you want to be like the school system, you’re a nice family, you absolutely want to present that to the sellers. And there is you can get an edge. I mean, I just, we just experienced this recently with a, with a deal that I’m doing in the moment at the moment in Bedford, New York, and in Westchester County. It was between my people. And, and, or it was gonna go to this developer who actually had put in a higher offer than we did. But this is, you know, they’re young couple, they want to raise a family in this home. They love so this was, this is another thing that that’s this is a tip that people love getting compliments on the work that they’ve done or the upgrades that they’ve done on the home. So you know, knowing like, this was a 1930. Just almost, it’s a gorgeous home that but they did so much work to it, upgrading it, decorating and painting and the moldings and the chandeliers, they did all the fireplaces over they, they really did a wonderful job. So we wanted to just throw, we wanted to tell them what a brilliant job that they had done how much we love the the the materials that they used in their kitchen, we love the the kitchen island that granite is, you know, get detailed. People love that stuff they love like, they like, you know, why do we do anything? Right? Like why do we renovate our kitchens and bathrooms and put all this all the stuff on the wall? Because we want people our guests to come in and say, Ooh, wow, great to have you like that’s why we do it. Right? So like to get that recognition to get that kind of like that’s going to get that’s going to work in your favor. People do what

D.J. Paris 39:39
what percentage, what would you guess because you are up against multiple offers, of course in the price ranges you’re at. And you know, you’re coming in with some of the more human parts of it. They’re like, Oh, we really love what you did with the kitchen, the blah blah, you know, and you can talk about that or even maybe the by a couple can record a little video or type out a letter or, you know, hey, oh my god, it’s so amazing. What percentage of offers Do you think Do That? Is? It’s kind of it’s it. I know it was more popular during the pandemic, when there were so many offers where it was like you had to do something to stand out. But now that that’s subsided, but inventory still low in there a lot of multiple offers now, is that a common thing? Or is that just something that like, I imagine most Realtors don’t do that they just put in the offer? See what happens?

Sarah Stone 40:30
Yeah, I guess it depends, you know, on the deal. It depends on you know, like, for example, if I’m representing one of those states, from the, you know, referral from a state Attorney, like those kids in Wisconsin, they just want, they want to divvy up the money, they got it, split it four ways, they don’t care, or something. It doesn’t work all of that that’s not sure. Not all the time. I guess it’s it, I would apply it as needed. It’s a situational kind of vibe, vibe out, you got to suss it out and see when it’s appropriate and where it’s appropriate. And of course, like, if it’s appropriate for your client to be, maybe you’re not representing a really nice family, like maybe you are representing, you know, an investor or somebody that wants to put a subdivided or do all or gutted or who knows. So it really, it’s that sort of a Yeah, apply as needed is what as is how I would phrase that. And that’s, that a good broker can can vibe out, especially if you are, if you’re, if you’ve worked with that listing broker before, you know that that’s in the, in the due diligence information gathering stage, a good broker should be able to guide you through that,

D.J. Paris 41:56
ya know, for sure I love that tip is, is if we think that the sellers have an emotional attachment to the upgrades they’ve made, that can be something that the agent can ask the other agent, hey, my client really loves what you guys did with the kitchen. And then they can configure out how much you want to oppress that in the in the offer. But certainly, people are always loved to be complimented on their work. So that is, you know, even even if it doesn’t win, win the bid, it certainly is a good practice to compliment people on what they’ve done right with their house. Because also, if they’re like most of us, I think most of us like we look in the mirror, and we see the little imperfections in ourselves. And I think most people think about that way with their home as well. It’s like, Yeah, I did this project. But then there’s like 10 Other projects I had didn’t get to. So most people look at their home. They’re like, Ah, God, I have so many things I have to do, and I haven’t done and then when somebody comes in is like, oh, that thing you did is really cool. It’s like, oh, yeah, that’s right. I did do that thing. Yeah, that’s really it’s a nice little reminder.

Sarah Stone 43:05
Yeah, I mean, at home, your home is your an extension of yourself. It is a representation of yourself. Absolutely. And just like you said, we look, we, when we’re living in it, we don’t see how fast we look and see the flaws. And we think everyone’s gonna come in and say like, Oh, that is like the wall color. She pin. Oh, like that, you know, I remember when I first got my first apartment on the Upper West Side, and I stayed the floors really dark. You know, so it was like this pre war apartment. And like, the walls were this really high ceilings. It’s like these moldings, beautiful, like, classic six apartment on the on the Upper West Side. And I stained them. Like, I just went for it. I stand in like ebony color, you know, so really shiny and kind of contrasted the white walls and everything. But, of course, I was like, Oh, God, is it like so? Is it too dark? Like did I pick the right shade? And I remember like walking, I would pray I would walk in to get my first impression of the place and then walk back out and then walk back and to like, get a fresh like, I must probably do that 20 times. And you know, my, my husband at the time was probably like, oh my gosh, she’s she’s totally gone berserk. But it was that first friend that came over. I remember her name is Eve we went to college together. She came over and she said I love your floors.

D.J. Paris 44:47
And then you never had to think about it again.

Sarah Stone 44:49
It’s like, Oh my God. God bless. Like, yeah, it just yeah, you need affirmation. we all we all love and need affirmation.

D.J. Paris 44:58
Well, I have I Have an all white condo, everything’s white, or like white and black, the fixtures are black, you know, but like the countertop stuff, the floor is light, all the walls are white, and I can’t wait for like 10 years from now, somebody will walk in and go, what were they thinking? Because everything changes, you know, at some point, like the all white thing will just not be cool anymore. And everything is going to look goofy at some point in history. So it’s funny. So you know, I just I’m looking forward to that kind of, because I remember when I bought my condo before in 2005, and we were doing certain things with granite. And that was real popular. And now it’s like, we look at those goofy granite. Some of the goofy or granite colors were like, what were they thinking? It’s like, No, that was in back in 2005. And now, you know, the white thing has kind of been in for the last five years, and it’s probably

Sarah Stone 45:52
leached floors that was that how to run or it was like, you know, those like bleached wood and Nantucket II kind of shingles and that like everything’s just like, been in the sun for too long, kind of

D.J. Paris 46:07
it is it is funny, but it is it’s important. I think agents sometimes forget that that like, there are real if you’re representing buyers, there’s real human beings on the seller side. And if you have a good relationship with with the listing agent, and and that’s where it’s really important to play nice in the sandbox, right? It’s like always, and look, I know, especially I think women get I mean, I don’t want to generalize based on gender, but but I think women get this much worse than men is that there’s just a lot of jerks that are realtors in the industry too. And I know a lot of women who are who are very successful in real estate, who are like, you would not believe the way I get spoken to by other realtors on a regular basis. Like Nice, nice. You see, you’re nodding your head. And it’s like, Well, how could I ever be mean to Sarah, she’s like a lovely, sweet person. Oh, she has to deal with this too. And the reality of it is it only is ultimately going to hurt the other agent if they’re a jerk to you. Because you’re not going to forget that.

Sarah Stone 47:02
Yeah. I mean that especially like the whole like listing broker buyer buying broker dynamic. Like if you’re the listing broker, you are like too cool for school like you are, you know, you should be grateful if you get a return phone call from the listing broker. Like, it’s just that’s the, that’s the market that we’re in right now. It’s a seller’s market, right. So like, you if you want to be on the sell side, and like, we’re on the buyer side, we’re all sweating away, and can we show it please? Oh, you’ll let us like, you just have to be so nice. And, you know, catch more flies with honey type thing. And the listing brokers stuff. It’s like, it’s like, can we just lose the attitude? You know, like, I, it’s just like, please, I don’t understand it, you know, like, it’s one of those, like, you know, when there’s like an event for a cocktail for brokers or networking event for brokers, and people are like, Why am I gonna go to that I don’t want to meet a bunch of brokers, like I’m not selling to brokers. And it’s like, Ah, no, you go to those, you go to all those cocktail parties, you you meet everybody, you handshake, you throw cards up, because you never know when that relationship is going to be important. And the network, you know, the more that that business is going, it’s going to inevitably build, if you put it out there, it’s going to build

D.J. Paris 48:35
Yes, and you could not be more more accurate there. And I’ve just heard that said over the years on the show, by just about every person we’ve ever had on is, is be really, really nice to other agents, and also realize that other agents might be having a bad day too, and give them a bit of grace when they falter, and maybe are less than professional, even though that’s never acceptable to be less than professional, but it happens. And it’s one of those things where, you know, the the top agents, I know, kind of learn how to grin and bear it a little bit more. It’s not quite as personal to them, when somebody’s awful to them. And obviously that sucks. We’re to ever have somebody be awful to anybody. But this idea of like, I’m just going to catalogue that I’m going to remember that and, you know, maybe in the future that maybe won’t serve that person that was crappy to me, maybe maybe, you know, and and we all want

Sarah Stone 49:34
karma happen. It’s a karmic situation, it happens and especially, you know, in a market like Greenwich where, you know, it’s it’s a big market, but there are a few very strong players that you’ll you’ll see again and again. And, and you know, and that’s the beauty of our business too is like a deal has a beginning and an end right like you can tolerate anybody for it through the length of time that it takes to, to sign a contract and get to a closing, it’s not like you’re gonna have to go to a nine to five job and see this person every day for the rest of your life. You know, like it, they when the deal is done, the deal is done. And that’s what I love. I love like the sense of, of completion, this the achievement of finale, you know, it’s over. So you can move on to the next one, but you just need to make it through that to make keep everybody happy. So we get to the finish line.

D.J. Paris 50:38
I agree. I think that is that makes all the sense in the world. One thing I wanted to mention, because I know we’re kind of running coming up on near the end of our time, I was thinking about your, you know, what your Oh, I know, I wanted to ask you, it was about what you do in between your deals. So you just talked about, like, there’s a beginning and an end to the relationship. You know, some a some clients are easier to work with than others. Some you’re like, I can’t wait to be the this person’s friend forever. And others are like, you know, that was a nice experience. And we don’t need to, you know, keep keep, you know, keep keep communicating. But what do you do in between those transactions, so that the clients don’t forget about you? Right? Like, obviously, you can’t be friends with everybody. But are you doing because, you know, if somebody’s only really utilizing you every, let’s say, five to seven years, or whatever the cycle is in your area? What are you doing so that they don’t forget? Oh, who did we use five years ago? Not that you’re forgettable? You are not forgettable, but let’s assume that we’re all forgettable? You know, we’re all we’re all forgettable. And and so, you know, what are you doing to make sure your clients don’t forget you.

Sarah Stone 51:49
I mean, you got to do all this stuff to stay top of mind. Right? Like, we all know the stuff, it’s just there. It’s, it’s a, it’s not, this is the gritty pain in the ass stuff that we all it’s like, we’re not looking forward to it. We don’t love coming up in your inbox all the time, and being so annoying, and videos, you know, like being in your face type thing, but it really it matters. It’s important, like you have to stay top of mind. And that means continuously marketing yourself reaching out, you know, to to your network. blasting out those emails, sending postcards, social media, obviously is incredibly important. And I always say it’s, it’s more like, it’s not like your I personally don’t get my my phone’s not ringing off the hook from my social media, you know, it’s not like someone’s looking at a tick tock that I made and like, Oh, my God, Sarah, like, it’s you, you are the one you have to sell our house. But what it does provide is like it’s a, it when they go to do some due diligence on you, and they go to check you out would be client, they’re gonna see all that stuff. And they’re gonna feel nice and safe and snugly found that they’re in good hands with with you like, so that stuff all really it accumulates, it makes you as the time goes on, and you’ve got more and more history, it’s all the better. So you really just, you can’t be afraid to put yourself out there. And I know that that’s so it’s not easy to do. It’s, it’s like it’s really it, you got to take the good with the bad when it comes to that stuff. But you really it’s in this day and age. And it’s crucial to not only maintaining your business, but really growing your business you need to stay relevant to the conversation.

D.J. Paris 53:56
It also gives people access, right? Like, it allows people to feel like they have a connection with you. Even at three in the morning when you’re asleep. If they’re awake, scrolling through Instagram, or wherever. And they’re now seeing like, oh, that’s maybe I know Sarah or maybe I don’t maybe I’m being introduced to her through a tick tock or whatever. But it allows people access to you more about you, without you having to make pick up the phone and you know, call make these cold calls, which you’ve done, you’ve done cold walking, you’ve done a lot of these more difficult, you know, sort of cold introductions, whereas, you know, social media is a great way for people just to remember might be reminded of what you do, right? So it’s like you can continually pump out content about all this cool stuff you’re doing in real estate in sort of the thought that like the right people will see it. My followers might see it they’ll at least be reminded I’m still in the game and doing XY and Z for for as a realtor. So I think for it’s it’s a lot of just a branding thing, right? It’s like it’s not it’s more than that, but I think from a branding perspective, it’s, you know, we know most people scroll, you know, scroll in some sort of social media channel once or twice during the day, might as well be one of the things they come across. Right,

Sarah Stone 55:12
exactly. And I mean, if you’re not doing it, somebody else is doing it, I can guarantee you that and like, the more that we are in, in an online business, you know, I mean, I think Zillow is a real game changer in the way that we, we have the availability of understanding your market and knowing what’s on the market. We didn’t have this pre 2000. I mean, the the client had to solely rely on the realtor to show you what was available on the market at that time. So now, they have access to pretty much almost every platform that you do. So how are you going to add value to that person? You know? How? How are you going to enhance that experience for them or provide, provide them an experience buying or selling a home that a different agent can’t, you know, yeah, so that’s really, you got to find exactly that your brand, your vision.

D.J. Paris 56:24
And what’s really cool is you get to lean into that now, whatever your thing is, like, could be outside of real estate, even maybe you’re passionate about something a hobby or, you know, particular belief system or group or whatever, you’re just into x. And what’s really cool. As an agent with social media, one of the good parts of social media is you get to not only find all the other people that are into x. But even if you don’t have a community of people that are into the same thing you are, you can start posting about that on your real estate page. If you’re really into something maybe it tangentially relates to real estate, or maybe it doesn’t. But if you’re into surfing or whatever you might be into, you know, you can do that. And then people start to feel like, Oh, that’s pretty cool. This, this is what this versus that do. And you’ll you can start attracting, you know, surfers or people who are in that space, simply by posting a lot of good quality content that a surfer might want, or that somebody that’s into cross stitch or whatever it might be. And you you get to be yourself, which is really cool. Below, up

Sarah Stone 57:26
and down an entire different demographic that you wouldn’t have had access to. And that’s like this job. You’re always working even when you’re socializing, and just generally having fun yet, like you’re actually what you’re what we’re working, you’re always you’re meeting people, you’re interacting with people, it’s an opportunity to let that person know who you are and what you do. You know, so that’s why it’s so important to I mean, obviously, we’re working your your career is important. But when I’m you know, playing tennis, or I’m playing pickleball or even if I’m going to you know, an event, a fancy Greenwich gala or something like that, that’s always an opportunity to connect with somebody and to grow your business. So like it’s a kind of a cool way to not feel guilty sometimes, like sometimes when you know you’re doing something that’s not work, work, work work, you’re like, oh, but really, when I’m, I mean, I’ve gotten a lot of business from playing tennis, because we women love to chit chat when we’re playing a double match, like we’re on the on the changeover. I’m like, Who doesn’t love to talk about real estate? You know, like,

D.J. Paris 58:49
everyone’s got to live somewhere.

Sarah Stone 58:51
Right? And like, it’s such, it’s so easy to casually be like, Oh, my God, you guys, the showing that I had earlier today, let me tell you, and they’ll lean right in they though they want to know. And my goal is always to make sure not don’t ever leave any social situation, without them knowing that I’m a realtor. Like, that’s all I have to do. That’s all you have to do. I don’t I don’t need to push it down. I don’t want to ram it down their throat and ask them where they live. And are they interested in selling in the next five years? You know, I all I need to do is have them register that somewhere in their peripheral that Oh, I played tennis with this lady and she’s a real estate broker. And you just don’t know how that’s going to germinate. You know, you just

D.J. Paris 59:44
it might. It might be that like that person’s brother is a realtor and so you’re not going to get that business but they might say oh my friend, you need to talk to my friend. She would be awesome because you know, so yeah, you’re right. You never know where it’s going to germinate. I love what you just said every Your job is, as a marketer, part of being a realtor is to make sure that everybody who you come across that you interact with understands what you do for a living, it does a great pushing is always, to me, I’m not a big fan of people. But I want to know, I want to know what all of my friends do I want to know where they work. Like I haven’t I have an interest in that when I meet somebody, you know, oftentimes what they do for a living might be the least interesting thing. But I still ask, and I still am like, Oh, what are you into? What do you do? That’s really, really important, we shouldn’t be again, and also everyone’s got to live somewhere. So they’re going to need a realtor anyway. So you might as well it’s not like you’re trying to sell them aluminum siding, or something that they may or may not need or want, right, you’re not selling something that’s not important, you’re actually like, well, you’re going to use a realtor anyway. So it’s a good idea to make sure that people know that that’s what I do. So I want to end with that. Because I think that is such an important, great, important thing. It may for everyone listening, let’s make it a goal that everybody in your life this year is going to get some sort of reach out from you in a gentle way to remind them that you are in the business. And you can figure out the best way to do that everyone’s got their own individual style. Make sure that everybody in your end that you’re consistently dripping something on them, maybe not every week, every maybe not every even month, but few times a year, at a minimum, they’re getting some sort of reminder that you are a realtor. So Sarah, thank you so much. And I also want to say for everyone before Before leaving, don’t leave the chat because I would like to remind everyone that Sara is always speak we talked about having relationships with other realtors, Sara is gets a lot of her business from referrals because she’s just that good. So if you have any clients that are moving in and out of Connecticut, even parts of New York, it doesn’t even matter where just reach out to Sarah she can’t help you. She’ll know who to refer to but she would love to connect with you specifically around you know, Connecticut, parts of New York as well. So for talking Fairfield County, Greenwich, Westport, Westchester County,

Sarah Stone 1:02:07
Westchester County right outside the city. Those Those are my wheelhouse is and I I love referrals. I think you’ll even I never chintzy with referral fees.

D.J. Paris 1:02:22
And, and Sarah’s clients oftentimes have other homes elsewhere or move. So if you are in an area that people may be retired to Yeah, you know, or Florida is the big one. Yeah. So let’s, let’s, you know, this, this is a two way street sort of scenario. So definitely reach out to Sarah also, if you’re a realtor in Connecticut, and you’re like God, I would love to work with someone like Sarah, I would love for her to be on to be on her team and learn from her. She learned from one of the best you can learn from her. She’s one of the best now. So you know, right now she obviously she’s they she can’t take everyone. But if you think you could add value to her team, or if you think you know, she could add value to your business, reach out to her this is let’s let’s build a relationship. So Sarah, if there is another realtor who wants to connect with you either for referral or maybe they’re interested in looking at Douglas Elliman or your team? What’s the best way they should reach out to you?

Sarah Stone 1:03:17
Well, they can always they can find me, my Insta, which is at Sara stone style. And if not that, you know, I my cell phone my email, which I don’t know if you can provide that in the notes. But But yeah, always reach out. My website is element.com/sharath stone. And there I will be and I would love I would love to connect with as many listeners as I possibly can. And really, this is fun. I would love to do this again sometime. Totally a total pleasure torture. I could chat with you all day.

D.J. Paris 1:03:52
Yeah, it was it was so much fun. So everyone deftly follows Sara on Instagram, Sarah stone style, we will have links to her email, also her website on in the show notes. So please feel free to connect with her. She’s super easy to find and make a connection with her and let her know what you thought of the episode. And also, you know, maybe you guys could do some business together so or maybe could join or two. So anyway, Sarah, thank you so, so much for your time. Sarah is a huge, huge superstar. We’re so grateful to have you on the show. So on behalf of the audience, thank you, and on behalf of and we want to also thank the audience too. So on behalf of Sarah and myself want to say thank you for listening and supporting our show support our sponsors. Thank you for watching and listening, please just tell one friend about the show. That’s the only thing we asked. You know, I guarantee everyone listening knows one realtor that could use a little bit of help this year. It’s a tough year for realtors. So let’s send them this link to this episode. Maybe it’ll help them get to the next level in their business. So Sarah, thank you so so much. We will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Sarah.

Sarah Stone 1:04:54
Pleasure. Thank you so much.

Welcome to the June episode of Learn with a Lender with Joel Schaub of Guaranteed Rate!

In this episode Joel discusses the current situation in the real estate business. Joel and DJ discuss the strength of the correct pre-approval letter. Joel explains the buy-outs and 2-1 rate by-down and discusses how do sellers explore by-downs. Last Joel talks about interest-deductions for first-time home buyers and how to explain it in real simple terms and mortgage insurance rates.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Joel can be reached at [email protected] and 773.654.2049.

This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks.

D.J. Paris 0:00
There’s a secret strategy known by top Realtors on how to get their buyers lending rates down. Right now we’re going to learn about how to do that today. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And now on to our show.

Welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show. And today once again, is our monthly series called Learn with a lender with Joel shop from guaranteed rate. Now, Joel is the vice president of lending at guaranteed rate, and he’s been doing loans at a high level since 2003. He got to that level because of what he does specifically for agents, which is that he gives back part of his commission to the buyer on every transaction. Now last year alone, Joel gave back over $300,000 in closing costs to buyers who worked with him. And that puts Joe’s volume in the top 1/10 of 1% of all loan officers nationwide. In fact, out of 400,000 lenders in the country. Joel is currently ranked number one 137 last year. Oh, you know, I deleted Joel’s numbers from last year by mistake, but he did an incredible amount of production last year. But this year, he closed has closed already 137 transactions for just shy of just under $60 million in loans. If you’re ever looking for a loan officer, we could not more highly recommend Joel he’s the very best we’ve ever worked with. Joel can be reached at his email, which is [email protected] J [email protected]. Or you can shoot him a text message or call him at 773-654-2049. Let’s say hello to the biggest Cubs fan. I know. Hey, Joel.

Joel Schaub 3:04
TJ, thanks so much for having me on again. And now we feel like summer is in full effect. And I’m really excited to be sharing what’s going on behind the scenes and mortgages so that the listeners can either close one more transaction on the buy side or maybe get one more listing. And it’s always my favorite time of the month when we connect together.

D.J. Paris 3:24
Me too. And you know, this is a time when it seems like there’s a lot of activity in the market. And the two major grumbles or complaints that I hear is low inventory, and rates not being where we would like them to be. So I’m curious to sort of get your take on what’s going on today in the market and how agents can take advantage of any opportunities that you see.

Joel Schaub 3:49
And the third grumble, right. It’s just my stomach before I have breakfast, right? It’s gotta be the third one, its rates on right lack of inventory. And then maybe the days where I skipped breakfast, but no, DJ, you’re exactly right. I feel that it’s strange that these rates being as high as they are, you know, just below 7% Right now, haven’t scared off buyers in the sense that we’re seeing two out of three homes go into multiple offers, you know what I mean? It’s amazing. And so when you have these properties that are actually hot, and they come on the market, there’s multiple offers on these. And it seems like it’s the dichotomy, right? There’s properties that sit and they’re listed incorrectly or they’re the ones that are priced correctly. And buyers are still saying I’m going to pay you 20 grand more than the listing price 30 grand, and with rates being this high, it’s not the way it should be. But there’s a major lack of inventory in all the major metropolitan markets.

D.J. Paris 4:49
Well, and this is an opportunity for realtors to understand and communicate to their buyers in particular, that you know, sitting on the sideline is is fine if your will Looking to lose a property, but with with restricted inventory, and the fact that there is multiple offer situations going on at, you know, sub, you know, high the high sixes in the lending rates? You know, I think realtors have to readjust their own expectations and make sure that when they communicate to clients that they’re saying, Yeah, I know that seems like a high number for an interest rate. But you know, going back to something you always say about dating the rate marrying the home and understanding that, you know, yeah, we may pay a slight premium, maybe we’re paying over asking, or maybe we’re paying a higher interest rate because of where rates are currently. But we’re going to be able to, you know, adjust that interest rate down, most likely when when rates do in fact, come back. But this is, I don’t think this is a time to sit on the sidelines, because there’s just not that much inventory out there.

Joel Schaub 5:50
And the ones that are jumping in, and what we really need to do is design offers that are going to win, right? How many agents out there listening, are submitting offers, and we’re losing, right? We don’t want to lose if we’re gonna go try to help our clients, we want to win offers, and we don’t want to be the one that is always coming in with the highest offer. All right. So I wanted to just share two strategies that we can do right now. And when we hear that dreaded, I’m calling for the highest and best, right, it seems like agents are doing that. The day they put it on the market. They’re saying, Okay, here’s an offer. And the agent comes back and says we’re looking for highest and best. So it’s the second word, it’s the best, right? So I don’t always want my clients winning by being the highest, I want to go in and say that we’re better than the other offers. And one of the ways that we do that is the strength of the pre approval letter. Right? Having the financing look as strong as possible is going to help you win here, are we going to be able to compete with a cash offer? Probably not. Right. But I just had one last week where we were not the top offer. We were really strong on the financing. And the most cash, the highest cash offer was about 10 grand less than ours. So we won even though we weren’t the highest financed offer, we were better than the cash offer. And it’s because we showed a strong downpayment, the property address on the pre approval letter. In other words, we were buttoned up, when all the other offers weren’t as strong, we looked like we were the easiest option for the seller, that will get to the bottom line. And so

D.J. Paris 7:25
not all three of not all pre approval letters are created equal. Right? Like, it’s important to to, you know, read, if you’re working with a lender, and you know, they’re going to be putting out pre approval letters, you do want the actual address of the property on the letter, that’s a significant thing. Because of course, that that that communicates a message to the seller,

Joel Schaub 7:52
the seller actually called because they do good sellers do if you’re listening, you know, you call and the other bank had a stale letter from over four weeks ago, they had an old rate, they weren’t convinced the buyers and even been in contact with the bank recently, where our letterhead, today’s date, it had the property address, it was all specific. And it encouraged the listing agent to actually reach out to me if they had any questions to make sure this deal went through. So working with a lender that will do that. And you guys have mortgage partners right now that are just dying to help you. So make sure that when you’re submitting your offer, you’re calling back that mortgage professional that you’re working with. And having them put today’s date on the letter, having them put the property address so that you can put together a nice package with a bow on top that looks better than every other offer. And I’m telling you that is better than coming in 50 grand over with a stale letter that doesn’t really match up.

D.J. Paris 8:50
Yeah, because if it’s a stale letter, and you know, it doesn’t look to be specific to the property or current, then then you have to investigate. Now the seller has to do homework and now they have to reach back out go, is this still is this current is this the right rate is still valid. And you never want a seller, especially in a multiple offer situation to have to do extra work because you didn’t you and your lender didn’t, you know, have an updated sheet?

Joel Schaub 9:19
Absolutely. And so what we’re doing now is I speak to the borrowers about what is the maximum amount that they would be comfortable putting down we need to stand out. So the idea right now, or 20% down being enough, maybe it is, but I’ve won a lot of deals recently where the buyer put down 30 or 40% on the pre approval letter not really stands out. It’s really saying look at this buyer, look at how strong they are. And I’ll remind you that if you have a pre approval letter that says that you’re 40% down, it doesn’t lock you into having to put 40% down on the loan. Okay, so if you can put your strongest offer forward, and the contract comes in, the borrower could still decide to get loan for more than that. You’re not lying, you’re not doing anything wrong in terms of the contract, but it helps you get this offer accepted. So being strong, finding alternative ways to make sure that you stand out, is the way that you’re going to submit offers that are designed to win. It makes perfect sense. Yeah. So let’s talk about buy downs as well. Okay, so we’ve touched on this before. But right now, one of the big chief complaints that buyers have is, I don’t want a 6.5% rate this is, you know, I currently am in a mortgage that the rate is 3%. So it’s a major change for me to go from 3%, all the way up to six and a half percent, right. So what we’re having a lot of sellers do is fund a to one rate by down. So I’ll give a quick example here. A buyer that’s let’s say, let’s say they’re buying an $800,000. Home with 20%, down at a six and a half percent rate, that mortgage payment is $4,102 4102. Okay, the same buyer could literally go up and buy a $936,000. Home. So DJ, almost 150, grand more, if the seller did a to one buy down for them, they literally would have a mortgage of 3910. So they would be less in terms of the monthly payment. And the seller is the one funding the rate by down. So it’s just a big strategy right now, not all sellers are going to do this for you. But if you can get in the habit of finding out what sellers would fund rate by downs for your clients, it is a big win for these buyers that are kind of maybe sitting on the sidelines, right?

D.J. Paris 11:41
How would you encourage a seller to explore the buyout option?

Joel Schaub 11:46
Well, it’s all about net dollars to the seller, right? There’s no magic in this right now. So if a net buyer down on that scenario for that $936,000 purchase, ended up being about 18 grand and credits that the seller needed to pay, and that would be about a little over 2% of the purchase price. In these hot multiple offer situations, you’re probably not going to win. If you come in and submit an offer that needs a seller funded by down they’ll probably laugh at you. They’ll say why would I want to go with this when I have three other offers that aren’t being complex. But this is a situation where maybe there aren’t any other offers DJ, and our buyer says I’m willing to pay the listing price if the seller funds rate by down, okay, so if you’re an agent out there, this is not an offer. It’s not a strategy for multiple offers. This would be more where you know that there’s not any other offers, let’s submit an offer as close to the asking price, but ask for some concessions.

D.J. Paris 12:45
Yeah, that makes sense. And that’s a good good thing to realize, if anyone out there who is dealing with listings that are sitting and are not not getting enough attention from buyers, this is a great strategy to start talking to buyers, sorry, started talking to sellers about to present that option to a buyer, this idea that we can we can help you with this uncomfortable, you know, mortgage payment, basically, for the next year or two, I think that is an exceptionally creative way to help people or, you know, bridge that sent days. And now we’re in the sixes.

Joel Schaub 13:23
And so the strategy here is, instead of just taking 18 grand off the price, because if the client was able to get an 18 grand credit to fund the buy down DJ, they would have also been able to pay 18 grand less for the home, right? So let’s actually just do the math on this for a moment. So if you’re listening 18 grand off, the price would be somewhere around 160 to $170 a month cheaper in terms of payment number 160 or 170 grand. But if you actually took that 18 grand and use the temporary rate by down strategy in year number one, the rate going from 6.5 down to 4.5 saves the client 910 bucks.

D.J. Paris 14:07
Right. And that’s a monthly number is the number that they care about. Right? We all look at our monthly out and in with respect to income and expenses. And so yeah, being able to cut a smaller check for a few years and hoping that you know the rates change and fall favorably during that time to where you can then refinance into a more comfortable long term strategy.

Joel Schaub 14:32
So let’s be clear, this is not a strategy where we’re not comfortable with what the payment is Anyway, okay, because this is not an excuse to get in over your head. Okay, let me be very clear. This is not a strategy where Oh, I absolutely need the seller to fund the buy down otherwise I’m uncomfortable. Okay. We don’t want to put our buyers into a bad position ever. We want our clients comfortable with the payments where the rates are today. We want to see if the seller wants to fund a buy down instead of taking A price reduction. And if so it’s hundreds of dollars in the clients favor terms of a monthly payment. And so it’s icing on the cake. All right, that’s the idea behind the to one rate down strategy, because I hear it all the time they go, Well, what happens in two years the rates are gonna go, your payment is going to be higher. It’s not like an adjustable rate mortgage, where all of a sudden, we’re afraid that rates are gonna go up. We know what the rates are, we’re locked in, this isn’t a way to get a reduction for the first year or two. And if we can get that paid for by the seller, everyone smiles.

D.J. Paris 15:38
Yeah, it definitely makes sense. If you were an agent right now, Joe, what would you incorporate? What would you encourage our listeners to start doing? As like, you know, a regular exercise to help keep the business moving forward?

Joel Schaub 15:53
Yeah, I mean, right now, you gotta literally look at what the client’s bottom line number is. That’s the big thing, right? You’re so right, when you say they look at what the payments are per month, right. And there’s a payment shock right now, just a traditional like first time homebuyer that’s buying a three or $400,000 home, their mortgage payments from being in the low threes or below to where they’re at now. They’re eight or $900 more a month for that home, that’s going to keep certain people on the sidelines. Okay? So you got to see if you’re a seller that has a property that’s not moving, doing a price reduction is really not going to move the needle much. We just talked about that. Right. So exploring the ways that you can say, seller to buy the rate down, people are all talking about rates right now. So if you can get in that language and say, reduced rates for the buyer of this property, you can put it in the MLS. It’s just another way to get interest in the property. And you got to understand that though, you have to understand what that to one rate buydown is. So that’s why I wanted to go slow and walk through how that worked. And make sure that sellers can maybe use this strategy to move a property that’s not moving.

D.J. Paris 17:05
Yeah, I also think to like, it’s an interesting time to reach out to homeowners, and to talk about the lack of inventory in the market. Because being that we are seeing multiple offers, it’s it’s a heck of a good time to consider listing a property, it’s it’s a difficult time finding a new property. So there’s there’s push and pull to all of this. But a good loan officer can sit down with a current homeowner and say, well, let’s figure out with your realtor, what we think we can get for this property based on current market trends. And then let’s figure out based on rates and availability of an inventory, what our next move is our next biocide transaction is. And it might make sense because, again, there’s just, it’s just one of those things where you have to kind of run the numbers. But this is where you really need a really dedicated a loan officer who’s able to sort of crunch those numbers to see, hey, it is a good time to actually list the property, even though we’re in high interest rates, low inventory, you’re gonna get more for your sale, it’s going to even out possibly on the buy side in the future. And then maybe you can even find a buy down situation if the seller is willing to do that, too. But I guess the point is that it’s we need to be very careful not to just say rates are high inventories low, like Yes. And it’s that old, you know, way of, of doing improv, right? Yes. And, yes, that’s true. And, and we can still find opportunities here and that people still need to move. And sometimes it makes sense to sell when there’s not much inventory, even though the rates are high and inventories low.

Joel Schaub 18:47
I gotta Yes. And for you, that makes perfect sense. The client says rates are high and inventories low. And you’ll say, you know, I don’t want to pay a six and a half percent rate and you’ll say, Yes, and your rate right now on rent is 100% interest because you’re paying every single dollar right to your landlord. And I like the idea of paying six and a half percent a lot better than I like being 100%. You put it in those terms, it’s really starts to sink home, what somebody’s paying for rent versus what they can actually get when they start owning a property.

D.J. Paris 19:18
I think I think there’s such an opportunity for because I didn’t know this until I owned a property. Nobody. I don’t know, maybe I’m just a dummy. And, uh, well, I’m a little bit of a dummy. But I suspect there’s a lot of people like me, so I’m not the only dummy out there that literally didn’t know about mortgage interest deduction when it comes to tax time. I didn’t know when I was renting because no one ever told me and I’d never had that experience. And then all of a sudden I got the nicest gift. You know, the next April after I bought my first property a million years ago. It’s like, whoa, what’s this? I get some money back and that’s something that I know that’s not necessarily going to get somebody to want to buy a property just for that alone, but that Here’s a nice benefit that I feel doesn’t get talked about enough. If you are taking out a loan.

Joel Schaub 20:06
I always break it down in this in real simple terms for a first time homebuyer and numbers that agents can repeat. Okay, because it’s hard to understand this interest deduction what what the hell? are we actually talking about interest? Taxes, right? Are we talking property taxes? Are we talking federal income, right? So, here it is, in a nutshell, if you’re an agent, and you want to be able to recreate this and explain it, and so we’re gonna use a real small numbers, we’re gonna say, a buyer that’s making 60 grand on a W two job, right, that now takes on a mortgage. And let’s say they have $10,000 of interest that they paid in year number one, well, before they had the mortgage, they paid federal income taxes, DGN, all 60 grand of their income, all right. But next year, since they’ve already paid $10,000 of interest, instead of paying taxes on all 60 grand, they’re only going to pay taxes on $50,000 of income. And this is not a CPA answer, right? This is not the exact numbers but this is the way that you can explain it so that you’re coming across educated, okay, and making sure that you’re teaching buyers exactly what interest deduction is in real simple terms.

D.J. Paris 21:20
Yeah, basically reduces your tax liability for income. And it’s it’s a fantastic thing, thankful thing that we should be very grateful for to our country, because it does make us all a little happier come tax refund time, but it’s also something that I get, I think that most renters are unfamiliar with. So it’s a nice little sort of add on to making, you know, the point that homeownership historically is a much better investment than renting, which we know is not an investment.

Joel Schaub 21:56
DJ, I’m so glad you said that. Because there’s so many people that are buying right now and and before we wrap up, I really wanted to hammer home the idea for buyers that they don’t need a large downpayment. All right, and I wanted to talk a little bit about the changes in mortgage insurance, because there’s so much misinformation out there on this. Okay. So most people think you need to have 20% down, right. And a lot of people have learned that maybe you don’t and agents out there, we all know that you don’t need 20% down. But it is crazy to me the number of first time buyers that still have this as a fallacy. Okay, sure. The next fallacy is that if you don’t put 20% down, let’s say we are a first time homebuyer doing a $300,000 purchase, and we’re going to put 15 grand down is my favorite kind of buyers, they’re going to buy, they don’t need anywhere near 20% down. And they’re always shocked to find out how low their mortgage insurance is because the online calculators overestimate this sure like crazy. A mortgage insurance for a $300,000 place with only 5% down might be 70 or $80. Okay, but everyone, everyone in their mother, everyone in their brother remembers when mortgage insurance was three or $400 a month. And so they’re hearing two different things, you got to put 20% down, because the mortgage insurance is too high. It’s really truly not the case, mortgage insurance rates have continued to go down. There’s a lot less volatility with people defaulting. And when there’s less defaults on mortgages, because values are going up, the rates are lower. And so you would be hard pressed to find a mortgage insurance that costs three or $400. So it’s a really good thing to sit down and talk to your mortgage guy that you’re usually working with, and have an understanding of how much mortgage insurance is for the price point that you’re at in your market so that you can speak intelligently to buyers because that objection will come up DJ.

D.J. Paris 24:02
There is yeah, there is a lot of resistance. You’re right there is a psychological hurdle to accepting privatized mortgage insurance. And I know when I when I got my first condo, I couldn’t afford to put 20% down. And this was back in 2005 or six and, and so I did have to pay PMI. And I remember there was a little bit of like, Oh, I’m doing this wrong, I’m doing something wrong. Because my ello at the time my loan officer was was not particularly skilled at like walking me through like, No, don’t worry, it’s no big deal. And it really was no big deal even back then. But it so I think I think there is like a lot of education that needs to happen. And this is where the realtor and the loan officer can step in and help you know Coach the client through because I remember feeling like a little bit of shame that I couldn’t put 20% down because I had been conditioned to think that was what you were supposed to do. That’s what a responsible homebuyer does and the real Aldi about Joe’s Joe’s. laughing because he’s like that has nothing to do with responsibility. You know, either you have the money or you don’t. But there are creative ways to do it. And so I had to do it with a second loan to cover the PMI. And it really did not negatively affect my lifestyle or, or my homeownership in a negative way at all. But I had that psychological hurdle to jump over. So as realtors, we need to recognize those hurdles when when they come up in buyers and recondition them to explain that you’re right, you don’t, you don’t need 20%. And not only do you not need 20%, it’s not necessarily a horrible thing that you don’t have it.

Joel Schaub 25:41
And there’s so many times where I talked to the parents of somebody who’s buying a home. So they’re young, first time homebuyers. And maybe the parents are giving a gift DJ. And they remember when mortgage insurance was high, when it really was throwing money out the window. Sure, okay. So they’re not wrong when they tell their son or daughter, oh, you’re talking to a mortgage guy, and they’re telling you to do mortgage insurance. Oh, so they were right for their time, mortgage insurance used to be on a $300,000 loan three or $400 a month. So when they’re being told all their son or daughter is told to go get mortgage insurance. Of course, it sounds like a scam. Of course, it sounds like I want to give the downpayment money and help them but I talked to so many of them. And what they find out is when they actually see the mortgage insurance numbers that they wouldn’t be presented, they no longer want to give the big gift to their son or daughter. So then then they end up loving me, because times change. And things change and need to be what’s current right now. And mortgage insurance rates have continued to come down. And that’s something that a lot of people that bought 10 years ago or 20 years ago, just wouldn’t be privy to. So now you are on this and you’re listening now, you know, as well, that mortgage insurance rates are as low as they’ve been.

D.J. Paris 26:58
Yeah, it’s, it’s a good time to, it’s the best time to not have 20% If you don’t have it. And again, these are all just little norms that we have to challenge from time to time. And this is why having a relationship with an ello who can keep you up to date on the current trends and keep adjusting a realtors understanding of what’s going on in the lending world is so, so critical. So this really brings us to a great point, Joel and his team send out a weekly recap of what’s going on in the mortgage world so that you as a realtor know, some data points, some some quick sort of, you know, tick tock style, you know, sort of quick and easy and important, you know, sort of little little data points to be able to explain to keep you and your clients up to date. So Joe, what’s the best way somebody can get on that mailing list?

Joel Schaub 27:49
Well, yeah, DJ, the mailing list actually just did three weeks ago talked about the mortgage insurance, I got a crazy amount of replies for agents to say, I did not know that I’m still in the old school thinking in terms of mortgage insurance being a lot higher. So you can email directly to me, and I’ll put you on the list. It’s Joel JOE [email protected]. So really easy, Joel at r a t.com. And even if you’re just on your phone right now listening to this, you can drop an email. And in the subject line, it just says please add me, right. And then in the body, it’ll say, please add me to your newsletter. And it’ll be very straightforward. And then you’ll be able to have dissect double easy tidbits that you can share on a weekly basis without getting so caught up in the minutiae of the mortgage business. It’s something that you can speak to and say, every week, I learned something, and it’ll help you grow your business for sure.

D.J. Paris 28:45
And if you are also interested in partnering with a loan officer who’s going to actually help you grow your business, Joel and his team, this is really what they do exceptionally well. So if you’re looking to form a partnership, and see if you guys can coordinate together to improve both production on your side and on the loan side, reach out to Joel he and his team would love to speak with you. Guaranteed Rate, of course, is is eligible to practice in all 50 states. But Joel, what is the best way someone should reach out to you if they want to work on a partnership?

Joel Schaub 29:21
Yeah, you can email me directly and then you could even phone me 773-654-2049 You’ll be shocked that we actually answering return phone calls, and the buyers that you refer over, I can waive the fees for them. So I’ll give a $1,500 closing cost credit. And now as an agent, you’ll say I have a lender that’s in my corner that will help the buyer pay no points get their lender fees waived and the only expense that they would have to do their first transaction with us is the appraisal cost. So it’s a big win for you. And it’s a good way for us to start building a relationship.

D.J. Paris 29:57
And guys the way that you can help Joel be able to continue to offer those kinds of discounts is by helping our show grow and reach more listeners and viewers. So please tell a friend about the show. Think of one other realtor, maybe somebody who’s maybe a little bit pessimistic or negative right now there’s, there’s a lot to be pessimistic and negative about. But this episode might just, in fact, turn their mindset around. So tell other agents about our show just how one other agent is all that we ask. And also sign up for Joel’s newsletter by emailing [email protected]. And get that weekly update and reach out to him as well. If you want to partner and do some cool events together, nobody does events like Joel and his team, they’re incredible. And they’re, they’re here in Chicago. And Joe’s team is really nationwide. But here in Chicago, I get to get to go to some of Joe’s events, and oh, my goodness, are they a lot of fun, and they work for everybody. So reach out to Joel, if you don’t have a good relationship with a loan officer, or if you’re looking to see what other loan officers can do for you reach out to Joel and guaranteed rate because they’re just they’re just top top of top class. And so I couldn’t encourage you to do that more. So please do that. Tell a friend about the show and a great place to wrap up. So Joel, on behalf of the audience, thank you for coming on. Once again, you’ve been with us almost since the very beginning, we I was going to read a fan letter, but we will get to that on our next episode. I wanted to share it because we do get fan letters and I never read them. So I wanted to share that next time we come on we’ll do that. And but I wanted to thank you on behalf of the audience because the audience is so grateful that you do come on every month. And I want to make sure that we acknowledge droll. And then of course we want to acknowledge you the listener for coming on listening and absorbing this information. And hopefully, it’s helping you increase your business and making you more productive and hopefully more money as well. So thank you to the listeners. And thank you to Joel. We will see everybody on the next episode. So thanks so much. And Joel we’ll see you next time.

Joel Schaub 31:57
Thanks so much for having me on DJ