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

Welcome to another episode of Coaching Moments With Ryan D’Aprile from D’Aprile Properties!

In this episode Ryan and D.J. discuss the merging of Ryan’s company with Coldwell Banker, and how this is a very big step. Ryan talks about the importance of following the “ABC” (Always Be Connecting) rule with clients by agents, and how this rule helps in earning their trust. DJ and Ryan also discuss how important communication is in the real estate business and also what needs to be improved.

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

Ryan D’Aprile can be reached at 312.590.6416 and [email protected].

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

D.J. Paris 0:00
What is a top real estate coach telling his top 1% producers to do every single day this year? We’re going to talk about 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 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.

Welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcasts made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris, and I am your guide and host through the show, and today is our monthly coaching moments with Ryan de April. Now if you’re not familiar with Ryan, or if you’re new to the show, Ryan comes on every month to give our listeners and our viewers a coaching moment and a coaching session. So let me tell you more about Ryan. Now Ryan de April is a progressive thought leader focused on providing for his agents and staff at D Pro properties. His strengths are his motivational skills, his coaching style, and his dedication to training. He has 13 offices throughout Chicagoland he’s also in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan and Florida, with hundreds and hundreds of top agents. De April properties is a coaching company with eight strategic coaches who work week in and week out with every agent at the company focused on business planning, coaching and accountability. If you’ll take your career to the next level, if you’re maybe just not getting the attention that you need, check out depot properties do April properties.com. Ryan, welcome once again.

Ryan D’Aprile 2:38
Thanks, DJ. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. It’s good to be back. It’s been a it’s been a little bit since I’ve been with Yeah,

D.J. Paris 2:44
it’s been a while. And we have I have some congratulations in order that you have now joined forces with with Coldwell Banker.

Ryan D’Aprile 2:53
We have Yes, yeah. So I’ve been working on that with them for the past few months. And it’s been exciting. It’s a great, great group of people over there. And I’m very excited about that. And we get to take two wonderful cultures and meld them together. And, you know, work with an organization that has basically a wonderful global presence, a lot of value added to our agents. I’m incredibly excited. My wife’s an agent of the company. So I just excited from all the things that I saw that they have access to makes me very excited. And then I get to, I get to coach I actually get to even coach even more people, which makes me makes me excited about the whole opportunity as well.

D.J. Paris 3:33
And it’s also I want this to be inspiring too, for anyone who’s in the process of building a team or thinking of starting a brokerage. If you don’t mind, Ryan, just sharing maybe a minute or so a minute or two of the journey from big being your own managing broker, starting a firm and now all these years later, integrating it with Coldwell Banker. Yeah, you

Ryan D’Aprile 3:54
know, it’s it is it’s quite a journey starts off with anything that you do. It’s you know, you reach something that you’re very passionate about. And I started the real estate company because I was very passionate about coaching agents and helping them develop and we built our company off of that about probably, you know, you know, our company did in 2001, we did about $1.2 billion. No, yeah. 21. We did about 1.2 billion in sales in 2022, which is a down year for everybody. We did over a billion dollars, but we were down. But it’s something to be really proud of the hang our hat on and probably 85% of our agents started their career at our company, and probably a lot of them. It was only seven or eight years ago and we’re putting up some pretty, pretty big numbers which we’re really proud of. And you know, that is based on something I was very passionate about is working individually with the agents i this past Saturday, you know, the company sold and this past Saturday, I was at one of our offices with a bunch of agents and I was doing a group coaching session and it’s allowed me to get back to what I was passionate really passionate about. The company grew it grew quite well. Arjun, I started to find that my desire, my passion of coaching and training was being overshadowed by a lot of administrative stuff, as you know, running a real estate company, there’s more to it than meets the eye, I guess, let’s just say put it that way. So a lot of work. So by joining forces with Coldwell Banker, it allowed me to get what I was back to what I’m more passionate about, which is working with each individual agents, also, loan officers, I coach loan officers, I coach, a coach, title sales reps, I coach insurance agents, anybody who’s in sales, I coach them, I help them, you know, set a goal and then create a path to where they want to get to.

D.J. Paris 5:43
Yeah, it’s, it’s amazing. And I just I know, you’re, you’re a very humble person. But I do want to stress that you built a company, an independent brokerage. Here in Chicago, you competed with the biggest and the best, and you built a business that really was, you know, is as as big and as powerful and as impressive as the big franchise firms. And that in and of itself, is a very difficult thing to do. And so I just want to honor you for building up a company, a healthy company, a healthy, profitable company that then caught the eye of all your competitors, and what a wonderful position. And what a wonderful testament to how you built your business so that all these other brokerages wanted, wanted, wanted to join forces with you. So glad you landed with Coldwell Banker, our company, our managing broker started at Coldwell Banker. We’re big fans, of course of them as well. So congratulations to all the agents at D APR. And you’re you’ve got a great journey ahead of you. And really exciting.

Ryan D’Aprile 6:52
Thanks, thanks. Yeah, I am excited. And, you know, it is one of those things when we reflect back, I was telling my wife, I, you know, I never really pause because I was running so hard these past 11 years growing the organization. And it was, you know, after the sale, I looked back said to myself, Jesus Christ, I am probably one of the most competitive real estate markets in the country. Yeah, I mean, Chicago is

Unknown Speaker 7:17
brutal, brutal,

Ryan D’Aprile 7:19
it’s very competitive. And so I did have a moment of pride, where I’ve always kind of never really taken the time to do that. And I didn’t, and thank you, I appreciate you saying that.

D.J. Paris 7:30
Yeah, it’s, it’s a big deal. And very few independent firms have done it. So that is a real feather in your cap. And obviously, again, really highlights your ability to grow a business and keep your agents happy and keep them productive and keep them pride keep the business profitable. So speaking of all of that, it is 2023 It’s our first coaching moments of the year. And everybody I know whether they’re a broker owner or a team leader, or just an individual producing agent, everybody I know seems to be a little scared, nervous, worried about what’s going on what’s right in front of them, what they should be focused on. So they don’t get caught up in you know, inaction or you know, just the business cycles being changed or changing at the currently. So I would love to know as a coach, what you are saying what are you are hearing out there and what you’re recommending to agents who are a little nervous or scared about where we are right now in the house insurer.

Ryan D’Aprile 8:39
Yeah, absolutely. Well, so the first thing to keep in mind there’s a tremendous amount of distractions. Look, we just sold the company and I think every single recruiter in Chicagoland area his got my agents numbers on speed dial and the calling over and over and

D.J. Paris 8:54
over so it is a recruiting for people like me and by the way, I have not been doing that to your agents, but because we don’t really compete in that same way but I recruiters are having a field day right now now is the time when agents are struggling so the recruiters come out and they promised the world and every agent every one of our listeners is probably getting prospected by somebody in their local markets,

Ryan D’Aprile 9:18
you know and for people are listening that are real estate agents that are not on the corporate side or the reloc or on the corporate side or the recruiting side. You know, you got to listen to the message the message is overwhelmingly been coming to my agency has been messages a fair and and and majority of people will be able to be scared and it’s a shame you should be Lee should be inspiring, leading by inspiration. You should be you know, you should lead by hope you should not be you know leading by fear which is basically manipulating somebody to get what you want by scaring them and, and there’s a lot of scary things that are out there and got it really be smart and who you align yourself with. And, you know, when times are rough, I mean, again, I’ve been through this did a great recession. And here we are in another difficult market. You know, when times are rough, everybody is going to look outside of themselves first, and, and make the change. Look, a year ago, you know, you know, a year ago, before I was even thinking about selling or anything of that sort came, a number of agents left my company, they leave every year, they were all top producing agents, and unfortunately, all but one shit the bed. And the reason being, I think, is that we had such a strong culture of accountability and whatnot. And some excuses when he just said, like, well look at these tools and these technology and this and that. There’s tools, technology and gizmos, they’re going to come and they’re going to go, there is nothing that is earth shattering about what we do. Anybody could say tech and tools and technology. The truth is, are you even going to open up the computer six weeks later and use the technology that they gave you? And really what difference is it? And so what everybody does, when they’re trying to improve, right? They change everything outside first. That’s why 93% of them don’t improve. The work comes from within, if you want different results, you need to change. That doesn’t mean you need to change companies. And I’m not talking about my company, I’m talking about any industry, whatever it means you you personally have got to change. You know, it lies within what are you doing? What are your activities on Saturday, when I was with a group of agents, and I was coaching them? One of them said, Look, you know, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, and I and I and I time block, excuse me, I set up my all my social media posts for a month in advance. And, and she looked at me I’m like, and she’s like, well, I go ahead and I pre plan this stuff I’m like, and she’s like, Well, what do you mean? And I’m like, Well, that’s what moves the needle in your business. I mean, that’s not I mean, social media marketing, okay, is seen by a majority of the people that have already liked your post, probably 94% of them are your fellow real estate agents that are saying, Go ahead, friend, good for you. And they’re liking your stuff and is going to the same people over and over again. If you’re doing social media, if you’re using social media, by marketing versus researching and developing, right, then you’re going about this business relationship building business the wrong way. And when you point to some of the top top people out there, right, that have beautiful social media marketing out there, but they’re also selling 3040 50 $100 million real estate a year, you’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg real estate agent that’s out there, you’re not seeing all the other hard work that they put in there that they’re committed to their business. I mean, those people that are selling 50 to $100 million in production a year, okay. And then they have beautiful reels or whatnot. Those reels, net marketing came after all the other hard work and time and effort they put in to build the business. So

D.J. Paris 13:11
that’s a that’s a really good point is that, so So if I hear you correctly, and I just want to pause you because I think you’re saying something really profound, which is utilizing social media while you’re not busy might the better way to do that might be through what Ryan has said time and time again on the show as research and development lert follow your your your sphere, pay attention to what is going on in their lives, because that will give you number one indications of possibly wanting to move but also reasons to pick up the phone and call them. Hey, just saw you got back from a trip to Mexico. How did it go just was thinking about you looked awesome, that kind of thing.

Ryan D’Aprile 13:51
I’m actually going in two days with Coldwell Banker.

D.J. Paris 13:56
I’m Nicole Baker, I want to go to Mexico.

Ryan D’Aprile 13:59
I had I had my so we had our we had our software’s Anello, our dashboard up at this coaching session, and I was showing everybody in their network tab, right, like look at all the hyperlinks that we have in here to, you know, DJs Facebook page or DJs Instagram page or DJs LinkedIn page and, and then I opened up Facebook, and another tab. And I said here’s the right way the wrong way. You start in your dashboard first. You start there, and you go one by one with each person and you look at you click on their hyperlink and you look at what’s going on with them. If you start on Facebook first you should say alert made a something’s wrong. Because when you look at the newsfeed you are seeing what Michael Zuckerberg wants you to see isn’t a mike Zuckerberg.

D.J. Paris 14:46
Mark but closer.

Ryan D’Aprile 14:48
Great, Mark, you’re seeing what Mark Zuckerberg wants you to see in the newsfeed you’re seeing. You don’t have control over on Instagram as well. Right You’re you’re seeing what they want you to see, you know scroll through your newsfeed, that’s just not how it works. You have to be intentional, just like success, and anybody starts a business, you got to be intentional, and what it is that you want to do. But if you’re passive, and you’re thumbing through Facebook newsfeeds, that’s fine, but you’re just wasting your day, you’re wasting your valuable time. And your time is so much more valuable than money. Okay, your time is so valuable. But so many of us in Robin Sharma says this, I love it. Some of us are so busy being busy, very few of us are busy being productive. So there’s a right way there’s a wrong way of doing it. And in these times where it quote unquote, scary for people, look in the mirror, have a direct conversation with yourself. Okay? And ask, are you doing the proper right things to be efficient in this market? Because anybody can be successful? I think the statistics came out at home sell every minute, 11,000 homes sell a day. Right now, there’s more than enough business out there. It’s just that when business was easy, everybody, it was coming to everybody. Right now that it’s scarce, a the first to flee, or the negative mindset individuals, right?

D.J. Paris 16:16
I want to ask you for a second, because I think you’re saying you’re saying something, it’s really important, I just want to put just put the cap on the social media conversation is that this so what Ryan was saying was, hey, if we were scrolling through social media, obviously, that may sometimes show us information about our sphere that we could then use to call as information and say, Hey, I saw you were just doing X, Y, and Z, I saw your kids were doing X, Y and Z. But what Ryan was saying is to be really super intentional about it is to actually, you know, specifically search for that person, look at their posts, see what they’re up to. And then that gives you possibly a reason to reach out, you can also, by the way, do that via Linked in. So in LinkedIn, a lot of times when people get job promotions, or switch companies, that information is also in their newsfeed. So you can use LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and be really, really intentional about seeing what’s going on in your clients or your sphere of influences life. And the reason why you want to do that is because it gives you a reason to pick up the phone and contact them or to send an email or a text, or however you communicate with with your sphere. This, by the way, this is so much easier than trying to create an a beautiful piece of content for you that you post on your stories, your real your you know that that’s hard to do. And as Ryan said, that comes usually after what you can do today for zero money is you can find out what’s going on in people’s lives and reach out to them and connect with them.

Ryan D’Aprile 17:52
Yeah, everybody, really everybody that I observed wants to make this about marketing. And it’s it’s yes, there’s marketing is important. But that’s not I mean, that’s, that’s the easy part, right, you have to get out of your comfort zone, you have to grow a network, you have to nourish the network, you have to take care of the network. If you don’t, your business isn’t going to grow period. It just it’s just not. And the more I guess the more communal your neighborhood is, the more work it’s going to take. I mean, when I sold real estate in Chicago, the city of Chicago, it was actually easier than it would be in the suburbs, because the suburbs are so tight knit. So community where there’s larger cities like Chicago or Miami and areas where I’ve coach agents, it’s very transient, right? So because it’s transient, it’s easier to pick up an open house lead, it’s easier to get an online web lead the conversion rates higher because they don’t have those connections, right. But if you take the time to say, I’m going to take care of this building that I live in that I farm, I’m going to be a part of the social events, I’m going to get to know the people in the building, you’ll dominate, you’ll own that building, I owned the buildings, we’re now selling real estate in Chicago, that I farmed, because I got involved with them from a community and it was easier, quite honestly, because there was such a lack of community in those bigger cities, not when you’re in the suburbs, right? And you’re going to have the soccer teams and the football teams and baseball and all the stuff that comes along, you know, with, I guess, families in the suburbs, right? or whatnot, and then you’re gonna have to get even more involved in there. Now. One thing that listeners might be thinking because I brought up the family element of it that somebody said to me on Saturday, he said, Well, I don’t have a family. So is it harder for me to grow my business? So this person has been a real estate agent for five years. And I pointed to an agent of ours that doesn’t have a family doesn’t have any kids and sell 64 homes a year. And I said but look at his network. He’s got 420 people in it. Every single quarter he touches them, I said, it’s I’ve never seen anybody work this system and not be a success. I’ve seen people not work it and be successful. I’ve seen people not work it and be failures. But I’ve never seen anybody working it, and it doesn’t work for them. But it takes a commitment it takes, it takes drive, right? And it takes it takes self reliance, you got to be responsible for yourself. You’re called independent contractors for a reason. But it’s going to take even more responsibility than it is when you get a job and you have a boss telling you what to do, you are the boss. So therefore you got to be able to get plan out your day, and do what you need to do and execute it day in and day out, or it’s just not going to happen.

D.J. Paris 20:47
And I think to this idea of earning business is I think there’s, well a minimum of two different places where you need to earn business. And I’m curious to get your thoughts on this. And here’s what I came up with. The first is you want, of course, your sphere and I say client, I should just say your sphere, your prospects, you want your prospects to think about you when they do need to work with a realtor. So you have to earn that position. So you first have to earn that. And then you also have to earn once they’re ready to make a decision that that you are in fact the right person. So you first want to be thought of and then you want to be selected. And I was thinking but you do have to earn that right. And you have to earn it through effort. And Ryan, you’ve said this time and time again on our show, social media is a great place to get information to allow you the to show you the steps to earn this, these deeper connection, earn these these deals through deeper connection through intimacy through understanding what’s going on in my clients lives are and that’s as simple as paying attention and reaching out and saying, Hey, I saw that you just did this, I saw that you guys just had a birthday I you know, there’s all sorts of things that social media tells us about our, our sphere of influence. And all we have to do is acknowledge it, tell them we’re watching work, and we’re proud of them, or we’re excited for them or whatever the particular instance might be. We have to do this on the regular so that we can even be thought about when it comes time for real estate. I’ll tell you. One thing I did about a year a couple years ago was I have had an assistant. And I said to my assistant, I said I don’t know any of my friends, birthdays, anniversaries, I don’t know their children’s birthdays. These are my friends. And I said I want to be the friend that knows all of his friends that doesn’t miss a birthday doesn’t miss an anniversary doesn’t miss. So I said can you reach out to all my friends and just ask them, we’re updating our database, we DJ doesn’t want to forget your birthday. And we got their, their their wedding anniversaries, we got their kids birthdays, I know the ages of their kids. Now I’m not a practicing agent. But I’m doing this just for my own my own relationships with my friends. But this is the exact same thing you can do with your sphere. And it gives you reasons to reach out to stay in communication to build community. But but in order to build a community you have to actually build a community you have to actually want to have deeper connections with your with your spirit.

Ryan D’Aprile 23:13
That’s absolutely right. That’s exactly what you have to do. And it’s it takes time. And it’s like you know, a river running through you know, you know, a canyon or whatnot, it will carve against the stone with the consistency. Day in and day out. It’s not a one and done thing. The most important part of all this is being consistent in these activities. It’s not like there’s no silver bullet out there it is it is time it’s effort if you nurture it, it will pay huge dividends to you.

D.J. Paris 23:45
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Ryan D’Aprile 26:02
yeah, and it’s all out there for you to know what’s going on with these individuals. I mean, today, it’s it’s so easy, everybody’s living their lives publicly. So it’s easy to see what’s going on. But again, be be intentional about that research and development that you’re doing. And what you’re seeing, just don’t don’t blindly log in and go through newsfeed, you’re the you’re going to be doing what the algorithms want you to see you have to be intentional. And look up your network, see what’s going out with them. And then and then don’t, don’t do it, don’t consider writing on the wall. You know, a, like a touch, you know, you have to pick up the phone, you need to text him You gotta reach out with them and create a dialogue. And remember Ford, right, family Occupation, Recreation and dreams, ask open ended questions. Right? You know, how’s Little Billy doing right? Or? Or hey, how’s it how’s the new job at? At? Pepsi? whatnot, I just saw you got promoted to director finance? How’s it going? What, tell me about that, let them then tell them about you, you know, have learned the art of conversing with individuals, right, open ended conversations. And remember, it’s more about them than it is you, they’re gonna give you so much valuable data. And then when they have a need and 16% of your network transacts every single year, when they have a need, they’re going to think of their friend, right? And that’s you, right? And I tolerate like, I love this business, because you’re in the business of creating friends. So get to work.

D.J. Paris 27:27
The other thing too, if you’re a brand new agent, I’ve never really heard anyone say this. So I’m curious, you might have a different opinion, you might say this is a terrible idea. But my first glance, my first thought is that it’s a good idea. But I could be wrong. So if I were a brand new agent, and I had a bunch of friends that owned homes that maybe weren’t even thinking of selling what every homeowner, or at least what most homeowners who aren’t in the process of selling still like to know is what’s their place worth. You know, at any given regular day, we can go to Zillow and look at the Zestimate I don’t ever think to do that. But sometimes people do but you’re a real estate professional, you can actually provide most likely a more accurate thing. So what I would do is I would call everybody I know who owns a house if I was new, and say hey, I know you’re not looking to buy or sell anytime soon. But I really want to send you a comp because I want to practice and I want to get better at sending comps, is it okay? If I send you what I think your home is currently worth? I just would love to get your review on it. It’ll help me in my skill, building my skills. If these are your closest people to you, I think they’d be like, great, send it over. We’re curious what you thought of that.

Ryan D’Aprile 28:35
If they’re, if mean reaching out to them and ask them

D.J. Paris 28:39
for an new agent. Hey, I don’t have any clients. I just want to get some practice, you know, running CMAs that kind of thing.

Ryan D’Aprile 28:46
I would run a CMA but I wouldn’t send it to I wouldn’t send it to I don’t think I would send it to

D.J. Paris 28:52
to them. You wouldn’t Okay, no, I

Ryan D’Aprile 28:55
wouldn’t. I want you to focus more on the relationship building aspect of it. They’re going to find out what you’re doing through your Autoflow your direct mail, your email marketing, you know, some of the social media, they’re going to know what you’re doing. Make friends with them. First, they’re going to ask you about real estate. If they ask you about comps, then you run some comps. Now what you should what you shouldn’t be doing you should be running comps, on homes, you know, but I wouldn’t be sending them out. You should be running and going to your manager broker and say what do you think about this? I think this home should be priced here based on the comps that I ran. You should be maybe talking to some friends and saying hey listen, why don’t you come see some open houses with me? I want to go around I want to get to know the marketplace. I love the front and come with me and also Hey, let’s go right up pretend to offer I’m not going to present it but let’s go take a purchase contract. Let’s go get a cup of coffee. I’m going to fill out a contract I’m gonna explain to you a contract. Would you mind me practicing on you that’s what you do with what really good friend of yours. That’s gonna give you some real life experience. Right? But you know, I’m of the mindset of your touches. Your outreach should all be relationship that should be all about them. Your real estate will naturally flow to you

D.J. Paris 30:00
So I agree you’re right. i You’re absolutely right. i It’s funny you I was talking about putting everyone’s anniversaries and birthdays in my calendar. And so now because I that I do that, especially wedding anniversaries, I routinely get messages from my friends that go, you’re the only person outside of my immediate family that knows it’s my anniversary now. Am I such an amazing guy that I because I do that? No, I just put it in my calendar. Like I literally just did the one thing? And how does how would that make that person feel about me remembering their most special day of their life, right, or the birth of a child or whatever it might be the major life events, if you can somehow be be there after the event happens to to you know, congratulate the person. Boy, that demonstrates a tremendous, a tremendous effort

Ryan D’Aprile 30:53
solely out loud, about, it’s always about them. It’s not about you. And it’s all about you showing how much you care about them through your actions, even more so than your words. And that’s being consistent and continually reaching out to them. Again, the numbers will just take care of it for you. The numbers so

D.J. Paris 31:10
you’re not. So here’s a question. But rates are really high right now. I’m an agent, none of my buyers, they’re all upset about rates. So I’m just giving a devil’s advocate. What do you say to that?

Ryan D’Aprile 31:24
About rates? Okay, great. And your buyer? Wonderful. Why are you buying?

D.J. Paris 31:33
Because I need more space.

Ryan D’Aprile 31:36
Okay, so the listeners pay close attention to this. Right? It’s the why so why do you need more space?

D.J. Paris 31:43
So that I can work from home? A couple days a week, and I need a home office?

Ryan D’Aprile 31:48
Why do you wanna work from home a couple days a week? So that I can?

D.J. Paris 31:51
Because it’s more comfortable for me? I don’t I don’t want to commute in every day. So I you know, how long 30 minutes?

Ryan D’Aprile 32:04
So is that an hour a day? Then? It’s 30 mins started our yes, they couldn’t what? You’re commuting five days a week, then if you’re not working from home? Correct? Well, that’s five hours a day. Right? Right. It’s 20 hours a month. Right? So, you know, and take that that’s 240 hours in a year? Yeah, divided by 24 hours? How many days of that? So those are the things I ask you, DJ, as my friend and my buyer. You know, what is it to you that’s more important? Is it a say a 6% interest rate on a 300,000 hour loan? Right? versus maybe dropped down to five and a quarter a year from now. So that three quarters of a point difference? What does that come out till? And then you got to ask yourself, What’s more important to you? Five days in the car 30 minutes each way, or be able to work from home? And I can’t answer that only you can. My friend, you find the home, you make that decision, you tell me if your wife’s strong enough for you to buy the home.

D.J. Paris 33:08
Right. So the rates just kind of are what they are. And I think most of our listeners have heard the expression, you know, marry the home date the rate. It’s it’s not an expression. It’s an overused expression. But it’s it’s a pretty good one. Because it is actually how most people think about purchasing property. They fall in love with the home. And whatever the rate is, is and people can refinance, of course, thank goodness. So

Ryan D’Aprile 33:35
most, most agents will ask these questions, TJ, but they don’t even have the buyer client yet. They asked him because they’re building up, they’re building up objections in their heads already, because they’ve yet to do the life flow that’s necessary for them to grow their business.

D.J. Paris 33:48
Does that make sense? A little bit more about life flow.

Ryan D’Aprile 33:51
Life flow was simply touching everybody in your database. I think we could do it once a month. Right? Personally, by you know, a text a call, right? Maybe Facebook Messenger to them about them, and checking in with them. You know, keeping keeping current with them, and keeping them in your life and you and there’s so if you have, say 300 people in your network. Okay. Do you have a calculator with you? Because I don’t know I’m pacing? Yes, I do. Okay, great. So there’s, there are 20 working days in a month. Okay, so what’s 23 divided by or what’s 300 divided by 2015? One Five. Fitting, you have to make 15 touches a day. 15 touches a day. Now do that for a full year in a row followed up with a consistent marketing campaign, not take 300 and multiply it by point one six. You know, come the 48 Yeah. 4840. That’s 40 transactions that that are living in that database of 300 people 16% of them are going to transact records Are this the market they’re gonna transact, a lot of them won’t even transact twice. Right? They might sell a transaction Yes, sell and buy. But here’s the reality is maybe 5% or less of real estate agents are actually going to do the activities they need to do. And do those 15 touches a day. Seeing the time in and time out. Right, that’s That’s it, separate you guys from the struggling real estate agent to the very few top producers that are actually out there.

D.J. Paris 35:26
And plus, like, if you really think about it, and again, everybody’s personalities are different. But I would assume it’s a lot more fun to contact somebody and, you know, you look to see what they’re doing on social you, you know, you have a reason to call them, they just did something on social media that you want to acknowledge, or there’s something going on in the market that you want to make them aware of. Either way, this should all be fun, positive stuff. Right. So making 15 phone calls a day going, Hey, I was just thinking about your saw you just went on a trip. I saw your so and so just got promoted. So you guys just had an anniversary a birthday? Oh, by the way, here’s something that’s going on in the market that you might care about down the street or whatever. Those are all activities. Vijay,

Ryan D’Aprile 36:09
I’ll even leave that out of it. Okay. That last part. Okay. I would even leave that part out of I would leave bringing it back to real estate out of it. Does that?

D.J. Paris 36:20
Yeah, just just connect with them. Personally.

Ryan D’Aprile 36:23
That’s That’s how I feel. Just connect with them. Focus on the relationship. Leave anything about your business out of it. They will ask you, here’s how you do it. Okay, DJ, we’re going to roleplay here. You’re an accountant. Okay. Okay. And say you’re an accountant at a big you know, one of the big five firms. Okay, okay. DJ, how’s business?

D.J. Paris 36:44
Whoa, I’m slammed it’s it’s it’s the beginning of the year. Everyone’s working on their taxes. It’s brutal right now I’m slammed.

Ryan D’Aprile 36:51
That’s crazy. What are you working on?

D.J. Paris 36:53
Corporate Tax taxes are due just clients are asking for everything for just shore up their year.

Ryan D’Aprile 37:00
That’s crazier, isn’t it? Yeah. Now, what are you gonna say to me eventually,

D.J. Paris 37:05
I’m gonna say hey, what’s going on with you? What’s What are you up to?

Ryan D’Aprile 37:08
Right? Now? Here’s my chance. Just busy running around works crazy families. Great.

D.J. Paris 37:14
How’s the market? How’s it? How’s

Ryan D’Aprile 37:15
it? Right? Worse, great. Finally, then you just say okay, well, how’s the market? Now, I’m not going in every call thinking that through. In fact, I tend to throw scripts away. Right? I just go and make it about the person somehow, usually, sometimes not all the time, work will pop up. But if I talk to you once a month, I text with you once a month, I send you a Facebook Messenger once a month, two years go by, I am your buddy. You know what the hell I do for a living. And when you are looking to either purchase your home or or sell a home, there’s a really strong possibility. I’m the guy you’re calling. Why? Because it did my job. I kept you close to me, I kept the relationship with you.

D.J. Paris 37:58
Yeah, this is this reminds me of an old Brian Tracy expression. And we’re not really putting this in the prospecting category. But one of my favorite Brian Tracy quotes is prospecting solves all problems, or sales solve all problems. And of course, of course he’s right. And so what we’re really doing is, even though we’re not prospecting with a capital P, what we’re doing is we are prospecting because we are staying in touch with our sphere. We know people are going to choose their realtor, most people are going to choose based on who they know, like and trust, you have to earn that you have to earn know, like and trust. So the way that you earn it is exactly how Ryan is describing it here. And if you just do this this year, and you you know, you find what 15 phone calls a day, if you have 300 people in your database 15 touches a day. What is that might take what three hours a day, maybe maybe two hours a day, maybe even less. That is a remarkable low amount of effort for building intimacy and ever sorry, not not alone in a bad way. That’s, that’s a very reasonable amount of time to spend. And that will actually result in business.

Ryan D’Aprile 39:08
That’s absolutely right. And Brian Tracy is right. Prospecting leads will solve all your problem. And I’ve seen agents I’m very empathetic individual. Don’t get me wrong, right. But I’ve seen agents struggle, and I’ve seen him complain about it. But then I’ve also watched him do nothing about it. Yeah, I watch him do nothing about it. Right. And I’ve watched him look around to see what’s gonna solve my problem, guys. There’s no silver bullet out there. You gotta get to work. You gotta look at every professional out there that’s successful in any industry. You know, it’s so funny. You know, again, I’ve worked with a lot of new agents and brought them up, right. And the first year is a lot of emotional intelligence. I have to work with them on right because they comment they might be coming into business in their 40s. Right? And then they’re gonna look at the front like, well, he or she’s so successful, like, we’ll leave it at their career. For 20 years, they’ve been building the career for a long time. Why are you expecting be a number one agent within 12 months? It makes no sense. And then why after seven years of you not doing what you really need to do, are you upset that you’re you’ve plateaued and you’re really not where you should be? Well, that’s because you just gone through time like anybody is going to be, I think it was Gary Keller wrote in his book, The Millionaire, Millionaire Real Estate Agent, the Methuselah effect, you know who Methuselah is, right? Yes. All right. And so you’re going to be in this business for 20 years, eventually, you’re gonna have enough business, just you just want to go through 20 years of being in real estate to finally hit your stride. Right. And there are a lot of agents I know, that had been in the business for 789 years that are finally hitting their stride. That’s just because we’ve been in it for 789 years. Right. You know, it’s, they’re not where they probably should be.

D.J. Paris 40:56
Yeah, it’s, it’s a really, it’s a really good point. It’s it. Also, it’s what’s nice about having sort of, you know, your life flow, like you were saying, would live flow equals connection with your, your sphere. What is so amazing about that is it has nothing to do with the market has nothing to do with the conditions of the economy. It’s just interpersonal communication, this is something that that you can do. On your best day, your worst day, whatever’s going on in your life, you can always pick up the phone, reach out to somebody, and do this, regardless of the market conditions or what’s going on in your business. So what’s what’s wonderful is if you can put the blinders on, it does, it doesn’t matter if rates are up or down. I mean, of course, that affects your clients ability to buy or sell certain things, but you want to always demonstrate care, compassion, you know, and connection.

Ryan D’Aprile 41:49
Absolutely. It’s always it’s, I say ABC, always be connecting. People say it’s always be closing, always be connecting, always keep in contact with people, and then the sales will just follow you.

D.J. Paris 42:05
That’s a great, great thing to end on. And a great reminder for all of us that are noticing all of the job cuts that are going on in the real estate world and all of the just the noise with with of course economists predicting by the way, I just went to Nar conference or saw the NAR Chief Economist speak Dr. Lawrence Yun a couple of days last week and, and by the way, he thinks that the housing market is going to be just fine. He does not think this will repeat back to 2008 2009 10, etc. So he was he’s very excited that things will be returning to normal in the next year or two. But in the meantime, and you should be doing this regardless of whether it’s up down up market down market rental market, you know, buy or sell or market connect with your your spear, there’s always going to be people like Ryan said 16% of the people you know, are going to transact in the next 24 months. That’s just a fact. So how much I’m sorry, in the next 12 months 16% Will transact in the next 12 months, some of those will have two transactions, some will have one. So you have a huge opportunity here. But you have to earn it. And the way that you earn it is through as Ryan just said, ABC always be connecting, find out these things. And guys, this is the fun part of the job. The hard parts actually working with the client. That’s actually the tough part. This is the fun part where you actually get to demonstrate that you care that you you know, this is the stuff that you should get excited about because it doesn’t require a whole lot of knowledge or skill just requires a little bit of effort. And and it requires that you do care about your clients. And if you do care about them, demonstrate it and they will they will be with you forever. Well, Ryan Well I think it’s a great place to pause we are again congratulations on the merger with with Coldwell Banker That is incredible. We’re so so excited and proud of you. And all of your agents I’m sure are thrilled about that. And also want to remind everybody to continue to follow us and sponsz Follow our sponsors and pit tape pay attention to what they are providing because our sponsors are the reason we can keep our show going. So please take a look at their products and services. We appreciate it and last please tell a friend about this show. We really want to blow this out of the water and 2023 We just crossed over 2.1 million downloads a few days ago. So please continue to tell other agents about it especially agents that are struggling and most agents are struggling right now they need a little pick me up if they listen to this episode from Ryan that’ll help get their their mindset back in order and they can start producing or make this 2023 a great year. So and also for anyone out there that is in the Chicagoland area or in Wisconsin, Indiana, Florida. Are you in Iowa Well, Ryan, I forgot if

Ryan D’Aprile 45:01
no Florida in the Eric Schmidt, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Illinois,

D.J. Paris 45:05
got it in Florida, Illinois, Florida. So

Ryan D’Aprile 45:09
we’re just not Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan.

D.J. Paris 45:12
If you are if you’re if you’re looking to work with a firm that has this kind of leadership, Ryan and his team would love to chat with EG APR properties.com. There’s a link to that in our show notes. That’s the place to go amazing company. And they are amazing, so amazing that they just got picked up by Coldwell Banker. So definitely check them out. It’s going to be going to be a great year guys. Let’s make it a good year. Ryan, thank you as always for continuing to support our show, and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks CJ.

Leslie Singer the founder of the Singer Team with Brown Harris Steven’s in New York discusses how she started her career in real estate. Leslie talks about the strategies she used for attracting clients in the beginning of her career. Leslie also discusses the mistakes she sees agents make that can be avoided and how she handles the problems that come in any transaction at some point. Next, Leslie focuses on the importance of previewing a property before going in with the client. Leslie joined TikTok recently and describes how she’s using the platform for her business. Last, Leslie discusses how she’s feeling about and approaching 2023.

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

Leslie Singer can be reached at 917-860-8128 and [email protected].

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

D.J. Paris 0:00
Would you like to attract more clients in 2023? Of course you would. Well, today we’re going to talk to a top 1% producer on exactly how she does it. 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 Paris. I’m your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment we’re going to be speaking with Top New York City agent, Lesley singer. But before we get to Lesley, just a couple of quick reminders I am asking for two favors this episode, but they promised I’ll only take you a minute total for both. So number one, if you could whatever podcast app, you might be listening to the show right now, if you could leave us a review that would greatly we’d greatly appreciate it. It helps us continue to improve and also learn what you like. So please do that. And we would really appreciate it. And also the second thing is just tell a friend think of one other realtor that is struggling right now and guess what most agents are it’s a tough year. Let’s help them as much as this podcast is hopefully helping you and send them a link over to our show so you can send them to our website keeping it real pod.com Every episode can be streamed from any browser or if the person you’re referring over to us is a podcast listener just have them pull up any podcast app search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. Alright guys, thank you for continuing to listen and support our show. And now on to the main event my conversation with Leslie singer.

Today on the show yeah blessing singer with the Center team with Brown Harris Stevens in New York City. Let me tell you more about Lesley. Now Leslie is an award winning broker and has consistently been one of Brown Harris Stevens top performers leading a team that has repeatedly been number one in sales for the firm. She has also earned a reputation as one of the most approachable and loyal representatives in the industry. Leslie’s track record of success is a function of her exceptional negotiation skills, tailored marketing solutions and an innate ability to help clients navigate the complex New York real estate market. Her honors include winning the Real Estate Board of New York deal of the Year Award, also being acknowledged as one of the top women in real estate by New York real estate journal, and being recognized as one of the top real estate teams nationwide by The Wall Street Journal. Born and bred in New York City Leslie’s informed sophisticated sensibilities in her MBA background guide the team in preparing for transitions and transactions, discerning value and return on investment. Now I want everybody to open up Instagram and Tiktok and I want you to follow Leslie and her team. It’s the same username for both it is singer team NYC that’s si n g R. So singer team NYC both Instagram and Tiktok. And we will have a link to those in our show notes. You can click on those and follow because Leslie is doing some really really cool stuff. Enter team on social especially on tick tock which you just got into which we can talk about too. Anyway. Leslie, welcome to the show.

Leslie Singer 4:38
Oh my god, thank you for having me. But now I all of a sudden I got nervous because those accolades. I mean, now I have to live up to them.

D.J. Paris 4:46
That’s true. There’s a lot of pressure to deliver. You don’t I’m gonna say this at the beginning because I since I just really I’m so impressed with with what you’ve done and I usually leave this to the end and then I realized Not everybody makes it to the end. So before we actually start the interview, I mean, it’s funny, I’ve been doing this five years, if you think it would have occurred to me sooner, but I guess better late Better late than ever. But if you are an agent in New York City, and you are shopping around for maybe a new team, a new firm, maybe you think you could be a good asset to Lesley and her team, reach out to them and let her have a conversation, and maybe you could be a possible good fit for, for the singer team. So anyway, just wanted to throw that out there first.

Leslie Singer 5:33
Except now they’re now they need to listen to see if they actually want to do that. So I know

D.J. Paris 5:37
they’re gonna want to work with you, I assure you, you are a big, big, big deal. And, and that’s the other thing, too, is, is definitely, you know, we’re, that’s why we’re so excited to have you on the show. But let’s say I would love to start. So what I don’t really know is how you got started, because I know you’re this big, big success now. But everyone starts somewhere. And I would love to hear about how and why you got into real estate.

Leslie Singer 6:03
Um, so I’ll try and make it a shorter story than but it was actually really interesting. My background is marketing. And I was the vice president of marketing for American movie classics, I had the dream job, truly a dream job. But I was flying all over the place. And I ended up with these two little kids that like immediately, they’re 17 months apart. And I couldn’t be flying around the world and having two little little ones at home. So I tried really, really, really strategized about what my next steps were. And it was really hard to come to this decision. But I was like, huh, I have a marketing background, very, very strong marketing background, I have an MBA, so I can do board packages, and I love finances. And I grew up in Manhattan, I know it like the back of my hand. And if I were to go into real estate, I wouldn’t be traveling. So I took the MBA, and I took the marketing background, my knowledge in Manhattan, and triangulate it on real estate. So it was a very thoughtful and strategic decision for anyone that’s starting out. And so that’s how I came into the idea of real estate. And it was really, truly for those reasons. And for anyone who’s starting in real estate, I talked to a lot of firms when I was thinking about, you know, starting my career, and every firm has a very different corporate culture, and a very different way of proceeding. And so it was really fascinating. And not only does each firm have a different corporate culture, but even within a firm, certain offices, within the same firm even have a different corporate culture. So I interviewed with a lot of different firms. And the other thing I will say is having a mentor when you start is really, really, really important. So I met with someone at Brown Harris Stevens, I met with a manager, again, interviewed with a lot of different firms, but came upon some manager at Brown Harris Stevens who said, huh, I got a call, it was someone who was looking for an assistant who would bring me on and we would kind of did a handshake. But certain certain arrangements were made That I would cover all weekends, open houses, just to start and get the mentoring. And we said we would try it for six months, and six months turned into 18 years on a handshake. And everything was just above board. And it was a you know, again, for me to learn but within six months and kind of like became more of a partnership. And I really brought my marketing background to the to the whole process and marketed ourselves branded ourselves. And it was it was a it’s great. So

D.J. Paris 9:13
well, before I go I go into sort of how you got started. And with that, because I think in particular that marketing background is so incredibly useful for agents when they get well at any point in their career. But certainly when they get started, I was gonna say with AMC, I just going back to American movie classics. I always I worship the the the lists. I’m thinking of American Film Institute. Okay, American, different. Sorry. I’m thinking of AFI who puts those lists together so so I was getting confused. But But yeah, American film classes Yeah. Big. Your AMC I’m sorry, AMC. Yes. But yeah, I’m a big God I love I love American movie classics, as well as the brand that they’ve built is impressive.

Leslie Singer 9:56
But it was at Time Warner I was at an ad agent Let’s see, I’m gonna really, I just, I loved what he did. But I have to say, I’m equally passionate that I get to do and it’s a privilege to get to do what I do every day.

D.J. Paris 10:11
And I imagine you get to sort of scratch the creative itch as well. Because when you get to be in full control of your branding, your marketing, your, your messaging, so does that sort of satisfy the part of you that loves being creative, and,

Leslie Singer 10:26
oh, that but I also have to say, every deal and no two deals are alike, and you have to be creative in this industry. And think outside the box, a if you’re promoting a property, how to differentiate, but also when it comes to a board package, and someone’s financials, and I’m not saying you have to be creative with their financials, but every deal has some sort of creative component of how to make the candidate the strongest possible presentation, etc. So I get creativity. And there’s a lot of creativity in how I handle my clients. But we can we can get into that, too now, or we can get into it later.

D.J. Paris 11:09
But yeah, let’s jump into it. Now, I’d love to hear about sort of how you approach clients. Well, first, actually, no, let’s back up, I want to first find out about attracting clients. Because even though you’ve been doing this for a long time now and a really impressive career, everyone, everyone gets started with really no clients. And so I’m curious, how did you when you first started 18 years ago, what were your strategies? I imagine you had some sort of sphere of influence, because you live but New York is so transient that I don’t know how much that helps. But you did grew up there. So I’m curious. Yeah.

Leslie Singer 11:45
So I mean, interestingly enough, when you’re first starting out, and yes, it was really important that I had a strong mentor behind me, which could show that there was someone with extreme knowledge and a track record as well. And then honestly, the brown hair Stevens brand. So those are definitely great things to have in my back pocket. But you don’t always want or nor do your friends want to work with a newbie, right?

D.J. Paris 12:11
When they’re buying a million dollar home. Just got her license a week ago.

Leslie Singer 12:15
Exactly. And nor do they always want to show their finances to you. Right. That’s, that’s,

D.J. Paris 12:21
you know, it is I’m sorry to interrupt. But that is something that nobody really has ever seen. We’ve done 430 episodes. And just that little piece that you said about, I’ve had lots of guests say, Well, I didn’t want to work with my friends, because I was afraid I would screw things up, or I was afraid to ask for their business. But the one thing I never thought about was what you just said, which is, I don’t know what my friends earn. I don’t, I’ve never asked them I was taught not to ask. And I was taught that any discussion of that was either considered brat braggadocious or being rude. So, so yes, so that’s really interesting. So that’s a really strong point. So you had these people, but maybe you didn’t feel so comfortable asking for business?

Leslie Singer 13:04
Yeah, no, I mean, absolutely. And look, and again, being that I had someone in my, you know, like, as almost a partnership in the beginning, I could offer that should they want to work with me, not only do they have the knowledge behind and the security of that, but then he could review their finances but even that, like felt it just, you know, I understand their their hesitation. But what I did do is in my little sphere of influence was I actually started like, the old fashioned way. And I kind of went to 10 of my really, really good friends. And I asked each of them for 10 names of people that I could contact just to start my own database. So you know, that’s okay, only 100 people, but then those 10 people so almost like, you know, those what are they like mail chain things that used to get? So that was one thing I did and I started a newsletter, which was something that my mentor had been doing, but there was always a column that was singer says, and it kind of talked about, like the New York school system or you know, those type of things that were New York based truly New York that showed that you had an insider in for like influence on Manhattan, and we would mail the buildings newsletters, and said,

D.J. Paris 14:28
that’s interested you just you would just blank it

Leslie Singer 14:32
blank and the part of my working at Time Warner was direct marketing. So I was like, Let’s do direct marketing. Let’s do a newsletter, let’s you know and people held on to those newsletters. It was pretty great. So that was one a couple of things. To think about,

D.J. Paris 14:51
can I pause? I’m going to tell you something that that’s gonna that’s not going to surprise you but also surprise you at the same time. because, well, so I moved into a new a new development a year and a half ago. And it’s a nice building, there’s 40 units, a townhome. There’s a few townhomes. There’s but but it’s it’s a, it’s a nice building and brand new development. Now, obviously all of us who have purchased probably not leaving any immediate time soon, but in a year and a half. So we’re talking about sending out mailers trying to establish your brand. At some point, all of us are probably going to move it’s at some point, it’s it’s, it’s, it would be unlikely that at our building people with lived there for 40 or 50 years, although we could, but it’s unlikely. So because of the neighborhood that we’re in, and it’s it’s just one of those younger neighborhoods. Not one piece of mail from any realtor, just saying, hey, you know, like, obviously, that would be a long term play, they’re probably like, well, if I’m going to start mailing, I’m going to be needing to mail for the next five to seven years. But why not? And And what’s amazing is not one piece of mail from any realtor in the last year and a half. And I don’t think it’s because people know that I’m in the business. I just think nobody’s thought to do this. So I think even that’s kind of a lost art these days. And there’s so much opportunity. So I just wanted to mention that three.

Leslie Singer 16:17
Yeah, and I think people are cutting back on mailing, right, because we have social media, we have everything else. But it is a really great way to cut through the clutter. And when I do a new listing, I’m mailed the neighborhood, book, and I mail the building as well, because people who love your building like you, you may not be ready to sell but you you may know someone who wants to buy there, because you love the building, and they come to visit you. So like it’s just another way to keep yourself top of mind.

D.J. Paris 16:48
You also said something else. And I apologize for like interrupting you every few moments using something that at first I sort of was like, I didn’t understand it. And then as you were talking it made sense. And I and this is such a this is no no, this is a thing nobody else has said either. Which was. So there used to be this old sales technique at the closing table, or whether you’re selling a car or I was or whatever the old salesman 101 was like, by the way, I’d like the name of three of your friends. Now that nobody likes that, right? We all are like, Yeah, but what you did was much smarter, and definitely works and isn’t uncomfortable, which is you go to your your friends, and you say, Hey, I’m starting my business. I’m not obviously, you know, if you know someone who wants to buy or sell, obviously, I’d love to talk to him. But I would just love to get to introduce to some of your friends. And basically, that’s what you were asking. And that’s just called networking. And I just want to make, I just want to make sure that anyone listening, that is a really smart strategy, because your friends are the ones that want you to succeed. And you’re not asking them to like, you know, you’re not really asking them for

Leslie Singer 17:57
a sale, you’re not asking. Like, who do you think would be really good for me to reach out to and talk to now it’s brilliant.

D.J. Paris 18:05
It’s brilliant. And I know if somebody asked me, I mean, it’s such a simple thing. But no, really people don’t do this very often. I don’t think if somebody if one of my friends were to say I’m starting this XYZ business, whatever it is, hey, could you give me some names of people that might in the future? Maybe be a candidate for me? I just want to put them on my list or reach out? I wouldn’t hesitate. And I’d be like, of course, I will like no big deal. Yeah. Asking asking a client at the closing table. That one feels more uncomfortable.

Leslie Singer 18:37
Yeah, definitely. I agree.

D.J. Paris 18:39
I just wanted to honor you for a couple of those. Those. Really, really, it’s always the small things, right? Like, people say things on the show. And and all of a sudden, like they just kind of go past it because they don’t realize how how important I think that isn’t I’ll be like, Oh, stop stop you just so you’ve done that a several times. So I promise to not interrupt as much anymore. No, I appreciate

Leslie Singer 19:00
that. Um, the other thing was, I noticed this happened. When my when my children were in nursery school. And we were applying for kindergarten, a lot of my parents would talk to me because I grew up in Manhattan, about the different schools and I only went to one or two of them, right. But they would ask me and I had a general knowledge of the school system. And I was like, Huh, why don’t I give back and this is in my first year of real estate, why don’t I give back to the community and by hosting seminars about the school system. And so we would I would have a getting into kindergarten school panel and getting into Nursery School, which is a huge thing in Manhattan. I would have these panel discussions and I would bring in not only parents but guidance counselors. And yes, they have come from nursery school. Yes, they haven’t for kindergarten. But it was my way to give back to the community with also the self serving idea that these people will be making a decision shortly, once they know where their child is getting into school as to where they want to live. Since then,

D.J. Paris 20:18
I love that and here in Chicago, I don’t know, you know, I’m not a parent myself. So I don’t know if those exist. I have not. I’ve heard of Realtors doing. So you want to buy a condo, so you want to buy a first home? Those those seminars happen? Those are pretty common. I’ve not heard about school, and that is every new parents sort of biggest one of their biggest issues is where if especially in a big city, where’s my child going to go to school? Where are the safe areas? What are the best, you know, academics, etc. That’s really

Leslie Singer 20:52
now now I do it through college, because that’s kind of as my kids got older, and I had more knowledge, and we still we do college seminars as well. And I have to say, it’s fun for me, it shows how old I am. But there are clients that I helped with the nursery that I’ve also helped with the college. I mean, isn’t that incredible? Yeah. Yeah, the way through? Yeah. Well, I,

D.J. Paris 21:17
my sister and I both went to Miami University out in Ohio, Miami of Ohio. And then my sister ended up in New York City, they actually have a pretty strong alumni. You know, contingency there in New York, which, which is surprising. Whenever I met people in Ohio that went to Miami, or from New York, I was like, how did you find out about, you know, this, this, this really, we shouldn’t be in Florida. We’re in the middle of Ohio. And, and, yeah, but anyway, um, that’s, that isn’t me. So you still do that as you still do. You’re just, if you go all the way you still do all the way from nursery school up there.

Leslie Singer 21:53
Really, we’ve been really focused more on the college because again, you know, it’s a life cycle. And it’s really nice way to give back. And, you know, eventually, people will think about, hmm, you know, my home is larger than I need, right as they go off to college. So

D.J. Paris 22:13
we’ll just even just even planning for college with 529 plans, and the financial part of it is is so daunting, and so scary for new parents, that it’s something that they have to start thinking about pretty much right away. Yeah. In your Yeah, yeah. In utero. It’s, yeah, I Yes. My, my one nephew is five. And so he’s got some time, but my, my sister’s all they’ve already figured it all out. And it’s already all figured out. And I was like, good for them. Yeah. Yeah. But so so that that is a really smart strategy, because you again, you are giving back you’re contributing, you’re providing value. And then oh, by the way, I’m also a realtor so

Leslie Singer 23:02
well, you know, in my mind, finding the perfect fit for school is very similar to finding a perfect fit for your family in a building. And the application process of a applying for these schools is not that different. Of course, you’re not showing all your financials, but you still have an application process for getting into school, you have an application process for, you know, a co op. So there was so many similarities, but again, it wasn’t, it was a nice way for me to give back with a minor ask, right. So it felt good.

D.J. Paris 23:38
So you bring in you said, you bring in guidance counselor’s? Do you ever bring in representatives from the schools themselves?

Leslie Singer 23:44
I have done that. And I’ve done parents, so you have a really, really nice range of people. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 23:51
that is such a great idea. I love that.

Leslie Singer 23:55
Wow, I think it’s really important. I think it’s really important to really think about what’s authentic and genuine to you with whatever you do because people will they they can feel it they can sense it. And it’s really where you’re you’re coming from the most honest place and I think it’s great for connecting so I would say to anyone starting out think about what’s really authentic and genuine to you and follow that so that you know those those workplaces for me that felt

D.J. Paris 24:34
Yeah, it makes makes all the sense in the world. I also want to go back to this idea of open houses because I feel like that too. Is so easily like Yeah, yeah, yeah, sit open houses, but it’s not it may be it doesn’t sound very exciting to talk about. But I will say that almost every guest I’ve had on and I only really interviewed top 1% producers, they all love and they all started doing and open houses for other agents and learning how to talk to clients as they walk in and out how to, you know, understanding how to have conversations about real estate, how to talk to clients understanding their needs, how important was it for you to do a lot of those reps sort of going to the gym, almost have open houses? How critical is that for you?

Leslie Singer 25:21
So for me, those weekend open houses, where I took over our listings and had the open houses, those were really, really, really critical. And I will tell anyone, even if you are representing a property, you should have a no inside and out all the other competitive properties. Because when you get someone at that open house, and you say to them, because it’s really critical question, does this work for you? And he’s like, Nah, you know what this or that, and then you can say, this may not work for you. But how about this, I think you should look at this, man make an appointment for you. So know your competition, and turn that person if they’re, if you’re not, they’re not going to be the buyer for your property, turn them into a buyer for another property. It’s it’s a art and it’s a great opportunity. So yes, those open houses were really, really, really important. The other thing is when other brokers are holding open houses, go to as many open houses as possible and learn the market, whether it’s a one bedroom, a studio, a two bedroom, a five bedroom, because inevitably, you’ll be at a cocktail party, and you’ll be oh, you know, oh, you’re interested on the, you know, the Upper East Side, I saw this great two bedroom the other day, right? Like, it just get to know the market. And it doesn’t matter. I mean, I’ve been doing this for so many years, and I still go to open houses so I can see what’s out there.

D.J. Paris 26:54
And also to, it’s great, I don’t love the word networking, because I just feel like that I don’t even know it and always what that means, but this idea of going to these broker open houses, allows you to interact with other realtors. And there’s a real practical reason to do this even other than just being fun and friendly and nice.

Leslie Singer 27:15
In the market, and you you learn that, you know, when I’m talking to other brokers, and I’m going to the open house, inevitably, there’s a discussion of like, you know, what are you seeing, you know, how, you know, how are you finding the market, this is what I’m experiencing? And there’s also the great discussion of, hey, I’m bringing this on, do you know anyone? Or, you know, I, someone doesn’t want to list this, but they’re thinking about listing it, would you have any, I mean, there are so many dialogues that are important. Plus, just to have your face out there,

D.J. Paris 27:51
of course, well, and I imagined to like, during the pandemic, for example, when what once once the, the sort of pandemic was subsiding. And, and people, you know, the interest rates were so low and everyone was trying to buy, I imagine it doesn’t hurt to go into an open house, you know, at some point, introducing yourself to the other agent, making nice with them developing some sort of friendship or relationship, professional friendship with them, probably doesn’t hurt them, when they see out of the 30 offers they just received, when they see a friendly a name that they recognize, like, I know this, this woman, she’s awesome. I met her at an open house, she seems great. It probably doesn’t hurt at getting a little bit more attention on that offer.

Leslie Singer 28:35
Now, you’re absolutely right about that. I’m working on a transaction right now. And the offer was accepted. Honestly, probably a good six to eight weeks ago of which we still haven’t gotten to contract. And I represent the purchaser and the broker on the other side is like, Thank God, it’s you. Thank God, it’s you. I know we’re gonna get there. Yeah. Because she said, you know, never my 40 years have I experienced this, but like, you know, so to your point, making, making contact, making connections, just as someone when a deal comes together, they have a name and a face and they feel good about it is really, truly important. So I am

D.J. Paris 29:23
I’m curious too, because you’ve been in this industry almost 20 years, you’ve seen a lot of agents come and go you’ve seen as you’ve been building your your business and your team, what are some of the mistakes that you see agents making as they are trying to build their business or, and there’s so many mistakes that that agents make. But what we tried to do on the show is help agents avoid some of those pitfalls. So is there anything that comes to mind? I mean, aside from like, not working hard enough. Yes, that’s usually the main reason I find that people tend to exit the industry. Um, but it isn’t always that. And sometimes people just make, you know, decisions that they could have made differently. So is there anything that that you sort of see agents, you know, any mistakes that agents make, that really they that could be avoided, anything that comes to mind,

Leslie Singer 30:16
I’m gonna have to think about this for a second mistakes. I think sometimes when you’re young and you’re hungry, you want the deal more than you. Like, you know, you want it too much, and you lose sight of your client, and you push for a deal. And I think a lot gets lost there. And your relationships are so important that you can’t want the deal more than your own client. And, you know, deals are going to come and go, and they’re going to come together, they’re going to fall apart or whatever. But making sure that your client feels really attended to throughout. So really spending that time and not thinking of it as just like a one deal. And then you’re on to the next because you you build your business by clients referring to you or coming back to you. And don’t make something like a one trick pony. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 31:17
that’s really, really good advice. And I’m curious to F with the amount of time and the number of deals that you have done? How important is it to anticipate your client’s needs? Or their mental state? And I don’t mean, you know, whether they’re sane or insane. I mean, their their anxiety, their fear, fears, their their joy, that? How critical is it to be able to manage those expectations and those emotions for your clients? Because I know, every time I’ve purchased and sold a property, something always goes wrong, there’s always a moment where I’m like, well, something’s going on, this is all falling apart, this is all going to be a big disaster. And then, then, you know, it isn’t. But the stress of that is real. And I’m curious about how you help your clients through those difficult, you know, moments of a transaction?

Leslie Singer 32:14
Well, so there’s, I mean, you bring up a really, really important point, which is a every deal has a moment, every single, every single deal has a moment. Like there’s you know, and you never know when it’s gonna happen, but it’s kind of like when it happens, you’re like, oh, here it is. And you you, you work through it, I try to the best of my ability, ability to always handle all those moments without including my client. So I try I take on the stress, and try and navigate to get to the right answer without having to stress them out and only go to them at those really critical moments that I’m like, I can’t do it without, you know, including them. But I do think you spend time with the client upfront. And, you know, just in your dialogue of getting to know them of is this a life transition? Right? So you come into people’s lives, whether they’re having getting married, having a baby, you know, it’s their first time purchase, some are getting divorced, sometimes it’s death. Sometimes it’s an estate sale and getting to know a, what their objectives are, where they are in their lifecycle, and understanding that will help you navigate with them. And listening throughout the entire process. You’ll get to sense whether this is someone who makes a really quick decision. This is someone who needs more hand holding, this is someone who needs to see 25 properties, they only need to see five, you know, so it’s a lot of listening, there’s a lot of hand holding. And there are times when you’re a therapist, right? Because you’re dealing with someone’s largest asset. They’ve exposed everything. You know, they’ve told their life story and aboard package, they’ve shown all their financials, they’re extremely anxious, they started envisioning themselves in the property. You know, and for whatever their reason is for their transition that comes to play so and there for sellers, that’s a really emotional time. They may have, they may have, you know, brought up their whole family there and they’re selling because they don’t need that family home anymore. But it’s still emotional, even if they’re excited about where they’re going. It’s still emotional, or you know, if it’s a death or whatever, divorce so, yes, a transitions and getting to know your client, but I really, there are a couple things I do which is I try and understand that client really well in the beginning and I listen. But I really respect someone It’s time. So I try my, if I’m working with a buyer, I try and identify, before we even go out five to 10 properties that I think are going to be a perfect fit. I lined those five properties up in a row, get a car and driver, so I only take them out of their day to day for maybe an hour and a half to two hours. And then we can kind of have a conversation after that, like, what worked, what didn’t work. And then I can refine the search that much more, but I’m always sensitive to someone’s time.

D.J. Paris 35:34
Can I ask about doing showings? This is such a simple question. Everybody does them differently. Do you visit the properties before your client?

Leslie Singer 35:44
I love previewing. I love to preview a property A, it allows me to eliminate if I don’t think it if it’s going to be appropriate, but be when I get to that property. And I think it is the right fit. Because I’ve previewed it, it not only gives me ability to be comfortable in the showing, but I have a lot of knowledge. And I can point out to my client, you know, the things that I know are, you know, important priorities for them. So whether it’s closet space, or whatever it may be. I know that that’s important to them, and I can help highlight it. So I love previewing.

D.J. Paris 36:26
So whenever possible preview, in my opinion,

Leslie Singer 36:29
yes, it takes extra time, but it’s so worth it. And that property that you see that you’re previewing may not be right for the client you had in mind. But I promise you somewhere in the next kind of like discussions you’re having all of a sudden, and it could be three weeks later, and that property, hopefully still on the market, you’re like, Oh, my God, the property that I saw for seven, so that wasn’t right is totally right for someone else. There’s, there’s no wasted time. It works.

D.J. Paris 36:59
I guess what we’re really talking about is learning the inventory. I mean, as simple as it sounds. And inventory is of course always changing. But this idea of being a master of the inventory is really, so it’s so critical. It’s not, hey, I’m gonna go on this journey with you. And we’re gonna walk into this home together and check it out. It’s I’m gonna go on the journey. First, I’m going to check everything out so that I can bring back and, you know, it’s it’s a simple thing, but I don’t know that most agents even preview properties, I think they a lot of them show up with their client. And, you know, and that is, it’s, that’s really not the it’s just my opinion, but it’s not really the best client experience that way, I believe. Yeah, I

Leslie Singer 37:44
think you know, I think, look, everybody has a different you know, a different way of handling their business. Again, it gives me the confidence walking in that I feel like it is really right, I can show it better, even though I’m not the show or you know, the listing agent might be the shower. But again, just as you said, getting to know the inventory is just so critical.

D.J. Paris 38:08
I wouldn’t I want to go ahead. I’m

Leslie Singer 38:10
sorry. No, no, I just recently there was a home that I had previewed, I thought it was absolutely like the perfect fit. Brought the couple, the wife looks at me. And she’s like, Oh my god, I love this. I love this. But there was something in the husband’s face that I was like, Huh. And I came back to her a couple days later. And I said, Look, you know, I sent you this listing. And you said you weren’t interested in seeing it for the following reasons. But I noticed your husband’s reaction. And I actually think this will appeal to him more. And she was like, hmm, okay, let’s go. And that’s the one they bought. Yeah. So it’s like, just, you know, you have to also be present when you’re showing, yes,

D.J. Paris 38:58
you have to pay it pay attention. And it’s actually a so and that probably being that the, the physical space isn’t new to you at that. Yeah. Because you’ve already previewed it, you now can focus your attention on their reaction versus what’s actually going around visually. Exactly. That’s an important tip. And so maybe that’s even the best reason of all to preview is, is well, there’s lots of great reasons to learn the property,

Leslie Singer 39:31
it allows you to really be watching. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 39:35
you know, you’re so right, because I know for me, any shiny object, you know, captures my attention. And so if I’m walking in somewhere, for the first time, I’m looking around and seeing everything visually, and of course, that’s what the client is going to be doing and you’re really watching them. Watch instead of you know, being taken in yourself by everything and that is, again, it’s it’s a simple thing, but not every realtor thinks about that and And that is really it. We’re talking about professionalism, I think and being professional. And that is such a such a great idea. So thank you for that. And another question. I wanted to switch gears a little bit because you were telling me just before we got on, Leslie, Leslie and I were talking about I am so jealous because I live in Chicago and we are the second city. And, and New York is, you know, probably the first city of ADD, so I’m, I live in a very wonderful place, but I’m so jealous because New York is such a lovely place. And we were talking about all things New York. I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast. Do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests. Of course it is a follow up boss and let’s face it, following up is the key to taking your business to the next level. Follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort. Do not take my word for it. Robert slack who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 systems so you can keep your current tools and lead sources. Also, the best part they have seven day a week support so you’ll get the help that you need when you need it and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time, they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial which is twice as much time as they give everyone else and oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free but only if you use this special link visit follow up boss.com forward slash reel that’s follow up boss.com forward slash reel for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. But you were telling me that you just recently had some success on social media with Tik Tok. And, you know, this is really interesting because I’ve been doing the show for five years. And no one’s tock tick tock yet. And I’m not I’m not asking you to, to, to, you know, give away any secrets or any but we are starting to see Realtors now embrace tick tock which is being used, of course by you know, the demographic of Tik Tok users are skews younger. And so I’m curious on what you’re doing there, and what sort of results you’re seeing because you just had a big success there.

Leslie Singer 42:38
Yeah. Um, so I’ve been doing Instagram, you know, obviously for quite a while now. And I have a team that helps and supports me and I kept saying I think we really need to be on tick tock think we really need to be on tick tock. And they’re like, Yeah, you know, it’s new. And I’m like, so I’m, I’m maybe even be late to the game. Because I keep I was harping on this, but we really only started a couple of weeks ago. And again, I’m doing things that are truly, truly genuine to me, and really comfortable for me. Usually around the property, you know, it’s around properties. Although, as I mentioned to you, I just happen to do one around hot chocolate because I do like to bring in a little bit of lifestyle and like things that are popping up in Manhattan, that could be useful tidbits. But they’re usually centered around a property that I’m promoting, and just having a ton of fun with it. But like, you know, again, it’s really, really new to me, and this one particular video went viral and we have like now 270,000 hits on it and like, okay, so and I’ll just share with you that my son who’s 25 He’s like, Hey, Mom, my friends are loving you on Tik Tok and they say, you’re so you’re so professional. Hey, Mom, I didn’t even know you were on Tik Tok. And he goes I don’t have tick tock

D.J. Paris 44:08
Hey, Mom, stay out of my friends tiktoks

Leslie Singer 44:12
I wasn’t there watching they’re following me and wasn’t like,

D.J. Paris 44:16
but isn’t that amazing? If you put out good quality content or fun content, entertaining content, whatever it might be, it can you know, we do have ways you know, we do have the opportunity now with technology where where things can can spread and and it’s all about value. And so I imagine tick tock is an as well as Instagram is fun for you. Because with your marketing background, you get to really project what I am. I’m curious too, about how you stay in touch with clients in between there, their sales, right, so somebody buys a co op there. Maybe they’re gonna live there for X number of years. How are you? Staying in touch with them in between.

Leslie Singer 45:02
Yeah, so that’s always a really hard thing, because you’re really, really busy with your day to day. So I do do a monthly newsletter. And sometimes it’s not, you know, as frequent. Sometimes it’s more frequent if it’s important, but I definitely do a monthly newsletter. I really love my clients, like I really, really love my clients. So fortunately, that means having coffee with them having a lunch, you know, having a drink. And it may not be as you know, sometimes you can do it more frequently. everyone’s schedules really, really busy, but your clients sometimes become your really good friends sometimes, you know, as I said, some are with me forever and repeat business. And then it’s little things like just reaching out and following up, you know, how are you enjoying your apartment love to see, I’d love to drop by, you know. And then I do every now and then I don’t do holiday gifts, because they get lost in the clutter. But I will pick a different time of year to do a gift, and do a mailing of a gift. So and it could be you know, Gears we’ve did champagne, it’s just another way of just saying, you know, thinking of you. And usually for the first year, when someone buys from me, they’ll get like wine of the month. So each month or depending on who they are. Maybe it’s flowers each month. So each month, there’s like a little and I can write the notes to them. So each like January, a different note for me, like, you know, each month for that first year they’re hearing for me,

D.J. Paris 46:42
ya know, they love that. I also just because this was you, it’s pulled back the curtain a little bit about how we book our show. We send questions to our guests, and I never ever get to the questions. But there was one that one response that you gave that I just thought was so cute. And I really wanted to you to share us this story this year that you were named the mayor of by a client so so I don’t want to give away the the punch line. But do you mind sharing the story? Because this is this is such a great, great holiday story?

Leslie Singer 47:18
Well, it’s just so you know, to be the mayor of something right? You should be actually really quite charming. And when a client of yours says you’re like the mayor, it’s like, oh, it should be really, really flattering. But this was a client that definitely wish we had identified the Upper East Side, which I know like the back of my hand. No really, really, really well. But he’s like, you’re the mayor of no foo. And I’m like, Mayor of no foo like, what, what is no foo and he’s like, it’s the Upper East Side. Leslie, you’re the mayor of no foo. And I’m like, What is no foo? And he said, no fun. And I’m like, Oh my god.

D.J. Paris 48:02
So you’re the you’re the mayor of the no fun part of New York.

Leslie Singer 48:06
And again, it wasn’t because I’m not no fun. But he was like nervous that the Upper East Side had this reputation of not being fun and that people always went downtown to have fun. So yes, I was I was named the mayor of no Fu and I got such a kick out.

D.J. Paris 48:26
That is that is that is amazing. So curious how you’ve seen like, for 20. So by the time this will be released, it will be in January? We’re actually recording it here in December 2023. You know, you’ve been you’ve been through several market cycles. You were you went through the crash of awaits. And at just 2023 Do you have any fear about 2023? How are you? How are you approaching?

Leslie Singer 48:59
I mean, not not only have I been through the crash, right, but the pandemic. You know, like, and I did not leave the city I was here for my clients, I did not leave and I had clients who would call me during the pandemic and they say, what is happening on West 79th street and I’m like, You know what, let me go over there. And I’ll go running over because the Lucerne had given over their hotel to the whatever. But you know, news can news media can make things sound that much worse. And so boots on the ground. But Anyway, point being I’ve been through so many different cycles that I think you really need to just be confident that people do need to move right there are always going to be circumstances and you need to figure out in any given market what the advantage is. So we had low interest rates and there was a time minute moment where the market kind of dropped right, but only like eight to 10%, even during the pandemic, but if you had the guts to buy, then, you know, that was a brilliant time. So 2023, we’re kind of looking at the first half of the year potentially being difficult. Maybe a couple more price increases, but I think, you know, interest rate increases, but I think people have already experienced that and have the knowledge and we’re looking at a really strong second half of the year. That’s my prediction. So if you can work with your clients, at a time, when the first half of the year, people are nervous, there are opportunities. So that’s a great time to negotiate. And there’s a great saying, date, the rate, marry the home. So if someone is, you know, nervous about interest rates, you can change your interest rate later. But if you find that home you love and you need to finance, just know that that’s a possibility. So I think you know, you just, it has to be business as usual, you have to know your market, you have to know your comps. And think about the opportunities, because you may the first half of the year, like find that there are people that are still a little bit nervous and willing to negotiate a bit more. So yeah,

D.J. Paris 51:27
there is negotiation, it happens now, it didn’t, didn’t happen.

Leslie Singer 51:32
No, I mean, there was, you know, just a year ago or whatever, you could walk around the block, and you had to make a decision. Right. So

D.J. Paris 51:42
do you have any buyers that are feeling remorse? That oh, gosh, when interest rates were at 3%? I should have pulled the trigger? Do you have to counsel people through that? You know, because again, yes. And rates prices were also super inflated, you were competing against many other buyers? And you’re going to probably pay more? So I’m just curious on Yeah,

Leslie Singer 52:11
so now that’s where that’s where you kind of have to, you know, help them understand that because you know, you’re getting that property at, you know, a better value. So yes, you may be paying more on your monthly for your mortgage, but that same property a year ago, you wouldn’t be able to negotiate on. So there’s always that and that is why kind of the date, the rate is also gives people confidence that you know what, maybe I can change it later. But historically, we are still at really low interest rates.

D.J. Paris 52:47
I know like really, really low and yeah, really, really low. Really, really low. It’s not freakout everybody. We’re not double digits, we’re not.

Leslie Singer 52:58
Exactly. And the other thing is New York, you know, not for everyone. But we’re a very cash driven city. So we have a lot of cash deals that have always happened, that will continue to happen. Bonuses may not be as strong as other years, but bonuses get paid. So you know, you have to look at Manhattan, look at the concrete things that happen. And our market continues. I’m not, I’m not concerned.

D.J. Paris 53:30
Good. Well, that that is very reassuring to our audience. And to me as well, because I have not been in it for 18 years, and haven’t weathered all of the cycles and storms that you have. But I’m glad to hear that you are not particularly worried about 2023. And that that will help call.

Leslie Singer 53:52
There’s too much discussion about recession of first half and then pulling out really fast. So in a V. Going right back.

D.J. Paris 54:01
Yeah, well, we’ll certainly hope for the best. Leslie, I am so happy that you spent time with us today you are a real treasure. And for anyone out there who is an agent who either has clients who moved to New York City, who would want to refer business to it, maybe you don’t practice in New York, Lesley would love the opportunity to connect with you. Of course many people have properties in the New York City area. So if you’re an agent in another part of the country, and you want to refer business out and get in touch with Lesley, she would love to chat with you. And also, if you’re an agent in New York City and you’re looking to join a really super successful team under Leslie’s leadership, you might be a good fit for her or they might be a good fit for you. So let’s see if, if another agent wants to reach out to you what’s the best way that they should do that?

Leslie Singer 54:55
I think email is actually really great. So I would AE l singer at BHS usa.com. And I can repeat that. It’s l singer at B H s usa.com.

D.J. Paris 55:13
And we’ll have a link to that in our show notes as well. Leslie is is a superstar agent in New York City. We are so excited that she spent the last hour here with us. And we want to thank her on behalf of our audience. So on behalf of the audience, Leslie, we say thank you for spending your time we know busy well and also on behalf that you’re welcome. And on behalf of Lesley and myself we also say thank you to our audience, to continuing to support and listen to our episodes. Best way that you can help us grow every one is just tell a friend think of one other realtor that needs to hear this episode this conversation with Lesley. Oh my god she gave like five incredible tips in this episode that can really help transform someone’s business. Send them a link to this episode. They need to hear it people who everyone is stressed about 2023 Leslie’s not. And she explained why and she gave a lot of great suggestions about how to handle 2023 So send this podcast episode over to another realtor that is struggling right now. And Leslie thank you so much for being on our show. We are so grateful to have you and we will see everybody on oh I’m sorry everybody go follow Lesley as well on Instagram and Tiktok singer team NYC singer team NYC and si ng er we will have links to those they are doing some really cool stuff on social definitely check them out. Leslie it was a such a pleasure having you on the show.

Leslie Singer 56:48
Likewise, thank you for having me.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa is an Illinois licensed Attorney and CPA with a focus on Real Estate Law and Estate Planning talks about his newest book and why he wrote it. Donald explains how he got involved in real estate and law. Donald also discusses why he sees the primary residence as an asset and not a liability. Next, Donald talks about where is the opportunity in 2023 and where the realtors should focus on in order to keep their business rolling. Donald and D.J. discuss long-term care insurance and how it can effect the generational wealth. Last, Donald discusses the importance of the agent knowing what they’re selling in and out.

Please check out Donald’s book “Discover Your Dragon” here.

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

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa can be reached here.

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

D.J. Paris 0:00
What is a top real estate attorney telling every realtor he knows what to do this year to stay productive? Or we’re going to talk about 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 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 real estate attorney Donald kielbasa. But before we get to Don, just a couple of quick reminders. Number one, please support our sponsors. We love our sponsors. They’re the reason we can keep doing the show. And we appreciate if you check out their products and services and consider supporting them because they support us. But even if you aren’t able to support our sponsors, and we hope that you do, please tell a friend about the show. That’s the other way that you can help us get in front of more Realtors is tell someone else in your office about this podcast we all we focus on is helping you by talking to top producers who say this is exactly what I’m doing right now to grow my business and let someone else in your office somebody who’s struggling and all a lot of us are struggling right now. Right? It’s a tough time in the market. So please share the love let other people know about this podcast. We appreciate it. But enough about that let’s get to the main event my conversation with Attorney Donald kielbasa.

Right today on the show we have best selling author, champion athlete and real estate attorney Donald Yun kielbasa. Let me tell you more about Donald. Now Donald is an Illinois licensed attorney and CPA with a focus in real estate law and estate planning. Now over the past 14 years as an attorney, Donald has managed over 8000 commercial and residential real estate transactions. Prior to becoming an attorney, Donald worked as a CPA with big four accounting firm KPMG. And he’s also the author of two books discover your dragon and Tao of the side hustle, which is his newest book, when he’s not practicing law Donald is was a gold medalist for the 2008 United States Wushu Team, wushu translates to Chinese martial arts. Now after winning gold, he caught the attention of Warner Brothers games, and is the martial arts motion capture model in some of the biggest action video games in history, including Mortal Kombat where he was scorpion and sub zero, and also the game injustice where he played Batman and flash. So please, everyone go pick up Donald’s newest bestseller, The Tao of the side hustle, which is on Amazon, we have a link to that in our show notes. And if you’re a realtor here in the Chicagoland area. Donald would love to talk to you and work with your clients, you can visit his real estate website at Chicago real estate at t y. So, Chicago real estate AT T y.com. Donald, welcome to the show.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 4:26
Hey, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity.

D.J. Paris 4:29
Super excited to have you I and I I was very excited over the break to read Tao of the side hustle and actually before we get into any of your story, I normally start with your story but this because this book is so new and it’s just crushing it in the Amazon charts, you know, so that our audience doesn’t have to wait 20 minutes for us to finally get to talk about the book. Tell us what the tell us what the book is, who it’s for, and and why you wrote it.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 4:55
So ultimately, if you look at if you look at a man come from a macro perspective, people hold wealth in three places, they hold their wealth in real estate retirement plans and small businesses. So the biggest part problem with people when they’re starting small businesses is that first step. So I wanted to create kind of is a modern day Art of War, where we walk, we guide the reader through a side hustle, you know, tell the side how so we go from side hustle to stabilize to scale. Right. And it’s basically a blend of Buddhism, martial arts and business to help the reader, you know, start dipping their toe in entrepreneurship. Yeah, I

D.J. Paris 5:40
love it. who’s best suited to for this book to make an impact on who’s the who needs to read this?

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 5:46
You know, that’s a good question. Why, you know, whenever you’re creating a product for distribution, like you’re always supposed to have an intended target audience, right? Historically, I would tell you, people who have that entrepreneurial itch, right, that would be the historical answer. Today, I think that definition has broadened significantly. If you go all the way back to Adam Smith, wealth nation, so I’m a big Adam Smith guy, right? Sure. You know, there’s three ways to make money, there is salary, you have a job, there is profit, you have a business, and then there is rent, you have an appreciable property that you’re able to, you know, collect passive income in some way, shape or form. It’s so so it’s like, 123. Right. Now, historically, I would tell you, like, Oh, those who have an entrepreneurial itch, right, unfortunately, you know, necessity is the mother of all innovation, right? I have a feeling with given the economic climate that we’re about to face, right? I think a lot of people are going to kind of be pushed into entrepreneurial positions, not out of desire, but out of necessity.

D.J. Paris 7:01
Yeah, that makes makes a lot of sense. And, I guess one fortunate part of that the sort of nature of the economy right now is technology has sort of enabled this global gig economy. And it’s really, it brought in this or expanded the ability of the average person to get involved and produce some of the side hustle services or products at a very minimal investment in a lot of cases, you know, with the technology and infrastructure already built that does a lot of the heavy lifting. So it is kind of an exciting time to consider a side hustle, because we just have a lot more resources now that that helped make it a little bit easier.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 7:42
Yeah, the barrier of entry to side hustles have definitely changed. Like, if you think about it, everybody has like a University of Google degree. Like you can look up everything. There’s two forms of knowledge, there’s knowledge of and there’s knowledge, how knowledge is where you going to go, when you learn something, right and knowledge how is where you put in your 10,000 hours and kind of cluster of something right now, from an entrepreneur perspective, like being able to break into new areas and create new solutions for problems on like, a micro local area is, I don’t think there’s ever been a better time to do so. Yeah, I

D.J. Paris 8:21
think you’re right. And with, especially with so many small businesses constantly being hit up for various services, that maybe somebody with a side hustle can do more inexpensively, can provides real value locally, as opposed to also doing it globally through places like Fiverr, and the sort of gig services, you know, TaskRabbit for people that are, you know, good with fixing and building. You know, it’s funny, I was I had a guy from TaskRabbit over who has a normal, full time job where he’s, like, an engineer and does something with construction, but he’s like a pretty decently high level guy in his salary. And he came over to swap out a door in our in our primary closet. And, and it was pretty difficult job and I said, Hey, I’m just curious, like, why do you do this on the side? He goes, he goes, if I just did this, this gig stuff, I would actually make more than in my salary, but he’s like, I just kind of like the stability of the of the thing. So he’s like, I’m just going to do this on the side. But I was like, Man, this guy, you know, he’s making an extra three $4,000 a month, just doing a couple of these gigs, you know, here and there outside of his normal business hours.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 9:34
Yeah, you know, that’s ultimately the purpose of the side hustle, like not all businesses are meant to be scaled, right. So I like to I do like to invest in startups, startups, and side hustles. They’re not the same right? Side Hustle can become a startup. But a side hustle is not, does not have the scalability sometimes as a startup There are two different cultures, two different communities, right? The startup community, they’re really looking to, you know, 10x 20x 50x. And they’re looking for an exit or liquidity event to to, you know, for the business, right? Side Hustle is something that like, Look man, like things are getting more expensive. Like, you know, it’s funny, talking about you, you’re in real estate, you know, the Fed. And today, the Fed may may or may not raise the interest rate, I don’t know if they’re, if they’ve done it yet. But right there, there’s two types of inflation there is monetary inflation, and there’s two big money supply, and then their supply side inflation, like you’re not going to be able to fix supply side inflation with increasing the interest rates. So I don’t know if I necessarily agree with the way it’s gone. Anyway. But there those impacts are going to impact the way consumers deploy their capital right now. And I think there’s going to be a huge liquidity event where all the money is sucked out of the system.

D.J. Paris 10:56
That’s interesting. Yeah, it is. It is interesting. I was also thinking too, about the recent crypto exchanges, or at least the biggest crypto Exchange, which just went under FTX, which a lot of people have probably followed by the time this came out, who knows if Sam bacon fried will actually be in prison in prison or who knows. But But and then there’s other crypto exchanges binance Is is possibly facing liquidity issues. And that’s now the biggest exchange. And I’m just curious if if those if that exchange fails to I’m curious, a lot of that crypto money comes flooding back in. And somehow it gets, you know, reinvested by people in other ways. And a side hustle is a great way to invest money, and actually, you know, make some income that’s a little bit more hopefully predictable. But before before we get too far down that rabbit hole, because I could talk about that all day. I would love to first hear your origin story. Like, how did you get involved in real estate? You were an athlete, you’re now an author as well. You know, how did you get involved in law, you are an accountant, you’re an accountant as well, you do a lot of different things. So we’d love to hear about your trajectory. So walk us through.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 12:04
So I was like, Chicago Public School dude, like Waynetech, lean tech guy. Like, I didn’t have two nickels to rub together. So I kind of figured that. Whenever you go to war, like, let’s say you and I weren’t going to engage in combat. In the end, when you break down a war or combat, there’s these five things that you need to control, right? You got to have a skill before you get into the other one. So let’s start with skill. So I knew upfront, I had no money broke, didn’t really have any connections or anything like that. So I had to become hyper focused and dominant in a skill. So I started with accounting, because that was like, the language of business, right? Sure. So I graduated in 2001. And immediately the Enron COLLAPSE HAPPENED wiping out Arthur Andersen, I couldn’t get a job. Right?

D.J. Paris 12:56
So I remember when that happened. Yes, absolutely.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 12:59
So all the school guidance counselors, like after I spent all this money and got like my accounting degree and CPA and all that other stuff, they say, oh, you should go back to law, you know, go back to school, go to law school, right. So I went to law school. Graduated in 2006, only to enter into the 2008. Crash. Alright, perfect timing. Basically, it was kind of at that point where I lost all confidence in like the guidance counselor’s and a lot of the teachers because I found that most of us who were teaching never actually worked before. So I said, okay, if I’m gonna do this, I do really respect appreciate, like, the skills that I learned, but I’m gonna I’ve had very little confidence in, like, the business training that these people gave me. So I, I basically started to ignore everybody and started to do tax returns, because I felt tax returns were like a stable thing that everybody needed, right?

D.J. Paris 13:47
Yeah, guaranteed, guaranteed. Least everyone at least once a year is asked to either do it themselves or hire someone so it makes sense.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 13:55
So the tax return business started was was amazing, because it was like annual reoccurring revenue and kept coming in. But then like, 2008, crash happens, and I’m doing wonderful, because everybody’s still just notwithstanding, like, the complete collapse of like the financial system, people still needed to file the tax returns. And like, remember, when you’re getting chased by a lion when two gazelles are getting chased by a lion, you don’t have to be the fastest Gazelle in the world. You just got to be faster than the other person. Right. So I, the firm that I was at most of the other attorneys just went belly under. And when that happened, I started gobbling up the other practice areas, one of them being real estate, right? I had no idea what real estate was at the time. Right. So fortunately, I was able to laminate for a side hustle at that point in time. 2009. So you know, with all my martial arts stuff I was able to you know, for I was lucky enough to participate in a major tournament, where wushu was a demo sport at the Olympics. I was able to win a gold medal. I’m not an official in the NBA. I never claimed to be but I was on the US team. This caught my attention Warner Brothers were in 2009. They purchase an intellectual property out of bankruptcy called Mortal Kombat nine, right? And I was one of the guys that they came in to do the motion capture, right? For a side hustle. All of a sudden, I started realizing, you know, the importance of making money, like having control of that, right? So I’m kind of taking away doing tax returns. And all of a sudden, the real estate market started a hockey stick, right? Yeah. And I happen to be like Forrest Gump. With the shrimp boat captain, I wasn’t so amazing. But I was just like one of the first guys who survived to participate in that market upswing, right. And I was never my core competency was always tax law, but it never really had. But real estate happened just because I happen to be standing in the right place. And it became a profit center. And today, I’m on board member of Delaware a real estate lawyer Association, I think I’ve done about 1000 transactions, something like that. And it was kind of over time that I realized that, you know, value propositions, you know, they go from, they go through stages, like, they go through a perceived through actual through evolving, you they start with, like, you have to have a perceived value, like what do you bring to the table, then you have to deliver actual value, it’s what you can do. And then you have to evolve as things change, right, as the market started to recover, are starting to realize that real estate is such an important percentage of like the American families portfolio, right? And that’s where I really started saying, Okay, this real estate thing is very important, because it’s part of the overall, like, part of everyone’s life. And that’s where I really got into it.

D.J. Paris 16:37
Gotcha. And did you find that, that real estate transactions were personally really fulfilling to you, like, versus other types of law that you may have dabbled in?

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 16:48
Well, what I what I do like about real estate transactions, is I believe in becoming fabric of the community, right? Like, and the way you truly become a fabric of community is you got to shake the people’s hands that you’re, you’re serving, right. And the best way to kind of build that trust is like helping them establish their nest, right. So real estate, kind of became one of our like, lead generators, where, you know, we would meet people to do their closings, they would transfer into like, trusts in the States, and then we kind of just became their go to for everything.

D.J. Paris 17:21
Yeah, imagine estate planning is like maybe the real estate transactions a nice entry point to then do the estate plan. after the fact. Does that happen a lot, where a lot of your real estate clients

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 17:33
be 100%. Like the thing is, actually, I know this is blasphemous, right, but from, from my perspective, I, Attorney CPA, I think we ought to offer a little bit of a broader value proposition and right, I believe that real estate is a subsidiary of estate planning, right? Sure. I believe there’s people who have this overall like estate plan, and you do their closing kind of as part of that overall plan. I just don’t know how you do a closing without knowing everybody’s overall plan.

D.J. Paris 18:03
We were I was just having this exact conversation with a real estate journalist. Yesterday, we actually are yesterday, and we were talking about how this is the year that realtors can really start to think of themselves more as a consultant where they actually try to take a broader, broader view of the entire financial picture. And maybe that includes having conversations with the person’s accountant, with their attorney, or with their financial adviser, and really saying, Where does this home if we’re going to call this thing an asset, which is a debatable topic to a primary residence? I know it’s an asset on the day it’s sold. But is it an asset? Really, between times I don’t know, but it’s still an important piece of the financial picture, regardless of whether it’s an asset or not. And it you’re right, it’s sort of like one of those things that, you know, when I go see a doctor, they make me fill out this massive checklist of like, what’s wrong with you? What’s your history? What’s everything going on with your physical health, energy, you know, exercise, diet, etc. And all the stats, and your head and your family history because they need to be able to make a good recommendation. And you’re right, the sort of the real estate side of, of the of someone’s financial picture is often sort of isolated and segregated from everything else. And I imagine your sort of vision is to sort of integrate everything into looking at it more holistically. Do I have that right? Yeah.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 19:29
Well, I listen, like in the end, my, my intent is the preservation of the American family. And the way you do that is by you know, ultimately, you need to make sure that they’re safe safety, and that they’re secure, financially secure, right. And I don’t I believe I do just continue to believe that homeownership and real estate investing is an important part of a diversified portfolio.

D.J. Paris 19:56
I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode. sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast, do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests. Of course it is a follow up boss. And let’s face it, following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort, do not take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 systems, so you can keep your current tools and lead sources. Also, the best part they have seven day a week support so you’ll get the help that you need when you need it and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time, they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial, which is twice as much time as they give everyone else and oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free. But only if you use this special link visit follow up boss.com forward slash real that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. Yeah. Do you look at primary residence? diff? I mean, obviously, it’s different from a revenue person or a Yeah, revenue perspective. Right. So so passive income, residual income through investments, obviously we understand there’s tax benefits, there’s there’s obviously cashflow benefits. Do you look how do you encourage clients to think of their primary residence? Is it an investment? Is it an asset? And this these are very debatable topics? But I think it’s important because I think there’s a there a lot of realtors that could really benefit from hearing some language from an attorney about how to how to have those conversations because personally, I I would love to look at my primary residence as an investment if it goes up. But I don’t have much control over that. That’s not the reason I bought it as much as I would love for it to double in value probably won’t. But but it is a huge chunk of you know, the money that I’ve had put into that home. So curious on how you think about primary homes versus obviously versus you know, buying, you know, a multifamily and renting it out.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 22:20
Okay, so, Attorney CPA perspective, primary residence is absolutely an asset. I strongly disagree with the argument that it’s a liability. I respect and understand where the other where the argument comes from, you know, the the old school adage, like your primary residence is just a liability. I just I think it’s incorrect. I believe it’s a it’s an asset, especially when you start looking at things generationally, right. Like when you start looking at these generationally primary residence. You It’s like incurring an unrealized gain to all the CPAs out there, like we’re building up this store of value. Whereas if you’re renting, you’re not building that store of value. Now, it’s always possible that you overextend. I’m a big fan of Albert Einstein, and I love this little equation equal equals MC square. So n equals MC squared essentially means is energy equals mass times the speed of life squared, right? The thing I love about that equation is it proves to us that energy and mass are equivalent, because if you divide see, it’s an algebra, divided c squared by both sides, it shows that they can equal each other, they become much, right? They are relative to each other as money is a relative thing. The money that you make is only relative to the money you spend. So if you overspend relative, then yes, it becomes a liability, right? Like, if you don’t do that, and you are like normal, like it’s an asset, especially when you think and think generationally.

D.J. Paris 24:03
Well, thank you for closing the door on that, that I love that you you shut the door with some authority on that particular argument, whether primary residence and asset and you explained it very, very well. And I think that’s important. And, and historically, home prices over time generationally have historically risen, right, so we can look at historical data and say, well, we can’t you know, obviously, we can’t project that your home is going to be worth more than it is today because that would be you know, no one has the oracle at Delphi to or crystal ball but, but we can assume based on historical data that it’s likely that if trends continue that you may be here in 20 3040 years, which in case does improve the quality of that asset from you know, from a numbers perspective. So I, I am I will tell you this, I am scared about 2023 Now, there’s always opportunity when there’s fear But I think there’s I’m speaking not so much for me because truthfully, I’m not a practicing agent, I have my license, I don’t use it. I sit here at a desk all day and, and try to recruit people to join our company. But we have about 700 agents here. And they a lot of them are nervous. And a lot of my friends outside of our company who are agents are nervous about 2023. Why? Pretty obvious reasons. Of course, everyone knows we have a higher interest rate environment than we did two years ago, although I don’t think it’s that high. But it certainly in comparison to the last few years, it’s still a big bigger pill to swallow than it was double rates. You know, it was kind of where we’re at low inventory, and then dropping home prices. So curious on where’s the opportunity in 2023? What should Realtors be focused on? And what as an attorney? Do you suggest that agents start to think about to really keep their business rolling next year so that it’s not as bumpy as, as maybe the news is suggesting it might be?

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 25:58
Well, it’s gonna be bumpy, it’s definitely gonna be bumpy. It’s just finding the opportunity within that bumpiness. Right. Like, from my perspective, all ships float and high tides, right? You have when times are good, everybody is like, amazing. Like, one of the things that I tell people is I’m like an all terrain vehicle. Like I work in rain, sleet, snow, sunshine, so many of these single silo like attorneys, that’s, that’s all they do. Like they don’t work when times get when there’s a hurricane, right? So, from my perspective, you have to kind of approach your business like that, like, are you prepared for the ups and the downs, we’re in a cyclical business? So if you want to survive in a cyclical business, you’d have to be able to work in both cycles, right? So from my perspective, it’s identifying the, like, the things that people are really going to need, right? Let’s start with the supply side, there’s unlimited amount of inventory out there, right. I believe, as you see the baby boomer the silver tsunami coming, you’re gonna see these guys, they’re going to have to redeploy their assets, right?

D.J. Paris 27:09
Huge amount of assets to I mean, trillions of dollars are going to flood in.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 27:14
Yeah, so 25 trillion is going to exchange hands right now is the homes are a special asset, right? Because like, they need to figure out a way to either downsize if they’re going to pass away, and with the long term living, you know, kids are all gone. And they’re gonna have to figure out to do it. And most of those homes don’t have mortgages on them. Right? So they’re not worried about trading from three to seven or three to six or whatever. Incidentally, I haven’t I haven’t I have an ongoing, that with a couple of people have the date, I think it’s going to drop down to five, offline, I’ll enter to about with you, right, that way. I’d love that. Anyway, um, what? You know, you’re gonna have a lot of the baby boomer population population, that they have a bleeding neck, and let me restate, they don’t have a bleeding neck, they have six shotguns pointed to the back of their head, that they’re going to have to figure out what to do with that land. Right? Now. You have, you’re gonna have a motivated seller who’s gonna have to figure out what to do with that supply. Right, right. Then let’s talk about like, purchasing. Right? Number one, if the consumer doesn’t come in and buy these assets, right, you’re gonna have foreign money flooding, you know, you’re there’s so much turbulence, globalization, I just wrote an article for the State Bar, I’m shocked, it got picked up so quickly. But it was like, it’s about the collapse of globalization, I think you’re gonna see money start coming in here from other places. And, you know, listen, all the house hacking is really cool. But when you have a couple of kids, good luck doing that, you’re gonna have to find your own house to raise your family, right, your garage, would you raise your kids in their basement? Right? So you’re the supply side is going to be the baby boomers in the demand side is going to be foreign money and millennials who are are being forced kind of to, you know, as their families expand, right, now there is a segment of the population that their velocity is going to decrease dramatically, right? And that percentage of the population, they’re attracted to 3% interest rates, and they don’t want to trade out, right, I get it, right. Listen, the pie is gonna get smaller, and you really are gonna have to demonstrate and show everybody what your value proposition is. From my perspective, this is really gonna come down to who are real real estate people and who are marketers, right? A lot of people in sales that they’re great salesmen, right? Sure. If you were to go back 2030 years into the real estate market before people the sales thing like the top of the funnel, you know, everybody became great marketers, right? The real estate was a pool business. What a pool business means is you get pulled in a transaction, you have a special skill that gets you pulled in, right? You guys were never intended to be in a push business and became a push business because your commissions were so lucrative that it pushed into marketing people, right? But This is gonna force the vendors to become hyper specialized in what they do, they really got to know what they’re doing. And the consumer is canceled. goddang smart, right? That if you don’t know what they’re doing, you’re doing, they’re going to know really quick. So you really got to get back down to that core of like, man, you know what you’re doing?

D.J. Paris 30:22
Right. So this is the year to really hone those or sharpen those sticks, those skill set sticks or tools in the arsenal to know more than, you know, the average consumer who wants a month checks their Zestimate. And to see what their home values worth, which, of course, they don’t need you to do, because they can just pull that up. Now, whether that number is accurate or not, is irrelevant. But that’s what they’re going to do. So you need to be able to bring value in between transactions, right? So person, what buys and sells every, what, seven years, or whatever, the status. So here’s a here’s a great question. So I don’t know if it’s a great question. I shouldn’t say my own questions are great. But here’s a question that I think would be of great value to our audience, which is, and you’re not, you’re not a practicing broker, but you work with realtors, and you work with homeowners, not a practicing. Doctor, don’t do everything else.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 31:15
But the broker is very important to me, I like listen, you know, it’s very hard to break this shell, right. But I will be vulnerable to tell you the importance of the broker. Right? And I want my perspective. My sole agenda is the preservation, the American wealth ecosystem for a family brand. And most people have less than $1,000 in their bank account, like at least like I think it’s like 78 or 80%, something like that have less than 1000 hours.

D.J. Paris 31:50
That is that is horribly depressing. Unfortunately, true.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 31:55
So many people land do you do read all these articles JP Morgan and about a billion dollars in land, you know, this REIT bought a billion dollars, Blackstone bought 50 billion. Do you know why they do that?

D.J. Paris 32:08
You know, I actually don’t know why they do. Because it’s a good idea.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 32:11
It works.

D.J. Paris 32:14
Right? The church does a similar thing to they buy a lot of land.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 32:18
If you buy it, I’ll be more aggressive. You’re dancing, and you’re saying, oh, like you know, it might not go it’s gonna go up. It’s a store of value. Right?

D.J. Paris 32:28
I used to have a I had a friend who was an attorney who’s worked for the Catholic Church and her job, no joke in the US. And I’m sure they have these positions all over the world was to buy land where they could put schools Catholic schools Catholic education, which, of course has its own business and a huge business. But the big thing was not we want to we don’t want to rent space. We want to buy the land, put the school on it. And it’s and this is this was her full time job, just finding land for schools.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 32:59
So the reason why they do that is the isn’t worse, it’s a really good idea, right? Like, especially American dirt and American dirt American brick and mortar is amazing, right? Like, this morning, what are the important things that you’ve done? And I asked you, what did you do when you first

D.J. Paris 33:18
I went to the gym? I’d say that’s for me. That’s it. That’s probably the most important thing I did you do after you went to the gym? Came back started. started thinking about recruiting more realtors. You take a shower? I took a shower this morning. Yes. Okay, so what do you need to take shower? What do i Why did I take a shower? What do I need? I need to take a shower. So you need water and electricity? Well, you don’t need electricity, but I use electricity.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 33:46
You need water? Right? So we live in one of the biggest areas of fresh water. So before I was you know, I worked at a law firm called yield shine. It’s like number three in all of Asia in Seoul, South Korea, right. I thought it was a big shot, right? Anyway, I met this big big shot law firm, right? And I go to get my place my little studio right? And I find out how expensive it was. I was like,

Whoa, but that’s how much it costs for this like studio. That’s crazy. It turns out

if you sold South Korea, you could buy France a times that’s how expensive that land is. Right? One of the cool interesting things about South Korea, we got a river that goes right through the soul and stuff like that. Surrounded by ocean, right? And you can’t drink ocean water or Beynon. Right? So all of a sudden water becomes scarcity. So like for someone like me, I recognize like the irrelevant the relative importance of water right where people hear you take an hour long shower, and no one cares, right? But this is in the world like it’s it becomes a really big deal. So I guess what I’m trying to say is like, we ultimately the land that you purchase needs to have a value or reason why people like it right? Our soil is very abundant and natural. sources which allows you to up an acorn son grows, right? And we have water. So like, you know, so long as the resource resources remain consistent, like in theory, as long as the value of commodity goes up, so the value of land relative the value of the commodity, right? Sure. Really. It’s a good investment as when people come back home

D.J. Paris 35:22
this stuff. Yeah, it makes it makes perfect, perfect sense. So Realtors right now are thinking, Okay, I’ve got a lot of my clientele refinanced or purchased in the last couple of years when the interest rates were low. And obviously a lot didn’t. But the ones that did, you know, I, what do I say? First of all, do we say anything to the person who’s at a 3% rate right now? Who is feeling like, oh, I can’t move because then if I move, I’m going to a six and a half percent, right. What are what are we saying to those? What do you suggest we say to those people? If anything at all right now? So

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 36:06
do you have your handy dandy computer there? I do. And you look up JP Morgan Chase buys a billion dollar of single family homes. Yeah, looking it up right now? Yeah.

D.J. Paris 36:23
Got it. Yep. Single Family rentals, a billion dollars earlier this November?

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 36:27
Yeah. You want to know what date is that?

D.J. Paris 36:31
So the news articles November 16.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 36:33
Okay, would you agree November 16? That’s like a month ago, right? Like, the rates are in the sixes and sevens? Yeah. Do you want to know why they’re buying that they’re doing that?

D.J. Paris 36:45
I want to know why Jamie diamond does anything. So yes. Tell me

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 36:49
a really good idea. Because he’s

D.J. Paris 36:51
a really smart guy.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 36:53
They saw the interest rates go up, and they eliminated all the competition. Yeah, right. Interest rates went up, they eliminated the competition, they go in and acquire, do the acquisition. So like, the first of all, I do think the mortgage interest rates are gonna go down. Right? Let me open with that. Right. So with that said, I do believe that it is probably not a smart idea, to wait until they go down to buy. Because the second day go down, you’re gonna have this huge board of competition come in, and they’re gonna bid up the prices again,

D.J. Paris 37:34
which is what happened when in 3% rates, same exact things happen? Yeah.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 37:38
100%. Like, what you want to do is you want to try to go in there where there’s mild to medium competition, exactly what JPMorgan Chase is doing to you. Right? It’s hilarious, right? Your own bank priced you out. And now that

D.J. Paris 37:51
it’s my own bank, that’s funny. Your own

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 37:53
bank priced you out so they can buy your land. It’s hilarious, right? Like, you know, you really got to be conscious of like, when that rate goes down, everybody’s gonna flood in. Now, you got to make that decision. But if I was a broker, if I was in your business, right, this is a dialogue that I would be having with my people. Hey, forget about the industry. Put that to the side for a second. Tell me about your needs. Are you in a one bedroom condo with one kid? And you’re about to have a second kid? Right? Yes. This ain’t gonna work. Right? Let’s go find you something that’s within your budget that meets the needs of your family. Hey, are you is your parents 65? How are they doing? Do you think that they’re going to be in a nursing home? Do they have long term coverage? If they don’t? Like you need to have these things in mind for them? Right?

D.J. Paris 38:44
Can we just do a public service announcement and break for just a moment? Can we talk about long term care and not get into the weeds about it? But I know you’ve been you’ve been beat you beat the drum on long term care insurance. And I’m so grateful for you to do this. Because there are so many people, so everyone listening, if your parents are elderly, can you just give the quick little 32nd on why everybody’s parents need to have long term care.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 39:07
Okay, so most people don’t have long term care, which is insane. But what long term care means is if your parents are unable to function on their own, and they have to go like they get dementia, they gotta go to assisted living nursing home or something like that. Those places are really expensive. Right? So you need to have an insurance policy to cover the cost of that. Now, assuming that you don’t have that because most of you have it, right. The only way to afford that is let’s say they got a pension of 4000. Right. And let’s say you find them a nursing home that 6000 The nursing home will allow them to come in take the 4000 a month, right. And the gap the Delta they will normally get covered under Medicaid through Illinois. Now Medicaid is is provided by the state but funded by the Feds right? Now the catch of getting that free Medicaid is if your parents own a house free and clear which most baby boomers do, they paid it off, right? The state can turn around and attach a lien against the equity with a five year look back, they can go back five years, to any money that they paid on your parents behalf to live in their right. So they can essentially lose the asset that they were that they built. So if anybody’s out there thinking generational wealth, gotta have that in the back of your head.

D.J. Paris 40:36
Yeah, just ask ask your parents if they have long term care insurance talk to talk to a financial advisor get that done? Because it will I don’t even remember what the average cost is for facility care these days. But I want to say for a year a lot 1000 Yeah, it’s a lot. It’s 10s and 10s. of 1000s of dollars. Okay, anyway, back to back to our regularly scheduled program. But but this really ties in long term care, because you were talking about generational wealth, and nothing wipes out generational wealth faster than then managed care for elderly people. So, so I’m glad we were able to do our public service announcement of the year. But let’s talk about okay, so so back to being being a realtor. So I’m thinking about our audience, we’re realtors, we’re worried about 2023 interest rates are up, which means the average consumer thinks they’re not getting a deal right now, right? They’re not getting a deal. You said, don’t wait for it to don’t try to time the market don’t wait for the interest rates to come down. Why not?

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 41:39
Because when they do come down, what’s going to happen is every single person who’s waiting on the sidelines, they’re going to jump in all at the same time. Like if I was a relative So here let’s talk damage control. If you’re a realtor, you got to right size your business right now. If you know your if you believe that your top line revenue is going to decrease 20% You got to go line item by line item and you got to decrease your expenses. 20% Real simple. Okay. Right size your company if you’re if you’re carrying too much fat right now, you’re starting to carve a fan out, right. So that’s step one, do that first. That’s something you should be doing right now. Right? Yeah. Step two, once you’ve right size your company, I would turn my attention to just educating your client on like, like real realist, no, I would turn to listening to your client on what their needs are. If you know that they’re going to have a need to like, you know, move, then step three, talk to them about the difference between the interest rate and like competition, because petition comes flooding in. Did I think it’s gonna be a big wave?

D.J. Paris 42:48
People get priced out? Yeah, it’s, let’s, let’s all remember what happened with the, with the sub 4% rates in the last couple of years. Remember, you know, if we had listings, it was feast or famine, right? If you had listings, you were feasting. And if you were working with buyers, it was tough. You were submitting offers sight unseen, you were getting, you know, 30 Plus offers, trying to get yours noticed. And it is remember how hard that was to start a thread that perfect needle? You know, it was it was difficult back then. So I think I think you bring up a good point. And maybe if if looking at the math, maybe the metrics are such that you would have overpaid two years ago, despite the fact that you were in a lower interest rate environment. And maybe now even though higher interest rates, lower pricing, maybe it actually evens out more than the consumer might think.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 43:41
100% Yeah, if you get if you get a lowered lower. My father paid for his house, he paid 55,000 for his house, but it was like a 10% interest rate. So it’s not a lot, right. So if you get a discount on the retail price it oftentimes it ends up equaling out, I but the one thing I will say to everybody is, let’s be honest, guys, the last two years was probably the greatest rush of real estate velocity. And we’ll probably never see that again. Right? The rates are never going to get that low. You’re never going to see that again. Right. Right now you got to turn your attention to right sizing or operations and providing that value to the consumer and the consumers hypercritical right now.

D.J. Paris 44:22
And like you said at the very beginning, they have access to everything now. So you know, we all have access to everything. It’s in our pockets. It’s we walk around with, you know, this basically magical device that tells us anything we want to know at anytime for free, essentially. And so as an agent, so a couple things I got from what you were saying number one, a lot of agents are going to be exiting the business who work true full all in agents, the part timers, the onesie twosies they’re going to start to slowly exit the business or just become less relevant. So we’re probably going to see some sort of exit As for agents, which is a great thing for agents that are looking to scale up and grow their business, because there is going to be less competition, a lot of the maybe poor quality agents will be leaving the industry, the the stronger agents, the really savvy, value added agents will continue to thrive. But in order to get there, you have to do the heavy lifting, which is what you were talking about is sharpening the tools. This is the year 2023, where you really want to be, be better no more. What do you recommend for agents to study as far as like a daily practice? And again, I know you’re not a practicing agent, per se, but what do you wish agents knew from? From an attorney’s perspective? What do you wish agents were better at?

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 45:46
You know, I always believe in marketing, like, how you consume, right? Like you should market to people the way you consumers, like a consumer, right? How is it like, as a consumer, right? My family, when we first got here from Korea, we got heavily involved in real estate because we were in the restaurant business we sold we’re number one, number one in the state and used restaurant, we had like, 200,000 square feet. Like, you know, restaurant stuff, right? So we would we needed to buy the locations to house the equipment, right. And one of the things that I think we found important from people is like, you really have to know the assets that you’re selling, you’re helping someone buy, right. The thing if you’re in the condo business, right? Dude, you really got to know that ancient way before you get your environment. Right. If you’re if you don’t have if you have no idea of the financial health of that Hoa, like you’re just hoping that the attorney catches it on the 22.1. Like, that’s what you’re doing. It’s crazy to me, like you really got to know these things here. I’ll tell I’ll give you an example from an attorney’s perspective. In 16 years, I’ve probably done 1000 transactions. When ever I catch something on the 22.1. Read the 20.1 is a financial snapshot which shows capital upcoming, unexpected or expected capital expenditures. Whenever I catch something and I tell the buyer, this is what immediately happens. I press send on the email said what are they saying? Hey, Don, thanks for catching that thing. Why in the hell did my realtor not tell me about that? Yeah. Right. 100 times 100 out of 100. That’s what happens, right? Like, if you’re gonna go into a building, you got to know what’s going on. But the building, right? So that’s if you’re in the condo business, if you’re in like the single family home business, you got to kind of have some sort of idea of the neighborhood, you’re putting people in, right? You got to say, like, I know, there’s restrictions on what you can disclose, right? But you got to talk to your client, and let them understand like, Hey, this is you know, wonderful school systems, communities and this man, and they got to know what’s going on. Like, whenever I like, for me personally, whenever I do like investing, I like when I invest in, let’s take single family homes, for example. I believe that you have to control one of three things to be a real estate investor, you got to control the dirt, the tenant of money, one of those dirt tenant money. So I like tenant control. Tenant control is the coolest to me, right? So what I like to do is I like to buy single family homes in the best school districts, and I am the cheapest rent in the best school districts. That’s my model. Right?

D.J. Paris 48:44
I love that because that’s what every parent, not every parent but But parents want to live in the school districts not every parent in the best school district. Every parent can afford that. So you want to make the affordable option for people to enter that that education space. Yeah.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 48:59
100% I want to be the most affordable in the best school. That’s my value proposition because that’s the product that I offer right now like to me like I really know what the product that I’m buying. Right? Like surgically, right. And it can be like when your broker the client, the customer sees that you’re walking away with a big commission check, right? And they see the inspector getting paid six farebox they they see the attorney getting paid six 700 bucks, right? If, like the inspection, I get it, if there’s something that you couldn’t have found, totally get it right. But if they find out that there’s an atomic bomb there, right 999 times out of 1000 They’re mad at me, bro. They call me and they’re like, Dude, what the hell happened? How come? Nobody knew about this, right? There’s an outcome. There’s, of course we got a great deal. There’s a $70,000 special assessment coming up? Sure. Right, you know, I mean, yeah, of course, we got a great deal. This is this is going to be a deconversion. Right? Like, you know, stuff like that.

D.J. Paris 50:14
So, so realizing that realtors are highly compensated for, you know the transaction and not taking that responsibility lightly and really providing over providing value or providing more value than would be expected so that the consumer never calls the attorney who got paid the six or $700 it goes, How come you caught this in my my agent who just got 10 grand didn’t catch it.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 50:42
Like I actually think, you know,

given like your vet your role and in the transaction, top of the funnel, defending value, I don’t think you’re unfairly compensated right. But I don’t think it’s an unfair compensation. But you have to, like, if you don’t know the product that you’re selling, like really know it. And the client finds out that you’re highly compensated, and you don’t know what you’re selling, they get mad.

D.J. Paris 51:12
Yeah, I’ve had this fantasy in, and I don’t know if it probably will never come true. But I want I would love real estate to move away from for realtors, how they’re compensated to move away from transaction to work to more sort of a, like a financial advisory model where it’s, you know, assets under management fee based model, you know, you get a percentage. I don’t know if it’ll ever happen. I don’t know if it’s possible, but boy, that would that would really change the game, I think.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 51:41
I don’t know if that. I actually, you know, I respect the counter argument. But I actually think What the I don’t think they’re unfairly compensated, right, I think what they do is legit, and here’s why. Ultimately, their job is to defend the value. Yeah, that’s ultimately their job, right to defend value. And if you do defend the value, it’s worth it. Right? You know, it’s worth it. But if you don’t defend the value, then it really becomes a problem. Right? And that’s the thing, you really are going to have to know like, I recently I did a wholesale deal, where, you know, they flipped the contract. And it was a big number. Right? Huge number. The sellers got so angry at the listing that they’d have to of course, they were like, how the hell do you get this number wrong? Right? And sorry about that. They’re like, how the hell did you get this number wrong? Right, your entire reason you’re here is to value this, right. So like, if you stand by that, like, it makes sense, because it’s your that is the most important thing was the value of the home. Right? Yeah. So I actually think the the number is fair, but the but you really have to know that you just can’t be a guy or gal who switched careers. You’re really good at marketing has a great network, don’t know the product and sells it. That’s what it got to get a little scary.

D.J. Paris 53:20
Yeah, so sharpen your tools, learn, learn the inventory, learn the market, learn what to look for, you know, with with respect to closings, especially condo, you were saying HOA stuff? Yeah, boy. It because all of us, you know, consumers when we’re buying something. I, I, as long as I’ve been in this industry, I’ve always thought because I’m not a practicing agent. I’m gonna be thought, doesn’t everybody just want to know, is this a good idea? That’s really kind of what we all want. Like, should I buy that? Should I not buy that? And I really think realtors say I’ll help you by that. But I really what I want a realtor to do is say you should buy that or you shouldn’t. And in order to make that distinction or that recommendation, you really do have to have some pretty sharp tools in your sharp arrows in your quiver. But this is the year to develop that because if you can become the person that gives advice, and again, depending on what state you live in, you have to obviously you want to be compliant, make sure you’re not running afoul of compliance rules, but whatever is allowed, I think the real value is in the advice. Obviously pricing advice should I buy this? Should I sell as well? How should I do it? I just I love having people giving me advice in my life, my service providers. That’s really what I want for my accountant, my attorney, my financial advisor, my trainer, I want them telling me you should do this

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 54:47
100% I think that’s the direction everything’s gonna go. And I think if you do that, market goes up, market goes down. You’ll there will always be people who need help. And if they know that you can help them And whether it’s an up or down market that you can help, you’re going to be fine.

D.J. Paris 55:03
Well, I could talk to Don all day to all day and we certainly would love to have him back on future episodes. But for now we’re going to encourage every single person who is listening or watching right now I want you to go to Amazon. I want you to check out his book, The Tao of the side hustle, Donald. He on kielbasa I, we’re gonna promote the heck out of it. I’m gonna read it over the holiday break. By the time this is published, I will have already read it. You’re good friends with one of my other podcast friends, Lawrence Dunning. He’s like, it’s the greatest book ever. You gotta read this. And Donald was nice enough to send me a copy. So I want everybody to go and to Amazon, pick up this book. And let’s make 2023 as smooth as possible. We know there’s going to be there’s going to be a lot of dips and bumps, but let’s do what we can and let’s sharpen our skills. And yeah, let’s all have a great 2023 So Donald, thank you on behalf of our audience for everyone listening and watching really appreciate Donald spending his time he is an attorney, he bills by the hour, he is too busy to do this, and yet he did it anyway. And so we really want to support him. So also if you are a Chicago based agent, and you’re looking to work with a real estate attorney, also who by the way is a champion athlete and best selling author and a CPA and really just a wonderful human being you really should have done in your in your arsenal of attorneys to recommend to clients he would love to work with you can visit his website Chicago real estate att y.com link to that in the show notes, check out his his legal team. They can do everything from estate planning to real estate to a bunch of other specialties as well. They’re awesome. But let’s pick up the book Tao of side hustle the Tao the side hustle on amazon link in the show notes on behalf of Donald and myself to our audience who want to say thank you. We exist to help you through this tough year. We know it’s going to be a tough year. That’s okay. big deep breath in and out. We are going to provide you content and strategies and suggestions to help you get through this year. Please tell a friend that’s the only thing we ask support our sponsors. Check out Donald’s book and tell a friend that one other agent that could benefit from hearing this great interview with Donald and send this over to them it might be just what they need to help their business in 2023. Donald, thank you so much for being on the show and we will see everybody on the next episode.

Donald Hyun Kiolbassa 57:30
I appreciate you all go help people and I promise you everything would be fine.

Steve Shull a real estate coach talks about how and why he got into the real estate business. Steve describes how he’s spent over 60.000 hours of one-on-one coaching over his career. Next, Steve discusses what is he telling his real estate agents in order to keep them in the right mindset for 2023. Steve presents his 6 core building blocks to develop a mindset of harmony and discusses all of them. Last, Steve and D.J. discuss the importance of preparation for every aspect of your life.

Please check out Steve’s book “The Full Fee Agent: How to Stack the Odds in Your Favor as a Real Estate Professional” here.

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

Steve Shull can be reached at [email protected].

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

D.J. Paris 0:00
Wouldn’t you like to know what a top real estate coach is telling his clients? In other words, agents about what to focus on in 2023? We’re going to talk about 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 interests 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. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with Steve Shaw, who is a real estate coach to top producers about what he is talking to his clients. In other words, agents like you about what to do and what to focus on this year to help have a successful business. Before we talk to Steve, just a couple of quick reminders, please support our sponsors, they keep the show going. And we would appreciate that you check out their services and products. They’re always the you know companies that we feel very strongly about best in class. So please check out support them because they support us. And then another way that you can help us is just by telling one other realtor about this episode. Think of one other agent that really would love to know what coaches are telling top producers and send them a link, you can send them right over to our website keeping it real pod.com Every episode can be played right in in someone’s browser or if the person listens to podcasts, they can just pull up any podcast app search for keeping it real, hit that subscribe button. So anyway, enough about all of that let’s get to the main event my conversation with Steve Shaw.

Today on the show, we have real estate coach and author Steve Shaw. Now let me tell you more about Steve Now Steve has been coaching real estate agents full time since 1993. And from 1991 through the 1993. Steve sold residential real estate in the Fullerton California area. In his first year with his partner he closed 53 transactions. I mean that’s incredible in and of itself. And Steve second year, he was on pace to sell 100 homes when he came up with the idea to create a coaching program that marked the beginning of his real estate coaching career. And in 2007 Steve was one of the founding partners of TELUS properties. He helped the company open four offices Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Newport and Pasadena. Before leaving in 2012. Steve has coached hundreds of agents to help them shorten their sales cycle, make more appointments and close more contracts. We should also mention that Steve is a former Miami Dolphins linebacker. And on top of all of that Steve has a brand new book. He’s an author. His book is called the full fee agent it is it is available everywhere books are sold, especially on Amazon. And in particular right now it is number one on Amazon for real estate sales. Again, the full fee agent we will have links to the book on in our podcast show notes. And also please visit Steve’s website, which is about coaching for real estate agents, which is called performance coaching.com. Again, performance coaching.com link to that as well in the show notes. Steve, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me. Really excited to to speak to you. And boy, you’re really are quite a renaissance man. You’ve done a lot. And I’d love to start all the way at the beginning of your real estate journey. But let’s let’s well actually let’s go back. How did you get it or how Why did you get into real estate I guess?

Steve Shull 5:03
You know, it was an absolute fluke. I grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, went to the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. And I was fortunate enough to make it with the Miami Dolphins 1980. I was a free agent, and played four years in the NFL for knee injury, ended my career from there, I went back and got my MBA at the University of Miami, and University of Miami one day, that was career days that they have in college. And some young kid comes in from Goldman Sachs and gave his little talk and I said, Whatever he’s doing, that’s what I want to go do. I want to be a baker. Yeah, and so didn’t didn’t make it with Goldman Sachs. I did land a job with Citibank Investment Group, and went to work on Wall Street, and spent about five years on Wall Street. And from there certain circumstances landed me out in California into the world of real estate. And then I was attending Mike ferry seminars. Sure. And I listened to this interview that Mike had done with two agents in Long Beach, California Kim and Darrell Rouse, they are in their second year of business, they are on track to sell 100 100 homes and I was listening. And I got it real estate is a progression, contacts, equal leads, leads equal appointments, appointments, equal listings, listings equals sales. And that made sense to me. And I partnered up with an agent who had been in the business 1010 years or so, you know, very capable, knew the contract. And she was doing about 10 or 12 deals a year. And we partnered up. And as you mentioned, in our first year, this was 1991. And, and for anyone listening, you’ve never been through a real estate market. Like back in the early 90s. It was terrible. I was about nine months in 40 listings, no escrows that’ll give you an idea. But the market was like a multiple offer was a buyer writing multiple offers on different properties to see where they could get the best deal. You know, if you got a listing sold in three months, that was fast, and very different environment anyway, we ended up doing closing 53 deals in that first year. I was door knocking 200 doors a day calling.

D.J. Paris 7:58
I’m gonna pause for a second you were door knocking to an axe NFL or is door knocking 200 doors a day. That is that is the very definition of perseverance, hard work. Discipline, and, and and humility. Right. That’s, that’s a humbling thing to do. And not an easy thing to do back then.

Steve Shull 8:21
But I was lucky in a way. I was given the way it was presented to me you had four options. You could knock on doors, cold call, call expired listings and for sale by owners. Those are what was presented those were your four options, right. And backup, you know, I got in real estate to make money. You know, I got real estate to sell houses. And so I was looking okay, what are people doing to sell houses and as I mentioned, Kim and Darryl Rouse, and they were knocking on doors and they were calling expired listing. So I wasn’t going to cold call that was that that wasn’t happening. For whatever reason for sale by owners. I had no interest in that. And so by default, it was knock on doors and expired listings. And be very clear. Nobody wants to knock on a door. Nobody. And however, from a sports background, it’s not about your feelings. I played football for 11 years. There’s not one single day I ever wanted to go to practice,

D.J. Paris 9:36
right. You didn’t want to run the bleachers, but you had to run the blockchain.

Steve Shull 9:39
So you know my feelings what I wanted to do had nothing to do with it. So I started with $25 a day and when I got consistent at 25 Then I bumped it up to 50 and then 50 to 75 and ultimately got up to $200 a day. Wow. And And, you know, that’s what, that’s what I did. And our second year we are on track to sell 100 homes. And I just said to myself, what I did with my partner, Cynthia, because basically she knew real estate. And in that two years, I didn’t know anything about the contract, I filled out one listing agreement once, outside of that, I had no clue. And I’m not saying that’s a good thing. I’m not encouraging you to not know the contract. I will say this though. I didn’t let anything get in my way of selling houses. I don’t mean being unethical or dishonest. Sure, I didn’t look for obstacles. So anyway, after in my second year, and we’re gonna do 100 deals. I said, I think what I did was Cynthia, I can do with other people. I went to Mike, I said, I have this idea. He said, Great. And we went and did a program in Las Vegas at a Coldwell Banker office. And we signed up nine people that day, for a program that we didn’t have. And then we went to San Francisco. And at that program, many what he called mini retreat, I think it was called, we signed up 90 People that day. And so I had to go back from that program and create, okay, what are we doing with these people? We got to deliver now, I gotta deliver. And so in the beginning, it was a 15 minute phone call every other week, $100 a month, that was the cost of the program. And I created this fax form again, back then there was you know, the cell phones were just coming into existence, and there was no email. So I recreated create a report that people would fax in every week, you know, contacts leads appointments, and I could monitor what they were doing. And I did that with with Mike for about three years from 1993 to 96. When I left, we had about 2000 coaching clients and nine people coaching underneath me and that’s where, you know, prior to this real estate coaching did not exist. The trainers out there doing programs and workshops and creating, you know, cassette programs, not even CDs yet. Sure. And so anyway, this so this was the first coaching program. And after 1996, I left I opened up my own company, performance coaching, been coaching full time, ever since I counted it up the other day, I’ve logged over 60,000 hours of one on one coaching. Wow. So if the 10,000 hour rule is in effect, I’ve got six times that going on. And you’re the Beatle The Beatles of coaching. There you go. And then 2007, myself and two partners, opened up a real estate company sells properties out here in Southern California. And I did that for five years and then went back to my coaching practice full time. So that that’s kind of my story, real estate getting in.

D.J. Paris 13:17
It’s one heck of a story. And one of the names you mentioned early in your story was Mike ferry and I feel like he doesn’t get as much of his do today as as maybe he should. Because he was very it and is a very important person in the coaching space for real estate. And so if anyone out there isn’t familiar with Mike ferry, you really should get familiar with his material. He’s got wonderful material. And anyway, so I have a question. So I was just at a an association event. I’m on the marketing committee and we were talking about next year 2023. There’s about 20 of us on this committee and we’re trying to create programming for the realtors here in our local market to create programming for them to be successful next year. Obviously. It’s a particularly tricky time. I think for a lot of realtors we have you know, of course interest rates are are not in their most perfect place for a lot of buyers. Of course inventory is also on short supply and a lot of markets. So I’m curious. Well, I’m sorry, backing up a moment I was talking to the members of my committee I’m on and everyone is really nervous about 2023 They have buyers that are sitting on the sidelines. They have you know this this inventory shortage curious on on what you’re telling agents today to help keep them in the right mindset. You know, for 2023 Like what, what are you talking about these days?

Steve Shull 14:58
The first thing I want to bring Up is no one. And I mean, no one has the ability to predict the future, nobody. And you read the headlines all day long. And you have all these people, forecasting this forecasting that I worked on Wall Street, I worked at Porter when I worked there it was I was at Salomon Brothers. And every year, every company there are economist would give their prediction for the upcoming year. And we had, we had a very renowned economist, Henry Kaufman. And what I noticed was, every year, every big shop had their prediction. And every year one guy got it right, or one person got it right, and everybody else got it wrong. Then the next year, everyone would flock to the person who got it right. And the next year, they would get it wrong, and someone else would get it right. And, you know, so let’s be very clear. No one has the ability to predict what’s happening. And all of us think back to the pandemic, when the pandemic happened, that was the end of the world, I can remember sitting there in my seat going, the first thing that’s going to happen is everyone’s going to cut out personal coaching, because nobody has any money, and nobody can do anything, right. And every real estate agent was thinking they would never sell another home again. And the pandemic turned out to be just the biggest boon in real estate that nobody saw coming. So first of all, we do not have the ability to predict the market. More importantly, we don’t control what the market is going to do. We don’t control what buyers and sellers are going to do. The market is the market period. And no matter what kind of market there is, life is still happening. People are still being born people die, people get married, people get divorced, people get a new job, kids move in kids move out, life happens. And the things that trigger buying and selling are usually life events. What’s going on right now, in my opinion, is we’re just in a wait and see period of time. We have never experienced a market that we just came out of that was that was insanity. What was going on in it, and everyone kind of got used to, you know, that being the pace, that’s not the pace. That’s not the pace, just like interest rates, right? When I bought my first home in 1981, my mortgage was 18.6%. So and where we are right now six or 7%? What right at midpoint for the past 30 years, where where interest rates have been. So yes, compared to where we were things seem terrible. However, it’s not so bad. Anyway, we’re going to wait and see, in my opinion, a wait and see place. Real estate is not a priority for many people right now. And who knows what the new year is going to bring. So that being said, Stop worrying about the market, stop listening to what anyone says about the market and do your job, your jlb that hasn’t changed. And we can get into whenever you want what I think your job is

D.J. Paris 18:40
every day. Yeah, I do want to get into that. And I think I think you’re right, you know, you come from an athletic background, which is Hey, rain or shine, we got to gotta hit the hit the you know, hit the gym or hit the you know, the field. We’re practicing regardless. Right? And so there’s a certain amount of keep the blinders on, stay focused, do what you’re supposed to do. And and then, you know, hopefully the results will will fall your way. But let’s let’s talk about that. What is this? This is I’m really glad you said that what is the job of a realtor a day to day job for the for a realtor.

Steve Shull 19:25
And let me just say, these are my opinions that I’m sharing with everybody. I’m not saying I’m right. I’m certainly not saying I’m the only person in the world who knows anything. I’m just sharing what I think and over the 30 years of doing this, my thoughts have evolved. When I started out in this business, it was all about prospecting that that that’s how I got into it. That’s what I did. That’s what I coached forever. Where I am I’m now is now I understand this is a repeat and referral business. That’s what it is. And in my opinion, and this is what I coach to, I coach people to build a repeat and referral business. And, and what I boiled it down to a, first of all, we’re not in control of anything that goes on in the external world we don’t control and again, this may go totally against the grain in what everyone thinks, however, we have no control over how many homes we sell in the air. The only thing we control is what we do each and every day. Yeah, I was listening to an interview the other day, a young track superstar, his name is Noah Lyles, 25 years old. He’s the world champion in the 200 meters. And he was talking and he said, world records don’t get broken, when you’re ready. World Records get broken when the day is ready. And he goes on to say, a lot of things have to line up in a very specific way. And most of it has nothing to do with you. The weather’s got to be right, the wind has to be right, the track has to be right, the lane position has to be right, the crowd has to be right the energy, all these things that are not in your control. And what he was basically saying was, you got to be ready every day. Because when the moment is ready, you gotta meet the moment head on. And one of the things I say in my real estate coaching is every deal you do is a miracle. Every single deal you do is a miracle. And every single deal you do comes from left field. What does that mean? It comes from the unknown. I no longer and again, this is probably where I go away against the grain. Goal setting absolute farce business planning the way it’s taught absolute farce. And just think for a second, you go through this exercise every year, all of you who are listening, I’m sure you do your managers tapping you on the shoulder, you need to get together or there’s some program in the office being offered. Or you know, you know, everyone is being conditioned, set your goals and write out your plan. What’s reality, though? And how do I know this? Because a I taught all this nonsense forever. And be what do I find every year by January 31. You no longer paying attention to the goal. Your plan is long gone by that time. And, and then you get to the end of the year and you go back into the drawer and you pull it out and you dusted off and, you know, rinse and repeat. So what what you do control is what you do every day. Yeah. And over 30 years, I’ve boiled it down to six core building blocks. And this is what I coach to every day. And you’re in control of all six of these things. And so no matter what the markets doing, because you have no control over that you do have control of what you do every day. The core building block is developing a mindset of harmony. And I think about the word mindset. What is your mind set on that’s how I look at mindset. And where I’ve come to in a lot of this developed out of the readings of the writings of Michael singer who wrote the Untethered Soul the surrender experiment, and living untethered is we want to be in harmony with what’s happening, not fight, what’s happening, and all of you your entire life, you’ve been programmed and conditioned and brainwashed in a certain way to believe that you can make things happen, that you can make things happen. And I want to challenge each and every one of you. If you can’t change the weather, if you can’t change the weather, how do you think you’re going to change what happens in life because life is made way more bigger than just the weather? And so, when I talk about a mindset of harmony, what I’m saying is, rather than trying to make things happen every day, which is All of you are doing, and you’ve been conditioned, it’s not your fault. Learn to give your highest and best to what is happening. So again, it’s not about trying to make something happen. We go through life thinking the key to a better life is getting more of what we want, and avoiding what we don’t want. Well, again, this is complete. And this is absurdity, that we can get what we want in life, and we can avoid what we don’t want. Newsflash, what’s happening in your life, is the result of natural forces interacting for 13 point 8 billion years, right? Whatever is happening, that’s what’s happening. None of it is personal, although it feels that way. However, it’s not happening to you. It’s simply happening. And all of it is temporary. So the first building block is getting your head on straight, every single day that sets the foundation. The second building block is time blocking. And the time blocking is about prioritizing your time doing what’s most important. Agents struggle immensely with time blocking, because as an agent, and I’m sure you’ve been through this exercise, creating your ideal week or your perfect mapping out your schedule. And we’re there’s nothing wrong with that, where it goes wrong for each and every one of you. You think the way time blocking works out is the world is going to conform to your schedule. Never does. The world doesn’t conform to your schedule, then you go well, this stuff doesn’t work, you know, that I had this to do and they wanted to do this then and I had to I had to go now. No, that’s not time blocking. Time blocking is if it’s in your schedule, you do it. End of story. Yeah, end of story. So it’s about making a commitment to doing what you think is most important.

For me, time blocking has been part of my life forever. In sports, you have practice, and it happens at a certain time. And you have to be there on time, whether you want to be there or not. And if you’re not on time, you get fined or you worse, you get cut from the team. And when I got into the when I got into the NFL, or let’s go back first in college, you have class schedule, and you have to be at class at a certain time. Before everything went online, obviously. And, and when I got to the NFL, we had a schedule, we had a Monday schedule, a Tuesday schedule a Wednesday, a Thursday, or Friday, a Saturday and a Sunday schedule. Every Monday to Monday was the same Tuesday to Tuesday was the same. And you had to be where you were supposed to be on that schedule. And so that is in my DNA. In my coaching practice. I am booked from five in the morning to seven that night, back to back half hour appointments. I love it and why I love time blocking so much. For me. It’s total freedom. Everyone goes what freedom? What do you mean freedom, there’s no freedom. When your time block. I look at it differently. When I wake up every day when I wake up every day, I never have to worry about what I’m going to do today. Ever. It’s right there in front of me. And remember, the more we there’s an inverse relationship between thinking and doing. And this is where Realtors get all messed up. They’re spend most of their day thinking about what they’re going to do. And because they’re thinking about what they’re going to do, they don’t do a whole heck of a lot. Right. And remember, worrying is not the same thing as work. So I’m a big believer in time blocking. And you can create your schedule any way you want. It starts with when you map out a schedule. It starts with your day off, and this is where it breaks down immediately. For all real estate agents. I’m a firm believer that you need at least one full day off if not two or more. And that’s a set day it’s every week. And a day off means you’re not checking voicemail, you’re not checking email, you’re not set checking text, and you have a message on your voicemail with your email with your text, basically saying I’m unavailable today. I’ll be returning all calls messages The following business day So in terms of mapping out your schedule, first thing is your time off. The next thing that comes out is your personal time. You have kids, you have obligations, whatever, you’ve got to map all that out. Then you set up a start time, your workday, and an end time your workday. And you don’t start work before the start time. And end time no later than six or seven, you’re done. That leaves your workspace. And I only need one appointment every day. And that is the next building block. And that is your CRM appointment. And I asked for one hour every day, five days a week. So the mindset of harmony, time blocking, the third building block is CRM. And again, over 30 plus years, I’ve come to the realization when we do an analysis of everyone’s business, at a minimum 50% or more of their business is repeat and referral. Many cases it’s 70 80%. Some some my top clients, it’s 95%. Or even higher, it’s repeat and referral. And so knowing that we’re trying to build a repeat or referral business, your CRM is your most powerful business building tool. And CRM is one of the things that’s most misunderstood and abused. In real estate.

D.J. Paris 31:43
It definitely it’s, it’s when I when I have conversations with agents who are thinking about joining our company, I don’t even like to use the word CRM because it’s just so loaded with with meaning, but it’s not really defined by anybody. Everybody has their own definition. Alright, I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast, do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests. Of course, it is a follow up boss. And let’s face it, following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort. Do not take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 systems, so you can keep your current tools and lead sources. Also, the best part they have seven day a week support. So you’ll get the help that you need when you need it and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time, they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial, which is twice as much time as they give everyone else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free. But only if you use this special link visit, follow up boss.com forward slash real, that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode.

Steve Shull 33:21
In the past, CRM has been a dumping ground. That’s how people have used it just dump everything in there. And then you know, send out an email, email blast to the masses and hope and pray someone responds, that is not CRM in any way shape or form. CRM is it boils down to three things. One, you have to get the right people in your CRM. And we define the right people by the people that you’re committed to being in a relationship with. And the minimum definition of a relationship is you’re willing to call call, not text, not email. Yes, I am old school and millennials, you know the heck with you anyway. You have to call at least every 90 days, every 90 days. Imagine all of you imagine if everyone in your CRM, if it got to the point where they were expecting a call from you every 90 days. And when you didn’t call, they were surprised. Imagine how that would transform your business. So the first thing is get the right people in, organized, grouped and tagged in the right way. And this is something we do in coaching. The second part of CRM is making sure everyone’s set up on a contact plan at a minimum every 90 days. And then the third part of CRM is what I call get your dashboard down to zero every day when you turn In your CRM on, it gives you a list of people to call and a list of things to do, assuming you’ve programmed it right. And getting your dashboard down to zero during your CRM time block is making the calls and doing the tasks.

D.J. Paris 35:16
Quick, quick question. Yeah. So we have our list we’re calling are, we’re, you know, this is a great time of year. By the time this comes out, it’ll be early January. So we’re going to be, it’s going to be a little bit slower agents are going to be thinking about their CRMs. And how what the communication policy for their business should be for 2023. You just gave a great blueprint every 90 days, pick up the phone, reach out to your, you know, the people that you want to be in relationship with. Question, what are suggest? What are some suggestions you have about content? When I when I make these phone calls? What am I saying?

Steve Shull 35:58
Everyone take your notebook out? Because this is really complicated. What you say is Hello. How are you doing? All it is, is no more than a checkup is no more just checking in? You are not? Again, my opinion not saying I’m right. This is what I coach to, I’m

D.J. Paris 36:23
going to I’m going to say everything you say is right. So you don’t have to say that any longer. I’ve deemed everything you said as gospel. So go right

Steve Shull 36:29
ahead, oh, we’re doing we’re not there to talk real estate, we’re there to check in human being to human being, see how they are, if they’ve got something going on in their life, if they’re thinking about buying and selling, then they’re gonna bring it up, they’re gonna go, I can’t believe it all, we’re thinking about this or thinking about that. And by the way, everyone, the technology is there. If I set my CRM, right, and based on certain CRMs, I can actually be looking at my mobile app, and watching everyone who’s in my CRM to see if anyone’s on the web. And so every day I can do this. And imagine, here I am. So I see so and so’s searching for homes on my mobile app, and they’re in my CRM, and I call them up out of the blue and you say, You know what, I happened to be thinking about you. I’m just curious how you do it. And they’re gonna go, Oh, my God, I can’t believe you called we’re actually thinking about x. That’s the technology. And this isn’t, you know, this is not complicated stuff. It’s available with with with every CRM program. So anyway, there’s there’s ways to use technology to really be on top of people getting back to the question you asked, is just simple. Hi, I’m checking in. So

D.J. Paris 37:53
basically demonstrating that you care about somebody else finding out what’s going on in their lives. Not Have you don’t need I if I heard you correctly, you don’t need to ask them about, Hey, are you ready to buy or sell a home because of course, they are going to be thinking of you anyway, you’re just checking in to make sure that they know that you’re thinking

Steve Shull 38:14
about them. Almost every real estate agent has been taught a to have a transactional orientation. Meaning what you’re doing every day is you’re chasing a deal. You’re chasing $1 bill, it’s your whole focus, instant gratification, instant gratification. You live in the world of chasing, convert, chasing, convincing, and closing that is your life. And what you don’t really realize you are turning yourself into a commodity. In fact, every force imaginable in this business is conspiring to turn you into a commodity. So when you’re in this transactional paradigm way of thinking, then it’s all based on value. And I’ve got to show my value, I’ve got to show that I have more value than someone else. And I do that by convincing with facts, logic and reason. Let’s be very clear, this is the hard way of doing business. Now some of you listening have gotten really good at doing things the hard way. That doesn’t mean you’re doing it the best way. So don’t confuse with results. Don’t confuse results, either good ones, or lack of results with what you’re actually doing. Which brings up another point. In my coaching, it’s not about how much business you do. It’s what’s more important is how you do your business. Because one of the things that I’ve seen that I’ve seen clearly and most of my My clients are doing over 100 million in sales a year, some over 250 500 million, add a couple clients last year do over 750 million. In the next couple of years, I’ll be coaching people doing over a billion dollars, the production has skyrocketed. However, what I can tell you with absolute certainty, what more equals and all of you are out there, you know, why do you get on this podcast? Why do you do anything, you want to sell more homes, you want to sell more homes? Well, let me tell you what more equals more equals more stress. That’s what it equals, based on the way you’re doing business. Now, I’m not saying more is bad. It’s how you achieve more. And when you’re in that chasing, convincing, closing, transactional, value based convincing based paradigm, what more equals is more stress. What I coach people to do is move from a transactional orientation to a relational orientation, from value driven to trust based people are choosing you because you have positioned yourself as their trusted advisor. So when we’re checking in, we’re being that trusted adviser. We’re not trying to sell anything, we’re just making sure they don’t need anything. And then and the relational orientation. This is what in the book. It’s called Tactical empathy. This is what the book is about. I wrote it with Chris Voss, it’s called the full fee agent. Chris is the best selling author of the book never split the difference. Yeah, many people,

D.J. Paris 41:46
famous, famous, famous book,

Steve Shull 41:48
right. And what happened there, one of my clients, Chris was doing a book signing out in Malibu, one of my clients went, got a copy of the book and gave me the book. And in one Saturday afternoon, I started reading the book. And I had my lightning bolt moment. I have my sports background, all about goals, all about plans, all about fact, logic and reason. I know I’ve written more script and dialogue than any human being alive in terms of real estate. And every one of my scripts was all about fact, logic and reason, leading people to an inexcusable conclusion. And in reading Chris’s book, first of all, the title is what drew me in and never split the difference. What does every realtor do in every single transaction to get a deal done? They split the difference. Slash splitting the difference is the lazy man’s way of doing your job. And when you’re splitting the difference, yes, you may close the deal. What you don’t know is you’re killing off your repeat and referral pipeline, because compromise is never equal. If I’m splitting the difference, and let’s say it’s a $20,000 difference, and I’m giving up $10,000. In my mind, I’m giving up $20,000. They’re only giving up 10. So it’s not equal. It’s not equal. So yeah, the deal closes. But guess what? I feel like I got a bad deal. I feel like my agent wasn’t my advocate. I feel like my agent sold me down the river. Right? And that’s why you have that NAR statistic with someone at the end of a deal with someone recommend you 80% Say yes, and only 20% do. You’re killing off your repeat and referral pipeline when you split the difference. Anyway, the point that came up in the book for me was in that aha moment, is the reality that you cannot overcome emotion with facts, logic and reason. Yeah, emotion, emotion drives the bus. Right? And, and specifically, the emotion that we’re talking about is fear of loss. And again, as a real estate, salesperson, your entire career, you’re selling benefits, you’re selling benefits. That’s not how people make decisions. It’s fear of loss, that drives the decision making process and tactical empathy. And again, what this was based on Chris was a former FBI hostage negotiator. In fact, he was the lead international hostage negotiator for the FBI. And they developed this methodology and, and empathy is the skill of making people feel understood. Yeah. Being able to articulate what someone is thinking, and feeling. And until someone feels understood, they can hear anything that you’re saying. And this is the missing piece in all of sales. Think about thinking about this as a hostage negotiator, as a hostage negotiator. Your job is to sell jail time, to a highly disturbed individual,

Unknown Speaker 45:30
right?

Steve Shull 45:34
When they started the day, they didn’t wake up and say, I want to go to jail today. So I’m gonna go rob a bank, and I’m going to take some hostages. That’s not what they woke up with the intention of doing. However, that’s where they ended up. And so as a hostage negotiator, I gotta sell jail time to someone who’s very emotional, that, like you said, that is a tough sell. Real Estate isn’t that tough. However, it’s not far behind. What you do as a real estate agent every day is you’ve got to sell reality to people who have hopes and dreams that are not based in reality. That’s your job. Yeah. And the way you’re equipped right now, is you’re trying to convince these people with facts, logic and reason, guess what? Right now, every seller is sitting there thinking about what they could have sold their home for six months ago,

D.J. Paris 46:35
or what rate they could have got by purchasing a home two years ago.

Steve Shull 46:39
And on the buy side, every buyer is thinking about, I could have done this. And that’s why I say we’re in a wait and see market right now. Because people, you know, again, I’ve been doing this for 30 plus years, we’ve never, never had such a sudden shift in the market. And so you know, in such a big shift in the market. So people are processing right now. That’s what they’re doing their process. And so. So, again, you’re selling reality, to people that have hopes and dreams that are not based in reality. And what we coach to is, is a framework of how to do that, and how to do that, effectively. The five parts first part of the framework, you’ve got to get your stuff out of the way, you’ve got to get your feelings, your thoughts, your desires, and put it on the back burner. It’s not about you, it’s about them. And you can’t make them feel understood when all you’re thinking about is how is this impacting me. So the first thing you have to do take you out of the equation. So you can focus exclusively on your prospect or client. Second part of the equation, you have to let them fully express themselves, you have to give them the space or room to say whatever it is they want to say. Third part of the equation, once they’ve expressed themselves, then you have to make them feel understood. It seems like it sounds like it feels like you’re probably thinking you’re probably feeling what you’re targeting is a that’s right response. That’s what you’re targeting. And when you begin studying this, you know, these are these are tools, these are based on science of mind. This is how the human mind actually operates. So third step make people feel understood. And when you make people feel understood, it actually causes a chemical release in the body it releases two different chemicals, oxytocin, which Bond’s people to you, and promotes truth telling, and serotonin, which makes people feel satisfied and less demanding. What more could you ask for in terms of communication? Once you make them feel understood, the fourth part of the process is make them think and make them think in a specific way. You make them think in terms of reality, in terms of reality, and again, different tools in the tactical empathy, toolbox. Know oriented questions, calibrated questions, which are what and how questions, we’re not telling people what to do. We’re not explaining one of the great things that Chris says, and everyone should hear this. When you’re explaining you’re losing. When you’re explaining you’re losing. And so you have to resist this need that all of you have to demonstrate your expertise by telling people what to do that’s going in one ear and out the other. So make them thing make them thinks in terms of reality, for example, pricing, many sellers have a high price in mind right now, you would say something like this. I am not here to tell you that your home isn’t worth what you think it’s worth. Rather, I just have one question for you. What if? What if we do everything possible, which we will to attract the best qualified buyer for your home? And what happens if that buyer is not willing to pay you what you think your home is worth? What will you do? And the answer to that question is going to show you are they willing to have a realistic conversation? Or not? And if they’re not willing to have a realistic conversation, then you have a choice to make? Do I walk away now? Do they need some more time to process and I’m going to give it a little more time. However, you need to be clear. They’re not thinking realistically right now.

D.J. Paris 51:09
I want to pause here for a second because that’s the really important and interesting, calm, interesting question to ask. It really lets the agent know, a lot of information about that buyer or that seller in this case, you know, throwing those hypotheticals out is a really smart way to gauge where the where the client is. And a boy, I just want to pause you for a moment because that’s really an impactful question. So this idea, Steve just mentioned was, you know, saying, hey, if we do everything correctly, somebody comes along, wants to buy the property, but they’re not willing to pay what you’d like to list it at? What what will what would be your response? That is a brilliant question. I just wanted to honor you for that. But go right ahead.

Steve Shull 52:00
And again, we’re listening to what the answer is because, again, we’re not telling him, you’re not going to get this price. You know, they don’t want to hear that. We’re saying, I’m not here to convince you, you’re not going to get what you want. I’m asking you what happens if the best buyer isn’t willing to pay you what you want? What will you do, and their response will tell you they’re either realistic, or they’re not. And if they’re not, which is the fifth part of the framework, you have to understand, if someone doesn’t want your help, you cannot help them. If they don’t want your help, you can’t help them. Going back to hostage negotiators. They’re successful 93% of the time. That’s not bad selling jail time. Pretty, pretty amazing. What they had to learn, though, is some of these people, they wanted to die suicide by police that texture. That’s why they came. And they had and they had to quickly recognize is this someone who wants to die by, you know, getting shot. And then they have to realize I can’t help that person and they’ve got to prepare, you know, they’ve got to take a very different path, in terms of what they’re how they’re dealing with a situation. No different in real estate. If a seller isn’t willing to price and price their home at a price where it will sell, I can’t help. And that’s where we learn to exit gracefully from the situation, not making them wrong, leaving the door open and moving on. So again, selling reality five parts. Put your stuff on the backburner. Let them fully express themselves, make them feel understood. Make them think in a specific way. And know you can help people who don’t want to be held

D.J. Paris 53:56
question for you. So if you have a seller who is unrealistic, meaning they have a different price point they think their property is worth you’ve done. The more objective research to determine it’s used as the agent don’t believe it’s worth X, they believe it is worth X. What does is there? How often are they able to come around? What what do you suggest? Or do do you suggest walking away at that point?

Steve Shull 54:30
Well, again, you have it you have a you have a decision to make. Do they just need more time to process because they might need some time to process you know that you’re making them think about something they haven’t thought about? And maybe in that moment they can’t make an answer. But in the next two weeks, no more than the next two weeks. Based on their actions you’re going to see are they open to being more willing? And if they’re not open to be more willing then you That, again, when I’m going to teach you is to exit gracefully. And you would exit gracefully by saying, look, I think we have a very different opinion concerning the value of your home. And again, I’m not here to tell you, I’m right and you’re wrong. And, you know, would it be crazy to think that you might be better served working with someone who’s more in alignment with where you think your home needs to be priced. So you’re honoring them, you’re giving them a choice, you’re not making them wrong, and you’re willing to walk away because time is our most precious asset. Time is our most precious asset, and you don’t have time to waste.

D.J. Paris 55:49
That’s, it’s really, it’s a really good point. And it this willingness to walk away, is is a very important move, because what it what it signals to the individual, the realtor who’s willing to give up this client without trying to convince them, you know, hey, no, you need to come, come come to my way of thinking, Is it really, is it an incredibly respectful thing to do to the client? And whether or not that client ends up working with you in this case? Maybe they wouldn’t. They will have a tremendous respect for you as a professional by giving them a professional answer, which is I think we’re, you know, we’re not seeing eye to eye here. And as a result, I’m going to, I’m going to, you know, go elsewhere. And I wish you the best, I suspect that oftentimes leads sometimes to the to the homeowner than saying, well, we’ll tell me what you think.

Steve Shull 56:50
And this is a great one. One of the things we coach to Don’t take the bait. When someone asks you for your opinion, they don’t want your opinion. Let me repeat this. Yeah. Because you guys love it you love. When someone says will tell me what you think, to you. That’s your the door has been open, again, to demonstrate how smart you are. When they say, What do you think? What they’re really want it what they really want to know is do you think what they think,

D.J. Paris 57:28
yeah, you validate they’re the right.

Steve Shull 57:31
And so there’s lots of ways to sidestep this. For the easy one price. Well, what do you think the price would be? The way you respond to that is, it sounds like you have a very specific number in mind. Okay, it sounds like you have a very specific number in mind. And if they go yet we do. And then you say, Well, what is that number? And if they won’t tell you what the number is right that in there, know that you are now the Fool in the game. Yeah. Now the Fool in the game, they are not doing business with you. However, I can still, you know, I still have a couple moves left, which is if I saw if I say you know, tell me what your number is, and they say, you know, we want to hear from you say great, Zillow and you have to look up the number on Zillow before you go out on the appointment. Well, Zillow has your home, listed, you know, has your home valued at 895,000. And you always say no matter what the price is, you always say, and you’re probably thinking that’s too low. You always say and you’re probably thinking that’s too low. And why do you say that? Because most they are thinking that’s probably too low, right? And they’re going to make and they’re gonna go Yeah, we do. We do think that’s on the low side. Now I want to go now, I’m gonna say, I’m not gonna say you’re probably thinking closer to 1,000,002. I’m gonna go way high, way high on purpose higher than I know what they’re thinking, okay, or higher where I’m guessing they’re thinking. And when I say you’re probably thinking closer to 1,000,002, and they’re gonna say, no, no, no, no, we weren’t thinking 1,000,002 We were thinking more like, you know, 980,000 they will reveal themselves in that moment. So when someone asked me for their opinion, I can get around it the other way about the again first, never take the bait up front, about the opinion. If they press you what you want to do, look if you’re asking me what I think what I think is x however, It’s not my home, I’m not the seller. And this is not my decision. This is your decision, and you need to make this. So you can share your opinion. And again, it’s only your opinion, you know, I’m not presenting it, you know, if it were me and I was in this situation, this is how I would do it. However, it’s not me, it’s you, and you need to make this decision. So you share your opinion, then you put it right back on them. And you have to make them make the choice. One of the chapters in the book is put the responsibility where it belongs, agents are always trying to take responsibility for decisions that aren’t theirs to make. And this is what creates tremendous stress in what you do. You’re all out there, you’re always trying to make the client or the prospect feel good. There’s something much more powerful, and much less stressful on you. Make them feel understood. Make them feel understood. Don’t be trying to make them feel good. You have no ability to make anyone feel good. The way you have to make people feel good now is you got to take their stress and take it on you. Yeah, you know, when you when, when you take an overpriced listing, and you know, it’s overpriced, and you take it because you don’t want to tell them the truth about price. You’re taking the responsibility for the price of the home. And now you’re taking all that stress on you. And now you’re not going to get this thing sold. And a month later, two months later, three months later, you know, they’re in your face, why aren’t we sold, and you’re not sold? Because you didn’t tell them the truth upfront. However, you have to be able to deliver the truth in a way that they can actually hear. You know,

D.J. Paris 1:01:59
Steve, what I’m picking up, and I’m sure our audience is is has been listening to you this entire time is what I’m hearing a lot of his preparation, I’m hearing that throughout your entire career, whether it was with athletics, with real estate, obviously, with banking as well. But we’re talking about taking the job so seriously, that you have answers pre ready, ready and able to, you know, you’re thinking this out ahead of time, you’re doing the homework, you’re you’re preparing, and you’re able to to really assert yourself as as the specialist, you’re not going in blind, you’re not just showing up, you are showing up prepared. And I again, I suspect this was something you learned, obviously, well, I don’t know where you first learned it, but you certainly learned it on on on the field. How important is preparation

Steve Shull 1:03:06
very famous football coach, the will to win is important, the will to prepare is vital. And I’ve been when I first read the book by Chris never split the difference six years ago. And I’ve been studying this every day, all day long for six years. And you do this for a living. You have a huge competitive advantage over your clients, they do this once every five years, seven years, whatever. You need to be thinking way more about what’s going on, then they’re thinking about what’s going on. And another chapter in the book is called Get the elephants out early. And what we mean by this is we always want to get in front of things. We don’t we don’t react, we anticipate. And so you know what the objections are up front, from any seller or any buyer? The first thing you do when you sit down with someone, it’s what we call the cold read and you’re reading the situation. And what you’re running through this supercomputer called your mind is okay, what are they thinking and feeling? And you’re paying attention to what they’re saying how they’re saying it what the body language is. It’s no different when I played football. Now, this was a long time that I played. And even back then, again, this is you know, early 80s 30 plus years ago, before every game we would get a scouting report of the other team and it’d be you know, a thing like this thick and you had to go in there and you had to memorize all their tendencies. He’s meaning if they came out on the left, on the left hashmark at the 20 yard line, and they came out in a brown formation, and it was third down. I, they I knew 48% of the time they were going to run this play 33% of the time they were running this play, you had to you had to commit all that. So when, when you’re actually out on the field, you’re anticipating, you see the formation, the down in distance. And so you’re not just you’re not making stuff up in the moment, you’re thinking in a certain way going in the door. So whenever you’re talking to a buyer or seller, you’re trying to get in front of everything. You want to say it before they say it. All of you, you’ve probably heard, you know, never make assumptions makes an ass out of you and make right now you’re making an educated guess. And you’re putting it out there, it seems like it sounds like it feels like you’re probably thinking you’re probably feeling. And by label, what you’re doing is again, you’re trying to make them feel understood by labeling, called labeling what they’re thinking and feeling. And labeling is way more effective than asking questions. All of you have been conditioned to ask questions. When you ask someone a question, the way the mind is structured, there’s a split second, where they can think about their answer. Meaning, when you ask someone a question, most of the time you’re getting the answer, they want you to hear that you’re getting the answer they want you to hear. When you label it, when you say you’re probably feeling X hits the brain in a different spot, and you get an immediate and honest response. Right? So open house, someone walks into the door, how are you doing? Well, they’re gonna give you whatever answer they want. They walk in the door, it looks like you’ve had a long, long day. Oh, my God, you’re so right. And then you get a different response. Now, anyone listening is to go, Well, what did we get it wrong? Even better? Even better, they’ll tell you, when you miss label when you miss label. People love to correct other people. It actually makes them feel good. When you say, you know, this is probably a tough decision for you. And they go, Oh, no, this was a no brainer. It actually makes them feel good. And in fact, you can use mislabeling when you’re not sure of what’s going on when you when you’re having a hard time, understand, use a mislabel. And you’ll get an immediate response to a mislabel. So back to your question. You got to be thinking about the situation before you get there. And most importantly, again, the bad habit that many of you have gotten into is, you’re never listening, you’re always thinking about what you’re going to say next. When the way we teach is you’re paying full attention. And only when they’re done talking, you’re allowed to take time to actually think process and think about what you want to say next.

D.J. Paris 1:08:27
And by the way, Steven, I’m jumping right in, I’m sort of doing the anti, only because because I know you’re you’re a train that’s moving. And I just wanted to jump in front of it for a quick second. But you’re absolutely right, this idea of taking a moment to actually take in the information after they’re done speaking, it does take time, right, we want to fill in the blank spaces, because it feels uncomfortable. So there’s a pause and a conversation. We want to immediately jump in with some information, some facts, some some whatever, because we get this anxiety that oh my gosh, there’s a lull in the conversation. But I have found it in in my experience in just being an adult in the business world is that the savviest people I know, when they hear some informations and facts. They take a moment they take a breath, they reflect and then they respond.

Steve Shull 1:09:24
slowing things down changes the dynamic of every conversation. And when you slow it way down, then people have to lean in and listen to what’s going on. And when they actually see you taking the time to think about what you’re going to say and again this is contrary to what you know salespeople think that you know you think you need to have an answer immediately. Are you looking foolish? It’s the complete opposite. When you slow it down and literally take 10 seconds, even longer to think about your response. They see someone who’s being thoughtful about and mindful about how they’re responding. And

D.J. Paris 1:10:17
I want to I want to jump in with a with an example. This just happened to me. I was, I was going to see a dermatologist here in downtown Chicago. And I’m mentioning this because it was a really significant event. And I mean, not seeing the dermatologist. I do that every year. But I was going to see a different dermatologist than I normally do for this one particular thing. And I had never seen these, these. The it was a father, son team, actually. And I went into the room. I actually went into his office, one of one of the doctors offices at the big table sitting behind it. And he says, Okay, we need to we need to talk about this the skin thing. So we start talking about it. And he’s asking me questions, much like maybe a realtor might ask a buyer or a seller some questions. And then, and he did this exactly what you’re saying he paused, almost longer than was comfortable, like, a good, maybe 20 seconds. And if you’ve never sat face to face across from somebody, of course, I’m speaking to the audience, not Steve specifically. And if you’ve never had a 22nd pause and conversation it is it is not that common. And it made me feel a little bit uncomfortable. But I also at the moment, I went, Wow, he is really thinking about this. And he was and he even said, Boy, in my 35 years of practice, this one’s got me stumped. I need another moment. And we went back to pausing. And he gave me an update halfway through his boss. And eventually he said, Okay, I got some ideas for you. And I sat patiently and I waited. And I will tell you, Steve, not only was I I’ve never had that experience with with with a physician, usually they’re just ready with the answer. Right, right then and there. And that’s fine. But boy, did I feel like, gosh, this person cares about me now, do they actually care about me? I don’t know. But it certainly felt like it.

Steve Shull 1:12:21
You just made my point.

D.J. Paris 1:12:27
Yeah, it’s, it’s it’s so important that these are these are, these are really important pieces of the real estate process of being the agent that I feel don’t get enough attention. The really the emphasis on, you know, connection, empathy, really listening preparation. You know, you’re so right at the beginning, when he said, you know, that the focus typically is on lead generation. And lead generation, of course, is so, so important. But this idea of okay, well, once you get the leads, now, what are we doing? How seriously are we taking, you know, steps, step A is or step one is getting, getting the lead steps, two through 25,000 Is all of the all of the things that that maybe we’re not taught. And I’m assuming this is what the full fee agent is all about. This is what performance coaching.com is, you have basically given us, our listeners and our viewers on this episode, about an hour and a half coaching session, which I know is providing tremendous value to to our audience. And I really want everyone to think about when’s the last time you started working on your presentation? When’s the last time you worked on? Objection? Handling? Not objection overcoming. But dealing with people’s responses. How do you respond? Steve has for the last 80 minutes has literally been talking about step by step of how to be very intentional about how to communicate, we’re really talking about communication. And, boy, Steve, this has been a masterclass in communication, but I apologize, I didn’t mean to stop your your, your flow, but I just wanted to make a point that this is all about communication and preparation,

Steve Shull 1:14:24
writing and getting back to your question about being prepared. And again, this is where I’m gonna differ from 99% of the coaches or trainers out there. The entire and this is going to blow your mind. So sit down and buckle up. The entire industry is based on a false premise. And that premise is that you win or lose business based on your Presentation. You win or lose business based on whether you’re the favorite, or the fool. And when you get that call, what’s the greatest call to get in real estate? Hi, we’re thinking about selling our home. And we want you to come over and give us a presentation. Every agent jumps up and down with joy. They go spend 234 hours putting their presentation together, they get all dressed up, they drive over to the appointment, they’re early, they got a big smile on their face. They go in the front door for two hours, they tell them everything. You tell them everything, you know, you’ve got your beautiful presentation, you lay it out, at the end of the two hours, they say oh my god, you gave us so much to think about thank you so much. Let us process and then we’ll get back to you. And you walk out the door and you’re gone. Oh my god, did it go? Well, that did not go well, what’s going to happen for the next one to three days a week, you’re on pins and needle waiting for the phone call. And you get the phone call. And they go oh my god, you were so wonderful. And you shared such great information. However, when I let go list with Mr. Mrs. So and so. And you’re left going What the heck just happened? What happened was you were the Fool in the game, you never had a shot to begin with. And we that my top agents no longer go on listing appointments, and they list more property than they’ve ever listed before. How can that be? Because we have a 15 to 30 minute pre list zoom call. And in that call, we determine whether we’re the favorite or the fool. And in the book, we’ll go through how you do that. And in 15 to 30 minutes, you know whether you’re the favorite of the full, if you’re the favorite, you’re gonna go out to the house, sign them up answer questions, you never give your presentation. And and you get your full fee 6%. And in the areas where you can you’re keeping three and a half and paying two and a half to the buyer’s agent. Anyway. And when you’re the fool, it doesn’t make a difference what you say and it doesn’t make a difference what you charge. And so the real estate out there, the real estate, all of you are out there thinking you got to work on your presentation. No, you’ve got to work on finding out whether you’re the favorite or the fool. This is a major game changer. One of my clients today, taking 22 listings this year been on 28 appointments 22 times he thought he was the favor 22 times they listed with him and paid him six, keeping three and a half percent in a market where everyone else is charging five or less. The other six appointments that he went on and didn’t get is because he wasn’t sure am I the favorite on that short phone call? Zoom call. He wasn’t sure. So he went out anyway. And so what we learned today is when you’re not sure, don’t go you are the fool. So he’ll save himself next year, those five or six appointments that he won’t go on.

D.J. Paris 1:18:22
But again, this is an this is really incredible skills. You know, I’ve been doing the show for five years. You know, what we’re talking about, in some ways is a return to be I don’t want to call them salesman tactics because they’re not sales tactics at all. They’re they’re absolutely appropriate and respectful conversation. But what you’re doing is taking the salesy part out of the equation, right, you’re not trying to sell the person, you because most people don’t want to be sold as as we all know. But what you’re really doing is you’re making them an equal. So my time is valuable, your time is valuable. Wouldn’t it be amazing. I mean, I’m a recruiter, I recruit realtors, and I can’t tell you how many times I just go right into my presentation about why you need to join our firm versus the firm they’re already at. And they you know, and maybe they have an inkling of interest in what we do here. However, my version of that is is are they actually thinking about switching firms or are they just taking the phone call because they want to see, you know, they’re bored on a on a Wednesday afternoon. So this is what you will learn, you know, by reading full fee agent. This is also what Steve teaches agents. I mean, his you know, obviously the the value he’s been providing on this this episode is incredible, but this is what he does for his clients. He has clients that are doing 500 million in production 750 million in production a year and Steve saying and in the next year No a year or two, he has some clients that’ll probably get to a billion dollars, he gets results, which is you know why we’re having him talk to you guys today. And I can’t keep Steve on all day because he’s got other people to coach and other shows to talk to. But I want everyone who’s listening, if you got value out of this, and of course you did, I want you to go and pick up the full fee agent on Amazon. It’s the number one book right now for real estate sales, the perfect five star review. It’s written, co written by never split the difference guy, which a lot of our listeners have already read, we already know how important and impactful that book was. So I want you to go pick up the full FBI agent link to that in our show notes. And I also want you to check out to see what Steve’s coaching services are all about at performance coaching.com. Steve has been coaching, not the last five years, 10 years, he’s been coaching since 1993. This is somebody who has seen the ups and weathered the storms of the market. He knows what he’s been through these cycles, and he knows how to coach people through the cycles. That’s maybe the most important thing is 2023 going to be a difficult year. Yes, we know that we’re it’s more than likely going to be a challenging year. But does it need to be an unprofitable year? Does it need to be a down year? Not necessarily. But you need coaching? You need some skills. That’s what Steve does. He’s skill development. He’s he’s about preparation, discipline, perspiration, all of that. But real tactical skills. So I want everybody to visit performance. coaching.com see what Steve’s all about, pick up the book, the full fee agent. I mean, gosh, let’s let’s stop the race to the bottom with fees. Right. Let’s stop giving away our commission just to be competitive. Let’s let’s learn how to assert our full value. Steve’s book does that and also gives you incredible, actual tactical skills to be able to go out into the marketplace and do more business. And Steve’s clients, obviously speak for themselves with the results that that they get, Steve, I am so grateful to have had you on the show. And I know that you probably just continue going for another couple of hours. But I’m going to save you from from that on our show because we can bring you back on a future episode. But on behalf of our audience, I really want to thank Steve for coming on. Just tremendous value here really great. I love these kinds of episodes. So hopefully our audience is as appreciative as I am. I know they are. And if you want to be appreciative again, pick up full FBI agent and also visit performance coaching.com On behalf of everyone listening, want to thank Steve for coming on the show, sharing his wisdom sharing his his insight over the last 30 plus years in this business. Just truly remarkable and incredible. And also on behalf of Steve and myself. We want to thank everyone who’s watching or listening and supporting our show. Definitely again, check out the book check out Steve’s coaching program where he gets things done, and he can help you so reach out to him and see if you guys might be a good fit. Steve, thank you so much for being on our show. Really appreciate it.

Steve Shull 1:23:14
Thank you. Thanks everyone for listening.

D.J. Paris 1:23:18
And we will see everybody on the next episode. All right

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

In our January episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @properties discusses how being authentic and leading with kindness are the keys to having a great impact and building great relationships with people. Carrie also talks about the importance of having a business plan and the role it plays in the success of your business. Next, Carrie emphasizes the importance of listening to your client’s needs, desires and also frustrations. Last, D.J. shares his marketing tip and discusses it with Carrie.

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 FollowUpBoss.

D.J. Paris 0:00
We all know that we’re supposed to be authentic and kind with our clients. But how does that actually translate into more business? Well, we’re going to talk about 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 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.

Welcome to keep it relevant largest podcast made for real estate agents and by real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show today on the show is our monthly series called The Monday market minute with Carrie McCormick from the Kara McCormick Real Estate Group with at properties here in Chicago. Now Kerry is a top 1% producer here with over 20 years of experience helping buyers sellers and investors. Fact in the past 12 months out of 46,000 real estate agents here in the Chicagoland area. Carrie is currently ranked number 13 in production, and she’s a true superstar and expert in everything from first time homebuyers, veteran investors and luxury properties. And she also works with a lot of developers and is often chosen to represent their high end developments, please visit Carrie at our website, which is Carrie McCormick r e.com. By the way, we have a link to that in the show notes. And also, most importantly, follow her on Instagram can find her at at Carey McCormick real estate. Also a link to that in the show notes. Carrie, welcome once again.

Carrie McCormick 2:36
Hi there. How are you?

D.J. Paris 2:38
I’m good. I’m good. We’re recording this in December towards like the month beginning of December. This won’t go out till January. So I guess what we can talk about is 2023. And sort of what your what you’re dealing with for 2023 What how you’re feeling about the market and any ideas that you’re you toying around with?

Carrie McCormick 3:02
I love that I first have to say for those who are watching, if I look orange, I am not orange. Because I feel like this, this lighting wherever I’m at is it’s kind of bad lighting. So this is not really what I look like but and I have not gotten a suntan. So that’s that’s kind of strange. So anyways, well, happy 2023 to everybody. We are recording this in December. But I’m planning and doing all of my due diligence to start the year off, right. And I wanted just to kick it off by giving a little bit of success to everybody for 2023 our markets a little funky. But I am a true believer that it’s going to be a good year, it’s going to be a good year for us. But I wanted just to say being authentic, and leading with kindness is going to be your plan for 2023. And I think that everyone should start 2023 with a game plan of having a defined business plan. I think that is key and my success. And I’ve been doing this for 22 years, so I have a good track record of success. And my success has been built on being authentic and leading with kindness. It sounds so simple. It sounds so easy. And it truly is. And I truly believe that having authentic actions in everything that you do is key to making high impact personal connections with people. And we are all in real estate, connecting with other people. Connecting with your clients, connecting with your vendors, connecting with colleagues is the core of your business and think about it again. We’re in a relationship type business, right and relationships are going to drive your sales. They’re going to generate your leads. They’re going to build your credibility but you You have to be genuine, I’ve been with people, and I’m sure you have to that. I don’t know, you know that it’s fake, you know that it’s not real. But if you are genuine, it can be extremely effective. And I’ve also done that with my brand, just like you were saying is, you know, with social media or with any type of advertising that you do, be your own brand ambassador, yes, I look at other brands, and I find inspiration in MRI, I listen to other podcasts, or I do, you know, a lot of research and I get inspired by other brands. But if you are your own brand, Ambassador, and you are truly authentic to what you do, consumers will respond to that. I think

D.J. Paris 5:46
you’re right, I think authenticity, really Trump’s sort of the aesthetic of what we think we should look like, or what we should present to the public, sort of the image that we want people to see us app is needs to be in alignment with who you actually are as a person. So if you’re like a female realtor, and you just are somebody that isn’t somebody that spends a lot of time, on their visual, you know, their physical appearance, like they’re not putting on a ton of makeup, or they don’t, you know, you maybe don’t wear certain types of clothing or do your hair a certain way, I would, I would lean into that and just be like, I’m the agent who doesn’t, you know, do a lot of makeup or hair, if that’s, you know, you don’t have to look differently than you are. Because you’re ultimately I mean, you should obviously look professional and all of that. But, but if you’re if you’re you know I have I have friends, I have some very good friends who are women who just have very different styles than maybe what we think of when we see a billboard with a realtors face on it. And they lean into the fact that that’s just they’re different. They have different preferences. And they’re the people that want to work with them are going to respond to that because it’s authentic, versus Hey, I look perfect. And I think I think this need to look to sort of look and appear perfect. It takes away from the authenticity, which is, you know, look, we don’t have to be perfect. We don’t have to even act perfectly. We just have to be ourselves. And I think people relate way more to imperfection than perfection anyway,

Carrie McCormick 7:18
I do too. And, you know, speaking of being kind, you know, sometimes kindness can be mistaken as a weakness, right. And there’s that old saying that nice guys finish last. And I think that that’s so untrue. I don’t know who started that one. But I totally disagree with that. I find that when you are authentically kind, you know, doors are gonna open, people will smile back at you, your business will just grow and to me, it’s kind of like karma, what you give out is going to come back to you. So you know, think about when you look at like I always like to focus on like, who are the successful leaders out there who are the successful managers or sales team, and you’re gonna see that they all have something very common. They’re common traits, they have the ability to understand people understand their co workers understand their clients, they listen, that’s another big thing for 2023 Everybody out there, listen to your clients listen to their needs, their desires, even their frustrations listened to that their dreams are challenges. When you really listen. You know, you’re not talking talking too much. You got to listen to them, you’re going to understand, and these successful people, they understand the drivers of change and they strive to make the people happy. And keep in mind kindness is a choice and you got to choose it.

D.J. Paris 8:42
I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast. Do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests. Of course it is a follow up boss and let’s face it following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort. Do not take my word for it. Robert slack who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 systems so you can keep your current tools and lead sources also the best part they have seven day a week support so you’ll get the help that you need when you need it and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial which is twice as much time as they give everyone else and oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free but only if you use this special link visit follow up boss.com forward slash real that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss And now back to our episode. Yeah, you do. And I think you’re right. I don’t think nice guys finish last I think. I think maybe there was a time in our culture where that was more true, but it was not in my lifetime really, I found that maybe in the 80s, it was a little different. If you were, you know of a certain age, then maybe there was a little bit more of like, just grind it out and be that be the very best and crush the competition. But I think that nice people are oftentimes just so valued by employers, they’re valued by your team. If you’re on a team, they’re valued by, you know, any, any, anytime you can help somebody, it really it really tends to come back I find in this industry, because it’s such a collaborative industry. Yeah, so I agree, I have a marketing thought that I wanted to, I’m a little nervous, because I have a feeling that I might not be thinking about this entirely fully. So I am going to lean on you a top top top producer to tell me if you think this if this value is it has any merit because I was thinking about for 2023. Right now, obviously market is challenged, the rates are up inventory still down. Yes, we all know this. So we’re probably all a little nervous about 2023. Or at least Everybody I talked to seems to be. So it’s thinking, Okay, what’s one proactive thing you can do? Well, we also know that home prices have probably fallen over the last couple of years, at least a little bit in most markets, not not in every case. But I also know that like 100 and some million people, unique people 100 And some unique, a million unique individuals every month, go to Zillow, this is just in the US. So you know a lot of the country is checking Zillow, every so often. Now, what’s the first thing that people do if they own a home and they go to Zillow, they check to see what the price of their home may be worth according to this estimate. And as Realtors I don’t I can hear the collective groans yes, these estimates are problematic. We don’t like them. They’re not always accurate. People think they’re accurate. And then you have to come in and save the day. Well, okay, so that’s sort of the situation we all know, people are checking, I even check this estimate, even though I just it’s just the quickest and easiest way for me to get an idea of what my place might be worth, even though I’m a no, not ready in any way to sell. But it’s kind of a fun little thing. It’s like checking your credit score once in a while. I don’t know how they figure it out. But it’s there. And it does feel good, whether it’s a high credit score number or high Zestimate. So but we also know as realtors, it’s not probably super accurate. And that’s where you guys come in. Because obviously Zestimates can’t take into account every possible eventuality in the market. And so whatever, it’s just a guess. So if it was me, I’m, here’s my idea, I would reach out to everybody you know, that owns a home in early 2023. And say, Hey, I was just browsing around on Zillow. And I noticed the Zestimate for your home is x. And I also know that when people see that they’re not always sure is that accurate? Is that not, I would love to have a quick conversation with you. And just to give you my update on what I actually think your home might be worth. And yeah, maybe the number will be less or higher than what I found here. But I just thought maybe you deserve to get an actual number, just so that you can keep an keep on top of what’s going on with your home. So the risk here is, of course, you know, maybe the numbers much lower than the person wants to see or maybe it’s higher. But I just liked the idea of the realtor adding value going hey, I just wanted to give you an update here it here it is. So that was my thought. What are your thoughts about that? What’s is there? Are there pros and cons to doing that?

Carrie McCormick 13:33
That’s interesting. You know, it’s funny that I’ve never really gone and look at these estimates. To be honest, I think any outreach to a client and giving them information is 100%. Always a great idea and educating them on what his estimate is. And I always tell people Zestimate is not even a real word. I mean, it’s an algorithm really what that is doing well, what else and sometimes it’s a good number. And sometimes it’s a bad number. But again, our jobs as professionals is to give them the true market value of the home. So I like your approach, I will give that a thumbs up because it’s doing that’s what we should do a thumbs up or thumbs down on on your ideas, but because it’s an outreach to the client, and it’s giving information to them, or at least starting that dialogue about where the market is at, I believe and I’ll have to look into this a little bit. But I do believe with Zillow, you can claim your home. Right? And you can go in there and add some of the details and facts of your home because Zillow doesn’t know Do you have a basement? Do you have a two car garage Do you have you know, whatever the features are of your home, you can go in as a homeowner, claim your home, add your features, and that will change your Zestimate of your home because Zillow now will aggregate that data to like homes with the same kind of information. So I’ll look into that and just see.

D.J. Paris 14:57
Yeah, it’s interesting because I was at a Zillow event earlier this year, and they claim that there’s estimate is within three percentage points of, of accuracy plus or minus three percentage points. So I can I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s certainly something that people look at. So I was just thinking, you should be looking at what your clients look at. So if they’re looking at that, you should be there to say, hey, that number actually looks really good or no, I’m going to run some, some more comps, I’m going to give you a better answer. And then you solidify yourself as the person that they can still go look at this estimate. But you’re the one that comes in to kind of verify the numbers, just like an financial advisor might call you and say I want to tell you about how the market did this year, I want to talk about how your investments did in relation to the market. So I’m just sort of thinking more along bad, it’s just a reason to pick up the phone

Carrie McCormick 15:46
100% It’s a reason pick up the phone, I think always I’ve done more of that to this past year, and 2022 is picking up the phone and talking to my clients and they absolutely love it. So I think that should be a strategy to for 2023 for realtors listening is is pick up the phone, give a purpose of your call, and provide value. And I think just like you’re talking about with the this estimate, it’s providing some value of where their investment is at. Yeah, I

D.J. Paris 16:13
would say I’m less texting this next year. I mean text when you have like easy, quick, simple, simple things. But when you’re talking to clients, I think nobody’s calling them anyway. They’re not getting calls from their friends. Probably everyone’s texting, everyone’s on social media. This is a way to go back a step and say, Hey, I was thinking about you. And I just think, you know, hey, I was wanting to just talk, touch base, see how everything’s going? I think that those are and a lot of people won’t even answer the phone anyway. So you’re gonna get a ton of voicemails, and you can leave, that’s even easier. It can leave like a voicemail. Hey, I was just thinking about you. I hope you’re doing well. It’s talk to you soon. And there’s a company

Carrie McCormick 16:47
that a lot of people use is called sly dial. Oh, sure. You know, and they just do their slide dial messages to people. I have not crossed over into that yet. But I hear a lot of brokers do use that that survey.

D.J. Paris 17:01
Yeah. So sly dial, bypasses the ring and goes right into somebody’s voicemail. And it’s pretty accurate. It’ll get it out right about 80% of the time, the rest of the time, it just won’t work. But it is a very, it’s like four cents a call. They’re really cheap three cents, maybe. So it’s absolutely a good idea. If you want to sort of blanket call everyone just be careful because those those calls can sound recorded a little bit. So you have to be really careful how you record it and listen back to making sure it doesn’t seem like a recording because then people probably wouldn’t respond well, but we I use slide dial to what do you do? Okay. Yeah, well, we sometimes we do it for our own brokers because we have like 800 agents. So one of the easy ways we text everybody, but then we also drop a voicemail and hey, this thing’s coming up. Just want to make sure you know. So but it’s a great way to reach as many people as you can very quickly and very cheaply. And if you have 1000s of past clients like you do, that’s going to be very hard to call everybody so so that’s that’s a good way to just do something or you can also do bulk texting to there is ways to do that. Even through an iPhone, there are little hacks around that. So maybe we can cover that. And another just another way the phone calls. I like those. Me too. Well, Carrie is this is the end of the year. And we wanted to keep this one short and sweet. And also, while this will be January, but we’re recording this of course in December wanted to thank Carrie She has been with us since the very, very beginning and we are so grateful to have her and her insight. We don’t we don’t get usually when we get top producers they do one episode with us and then they are off to run their business and carry still makes time for us every month. We are so honored and grateful to have her she always has amazing insight and really everybody listening she just do everything she says because she gets results. She gets results. All right. But I want everyone to visit her on her Instagram page, which is at Kerry McCormick real estate. Also if you are a buyer, a seller and investor or maybe you are another realtor who is thinking about partnering up with somebody, I don’t know if Carrie’s team is currently looking for someone else. But I know I would want to make friends with Carrie if I was thinking about exploring other options. Or if you have a client maybe that’s moving to the Chicagoland area. I know Kerry’s worked with a lot of transplants, people that come in from other cities. And you actually worked with the big big way that accompany my friend works for up in Michigan, who ended up moving to this area. So Carrie is a great person for anyone moving to Chicago if you’re a realtor in another market, and she might have somebody who’s moving to your area too. So reach out to her. Carrie what’s the best way someone should reach out if they want to work with

Carrie McCormick 19:39
always call me 312-961-4612

D.J. Paris 19:43
Awesome. All right, Carrie. Well, thank you for another year of service to our audience. We are we’re so I mean just it’s just amazing. By the way, Carrie does. Like I won’t even go into your production but it is it is well over the hundreds of millions of dollars of production every year. So she is she is just that busy, probably closing a home every three or four days or so. So we appreciate it. And I hope you have a great 2023 I’m sure you will. And I and it’ll be great to hear how a top producer stays positive this year and stays productive. Because of course you’re dealing with the same challenges that everyone else will be dealing with.

Carrie McCormick 20:22
Always Be kind, be positive, and you’ll have a great year.

D.J. Paris 20:27
Well said All right, everyone, we’ll see you on our next episode and let’s all have a great 2023 and tell a friend about the show. That’s that’s the way you can help us grow our audience and have a great 2023 is just tell one other realtor. Look everybody knows a realtor that is depressed that is stressed that is going I don’t know what I’m gonna do. This is the time to send them a link to this episode. Our episodes are about giving people hope and understanding how to keep them on track while the markets a little tricky. So let’s let’s share this episode with as many many agents as we can. All right. Carrie, we will see you again next month. Thank you so much.

Carrie McCormick 21:04
All right. Thank you guys.

Alexander Concepcion with Taco Street Locating describes how he landed in Austin and how he got into apartment locating. Alexander describes what does the rental market cycle look like and talks about non-MLS rentals. Alexander also talks about the process of finding rental leads and discusses the importance of knowing your inventory. Last, Alexander talks about his master class in rentals and what this course offers.

Please check out Alexander’s Apartment Locating Mastery Course here.

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

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

D.J. Paris 0:00
2023 is the year to start working with renters. 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 the real the largest podcast made by real estate agents. And for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with Alex Concepcion, who is a top realtor and also a top super agent for renters. But before we get to Alex, just a couple of quick reminders one, please support our sponsors. They support us during these episodes, please check out their products and services and consider investing in them for your business. And second, tell a friend to think of one other agent that hasn’t yet listened to our podcast and send them a link to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever produced can be streamed right from a browser or if the person you’re sending us to is a podcast listener of other shows, just have them pull up whatever podcast app they use search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. All right, thank you so much and on to art my Episode Sorry, under my conversation, which is really the episode of Alex Concepcion.

Today on the show is Alexander Concepcion from Darko street located serving Austin Houston and Dallas. Let me tell you more about Alexander. Now Alexander is a Cuban American born and raised in Miami, Florida, he moved to Austin to chase riches and tacos. After trying a bunch of random gigs going broke, he stumbled into apartment location services and created taco street locating. Now after more than 400 deals and 700,000 in revenue, he’s becoming one of the most successful independent apartment locators in Texas, probably in the country out not just Texas, what he’s not locating, he’s working on a book that he’s writing. He’s also being a low budget Anthony Bourdain. That’s not the book that’s a coma being a low budget Anthony Bourdain, Cooking, playing disc golf and also working out I have two websites, I want everybody to check out first, just to see what Alexander is all about taco street locating is his apartment, locating service. But he also teaches and we were just chatting about this beforehand, we believe the first and maybe only course out there for agents to learn how to do apartment locating. So the best way to learn about this course and we’re going to talk about it today, visit the website apartment locating mastery.com By the way, both of those links are in the show notes. So just scroll to the show notes. Click on in particular apartment locating mastery to see his course owl Alexander I keep wanting to call you Alex because I have a very close friend named Alex. So I apologize. I might stumble over that here. But anyway, Alexandra, welcome to the show.

Alexander Concepcion 4:16
Thank you. Yeah, I I used to go by Alex but I switched to Alexander this year. Because I it’s my actual full name and I just like it more. So there’s less Alexander’s. I’m like I’m going with it to mind.

D.J. Paris 4:31
I like it. I think there’s some names that sound better shortened. And I think Alexander is not one of those names. I like it better. It sort of works all the way through. Now I My name is a nickname so I’m sort of not one to talk but, but my name is actually it’s a Spanish name. It does. It doesn’t I’m not I’m not from any sort of Spanish speaking country. But my name is Delfin is the D and J is walking. So and I I don’t look particularly Spanish, I don’t think so I DJ is just a heck of a lot easier for people to absorb. But anyway, we’re not here to talk about my my name. But I am so excited to have you because this came at just a perfect time. So we have to give you a little background. So right now, you know, by the time you’re listening to this, it’s probably mid December. And Alexander and I are recording this late, late November, just actually a few days before Thanksgiving. And we have about well between I don’t know, set between seven and 800 agents here at our company. And we do mostly sales. And we’ve tried over the years to really introduce our brokers. By the way, in Illinois, every realtor is called a broker. So I know that’s not the way it is in every state. So I’ll just say realtor, but we tried to take to really encourage our Realtors in between sales to do some do some rentals, because specifically here in Chicago, obviously big rental market, and lots of money to be had. Most agents, however, don’t get their license to do rentals, meaning they don’t, that’s not why they got their license. And so they oftentimes just overlook it. And for me, I think it is a huge mistake, especially if you’re newer to the business, and maybe aren’t as busy as somebody who’s, you know, only doing sales, you know, full time. So I think this is so perfect for for that reason. And also just the state of the market right now with interest rates being where they’re at. Every realtor I talked to even the ones at the very top of the food chain seem to be stressed about next year. And I think this is so such perfect timing to talk to you. So let’s, let’s talk about it. So first, I’d love to find out. I’d love to hear your origin story. How did how did you get to Austin? Because there’s I know there’s a good story though. So tell us why Austin and and how you got into apartment locating?

Alexander Concepcion 6:48
Yeah, I graduated from college thinking I was gonna get into like finance. I spent two years getting rejected from every single job interview I ever did. Over Over 50 I can relate to that. And I tried a little bit of real estate in Miami and just wasn’t working. And I kind of just snapped. I burned my college diplomas. And I went to Austin, because it just seemed like the right place for me. I didn’t know a lot of people had like $1,500 in the bank account. Get to Austin get like an actual job job. First time I ever quit that after nine months realizing I’ve got to be on my own. And I spent the next two years doing a bunch of random gigs. I sold cricket protein bars. I did real estate photography. I traveled to Southeast Asia on like a food travel documentary. Amazing stuff. But I come back to Austin after the after the trip and I’m completely broke. Yeah. And in the middle of all about I got my real estate license. And I’m like, I really don’t want to be in real estate at all. I just want like a job have money. It’s not the broker anymore. So I get into apartment locating thinking I’m just gonna do it for a few months. And I realized that what I’m pretty good at it. Like it’s actually cool work. Getting to be someone’s like ambassador and like, yeah, building those relationships. I realized how much money I can make. And given that was Austin 2017 ish. And people were flooding them like, yeah. Okay, this is this is a serious opportunity. So that’s how this broke in desperate, the tour became a business. I’m still running five years later.

D.J. Paris 9:00
It’s amazing. And yeah, I don’t know if it was just, you know, perfect timing meets perfect place meets, you know, meets hard work, which obviously, you are a hard worker, I just think it’s such a smart way to enter the real estate business. Because number one, you possibly are setting yourself up for future sales, at least a certain percentage of the people you service on the rental side could or will become buyers. Also. Everyone’s got to live somewhere. So if they’re not buying or renting, right, so there’s just so much opportunity and you’re in a city that is still I mean, years years later, still one of the coolest you know as far as when you put you know what, what are the cool cities of this country? Austin’s right near the top if not right at the top out there with Charleston and Nashville and others kind of of its ilk. But let’s let’s so So what’s interesting to me is you’ve built this course apartment, locating mastery and I’m actually a little jealous because because it is such a smart idea. And I was saying to Alexander earlier, I said, I don’t, I don’t know that there’s another product like this out there, which by the way, if you flip that into sales mastery or, you know, being a realtor sales mastery, there’s about a million courses, and there’s a lot of really good ones and trying to enter that market, I think is a lot more difficult. And trying to make a name for yourself, but you’ve really created something that and Alexander said, Yeah, I think I think I’m the only one out there doing this. And I’ve really created this impressive platform and program, so I am super pumped to tell you about it. But before we get into that, maybe just for because our audiences is all over. Maybe we have listeners that have never sort of done rentals. So can you just sort of go through like what is a rental look like? As far as how quickly do rentals usually close? Meaning, you know, you meet with a person, you might show them some properties, and then they sign the lease? What’s the usual average time that you find that that sort of start to finish

Alexander Concepcion 11:01
ends? And I have a great answer for that. This, the cycles can be a day, it could be a year, people are just on different timelines. So someone can reach out to me today, I schedule them a tour for the afternoon. Pay close, bam, that’s it. Yeah. Or they reach out like, Hey, I’m moving in January, because I got a new job. And then oh, now it’s like February or March. And then they move into an apartment like April. So I may not see that check till like the end of summer, right. And the actual transactions themselves, if you want to get into that are really straightforward. So when I talk about apartment locating, I’m specifically referring to these big three 400 professionally managed buildings you see popping up all over the country. Those are the only buildings I work with. Because it’s effectively a bounding system. Yeah, where I bring someone to a building, and the per se they’re spending like $2,000 on a one bedroom, which and awesome, that’s pretty common. And the building pays 100% Commission. That means I’m making $2,000 for that single deal. But I’m not touching paperwork. I’m not putting my hands on the lease on the deposit. There’s no inspections. So financing. All it is and my client, putting my name down as like, Hey, this guy referred me. And then the building pays out later.

D.J. Paris 13:04
Yeah, I here in Chicago. So we have we call it the sort of there’s like two buckets or two into two different inventories for apartments, there are what’s on the MLS. And then they’re what I just called non MLS or maybe better said third party, third party property management companies, which again, don’t list on the MLS, these apartments, a lot of times high rises, like Alexander was saying, But who do pay usually one month’s rent, like you were saying, as a commission, or even more, sometimes, depending on times of year, and how much occupied occupied, or how many of the units are occupied. So it can be incredibly fast, it can be incredibly lucrative. And in a way, it’s kind of nice. So the downside is that you may be competing, if the building works with other agents as well. I know here in Chicago, many of the buildings, they’re like, we don’t really care who rents it just someone get this thing rented. So they’ll work oftentimes with with a lot of different firms and provide that inventory to the firm. Or they’ll only work with certain agents. My girlfriend works at a building, there’s 500 units here in Chicago, and they only work with like three to three or four agents total out of 45,000. So it all just kind of depends. But a lot of agents don’t even know that this inventory really exists because they’re focused on the MLS, when they have a rental, they don’t really think beyond that in a lot of markets. And there is a market for it in a lot of places. So my question is, how did you learn about about you know, this sort of, I don’t want to call it off market because it’s not off market but non MLS style of rentals.

Alexander Concepcion 14:48
I joined the first brokerage that would where I can make any kind of money that was apartment locating and They’re like, Yeah, this is how it works. We work with these buildings, they pay us this much money and like, oh, that’s kind of cool. And I liked it, because I didn’t have to do like houses. Because I never want it to be like a home, like a classic home buying and selling real estate agent. I still don’t do any of those deals. But yeah, this is kind of just the, this was my point of entry into like making money in real estate. So I’ve kind of just stayed in this niche this entire time. And I don’t plan on getting into sales.

D.J. Paris 15:44
What’s what’s nice is that, you know, you can get paid on those referrals. So if you do have renters that turn into buyers, and you’re like, you know, I don’t really have time for that I don’t really want to do that’s not my thing. You can still earn referral commissions, of course by you know, referring, which of course, you already know, but I’m making that point for for everyone else listening. It’s like, it’s not, you know, Alexander’s still maintaining relationships with all of these renters. So if they want to move to another apartment at the end of their lease, he’s their guy. If they want to buy a home, he’s going to connect them with someone else who can assist. But But tell us. So I want to mention one thing for anyone out there who’s like, how do I get access to this inventory? Let’s say they work at a brokerage that doesn’t care about rentals, they don’t really do rentals, and they’re like, how do I get access to this inventory? How would you suggest that people start to build this? We’ll call it non MLS inventory of apartments that, you know that that these management companies will work with you for

Alexander Concepcion 16:41
with? Yeah, so there is like a database specifically for apartments, called Smart Apartment data. And it’s basically the MLS for apartments. And it’s way cheaper than the MLS. I don’t use the MLS, but yeah, there is a database where you could see which buildings are in my market, work hand I send referrals to what Commission’s do they pay? And it also functions as like, at least for me, the first point of research that I could send to my clients, I kind of all happens on that platform. But yeah, that’s getting the inventory is pretty straightforward. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 17:29
I know, like, the way that we built ours before services like that exist is we just called a lot of buildings, and said, hey, you know, if our agents want to come rent, is that okay? And you usually have to sign some sort of agreement. And but it’s, it was shockingly easy to get access to that information. And now I’m so glad to hear that there’s a service that does that for you for a relatively low fee. That’s incredible value. I didn’t even know that existed. So I’m going to take a look at that myself. What was that called? Again? If you don’t mind me asking?

Alexander Concepcion 17:59
Smart Apartment data. Got it.

D.J. Paris 18:02
So let’s, let’s talk about apartment locating itself. We talked about like the cycle, the sales cycle, the rental cycle, could be as quickly as you said, as an afternoon could be as long as a year depending on on how you know when the person’s moving. But let’s talk about lead generation. Because that’s always, you know, on our listeners minds is, hey, this is all great. How do I get leads now in the past years and years ago, when I first started in this industry, and this is going back to like 2010, or 11, there was the the way that a lot of people did is they posted ads on Craigslist, because it was free. It’s no longer free, I believe to do that. But it’s still pretty inexpensive, I believe. But it was free at the time. And people would post hundreds of ads, because there was a software that could do this. And I think it’s maybe now transitioned more to Facebook marketplace, but we’d love to hear it. Oh, I’m sorry. And so let me just complete my thought. The reason why people would post ads on Craigslist is because that was used to be the number one place people look for apartments. And so they would reply to ads. And by the way, the buildings that Alexandria is referencing oftentimes allow it sometimes they don’t, sometimes they do but they some allow you to actually promote their listings there. They’re open apartments. And so I don’t know if that existed so much in 2017. But I’d love to hear about how you recommend people go about you know, getting there getting the name out there and, and finding some leads.

Alexander Concepcion 19:29
Yeah, just start. I started on Craigslist. Early on, it worked. But Craigslist is a lot to manage. But it is something you could do to start off. There are a lot of apartment rental websites where you can like yeah, you just take a building’s information, make ads with it. Get leads like that. Yeah, pretty much all buildings I know. Just let you do that. Some don’t, some will ask you to take your stuff down, then you take it down. But it’s knowing like all the channels you’d put like those ads on and get leads like that. A lot of people do that. And a lot of people just make the ads look like how everyone else has looked like. So everyone’s kind of just blending in. The ones I would make would, would stand out. Yeah, it’s my, I do a lot of creative writing a lot of silly fun stuff. And I’ve put like a business card picture on there, as me and like my alpaca selfie business card picture. So yeah, what I do stands out at all layers. But zooming out, there’s a difference between what I’ll describe as rented channels and owned channels. So our rented channel could be like Facebook, Google, any of these platforms to post ads, Craigslist, I don’t, I don’t own any of them. I don’t control any of them. And for me to survive long term in this business, I didn’t want to rely on channels, I didn’t control. If I didn’t control my channels, then I didn’t control my business. It’s good point. So that’s why early on, I would, I got my own website, like professionally done for Taco Street. It’s a brand I own, it’s a website I own and control. And I knew that had to be one of my primary lead channels, because it’s something I’ve owned and control. So these days, by more than half of the deals I closed come from my website. But that took a while to build. That’s not something that immediately started getting traffic. But I think it’s just practical to have a website day one, that in my case, I got to be the face of my own business. It was my website. I didn’t capture leads, I use really fun, like lead form software. Yeah, so I’m very pro owned channels have a rented channels.

D.J. Paris 22:24
That’s actually really smart. Because Craigslist, in particular, going back aways used to be you could get away with posting 100 ads an hour. And then eventually Craigslist goes well, that’s we don’t really want people doing that. And they make an algorithm change or, or, or just a change to their code. And all of a sudden now you can as easily do that. All of a sudden, you know, Zillow starts charging for rental ads. These are what what Alexander’s saying these these rented channels, you’re you’re at the mercy of how friendly they are feeling at that moment. And all of a sudden, now Craigslist is like, Oh, by the way, we’re going to start charging you now for ads that used to be free. You know, and it’s probably still reasonably priced. But it now it all of a sudden now changes your business. And so this idea of creating your own brand is so smart. And I really encourage everyone to go to Taco street locating because Alexander has done such a good job of making it fun. It’s a fun experience to browse this website, which by the way, if we contrast that with the average real estate agents website, and I guess, of course, Alexandre is a real estate agent, but I mean, somebody who’s who’s a more traditional sales agent, it’s going to it’s going to give you a different experience. I think going to your website, it’s a fun experience, you get to learn about you, you get to very easily browse through inventory. And just you know, you provide a lot of value on that website. And I think it’s it’s a and also it’s funny, like you have humor in there. And humor is oftentimes doesn’t show up anywhere in a realtor website. So I love the fact that you made it fun and funny. I think that probably goes a long way with with your clients.

Alexander Concepcion 23:57
Yeah, so one big. So again, I think of everything through a survival first framework. And from this, this tangent begins on why I don’t believe competition is real. Because I’m never going head to head against another locator. Even though there’s a lot of them out there. I’m never going head to head against any of them. The reality it’s the the quote unquote, trophy is a human and they get to choose. So the risk is that I don’t It’s not that I lose a competition. It’s that I don’t get chosen. So I call them I call it like replacement risk. And I have to make myself a replaceable so I start with that with brand. I’m the only talk with the real estate company the rates. But there’s a lot of content on the website, a lot of videos, a lot of blogs, a lot of guides, which means by the time I’m people get to me, they’ve gone through all this. And I become the only one they trust. Yeah. And by the time they get to me, they’re like, Hey, I’ve seen your videos, I’ve seen your content. They’re like, I’m ready to go migrate, I’ve won. It’s a good point, because

D.J. Paris 25:21
we’re really talking about what is also known as social proof is sort of showing somebody your expertise in a way that they now feel more connected to you as an individual as, as somebody who Oh, I feel like I know Alexandria a little bit through his writing through his videos through his fun website. But also, I don’t, I don’t have another experience to sort of compare to that because no one else has this content in this particular way. And so you’re right, you’re not competing with other agents online, because you’re like my contents better, my sites more fun. And I’m going to provide a better service. So that’s a really important point, which, which really goes, I think a lot of our agents are lost, sorry, a lot of our listeners can really sort of go gosh, wouldn’t it be great to have such an incredible experience for somebody that by the time they get to me, I’ve already been chosen, which is a pretty incredible task that you’ve that you’ve completed for them.

Alexander Concepcion 26:21
And it goes a long way to me preserve my energy. Yeah, before my first calls would be like 2530 minutes. And they’d be the same phone call every single time. What’s the service? How does the process works? What neighborhoods do you recommend? What buildings do you like? And I just made videos about all of that. And just put it up front. So by the time someone gets to me, they seen those videos, what would have been a 30 minute call is out like a 510 minute call. And through a survival first framework, my most important resources, my energy, yeah. And Department locating it’s a high volume business, it to make good money, you need to work with a lot of people. And there’s just a lot of mechanics, there’s a lot of doing a lot. And most people I know who make it to a certain point in this business, burnout. Yeah. Because even though one transaction isn’t hard 100 is if you don’t have the right systems and operations. So yeah, everything is something I look at through survival first,

D.J. Paris 27:41
that’s a really, really good point. So I recruit realtors, I was thinking about this, putting it through my own lens. And I have essentially a very similar conversation with me, which about a half an hour, like you would like your apartment, locating additional conversations. And I just realized I could be doing a better job of this as well, where I could have that 30 minute sort of monologue for lack of a pitch, I guess, for lack of a better word, the way I do it. That could be that could be a video that I could send in advance to somebody, and maybe I wouldn’t make it 30 minutes, but whatever, I would make it a certain period of time where they could get the vast majority of the information, feel like they know me a little bit. This is actually helping me in my business. So thank you for that. But I love this too. Because also, you’re branding yourself in such a way that I would assume other agents are like, who don’t want to deal with rentals. It’s just not what they do. They’re like, Oh, Alexander’s the guy. He’s got all the best content. He’s got, you know, the buildings. He knows he knows the inventory. By the way. I am curious. I’m sorry. I’m gonna interrupt myself. I am curious how important knowing the inventory is as a rental agent, because as a sales agent, inventory is always changing. For rentals. You know, there’s a finite number of buildings that you probably work with, how important is it to just know those buildings in and out and everything about it?

Alexander Concepcion 29:02
I want to flip this on you. Go ahead. You go to restaurants Chicago. How important is it for you that the waiter knows the menu? It’s super important. Exactly.

D.J. Paris 29:13
Yeah. Because Because I asked the waiter, hey, I’m looking through here. What are the best things? I always ask that? Because I don’t know. And you’re absolutely right. Amazing point.

Alexander Concepcion 29:23
So the way most locators get trained, is you get a few meetings with a broker. A pat on the back. Good luck here. Some leads have at it. Yeah. And these people don’t know the inventory. They’re like people that they serve food on the menu. They just don’t know what’s on the menu. And that’s why their service kinda sucks. Yeah. Whereas I did the opposite. And I teach the opposite of my course. It’s No, you need to be an expert. First. You need to go out into the market, tour buildings see what’s going on. So when you’re talking to, like prospective leads, they know you know your stuff. Yeah, I even take it a step further. I made videos where I talked about the use of the buildings in the market. I love it. And people watch the videos are like, this guy knows his stuff. Yeah, and all that something, if you’re starting, you could do pretty fast. Like, you don’t have to wait five years to do this. It took me years to figure out how maybe I should make these videos. But that’s something you could do now.

D.J. Paris 30:43
Yeah, it’s a really, again, it goes back to this, setting yourself up, to be able to have people know that you are the expert. And having this content at the ready is like, Oh, hey, you know, I’m thinking as your chat, you know, you’re having your initial conversation with somebody. And maybe they don’t know about you yet. Maybe it’s kind of a random introduction, they don’t know you as the support great apartment, locator. And all of a sudden, you’re like, Okay, based on what you said, there’s two places that are probably the best fit, I have videos for both, I’m gonna shoot them over to you. So you can get a sense of, of what I think about it and things to learn. And all of a sudden, I mean, that is such an amazing high level of service, I guess the idea is providing the highest level of service, right, and that is an incredibly high level of service. It’s not Well, here’s what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna go, we’re gonna go see these properties, because you’re probably going to do that too. But you’re like, before we do that, let’s just make sure that you kind of like what you see. And of course, they can go to the building websites as well, but with your own spin on it, and your own videos, your own content. Boy, you again, you’re just branding yourself as I am the guy.

Alexander Concepcion 31:52
And that doesn’t even get into like the actual service that I’m doing is like the research process, because I don’t know if you’ve had to find your own apartment. It takes a lot of time. It’s a pain. Yeah, Superferry apps. And most locators take people who are very like, just click a bunch of options on this database, send it over. And there’s no real value add to that anyone can do that. Yeah, I built a process I call the big fancy spreadsheet, which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s just a really big detailed spreadsheet. But that takes inventory where I was like, not me, my, my freelancers do this for me. But they will like call every single building you’re interested in, tell you what’s available, put all in one place, and organize it. And just it condenses your research process by so much. Yeah. I don’t know a single located that does anything close to that. So I know when I send that spreadsheet to someone, they’re like, Oh, this guy’s on messing around. Because the biggest waste of time is to tour an apartment that doesn’t have what you want. Yeah.

D.J. Paris 33:08
And both for both parties for the agent. And for that tenant. Yeah,

Alexander Concepcion 33:12
it goes back to like survival first, if I if I’m touring, if I’m spending all my day touring places that don’t have the right availability, that’s wasting my time is wasted their time. So if I do all this research ahead of time, then we’re not wasting any. Yeah.

D.J. Paris 33:32
Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a great, it’s a great point. And, you know, as you were talking about touring the building, I want to just to mention something he said at the very beginning, that I just want to make sure everyone understands. So it’s like, Okay, once somebody’s ready to make the decision. And the way that Alexandre works with with his, his prospective clients, is by the time they’re going to see a building you he they already know, this is probably the place maybe there’s one other place, but it’s going to be a short list. And here’s the beauty when the person lands on the property they want. Alexander walks them down to the to the office, where if there’s an onsite office where there usually is for these big buildings, and says I’ve got somebody and I mean that you’ve already been introduced to them at this point. But they you’re right, they do the paperwork, they have their own process. And you’re maybe you’re there to be present as they do it. But but your job is basically done at that point. You’re just handing the person off to the building, internal leasing agents, or whatever they may have, or the property management team. And they do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

Alexander Concepcion 34:36
Oh, yeah, I don’t touch contracts. I’m not doing any of that. It’s huge payment. Yes, I don’t want to do it. So I don’t and that’s just not part of relocating. There’s the stuff there’s still stuff. There’s like invoicing actually getting the money. That’s a pain in the ass down the line.

D.J. Paris 34:58
i We have, we have 700 plus agents here we we know that pain. So what we’re talking about just for anyone to know, and this is important, one of the and I don’t want to call it a con, I just want to call it something to know that if you’re getting into apartment locating to be aware of and be aware of is how you get paid from these third party management companies, which not like in MLS transaction where a closing agent gets the check, everyone’s happy, everyone’s paid. No, often some firms will do that. Some apartment locating, sorry, some apartment companies will pay you that way. Most in my experience. As Alexander mentioned, you have to invoice and so you have to send them an invoice saying, Hey, you’re basically sending them a bill, hey, you owe me one month’s rent or whatever the the agreement is, and then they’re going to take their time to pay the bill some pay faster than others. Some I know some in Chicago can pay as quick as a couple of weeks. Others take a couple of months. So that’s the thing to know is that getting paid? There may be a little bit of a delay, because they’re not obligated to pay you the moment. The person signs the lease.

Alexander Concepcion 36:07
Yeah, and if you’re not careful, and go through the proper steps, a building is going to find a way to not pay you. Yeah, I’ve lost a lot of money from thinking I was gonna get paid on a deal to the buildings. I actually you didn’t do this small little step. So we’re not going to pay you that $2,500 that you thought you were getting. And yeah, I that’s that’s part of the course that I teach is how do you do the upfront work to make sure that you do get paid? Yeah, it’s getting paid is a huge pain in the ass. hugeness notice my Freelancer does that for me. So I don’t I don’t do when you have because it’s okay. Survival first. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 36:58
you don’t you don’t want to be chasing you don’t want to be chasing the check. Yeah. And we have a whole department here at our company that chases those checks because and again some management companies are wonderful and easy and others are more challenging and and I like some even will have rules that like well if the person walked into our office before they met you Mr. or Mrs. Agent and you brought them in maybe they walked in we’ll turn around and walked out but somehow their name got put in the system and then you now walk them in and maybe the your person doesn’t even tell you that they’ve already been there that could that can sometimes be a thing where advantages like well we’re not going to pay you because this person already knew about us so there’s there’s these are important things to know about each building so that you’re not you know, wasting time or or not getting paid. Yeah, another

Alexander Concepcion 37:45
really important thing is the send an escort policies of a building. So in apartment locating, there’s either escorting a person to a building or you like go with them in person do the tour. That’s called escort buildings always passports. Like they’re always pay their maximum on escorts. But then there’s a second, where you don’t tour in person with the client, for whatever reason. Some buildings actually pay the exact same. Both escort and send some buildings, pay a lesser percentage, maybe like we’re in where they normally pay one month’s rent, maybe on a send, they pay 50%. Sometimes they don’t pay anything. So that’s one way to lose money is sending someone to a building that doesn’t pay commission on sending tenants who lost a lot of money that way. But that’s something you should research ahead of time. By but it also makes us a more depending on where you live. Different cities are have different blends. Austin is a blend of sending square buildings, Dallas and Houston on mostly you could send an escort at the same price, same commission, and it’s great. It’s a big reason I’m able to do business in those markets also. Sure. So that fact makes locating really interesting as remote operable business. So I don’t know how most buildings are in Chicago. But with if you have if you operate in or near market with a lot of buildings, you could send people live so get paid a good amount of money. You don’t like if you’re based in Austin, you could do business in Dallas in Houston. It’s incredible. Yeah, so it’s a really interesting market for that reason. And on the lead gen side If you can generate a lot of home buyer leads with apartments because people who rent apartments eventually buy houses. So if you’re even starting off this business apartment locating is a really good long term high quality lead source. Because you’ve already built a relationship with the client, you don’t have to sell yourself again.

D.J. Paris 40:24
I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast, do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests. Of course, it is a follow up boss. And let’s face it, following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort. Do not take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 systems, so you can keep your current tools and lead sources. Also, the best part they have seven day a week support. So you’ll get the help that you need when you need it and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time, they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial, which is twice as much time as they give everyone else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free. But only if you use this special link visit follow up boss.com forward slash real that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. Yeah, that’s true. And you know, you just have to remember to stay in touch after after the rental. And that’s something that also there’s not that much competition for because we all know all of the listeners here know, most most agents maybe don’t do such a great job of staying in touch after a rental after a sale. I mean, there’s always those statistics and I never know which ones to believe. But it’s a certain percentage of people like three years after they buy or sell something, forget the name of their realtor. So it’s not, this is something that a lot of agents struggle with. So if you’re if you’re working in the rental space, and you want to eventually get those people who transition to become buyers, you better you better do a good job of staying in touch because you’re right, you’ve worked so hard to establish yourself as the apartment locator. And you don’t want that all that goodwill to be sort of forgotten about after after the rental.

Alexander Concepcion 42:40
Yeah, another benefit a lot of people don’t think about is because of carbon locating as a higher volume business, you get more contact more people. Or as in traditional sales you may do I don’t know what the average amount is like it doesn’t maybe. But it’s not a lot of like human to human contact. So yeah, we’re, I could do 510 1520 deals in a month. Which means I have that number of people who know me. Which means more referrals means more word of mouth. It means more repeat clients in the future. I’ve had people lease with me to be four or five times. It’s incredible. They get them they send their friends to me. So there’s a survivor’s bias. And kind of like in any in all real estate, where the longer you make it, the more likely you are to going to continue to make it. Right. But yeah, I think there’s a lot of benefit to having higher volume client exposure.

D.J. Paris 43:53
Especially if you’re brand new. Yeah. Yeah. Especially. I mean, it’s it’s such a, you made such a this is such an important point for everyone out there who is going nobody wants to buy right now it’s you know, rates are at 7%. Or, I guess they just did drop. So maybe now they’re in the sixes, but it’s still higher than a lot of consumers would like. And you know, but if people aren’t buying or renting, and yeah, you’re right, it’s a high touch business. And you just your reach just goes really far because the transactions are typically shorter in nature. So you just get to reach a lot of people. And you’re right more opportunity for referrals for, you know, for repeat business or for conversion to sales. Let’s talk I’m going to talk about apartment locating mastery your course because by now, I hope we’ve made the case that you could easily depending on the market. Now if you live in rural, I don’t know rural Iowa, maybe this would be more of a challenge. So that’s not going to fit every particular market. But I guess it could fit probably just about any market because there’s always apartment or there’s always rental opportunities but it. What LM center does is he teaches you exactly how he started the systems he’s put in place, you know, all of the best advice he has about how to run this business, even how to select brokerage, because not every brokerage is super friendly to their agents doing rentals. So some brokerages are kinda like they dissuade agents to do that. But tell us about apartment locating mastery, which by the way, website apartment locating mastery.com, but tell us about the course.

Alexander Concepcion 45:29
Yes. So before there’s been an unlimited number of options, to just learn how to do the business. Usually, the first option is to join an apartment locating specific brokerage, that’s going to realistically do like two or three meetings with you. And here’s some leads. They’re not really going to train you. I know people, I didn’t one of those quote unquote, programs. And I know dozens of agents who’ve gone through similar programs. It’s really up to you to learn about yourself to just figure things out the hard way. And the main reason I started this course was I think you don’t need to do that. You don’t need to go through one of these apartment locating brokerages who are going to take most of your money. I effectively paid $27,000 my quote unquote, training. Wow. Yeah, cuz it was it was the leads I generated on my own. That was the money I paid to my broker. Right. So he got a great deal out of me. Yeah. But yeah, I’ve spent just five years really fine tuning apartment locating. And I hit a point where I realized I don’t want to be located forever. But I do want to transition into training and coaching. Because for me, it’s been such an amazing vehicle to become an entrepreneur, something I never imagined being to making a good living for myself more than I ever imagined. And it’s given me this sense of confidence, I never imagined for myself, given given where I was where I started. So it’s given me so much sovereignty and freedom, where, in the last five years, I’ve probably traveled the world for about one of them. And I can’t imagine having freedom in any other like way. And I wanted, and I want to teach other people how to use this business to become their own solver and entrepreneurs.

D.J. Paris 48:05
Yeah, it’s, it’s great, because it gives you a lot of leverage when you are negotiating with your brokerage or when or maybe you want to open your own brokerage because I can just run it myself. But this idea of what what what Alexander was saying is really common here in Chicago is that they have these apartment locating companies who really, they’ve already curated the inventory. So they already have the inventory that you don’t have to go out and kind of build on your own and, and figure out that database. They’ve also figured out some sort of lead generation source where they’re usually providing you leads the trade off is that your commission splits, I’ve seen commission splits as low as like 30 35%. And it’s usually, you know, people would find that shocking, but but because they can, they have the inventory and the leads, and they know that you can’t do that on your own. I mean, they you could do it on your own, but they’re not going to teach you how to do it on your own. So they’re going to take the lion’s share of the income, and they’re probably not going to train you well, because you’re not probably going to make a lot of money at 35%, which means they’re going to leave at a certain point, which means they’ll just keep that machine rolling with people coming and going at all times.

Alexander Concepcion 49:19
Right. Which means if you’re an independent thinking, you don’t want to go down that route. Yeah. You don’t have to, quote unquote, compete against those people because they’re not going to be there for that long. Yeah. And so you have these agencies, or like they’re big and kind of scary on the surface I caught like compete against them. You’re not You’re on your own, building your own brand, building your own reputation. And you get to choose what brokerage you can go with. For me once I once I figured out, I could do all of it on my own. I joined One of the one of the zero commission brokerages smart, and that they’re, they’re basically a bring your own everything brokerage, where it’s on me to bring my own training, my own education, my own lead source all that stuff. But I could affect I’m effectively running my own business inside of another brokerage. And it let me do whatever I wanted to do. And no one was there to stop me. So, yes,

D.J. Paris 50:33
we’re talking and again, we’re keep continue talking about sovereignty, or now people use the word agency, this idea of is not to talk about working at an agency, but this idea of having really so much control over your own brand, your business, your destiny, that even even in the brokerage that you select, we’re 100% firm as well, we have a similar model to the firm suspect that you work at. And, and so it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s really nice. And I love the fact that if you’re an agent out there, and you’re worried about 20, even if you’re not worried about 2023, if you want to add just another revenue stream, and you’re like, well, not a lot of buyers these days, the sellers, you know, a lot of the homes are sitting sitting on the market for longer than I’d like. So even you know, just having listings isn’t a guaranteed sort of quick, quick money as it as it was before. So things might just be sitting a lot longer add rentals in because number one, like Alexander was saying high touch business, you’re going to expand your reach, you’re going to just talk to a lot of people, you’re going to probably have more opportunities to you know, get more referrals that way and just reach more. And also, again, people become buyers down the road too or or I always like to say the other way instead of some renters become buyers ago, pretty much everyone that owns used to rent. So I always like love that expression. Because it’s so true. And I’m shocked that brokerages who do take on newly licensed agents, most of them don’t really touch on rentals that much. And it’s a little surprising because I you know, by the time by the time I was ready to buy a home, I had never worked with an agent, because I found my own apartment. And I nobody, I just didn’t know that there were even people who could help you find apartments. So I was always finding my own apartments. And by the time I needed a realtor, I didn’t have one. I didn’t have one in my back pocket. Meaning I didn’t know anybody. And I had to go Wait, do I know someone who’s a realtor? And then I had to find one. And thankfully it was my friend. I was like, oh, yeah, my friends, a realtor. But had my friend helped me and it wasn’t his he wasn’t an apartment guy. But had he had somebody else helped me along the way, I probably wouldn’t have gone with my friend not because I don’t like him. But because I would have felt obligated to work with the person who I already knew, like and trusted as my agent. So you’re absolutely right, you’re building that confidence and trust early on, and hoping that you know that person stays with you your whole life, but you’re gonna learn all of this stuff. By investing in apartment locating mastery, again, the website, apartment locating mastery.com, and Alexander This isn’t or Alexander does not just teach, here’s how to show apartments, here’s how to convert he does that too. But it’s really everything. It’s like how to deal with inventory lead gen, you know, converting leads into clients, picking the market learn it, just just professionalism. And that’s another thing in the apartment space is the people that are apartment locators, sometimes professionalism is not at the top of, of everyone’s, you know, sort of value lists. So that’s another way to separate yourself is to be this highly professional, and person who’s helping people with apartments. And the best way to do that is through knowledge and experience. And Alexander’s going to teach you how to do that, you know, basically his, his goal is zero to 10,000 a month and apartment locating. So if you wanted to add anywhere from, you know, a couple of deals a couple rentals a month to, you know, gosh, 100 plus a year, he’s going to show you how to do it because he’s done it and he is doing it. So Alexander, if everyone if anyone wants to learn about this, and of course you do and of course you should. Apartment locating mastery.com is the place. And you have some bonuses to that, that exist with the with the course not just how to build successful practice. Can you tell us a little bit about the bonuses?

Alexander Concepcion 54:25
Yeah, so I’m still working on content for the course that gets more gets deeper into systems and operations, especially like how to use a CRM because it’s closing one deal is easy. And getting the basics down is fairly straightforward. But taking that next step into closing like 100 deals a year requires a lot more kind of operational muscle. So that is going to be part of the course. And so the the course is already launched, but this is going to be supplemental bonus material that’s going in there. And yeah, it’s a it’s a lot I spent months building this course. It’s extremely detailed, comprehensive. And yeah, it’s, it’s good.

D.J. Paris 55:23
Yeah. Well, I encourage everyone listening, look, let’s make 2023 the year you add another stream of income to your real estate business. I mean, this is a way I’ve always thought, you know, real estate’s transactional, of course, in nature. And we want to try to smooth out the in betweens as much as we can in between clients in between deals, rentals are a great way to say I service everyone, I service, the buyers, the sellers, the renters, or partnering with somebody who does that like and Alexander like, if you, if you, for example, for everyone listening, if you have a client that’s moving to Austin and wants to you know, find an apartment for per se, you’re going to refer Alexander, he’s the guy he is the guy. You want to be, if you if you want to take your business to that particular level, you can be that person in your local market. And I would bet there’s not as much competition as there is at the top of the I want to be the top, you know, sales agent of you know, everyone’s vying for that spot rentals are often kind of forgotten about and I think it’s a good thing for anyone listening because it means there’s less competition. And again, I Alexander was right, and saying there really isn’t competition, but there’s fewer players in the space, I guess we could say. And, you know, I mean, Alexander’s made almost a million dollars doing rentals, like, this is an incredibly lucrative business. And so you can make great money, you can help people that a lot of agents would just discard Oh, you don’t want to buy Call me when you’re ready to buy, right? I mean, I bet you have stories of renters that come to you going, I reached out to an agent, they basically told me to get lost. They don’t do rentals. I mean, it happens, which is so shocking to me, but it does happen.

Alexander Concepcion 57:08
Yeah, I get it. I get a lot of other real estate agents are like, I don’t know what to do with rentals. I’m like, I’ll take them. And then I can make like two $3,000 from their referral. And the agent just didn’t know how much money they just lost by like referring. That’s me. Yeah. And they wouldn’t have been like a lot of work for them if they only knew how to do very basic foundational things. Yeah. There is another really interesting point with locating that I think makes it really compelling in any market. So you probably saw a lot of market squeeze when it was got really hot, or there just wasn’t inventory. Yeah. That doesn’t happen with apartment locating. I mean, if you’re like in San Francisco, New York City, this doesn’t work in those markets, because there just isn’t inventory. But in your normal city. All of which only out on the website. A single building as three 400 units, and you have hundreds of buildings. You’re not running out of inventory. The inventory is gonna be there, as always turnover every month as well. Yeah, so the there’s always going to be inventory, you’re never gonna get market squeezed out of the business, where you could be the world’s best real estate agent. But if you’re in a market where there’s nothing to buy or sell, then it’s not going to work out well for you.

D.J. Paris 58:43
Yeah, this is just a great way to to work with, you know, a changing market when maybe sales are down. Rentals tend to tend to go up. So this is the time to invest in a course like this apartment locating mastery. And I’ll just end with this. So I was mentioning my girlfriend works at one of these types of buildings where there’s 500 units, it’s like a super high end luxury building. Some of their three bedrooms Now, not every market is going to have this of course, but some of their three bedrooms are like $7,000 They pay a $7,000 commission if you bring them now they only work with a couple of agents. It’s kind of a goofy building. And that’s a really extreme example not not every market has things like that. But imagine if you walked somebody into a building and you let the like my girlfriend the way that it works in her building as the agent walks in, they know the agents because they only work with a handful of them. My girlfriend does all the work she takes the tour the agent kind of hangs back kind of chimes in when need be but my girlfriend’s job is to sell the building. So she’s leading the tour the agents kind of piping in from time to time and then she goes down and she wants to close the sale to so are the rentals so she you know she does the hard heavy lifting. You know, they have quotas to hit a lot of these apartment. Internal leasing agents for these buildings. And and then a $7,000 check gets written to the agent. It’s in. There’s incredible money in this.

Alexander Concepcion 1:00:08
Yeah, for me, I would say the average check is about 1500 to 2000. But I did have a deal recently where I get a call the morning, scheduled tour with a client the afternoon. And he signs a $4,400 unit lease at a building paying 150%. Commission. Ah,

D.J. Paris 1:00:38
it’s an amazing, it’s about like a $6,000 check or so. Yeah, more.

That’s a good day’s work. Yeah.

So how would everyone out there like to learn to do that. So you know, Alexander is not just saying it’s possible, he’s like, I’m going to show you how to do it. So check out apartment locating mastery.com, why not learn from the the guy, he’s the guy. And also check out his website to get hooked on him. Because what I really want you to do, whether you invest in his course or not, I encourage you to invest in it. But even if you don’t, I want you to look at how he branded himself. His his B to C website business to consumer website is Taco street locating that’s think about how go to the website, let’s look at how fun it is. He made a really arduous process, stressful process, traditionally, not a super fun process, he made it fun. And that in and of itself is brilliant. He’s going to teach you how to do these kinds of things and build this side business. Maybe by the way, maybe you’re still like, I don’t want to be an apartment, look, I don’t want to do rentals, well, maybe you could bring on a team member and they could be the apartment, or the rental person and you be the salesperson. So it’s not like even if this doesn’t affect you, or maybe you’re a team, you don’t really have somebody doing rentals. Oh my gosh, there’s so much opportunity here. So 2023 we know it’s going to be tough on the sales side, we just know that I wish it wasn’t but it’s going to be rentals are where it’s at. So apartment, locating mastery.com is where you can learn about the course taco street locating is Alexander’s website to see how he services his clients the content he provides so that by the time they actually get to him, they’re like, he’s my guy, and he hasn’t even met them yet. That’s an amazing thing to have happen. And, Alexander, we’re so grateful that you came on the show to talk about this. So on behalf of the audience who want to thank you for coming on, we know you’re probably racing to your next apartment locating client or appointment. So thank you for taking time out of your day to tell us about the course and how you built your business. And also, on behalf of Alexander and myself, we want to thank our audience for what you know, listening or watching all the way to the end, the best way that you can help us grow is by telling a friend think of one other agent. Everybody knows a struggling agent. They need to hear this episode, send them a link to this episode. The best way you can do that, while they listen to podcasts. Just have a pull up keeping it real on any podcast app or just go to our website keeping it real pod.com every single episode we’ve ever done can be streamed right from a browser. You don’t even need a podcast app to do that. So anyway, Alexandre, on behalf of everyone. Thank you. This has been a fun conversation, and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Alexander. Thank you

Levi Lascsak goes back to the beginning of his story talking about why and how he got into real estate business. Levi describes how he decided to start his youtube channel and make his way into the business that way. Next, Levi talks about how he built his YouTube channel and what kind of content he provides there. Levi and D.J. discuss the power of video. Last, Levi talks about passive prospecting and the book they are working on and will be published soon.

Please check out and subscribe to Levi’s YouTube channel here.

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

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

D.J. Paris 0:00
How does an agent with no prior YouTube experience generate 164 closed sales transactions in one year, all from YouTube? 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 Paris, I am your guide and host through the show and in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking to top producer and YouTuber Levi lassic. Before we get to leave, I just a couple of quick reminders. Please help support us by supporting our sponsors. They are the reason we can keep doing these episodes, and we greatly appreciate them. So check out their products and services. And second, please tell another agent about the show. The more listeners we have, the more people we can reach and help so let them know by shooting them over to our website keeping it real pod.com They can listen to every episode we’ve ever done, we have over 430 there or if they are a regular podcast listener of other shows, just have them pull up their podcast app of choice and search for keeping it real and click that subscribe button. Alright, enough from me let’s get to the main event my conversation with Levi lassen.

Today on the show, we have Levi lassic, who released his first YouTube video on December 5 2020. As a I really want you guys to listen to this biography because what I’m about to tell you is going to sound almost impossible. So I’m going to start this over. Just so that if anyone was just passively listening, I want you to actively listen for about the next 20 seconds. So leaving Levi lassic released his first YouTube video on December 5 2020 as a brand new real estate agent and he had not sold a home in 2020, or the first quarter of 2021. So again, he started his first YouTube video in December of 2020 hadn’t sold a home that entire year. And the first quarter of 2021. Also no home sold. Levi partnered with Travis plumb and they closed their first two transactions from the YouTube channel. In other words, leads they received from their video in April of 2021. Now that’s the second quarter of 2021 over now, here’s the incredible part. Over the next year, they generated 164 transactions, which equaled 90 million in production. And then this just makes me cry because I want I wish this was my story and not Levi’s 2.7 million in commissions with an this is the really incredible part even with all of that being said, zero ad spend. So they now own the fastest growing and most viewed real estate YouTube channel in Dallas, Texas. And they generate no joke three to five qualified inbound leads every single day. Now you guys gotta check this out. I want you to do two things. I want you to go first to get hooked on Levis content because he has amazing content for you the agent, which is passive prospecting.com He’s got a book, we’re going to talk about that and he really wants you to take a look and also why I want you to watch what he’s doing on YouTube, which is also passive prospecting search for that channel. We will have links to both those books will have both those links in the show notes. Levi, welcome to the show.

Levi Lascsak 4:58
Thanks for having me.

D.J. Paris 5:00
reach. I don’t know that I don’t know that the 430 episodes or whatever we’ve done, I don’t think I’ve ever interrupted myself in the middle of a reading someone’s bio. But I was like, No, I have to make a big deal about this, because you’re not the first person we’ve had on the show that has really built a solid hyperlocal brand on YouTube. But you’re the one who’s had probably the most success so quickly. And it’s just, I’m just I am like, tongue tied? I’m not sure exactly. You know what to even ask you because this is even blowing me away. So, but let’s get let’s start at the very beginning of the story. Before we get into sort of how you did all this. How and why did you get into real estate?

Levi Lascsak 5:42
reluctantly. That’s why I’ve got a friend Michael Reese. Do you know, Michael, have you ever met Michael Reese? I don’t think so. Okay. Well, I’ve known him for 20 years, and he got licensed in 2002. And we actually sold gym memberships together, Bally total fitness. So he, that’s a rough job, by the way, oh, hey, we work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. And that was literally so that’s and I did that whenever I was like 2021 years old. So I just got out of military and I needed a job. And that’s the thing is, is Michael, first of all, he sold me the most expensive membership there on a three year contract, which I couldn’t afford at all whatsoever. And then he eventually just recruited me because I ended up I had this $8 An hour job. And, and that was it. I was doing labor work and and I lost that job. And then he recruited me, which was great, because I couldn’t pay for my gym membership. I think I went up there to tell him, I needed to cancel it somehow and get me out of my three year contract and blah, blah, blah. And he’s like, Well just come work for me, you know, and I was like, okay, cool. And then we started working 12 hours a day, seven days a week making phone calls, literally, we would phone call 10 hours a day. Yeah, to try to get five appointments the next day, that was the whole goal. You were not you were not allowed to stop calling until you had five appointments the next day. And if you got your five appointments next day, they’re like, we’ll go ahead and start on the day after, you know, anyways, just call for 10 hours straight. Because we would start at 10am, the shift was literally 10am to 10pm. But we couldn’t call after 8pm. So we had a 10 hour window that we had to call and literally get in there at 10am. And start just hammering smiling and dialing. Yeah. And then the whole goal was course was to have five people in the gym to tour them around to sell possibly two or three memberships a day. So it was it was brutal. But I didn’t care. You know, the thing was, is that Michael was a Sales Machine who and you know, and I just looked up to him and was like a lot. If he can do it, I got to do better than him. That’s all I’ve ever said, I have a very simple formula for success, which is who’s at the top? How did they get there? You know, can I model that? Can I adjust it fit my personality? And then can I do better than them? Very simple. And that’s what I learned from the very beginning was Michael’s like, Well, look, here’s what I’m doing, I’m making all these phone calls, here’s what you can do. Actually, they gave me the only book they gave me the binder of all the old leads that everybody had already called 500 times and didn’t want to call anymore. And so I just started calling them. And then what happened was, is within three weeks, I became the top salesperson there and started to even beat Michael and I just figured out a better way to do it, and more creative ways. And then Michael took me to my first Brian Tracy, it was my first time I’d ever been exposed to personal education, you know, or self education and, and he’s like, Hey, I’m gonna see this guy, Brian Tracy talk. I was like, okay, cool, didn’t know who it was. Or it wasn’t even thinking about that sort of thing. And Brian Tracy, and toured the country spoke for free put on free events, of course to sell all of his courses and CDs and everything at the back of the room. And I remember I just had a $300 credit card is my first credit card had a $300 limit. And it was supposed to be for emergencies. And that day, I saw Brian Tracy speak and I went to the back of the room and I bought as many programs as I could and maxed out that $300 credit card. And I remember I bought I believe six different programs. So I bought like the psychology of selling the psychology of mindset, you know, I don’t know, he just had all these programs, and they were CDs. So they were the books with like six CDs and yeah, and the cool thing was is I had this really crappy Oh, it was really crappy but it was a Volkswagen Jetta. But the one thing it had was a six CD changer. So all six CDs in my six CD changer which was in the trunk by the way. Yeah. They open up the trunk and put it in there. And I would listen to the psychology of selling you know, driving back and forth to the gym and anywhere I went. I never listened to A music really in my 20s I believe everybody asked me about the new bands and what did who did I like? And I’d be like, I don’t know, I don’t know who you’re talking about really. Because I just, I just bought into that from the beginning and I just it just changed my perspective. And I just started consuming as much as possible. Now the thing was, is I was in the Reserves, still. And in 2002, I remember the day Michael came back from meeting a guy named Jay Kinder at the lake. And he came back onto Bally’s on Monday, I was like, I’m getting into real estate, you know, he’s like that screw this. So he’s like, I’m getting into real estate. I was like, okay, cool. All right. Good luck, you know, and he was like, No, you got to come with me. Well, he got licensed 2002 finally talked me into it in 2004. So I did get licensed in 2004. But what happened was, is as soon as I completed my training, I had my license for I think about a week, and I got called up, because I was still in the reserves, and they get you know, I got a call from the military and said, You’re being reactivated, you’re about to deploy and you’re gonna be gone for 18 months. And so and so that was it. So I literally and they gave me I think four days, it was like a four day notice. You know, this was this was 2004. So this was right in the height, you know, Iraq and Afghanistan. And so literally, I remember getting that phone call. And they said, You got four days to report to Fort Hood, you know, in Texas, and when that was it, so four days to say goodbyes pack my bags, you know, and that was it. And so I never, I never practice real estate, I never did it. And the thing was, is I was gone for 18 months, and ended up spending a year of that over and Iraq. And and whenever I got home in 2006, then I knew over that timeframe, what I over, I knew I didn’t want to be a real estate agent, I realized, you know, being gone for 18 months, Michael just talked me into it, I really didn’t want to be a real estate agent in the beginning, I got licensed just because he told me to. And then when I got deployed, I thought maybe this is divine intervention. So whenever I came back, I didn’t even you know, the license expired, I didn’t renew it. And I didn’t become an agent. And so I went I went on my own path from there now Michael and I have stayed friends over the last 20 years, watch each other grow and you know, succeed and, and dip in all, you know, all this kind of thing. But But yeah, it was really 2020 When my my financial services business, I had contracts with Dallas ISD, I worked with all the teachers on their retirement planning. And I’ve been doing that for the last five years. very lucrative, very successful at that. And then, you know, April of 2020, all the schools shut down. And whenever all the schools shut down, everything I built up over five years, just kind of was gone overnight. And you know, I’m sitting there at 41 years old asking myself, Okay, well, what just happened? How did I end up in this position? And how do I start over without starting over? So you know, it was it was an interesting time, because I was sitting there thinking, all right, is when school going to come back? When is the world going to reopen? I mean, what’s going to happen? Nobody knew, right? And so I couldn’t meet with people. I used to meet with all the teachers on campus, of course, all the schools were shut down. None of the teachers knew how to work zoom. So nobody was trying to invest. They were all calling me to pull out money from their retirement. Sure. And I was just thinking, Alright, well, what am I going to do now? And and here comes Michael. Okay, now’s the best time to get into real estate. And I was like, bro, I don’t want to be a real estate agent, you know? And, and he’s like, but I’m telling you, man. And the thing is, is with Michael is Michael has always seen the potential and everybody that he and he knows how to also pull that out of people as well. And I think you know, Michael just knows me as a person in general, ever since we sold gym memberships, we spent a lot of time together and watching each other over the years. He knows who I am. He knows my work ethic. He knows what I’m capable of. And I think that’s why he just never gave up on trying to get me in the business and always wanted to work with me again, as I’ve always wanted to work with him. But I just never wanted to be the real estate agent. So I said, well, as long as you’re an agent, I’m probably we’re probably not going to work together. Just because I had no desire to do that. I was interested in investing. I like investing and I flipped a few properties here and there. I’ve had rentals, you know, so I’ve done transactions. And I enjoyed that part of it. But I was I was a part time. You know, I was a part time investor. So I did one or two fixer flips a year. I did have seven rentals at one time. So but I always worked with an agent. So even during that time, I never renewed my license because I just again, to me, it wasn’t worth it to try to make a little extra commission. I’d rather just work with somebody that could handle that, build it into the price and just be done with it. Sure, so, so that was it. So over 2020 He was he was like, Hey, man, now’s the best time to get into real estate. And, and and as I looked at everything over the summer of 2020, every industry was going down the tank, except for real estate, it was probably one of the only industries other than online shopping that started to increase during 2020. Sure. And so I thought, well, you know, if I’m gonna make the move, maybe this is the time to do it. However, I was, I was literally scared to death, you know, because I was, first of all, I’m 41 years old at that time, and I’m 43 now, but I was 41 going okay, how do you again, how do you start over without starting over? I mean, how do I how do I get into a new industry a new business? And is there a way to, to jumpstart that is how am i How am I going to compete with every agent in Dallas that’s been in the business for 510 1530 years, when one of the most competitive markets? How am I going to position myself? How am I going to have to go out there and shake hands and kiss babies and you know, go to all these neighborhood events and start and that I was just not really interested in either, you know, nothing wrong with that at all. But I was just thinking, I’m at a different point in my life. You know, I love the movie, the boiler room, but I’m just not into all the phone calls anymore. Like,

D.J. Paris 16:20
you already did your time on the phone. Yeah,

Levi Lascsak 16:23
I mean, I can do it. I just didn’t want to do it. And I was just thinking, Okay, well, one thing that Michael said to me that always resonated was, and I and I heard him speak, you know, to other groups and do trainings. And, you know, one thing he said that always stood out to me was, he said, he said, it’s not the best real estate agent that wins. It’s the best marketer. And so as I thought about that more, I was just thinking, well, if I move into real estate, instead of getting into real estate, and then trying to figure out a plan, I just thought, let me figure out a plan. And if I can figure out a plan, maybe I’ll get into real estate, if I can see a viable option for myself. And if it if the best marketer wins, and I need a good marketing plan, and I need to find a way to attract business and how can I bring people to me, versus me having to go out there pounding the pavement, shake hands, kiss babies, try to build a brand from scratch, to be known and compete with every Joe Bob and Susie out there selling real estate. Is there a gap to I was like, Is there a gap in the market? Is there an actual gap in Dallas real estate that I could slip into somehow, and attract business and bring people to me, so that you know the traffic is inbound? Well, there’s only really I think the way to do that this day and age quickly is through social media. And so I knew that and so I was like, Okay, it’s likely going to be social media, because I also knew I didn’t want to start a postcard campaign. And I didn’t want to start a magazine and a billboard and start spending a ton of money, especially in the middle of a pandemic, where who knows what was going to happen? Anyways, and even going out and meeting people or events, all that stuff was still very questionable even for Texas. I mean, I’m in Dallas, Texas, and we we were open faster than anybody other than Florida. So but still, people were still a little on the fence about events and things like that. So. So I was just thinking, okay, social media. All right. Well, so I started looking at at people, you know, agents that that Michael knew, and everyone was like, okay, Instagram, tick tock Facebook, especially tick tock. I mean, every agent seemed like in 2020, woke up with 10,000 Tick Tock followers, you know, and so everyone was going, you got to be on tick tock, right, tick tock, where it’s at. And I’m like, Well, how much business did you get from that? Well, you know, I get a lot of inquiries. A lot of people say, hey, I’m interested, you know, but I didn’t I didn’t hear a lot of people turning over business, and I didn’t really hear people. I know people are successful on these platforms, nothing to take away from them either. I just didn’t hear anybody like driving primary business. Like I didn’t hear people saying, Man, I’ve done 100 deals from Instagram. I’ve done 50 deals from Facebook, I’ve done 75 deals from Tik Tok. I just wasn’t hearing that. I know people generate business, but it was more like supplementing their their primary business, a lot of agents that have been in the business for 510 or 15 years. And so they have marketing plans, they have sphere of influence, they have referrals coming in. So the social media, yeah, they do 1020 30 deals, but not where I really want it to be. And over my, you know, career. I’ve been in three major industries. And I’ve always been successful from the start, because again, I followed my simple model of success, which was who’s at the top, how did they get there? What are they doing? Can I model it? Can I adjusted to fit my personality, and can I do better than them? And so every time I did something else, or made a transition, that’s what I did. And so I thought, well, who can I? Who can I do that in in Real Estate you know, but I didn’t really want to be on Tik Tok or Instagram or Facebook either. I have not really been on social media that much because I’m at that was at that 41 year old age range. And if you’re like me, and you’re at that 40 age range and above, you probably have a love hate relationship with social media.

D.J. Paris 20:17
I am I am with you. And yes.

Levi Lascsak 20:20
So, you know, we didn’t grow up with it. It wasn’t there in high school, wasn’t there in college came around in our late 20s, early 30s. We felt like it’s just people bragging, posting cat videos and talking about their lunch. And yeah, it was my dinner. Yeah. And we’re like, okay, that’s stupid. But then, but then we started to see the 20 and 30 year olds make some money, and we’re going, Okay, well, maybe there’s something to this social media thing. But then, you know, nobody ever really digs into it. And so I knew going in, I was like, Well, I also knew I wanted to pick one platform, because the last thing I wanted to do was do what everybody was telling me to do as well, you got to be on five different platforms. Well, I just think if you start out that way, you’re gonna put a 20% effort into five different platforms, and you’ll never truly master one. And you’ll never truly generate business from any of them, because you’re dabbling in all of them. And they’re all so different. Yeah. extremely different. And so I thought, well, I want to choose one platform, because I want to go all in on one platform, I want to focus on that platform. And then if I can build some business or something from that platform, it’ll be much easier to branch out to the other ones than it is to try to cover all five at once. So I just started doing research and started looking into, you know, Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok. First, because that’s what everybody told me to do. And when I studied that more, and got deeper in those rabbit holes, I realized I really don’t like those platforms. For me. Nothing I was really interested in, I didn’t see anything there as far as a path that fit my personality. So I started to so then I started to think, well, I don’t know, YouTube, I actually what I did was I stopped and I started to look at people at our brokerage, like you mentioned, go go, Michael Reese, there’s another guy named Kyle handy. You know, Ricky Carruth, a couple of these people, I started working, and they were some of the top agents in in exp. And so when I looked at them, I started to say, what’s their commonality? And what I what I saw was, well, they’ve got a pretty strong YouTube presence, you know, not really in building a real estate business, but they had a YouTube business, you know, or they had YouTube, they’re talking to other agents, attracting agents, things like that. So I thought, well, and what did I do? I looked at all their YouTube channels, and they were talking about their time in production. Right, you know, Ricky’s known for, like, being one of the best cold callers, you know, Kyle’s known for being really good at SEO and blog writing and doing open houses. And gogo has her, you know, social media bootcamp. And then, you know, Michael, does his, you know, different funnels, you know, so, but they talked about their business, how they generated that, and they’re doing it on YouTube. And so that’s kind of interesting. What if I just did that for real estate clients, you know, started to find out and I started to research on YouTube. And what I soon found out was that YouTube is a search engine, not a social media platform,

D.J. Paris 23:21
right. In fact, I think it’s the number two search engine online, I believe, at least in this country.

Levi Lascsak 23:26
Yeah. Yes. Number two behind Google. So I started to see that YouTube was a search engine. And whenever I realized, Oh, it’s a search engine, and wondered if people are searching, you know, suburbs of Dallas. And so I started to look at okay, Plano, Texas, for example, went onto Google, on Google Plano gets about 90,500 searches per month, not bad at all. But whenever you find that search volume on YouTube, it’s 834,000 searches per month, it’s 10 times search volume on YouTube than it is on Google. So that immediately told me that while people are searching 10 times the amount on YouTube over Google, they want to see these places. And then it made me realize, well, you know what, I think the reason those other platforms didn’t resonate with me is because what I saw was a bunch of seasoned agents that had been in the business 510 15 years, telling their telling stories about their experiences and their clients and how to do this on a home and how to watch out for this and look out for this and look out for that. And I hadn’t even sold a home yet. So I was thinking okay, well, I could I could read about a VA loan and then regurgitate that on a 62nd video on Tik Tok, but it just didn’t seem authentic to me. It didn’t seem right. It didn’t really just that animal. I don’t want to be that guy. Start it. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 24:47
it doesn’t provide any particularly new value. It’s not a terrible idea. But maybe there’s a better idea, which is what you’re headed to.

Levi Lascsak 24:57
Yeah, yep. So yeah, so Just as I dug into YouTube a little bit more than I, what I realized was, okay, well if people are searching information about, you know, Dallas, Texas and Plano, Texas and Frisco, Texas and all the suburbs, well, I know everything about Dallas, or mostly everything about Dallas, maybe I can just talk about Dallas not even have to talk about real estate in general or talk about contracts and escrow and title and the different types of loans. What if I just talked about the suburbs and, and so that’s where I started to really dig in and build out a plan, I built out a business plan. And this is something I think nobody does whenever they start on social platforms, is treating YouTube, like a business. And what I love to say now is that if you treat YouTube like a hobby, it’ll pay you like a hobby. And if you treat YouTube, like a business, it’ll pay you like a business. And so what I did was I just started to research every possible thing I could on YouTube, and YouTube marketing, and videos and how to make videos and then, you know, look at all these different real estate channels. And then I just started to build out a plan of what I thought may do well, as far as what people are searching, and then I had the search volume that helped me as well. So it wasn’t me just guessing on Oh, my should I make this video it was no, I could actually go in and see what were people searching on

D.J. Paris 26:19
your note, you know, your potential audience size before you ever start recording? Because you have an idea of what that search volume traffic could be. And and then of course, you have people you’re competing with in that space to which you also, I imagine did research on?

Levi Lascsak 26:36
Yep. Well, the thing was, there wasn’t really a lot in Dallas, surprisingly. And that’s the thing is, is whenever Yeah, looking for a gap there was there was about five agents, maybe five agents that I found in Dallas that were mostly consistent. And one of them, the top channel had 7000 subscribers the second to top had 5000 subscribers. So and and the next one had four and the next one had three and right. I was starting to zero and I thought okay, well, the top one has 7000. So that’s the that’s my person, right? That’s the goal.

D.J. Paris 27:11
That’s the benchmark. Yeah.

Levi Lascsak 27:13
But yeah, we we passed everybody up about six months ago. So

D.J. Paris 27:18
and we should we should let people know sort of when we’re talking about you know, doing research, I’m gonna I’m gonna throw a few ideas you tell me if, if these are, you know, worthy. And again, you’re basing these based on search volume. So you’re taking a look, you’re doing the research, and so we’re saying okay, what, what kind of content are we talking about? So let’s say somebody’s moving to play now you could do a video on if there’s enough traffic best schools in Plano or reasons to move to Plano or here’s the nightlife in Plano, or here’s the here are the neighborhoods that you know are most what whatever, you know, it could be anything. Here’s, here’s the best restaurants and we’re playing our it could be top 10 reasons to move or so I’m just throwing these out there this is this the kind of content that we’re talking about? Yeah, all of those not even real estate necessarily related, but just related to people wanting information about living in Plano.

Levi Lascsak 28:10
Yep. Yeah, they want to see it. I mean, anybody can go on plane or look, go on an ibuyer platform and look at homes all day in Plano. But Zillow does it way better than we’ll ever do it right? Yeah. But they, the Zillow doesn’t show him the home across the street, the home or the playground, the community center, the community pool, the HOA pool, you know, it doesn’t show him that Chipotle around the corner doesn’t show you that stuff. So yeah, we can we actually take them out in neighborhoods and show them that. Yeah, pros and cons video, people want to know what’s the good and the bad of living in an area PROs video, you could talk about all the good things in your area, you could talk about all the bad things are actually our number one video is you know what we hate about Dallas.

D.J. Paris 28:53
That’s funny. You know, it’s funny, I was thinking about this, as you were talking, I apologized in Europe union first, by the way before, I meant to say this about 20 minutes ago, and I escaped me, but thank you, of course, for your service. Because without the safety of, of our citizens, you know, we can’t do much of anything. And so I just, you know, you said that very quickly, and I just want to, you know, force pause and admire you for dedicating service to to our country to help all of us stay safe. And so thank you for that. And also wanted to, to you know, I was just thinking about this I was in I went on a father son trip to Ireland with my dad i three or four years ago, and my dad had already been a couple of times and so he was pretty familiar with a lot of the little towns and and all the sights but we were trying a few cities that he had never been to was my first time there. And so we’re driving across, you know, all over the country, which is what everyone does when they go to Ireland, and every single night because we visit about two to three cities a day, the very first you’re so absolutely right about this because the Yes, I had the you know, Rick Steves travel Ireland book that was in our car. But we were driving a lot and my dad doesn’t like to read in the car, I was driving and it’s everything’s backwards. So it takes a lot of concentration, I can certainly look up things in the book, while I’m driving stick shift, you know, these little tiny roads in Ireland hoping I don’t get killed, because I’m driving the wrong way. But what we would do the night before is we would literally just go to YouTube and say best things to do in x. And then what we would do is we would download the video, and then we would play it in the car, you know, that next day on the way to those places. And that was the best possible education I got, because you’re right, the books are great, and they were helpful, but they didn’t really give me a sense of what it was like to go to some of these attractions and these events. So we would download it and watch it or listen to it on the way to that place and and I think a lot of people do this when they go visit places they haven’t they let go. best things to do. Right. And so, I mean that in and of itself is a is kind of the blueprint for what we’re talking about is find things that people are already searching for and just create the best possible video for that topic. Is that is that my understanding? Absolutely. I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast, do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests. 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But only if you use this special link visit follow up boss.com forward slash real that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. Don’t you wish it was more complicated than that? It would sort of be like, oh, what let’s talk about this though, how how. So you’re a guy who you’re you didn’t grow up wanting to be a broadcaster, you didn’t want to be a streamer. You didn’t want to be a personality online, necessarily. You just knew that you were modeling some of these, some of these people that have come before you and trying to figure out a gap in the market. And you know, it’s funny because you were talking about Brian Tracy, I one of my favorite Brian Tracy quotes is something like well, he says sale solve all problems. And we would just maybe reframe, reframe that to leads solve all problems, because they really do, right. I mean, this is a business of leads. And of course, it’s a business of service and all the other things too, but leads are what keep the engine running. And you know, leads can come from a lot of different sources. But you basically saw your idea was I don’t want to go out into the public that much. That’s not really what I’m best at. You know, I’m not the guy on the billboard or you know, racing around all these different events. You know, I want to be the guy you know, people are doing all this searching online, I want to be the guy they go to for that. And you know, when you started making videos, you talked about reading about it learning production. How difficult was it for you to did you did you have a I need these videos to look perfect. Or were you willing to to experiment and try different methods because I know a lot of listeners are like, I don’t know anything about video production. That’s not what I do. So how complicated are your video shoots?

Levi Lascsak 34:18
Pretty basic. So I don’t think I’ve ever the only videos I’ve ever re recorded are the ones that I didn’t record audio or something whenever I made it but that’s only been a couple of times. I think for me, it was no I wasn’t seeking this out to me I am a will do what it takes to get things done type of person. So really the thing is, is I grew up in a pretty neutral environment. I would say that my parents as much as I love them, they never encouraged me to do anything with my life. They were they were just kind of like really they their mindset was is the the most thing I heard ever come from my mom was we can’t afford that. So We grew up with a very poor mentality with the same same thing as far as, you’re never gonna go to college. I mean, literally, it wasn’t my parents weren’t like, hey, let’s figure out a way you can get to college. It was like, well, we didn’t go to college or two older brothers didn’t go to college, and you’re not. In your future. Yeah. Because we’re, we can’t afford it. And that’s all they saw. They like, I don’t even think they understood about scholarships, dude. Yeah, yeah. Because they never said, Levi, get good grades, get a scholarship, you know, none of that. I mean, it was just, it was not in their, in their, in their window, you know, and so yeah, so that was the thing is that and they never, I remember, like, in a second grade, I wanted to be an astronaut, but they never bought me a Popular Mechanics magazine, or, you know, encouraged that in any way there. And so, I think I was always a little lost. And so whenever I met someone like Michael, and he was like, hey, just sell some gym memberships with me. I was like, okay, cool, you know, and then seeing someone like Brian Tracy, who talked about, oh, if you read I mean, it, whatever you want to do, you can go out there and read about it and learn it and apply it and take action. And that was like, Oh, brilliant. Genius. Okay, okay, I can do that. And, you know, and then I got deployed. Well, when I got deployed, I thought a lot about what I wanted to do whenever I came back. And really, I wanted to get into real estate investing, but I didn’t, I just got a job selling cellphones. But I knew from learning from Michael as like, I want to be the best at selling cell phones. And so what did I do? I went to the best salesperson, Hey, what are you doing? How did you do that? How did you get there? Take some little tips. And then I was like, How do I adjust it to fit my personality? How can I do better. And of course, I beat them at their own game and became the best? Well, from there, I got recruited to a pharmaceutical company. The first thing I did in the pharma company, was, as I said, Who’s the best salesperson, which you can see them at the top of the charts. And he happened to be living in Oklahoma, it’s three hours from Dallas, I asked my manager, hey, you know, Can I can I? Can I do all my calls Monday through Thursday? And can I go Friday? Can I go drive up to Oklahoma and spend the day with his top salesperson and he was blown away? Nobody had ever asked them. In the years and years and years. You’ve been amazing. Yeah, yeah. And so I got up, you know, and that salesperson was starting at like eight in the morning. So I had to get up drive three hours to Oklahoma, meet him by 8am. And then I spent the whole day with them and drove back. But that was the things I was willing to do to just to try to try to be the best. And it took, it took within 12 months. I was I never got to number one. But I got to number four out of 160 sales reps nationwide. But I did that in less than 12 months. And that’s easy to do in the pharmaceutical world. Well, from there, I transitioned into financial services. And whenever I got licensed for that and got into that business, the first thing I did was went to the best person I knew, and learn from them, and then figured out how to do it better. And I blew past them. Their production, you know, like they told me, their their best production was 1.3 million the first year. And that’s a lot whenever you’re talking about just getting up monthly accounts built up for teachers. Well, I did 1.5 the firt my first year. And so, you know, when I was making that transition into real estate, that’s why I was really scared to death, because I had not heard a you know, you hear about all the failures, more than you hear the successes.

D.J. Paris 38:39
Well, there’s a lot more, there’s a lot more failures than successes in real estate.

Levi Lascsak 38:43
Oh, yeah. And, and if you hit 100,000, in your first year in real estate, you’re a major success. You are a super superstar. Yeah. So but I was like, I’m not good with 100,000. You know, and, and also, what I just saw people doing was this the same traditional ways, right? And, and, and so that’s what scared me to death because I was like, I still wanted to come in and be successful and just be the best at real estate. I was like, and that’s what held me back for so long to because I never had the desire to do it. And I thought you know, if I do move into that, I want to do this as fast as possible. I don’t know if that’s possible. But you know, could I get to two or 300? Now that’s what I was really thinking I get to two or three or 400,000 in my first year, because then I would feel like I made an impact. I’m off to a good start. And

D.J. Paris 39:36
that’s and and by that time if you can do that you’ve clearly cracked some code. Right? It’s not just hey, I got lucky because I grew up here and all my friends still live here and they just happen to all need to buy a condo or sell a condo this year. This is a whole different thing that nobody locally had even done right so yes, you there’s there’s YouTube channels with seven 1000, which is very meager, really? I mean, it’s not really if you’re doing it, that could be enough to generate tons of tons of business. But I’m guessing those other channels probably weren’t generating a ton of business. So you didn’t even have a really amazing blueprint. You did what you did were kind of placing a bet.

Levi Lascsak 40:18
Well, going back to the the, your question, as far as the thing, what I understood was, in my research was that what I realized was, here’s why I was at the position I was at, because over my career sells gym memberships, cell phones, pharmaceuticals and retirement plans. It was always me, that was one to one selling. And so every time I stopped, or when I transitioned from cell phones to pharmaceuticals, I had nothing to show except a bunch of trophies from selling cell phones. When I went from Sitacles to financial services, I had all the trophies from pharmaceuticals, but nothing came with me know in what plus

D.J. Paris 40:59
and plus it’s not, it’s not as scalable, right? Like you, it was you it was you that was that was making all the sales and there wasn’t an avenue, like YouTube for real estate, because you couldn’t reach is easily a vast number of prospects in those other surfaces. Yep,

Levi Lascsak 41:18
yeah. So and they were and they were jobs, of course, you can’t really scale your job, you know. And when I went into financial services, that was one of the first time I started my own business. And I could bring on other reps and expand, and I did a, I did that I brought on a couple of people. But the thing is, is that the margins were small that I, you know, I had to cut into their cut, you know, if I wanted to make the overrides, and so I bring on a few people. And I just never felt right to me, I just thought, man, nobody is going to make a serious living, because I know that I’m a rare breed as well. And I’m confident in my sales ability. And I know, I know, I’m a good salesperson, and I know I’m in the top 1%. And I’ve proven that in four different industries. And I know that not everybody’s that good of a salesperson. So in the financial services, I was going to be very difficult to find somebody like me that could sell as well as me, but then it’s hard to duplicate you. Yeah, they didn’t do that. If they didn’t do that they weren’t going to make a good living either. So it never sat well with me. So I never scaled that accordingly. Because that was more of a just a personal conflict with myself, because I didn’t feel like I could get somebody on full time that could could, you know, earn a full time living so. So that’s what those are the questions I asked myself over the summer, because that’s what kept me from getting into real estate. Because I did not want to go into one to one selling again, I didn’t want to be the one shaking hands kissing babies doing the transactions. And, and so are making the calls. Because you know, as soon as you hang up the phone, your lead generation stops. And so I wanted to build something that was scalable, something that that I could do, I wasn’t a factor, you know, and so that way, if a pain or illness or you know, economy or something like that took me out of the picture, whether temporarily or permanent, I could still have a business running on the back end. So that’s just all the questions that I had to ask myself. So that’s the other part of why we’ve grown so quickly. Oh, and so going back to your original question, as far as camera presence, it wasn’t hard for me, because what I learned, what I realized was all video is is communication and sales at scale. And so I was like, well shoot, if I can make videos, I can have the conversation once with that camera. But now I’m giving the autofill once one. But 100 1050 1000 People can see that conversation. And so this is what I tell agents now is like, you do this every day. If I went to your neighborhood right now to buy a home, you could take me around all day long. Tell me everything I needed to know about that neighborhood, the schools the fun things to do. You could tell me all of that. But when I leave, it’s gone. It’s done, that conversation is dead forever. It’ll never be resurrected. So stop doing that have that exact conversation you’d have with me and have it on camera. And now you can tell 1000s of people and give them the opportunity to see that that’s passive prospecting. That is that is doing the sales pitch once and letting something else do all the work for you. Everybody loves the idea of passive income. But what do you have to do you have to do the work upfront and put a system a process in place so that it constantly works for you on the back end, right? Because no matter what anybody says passive income still takes a little bit of tweaks here and there, right? You gotta Yeah, look at it. But all video is is passive prospecting. It’s the same concept. We’re taking the time, energy and effort to make that video but once I’ve done that, it’s done and it’s going to work. Not just 24/7. But in a compound effect of time, because making video does not take time, it makes you time. And not only does it make you time, it compounds time, so that is always prospecting. And that’s why I don’t feel bad now about traveling, taking the days off, taking the weekends off, going to conferences going on vacation, because videos still get published and leads still come in no matter what I’m doing.

D.J. Paris 45:25
It’s Yes, everything you’ve said, is apps. You know, it’s funny, I, this is how this is an embarrassing thing. I’ll admit, that really speaks to everything you just said. So I recruit realtors, so I’m a bit different, because I’m not a producing agent. I recruit for our company. And I’m doing it the same way. I’ve been doing it since 2010, which is we have well we have people that make calls and say, Hey, would you like to talk about switching firms, and then they set up an appointment? And then I scheduled a 30 minute meeting, and I do my pitch. And 95% of the conversation is me explaining everything that we offer, because that’s why people are scheduling the appointment. You know, I’ll do five minutes of like, Hey, tell me about you. What are you looking for? What are you having problems that you’re existing for blah, blah, blah, find make sure I know what they want. But then I got a present for 25 minutes, because that’s what they’re there to hear. And I’ve been doing that the exact same way for a while for 12 years now. And this whole time I’m going why don’t I have a video that does most of this, like maybe it doesn’t do the full 25 minutes, but it was like 20 minutes of it. And prior to the meeting, I go, Hey, you know, just to save you time, Mr. And Mrs. prospect, I’d like you to watch this video. Because honestly, you know, you can learn most everything we do. And then I’m going to call you at the time that we have scheduled. And we’re going to have a better conversation because now you’ll know kind of what we offer. I can have sort of next level conversations with you. And you can you know, it’ll just be better. I don’t know why I haven’t done that yet. And you just reminded me that what I’m doing isn’t scalable, and it’s no different really, then, you know, somebody’s meeting with a buyer for the first time which by the way, if you’re doing that one to one, awesome good. I’m not here to tell you that that’s a bad idea. But what if you had a video with somebody? I mean, we’re now we’re sort of getting into a different realm. But if we had a video that said hey, Mister missus first time homebuyer before we meet in person, I’d like you to watch this 15 minute video, it’ll help prepare for the meeting. Blah, blah, blah. But anyway, this will save time for the agent. So it you know, YouTube? And again, I’m sorry. So that was just a no,

Levi Lascsak 47:31
no to thank you. Please. Two very important things about that. Number one, I do the exact same thing. So what’s your brokerage called kale

D.J. Paris 47:39
like the vegetable? Okay,

Levi Lascsak 47:41
so um, you know, I’m with EXP and we you know, we do agent attraction. The thing is, is that I’ve never explained exp business model to anybody, if they book a partner call with me. What happens is, as soon as they book that call, I have an automation that sends them the EXP explained video, because and I say in the message, hey, by the way, since we’re going to be chatting about exp, it’s best you watch this video about the brokerage model so that you have all the context you need and can ask the right questions when we get on the call. And so instead of them asking me, okay, what’s

D.J. Paris 48:13
the split? What’s the right, which is what I deal with all the time? Yeah,

Levi Lascsak 48:17
that you know what, you guys are done. You know, they’re number one every time I get on a call now, what their number one question is? No, how does this work? How do I how do I move away? How do I move over? Yeah, so it’s the logistics of it. That’s what their question is about. And then, and then we just chit chat, we kind of like, oh, so where did you grow up? You know, and then we just kind of go back and forth. So that that’s done the heavy lifting for me. Now, to your other point on the real estate side. The video builds the relationship for you see, the thing is, is that nobody hardly watches one video and calls us they end up watching 510 1520 videos. So whenever they come to us, number one, the the relationship is already there on their side, they already feel like they know like and trust, right. And they, when they call us, they’ve already made the decision that they want to work with us. And so and

D.J. Paris 49:10
and they feel like they know you well, yeah, because it will this this is the thing that that people don’t realize it actually builds it and maybe it’s artificial, in a sense, but it’s irrelevant, because it works. It builds a connection between you and the audience because you are speaking one to one even though that video is reaching 10s of 1000s of people possibly it is a one to one relationship each time somebody pushes play. Yep, absolutely. So how often do they feel like they know you? They’re like, it’s probably I’ve talked to other YouTubers who say it’s kind of funny in a way because people will talk to me as if they’re already my friend, because they’re so used to watching my content. They’re so hooked on my content. They’re like, I got to work with this guy. And by the time you end up talking to them, I imagine you’re right you’re not they know they at least know unlike you and hopefully trust you by then, but they know they like you because they’re calling you or they’re not contacting and we’re reaching out, and they know you know what you’re talking about because you’ve demonstrated that value through these videos. Yep.

Levi Lascsak 50:09
Yeah. And I mean people that, you know, get recognized around town. It’s funny because I was in I was actually at the airport the other day and the TSA line. And somebody started tugging on my sleeve. And I looked over and I didn’t see anybody and then I looked down, and it was this like, 85 year old forefoot lady. And she’s just looking up at me. And I was like, I said, Hello. And she goes, she goes, Are you the YouTube real estate guy?

D.J. Paris 50:34
I loved your 10 things to hate about playing a video.

Levi Lascsak 50:37
That was like, yeah, so yeah, that’s mean, she’s like, like, love your videos. And then she just walked on by you know, and that’s, and it’s funny. It’s happened in, in clothing stores and coffee shops, and coming in and out of my office. It’s like, people are like, hey, hey, you know, I was getting food the other day. And the guy standing next to me in line is sitting there staring at me. And I’m just like, hey, and he goes, because don’t you make YouTube videos? And like, yeah, yeah. He’s like, Oh, cool, you know, and it’s just funny. And so you are building that up. And it’s around this whole, you know, that’s the thing is, is right now, especially in this market, I believe the most visible agents going to win. So now, that doesn’t mean you have to be on video. But if you’re a postcard person, you should probably send more postcards. If you’re an email person, you should probably send more emails, if you’re a phone call person, you need to make more phone calls, you can be visible on the phone, when you’re actually having conversations with people. So if you’re, if you’re a caller, you need to call more people in this market. And so right now,

D.J. Paris 51:33
I want to pause for a second because because I want to make a pretty strong point is that I think I think you’ll agree with this. You talked about you just talked about postcards, email, you know, phone calls, those are all you reaching out to the customer. People don’t like emails, right? I mean, and again, I’m just generalizing. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with sending emails, but generally speaking, we don’t we don’t love unwanted emails, or certainly too many of them. We don’t want too many phone calls. We don’t want too many posts. I mean, postcards are pretty innocuous. But what you’re doing is they’re coming to you because they’re searching for the content they want. There’s no resistance at that point. There’s no like, Who’s this guy calling me it’s, Oh, this guy’s providing me content. I found him he didn’t find me.

Levi Lascsak 52:20
So we call that and actually we talked about that that’s I believe that’s the first chapter in passive prospecting is interruption versus intentional marketing. So what you just described as interruption marketing, it’s what we we’ve been conditioned to be a part of and conduct as as business people our whole lives. That’s TV commercials, billboards, magazine ads, postcards, cold calling door knocking, that is interrupting they say right now we get exposed to eight to 10,000 ads per day. Okay, credible. Now, we’re not buying that many products, which, which means we’re completely ignoring them, right? So, but they’re interrupting you. And the thing is, is that you could see a dog food commercial 10 times a day doesn’t mean you’re gonna go buy dog food, right? I don’t care how many times you see Jake from State Farm, you’re not gonna go run out and buy insurance. But the second you have a kid and you need, you need a new life policy, or you need to update it, or you run out, let’s say you run out of dog food. You do not need any marketing or advertising, to convince you to go do that you now have intention. And now Now you’re on the hunt. Now you’re out there looking and guess what? People are intentional about buying or selling real estate. But most real estate agents chase after everybody else saying that they’re in the relationship business, trying to build relationships, when all they’re doing is really interrupting people nonstop. So hopefully, one day when they’re finally in the market, they’ll actually think of them and buy or sell a home with them. And then they end up buying a home from Uncle Bob because he’s over at their house drinking beer on a Sunday afternoon. And you’re like, I’ve been chasing you down for 18 months. And they’re like, well, sorry, Uncle Bob was over at my house. And you know, I just listed with him. So intentional means people are intentional about buying and selling real estate. But what if you’re the person that’s in front of them, whenever they’re, they’re now searching for that information? When people go to research on YouTube, and they search Dallas, guess what, they’re gonna get hit with all of our videos, because we pop up everywhere, they can’t avoid us. And so now they and then they just start watching the content, guess what, it’s immediate value add. We don’t sell them on the fact that we’re real estate agents. We don’t, you know, tell them about, here’s the tips to sell your home. It’s like here’s all the information about Dallas what they’re actually searching for. And so we just become their agent by default, because they end up consuming so much content that they you know, they just can’t help themselves then like Well, I’m gonna go call this guy.

D.J. Paris 54:43
Yeah, yes. Yes. And and again, you haven’t created resistance, because you’re not pitching them directly. I mean, maybe at the end of the videos, oh, hey, by the way, if you you know, you know that there may be some of that and that’s that’s fine, but they already found you. You didn’t find them. You didn’t pitch them first. So, and that is that is just beyond beyond huge. So tell us about passive prospecting.com.

Levi Lascsak 55:06
Yeah, it’s our website. I mean, the main thing we’re doing right there is directing people to sign up to be the first to know when we released the new book. So we have written the book passive prospecting it’s in. It’s in process right now, the publisher that we’re working with, has told us probably a February timeframe, as far as release. So right now, if you go to pass a prospecting.com, you’ll see on the homepage, you can just sign up and so that way, we’ll notify you as soon as the book releases. Because we do want to create some some emphasis and some push around whenever that launches, it’s going to be awesome, but it’s it’s 14 chapters, I mean, and so it’s, it’s a, it’s a lot, it’s a lot of information. And and we tell you, we talk about all the principles in the first half of the book, and the second half of the book is how to apply them, and how to build your own channel. So it’s really going to be really, I think, everything you need. Now the thing is, is you’ll be missing the visual component, which I think, you know, like, like we walk through people through a digital course, when we help them learn YouTube, which they can see. And it’s very easy. But the book, I mean, that some people learn from reading and writing, and so we walk them through everything that they need to get through that. And so we just talked about that. And and the cool thing is, is we got the foreword, the foreword was written by Ryan serhant.

D.J. Paris 56:29
Oh, wonderful. Well, that’s, that’s certainly some nice social proof, to help help help sell some books. And yeah, I need to get I need to see if I can get him on our show. We’ve, yeah, I just I haven’t talked for all the years I need to. But yes, but that’s amazing. Congratulations on that he’s not an easy get, we actually have had him booked a couple of times over the years, and then it just fell through. So that is really impressive. And I again, I just want to sort of wrap this up with, you don’t have to be, you know, you don’t have to have a special hook. You don’t have to be, you know, the TIC tock dancing family. Although, if that’s your hook, great. But what we’re all you all you can, you know, all you really need to do is focus on your expertise, which is hyperlocal real estate, think of the questions your current your clients ask you, when they move in or move out, think of the things they need the thing, and then you can pad there’s a million tools to look up search volume, take a look. And again, just the biggest mind shift, change that I’m making in this in this conversation is YouTube is not a place to watch videos, it’s a search engine, it’s a search engine first that happens to show you videos. And if I think of it that way, then it becomes a research and development tool. Versus and also, you know, you know, fun thing if I want to screw around on YouTube, but I can actually use it for research and development. Whereas Instagram, Facebook, and even Tik Tok, you’re at the mercy of either the people you already know, or in tic TOCs, you know, case a little bit differently, you know, they have a sort of a different algorithm set. But you know, Facebook is people you know, for the most part, maybe some people find you here and there through referrals, Instagrams essentially the same way. So all you’re really do and there’s nothing wrong with creating content for your your followers. But it’s not easy to sort of branch outside of those followers in those platforms. It’s really tough, because that’s just not what those platforms are for. Instagram tries to be a search engine. I don’t think it does that all that successfully. But certainly YouTube has as the cream of the crop, that’s where everyone goes to learn how to do and how to do something, or how or about something. You know, my my dad was like, he just, you know, he goes around and fixes things all over the house. He checks everything on YouTube first, like, like a lot of us do. So I absolutely love this. And we all have essentially 4k phones with incredible resolution, incredible clarity. You don’t even have to have necessarily really amazing equipment, what you do have to have is really amazing content, which is what you have if you’re a real estate agent who cares and actually works on their craft. You just take the information you already have and and apply it and make videos. Well, just real quickly, what’s the what have you found to be an optimal length or for your videos to before the or the audience stays engaged? Or do you find it’s kind of all over the board?

Levi Lascsak 59:35
videos need to be as long as they need to be. So give the information that’s needed to create the video. Don’t keep talking just to keep talking. So if the video is 12 minutes and 19 seconds, let it be that if it’s 15 minutes and 18 seconds. I mean I’ve I’ve even done an hour video on on the channel as an experiment. And it’s one of the most viewed and most watched videos on the channel. So the thing is, is again, when your audience is researching you, you have their attention because you know their intention. So when you know their intention, you will have their attention. And so longer form video, that’s what they’re there for. And that’s what gets people dialed in and builds that relationship for you. Because they watch more and more content, the longer they watch it, the more of the relationship they develop and deepen with you. So, so yeah, I mean, the shortest, maybe 10 minutes, the longest, I’ve done an hour and everything in between. So I, I make videos. And the thing is, I didn’t intentionally make an hour video, but I knew it was going to be a lot because I was going to cover a lot. And at the end of it, it was like, oh, that’s an hour. So, you know, it is what it is. And I thought, Well, we’ll see what happens. But again, still one of the most popular one the most viewed videos. So it just told me that okay, people are are dialed in when they’re researching. I mean, making a move is a big decision for a lot of people. And people do research that but think about how do they actually research that from before. I mean, we’ve also helped people move from Japan, from Belgium, from the Philippines, from Australia, from the UK, from South Africa, where what else would they have found us other than YouTube? I mean, do you think those people would have just randomly discovered our website? Or our Facebook profile? No, no, they they’re going to search Dallas first, because they’re moving here because of a job because of a better opportunity because of a transfer this or that, you know, and, and so they’re saying, well, um, what’s Dallas? Like, let’s go on YouTube and take a look, let’s see what Dallas looks like. And then guess what, all of our videos pop up over and over and over again. And so they’re like, hey, moving from Belgium, which we just got that email two weeks ago. And that’s what the lady said, used to live in Florida, lived in Belgium, the last six years now we’re getting transferred to Dallas. So

D.J. Paris 1:02:00
So So again, in essentially, one year, we’re talking 164 transactions, 90 million in production, almost 3 million in commissions. These results speak for themselves, I don’t need to say anything other than I want to read that book. So the best place and by the way, everybody needs to read this book, because even if you’re not a YouTuber, even if you’re not somebody that thinks this is a viable path, I am guessing that with the rate rates have have, you know, essentially doubled since since then I don’t like to even say rates have doubled, because they were such low, of course, they were going to double but regardless, it’s still a tricky time to generate leads. So if you’re doing the traditional methods, then you know, you’re going to just have a lot of people sitting on the sidelines, there’s only a certain percentage of your sphere of influence that are going to be buying or selling in the next 12 months. And you’re probably a little stressed about it right now, I know all of our agents are, this provides you even if you’re like, that’s not really what I I’m not really a online personality, it doesn’t, you don’t need to necessarily be an online personality, what you need to do, I mean, I don’t care who does, I watched the video last night, I had to replace a switch, I have like a smart switch, light switch, essentially. And it has a dimmer and whatever. So anyway, I had to switch it and I was like, I better just double check that I’ve got these wires, you know, connected correctly, or I’m gonna you know, blow up my whole home. And, and I watched a one minute video, it was a guy who was not a YouTube personality. But he had the most views for this particular, you know, wiring for outlet, it had like, 3 million views. And this was a one minute video, this guy could not have been less personable. And yet his content was good. And it was quick, and it works. And so even if you’re not somebody who’s like, Oh, I’m not as dynamic, maybe I’m more introverted, it doesn’t matter. You just have to have incredible content. And yes, you should learn how to make things look good and sound good. And you should be really intentional about, you know, the way you’re speaking. And there’s a lot to learn. But regardless, I just watched a video last night this guy basically saved my life. And he is not dynamic. So I just want to make that point that if you’re thinking about, you know, another way to generate income, because like, like Levi was saying, you can create a really great piece of content, it lives forever, it might generate traffic for a very long time, or even forever, I guess it could be. And so you have this opportunity to create something that last social media is very digestible, it’s very, it’s very transient, it comes and goes we do the infinite scroll it but YouTube stuff kind of lasts forever. Now something better might come along and replace you and then you can create another video to replace that person you know, so you know that can happen. But essentially, if it’s good, it lasts and I see this all the time like this video about replacing the electrical wiring. He made it like 10 years ago and it’s still the best video 10 years yours as you would think some electrician has got a better personality is more dynamic can make it I mean, this guy literally was literally it was just his webcam, he was holding it up, there was no production, and 10 You know, like 10 million views or something. So anyway, let’s let’s all visit passive prospecting.com Sign up to find out when the book is going to be released so that you can buy a copy. This is the year to learn how to generate content online. Let’s let’s do it. If you’re tired of just posting just listed and just sold things on Instagram that honestly nobody cares. You know, it’s nice, it’s cute, it’s fine. But you can actually provide real value to people on places like you know, different mediums like, like YouTube. So go to passive prospecting.com. Also subscribe to passive prospecting, watch what Levi is doing, you know, his own admission, hey, when he goes into a new industry, he seeks out the top. And then he goes, Hey, I wonder what that guy’s or that woman is doing. You can do the same thing with him, go to his YouTube channel, we’ll have links to both. As soon as the book is released, we’re going to be promoting it, of course, because we want our audience to have another stream of income, or sorry, another stream of leads, which I guess technically is another stream of income for 2023. And this is the year guys, I’m going to do it. So if I’m going to do it, you guys should do it too. We can do it together. Levi is is a guy to model and look and watch and follow. And he’s just a heck of a nice guy. And he served our country. So let’s let’s do let’s do him a solid, let’s follow him let’s let’s walk walk out for his book. And gosh, I can’t imagine there’s any of our listeners who wouldn’t love to have another, you know, 160 transactions like Levi has got from YouTube. So, guys, let’s do this. Levi, on behalf of everyone who is listening to our show right now, we thank you for not only your service to the country, but also your service to this industry. And being on this podcast is of service. This doesn’t benefit Levi. He’s just a nice guy who’s willing to share his secrets. And yes, of course, he has a book to promote because you should all buy it, because I’m gonna buy it. But we thank you for taking the time to tell us exactly what you do being as transparent as you are. You’re just really, really refreshing. Also, on behalf of Levi and myself, we want to thank everyone who’s listening or watching right now. We appreciate you. You’re the reason we keep doing these episodes. And please let’s support our guests go to passive prospecting.com. And the only thing we ever ask of you, aside from making sure our guests are taken care of is let’s help take care of the podcast. Just tell one other realtor about our show. One other realtor that needs to hear this episode with Levi, I know you know somebody in your office that could use this, send this to him, send him over our website, keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done can be streamed right from there or just pull up any podcast app search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. We appreciate it. Levi, thank you so much. This was wonderful, really great content a good reminder to me to change my tactics and my strategy. And we’re excited to chat with you in the future. So thank you.

Levi Lascsak 1:08:07
Thank you for having me. It was a it was a lot of fun. Appreciate you

Vickey Barron goes back to the beginning of her career in real estate. Vickey describes how honesty played a very important role in the process of getting her first clients. Next, Vickey extensively talks about the importance of authenticity and honesty. Vickey also shares her tips and advise she gives to newer agents. Vickey also talks about how she keeps in touch with old clients and the importance she gives to this part of her job. Last, Vickey talks about the biggest mistake she’s made in her career that she would change if given the chance.

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

Vickey Barron can be reached at 646-960-6183 and [email protected].

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

D.J. Paris 0:00
We know that honesty is the best policy, but how can honesty become your very best marketing tool? 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 and in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top 1% Producer Vicki Baron. Before we get to Vicki, just a couple of quick reminders. First, thank you for continuing to support our show. If you want to help us grow. The best ways you can do that is first by telling a friend to think of one other realtor that could benefit from hearing these episodes and send them a link over to our website keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever produced can be streamed right from a browser, no podcast app required. And of course, we’re also on all the podcast apps so feel, feel free to subscribe if you haven’t done that already. And also, please support our amazing sponsors theory they are the reason we can keep paying the bills and keep the staff happy and keep everything running. So please check out their products and services. Consider investing in them. I promise the products and services that are talked about on the show will help take your business to the next level. Okay, let’s get to the main event my conversation with Vicki Baron.

Today on the show, we have Vicki Baron compass in New York City. Let me tell you more about Vicki. Now when Vicki Baron talks the real estate world listens she has earned the respect and admiration of her fellow brokers, along with an impressive base of buyers and sellers. Vicki has been featured in leading trade press articles and network TV shows including Wall Street Journal, the real deal, New York Times HGTV selling New York she’s also played a key role in the dramatic growth of the new development market in New York City by commanding and achieving record breaking sales prices, some marvel at how she is able to get it all done. Her answer is if you want something done, give it to a busy person I could not agree more. And by the way, Vicki’s super humble. She’s also been one of the top agents in New York City by volume, probably she is already as well. She’s been doing that before also in the country. She’s been one of the top agents, she is a very, very big deal. And we are so honored to have Vicki on the show. Vicki, welcome.

Vickey Barron 3:56
Thank you. And thank you for having me. And that’s a very nice introduction. And I just truly believe that if we all come together and just share, I tend to get involved a lot in our local board and helping agents. Some of them are new, some have been around for a long time, but kind of stumbling trying to figure out what to do and how to pivot. So anytime I’m invited to where we can have a candid conversation, because it’s not an easy business. But it can be a fun business if you don’t take yourself so seriously. And you just keep your eye on the ball and and remember that whatever you do, it’s all going to be fine. I just think there are too many people that end up with too much stress because ego gets in the way and a lot of pressure and I think that slows them down. So if I can do anything today is we’ll have a conversation and Share kind of how not to get into that trap, and a authentic and just have fun. And there’s a I’m a believer of abundance. So there’s enough business to go around, you just have to figure out what part of that business makes sense for you.

D.J. Paris 5:18
Well said, and I also want to just peel back the curtain for our listeners for a moment when I was chatting with Vicki just before we started, the very first thing she said, which, which is just really indicative of your character and, and, and your motivation, you were like, I just want to provide value to your audience and maybe help them I, I enjoy helping other realtors learn to do better. And obviously, you just said a version of that right now. And it is not always the case that when I have these types of interviews that I that I that people are as willing to to be helpful. So I think that is probably not a coincidence why you’re so successful. This act of like givers get to kind of kind of philosophy. So. And we should also mention, too, that Vicki is in the process of writing a book. And it’s not out yet. But I would encourage all of our listeners to make sure that when Vicki’s book does come out, we will be promoting it on our show, we’ll be promoting it on our Facebook group. And we will also anyone that’s interested can reach out to Vicki. And I’m sure she can put you on a list or or at least make you aware when the book is available. Because she is she is somebody who instructs agents. And so this this should be a very, very interesting and exciting book. So we’re happy to promote that once that happens. But Vicki, I’d like to start all the way at the back at the beginning to hear about how you got into real estate and why?

Vickey Barron 6:45
Well, when I was 2021 years old, I was not in real estate. But I did buy a very, very small piece of real estate in Southern California, because I realized, you know, why rent if you could buy. And to this day, I’m kind of confused why Bank of America gave me a mortgage, but they fortunately did. So I was able to put down a little down payment and and and got started and I bought it and I fixed it up, lived there for 10 months sold, it made a decent profit, I think I paid 59,000 and sold it for 79,000. So

D.J. Paris 7:32
like, Oh, that’s a nice return for 10 months

Vickey Barron 7:35
or so. And then I bought another one. And I kind of kept doing that. And people in California say you should get into real estate, you know, I just love looking at a property and seeing the potential. So I moved a lot, because this is kind of my hobby, so to speak. But I never really got into real estate, I worked in health care until I moved to New York City 22 years ago. And I thought I was coming to New York for two years. And I wanted to get to know the city. And I thought wait a minute, if I’m going to be in New York for two years, what better way to get to know the city than to get a real estate license and literally get to know the city. So I went and interviewed, my resume was not so impressive because no one wanted to hire me. And my favorite is a very large firm. The manager said to me, we don’t have a desk, call us back in a year. And I said, Wow, that’s so exciting that you don’t have a desk, you must be doing really well. And I’m thrilled to hear that. I have one question for you. She said, What’s that? I said, it’s very important for me to really find the right match the right house, if you will. So if you would be so kind to give me 10 minutes out of your day just to have an idea. I sit down quick chat, because if it’s the right fit, I’m willing to wait. And if it’s not, then I’ll accept a desk somewhere else. Does that make sense to you? She said yes. She invited me in. And when I sat in front of her. I seriously had a lot of questions because I had no idea. I didn’t know my way around New York. I didn’t have friends in New York. I didn’t have I mean, I used to come to New York, I worked in healthcare. So I would come for a lot of medical conferences, but I didn’t know anyone in New York. So I didn’t understand the lay of the land, period or real estate. So I said to her like, I have a question. You said you don’t have a desk but as I look around, I see a lot of empty desks. So where are these agents? Are they out selling Are they sleeping in or they will like can you help me understand how it works? And I must have had 20 different questions for her because I was really curious about how it all worked. And then I asked her, describe to me the top five agents in this office, who are they? What makes him tick? How do they function? And she answered it. And then I said, Now talk to me about the five agents that you’re contemplating getting rid of that a desk may open up that someday I’ll get to have, tell me about them. And she’s just started laughing. She said, You are hilarious. Like, you. You just first of all, she asked me if I had a resume. I said, don’t have a resume, you don’t have a desk. I thought, We’re doing an eyeball thing I didn’t, I wasn’t coming in for an interview, because you didn’t have a desk. I just wanted to meet you and say, Hello. So anyway, she offered me the position and I got started. And in that interview, I felt kind of bad. Like I tricked her because she offered me a desk after she said she didn’t have one. So I said, I should probably disclose it. I do not have any connections in New York, never sold real estate. I don’t. And Harriet on Park Avenue is not going to call me to sell her seven room. She said, Well, how are you going to get business? And I said, that is a very good question. And, honestly, I wish I had a good answer for you, but I don’t. But what I can tell you is I do understand people, and I understand business, and I’m confident I’ll figure something out. So fortunately, that really stupid answer, still got me a desk, because it didn’t sound very smart. Like I’m over here. No idea. Oh,

D.J. Paris 11:25
I want to jump in for a second. I actually do think it’s incredibly smart for one particular reason is it was it was honest. And I think this is an industry especially around the recruiting realtors or interviewing part where honesty doesn’t always flow both ways. And it doesn’t even flow one way sometimes. And I think I recruit realtors. And so I was just trying to put myself in the position of the woman that you were referencing. And I was thinking, I would love to have somebody come in with those with those kinds of questions. I would love it if people were asking, and that and being that honest, going out. Yeah, I don’t have in here’s what I don’t have. But I’m confident that I can get it figured out. So I actually think those were amazed. I mean, clearly they weren’t good answers in the sense that, you know, they wanted you on the team. But yeah, I know, you were sort of joking by saying they’re stupid answers. But I just I think those were great answers personally.

Vickey Barron 12:18
Well, thank you. But you know, what you just touched on that’s very important, is what I’m about to share with you next was truly the cracking the code, if you will, because so one would ask all right, so you got your desk, then what? Why was in a training class and I was sent home to do homework by calling three for sale by owners. And I procrastinated. I had an 11 year old at the time, and I was nine o’clock at night I went, Oh my word. I forgot my homework. And I can’t go in the class and lie and say I did it if I didn’t. And it’ll look disrespectful if I don’t do it. So I do quickly hop on a phone. And I got machines answer machines. And it was a woman that said, this is John and Mary. We’re not home right now, if you’re calling about the apartment, no brokers be. So I just instinctively I just wanted to get through my homework. I wasn’t trying to sell her apartment. I was like two hours in the business. So I said to her, Mary, hi, it’s me, Vicki. And here. Here’s the truth. I heard the part about no brokers, and I am an agent, but don’t hang up. Because the truth is, I just simply have a quick answer. I mean, quick question for you. And if you would be kind enough to call me back tomorrow before preferably before two o’clock. I promise it’ll be painless. Here’s my number look forward to the call. So then I went through and did my other two calls. And when I got in the class, they called upon me, how’d it go? I told them what happened. The whole class laughed. They said, you’re from California. This is New York, they’re gonna eat you a lie. You don’t leave a message. She’s never calling you back. And I kind of sunk in my seat. And I thought, Why is she not calling back? I was really kind on the phone. I think she’ll call me back. So it was so long ago, we really didn’t even have cell phones. And so I went back to my desk at lunchtime and the little red light was on. And sure enough, it was Mary. And when I called her back, she wasn’t so kind. She said you had you have a question? What is it? Well, I didn’t kind of think it through so I wasn’t sure what my question was. So I had to quickly I had to quickly come up with a question. So I just started asking her questions about her apartment. And I realized instantly she loved talking about her apartment. Like she just lit up like this lady’s went from Maine to nice and in a flat second. So then when she went on here, come To your point, the honesty, she said to me, I suppose you’re gonna tell me now you have a buyer for my apartment. And I said, Mary, honestly, with the windowed kitchen, the South views, the granite the subzero, I honestly wish I could tell you, I haven’t buyer for your apartment. But the honest truth is I, I’m thinking, I don’t even have a business card lady. I’m more or less a buyer. But I said, I don’t. I do not have a buyer for your apartment today. But Mary, doesn’t mean I won’t have one tomorrow. But I have to ask you one more question. She said, What is it? I said, You have been so generous with your time and so kind with your description of the apartment. First of all, I’m confused that it’s not sold. But that’s another story. I have one other question. Do you mind if I just poked my head in? I just want to see that kitchen with the window and that Southern view. I promise I won’t bother you. I just want to quickly look at it that way. If I come across a buyer, at least I can say I’ve seen it. She said okay, sure come by at 430. And when I went by all I had was a tablet and a pin. I mean, again, I was now maybe eight hours in the business. So I walked through her apartment, and I just had an honest conversation and I didn’t try to sell her I in fact I encouraged her I’m like you are going to sell this winter, next open house, how’d you get your pricing? And do you mind if I give you a few tips and I took notes about the apartment and then I gave her a few tips, open your blinds, pick up that pile of stuff and you marry you are going to have to So next week, I gotta go. And she called me within two weeks. And she woke up and said, I have I don’t want to be a realtor and I want to hire someone and you were so kind and so honest, that my husband, I would like to meet with you. So that’s how it started. It was I got started through the for sale by owners. And then one would refer another refer another and then I just kept calling fizz bows. And that’s how I started.

D.J. Paris 17:10
So it’s really an incredible story for a lot of different reasons. But again, that authentic honesty, all radical honesty, maybe we’ll call it although I just think honesty would suffice. I know there’s a new term radical honesty, I think, what does regular mean? If not, if not fully honest, but but that’s a perfect example of telling the truth, and really appealing to somebody from a non sales perspective, which I think not, the vast majority of people, myself included, do not like to be sold, I like to be explained, I like information, I like to also make my own decisions. And I don’t like to feel pressure. Now there is a certain subset of the population that likes to be persuaded. And that’s fine. But I don’t think that’s the majority of people. So I actually think that is a great approach for all arrow all of our listeners to consider and clearly it worked for you. And so from there, you you, you got your license, you started finding clients, and and then, you know, you continued to grow and you didn’t just grow in a small way you grow in a very, very, very, very big way. So why do you think it was that that you got to be one of one of the very top producing agents in New York City when there’s 1000s upon 1000s? What do you think it is that maybe you did differently than, than the other brokers or agents that you know?

Vickey Barron 18:33
Well, I think what I really think about it, which I have putting this book together, you know it, it’s the best therapy ever, because you you take the time to reflect and try to, you know, look at where you were, where you’re at and where you’re going. And when I really think about it, I think for me, it was almost a breath of fresh air because the people responded well, to just someone that saw them and cared about them. And I was curious about so much that. I mean, I really didn’t know what I was doing. So there was no ego because how can you have an ego when I truly note when I think back and I’m like how did I even do? And I say this not Not to brag only to encourage anybody because I swear to you if I can do it, anybody can do it. So I think I did like 20 deals in my first nine or 10 months and credible and it was you know, they were all lower price because most for sale by owners are not, you know, $5 million. So they were all you know, I think when I got started, they were three four or $500,000 and I just kept going and going and I worked really hard. But I loved every moment of it. Because each opportunity, I believed in my heart, that they would be better off. And I do believe this for for sale by owners, they think it’s better to sell on their own. And I really believe they will make more money if they identify the right agent to partner with. Because that agent, if they do what I know they’re capable of doing, when it’s time to close, whatever that commission check is, will be less. If you get the right agent to partner with you, I really do believe that I don’t think they make more money trying to sell on their own. So I believe that and I think they just learned to trust in me. And that’s I started to get 96% of my business, all referrals. So I am not the agent doing I don’t do postcard mailers, I don’t do I sometimes I think I’m a little lazy, because maybe I should be doing that. But I don’t, there are only so many hours in the day. And I feel that if I take the time to really care about someone and take care of them and go the extra mile, then they will tell their friends and their neighbors and and then the phone will ring and then I can take care of that next person. So that’s been my model, although I do have colleagues that are very successful on the marketing campaign that do mass mailers. So I applaud them and everyone has to find the lane that makes sense for them.

D.J. Paris 21:38
Yeah, it’s it’s interesting. I was thinking while you were saying that about demonstrating care, I always think that’s maybe maybe the most one of the most important parts of the job is demonstrating empathy and also managing not managing your clients, fears or anxieties, but But understanding them and being able to counsel them through large financial decisions buying selling maybe the largest financial decision they’ve ever made, certainly one that comes with with a lot of a lot of unfortunate stress, even in the best possible two types of transactions. It’s still stressful. And I’m I’m curious because you are such a student of human nature and just people how you went about trying to make sure your clients were as comfortable as possible throughout the process? Because of course there are ups and downs and most transactions if not all, and there are going to be times when when the clients, you know, dealing with some some undue stress or just freaking out. But how do you how do you do that? Because I suspect you do that better than a lot of other agents?

Vickey Barron 22:48
Well, first of all, that’s a great question. Because the truth is, and I say this many times agents, you can have seller A is a banker, seller B is an artist and seller C is a widow that never had a day job. If your conversation is exactly the same with all three of them, you may get lucky and hit one. But you have to in an authentic way. And I tell people this when I’m on Park Avenue selling a $12 million listing or I’m in the village selling a really cool fifth floor walk up. I’m still Vicki present at both of them. But one may be an artist, one may be a banker. My choice, you know, the power of words is one of the classes I love teaching that you have to know how to communicate with someone and what their needs are and how they’re going to hear you. And it’s always good to ask people how do you like to be communicated with? What is your and here’s another thing talk about honesty. There was a pretty big listing and a woman said to me, Vicki, I have I shouldn’t be admitting this, but it’s the truth. She said fishy. I’ve noticed that the other two agents for interviewing when I emailed them, they respond like that. And when I email you, you take a really long time to get back to me. And I said to her Oh, Nancy, you know what, it’s honestly the truth. What you’re saying? And I would love to tell you right now, like if you hire me that that’s going to change but it may not change. So she looked shocked. And I said like can I explain why? And she said Why? And I said you know I’ve been in your living room for 45 minutes. I haven’t looked at my phone once. I said so when I’m with you. You have me 100% And when I’m with a buyer they have me 100% When I’m showing someone through your apartment I’m not Looking at my Instagram, I’m not looking at my email. I’m looking at them. I’m listening to them, I’m answering their questions, and they have me. So unfortunately, some people, maybe I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, I’m not good at that. I just can’t do it. It’s not my forte. But if you ever need me, I have someone at the office, you can call they know how to get a hold of me. But please know that I’m here and I care. But I’m not going to win the contest of getting back so quickly on that email. And she hired me, but it was the truth. It was just, you know, and another one talk about truth. I was on a townhouse listing. And this is actually funny, the woman said to me, you know, Vicki, I really, really in my heart, I’d like to hire you. But I think I’m gonna hire this other agent. And I said, Okay, well, if you feel that that’s the right fit for you, then I’m sure. You know, I’m sure that they will do a great job. She said, Because the other agent specializes in townhouses. And I and she pointed out to me that on your website, you have things for sale for $350,000, like studios and stuff like that. And she only has really expensive townhouses. And that’s what he specializes in. He’s a vice president, and you’re whatever I was at the time,

D.J. Paris 26:26
what are you associate or whatever? Yeah.

Vickey Barron 26:30
And I said, Oh, I am. So you know what you just made my day? She said, I did. I said, Yes. I feel so good. Right now you have no idea. She said, why I said, Because I said to myself, when I entered the business, I never want to become that person that feels that there’s so important that they, they forget about everyone, because everyone needs a place to live. And I want to be able, if you call me and your knees once that fifth floor studio apartment, I want to be able to take care of them. So I hope 20 years from now, you’ll see a low end apartment for sale, which today, if you get on mine, I’m sure I have one right now. So I said, it just means a lot to me. But thank you so much for sharing that. Well, then I went back to my office and I told my manager what happened? And he said, Vicki, you’re a senior vice president. I said, I am. He said, your numbers, you don’t have that on your website. I said, What does it even mean? I don’t understand what are these titles? And he said, No, you’re a senior vice president. So I call the woman back. And I said, Listen, I just wanted to tell you, I not only do I appreciate your comment about the lower end apartment on my listing, but then that whole scene, apparently I’m a senior vice president. And so I didn’t even know that his titles are rotten. Not really that important to me. But apparently they are to some people. And thank you so much for bringing, so she called me and hired me.

D.J. Paris 28:00
Hilarious. That is and and I think there’s there’s sort of two, two lessons to learn here, which is number one, to have an answer. Ready. That’s an authentic well, to have an answer ready. If somebody were to say something like that, like, oh, this other agent, you know, thought maybe they’d be a better fit because they thought you specialized in this and we really have that and maybe you’re not. And your answer was was beautiful, and also honest. And I think again, that sort of ego less approach, and that full honest approach really resonates with people who don’t want to be sold. And also, you know, like, it’s funny, my my title is President of Sales and Marketing. And people go, Ooh, that sounds impressive. Like I made that up. Like, it’s not a real thing. It’s, you know, I guess if you say it long enough people think it’s something but but but it’s it is it is true. Like every lender is a vice president, every loan officer right now is vice president. And so yeah, but but it’s a really good point. And I think it’s also a lesson of playing nice in the sandbox, this idea of putting other firms down or other agents down whether it’s, you know, subtly like maybe this person did which was which you know, really rubs me the wrong way when people people do that. But there are people out there who will and so I appreciate that and I’m sure you know you teach agents to to be their authentic selves and to not and like you said there is no competition so there’s enough business for everyone there’s there’s the right fit for anyone. And And I’m curious on you know what you’ve what you’ve seen new agents do because you had pretty immediate success with no sphere of influence, no understanding of the New York market, limited understanding of real estate, you know, you did your own buys and sells which is amazing. And that is that is legitimate experience of course. But doesn’t necessarily translate to helping other homeowners as easily as Oh, look at my resume of all these beautiful homes I’ve listed and sold. But I’m curious on on what you tell agents who are entering the business who, you know, really want to have, you know, quicker success. there any tips or advice that you might give them?

Vickey Barron 30:21
Yes. Here’s, I feel very strong about this. I see a lot of agents that have analysis paralysis, you know, they, they, they look great. They come in the office, they sit there there, but they don’t move like what are you doing? I walked by, what are you doing? They’re thinking and they’re paralyzed of not making a move, because they’re afraid they’re gonna do something wrong, not to a right. And they also go after the other thing I say, here are things that I see that I wish I could say just stop that. One. They don’t shoot for the moon, like, why are you been in the business a month, and you’re going after 10 $15 million listings? Like your why just go sell 10 In a price point that you probably don’t have a better chance getting because those 10 15 million are going to have agents with a resume on arm or street long. So why would you put that pressure on yourself? Number one, number two, no, get to know property. Go look at every property. So when I was relatively new, the manager that didn’t have a desk that hired me, asked me to give a tour. She said, Vicki, we have a van, we’re going to go out and look at like 10 properties. And I just think you would be really good at giving the tour. So I have a problem saying no. Like I had zero what? I don’t know why she asked me but I just said yes. So on the tour. We were going I said, ladies and gentlemen, we’re about to go to 103 is 73rd Street and it was built in 1929. And you’re gonna see that, you know, 40% of the apartments have double height ceiling. And what I love the most is the bay windows and what and the doorman is amazing. And the tile in the lobby is gorgeous. After that, we’re going to have the opportunity to see bah, bah, bah, that was built 1960. And people said, what firm did you work for before you worked here? I said I didn’t work at any firm. They said how do you know that? I said because I would walk up and down the streets. And I look at the buildings I talked to the doorman then I go back and I’d ask how many apartments are in there? When was it built? So I tell agents start if you’re going to get one listing. Let’s say it’s a one bedroom, prewar apartment, you should know as the the if a buyer is out there today looking for the one bedroom, if there are 10 available, you should go visit every one of them. And today, if you can’t physically get in, at least get online and study your competition, study those apartments, so you should know them inside now. So I was actually successful at converting. When I’d have a listing buyers would come in, and they’d be without an agent. And I’d watched them walk around and I’d ask them questions I’d say talk to me. I have a question for you. How long have you been looking? Has it been two months? Six months? Are you ready to jump? Or where are you at? Oh, no, we just started. Well, how many apartments have you seen today? Three. Interesting. Have you seen the one on 79th? Street? They said yes. They said Don’t you love that view out of the back? Was that not special? Love that. And the herringbone floors? Love that. So then what else? Have you seen? No, we wouldn’t saw this other one. What did you like about it? Well, we like this, what did you hate about it? I like you have a conversation. And they know that you know, the lay of the land. But I have agents that when you go to show an apartment, they don’t even know the building and the they’re selling an apartment, but they don’t even know the answers to simple questions. So you have to do your homework. And you have to be interested enough to know you have to be knowledgeable.

D.J. Paris 34:28
I have a I have a yes, I have a question with respect to showing a property to a buyer. And I know this isn’t always going to be the case where you as the buyer’s agent will be able to see the property ahead of time but how often do you say hey, I’m bringing a buyer here tomorrow I want to get a lay of the land. I want to come in and see the property so that when I my buyer does show up, I have a better understanding of what is the is that I don’t know how common that practice is for Go ahead

Vickey Barron 35:00
I’m gonna another, you ask really good questions. See? Why, okay, I told you I didn’t know my way around New York, I had a buyer came into a place I had listed. And he this had never happened. And it’s never happened since. But he asked me to go to his office, he wanted to interview me. Now normally you get interviewed for if you’re going to be the listing agent not to work with the buyer. But he wanted to interview me because he wanted to find the right agent to help he and his wife buy an apartment. So I’m sitting in Midtown. And he said, you know, my wife and I are kind of thinking about Tribeca. Now I was maybe four months in the business. I Tribeca, I heard of it, but I never sold in Tribeca.

D.J. Paris 35:50
Was there a film festival there that?

Vickey Barron 35:53
He said, I’d like to go out next week and look at places in Tribeca. Are you for? Or have you? What did he say? Are you familiar? Have you sold in Tribeca? You don’t need to lie. But there’s a way to answer a question with confidence. I said, Oh, I love that idea of Tribeca. Love that idea of Tribeca, I didn’t say I had sold in Tribeca, I didn’t know say I knew were Tribeca was I said I love the idea of Tribeca and let’s plan on Saturday. So what I did is I did the search, I went out early the day before went to as many of them that I could. And then what I did is I hired a driver, because in Tribeca, it’s not like Midtown, where it’s all numbers. Like I thought, I’m gonna look foolish when I walk out of one building, not know if I should turn left or right.

D.J. Paris 36:52
So yeah, that’s a great point.

Vickey Barron 36:55
And then if he starts asking me questions about where the local grocery store is, I don’t know I don’t just my first time there. So I hired a driver that knew Tribeca, like the back of his hand. And I said to him, here’s the drill this what’s going to happen, I’m gonna have a buyer in here. And he or his wife may ask questions about Tribeca. And when those questions come up on you, and you’re gonna be answering them, get it, he’s like, good. I gave him a high five. I’m like, we’re gonna have fun. So when we got in the car, we went to the first lesson I said, Now the first listing, I love the lobby, you’re gonna love them mosaic floor, and I introduced myself to the doorman the day before. So when he saw me, it was like a familiar face. So when we walked in, we showed the apartment, you just do your homework and spend the time without being, you have to be honest, but you it’s okay. If you’re new, they’re not asking no one asked me, How long have you been in the business ever? Well, no, that’s not true. Actually. Someone asked me when I got a listing, why would I give $2 million to someone that’s been in the business for 14 days? did ask me that? And I said,

D.J. Paris 38:12
which which I think is a reasonable question.

Vickey Barron 38:14
Yeah. I said for three very good reasons. He said, he said, why? I said, Well, number one, I I’m on, you’re under a good umbrella, meaning the firm, we we have all the tools in the tool box that you need. Number two, I am willing, because I knew he was insecure about me. So I said, I am willing to bring on the number three agent in my office for you as insurance. And number three, I will be holding that umbrella and I simply bring magic. And he said, You didn’t even blink. And I lean forward and I said nor did you and he gave me the listing. So sometimes you just have to have confidence. And if he doesn’t hire me, I’m not going to die. Like nothing bad happens. And when I’m changing listings, why can’t you celebrate them? Like send him a note and say I’m so happy for you that you got that Listen, you’re gonna knock it out of the ballpark.

D.J. Paris 39:20
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You know, they don’t know how to respond to a question like that. Do you rehearse in your mind answers to objections? I don’t even want to call them objections, questions. We’ll just call them questions.

Vickey Barron 41:20
Never. Never. In fact, an agent had invited me on a pitch, which I was confused about also, because I wasn’t sure I didn’t know what I was doing. But she said, I think you should come with me. I’m trying to get this listen, I think you will help. I said that. So kind of you grave. Tomorrow, we’ll go. So tomorrow came, we get in the elevator, and she was really nervous. Like I could tell she was really nervous. So she said to me, are you nervous? And I said, No. But why do you ask? She said, Well, I always get nervous before I go on a pitch. And she said, Did you rehearse? So then I said, rehearse what? She said, Well, did you rehearse your pitch? Well, I didn’t know. That’s a thing, like rehearse a pitch. So I said to her, Well, no, rehearse a pitch. So then she looked even more nervous, like he or she invited me on and I didn’t rehearse. So I said, I was serious. I said, you rehearsed a pitch. She said, Yeah. I said, How could you possibly do that? She said, How could you not? I said, Well, how do I know what I’m going to say? If I don’t know who’s behind the door? Like I don’t? I don’t understand that. I said, I mean, I look at comps, but don’t rehearse, like what I’m going to say because I don’t know, when she opens the door. How do I know? How do I? So then I got nervous, because I thought if this is what I’m gonna have to do like to be in the business. I’m not sure. Like, I cannot memorize a script or I would, it would be horrible. So anyway, when we went in, the woman opened the door. And she had a storyboard from the Micronesia Island, which I had worked for many years. And I was familiar with it. So it was unbelievable. Like the door opened up. I’m like, Oh, my gosh, is that from the Micronesia and

D.J. Paris 43:20
I know what that is. Yeah. Storyboard. So started the conversation.

Vickey Barron 43:23
And then there was a book on the shelf that I we started talking about that. And then we left the woman said, you, you never really did a pitch. And I said, Well, I asked her, I asked her a lot of questions like why are you selling what’s important to you? Talk to me, have you gone through the process before? And she just felt comfortable? And she hired us, but I didn’t do No, I don’t rehearse?

D.J. Paris 43:49
Yeah, no, that’s, that’s, that’s really true. So you, you would you go in and meet someone for the first time. You’re just looking to get a better sense of who they are, maybe by scanning kind of the room scanning, who they are paying attention to what they say, how they talk about and then just asking a ton of questions. And it is, it really is, I think the biggest compliment you can give someone by is by asking them about themselves. Not everyone. Now, some people are more closed and are want to just do business, and that’s fine. But I think the vast majority of us, especially this time, as we’re now sort of being able to get back together in person over the last year. I think people are hungry for you know, interaction, and we I don’t think we asked each other as much about our lives anymore, because social media sort of taken that part of it away where we now if I want to know if my friends been on a vacation, I don’t have to ask him I can just look on Instagram or Facebook assuming that they posted and I think that it’s taken away some of that. Some of the inquisitiveness that that We used to have about each other. And I think that that’s that that’s a really an important skill to to cultivate, if you’re an agent is, you know, really being curious about who that person is, how they, how they tick, what’s what’s, you know, important to them. And and, and it seems like that’s something that you really sort of plant your flag firmly in the ground, if it’s like, I want to get to know you. And that seems to be very effective for you.

Vickey Barron 45:25
And also, I think when agents go in to do a presentation, I think it’s so unfortunate that they spend the majority of their time doing an infomercial, they spend the majority of their time wanting to talk about how great they are, and what their numbers are, and why they’re the best and why they need to hire them. And instead of taking that precious time to really understand who this person is, and what their needs are, and, and are you the right fit for them. Because sometimes we’re not, like there’s sometimes like they, they shouldn’t hire me like it is not the right fit. And why not just say that? You know how powerful that is. If you say to someone say, You know what, I? I’ve heard you today, and it’s and then repeat. This is what? And I have to tell you, as much as I’d like to do this, I’m not sure if I were in your shoes, I’d hire me I actually, I have someone in mind, I’m gonna have you, you should call them. They’re like blown away by like, yeah, what is that, but I think I’m not gonna have fun on this assignment. We don’t connect. I don’t like your apartment, and I don’t understand it. And why did you buy it in the first place is what I’m thinking, but they have to sell it, but I don’t want to be the one selling it. Because it’s, it’s, there’s someone else that could sell it, that might be a better fit.

D.J. Paris 46:52
I almost wonder if you’ve ever turned down and a listing or a buyer and had them. So because again, I think back to the times where I’ve worked with salespeople or service people who are vying for business. And the number of times somebody has said, I’m not the right fit for you. But I know someone else is a one maybe one time in my life, but probably zero. I can’t think of any instance. But it is it is such an important again, it goes back to this honesty thing. I was like Sorry. My question was going to be I wonder if you’ve ever turned someone down who has then gone on to refer business to you even though you didn’t necessarily help them. I? If that hasn’t happened? I’m sure it will happen at some point.

Vickey Barron 47:35
Yes. And you know, what else happened that I think could be helpful for any listeners is there was a for sale by owner not willing to pay a fee at all, he was not going to pay $1. But my neighbor wanted to see the apartment. So I said to him, do you mind? Can my neighbor come tonight at seven o’clock after work to see your apartment? He said Do you understand? Let me repeat this again, you are not going to get paid $1 I am not paying any commission to any agent. I said, I have heard you loud and clear. Do you mind if I just bring her in at seven o’clock? He said why would you do this? And I said Well, number one, she’s asked to see it. Number two, she wants my opinion. And number three, if she buys it, you will never forget me. Yeah, good point. And he so I went in and met them. And my neighbor called me she worked at McGraw Hill. And she said she was like 45 minutes late. And I called her and she said I’m so sorry, I had a client come in, I’m not gonna be able to make it. Well, you know what, that forsale better?

D.J. Paris 48:49
Sure I know what you’re doing. I see what you’re doing.

Vickey Barron 48:53
I was mortified. mortified. So I made her get on the phone with him. I’m like, Okay, you need to talk to him right now because he’s gonna think I made you up. So they talked so then he he left a message on my phone that night at midnight. And he said, We want to give you the listing. I was shocked. And I said, Why would you do that? He said you were so brutally honest. Like you i We couldn’t believe how honest you were that he? And I said, Well, the truth is so then my neighbor got mad that I got the listing. I said, Don’t worry, I carved your name out if you buy it. You don’t have to pay me a penny. But she didn’t buy it and we sold it. And there was another example with him paying us our fee. He still made more money. So I really do believe for sale by owners should call every one of you on this call.

D.J. Paris 49:46
I love that because those are expireds for sale by owners. Those are tough calls and you do deal with some abuse when you make those phone calls and but I think that’s also a good thing to go go through, just to get some battle wounds because you realize, oh, that didn’t kill me, somebody yelled at me told me to eff off or whatever they may have said, they may just hang up, or I said, No agents or whatever it happens, and then you realize, oh, I survived that it’s okay. And, you know, I authentically tried to help this person they weren’t interested, not the end of the world. And what most for sale by owners do is they inflate as you know, I’m not telling this to you, of course, but to our listeners, for anyone that is scared for sale by owners tend to inflate their their property price without realizing that they don’t know they’re doing it. They think it’s worth X. And by the way, we all do this, I think even realtors can do this. And they, they’re probably not going to sell it because they’ve inflated the price. So at some point, I think the stats aren’t they don’t have them in front of me is that the vast majority of for sale by owners end up hiring someone anyway at some point, and it ends up selling for more if they hire a good agent. So that’s not really a great pitch. I think I don’t think somebody would be receptive to saying those kinds of things on on the phones. Did you know that if you hire me, you’re actually going to sell it for more, they’re not going to believe you. But if this idea of Radical Honesty is Oh, my gosh, that’s I just I just love it. I I’m curious if you’re willing to share any of the book that you’re currently working on? Because now I’m super interested in, in what this book is going to be? Do you mind just giving our audience a little taste of what’s coming?

Vickey Barron 51:27
It’s it’s really just a it’s no surprise? Yes, it is. I don’t even i i Sometimes I think why am I doing this because I’m just telling stories from early on my my life journey, if you will. And what I do hope that a reader gathers after reading it, is you start to see I’m very consistent. So what I did when I was 14 2240s 50s, I It’s hasn’t changed, like the recipe is pretty consistent. And it doesn’t matter where you are in life. It’s just caring about the other person, and being brave enough to ask the question, and also being aware of your weaknesses, because we’re all not super man or super women, you know, we’re just, we’re just people, and we’re flawed. And we’re not so special. And we’re not, you know, it’s, it’s okay, like, just accept who you are, and, and do the best you can, and try to be the best version of you, but care about other people. And you don’t need to bump them and step on them to make yourself feel better and get ahead. And if you actually don’t do that, somehow you you end up in a better spot.

D.J. Paris 53:00
Yeah, well, I agree with all that I have three final questions for you, I think three things I wanted to get to, but forgot. And so I just remembered. So want to get a get your perspective on these. You are very active in, in, in the in the community, you you participate, you give back, you volunteer at the local level. I don’t know if you also do the state or the national level, I suspect those opportunities come your way as well. How so? I’m going to preface before I get to my question by saying I avoided really being part of our local association and giving back in that way for for many, many years I’ve been doing. I’ve been in this industry since 2011. Or Yeah, somewhere around there. And anyway, I, I thought to be sort of bit honest, myself, I thought, well, if I do get involved, and I serve on some committees, well, you know, I’ll be doing good. And that’s a good thing. And I’ll be contributing and that’s good. But also, you know, maybe more people will know heard or hear about our firm just by nature of me being part of this, you know, committee and maybe that would ultimately help me indirectly in recruiting. Not that that was the primary reason. Well, I’ve been participating at the local level for about three years now. It really has not helped me in recruiting because but I continue to do it and now I’m even getting more and more involved. For one reason and I’m curious to get your thoughts on this. Which is that I have tried I get a lot of fulfillment from participating at the local level being part of the industry being being in community with with other agents that are trying to make things better. And even if it never results in somebody coming to our firm going oh I know you from the association I should join your firm which by the way has never happened and probably never will. But I I am so happy to be around other realtors who are all trying to you know to do the best they can and do the best for other realtors and I’m curious if you get a tremendous amount of fulfillment in the same way that I just mentioned for being part of giving back to the local associations.

Vickey Barron 55:06
I do I you can probably tell I’m a storyteller. I love stories. I think that when stories are being shared and told, there’s value in those stories, so when I’m able to get agents up on stage to do role playing, by the way, some if we could film them, we could have a sitcom because some of them are hilarious. And one of my favorite, which I’m going to share, because I don’t want anyone on this call doing some of this is hilarious. I said to someone, what do you take, if you’re invited into someone’s home there? You’ve never met them before. And you made a cold call for an example. And they invited you in? What do you take with you? And here’s some of the answers I’ve gotten. One said, I take flowers. So flowers Interesting, okay, flowers, someone else said, a bottle of wine. Okay, you take a bottle of wine. Someone else said candy. Someone else said a pitch packet. So I get them all. And then I get to come up on stage. And I say, Let’s roleplay this. So you’ve never met this person. You knock on the door, you ring the bell, they open it, and you say, here’s some flowers, or here’s a bottle of wine. It’s like it. It’s It’s awkward. They don’t awkward. Why are you bringing them these? They don’t know you? You know, it’s it’s just now personally, this may be shocking, but I do not give closing gifts. Never. I feel that’s awkward. I do not. I feel like I just sold an apartment. And you know, you can get a good size check. And I’m going to give them a bowl, or a keychain awkward. Like I don’t do it. I know a lot of people do and good luck. And I think it’s fantastic. Keep doing it. I’m not suggesting that you don’t. But for me, it doesn’t feel right. However, they get stuff from me for 10 years in a row like we’ve closed on the apartment. And I am known for sending handmade cards and unique gifts. But I don’t go to Tiffany’s and buy 200 Anything. I think if I sold your house and your pianists in fact, this happened, a woman was a pianist and I found a vintage scarf with piano keys on it. And I bought it and wrote a note and sent it to her. So you have to really another one’s a golfer and I found a bronze little golf statue and it’s on his fireplace. So I’m thoughtful in stay once I sell you something you don’t get rid of me. So you will hear from me consistently throughout the years.

D.J. Paris 58:01
I’m curious, how do you stay in touch with with clients in between transactions so that they don’t forget about how wonderful you are?

Vickey Barron 58:12
I that’s probably my it’s what I do like the like Halloween was just here. So I went through my list. And I’m like, All right, let me look who has kids between the age of two and 12. And this year, I had custom cookies made and mailed them to the kids. And all I write on the card by the way is boo, there’s no compass, like call me for, you know, if you

D.J. Paris 58:43
best compliment is your referrals.

Vickey Barron 58:47
None of that ever, ever, ever. So another year on Halloween, I had custom little pumpkins may with the child’s name embroidered on it so they could put the candy in it. And then I get photos of their kids with the cookies or the basket. And you know, it’s it just I I find small businesses and I like to smart support small businesses. There’s a peanut butter company that has and I had custom boxes made and put the peanut butter in there. And I said the markets nuts spread the love and a little handwritten note, but never like call me for free market analysis. By the way, I think I want to start charging for market analysis.

D.J. Paris 59:27
Don’t you think that’d be interesting.

Vickey Barron 59:29
I like that. Like everyone’s like here call me for a free market analysis. I might send a mail around say for $1,000. I’ll tell you what your apartments were. When That’d be funny. I wonder if it’s legal?

D.J. Paris 59:42
I don’t know. It’s an interesting idea. I know that people don’t value free things like they do things they pay for I mean that’s but I picked up on something that I’m sure audience picked up on is you said and this is such a great a great, small thing that I want to make sure it doesn’t get overlooked by our audience, you said, I think, you know, our Halloween came was coming up. So I went through my CRM or my database. And I wanted to find out who has children that are between the ages of two and 12. I wonder what percentage of agents even have that information? And I’ll bet you it’s under 2% of the of the realtors out there have that information on their clients. And that is important critical information to be able to think of a reason to stay in touch, right? If you’re just going, Wow, they sold their home four years ago, maybe they’re in the market to maybe I should reach out and see what their plans are. Okay, fine. But what are you going to do year two, year three, where you’re like they’re not moving, you have to have reasons to reach out. And the more opera, the more data you have, the more information you have, allows you to think be fun and creative and go, Oh, it’s back to school time. Maybe I’ll put some a little, you know, kids who are entering, you know, grade school, I know that. So maybe I’ll be able to, you know, put a little care package or whatever it could be anything. Knowing knowing what holidays people celebrate, right? If you’re going to be doing things for the December holidays, there’s several of them. You know, and of course, in New York City, there’s so many different cultures melding together, you can’t just blanket send out a Hanukkah card or a Christmas card. I mean, you need to know these things.

Vickey Barron 1:01:19
Okay, you just struck something. So here, there are two categories, you’re absolutely 100% Correct. If just like you need to really study that, that building, like if you’re at a cocktail party, and they bring it that address, you should say built 1927 46 units, majority, two bedroom, blah, blah, blah, when you have your buyers, I learned this when I took a acting class years ago, the the teacher asked me a question. They said, you know, the character, was she a vegan? Like, and I’m thinking myself going through the plate and talk about that. And he said, You need to know everything about that person, you need to know where they shop at Kmart or where they shop at Bergdorf? Would they ride a bike? Or would they get? Would they get a private car? Would they go hiking? Would they go to the theater? You need to and that’s what I do with my clients. So if I meet a client, I think to myself, I’m, I’m asking questions and learning who they are. And what’s important to them. I watch if they drink coffee or tea if they don’t you go out? No, no, they only drink tea. You don’t send them coffee. If they have pets, write the pet’s names down. I one year, I had custom things done with the painting of their animal on it and in the name and sent that out. So whatever it is, like you, you listen, you know, I had one client that was allergic to nuts, well, don’t send them the peanut butter. Right? So you’re

D.J. Paris 1:02:51
sending them, send them an epi pen, but send them a peanut butter on top of

Vickey Barron 1:02:56
medicine. So anyway, it is important to even here’s another thing, my cards, I have different cards. They’re like there’s let’s say a war. Warhol, you’re not, that’s not I may not send that to a certain group, I may send a foil stamp beautiful, elegant stationery to one and a really artsy to another, they don’t get the same thing. My clients do not get the same stuff. Because they’re different people.

D.J. Paris 1:03:30
Because you know enough about them to be able to compartmentalize them into or individual individualize them, I guess it’s better the better way to say it to say, Okay, this person’s into this and everybody. Everybody wants to feel special. Everyone wants to feel like a celebrated individual. And it sounds like that’s, that’s part of part of how you operate your business. Boy, you’ve said so much. I just have one final question. I was going to ask you about 2023. But I actually, I don’t want to do that because I want to I have a different question I wanted to ask, which is what mistake What’s the biggest mistake you made in your career? Not necessarily the biggest, you know, maybe you lost a listing or I’m not talking about that, but what what, what’s something that if you could go back to your earlier self as they, as you started in real estate, what’s advice that you would have given yourself that maybe you didn’t know back then

Vickey Barron 1:04:22
I allowed my business to drive me instead of me driving my business. And what I mean by that is I got I mentioned to you the volume early on with the fizz bows. And I didn’t stop to really plan and pivot earlier on I could have gotten to a certain point earlier on. If I had taken the time to methodically think about where I wanted to be. Instead I was kind of buried in weeds in the in the trenches. And I just kept plugging along plugging along without stopping to make adjustments. So

D.J. Paris 1:05:11
working working in the business versus working on the business kind of scenario, right?

Vickey Barron 1:05:15
Correct. That’s what I’d say. If I had to do over again, I would have done. I could have, I could have done that better.

D.J. Paris 1:05:27
And I think it’s a really what’s a wonderful answer for the time of year we’re at. Because I think this is a time when often sort of activity slows down transactions slow down holidays are here, they’re taking a lot of our attention. And it’s a good time to reflect, I think, on sort of where we want to go for 2023 and beyond. But just to sort of, I think that’s a great point, for anyone out there that’s immersed in their business, make sure that you carve some time out every so often to really reflect on because you are running your own business.

Vickey Barron 1:06:00
Right? And here, can I give a couple other tips, please, you’re running your own business. So one invest in the business, I find agents don’t want to spend money investing in their business, that’s crazy. What kind of business doesn’t like put money in capital up? Number two, everyone on this call, especially with 2023 Coming, save money, save, save, save your money, because what happens is when the market gets tough, the agents that were able to prepare and have a nest egg, have less pressure when those deals fall apart. And buyers walk. They don’t freak out. You know, so many agents, I always say like you see them and sellers and buyers, they need a grounded person, they don’t need someone on the edge that’s worried about paying their rent or their mortgage, and they can’t make they’re so focused on the commission, that it kills deals and you will lose the trust if if you’re not prepared. And you should never be thinking about the commission check. In fact, I t’s agents. That is probably you can see it. It’s almost like their commission check is on the forehead. And all they care about is money, stop caring about the money and care about the assignment. Just you know, I see the end before the beginning. So when I’m working on something, I keep my eye on the end result. And I’m I visualize a lot. And the other tip I’ll give an agent is decide where you want to go visualize what you where you’re going to be, and then work backwards. How are you going to get there? So for an example, one day, I woke up and said, I want to be a townhouse specialist why and sold any townhouses. But I walked in the office, I said, we’re going to be townhouse specialists. Okay, how are we gonna do that? Well, let’s just do something different and be creative with it. So I ended up doing little books that told stories about the townhouse. And it caught on and within a period of time, I was getting some listings and townhouses. And then but I again dove in and studied and became kind of a specialist in that pocket. So you have to put the time in.

D.J. Paris 1:08:22
Yeah, and I think that’s a really, really great point, we’re talking about sort of proactive thought about where you want to be, irrespective of where you are today, right? Because today, we’ll be going back in your history. But today that one day, you weren’t the townhouse specialist. And you said, but I’d like to be so i You didn’t wait for townhouses to come to you, you you figured out a way to actually build that skill set. And, and that’s, it’s, it’s being proactive, and we live in such a reactive world now where our phones are demanding our attention every few seconds with notifications, and our clients are demanding it every, every so often with texts and emails. And it’s easy to not be as proactive and to be really good at being reactive. And that’s good, too. But then to be able to step back and say, Who do I want to be? Where do I want to be? How many people do I want to help? What kind of people do I want to help? And then you know, we’re like you were saying working backwards? Boy, I could Vicki I could talk to you all day. And I wish I could be and I know that you are busier than me. So I am going to let you get on with all of your busyness because and by the way, this is how this again, speaks out. I’ll book end of this with with another thing about Vicki’s character. If you go to her compass page, you see a list of accomplishments that are really it’s about a mile long of just incredible feats. She has not mentioned one of the most today because I don’t I suspect not that important to her and also just not who she is and I just I really risk back that I have, I have interviewed people on the show who do have some pretty impressive credits as well who love for other people to know about those credits. And I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with that either. But I really love the fact that you have this, you have a tremendous track record. And that you don’t feel the need to share that which is again, probably goes to your success, as well. So anyway, Vicki, on behalf of our audience, we want to thank you for being on our show, you gave so many unbelievable tips and advice I, I was almost thinking during and I’m like, boy, if I could, if I could have Vicki on like once a month giving these tips, that would be amazing. But regardless, even in this episode, you provided so much value. So on behalf of the audience, we say thank you. And also on behalf of Vicki and myself, we want to thank all the listeners. And our viewers this is, you know, we are so grateful that you made it to the end of the show. We’re hope that this was helpful. I know that it was but let Vicki know, you know what’s Vicki, if anyone out there wants to share their appreciation, what’s the best way that another agent might be able to say thanks,

Vickey Barron 1:11:05
probably email me at v [email protected].

D.J. Paris 1:11:10
We’ll put that in the show notes too. So if you want to say hi to Vicki and say thanks. And I really encourage people to do that. Because she she spoke from the heart today. She is an incredible again, I didn’t really read her credits, which are unbelievable. If I were to read them, you you would be paying attention to every single word she says because she is a very, very important person in the New York industry for real estate. So Vicki, thank you. And we will oh one last thing, we ask all of our listeners and viewers just to do one thing, which will help us continue to grow because we don’t spend money, too much on marketing. Pretty much no marketing money. But the best way you can help tell us help us rather is by telling a friend. So think of one other realtor that could benefit from hearing this unbelievably candid and authentic interview with Vicki and somebody that just needs to hear a couple tips that might turn their business around, or get them to the next level 2023 It’s going to be a difficult time for all of us. So let’s, let’s share Let’s share the good here and send this over to Vicki. The best way you could do that is just gonna have sent him over to our website, keeping it real pod.com Every one of our episodes can be streamed right from the website. They don’t even have to be a podcast person. Or of course, they can always subscribe to the podcast, but tell a friend that would really they would be one good deed of the day. And it would really make make me happy because then we can reach more people. So thank you in advance for that. Vicki. Thanks for being on the show. And we will see everybody on the next episode.

Vickey Barron 1:12:37
Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for all the time I appreciate it. Bye bye

Welcome to our monthly feature, Close-ing Time – in partnership with TheClose.com.

Chris Linsell from TheClose.com offers an overview of the real estate market over the last years. Chris discusses where agents should shift their attention now that the market has slowed down. Chris gives tips on how should agents talks to their clients about the equity of their home. Last, Chris emphasizes the importance of transforming the transactional relationship with your clients into a recurring value relationship.

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

Chris Linsell can be reached at [email protected].

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

D.J. Paris 0:00
Where should you be focused in 2023 to keep your business thriving? 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

Welcome to 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 today is our monthly series called closing time with Chris Lin sell from the closed.com No, this is a partnership between keeping it real in the clothes and let me tell you more about the clothes. Now the clothes.com is the kind of real estate website designed to give agents teams and brokerages actionable strategic insight from industry professionals they cover real estate marketing, lead generation technology and team building strategies from the perspective of working agents and brokers who want to take their business to the next level. Please visit the closed.com That’s th e c l o s e just like it sounds.com And subscribe to their newsletters get notified every time they publish an article with us as always is Chris Lynn sell senior staff writer and real estate coach for the close. And Chris is the closest resident expert on real estate topics ranging from marketing lead gen transactional best practices and everything in between. He’s also a licensed agent in the state of Michigan. And he’s been part of hundreds of transactions from modest rural starter homes to massive waterside compounds. And when he isn’t writing, you’ll find Chris fly fishing or performing on the stage of his community theaters production. Chris Welcome once again to keeping it real, we’re excited to have you

Chris Linsell 2:48
here. Thanks for having me back. Always a pleasure looking forward to digging into it today.

D.J. Paris 2:53
Always a pleasure to so I wanted to start with with something that I get a zillo report every, every every month as a consumer, just because I’m always interested in what Zillow sends to the public. That is my address. And they tell me you know what they believe my home to be worth. And you know, it’s a pretty depressing number. I saw it today, it’s actually gone down in the last 30 days, quite substantially. However, I am not in the market of selling. But I was thinking about sellers, because I also have a very low interest rate. So I’m at around a 3% rate. And so if I were to sell right now, which again, I’m not looking to do, I would be, you know, I would feel it, at least at first glance that I’m getting a pretty bad deal because my home is, you know, worth less than what I paid for it. And I’m still net equity positive, but not by a whole lot. And then also I would be giving up that 3% rate to you know, most likely a six plus percent rate in the new home that I were to purchase. So I was just thinking, this has got to be on the minds of a lot of homeowners right now who probably would like to buy, but maybe are seeing those rates and maybe seeing their value of their home, you know, go down in the last couple years as those rates have gone up. So just kind of curious to get your thoughts on the psychology of, of the consumer or the homeowner, and what realtors can do in 2023 to sort of adjust for that.

Chris Linsell 4:23
Yeah, it’s a great question. Because we are reaching an interesting kind of Crossroads as far as the overall consumer mindset and set of experiences that are driving their behavior. Right. I think it’s fair to say there have been I would say three, three recent relatively recent, honestly relatively recent sets of kind of eras for buyers and sellers of real estate in the United States, right we had the pre COVID era when we have Add a relatively short inventory, relative to demand, but they weren’t writing stories in the Washington Post about inventory. Then COVID came, and everybody kind of freaked out. And we needed to kind of get our heads around what that meant. In the real estate effects that happened were, you know, a lot of folks decided they were going to move from cities out into more suburban or rural areas, we saw a very high demand for housing turnover, especially for single family homes. And we also had an economy that warranted the need of kind of some kickstart programs, to give us a chance to make sure that we we could continue to function economically as a country, whether or not those were necessary or viable solutions, I’m gonna leave that up to somebody else to debate. But one of the kind of downstream results of that were extraordinarily low interest rates, as you mentioned before, for purchasers of real estate in the COVID, or the very, you know, like the current COVID, or the very post COVID. Time. So then that leads us to where we are now, interest rates, high inventory, still a bit of a challenge, and a lot of places still competitive markets in a lot of places, and real estate professionals looking to be planning their strategies for 2023. And a lot of questions are being asked about how do we reach sellers? We’ve got sellers who are unlikely to want to sell their home, because where are they going to go? They don’t have got a lot of great inventory options. They don’t have a lot of great interest rate options. What’s the benefit to sell? And I want to put forward a couple of different ideas here. The first is you talked about what’s the psychology and the mindset of sellers, I want to start by setting the tone in that we have to remember, the psychology and mindset of sellers is not a single point of light, it is a significant gradation of various perspectives and viewpoints. We have to remember that, yes, a lot of real estate was purchased in the COVID. And immediately post COVID, if you can call it that era at low interest rates. But that does not make up the majority of homeownership right now, by any stretch of the imagination. We have a good chunk of folks who owned their home long before COVID was even a thing have an incredible amount of equity in their home right now. That is likely unrealized, we have a good chunk of folks who didn’t refinance, who are sitting on even a post refinance are still sitting on a good chunk of equity. And where we find ourselves as real estate professionals is a place we haven’t found ourselves in a long time, which is the number one priority for a lot of real estate professionals when it comes to listings and sellers and their psychology and mindset is one of education, not of immediate opportunity. We are not answering calls from people saying, Hey, I heard it’s great time to sell my house, what options do I have? Real estate professionals should consider those calls to be on hold for quite a while, maybe a year, maybe two years, frankly, we are needing to now shift our strategies to education and awareness. Because a lot of owners right now, either don’t know their options, or think they know their options when they don’t really which is frankly worse. So to answer your, your mindset question, my initial response is most mindsets right now are either unaware or ignorant. And these are places where yes, it makes things challenging. But for real estate professionals who can shift their strategies, that’s a huge opportunity to

D.J. Paris 9:16
it’s such it’s such an interesting play this equity question, I think this is something that isn’t typically although I’m just thinking of myself, and I might not be representative of the John Q Public, because I’m in the real estate business. So I probably look, I’m probably not the right sort of viewpoint here. But this idea of thinking about equity, I just don’t think most homeowners are think about their equity unless they’re in the process of selling right? I think it’s they look at the appreciation. They look at the the amount they cut to the mortgage bank, the lender every month, they probably know their interest rate or there abouts. So I think those are kind of the Three key metrics is what’s my home worth? What am I paying every month? What’s my, what’s my actual rates? I don’t know, and what my home’s even worth, I think is oftentimes not really thought about all that much. But I think this idea of equity would be a real. So I think that’s a really interesting ideas like maybe being maybe thinking about from an agent perspective, what would what do you think about an agent doing an evaluation? Not just what’s your home worth? Because of course, we can do automate those through CMAs. And there’s a million tools to do that. But what if an agent in 2023 said, Hey, I know you might not be thinking of selling right now. But you did buy like seven years ago, and you’ve probably refinanced. I’m sure you have a really low right now. But let’s take a look at the equity and see if that would actually influence your decision in being able to move maybe that even trumps the interest rate that’s currently out there, because we can look at equity, we can look at, you know, pricing now has come down. So I’m just curious what you think of having that conversation with a homeowner? I don’t think anyone really has those conversations. Outside of real estate, like I don’t even think a financial adviser necessarily would say let’s talk about the equity in your home. Because I think typically, financial advisors don’t look at that as asset until you actually cash it out. Well, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 11:25
Oh, go ahead. I’m sorry. No, no,

D.J. Paris 11:27
that was my point was I think this is kind of an interesting opportunity for agents who really want to separate themselves is almost doing like a financial review of the home as opposed to just do you sell? Do you want a bigger place? Do

Chris Linsell 11:40
you? I don’t know. Yeah. 100%. In fact, I this is actually it’s funny, you mentioned this, because this was one of the topics I talked about. Last couple of weeks ago, a couple of weeks via when we’re recording this. I was a presenter at the triple play conference in Atlantic City for New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania realtors. And one of the things I chatted about in one of my sessions there was I challenged folks a challenge real estate professionals who attended there to answer the following question. When you are representing a buyer in the purchase of real estate, when you finish at the closing table, and the last signature is at the bottom of the final page, your clients, do they automatically magically, somehow supernaturally get endowed with the expertise and knowledge necessary to understand not just what they’ve purchased, but the value of their home as an investment? The answer, of course, is no signing, closing paperwork does not give you the insight to understand the value of your investment. And I keep saying investment, even if you’re just buying a single family home, to live in and to raise your kids in. You and I were talking earlier, before we started recording this real estate is one of those unique purchases, that as an investment, it doesn’t matter whether you’re buying this as income producing or not. When you purchase real estate, you’re making an investment and it can turn out good or it could turn out bad, you get to be in control of that. And your control is significantly more fine tuned when you’re aware of the ins and outs of your investment. So when I challenged folks, what I challenged folks to do at triple play was to remember, when somebody buys a home, they do not automatically become a real estate expert, and an expert in terms of their home’s value in the market, their home’s value in terms of the equity that they’ve collected, and their home’s value in terms of how competitive it could be for other home options. And so I challenged Realtors there to set a schedule to become their buyers, pro bono, real estate financial advisor, every year, set a meeting where you offer to say, Hey, I’d love to do an analysis of your investment. Let’s find out how much it’s worth. Let’s find out how much equity you have in it. Let’s find out how competitive your rates are. I don’t need to charge you for this. I don’t want to charge you for this. I only want to arm you with the information you need to make good decisions about your home. Those folks are going to not just become your client. They’re going to become your client for life by offering those services and for all those real estate professionals who are listening to this and say, Well, I don’t have this big buyer client pool to draw from. You have an unlimited set of people to draw from because there are millions 10s of millions of homeowners in this country. Whose selling agent, they are no longer in contract with, who need and deserve this information and who you could start offering it to, and by de facto become their agent. So start reaching out to folks who offer this financial analysis offer completely free. So I just want to arm you with the information that you need to make a good decision about your home, these folks are going to become your clients by virtue of offering the service and when it is time to sell and when you can demonstrate that they have a strategic advantage they’re gonna sell with you because you are the one that clearly is demonstrating that you know, the market.

D.J. Paris 15:42
Yeah, this is a consultant perspective. And I like the idea of not mentioning when you when you’re reaching out to to owners, and again, they don’t have to be past clients, they can be really anyone who owns a property. And this idea of not saying hey, I want to run a CMA, I want to run comps for you, which again, there are lots of homeowners that understand that term, or I’ve heard that term before. But the term they probably haven’t heard is I want to evaluate your investment. And this idea of it being now they hear that from their financial advisors, if they have one once a year, usually, they’ll say hey, we need to read your look at the investments, see how they did it stacked up against the the indexes or your overall you know, financial goals, and let’s make sure we’re on track to retire or whatever the you know, send the kids to college or whatever it might be. This is a very interesting alternative way to really do a CMA, but not just the CMA. So you’re saying, you know, yeah, they can get a CMA from anybody. comps are pretty easy. You can even just get them online without talking to a realtor. But this is more of a what a financial adviser would do. They’d sit down and say, let’s let’s go over all the numbers, not about all their other investments, like a financial advisor would do, but about just their home and thinking of it like an investment. Because while you were doing that, while you were talking, I was thinking what I did when I was ready to buy the property that I have now, I was very nervous, because it’s obviously it was sizable purchase. Anyone who buys a home understands the nervousness there. And everyone listening knows what it’s like for their clients. And I called a bunch of top Realtors in my area, about five of them just to go, am I making a mistake here? Because I was nervous, and I wanted to get their advice. And I reached out to people that I knew and said, Is this a good idea? Because it was new construction, I was a little nervous. Is this overpriced? And I got really good advice that way. And so I did a version of that by talking to other realtors. Most people aren’t going to do that. But I guess the point was, I wanted somebody to tell me, it’s a good time to buy. Yes, I give it my stamp of approval. And I don’t know that I would always. Yeah, I think that that’s something that a lot of people want to know, is totally agree. And I don’t know that they always trust the realtor to give them that information. I think realtors are often seen as salespeople, and salespeople are trying to sell. And so whether or not the real estate agent has the best interest of the client in mind, I think there there does have to be a little bit of change work around the language that’s used when you call like, I want to talk about your home as an investment. And I want to talk about where that investment sits right now. So that you can think about the future and think about if there’s any plans that will change as a result of you really understanding where things are. I just think that’s a powerful reframe. And a really, really like unique approach.

Chris Linsell 18:36
Well, you know, the interesting thing too, is that the reef or the the other kind of extension of this reframing the conversation gets into the way that our clients define their relationship with us. So if I asked you, you know, if I asked you, if I’d say I was new to Chicago, and I said, DJ, I’d really need some suggestions. I need a good doctor. I need a dentist, I need an accountant. I need a chiropractor. The people that you would refer to me or refer me to, you would say oh, yeah, you should definitely check out my chiropractor is down on the down on the street. Oh, you need an accountant. My accountant. I’ve been working with him for years. Great guy you you’d love this guy. Oh, you need a doctor. The doctor I’ve been going to she’s great. You know, a bunch of my family we all see her. You just those those referrals totally natural language. Every single one of them was a you got to see my doctor, my chiropractor, my dentist or a car accountant or whatever. But when it comes to real estate professionals, when you say Oh, I’m looking to move to Chicago, I need a good real estate professional. You would probably that I mean I think the default for most folks is I know a realtor. Yeah. Or I know a bunch of Realtors Yeah, I’ve, you know, I’ve worked with three different realtors in town, I can give you all of their names if you want. But I know our realtor in town, or I know a ton of Realtors, or there are a ton of Realtors, we don’t have this, my professional relationships in the real estate space. But that comes from the fact that you see your chiropractor on a regular basis, you see your accountant on a regular basis, you see your doctor, we see our real estate professional once in a blue moon. Because our relationship is completely transaction oriented with those people it’s not Care and Keeping oriented. What you can adjust in 2023, not to make our chiropractor pun here. But what you can adjust in 2023 is the way that you pursue that relationship with folks to say, Listen, I want to be your realtor, or your your broker your agent. So here’s how we can do this. And, you know, you can start by fostering these relationships with people you already are connected to. But that doesn’t have to be the case. This is, you know, you start further back, you know, closer to zero if you’re going, you know it trying to prospect with people who you don’t have a current relationship with. But imagine just for a second, this value, let’s say you say hey, you know, I’d love to help you understand the value of your home help you understand when it’s a great time to buy and sell. Somebody says yeah, sure, that’d be great. You can pull somebody, anybody you can, you can request from your bank, a mortgage statement, these are on demand, if you have an online portal, you can get it instantly, it will tell you all the details, how much your loan was for, what your current balance is, what your equity is, and what your rate is. Now, as a savvy real estate professional, I can also tell you, banks don’t typically do home equity loans, if you have less than 20% equity. But if you have more than 20% equity, a bank will often lend you money against your equity. So if you sit down with me and you say, okay, through our analysis, I can see that you, you have $200,000 left on your mortgage, you have about $150,000 in equity on this property. So you could qualify for a refinance, you could pull some of this equity out and do a project in the house, you want a brand new kitchen, this would pay for it, you could sell right now, if you sold right now, even after fees, you’d still be walking away with somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 $115,000 in your pocket. What could we do with that people aren’t gonna look at you providing this value and options as all the evidence that they need, that you have their best interest at heart and not yours, it is no longer a transactional relationship. It is a nurturing, recurring value relationship, just like those other professionals that I named earlier, this is really a chance to set the tone for how you want to operate your business and 2023. I know a lot of realtors are nervous about this, frankly, this is an opportunity. This is the time to put your foot on the gas, not get back on your heels, it’s time to get on your toes.

D.J. Paris 23:23
Yeah, and I think I think your boy, you just said so many things that I couldn’t agree more with, I think this is the opportunity to develop that annual, you know, touch that’s not just a Hey, it’s your birthday, it’s the holidays. Thanks for you know, this is your home anniversary card for when you bought or sold. All those things good, too. But this idea of actually providing real value once a year. And the real value that I think the average homeowner is thinking about is or the the average the question that they’re thinking about is should I buy or sell right now? Should I move? Right? Should I move right now, I think is usually the main question. And, you know, there’s obviously pressures that, you know, job changes, and there’s reasons that people move that have nothing to do with an annual review from a from a realtor, but boy, I would love a service like that. I would pay for a service like that. I pay up 100 or 200 bucks a year for somebody to come in and say okay, I looked at every I mean, I pay a financial advisor, I pay an accountant, I pay, you know, I would actually pay. So this is something that you can do that’s very valuable, that I think people would pay for I don’t know that you should charge people for it. And maybe in some states, you probably could charge but regardless, I think it’s it’s your right, this is the value add that is going to ensure that two things, one that they’re going to work with you in the future, but to and this goes back to your Hey, you got to talk to my hairstylist or my accountant, this this is going to get people talking, I think and I think you could even tell them that when you’re when you’re doing these reviews to say hey You know, this is something I do, and it’s just my way of providing service. But if you have other friends that are thinking, Should I buy? Should I? So is it a good time rates are up low inventories. Now, I would love to do the same analysis for them. And you could, you know, I think this could be a huge marketing strategy for people,

Chris Linsell 25:17
Big time, big time. And you know, let’s like call a spade a spade here, too. This is advantageous to real estate professionals, not just in the fact that you have the opportunity to create a more stable repeat business, which is certainly a huge upside. But let’s also not discount the fact that if you can get the sort of relationship locked in, you then have a platform to give the sort of advice that includes things like, hey, you know how, like, there are 12, there’s 12 months in the year. But if you decided that you’re going to make one extra payment a month, you can cut down on your interest costs over the course of you know, X number of years, and increase your equity by X percentage over X number of years. This is really great for you. This sounds like good advice. It is good advice to homeowners. But the other thing it does is you are setting yourself up to have distant and near future clients who are more qualified, who have higher budgets, who are more educated about real estate and the process. I mean, imagine the difference between a listing where your seller, not only did they know the real market value of their home before the listing appointment, because you’ve already educated them on this. But they also are realistic about what the next steps entail, your workload goes from 100 to five in that instant. Now, granted, you’re doing that work on the front end, but you’re establishing it’s kind of it has a slow drip of education and awareness in a way that other professionals have to kind of mainline all at once on the front end, sellers feel overwhelmed, they’re often miss the details that are necessary to take those shortcuts. I mean, this is a selfish strategy to you’re going to develop regular, a book of business from this strategy, but you’re also going to develop more qualified better informed and frankly, clients with bigger budgets as a result, which is going to affect positively our bottom lines as well.

D.J. Paris 27:37
I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episodes sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast. Do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests. Of course, it is a follow up boss. And let’s face it, following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort. Do not take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 systems, so you can keep your current tools and lead sources. Also, the best part they have seven day a week support. So you’ll get the help that you need when you need it and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time, they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial, which is twice as much time as they give everyone else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free. But only if you use this special link visit follow up boss.com forward slash real that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. Yeah, it’s really it’s really interesting. It’s funny, I’ve done 430 Whatever episodes of this podcast where I’ve interviewed a lot of the very top producers in the country. And I don’t know that anyone’s ever shared with me this idea of doing an annual people have talked about doing an annual review, but they haven’t really gotten as granular about it as what you’ve mentioned. And so if we were just to recap the steps. So the idea is you would call people that are either past clients, or you could say hey, I’m trying I’m you could even tell people that weren’t your past client. And maybe you could even test it with people who might never use you. But people who you could sort of try this approach with and say, Hey, I’m, I really want to bring more value to my clients the next in this upcoming year. And I have found that my clients are constantly wondering what’s going on in the market. Is it a good time for me to move should I sell should I buy and you know, oftentimes, they are not totally sure how to make sense of that answer. And so I want to come in and just kind of evaluate what What, you know, your current position, your current home, your investment, how it’s doing, how it’s doing relative to other homes in the area. And if you were thinking about moving, you know, here’s, here’s kind of what you might be looking at. So we can we’re gonna take a look at the full financial picture of that, and give you a give you a recommendation. I think I gosh, I think that’s I mean, you know, look, if I’ve ever been to an attorney, the end of the day, I’m like, What’s the recommend? Should I do this or not, you know, or an accountant should I declare this or not, like, I just want people’s advice. And I think the, the realtors really should move away as far as they can from being labeled a salesperson, as to a service professional, or consultants. I know consultants, you have to check with your state licensing to make sure that you can call yourself other things, you definitely don’t want to call yourself something that you’re not supposed to. But this idea of acting as if you are a consultant, whether or not you use that word, acting as if you would hire somebody to come in and say, How do I fix my business? And they go, Well, I just looked at everything, here’s what you need to do?

Chris Linsell 31:07
Well, you know, I’m gonna give you the one, this is the kind of a dollop of Chris secret sauce to get this conversation started with people who you don’t know you’re like cold approaching on this. Here’s the line. And I guarantee it works, because I’ve used it many times. So if you’re listening to this, and I’ve used this on you, sorry. But here it is. When you are cold approaching somebody and you say, I was just doing a CMA for a neighbor of yours, and I used your property as a marker for value for the neighborhood. I wanted to reach out to let you to let you know that I was just looking at values there, I have a very good understanding of what your home is worth. And would love to know if you’re interested in this overall financial picture. No obligation, no cost. I’ve already got the work done. These are all the key phrases. That’s a great one. I’ve already got the work done allows people to say yes without feeling like they’re inconveniencing you or putting themselves in your debt. That’s a reason a lot of people say no to free things, because they’re like, oh, then I’m going to owe this person something, say I’ve already got the work done, then they have are free to say yes, without the feeling of true or implied obligation. Say I was doing a CMA for a neighbor of yours. This shows that you are active that you have experience that other people trust you. These are true. key phrases that are going to activate those parts in our brain were like, okay, there is real value that I’m recognizing here. I’m not being sold a gimmick. I’ve got somebody who’s providing real value in places that I trust in ways that I don’t feel obligated, I can say yes to this, you’re gonna get in the doors, if you use these lines, I promise.

D.J. Paris 32:57
Yeah, you can you can even say something like, I know, this seems like a sales tactic. But the reality of it is actually did this for your for your neighbor. And I just already have the data done. So I’m happy to share it with you. Yeah, what’s in it for me is maybe down the road, maybe you would think about me if you ever needed to find a professional but But what I wanted to share with you is actually just something I did for your neighbor anyway, you probably wouldn’t even have to say it that way. But the point is, is you could you could explain it and and be totally forthright about it and still likely get very little resistance. So this is a great, great place to wrap up. So I really want want everyone to think about 2023. And I know there’s a lot of nervous energy in the agent world. I know our agents are scared. I know, broker owners are have some fear about 2023. And what we’re trying to find is opportunities that can keep you focused, and active, and this idea of doing annual reviews, and not just what’s your home worth and what’s you know, what are the home’s near your worth, but actually looking at equity, looking at rates, looking at reef refi, looking at all of all of the things that people don’t usually look at, in one overarching sort of view, right? They look at little things like the rates that and my home is worth this over here. And it’s not really a cohesive picture. And you could provide that picture to them. And you could even if you really wanted to get granular just want to hear their ideas, you could talk to their financial advisor to you could say hey, if you have and by the way, that’s another great person to network with because of course those opportunities are pretty obvious. But you could even say hey, I want to run this by your financial advisor and just make sure I get their sign off on it which then if they liked their financial advisor and maybe you’re not their current realtor, provide some social proof where they might consider using you in the future. So you can even go that further step of saying, hey, I want to talk to your your financial advisor about this if you’re not, you know, so anyway, but Chris, um let’s talk about the clothes in the last minute and then we’ll we’ll let you go. So tell us for anyone that isn’t a current clothes reader. What is the clothes?

Chris Linsell 34:58
The clothes it is The internet’s leading publication for advice, strategy, resources, everything that real estate professionals need to level up their business and create the life through work that they want the clothes.com super easy to find us, th e c l o s e.com. Everything on the close is aimed at creating shortcuts towards the success that real estate professionals deserve. We have everything from lead generation marketing, tech reviews, education, continuing ed, things on certification, certifications and designations, we have things on every we have content on every imaginable sort of marketing strategy, social media content, lead generation platforms, you name it, we’ve got it, I’m in charge of making sure that the close has the best answers to the old questions that we’ve been asking for a long time. What we offer is free, just come to the website, read sign up for our email list, get regular updates for the new content we’re creating. Our goal is to provide the best strategies that real real estate professionals can use to, like I said, create the business that they want. We do offer a paid product called the close Pro, if you do want to level up your close experience. But frankly, that’s a small portion of what we offer on the close, it’s not even something that I really push. Because 99% of the value we offer here is completely free. We just want to help. Our goal here is to live this mantra of you can do it, the clothes can help, we have the tools that you need to be successful. So come on over the clothes.com Follow us on social, you can connect with me and all of the rest of the editorial team on the close. And that’s the last thing I’ll say is that those of us who are creating content at the close, this is not farmed out to generalists or to freelancers, or to people who have never set foot inside a home for sale or operated in open house. Anyone who’s creating content on the close is a bona fide real estate professional with real transactions under their belt. They’re speaking from experience, and that’s experienced that you can learn from.

D.J. Paris 37:15
Yeah, and just as a quick example of an article that I got really excited about they updated the clothes updated their best real estate CRM list in the last week or so for 2023. I don’t know if it’s on the homepage yet. But it is an amazing article, because every realtor I know is like am I using the right CRM. And by the way, they have another article about the best free CRM. So if you’re new to the business and don’t want to spend money, they have that article. But they also have best paid CRMs. And they’re not in bed with these companies, right? They may earn affiliate deals if you end up signing up, but their whole thing is is legitimate journalist journalistic integrity and the reviews are amazing. And they’re about the only place I trust for reviews. So, you know, in a way, I mean, I’m sure there’s other reputable, you know, real estate tech review services, or websites, I just haven’t found them, the close is the place I go, because I know I’m gonna get a deep dive into products and services that I as an agent want to or may want to consider. So guys go in there. Really, it’s stuff. It’s amazing. These are long form articles. They’re really well written. And Chris is at the helm and making sure the content is is top notch. And it is. So go to the clothes.com definitely get on their mailing list. And you know, check out the clothes pros. Well, if you want that extra 1% of just really really amazing information that’s behind their paywall. It’s like, what $1 A day maybe total. It’s ridiculously inexpensive if you want to subscribe, but you don’t ever have to you can just read their content for free as well. All right, Chris, thank you. I know we went over time, so we will let you go get on with your busy day. But on behalf of all of our listeners, we want to thank Chris give them a shout out Chris What if they want to chat with you on Twitter now that Twitter has made a resurgence? I know you’re a Twitter guy. What’s the best way they should reach on Twitter? You can argue with Chris on Twitter,

Chris Linsell 39:05
you can definitely argue with me. You would not be the first nor the last to troll me on Twitter. Uncle Elon has not shut down my account yet. So if you want to follow me on Twitter, you can find it and find me at Lynn cell Chris. Maybe we can tag that in the show notes. I’ll put it in the show notes. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Atlin cell Chris. I’m also pretty active on LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn, just add my name Chris Lynn Zell, Senior Content Strategist and real estate writer at the close. Yeah, come connect with me on social media. I love interacting with folks. I love answering questions, love providing feedback, and always open to criticism. So please feel free to come and tell me how I got things wrong because, you know, that’s only happening about a dozen times a day. And I’d love to add your voice to the chorus or to the chorus of of support. So, you know, just here to help pass along what I know about building real estate businesses where We’re all in this together. Awesome. And then for everyone else listening, please just tell one friend about this episode.

D.J. Paris 40:06
Everybody scared about 2023. Chris just gave a really great strategy for how anyone can stay busy and 2023 Do something the other realtors aren’t doing these annual financial reviews, investment reviews, as Chris called it, and send them a link. This should go to everybody in your office not because I’m so great. I’m not and not even because Chris is so great, although he is. But the just because nobody else is really talking about this. So please send a link. Go to our website, keeping it real pod.com introduce other agents to us. It’s free. Please help us out. We really appreciate it. We’ll keep doing more episodes. All right, Chris. Thank you so much. We’ll see everybody on the next one.

Chris Linsell 40:45
Thanks, DJ. See you soon.

Kelly Parker the founder of Chicago Home Collective goes back to the beginning of her career in real estate. Kelly emphasizes the importance she and her team gives to making the home-buying process enjoyable to their clients. Next, Kelly discusses why she doesn’t set up goals for her business but aims in building a relationship-based business and how that’s helped in growing her business. Kelly also discusses the importance of sharing your WHY with your clients and how that helped her find her niche. Kelly also talks about how come she’s not worried about 2023 and how she plans in navigating it. Last, Kelly discusses the importance of celebrating your achievements.

Please follow Kelly on Instagram here or check Chicago Home Collective’s Instagram account here.

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

Kelly Parker can be reached here.

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

D.J. Paris 0:00
Are you nervous about 2023? Well don’t be because today we’re talking to a top producer, and she’s going to explain exactly how she’s going to stay busy and thriving, so you can to 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 in 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 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 in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top producer Kelly Parker. Before we get to Kelly, just a couple of quick reminders. Number one, please help us continue to grow. By supporting our sponsors. They are the reason that we have such an amazing team. They keep us in business, and we want you to keep them in business. So please check out their products and services and support them because they support us. And the second part is the other way you can help us is by telling a friend I think of one other realtor that needs to hear what you’re about to hear with my conversation with Kelly and send them a link either over to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com or to any podcast app, they just search for keeping it real. And they hit that subscribe button and if you haven’t subscribed yet, please subscribe as well. And if you also want to leave us a review, let us know what you think of the show. We would also greatly appreciate that Okay, let’s get to the main event, my conversation with Kelly Parker. Today on the show we have Kelly Parker with Chicago home collective with compass here in Chicago. Let me tell you more about Kelly Kelly has over 13 years of residential real estate experience and her expert guidance professionalism and passion for mentorship has allowed Kelly to grow Chicago home collective into a top 1% team across the entire country. Now this was a business that was born during the 2009 housing crash and has since transverse transversed many real estate markets serving she served over 500 clients she has generated over 250 million in production, and recently grew into a coaching platform for other female realtors. To learn more about Kelly and her team, please visit Chicago home collective.com also follow her team on Instagram, which is Chicago home collective. And also follow Kelly, personally on Instagram, which is Kelly underscore e underscore Parker, all of those links will be in our show notes so you don’t have to type them in. Kelly, welcome to the show.

Kelly Parker 4:01
Hi, thanks for having me. So nice to be here.

D.J. Paris 4:05
Yeah, I am really grateful that you’ve come on. You’re very, very popular person here in Chicago in the realtor community and we’ve never had you on the show. And I know I see you at events and I am really grateful to finally have you on after all these years. Because you’ve really built an incredible team. I’ve actually had some of your team members on the show before I’ve had Emily on and I really would love to talk to you about what you think is happening right now what’s happening was maybe will happen 2023 What agents can do to get prepared. But let’s go all the way back to the beginning because I always think it’s fun to hear about how you got into real estate so do you mind sharing with our audience you know why real estate and how you got it?

Kelly Parker 4:53
Sure. Absolutely. Yeah, I got in in 2009 the worst time according to some to get into The industry. But truthfully, it was like perfectly timed for me, I got in, because I was watching what was happening, I watched, you know, the housing market come to a screeching halt and essentially crash. And I have always been someone who really, truly like value, the power of home and what it can mean for you and your life. And I just could not understand how people could lose their homes. Like how could you have a foreclosure? How did Why were you having to do a short sale, and I really like it. It really broke my heart to watch this happening for people. And essentially quit the job that I was doing. I was in fashion merchandising, quit that and jumped in full time into real estate in the like spring summer of 2009. And truthfully never looked back since. So it’s it’s been a journey, but that my reason at the time. And it still is the reason today is that I just truly wanted to help people who were experiencing so much so many feelings around something that to me is just so important, which is your home. So

D.J. Paris 6:08
yeah, I think that’s I think that’s very right. Odd with respect to the fact that making a home buying or selling decision is it’s an incredibly big decision for most people. And I mean, even for me, when I bought my second condo, I mean, not a second, I only have one condo, but my second time purchasing a condo, I was surprised at how stressful it was for me. And I’m in the industry. And I have a lot of resources at my disposal. And I had a lot of people to ask to go, did I’m making a horrible mistake, or is this a good investment? And even with all of that, it was still like really, really scary. And I’m curious how, you know, one of the things that I’ve always admired about you is I feel like you and your team are really good at understanding your client’s needs and concerns and stress and anxiety. Do you think that’s Is that an accurate description?

Kelly Parker 7:10
Absolutely. You know, I think one of our like taglines for Chicago home Collective is the journey is just as dares the destination. And it’s because we really believe that your whole experience leading you up to actually closing on your home and moving into your home, you carry that experience with you into your new home. And so to me, it was it’s so important that you enjoy that process that you enjoy the journey of it, and that your home not be marked like one of your initial memories of your home is drama or stress, or, you know, there’s already usually a lot of life stuff already happening around a new home, you know, marriage, children, our new job or a, you know, a breakup, like there’s always something else that tends to accompany a transition to a new home. And so to us, we’ve really made it our personal responsibility that you enjoy that process because you carry that energy, you carry that memory into the new home. And so yeah, I mean, particularly in 2009. And that’s why I’m saying like, that’s why I got in was I just felt like we could do so much more, I can’t change the circumstances, I couldn’t change that people were having to short sale their homes and make these choices. But I could at least help that transition out of a home feel a lot more enjoyable, the best that it could, and then also carried that into educating those who are going to start buying in that market. And, and also enjoying that process. So yeah, I think you nailed it spot on. I mean, that’s really what we stand for in Chicago home Collective is enjoying the journey.

D.J. Paris 8:46
And you have a all female led team. And Is that intentional or in? I’m curious, tell us about your team?

Kelly Parker 8:56
Yeah, oh my gosh, where do I start? They’re the most fabulous humans in I’ve ever known. Like, seriously, they’re such an extension of my own family. Now, it would be wild to not have them, um, I, you know, started Chicago home collective eight years ago. And it wasn’t because I wanted a team. It’s just because I was growing. And I didn’t need support. But I was like, if I’m gonna have support, I’d rather do it in a mentorship form. And so I started mentoring Emily, who you’ve had on the show, and you know, that sort of birth Chicago home collective, I was like, Well, I guess I gotta give this thing a name. And it’s not the Kelly Parker team, because it was never it’s not about me. And this is what we also say at Chicago home Collective is not about us. It’s about our clients. There’s no real hierarchy within this team. We are all collaborating. We are all collectively working towards the same end goal. And so it started with with Emily and then over the years has multiplied and now there’s a total of eight of us. We are it is all female. You know, I think at first, I wouldn’t say it was intentional. I would say this, I don’t recruit people come and ask to speak to me and to join the team. And I, I’m not surprised that it’s women, because a lot of how I speak and what I stand for, I think is, is, you know, specific to females and a little bit different than some of the unusual narrative in the industry. So it’s now we are very proud all female team, and we will definitely be staying an all female team.

D.J. Paris 10:31
I love it. Well, you know, it’s we’re getting so by the time this episode airs will be in December, it’ll be basically the end of the 2022, you know, business season. Where we’re at currently is, you know, a lot of agents are thinking about 2023, trying to figure out what am I going to do differently in 2023? What are, you know, what skills do I want to develop? What goals do I want to set? You know, how many homes might I want to sell? What does my production want to look like? You have a very unique approach to thinking about sort of objectives. And I’d love to sort of dive into that. So how do you think about, you know, you’re a business owner? You have a team? How are you thinking about next year?

Kelly Parker 11:18
Wow, I think, you know, if I were to just speak to like, goal setting, specifically, I will say that I don’t set goals, I don’t have production goals, or financial goals. And I know for some people that makes them crazy. And they’re like, well, then you don’t have a business plan if you don’t have a goal. And I just don’t operate like that. Like, truthfully, I believe that it changes the way you do things, the reason you do things changes the way you do things. So if I am doing things to reach a goal, and that is my focus, I truly believe it changes the way you do things, and often disconnects us from, what our passion is why we’re really doing this. And from there is where we derive a lot of our inspiration and our drive from. And so I think that I don’t have a goal because it it also then starts to feel very transactional. Right? Like, I always use the example of cold calling, right? People are like, Well, if you cold call 10 people and you got two people to answer and then you get one of them as a client. It’s the same sort of thing, feeling of this highly transactional and removes this human to human sort of like co creation, if you will, of the work that we’re doing, I run a very relationship based business, I have I am referral based, it was intentional, it’s how I built my business from the beginning. Because I also believe that whoever controls the leads, you know, controls, the market controls the business, as I’m sure you’ve heard 1000 times and in having that relationship, then this isn’t a transaction. These are not, we cannot just reduce this to transactions and production. And so if I’m only measuring based on a production or financial goal, I missing a lot of the other, you know, opportunities for growth, I’m missing a lot of the other successes that we’re seeing, we were kind of mentioning prior to even I think recording, like success is actually very different and looks very different than just production at times. And so I really feel like the key to a lot of my success is that I didn’t I don’t have these goals. Now I measure at the end, I measure at the end of the year, and I say okay, like, yeah, how much production do we do? Let’s celebrate that because that is valuable, and it tells us something. But I use it as an after the fact measurement and not a you know, carrot that’s sort of like being dangled out in front of you. To kind of Yeah, for for all those reasons that I stated. But

D.J. Paris 14:00
you just you said a lot right there. And I want to just sort of unpack a little bit that because I think this could be really helpful for our audience. And you reminded me of and this is funny because I know nothing about sports. But there was a famous NCAA coach named John Wooden and he was it was the UNLV or UCLA I’m sorry, UCLA. He was the winningest coach in NCAA history. I think he still is I think he won like seven NCAA Tournaments in a row. I think he won like nine out of 13 or something ultimately in his career, but anyway, he’s a big deal. And he never looked at the scoreboard and so you reminded me of him? And he would say and and and reporters and people that studied him and he was literally the winningest coach in NCAA history. And they would say What do you mean you don’t look at the scoreboard How do you not look at the scoreboard? He goes because he said the scoreboard is not really an accurate representation of the performance of my team. He said something times things like luck just falls your way, sometimes luck doesn’t fall your way, the numbers up on the scoreboard may or may not be reflective of like the actual effort that was put in. And he also had said, There’s times when we’ll win a game, because the score, we’ve scored more than the other team. But we actually lost because we didn’t actually play that well. And he’s like, you can walk off the off the court. And even though we technically won, if you didn’t play your best, so and so team member, you’re going to feel crappy about yourself. And as you walk off the field, you’re off the court, you’re going to not feel good, even though you technically won. And vice versa. There’s times when, when you know, you lose technically, but you played your best and you still feel okay about it, I’m sort of getting that vibe from you. It’s sort of like, let’s, let’s just do our best and kind of let the chips fall where they may. And while that may seem a bit risky, or non traditional, you are a top 1%. Producer. So it does actually

Kelly Parker 16:03
it works. It works. Here’s the thing, I do have parameters, and I do have standards. And I think this is what’s important is like I do set out the year thinking how do I want to grow? How do I need to align my actions to where I want to go? What how can I make my process and my experience for my clients? Even better? How can I be more knowledgeable and more experienced? Like I have things that I’m working towards? That I know if they keep those is my focus, right? Then those will result in more clients and more transactions and ultimately, the production. So then at the end of the year, when we’re measuring, you know, what was the production? If we feel like, if I feel like dang, I really I could have maybe gone further, it then tells me, what do I need to learn? What do I need to do to be able to hold $50 million in business, you know, and it starts to inform a whole other set of actions beyond just, you know, the traditional tactics, if you will, of like, how to get clients and how to market yourself. I’m really way more focused on myself and also my team about our personal growth or personal development, raising our standards. And I know as we do that, right, the business comes.

D.J. Paris 17:22
It’s a lot of it’s, it’s, you’re basically taking things on faith, I mean, really, what we’re talking about is this belief that if I do the actions, that I’m pretty confident, or if I continue to develop skills, that I’m pretty confident, are skills that my clients deserve, and need and want. If I can develop those in myself, my business will, I’ll be able to offer more to my age or to mark to my clients, and therefore I’ll attract more clients, because I’ll be able to give more, and I’ll do better, and then they’ll refer more is that essentially the philosophy?

Kelly Parker 17:59
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I if I were to reduce it down to one thing, I would say that it’s personal power, I have a lot of personal power around my success. And what I’m able to create, my success does not is not predicated on the circumstances, it doesn’t matter what’s going on in the market. It doesn’t matter what’s going on with interest rates. It doesn’t it doesn’t matter because I’m focused on myself and investing in myself and honing this skill and this expertise. And as long as I continue to, to prioritize that great the rest the rest follows

D.J. Paris 18:36
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Kelly Parker 21:55
Yeah, cuz it really, it’s reducing everything down to this means to an end, like you said, right? Like, if your top and then bottom, there’s automatically a huge separation, which like you were saying, it forces your brain to be like, well, then what do I need to do to get from here to here? And it that you lose something in that process? And so when people have asked me like, how do you have the success you have? It’s like, I’ve stayed really like connected to not just the like act of doing things like mailing postcards, or sending open houses, but like, what is what is right for me? How do I develop myself and then show up in a way that’s authentic and aligned for me? And in doing so that draws in clients who liked my style, who appreciate what I’m doing? Who, you know, are connected to even my why, like, I share my why why do I do what I do? as sort of like a leading message with my clients? Because people want that connection? You know, and then they’re happy to refer me and the circle just continues. So yeah,

D.J. Paris 23:01
do you mind sharing your why with us? What is your why?

Kelly Parker 23:04
Oh, yeah, I mean, the why is I just have such a deep, I really, truly believe our homes provide a place where we can be free to be our full authentic selves. And there’s not other than our four walls and a roof, right? When we go outside, we not always are that way, we’re dressing for a certain reason, or we’re talking in a certain way, or we’re doing certain actions for a certain outcome. But our home is like the safest place that hopefully you can be right. And I just value the power of it for how it allows us to show up in our lives. That to be a play a role in people, you know, starting that chapter and creating that mark in their life is just feels so special to me, and and then again, like the further Why is like also just making sure they enjoy that process, because I understand just how powerful it can be so staying sane connected to that, I think has been one of the biggest, biggest things for myself, but also even my team as new agents come on, like sharing with them like, Okay, how do I market myself? How do I get clients? I’m gonna share your Why. Why do you do this? Because people want to know like, because if not, they’re gonna make up. This is what I’ve learned. If you don’t tell people why you do something, they will make up why you do it. We all tell stories, we all create stories about other people. So tell people why you do it. And it’s the quickest way to diffuse something feeling like a transaction is like Emily right. We use Emily’s example, but like she really wanted to help her peers who were coming out of college who didn’t have you know, advocates when it came to finding their Chicago home and and it’s true, that’s a good truth for her. But she has shared that and people resonate with that and then choose to use her because of it and So I think that if there’s one takeaway just be be vocal about your why I think I kind of took us off course is what we were talking about.

D.J. Paris 25:07
No, I don’t think it took us off course at all, I think this is all absolutely relevant, because what we’re really talking about is finding your tribe, I think and understanding that there’s going to be a certain subset of the home buying or selling population that resonates with your particular style. So you might as well be, the way I’m hearing you is you might as well be yourself. Because, you know, you got to be yourself anyway. And they’re assuming you’re authentic. And you know, you have the qualities that you know, that are helpful to people looking to buy or sell homes, you should have a pretty reasonable career, but you shouldn’t necessarily be afraid to say, here’s why I do what I do. And in fact, I think people connect more with understanding someone’s why than then maybe even their actual skills. I think we want to know why somebody does some something. I think the fact that they’re competent at it is first most important, but then we want to know like, why do you do this? What what’s in it for you and you just eloquently shared, why you do it, and why it’s important for you so that somebody can be their full, authentic self in their home. And you said it in a much better way than I just expressed it. But I think that’s really powerful. Because if you if you can have that conversation with clients and go, the reason why I do this is I want you to be full feel fully safe and authentic in your house. I think, you know, I had never thought of that until you would set it and as soon as you set it, I was like, that’s absolutely right. I feel the same way I want to feel safe and authentic in my home. And it’s it’s this is kind of an intangible thing that might even sound a little or new agey or whatever, but it’s really true feelings are real in the sense of, they’re important. And we want to we’re going to be staying in this this physical space for, you know, a good chunk of our lives every single day. So and they

Kelly Parker 27:08
transmit those transcend markets to your feeling about your home doesn’t matter what’s happening in the market, right, and your desire for a new home or needing to move out of another one. So I know it does. It does sound New Agey, but it’s to me, it’s like the heart of what this can do. And I think particularly if you’re an agent looking to grow your business, and you’re not sure how to market yourself, or what to do, it provides like to me provides like a core element of like, why do I do it? So based on why I’m doing it, then who are my clients? Who am I speaking to, you know, if it’s like Emily, it’s like, Well, why do I do this? I want to help my peers, okay, then those your clients, that’s who we market to. That’s your niche. You know, now you just have to tell them what you do and how you do it. And you’ll and then you start to see the clients come in like they had

D.J. Paris 28:02
Yeah, it Yeah, I love that. I so so it seems like what you’re saying is to find your passion, in in, in your industry in this industry of what really moves the needle for you as the realtor like what, what gets you the most excited about the process, sort of digging in leaning into that and then continuing to develop skills around whatever that passion might be. Maybe it’s first time homebuyer, maybe it’s maybe it’s maybe it’s even being with somebody all along their apartment journey until they’re ready to buy their first home. Maybe it’s being there to guide them or maybe it’s I don’t like working with those people. I only like working with sellers or condos or, or co ops or whatever it might be single family homes, or people moving from another state I guess whatever it is that that you sort of get lit up the most about is probably an indicator of like, Oh, I really liked doing real clothes or you know, I really liked doing you know, or maybe you’re one of those rare people who likes calling expires or fizz bows like people

Kelly Parker 29:09
think like it works for people but it’s not what they’re doing it’s it’s the energy behind what they’re doing it with so if you really love Calling Strangers in cold calling fizz bows and you’re like I could do this all day, then it is your indicator that that is your lane and go go crush it you know and so I think that’s where we get a little bit scrambled of like we think that there’s a certain ways that we have to get business and and then we force ourselves to show up in these ways and I’m like I don’t really want to do that I don’t really want to cold call I don’t really want to sit in open house that feels weird to me or whatever. we force ourselves and then we wonder why we’re not getting business. And is it because we can do that. And now I’m really gonna sound new age but like the frequency of that precedes you precedes your words precedes your action. So if something lights you up, double down on that, do that. And let that that excitement and that joy drive, what you do after that, and then the steps and the choices you start to make and how you show up in your business.

D.J. Paris 30:16
I think that’s really good advice. So before we started talking today, or absorbed before we started turned on the recording where I was asking you about 2023, because we have I have we have 800 agents or close to 800 agents in our firm, you’ve got a lot of agents, obviously, compasses, Kelly’s a compass, they have 1000s of agents here in Chicago. Kelly is around a lot of agents. I’m around a lot of agents. And I’m certainly getting a sense that there’s a low level of stress. That’s that’s, that’s present right now, although I feel like there’s always stress, being a realtor, but particularly right now it’s the end of the year, it’s the holiday season, we’re of course, we know where rates are, we know inventory is where it is. And I know there’s a lot of concern about 2023 as I’m hearing it in the ether from other agents, but you don’t you’re not worried about it at all. And I really, I’m bringing this up, because you’re the first person I’ve talked to who doesn’t who didn’t even break a sweat when I mentioned it. So why are you not worried about 2023?

Kelly Parker 31:23
Well, I think for some as some of the reasons I’ve mentioned, right, I think that I’ve never let my success be dictated on the circumstances. You know, I really, truly believe that the success that I’ve seen in my business is because of what I’ve, who I am and what I’ve done and the skills that I have developed. And I think that’s where we get a little bit hung up. A lot of times when people are stressed, it’s because they have made their success circumstantial on a low interest rate market or a pandemic. And I think some people, like there’s elements, there’s Is there a percentage of my business that was up because of the circumstances? Sure. But would I have still been successful and still done what I’ve done because of my own sort of, like personal power in my, my, myself and my belief and all that? Absolutely. So I’ve truly believe that, because I have that outlook, it doesn’t matter what’s going on in the market. And, and so I’m not worried. But I’m also like, I’m weirdly excited, I think it’s great. I think this is the market where we get the ability, we have the opportunity to make the biggest moves and the biggest growth and secure the most market share. And, and I fully know that i i have the skill set, and I have the knowledge and i i have the inspiration to make sure that I’m able to to operate as I want to during this time. So I think that, ya

D.J. Paris 32:58
know, it’s so interesting, it’s just not even, you’re not too worried about circumstance, you’re not worried about sort of the conditions because number one, he can’t control them. So you have to deal with them anyway. And number two, you started in a down market, right? So you started at, you know, 2008 to 2010 was not the time to get into real estate. And but it was probably such a great time for you because you only knew a difficult challenge. And so and you got through it. And so then you see maybe maybe the mountain looks a little steeper this next year for a number of reasons outside of our control. But you’re just are you just going to pivot if need be and make adjustments and changes. And, you know, you’re you’re telling me what you’re thinking about?

Kelly Parker 33:49
Well, I think that like I mean, I’m curious what you mean by pivot. But I think that one thing that I talk to my team a lot about is like being aware of the context that we hold our business, right, like looking at just next year, to me is a very small context, I have a 13 year career, right, there’s going to be chapters. And even if you’ve had a three year career, this is a chapter of the greater story of the career that you are writing. And so if you’re so hyper focused on you know, the next six months or the next 12 months, again, it kind of goes back to like you start to inform how you behave and how you show up and it’s gonna change it if you can just keep a broader context of like, we might have a down year next year. Sure, possibly, yes. Do I need to be a responsible business owner and start to make some modifications to like our spend and make sure that we’re not you know, that I’m being smart? Absolutely. I can do those things. You know, and then we see what happens and we we don’t pull back on investing. I still invest in the spirit in in the support that we need and this stuff that we know works for us. But I think that I have a broader context, if you will, for, for what this will mean and the greater story. And so I know everyone’s talking about 2023. But I think in my mind, I’m already in like 2025. Because I can see how this will play in the next few years.

D.J. Paris 35:21
It’s, it’s a really important point, because I think I think you just said something really, really big, which was, I’m thinking about 2025, because 2025 is going to come. And we’re only thinking about 2023, like you were saying, a lot of us are just focused on, you know, we might be in survival mode, or we might be just nervous about. But regardless, it’s going to come and go, and we’re going to need to adapt, and also there, right there, there are cycles, and there are ups and downs, and life isn’t linear business isn’t linear. And that’s, that’s the challenge. I think, for some of us when we get into the business, and we have our first five years, and it just looks like this linear graph up into the right, because we sell more homes every year than we did previously. And then maybe all of a sudden the market, you know, has a correction or, you know, the there’s other factors at play that that affect our ability to to keep that trajectory going. And it doesn’t necessarily mean the end of our business. It just means that you know, in the natural cycle of life, there’s ups and downs and things that happen. But it’s it’s about really weathering the storm. So you were saying like, yeah, of course, as a business owner, I’m going to make responsible decisions, I’m going to keep my spending in check. And I’m going to make sure that you know, my team is getting the resources that they need. But we’re going to we’re going to make it through because I’m already thinking of 2025 I think that’s really interesting. I don’t know how many people think that way. And I think that comes with experience, which is, which is what you have?

Kelly Parker 36:55
Yeah, I think so, you know, I think I’ve always had a unique outlook, just in general on what we’re doing here. Which is why I tend to just kind of keep my head down, and I kind of just do my own thing, because I don’t, I don’t want to get too influenced, if you will, by you know, by by narratives and opinions and things like that. I think that what you touched on, about being linear, really takes us full circle back to like the whole production and goals and success. Because we think that like if we do these things, we’ll get this end result. And we can contain it into a whole year, when the truth is stuff that you’re going to do in 2023 is actually going to pay you in 2025. But we don’t let ourselves accept that or see that or measure that because it’s not this like tangible thing in front of us right now. And so I always like kind of low this time of year. I mean, we’re speaking it’s November, it’s like everyone should be so excited right now about what they did in 2022. And celebrating and go on vacation. And don’t worry, and just like live your life, because everyone has worked so hard the last couple of years. But I’m watching agents not do it. Because they’re starting to freak out about next year, and thinking they have to pull back and and they’re just like automatically bypassing to me what is the most important component to continued success, which is honoring what you’ve accomplished, celebrating it, sharing it, like sitting in it. And knowing that it doesn’t end January one it carries it carries with you and there’s going to be stuff you did this year, you never saw the production for that will show up next year, or maybe in 2024 2025. Like we don’t know. And so I think if I can just share one thing, as someone who’s been in this business as long as I have now it’s like it’s never contained to a year ever. It always bleeds over into each other. So let’s not let’s not be so linear and how we measure and and where we begin and end these chapters of the story.

D.J. Paris 39:01
Yeah, I agree. I, I want to talk about celebration because I that’s not something I’ve really delved into too much in this show. And I think it’s something that’s worth worthwhile to talk about because I think since so many realtors are individual practitioners or maybe they are on a team and there is some sort of recognition about, you know, milestones or certain types of activity gets noticed or appreciated. But I do think that it would likely be a good idea for people individually to learn how to celebrate their own achievement and it doesn’t necessarily have to be related to a goal that that got hit could be a skill that was learned it could be the way that you know somebody improved their customer service could be a way in which you know, something got better or or or something new was was brought in Here’s how do you recommend to people to celebrate their success? Because I think we don’t we do a lot of it on social media, right? There’s a lot of like, look at me, I just sold this home. I don’t, I’m not talking about that I’m talking about internally, processing, feeling actually good about something that you accomplish, because the reason I’m making such a big deal of this, and I’m going to, in a moment, just turn it over to you, is I think that can help get us through the hard times, if we can remember what it feels like. So what are your thoughts on that?

Kelly Parker 40:32
Absolutely. I love this question. And specifically, like the this, the separation to the external, right, like, social media is a tricky beast. And, and I think that a lot of people think that they have to celebrate as a form of validation. And so there’s a little bit in my mind too much ego that gets attached. And I think this is what we’ve all felt, right, we see the celebration, and you’re like, that kind of feels, feels like it’s a little bit loaded, right. And it’s, it’s, and it’s okay, we’re humans, we all have egos, there’s that moment of wanting to like wave the flag of what you’ve done and what you’ve accomplished in a tangible material form. But I think that, it’s it cause that seeing other people do that there’s a certain sort of subset of people who, like myself, who are so turned off from that, that I’ve actually held off on celebrating, because I didn’t want to come off as a certain way. And I didn’t want it to feel a certain way. Because, again, why I do what I do is so heartfelt, and like heart led, that the dollars and the goals and or the, the celebrations will never really capture all of that, right. But it I have learned that celebrating is truly the biggest form of expressing your gratitude. And I’m, I’m really, I’m in I have my own mentor. And that came in light of a conversation I had with her about how, how that’s really what it is like, it can be done behind closed doors, it can be done with your team. It’s like what you’re asking. And so we do a lot of closed doors, celebrations, like, you know, we and our a lot of our goals, same thing, our personal and production and whatever. So we’re never just celebrating the metal achieved, were celebrating the whole human. And so I do think it’s incredibly important to anchor that in for the reason that you said, it’s something that creates a tangible, you know, feeling inside of you, or recognition for what you’ve done, I would say that I celebrate myself and my accomplishments and in several different ways. I think, what you were saying, for even for me, right now, this year, one of my biggest accomplishments is that I got to spend more time with my daughter, and nothing was sacrificed to do it. And that has been something I had to learn the hard way, and I worked really hard to get out. So, you know, do I have like extra production to show for something No, but I have these memories and these experiences with her. And, and that’s something right and, and so I as I’m living life, I think being very present in my moments, and recognizing that I don’t have to wait until the end of the year to celebrate that a lot of the time we are we are our goals and our dreams are actually being asked are actualized in everyday moments, but we’re just not present enough to see them. So I think I have a sense of presence out of just sort of like reverence for celebration in general. But um, I do like to travel that’s kind of always been my thing that I feel like traveling gives you this sense of experience. And I it’s like, sort of hard for me to explain without over talking. But like it, there’s something that really helps me anchor a feeling around a celebration. And so I actually tend to use use that. But again, I noticed that a lot I want to encourage people to celebrate because I think that seeing others celebrate helps to give people examples of what’s possible. And if you’re looking for a way to ground yourself in a celebration, so it doesn’t feel so showy. And looking at me. I always just go to the place of kindness provide an example to another female in the industry about what’s possible, you know, five years in your business eight years in your business, you know, and and kind of be mindful I guess of the narrative. That’s what you’re approaching it but

D.J. Paris 44:39
yeah, the idea of celebration, you you really got me thinking I was I was thinking it got me thinking about the, for anyone who’s ever looked into relationship stuff you probably you know, if you have a significant other and you’re trying to get along better with them and have a better relationship, you probably will stumble Across the Gottman, the Gottman, who are who are kind of the world experts and researchers on how people can can coexist and cohabitate and they’ve written a million books, and they’re a married couple out of, I think, out of Oregon or Washington anyway. But anyway, they have, they have this ratio that they’ve proven that for a healthy interpersonal relationship, you know, romantic relationship, the golden ratio is five affirming things. For every one sort of negative thing, a very critical thing, one critical thing. So if I want to say, oh, you know, you’re doing the dishes the wrong way, or whatever, or you didn’t do the dishes, or whatever, whatever the criticism might be, if you can, if you can have five affirming things, but here’s all here are the things you did right away, you know, you would sprinkle those throughout the day. That’s what a healthy relationship and a happy relationship looks like. It’s five affirming things to everyone. One sort of non affirming thing. And what you were saying is really important, because you’re talking about celebration. And I was thinking about that. And I was thinking, How often do I celebrate myself? For the things that I may have accomplished, or, in our listeners ears, what you have accomplished today? You definitely did some things well, today, and I did some things well, and I did some things that maybe I could improve on. But how often am I even celebrating those little milestones? And I used to think you had to get to the end of the goal before you could celebrate, but I’ve learned and I’m curious to hear your thoughts. I’ve learned that celebrating along the way. It actually keeps keeps the engine running for me. It doesn’t actually stop the motivation, like, oh, I accomplished it, I’m good. No, because that was kind of my fears. I can’t I can’t celebrate until I get to the end. And I think that’s a mistake. Because we’re talking about celebrating throughout the journey. And I think there’s a lot of, you know, you hear about, like gratitude groups. I don’t think we have a gratitude problem. I think we have a celebration problem. I think we’re all I think we’re all grateful, or if you’re not whatever, there’s there’s there’s lots of ways to become grateful. But I think the bigger issue is around celebrating one’s own, you know, Power Agency success. curious to get your thoughts on that.

Kelly Parker 47:15
Yeah, no, I would agree. I think that the celebration somewhere along the way got tainted. Right. And, and to your point, it’s like, if we just bring it back to the gratitude, and you just can focus on that, then then it helps clear the air for a lot of other people to step into their own gratitude. So I think we’ve tangled celebration and gratitude. So it’s like people aren’t even taking a moment to be grateful for what they’ve done or accomplish. Because it feels gross. And it feels showy, or they have we’re very tangled in that. And so I yeah, I would agree, I think we have more of a celebration problem. And to your to your point of, you know, I think a lot of people wait until the end of the year, they wait till they hit the goal. But the truth is the goalpost literally moves every time. Like, okay, I want to do $20 million, I did $20 million. And I was like, We did it like okay, like it. And then the next without, if you’re not conscious, and you’re not aware, it’s automatically 25 Before you even like get 20 out of your mouth, and then it’s 30 and then it’s 35. And all of a sudden, you’re living your life towards this end goal. And you’re missing all of the moments in between all of the beautiful things that have compounded and compounded that are worth celebrating on the way to this, you know, this goal. And and I also think being present in those moments of yourself and celebrating yourself really helps this to not feel like a winner or lose. Right? If you have a goal and you don’t make it then it means you lost. If you have a goal and you made it then it means you succeeded. And I think that diametrically I don’t know if that’s the right word. That’s the word I want to use. But like that, that sort of like two dimensional, like you win or you lose mentality is what keeps so many people from celebrating because like why didn’t hit my goal? Well, that wasn’t the definition of success. Did you show up every day? Have you grown? Have you changed? Did you help someone? You know, that’s what we should be celebrating?

D.J. Paris 49:28
Well, I think that’s a wonderful place to sort of wrap up because this idea of celebration, it is the time of year to celebrate, you know, we’re the holiday season. This is time to reflect, to be thankful, and also to think to the future and you’re already doing that. But I think it’s to your point about being increasing the celebration there. I think it would be really neat to almost even start like a celebration accountability partner, where every week, instead of just talking about what you accomplished, well, in addition to holding each other accountable for things that you want to accomplish, which I think is a good idea, also having some sort of celebration, even if it’s just one to one, one person to another Hey, man, great job this week. Hey, so and so, you know, you even if you didn’t necessarily achieve your goal, you’re still on target. You’re you’re still trying, you’re still, you know, this, this idea of encouragement. Really just gets everyone through the hard times. And I think I think we’re coming up on some some more difficult. Well, it’s been difficult to be a realtor in the last couple of years. I mean, I also want to say, just because rates were lower, didn’t make it any easier to be a realtor. In fact, if you I mean, I wasn’t out there in the trenches with like you and your team. I mean, it was hard to be a realtor last couple years,

Kelly Parker 50:51
it was hard. And I think that’s why my outlook for the next year is very different is because I think that, yeah, it’s it was hard. And it was, there was a lot of other things we were having to navigate. And a lot of certain clients in the market for different reasons. And I think that we, again, we’re gonna get to decide what this means. And I think I’m making this mean that it’ll be at a pace that’s more sustainable. It’ll be with, you know, slightly more favorable outcomes for all clients. I think it was very skewed the last, you know, couple years. So again, it’s just sort of that perspective shift on what we make these markets mean. But yeah, they haven’t. They haven’t been easy. And so I really hope that everybody does celebrate. I love what you said actually about an accountability partner, because something I’ve been thinking about, and we try to do this we could be better at it is celebrating agents that you don’t actually like, aren’t maybe even in your team. I see so many women, particularly in these magazines, who who accomplish amazing things. And I’m like DMing them, why isn’t this on your Instagram? Why didn’t you talk about this, like we’re celebrating you, I think we though, we can lead by example, and celebrate each other, and congratulate each other without prompt, because it really helps, I think us all feel a little bit more seen and accepted and encouraged to celebrate ourselves. So

D.J. Paris 52:21
I think that’s a great point. You know, for everyone listening, pay attention to the milestones that other people might be hitting people that you like, that you respect, reach out to them, when those milestones happen, it might be exactly what they need to hear and they may just be more like Kelly, who’s like, I don’t really want to put that out there because maybe I’d seen his show offy and, and put it out there for them. Be proud of the people that are in your community and watch what happens. You’re not going to do it for this boomerang reason that it’s going to come back to you but it probably will come back to you to this idea of of lifting other other people up, you know, in their successes. It’s worked well for me I’ve had a similar mentality when I’ve when I see things that happen to people that are very impressive to me, I’ll often I’ll reach out to them and just say congratulations on such and such, even people I don’t know. And and I found that in many cases, they will say things like you’re the only person that reached out to me it doesn’t make me a great guy. It just makes me the one person who did it. And anybody can do that. And what I think well what comes with that is a lot of times a lot of opportunity ends up coming from that because people will go wow, well that’s nice that so and so thought about me. I’m going to take a closer look at this, this particular individual it’s almost very similar to what you do for clients this idea of giving to give and give give give authentically and then you know you sort of hope that things come back and they do but we should also talk about your team your team is growing you know 2023 is not a scary year for you. So if there are any anyone who thinks that they would love to work with someone like Kelly and maybe join Chicago home collective and learn more about what they offer Kelly what’s the best way that our listeners can reach out if they think they’d be a fit.

Kelly Parker 54:15
DM us on Instagram we are in the final stages of a new website that is been a labor of love and it’s not quite done yet it will be done in the new year so don’t judge my website it’s a solid eight years old at this point. But go on our Instagram you can send me a DM on there you can follow you can you can go on my personal account you can you can message me either location. That’s how most people end up finding us.

D.J. Paris 54:41
But here are the links we got Chicago home collective.com Which again is going to get a refresh although I think it looks quite lovely even now. And then also follow Kelly on Instagram the two Instagram accounts are Chicago home collective, and Kelly underscore e underscore Parker to learn more about Kelly, I mean, if you if anyone is out there, looking at 2023, and thinking about making the shift, and saying, you know, I really want to sort of hitch my, my, my horse to, to a dip or hitch my wagon to a different horse, I don’t want to, I don’t want to I don’t want to be the horse do with being a horse. But the metaphor is, I think, okay. But I just had to think about that I was like, anyway, if you want to connect with somebody who’s who’s really got an interesting philosophy, who’s been successful, and kind of approaches her success a little bit differently, but in a way, I think that makes just all the sense in the world. You know, those Chicago home collective might be the team for you. So check out Chicago home collective.com, reach out to Kelly slide into her DMs as the young people say, although I think I think that might be like a dating reference. So don’t do that unless you more maybe do that if you want. But reach out to Kelly in any way that you want to. She is easy to find. And she would love to chat with you and see if you might be a good match to help them grow into 2023. So, and 2025 Because Kelly, many many years out. Kelly, thank you on behalf of our audience, this is a really fun conversation. For me personally, I appreciate you for being on our show I’ve always wanted to have you on and I’m so glad we finally did get you here. And hope we can continue to to get you back on the show from time to time to get your philosophies and thoughts about you know, growing a team and sort of navigating some some difficult times in the business. Thank you on behalf of the audience. On behalf of Kelly and myself to the audience. We want to also say thank you. Please remember to tell a friend that’s the only thing we will ask of you is just tell one other realtor about this episode. Send them a link over to our website, keeping it real pod.com They can stream every episode we’ve ever done right from their website, or this pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. We would appreciate it. Kelly, thank you. Thank you and AJ

Kelly Parker 57:01
Thank you. It’s a great conversation. I appreciate it.

D.J. Paris 57:05
I do I do as well and we will see everybody on the next episode.