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

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

Chris Linsell from TheClose.com discusses what’s going on in the real estate market right now. Chris talks about how should real estate professionals plan their resource allocation according to the market slowdown and inflation. Next, Chris shares nurturing strategies for agents in order to help them stay relevant. Chris also emphasizes the importance of shifting in a market for real estate professionals. Last, Chris and D.J. discuss TheClose.com and what they offer to their readers.

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, Quality Builders and FollowUpBoss.

D.J. Paris 0:00
What does it mean to actually nurture lead? We’re going to discuss that today. Stay tuned. This episode 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? We’ll find out why agents across the country come to real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering their clients a real estate sales and marketing solution to generate more business. Real geeks is easy to use. Their websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for the end user. Real geeks is mobile friendly delivering an excellent user experience on the go. Real geeks includes an easy to use CRM. So once your leads sign up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up triggers. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase your brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod again, real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business. This episode is also brought to you by quality builders are you are one of your clients real estate investors who can’t seem to find a trustworthy general contractor. Are you tired of poor communication, excessive change orders and extensive schedule delays. We’ll look no further because quality builders is a Chicago general contractor focused on helping you the real estate investor grow your portfolio. Each and every product decision is based on quality builders core values of transparency, courage, integrity, and uniqueness which produce sustainable and predictable results that successful real estate investors are looking for. Quality builders uses innovative project management technology to keep you up to date on your projects by providing a client portal to view daily logs schedules and contract and change order updates. Schedule a free one on one consultation by visiting quality builders.com That’s quality builders.com to see how they can partner with you to build your real estate portfolio. 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 Parris. I’m your guide and hosted through this show and today is our monthly series called closing time with Chris Lin sell from the close. Now this is a partnership between keeping it real and the clothes.com. And if you’re not familiar with the clothes, let me tell you more. 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. Now please visit the clothes.com to see all of their amazing content, which by the way is was free and it’s long form and it’s exceptional. And they also by the way, they have an email newsletter to which you can subscribe to on their website, the clothes.com but with us, as always is Chris Lindh Sal, he is a 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 generation transactional best practices and everything in between. He’s a licensed agent in the state of Michigan. Chris has 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 4:03
EJ, thanks for having me. Glad to be a part of the show today a lot going on a lot to talk about in the real estate world. So yeah, let’s, let’s let’s make some. Let’s make some let’s pick up some years here. I think I think we got some real estate conversation that needs to happen.

D.J. Paris 4:20
Well, I know agents and I’ve, I’ve spent a lot of time with agents even outside of my office in this this particular week, I was part of a number of different events that I’ll happen to coincide within about a seven day window. So I was around hundreds and hundreds of agents have been in a lot of conversations. And since I myself aren’t, don’t practice. I am always curious to hear how it’s going for agents and it seems to be that agents are things have slowed down. And that’s particularly interesting and I think I was talking to a top producer last night who said I can finally play some golf this summer. He’s, you know, normally too busy to even take time off. So for people who are top producers, that might be a little bit of a welcome break in activity, but for the vast majority of agents who are looking to go to grow, I and a lot of the people I talked to this week are in that category. There, there’s a little bit of frustration going on. It’s like, okay, rates of rates are up, my clients seem to be more on the fence right now. And all these deals keep falling through. That’s another thing I kept hearing. I had, I actually was last night speaking to a woman who is NAR is representative for the Philippines. And she’s just happens to be in Chicago. And she was saying in her 25 years, she had a listing in this last month, where five, five contracts all fell through single family home, nothing unusual. She said for the same property five contracts all fell through in a 30 day period. She goes as never happened in my entire 20 years, she couldn’t believe it. So it’s a really goofy time. So I’m curious to get some thoughts about what we can, you know, provide to our audience about, you know, what’s going on right now?

Chris Linsell 6:09
Yeah, this is a really goofy time. I agree, I think, you know, look like real estate is one of those industries that is so affected by sentiments and by kind of community outlook and mood, you know, what’s happening in Chicago, where you’re based, it just may not be the same thing that happens in Michigan, where I’m based in certainly, you know, major metros, like Los Angeles, or Miami or New York, and then small suburbs. And you know, and small towns across the united states in the Midwest and the South, are certainly going to have their own market conditions. But I can tell you this, we do kind of generally all get affected by the same sorts of things, including interest rates, you know, there’s a lot of conversation that happens around interest rates. And when interest rates go up, it kind of chills the sentiment in the market, I’m not surprised to see contracts start to fall through to see sellers a little bit more hesitant buyers a little bit less present, that sort of thing happens pretty quickly, when you get these kinds of, you know, major announcements are kind of dramatic indicators. But you know, what I think is really interesting is that we often kind of underestimate the effect of this sort of thing. And we only kind of think about it in its immediate, kind of the immediate ripple that comes from like an interest rate hike. You and I were talking right before we started here about how we are at, I think, an all time low, like since the year 2000. As far as mortgage application starts, and that’s, that’s a pretty major thing to think about. Because when mortgage applications are that low, it’s going to change certainly the sentiment in the market right now. But man, it’s also going to have some pretty significant effects on Realtors business moving forward for the next month, two months, five months into the future. I mean, we’re talking through the end of 2022. And a lot of people aren’t thinking about those kinds of effects right now.

D.J. Paris 8:35
Yeah, I was listening to Sirius satellite radio the other day and I heard an ad that I had, I don’t I don’t think I’ve ever heard this radio ad before. But it really was a sign of the times it was a refinance ad and I was like, Whoa, my ears perked up refinance. Okay, we’re at like the time at the time it was rates were hovering closer to 6% for a 30 year fixed. And I was like, this is interesting. And I turned up the volume because I want to hear who is this for who is refinancing. And it was, Hey, your home is probably appreciated over the last several years now is a great time to to cash out on that. And at a low rate. And I was like, Wow, is that interesting? I hadn’t heard that particular sort of push before, but that was a real sign of the times. I’ve thought so.

Chris Linsell 9:31
Yeah. I completely agree. You know, it’s one of one of those interesting scenarios that we’re facing right now. Because I and I was just not too long ago, I was in California doing some coaching and consulting for an association out there. And one of the things that I was chatting with these folks about something I’d love to chat with you about is how mortgage rates have Have some second, third and fourth order effects. And those effects tend to create these kind of new momentums in in the business. And just as an example, if mortgage starts are down right now, the immediate effect of those starts is that kind of the mood in the market gets chilled a little bit, people get a little hesitant, you know, you’re gonna see like, like this representative from the Philippines, and to see kind of more hesitancy and transactions, you know, compare that to the absolute fire of the market a year ago, where people were making on sight unseen offers on properties that they probably wouldn’t work for them in the long run, but they needed something immediately. That’s not happening right now. But think about the next order effects. If mortgage starts are down right now, that’s likely an indicator that lead volume is going to be down in maybe a month from now. I mean, think about it. If people are typically talking to their bank, going on Zillow investigated a few properties, they’ve got their pre approval. And so now they’re thinking, Well, maybe it’s about time to start reaching out to a real estate professional. Imagine a world a month from now where lead volume is down 20%. I think that that’s a realistic possibility.

D.J. Paris 11:30
It’s an interesting thought. So the idea is because mortgage apps and we know the refi world is pretty much dead. So So mortgage apps are down since the as you mentioned, the lowest rates since 2000. They’re down 19%. From this week, last year. So yes, so that’s going to ripple. And so I guess it’s some bad news, maybe that that we’re sharing, as far as a prediction for the next couple of months. If I was an agent, what might I do to Well, number one, knowing that that that may be coming, of course, is is important. I’m wondering if there’s some action steps we could take to soften the blow that might be coming?

Chris Linsell 12:15
Yeah, totally. In fact, I would go as far as saying, there are action steps you can take to turn this liability into an opportunity. So the first thing I would say is, if we, if we follow the logic that mortgage apps being down, is going to decrease lead volume in a month from now that could mean likely will mean that your transactional volume three or four months from now might be down, which means that your budget for operating your business is going to be down six months from now. So right now is the time that real estate professionals should be thinking about the way their resources are allocated, realizing that they may have to tighten their belt from a monetary perspective in the next two, one or two quarters. But thinking remember that your resources as a real estate professional aren’t just money, you also have your time, and you also have your talent or your energy, right. So I always talk to real estate professionals about how your resources get into these three buckets, you got your time you got your talent, you got your budget, they are flexible, they move, we pay for things all the time to save ourselves time, well, when the budget gets a little lighter, that just means your time investment gets a little heavier, when your budget gets a little lighter, it means you got to get smarter with your efforts in order to make up for that imbalance. And so real estate agents and brokers right now can start to be thoughtful about how they can adjust their resource allocation. And then the other thing I would say is the desire, and the need for housing is not going away, even though we may see a suppressed amount of leads and transactions. So that could mean and of course, you know nobody’s got a crystal ball. So it’s hard to say for sure. But what I could mean is that come the first of the year 2023 We may see a little bit built up pent up demand moving into these things. So now is the time to start thinking about even though these people aren’t going to be necessarily activating for transactions right away. Start thinking about these folks as longer tail leads that require a little bit more nurturing. And the agents who can get off their heels and onto their toes with active nurturing strategies, especially with the people that they’re already engaged with. These are folks who are going to be market leaders come the fourth quarter of 2022 first quarter of 20 At 23. So you can turn this into an opportunity by getting ahead of this curve faster and more efficiently than your colleagues can. Do you have

D.J. Paris 15:09
any suggestions or nurturing strategies, the specifically that you’ve seen be effective, either in your own business or in other agents that you coach?

Chris Linsell 15:20
Yeah, totally. So the first, the first thing I say is, if you haven’t investigated yet, start looking into predictive analytics tools. These are lead generation strategies that essentially use big data to help predict which of your prospects are most likely to buy and sell, you know, did they have any kind of forward looking indicators, like their consumer, their consumer behavior, their demographic data, their neighborhood, whatever it is, start using these tools to help identify your most likely clients a little bit sooner. That’s the first thing. The second thing is, and this is one that frankly, I shouldn’t give this away for free. But you know what, DJ, I’m gonna give this away to you and to your audience here. Go online Google mortgage calculator. And you’re gonna get a ton of free options here, Google actually has one that that you can use right from their search engine. And start, you start referencing this with your clients that have a specific budget, and a specific amount that they’re comfortable paying us this mortgage calculator to say, Okay, let’s, here’s the target amount, you’re comfortable pain. Here’s what that would get you in today’s market, these rates aren’t going to stay like this forever. So let’s start tracking these mortgage rates. And in the meantime, you start preparing for the purchase of the house of your dreams, save your money, get your ducks in a row. Financially, paperwork wise, this may take a year to get to a rate where your target your client is targeted, but you are creating with your clients here, a sense of not just preparedness, but anticipation, using the high mortgage rates right now as a tool, because you know that they’re not going to be high forever, these are going to move like the markets move. You can use this as an anticipation tool to get your clients amped up about the next step in their homeownership journey. And when those rates hit their like their butter zone of their other comfortable amount that they’re paying with the property that they’re comfortable purchasing. You then have a client who is not just financially paperwork and mentally prepared, they’re physically excited. In order to make this happen. These are people who are not going to hang you up to dry with 4050 showings and a bunch of indecision, they’re ready to rock and roll. And you’ll be you’ll spend a lot less time with them on the road, I would much rather spend people spend time with people prepping them in cyberspace than on the sidewalk. And so by doing so, now you ramp them up and get them ready for their purchase. Saves you a whole bunch of time in the long run and they will go in feeling a lot more prepared.

D.J. Paris 18:22
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 is 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. Makes a lot of sense. I was speaking to some lenders recently, actually because of all these events I’ve been out there lenders have had been present at these events. And I said just out of curiosity I was asked a few different lenders this this week I said obviously with rates being up and applications being down. I said, What are you? What is the what are these mortgage companies doing to sort of solve for for this challenge, and they’re coming up with some new ideas and products. And I heard from two different lenders last night, that they’re now able to lock in rates without an identified property for extended periods of time. I think it’s a great opportunity to reach out to your lending partners and talk to them and say, Hey, what what are you guys doing to help my business right now? Not specifically, like, you know, are you going to invest in my business? But just what kind of products and services are you guys coming out with to help people right now, and, you know, there are things that are that are being done. And I want to give you one, one, just one simple example that I heard last night, I was talking to a bank. And I said, I asked that question, I think, uh, well, we don’t really have any products. But here’s what we are doing. We have relationships with lead providers. And we’re going to we have these pay it pay at closing lead providers that we work with, which is a free lead up front, you paid, you know, 25 to 35%, when it closes to back to the lead company that generated it, and the banks will help facilitate this, because what the big banks get is they get people that hit their website, you know, what I’m talking about the big banks, like, you know, the Bank of America’s and chase, and you know, the big city bank, and big ones, we know, there’s millions of people are hitting their websites every month filling out indications of interest, what these banks are starting to do is send those to a third party lead provider who qualifies the person, you know, talks to them, make sure they’re not already working with an agent. And then they send them to their loan officers who are trying to build relationships with other realtors, and they go, Hey, we’ve got all these leads for you. Yeah, you’re gonna have to pay at closing. But what these banks are doing to accommodate for this, this 25 to 35% that you’re going to pay. This is the interesting part, they’re willing to fate, they figured out two different banks, I’ve talked to figure this out how to actually give the realtor a bonus that basically makes up the difference. And I haven’t totally figured out how that works and sidesteps. RESPA. But apparently, it’s some of these lenders are figuring stuff like this out. So the point is, is there’s new things happening that didn’t exist six months ago. And and a lot of these bigger banks that can’t really compete rate wise with maybe some of the more competitive shops, they’re starting to think more creatively and come up with solutions. So it’s a great opportunity to just see what see what’s going on in the lending space and talk to your lender and say, what can you do for my immediate buyers, and hey, by the way, you have any business building ideas or resources for me,

Chris Linsell 22:59
big time, that’s a good, that’s a fantastic idea. And I love, I love that strategy. I always tell folks that when you are in a business, where events are going to affect different sectors of the business at different times, you take advantage of that, like, for instance, I know, in my local market, there are local like credit unions and smaller lenders, that rely a lot on the sort of the sort of kind of local direct market advertising that they use to partner, the partner, usually with other industry professionals in order to do that advertising. Well, right now, lenders are down 20%, as far as the number of clients and number of leads they’ve got, we are not just yet in that in that phase. So right now is a great time to go to that local preferred lender and say, Hey, listen, I was thinking about doing some marketing. This is the strategy XY and Z. Would you be interested in CO branding on this market, this marketing? Maybe you can pick up the cost on this because I’ve got a really big audience that is still you know, interested in hearing what I have to say, I know that your audience might be down a little bit, how can we work together in order to do this, be happy to put your name and contact information on this in exchange for you picking up the cost of XY and Z? Right now is a time to leverage that that inequity a little bit, because it’s gonna swing back around, eventually, they’re gonna leverage their their inequity on you. That’s just the way the business works. But there are plenty of ways that you can kind of leverage the situation, especially from a we’ve got leads, but nothing to do with them or we don’t have leads and we need them sort of the sort of imbalance that those sorts of situations exist right now and it’s a great time to take advantage of them.

D.J. Paris 24:54
I think so too. And I also think first time homebuyer seminars can still be incredibly effective. Because I think from the perspective of applications, for Lent, for lending, obviously, applications are down. But first time homebuyers are are still there, they’re still out there. And they probably are maybe a little spooked right now. And I think it’s a great opportunity to create content with a lending partner where maybe the agent could talk more about inventory and, and how they’re finding deals for their clients. And then the lender can talk about, here’s what’s going on with rates and different products. And here’s how we can solve for the challenges in the market. I think you could do one of those weekly, and hosted on social media or via zoom, and, and maybe post some clips on social media. And you’re gonna get interested people. And I think I was thinking about this too, psychologically, and this is this is I’m this is a very broad generalization not backed in any sort of science. But I know that when when times are stressful, and I think agents, a lot of agents are feeling stressed right now around the lack of activity and the slowdown. And I it’s been my experience, when people are stressed, they tend to retreat versus really push forward. Because that’s just what stress does to people, it typically shuts you down, it shuts the body down, decreases motivation, etc. There’s a small percentage of people where it actually activates them. But most of us get, we retreat, I think, when we’re stressed. And so I think we’re going to see a lot of agents, even considering exiting the market or pausing or just reducing their workload, not because they want to, but because that’s kind of they’re trying to figure out what’s going on. And I think it’s a great, I just don’t think the road is crowded right now. So I think like, as you were saying, Chris, these sort of nurturing activities, I don’t think there’s going to be as much competition for it as maybe. Well, I don’t know, I I’m unclear. But I talked to a lot of top producers this week, or this week that are like, I am not that busy right now. And I thought what a great opportunity for agents who are who are in growth mode, to really take advantage of these, the big hitters are all taking a sigh of a sigh of relief and taking some well needed rest. And I think it’s a great opportunity for for the younger agents or the newer agents rather, to really say, Okay, I’m going to ramp up my, my communication, I’m going to ramp up my, my social media, I’m going to start doing videos, I, you know, I think there’s just a lot you can do to start building your brand. And then hopefully, when the market changes, you know, you have a larger audience than you did when it started.

Chris Linsell 27:42
I think you’re absolutely right. I think you’re absolutely right on that. And just, you know, in closing, to think about this, it’s important for agents to remember that markets are cycles there is there is a probably an inappropriate expectation on the part of lots of agents who have been in the real estate game for 10 years or less, that were going through some sort of like, this is the real estate Apocalypse that’s happening right now. Guys markets dip, in fact, Jamie Dimon is, you know, when he was asked like, how do you define a recession, he said something that happens every seven years. And the same, it’s the same thing. The same philosophy needs to be applied to real estate markets go up, they go down power shifts between buyers and sellers. This is there are always going to be blips like these exigent events like COVID and the screen have crazy inflation as a result of I’m not going to, you know go on my soapbox as to why inflation is what it is. But those sorts of events certainly have outsized effects on that market. undulation. But this is these are market corrections that happen on a regular a regular basis. And this is okay. It’s okay for healthy markets to undulate between buyers and sellers, for rates to go up to rates to go down. The real test here is on the real estate professional community to recognize that as markets change, there’s always still opportunity. The true professionals are the ones who adjust to the changing opportunity. Anybody can sell when the market is ridiculously hot, and people are placing offers that they really shouldn’t. That’s easy. The hard thing about real estate success is creating a strategy that adjusts as the market adjust. That’s where you really separate the pretenders from the professionals.

D.J. Paris 29:44
Yeah, I think too. And not every market really supports this. But if you’re in a market where leasing is a viable stream of income, here in Metro Chicago, obviously leasing is very prominent. I know, luxury leasing in particular, is having a huge boom right now. And I’ll tell you just how big a boom it has my girlfriend works at one of the most elite luxury buildings here in Chicago for apartments, and they have 500 units, which is just insane. And they this is this is how crazy it is that she did in the last month 11 leases. Now she’s in house. And here’s the interesting part. When they do work with realtors, they do not list on the MLS, but they do work with realtors. And if you’re not in their top five realtor companies that that that give them the most business, even on like a $6,000 a month, two or three bedroom. The only the commission you get is only about either $500 or $1,000, where typically, typically it’s a full month’s rent. So yes, that’s a bummer for that particular building, if you’re an agent, and you’re not in that top five group. But it’s a real strong indicator that people are and I asked Mike Well, I asked my girlfriend, why don’t you guys pay one month’s rent, she looked at me like, like I was dumb. And she goes, we don’t have to right now. Because that’s how busy we are. And I thought okay, so that building may be not super broker friend or realtor friendly at the moment. But ironically, they’re building his name moment. So I just confused myself there. But anyway, yes, at the time, right now that building is is tougher to work with. But it’s a good indicator that a lot of people are renting. And these are people who are all going to be buying in a year or two as well. So even if you did only earn $500, which again is a you know, that’s, that’s tough on a $6,000 apartment per month. But that’s somebody that’s definitely buy property. And so maybe you eat it on the front end, and you just do your job. And you just say, Well, I’m kind of working for free at the moment, and then hope that you’ve built up enough goodwill, that when they turn around and buy their $2 million home, then you receive the benefit. So I think you know leasing. While it’s not maybe the sexiest and most exciting part of the business. Great way to keep keep rolling, quick, great way to keep some extra income coming in on a regular basis on a shorter term basis. And great way to just build that relationship so that when that person is ready to transition to homeownership, you’re there person,

Chris Linsell 32:27
I agree completely, lots of opportunity out there, shift. That’s the name of the game going to be successful. keep shifting.

D.J. Paris 32:34
Awesome. Well, what a great place to wrap up. Before we do. Can you just quickly mention we talked about the clothes and how great they are? And everyone listening? If you’re not a regular reader to the close, please become one. I don’t know that people use RSS readers anymore. I still do. I use Feedly. So they are on my feedly in my real estate category. But I think most people don’t do that. So just put it in your bookmarks and follow them everyday. Because the articles you guys are almost up to what is it 101 article a day now.

Chris Linsell 33:03
That’s the goal depends. Definitely a quality over quantity sort of place. So if it doesn’t meet our rigorous quality standards, it doesn’t go out. But yeah, where do we shoot for a good, solid, quality, actionable piece of content every day?

D.J. Paris 33:19
And we and I really want to just explain how high the quality is. And everyone who is listening can probably relate to this. Have you ever wanted some tips, maybe you have an open house coming up? Or you have you’re looking to invest into real estate technology or maybe a lead provider, or you just want successful strategies. And maybe that’s how you found this website by googling that sort of thing. And you come across lists, right? There’s so many articles that are written on different websites, different blogs that are you know, list, hey, how to have a successful open house, and there’s five strategies, five little tips, how often do you actually get a really solid tip in those lists? In my experience, you have to hunt and you have to probably look at about 15 articles before you find anything that isn’t show up early, you know, get some cookies, you know, for an open house, you know something that’s like, oh, like, Oh, that’s a really good thing I wouldn’t have thought of the close doesn’t have those kinds of lists every one of their articles. And this is this is really how I feel because I read them is the kind of article that as somebody who I consider myself a bit of a writer, I would want to aspire to that level of quality here on the show. And the close is is that level of quality. So really, they’re probably the best place to start for everything that you need for your business and their articles are not you know, the super obvious five things you need to do before an open house or a listing appointment. They actually go really deep and wide and are like, here’s something that you wouldn’t probably have thought to do. So please check out the clothes and then they also have so 95% of what’s on the clothes is totally free. but they also have a premium section and can you talk about the close Pro?

Chris Linsell 35:03
Yeah, close Pro is a chance for real estate professionals who want to take their business to the next level with coaching with long form courses that include original video, original article, content, templates, scripts, downloads, strategy guides, you name it. That’s, that’s the spot to do it, the close Pro offers close readers a chance to go just a little bit deeper, just a little bit further and just a little bit more actionable, which is tough to do, especially when you are already working on that stuff pretty hard on the free side of the clothes, chance to do that on an either even deeper level. And if you’re looking for the interaction with real estate, experts like myself, like other coaches, we’ve got a great coach named Sean motori, one of the former nar 30, under 30s in the REMAX Hall of Fame, he’s built multiple brokerages, this is the place to do it. The close Pro is also the spot that you get extra insight into our original courses like six simple systems to transform your real estate business. And one one thing that is happening might be more applicable right now is courses on our social media crash courses, our course specifically about how to generate low cost hidden leads. As we see inventory continued to undulate. That’s a great spot to a great spot to focus. And then my favorite one right now, Sara and Sophia, two of our course creators, their Facebook and Instagram at Crash Course, presented by a company called Social pop. This is the sort of thing you just don’t get elsewhere. It’s designed specifically for real estate professionals, by real estate professionals with your goals in mind. So you want to take your business to the next level, the closes where you should start. If you’re ready to get more actionable than anyone else in your brokerage, the clothes pros where you should go.

D.J. Paris 37:13
Awesome, Will everyone please go visit the clothes.com and check out their content, consider joining their premium select Close Pro, which is their premium section. And as always, Chris, we say thank you for your your time, your insight and your conversation. This I always feel like you and I, this is one of my favorite shows I do a month because I always know I’m gonna have a great conversation. So you helped make the show better. And we’re so grateful for you. And as is as well. We are grateful to the audience for continuing to listen and support us. In addition to visiting the close, which please everybody go do. Also, please tell a friend about the show just one other agent that you could think of even if you’ve already told 10 agents about us consider telling an 11 Let us let them know about the show. This is our way of giving back to the to the industry that’s been very kind to Chris and myself. And we just want to share the wealth and we’re big fans of what is it that a rising tide raises all all ships in a port or whatever that expression is, meaning that the more education we all have, the better agents we’re all going to be. And since we all have to work together, it’s good that everybody gets educated. So let them know about the clothes and let them know about this podcast. Keeping it real pod.com is the best place to find all of our episodes and follow us on [email protected] forward slash keeping it real pot. All right, Chris. Well, great chatting with you again. We will see you next month.

Chris Linsell 38:41
Sounds great. Thanks, DJ. Thanks

Angelica Ventrice a High-Performance Mentor & Health Coach talks about her journey into health and wellness space and how she started her business in mindset and fitness. Angelica talks about the importance of paying attention to your physical and mental wellbeing and how to deal with the guilt around your own perception of your body shape. Angelica discusses how to fit fitness into your everyday life for it to become a lifestyle. Angelica and D.J. talk about gut health and its importance. Last, Angelica describes her Fit for Life Program.

Learn more about Fit for Life Program here and follow Angelica on Instagram by clicking here.

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

Angelica Ventrice can be reached here.

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

D.J. Paris 0:00
As a realtor, how do you take care of your mental health? We’re going to talk about that today. Stay tuned. This episode 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? We’ll find out why agents across the country come to real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering their clients a real estate sales and marketing solution to generate more business. Real geeks is easy to use. Their websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for the end user. Real geeks is mobile friendly delivering an excellent user experience on the go. Real geeks includes an easy to use CRM. So once your leads sign up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up triggers. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase your brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod again, real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business. This episode is also brought to you by quality builders are you are one of your clients real estate investors who can’t seem to find a trustworthy general contractor. Are you tired of poor communication, excessive change orders and extensive schedule delays. We’ll look no further because quality builders is a Chicago general contractor focused on helping you the real estate investor grow your portfolio. Each and every product decision is based on quality builders core values of transparency, courage, integrity, and uniqueness which produce sustainable and predictable results that successful real estate investors are looking for. Quality builders uses innovative project management technology to keep you up to date on your projects by providing a client portal to view daily logs schedules and contract and change order updates. Schedule a free one on one consultation by visiting quality builders.com That’s quality builders.com to see how they can partner with you to build your real estate portfolio. 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 this show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with mentor and health coach Angelica, Ben Treece to talk all about dealing with the ups and downs of the market, as well as difficult clients how do you maintain your mental health while wearing all the hats that we know Realtors wear. But before we get to Angelica, just a couple of quick reminders please remember to tell a friend about our show. Think of one other agent maybe one that’s struggling with all the stress of being a realtor and this is a perfect episode to shoot over to them, you can send them right to our website keeping it real pod.com where they can stream every episode we’ve ever done. Or they can pull up a podcast app on their mobile device and search for keeping it real hit that subscribe button we’re pretty much everywhere. So please do that that helps us continue to grow and do more episodes and give you guys better content. So tell a friend but you know what, enough about that let’s get to the main event our my conversation with Angelica Vinci’s.

Today on the show we have Angelica vantrease, who is the CEO and founder of Fit for Life. Let me tell you more about Angelica Angelica venturi is a high performance mentor and health coach to female entrepreneurs, executives and real estate agents who desire to uplevel their health and wealth. She has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine authority magazine and my fitness pal and she is obsessed with guiding driven women to shift their mindset and bank accounts while shedding those unwanted pounds along the way without ridiculous fad diets or crazy restrictions. To this date, she has helped over 700 Women transform their bodies and minds while finding a true alignment in their personal and professional lives. Please everyone listening go visit Angelica at our website which is Angelica Ben treece.com. That’s V N T R I C E so Angelica vantrease.com. We’ll have a link in the show notes and also absolutely follow her on Facebook which is at the angelica than trees. That link is also in the show notes Angelica Welcome to the show.

Angelica Ventrice 4:57
Hello everybody excited to be here.

D.J. Paris 5:00
I am really jealous of Angelica because she was like, Yeah, I’m calling you from Maui, which is I didn’t realize she lived there. And that is absolutely one of my favorite places in the world to visit. And I’ve been there several times, but not to the southern part of the island, the southwest part of the island, I guess where you are, which is supposed to be even like the best part of the island. So

Angelica Ventrice 5:21
magical place so everyone needs to be released once in their life. For sure.

D.J. Paris 5:26
It’s, it’s, I always say like you can even skip skip a wahoo. Not that there’s anything wrong with the one who like wow, who was lovely and nice.

Angelica Ventrice 5:34
But wha hoo. Don’t be on the beach. If you want to city go to New York City or LA. You don’t need it.

D.J. Paris 5:40
That’s right. Yeah, I remember the first time as a family. We started in Oahu. And I was like, oh, yeah, I was I was in I was young. I was in college, I was thrilled to be able to go to Hawaii. I was so lucky. And a wife and a wahoo was like, Okay, this is okay. Now, when we got to Maui, I was like, Oh, nice. Nice.

Angelica Ventrice 6:00
I know, the first time I got to Oahu. I was like, all right. It’s just I really felt like I was just there was a big, big city, big city, and shopping. And it’s not vacation mode for me.

D.J. Paris 6:13
Not as much fun. But that is awesome. Well, we could I could talk about Hawaii all day, because I am I just I dream about going there as and I haven’t been there in many, many years. But I’m glad that we’re able to communicate and chat. And we’re glad to have you on the show. And I was telling Angelica before we started that, well, my memory is garbage. So this might not actually be true, but I think it is true. This is the first time we’ve had a health and wellness expert on our show in about 400 episodes, and specifically one who who deals with real estate agents. So this is so exciting. I’m so excited. I am a big proponent of health, even before wealth, right? I think health is is the catalyst for everything this is this is our temple. And it’s a good idea to pay attention to what you’re shoving into your temple. While you’re while you’re having to run run your rest of your life. So I would love to start with your journey. Tell us how you got into the fitness space, the health and wellness space. What was that? Why did you do that? And how did you do it?

Angelica Ventrice 7:15
Yeah, so I’m originally from New York, you guys may hear hear come out of my accent with certain words. So um, you know, like 13 years ago, I was living in New York and I was overweight my basically my whole life like from the time I was a child, you know, all through high school, I was uncomfortable. I was heavier. I had acne yet. I had, I didn’t love myself. And it kind of lasted all the way up until my mid 20s. So I was in medical sales at the time. So this is where I find a lot of similarities to when I was in medical sales to be in real estate and I think that’s what what has led me to work with a lot of real estate agents because there I was like hustling you’re on the go You’re just like going from doctor’s office, a doctor’s office and I really was not taking care of myself I was entertaining just like how a lot of real estate agents entertain, right? Entertaining, hustling. It was just that really honestly just go go go right like

D.J. Paris 8:08
not a lot of routine right? It was like different different doctor’s office if every, every day constantly racing around grabbing food when you’re

Angelica Ventrice 8:18
grabbing food, like stopping at you know Starbucks to get the office snacks, and then just eating whatever at Starbucks or stopping at Dunkin Donuts. And it was a lot of that. And they’re just added up, added up added up on top of the weight that I had already just gained throughout, you know, my whole life. One day, it just kind of hit me I’m like, I’m done. Like, I felt so horrible. I felt lethargic, I felt uncomfortable. I was I had to keep buying bigger suits and dresses. It’s at a point. I’m just like, No, I’m done. Like you just hit you hit a breaking point. So I hired my first coach. And I worked out with him a few times a week, you know, I was in my 20s. And I really investment wise, I didn’t have the investment at the point where I was like, here’s my credit card, I just when you want to do something, you want to do it and you figure it out, that’s really high. And I was like, I’ll figure it out later, I don’t even care. So I started working with him started losing the weight. And through that journey, something just hit me. I’m like, This is what I want to do. Like I want to help other women because it wasn’t just shedding the weight, releasing the weight. When you release the weight. You release a lot of energy and stories that you had been clinging on to your whole entire life, telling myself I’m the fat girl, I’m always gonna be fat. It’s my genetics, like all those things that you’re holding on to your release and identity. And I felt so much happier so much lighter, mentally and physically and I decided to get my certifications while I was doing medical sales. And then I was like, I don’t want to live in New York. I hate the cold and I knew California really is the mecca of health and fitness like you know, it’s just everyone’s very healthy out there. It’s it’s sunny all the time. Everyone’s running around like I want to live in California. So I believe in manifestation and I just started to like, manifest it. I took a trip out there. I went I went to interview at Equinox gym, which I had never worked at a gym. They were like what experience you have. I’m like have absolutely none. But I’m really passionate about changing women’s lives. And I can prove to you that like, this is something I want to do. Left my medical sales job moved from New York to California without a job lined up like, wow, yeah. But you know, I was smart, I save. And I did get the job at the gym eventually, and worked my way up there and then decided that I wasn’t really fulfilled just doing personal training, like fitness wasn’t deep enough for me. So I got nutrition certifications, and then you can only move up so far to gym. And you could only see so many clients in a day. And I was like, I want to branch out on my own branch out on my own, and decided to move into the online space. And that’s where my program fit for life was born. And then I really got into nutrition mindset, gut health and metaphysical aspects to weight loss. And then fitness is honestly the smallest component now on my program, everyone gets customized workouts, but what I really believe is that your mindset and your gut health and and the food you intake has way more to do with your weight loss and your transformation of your happiness than just doing the workout. So yes, the workouts are important, but it’s the least important in my opinion. And here we are right now I live in Maui. So here we are.

D.J. Paris 11:09
It’s an it’s an incredible journey. And it’s impressive, that I always think it’s so fun when something grabs a hold of you. And it becomes an obsession at first and then possibly a career. And you’ve done that. And I think it’s it’s so awesome to talk to people when that whatever that thing is for them grabs a hold of them, and it just can’t really they can’t shake it loose. And then all of a sudden they’re like, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so I love that. And so, I would love so I think what I would love to first because our audience, so just to give you, an you, you work with realtors, so you know, but just just to sort of set set the stage, you know, our audience, our lovely listeners who we are so thrilled are here and paying attention. These are people who you know, wear a lot of different hats. They basically are their own business owner, they maybe they’re on a team, but essentially, it’s probably they’re doing incredible amounts of work. They’re working bizarre hours of the day, sometimes into the night, nights and weekends. It’s it’s it’s a, you know, they’re there, it’s a customer service job in a lot of respects. So they are having to mold their time around when their clients are available to go see homes and be available for you know, buying and selling things. So there’s it’s tough for them for number one for structure, because they’re at their client’s beck and call. So I would just first love to let let’s first make the case and we want we’ll deal with myths, right? Now, let’s make the case about why it’s so important for all of our listeners to be paying attention to their their physical well being and their mental well being. For sure,

Angelica Ventrice 12:47
well, your body is your main vessel. So if you’re not taking care of like you said, it’s your temple, it’s your vessel. At a certain point, no matter how well you’re doing in your business, you want to grow to the next level, we all do, let’s be real real estate agents, you’re entrepreneurs, I’m an entrepreneur, we want to keep going and going. That’s why we got into these businesses in the first place. So at a certain point, if you’re not taking care of your health, your body can only hold so much hold so much energy, both so much well hold so much. So you really need to start to implement boundaries and structure being less reactive, paying attention to your mindset, your reactivity, you know, adding in things like meditate, I mean, we can go into all the things that if you’re not taking care of at a certain point, you’re going to reach burnout, you’re going to have gut health issues, you’re going to feel extreme fatigue, inflammation in your joints bloat. And then when you’re operating on it, that that leads you to operate at a low level energetically, right? The vibrations that you’re putting out, the first thing a client sees when you take them to the house is you. And if you don’t like the way you look, and you don’t feel good, what type of energy are you putting out into the world? The clients feel that no matter what sales position you’re in, whether you’re selling real estate, whether you’re selling whatever you’re selling, clients feel your energy. So if you’re not in a good vibrational state, because you’re not taking care of your health and your body, how much more wealth can you actually make?

D.J. Paris 14:10
It’s a really strong point. And let’s I always had this question and I’m curious to hear your answer. Because a lot of us who are listening, myself included, would like to lose just sheds, you know, a few pounds of fat or, or maybe more. And so a lot of us who consider maybe we consider ourselves overweight, or not the ideal body size that we would like to be. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, we do have some of those negative thoughts of, oh, I can’t believe maybe I did this to myself or you know, some shame, some guilt. This idea that I don’t like the where I’m at and therefore there’s something wrong with me kind of feeling. Well, how do you how do you start with someone like that? Because I think that doesn’t get talked about a lot and I think a lot of us fall into that category where we look for what’s wrong, maybe maybe our body is really lovely. But in our mind, you know, we have, you know, some sort of distorted view of it where, or maybe it is actually not the right shape that we would like it to be. But we have a lot of shame and guilt around that. So how do you deal with that? What do we say to people who are sure, and that’s

Angelica Ventrice 15:20
very common, I can relate because when I was overweight, I felt that the first thing is, it’s really helpful when you work with an expert to help take you through releasing those feelings of shame and guilt. And I use different methods, whether it’s visualization, meditation, tapping, a mindset coaching call, but, you know, it’s okay to want to change things about yourself. But you still have to do it from a place of self love. So, friends, I’ll use myself like I got a no shop a few years ago, I’ll be totally honest about I did a YouTube video on it. People are very interested in this. I did it because I didn’t like my nose, not because I hated myself, right. And when I wanted to lose weight, there was a point where I didn’t I didn’t like the way I look. But you have to really say like, what do you love about yourself? Even if you want to lose weight? What are some great things that you love about yourself physical mental accomplishments in your career? And and remember those things and start to release the guilt and shame because what does that do? Honestly, if you’re trying to lose weight, that makes it harder. If you’re feeling guilty, if you’re feeling shameful, if you’re feeling super negative, those thoughts affect your physiological body in a negative way. They increase cortisol, they mess with your hormones. So if you can just actually learn to just say, okay, like, No, I don’t like the way I look right now. I know I have some weight to lose, what am I going to do about it instead of wallowing in the stories and the guilt and the shame? And I say to my clients, a lot of us live in the Doom dungeon, like, Oh, I wish this like hope this I shouldn’t have done this, or I’m so guilty. Oh, what if I fail, it’s like that doesn’t get you anywhere. Living in the Doom dungeon doesn’t get you anywhere. So it’s starting to release those feelings. And I’m not saying it’s easy, but there are different methods like journaling, meditation, visualization, working with a coach tapping, movement, grounding, there’s, there’s many things you can do.

D.J. Paris 17:00
Yeah, I think that’s really important. I’ve always heard the the best place you can be the best mindset you can have if you’re looking to change your your physical vitality, or your physical shape, is to look in the mirror and say, well, it’s not what I’d like it to be, I’d actually prefer it to be, you know, a different shape. And I’m really want to make that happen. But I can still love myself, even though I’m not the shape. I’m I would prefer to be and I can still go after the shape I want to be. Yes. So it’s this teasing apart of the identity of like, Oh, I’m I’m fat, right? It’s like, okay, yes, I have some fat I’d like to add, right? Yeah. And, and I’m a really great person to or I have all these other great qualities. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, right? It’s like, I’m fat, does it mean, I’m a bad person? Or it just means I have some extra weight that I would like to get rid of like, okay, cool. And by the way, sorry. No, I was I was just gonna say I think I think it’s admirable to to have an honest appraisal of your situation and, and go, and how great is it that I’m thinking about this and thinking about making changes like that, in and of itself is huge. Yes.

Angelica Ventrice 18:17
I know, I just said you can love yourself and still want to change certain things about yourself. I love myself, but I didn’t like my nose. Like I didn’t have a job. You know, there’s plenty people that do that. Like you, you love yourself, but you think that you’re a little bit overweight, change it, like let’s not wallow in it, let’s just move forward write about it. And take action always when?

D.J. Paris 18:36
Actually, yes, and action can even supersede belief, I think so it’s like

Angelica Ventrice 18:42
them believe action and then take the action, you’re not always gonna believe you can do it. Once you start to see the results on your weight loss journey, then your belief will increase. But if you just take action, imperfect action, do something action trumps the belief,

D.J. Paris 18:56
imperfect action. I love that. That is that is a great thing to remember for any any part of life that you’re looking to make a change. Just take some take some action doesn’t need to be perfect, just just do something. But let’s talk about okay, so that so thank you that I think that’s a great way to set the stage. And we should also talk about because I was looking at your website, and I was seeing the transformations of of caches, like dozens of women. And there was visual, there’s so many Yeah, it is it is apps. Oh, I know that the page is like it’s like an infinite scroll of people who have have really transformed their life. And you can see it visually and then you can they write about it as well. And I was just so impressive. And I know like, I didn’t take a before and after photo of myself when I started working out but but I do sort of look in the mirror and I’m like, Oh, if like I don’t even know we were talking about this before we start like I don’t even like working out but I do it. And as a result I get the benefit. I get the benefit. So that’s another thing too is I don’t know that you have to love every part of exercise, or being, you know fit or in shape or dieting, or sorry, not dieting, but having a good nutritional sort of plan. But as long as you do it, you get a ton of benefit from it. So I’m somebody who doesn’t enjoy working out because it’s hard. It’s painful, it’s it’s not fun. But anyway, we were talking about this outside, or before we started, when I leave the gym, I feel number one, I feel good, because I’ve got all these great sort of endorphins racing through my body. Number two, I’m proud of myself because I did something crazy hard. And, and that’s all I have to admit, I get all the benefit. So I have to go through a little bit of the pain, quite a bit of pain, actually. But that’s okay, like this paint likes got pain involved. But I get all the benefit. And I think this idea of jumping in diving headfirst into physical pain to get benefit is actually like part of the deal when you work out. Like that’s just how it is you have to be willing to be uncomfortable to get stronger.

Angelica Ventrice 21:01
You have to be willing to get uncomfortable in any area of your life, if you desire growth, in your business, in your health, in your relationships in all areas of life. So and you know, the things that we resist, they persist. So if you keep resisting the fact that you need to work out, or if you’re trying to grow in your business, and you’re resisting the fact that you know, you need to hire an assistant because you’re so busy, but it’s everything that you resist will persist and creep up on you to a worse level. In my opinion. You know what I mean? So, yeah, awesome person. I would love every one of my clients to love the workouts. Some of them love it more. Some of them don’t, but they do it. And then of course, you want to add in things that you do love. So if you don’t love strength training, maybe you do it a few days a week and you love yoga. So maybe you add in a yoga, so you never want to be miserable. But no, you don’t want to be miserable. Everyone likes like lifting weights, a lot of people hate like cardio and burpees. So I’m like, okay, you don’t need to do any of that. Just walk you know. So we really do work with our clients. I never want anyone to feel like they really hate it like I have clients are just like, I hate lifting. Can I do boxing and running? I’m like, okay, like I do believe in strength training, especially for the longevity of your joints and your bones and everything. But and especially if you’re you do desire to lose weight, you need to lift weights to build lean muscle mass, but if someone really hates it, there’s other ways and then the nutrition in the mind. That’s a big part. But yeah, it’s not just like, oh, I look good. It’s so I feel good. The endorphins, the energy, and you become so much stronger, mentally and physically from working out. Putting yourself in those challenges.

D.J. Paris 22:26
What’s your advice on the best time of day for real estate agents to exercise? I know, obviously.

Angelica Ventrice 22:35
Morning, we just had a one on one call with one of my new clients. She’s a real estate agent. And we she asked me this exact question literally. Also, she missed our tribe call last night because she was closing a deal. She’s like, I can’t believe I missed the call. And I’m like, this will we’re gonna talk about on our next coach ball boundaries, right? So she, she was she was saying like, I’m not really a morning person. But I know if I leave the workouts later in the day, I’m like, You will never do the workout after a full day of working and you’re running around, I know how real estate agents operate, you know, house to house calls, calls calls running around, you’re not going to work out at seven o’clock at night, let’s be real, like, let’s be real. So just wake up a half hour earlier. And then you can move half hour to 45 minutes and then eventually becomes an hour earlier. And then you fit in a longer workout. And remember to the real estate agents listening. In the beginning, if you’re, you’re just starting on your weight loss journey, right? The workouts don’t need to be long, you can start with like 1520 minutes and work your way up. Something is better than nothing. Moving your body is better than not doing anything. Five minutes of meditation in the morning is better than nothing. So just doing little things, little tiny, little tiny things lead to big results. So if you’re a real estate agent, and you’re listening and like why don’t have an hour in the morning, then just do a 15 minute workout a week customize all your workouts. So some of my clients literally just have 15 minute workouts because they are that busy. And then they leave for other days.

D.J. Paris 23:58
And you do sort of get hooked on it after a while even though you may or may not like it, you get hooked on it because you know it’s good for you and you can start to see maybe even see results or feel results. So it becomes I think, you know, I was thinking about when you know when you’re in an airplane, and when they do the announcements, which I usually zone out for. But they always say yeah, I’m like, I don’t know what’s if God God forbid, there’s an actual like fire on the plane or the planes going down. I’ll have no idea what to do. But but but we all know that they say you know, hey, if the oxygen becomes you know, the oxygen levels decrease and the thing comes down with the masks, put your own mask on first before you can.

Angelica Ventrice 24:43
Oh my gosh, such. Yes, save Yourself. Your clients will be okay. You don’t need 10 o’clock at night they could wait till the morning.

D.J. Paris 24:52
They can wait. Pay yourself first and that includes health and wellness and so forth. First thing of the day, it sounds like Angelica, you’re suggesting pay yourself first. And by what I mean is, you’re basically doing a favor for your future self by getting to the gym, or working out or doing something related to health or nutrition, you’re paying your future, you’re you’re doing a favor for your future, the older you have that’s coming. And so I yeah, I could not agree with you more. I don’t do them in the morning, but I have it structured in the middle of my day. And it happens to be a few blocks from where I live. So it sort of works.

Angelica Ventrice 25:28
If you can do it great for females, but I couldn’t do it after work after a lot of getting ready. So like if you’re you have the you know, your hair and your makeup, I you know, so when I didn’t medical sales, and I was on go just like be real estate agent, I would take my bag of stuff with me to my trainer, and then just shower and get ready, and then have my day from there. So either way, you have to be prepared. So if you if you know you’re going to work out in the morning, and it’s earlier than usual, set your stuff out the night before, you know, put your sleep, like make your smoothie the evening before make your egg cups that this is with our clients, we actually, we help them with routines, we’re not just like giving them meal plans and workouts, we’re like helping them fit it into their life, because that’s an integral part. And that’s how you stick with it and it becomes a lifestyle. If it feels too hard to fit into your life or too complicated, you’re going to start and then you’re going to stop, you’re gonna start and then you’re gonna stop over and over again, so really needs to fit into your lifestyle. It’s very important for real estate agents.

D.J. Paris 26:22
I agree. And I also think to this idea of like you were talking about planning in advance, eliminates the need to make more decisions. So like, throughout the day, our listeners are making having to react to a million different things that are coming at them. But if you don’t have to think about breakfast, lunch exercise, because it’s already booked into your schedule, and you already have your meals ready to go, then it’s like three or four less things to worry about. And you’re probably you’re gonna make better decisions.

Angelica Ventrice 26:52
Yeah, you feel better. When you feel better, you perform better if you’re eating well, your gut is in good health, right, your brain is clear, you feel better your skin, you have more energy so that you know that go go go maybe doesn’t feel as hard. And I’m not saying you don’t need to slow down all your real estate, you just need to slow down drink less coffee. I mean, we can go on, there’s a whole list I go, we can go into all that. But what the most important things that I teach, I work one on one with a lot of real estate agents and do health and wealth is really slowing down first thing in the morning, not going to their phone and looking at their emails and answering and going crazy, actually turning inward, the morning is the best time to slow down. It’s a it’s a time where you’re creative. So just take 510 minutes and do meditation. I mean literally, if you’ve never meditated, just sit there for five minutes and breathe. You know or find a guided meditation, there’s so many options, and then do your workout, do your you know, eat your breakfast, whatever, whatever you desire your morning routine to be but not waking up and increasing your cortisol the second you wake up, because that leads to weight gain, like oh, my gosh, this client, email me and then immediately you’re starting your day in a heightened stress state what a stress to it changes the biodiversity in your microbiome in your gut, it increases cortisol, which then leads to weight gain. So now you’re in such a cycle,

D.J. Paris 28:08
I stopped looking at social media, why I don’t really look much at social media at all, but I stopped specifically looking at it before bed and when I first wake up, because I noticed that I was just too emotionally reactive to what was happening. So some good things, some sad things, some angry things, some you know, it’s it’s this just intense environment. And it’s addictive, because because of the way that these tech companies have figured out how to sort of activate our dopamine hits. Yeah, constant dopamine hits and constant just emotional reactions to things. So it’s one of those things where I just kind of measured I was like, do I feel better? After I checked my social media first thing in the morning? Like, how do I feel? Am I more anxious? Am I less anxious and more stressful? It was all Oh, I’m actually worse off now. And I’m not saying that to everybody. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t be on social media. But notice how you feel when you do these activities. And notice how it sets up the rest of your day. But you’re absolutely right. Um, let’s I want to talk about gut health, because we have never talked about gut show. And I feel this is something that most people go oh, yeah, I sort of know that there’s a mind body connection. And the gut is, is has all this information that sends signals to the brain, but I don’t think a lot of us know really what that means. So what is what is gut health mean to you, and how should we define it?

Angelica Ventrice 29:28
So Leah, what you just mentioned is the vagus nerve does link the brain down to the digestive tract. So when you actually say I have a good feeling, oh, I have a good feeling. That’s a real thing. So I mean, the gut microbiome reverse the trillions of micro organisms that make up your gut. Okay. And what happens over time, when we are highly stressed, we take a lot of antibiotics, we don’t treat our body well, nutrition wise. We’re always on the go. We’re very reactive. You know, all the things. We allow the toxins to kind of seep in because the gut lining gets thinner and thinner and thinner becomes more permeable. And when that happens that leads to a slew of symptoms that are the obvious. Poor gut health symptoms like irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, diarrhea, bloating, everyone knows those. But then there’s the other ones that I find like a lot of real estate agents don’t even realize it. But like, I’m so tired, I’m so fatigued, my joints hurt. I have headaches. Those are all signs of poor gut health, skin irritations, eczema, depression, anxiety. A lot of people, there’s a lot of studies from a lot of people who have ADHD and high levels of anxiety, it’s related to poor gut health. So as your real estate agent and you’re very busy, you’re on the go, we don’t need to make it worse by having poor gut health, right? Because that’s stress, your constant state of stress is really changing the biodiversity of your gut microbiome. So we want to feed your gut with lots of healthy bacteria. So how do you do that you need a lot of fiber. So I always say a lot of veggies. Fruits, fruits and veggies are great and obviously lean proteins. But what happens when you eat a lot of fiber I’m always like telling my real estate agents eat more greens, eat more greens, eat more greens drink more water, less coffee, fiber, when it enters the gut gets turned into a short chain fatty acid which feeds the healthy bacteria and then there’s of course, foods you can include there’s you know, I have a list here onions, leeks, sauerkraut, veggies, leafy greens, MCT oil, coconut oil, salmon, so there’s a lot of great foods that will help the help your gut become more healthy, but you really have to pay attention to other factors like your stress levels and your thoughts. And if you’re taking antibiotics and things that you’re putting in your body unfortunate.

D.J. Paris 31:37
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Angelica Ventrice 33:15
perceive Yeah, everything that affects your performance. If your brain fog, if you have poor sleep, if your joints hurt, you don’t feel well. You’re not going to be be performing at your best in your career. That’s the bottom line. I’ve been so I’ve had these things. So I got so passionate about gut health that affected my hormones. You know, you can only take so many calls or see so many clients or do so many things when you feel like

D.J. Paris 33:36
crap. And then and then we I want to talk about okay, I want to talk about carbs because I obviously there’s this lots of people have different sort of interpretations of what carbs are. But let’s let’s talk about what carbs. Well, there’s obviously good carbs and bad carbs. Okay, well, let’s go oh, let’s start right there. healthy carbs. And

Angelica Ventrice 33:59
go ahead. Okay, we’re gonna go there are no good and bad. Food has no morals. This is a very important lesson for anyone. Food has no moral value. Unfortunately, the health and fitness industry has somehow moralized foods people think they’re bad if they have a cookie, and people think they’re good. They had a salad. Let’s take this off the table. There’s no good food, there’s a bad food, there’s no good carbs. There’s no bad carbs. Certain parts are more nutrient dense. So the carbs that are more nutrient dense. I think this is your question right are going to be things like sweet potatoes, rice, quinoa, you can do chickpeas, lentil pasta, things like that. And then the non nutrient dense carbs are going to be kind of obvious like your white breads, your doughnuts, simple carbs. Yeah, basically yes, there’s complex, the most simple carbs things that you know are just regular pasta. Even if you don’t have celiac and you’re you don’t have an allergy to gluten and gluten has still been proven to be quite an issue. laboratory to people’s guts. I’m not saying never eat it. Sometimes I want pizza, I have a slice of pizza. But on a daily basis, it’s something if you minimize, I believe you’ll feel a lot better. I’ve noticed it in myself and my clients. So yeah, but there’s no good food. There’s no bad food. You’re not bad. If you have a cupcake, you’re just fine. It’s okay.

D.J. Paris 35:16
Thank you. Thank you for making that distinction. Because that’s even something that even though I know better, I just did I just gave a food. A, I evaluated it right. And I gave it a good and bad and that’s you’re right, that is absolutely not a great idea, because good and bad leads to good and bad feelings. And then there’s shame and guilt. Toto, thank you. Thank you for checking me on that. Because that’s because it’s so ingrained in our culture. I just ate something bad for me. I just

Angelica Ventrice 35:44
got a cake at my son’s party and can’t believe it. Now. I ruined my like, it’s everyone does it my clients still do it. It’s a constant reminder. So I talk about a lot on my Instagram. I’m reminding people all the time, because repetition is how you learn food has no moral value.

D.J. Paris 35:59
Can we? You mentioned MCT oil, and I don’t want to get too specific about any particular food. But I want to say that if anyone listening is not familiar with MCT oil, and it’s not a miracle sort of oil, but it is absolutely a it is a really cool sort of product that if you’re not familiar, but basically, it helps sustain sort of satiation right like this idea of being satiated. It’s it’s a really cool. So if you’re not, if you haven’t looked at MCT oil, it is absolutely a wonderful thing to help sort of smooth out your cravings. And, and anyway, it’s

Angelica Ventrice 36:37
it also helps seal your gut lining. So if you’re someone with poor gut health, you want to include coconut products, MCT oil, which is medium chain triglyceride, into your diet, because it’s really going to help, it’s going to help your gut become more permeable, more permeable, which we need, you know, less permeable. So yeah, we want you definitely want to be adding things like I mentioned some of the foods before and MCT oil was one of them. So it’s great for gut health, but also great to help you stay more more full.

D.J. Paris 37:02
So so let’s talk about like a full, a general plan that you might put together for someone. And I obviously we’re not we can’t do that here on the show tailor made to each listener. But But how like, we’re really talking about a number of things, talking about our physical well being which includes, you know, nutrition and exercise, we’re talking about our emotional well being, which includes mindset, stress, you know, just our own emotional challenges. And, and kind of marrying those two together and understanding that they, they they aren’t separate entities, they really are one. So what are some of what’s a prescription? So you talked about waking up in the morning, doing a little meditation, not jumping on social, you know, sort of centering yourself getting calm, having your breakfast, exercising, and then what other suggestions might you have for someone to

Angelica Ventrice 38:03
use that everyone is different, but if typically, with real estate it is. And everyone’s different, depending some people will like to work out and eat breakfast after to each zone, but the best thing you can do is be prepared. So we go through meal prep with our clients, we give them a meal plan. And we say you know do you want super easy meals, do you like more complicated meals, you want to be more fancy, everyone’s different. So for instance, we might give them like a cook recipes, smoothie recipes, stuff that’s really simple for them to just make for the week. So they can be prepared you can make like chia seed pudding and have jars of that in your fridge. So this way, you can just get out the door, go on your day and not have to think about your food. I mean, you can get you know, when I was a medical sales rep I had, like a cooler with me in my car I worked out in my car real estate agents work out their car, don’t make excuses. You don’t need to stop and get food just eat in your car eat. For me, you can go sit somewhere but have your food with you. There’s really no excuse you can prep it the night before get your salad and your grilled chicken ready and you’re homeless whatever you want, but have stuff prepared. Being prepared is essential just like you’re prepared for your business. When you go to show a house you know what, you know how many bedrooms you know what type of molding you know what type of floor right you know, if there’s a pool, you know all these things about it. So you’re really prepared for your career, translate that energy to your health, you will be more successful in both areas, you will lose the weight and make more money.

D.J. Paris 39:21
I agree it’s about 12 years ago, I decided I never I it was funny like sometimes it takes like years and years to notice something that’s super obvious to everyone but yourself. So I noticed that when I didn’t prepare my meals, I have more of an office job. So when I’ve always had office jobs pretty much my whole life but when I didn’t prepare my meals the night before the morning of I would make choices, you know for lunch because I didn’t have a lunch and whenever I did, I found that most of the time I made a choice that after after consuming it I went oh I wish I would have made a different choice. I wish I would have chosen so One thing that you know, was more nutrient dense and using your language. And so then I said, Well, okay, maybe I’m just not good at making those decisions in the middle of the of a business day, when there’s all this stress coming at me. And I just wanted something that’ll like satisfy or, you know, make me hungry. Yeah, you’re just like, get like, I’m hungry. And I’m stressed. And I just want I just want something that feels good in the moment, which is usually less nutrient dense types of foods, candies, you know, things like that part. So I went, Oh, well, if I just made my lunch every day, then I wouldn’t have to think about it. And at least I’d still have all the stress, but at least I wouldn’t be making things more challenging for myself by making maybe a poor decision around what what I eat that day. So like, that was just logic for me and I, you were saying a cooler, I have a little cooler under my desk with my meals. And it doesn’t look I mean, there’s plenty of parts of my life that are not in balance. But the best, I’ll tell you the two, the two big things about preparing in advance, being intentional about what what you eat, is you’re probably going to make a better decision if you prepare in advance. And, and you don’t have to think about it the next day, you have enough things to think about. Like what

Angelica Ventrice 41:14
you feel better for the ladies who are listening, like doesn’t it feel better when you’re not feeling bloated in your clothes all day, like, you know, eat crappy food, even even like Whole Foods, right? You go to the salad bar, they’re still sitting out, you just want to junk junk, you don’t really know you know, then you pick a crappy dressing. So you just feel so much better. When you feel better, you perform better and you make more money, and you look better in your clothes come on.

D.J. Paris 41:36
It’s it’s it’s a win win. But But I think you’re so right about making sure that mindset because you can be the most disciplined person in the gym or with food. But if your mindset is such that you have trauma that hasn’t been repaired, or you have beliefs about yourself that maybe were instilled when you were a child or through you know from other people that are getting in the way of you feeling good about yourself. That’s that’s a huge part of it, too. Because that will get people to think, Oh, if I just hit that perfect weight goal, I’m going to be happy. No, right? Or if I just make that certain amount of money, that’s when I get that’s when the happiness turns on. Can we talk about that a little bit like when you get to the top of the of the mountain, this is why I’m not a big fan of goals. I’ve never been a big goal guy. I think you should have direction, I think you should know where you want to head. But the reason why I don’t love goals, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts. And it’s not that we shouldn’t like businesses have goals, there’s, we should have goals in certain areas of our life. But when it comes to our own personal well being I think the problem with goals is it, we sometimes get too attached to them, it’s like once, once I get X, you know I will feel good about myself,

Angelica Ventrice 42:50
your happiness can’t be dependent on something outside of yourself. It can’t be when I make this amount of money, then I’ll be happy when I lose this amount, then I’ll be happy, you may be happier, you may have a more sense of freedom, when you make more money, you may have more freedom and alignment and your body when you hit that certain number. But if you are not enjoying the journey, and you were only looking to the outcome, you’re gonna have a very miserable life, whether that’s a weight loss or your career, if you’re chasing, making a million all you’re focusing on in your businesses hitting that first million, you’re forgetting to be present in all the other aspects of your business in your life. Same thing on your weight loss journey. If you’re only focused on losing 40 pounds and getting to that 40 pound weight loss by this day, are you enjoying all the small wins along the way, how you feel how your clothes fit, how’s your energy, how, how have you lifted in the gym for the first time, you gotta pee on your run all the things that happen, how clear beautiful your skin looks, how your gut health has improved, you’re forgetting all those things, when you’re only focusing on the outcome. And your happiness cannot be dependent on something outside of you and you touch upon something else, you know, mindset and your weight or your body, we hold our issues in our tissues. So if you do not resolve past beliefs, past pattern past trauma, you’re holding on to stagnant energy in your body, which of course leads to weight gain, because it’s going to be an increase in cortisol. Most people who have tried and failed on various weight loss programs have failed to realize that their thought their thoughts 80,000 thoughts a day affect their physiological body. And that is one of the main things I teach that’s very different than many other health programs out there. So I teach the physical which is like we talked about the strategy, the routines, the macros, the calories, the workouts, but then the metaphysical is equally as important.

D.J. Paris 44:37
Yes, I absolutely agree. And I couldn’t. It’s funny. It’s like, you know, we think oh, if I just get in shape, then I’m happy or if I just eat right, and it’s like well okay, yes, you’re happy you probably will be happy or but you can be happy now even if you’re hundreds of pounds of lot more if you have hundreds of pounds. more weight than you would like to have, you can still find happiness. And as you were saying, and strive to have a different physical or mental well being so so I think I think that’s, I think it’s the, I always love when I when I meet people who have, you know, who will say, Oh, I really want to make this change, but there isn’t that shame attached to it of like, but where I’m at right now is really embarrassing. You know, as I was thinking about this, my, my girlfriend works with somebody who, well, actually, you know what, I won’t tell that story now that I think about it, because it’s gonna be, but But I will say that, that that shame will and guilt will absolutely just completely shut it down, it will shut down your motivation, right. So making sure that you’re having who are in a good mindset, you have a good sort of mental health, you know, program in place to make sure that as you’re happily achieving, you’re doing these, you know, very difficult things, because that’s the other thing too, is, is, you know, we’re talking about health and fitness. Just like any part of life, it’s difficult. It’s really a lot of work. It’s worth it. But it’s difficult. And so you really want to make sure that all your bases are covered, so you have the best chance of having the most vitality. And I love it. Tell us a little bit more about what what Fit for Life does for for clients, because we have a lot of listeners, they need a coach and tell us Well, look, I need a coach to coach. I mean, we all need coaches,

Angelica Ventrice 46:39
greatest athletes in the world have coaches and a team, right?

D.J. Paris 46:43
The very best at something in the world.

Angelica Ventrice 46:47
Athletes, right, Michael Jordan like I mean, if you ever watched that documentary, that was great, that Michael Jordan documentary, but he literally talks about how he wouldn’t have gotten to where he was without Phil Jackson, you know what I mean? So when people say to me, they’re gonna keep trying to lose weight on their own. And I’m like, All right, it’s the slowest way of doing anything is doing on your own. Tony Robbins says that at all this conferences the slowest way to learn is on your own. So what we do is everything is customized and tailored, we really we take a holistic approach everything is you know, by wind Yvette, individuality is very important to us, like how I eat is not going to be how you eat, not gonna be how Suzy eats. We all eat very different. We all have different caloric needs macronutrient needs, which is your protein, fats and carbs. So we do teach macros, and then we teach intuitive eating, the workouts are customized. So like I said, whether you’re at home or a gym, you need 15 minute workouts, our workouts, you’re a runner, you’re a cyclist, your swimmer, we do it all. Everything is customized, we had a head, we have a head of training, who does all the programming for that, from a nutrition standpoint, completely customized. We have a gut health protocol that we do with our clients. We have a functional medicine doctor on staff to do gut health testing for you to see if you know if you want to do a stool test, see if you have food sensitivities, hormonal testing blood work, and then we do a lot of mindset work. And that’s through the one on one coaching the messaging back and forth with the coaches and then every Wednesday I lead a mindset coaching call on various topics. So feminine energetics, personal power, attracting more wealth, positive mindset, we do little book clubs. So there’s there’s a lot we have a membership site, we have a spiritual coach for meditation and yoga. So I think that’s all yeah,

D.J. Paris 48:26
that’s all but that’s everything right? You touched on on on physical, right. So you touched on the physical, we touched on on on the emotional or the mental. We also touched on eating, you just touched on spiritual, too, because, hey, it’s not just me. Yes, everything’s everything. Yes. And so I love this because what the word holistic is just gets thrown around way too much. But in this in this case, you actually do have a true holistic program. So it’s not just hey, we’re going to lose weight. And that’s it, we’re going to be yes, we’re going to lose weight. Or if we well, that’s not everyone’s goal, some people’s goals to to gain weight, but we’re going to get healthier, physically, we’re gonna get healthier mentally, and spiritually. I mean, those are the three things right and, and all of those things will then feed your business, they’ll feed your interpersonal relationships, you’ll be a better you’ll be a better partner, to your

Angelica Ventrice 49:18
mom that are in your business. It goes to every area. And I always say the Fit for Life program is not a weight loss program. It is a transformation program, you will lose weight and transform your body as a byproduct of what we teach you. But it’s not just a weight loss program. And I have clients, so many of them making way more money getting raises getting promotions. I mean, one of my one new real estate agent client after one of our calls, she’s like, I already feel a shift and I just got this new house. I mean, literally, she messaged me this morning. So it’s working on your energetics too, and what energy you’re putting out to the universe and I teach a lot about manifestation and a lot of real estate agents have no idea about the three fields in the quantum field and they’re like mind blown when I so there’s so many Things that it’s amazing. I want

D.J. Paris 50:02
to end with something I just thought of this and I want to get your take on it. So instead of for a lot of us that wish we were a different wish, wish, when we looked at the scale number that it was lower than the number we see. How what if what if we were to say, instead, I’d like to lose weight, rather, because for me, like, it’s easy for me to say, I’d like to lose a few pounds of fat, but the reality of it is, I don’t really want to lose a few pounds of fat, I’d rather transform that fat into muscle. So for me, I think it’d be healthier. And I’m curious to get your take on this for me to say, I have I have a little bit of fat, I’d like to transform into muscle, you know, it? Would that be a better mindset, versus I have a few pounds to lose?

Angelica Ventrice 50:44
Yeah, I think it depends on the person. Because if you say I have some weight to lose, and you don’t feel triggered or shameful by it, then. So I think it’s a very individualistic thing. I tell some of my clients to not weigh themselves and just focus on their clothes. So I think whatever everyone is so different, and what what feelings get triggered within them. You know, like, for me, when I was on my weight loss journey, I never weighed myself, I never want to see I could look at myself in the mirror though. And I could see my clothes, I could feel my clothes or pull off of me. Right? So that is definitely that’s a good shift. Or you can just say like, I’m on this process of releasing weight and transforming my body. I’m not putting up so, you know, I say like, we don’t need to get obsessed over how many pounds it is, let’s just start the journey. Because you know, you’re we’re not done. We know, if you have 40 pounds to lose, you know, we don’t need to keep talking about the number, like let’s just do the damn thing and take action. Like we don’t need to harp on all levels to Oh, it was three, it’s like, let’s just keep going. And for me that that’s what helped me most. That’s what else a lot of my clients. I do have some clients that like to weigh themselves more. It’s all individualized, those depends on the individual. But that is a good yes, you can.

D.J. Paris 51:50
Yeah, I had to I had to stop weighing myself for a similar reason I just got too emotional about I got too happy if the number was low, and I got too upset if it was a higher number, and I went, why am I doing this to myself. And by the way, my body fluctuates all the time. Anyway, that is outside of my control and pounds come and go and and water gets retained water,

Angelica Ventrice 52:10
stress song, or your workout was and that’s a whole week to hold on the podcast that

D.J. Paris 52:15
well I was I was just like, one day I went, why am I basing how I feel about myself based on a number that I in some ways have some control over but in other ways I don’t have certain control over it. And I went this is not the indicator of health, like the indicator of health is how I feel. And also how I think I looked like you were saying closed. So now I just I do the same thing I just I just measure by clothes, I go okay, I can fit into these clothes. So that’s that makes me feel good. And I don’t I don’t weigh myself because it was funny I was at the I had to go to the an orthopedic orthopedic appointment the other day, and they weigh you and do your height because they need to. And it was funny because I go oh, I wonder kind of what Wait, I met and I got caught right back into the trap. And I saw the number and I did not like the number even though I because I thought it was going to be a lot lower because I’d never weighed myself. And I saw it and I got really angry and I was like their scale must be wrong or GJ you’re not as fit as you think you are. And I went this is why I don’t look at the number. So for me, and again, not everybody, of course, if you can look at it and not have a reaction. Great. But for those of us that look at those numbers, or we look at our bank account numbers, and we feel less than Yeah, you know, that does not have to be the way we measure our, you know, the way we measure our fitness,

Angelica Ventrice 53:33
when we talk about self worth doesn’t come from external things. So right, this is all your health, your number, your worth is not based off the number on the scale or the success in your business. You know, like the amount of money you’re making doesn’t equate your self worth, you’re worthy no matter what you’re worn worthy.

D.J. Paris 53:50
You were born worthy. I think that is a perfect place to wrap up. Because that is that is absolutely a great mindset piece to end on. You were born worthy. And also nobody is perfect. So everyone’s got imperfections in their life. And if one of your imperfections is your physical vitality, or your energy or your body shape, or your fitness or nutrition or your mindset, now’s the time to get somebody to help you because the reality of it is we can’t do things alone. We just we can do some things alone, but most things in life, we need help. And so this is a great opportunity to have somebody else come up with all the ideas and the way Yes, exactly. Yeah. So you’ve got enough to worry about hire a coach I it has transformed my life. Angelica and her team are incredible and they’re going to cover not just your your diet and not just your your your you know your your strength they’re going to take they’re going to take a look at everything and say hey here, let’s come up with a plan that makes you a happier, healthier human being. So the best place to go to learn more about what Angelica and the Fit for Life team can do for you is at our website. So go to Angelica vantrease.com. That’s B E N T R I C. E Angelica, like you might suspect, Angelica venturi stock calm, we’ll have a link to that also in the show notes, reach out to them learn about their wellness programs, they are the real deal. And I’m telling you, yes, get get away from the diet fads. And it’s amazing, like

Angelica Ventrice 55:27
cupcake and lose weight. Ladies don’t stress like you can have a glass of wine and lose weight. And so there’s a really, there’s balance to it,

D.J. Paris 55:34
for sure. Well, and we’re going to have a glass of wine and a cupcake anyway, at some point, right? So it’s like, might as well build it in to the, to the to the routine. Yeah, I absolutely could not be a bigger fan of what Angelica does. So please, everyone listening, reach out, she works with real estate agents, she gets you guys, she’s kind of one of you, in a sense, because her she has a she had a similar sort of previous career, you know, being being in medical sales is kind of the same thing. It’s a lot of racing around,

Angelica Ventrice 56:06
like you’re racing around either way, whether you’re racing around to houses or restaurants or doctor’s offices.

D.J. Paris 56:11
Well, Angelica Jelka, thank you for being on our show. We are so thrilled that and we would love to have you back as well. So for everyone listening, go visit Angelica website, Angelica, Ben trieste.com, look at some of their free downloads, they have all sorts of cool resources there. And then they can put a wellness program for you. And again, if you’re thinking, Well, gosh, there’s a cost for that there is a cost for you know, hiring them, but I suspect I would almost I can’t, of course can’t guarantee but I would almost bet I bet a good chunk of money that it would actually actually end up earning you more income because more energy to treat your 100,000%

Angelica Ventrice 56:49
all my clients make more money. Also, you can go to there we go. There we go. I can I will I can guarantee that literally, you could also go to my Instagram. It’s at the angelic of entries. And I’m very active on there. You can pop in, you could ask me questions. So checkout thinking,

D.J. Paris 57:07
jeez, I’m gonna sign up because I would like to be healthier, happier, and, and also make more money. So to me, it’s a no brainer. I’m going to and I’m not even joking. Like, like you just said, every one of your clients makes more money. If we just look at factual data. And we say, Wow, that’s actually true. Okay, sign me up, right. So I am I’m a fan. I mean it that, that’s awesome. That’s an amazing, amazing thing to say. So everyone reach out to Angelica, she’s just her job is to make your life a little easier, believe it or not, by by doing some of this structure, you actually end up with more freedom. sounds sort of counterintuitive, maybe. But you’ll get more freedom with more structure and share her team as you don’t want to try to figure this all out yourself. If I didn’t have a personal trainer, I would have absolutely hurt my body in possibly permanent ways. And the fact that they are going to guide you through and make sure you’re doing it in a in a healthy way is really important. Don’t do it on your own, you’re going to make mistakes, let them be your guide and minimize all of the errors along the way. So again, Angelica vantrease.com. Angelica, thank you so much. On behalf of our audience, we appreciate your time today. On behalf of your thank you and on behalf of Angelica and I We also thank the audience for paying, paying attention and being part of our show. As always, please tell a friend about our program. The best thing way that you can help us grow is by telling one other real estate agent about this podcast. So I have the

Angelica Ventrice 58:43
power of yes, one.

D.J. Paris 58:47
Absolutely. Yes. That’s, that is a great book as well. So yes, everybody. Think of one other real estate agent that maybe is thinking about needing to wanting more of fatality or somebody who’s who’s just struggling physically, send them a link to this episode. We can find us right on our website, keeping it real pod.com And leave us a review to whatever podcast app you might be listening to. Let us know what you like about the show and let us know what you’d like us to improve. We want to continually improve to make this better for you the listener so thanks, Angelica and thank you to everyone who has been watching and listening and we will see everybody on the next episode.

Angelica Ventrice 59:20
Bye guys.

Bri Brenkus this year’s 30 under 30 laureate describes why she chose a career in real estate and how she got involved. Bri discusses the importance of believing in yourself. Bri talks about what her team do to keep in touch with their previous clients. Next, Bri discusses how her team is managing the changes happening in the market at the moment and how they dealt with appraisal gap.

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

Bri Brenkus can be reached at 702-456-5959.

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

D.J. Paris 0:00
On today’s show, we talk to a 26 year old broker who’d closed $44 million in production last year. It that is 107 listings. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our show

Hello and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest 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 Bri blankets but before we get to Bri just a couple of quick reminders number one please leave us a review. If you’re listening to this on Apple podcast, formerly iTunes or maybe Spotify, Stitcher, Pandora, anywhere you’re listening to podcasts, you can usually leave us a review we read every single one. It helps us improve and lets us know what you think of the show. And then also please tell just one friend about this podcast. Think of one other real estate agent that could benefit from hearing from top producers like Bri and send them a link to our website keeping it real.com Alright enough for me. Let’s get on to Nar 30 under 30 winter and 26 year old superstars super agent Bree bronchus.

Today on the show we have Bri brings us with the breakast team in Las Vegas. Let me tell you more about Bri now rubrik is only 26 years old and is a listing agent for the brink is Realty network which is a Keller Williams in the marketplace of Las Vegas. And real estate is is Brees passion actually now this is incredible. Everyone you got you really really listen to this in 2021. Remember, she’s 26 Bri closed $44 million in volume. Personally listing 107 of the 370 properties the team closed, she did 107 listings out of the almost 400 listings herself. She was awarded one of 2020 twos honorees for the Nash from the National Association of REALTORS 30 under 30. No, no surprise there. Also this year already in 2022 Bree has received Las Vegas Realtors young professionals networks, who’s who under 40 award. Congratulations. Bri is also driven by making a difference in the lives of others. Annually she teaches a young adults class which is called Quantum Leap, and participates with adopting a struggling family with a seriously ill child. Bree is an inspiration and has only really begun her real estate career although it’s amazing how much she’s accomplished in such a short amount of time. So we are super thrilled to invite her and have her on the show before we get to Bri very quickly. Please check out the Brees website, which is the bronchus team.com And that’s th e and then b r e n k U S team.com. The Broncos team and also follow them on social media on Facebook and Instagram which is at the brink his team again br e n k US team on Facebook and social media and by the way you can get to all of our social stuff right from the breakfast team website. Bree, thank you so much. Welcome to the show.

Bri Brenkus 4:36
Thank you so much for having me, DJ.

D.J. Paris 4:38
This is this is a huge honor. We love talking to the 30 under 30 award winners first of all, congratulations that is beyond impressive. And but let’s let’s go all the way so it’s so funny because oftentimes I have on people who do you know the level of production you’re at and they’re 15, sometimes 20 years in the biz Listen, you obviously haven’t been doing it that long. But let’s start still start at the beginning. So why real estate? How did you get into it? Tell us that story.

Bri Brenkus 5:10
Yeah, so I actually grew up in a real estate family. My parents founded the bank, his team, way back in the day had been doing it for 30 plus years, never really had real estate on my radar, went to college. And I studied accounting wasn’t my passion. I was very depressed, I hated what I was doing. I was good at it. Don’t get me wrong. I and I just couldn’t see myself sitting behind a desk all day. So I was in my second to last semester trying to decide what I’m going to do, should I switch majors? And I’m sitting in my auditing class. And I’m thinking, Oh, my gosh, my parents owned a real estate company, why would I not take advantage of that, right? So I ended up graduating, and in my last semester, went to real estate school, got licensed, and I didn’t want to start practicing until I was out of school and graduated. So I graduated at the end of 2018, officially became a realtor beginning of 2019.

D.J. Paris 6:16
Wow. So you’ve only been doing this for this is your third year, I guess fourth year technically, that is really, really amazing. So you grew up in a real estate family? So I know a lot of our audience will immediately go, Oh, I see. So so everything was handed to free, which I am sure is not the case. But how did you get started? So you’re joining join the family team, the Keller Williams brand is an amazing one. And but you’re still a young person trying to get listings. So how, how does that work as a as somebody as young as yourself? How did you? How did you start? How did you find clients? You know, tell us all about that process?

Bri Brenkus 6:59
Yeah, so my parents created kind of a rigorous training process when you join the team. And if you’re going to become a listing specialist, or buyer specialist, you have to either get five for sale by owner listings on your own or five buyer brokerage agreements signed.

D.J. Paris 7:18
Wow. So you have to prove your way in I love that. Right. Exactly. Okay, well, let’s talk about let’s talk about the for sale by owners, because just only because this is like, you know, it’s such a it’s such an explosive sort of term because people have a very strong reaction to for sale by owners. For those of us who maybe are listening who don’t exactly know what that means, or why Realtors would call them. These are typically unrepresented buyers, or sorry, unrepresented sellers, who are attempting to maybe list their home on the MLS, but they’re not really using a realtor for anything other than getting it on the MLS. That’s what’s known as flat fee MLS. Or it’s somebody who’s literally just putting it up for sale sign in their yard and putting it on a few websites, not using a realtor at all. Either way, there’s lots of companies that will, you know, but these these are, these are sellers, who oftentimes don’t end up selling their property, because since they’re not using a realtor, maybe they’re just using Zillow to figure out the what what their home might be worth, or other tools, they tend to overvalue their property they listed for higher than it probably should be, and oftentimes it never sells. So these are actually great opportunities for realtors to come in and say, hey, I can help you actually sell your property. The downside is that these these leads will call them companies aggregate these leads, and they sell them to anyone that wants them. So typically, if you’re calling a for sale by owner, you’re probably the 25th person that’s called that for sale by owner. And those can be very, they’re they’re I call them the probably the world’s most hard, most difficult cold call. So I would love to hear how did you I don’t know if you did for sale by owners or if you got the buyer broker or buyer listings on your own. But can you tell us a little bit about how that went for you?

Bri Brenkus 9:06
Yeah, so I chose the listing path, because I love a challenge.

D.J. Paris 9:10
That is a challenge.

Bri Brenkus 9:13
And I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. And because of my parents daughter, they don’t want anything handed to me. And yes, you kind of have to prove your way into it because they’ve worked for 30 plus years building their brand building their names. They don’t want, you know, just anyone coming in and kind of interrupting that if you would. So because of my parents daughter, they upped it to 10 For Sale By Owner listings.

D.J. Paris 9:37
Thanks Mom and Dad. Yeah.

Bri Brenkus 9:39
Because they didn’t want anybody on the team saying Oh, because she’s your daughter, you know, you did X, Y and Z for whatever. So it was really, really difficult. And going through again, I had to prospect them on my own cold call them on my own versus the team giving them all On set up appointments for me, right? So I was calling them, I was going through these people’s homes and 20 For Sale By Owner homes, I got kicked out of their homes.

D.J. Paris 10:11
So So were you going door to door? Or how were you? Were you calling them first tell us the process. Because lots of people, it’s so funny people have such a specific reaction to for sale by owners where it’s like, oh, that doesn’t work. And then other people like, no, it totally works. Everyone’s different. But how did you do it?

Bri Brenkus 10:27
Yeah, so I was just cold calling them and would schedule an appointment with them and would go in, and literally,

D.J. Paris 10:33
they boot you out.

Bri Brenkus 10:35
I got kicked out. I was just too intense for them. And I was talking my parents and my sales manager, I and my coach, I just don’t understand I’m trying to help them, right. They just won’t listen to me. Why are you selling it on your own, we can net you so much more. So after getting kicked out of literally 20 homes, I told my coach, my manager at the time, bawling my eyes out, pulled over into a parking lot just started crying to her, I can’t do this real estate is not for me, I should go back to accounting, right? And I’m just on the phone with her for whatever, 2030 minutes. And all of a sudden I get a notification on my phone for my last appointment of the day. If you leave now, you know, you’ll get there in time, right? The time sensitive notification. Sure. So I said I’m on the other side of town, this is my last appointment of the day today. Why not? I’m just gonna go on, I have nothing to lose, right. And if I don’t get this listing, I’m out of real estate, I’m going back to accounting. So I was so close to giving up. And I could have easily just said, You know what, I’m not going to go on this appointment at all. So, finally pull up to the for sale by owners home. And I’m walking up to the front door. And I said, You know what, I’m not going to be attached to the outcome. I just had a mindset shift. And I by doing that I actually got the listing. So what why do you think that is? Yeah, so I just changed my mindset. And I thought, rather than being so focused on getting the listing and being attached to that, I just told myself, I’m not a salesperson, I’m an educator, let me come from a place of service.

D.J. Paris 12:20
So you went, you went into the home and was more about, hey, let me talk to you or give you some advice or some opinion about what’s going on with your home, as opposed to hey, you need to list with us because we can get you more. And maybe you still say that too. But you lead from a place of I want to just provide a ton of value, instead of being the salesperson so to speak. Right?

Bri Brenkus 12:42
Exactly, just being curious about their situation, because every seller situation is different, their motivation, why they’re selling, right, and just kind of sitting down and talking to them, educating them on the benefits of listing with a realtor. And by doing that it actually created trust and was easier to get a listing.

D.J. Paris 13:03
Yeah, I have had that same experience. I’m always drawn in a sales situation where maybe I’m somebody’s trying to sell me, I’m always most drawn to those people who, who seem to not need the sale. Because it definitely feels more comfortable. I don’t feel as much pressure. And I feel like there’s a level of respect that I appreciate when somebody’s not like, here’s all the reasons why you should go with me. For XY and Z. It’s like I can make my own decision. I just want to know what you do and what you’re all about and, and all of that. So it sounds like that works. So, so you were you were crying in a car just an hour before you made it to this

Bri Brenkus 13:41
listing, feeling defeated and unsure of myself, I didn’t know what to do, I almost gave up. And I called my sales manager after I got the listing of my first listing, I was so excited. And, you know, happy tears now at this point, not not crying, upset tears. And she told me God wants you to be a realtor. So that was probably one of the greatest days today.

D.J. Paris 14:07
And here you are now and not just you know, surviving that first listing in the first year in the second year. But now you’re you’re one of one of the most successful young people in this in this industry in the United States. National Association of REALTORS has awarded you the 30 under 30, which is an amazing accomplishment I’ve yet to be and I’ve yet to not be impressed by anyone in that group. And I’ve talked to a lot of those people over the years. So congratulations. I’m so glad that last listing worked out for you that last appointment, because the odds were not in your favor and it’s still for whatever reason you did something really well and you changed your direction. Let’s talk about let’s talk about failure because I know this is a big thing for you. And I also find this with the hundreds of people that I’ve had on the show in the past. Failure is something thing that comes up a lot. And it’s really funny because I know sometimes we have these these huge producers on the show like yourself and, and people who are even doing hundreds of millions of dollars in production a year. And you’ll see, you’ll think like, well, that person never fails. And the reality of it is they’re like, Oh, I fail all the time. So I would love to hear a little bit more about, you know, what we’ll actually before we get to that, let’s, let’s go. So you got your first listing, you stayed in the business? And then did you continue from there doing more for sale by owners? Are you like I am done? Or no, because you still had to do nine more, I guess, right? Yeah,

Bri Brenkus 15:36
I did. So yeah. So my biggest challenge became my biggest breakthrough. And just advice to anybody out there. Just don’t give up. Just believe in yourself. have mentors have coaches that can be there to support and motivate you. It’s it helps tremendously.

D.J. Paris 15:52
What do you what do you say on the phone? I want to ask about for sale by owner. Just one more question because nobody ever talks about this. So which I love. I love the fact that you in fact, you’re talking about what do you say? Because these are these are people as you know, these leads have been sold to lots of other realtors who also want that listing. And these are also people that maybe they worked with a realtor in the past, and they didn’t have a good experience or they don’t want to work with a realtor for whatever reason. So these are not easy phone calls. What do you do to get the appointment? What do you say? Is there anything sort of unique or special about the way that that you’re communicating that you think is different? Or you know, what, why do you think you were I mean, even to get 20 appointments, unfortunately, those didn’t close, but even to get 20 in house appointments is not easy to do.

Bri Brenkus 16:37
Yeah, and everything happens for a reason. And I don’t really think I say anything special or different. I just kind of say, Hey, I’m on a large team here in Southern Nevada. I see you’re trying to sell your home, right? Yeah, I am trying to sell my home. It’s for sale by owner. I’m not working with an agent. Well, right, whatever. Okay, well, would it be okay, if one of our buyers bought your home? Yeah, that’d be great. I’m not paying any commission or I’m only offering X percent right? Okay, great. When’s a good time for me to come by and take a look? Later today? Good. Or is tomorrow better?

D.J. Paris 17:07
Got it. So you don’t even you don’t even you just are like, hey, that’s whatever they’re saying. You know that most of those people are ultimately probably going to use a realtor at some point anyway, so you don’t worry about the fact that they’re like, Yeah, I don’t want to work with with any realtors. You’re like, yeah, no problem. No problem. And then oh, that’s so smart. I love that. What a great what a great suggestion.

Bri Brenkus 17:29
Actually, statistically over 95 98% of all for sale by owners end up listing with an agent. So you know, they’re gonna list why have it? Not the US?

D.J. Paris 17:38
Yeah, and they don’t know it at that maybe at that moment. And you know it Yeah, right. They don’t know it yet. And so that’s why you don’t have to argue with them because they’re going to use somebody anyway. Ah, that’s so smart. That’s a really really great subtle but important distinction in you’re not overcoming an objection you’re accepting where they’re at and say no problem. I’d still love to come by and say hi, and then you can start to have a better conversation face to face and it’s a lot harder to you know, slam the door on somebody once they’re there. Although I guess that happened I’m sure to you as well. But but eventually it did and also imagine somebody in their early 20s is coming over you know, that is also not it makes it much harder, right like that does not work in your favor right so that’s that’s tricky. I mean now you’re you’re you’re well known and people in the area you know they don’t look at you probably the same way when you first started but that is that is an incredibly challenging I really applaud your your your your team for putting you through that because it probably built a lot of calluses and probably built a lot of like oh yeah, I can’t be I can’t be hurt Did you did you get yelled at a lot on the phone when you call these

Bri Brenkus 18:50
it’s not even on the phone? I mean getting kicked out of people’s homes cuss words you for sale by owners. It sounds really good how DJ and I are talking about it right now. And you got to have thick skin let me tell you because people can be really really mean.

D.J. Paris 19:04
Yeah, yeah. Well I’m so glad you you you made it through that and that is a trial by fire for sure. And it’s it’s almost guaranteed failure the gift failure is built in to the working with for sale by owners because just the vast majority of them are going to be like hey, stop calling me you’re the 20th person to call me so understandably they just get annoyed and the fact that that but but eventually you get one and you got one at the very last possible moment before you would have you know started become you know, gone to the corporate world maybe and done accounting and that’s a certainly a very safe career and a very good career. And but here you are now so let’s so let’s talk a

Bri Brenkus 19:45
quick story on that. Because you asked a question before we were talking about what I say to for sale by owners. So got my first one. I have nine listings LEFT,

D.J. Paris 19:55
RIGHT more to go. Yeah, so

Bri Brenkus 19:57
my mom was on the coaching call with Our manager and said, Hey, how’s Bree doing? You know, I know she’s been doing it for several months, is she now getting incoming leads? And my manager goes, Oh, my goodness, she’s doing so well. We forgot to give her incoming leads. I got over whatever 15 For Sale By Owner listings on my own. And I finally got an incoming lead, right? So I go over there. And I’m kind of educating them on the benefits of using an agent and our team and everything. And they’re like, Bree, we know we called you here, we want to hire you. It was just really funny. Yeah.

D.J. Paris 20:36
That’s, it’s amazing. But But again, this idea of failure as being one step closer to success each time and the only way to success is through failure. As far as I can tell, unless you just get really lucky, it’s sometimes that happens. Sometimes, you know, you’re lucky somebody walks into an office and says, I have a $2 million property I’d like to put for sale, it rarely happens. But it happens once in a blue moon. And people hold on to those like, white elephant stories as like, Oh man, this one guy and look at how lucky he is this $2 million. But the real work and the real success comes from just tremendous discipline. So you, obviously your parents were smart enough to put you through that discipline. Because now I imagine if if you were to let’s say, we were to drop you off in a different city, or different state, get you went and got your license, you didn’t know anybody, I suspect you would be like, I could figure this out. Which, by the way, is a really impressive peace of mind to have. Because if it all goes away tomorrow, and I’m sure it won’t, but if it ever did, or let’s just say you know, you ended up finding a partner, and you get married at some point, and maybe they live in another, you know, part of the country or the world. And you’re like, well, now I have to leave and go, you could probably you probably feel confident that you could do that. And start over as a real estate agent, maybe in another market altogether. Which, because you already started with literally, though, like, everything should have been handed to you in theory because of of your situation, and none of it was. So I just think that is truly amazing. And cheers to your parents for that. That is an incredible, incredible thing. Well, let’s talk about

Bri Brenkus 22:20
very grateful for them. So

D.J. Paris 22:23
a lot of a lot of our guests who are a lot of our listeners, rather who when I when I interview people who make the national association Realtors 30, under 30, they think, Oh, they’re doing it all through social media that you know, I want to learn about how to do more on social. Is social a big part of how you get clients, or is it not really a big part of your business?

Bri Brenkus 22:45
Surprisingly, it’s not really a big part of our business. We’re very active, proactive. prospecting, right, we actually have a team of what they’re called inside sales agents, who are licensed agents sitting in our office right now. My brother’s actually one of them. He’s the head of that department. And they actively prospect all day, they never put a buyer in their car, they never meet with sellers. So it’s pretty awesome. And I’m a listing agent and I also do prospect if I don’t have appointments, if the inside sales agents haven’t given me appointments, so yeah, aren’t really too big on social media, we might get leads here and there. But we we kind of are proactive.

D.J. Paris 23:27
Yeah, that’s, that’s great talk, talk a little bit about how you what you guys do. And I will say, Guys, of course, I’ve been your entire team, what you do to maintain good relationships after a sale? Because I always think that I always find that to be really interesting. A question to ask, it’s like, okay, we know about getting deals and closing deals. But what are you guys doing to stay in touch? So I’d love to hear how you guys do that?

Bri Brenkus 23:57
Yeah, absolutely great question and we contact them often we actually do for client appreciation events every year. And so maintaining that way we do random giveaways as well. Kind of every other month and again our inside sales agents agents in our team buyer agents listing agents are calling them rigorously. So

D.J. Paris 24:20
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Bri Brenkus 26:10
Yeah, so we have our pool party coming up. That’s our next one on August 5. And it’s really fun. I think it’s our 13th annual something crazy like that I could be wrong could be 1511 something in that ballpark. And we rent out the multigene center. And it’s really fun. We have a snow cone machine music, fun stuff like that. For Halloween, we have our Halloween party, we, when COVID happened, we turned it into a trunk or treat just to kind of maintain distancing and have things outside. And it actually was one of our greatest largest Halloween events ever. The news ended up coming. So it was really fun. And we decided that we’re just going to do that moving forward, everyone dresses up, and it’s really fun for the kids. And then for Thanksgiving, we do our pie giveaway. And when they come to pick up their pie, if they give us a referral, then we throw in a free can of whipped cream.

D.J. Paris 27:13
That’s awesome. So So basically, so you guys buy or somehow acquire a lot of pies. You bring them to the office, and then you call your client say, hey, we have a pie here for you.

Bri Brenkus 27:25
Correct? Well, we call them and we ask, Hey, we’re doing a pie giveaway on this date from this time to this time, we have Apple or pumpkin would you like to participate? If so which one would you like,

D.J. Paris 27:37
I love it, I love it. And then it’s such a great, it’s just a great reason to see somebody’s face to face to which you know, once they’re in their home, it’s phone calls, emails, text, you know, it’s it’s the transactions done. So this is, in addition to the client appreciation events are I guess this is the client appreciation about this is an opportunity to see somebody eyeball to eyeball and just be like, hey, you know, and then you can reminisce about, you know, the particular their particular transaction or just check in on them. And it’s such a great, great idea. I really encourage all of our listeners to figure out ways that you can do that. And you can do it inexpensively. It could you could do it expensively. It just depends on budgeting. But every everyone likes to get together socially, right? Not everyone but but often a lot of a lot of your clients do, right. And I think this is a social business. So it’s a great opportunity. And it’s fun. And like I know, for me, I love it too, when I have an event planned. Like if somebody creates an event and invites me to it. What I love about that is it makes me feel like I’m doing something social. And it actually takes some stress off of me for planning something that week. So I always try to do a number of social events. And so I always actually love it when I find out also and so invited us to something, even if it’s something where like, maybe in my mind, I might be like I don’t really like that seems fun, but not that big of a deal. But I love it because then I’m like, I don’t have to think about Friday night or Thursday night or whatever. So. So I think you’re doing I think you’re doing a lot of things. Well, I want to talk about leverage because you have a team and it sounds like your team has lots of there’s there’s there’s different members with different positions. He talked about how you guys use leverage to get more business.

Bri Brenkus 29:20
Absolutely. And leverage is very important. No one succeeds alone, right. And by leveraging, we have really good system setup, so I’ll just kind of break it down from my side. So I’m a listing specialist. I go out and meet with sellers, discuss our marketing plan, talk about the market and then we come up with a price after they’re listed there kind of main point of communication is our listing manager Rachel, she’s been with us over seven years. So she sits in the office every day. She’s the one that writes of counteroffers for our sellers, ensuring they get that top price. So she just has a skill I don’t have right that’s all She’s doing all day. So she’s really, really good at that. After the sellers accept an offer, then it goes to our listing, or not listing escrow specialists, Lisa, who’s been with us over 14 years. And she handles everything after that point. So appraisal inspection, things like that.

D.J. Paris 30:19
That’s amazing. So if you have to, I always love I think teams have become so much more important in the last five years, as teams have figured out like yours have, how to leverage and how to combined resources and experience, because we think about the, you know, Bree now is, you know, she’s 24 years old, she’s in somebody’s home, who doesn’t really want her in the home. And she’s like, Hey, here’s why you should hire me, because you get access to all of us. And now she says, Hey, I’m just one person on the team. There’s this entire team here, here’s how we take care of people. And that that’s leverage, right?

Bri Brenkus 30:59
Absolutely. And I kind of like to use the analogy, if you were to go to a restaurant, right, and you go to check in, you would probably be really concerned if the chef was checking you in as the receptionist. And then the one that also walk you to your table, and then you sit down at your table, he has to go back and flip burgers. Now you’re thirsty, and you need to order water drink, you’d probably be concerned if the chef was coming out and doing all of those things. So everyone has their own unique niche and skill. And we hone in and focus on that one skill and get really, really good at it.

D.J. Paris 31:32
Yeah, it’s that expression, jack of all trades, master of none, right. And it’s like, you can’t be good at everything, you can be good at a couple of things. Most people are, we’re good at like three to five things. And that’s about it. And, and so it’s probably a good idea to delegate the rest of those things, or join forces and get someone else who can help you with that. And so it’s nice to because then you can just focus on what you’re best at. So we’ll fast forward to to last year, which is 2021. You now listed 100. And I mean, this is such such incredible number 107 listings personally, tell us how you did that? Because that’s what one every three days. That’s yeah, insane. So tell us insane and so impressive. And like you should there should be a statue of you. In the in the Realtors Association headquarters, because really, no, this is a big number. So tell us a little bit about how you did that. And how you manage that? Well, I guess having a team helps. But let’s talk about how you how you did that.

Bri Brenkus 32:40
Yeah, and I can always do more, I can always be better. So yes, thank you, thank you for that. Do you appreciate that, um, I am a very hard worker, I work every day. So it’s, um, I didn’t really take a lot of vacations, especially with the world being shut down in 2020. So that helped, kind of moving forward as well. And I just love what I do. I am kind of weird, I would rather be working then going on vacation. And if I do have time off, I’m sitting there, anticipating getting back to work and meeting with sellers and helping them put the most amount of money in their pocket, changing their lives, their families lives. And it just brings me so much joy.

D.J. Paris 33:27
So you know your why. And I think that’s an important thing. You basically just said it in that last sentence, you want to help people change their lives in a positive way. And that motivates you to work hard, because you feel like you’re serving a higher purpose other than the Commission, or you know, the sale itself. It’s like, oh, I’m actually doing a good thing for these people. That’s a really important mindset. I imagine because I suspect when it’s a difficult day, and we all have difficult days that probably helps get you through the day, or am I wrong?

Bri Brenkus 34:03
You’re exactly right. Yes. And you asked how can I manage? Over 100? Yeah, and listings? Yes, through leverage, and we all have the same goal. We’re all on the same team. We all want the same thing. So it’s a win win environment. And everybody can achieve more when we all work together.

D.J. Paris 34:25
Question about sort of the current market climate so it’s now we’re in the middle of July this episode probably won’t go out until August but I imagine not much will have changed. We have interest rates have gone up we know are now around hovering between five and a half six. I think they just went up today. So I think they’re closer to 6% again, so for the 30 year fixed as as an average and maybe a little bit less than that, but somewhere around that and we have you know not as much inventory of course so we have less inventory buyers. You know their their purchasing power has has dropped from one It was during COVID. It’s it’s it’s not the easiest time out there. So I’m curious how you guys have pivoted what what you’re doing to accommodate for not that many listings and buyers who now are going, oh, man, the rates in the fives or the sixes, that stinks. You know, how are you guys accommodating for that? Yeah, so

Bri Brenkus 35:20
it’s pricing, helping sellers price ahead of the market. Because we don’t want to be chasing the market. So we’re not in the market, we just came out of where we listed a property comps didn’t really matter, everything selling right. And it was really crazy, listed this for sale by owners home. And he was asking 685, and the same model match was in escrow for 660. Oh, right at the time, and we listed it for 785. And it sold within a week at that price. So we’re not seeing that market anymore. beginning of this year inventory here in Vegas for single family homes, was about 17 1800. Today, we’re a little over 6000. So yeah, so inventory is definitely increasing. There’s not as many buyers out there, because the interest rates going up, the demand isn’t as hot as it was pretty much all of last year and beginning of the year. So it’s just pricing ahead of the market. We’re in a shifting market now. And we don’t want to be chasing the market. So we need to be priced very, very competitively, if not even kind of under comps. So it’s just helping sellers understand that.

D.J. Paris 36:38
I think too, like I was thinking about this yesterday, I was talking to a lender, and I was saying you don’t want to be really neat. And I’m sure this tool already exists. So if it does, in any of our listeners know of it, send it over to me, I would love to see a a little calculator that could say okay, yeah, maybe you could have locked in a rate at 2.9% 2.99%. But you probably would have overpaid by X amount. And now Yeah, our rates are, you know, 6%. But the pricing has come down, I would be very curious to see what the intersection intersection there is. Because it might not actually be that different now, right? Like it actually might be better, even though the rates obviously significantly higher, because pricing has come down. Have you seen that where pricing has started to pull back? From the listing side?

Bri Brenkus 37:23
Absolutely. Yeah, within the last seven days. Sorry about that. I don’t know how to make that sound stone. That’s okay. Okay, there we go. Sorry about that. Sorry, what was the question again?

D.J. Paris 37:41
So So, as far as pricing, we’ve seen pricing come down? Or has pricing come down? That was the question is, is as inventory has gone up? Pricing, I imagine is probably gone down as well.

Bri Brenkus 37:53
Yeah, a lot of supply and demand, right? When inventory goes up, pricing comes down. And we have seen that within the past seven days, there’s been about 1700 price reductions in the MLS Wow. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 38:04
that’s it’s probably great, too. Did you did you deal during the, during the last couple of years with dealing with appraisal gaps and dealing with like, oh, gosh, you know, this person is buying. And it’s so much higher than than what the actual appraisal comes back at where it was, that was problematic to for realtors, it, it was kind of a fun time to be a listing agent. But it was also problematic time to can you talk a little bit about how you guys dealt with that? Because it had to come up all the time for you?

Bri Brenkus 38:34
Yes, it did. And we do three very specific things to prevent appraisals from coming in low, even in a bad market when interest rates are high. And the interest rates being low really helped us actually in a way because these buyers could afford more and can essentially either waive the appraisal or pay X amount above, which is what happened in that home that I sold for $125,000 more than this same model match. And it actually had an extra bedroom, which is just crazy. So we’re definitely going to start to see the market shift now that interest rates are going up.

D.J. Paris 39:11
Yeah. And are you finding buyers? I know I’m sort of getting stuck on where we are today. But I just think it’s so important to talk about because it’s what agents are dealing with in the present. Right. So when you talk to buyers, and I know you’re on the listing side, but you do work with buyers as well, occasionally or really only on the list usually when

Bri Brenkus 39:31
I was first starting out, okay, you’re not not too much here in there. So, yeah.

D.J. Paris 39:38
So mostly on the listing side, so Are are you having to have conversations then with sellers about okay, the buyers market has shifted, here’s what’s going on. We were you know, we’re not in, you know, you might have talked to neighbors who listed a home a year ago and didn’t even, you know, within 24 hours they had 40 lists 40 contracts or 40 offers rather than How do you have to have that conversation now so that these listing these, these, these sellers aren’t going Hey, where’s Where’s these crazy amazing offers?

Bri Brenkus 40:09
Right? And the market started shifting here in Vegas at least kind of around end of April May ish. So when we listed a property sellers would be calling us after a couple of days, why hasn’t my home sold. And again, it’s just really helping them understand we’re not in the market, we just came out of interest rates are going up, the buyers demand isn’t there. Another thing that’s going up is inventory. So you have more competition versus last year, beginning of the year, you know, you might have two, three, even four of the same model match or whatever, same square footage that are available, we need to price it competitively with with them.

D.J. Paris 40:49
I love that. And then let’s talk about the 30 under 30 award, because I think this is this is an amazing thing. How did you think to do it? Did someone bring that to your attention? Were you always wanting ever since you got on? Were you aware of it? Were you like, boy, I’d love to earn that award someday? Or how did that come about?

Bri Brenkus 41:09
I was not aware of it. My mother was the one that suggested it to me. And I did not think I would win?

D.J. Paris 41:19
Well, if you did, and that’s really, really, really impressive and amazing. And we are so excited to continue to watch your growth as you continue to crush it. So are you scheduling more free time for yourself this year now that things are slowing down? Not just a little bit, I guess, in a good way. So you have some more personal time? What have you learned in the last year that you maybe wish? or what have you learned more recently that you wish you would have known when he started?

Bri Brenkus 41:55
That’s a great question. And probably what happened on my 21st listing appointment is not being attached to the outcome. And again, just coming from a place of service.

D.J. Paris 42:08
You know, it’s it’s funny, it’s like, yeah, and but like, that’s really it, isn’t it? It’s like, people want to hear more that there’s some other secret sort of formula to it. But there is something very powerful about being able to say, or to be able to come across as I don’t need the business. I’m happy to take the business, but I don’t need it. I’m here out of service. And it just makes everything more relaxed. And do you still go into that to each listing presentation with that mindset?

Bri Brenkus 42:40
Definitely.

D.J. Paris 42:41
Yeah. And your close ratio is, I’m assuming has gone up ever since that mindset shift? Yes. Yeah, it’s, it’s really, it’s really amazing. Well, Bree, I am going to let you get back to your busy day because you have more listings, I’m sure to to close today. And so we want to let you get on with your amazing a career. But I really will Oh, and by the way, we should mention that Bree does not work alone, right? She works on this team, the brink is steam. They are in Las Vegas, they cover the entire Las Vegas metro area and all the surrounding areas. And you’re one of the biggest teams in that area. And as a result, you know, we do have a lot of listeners, and we have a lot of Las Vegas, realtors who are listening, if they are thinking, Gosh, I want to join a team like this or want to learn more about what your team offers, what’s the best way that another agent should reach out to you?

Bri Brenkus 43:34
Yeah, you can call us Our office number is 702-456-5959. We’re always hiring, we’d love to have you on the team and help you learn. And yeah, looking forward to

D.J. Paris 43:48
it. And also to you know, a lot of people retire to Las Vegas, which I never realized up until about five years ago that that was a big retirement community. And it is. So there’s a lot of people from all over the country who have clients that may end up, you know, retiring down there or buying a second property or so down there. So that’s another great reason to reach out to Bri and develop a relationship. Maybe there could be some, some client sharing, because Bri has clients that have other properties and other places as well. Just out of curiosity, Bri Do you find that that happens a lot where you have somebody who’s you know, feels like you know, people move to Las Vegas at some point. You know, it’s it’s it’s not as much of a born and raised kind of place. I mean, obviously, that’s where you’re from, but a lot of people move to there. And so do you end up dealing with a lot of referrals where you have clients who have other properties elsewhere as well?

Bri Brenkus 44:41
Yes, lots of referrals. Lots of our sellers are moving out of state, we’re having lots of people move in state. So we’d love to partner up with you guys, wherever you may be. We actually got a referral from France. So if you’re outside of the US, we were worldwide.

D.J. Paris 44:56
That’s amazing. Well everyone who is listening check out Bri and her team’s website, the bronchus group. Sorry, let me pull up. I’m saying that wrong. That is the brigus team.com. And that’s th e and then b r e n. So it looks like brand kiss, but it’s pronounced bronchus, the bronchus and K us team.com. And then follow them on social. By the way, both of these links, all the social links, and this website will be in the show notes. You can find it there, but follow them on Facebook and Instagram, at the bronchus team or just go to their website and it’s all there as well. Bree, congratulations on all the success 30 under 30 award winner, your superstar Are you heading to do you know if you’ll be going to the National Association of Realtors Conference this year, which I believe is in Orlando, just out of curiosity, I don’t know if you’ll be

Bri Brenkus 45:43
will be there super, super grateful my mother had me apply again. I did not think I would be one of the 2022 honorees. So I’m super excited to meet everybody down there all the other class of 22 honorees. And yeah, grateful for my team, I would not have been able to have all of these successes without them. And they’re amazing. Definitely, definitely, definitely leverage and get get help from others.

D.J. Paris 46:10
Awesome. Well, and if anyone’s listening and you’re thinking about going to the National Association, Realtors Conference, the annual conference, it is awesome. I went to my first one last year and it was so much fun at a lot a lot of the people I’ve interviewed on the show are there as well. So if you’re there Brees going to be there. I’m going to be there definitely considered going to Orlando I think it’s in November. So anyway, take a look online but everyone follow Bree go to her go to their website, the brink esteemed Brink his team.com follow them on social media and if you’re a realtor in the Las Vegas area, reach out to them Keller Williams is amazing. We love Keller Williams and Brees and her family’s team is incredible there. So thanks Bree for being on the show. Thank

Bri Brenkus 46:50
the conferences in August, by the way not shows you what I know. Yes, it’s looking forward to it. I’ll see you there DJ.

D.J. Paris 47:00
Well, maybe not. I apparently. Apparently I’m going there in November. So I will be there all by myself. So if you want to know I’m teasing. Boy that shows you how to bid I am huh. Yeah, August. Okay. Well,

Bri Brenkus 47:12
a different one. I don’t know. I’m not sure. No, no, no,

D.J. Paris 47:13
that’s that’s the right one. Anyway, Bri, thank you so much for being on the show. It was such a pleasure. And thanks to everyone. And on behalf of our audience, we think Bree for her time and on behalf of Bree and myself, we think everyone who is listening, please tell a friend about this episode. Just think of one other agent that could benefit that really could use a little boost. And you know, could hear the great words from Bree and send them a link to our website or any podcast app they might be using. But our website is keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done is streamed there as well. So anyway, Bree, thank you so much. And we will see everybody on the next episode.

Bri Brenkus 47:52
Thank you

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

In this episode Joel discusses what’s going on in the market right now and shares advise to agents working during these touch times with low inventory while rates are going up. Joel also advises on how to take advantage of fluctuating rates right now. Once more, Joel emphasizes the importance of building relationships with lending officers in your area and building business together. Joel and D.J. discuss Joel’s weekly market update. Last, Joel reminds everyone that refinancing the mortgage is always a great opportunity for home-owners.

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

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

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

D.J. Paris 0:00
With the market shifting or already shifted to lower inventory and even higher interest rates, what should you be telling your clients? We’re going to discuss that today? Stay tuned. This episode 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? We’ll find out why agents across the country come to real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering their clients a real estate sales and marketing solution to generate more business real geeks is easy to use. Their websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for the end user. Real geeks is mobile friendly delivering an excellent user experience on the go. Real geeks includes an easy to use CRM. So once your leads sign up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up triggers. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase your brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod again, real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business. This episode is also brought to you by quality builders are you are one of your clients real estate investors who can’t seem to find a trustworthy general contractor. Are you tired of poor communication, excessive change orders and extensive schedule delays. We’ll look no further because quality builders is a Chicago general contractor focused on helping you the real estate investor grow your portfolio. Each and every product decision is based on quality builders core values of transparency, courage, integrity, and uniqueness which produce sustainable and predictable results that successful real estate investors are looking for. Quality builders uses innovative project management technology to keep you up to date on your projects by providing a client portal to view daily logs schedules and contract and change order updates. Schedule a free one on one consultation by visiting quality builders.com. That’s quality builders.com to see how they can partner with you to build your real estate portfolio. And now on to our show.

Welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show. And today once again is our monthly series learn with a lender with Joel shop from guaranteed rate. Now Joel is the vice president of lending at guaranteed rate. He’s been doing loans at a high level since 2003. And he’s got to that level because of what he does specifically for agents, which is he gives that part of his commission to the buyer on every transaction making you the agent look like a hero. Now last year alone, Joel gave back almost $300,000 in closing costs to buyers who worked with him. And that puts Joel’s volume in the top 1/10 of 1% of all lenders nationwide. And just to kind of make that making maybe a little bit more sense. There’s 400,000 loan officers in the United States. And Joel is currently ranked number 137. Last year, he closed over 619 transactions, his highest amount ever for $249 million. And already this year with the market you know changing. He’s already closed 215 transactions now. Yes, 215 transactions for $87,000,000.95 and 95.2% of that were purchases. So if you’re looking for a loan officer, we cannot more highly recommend Julie’s the very best we’ve ever worked with. Joel can be reached at his email address which is [email protected] very easy J OEL at r a t e.com. Or you can shoot him a text message or call him at 773-654-2049 Let’s say hello to the biggest Cubs fan. I know Joel Schaub Welcome once again,

Joel Schaub 4:16
thanks, DJ, appreciate you having me on again. And I love hearing those numbers. But none of the accolades really matter. It’s like every time we get together, it’s one of my favorite times because we’re giving, we’re sharing, and we’re really educating agents out there about what’s happening right now.

D.J. Paris 4:33
Yeah, and I think now it’s such a great time to have these particular episodes because the market has changed. Rates of course have gone up. We knew they were going up, but here here we are. And I think it’s it’s agents. You know, our it’s a tough time right now to be an agent, you know, there’s not a lot of inventory rates are up so, you know, buyers are maybe more constricted. So any advice that that that you know you can help our audience understand about how to proceed. And is always going to be great in times like these. And I don’t think it’s such a terrible time. But I know for agents, you know, we had some really great years, the last few years, and it’s obviously just changing a bit. So we’d love to hear about what’s going on in the market.

Joel Schaub 5:20
I’m excited about this time, if I’m an agent, I work with buyers, it’s actually easier right now that rates are up for buyers to go under contract to a property DJ, period, cut and dry. So remember, we’re always thinking of the bright side of things right now, if you’re an agent, and you’re working with buyers, they don’t have to compete against 15 other offers, where you went in full asking price, or even 20 or 50 grand over and still lost, okay? It wasn’t that many months ago, where that was what was going on. And so now, we’re sitting here saying, Oh, my gosh, this market is so hard. The last two years have been hard. Okay, they just been hard in a different way. Okay. So I have a lot of excitement right now. And things that are going to be happening this summer and fall for buyers are that just rates being up, gives me an opportunity to go in and actually buy the home at the right price, instead of these inflated prices that buyers were paying sight unseen for homes. EJ, yeah, and

D.J. Paris 6:17
I think your experience is really relevant here too, because you started in 2003, you’ve already seen a pretty dramatic couple of cycles of the market, with rates, of course, and just the economy. And you have zero control, like the rest of us listening over what happens to rates. So you’ve had to roll with the the good, and the bad, the peaks and the valleys. And I really appreciate you talking about the bright side of it. Because there is always a way to take advantage in a healthy way of a current situation. But it’s also easy to get discouraged. And I love the fact that you’re always looking for the positives and you’re not Pollyanna about it. It’s not like oh, there’s no weeds in my garden. There’s no weeds in my garden. I know there’s weeds, I’ll pick them out. But then I have a beautiful garden again. And so I think it’s maybe now more than ever, I think it’s really important for the agents to stay positive. So we’d love to hear about anything that I know you guys have a new product or new process, I guess I should say about how agents can lock in or sorry, how buyers can lock in rates. So can we talk about that? Yeah, right

Joel Schaub 7:23
now, it’s really important that we have seen a dip in rates, right? It wasn’t that long ago, where the headlines were rates of top 6% always backed way off from them. Okay. So when rates go up like that it was a knee jerk reaction to what the Federal Reserve was gonna have to do to combat inflation. And so it was the anticipation of what they did or will do is what drove rates up. And once they actually did it, rates came down. Okay, so now we’re sitting at rates anywhere in that five and a half above or below, when it wasn’t even three weeks ago, where we saw rates considerably higher. So how do we take advantage of that if we’re agents? And how do we take advantage of these lower rates of our buyers, if we still only have a house? Okay, a lot of banks right now, including ours are offering the lock and roll type of programs DJ where you could actually secure a rate lock for 60 or 90 days, even without a home. And so if you’re out there right now, as an agent, and you’re working with a mortgage broker, call them call now and ask about any of the lock and roll type of programs. Okay, they come in different names, of course. But the concept here is, could I lock a rate? Could my clients lock a rate with you, even if we have not identified a property, find out how long they can lock for and take advantage right now because when rates are lower, these banks will either allow you to float the rate down when rates go down if they’re under contract, or if rates go up to the clients been protected because they locked in a rate before they even found the home to great opportunity right now if I’m an agent, to partner with a mortgage person in your local area that can really help you work with buyers.

D.J. Paris 9:04
Yeah, and I think this is a great thing for agents to start getting more familiar with is as we know agents study the MLS and are constantly looking especially now with with lower inventory over the last several many years. Now we’ve had inventory shortages across the across the country. And of course, it’s more important now than ever to know when things come out in the market. It’s also more important now maybe then, in recent times, to know where rates are not that you have to be an expert because of course that’s Joel what Joel and his team and other lending loan officers will do for you. But it’s good for the agents No, because I think it creates an action step for agents you know, if they do see a dip or an increase I think like like Joe like you were saying great opportunity to reach out and say, Hey, I’ve noticed rates have come down a little bit. It might be a great time just to lock in a rate well, we don’t have a property, you usually not a problem. We can still get it locked in through you know through this particular process. So, because I haven’t calculated what the percentage changes from 6% are, I know it was even well over 6%. Now down to like, you were saying five and a half, you know, and a little bit, either on either direction of that. But that’s like a 30% shift or not a 30% shift, but like a 20% change. So that’s like significant, right. So I was thinking, that would be a good thing for agents not to obsess about and not to let ruin or make your day but just to know what’s going on. So that it might, I know that if I was a buyer, I would love to get a call. Or rather, if I was thinking about buying, and I was like, oh, rates are where they are, I would love to get a call from my agent going, Hey, did you know rates dipped a little bit, it might be a good time to lock something in. And I suspect most agents will never think to make that call.

Joel Schaub 10:46
Another great talking point, if I’m an agent right now, and you hear it from buyers that they’re really on the fence about buying because of rates being up high. But to put it into perspective, we’re just back to where rates have been. For years, these are still at lows, it just took a pandemic and it took two full years where the Federal Reserve had to cut rates to near zero to get mortgage rates down below 3%. And we knew it wasn’t sustainable. We can go back to many episodes where I was on this program talking about how this won’t last. So let’s get in well, the times are good. And now the times are still good. Okay, we can still go out and obtain properties. And we don’t have to overbid. So if I’m an agent, I’m reaching back out and saying, I know the headlines recently said that rates are above 6%. There are a lot of options to get rates in the fours and fives right now. Okay, so make sure that you’re making those types of phone calls and partnering with somebody, how many times have I been on the show DJ, where I’m explaining to agents the value of partnering with a mortgage professional,

D.J. Paris 11:49
all the time constantly.

Joel Schaub 11:51
What you want to do as mortgage professionals now more than ever should be willing to put their money where their mouth is and partner with you. So right now, when you’re getting these phone calls, from great mortgage professionals, ask them what they’re willing to contribute on marketing dollars. And I love saying this because I get so much hate mail from other lenders around the country saying why are you telling people that I will spend money on them? Because good loan officers will. So partner with these people that are really in your community that you know, like and trust and ask them not just for you to send them business, but what could they partner with you on? Okay, so I partner with my agents on so many different RESPA compliant marketing initiatives, spending 1000s and 1000s of dollars a month to help agents grow their business and mortgage professionals that are good. We’ll be more than willing to do this with you if you’re an agent. Okay? So lean on them make a friend now’s the time. Lenders aren’t as busy as they were the last two years. So make sure that you’re partnering with people that are really committed to helping you grow.

D.J. Paris 12:53
I have a question, Joe, do you happen to know you? And I don’t know the answer to this. And if not, we could just estimate how many low how many loan officers do you think are in the Chicagoland area, including the suburbs, just the you know, the entire Chicagoland, it’s got to be at least a few 1000 I’m guessing maybe not that many I don’t know.

Joel Schaub 13:12
In our state right now we have just north of 17,000 in the state of Illinois, and a big minority of them are in the metro market areas. So there are 1000s in what we consider the Greater Chicago area for sure.

D.J. Paris 13:24
So that’s what I figured I was thinking 5000 Or so I don’t know what the what we obviously don’t know what the full number is. But the reason I’m bringing this up, I was thinking because you were just talking about partnering with agents and I get an email from your team. From Maria on your team every single week. That’s it, I don’t practice real estate. So this sticks out a little bit to me. So I see it. And I always think oh, I don’t I I won’t participate. I can’t participate with this. But I love the fact that it said is every week I think on Wednesday or Thursday, she sends me an email saying hey, do you have any open houses this weekend? Because we want to help you with that. If you do, we can provide all sorts of you know, marketing material, etc. And every single week without fail, you send that and so and then I’m thinking okay, so I we have about 700 Plus agents in our company. Do you know how many other loan officers send me that email saying, hey, we want to work with you? Zero? literally zero,

Joel Schaub 14:21
not even one. Isn’t that?

D.J. Paris 14:23
I mean, isn’t that shocking that another? I mean, there’s there’s lots of great loan officers. And I don’t mean to belittle anyone else. And I’m just saying this is a I guess the takeaway is the road less traveled is not that busy. So if you’re willing to go the extra mile as an agent and call your your, your, your prospective buyers and say, hey, you know rates have come down. I really want to help you lock in a good rate. You’re probably not getting that call from somebody else, just like I’m not getting those emails from other loan officers saying hey, we want to work with your agents. So I think I think the The specific sort of ideas that you’re giving our audience are just absolutely gold, because I don’t really see a lot of other givers get mentality out there in the lending space or the ello space. And I love the fact that that is that has been the cornerstone of your businesses, give, give, give. And then of course, things just happen for you as well. 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.

Joel Schaub 16:41
I’m happy to share those tidbits because it’s actually something that’s easy to read quickly and digestible for agents so that they can have good talking points on a weekly basis that’s timely, and something that they can share and some knowledgeable about something that they probably wouldn’t otherwise have a reason to talk to their buyers about. And so it’s our weekly update in the house, I’ve literally had hundreds of people from the keeping it real podcast, reach out and want to be involved in that just get on the list. And so they can, if you’re listening now you can absolutely just email [email protected]. And my team will put you right on the list. And so every single week, you’ll get in timely, fresh market update of just things that are going on that will help you. And that’s truly, that’s something that will actually make you sound smarter. And who doesn’t want that. I mean, I’m not the smartest guy in the room, I’ve just figured out ways that we can actually be educational and lead with value.

D.J. Paris 17:35
And by the way, to further my point about how going the extra mile is always the way to go. You know, market updates, you send this weekly market update, which is amazing, which you’re just referencing and everybody should get on this list because it gives agents specifically those exact talking points of here’s what’s gone on in the last week, here’s what you need to know. And again gives you a reason to pick up the phone and call call your clients. And I get zero other market updates from I’m realizing not only do I get zero open house, we want to help you with open houses I get zero market updates for and it’s not because I unsubscribe from everyone’s newsletters, literally nobody else sends them to me. And you know, I think there’s an opportunity there for agents to realize communication is the key and having a couple of talking points is all you need. And then when they ask a question about rates that you don’t quite know how to answer, great, let me connect you with my partner. And then you pass over Joel or whoever your your loan officers. But we weren’t we should mention that we’re in the Chicagoland area. But Joel, you and your team, and guaranteed rate is, you know, works in all 50 states. So even if you’re not here in the Chicagoland area, you know, please reach out to Joel and his team, they will they will guide you in the right direction. And what’s the so if they want to get on your list, they can email you [email protected]. And then what’s another way that that somebody should reach out to you if they want to partner with you or just ask questions or learn more about guaranteed rate?

Joel Schaub 18:57
I mean, we actually answer the phone. I mean, you can text me at 773-654-2049. And that number hasn’t changed in 17 years. And they’re always surprised that we actually answer the phone, I mean on two rings. And that’s what happens on Saturdays and Sundays that most banks are closed. So you need to have a mortgage partner that will actually pick up the phone and make sure that your buyers are taken care of. And in reference to the newsletter, I mean, it kind of started as like a private insider tip right? I was writing this on a weekly basis with my agents and I started hearing from other agents go, Hey, how do I get access to this? I just want to read this Can I Can I get in even I’m not sending you business. And so that’s what this list is you can literally just ask [email protected] and say add me to the list. And then you’ll get the market update on a weekly basis like an insider and have really great sharing and talking points for you to go back to buyers. And when you’re leading with education, these people will notice it because right now it’s going to make a difference between those that are selling and those that are held Buying, and sales people come and go. But if you’re actually there to provide value, listen to the needs, there’s an opportunity for buyers right now. And in the months ahead, as these rates stay inflated, buyers are gonna have an opportunity to finally come in and buy properties under market value, and under list price. And that’s what I’m really excited about. So if I’m an agent, keep the hope alive. All right, the sky isn’t falling. Most of the Federal Reserve increases that affect mortgage rates are pretty much baked in at this point. So yes, the feds will continue to raise rates DJ, but we from here, don’t anticipate seeing mortgage rates go to eight or 9%, there’s a really good likelihood that we see rates in the next couple of years, hit 4% before they hit 8%. Okay, so we’re in really good shape. And just know that as long as you’re out there helping buyers, the specific rate doesn’t matter, but know that they have come down and lead with value and call some of these people right now, and see if they need to get out of a renting situation and start buying.

D.J. Paris 21:05
Well, and you know, you mentioned this at the beginning. And I think it’s important to even just reiterate, which is of course pricing, home prices have come down. And so now Yes, rates have gone up, they’re still I think reasonable and you know, not compared to the last two years, but in our historical averages. Like, boy, our parents would have loved to have a five or 6% mortgage, depending on when they bought. And the fact is that home prices are down. So this might actually be more beneficial, even though rates are are slightly higher than they were before. So because there people aren’t paying as much for the same properties. And you know, I almost wonder in a couple of years for people that really, really paid well above asking price almost wonder if there’s going to be a little bit of buyer’s remorse there. So if you have buyer’s not buyer’s remorse, but just maybe some not so great feelings. And and I think if you thought, oh, boy, it was hard working with buyers last couple years, I think it’s actually better now. You know, rates are higher. So that’s a little bit of a hurdle, but prices are way down. So I think it’s I think it’s ultimately a good thing.

Joel Schaub 22:12
That’s what’s great in the United States DJ is that you always can refinance that mortgage, right? But once you buy into a property, you’ve paid 50, grand more, there isn’t a program where you can just wipe out 50 grand worth of debt. Okay? So what you can do in the United States is always refinance the mortgage. So I love this phrase, right? I love the idea that you marry the home, but date the rate, I’ll say it again, right, we gotta find the home that we want, right? We love it. We’re gonna marry the home. We’re not gonna marry the rate, we’re gonna date the rate. Okay, yeah, one of my friends says marry the home and to force the rate. All right, let’s get rid of the rate when, when the rates no longer working for us and rates are lower, let’s kick that man to the curb or woman to the curb, right? Whatever the phrase may be. Sure, point is, there is an opportunity right now. So remember, not if rates go down. But if and when rates go down, you can refinance that mortgage. And so you definitely can get out there and buy a home right now and have got the pick of the litter coming up, because there won’t be 25 other offers on the same place. So I’m very excited, as I’ve told you, even off air, this is the time where good agents continue to grow. And just by staying positive, it really, it’s about mindset, and it’s about education. And right now, it’s not as bad as it could be. So get out there, and let’s win some business this summer, okay. And

D.J. Paris 23:31
there’s a lot of things we just can’t control. We can’t control inventory, we can’t control rates, we can’t control the economy, or the political climate, or even the social climate in a lot of ways. So a lot of things are outside of our control. But what we always can control is our activity, and our willingness to want to provide. And so Joey is a perfect example of somebody who just constantly lives that, you know, despite whatever’s going on in the market, I’ve known Joel for for many years now, and he is not his personality, his his his activity is no different. When the rates are lower, the rates are higher, because he knows that that that is largely that’s more secondary to providing amazing service, you provide amazing service rates and costs and things oftentimes take a backseat. What’s most important is the relationship. And so this is a great opportunity to reevaluate your relationship with your loan officer. And if you don’t have somebody who’s really out there pulling for you and helping you, Joel is and his team would love to chat with you. So reach out to him get on his email list. [email protected] asked to be on the list. I’m telling you guys that will give you a reason to pick up the phone and call your clients and say hey, just you probably seen some things about rates. Here’s what you need to know. That’s a huge thing. You you started doing that for all your clients, they’re gonna be like, Well, nobody’s ever done that. For me. The loan officer that we worked with probably didn’t do it. The agents they’ve worked with in the past probably didn’t do that either. So it’s not that hard. And Joel do all the work for you. He’ll actually send me the email and you just have to read from it. Which is better, because I go to Morgan It’s news daily, every so often, which is a great website for learning about mortgages. I can’t make heads or tails of any of the articles in there. Because they are so industry specific. They’re really challenging for me to read. So I read go through that. And my mind starts spinning. And I love the email you send once a week that says, here’s what you need to know. Because there’s News Daily is a great website. But boy, it’s a little it’s over my head. But anyway, so what a great, great episode, stay positive, everyone things are not. So they’re not trying to filter out the noise that you’re hearing in your office from other agents. You know, good agents are excited about this time, it’s a little, it’s a little different. That’s all that it is. It’s a little different. But great opportunity to build your business. And we’re probably going to see a number of Realtors exiting the business as a result of this, which will only help the ones that are dedicated. So anyway, stay positive. Joel, thank you so much for being on our show. Once again, guys reach out to Joel he’s really that good. He’s an amazing human being. And his team is amazing. And he wants to work with you guys. And of course, guys, men and women, of course. And also, as always, please tell a friend about our show. Just think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing this episode from Joel, maybe somebody who’s maybe feeling a little down or depressed right now about what’s going on in the market. Send them this episode. This will probably change their attitudes a little bit, Matt, that would be great. So anyway, send them a link to our episode and then we will see everybody on the next show. So Joel, thanks so much,

Joel Schaub 26:28
TJ are the best. Thanks for having me on. Have a great day. Thanks.

Darrin DeSilva this year’s 30 under 30 laureate goes back to the beginning of his career in real estate. Darrin discusses how his addiction lead him to homelessness but ultimately both experiences helped built his life back up and how that ultimately lead him into his career in real estate. Darrin and DJ discuss the importance of surrounding yourself with people who will inspire and lead you to success. Next, Darrin describes how he transitioned from car sales to his career in real estate. Last, Darrin discusses open houses.

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

Please follow Darrin in Instagram here.

Darrin DeSilva can be reached at (209) 346-5429 and [email protected].

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

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

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest 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 producer Darren de Silva. Before we get to Darren, just a couple of quick things to mention. Number one, please the best way you can help us grow telephone think of one other realtor that you know, that could benefit from hearing our episodes where we talk to top producers like Darren and ask them how they built their business. And they share all of their secrets, which is so we’re so grateful for all of our wonderful guests. So please tell other realtors about us. And second, leave us a review whatever podcast app you might be listening to us on. Let us know what you think of the show. We read every review and every comment. We’re always striving to do better for you. But enough about all that let’s get on to the main event, my conversation with Darren de Silva.

Today on the show, we have Darren de Silva from Realty One in Tracy, California, and also Central Valley. Let me tell you a little bit more about Darren. Darren grew up in Pleasanton, California, and he moved around a lot. Throughout his childhood around Northern California, he ended up landing in Tracy, California. And then there he became homeless at 22 years old, and really thinking maybe his life was coming to an end. But from there, he was able, of course, to turn his life around with help. And he received his first opportunity to do sales with Kirby vacuums. From there, he moved up to car sales, and eventually into real estate, which is where he is today. And it was the best decision he ever made. And recently, in the last couple of months, Darren was just awarded the National Association of REALTORS 30, under 30 Class of 2022, which is an incredible accomplishment because like 1000s of people apply for it, and they only give it to 30 people every year. So huge, huge. Congratulations to Darren and please check out his website, which is DeSilva real estate and that’s d s iLv. A real estate.com DeSilva real estate.com Also, please follow him on Instagram, which is Darren which is d a r i n underscore de Silva. Both of those links will be in the show notes. So uh, Darren, welcome to the show.

Darrin DeSilva 4:03
Thanks for having me. Yeah, it’s it’s a real honor to even be asked to be on on the show, let alone have so many interested in my in my life and kind of the things that have led me up to this point. So it’s, I’m grateful and I appreciate you guys, you know, reaching out to me.

D.J. Paris 4:20
I, I have always thought that gratitude is one of those. Well, now it’s talked about a lot I feel it’s kind of more commonly discussed. But I love that that gratitude seems to be really present for you. I’ve noticed that just in our interactions even before we started, I think I think that’s I think humility goes a long way in this industry as well where there’s so many people who you know, kind of go the other way with, with entitlement and things like that. So I am absolutely absolutely excited to hear your story. Let’s, let’s start at the beginning. So tell me about sort of growing up, and then how you ended up we mentioned that, you know, at one point you were homeless in your early 20s. We’d love to sort of hear the circumstances there. And then how you how you got out of those, that situation because, of course, a lot of people don’t. So I would love to hear you know, what got you there? And then what got you out?

Darrin DeSilva 5:21
Yeah, so, you know, you kind of I appreciate, you know, you recognizing, the way I am and interacting with you now, being grateful and everything like that, you know, honestly, the, that’s not me at the core, right, if who I am those, those types of characteristics, were born, being into me with pain and suffering and things like that, that I’ve gone through in life, unfortunately, but fortunately, today, I can say that, that’s, that’s what has molded me into the person that I am today. And the person that I’m working on becoming, as I continue to go through life, just like all of us, you know. So for me, I lived in a in a household with a single mother, she did the best she could, she had a lot of outside issues, and things like that, you know, addictions and that sort of thing. And my father, same thing, he was an alcoholic, growing up, you know, he would be one way on one day, the best father and other day and you never know what you’re gonna get. Right. So that was kind of my upbringing is just real instability, real craziness, but that’s what I was used to, you know, that’s, that was my normal, it wasn’t like, oh, my gosh, I had these weird parents. It was. That’s just life, you know, at an early age. So fast forward, you know, my, my first, my first encounter with for me, I was rebellious teenager, I was never told no, by my mother, you know, never really forced to be given responsibility. And held accountable for my actions. I’ve always was able to kind of, manipulate and things like that. These are things that I learned from my parents, you know, I was able to do it as a small kid, this is a child doing these things, you know, 1112 13 So at an early age, I was actually sent to a wilderness camp.

D.J. Paris 7:27
One of these sort of, we’re gonna get you in line teach you skills that you’re not learning at home kind of thing.

Darrin DeSilva 7:34
Right? Exactly. It was like basically, you know, like, like, your Bear Grylls right in out in the middle of Bend, Oregon, which is where I was,

D.J. Paris 7:45
right. I feel like a lot of those those. Those organizations are out in Oregon. They’re like, send your kids out here. We’ll get we’ll fix them. Right, exactly. They basically they basically taught you survival skills, as well is working together with others. I’m guessing a lot of interpersonal skills as well.

Darrin DeSilva 8:04
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And looking back, it was one of the best experiences I think I had. It was funny, the way that they got me is me and my friend. Were actually staying in my, at our place. We were in Pleasanton, California. I was living at the time in the East Bay Area. And we we were sleeping and we got woken up by four people in black suits. It was dead middle of the night. They came up to our room. They said get up. We’re going. And they both of us. Yeah. Our parents were in on it, by the way.

D.J. Paris 8:40
Yeah, they were in on it. They gotta like, why don’t you hang out with your buddy tonight?

Darrin DeSilva 8:44
That’s exactly what happened. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was funny because they were in on it. And, you know, we were like, what’s going on? We, you know, we walked away downstairs when we were transported to Bend, Oregon. From that point, we were given to this band of people that you could smell from mile away. And they threw us in a car blindfolded us. And we were taken out the middle of nowhere driven about two hours. They drove on dirt roads, driving in circles, so we couldn’t count the directions we were we were driving. And till eventually, we were in the desert of Oregon, which at that point, I didn’t know. You know, there was a desert in Oregon, you know, my interpretation of a desert was like Dry and sand, not knee deep snow and you know, Sage bush for hundreds of miles. So and then we were separated at that point. And then we were there for two months. Two months we were we were there and like you said we had to learn survival skills. I had to make fire from steaks using like a bow drill and you know, we would we’d have to ration our food. We would, you know, always slept under was was a sleeping bag and just a tarp that was just a square sheet. You know, that’s, that’s it. But it was really cool was like a Native American base program. And, you know, after after a certain period of time they give you like a name, you know, like a Native American game. So it was really cool is like a badge of honor, you know, and for me, it was cool. They did like this ceremony when I left that they had never done for anyone before. Because you, you, you also become kind of like a leader with the people underneath you to, you know, the kids coming in, after you and so that that was kind of, I feel like one of my first experiences having to kind of be some type of leader and it felt good to be able, I got a lot of fulfillment, you know, being having to try to help other people and, and guide them. And you know what I mean? So, looking back at that, I think that’s where that started for me is just finding that, what makes me feel fulfilled in life. Is that,

D.J. Paris 11:10
and then how and then Then where did you go from there? So you went to the you went to sort of the middle of nowhere, Oregon? I think I’ve actually interviewed I know, I’ve done at least one interview from from a top Realtor in Bend Oregon. But, but but not anyone who’s had that experience. So

Darrin DeSilva 11:27
they don’t do real estate in the desert out that way.

D.J. Paris 11:30
Maybe, maybe they do, but probably not. Oh, yeah. But so So you were there for two months, you learned not only sort of individual skills about how to be responsible and disciplined and, and all of that, but then it’s like, oh, by the way, now you’re in a leadership position of sorts, and now you can, you can help others, not just helping yourself. So you know, if you really think about not you, but if our audience really thinks about it, like what an amazing, you know, obviously a lot of pain associated with with getting to that place, but But what an amazing experience for somebody to have and cheers to, you know, to your family for making that happen. That is that is that is really remarkable that enough people loved you to to want to see you succeed. And so So you came back from that and then and then then then where did you go?

Darrin DeSilva 12:22
Then I didn’t have a plan. We didn’t have a plan. We didn’t have structure, but we pull up what we like to call a geographical. And we moved from Pleasanton, California to a little cow town in the central valley called Newman, which had about 10,000 people. So we went from the Bay Area, Bay, growing up going to San Francisco, right. And Bart, I mean, all that, you know, San Jose, go into this little cow town, in, in nowhere, it’s about I would say about an hour and a half from where I was.

D.J. Paris 12:55
So So what why, what was the thought process? If I want to go to the smaller community? What was the what was the reasoning?

Darrin DeSilva 13:01
Oh, my grandparents lived there at the time. So my mom yeah, that was the Ria. Yeah, it wasn’t just some random town, it was more because my grandparents had had been living there. And our my mother, my mother, you know, wanted to live closer to them, she felt like there was some support there. And I think that was your reasoning. But from there, you know, I again, I didn’t know anybody and just kind of jumped back to what I do best, and how I how I met people at the time, and that’s, you know, finding the not so good people, if you know, what I mean, you know, people that get into trouble people that, you know, have other issues, addictions, things like that. Sure. That’s kind of, you know, the story of my, my adolescent, but my adolescence, you

D.J. Paris 13:49
know, so you fell back into some older habits. You had more skills now. So that’s good. But again, it doesn’t

Darrin DeSilva 13:56
make a fire if they needed it. Right. Right. That’s all

D.J. Paris 14:00
also some leadership skills to which, which obviously exist beyond I mean, it’s funny, it’s like, look, you know, people have these major experiences like you did out in the the Pacific Northwest desert. And, and, you know, you had a lot of success there. But then you go back to the real world, and it’s not like, well, everything’s magically fixed, right? Like, like, life is still a lot of ups and downs. So so the journey doesn’t stop. And, and as somebody who is who’s had addiction in my, in my history as well, I can absolutely, you know, understand a lot of what you’re talking about. So So you fell back in with some people that maybe weren’t the best, most positive influences you maybe fell into some old habits, and then sort of what happened?

Darrin DeSilva 14:45
Yeah, so you know, I got plugged in with the wrong people. And we were in new and I want to say six or seven years. And through that time period, I definitely got worse and worse. For me personally, you know, I’ve faced addiction alcoholism. I was I was screwed from the moment I was born because I got it all in my family, right? Oh, totally. Yeah, you know, so I think

D.J. Paris 15:12
I’m only laughing because I could I thankfully my parents don’t have it. Thank goodness. And my sister doesn’t, but love many other people in my family too. So I’m with you. I was, I was born with it as well.

Darrin DeSilva 15:26
Exactly. Yeah. So you know, it isn’t genetic. And, and it is a disease, you know? And, and, you know, there’s a lot that can be said about that, you know, especially when you’re going through, you have more of an understanding, it’s something that it’s very hard to understand. If you don’t have it, like when I talk to my girlfriend about it, she’s like, Oh, what, you know, so it’s very, like, it just doesn’t process right. So and that’s okay. And that’s why we have, you know, people that do understand and that, you know, there’s resources for people to find others who get that, you know, and that’s yeah, I just

D.J. Paris 16:01
wanted to interject with my my most I think this is a such an interesting and funny thought that maybe for the rest of our audience who isn’t, you know, doesn’t have to deal with with family members with addiction or addiction themselves. The best way I can explain addiction in one sentence, and this is I’m sure I heard this somewhere, is it’s a, it’s a read, it’s a, it’s considered a medical disease. So it is not a psychological disease, it’s an actual medical disease, acknowledged by by the American Medical Association as an actual medical disease without a medical solution. Without a medical, there is no prescription, there is no medical solution to a medical problem. And that is incredibly unique. For this type of disease, it is actually a disease. So anyway, I just wanted to make that point. Because that makes it makes treatment incredibly difficult. So people with addiction, if you haven’t been through it, or if you have family members that have it, you certainly know how tough it can be. But I always think, you know, a lot of times people think it’s more of a willpower issue. And it’s almost never willpower, in my experience. But anyway, sorry, I didn’t mean to read you, but I just wanted to make No, I appreciate that. There’s no solution to what you and I have, and there’s no way out of it, other than learning how to cope with it, and learning how to exist coexist with with it. So I just wanted to make a big point, because everybody listening knows at least one person who’s struggling with addiction. So something to think about, but I apologize, go right ahead into your

Darrin DeSilva 17:35
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I’m glad you shared that. Because you know, it’s something you know that for me, it I can’t help but be passionate about, because what allowed me to have the life I have today is because I followed people who some, for some reason didn’t find the solution. Yeah. And all I did just like with real estate, just like with with the gym, doesn’t matter, right? You know, I have a coach for real estate, I have a trainer for the gym, I have a sponsor for, you know, recovery, things like that, right? Sure. So it’s just for me, it’s the same, it’s just finding people who have some have what you want, and doing what they’re doing, right.

D.J. Paris 18:24
And also surrendering your own your own sort of identity in a sense, and not in a bad way in a really positive way. surrendering your own need for control, to say, you know, there’s certain things I just don’t do well, or I don’t know how to do, but this person over here does it. And I’m going to figure out what they’re doing. And I’m going to hang with them. Whether it’s a personal trainer, a recovery coach, you know, AAA or what, or medical doctor, you know, whatever it is, you’re you, you know that you can’t always manage everything yourself. And I think that lesson is so important. And most people don’t ever get to a place where you were at where where things were really bad. And you sort of were like, Okay, I give up, I surrender help. I need help. I think I think that is it’s it’s very painful, but it’s also a real gift because it allows you then to say, Who can help me and then you found those people?

Darrin DeSilva 19:19
Absolutely. And the cool thing about all of this is I can apply this to my real estate, business and forth. And frankly, it’s I believe, in my opinion, why I have the life I do today and why I have the career I have is because I have learned the same principles that I can apply to my business. And it’s the same thing, and that’s why I think it’s so it’s been so easy for me to transition because it’s something that I’ve internalized. And it’s it’s powerful. You know, it’s it’s the things that are taught and it teaches you how to deal with the motions it teaches you how to deal with I mean, if I’m with a client and they say something that I don’t agree with or UPS or It upsets me. Sure, you know, emotions can get involved, especially with large transactions, you know, it has allowed me as a business person to check my emotions, check how I respond to things look in the mirror, pause, and, you know, do work accordingly, right? So

D.J. Paris 20:21
make and make a better decision right now, to where maybe things are more impulsive in the past. And, look, this is not just for people with addiction, right? Impulse control is a huge problem for a lot of people, including myself who I would consider myself to be in recovery. But that being said, I still struggle with that. So I think the the all of what you’ve gone through has really set you up. In a lot of ways. I think you’re right, those skills are perfect. But before we get to the real estate, I want to go back because you did something that that I think is really, really difficult, but also awesome. Which is, you know, you then we’re like, okay, you’re trying to pull yourself out of maybe some old habits and you know, some maybe people that that weren’t working with your best interest in mind. And then you started to work at Kirby right for Kirby vacuums.

Darrin DeSilva 21:13
Yeah, so So what led to that is basically, from Newman, you know, went downhill from there. And my mother sold the house that she had paid cash for. And at the time, you know, again, I was raised, I had things, you know, I had to learn responsibility. I don’t learn how to be an adult at a late age. And, and so I didn’t, you know, have a job. I didn’t, I didn’t, you know, the my mom basically took care of me right. After high school after I didn’t, I didn’t seek it because I didn’t need to frankly, right, it was all taken care of. And so, eventually, when when she sold the house, we we were supposed to buy another house with that money. And we just kind of went from hotel to hotel, we moved from from Sonora, California to Modesto to Turlock, we stayed at a truck stop. I mean, that was the life we live for about two years. Just the craziness, you know, it’s a very difficult life. It was until eventually we blew through the entire net profit of of what she got from the home. And you know, we were just kind of living on her SSI checks and till eventually, we were sleeping in the car at times and

ended up in Tracy Tracy, California, and I had gotten a title loan against my car and obviously didn’t make the payments. And so we ended up

saving up enough money to just go stay at Motel Six to get cleaned up and everything and we were able to purchase a couple of weeks. And then the first two days I heard in the morning I hear a car alarm going off flatwork so I can rent it out. And it’s my car on a tow truck yeah being taken off because I didn’t make the payments and I was on some red flag system and that’s how I ended up in Tracy California by the way as I My car got towed and I we got left in a Motel Six so but I’ve never left and call it home so you know somewhere I started and we’re having now it’s kind of funny but we stayed in Motel Six for a while till eventually we got kicked out of there couldn’t afford it and so we were both homeless and went and found a place behind a CVS store stayed there my after about two days my mom left and said she was going to be right back she had come back so you know I’m left you know on my own everything. Everything I own is on my back I’m sleeping in a cardboard box I found a big refrigerator box that fortunately I could fit in. I was also 260 pounds at the time which was a big you know big amount of about 180 now and you know I just thought I lost everything that I had to find only pay for I feel like existed in the world at the time. Fortunately it was close by and you know called everybody in my family that normally I could call and would get me out of it right sure that that’s that was a story my life is I could always figure a way to either manipulate a situation or get my way out. And this was the first time in my life where I the people I call my grandparents everybody said sorry. Go go to Salvation Army go So we’re not helping you anymore. You’ve burned all your bridges. And that was the starting point for me of what turned my life around. My mom didn’t want anything to do with me, she left, did her own thing. And I was I ended up finding a spot on the side of the freeway. And actually, like, as I’m looking at this right now, I have a picture of myself homeless, I keep it in front of me in my office every single day, just as a reminder, and I found a place on the side of the freeway. Stay there, it was like a little igloo. Fortunately, it was like rain proof because it was raining a lot and and I would go hold a sign, I found a sign that some other homeless guy left. And it was like pre written didn’t even really make sense what it said on it, but it got the point across Hey, I’m homeless, I’m hungry, help me. And I would go Hold on the corner. And people will give me food people will give me money. And you know, I would go just try to not figure out a way to numb not dealing with today, not dealing with where I’m at in life not dealing with what happened any any way that I can numb that and just survive. That’s what I did. And did that for a while, a couple months. And until eventually somebody pulled over and talked to me. And they just talked that’s it gave me their time. Even took a picture. I mean, that’s the picture I have up there today was the first time and and then he left and then a couple of days later after I held the sign that sign on the corner. I would head over to the you know, I was heading to the liquor store, go get some food, whatever, you know, I could do and then that way I could just go back and then the gentleman saw me and he pulled over he said hop anybody have something to eat? You know, where do you want to go? I’m like, I’m going to KFC. I love KFC man. Yeah, that was some good stuff. And he took me and he got me something to eat. And eventually he got me into a, he helped. He never gave me a dime. All he did was either pay for, you know, maybe food, maybe gotten a couple packs of cigarettes at the time when I smoked. And that was it. He just gave me his time. That’s it. He didn’t say hey, Darren, here’s $20 Good luck. Right? Which it’s very easy to do. Right. And we think we’re doing good by giving people money, but in my case that would have only been enabling me. Sure if he would have gave me money.

D.J. Paris 27:40
And also, he also gave you I’m sorry, I don’t want to put words your mouth. No, no, no, I imagine that life is incredibly lonely as well. So yeah, now have because, you know, you just said everyone in the family said, Hey, we got to we got to cut you loose right now because we can’t really help you. And then this stranger comes around and says, Hey, you’re I think you’re you’re just fine. You know, I want to be part of of your life, whether it’s in a law, you know, long term capacity or short term capacity. But just even somebody reaching out, was that hard for you to even trust somebody like that? Or was it were you able to sort of, you know, embrace because a lot of times I find that, you know, people who are on their own, you know, there’s obviously a lot of mistrust. There’s a lot of dangerous people out there.

Darrin DeSilva 28:28
Right? Yeah. And you know, and unfortunately, a lot of the people that I met out there, too. I think after a period of time, you get used to being out there, I think I was fortunate enough to only be out there for you know, a few months. But these people who aren’t as fortunate as I was it just becomes their new normal. So they’re like, they’re less likely to want to change because they’ve gotten used to that lifestyle. And, you know, I think where I was at is I was so lonely, so beaten down. They call it the gift of desperation. Yes. And, and that’s where I was at. And I think fortunately, God put somebody in my life at the perfect time when I was ready, when I was when I was willing. And when I was ready to like you mentioned earlier surrender, you know, and, and, and I did you know, I had an option that day when he pulled over to hop in the truck or to continue to the liquor store, you know, and fortunately I jumped in and that’s when my life changed just making that one decision. You know, that one decision and not that you know, is when my life changed

D.J. Paris 29:46
is that day and so so how did you get to only because I just find this so so inspiring. So so you’re you’re at a particularly low moment you you found the strength somehow to make the healthy decision. Jen of, hey, this person wants to help. I’m going to, I’m going to trust you No. And then how did you how did things start to turn around for you? 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.

Darrin DeSilva 31:30
Well, I instantly was put in a min zone. At that point, when when I it was shared that I was you know, willing and put somewhere, you know, I had helped for the first two months as far as you know, rent. And that was it. But they taught me structure. It’s all like I mentioned, you know, for me, I was not taught, you know, responsibility, or I wasn’t, I wasn’t there was no reason because everything was typically either, you know, handed to me, I didn’t have like, a whole lot in my childhood. But I had I had more than most. And, and my mother made sure that she did the best she could but she was more of a friend, then a parent. And that was what did me wrong and affected me later on in life. So that that’s kind of that’s kind of what happened.

D.J. Paris 32:41
Yeah. And then so you’re in the men’s home. And then they say hey, it’s you know, it’s like we’re gonna help you for a little while, but you need to find employment, you need to start working, contributing to society being a good citizen. And and you started was Kirby your first sort of, and by the way, we let’s tell everybody what Kirby is because I think most of our audience isn’t familiar. I have just nothing but respect for people who who attempt the Kirby job because I think especially in this day and age particularly difficult. So can you talk a little bit about what that what what, what Kirby vacuum salespeople or like or what to do? And then and then and again? Yeah, absolutely. I think this is it. You know, 40 years ago, we’d be like, oh, yeah, people would go door to door like not that big of a deal today. That is not common. So I would love to hear this because I think it’ll people will be like, Whoa,

Darrin DeSilva 33:35
yeah, so I owe a lot to Korea. In fact, I owe everything to Kirby because that’s what opened the door for me into sales. And, you know, I was on the internet, like you said, gotten to the place and they kind of were like, Alright, after 30 days, you need to start, you start getting a job. So I looked on Craigslist, and I saw this ad Hey, open interviews, you know, come on down, right, you know, they they try to rally up and, and so I’m like, Hey, perfect, you know, here’s an opportunity I was excited. You know, when you go from a place of where you’ve lost everything, like they call it a pink cloud you’re on and I just was so happy to just be free. You know, I had been I had been without any substance or anything like that for a while. So it’s like you’re it’s almost like you’re free of your chains and like anything’s possible. So I didn’t care that you know, there was no guaranteed pay. I didn’t care that you know, I just was like hey, it’s a job. There’s opportunity. Let’s go so what their interview you know, they they hired me, right? And what Kirby vacuums is is basically you go door to door, they only sell vacuums door to door if you buy something that’s not that’s from somewhere else. It’s it’s more likely to pre owned back here. Pre Owned but brand new out of the box. They only sell door to door

D.J. Paris 35:04
and and they’re not inexpensive. They’re these are these are nice, very high end vacuums and, and just going door to door. Tell me what that experience was like.

Darrin DeSilva 35:16
Yeah, so it’s it’s nerve wracking. I mean even today when I’m knocking on doors, I use the same Kirby script, you know that I do. Hey, don’t worry, I’m not here to change a religion guys like going like, you know, all these skills and things like that, that I’ve learned in Kirby from getting doors slammed in your face I still used today. And it is it’s nerve racking, they take you in a van, you know, polyene say, Hey, you too, you go canvass this neighborhood. You go out, you walk with the flyer, you try to set up appointments for people, you know, and you say, hey, we’d like to come in and do one area rug one room free of charge, you know, to show you this, how this vacuum works. And you go in? They say yes. And you go in and you you know, I was 260 pounds, by the way at this time. And I sold I sold in about four months, I sold about 12 vacuums. And

D.J. Paris 36:11
and is that a lot? Or is that not a lot? I don’t even know that’s

Darrin DeSilva 36:14
a lot. Yeah, that’s a lot. These are $3,500 vacuum? Yeah, they’re not. And they’re not cheap, but they do everything. I mean, you know, I was washing people’s windows with these things. You could you could do the carpets, hardwood floors, everything, just the vacuum itself is so powerful. I mean, you would vacuum a rug, and it almost looked like it was shampooed because it’s sucking so much dirt out from even underneath the carpet. You know, I mean, I can go the Kirby salesman starting to come out here. You know,

we have a special code for our podcast listeners. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

D.J. Paris 36:51
Because it has to be door to door so you can’t We can’t have a code. And by the way, I want to make a point. For those of us that are familiar with Dog the Bounty Hunter. That’s where he, when he was he was in prison for for a murder charge. And he was released. And that’s how he got his life back and ultimately became well now he’s more of a celebrity but but when he was starting out, he became Kirby’s. I think I have this right. They’re basically one of their top salespeople in the country. So I don’t know if but but for anyone. But anyway, he’s got a particularly a very difficult past story as well. But anyway, so you started having success with Kirby which, by the way, not the easiest sales job, probably about the hardest sales job that exists. Yeah. And and so then Then what happened?

Darrin DeSilva 37:40
Yeah, so then it came down to, you know, a bad month where, you know, I don’t want to, I don’t want to say anything, you know, bad. But in my experience, let’s just say a meeting the manager or the owner of that curvy franchise just didn’t see eye to eye and some things there were some unfair things going on. And, and I couldn’t pay my rent is really what it comes down to came down to. So I had knocked on several doors, tried to get some appointments, to general managers of of cars, car dealerships, and, you know, sales managers, and about three or four different people told me dude, you should drop the vacuum thing and go get into car sales. And I after hearing that so many times, and then finally getting to where I could pay rent doing this thing where I’m like, You know what, I’m going to hit every car dealership, in Tracy until one of them hires me and I picked the day and I said I’m going to start at Tracy Ford at the corner I’m going to walk in and I’m going to go to Honda Volkswagen sure I’m walking in and one of these people is hiring me today. I’m going to start at the end and work my way back so I walked into Tracy Ford taught what to the manager and he hired me on the spot and and I was there for about five years for about four years Yeah, and you know worked my way up and that’s really what what really helped me you know, as I worked my way up in the car business I started seeing my effort pay off you know, I could I could you know my credit started getting better my all these little things that you know, I never really knew or took for granted you know, that mattered so much I was able to you know, get out of the bids place to get my own little spot and it was just it was it was really a blessing for me at the time you know, I moved up to like a manager role in the dealership and and from there you know, bought a brand new car and you know all these little things that they are the promises right and, and it’s just, you know, I they told me when I first kind of came in To make a list of everything you want in the next five years, and I made a list and they said, you, we, the reason we want you to do that is because if you do that, and you continue on the path you’re on, you’re going to short yourself. And I did that. And about a year and a half ago, I came across this list I made. Yeah. And I looked at it and everything was checked off, and more everything I made, that was like a dream list. Like, I’m like, There’s no way I’m gonna, it’s gonna take forever. And it’s so it was just so inspiring to see that, you know, because it really is the truth, you know, the sky’s the limit. And, and I went from the car business and, you know, working my ass off, making, I feel like as much as I could make without moving up to like a General Sales Manager position or finance. And, and I feel like that would have kind of made me just basically live at the dealership, because I already was working six days a week, practically, you know, 910 hours a day. So I was the only thing I could do to make more money at the time was given more time. And, and so that’s kind of what got me into real estate is I saw real estate as something that is the sky’s the limit. And whatever amount of effort you put into it, that’s what you’ll get in return. And it’s your own business. You know, it’s it’s something that you can be proud of, you’re not working for somebody else to make them successful. You know, it’s more risk, nothing’s guaranteed. But I felt that betting on myself was a great investment. Because I knew in my heart that I would work my ass off. And I believed I would make it work. I believed in my heart that no matter what, that’s the mindset I had going in to real estate, I feel like any new agent needs to have that mindset, especially if you’re leaving a full time job that pays you 100 grand a year. And going into this field, that you have no experience, and then there’s nothing guaranteed. You know, that took a lot for me, but I but I did it because I believed I could. And it was the best decision I ever made. One of the best decisions I should say.

D.J. Paris 42:22
Yeah, well, it certainly is incredible, that you know, so many people who start out on the path that that you were on based on, you know, hey, that’s what you knew growing up growing up. And of course, you know, you know what, you know, and, and to be able to, to, you know, to sort of get out of the cycle of that is, is tremendously difficult and also rare. Sadly, sadly rare. But obviously, the story has has a wonderful ending. And here you are today. And not only are you a practicing agent, a successful agent, you were just named one of National Association of Realtors. 30, under 30. Right in the nick of time, because you’re 30 Yeah. Or did you already turn 30 just recently turned 30. But yeah,

Darrin DeSilva 43:14
I recently turned 30. So the cut off is I want to save I think it’s June 1. And it’s weird how it works. It’s kind of like halfway, so anybody that has a birthday, even though there’s still 29 If they have a birthday before June 1, unfortunately, they their last opportunity was the year before to apply. So and my birthday is on the 15th of June. So I just I just made the cut off. Yeah, amazing. Yeah, so it was it was fortunate. Yeah, now I’m on the Big Three Oh, and, you know, I feel like, you know, my my life is, is it’s truly a blessing today. And I, I feel like if I’ve gotten this, this amount of fulfillment in this amount of this many blessings in this two to a little little less than two and a half years in real estate. I can just imagine, you know, where my life will be in my 30s. So I’m looking forward to it. That’s for sure.

D.J. Paris 44:19
I think this I’m curious because for any of for those of us that are versed in anything related to recovery or addiction, we know that surrender, you know, is is really the cornerstone, or the very first part of a recovery process. And the reason why is because our own efforts, we come to a place where we people who struggle with with addiction go, oh, I can’t actually do this. I’m not a I can’t actually live the life I want. I’m not in control, and most most people never have that experience. Right? Most people don’t get to a place where they’re out of control. Roll enough to where they have to surrender. And I’m curious because you have surrendered many times in your life in really extreme ways. How important that that sort of skill is in helping you be successful at real estate. Right, like the surrendering skill, I think I’m almost wondering if that’s maybe the most important part of who you are. Because it enables you to take your ego and your your your identity out of out of a problem, and just go, maybe there’s a solution here, and I just have to find somebody that died curious how important surrender is for you?

Darrin DeSilva 45:40
Absolutely. And I think, you know, just you bringing it up, you probably know how important that is. Because it’s like, it’s it, it’s instrumental to being successful, I think, you know, you have to detach from the outcome, you have to because then what happens is, if I’m attached to especially something as as, as, like money, right, if I’m doing this for money, like, yeah, we want to do it for money and grow. But there’s got to be something more than that, right? And if I go into a listing appointment, and I’m like, Oh, I gotta pay my bills, and I need this listing. And in this, they’re gonna sense that they’re gonna sense that I’m trying to solder desperation. And now I’m cutting my commission. Now I’m so you know, there’s no value there. Right? Like, I wouldn’t want a realtor like that. So, so for me, it’s just detaching from the outcome. Now, fortunately, I’ve had a lot, and I have lost everything more than once. Yeah. So so that’s why for me, like the pain and things that I’ve gone through, I think is it’s, I don’t say easier for me. But it’s just because I know that if I lost everything today, I would be fine. I can rebuild. And and start something new. Right. But I think you got

D.J. Paris 47:02
no, you know, what’s amazing, and I’m sorry to interject, but I think this is a good gut check for a lot of our audience, because I have, I’ve dealt with a few issues that that you have it but but a lot of issues you I have, you have experienced that I have not, and I am I am not confident that if I lost everything, it would be easy to rebuild, I’d have a lot of help. And I think people would help me. But as far as me on my own, I don’t know that I would, I could say I’m confident, but I’ve never had to do it. And I’ve never been in that position. And I think that that has obviously helped. Obviously, nobody wants to have to go through that. But boy to know that if it all went away tomorrow, if you know, for whatever reason, you had to start over again, to just know that I’d figure it out. And to be confident because you’ve actually done it more than once is, is really a tremendous skill that propels people who have you know, who might be at the bottom, who are really struggling to get to a much more elevated position. So I am really because I was thinking about that, as you were saying that I was like, oh, yeah, me too. And I went, No, would I really be okay, no, I probably wouldn’t. It would, I’d have to go through losing everything to really then develop certain skills. So I hope to god I don’t have to but but that gift of desperation is it. You know, that phrase you said earlier, the gift of desperation is a it is it’s a double edged, double edged sword gift, but, but it does actually provide freedom because you’re like, I can do this. It’s not easy, but I can do it. And knowing that I think a lot like, you talked about this with getting a job as in car sales. You’re like, I’m going to get a job, someone’s gonna hire me because I’m gonna go in there and say, you really should hire me, I’m really going. I did that really well, with Kurt with vacuums. I know how to do this, I can do this. Someone’s gonna give me a job. I never have thought that way about myself. And I think that is an incredible thing that you know, I’m going to figure this out. I can figure this out. And that is, that’s amazing. So I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take over there. But just No, no,

Darrin DeSilva 49:23
I appreciate that. One thing, you know, I do want to make very clear for for me, and everyone who’s listening is I do not believe that I could have done any of this on my own. Right. I know for a fact that the only reason that I have the life I have today is because I surrounded myself with individuals who were willing to help me and were willing to show me away. One person that told me this great analogy. It’s kind of like if you’re trying to climb Mount Everest. You know, if I were to climb Mount Everest by myself, I probably wouldn’t make it back. Yeah, why?

D.J. Paris 50:00
When you die, yeah,

Darrin DeSilva 50:01
I’d die. Yeah, I’d be frozen up there, you know, and but the chances of me making it back with a guide, somebody who has been to the top multiple times who has found a solution, who knows the path knows the way, my chances of surviving and getting to the top are a hell of a lot better. You know, and, and that for me, I, the only reason I feel like I would be able to come come out after losing everything is because I would find the right people to be around, I would seek those people out who who have also lost everything before and came back, you know, and just follow what they’ve done. You know, and I think the only thing that I do have is that belief that it’s possible, you know, like you mentioned with the car dealership, is I believed that it was possible, and I can do it, you know, I just needed help to figure out a way to do it. And, and I truly believe that me on my own, I’m nothing but me, as was somebody else. And with the unit and with the team and with people, we can achieve impossible things. And I truly believe that.

D.J. Paris 51:18
Yeah, it’s like that one plus one equals three kind of thing. It’s like, it really is. The sum is greater than then than the parts, right? It’s it really having i I’ve always thought like, not always I took me to I was in my 30s to realize, oh, I need to counsel with people in life, who will tell me the truth, right, actually be there to say, Hey, man, you’re going a little nutty about this thing, or we see you heading in this direction, which may be great. But also people that are like we believe in you. You’re you know, and we have skills that you know, and just having people around who, who and the good news is, there are tons of people who are willing to help. The hardest part is finding those people. I think, for me, it’s it’s about being willing to ask, because it is hard to ask whether you’re a real estate agent, and you’re brand new, and you’re like, I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to get clients, I don’t like go talk to I mean, this whole podcast started because I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to like if we could get a list of, of all these stories of top producers and how they made it like I didn’t think, Oh, I’m going to be talking to top producers, I assume somebody else had already done this. And I was like, I’ll just find the podcast that already exists. And I’ll just give it to our agents because they want to, they want to hear from these top producers. And then I went, nobody’s done that. And I went, Oh, okay, well, we should accumulate these stories. But but it’s all because you know, it people who have risen above our, in our, in my experience, have are very willing to tell their story. And, and, and help others. And if you can find people that are willing to help you, that’s great. But you have to you have to go first you have to be willing to ask for help, right? And that’s probably not something you struggle with as much as maybe other people who haven’t been as desperate at times. So let’s talk about, you know, you’re you’re starting in real estate. How did you start your business? I mean, you don’t have the traditional background of like, well, I don’t know, actually, so So did you have a sphere of influence when you started? Or was it like, I’m starting a whole new thing, and I’m starting over from scratch.

Darrin DeSilva 53:34
I mean, a little bit of both. It the sphere I have, I’ve created from car sales and doing that, you know, I was kind of doing a lot of social media, with car sales as well. So I think that helped me because I would have people the same way they they reach out to me for houses. Um, there was the same thing with cars too. And so I would I would establish that branding, you know, as a car salesman, so that transition was really weird. But I think I made the transition very well because I went from being that car guy to real estate, you know, and I announced it ever I’d like to on your obviously I burned the boats today,

D.J. Paris 54:20
right? Yeah, so I cut off all other opera options. I burned the bridge behind me not burn bridges in a negative way. I just I burned the lifeboat. So this is all I got. I’m gonna exactly I

Darrin DeSilva 54:33
announced it to the world. I am leaving the car business. Thank you for all of that. So that way I have some sort of accountability. Yeah, when things get rough, so there’s no turning back. So again, that that just it’s gonna work mindset, you know, it’s gonna, I’m gonna make this happen. And that’s so powerful. Like I think back to that, that mindset, you know, it’s a lot sometimes Was it gonna be difficult to have that same mindset, especially having a little bit more time in the business and just continuing to have it? I don’t, I don’t really don’t know if that’s even sustainable, right, but I think you can get it in waves. But at time, at that time, I had that mindset. And, and that’s what I needed, especially breaking off in real estate. And I joined this little brokerage, you know, local brokerage, that there was like a referral to me and people that I trusted and, and I just went in there, and I had one guy, he fortunately took me under his wing. And he, he really helped me, you know, he, you know, do open houses with me, whenever I would have a question, I would reach out to him, and he would answer them for me. You know, I felt like I was pretty resourceful, fortunately. So I would try my best to not be needy for things. And if I could figure out a way to find it out myself. I would. That’s fortunately what the internet’s for. Right? And Google. And it just asking people to asking other people. So it took me, it took me two months to do my first deal.

D.J. Paris 56:24
Which, by the way, two months is pretty short timeframe for somebody’s first transaction is a real estate agent. That’s, that’s, that sounds like an eternity for those of us in, you know, but we can, everyone listening can remember, you know, doing a deal in your first couple months is not very common. So, so, but cheers to you for even getting that accomplished, you know, yeah, and that’s another

Darrin DeSilva 56:46
thing too, about mindset. Because if there’s any new agents that are listening, you’re going to be told that it may take six months to a year for your first home, you’re going to be told that. And I would hear people say that, and in my head, I would tell myself, you know, maybe for you, right, but not for me, I’m going to make this work, right. And I think if you just again, that belief system, if you have that belief system, and just continue to believe and stay consistent with your activities, just like prospecting, just like working every day, you know, treating it like a business. You know, real estate is one of those things where you put in the work today, and you get the results, a month or two, you know, at the at the soonest

D.J. Paris 57:36
I was gonna say could be a years. Yeah, could be a year. Yeah. And more than

Darrin DeSilva 57:41
likely, it’s gonna be that long, right? But you have to put in the effort to have the mindset that what you’re doing today is going to benefit you later on, right? It’s not going to be

D.J. Paris 57:52
quick. And that’s the thing too, and I hope, I’m glad you you sort of challenged me a little bit on that. I appreciate that. Because it is impressive to do a deal within your first two months, but it’s not unheard of. And it’s absolutely doable. It’s just not as common. But also most people don’t have as much desperation, to say, I gotta make some, I gotta pay my bills, I gotta make something work. It’s amazing, again, back to this gift of desperation. But what happens is by putting the blinders on and realizing, okay, most of my efforts today in real estate won’t manifest to actual income, maybe for a year, maybe six months, you know, a year, whatever, whatever the the, you know, the time sales cycle is in your particular market. But you also end up making some quick luck along the way, right? Like, exactly like it ends up like lucky things start to happen to people who are quite crazy discipline. So it’s not just like, I mean, look, we could say not a whole lot of luck fell your way. Or we could say you had a lot of luck fall your way at the right times. Either way, you have always been on your way up a very disciplined person. You’ve always sort of made your own luck. It sounds like like, going from car dealer to car dealer is no is not fun and beg, basically begging for a job. And I don’t mean begging in a bad way. But being like I gotta get a job. That is is in most people would never do that. Most people won’t go to 10 different dealerships now. You got you got lucky on the first one in a sense. Yeah. But you would have kept going until someone said yes. Anyway. So so the reality of it is you could say, oh, was lucky it was the first one well, yeah, but it might have been the third one or the fourth one or the 10th. One, you would have still got a job. Because well, or maybe you wouldn’t have it then you would have pivoted to something else. But the point is, is you were convinced that there was a way out, and all you had to do was put is put the blinders on and just go to work essentially. And someone’s always going to give somebody a chance. Who has that mentality like that is It’s really kind of a boss’s dream hire, somebody comes in and says, I have to work here, I need to work here, I want to work here. Like that attitude. And I imagine that’s probably endears you to your clients. Because as you show, or you didn’t show, but But you have that picture of, hey, here’s a time when I didn’t have anything much, or much of anything, or maybe really anything I have that picture from, I remember what it was like, and not that there’s anything wrong with with going through that experience. Of course, it’s brought you to where you are today. But it’s nice to sort of say to say, oh, at one point I that that’s that was my reality. Today, I have a different reality. And, and, and, you know, there’s been a lot of people helping me along the way. But it’s really been a lot of effort on your end. So so let’s talk about the future. So you started in real estate, you you had did your first deal, and within a couple of months, and then then how did things progress from there?

Darrin DeSilva 1:01:00
Um, so from there, I always had at least one pending, which was nice, amazing. Yeah, it was, it was nice. And a lot of my business has come from, from my sphere, you know, from referral partners from those sorts of relationships that I nurture, and have developed a system around that. And that’s really where all of my business came my first year. And, you know, it was a blessing I made, I made more my first year than I did at, at my, my car sales job where I was killed, I was selling 30 cars a month, which is pretty good in the industry. You know, and just just crushing it in, in here in real estate, working less, you know, in a sense, like, like, compared to how I was working in the car business, right, where you’re clocked in, you’re at the dealership, right. And that’s also one thing is, like, I just thought, like, if I was able to take that same mentality that I had in the car business, and apply it to, to real estate in my business, which let’s face it, I don’t think any real estate agent really does, you know, and but the ones that do, are super successful. And that’s what, that’s what I I tried to do and have a schedule, you know, just have a system and treat it like like a business, you know, just because I get to dictate my own schedule does not mean, I shouldn’t treat it like a business. And that’s what I’m starting to learn is just trying to have some structure and things like that, instead of treating it just like like a lot of agents treat it just as like a, Hey, I’m a realtor treating it more like this is my business. This is, you know, I need to have systems in place, I need to have a schedule. I add admins, transaction coordinators, you know, having team members just having that growth mindset. And that’s kind of where I am today is starting just starting that process with that. Trying to have the systems right, a guy that was living in a cardboard box, trying to develop systems for a real estate business, let me tell you is not easy. So I fail more than succeed, you know, but I learned and I learned new things every day and I invest in coaching, I invest a lot in real estate coaching, and other things because I know the value. I know the value in coaching is one of the things that I invested in right off the bat when I first started in, and if you have the funds to do it, I would 100% recommend any new agent. And quite frankly, anybody whether you’ve been in the business for 30 years to invest in coaching, because that it for me is is your game, you have to have a guide to climb Everest, you know? And yeah, and accountability as well.

D.J. Paris 1:04:16
Yeah, we all need we all need Sherpas to help us kind of lead the path guide the way Hold keep us on the path to and you know, they always say what it takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to run a business. I mean, it just does. And boy, you know, aren’t you so are aren’t we so lucky that we live in a time now where we can get help globally from people that we wouldn’t have had access to 20 years ago, that just wasn’t wasn’t a thing. You couldn’t hire a virtual assistant 20 years ago they didn’t exist. Or if they did, I didn’t have access to them. And now we can get help from people all over the globe. And who can help us for, you know, reasonable cost. And you’re you’re helping them by providing them income, they’re helping you by helping run your business. I’m always shocked that individual practitioner agents, a lot of them, don’t think to employ somebody, even if it’s just somebody to help plan your day, or somebody to help structure. So you’re now building these systems. And you’re, you know, I’m curious now as the markets shifting, so I want to sort of talk about what’s going on currently in in the real estate industry, because you’re still relatively young, as an agent, also your age, you know, you’re a younger guy. Now, things are starting to shift, right, we’re seeing a slowdown, we’re seeing interest rates rise, we’re seeing, of course, inventories has been challenging for the last couple of years. And, you know, less buyers are now flooding the market, because rates have basically doubled, more than doubled some cases. So so how were How are you adjusting to that? Has that has that hit you yet? has had things changed for your business? Just curious on what you’re doing right now?

Darrin DeSilva 1:06:10
Yeah, so I am very happy the market shifting. I think we needed to slow down. Every buyer that I have right now, it’s like first offers accepted, which is nice. You can keep contingencies. We’re asking for closing credits, we’re negotiating price, like I’m like, wow, you know, you have new builders now like raising the Commission’s they’re buying, or they’re paying out to directors like you know, and sometimes, quite frankly, I’m like, Hey, if you guys, you know,

D.J. Paris 1:06:43
I used to deal with you a month ago. Where’s where’s that? For me? Yeah,

Darrin DeSilva 1:06:48
exactly. Yeah. And, you know, um, so I actually like it. And as far as the listing side goes, you know, I think it is who you who the sellers work with matters more than ever right now. And all the agents who stopped doing the marketing and the activities that that got results, when when you needed to market a house, you couldn’t just stick it in the MLS and put a for sale sign and say, I sold it for 300,000 over asking price, right? I’m the best realtor out there. I hate those posts. I absolutely hate them. Because it’s like, Dude, come on, like, what did you put a for sale sign one. And granted, you know, we all got to market ourselves. And I get that. But you know, as an agent, perspective, agent to agent perspective, it’s like, Come on, guys, you know, so the people I think that are getting hit and doing price reductions and all those things, I think are people that may need to look at what type of marketing and strategies they’re doing on their listings, you know, are they having, are they are they you know, going door to door like, I’ll give you an example. Right after this. I’m heading to Sacramento to do door knocking to invite everybody out to our open house this weekend. Right?

D.J. Paris 1:08:16
Okay, let’s pause real quick because this is a this is a really nice thing. door knocking for open houses. It’s so funny. You mentioned this I had done it did an interview four or five years ago with a guy named Nico apostle. So if anyone else would go back look, look for the just just search on our website for apostle just like apostle from the Bible, same spelling. And he did this and he’s the only other person and I actually just saw him a few days ago, cuz he’s a local guy here. And I was like, I still tell people about your door knocking Open House thing and I’ve yet so you’re like the first person in five, four or five years to talk about it. So let’s talk about what what this is telling me about the strategy for getting people to show up to open houses.

Darrin DeSilva 1:08:58
Yeah. So you know, you pick, you know, 50 I’d say 50. I used to do 100. But it was just too much. Because when you door knock, it takes a little bit more time. If you’re just dropping off flyers, that’s one thing, but I like to go up to the door. Because you you you have a conversation. And when you talk about like cold calling and making phone calls, the whole goal of all of that is to get face to face with the client. Right? That is the only goal. So imagine you have a listing, you actually have a reason to talk to somebody and you’re I’m not asking anything for you. I’m simply inviting you to check out your neighbor’s house, right,

D.J. Paris 1:09:39
which everybody wants to do just out of their own curiosity.

Darrin DeSilva 1:09:43
Exactly. So like what better way to leverage something when I’m not asking you to buy or sell anything, right? I’m inviting you to sing Hey, come on down. You know, we want to get your take on you know the house. Maybe if you can give us some feedback. We’d love for you to come over. We got some Wine, we got some, you know, work d’oeuvres, just come down, you know, in check it out. And hey, if you happen to know anybody that’s looking to move into this neighborhood, a family of friend, you know, we’d love to maybe get in touch with them, whatever you want to say to try to try to convert, right? But yeah, you go up to the door, you know, if it’s not specific neighborhood you knock they answer and you just simply, here you go. It’s Kirby one on one for me, right? He’s

D.J. Paris 1:10:28
gonna say this is Kirby. Yeah, you know, you have

Darrin DeSilva 1:10:31
your fliers in your hand. And the first thing you do when they open the door is you just stick your hand up, you hand them the flyer Hey, guy, and smile, you always smile, right? That’s the first impression big smile. Hey, guys, you know, and, um, just that and again, you know, back to the whole cold calling, and just doing phone calls. In general, you’re the whole point is to be face to face, I’ve literally all I’ve done is walk didn’t cost me $10,000 For lead, nothing, I literally walked over to this person’s house, who is a potential lead, and I and I gave them something of value. And I’m now creating a conversation with them. And if I if I track my numbers, I’ll know that if I talk to 10 people that I’ve knocked on their door, I’ll probably get, you know, two or three emails and phone numbers and one potential appointment to come back and talk about potentially selling their house.

D.J. Paris 1:11:32
Right. So is that are those numbers about right? So maybe knocking on 50 gets you about 10 conversations, which gets you two or three emails, which maybe nets you one customer and one opportunity, one opportunity? Yeah, so

Darrin DeSilva 1:11:47
So whether it’s by buying or selling, it’s it’s just an appointment lead generation, right. And that all that all was free, you know, so

D.J. Paris 1:11:56
it’s, it’s free, and it takes it’s free. And it just takes time. And it takes willingness. And it takes a little bit of getting over the lump in your throat to knock on a door of a stranger and, and I always I always have told tried to tell our agents. It’s not creepy if you’re not a creep. If you’re a nice, normal human, and again, women have a different and I’m not here to say it’s equal for men and women, obviously women have additional safety considerations. And maybe this wouldn’t necessarily be something a woman may want to do just for safety sake. But and I’m not here to to get into a gender conversation, but certainly, you know, think about safety. But you know, for doing that. I’m curious. Well, this is this is a question that I think will better answer this. How many how many other agents in your market? Are you aware of that door knock for open houses? Like you do,

Darrin DeSilva 1:12:56
I’m outside of my brokerage zero. I think the only reason I hear some of the people in my brokerage do is because we have you know meetings every week and people share what works for them so you hear it more often than none. Now doing it and being consistent with it, I think are two different things. You know, they do it for one open house and take a couple of Facebook photos and say hey, I did it. Which I’m totally guilty of too. I’m not any you know, consistency, that’s the hardest thing. But I find myself being able to be aware of that fortunately and and really trying to look in the mirror and seeing Okay, I need to be consistent with this. Otherwise it doesn’t it doesn’t work so there’s definitely I think if more people did it and did it consistently, they would see results no matter what you do. Right right.

D.J. Paris 1:13:52
So it doesn’t have to be door knocking I’m just saying yeah, but but but but I love I love that particular one because it’s it’s got that old school kind of like I don’t really want to do it. It’s it’s it’s way harder than picking up a phone. Phones are way harder than reaching out on social media. And not always not it’s not always that the hardest activity is the best activity but this particular activity I love because it’s it’s incredibly humbling it’s it’s not an ego based thing right? You can’t you’re not showing up like hey, look at how cool I am it’s a very humbling thing to have. Most people go I don’t really want somebody knocking on my door so you so you do have to go through a lot of of people baby poking through the looking through the windows. Yeah, who is that guy? What do you want? And and obviously you’re you’re a professional person so so you know you have you know how to dress and how to present yourself. But I think it is a wonderful experience. And by the way, for those of you who say open houses don’t work, do this. Well, so how do you do Would you go? Do you do it a couple of days before? Do you do it the morning of when do you do the door knocking for open houses? Yes. So

Darrin DeSilva 1:15:05
I typically do it a couple of days before, I know some people like to do it the weekend before. But I like to be fresh. Yeah, you know, fresh in people’s minds, because chances are that paper I hand them is gonna go straight from their hand to the trash can totally toe. So all I want them to see is my name in the bait. And your name should be the biggest thing on there other than, like open house. So that way, at least if they,

D.J. Paris 1:15:32
if on their way to the to the garbage, they see your name,

Darrin DeSilva 1:15:35
they see your name exactly. So you’re brand new yourself. And you know, and then just, you know, open house invite. So,

D.J. Paris 1:15:44
I know that and I didn’t mean to get to get stuck on this. But I think this tip alone is so important. And it doesn’t mean you have to go door to door for your open houses. But if you’re having if you’re going to all the effort to put an open house together, and I’m not saying Darren, I’m talking to our audience directly, you know, go the additional extra step and canvass the neighborhood. Really politely knock on the door, say, hey, just so you know, I’m listing a home down the street, thought you might be interested in checking it out, here’s a little bit more about the property if we’d love to have you over just to see come see the property, maybe give us some feedback. That would be awesome. It’s it’s, it will net you people showing up. So if you’re somebody who says open houses don’t work, I only want to hear open houses don’t work because I also knocked on 100 doors and still nobody, then you can tell me open houses don’t work. Right. Darren is here to tell you open houses work. But you have to probably put maybe more sometimes you have to put more effort in than just throwing it up on the MLS and saying Come Come check out the open house.

Darrin DeSilva 1:16:49
Right. And the only reason for me that I’m doing open house is because you with the listing, you can leverage you know, there’s there’s ways you can leverage buyers listings to but it’s more like direct mail and stuff like that. I don’t think it’s as effective. A listing you can really leverage in the only read the open house is not going to sell you. It’s not going to sell the house. Right? The whole point is you’re very lucky. Yeah, unless you’re very lucky you get you get somebody that walks in and sees it and you know, and that that happens from time to time. But regardless, if they really want to see it, they want to call their agent and have them show it to him. You know. So really all the open houses, it’s to generate you more business. That’s it, you’re leveraging one opportunity and making three more, you know, I can’t tell you how many buyers I had come in that are unrepresented and do an open house where not only did I get them in contract on the house I was selling but they had to sell house two to three deals. And one that happened that happened twice to me last year six deals just from one open house, right. And so you know, little things like that. And it doesn’t happen every time. Right. But again, it’s just it’s consistency. So that’s what I believe, again, belief, like I know, if I stay consistent, do I do I get deterred? And do I get down like Oh, this isn’t working man. Let me try something else. Yeah, 100% I get shiny object syndrome, right?

D.J. Paris 1:18:22
Oh, he too? Sure. No, we’re gonna fix everything. If I had that. That’s what I need. Yeah,

Darrin DeSilva 1:18:28
yeah, exactly. Let me listen to this guy and do this. And I’ll try this for two weeks, and I don’t get results. So now I’m gonna try this. If you can’t, you have to, you have to be consistent, no matter what you do. And then after doing it for, you know, six months, you know, three, four months, whatever it is, everything’s different. Then make your judgment. Maybe this isn’t for me, you know? Or maybe I need to try something different, or my approach is wrong. Or, you know, it’s for me, it’s like always looking within what can I do differently, not pointing the finger. You know, that’s the one thing like just for my personal life to once I stopped pointing at everybody else. And I started pointing the finger to me and seeing what I need to do better when I need to change what what I can do. Then I started letting everybody else or not letting everybody else control my destiny control. And I started taking responsibility in allowing me to control my life and need to control where I want to end up right because I can change my actions but I can’t change yours. I can’t change the brokerage. I can’t change anything so I can’t blame it on the brokerage. I can’t blame it on the current condition the market conditions. I can’t Well all I can do is adjust right. I think this market going kind of back to your your question about the market. I think this market is it’s going to show the trooper professionals and amateurs and people who do this as a side business or just don’t treat it how they should, you know, don’t take it seriously. Like we’re dealing with people’s largest assets. Like these, these are people’s lives. You know, I have clients crying to me sometimes because of how, how stressful the process can be. And and it’s like, I want to make it so smooth for them that I don’t have to hear one person ever tear up. That’s that’s where my in like, how can I make this escrow? Or this selling or buying? How can I make this process just so smooth for my clients? To where all they have to do is worry about packing. Right?

D.J. Paris 1:20:43
You know, it’s funny, I, I just I absolutely could not agree, I went through this process. A year ago, I bought a primary residence was not my first time buying a home. But it was my first time in a while buying a home. And I also work in real estate. And we have like, almost 800 agents here. So you would think that I would be like, pretty, I’m sort of in the industry, and I’m kind of like, shouldn’t be that emotional about it. And thank God, I had a people to help me through my own emotional storms of my own transaction, which was pretty normal. And there wasn’t even any major hiccups. And I thought, you know, I started no more than the average person who’s I’m not, you know, I’m not a product practicing agent. So I don’t know as much as you. But I know enough. We have enough agents here that I sort of feel like I have a general idea of how it all works. But it was so incredibly stressful. So I was like, Oh, I forgot how it feels. And you’re so right, that having the job of the realtor, at least for me, was keep DJ calm. And I and my boss was the guy who was keeping me calm. You know, he was he was he was the one where I went, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to do this, and so freaking me out. And then, you know, and I’m not somebody who doesn’t handle things? Well, I think. But even for somebody in the industry, it was crazy stressful. And it was a perfectly normal transaction. So I think you’re absolutely right. And then now think about, you know, of course, everyone else who isn’t in real estate doesn’t doesn’t remember what it was like to buy a home, because maybe they did it 10 years ago, or they haven’t ever done it. And now and now we’re in multiple offer situations, still even. So you have a lot of stress there. So I think you’re right, that you making things as stress free, of course, it’s still going to be stressful is really the main benefit of working with realtors having somebody say, Don’t worry, I will keep you up to date I’m on it. Do you find that that’s the most important part of your job is sort of managing, being on top of it so that your clients don’t you know that they’re able to, like you said, all they have to worry about is moving.

Darrin DeSilva 1:23:04
That’s it, it’s just communication to keeping people in the loop. If there’s, if there’s no update, send them a text saying hey, there’s no update, you know, don’t just not text them. Right? Like, like little things like that, that I’ve found people really appreciate. And not only that, but the service you give. Like to me it. I focus the reason I give high level service like that when I want to take care of people. But really, it’s because I want people to refer me to their friends, family and people that they know, because of how great of a job that I did, right? There’s all there’s always some, there’s a motive behind it, right? And then that’s the truth, you know, because that’s what I value, I want to be known as that guy that makes it smooth for people. So it’s in everybody’s best interest to focus on those things, too. So that way, you’re you can have a very lucrative referral business referral based business where you’re just getting referred clients left and right. You know, like, that’s the dream. You know?

D.J. Paris 1:24:15
Yeah. And it all has to do with service and discipline. Right. So So you have echoed that over and over and over again in the time we have and I think it’s a good place to sort of, sort of wrap up today because, wow, I feel like I’ve just been on this emotional journey with you. I appreciate your vulnerability, your honesty, your willingness to share some of some of your life sort of story and I think that is a takes tremendous courage and, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for that. So congratulations. And by the way also, not just me recognizing it. Clearly National Association of REALTORS thinks you’re poor. be special as well, awarding you the 30, under 30, which I know a few people, I know many people who have received that award. And they’re all they’re all amazing people. So you are now of course in that same same rarefied air, which is, I’m sure very humbling for you. But it is really impressive to the rest of us. So, by the way, we should also mention that Darren is now in a place where he’s like, I am now expanding, I’m building up this thing. And maybe he’s going to need some additional help and wants to build out his team. So if so, tell us, tell us who you’re looking for. Because we have lots of agents who listen from all over the country. Who are you looking for? Who would be a good fit for you and your team?

Darrin DeSilva 1:25:42
Yeah, so for me, I’m looking for somebody that’s coachable. That is, is willing to learn? I look for people that have more questions than answers, right. And that, for me is somebody who would fit into the team, I it’s not about you, selling a million houses, it’s not about it’s about your attitude and your work ethic. And you willing, if you’re putting in the work, and you’re showing up, that’s all I would ask for. And that’s, that’s, that’s the only requirement for me, is being coachable, being showing up. And getting into action doing what you say you’re going to do, you know, whatever your goals are, if you say you’re going to do something, and we then next week, we go over what you did the prior week to get there and you didn’t do them, those are things that I I don’t like to do, because here’s the thing, I, I have a coach, too, that I am accountable to who holds me accountable. So I expect the same thing from any of my agents, right. And that’s the kind of team I’m building. It’s something like that, and we grow together. And it’s a culture. And that’s, and that’s what I’m looking for. So I’d love for anybody that just wants to have a conversation or just talk about real estate, that’s, you know, in in Tracy area, San Joaquin County, Central Valley area to reach out to me, you can you can look me up online, and I would be more than happy to have a conversation with you guys and, and see if, you know, potentially working together would make sense.

D.J. Paris 1:27:27
And fun fact, my middle name is Joaquin. So I am a big fan of the Joaquin Valley. But for anyone out there who is in sort of central, or East Bay Area, Central Valley, and just you know, is is wanting to explore other options or wanting to work with somebody like Darren, who is really still at the beginning part of his career. And he’s already just on the right track to be crushing it, he’s already crushing it. But to go even beyond that, boy, I would join your team in a second. If I was a practicing agent, I don’t say that lightly. And I don’t say that, as as a platitude. It’s the absolute truth because I’m like, you have a track record of success. And you know what it takes. And so I encourage anyone out there who’s interested in looking at other options to consider the DeSilva real estate research real estate team and visit Darren at his website, which is DiSalvo, real estate.com. And that’s d s iLv. A real estate.com. Also, you can find him on Instagram at Deron, which is with an ID AR R I N underscore to Silva links will be in the show notes. Darren, this is probably the longest interview I’ve done in 400 episodes. Now, I hope I hope it was interesting for our audience as it was for me, I trust that it was I am so I don’t want to say I’m proud of you. Because that suggests that I’m in a different I see you as appear as an equal, for sure and somebody to look up to and admire. So I think you you are really somebody who has got amazing things ahead of him. But just the skills that you’ve developed, I think are are the truly truly incredible to to move from where you were to where you are now. And you can just tell that that you you seem to be at some level of peace and some level of of normalcy, which I’m so glad that you were able to find for yourself. And not only that, but be able to thrive and build something. It’s It’s It’s inspiring, and I hope our audience feels the same way I know they do. Please everyone follow Darren on Instagram. Check him out on his on his website, reach out to him. If you want to explore joining his team, he’d love to talk to you as well. And he’s just a good guy. So So reach out to him. Let him know that you appreciated him sharing on our episode. And before we go to we just ask everybody to do one quick thing to help oscaro, which is just a telephone, I think one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing this really inspiring, impressive story with Darren is taking a selfie. So I am, I’m waving in the background here. But I want everyone just to tell one other person about this episode, send this to them, especially somebody who may be struggling right now in their business, or maybe with personal issues. And maybe they’re thinking of getting out of real estate. Or maybe they’re thinking that this just isn’t the right. The best path for them right now, maybe this would encourage them to get back on track. So shoot this over to him. And honestly, anyone really could could learn a lot from Darren, whether they’re a top producer or they’re struggling, so send a link out, send him over to our website, keeping it real pod.com. We appreciate it. All of our episodes are there or you can also find us anywhere podcasts are served. So please subscribe. And also last thing to please leave us a review whatever app you might be listening to this on. Let us know what you think of the show. Your comments, help us continue to improve as well. So Darren, you’ve given us a tremendous amount of time, and I know you got to race out of here to get to your next appointment. I hope I didn’t keep you too long. Really, really super proud of everything you’ve accomplished and also what you’re willing to share. You’re a great guy and we are a super excited to see your you continue to dominate the Central Valley market. So keep it up and stay in touch with us. We’re going to be checking in on you. And awesome, man. Well, hey, and congrats on the 30 under 30 thing. Huge, huge deal there. So I hope to hope hopefully you’ll come down to the Orlando NAR conference this fall. If you get out there, we’ll definitely have to meet up and say hi. So, congrats again. Thanks for being on our show. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. All right, Darren to solve everyone. Thanks for being on the show. On behalf of everyone. Thanks, Darren. And on behalf of Darren and myself. Thanks to the audience for sticking with us to the end. Tell a friend about our show and we’ll see everyone on the next episode. Thanks, Darren. Awesome. Thank you

Francie Malina the team-leader of Francie Malina Team with Compass in Westchester County NY talks about how she got into real estate and how the moment she entered the market helped her build her business. Francie discusses how her team is built and how it works. Francie also emphasizes the importance of leisure time and how that makes you a better professional. Last, Francie discusses how she behave if she would have to start her career over in another country.

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

Francie Malina can be reached at (914) 261-0276 and [email protected].

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

D.J. Paris 0:00
As an agent, how do you take your professionalism to the next level? 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 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 onto 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 producer Francie Molina. Before we get to Francie wanted to give you a couple of quick announcements number one actually requests not even announcements, I need something but they’re pretty hopefully reasonable and simple request number one, tell a friend think of one other agent that could benefit from talk listening to an episode with a top producer like Francie and send them a link to either our podcast website, which is keeping it real pod.com Or just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real, hit the subscribe button. And the second thing is to leave us a review whatever app you might be listening to the show in, whether it’s Apple podcasts or Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play Amazon, you know, wherever else, let us know what you think of the show. Leave us a review. We read every review and comment and it helps us improve. But enough about all that let’s get to the main event my conversation with Francie Molina.

Today on the show we have Francie Molina from the Francie Molina team compass in Westchester, New York. Let me tell you more about Francie. Francie is the team leader of the 10 person, Francie Molina team and went Westchester County, which is just north of New York, New York City. Francie is more than an award winning top producing agent. She’s also a powerful force in the Westchester market and a highly sought after industry thought leader through her involvement as a women of Compass regional leader, and also co founder of the women of Compass clubhouse, and a founding member of realme Global which is a worldwide luxury real estate Think Tank. Francie keeps her finger on the pulse of issues affecting the market. In 2021, France’s team held the distinction of selling the most homes in the county, which is incredible because Westchester County is incredible. Please everyone visit Francie on her and her team on their website, which is Francie molina.com. Fr ANCIE Molina ma l i n a.com. There will be a link to that in our show notes. And also please follow her on Instagram or her team on Instagram at Francie Molina team also link in the show notes. Francie, welcome to the show.

Francie Malina 4:08
Thanks for having me. I’m super excited.

D.J. Paris 4:11
I feel that you know, when we just first started talking, I was like, I feel like I’ve known you for a long time. We just very comfortably started communicating. And I am really, really excited to have you on the show first for all of our in I’m sort of geographically challenged and my a bit embarrassed to ask but for anyone who isn’t that familiar with New York geography? Where is Westchester County?

Francie Malina 4:39
That’s a great question, actually. Because most people have no idea. So it’s directly north of New York City. So you’ve got Manhattan and then you have the Bronx and then you hit Yonkers and you’re in Westchester, so no bridge between the commute which is like New Jersey you have to cross the George Washington Bridge or Long Island you’re crossing either the Throgs Neck or the Whitestone. Westchester County is a suburban commute Double area to New York City without a bridge straight up parkways highway straight up. So it’s a highly sought after suburban marketplace for folks who are in their living in New York City or just want close proximity to New York City. And it also has a distinction of being carved out of a forest. So it’s really I mean, almost every area of Westchester is just, you know, mature trees and beautiful nature. And we have bears walking in our yard and Fox and coyote and Turkey. And, you know, we have the distinction of like being 15 miles from New York City, but still have

D.J. Paris 5:33
nature. Isn’t that incredible? That that have that that juxtaposition of, you know, the the busiest city in the country? And then 15 miles beyond it. It’s you know, there’s you’re you’re battling bears and nature. And how lovely, gosh, I’ve I’ve always heard of Westchester and I’ve really never spent time in Westchester County. So I’ve been to the oh, gosh, I’m so we’re West Point. I’ve been to West Point.

Francie Malina 6:06
So beautiful. That’s the bridge Cross River. So

D.J. Paris 6:10
that’s probably the closest I’ve been in. That was insane. And I was like, just so beautiful. But let’s, let’s learn more about you. Where do you come from? How did you get into real estate? Tell us your story.

Francie Malina 6:22
So my story is not that exciting. But I’m from originally from Connecticut. And then we ended up we lived in New York City, my husband and I when we were first married. And then you know, as soon as you started to think about our family, often folks that I would say 50% of the New York City population moves out for space in schools or 30%, depending on the year. So we did the same. So we moved up to Irvington on Hudson, which is on the Hudson River side of Westchester County. So it’s the west side of the county. And I’m been living there for 31 years. And I ended up in real estate because I was a formerly in banking, I was at the Federal Reserve Bank years before that. And when I decided to, you know, I had sort of the break in the action to kind of leave the kids and start a second career. My husband and I had some less than stellar real estate transactions in our history. And I always felt and we always felt we’re pretty tight Bay on steroids. And we always felt like our agent just showed up with a key. And that was really it. And the worst story was that we live on a private road and the house we’re in now. And it was a few days before closing before we even knew that. And we were responsible for maintaining the road. And it’s unclear who owns the road. But we own at least in front of it of our house. So we’re responsible for all those potholes. So I think subconsciously, I had it in my head that, you know, the bar was pretty low in real estate, and I love people. But more importantly, I love numbers and models and financial stuff. So that combination, so I decided to get my license on a whim, I’m telling you, this was not a thought out thing. I was at the gym, and I thought I was gonna take a real estate class, a friend said I’ll do it with you. And again, now 12 years later, I run a team of 10. And it’s been amazing. It combines all the things I love.

D.J. Paris 8:08
Yeah, but you don’t just run a team of 10, you’re on a team of 10 that sells the most amount of property in the county. And to do that within a decade, let’s let’s just be honest, is a really impressive achievement. And you’re too humble to sort of brag about it, but I’m going to brag about it. Because I think that’s an incredible achievement. I’ve been in this industry longer than that. And I’ve I’ve rarely rarely seen that anywhere in the country. So tell us sort of how did you so you talked about, you know, real estate kind of put together a lot of the different qualities that are you and that you love. Tell us how that work? What what did that journey look like?

Francie Malina 8:47
Well, so in the beginning, I came into the business around two in 2010, May of 2010. So obviously the market time. But in the in the end, it was the best of times, because I could sit in the office, listen to other agents, especially when you you know, if you want to be a millionaire, you surround yourself with millionaires, if you want to be a great agent, you surround yourself with a lot of top agents. So I would listen to how they did business. And because it was slow. You know, I wasn’t they weren’t running in and out all the time. And also there still was floor time. So you could sit there and if the phone rang, you might have the honor of getting a lead. So I spent a few years doing that. And that was really good for me because for me this was going to be a marathon not a sprint anyway, even though Westchester is big, all the communities are very small. And we live in work and then our kids go to school in them. And in my experience, most of my friends raising their kids would kind of cross the street to avoid their agent after buying the house. And that was not the kind of relationship based business I was going to build. So it had I you know, got into a hot market and got all this business thrown at me. I probably wasn’t prepared to do it very well. So I was glad that I had the time to learn the business before I was hitting the road running. So therefore A couple of years were slow. And, and then, you know, as I worked with lots and lots and lots of buyers from the city, and worked lots and lots and lots of weekends, they referred me their friends and their neighbors. And over time it builds, I always say, if you run a relationship based business and you stay in touch, you show up and follow up, you start with like a little bucket of clients, and that bucket becomes the storage container, and then it becomes a moving truck. And then it becomes a factory warehouse, which is the need for the team. And that’s how it worked out. You know, we really my team is a part of the fabric of the communities in which we live, we’re always giving back, we always show up and follow up in every way that we can. So even the newest agents on my team are still are building relationships and getting referrals from those relationships. So you know, the pot just keeps getting bigger.

D.J. Paris 10:49
Wow. So you really started out helping people transition from city living out to rural, more rural living, I grew up in a more rural environment as well. So I can I can appreciate that. But yeah, so So talk about so for the first couple of years, you come in the markets kind of at the bottom at this point, which, which I think you brought up a really good point that a lot of people exited the industry, the business, a lot of realtors left the industry. And a lot of realtors were avoiding clients because of of all the of all the challenges and and also you saw an opportunity yourself you said that maybe your own experiences with with realtors weren’t always super positive, and you’re like I can do this better? Or at least I can do this as well, if not better. You know, I’m curious on since you’ve seen people come and go, you’ve seen agents start and have success and not have success. What do you usually when you bring on a new team member who’s new to the industry? What do you usually have them do to sort of, you know, so understand that, yes, it’s a marathon, not a sprint, but what are they doing day to day to kind of build that pipeline?

Francie Malina 12:04
Yeah, so all the agents on our team, we’re basically new when they join one maybe had some experience, a little experience, we just took on a seasoned agent, the first one ever, and I love new agents. Because if you join our team, you’re you’re you’re kind of following our credo we chase reviews, not commissions. So you’re going to learn the business before you’re out there doing, you know doing much so you’re shadowing you’re you’re coming to the office, you’re listening to us, we know our tax rates, and every community in Westchester has amongst the highest taxes in the county. So that’s really the most important thing you need to know when you’re showing houses. You’re understanding the different lifestyles, you’re learning all that and then you’re following us, you know, appraisals, inspections, inspections are big in the suburbs, right in the city. It’s an apartment building or a co op. And following us around learning the pricing. And we don’t really have a firm timeframe. Typically I hear other teams say oh, you can’t go out and show and sell for three months. We always that’s always the goal. But somehow an agent we just took on in September last year, we were gonna hold her out for three months. And by November she was out showing and selling and she’s like, we’ll close 10 deals already. Because she was like a sponge. There’s there’s, you know, nine others to tell you how to do things were very collaborative, we meet every Tuesday without fail. And then we also do team time blocking and other meetups. So there’s a lot of a lot of, you know, a lot of hands to help.

D.J. Paris 13:34
It’s It’s really impressive. And I’m you know how just to give our listeners some understanding of your volume, because I think it is something that that helps provide some context. Tell us what is this month look like for you guys?

Francie Malina 13:48
Yeah, so I always the stat that I was so proud of the team for last year was we sold 153 houses so every two and a half days we close to house. And I just thought there’s they’re just amazing. I mean, you know, lots of the team of young children have lots of personal things going on in their life, but they do these are full time jobs for them. They’re not agents by accident. They’re agents on purpose. They show up and follow up and it’s really amazing. My kids are grown it’s a little easier and they but they they get get there every day and and do it. So this month, I will probably in June we’ll probably close between 60 and 70 houses. But that’s typical because it’s a school district you know, this is a school district buyer. Yeah, because we have a lot going on I think so far this year, you know over 90 total.

D.J. Paris 14:37
Wow. Just just incredible. And you guys go go go and I love that. What what where do you find what’s the biggest challenge right now for your group? Because I we don’t ask that question enough. And I think oftentimes people learn the most from challenges so we’re what what do you see as the biggest challenge right now for your business?

Francie Malina 14:58
Yeah, our biggest thing challenges is the weekends. It’s you know, especially up until you know, end of May, a house came on, it was gone. If it lasted through the weekend, we were lucky if it had, you know, less than 20 offers, we were lucky. So you know, the, on a Friday night an agent puts a house on and by Sunday, if you can’t show it, because you have your fully booked or you have something else on your schedule, perhaps a wedding or a family event, you know, that client misses out on the, on the house, or obviously now there’s a team so we can help each other. But that that inability to schedule your life is so hard. And in COVID, we were busy throughout COVID. Because we were even though we were non essential in New York, we were showing I feel like I made it was March 20. By that we were out showing by April 15. Sitting outside while our clients went in, but people were calling us from all over to you know, to buy a house in the suburbs. So we were out and about. So for you know, last like two and a half years, we really haven’t had a break. So it feels like those weekend, the weekend. Is such a burden at this point.

D.J. Paris 16:04
Yeah. And have have rising rates affected your buyers much has that been a concern? Because I and the only reason I’m bringing it up and I know everyone’s got a different take on it. But I always think that this this is something that I want. It’s not that I always think I hear agents talking about rates, rates, rates, rates, rates. So I’m curious on how that how that affects your business and how you maybe talk to me, maybe pre approval letters might not really be as well, they need to be rerun right now maybe, right?

Francie Malina 16:39
They definitely do. And I mean, as you know, a 1% interest rate increase reduces their brain purchasing power by like 12%. So it definitely is affecting them. I will also, I would also like to add because I’m hearing this everywhere I go every mastermind group meeting, I mean, it’s like interest rates, interest rates, interest rates, interest rates, interest rates. It’s also this isn’t really the first summer where we feel free to go do things where families feel free to be on the sidelines of the baseball game, send their kids off to sleepaway camp kind of relatively easily, all go on vacation. So we also feel like it’s just a little bit of a there’s a buyer fatigue in the market after a really, really tough market. And people just want to live their summer, normally. So if you’re buying a house this summer, you’re on the phone with your attorney, and you’re dealing with inspections, and you have all this other stuff going on. So our slowdown is also somewhat driven by that they’ve been in the January to June or may market it was a nightmare. And now they’re just tired. Now they’re using interest rates as an excuse, or just the the normalizing of the market takes a while because the sellers don’t adjust their pricing that rapidly. They’re talking, they’re out on the lawn mowing their lawn, and their neighbor says I got X for the house. So now they want why. So it’s just a bit of a normalization process. And as we all know, change in real estate is slow. So we just have to wait for people to adjust to the new interest rates, you know, get their summer plans out of the way. And in our market, it’ll be fine. Most folks who moved to Westchester want proximity to New York City, once base schools, nature safety, whatever it is, there’s a whole litany of things you get from it. So it’ll pick back up. Again,

D.J. Paris 18:18
when you when you meet when you work with a buyer or a seller. What’s the most important part of that first interaction like what are you looking for? In order because you talked about at the beginning, hey, when you were working with with other realtors, sometimes it was like they were just opening doors and that was kind of it? What type of relationship are you looking for with your clients? Sure.

Francie Malina 18:42
I forgot to mention that when I got into the business. I had the benefit of coming into the business sort of with Zillow and with realtor.com and Redfin and all the transparency that was occurring in the market. It obviously it started a little earlier. But so to me, the industry, it was an industry that was rapidly changing. And I worked with agents who had been doing it a certain way for many, many years. And as we all know, pivoting is very tough and slow. So I’m coming into an industry that you know, everything’s on Zillow, thank God. I mean, I’m not, not because it’s on Zillow, but I do love the transparency of the information, especially in a county like ours where taxes are criminal. So in fact, Zillow is taxes are wrong for Westchester County, so maybe it’s not Zillow, but that they can go to the websites and find the real estate taxes, because that’s the most important thing that we can share with our clients is the cost of living in Westchester. It is actually cheaper to live in Westchester than in New York City, obviously real estate’s cheaper. And also you don’t pay New York City income taxes if you live in Westchester, even if you earn your income in New York. So that’s about a three or 4% reduction for a lot of people so it’s a big benefit, but the property taxes are crazy high and the property taxes on a $4 million brownstone in New York City is are like $2,000. So when we really need To make sure they understand the difference right away, because if they find their dream house, and then they’re finding out that the taxes on that dream house are, you know, 30,000 They haven’t been educated. So we’re always educating our clients as when when our when we start with a new client, they get a full buyer packet full of information about Westchester and access to our buyer resource website, which has more information than you can digest, where you know, we are trusted advisors on the West Chester marketplace, there’s almost nothing that we don’t know the answer to or can’t get the answer to. Yeah, I

D.J. Paris 20:31
think knowledge is it’s one of those hurry up and wait sort of situations where if you really want to be the person that your client picks up the phone to call, you really have to accumulate information, right, you have to accumulate knowledge. I’m curious. I was I was at a breakfast this morning. Actually, I was playing Francie. I was I was at a breakfast this morning with a bunch of other compass agents use a compensation. And we were talking about studying the market every day or and I was curious. You know, do you spend time every day looking at listings looking at the MLS? Curious if you have any habits for for agents, because, you know, there’s a lot of times agents wake up and they’re like, I don’t know what I should do today. So curious what you might suggest,

Francie Malina 21:17
oh, I have habits. So we are an MLS region, which is very helpful. So I look at the hot sheet more than once a day, the hot sheet is the new listings coming soon is what went into contract. You know, you’re just that’s how you keep your finger on the pulse of the market. Right? If, like, if you go on our hot sheet today, there’s like three pages of actives. If you went on our hot sheet, you know, two months ago, there’d be you know, one half page of actives, right, and the pendings would have taken up the other pages. So definitely do that we use market insights that compass provides to on the market. You know how many price I think the other day we checked market insights, there was like 1076 listings in Westchester active and 50% of them had a price improvement, that would not have been the case in March. Right. So just that that enables us to keep our finger on the pulse of things. From a statistics perspective, there’s also 10 of us, nine of us are producing agents. The other one is our team manager, he’s like God’s gift to the world, we’re like, so blessed to have him. He’s also good at keeping track of the insights and sharing them. But also just you put, you know, nine producing agents in a room who are out showing and selling all day, we really have our finger on the pulse of what we’re hearing from buyers and sellers all the time. And we’re always sharing. So of course, we have like the team slack. And it’s running all day, and people are talking about whatever.

D.J. Paris 22:40
So you guys have you guys have a Slack channel that you’re you’re communicating and firing off questions. And that’s actually really smart. I think that’s what’s really smart, because it’s a great way to for newer agents to get answers or to collaborate or to say, Hey, I’ve got this idea. And teams have really picked up the slack. I feel in the last five years or so I’ve started to see teams take on more of a training and support role than maybe were in the past. And I’m seeing the burden for agents getting trained coming off of the managing broker, the person running the office and pushing that more towards the teams, which I think works really well in a lot of cases. And obviously that’s that’s what you guys are doing. How important do you think teams are right now in real estate? Obviously, you have one. So you’re a big fan of teams. You know, for me, I I’ve always thought that, you know, hey, two is better than one. But tell me a little bit about your team and why you built it.

Francie Malina 23:46
Sure. So if there’s any solo agents out there listening or solo with an admin or team manager or Chief of Staff, whatever, I am so impressed with you. I don’t know how you do it. Because I do feel with the entire US population being locked down or most of it for a year or two people’s patients was you know, their nerves were shot and their expectations didn’t really meet the reality. You know, I want to see this house on Saturday at one and that’s the only time I can see it. And you know, you have five clients that want to do that. How do you pull that off? So I just we just when I started and after I started to have some business I just couldn’t be a solo agent anymore. I did I build a team out of necessity because I couldn’t be in 15 places at once. in Westchester buyers are accompanied by the agent, the buyer’s agent. A lot of listings are accompanied by the listing agent higher and luxury listings. But still the buyer’s agents still comes in New York City, the buyer’s agent doesn’t go with their buyer. So maybe that’s a different situation. But for us, we had to be in 50 places at once. So it was almost impossible the solo and carry a big deck of clients especially if you’re a seller’s agent to which we do 5050 So you’ve got your sellers calling you on a Saturday because someone leaves the door unlocked and you’re with buyers and So I became a team at necessity. And I always say this, I stole it from somebody, I don’t know who but if you don’t have an assistant, you are the assistant. And that was really my first hire not because I’m brilliant, and not because I thought it through not because this was a straight perfect line, it was a very zigzag, bumpy line to where I am now. But but I just found myself coming home at six o’clock or seven o’clock at night and spending like hours doing the paperwork, or the emails or the keeping in touch. So the assistant was the first hire went through a few now I have God’s gift to the world. He’s our team manager. And he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. And then added agents. So, you know, when you have a team, you know, the team leader isn’t the only one doing trainings, you know, the other agents can help. My agents are amazing, they all take ownership to the team, they all feel a part of it. rising tide raises all ships, they’re in it for the long haul. We feel like we’ve each built each other’s careers for as long as we want to do this. And we all believe in the brand. So together, we’re rising. And I think that I love talking about teams and I can I emailed you this but you know, we’re just we’re all collaborate without ego team, we share everything out in the marketplace, we’re kind to almost everybody who reaches out and, and or some we just only communicate via text. But you know, we really want to help elevate this profession, because like I said, like my husband and I had less than stellar real estate transactions. Now we happen to be type A on steroids. So maybe our bar is too high. But I do feel that a lot of times, and I’m sure you feel this way, when you go meet with people. And you if you ask them, how are your prior real estate experiences, more than 50% say not so great. So I don’t want to feel like my industry is letting people down. And I’m sure you don’t. So our goal, as a team is to really serve our clients. And we do we show up, we follow up. We keep in touch we gift our clients twice a year religiously say say to us, some of them bought a house 10 years ago, they said when did we fall off the list? Never because you’re you’re a part of the Francie Molina teen brand. You’re part of our family. And we’re always doing things in the communities. We have volunteer fire departments and all that stuff in Westchester. So we’re always running events and doing things, we’re gonna run some events at the farmers markets this fall, we try to stay up, you know, right out in front in the communities.

D.J. Paris 27:27
Now you also founded and by the way, very well said, But you found your coach, you are co founder of the women of Compass clubhouse. Tell us about that, because that’s the first I’m hearing of it. But I think compass in so many ways is at the forefront of some, some some more progressive sort of ideas. And so I’m curious, tell us a little bit about that.

Francie Malina 27:50
Yeah, so Compass has, I mean, easily 40 affinity groups out at Compass, black at Compass, women of Compass, etc, you name it, they’ve got it. And if they don’t, you can dogs at Compass, and you and I are dog lovers. You know, if they don’t have it, somebody finds it and workplace people meet up and do things. So. So because 50% of the profession, I think a more than 50% of the profession is women. Women of compass was founded early on in urban compass days like that. It is a nationwide affinity group and it’s very, very active. I’m a regional leader for that. So I lead Connecticut, Westchester and New Jersey. And some of my colleagues decided to found a woman of Compass clubhouse that would meet every Thursday morning 8:30am on clubhouse and dragged me along. I wish I could take credit, but they really did it. I was the one who was going to fill the room. So so we have an agent from Philly, Stamford, Connecticut and Austin and me, and we invite agents, leaders, the employees, people from outside of the industry every 45 minutes. Every Thursday morning, we’re off for the summer now we’ll start back up in September and it is really it’s like a it’s a place you come you’re vulnerable. You’re honest. We talk about cancer, we talk about death. We talk about real estate, anything. Our CEOs wife, Denise Raskin, who is amazing and and his mother both have been on it and they’re both amazing in their own right. But they they had, you know, the audience in tears with both of their stories. So it’s really special. We took the summer off just because it was it’s harder especially because a lot of our guests are on different time zones to get people you know at 830 which sometimes is there 530 So we figured we’d give people a break.

D.J. Paris 29:38
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Francie Malina 31:24
So and our team manager, Trevor is as a systems and processes guy, and thank God, because the end is what everything that we do in any deal, buy or sell is pretty robotic, you pretty much do all the same things every time. There’s nuances to every deal. But the truth is, if you look at your you know, your transactions, they’re all they all take very similar paths. So Trevor joined us over three years ago, thank God. And he put a system in place for literally everything we do. So there’s a template for Congratulations, you have an annual Mr. Seller, congratulations, you have an AR Mr. Buyer. You know, congratulations, you’re in contract, Mrs. seller, and it it links to whatever all of our resources, whatever their next steps are, obviously has checklists for every step of listing a by all the documents, etc. But through Trevor, and through six Amer’s at Compass, which is another affinity group that meets at 6am. I’ve developed some very regimented habits of just you know, waking up, you know, you say your gratitudes. I don’t know if everybody does, but you have three things you’re grateful for. And then, like I said, checking the hot sheet, I am the queen of the remarkable two. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. But

D.J. Paris 32:41
tell us what the queen of the remarkable two are. The

Francie Malina 32:43
remarkable two is the thinnest tablet on the market. And it’s really just 1000 notebooks in one. And so, I and I, and I all my team has one now, too. So I met my week. So on Sunday night, I’ve mapped my week. So I know exactly what I’m doing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, three, Thursday, Friday, and it’s time blocked, right? So that I’m being efficient. And then on the night before I’m in my remarkable I’m doing my Monday or my Tuesday or Wednesday to do list and fine tuning it. So after I wake up and do my my gratitudes and go downstairs and get my iced coffee, I’m at my dogs out. Like I’m looking at that list. And I’m just assessing, what’s the first thing I have to do? And then you know, getting my head set on that and then possibly looking at the hot sheet on the MLS to see what’s going into contract overnight, or what’s come on, and that kind of thing. And then I kind of unfortunately, the phone drives my day, then, inevitably, I haven’t planned on the phone rings. But I’m almost you know, pretty. I’m pretty religious about getting all that stuff done before I hit the ground running.

D.J. Paris 33:49
Curious too, because you do so much volume, your team does so much volume. How do you really set boundaries in place for work life balance? I’m curious how you do that, or don’t you do that?

Francie Malina 34:01
Right? No, I was not great at that I would say up until two or three years ago. And it’s a combination of Trevor and the girls on the team. All of our producing agents are female. So coincidentally, but they’re taking on so much of the business that it’s really helped me have a work life balance. So most of the buyers, they’re handling, which is so amazing. And I’m sharing a lot of listings with them, or referring them to them so they can handle them so I can help run the team. You know, do the rainmaking do these kinds of things. And also like I’ll fly to Naples and do a woman of Compass luncheon with 16 agents to talk that you know about what they’re seeing in the market and you know, just to run events that bring agents together so we can collaborate and talk about how to make the industry better. So I love that stuff. So having the team helps me have more time to do that. And then of course, I’m a skier and I love the look eek. So I are on our team, we time block our leisure. So for years, I’ve been saying to the team on our Tuesday meetings, you know, you put in your whatever it is, you know, nephew’s birthday party and nothing changes it you go, right. I mean, if somebody on the team can’t cover you, then we lose the buyer, or the seller fires us like this is not I always say we’re not treating cancer because my father treated cancer for 60 years. So you know, we you time block your leisure, and you don’t let it go.

D.J. Paris 35:32
That’s a really smart thing. And do you? Do you ever? I always curious about how Realtors set boundaries around time. Because if you get a text in the evening, like, let’s say you’re it’s kid, it’s, you know, time with the family. What are you doing? Are you responding? Because texts, texts conversations never officially end, right? They don’t they start, but they don’t usually ever, officially. And so what’s your thought on on responding to texts? Because I know it’s we’re getting into the weeds. But I think it’s another way to get it. Yeah, good. Let’s tell me what you what your thoughts are about texting.

Francie Malina 36:08
Yeah, I have a Do Not Disturb on. So I almost won’t. By eight or nine. Now. I used to respond at 3am. And I used to get up at 5am and write to clients and be, you know, they’d be writing me back at 5am. I’d be like, Wow, I tried to get that out of the way. And now they’re, you know, I’m in a conversation with them. But in the over the last few years, as I focused more on work life balance, and most of my focus on it was also to help my team, because I’m modeling bad behavior when my hair’s on fire all the time, then their hair’s on fire, and then the poor little children are going to be raised in a family that’s, you know, on a treadmill all the time. So do not disturb. And, you know, I choose wonderful clients, a lot of my clients are doctors, and I just adore them, I’ll respond because they’re mostly reasonable. And they were in surgery probably all day. But for the most part, they they the client gets to do not disturb and it’s silenced. And they’ll hear from me in the morning. And I was telling the team and example the other day, on Father’s Day 7am, the client started on me with just like, really stuff that could be dealt with, during business hours in, they have the tendency to text like 50 texts. And I wrote it’s Father’s Day, I have a house full of people I’ll respond to during normal business hours. It was everything was fine. The next morning, I hit them at you know, 8am and nothing in the world and and so we’re really trying to help each other, remind each other that you know, we deserve respect, too. We work really hard. We work seven days a week, so evenings with the kids or Father’s Day or Easter or whatever it is, you know, leave us alone.

D.J. Paris 37:41
What would if you What What mistakes did you make the first started that you that you would love to go back? And and wish you didn’t do?

Francie Malina 37:53
Me every single solitary mistake you can possibly make. I’ve learned from most of them. But I would say hmm, what do I wish I didn’t do? Um, that’s a really tough one. I wish I mean, I wish I balanced it better. Before that I have to be honest, like I was in the Serengeti, with like elephants and lions right at my feet. And I took a call from a client back in the day, because and they knew they knew on

D.J. Paris 38:27
Safari, and you were taking the club.

Francie Malina 38:31
But you know, again, my kids are were older when I started in this business. So it’s not that I’ve been doing this with, you know, five year olds. So it didn’t feel as burdensome, but over time it does. It builds there’s so much noise in our head as real estate agents. And I do feel that when I tune out the noise and take a little time to whatever to go on the lake stand up paddleboarding, or kayaking. I come up with brilliant ideas for the future of our team. And we need to take time to do that, too. So I guess I wish I was better at that, or in the earlier stages. But you know, when you’re building phases, when you were building a business and showing the community that you were, you know, a show up follow up agent that really was I didn’t have the ability to do it, to be honest now that there’s 10 of us. We all have the ability to do it.

D.J. Paris 39:18
Yeah, I think I think that’s a great point. It reminds me of that, that old expression. It’s the space between the notes that makes music. So it’s the silence that actually allows for creativity to sort of flow through and, and this idea of getting quiet, sometimes is really is can be the birthplace birthplace of creativity. So absolutely. For those of us that are feeling because realtors have to wear so many different hats, and they just have so many responsibilities. It’s it’s easy to think busy is productive. And it may be or it may not be or it might be He, you know, you can judge the effectiveness of what you’re doing based on the results that you get. But it’s it’s easy to feel busy is is all that I need to be reality I found because I’m, I’m a pretty busy person I have found that I actually get more done when when I slow down just a little bit. Me too. And I liked what you said about in the intentional setting of leisure activities, I mean that it sounds like, again, it’s one of those things that’s easy to hear and go on. Yeah. But it actually is really important. Because I know for me, like the only reason I’m in any sort of shape right now is because for the last two years I’ve had on my calendar, my personal training sessions, right? Scheduled, if I didn’t have them scheduled, I wouldn’t be able to talk myself into going to the gym, because I’m just not that motivated to go to the what if it’s on my calendar, I tend to do again. And I think you can schedule your leisure. Well, obviously you guys do that. And and it’s also really important then because then you can give yourself fully to that to that event. Right? You can be present for that. And, and I think that’s that just creates a lot. It’s a good recharge and a refresh.

Francie Malina 41:19
When I tell I tell the girls, I say test it, we have your phone upstairs for an hour and go downstairs and play with your kids. Did the world end? It didn’t. Right? I mean it you can it’s not. Everything isn’t urgent?

D.J. Paris 41:35
And yeah, and most things that it and that’s the other thing too is there’s an urgency and importance scale. Right. I think Stephen Covey talked about that. Urgent is an important. And then there’s there’s a matrix there that that you can sort of evaluate, but, but sometimes things that are urgent seem important, because of course, that’s how our bodies are wired up to respond, you know, to and to reward us for doing things urgently, not necessarily always being important things. Do I have a question? If you were starting over today, knowing everything you know, now, if you had no real estate, you know, you have all your experience, but you’re starting over now as a new person, we drop you off in a new country where you don’t know anyone. But you have all your experience. What would you do to drum up business? I’m just curious. If we drop you off in a new place, we’ll assume you can speak the language. But you don’t know the the the area you don’t know the listings, you’re you’re not familiar with the what would you do to start your real estate practice?

Francie Malina 42:37
Okay, so I had an amateur who I call a banker who told me that if you just put me in a in a deli all day long, and then have somebody you know, and Jen, I talk and generate business all day, and then he’d have somebody run around and actually do like all the the back end of it. So if you put me in another country, I’d probably hang out in coffee shops, and meet people. And then at the same time, of course, probably spend it, you know, every day, previewing, listing, so I guess sense of the word of the market, yeah, to learn the market. And of course, if there’s you know, municipal stuff, like we have, and flood zones, and all the kinds of things that we deal with radon, we have radon gas, and we have asbestos and mold, I learn all that kind of stuff. But at the same time, I’d probably just go to the local haunts and, and get to know people, like I said, you know, we we take the this is a marathon, not a sprint. So we are our most of our business is relationship based. And because of that, we started out as trusted advisors. When I first got in the business, I would say to any client I ever had the pleasure, the pleasure of being in front of I’m going to eat whether I sell you a house or not, because I had I had that ability, and that I think that automatically, you know, relieves the stress. So I would jump into that country and become somebody, you know, a part of the fabric of that area and, you know, not chased on that Chase, we often get calls. In fact, in the last six months, we got more than I’d like to think about from buyers or buyers, friends or sellers and sellers, friends, who you know, whoever fill in the name of the agent that they were working with, and they weren’t happy with their service, and they wanted to work with us. So we always ask them, well, who’s the agent and 90% of the situations were like, you’re with a fantastic agent, we love that person. We love to collaborate with them in the sandbox. This is a terrible market. But what that tells me is, you know, they don’t feel that that person is a trusted adviser, regardless of the fact that in most cases, it was like, in some cases, it was our favorite agent. It just people were frustrated, but what can we do as an industry to like, help each other so that until we would say no, we’re not taking your business and no, you’re not switching, you know, call somebody else because you’re with the best and we can do better. But But I would go into that country and I would just befriend people and show that I’m not really out just Are the commission I’m out to, you know, help them I sell lifestyles, not houses, right? So I’d learned the lifestyle and I’d start living it and sell it.

D.J. Paris 45:09
But you just set it all. I don’t have anything to fall I think that is a perfect place to wrap up because what you really said is become a fabric of the area, you know, become immersed in the area, not become a citizen of your of your community, know everything about it, be part of the community, hang out in the community, meet people. And that is, it seems like a for all the years of doing the show, that seems to be a pretty consistent message that I hope our listeners take to heart is you get to and by the way, the all the business that you’re going to get from doing that is really a side effect from contributing, right you’re going to be attributing you’re going to be making people you know learning more about people you’ll be developing friendships and relationships and learning about small businesses and helping them and and really being part of the community and being part of the solutions to whatever issues that community might be facing. And as Realtors you have a lot of opportunity, I think to get involved. And you have gotten involved in a tremendous way. And here you are now with the number one selling team in the entire county of Westchester, New York so frenzy this is I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours and I would absolutely I need to have you back on the show. Because you just have so much to say and everything you say is so valuable. But we want to thank Francie because she has to get back to her because they’re closing a couple homes a day here. So she’s gotten hurt her team have to get back to it. So we are going to let Francie get back to her busy time. But for anyone out there by the way, if you are in if you’re a realtor, and you have clients that are moving to the Westchester area, please consider reaching out to Francie and her team. The Francie Molina team, they would love to talk to your clients or if you’re a realtor, and you’re like I’m not getting the the attention I need for my firm and you want to see what other options exist, reach out to Francie as well and see if their team might be a good fit for you. So whether you’re a buyer seller, renter investor or a realtor looking for maybe another place to hang your license, reach out to her she’s awesome. She’s super generous, of course, and incredibly, incredibly impressive and successful. We are such big fans of frantically to please everyone visit France’s website which is Francie molina.com FRANCIEML. Sorry, m a l i n a.com link in the show notes so you don’t have to type that in. Also, please follow her on Instagram at Francie Molina team. We’ll also have a link to that in the show notes. I’m such a big fan of yours. Thank you, Francie. So, so much, we I’m so excited. We have to have you back on the show.

Francie Malina 47:56
Anytime I love this podcast.

D.J. Paris 48:00
Thank you so much.

Francie Malina 48:01
That is one thing I didn’t say, if I were new in the business, and it didn’t exist when I got into business then but I listened to podcasts, you learned so many nuggets from your podcast. It’s like I feel like I’ve had coffee with everybody on it. Oh,

D.J. Paris 48:15
well, that’s very sweet. And we thank you for saying that. And thank you for being a listener and one of our guests. And on behalf of all of our guests, we thank you for your time. Also, we want to tell everybody before you sign off, please please tell a friend about this episode. Just tell one other realtor that you can think of about Francie, and she had so many great nuggets of information in this episode, send them a link to the episode, send them over to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com Or just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real, hit the subscribe button. And last please leave us a review tell us let us know what you think of the show. Leave us a review whatever podcast app you might be listening to the show. Let us know what you think we take those comments to heart we want to always improve to meet your needs better but anyway, we are wrapping up so we will see everybody on the next episode. Francie, you are amazing and we are so grateful to have you and we will see everybody next time. Thanks, Lindsay.

Francie Malina 49:12
Thanks for having me.

Stephanie Spenner the founder of Maven at Compass goes back to the beginning of her career in Milwaukee as a leasing agent. Stephanie describes her transition from Milwaukee to Chicago and how she built her business. Next Stephanie talks about social media and how to utilize these networks for lead generation. Stephanie also discusses the importance of knowing your inventory and the process in and out. Last, Stephanie focuses on the importance of building relationships and how that helps in building your business.

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

Stephanie Spenner can be reached at 262-613-8985 and [email protected]

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

D.J. Paris 0:00
Now that the market is shifting, are you doing rentals? Well, you should. 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. 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 Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show and in just a moment, we’re gonna be speaking with top luxury producer Stephanie spinner. Before we get to Stephanie, though, a couple of quick reminders first, the best way you can help our show is by telling a friend I think of one other realtor that could benefit from hearing from top producers like Stephanie and send them a link to our either our show, which you can find on any podcast app, or if the person’s not really a podcast person, just send them to our website, they can stream every episode we’ve ever done right from a browser. That website is keeping it real pod.com And also follow us on Facebook, you can find [email protected] forward slash keeping it real pod every day, we find an article that’s written specifically to help agents grow their business, and we post it on Facebook. So check us out facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our conversation about the luxury rental market and luxury properties in general with Stephanie spinner.

Jay on the show, we have Stephen spinner from Maven at Compass here in Chicago. Let me tell you more about Stephanie. Stephanie spinner was born and raised in Milwaukee and she’s been living in she’s been living in Chicago for six and a half years and she started her real estate journey when she was 18. In residential property management, where all the best stories live. She has been an independent broker for almost five years now. And she started her own brokerage and then came to compass where she currently is running a team of 13 agents and an expanding team. It’ll be more by the time I finish this sentence. But right now she has 13 agents who specialize in rentals, but also helping renters become buyers become homeowners generating leads through social media marketing, and I want everyone to pay attention before we bring Stephanie on. I want everybody unless you’re driving. Or if you’re driving pullover, go visit this website because I want to show you a really impressive website that that highlights some of what the what Maven and Stephanie’s team does with respect to social media and video. It’s live shy.tv So li ve ch i.tv. And you can go see their YouTube channels and some of the cool ways in which they promote different different listings and places to live. So anyway, Stephanie, welcome to the show.

Stephanie Spenner 4:09
Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here. Finally, to have you know, hear your face in person or hear your voice in person.

D.J. Paris 4:17
And you have to look at me I’d see my face which is not not always a pleasant experience, I’m sure but I appreciate you look very nice for anyone who isn’t watching Stephanie is always always looks super, super nice. And you know, I always appreciate how professional you are. I was actually really impressed. So I heard Stephanie speak just to give the audience an idea of, of you know what, why you’re on today. And I mean, we’re always wanting to talk to exceptional realtors, and you are but there’s a lot of exceptional realtors. So the reason why we thought you would be a great fit, no pressure, by the way on the show, but as you have a really unique approach to building your business and I’m sort of surprised that more people don’t Don’t do it this way. But I just think it is so smart. It makes all the sense in the world. And you have built an incredible career in a very short amount of time doing it. And it’s not the only thing you do. And I haven’t even told the audience really what it is we’re talking about rentals. But she does more than that. But this is a great entry point that I think a lot of agents overlook. But before we get into what you’re doing today, I’d love to start all the way back at the beginning and learn more about why you got into real estate and how

Stephanie Spenner 5:30
thanks so much for having me, DJ, I’m excited to share my story again, or the full thing as much as you’ll as much as I can fit into 20 or 30 minutes. So

D.J. Paris 5:40
and that’s all the time we have. So go right ahead.

Stephanie Spenner 5:46
I don’t want to miss anything, because it is all part of the journey. And it’s not like it just happens overnight. People are like, how do how do you do it if you don’t have a YouTube channel, like I didn’t always have a YouTube channel. I had it for like literally less than two years. So I started in real estate when I was 18 years old. I was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, my we moved to Walker Shaw, which is like 2030 minutes west where I went to high school. And then I was going to UW I started going to UW UW Milwaukee for college. And I randomly applied to be a leasing agent when I was 18. And my first semester of college where my parents made me live at home for the first semester. So I was like driving to Milwaukee for 2030 minutes to school every day. I don’t know why I did that, or listen to them. Because I always made my own money. Since I was like 14, I’ve had two jobs literally like. And so first semester I lived at home, I worked, I randomly applied to be a leasing agent at a premier property in downtown Milwaukee. It was just a high rise that had a pool. So that’s why everyone wanted to live there. But it was built in 1961. So it was like very old. Three total towers made up the complex 600 units. And so I randomly applied to be a leasing agent there and somehow I just I got the job, and how

D.J. Paris 7:13
real quick just out of curiosity, because when I was 18 I, you know, I barely like knew enough to like, get into college and figure that whole thing. How did you know that that was even I worked as like minimum wage at some, you know, whatever. How did you know that that was even an option back then just out of curiosity.

Stephanie Spenner 7:32
So I mean, basically, in high school, like I was really good at academics, but it but I was also a class clown. So no one really knew that I was smart. But I was always in AP classes and stuff. And senior year I was in this really cool business program. Because of like the grades I got, I was able to get into like this business program that we had in senior year of high school, where if you got certain grades and stuff, then you could go to school only for the first half of the day. And then you can go to business co ops. So they like they helped me get set up into an office manager job that I worked at for almost a year, like a year and a half, I worked there as an office manager position on my resume. And I’ve always been in the business mindset since like, since I can remember. And so when I like as an office manager, I mean I was bored out of my mind and but I love the like secretarial work I love to like staying organized. And that’s always been something I like, loved to do is like just be organized. But I so yeah, once I had that office manager on my resume, I just like and I was so bored at work every day that I would just sit there and look up jobs and apply to this one. I applied to that one. And I would literally just like apply a bunch of jobs. I would take interviews, I would literally go to these interviews and get a lot of the jobs but this one for some reason. Just like really, I was like this is this seems cool. Like, and like these are like older people like you know, they’re all in like their 30s working there and stuff. But I was very adult, I guess right? Yeah. And that’s just like, I’ve always been like this more mature like, kid, like, a couple steps ahead, I guess. Like mentally I feel like, but yeah, I just randomly applied to be a leasing agent. And like, I got the job at the first day the property manager is showing me model apartments and I’m like, why is this woman showing me peoples of places like I didn’t even know what a model apartment was. And next thing you know, my first paycheck, I had more sales than the other girls that were working full time. And I was like, Holy shit, like, this is my passion. Like I can’t believe I just got this lucky. Like, this is what I love to do. And no matter what I’m finishing school, that was just something that was ingrained in me that I had to have an education. No one like my family. No one in my family had has an education. But it was just like me no matter what, even though I also didn’t need it. It’s like I was already making more money than my parents were. But I was If I was going to school full time, I worked full time. And so I’d have classes like Tuesday, Thursday, all day long. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I would go clock into the premier property Fridays, or Saturdays, Sundays were open to all the five. And I would just work all day and just close a bunch of deals. And then the owner of the company, which I didn’t know, it was a shitty company. But I worked for this company for almost four years. And I loved it. And that’s how I got my backbone that I have today that I feel like I can handle anything. So once I was working as the leasing agent at that premier property for two and a half years, they promoted me to assistant property manager there. And then he’s like, Oh, you want you want more money, like here. And he gave me a stack of papers with all the availability of his properties in Milwaukee from like Whitefish Bay to Greenfield, so kind of like uptown to South Loop Streeterville to Logan Square, and he’s like, here, do whatever you want with it. And he gave me a set of 100 hard keys, like hard keys, not fast. And I’m just shaking around like the janitor. And I’m just like, what, and this was Craigslist days. So I like after a week, I was like, okay, like, let’s do this. And I went through and I looked at everything that was vacant on his list, I would go to the property, take pictures, put them up on Craigslist. Now I was a broker. But I didn’t know I was a broker until I came to Chicago and realized like, this is like, like, brokers are super legit. I didn’t have to have a license in Wisconsin, or maybe I did. But that company didn’t care. I was not licensed to do what I was doing at the time. And so I was, at the same time I was the assistant property manager working full time, there was also a broker being able to show any of his properties at any time. So like, literally in between classes, I’d be like, Yeah, I can show you at 1230. And I would literally like run down the street because a lot of his properties were on UW Milwaukee campus Eastside, which is really nice part of Waukee. And so I would just like show properties in between classes, before class after class, before work after work of the premier property where I’ve clocked in, and then he’s like, Oh, you want more money, like here, you can manage your own building. So all at the same time, I then manage my own building, which which it was only 50 units, and 50 units. You have free rent, if you just kept the building fully occupied, and shoveled and raked and clean the apartments and people moved out and change the lightbulbs in the frickin garage. And every hallway, the lanterns were gas. So when you took the light bulbs out, like you could get shocked. It was it was a great deal. I it was a great deal. So I had free rent, I managed the building, I had free parking, I went to school full time, the whole time. And I just I loved it. I can’t even believe to this day that I did as much as I did. But like I just loved it so much. And that’s how I got started. And I finished school. Five years it took me and I graduated with finance and international business.

D.J. Paris 12:50
Wow. Well, it took me five years to and I wasn’t as busy. So I really respect all the things. You’ve been a hustler since you were as old enough to work. And I mean that in the best possible way. I mean, somebody who really digs in and grits it out and that we all know that that’s one of the cornerstones of success, but I love the fact that you have been living that basically everyday sense. And you’re still continue to do that today. And so yeah, I think, oh, go ahead. I’m sorry,

Stephanie Spenner 13:24
that that’s that’s will lead right into the next story. So like, that’s where like, I just, I think when I was younger, like my, my dad, just, you know, I’d be like, hey, I want a soda he like he’d be like, how are you going to earn $1 to go get that sorta and I’d be like, let’s do it. And I like literally earn 100 pennies to go get it myself and like I did it. And like, if you want it, you gotta go get it. And like, that’s what I’ve taken from that. And that’s what I think drives me and just being proactive. And that’s one of the biggest things that like, takeaways from today is like, be proactive. Like, if you want something, go get it if you want something and you think you’re not gonna get it, then it’s never gonna happen. But if you want something and you go after it, and you don’t get it, at least you try and and you’re gonna you’re not gonna, you might not get it, but you’re going to get the next thing that you should have got that is super close to that. Now I’m trailing off like I always do, but

D.J. Paris 14:16
no, no, no, I think you’re saying something really important, which is you’re not trailing off at all you what you’re saying is it’s the it’s that old expression and I want to make sure I get it right because my, my anyway, it’s something like and I know I’m gonna say this wrong, but something like shoot for the stars land on the moon. Right? So so even if you don’t get the stars you still end up with something. That’s probably still

Stephanie Spenner 14:39
the moon which you didn’t have the stars or the moon for. Exactly. You were back on planet or

D.J. Paris 14:46
so. Yeah, no, no, you you know, it’s so funny. It’s, it’s I’ve done so many of these episodes. And I remember one of my, one of my episodes from this as a Chicago person so anyone who’s listening you can Go back and find this episode probably several 100 episodes ago, but there’s a broker here in Chicago, named Matt Larissa. He’s one of the top agents in the Chicagoland area. And I asked him, I’m like, Why do you think is he’s always like, number one or two, I know the list of top agents. So how do you why do you think you’re number one or two and all these other agents, you know, who are just as smart as you. And you know, he’s a very smart guy. And he goes, I just, I wanted more. He was just real honest. He’s like, I just, I just outwork everyone. He’s like, I’m kind of a dummy. And he’s not a dummy. But he was thinking. So it’s like, it’s not intelligence. It’s just I work hard. And I look at you the same way in again, I’m not trying to compare the two of you, because you’re very different people. But I’ve always respected the amount of energy that you put into your business. And it’s really clear what you’re doing. So let’s, let’s dive into it. Because you have this team. And you guys have really mastered the art of luxury leasing. And again, I know you do way more things that you sell million dollar homes, and you do all of that too. But what I think makes you really unique is this entry point where you decide, and it’s so smart, you decide to build the relationship when people are renting. And that is so smart, because everybody who owns or almost everybody that owns used to rent, right? I know I used to rent. And the only reason I chose my Realtors because he was my friend. But nobody helped me when I was renting. So I didn’t have a realtor to think to reach out to. And then when I got time to ready to buy a million years ago, I was like, Oh, my friend does that. But had someone been helping me along the way, I might not have ended up giving it to my friend because I might have already had that relationship. And I’m so shocked that more realtors and not every market in the country would support leasing. You know, it’s certain markets are better for that than others. Certainly here in Chicago, there’s a ton of it. But even here in Chicago, I don’t see many agents doing it. So I’d love to hear a little bit more about why you decided to go that route. Obviously, your background would suggest that you’re great at doing leasing all the way back when you were 18 or so. But love to hear more about you know how that works for you and your team.

Stephanie Spenner 16:58
Yeah, if I can go back just a second. I know that we’re short on time and stuff. But it’s funny that you just mentioned Matt literacy along with my name, because he’s now using my partner and videographer to do his videos. Oh,

D.J. Paris 17:15
what is that? That is awesome. You must have great videographer.

Stephanie Spenner 17:20
But it’s not only that, but it’s like it’s this is also a point where it’s like, am I going to be mad at him or my partner? No, there’s plenty of business to go around. And there’s plenty of personalities to go around. The same the person that wants to work with me is not the same person that’s gonna want to work with him or person on my team, which is why I love the diverse team that I have and that I’ve created. And then just just really quick going back into the proactive and how I got to Chicago so I so I came to Chicago six and a half years ago, I had no plans to move here I managed. I made my way up in Milwaukee to be managing the most luxurious rental tower in Milwaukee called the bow Dern which is right next to the Bucs arena, that when I moved here, they were breaking ground for the new arena. But I rent it to all the Bucs players, all the admirals players, all the Brewers players, they all lived in the building. I had courtside seats to all games. I had free everything because that’s just you know how Milwaukee worked and Shaw walkie and so and I had free rent, I managed the building. And I had like one of the best departments there was and I was visiting Chicago, Christmas of 2015 When I saw marquee block 37 being built on State Street, and I said I like stopped in my tracks. I’m like, What is this? Like, I have to have this building like, I have to have it. I don’t know why I just had to have it. And I finally saw the name Ballard. And I researched Gollum, the management company and part of the development team and I found the head of hrs email, and I emailed her my resume and I said, I don’t know what’s going on here. But this is what I do now. Call me if you think there’s room for me somewhere. And they call me in for an interview basically the next day, and they basically gave me a verbal offer on the spot. Because my mentor to this day is like a mother to me, she always reminds me of why she hired me in on the spot versus because I asked what is going to be the price per square foot of these units.

D.J. Paris 19:23
Ready? How do I how do I how do I how do I get these things rented? You were already thinking I need to know some specifics about this verse, which is a brilliant question to ask in that kind of interview. So so

Stephanie Spenner 19:36
different from Milwaukee. Yeah, tell

Unknown Speaker 19:38
you that. Well, that’s true, too.

Stephanie Spenner 19:40
Oh, yeah. They basically gave me a verbal offer. And I like I moved to Chicago 10 days later. And I like wow, the developers of the building that I worked for, I was like, I don’t know how I’m going to tell you guys this and they were like Stephanie like, you are Chicago you have to move this is 100% You like go freak release like we got, you will figure it out. And it was like the best decision I ever made like, and one of my favorite quotes goes along with being proactive is like jump at opportunities as quickly as you do at conclusions.

D.J. Paris 20:15
Oh, that’s I love that. I

Stephanie Spenner 20:18
love to jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions and I jumped, jump, jump, jump, jump, and Mark, he was the best decision I ever made. I, we started up, we started pre leasing marquee in February of 20. March of 2016, we opened in June of 2016, I was the leasing manager, and I released up the building and we’ve leased 690 apartments in 13 months. And I rented like 250 of those. And that is truly why I see so much value in rentals from me writing the checks for these brokers who are bringing clients in to me also seeing that I hit a ceiling and I can’t just want to be leased out marquee there was no other big building that I was gonna like that was going to be a challenging enough. And I was like, oh, like I want to be on this guy’s team, like this top producer at marquee had just left his big brokerage to start his own thing and or just to be an independent contractor and get 100% Commission and I was like, I want to be on your team. I want to build your brokerage, like let’s do this. And so him and I built epic Chicago, which he still has now. And we focus only on rentals. And we worked on a WeWork offices, I built the whole brand whole business for brokerage and I hit a ceiling with with that. team that was the brokerage that I built, I hit a ceiling there. And that’s when I came with like one other agent from that team over to compass and realize that like compasses exactly what I needed to help like, boost me up and because they truly like collaborate without ego and dream big together. And those are like all their principles of Compass directly aligned with the principles I wanted for my business. And the first day I started at Compass, I had like, my first sale opportunity. And I still had no idea what I was doing. I had my broker’s license for two years, my previous business partner did not help me at all of a sales, he barely knew sales, but he kept faking it till he makes it and he couldn’t teach me any of it because he was still faking it. And I came to campus and like, within the first month, I close my first sale, because people, all these other top producers helped me. And then they I helped them when they had these rental things and these rental questions. So that’s like, that’s really like my full story. And I, I just I love rentals, so much. I love rentals so much. And I happen to get into sales, because my renters want to buy. And, and I that’s fun, too. It’s just nowhere near as fun, it’s nowhere near as satisfying. And I just I will always do rentals, and I and I have like big plans for the city to change things. And

I truly believe that when developers see that they should separate the leasing activity from property management is when they’re going to see the ultimate the ultimate efficiencies, the ultimate maximization of rents. Decreasing a vacancy is when you separate leasing from property management, property management should be taking care of the current residents and making sure they’re happy and making sure the building is maintained. Leasing should be handled by brokers bringing in new clients, I can be showing the property any hour of the day. And like But notice, I’m late to this meeting with you today because I had to meet with another agent on site. Because that property doesn’t do self guided tours, which 90% of them do for me and my team, which means I scheduled a tour and I say I’m bringing I’m coming through with my client, they say the doors are open stuff come on through and they like let me take my client around on my own. I’m in and out in 20 minutes while that broke their leasing agent who works on site, who’s paid salary plus commission, if they close that deal, can be taking out another client while I’m taking out my client and now both of us can be closing a deal at the same time. And but that’s really a big point I wanted to say today too, is just like I really I my big goal that I’ve always had since I started epic, my last brokerage and what is about to start happening, I know and see it and I feel it it’s already happening because of the efforts that me and my team are doing is separating that leasing from management. And I truly think that’s why mark key block 37 that I was part of the lease up. I truly think that’s like the number one reason why we were the most successful. I mean, we were in newspaper or newspaper articles for like breaking records of leasing a property the fastest ever in history, especially in 2016 and nobody. People didn’t live in the loop yet. It wasn’t like a popular place. Olivia, and we made it fun so, and I think we were so successful because my mentor at the time who was the property manager of marquee Jennifer saw Seto like, powerhouse queen. She knew that cuz she went when she did every lease up in Chicago, she knew to separate property management from leasing. I was a leasing manager, I handled all leasing, I had my three leasing agents and me anything, any single leasing question went through me, I approved all the leases, I approved everything, I set up promotions, like the promotions and concessions and stuff. And Property Management handled any current resident complaints, they handled the movements of the current resident of the residents that we just closed, and everything. And it was just, it was seamless, it was seamless.

D.J. Paris 25:48
Okay, it’s what I what I love about about your business. And the way you approach it is you have a plan, you have intuition, which I believe is one of your guiding North Stars is your intuition. Because you have really good well, you have the ability to really pay attention to your intuition. Like you’ve already said it a couple times, hey, I moved to Chicago on intuition really, I saw a building I applied, I got a job. And then now you’re like, I’m changing leasing here in Chicago, here’s what I’m doing, I know that this is going to happen. Right. And and you actually get results that way. And I think that’s a really important thing is, you know, it’s sort of a more of an ethereal kind of non tangible thing, but like paying attention to what’s going on inside of us. Sometimes there’s wisdom there and knowledge that we can’t totally comprehend. Like you said, I really had no business moving to Chicago, I really shouldn’t have been here, when I saw this building, and I just knew I need to be there. And and then you, you know, you, you jumped at the opportunity, as you said, and all of a sudden, here you are now all these years later, a total superstar. Um, I want to talk about social media, and how it can be used to for lead generation. Because, again, we talked about this a lot on our podcast, but I think what you’ve done with your YouTube channels, has been really, really inspiring and interesting. And can you talk a little bit about how you think about social media and how you utilize that for, you know, engagement? And also lead? Gen.

Stephanie Spenner 27:22
Yeah, I think what’s really cool about real estate is that there’s like, really not too many rules, and especially as an independent contractor, meaning like, marketing, like you can literally be thinking outside the box, like so far outside, and like there’s just no end to it. And so like, and I just don’t think a lot of people think that way. And I don’t think a lot of brokers think that way, and they just start like postcard newsletter, cold calling networking, referrals. How can you get referrals, if you don’t frickin have any of the other things like, you know, how can you? Who are you mailing a postcard to? Who are you sending a newsletter to? Where do you start before that, like, how do you get your first lead. And I know that a lot of brokers, like myself, were taught to get a lead the wrong way. They’re taught to post a fake listing or a different address, and then oh, that person calls them and oh, now I have my first lead. And now that leads gonna give me a referral and I’m just gonna boom, boom, boom, boom, and I was like, Holy shit, I just like left my full time, like on site leasing agent manager position to be an independent broker to like, this is how we get leads. Like, we’re gonna post fake ads on Craigslist. And I’m like, I like literally, within days, I was just like, holy shit, no, and I went to Facebook, and I would just want to fake it. Like, I’m not even, I’m on Facebook. I do not use it at all. It’s a different demographic for me. And I think for a lot of people, it’s like, oh, I stay in touch with my parents, whatever. But I at that time, like five years ago, I was I went on Facebook, and I went into different groups. And I was like, Oh, shit, like new to Chicago, like, Polish people new to Chicago, or like, Chicago meetups or like, roommates looking for roommates, or sublets. And I would literally just like read them and be like, This girl will be like, I’m looking for a roommate, my budgets 1400. And I’m like, Girl, I can get you a studio on your own for 1400 Boom, she calls me I literally close her in a virtual tour like the next day. And to this day, she’s my client rented from me three times and you know her she’s ready to buy now. And she’s uh, you know that she’s a cold lead the second she’s a renter, and then she’s a warm lead, you know, the second time she rents from me again and then when she order the or the second time, she sends in her job form, which is like what we use to collect the leads. So even if it’s a previous client, and they’re like, hey, step. If you remember me, I You helped me with my place last year and like, of course, I remember you here complete the form again with your new criteria. And they’re like my budget seven grand and I’m like, You Why aren’t you buying something? I’m like, How long do you plan on Being in Chicago, you know, and then like, maybe five years, it could be longer. I’m like, let’s talk about buying. Literally a week later, we’re under contract for something. So I’m digressing. I’m bopping around here. But this is just who I am. I can’t like, it’s very hard for me to like, I have so much to say all the time. But, but that’s how I got started. I just I went through Facebook, and I started like just getting leads through Facebook market groups.

D.J. Paris 30:27
Yeah. And that’s something that I noticed, like I live in Wicker Park and which is a neighborhood here in Chicago for our listeners who aren’t familiar. And there’s a Wicker Park community group or page or whatever it is, and people are constantly posting, hey, I’m looking for a hairstylist, or I need a house cleaner, or someone know the goods, best sushi place or whatever. And at least once every couple of days was like, Hey, I’m thinking I want to move to Wicker Park, but I don’t really know what’s available. And I am shocked at how few responses that come back. If I was a realtor, I would be finding my local group for wherever I live, and work or service, and I would be a real serious presence in that Facebook group making sure I’m providing great content. And then you know, and that’s, that’s what you did. And And now, you know, Craigslist, whereas agents, what they used to do, as Stephanie was saying earlier, many, many years ago was, hey, we’re going to post ads on Facebook or Craigslist, rather, we’re going to hope people reply, and then we’re going to try but you know, when people reply to one Craigslist ad, they reply to like five. And so all of a sudden, you’re now competing with four other agents, you don’t even know. And it just gets really, really messy. Whereas well,

Stephanie Spenner 31:37
you’re saying Go ahead. Yeah, I will say too, though, like, you know, I didn’t just go to the groups and start messaging people out of the blue. So part is that, that I want people to take away from it. This is what I do is I start posting about real estate, I have a sick ass video. At that time, it was still photos of model units from the property, probably pixelated, probably, like just absolutely no personality. Maybe some had furniture in them, maybe some didn’t. And I just posted static photos, and I’d be like River North two beds, under 3000 or whatever. And then so I people so that if I’m messaging someone, and they’re like, Who is this bitch, they go to my profile and say, Oh, she does real estate? Yeah, oh, maybe I maybe Oh, my lease is up soon. Your lease is always up soon, like, you know, so, like, put it out there and like you have to be putting it out there of like how you can help people so that they know that they can DM you that they can message you. I also I also do want to throw it out there. I guess this is like not important, but it is but like you have to put what brokerage you work with on your social platforms, it is illegal to not do that. You cannot say real estate broker and not have your brokerage listed. So it’s just funny because we have a lot of eyes on us being a social media influencing team. So we get like, it’s like we do one one video I said my services are free. The properties pay me to bring them renters you never do. Boom, tick. You said free can’t say free. Damn. Like I knew that. How did I say that? Like I had to take down the video on YouTube already had like 2000 views in two days, take it down, clip that out, put it back up. So it’s like, to me it’s very and not just because of that. But like, it is ingrained in my brain that in my heart and my soul that like you have to be ethical ethics is the most important thing. Your reputation is everything going above and beyond for every single client every single time no matter who they are, what their budget is, and what you’re getting paid is the most important thing. And that’s why it’s super important. And that’s where my team is called Maven and not Stephanie Spenard. CO Maven is an expert to kind of sewer in your field. I am very hands on with my training with my agents to and I do not take on the next group of agents until my first those new mavens are actually mavens, and they feel like mavens, and we have one on one to say, you know, how are you feeling? And we look at their numbers quarterly. And you know, we’re not like other teams were like, Oh, you didn’t do this. So your one strike for you or like, I know, I’ve heard that some teams say if you don’t get your invoices in like the same day that you do them or within the week that you do them, then that’s a strike and once you get three strikes, you’re out like if somebody can’t get their invoices in that quickly, it’s because they’re fucking crushing it and you’re gonna kick them off the team like, I’m sorry, like, take you know, let me get an invoice coordinator for you to help you take this little thing off your plate that can be maximizing your efficiency of like getting more clients,

D.J. Paris 34:49
it because the same skill that’s good at closing homes, apartments, whatever is not the same skill that’s good at paperwork necessarily. Right. Those are two totally one skill sets. And by the way one can, one can be outsourced. And one is, you’ll can’t. Awesome. Oh, you know, this is a good time to do a quick sponsor read. So bear with me we love our sponsors. So we want to talk really quickly a moment for a moment about our favorite sponsor, which is called follow up boss now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for my podcast, you know, what’s that CRM is used by more than any of our guests. It’s actually follow up boss. And let’s face it, following up is the key to taking your business to the next level, Stephanie can talk about that too. Follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time with less effort. Don’t take my word for it, though. Robert slack who runs the number one team in the United States uses his follow up boss. And he’s 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. And here’s the best part. They have a seven day a week support. We know real estate happens nights and weekends. So you’re going to get the help 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 completely risk free, but only at this special link, I want you to visit everyone visit follow up boss.com forward slash real again, follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now we’ll back to Stephanie, Stephanie, I would love let’s talk about your videos, because this is another I mean, you do so many things. Well, actually, before we get to videos, I’m sorry, let’s go. Let’s go back one step, I want to just set the table for why leasing is a great entry point for any aid, especially right now, when we have a little inventory for sales pretty much all over the country, we’re dealing with inventory issues, the Fed just raised rates, again, 75 basis points today, which I think mortgage rates have already been impacted. So that’s not a big deal for interest rates. But it’s a sign that, you know, buyers are going to be pulling back a bit. So we have a lot of opportunity here on the rental side, I am curious to hear about what your thoughts are with respect to y. Well, first of all, I also want to mention, you are incredibly passionate about rentals, regardless of the conditions of the market. This is your thing. And that I think in and of itself is a really important thing for agents and our listeners to understand is find your niche. Stephanie has found hers and she does her team do a million things. But I would love to just talk a little bit about the opportunity that so many agents Miss around rentals, number one, by the way, and I want to just make this point and then I’m gonna let you fill in the rest of the gaps, you can actually make a really good living just doing rentals. And most in some markets obviously not if you’re in you know, rural Illinois, here we’re in Chicago, there’s a lot more opportunity here in the city. But if I was in Peoria where it’s where I grew up, that would be much more difficult to do but not impossible. But I’m curious, because a lot of our listeners probably haven’t ever done a rental. So can you tell us a little bit about you know why you see that it’s such a great opportunity for agents.

Stephanie Spenner 38:36
There’s so many things, I don’t know where to start. I really don’t know where to start. Kind of tying things together with in my first year as an independent contractor, leasing agent, after Marquis, like when I started my first brokerage with my partner at the time learning to post fake listings show and then going into Facebook groups, not having a full blown social media like Instagram that I do today. And by the

D.J. Paris 39:07
way, you really didn’t have a sphere of influence of any. I mean, you were here, you were working at a building, but you’re not from here. It’s not like all your friends live here. In fact, most of your most of the people you grew up with, I’m assuming are in Wisconsin, or maybe they’ve moved elsewhere. But it’s not like you’re like oh, I just you know, all my buddies needed apartments. And so I helped them out. Right, you had to find your own leads. But anyway, I’m sorry. Go ahead. Yeah,

Stephanie Spenner 39:31
yeah, and that’s exactly it. So like I’m that first year of like, finding all my own leads and figuring out like my own lead generation, tactics like and that’s where like when I have new agents that want to join my team or just want to get into real estate in general, I’m like, your number one job as a broker as a lead generate leads to get leads, how are you going to get leads, you know, and that’s what I asked myself and my first year I closed 96 rentals.

D.J. Paris 39:56
Okay, let’s pause and because I want everyone to take a breath In her first year, she closed 96 rentals that’s a rental every three days or so. So every three days, including the weekends, you were closing a rental with virtually no sphere of influence, very small sphere of influence, right? Because you’re new to the city. This is possible. And if we think about, and we’re most of these non MLS properties, okay, so for everyone listening, yes, yes. Okay, so Stephanie has a big smile on her face. And the reason why she has a big smile on her face is here in Chicago. And in many other markets, we have what are called, well, I don’t know what they’re technically called, I call them non MLS rentals, meaning they don’t show up on the MLS, when these properties are trying to rent out their their available units, but they still work with brokers or in Illinois, all realtors are called brokers. So realtors, they work with realtors, and they usually pay one month’s rent, sometimes more, sometimes less. But typically around one month’s rent. So if you are and there’s no listing agent, because it’s not on the MLS, so you are getting, you know, 100% of one month’s rent, as opposed to splitting it with the listing agent, because there isn’t one. So this is we’re talking

Stephanie Spenner 41:13
close, if you close, closer, and if you don’t, then you don’t get paid. So, you know, it’s a it’s a it’s a you have to figure out that game and how

D.J. Paris 41:24
it’s the most fair deal ever, because you’re either getting paid or you’re not. And it’s all up to you. But the opportunity is there. And that’s that’s what you have really seized. So yeah, let’s let’s talk

Stephanie Spenner 41:36
about with that said like the reason i So with those 96 rentals and majority of them not being on the MLS, there’s no way to track that if you if someone is trying to scout me, they’re not looking at me as a top producer. You can’t see my numbers like that anywhere. If you looked at my numbers on the MLS, you’d be like, how is this like, this is a joke, like, none of my numbers are on the MLS. So when I had the opportunity to talk to compass and potentially join compass, they, at this time, three years ago, they were hard and they still are, but you had to like be vetted by two agents to even talk to them, then you had to have like five rounds of interviews with them, you had to prove your numbers show your numbers show why your team players show this and that. And then you had to be vetted by like, once they thought you were good, then you had to have, they would call two random agents that you said you knew at Compass. And they would have to say something good about you. And but they compass won’t even at that point, I don’t know how it is now. But at that point, compass won’t even talk to you unless you’re like a top producer, unless you had x number of sales. And so my 96 rentals. In

D.J. Paris 42:40
my career translate really, you had to sort of Yeah, it

Stephanie Spenner 42:43
didn’t translate directly. But I had I showed them a translation, which was over $10 million in sales. If you break it down,

D.J. Paris 42:52
I believe. This is what’s so amazing about this is Stephanie flew really under the radar. Because those transactions weren’t on the MLS. They weren’t really public knowledge. But she was crushing a deal a rental every three days. All of a sudden, she now gets to bring that to a company like compass, which is taking over everywhere, and saying, Hey, guys, I know you don’t know that I’m a top producer. But here’s what I do. And oh, by the way, these are people renting pretty luxurious properties they’re going to be buying soon. So it’s a total no brainer. And I just I’m always shocked that I mean, maybe look, maybe if you’re lucky, and you get your license, and then all your friends are like, hey, I need to buy a million dollar condo. Maybe there are people that are fit into that category that are just kind of lucky. You are not that lucky. I am not that lucky. You have built everything up by starting the relationship as early as possible via renting, and then staying in touch with that person. And then oh, yeah, by the way, let’s talk about sales. So I just think it’s really but let’s I mean, 96 rentals in a year is exceptional. And it’s a pretty darn good living to write. So even though you’re a broker, you have this license, you’re not doing many sales, because you’re just doing rentals. Boy, what a wonderful career just then. And it only goes up from there because now these people are going to be rolling over every 12 months, maybe moving to another property, maybe they’ll keep renting or maybe make the transition to homeownership. I have a quick, quick question for you. And I’m sorry, I’m cutting Stephanie off and I apologize. Two quick, two things I want to go through before we before we get to the very, very end because I could have you on every single week because you have so much to say. And I love everything that you say. I want to talk about what the role of social media in in your business, and what suggestions you have for agents that are thinking about you know, maybe I should add rentals into my practice this year. Maybe that’s a good idea. So anyway, I’ll let you

Stephanie Spenner 44:58
so I think like That is that is part of the reason why I started my YouTube channel is because I realized not enough people, not just Chicago, mainly outside of Chicago did not realize that you could call a broker, and they will help you find an apartment for free. Yeah. And so that’s why i That’s why I got so into social media because I was like, I can tell so many people that I can help them and they’re not paying me the properties or paying me to bring them renters, you’re never paying me. And like a lot of people can just say that. But it’s like, how can you say it powerfully, consistently and clear and concise so that the client like I can say all I can literally say it five times in one conversation, that my services are free to the client, and that client will still go and like, call the building without me or walk into the building without me or call another broker. Or like I, you have to, like find the right way to communicate. So that it’s very, very clear to your audience, what you do and how you can help them and that you can call me any, like, don’t hesitate to DM me, text me Call me. Nothing. And so that’s leads into social media where like, I no matter what, if you’re doing rentals or sales, you know, don’t just don’t be afraid like be don’t be afraid to show your face don’t be afraid to be authentic. Stop thinking about what your friends back home and the state that you moved from, that aren’t doing shit with their life or thinking about you. Because they don’t care. And and what are they doing? Like, just try something new, do something different. And that’s when you’re gonna see like big like, with big risks come big rewards. And I can’t believe that I almost didn’t do live shy because I was thinking about are people gonna think I’m too hot shit that I’m too full of myself for like, what are people going to? What’s their impression going to be that I’m putting this out there? Like, I’m the rental queen? I’m the rental expert, like, but I’m like, why am I doubting that? Like, I know that I know, rentals, especially professionally managed buildings better than anyone else i in Chicago, like, you know, I know that. And so with with COVID when COVID hit, like there was for me, there was me and my team. Like, and I have never said this any other time. But when we’re candid on an interview, like I wasn’t worried at all. My team was not worried at all. We had no hiccups whatsoever. There was one day where like, it was March 6, march 15. I took a client to a property the next day they said we aren’t offering on site tours anymore any buildings. One half day, we’re like shit, what are we gonna do? Boom, next day, we’re doing virtual tours. And we have it all down pat, we have all the videos on our phone already have all the stuff. We know exactly how to build a rapport with the client, have them trust you right here virtually within minutes, and have them closing with you. Like literally signing an apartment with you virtually right here. I’ve had five deals within the last 12 months, where people have bought from me virtually completely

D.J. Paris 48:06
purchased without ever seeing without or without ever seeing

Stephanie Spenner 48:09
the property. Some of them have never been to Chicago, and none of them were renters of mine before. So these were like either YouTube leads, like social media leads, maybe referrals. But these people are crazy to me that you would buy something completely virtually. But like I you know, I did multiple things sent to her sent multiple videos. So yeah, I just I think there’s a really power power for rentals, because there’s like people are always always always gonna be looking to rent, weather, no matter what their budget is. And buildings, the buildings do come and go like some buildings will be paying one month’s rent one month, the next month, they aren’t working with brokers. So that’s where you really have to pay attention to the market to and also build the rapid like I always say to my team, like your client is not just the renter your client is the property manager is the leasing agent that you’re working with on site, it is the doorman because all those people matter, those people are going to squeeze you in on a Saturday on during the summer when there’s so busy because they know you’re going to close the deal.

D.J. Paris 49:07
How important is it with respect to leasing that the broker or the realtor? Well, I should say the realtor knows the inventory in and out how important is it for you to be the knowledge source of you know, you can’t know everything about every building. But tell me about that.

Stephanie Spenner 49:27
So for me, I would say like, like kind of prior to COVID I would say it was like less as important. Like just to know just the general stuff about the buildings. It’s good enough now because like with COVID and because we do things virtually like a lot more virtually, and we don’t like it’s kind of like 5050 like 5050 people want to tour in person if it’d be fun here like I’m doing everything virtual and they’ll put it right on their job form their rent their like lead form that comes through it. They’ll say how do you want to tour in person or virtual and they’ll say virtual and so

D.J. Paris 50:02
So you have to be really knowledgeable about the inventory, because because they’re coming to you to say, hey, help me figure out the right fit. And you don’t want to be touring the building at the same time they’re touring the building meeting for the first time, right? Like your team, you you pre tour buildings, you guys go in, you know exactly what because, again, Stephanie, really, and I shouldn’t put words in your mouth. But my assumption is, you want people to come to you with all questions, right? You, you guys are the knowledge source?

Stephanie Spenner 50:36
Yes, absolutely. And that’s what I literally on my discovery call with the client. Initially, I say, I know all the buildings like the back of my hand, from Uptown to South Loop street, or build to Logan Square, that’s north to south east to west everywhere you want to be I know, every single building like back in my hand, I can tell you that carpet in the bedroom, I can tell if it was recently renovated, I can tell you, like if it has a electric range or gas range. And that helps me help them like weed things out right away. And now I’ve narrowed it down to two buildings out of 203 100 400 buildings. And I’m like, this is the only building you need to see. And then on top of that, I think the biggest value that I add is knowing every single question that they are going to ask the onsite team and or that the onsite team doesn’t even know. So there’s things that I tell people. So for example, I have I have a client that’s looking to move in September, and they’re like, oh, is the price is is it going to get better. And I’m like, Look, what we can do is you can apply today for your favor, like, we’re gonna go to her four buildings, you’re gonna say, This is my favorite building, this is my favorite unit, you’re gonna apply for that unit, and you’re gonna sign the lease today for September 1, now, you’re going to stock the website. And if something else opens up in that building, before the lease starts, you can switch to any unit in the building with no penalties or fees, as long as you qualify for the unit. And as long as it’s, you give them enough notice to have the apartment ready for you to move in. But little things like that. And like most buildings will do that. I don’t know any building that doesn’t do that. So it just gives them peace of mind that they locked in their favorite building, and their favorite unit. But then if something else better opens up, or like better price better, bigger and or their budget changes in a month, they’re like waiting for a promotion to come through, boom, they can switch before the lease starts. And, and that’s what I did with my place. And I manifested this penthouse for during COVID that like I signed, I applied here four months before my lease was up. And I signed a different lease. And I stalked the website every day and manifested like the unit that I’m in now. So and that’s what I tell people like and I tell these stories, and I know like, and I tell them to like ask, I’m like, when I wrap up the call I go this is how it’s going to work. I explained the process from start to finish. So they know when I’m starting and when I’m going to be handing it off to like when the building takes over. And so they know literally everything and I say

D.J. Paris 52:51
well, we’re talking about what we’re talking about are systems, and you have a really impressive system. And you have this information, that you have so much information that nobody that your clients and your prospects don’t have to go outside of your world to get answers is kind of what exactly,

Stephanie Spenner 53:13
yep. And so at the end of that call, I say, I’m going to send you a handful of options and check all the boxes go through those. I can always send you more based on your feedback, then we’re going to come up with your top favorite options, I will schedule the tours to go see all of your favorites. And then from there, you’re going to apply for one, this is how the application process works. I literally walk them through all of that. And then I explain that you can take if you have a quick question, you can text me anytime. If you have a bunch of questions, just write them down. And we’ll hop on a quick call and go through them together. So then when I send you options, if you want to hop on a quick call and talk through your feedback, so we can talk through, like what I sent you together and help sort through your top favorites together and we’ll narrow it down and come up with a game plan together. And I think that’s a huge takeaway is like so many people are afraid to pick up the phone. And like if a client’s texting you and they’re upset about something they’re like, oh, like I didn’t get the lease yet. Or like what’s going on over here. They said they don’t have parking like yesterday clients like what the hell they have a waitlist for parking for a year, and I just signed a lease, like I need parking by August 1. I am not going to sit there and text him or book back like no just fucking pick up the phone and call them. And as I promised you it’s easier and like every time you’re going to be able to communicate all the points better if you can just pick up the phone and call them. So that just leads right into like me and my team. So like I like with social media and with the knowledge that I have. So social media is very powerful beyond just a lead generator for literally rental people that are looking for rentals or people that are looking to buy. It’s also it shows directly my business culture and how I work and how and what I know so every person on my team has come to me has been proactive. Had DM me has messaged me and has come to the YPN breakfast and talk to me after with a line out there. Doors and I want to join your team. And they have the balls to do that, you know, so I’m giving you a chance, I’m going to meet with you for 20 minutes at least if you reach out and say, I want to join your team, I’m gonna give you that 20 minutes, even if I know you’re totally not the right fit, because I want to let them know that they need to do this again and to not lose that like, you know, and so that’s how every like social media literally so my partner Kira Kira button, she is a absolute powerhouse. She has 24,000 subscribers on YouTube. Okay, we met a bout a year and a half ago, she randomly DM me on Instagram and said, You look amazing. Like you, I want you to be my leasing agent. I actually am a leasing agent. I saw you because I do the social media management for Alta Grand Central, and you’re all over their social media, blah, blah. And I’m like, I’m confused. You’re a leasing agent, like why do you want me to be your agent then? And I like Googled her name, and Kira and YouTube 20 4000s of followers. Before I even responded, I said want to meet for coffee tomorrow. Like, if you’re a leasing agent, and you’re asking me, for me to be your leasing agent, then you clearly are like not happy with your leasing agent role. And if you have 24,000 subscribers and you had the personality to DM me, like I want to talk to you. And literally she joined my team the next day, she was with another brokerage for three months had no idea what she’s doing did not know that she could show the building that she even lived in, which was the professionally managed building, didn’t know she get paid on those deals. She was had no idea what she was doing at the other brokerage because she was not on a team. She said, Hey, how do I pull availability for this and they said ask the CEO of the company ask the managing broker. And she didn’t close the deal. She almost gave up for four months, she joined my team. And after the first day like she joined my team, the first day we met, she closed the deal two days later, her first her first rental. And in her first year she closed 192 rentals, ah and I could literally like cry. Because that just is like it just so for me as a leader. Because I and now she’s I’ve made her a partner of my team, because we are better together. And we have the same type of like, and now we’ve created her YouTube channel to turn more into luxury versus like her niche before was the studio living. And so a lot of her leads were that but anyways,

I she called 192 rentals, one because she did everything I told her to do. And she was consistent about it. And she just literally like wanted to be like me so bad. She saw what I like it’s like, and on top of that COVID. So not like she probably would have done at least 100 deals. But because of COVID She could close exponentially more than I could in my first year because of video tours. She has closed five tours right here in one hour. Right. And it would take me five days to do that. You know what I mean? On top of that, we have compass. So compass is great, where we have so many leads that our team, our team of 13 agents can’t take all them. So then if like when we can’t take them, then we overflow them. And we have this system set up. So like if somebody on my team doesn’t pick up the lead, then automatically like then my assistant pushes that out to this group of like 50 Other compass agents that are like rookies and other people’s teams that are hungry for these leads. And then we get the referrals off that. And then also I’m like all my agents on my team. I’m like, if even if you don’t want to do sales, get your broker’s license so that when your renters turn your buyers, you can at least get paid on the referral. And then we have people that we just like pay to do showings for us. So I’m like, okay, like, I like I’m going to do all the work for this. And I’m going to like put all these options together, I’m going to set up all the tours, I can’t take four people out today, I’m going to take these two that I need to see face to face. And I’m going to set up the tours for the other 2am I have another agent like another outside of my team because my team is busy better off spending their hourly rate is like $1,000 minimum. Whereas I can send it out to another rookie compass agent for $25 for showing like

D.J. Paris 59:05
yeah, it’s it’s it’s really incredible the systems that that you have built and I’m curious too, on how often the relationship transitions from renting to buying I mean it takes years right like I I know people that focused on leasing for like the first two or three years of their business. And then a lot of those people end up transitioning into buyers. What is what is your process to help transition people from renting to buying?

Stephanie Spenner 59:37
I think my biggest thing is that I’m just like super chill about it. Like I look especially because I really don’t care if you like rent again or buy again or like whatever and I think that’s why people feel so comfortable just flooding in the like questions and like and and sending me people like oh, I don’t know if you do this, but you told me anytime like And it might be Schomburg I do not do Schomburg but I can connect with an agent and Schomburg and I’m gonna get paid a referral on that deal. Absolute freakin loosely and everyone knows that I am with Compass and that I, I tell everyone I meet like I can connect you with an expert in any market and like I just I have a buyer under contract right now single new construction, my first new construction deal that is currently being built and that buyer of mine was my I rent it to him at marquee when I worked at marquee. He was my one of my first rentals. And then he then he lived at marquee for three or four years. Then he saw I was an independent broker he reached out I rented to him again at a different property in west loop. Then he’s like Steph, I’m ready to buy now we’re now we’re under contract for a place in Logan squares, new construction single family home. But right in between that he said I want to buy but we need to sell my wife’s house and Nashville, literally in a second connected in with a Nashville agent that agents sold their house in a week. And I made five grand for 25% referral doing nothing. Right. And that just is like the full cycle right there. That’s the full frickin cycle. So yes, like, just really quick touching back like yes, I I was new to Chicago, I did not have this fear that a lot of people do or that that should have had to have nine six rentals in their first year. But I do want to say I worked every single relationship that I had at marquee, like we met CITM the developers we met power the construction team. We met SCP the design team I am I sold a condo to Chiara Santini, who was our interior designer, SCB, who now has their own company like four years later, I am very good friends with the Executive Engineer of power construction, who has gotten me into one Chicago when the glass wasn’t even on the 71st floor. Yeah, I saw that building. Like before any other broker saw that building? I saw as it’s not, you know, it’s just like making those relationships with every single person. The door staff is like the most important person, like and people like people treat those people like shit. It’s like, and I was the door staff. I was the package person. I was the frickin janitor. I had to clean people’s apartments out when I evicted them. And I had to evict people. And I had to like the things that we did. And because this is probably one of the last questions, and just because we’re talking about it, just so I don’t forget, because we have so many great real estate stories. But when you get asked the question on the spot, I go blank. And so I’m like coming up, I’m trying to make notes to remember like, so and, and most of my stories are in property management. They’re like not even like in this side. But one of my favorites is when I was still in Wisconsin, and I managed that first building in the premier property. And there are some resident columns that hey, somebody’s parked in my parking space we had, we had an outdoor lot that was gated within the building that we had a parking garage. And I was like, Okay, let me go check it out. I go out there. And there’s like people standing outside of the car, and they’re like, just shooting the shit outside their car. And I’m like, Hi there. I’m like, I’m sorry, do do live here as it’s your space and like, no. And I was like, Okay, I’m so sorry. Would you mind like moving your car, like somebody pays for the spot, and she just gets all over my face. And she’s pregnant. She’s pregnant, and she’s coming at me trying to bite me. And she’s like, screaming at me telling me I don’t even live here. I don’t even live here. And I’m like, That’s my point. Like, you don’t live here. You know, you’re and we come to find out like so. She had a warrant out multiple warrants out for her arrest for pimping and pandering. Oh, pimping and pandering. In Wisconsin, you can just look up people’s public records. And we found her name because she was a friend of a resident. That’s how she got into the gate. I mean, might not even be my best one. But a pregnant woman tried to find me and she happened to be a pimp, like, Well, that’s all figured Welcome to Wisconsin.

D.J. Paris 1:03:55
I’m glad I’m glad you’re still with us. That sounds like a dangerous position. But I think you’ve given our listeners really a tremendous amount of value, you know, for everyone out there. As the as the housing market is starting to cool a bit and we’re seeing you know, rates going up and, and of course inventory shrinking, or continuing to shrink, when there’s this huge opportunity in rentals and again, and there’s also a lot of people by the way that are selling their homes that don’t have a place to buy right now. Right to right, that’s huge because inventory. So you know, this is it might even be a reasonable strategy for a lot of sellers right now, to sell their property, rent somewhere for a couple of years, wait till the market readjusts and then come back into the in becoming a homebuyer. So there’s a ton of opportunity out there. Stephanie and her team, they do everything. Obviously they do a lot of rentals. They do a tremendous amount of sales too. And they do everything from Luxury to non luxury, they do everything. But Stephanie is also building this team. She has what 13 agents or I guess maybe even, she was telling me just before we started, she’s like, I’m bringing out a couple of new people this really excited. So her team is growing. And I know we have a lot of our listeners are local here in Chicago. So if there is anyone out there who’s like, I like what Stephanie is saying, I want that kind of career, I want to learn about Maven, and compass. And Stephanie, and what she’s done. And by the way, my, we were just talking offline, my girlfriend actually works at a building where Stephanie used to live. And so I’m excited to introduce my girlfriend to you, because you’re going to be interacting with my girlfriend, I’m sure at she’s a leasing agent at this other building. But if anyone out there is like, oh my god, I got to talk to Stephanie, I want to learn these secrets of how to build my business. Or maybe that she might, they might even be a good fit, like you were saying, for your team, what’s the best way someone should reach out to you?

Stephanie Spenner 1:06:00
I would say like DM me on Instagram, that’s probably just the easiest way to find me. I mean, it’s not, you know, Stephanie spinner, that I have three different social media pages, like separately, spinners, my direct page, I manage that page. Then there’s Maven underscore compass, which is my team page. And we have a social media manager that manages that page. And then I have live shy.tv, which is my brand, and my YouTube channel, the show live shy.tv. And that’s another Instagram page that another I have another social media manager that manages that. And so you can email me Stephanie dots [email protected], or DM me on Instagram, or any which way you want, go to live shy.tv. And you can find my cell phone number on there, that website is more so for renters and leads. So I tell my leads to go there, they can fill out the form to tour with me. And yeah, check out the any new agents. And if you do want to get into rentals, my channel will also help you to learn about the building. So when I met all my new agents, I tell them go see three new properties a week. And if you don’t know, like and watch all my YouTube episodes so that you can learn those buildings and then go see the other ones that are not on there. And now you’re going to start knowing a lot to be able to talk about with your clients even if you’ve never been to the building.

D.J. Paris 1:07:27
And just one last quick question. How often do you receive leads from these videos you’ve put out on YouTube about these buildings?

Stephanie Spenner 1:07:38
Minimum we get about 30 leads a month like minimum that that’s quality leads. I mean, these are like big budget leads Kyra just to like as a nother note, she gets about 200 leads from her YouTube channel that we pass around the team now hers are inching up to be more like, because she focused on studio small living. And so where that’s kind of the difference, but yeah, that’s kind of handle that kind of handle both? Yeah, no, yeah, that’s really cool. Because she her background is actually in influencing. So she’s like an influencer. And that’s why she was got into real estate because she was doing influencing marketing for another property. And so now, now that we have like, I mean, my team is exactly how I want it to be this is everything I’ve ever dreamed of this is like, it’s perfect. And it will continue to grow how it should. And it’s I truly think that her and I together are exactly alike. It’s everything I have ever wanted. And now we are social media. Now we are real estate influencers. We’re not just real estate brokers, we’re real estate influencers, and whether you’re actually good at social media or not. I think we as brokers are influencers and if you think about that, like we truly are guiding our clients and telling them, which, you know, I always say like, I’m your broker. It’s like being your best friend. And sometimes I’m going to know you better than you know yourself. You might think you want this but I’m I’m gonna I know you want this, you know?

D.J. Paris 1:09:18
Yeah, it’s, it’s so it’s so important. I just I love your energy. I love the fact that you have just really dug in to your business and you’re so passionate and excited. And it’s just It’s infectious. And so Stephanie spent her we are so thrilled that you spent an hour with us on the show and we will let you get back to your crazy, busy, busy, busy and productive team. But before we do I want to just ask everyone to do one quick thing. Please tell one friend about this episode. Think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing this great interview in conversation with Stephanie and send them a link to our show, you can visit our website at keeping it real pod.com On every episode we’ve ever done can be streamed right from their orbs pull the podcast app search for keeping it real and hit the subscribe button. I’m sorry, one more thing we’ll ask, please leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show. Whatever podcast app you might be listening on. Let us know what you think good and bad. We want to hear because the show is for you, the audience and we want to continue to improve to make it better. But Stephanie, on behalf of our audience, we want to thank you crushing rentals and sales and just process and doing so much with with social media as well. Everyone, please go visit live shy.tv l i v e ch i.tv. Stephanie also just brought her dog dying to say hi. Oh, that’s very sweet. My dog is dying to go to the bathroom. So I’m going to, but we want to thank everyone and we will see everybody. Next year. Thank you. And by the way, one last thing. If anyone wants to join Stephanie’s team reach out to her. She would love to talk to you as well. So anyway, I will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks Steph.

Stephanie Spenner 1:11:04
Thanks, DJ.

Jen Dillard the founder of Jen Dillard Real Estate Team with Hasson Company goes back to the beginning of her career in real estate. Jen shares advice on starting/building a team and what she’d advise a newly licensed agent. Jen also discusses what her team is doing to keep active and motivated during these challenging times. Jen talks about open houses and their importance in this market. Last, Jen describes what she expects when interviewing a new potential team member.

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

Jen Dillard can be reached at (206) 697-0575.

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

D.J. Paris 0:00
Have you thought about joining a team? Or maybe starting a team? And you’re not quite sure where to start? 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 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, and I am your guide and host to do the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with superstar agent Jen Dillard. But before we in fact, here’s what we’re gonna be talking about, aside from how awesome Jen is, we’re gonna be talking a lot about teams today. And if you are a practicing agent, maybe you’re a solo agent, or you’re already on a team, or maybe you are thinking about joining a team or starting a team. We’re going to cover a lot of that today. So we are super excited to talk to Jen. Before we do that. Just a quick reminder, please, the best way you can help us aside from being a great listener like you are, of course right now is by telling another realtor about us. So just think of one other agent in your office. Or if you’re a solo person and you own your own firm. And it’s just you the next agent you meet out there. Tell them about our show. We appreciate it. It’s the way we’ve grown for the last five years. And it seems to be working for us. So we’re super grateful to all of you for continuing to spread the word. So share, tell a friend and also leave us a review whatever app you might be listening to my voice on right now. Let us know what you think of the show. Whether you’re on Apple podcasts or Spotify or Stitcher or Google Play Amazon wherever. Let us know what you think this show we read everything and then we want to get better and continue to improve. So enough for me but we’re going to talk about teams so let’s bring on our amazing superstar guest Jen Dillard.

Today on the show our guest is Jen Diller from the Jen Dillard real estate team with the Hassane company in Hood River, Oregon, and the Columbia River Gorge area at the Pacific Northwest right. Let me tell you more about Jen Jen Dillard is a real estate mogul based in Hood River, Oregon. With over 200 million in lifetime sales. She leads a team of 14 agents that sold over $78 million in real estate last year. She runs an in house home staging company and is a busy mom of two. I always heard if you want to get something done give it to a busy mom gentle it is over budget. But she’s also besides that selling and staging are just part of Jen’s story. She’s also committed to sharing what she knows about building a successful team in real estate or any entrepreneurial environment with others especially female leaders and fellow moms. Please check out Jen’s website which is J D R E so Jen Dillard real estate so J D R e team.com. Please also follow their team on Instagram which is J D R E team and also follow Jen herself on Instagram which is Jen Dillard. We are going to have all of those links in our show notes. So you can just head to the show notes. Follow Jen there Jen, welcome to the show.

Jen Dillard 4:33
Thanks for having me. DJ. I’m so happy to be here.

D.J. Paris 4:36
Jen is so sweet. We had a plumbing issue at the office where the water was shut off. So everyone left and then I raced over here to do the interview. I was at home this morning. And then Jen and I were just about to start and the power went out. So I’m hopeful that we will get through this without any additional interruptions But Jen has been very patient and we appreciate that skill. in it. So it’s always funny to see sometimes last minute things how it gets gets a little screwy. Just like every sort of every real estate transaction, there’s always a bump in the road to I guess. So this mirrors, a lot of our listeners, you know, average day. But anyway, Jen, I would love to really introduce our audience to you. And I’d love to hear about your journey into real estate. Can you share that with us?

Jen Dillard 5:27
Absolutely. So I got started in real estate when I was 21 years old. So like two years ago, and I’m just getting I’m 37. So you did the math, but got started in real estate at 21. And got started in as a property manager and real estate and then after that, sold condo conversions in Seattle, and, and worked in the real estate market until about until the 2000 Oh, eight housing crash we all remember so fondly. And so once that happened, I dabbled in real estate, but I kind of shifted my focus a bit. And then fast forward a few years, and I had my two beautiful children. And when my daughter who’s my second child when she was about six months old, I said to my husband, you know, I really want to get back to work. You know, want to do something that fills my bucket and gets me excited and passionate again. And he’s like, Well, what was that? When was the last time you felt that passion and drive. And I said real estate. I just missed it so much. And so I got went back full force. That’s when I really took off, I got back into real estate I joined an independent brokerage in the Seattle area and, and then and then fast forward a few years from that I moved to Hood River and started my team. And here I am.

D.J. Paris 6:52
It for any of our audience that I wasn’t familiar with Hood River. But Oregon is such such an amazing state. It’s one of our most beautiful states, I think. And I come from Illinois, and we don’t have too much beauty here in Illinois. But but the the topography of Oregon is just incredible. But can you tell us a little bit about where Hood River is located for any of our audience that isn’t familiar?

Jen Dillard 7:16
Yes. So Hood River is located about 45 minutes to an hour east of Portland, Oregon, and about two hours from Bend, Oregon. So we are separated by the Columbia River. So the other side of the river is Washington. And we live on the Oregon side. But we serve as both Oregon and Washington. So most of our Realtors on our team are duly licensed in Oregon and Washington.

D.J. Paris 7:40
And so just out of curiosity, um, do you have to join two different associations then as well? Whatever the Washington one is and the and the Oregon or are they similar? No, you

Jen Dillard 7:50
do have to take the Oregon exam and the Washington exam. But you are but it is a reciprocal state. There are reciprocal states. So but no same association.

D.J. Paris 8:01
Oh, that’s incredible. Because here we are, the moment you join another state least the ones that border Illinois, you gotta join a whole nother Association as well. So one of the one of the other million reasons to maybe move to Hood River. Because oh my goodness, what a beautiful part of the country for anyone that is hasn’t been to Oregon. Just go, just go. But anyway, we’re not here to talk about Oregon, as much as I would love to. But I would love so Jenna in particular, aside from being a top producer, and a total superstar. She has this incredible team and mostly female, right? The vast majority of your team members are women. Which makes sense because most of most more realtors are women than men, of course, in our industry anyway. But you are very passionate about team building. And I think 2022 If nothing else is at least a year of the team. It seems to have been, you know, brewing for some time. And now, all our listeners keep asking me about is let’s talk about teams. So I’m so grateful to have you on. So let’s talk about that. What how do you think about teams because you run a really successful team? How do you think about it? Because you’ve seen there’s so many different ways to structure a team. And of course, you know, we just want to give a lot of great advice to our listeners who are thinking of either starting one or joining one.

Jen Dillard 9:27
Yeah, so I think that starting a team is a good time to know when to start a team is just really knowing when you’re feeling pushed to like if there’s you are not able to service your clients and you are feeling bogged down by you have too many buyers, too many sellers, you can’t really give everybody that great quality of service. Maybe it’s time to add a team member and so that way you can still provide that great service to and to more people. Another thing that another reason that I grew my team is that I can’t be everywhere. One Surprise, surprise. So there are clients, the Columbia Gorge area is a pretty, you know, good size area. And there are there are people that, you know, there’s areas that are 45 minutes an hour away that I don’t service. So we’ve, we’ve started growing our team that way by finding great agents in those areas and having them still be a part of the team but service all different areas of the gorge.

D.J. Paris 10:26
Yeah, it makes sense. And I think to what I’ve, what I’ve noticed that teams have started to do in the last few years, and I’m really curious to get your thoughts on it is I think a lot of times agents in the past would go to their firm, for training, support coaching, and, and many firms do provide that and I respect, you know, firms that that can do that. But it put a lot of put a lot of stress on the managing broker, because the managing broker or I’m not sure what they, if they’re called Managing brokers in, in, in Oregon, but here in Illinois, we call the managing brokers,

Jen Dillard 11:02
principal broker managing broker. Cool, yeah. So I

D.J. Paris 11:05
think they had to wear a lot of hats, right, they had to recruit agents, they had to take care of the existing agents, and of course, do all the training and coaching. And I think oftentimes, that would just be a lot and all the compliance stuff, too, right. So then, I think these teams have provided this other avenue for agents to really get mentored, get coached, get, get taught by people who are out in the field doing it most managing brokers, at least most of the ones I know, there, too. They’re sitting in offices busy taking care of everything. They’re not always on the front lines working with clients. So I’m curious to get your thoughts about that.

Jen Dillard 11:38
I think that’s so true DJ, I mean, they’re this market is ever changing. It’s always changing. There’s always something new and exciting, which is what I love about it. But also something that if you’re not in the field, and you’re not part of the change, and and seeing things firsthand and have your finger on the pulse, then how are you supposed to train and to educate, you know, the agents that are working for you on what’s going on, if you’re not actually out there and seeing it firsthand. So I think that’s very true. I love being an active agent. I think I’m out there, I’m working. I’m in the trenches with them. And we talk about it often. And we sit and talk about each scenario and what’s going on, and how can we help each other and collaborate. So

D.J. Paris 12:22
win win win us? Just sorry, what happened? I don’t know. It’s all right. Yeah, thank you.

Jen Dillard 12:33
Shake it off. Just jump back back in. Oh, good.

D.J. Paris 12:37
This is why I need a calming motherly presence. Not that your mother leaves with that you are a mom and your mother. I mean, it is like my take no offense. I am I am I am. I am a rough guy who gets ah, you know, and then

Jen Dillard 12:55
my team. You’re like, Jen,

D.J. Paris 12:57
you’re like, This is no big deal. It’s fine. So thank you. We went offline for a brief moment, probably due to the construction that’s going on here in the office. So sorry about that. We are back. Jen. I’m so sorry. Please continue.

Jen Dillard 13:11
No worries. I think just what I was saying is that we were talking about how being in the trenches and being a part of what’s going on in the market and having your finger on the pulse is an important part of being a mentor and a team leader.

D.J. Paris 13:26
Yeah, and I think too, that teams are are really a way to expand the services that an individual practitioner just isn’t able to do all by themselves. And if I what the question I was asking when we got disconnected that you probably didn’t hear was if you were starting over fresh today. And obviously there’s this part of you that’s been around for quite some time now. And been successful. Would you tell you the yourself if you were brand new to join a team day one, what would be your advice to the brand newly licensed Jen Dillard?

Jen Dillard 14:05
I would say join a team right away 100% I think I wish that I had I hadn’t been on a team until I started my own. And I think that for me personally, I’m a team player. I love being around other people. I love feeding off of their energy. I love the camaraderie we have such an amazing culture on our team. And everybody, there’s everybody gets along so well. We love to collaborate. There’s no drama. It’s just, it’s just a fun atmosphere. And everybody works really hard. We have all of our agents are full time agents, and they are all producing agents. And so it makes it really fun and exciting. And it’s I mean, what how great is it to be able to share your successes and share the excitement of it to have a transaction and then also when things don’t go well and being able to commiserate or vent or have a shoulder to cry on. Yeah, so to have all of that.

D.J. Paris 14:59
So Support, right? Like if nothing else, teams or at least healthy teams can provide a tremendous amount of support. And right now is a time when a lot of agents are wanting support because we know it’s a challenging environment right now, we just had an amazing, while I hate to say the word amazing because of course, COVID was was not amazing in any possible way. But the real estate market had a pretty good couple of years during that time. And now we’re starting to see the pullback a bit rates are going up buyers, you know, the amount they can, their purchase power is has decreased. And inventory is still pretty, pretty low. So this is a time where I think there’s a lot of and we’ve also been kind of hanging out with ourselves for the last couple of years, we’re now slowly starting to reintegrate to have interpersonal communication. But I’m, I think that is, is it’s often understated and probably probably more important than we realize, I suspect because you I saw it in your face, when you said it’s just fun to be around other people who are all working together, there is something to be said for one plus one equals three, right? Like the sum is greater than the than the parts. Can you talk a little bit about how you how that helped get your team through the pandemic? And through some of those trust struggles even today?

Jen Dillard 16:25
Yes, so we have a group chat that we it’s the JDRF team group chat. And if everybody luckily has an iPhone, so we can name it, because if they had an Android,

D.J. Paris 16:37
just go green bubbles on the JVR, etc. It’s

Jen Dillard 16:39
fine. Yes. So we have this group chat, and we stay in, in touch and and contact constantly throughout the day. And just hey, do you have a question? I’ve never had experienced this before. Have you guys ever What do you do in this situation? Just answering questions, or, Hey, I’ve just closed on 123 Banana Street and everyone’s like gay high fives, great job. And it’s so important to have that and to have that support whether you’re in person or not. And so yes, we meet in person we meet once a week, our office is actually pretty active. We have people in the office, a lot of time, I think for a lot of brokerages people aren’t in the office as much as they used to be, but our our team likes to hang out at the office. And so we have that, but just having that constant communication through COVID. And through those times where we felt isolated, but we still had the support of our team, I think was really, really helpful.

D.J. Paris 17:36
You know, I love that so much the idea of support. Again, it’s it’s not I don’t mean to, to to get stuck on a particular topic. But I think for a lot of our listeners, you know, there so a lot of our listeners are in teams, a lot of them are solo practitioners, too. And, you know, we don’t really need support when everything’s going well, right? When things are going great. It’s a party we’re celebrating, we’re having a good time, where we really need the most support is when things aren’t going well. And I I’d say joining the team, or if you don’t have the ability to do that, or don’t want to do that finding a peer support group where you can do these kinds of things, hey, guys just got a new lead or just had a listing presentation or heading into a buyer consultation, wish me luck. Those are the kinds of things that not everybody wants or needs. But a good percentage of us, really, and I wanted to say one more thing, I read this study, and I have to I don’t have it in front of me, I apologize. But this is for many, many years ago, there was a study that was that really speaks to your group chat, your group text sort of system that you guys have set up that even if you witness to people being kind to each other or supportive of one another, even just the act of witnessing that creates almost the same benefit as the person who’s receiving the support. So you have created this, this hub of constant reinforcement of great job, we’re here for you. We’re together, we’re all in this we’re all a team. And boy, I just have to imagine that really keeps everyone’s spirits up when things are challenging.

Jen Dillard 19:12
It really does and I think that you can see it in. We’re active on social media and video and all of that. And I think seeing even photos or doing videos together I think you can see and you can feel that we actually as genuine, we have fun. We enjoy being around each other. We work hard. All of it is clear. It’s easy to see that and I think that’s probably why the team has grown. I haven’t recruited once I haven’t called and tried to recruit somebody from another brokerage not because I don’t believe in that but because it I haven’t had two people call me and they say hey, I saw your team looks like so much fun and like the culture seems so amazing. I’d love to join the team and I think that’s just because we put out that energy that truly is genuine

D.J. Paris 19:59
and right now As I’ve meant to get back to my point of things are challenging things aren’t picture perfect today, right? Low interest or high interest or rising interest rate environments, I apologize, rising interest, still pretty low interest rates, but rising interest rate environments, buyers are freaked out buyers purchasing power has gone down low inventory. How are you guys working through that? What are what are you guys? And I say guys, of course, I mean, men and women, what is your team? What are you? What are you doing to keep your team cohesive during some of the struggles?

Jen Dillard 20:33
I think just continuing to meet regularly and to train and talk about just talk about what we’re going through talk about scenarios. If this scenario comes up, this is what you do in this scenario, if this scenario comes up, this is what you do. And also Hey, what are you guys see? What are you feeling? How are your open houses last weekend? Tell me about that. Just talking about talking it out and being able to sit in the room with the whole team. And everybody just pitches in and talks about what they’re going through? And what’s what they’re seeing out there. And then being able to come up with solutions and go around and everybody pitches in their thoughts. It’s powerful.

D.J. Paris 21:10
It is I we do we have managed meetings, in my, in our company here and our management team, we have about 10 people, and we get together. And I’m constantly amazed. I’m on the marketing side of how many great marketing ideas I get from people that aren’t marketers that are you know, different roles. And they’re like, Oh, I’ve got an idea. And I’m like, well, it’s better than what I could come up with. Because that really does groupthink kind of thing is is it can be a negative, but it can also be a real positive in just getting more ideas to people. And in your case, you know, yeah, all these agents are having different experiences. And right now things are goofy, right? Like I I can right now. Today, the stock market fell substantially. So I was thinking, I wonder what financial advisors are getting all these probably really urgent phone calls from investors going where’s my money is going, you know, and they have to have responses to that. Well, of course, real estate has similar sorts of things with interest rates going up, and inventory being being tough. I have a question for you about if you were looking to join a team, and you were a brand new agent. So back to this idea that you just got newly licensed, or you know, maybe you’re in your first couple of years as a solo practitioner, and you’re like, I think I need to join a team. What would you look for? And because we know that most most markets in the country have lots of different options for teams, what might you suggest to yourself to look for in a team,

Jen Dillard 22:37
I would recommend doing your research, making sure that you really dig in and ask for recommendations from people, not other realtors, but people in the area. Who have you worked with who have you had a great experience with as a realtor. And And then furthermore, just really making sure that the culture go to a team meeting, go to a you know, a meeting and make sure that you really liked that culture and that you fit in you resonate, your your personality fits in you resonate with them. That’s those are really important things. These are the people that you’re going to be surrounded with all the time every day. So making sure that you really feel comfortable is important. So those are some a few of the things that I think are.

D.J. Paris 23:21
Yeah, I think that’s a great point, like making the list of all the people that you’ve worked with that you go, I liked that person I liked the way they did business, I really thought that they had a lot to offer their client. And maybe I’d like to, you know, start to experience, you know, what, what they deal with back in the back office. I think that’s a, it’s a great, great understand. And I’m curious too, so you’re, you’re a very successful team lead. And I think a lot of realtors think, Boy, I couldn’t just pick up the phone and call Jen Dillard. She’s way too busy. She’s got a million things going on. She’s running this massive team. So I’m curious. What steps might somebody take to you know, if they say, Oh, I really want to join Jen’s team. Obviously, they can go to your website and fill out a form, which by the way, anyone is around that area and Oregon where Jen and her team work and are looking for a different option or different team maybe that might better meet their needs. certainly reach out Jen and her team would love to speak with you. But you know, agents come to me all the time. They’re like, well, I don’t really know how to how to how to go up to somebody and say, Hey, I’d like to join your team that really does take a certain amount of courage and vulnerability

Jen Dillard 24:38
and so I’m curious why not on a date? It is. It is. Yeah, so I would I like when people are persistent. I think that persistence, and you know, send me a message on Instagram. That’s great. But if you also follow it up with a phone call or an email and you know, two different areas of can munication that’s where it really gets my attention. I’m like, okay, this person is serious, this person really is interested. And I always my doors always open to have a conversation. And I think that if we you come in you have a conversation with us, you feel like it’s a good fit. We feel like it’s a good fit. And I think that yeah, we are always open to grow. As long as it feels like it’s a good, it’s a good, it’s a good fit from on both sides.

D.J. Paris 25:28
I agree. And I’d love to get your opinion about leads, because this also becomes a big topic. And of course, every team does it differently. Some teams have leads, of course, some don’t. And I’m not here to suggest teams should have leads or they shouldn’t. But I’m curious, I know sometimes. Individual realtors will think well, if I join a team, that’s going to be the solution to my marketing problems, because they probably have a lot of leads. And that’s going to be my savior, so to speak. So I’m curious to get your thoughts on leads and the team’s sort of role in that.

Jen Dillard 26:06
Yeah, I think that being on a team sometimes means you get leads, which our team does, you know, give leads out to our agents. But I think that being able to prospect and come up with your own, you know, go get your own business, that’s what really incentivizes me to give leads, if you’re out there, and you’re killing it, and you’re, yeah, I can see that you’re active out in the in the market, you know what you’re talking about, you’re doing well, your clients are loving you, then I’m going to keep giving you more leads. If I see that you’re just sitting there, and you’re just waiting for a lead to come to you and you’re not going out and finding your business. I’m less in I’m less interested in giving you more leads, because I how do I know that you’re going to take great care of the client? So

D.J. Paris 26:53
that’s such an important thing you just said and I know it’s probably self evident to you. But I think it’s an important point that I want really to resonate with our audience that what Jen, Jen just said, is it in some for some of us might be counterintuitive, like, hey, the busier I am and meaning not busy as far as having clients, but the more active I am in building my business, the more that attracts more business to me, because people like Jen go, Hey, DJ is really on top of things. He’s racing around getting business. I want to reward his effort with some leads. And I think that is how most team leaders think about it, too. So I don’t think this is just a Jen Dillard thing, I think. Yeah, and but I’m so grateful that you said it because it is absolutely the truth. It’s sort of like givers get right like that, that sort of idea of putting yourself out there and giving as much as you can actually met see a lot of stuff too, without that being the main intention. So if you want more leads, go impress other people in your company with how much activity you’re putting into generating leads, because and I also think, and I’m sorry, I don’t mean to take over the interview. But I also think sometimes when people are doing, and I’m curious to get your thoughts, when people are doing certain activities to generate leads on their own. And then they bring that to a group or their office, sometimes somebody will be like, You know what, I have a little tweak for you on this. And that might just be the tweak that is needed to make it even more effective. You know, this idea of like, Oh, I’ve done that before. But try this instead of that.

Jen Dillard 28:30
Yeah, I like having the other agents on my team come in and do trainings for the rest of the team. I like them to do the trainings, I have one agent on my team who’s amazing at cold calling, he was in sales, that was his background, that’s where he got started. And that guy is incredible on the phones. So I love to have the team sit and listen to him and to you know, and to do a calling challenge and things like that, like just having Listen, I have another agent on my team. That’s amazing at reels, she does a great job. So having her come in and do a training on how she does reels. And because we’re on a team, and we’re collaborative, we’re not competing with each other. We’re collaborating with each other. It’s great, everybody’s happy to share.

D.J. Paris 29:12
I love that and having people with different specialties, even though they might still be doing all of their own business. But maybe they’re really good at like you said social or they’re good at open houses or buyer presentations or listing presentations or whatever. And then saying, hey, let’s let’s do some best practice sharing. I absolutely just think that is just the fastest way to get good at something. And I would love I am about to ask so I’m gonna ask you a question. I’m going to take a quick break. While so you can think about the answer. I don’t think you’ll need any time to think about this. But I would love to hear how important today so it’s now the middle of June to 2022. How important are open houses today for lead gen nation. So before you answer that, I want to take a quick moment to highlight our sponsor, we love our sponsor, and our one of our favorite companies in the entire real estate tech space is follow up boss. Now I’ve interviewed hundreds of top Realtors in this country for this podcast and the CRM that is used by more than any of my guests is 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. Don’t take my word for it though, Robert slack who runs the number one team in the United States, he’s his follow up boss. And he’s built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 different systems so you can keep your existing tools and lead sources. Also the best part they have a seven day a week support. Because we know real estate happens nights and weekends. So you’ll get the help you need when you need it. And let’s get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to continue to use their their services, they’re going to give you for a limited time. They’re going to give keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial, which is twice the amount of time they give everybody else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free, but only if you visit this special link but visit follow up boss.com forward slash real again, follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial follow up like a boss with a follow up boss. Okay, Jen, let’s talk about open houses. How important are they in 2022

Jen Dillard 31:35
open houses are back and they are in full force. Open Houses are critical right now. Because, as you’ve mentioned a few times in this interview, they the interest rates are rising, buyers are getting a little scared things are slowing down a little bit or neutralizing I like to say. And so having an open house creates this kind of it allows people to come and look at the house without feeling pressure to reach out to an agent and to engage in that sort of, you know, relationship, but it’s kind of like risk free. They can go they can look at the house. And I think that that it’s back and I think that it’s doing they’re doing very well right now because of that, in my opinion. And

D.J. Paris 32:21
do you get a lot of unrepresented buyers coming

Jen Dillard 32:25
in. So open houses are great do open houses all day long, but most important is making sure you’re tracking who’s coming into your open house. Are you writing? Are you having them fill out a form that their you know, their name, their email address, or phone number? Are you following up with them follow up us. You know, making sure that all those that’s so important. Yes, you have these phone numbers, you have these email addresses, but follow up and make sure that you reach out and you even if they weren’t interested in the house, they’ll remember you if you call and you follow up with them, and you stay, continue to nurture them.

D.J. Paris 33:02
So I want to drill down just a little bit. So when do you tell your team so someone comes in unrepresented to an open house, one of your team members is doing an open house, they fill out the form name, email, phone number. Okay, what’s step number one after they leave, and how quickly, I would love to hear what you recommend.

Jen Dillard 33:22
After the open house, you send an email individually personalized. Thank you, Jeff. And Jodi, thank you so much for coming to my open house today. It was a pleasure to meet you by law. If you’re interested in this house, please let me know. Otherwise, I’d be happy to set up a search for you. And, you know, so engage in conversation, and then and send that to each person that came into the open house. And then

D.J. Paris 33:50
I’m sorry to get so granular but or next day or what’s the same day?

Jen Dillard 33:55
100%? Yes, same day, and then you give it two days. And then you follow up. Jeff and Jody, this is Jen Dillard, I reached out to you after my open house, I just wanted to follow up make sure you got my email as if there’s a phone number you call you got to go to all the areas of communication that you have access to. If they don’t respond, maybe send a text some people just have to find their way of communicating. Some people prefer to communicate via text. Some prefer to commute and you can even go a step further with your with your sheet. You can say what prefer What is your preferred method of communication

D.J. Paris 34:37
yeah, that’s, that’s a it’s a really great idea because to assume that everyone wants text or phone or email, of course we’re all different and wow, that’s really smart. So yeah, add that checkbox everyone listening to your open house sign in sheet, preferred way of communication. I do really appreciate that when I fill those forms out online like for a doctor’s office or They oftentimes will will ask that same question. So following up, I’m curious, have you do you have a general idea of the and of course, every, every individual person is different. But the average time from the moment somebody walks into an open house, and obviously not everyone who walks out of the open house ends up becoming a client. But for those that do become a client, what’s the lead time because we’re talking about following up? How much time is typically required. And again, I know, it could be two days, they could buy a home two days later, but what’s the average time that you see, and this will just give our audience a sense of how long they should expect, on average, to stay in touch?

Jen Dillard 35:39
Six to 12 months? Perfect. Six to 12 months? And again, it can be the like you said, they could be like, Oh, my gosh, I didn’t like this house. But I just saw this house, this is the one can we go look at it and boom, and that does happen. But I would I would, I would plan for six to 12 months?

D.J. Paris 35:58
And do you have like, do you recommend people create a schedule so that for the next six or 12 months, they know for sure, here’s, you know, the general guidelines of how I’m going to stay in touch? Just curious how if you use technology for that, or if you do it manually? What is sort of your thoughts on that?

Jen Dillard 36:15
We do we have it. So we break it down to we use monday.com. That’s the software that we use, which they can and we break the break it down. And so there’s steps for everything. Okay, you just engaged with a buyer, here are the steps, okay, you’ve just engaged with the seller, here are the steps. Okay, you got a listing contract signed, here are the steps. Same for buyers. And so we break it down and make it foolproof.

D.J. Paris 36:42
I love that. So systematize, we’re talking about creating systems. And then all you have to actually do is run the system. Right? You don’t have to wake up and think, What am I doing today? What should I do?

Jen Dillard 36:57
Yeah, like, and how satisfying is it to check a box.

D.J. Paris 37:02
So I love it as well. And it just makes it you know what I’ve realized about life, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts, because it took me to I’m 46 now, which is depressing. But I, so I’m older than you. So I can say that. Jen is still super young, she’s in her early 20s. But But But But But for real, what I’ve realized is systematizing anything in life really reduces anxiety, and it reduces clutter in the mind. And it just actually makes life easier, it’s sort of the irony of it is creating a system actually makes you gives you more freedom.

Jen Dillard 37:45
I feel like that was the biggest growing the growing pains of the team growing at the pace that it did. And in our in, you know, our transactions growing at the pace that they did is that is the growing pains of the systems and processes because we had to implement new systems and processes and we had to do them quickly. And we had to hire and we had to so that I feel like was the biggest stressor was was getting those systems and processes in place. And now that they are and we have the people to support, it’s like such a breath of fresh air.

D.J. Paris 38:18
And as a new agent, Wouldn’t you love to be plugged into a team that’s kind of already got that all figured out. And you don’t have to rebuild all of it. Because there are so many ways to build those systems and so many different variables, and software providers and just lots of different tools. Wouldn’t you love just to plug into somebody’s system, and you maybe make modifications if you need to. But like, that’s another major reason to join a team is it just helps. Assuming the team has systems, it helps get your systems in order. Yes,

Jen Dillard 38:52
I completely agree.

D.J. Paris 38:55
And one last thing, if you were interviewing a team member, what do you look for in a team? In somebody that says I want to join the Jen Diller team? What are you looking for in that individual? Because I think this will help our audience when they go to really they’re interviewing sometimes for these positions. So what do you recommend?

Jen Dillard 39:15
I am looking for somebody who knows about the team show that you’ve done your research and that you you know, who are we have you done? Your research? Have you looked us up online? Have you looked at our website? Have you? Are you familiar with us? And then next I want to know, I want you to show your personality. I want to see how you’re going to interact with clients. are you just sitting there waiting for me to ask questions and just answering them with boring answers? Probably not the right bit. Show your personality show what’s different about you why why would somebody pick you to be the realtor? Show me that I want to see that. So those are some of the things that I love to see. I love to see passion and drive and somebody that’s going to reach out to me like I said for a difference Social media or social media and different communication channels, that I know that they’re really interested in they they’re really excited about the opportunity. I love those people.

D.J. Paris 40:09
Yeah, it really is like asking someone out on a date, like you said, you have to put your your best self forward. And that doesn’t mean you have to look a certain way. But you have to make sure that they know who you are and what you’re willing to bring to the table.

Jen Dillard 40:24
Do you come dress professionally?

D.J. Paris 40:27
Yeah, boy, there is a huge variance in in how Realtors dress, right? We, we have 800 agents in our company here. And so we certainly see a wide range of choices in dress. And I always say there is no downside to dressing really well, there’s actually no very little chance of having a negative impact. However, on the other side, if you dress maybe a level lower than what the client expects, then you know that you’re going to have you’re gonna have a tougher hill to climb to win that person over. Yes. Yeah, so dress dress for success. It it’s it’s not gone away. But I think the main message, Jen, that that you’ve been describing is, teams can be a real force for good and they can actually give provide more value to the client. Also, to the realtor, the realtor now has hopefully additional better resources, people to support them in the tough times, and just place to bounce ideas off of. And boy, I’ll tell you, if I was a realtor starting out, and I was in the Bend, Oregon area, I would well I guess I’m sorry. Yeah. If I was, obviously, in between Portland and Bend, Oregon, and I was living there. I heard Hood River District, I would be reaching out to Jen because not only and I think, Jen, you just said something really important in it. And if you go to Jen’s website, which I’m going to encourage everybody to do in just a moment, you will get a sense of what her team is like, just by watching some of the content that they’ve created. There, you can see just in the still images of the fun that they have, and also tracking them on social, you get a good sense of what the team is like. Now, it’s not everything, of course, you want to meet them, too. But I think that’s such a really good idea as getting a sense of the culture. And I think by watch, you know, that’s what’s really cool about social media and also having a web presence is you get it, you get a little glimpse into someone’s culture. And I think this is a great opportunity for individual agents to explore other teams cultures and see what feels like a good fit. And then just like asking out someone on a date, you have to find your courage and then reach out and say, Hey, I would like to talk to you about opportunities. I am such a big fan. And by the way, if there’s any buyers, sellers, renters investors in in Jen’s neck of the woods. Boy, her and her team would love the opportunity to to work with you directly. They’re one of the very top teams in their area, and very well respected. They’re amazing. And Jen, do you mind just sharing? What What’s the geographic boundaries of what your team sort of deals with?

Jen Dillard 43:17
Yeah, so we service pretty much everything from from Portland all the way to Golden Dale Lyle area. So yeah, those are that’s pretty much what was that?

D.J. Paris 43:33
I was just saying no, that’s that’s it’s a huge area, the area up huge team. And I think it’s a really great reminder that if you are thinking about joining a team or thinking about maybe changing teams, now’s a good time when things are maybe a little bit slow, more slow than they were a year ago where we didn’t have time to do that. But for anyone out there who is interested in working with Jen, or learning about her team and how its structured, please visit their website which is J D R E team. Again, Jen Dillard real estate. So J D R e team.com. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes. And also please follow them on on Instagram, which you can find them at J D. R E team. And at Jen Dillard. We’ll have links again in the show notes. Jen, thank you so much for being on our show. I appreciate you. Hanging with us through some of our tech difficulties today. Thankfully, we got through without the power going out good.

Jen Dillard 44:31
Yeah. Thanks for having me so much. DJ was great.

D.J. Paris 44:35
We’re super grateful. And for everyone before you sign off, please, we only ask our listeners and viewers to do one thing, which is tell a friend to think of one other realtor that could benefit from hearing this conversation with Jen and send them a link to this episode. You can find us on our website, keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done is there and we have about 400 episodes there now. So Jen, thank you so much. We are huge. Fans have you and your team and your company and we wish you all the best. Thank you for taking time to be on our show.

Jen Dillard 45:07
Thank you

Welcome to our quarterly feature, Social Bootcamp With Gogo Bethke!

In this episode, Gogo and DJ discuss the importance of determining your hourly rate. Gogo also discusses listing side hourly rate vs buyer side hourly rate. Gogo and DJ guide you on how to start hiring people to help you out when you’re just starting your business in real estate. Last, Gogo talks about the importance of outsourcing your work.

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

Gogo Bethke can be reached at [email protected] and at her Instagram account.

Purchase Gogo’s Bootcamp by clicking here – Keeping It Real Podcast listeners get a discount!

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

D.J. Paris 0:00
Do you know your hourly rate? We discussed that today and why knowing this will help take your business to the next level. 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 onto our show.

Welcome to Real the largest podcast made for real estate agents and by real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through the show and today is our monthly series called Social bootcamp with gogo Beth key. Let me tell you more about GO GO GO GO came to the goal. Let me let me back up go go back he came to the United States in 2003. To build her American dream, she was broke. She had no real estate experience and no sphere of influence barely spoke English and only $6 to her name, which left her with nothing other than Facebook to help build her business which is where she started. She created gogos real estate and began her real estate career. Now with the power of social media gogo has sold over oh gosh, these are old numbers. It’s well over 100 million in real estate transactions. She shares the good the bad and the ugly of real estate and her honest snippets into her daily life is earned her 10s of 1000s of social media followers in the real estate community and as she’s earned the nickname The Queen of social media she’s actually even been presenting at conferences and events with realtors and she’s She even has built her own social media Bootcamp for realtors called Go Go’s bootcamp. Today she has a team of of 800 agents nationwide and her goal is to help as many agents as possible make a name for themselves in real estate utilizing social media. Now if she can do it, this girl from Transylvania, Romania with no formal United States education, no sphere of influence, no money, no experience and an accent. Anyone else can do it too. Please, please follow gogo on Instagram. You can find her at at gogos real estate that’s Gee, oh gee Oh s real estate. We also have a link to that in the show notes. And also please invest in her bootcamp. She has an amazing social media bootcamp if you want to learn how to do more on social to attract clients deepen relationships, and you can boy, if I don’t, every one of our listeners could probably use a little boost in their social media sort of acumen. So definitely sign up for Go Go’s social media bootcamp and you can find that we have a special link. If you go to Gogo podcast.com Gogo podcast.com That will take you right to the special keeping it real link we get a special discount. Gogo. Welcome to the show.

Gogo Bethke 3:57
Hello, thank you so much for having me.

D.J. Paris 4:00
I am I am your biggest fan and we I have not seen you in some time because you are so insanely busy. It is. I am so impressed with what you have accomplished. It was just a couple of years ago where you did not have a team. You had no agents. And now you have how many agents do you have now working with you?

Gogo Bethke 4:21
930

D.J. Paris 4:23
Oh my god. Oh my god, it took me in

Gogo Bethke 4:27
one month we’ll hit 1000 agents.

D.J. Paris 4:30
This is this is we should talk tell our audience about this. So what we’re talking about gogo works with EXP and she provides for her team. Incredible training support. She provides access to her programs. She is amazing. And she obviously is amazing because she has almost 1000 people on her team. And by the way, if you are out there listening if you want to join Go Go’s team or learn more about Her team, maybe you’re not getting the the training or the support or the coaching that you need. Go go if one of our listeners wants to consider joining you. And by the way you can be from any state in the country, you don’t have to be in Michigan where gogo is, you know, technically located right now. You can be from any state, um, how should they reach out to you to see if they want to join?

Gogo Bethke 5:23
Yeah, the easiest way is my name.com. So go go back to that calm. When you go to my website, you’re going to see a tab that’s called ESP partner with me. And then go there, watch the videos and see if you like what you see, when we call team gogo is not a team, as in most real estate teams in the nation, we do not take a cut. So I don’t become your team lead, I become your business partner, and you owe me absolutely nothing. So everything that the company has to offer on top of everything else, that we in the teamwork organization, bring to the table with the bootcamp and the weekly trainings and all that you get for free when you are business partners with us. And you’ll never have to give me a penny.

D.J. Paris 5:57
Yeah, it’s an awesome platform. I am a big fan. And I am somebody who recruits Realtors all day, and we only have you’ve actually surpassed me we only have about eight. You did? Yeah. So go Go is in she’s going to take over the show now. And I will be her guest and she is the No,

Gogo Bethke 6:14
I’m not competitive at all. I’m so excited. Because you’ve been you’ve been ahead of me all this time

D.J. Paris 6:22
I have I we only have 800 agents here. And now I feel like a big loser because you have 950 agents. So

Gogo Bethke 6:29
but in one location, oh, don’t forget to man like that’s insane to have in one local market that many agents like I could never do that in my neck. I don’t think we have 800 Each Well, I’m

D.J. Paris 6:41
glad you’re not in my local market, because I would not want to compete with you. Because that’s how amazing you are. But let’s talk to our audience today, which are from all over the country as well. And, you know, we You’re the queen of social media, but I think it would be really cool to talk about something, it’s one of those things that it’s a topic that we hear about. And then you sort of like, it’s not that important, but it really is important is determining your hourly rate. Let’s talk about that.

Gogo Bethke 7:12
So, you know, we are faced with so many different shiny objects and so many different things that can help you in so many different apps that you can buy and so many different things, right. But the thing is, you don’t know if you need that a number two, you don’t know if you can afford that. And what I mean by that is there’s there’s a break even point in your career at some point where for a while, you should be doing all of those activities because you cannot justify or afford to hire somebody to do those activities for you. Right. But the question is, at what point can you afford it? So in order to know that you need to know your hourly rate. So what I want you what I would like to talk to you about today is your hourly rate on the listing side, and on the buyer side, you need to figure that out because it’s different for most people. And then also to figure out how to hire a virtual assistant, a personal assistant, a transaction coordinator, should you hire that? Maybe a buyer’s agent? At what point should you hire that right? And what is that look like money wise. So I have also an exercise and I call the red light green light exercise. So we can go into that later, that will help you create the job description for that VA that you’re going to hire in the future. So let’s get started. You’re ready.

D.J. Paris 8:16
Let’s do it.

Gogo Bethke 8:17
So what do you think a nationwide commission is in average, on the listing side?

D.J. Paris 8:25
So I would think that

Gogo Bethke 8:28
5% Total something I mean, not in dollar amount. Oh, okay.

D.J. Paris 8:32
I $7,000 Maybe,

Gogo Bethke 8:35
oh, that’s I think that’s really low. I think it’s more like 12 Nowadays,

D.J. Paris 8:39
well shows you what I know. Let’s go with 12.

Gogo Bethke 8:41
So let’s meet you in the middle. Let’s say it’s 10,000. And let’s say tab. And then let’s say 7000 on the buy side. Okay, great. Usually buyers, you end up with less, you’re more buyers heavy than listing heavy. Okay, so if it’s $10,000 Think of it this way from the moment that you are on that initial phone consultation with that seller, then you go out to the appointment you and you’re gonna do some comps, maybe it’s gonna take you 20 minutes, right you’re gonna do some comps, then you’re gonna go out to the sellers house, you’re gonna have a little bit of a, a nice, meaty area to your conversation, then you are going to tell them how much is what then they’re going to tell you. Yep, they’re going to list with you, then you’re going to go home to the paperwork, they’re going to sign it with electronic signature, send it back to you, you’re going to plug it into your analyze, then you’re going to do a little bit of marketing a little bit of negotiations, you might drive out to the property a couple of times to do an open house or maybe you drive out to meet the appraiser and then you’re gonna go to the closing table. Alright, in average, if you want your sufficient if you’re really good at your job, I asked say we’ll take you about seven hours to work with the seller. Does that sound right? Yeah, that sounds about right. Okay. So if we take $10,000 And then we divided by seven hours, your listing side of hourly rate is $1,420. Wow. So every time you’re working with a seller, your hour is worth $1,400. Now that’s calculated on the buy side and the buy side, the sudden average commission would be about 7000. And the buyer side, in my opinion, you work about 12 hours with a buyer, you will work because you’re going to drive around, you’re going to show them how it says, in some cases, you might even move work more than 12 hours because the markets so hard, and you might have to, even though you work one out there, and they’re ready to make an offer on the first house, they see it might take you 237 offers before they actually buy one. So let’s say it’s 12 hours. But if your hourly is longer than that, then do the math separate, right? So take your average by side commission and divided by the 12 hours or how many hours you think you’ve worked with the buyer. In this case, the buy side commission per hour or hourly rate is $583. So just from this math, $1,420 versus 583. Were Who should I work with sellers or buyers? Sellers. Right? So now we know that I should be concentrating on sellers and listings, because that’s where I make most amount of my money for the same time spent, right, because we’re gonna spend an hour here make $583, you’re going to spend the same hour here make $1,400 When you hear, right, you make more money for the same time. Now the next thing is paperwork. That should be the first thing that every agent removes from their plate, there is this thing called a TC, a transaction coordinator, it’s going to change your life if you’re not using one of winters wait on to start using when you’re going to start loving real estate all over again. So yeah, go ahead. I

D.J. Paris 11:35
totally agree. This is something that agents oftentimes think I can’t afford to hire an assistant, I can’t afford to have a transaction coordinator. I’m new to the business. I can’t do that. So how can they do that? How can they hire somebody when they’re just starting out? They have no money.

Gogo Bethke 11:53
Okay, so I’m going to show you why you are losing money by not having one. You’re losing money. Because here’s the thing, right? Do you know how transaction coordinators get paid? They do transaction for you get paid off of when the transaction closes. So if the transaction doesn’t close, for whatever reason, your buyers got called fee, they no longer qualify, the seller no longer wants to sell whatever the basement flooded, and the buyer doesn’t want to buy it anymore. Whatever the reason is right? It doesn’t matter if you don’t get paid, they don’t get paid. So it is not a cost to you. You only pitching out that 350 bucks, $400 whatever they charge big are the only pitching that out if and when your transaction actually closed. In most states, you can actually charge what we call a broker fee or transaction fee. If you get to charge it like in Michigan, we get to charge it. So I charge 6% on my listings and a 495 transaction fee, my TC actually gets paid out of my transaction fee. Right, it’s not a cost to me, it’s already built into our model. Now I’m just using it for service. And now I’m going to show you how you are losing money by not having a TC. So number one, you’re not paying your TC is not an upfront cost. Only if and when the deal closes. Number two, think of it this way. Truly, if you thought about your listings and your biocides all of the people work, right. So on the listing side, you have to create the listing paperwork, then you have to plug it into the MLS, right? Then you have to negotiate back and forth and then you’re going to have some attendance, then you’re going to look at your closing CD and make sure everything’s on there. So me doing those, I would say you probably spend a good three hours through the lifetime of the file on paperwork. Okay, so now on the listing side, we know three hours for you on the listing side is 1428 times three is $4,314. Is what it’s costing you to push your own paper. Because if you took those three hours, and you went and got yourself one more seller, you do whatever you did to get that last seller for three hours and you got to yourself another seller, you’re gonna get yourself another $10,000 commission. So it’s costed you $4,314. Suppose you’re on paper, you try to say 400 or 350, or whatever it is he costs in your neck of the woods. Right? And you lost 4314?

D.J. Paris 14:12
Yeah, so let’s let’s pause for a moment because that’s really, really important. So what Google’s really saying is, we get excited, right? We go to a listing presentation, we win the deal, we win the listing, and then we come home and we send all the paperwork over via dot Luber or DocuSign or whatever system we’re using. And now we’re in the paperwork game. And guess what? Yes, it’s exciting. It’s fun. But is it the best use of your time? Well, we just proved that it isn’t. And wouldn’t it be cool if somebody could do that for three to $400 And oh, by the way, you only pay when it closes. So if it doesn’t close as gogo said, almost all Tec companies I’m aware of do not charge. So it is a total no brainer and we should also talk about what transaction coordinators actually do aside from paperwork?

Gogo Bethke 15:04
Well, depending if they’re licensed or unlicensed, right, but if they’re licensed, they can pretty much do everything you can. They’re not going to negotiate for you, right? They’re not going to show up at the inspection and negotiate the sellers concessions for you, right? That is your job. But when let’s say you did the home inspection, you call your TC on the way home and say, Hey, we did the inspection, everything was fine. We agreed on a $5,000 seller’s concession, can you please put together the addendum and just say all parties agree that salary has been 5000 seller’s concession that goes into the buyer, and then send it out to all parties? Done, it took me two seconds, right, I’ll give you a voice note on the phone. And then it’s done. She’s going to type it up, she’s going to send it out to all parties and all the signatures are and she’s going to read you know, resend it back to everybody. Again, make sure that it’s updated your file with your broker, and voila, it’s probably going to take this person an hour or two. And in the meantime, go get goes out of the house, go get another seller.

D.J. Paris 15:56
Yeah, and, and they can also help with important dates, right? Like all the important dates of a transaction, they are going to the transaction coordinator is going to know in advance what needs to be done when it needs to be done. And they will help keep you on track and they’ll just keep the paperwork out of your hands into their hands.

Gogo Bethke 16:17
So hire it out because you are losing money. And I’m by sight Okay, nice. Are you losing less because it’s $583? So 583 times the three hours so you’re losing 1749 Are you steal? Because if you promise yourself that those three hours that you just save for yourself, you’re going to spend it on lead generation, you’re going to easily make another at least another commission.

D.J. Paris 16:44
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Gogo Bethke 18:06
So don’t lose money. Make money, right? It’s just mad. The next thing is Okay, so who should be your next hire? Let’s say you already have a TC. Right? So like, I already got that go grab you using a DC for the last five years. Congratulations, you’re smart. Okay, the rest of you. If you don’t have us DC and you’re wondering where you should go, you can check out smooth dc.com It’s smooth DC that calm. The next hire should be a va, a virtual assistant. I have like 30 Plus, and I love it. Now in some different positions, right? Your first word. So your first virtual assistant should be your executive assistant. That should be the person that takes the everyday tasks off of your plate. So the reason when I realized finally dawned on me that this is stupid, it was LinkedIn. Not it’s not LinkedIn fault. I had 946 messages. I think when I logged in one day to LinkedIn, I’m like, oh my god, I have to check all these messages out of the 946. I had four. Then I truly needed to address the rest of them. Were all like, oh, so nice to me connected, or could you come on my podcast? Okay, blah, blah, right? Like no, not in and it was so important. Like I had four in there that I truly needed to address. And I was like, it took me like two and a half hours and I’m never going to get back. And I was like, do I don’t do these messages needs to be checked because I didn’t want to miss those four. Yes, they do need to be checked. But do they need to be checked by me?

D.J. Paris 19:30
Right? Do you need to sift through 950 messages to find the for No, not a good use of your time?

Gogo Bethke 19:36
Not a good use of my time somebody else can sift through them and then leave those for unopened. Right. So then I know when I log in, I only have to check those four because the rest was already checked and taking care of these four they couldn’t address on their own. So I can log in there take care of it. Maybe it was personal. Maybe it was like a big decision that they couldn’t make on my behalf or things like that. But other than that our virtual systems, checking all of my DMs the only social media do And then I personally check his my Instagram, everywhere else and every single email and every single DM on every single social media Facebook group or Facebook page, I have a virtual assistant. So let’s do this exercise so you can figure out what type of assistant do you need for in the first place. So there is an exercise called the red light green light exercise, I want you to take a piece of paper and clip it to your clipboard and draw a line in the middle and the left hand side you’re gonna see a red light on the right hand side, we’re gonna say green light. And you’re going to walk around with a clipboard for a straight week. It’s going to be attached to you by the hip. And every motion you take every action you take every call you make every email you answer every open house you hold, when you brush your teeth manual, do your when you run a load of laundry, when you show houses, right, everything that you do is going to be on that spreadsheet. Red light means you can stop doing it. Stop it right now, because you can hire it out. Those are your DMS, your emails, those kind of stuff, right? The green light is brushing your teeth. Can you hire somebody to brush your teeth? I mean, if you probably could, coming to America, right? You probably could. But other than that, you could probably brush your teeth for the rest of your life, right? walking your dog? Do you? Does your dog need to be walking? As does he or she needs to be walked by? You know, that’s red light. Right? I have somebody in our house assistant. And that is her job she wants Charlie now on the weekends. Don’t get me wrong. I work, Charlie, right? So you have to separate the things of like red light, green light green light for me is social media, my posts, I will always make the post, could I hire it out? Absolutely. I choose not to, because I will lose my brand. I built a brand around my own self, I built a brand around my knowledge, I built a brand about my work ethic and united in my mindset. So I can’t hire that portion out. Because there’s somebody else that are typing up things that I usually want. If I would, it wouldn’t be me anymore. Because it’d be in your voice, it needs to be my voice. So that’s not something I can hire out. But I only make one post and it’s on Instagram. And I do have a social media virtual assistant who takes it from Instagram and then plaster it everywhere else. She takes that post and I wrote and I posted on Instagram and puts it on LinkedIn, she takes the same post and puts it on all the different Facebook groups, she takes their posts and puts it right. So she helps me spread the world everywhere else, but I make the initial post. Right, so there’s a million ways how you can do that. So walk around with a clipboard red light green light exercise. And in the end of the week, everything that you put in your red light is going to be able to be broken up into two different sections. Number one is going to be anything that can be done online. And number two section is going to be things that are going to have to be done in person. So like dropping off your dry cleaning, walking your dog doing a load of laundry, grocery shopping, right? That’s in person, my virtual assistant from Brazil cannot grocery shop for me, I guess she could like the Kroger app and shipping to my house like you know, there’s always a way with that. But like the in person physical stuff like walking your dog, you will have to hire somebody for that in person, right? So you’re gonna put those aside for a minute, because those are the ones that gonna cost you more, we’re gonna talk about the virtual stuff, that’s where you can get a virtual assistant, a virtual assistant in average is going to cost you about four bucks an hour. Yeah. So if your hourly rate is 14 128 hours, right or under $20, let’s see how many hours that is 1428 divided by four, a virtual assistant would work for 357 hours for the same amount of money. Or look at it this way. For one hour, you could hire 357 virtual assistants who would get paid the same amount as you get paid for that same hour.

D.J. Paris 23:41
So where do people go if they want to find these virtual assistants?

Gogo Bethke 23:46
So I started out, I’m going between myself and my business partner Sammy, we have about 10 years of experience now having hired virtual assistants, you can start out on Upwork. So Upwork up wo rk.com, you can go on there, make a job post and they’ll apply and then you interview them right? And then you have to give them access to things and then you have to train them and you have to have SOPs and yada yada, you can absolutely take the route. Or you can hire us we have a company that’s called V clone knew that calm because the goal is they have a bunch of many years, right? So it’s cloning you and for exactly what job capacity you need a virtual assistant for, they already come trained and they come with all the SOPs, so and we guarantee them for 90 days. So if they don’t work out in that certain position for whatever reason that we replace them for you with another one. And then also they come with the SOP so in the future, you don’t have to come back to us. Right and it’s a video based training as well we explain it from the high the employee and the employer side of things. Right so for the employer, we talk about things like you know what, what kind of pay structure, what kind of access you should give them, how to pay them, where to pay them, those kinds of things that and the virtual assisting side they don’t need on a day to day basis. So on the virtual assisting side, they will get SOPs and video based training on how to do their job right Right. On this side on the employer side, you get SOPs and video based trainings on how to maintain having virtual assistants as employees.

D.J. Paris 25:08
Can I tell you, I’m a huge fan of virtual assistants, I have a virtual assistant that I that I chat with every single morning. And she and I go through my two dues every day. And she says, Here’s what you’re doing today, DJ now. And she’s amazing. And she, we go through that we prioritize we, and then I have another virtual assistant that every Saturday after in the morning, she goes through all of my expenses with me. And she goes, Hey, I noticed the spending trends, I’d like you to save a little bit more. So it’s like,

Gogo Bethke 25:43
DJ, you went this week, three times.

D.J. Paris 25:49
My one of my virtual assistants, just this week went through the entire here’s where I live in Chicago, we have all these amazing festivals going on over the weekends. She said, You know, I bet you guys want to go to a bunch of festivals, my girlfriend and I this this summer? And I said yes, she goes, I’m gonna go through all of them. And I want you to tell me which ones you want to go to? And I’m gonna set them up for you. It’s like these are you can even have been doing other tasks. If

Gogo Bethke 26:17
you haven’t. Yes. Love it.

D.J. Paris 26:21
It’s amazing, I think because if I if I go through all of those festivals that will take me a couple of hours. It’s

Gogo Bethke 26:29
and then you can if you will say, Oh, yeah, I want to go on here. Oh, nevermind. We are in Florida at that time. Right. So. So not only do you have to go through it with the idea of like, Do I even want to go into it in the first place, then you have to match it up to your calendar. Right? And that’s the part. Okay, I’ll show you. That’s the part where it’s really hard for me.

D.J. Paris 26:48
Yeah, yeah. It’s it this is this is what what we’re really trying to do is tell every all of our listeners that this is a mindset that you can, you know, if you don’t have to control and do everything, right, and this is what we’re talking about is outsource some of this stuff. I might my virtual one of my virtual assistants even gives me date night ideas. She’s like, hey, this upcoming weekend, here’s five date night ideas. That’s really helpful for me, that’s super useful. Yeah,

Gogo Bethke 27:22
she makes you be the best boyfriend ever. That’s,

D.J. Paris 27:26
well, you know, here’s another thing a virtual assistant is doing for me. Now, I don’t practice real estate. But if I did, I would use this in a different way. I have all my friends and my and my close, you know, relationships. She went in and put everybody’s birthday and anniversary date in my calendar. So that I and a week before each of those events, she, we have a task. Okay, so and so’s birthday is coming up? Are we going to do something for that? Think about as an agent, of course, go go. I’m sure you’ve already done this. But you can do this for all of your clients. Right? You could say, here’s their home anniversary date. Here’s, you know, here’s what they purchased the home last here’s their actual wedding anniversary, here’s their birthday, here’s their kids birthdays. And now you have you can have all this information. And you can use that to then deepen relationships with people.

Gogo Bethke 28:17
Absolutely. So we have what’s called a favorites list. And we do we fill that out for every client. So that’s how we find out I mean, we know the closing date, that’s their home anniversary, right? But like, you know, what is your favorite sports team? What is your favorite coffee shop? What is their favorite restaurant? What is do they have any allergies? How many kids do they have? What are their ages? When is their wedding anniversary where other individual birthdays, we plug all that into one in our CRM program into the profile and then we set reminders, and then it’s our each of our agents responsibility and our team to keep in touch with those clients.

D.J. Paris 28:48
Yeah, it’s really the best way to reach out to somebody and not be salesy and go, Hey, you’re ready to buy a home. You want to call and say, Hey, I know it’s your child’s birthday today. I just wanted to call and say happy birthday to your child. Like that’s a huge thing. It was my friend’s 40th wedding anniversary today. I sent them a text and they said every year DJ you send this and you’re the only person aside from their closest family members that knows that and it’s only because my virtual assistant put it in my calendar.

Gogo Bethke 29:17
That’s amazing. Yeah, we do that for our agents everybody’s birthdays in my calendar we create a happy like Happy Birthday music or picture all that then we posted so yeah, we tried to do a lot of things and you definitely cannot do this on your own. Right. So if you want to if especially if you have a massive database, if you have like 10 clients Yeah, maybe you can remember on your own right. But if you want to grow this to the levels that where you are making multi millions, you know, you’re you can’t possibly do this alone. It takes a village.

D.J. Paris 29:45
It takes a village and the good news is the village is the entire world. We now are connected through technology. And we can hire people virtual assistants from other parts of the world where the cost of living is substantially different. And, and very cost effective for people to hire some of these these intelligent, wonderful workers to you know, you’re you’re helping them by giving them income, and they’re helping you by making your life a lot easier. So if someone wants to sort of explore hiring some people to help with with tasks, you know, whether their business tasks or home tasks, what what what do you recommend?

Gogo Bethke 30:27
I mean, you can ask, I always go to YouTube for everything right. So first go to, you know, maybe just start watching some videos to even understand how people use virtual assistants. But I can walk you through a few different job titles that we have, right. So on my local team, we have a virtual assistant, and her job duty is to take care of all the leads, right and keep the database maintained. So when the Favorites list comes in, update everybody’s profile, set those reminders like those kinds of things right when a lead comes in, respond to them right away before an agent can respond to them. So we don’t lose them. Because our agents our market is crazy, right? They’re out on the market, they don’t necessarily have the ability to get back within five minutes, every single lead. So then this way, we earn ourselves some time by the virtual assistant responding to them. Then we have a numbers guy on our team and his name is Saeed. He runs all of our like, I’m the biggest nerd you’ll ever meet. i My trackers have trackers, right. So I drove on track everything from every angle you could possibly track it from. So he runs all of these reports. And then once a week, we have a kind of like a reports meeting, we go to everybody’s tabs right on our spreadsheets. And then once a month, we have like an overall to see what money came in what’s going out. What’s our retention, only those kinds of things, right. So that’s our numbers guy, then we have a few tech guys. So technology, I think it’s very important, especially if you start running a team, right? Because you’re going to have issues with like not all agents are created equal, right. So some of your agents are going to need more hand holding than other agents, some agents might not even know how to access the Google Calendar on their phone, right? They never use the calendar, and suddenly all of their appointments are going to be set up in a calendar, they don’t even know how to access right. So then you’re gonna have what we realize is even though I gave my Google Drive and all of my trackers and all of my apps and systems and contracts, and you name it to my overall downline, right, we realize that when they open my lead tracker, it’s 17 tabs, they’re like, but how do I use it? And what things go go, but how do I use it right? So then we do trainings on that. So have yourself a technology person, even if it comes easy to you, if you want to grow a team, right, you’re not gonna have time to show Joe Schmo How to Download Google app, right, you’re not gonna be able to do that. So have a tech person who can help your people. The next one is you of course, you should always start with an executive assistant like that should be the first thing you remove from your calendar, all the emails, the DMS, the nonsense that is just clogging your phones and your databases. And then we have a design assistant. And her job is we celebrate birthdays, and top agent attractors and top producers and icon agents and all of the celebratory things, right, all of those things have to be designed, all of those posts need to be made, right. So we have a design girl. And her job is to make things pretty. So if it’s somebody’s birthday, she creates a as these icon pictures, right? Or does birthday pictures, and then we post it. So that is her job, her job is designed, make things pretty. And then we have social media girl, her job is to take my posts from Instagram and plaster it everywhere. And then respond to those DNS and respond to those posts. And, you know, keep all of those accounts live because I am everywhere, but I can’t possibly be everywhere, right. So if I just think of it this way, if I make a post, my account reaches over 2 million accounts a month, if I make a post on Instagram, and let’s say 200 People respond. And I’m going to make that same post on Facebook, and let’s say 200 People respond, and I’m going to make that same post on LinkedIn and 200 people respond that is 600 people. Right? And I don’t want to take I mean, it’s impossible to respond to everybody. But there are some really, really good meaningful comments in there, that I would like to get back to them. So they know that it meant something. Right. So then now I’ll get back to them, maybe if I can uninstall them, but everywhere else, everybody else gonna get back to them. Right. And then same with DMS, like all of these accounts, if you want to play the social media game, all of your accounts have to stay alive. In order to stay alive, you have to go you have to have the back and forth the communications the posts, the people actually taking time out of their day to watch it to come in to like to share to follow right so in order for those things to happen, you have to keep your accounts alive and for that to happen you have to post and if you want to do it all it’s impossible.

D.J. Paris 34:33
It isn’t it is impossible and and that’s so what do you so you were talking about when you post your social media content. That’s what you really enjoy. That’s the thing that that it’s uniquely you. And so that’s what you enjoy the most to right?

Gogo Bethke 34:52
Yeah, that is like it’s always been like I don’t like to say it’s my job, but it’s my job in the sense of when I decided to take an avenue Real Estate should not be a broker agent right to actually make money in real estate. I went through the process of cold calling, buying Zillow leads like I’ve never done those but I interviewed others right and they formed areas they bought leads, they cold, call their door knock their, you know all that. And I was like, I’m not doing that. So when I decided to do social media, that is my job, just like a cold caller takes their job seriously, in a cold call form eight to 11 every single morning, I do social media every single day, because that is my job. When because I love it, it doesn’t feel like a job. I truly enjoy doing that. But it’s still a job, I have to stay consistent. And I did for 11 years.

D.J. Paris 35:35
Yeah, it’s amazing. So what we’re really talking about our systems, right, so this is a conversation about having systems. So the first thing is go go said, you get the clipboard, you make the line down the middle red light, green light. First, let’s figure out what parts of your life we can delegate, we can take off your plate. And, and some of those things we’re gonna have to do in person, we just can’t avoid it. Other things, digital things, invisible things, we can do that we can hire that out for people all over the world who would be happy to do it for you at a very reasonable price. And then you just have to give them access and like you said, and then all of a sudden, your time now opens up. It’s a bit of a shift. And it takes it there’s a little bit of a barrier there to break through. Once you do it. I mean, I started doing it years ago, it was a total game changer for me as well. And it’s not that I don’t want to do things for myself. It’s not like I sit around now with all this extra time and just stare at the sky. Yeah, I know, I’m busy. But this there’s so life is really hard. And this is a way to make life just a little bit less hard. Like if you know, every single month, you should be writing. Like Brian Buffini would say, you know, these personal notes, right, Brian Buffini is all about personal notes. But if you if you say well, I know I should be writing 100 personal notes a month, but I’m not doing it, then maybe it’s time to hire somebody to help you do that. It doesn’t mean you don’t write them, it means that somebody can help you make that faster and easier and better. There’s all sorts of things that we can hire out for. And remember, we’re running a business. So let’s

Gogo Bethke 37:25
see, I mean, even like not to create yourself more work to, you know, for a while you’re going to create yourself more work. But eventually you’re going to get to the point where you’re like, I just want to gain an hour back with my kids. Yeah, I just want to sit on the beach for an hour and everybody lose my number. Right? At some point you just gonna have some one to do some time freedom stuff.

D.J. Paris 37:49
I think it’s great. And anyone who even if you’re not on a team, even if it’s just you and you’re the only one practicing, get yourself some help. It’s really it this is the job is too hard without it don’t be an island, right? They say, you know, be be get other. It takes a village as gogo says, so get your tribe. And the good news is we live in a time where we can get our tribe from all over the world and for reasonable prices. So tell us about the the the TC and the virtual assistant platform that you have.

Gogo Bethke 38:26
Yeah, so the TC one is mu TC and that started with the idea that people I go and you know, speak all the time. And I talk about these kinds of things like you know how to make more money and remove things from your plate and grow and yada, yada. And I would get asked all the time about like what TC company do I recommend and I really the TC company that I used for my local team was not taking on any more clients and I was like, I don’t know, I don’t like to recommend companies or systems and processes that I don’t personally use. So it was like okay, I guess it’s time for me to open one. So we do have a company called Smooth TC, you’re more than welcome to check us out. It’s smooth TC, that calm smooth came from the idea of smooth sailing all the way to the closing table right. So just check us out go to smooth tc.com and see if we will be a good fit. And then the the week one you kind of came the same thing we already have the boot camp right so we have the agent attraction boot camp and the social media boot camp. And even in the in both of the boot camps we have a lot of virtual assistant that helps us run it right and so our clients are used to seeing all kinds of or correspondence with all kinds of virtual assistants to the program and so they were always asking us so how can I get my own VA? Can you recommend a VA? How about every company and we would always send everybody back to Upwork because that’s how ours came originally right? And eventually people were just like can you just get me one trained like I don’t want to go through all the trouble of finding them and training them and a cultural differences and an hourly differences and how do I pay them and they were all coming back to us with a million other questions. So we created we clone you and we call you is very similar to all of my other boot camps where it’s a video based training right so I share my knowledge on the employer side of things and all of my ways share Are their knowledge on what they do for me, every single VA has their SOPs written out step by step instructions for every step that they take for me. So then the person who’s going to buy the program, if they decide to, they can literally buy it, own it forever and never have to come back to us to hire another VA, the next VA that they get, they could just go out on the market and say, Oh, you’re an executive assistant. Hey, log in here, watch all these videos. Here’s your SOP two weeks from now start working your job.

D.J. Paris 40:25
I love it. I mean, SOP for everyone listening to standard operating procedure? Yes, sorry. Yeah. So basically, you’re you’re creating videos so that if the virtual assistant doesn’t work out, you can plug somebody new into it. But I think that’s a great place to wrap up. So what we’re really just to recap what we talked about, first, we talked about how much are you worth per hour? What is your rates? What are you worth? And then where should you spend your time? Well, if you don’t have enough time, we just created a way to get you more time by hiring virtual assistants to help I guarantee you can earn back, I would say, at least an hour or two a day, wouldn’t you say?

Gogo Bethke 41:05
Easy? Um, depending on the help you have, right? If you have one person helping you for now, then yeah, it’s an hour. But imagine the growth that you can create for yourself when you have multiple of them right in different positions. Because at first the mistake I made is I hired one and I wanted her to do everything that I do is only one crazy person like me, right? So it’s like imagine creating a bunch of you that they specialize in that one thing, right? Because for example, nowadays, you can start doing things for you that you’re not good at. Like how about trackers that you want but you hate numbers, right? Well hire that person who’s gonna plug all those numbers in there for you. I’m gonna tell you in the end of the month, if you’re positive or negative, where are you blowing money? What are you not making revenue, right? So it’s like, they can do things for you. Not only they can do things for you that you already doing, but now they can start doing things for you that you never had the time to do. Or the talent.

D.J. Paris 42:02
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. This is a great opportunity, everyone go out and consider hiring every single person who’s listening can afford to hire a virtual assistant, I promise you can. And if you if you can, so you just can and think about tasks that are dragging you down and just start slow, come up with a couple of tasks, have them do that. Even if it’s just one hour a day, even if they’re you’re just paying one hour a day wage, that’s an hour a day that you’re gonna get back. So it’s a total no brainer. I’m a huge fan. Gogo. Also, let’s talk about your boot camp. Tell us about your boot camp.

Gogo Bethke 42:40
So go goes with kim.com It started with the social media which we are updating right now actually we are stopped sales for a hot minute until we are updating everything then we start over. Then we have the agent attraction bootcamp. So that one is regarding that one is for agents or teams or team leaders or broker owners that want to grow their teams, right, or downline depending what brokerage they are with. And then we added on the TC company and the VA company so you can actually find everything that I do undergo was with Kim that calm, but also in the same time they each have their own individual company. So those websites and I said this new TC that we clone you they all pretty much need the you know, or what do they say All roads lead to Rome? Yeah, they all lead back to go was was given that karma eventually. Yeah.

D.J. Paris 43:25
I love it. So everyone, go visit Gogo podcast.com, because you get it actually a special discount for listeners of keeping it real podcast. So visit Gogo podcast.com, I promise this will be the incredible investment into your business. Everybody could use a boost in social media. And gogo has already paved the way so you don’t have to try and fail. And you just can learn from all of her trials and tribulations and she already knows what works. And she updates it all the time. I mean, gosh, I don’t know how many iterations of the bootcamp have already happened. But you have added dozens and dozens and dozens of hours since it launched. Just tons and tons of content there. So go visit go go podcast.com And also please follow gogo at on Instagram at gogos real estate that’s Gio, Gio s real estate. And also you can find her on our website, go go Beth key.com BETHKE, so Gog OBIEE thke.com. And check out everything related to go go. And if you want to join her team, if you think that she would be a great mentor to have and she would definitely go to gogo, Beth key.com. And you can find out more about joining her real estate team and she’ll help take your business to the next level. Gogo, thank you so much. Once again. You’ve been with us since the very beginning. We’re honored to have you and we were so thrilled to have you. Thanks for being such a supporter of our show, and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks. Go go.

Gogo Bethke 45:01
Thank you. Thank you

Haley Cutter the founder of Cutter Luxe Living with Compass goes back to the beginning of her career in real estate. Haley discusses why she decided to build a team and how her team is built. Haley discusses what her team does to distinguish themselves from the competition and how they are educating their clients about the shift in the market. Haley also talks about balancing family/personal life and professional life.

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

Haley Cutter can be reached at 774-240-9174 and [email protected].

Please follow Elizabeth on Instagram and Facebook.

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

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

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest 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 producer Haley cutter. Before we get to Haley just a couple of quick reminders please, as always, the best way you can help our show is by telling a friend think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing the success strategies and tips from top producers like Haley send them a link to our website, right which is keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done can be streamed right from a browser, or if the person you’re referring to as a podcast listener, have them pull up any podcast app search for keeping it real, hit the subscribe button and last please leave us a review what other whatever app you might be listening to the show through let us know what you think of the show we read every review and comment and it helps us improve so anyway, enough of all that let’s get on to the main event my conversation with Haley cutter.

Today on the show we have Katie cutter who’s a top 1% realtor and founder of Qatar Lux living with compass in Massachusetts. Now Haley cutter is the founder of Qatar Lux living with Compass after growing up in the Boston area and graduating from Emerson. She began her career working for a Top New York City advertising agency but returned to Boston to get her MBA at Northeastern. Once she graduated she shifted gears to the real estate industry in 2014. She co founded la live in luxury, sorry live in luxury real estate. It probably happens all the time. But let me start that one part over so I don’t screw it up because it is really cool. In 2014. She co founded live in luxury real estate at Douglas Elliman and in 2021 launched Qatar Lux living at Compass as the sole founder and managing broker which is now one of Boston’s top luxury real estate groups. And in December of last year, Qatar Lux living had a record breaking month, so not a year a month with 20 million in closings. This is absolutely incredible. Qatar Lux living serves Boston’s most exclusive downtown neighborhoods and surrounding communities all led by Haley’s driving force for a better client experience. The brokerage is currently expanding also into New Hampshire, and Florida. Please everyone visit visit Haley and her team at Cutter lux.com And that is c u t t e r l u x e.com. Again, Cutter lux.com. And by the way, unbelievable realtor website. I’m always impressed whenever I see a really great one. That’s a good one. Go check it out. Haley, welcome to our show.

Haley Cutter 4:19
Well, thank you so much. It’s such a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

D.J. Paris 4:23
Yeah, I am so excited to talk with you. I am always you know, I’ve been doing these sorts of conversations for about four or five years now. And I never get tired, talking to top producers and finding out what it is they’ve done to get to where they are and what they’re continuing to do. And right now I think it’s particularly interesting time because I was with a couple 100 agents just a few days ago at an event with our local association. And you could feel the stress and tension in the room as people are realtors are it’s tough right now. You guys are crushing it so I’m excited to hear about what you guys are doing. But I’d love to see start at the very beginning and learn more about you because you didn’t you know, your path didn’t necessarily point towards real estate with with your education. So I’m excited to learn how you how you made that transition and why.

Haley Cutter 5:12
Absolutely. So yeah, not at all. I did not grow up thinking that I would ever be in real estate. It was not anything that I dreamed of as a little girl. I went to school I majored in marketing and advertising. Got my undergraduate degree at Emerson, as you had mentioned in Boston. And then I was off to New York City. I worked for a top agency. They’re great worldwide, and Oh, sure. Great, great. You got an account management working hand in hand with their Procter and Gamble team, Pantene Pro V. Had some great mentors, they’re really, really learned a lot. Learn how to interact with different people. You know, it was a great place to be and maybe from Boston on the East Coast, Boston’s a small city, but if people can after they graduate, I think it’s worthwhile for for anybody, even if you’re coming back to Boston to spend a year or two in New York City. It’s just such a eye opening, wonderful global experience.

D.J. Paris 6:02
I agree. I love both cities in Boston is one that my sister, she’s a brand manager and are well, yeah, she now she she’s a CMO. But she was work lived and worked in New York City as well in sort of the ad, advertising and marketing space. And so we used to visit there a lot. And Boston. I didn’t have as many close friends but I have visited several times in the last five years or six years. And boy, it’s just such a wonderful city. Boston is Boston doesn’t get its do because New York is so close. And it gets overshadowed sometimes. But I got I love Boston, it’s just a walkable, amazing city.

Haley Cutter 6:40
You’ve nailed that extremely walkable, it’s got great neighborhoods, they all have their own authentic flair. And it can become home where or sometimes New York might feel too vast. Boston becomes a neighborhood.

D.J. Paris 6:53
Yeah. So how did you make the pivot from from from being sort of in on Madison Avenue, maybe in New York City, making the switch back to to? Well, not just the Boston but of course, to a new career?

Haley Cutter 7:06
Sure. So I ended up coming back home, I really wanted to be closer to my family, there were a few things going on. And it was important to me to be here. So when I came back to Boston, I tried the advertising route. And I found that it just couldn’t compare with New York City. So at that point in time, my my fiance, who’s now my husband, he was in real estate, and I constantly found myself surrounded by him, his friends who were all in real estate, we were talking real estate, you know, every time went out for dinner every time we had a cocktail party, as we’re taking a walk in the park. And and I did enjoy it. And I thought, you know, what, if I can’t beat them, I’m just going to join them, because I was in it.

D.J. Paris 7:41
Well, to add also, I imagine I’m curious, because you’re really a marketer at heart. And that was, you know, your background, your training as well. I’m curious if you as my background is the same. And I’m curious if you ever looked at some of the marketing and the branding that was happening, the advertising in real estate in the realtor world, for example, and thinking I could do a better job of that, or I could have there’s a lots of room for improvement, I think, right.

Haley Cutter 8:09
And we’re going back to to 2008 2009. And all these great schools and apps that we have now where even if you have no advertising experience, you can put together a really cool ad, those didn’t exist. So some of the real estate advertisements just really weren’t that good.

D.J. Paris 8:30
Yeah, we didn’t we didn’t have Canva back then. Right? Like, he just changed the game for everyone who goes, I don’t really know how to use Photoshop and Canva came around and said, Oh, no problem, we can take care of that for you. And now. And now everyone can have cool looking stuff. Without really a design background. But you’re right back then you were really on your own.

Haley Cutter 8:51
You were you absolutely were. So I loved being able to put my advertising and marketing background to work. PR was also an area that I studied, and it was a perfect complement to to the real estate industry.

D.J. Paris 9:05
Yeah, makes makes so much sense. And I would love to hear about, you know, being that. That you’re you’re from that, you know, from the Boston area you guys serve as all of Massachusetts, Massachusetts, we should say. I have been as far west as which is not very far west as far west as Worcester. That is that is. But I know Massachusetts has got a lot more than just Boston in it. But you guys cover so much ground and your team. So tell us, tell us why you decided to build a team. And I always think this is interesting, because and and the reason I’m asking is there’s so many agents right now who are either solo practitioners, or maybe they’re already on a team. And they’re either thinking I want to join another team. Maybe this team isn’t the right fit or they’re not on a team thinking I either want to build my own team, or I want to join an established one I’m curious on on why you decided to build a team

Haley Cutter 10:00
So the reason that I was driven to grow and build a team is that I know my strengths, my strengths are in marketing, they’re an advertising, they’re in sales, but they’re not in so many other different areas. And I think that as Realtors as workers right now, we are not just being called on to go in open the door and show the features and benefits of a property. But, you know, we’re asked to be the financial analyst, and really, really diving deep into to all the trends where the price points, then mapping it out across the board. So finance side operations. When we work with new development clients, we’re partnering with groups that are doing visualizations. So it’s not as if a photographer can come in and just take photos. But we have members on our team that specialize in all these different areas. And my skills, that that’s not where I’m best utilized, and why I like a team and how we build our team is not just oh, you’re gonna sell in downtown Boston, you’re gonna sell in Beacon Hill, but what are the strengths and attributes that you can build? And how can we all be stronger together?

D.J. Paris 11:06
Yeah, that makes it so so the way that you have your team is our predominantly our people, our agents on your team? Do we? Are they do they have different roles? Or how does your team structure?

Haley Cutter 11:18
Sure, so it does differ project to project home to home, but I’ll give an example. So right now, we are in the process of bringing a beautiful, beautiful $6 million plus property to market. It is located in Newton mass, which is directly outside of Austin, one of the suburbs. It’s also abutting the beautiful golf course. And it is in the pre construction stage. So when we even when we pitched the developer, we’re bringing in our team members who specialized in the visualizations, we are bringing in our team members who have different speak different languages than I do. So we have manual, Cantonese speaking, specialists. We’re bringing in our finance team. And then we’re saying okay, so I’m going to be the one who shows the property 99% of the time, but, you know, Catherine is going to be helping and working with our visualization team, which is out of Vancouver. And interestingly, the team that working with this time is out of Poland, right. So we’re global it here. But no one person can manage all this and do it really, really well.

D.J. Paris 12:22
Right, it takes a village. Yeah.

Haley Cutter 12:27
What I’ve recognized and even in the last year is sometimes, you know, the question will be on a pitches, well, you know, I know that you have a big team, are you going to be the only one and what my response is, is, you know, I will show your home 99% The time but but my team, we are all stronger together than we are apart. And they obviously you know, I certainly can’t speak Mandarin and Cantonese, I cannot get behind the firewall on WeChat marketing homes. So, you know, we’re really, we’re giving the benefits of all of our team members and explaining why why we work together. And you know, the CEO of a company, he’s not doing every single job, but for whatever reason, our clients but they’ve worked for a while expecting that Realtors wear all these hats.

D.J. Paris 13:12
And I teams are a relatively new phenomenon. So I guess a lot of people had the experience of I had somebody who was a realtor, they seemed it seemed like they did everything and and now we have to almost resell our clients on this team base structure. Because you’re right, there’s there’s that fear that the client is going to think I’ve become so big, and I can’t really give them the personalized attention that they think they deserve. They’re gonna feel, and you’re right. So having that answer, ready and loaded. And of course, what you say makes perfect sense.

Haley Cutter 13:43
And it really is how we operate. You know, day in and day out, if you look at the projects that we take on, we’re putting the best team in place for every project to market and sell it and we do, I’d say probably 70% of our business is on the left side and about 30% on the buyer side. But on the left side, it is so so important to have the right people in place because you know, the social media, the brochures, the lifestyle videos, writing up the narrative, this is not like one, one person is not going to be the best fit for all of that. So my team and she previously she wrote for Bravo. So when we have to write narratives and property descriptions, she’s been a writer. Yeah, I can read. It’s not going to be as good as what Jen can write. That’s the reality of it. No, I know my strengths are and I think that my job as a team lead is really to understand the strengths that my team members bring and to utilize them appropriately.

D.J. Paris 14:44
Such a great answer and it’s such an important answer and what what I what I think is because I really want to get to this idea of luxury and luxury and working developments because I was in a Having it was at a breakfast with our local association. A couple days ago, a couple 100 agents in the room, mostly younger agents not younger, so much in age, although some of them were, but certainly younger or newer to the business and the whole, we had some speakers, some top Realtors here in Chicago, who were talking about luxury luxury rentals in this case, and the room was packed and standing room only because everybody who isn’t in luxury, who’s new to the business goes, I want to be in luxury. Can we dispel some myths about being in luxury? In other words, what I want to make sure our audience understands is what it’s really like to be in to be a luxury agent to work in that space. And it you know, while it’s something that I think a lot of people aspire to, I don’t think it’s the right fit for a lot of agents, would you agree?

Haley Cutter 15:50
I would agree. And to me luxury, it’s not about $1 amount. It’s not about wealth, but it’s about living a lifestyle that you feel uniquely abundant. And so when we’re marketing a property, whether it’s a luxury property or a $500,000 property, we are giving all of our clients the same white glove service, because I think that they deserve it.

D.J. Paris 16:11
Yeah, it i Absolutely. Believe that treating, you know, each each client, the same giving them a luxury experience, not only will of course, net you referrals and repeat business, but also will attract the I have the luxury buyers and sellers to write because that’s what they’re expecting and looking for from an agent. And also I want to also real ask you about competition, because obviously, there’s a tremendous number of agents in not only just the Boston area, but in the whole state. And of course, you’re in competition, I’m sure a lot of times with particularly with listings you do 70% of your business or listings, I’m curious, how often are you up against a multiple sort of interview? Sort of experience where they’re interviewing, you know, several different teams? Is, is that a common? Is that common for you? And if if it is, how do you go about distinguishing yourself from some of the other really amazing teams in your area?

Haley Cutter 17:09
Sure. So I think that my personal business, about 70% of it right now is either repeat clients or referrals. And thankfully, we’re it’s not necessarily an interview, they want to take the time to make sure that they they get to know me, they understand the process, but usually there’s not somebody we’re competing with. When we do really, once again, I think that cutter Luxe living utilizing all of our team members best strengths and grading the best team is nobody else is doing that here in Boston right now. So we have people who are the team members, they have the same role, right? So they’re gonna go in and they both go and the photographer comps, and they’re both fair. And they both go and they do the showing, because honestly, you know, team member a and team member B, they both feel that they should be there. So but when I started to restructure and rebrand Qatar Lux living, I looked at the way how we used to do things, and I thought, how can we improve upon it. So right now, I if I’m there meeting a photographer, I do not want another member of my team to be there, I want them to be working on visualizations, doing an analysis, making phone calls, it just, it doesn’t behoove anyone. So that’s how what I see right now in the Boston marketplace is most of the teams, they’re still operating almost as one unit. But there’s two three people, and fine, like you’re brand new, and you want to shadow and of course, that’s appropriate to do so. But I, I’ve really spent a lot of time this past year, I thinking long and hard about just the utilization of time, and how we can make sure that we have time for ourselves and our self care and our families so that then we can give back and really give 200% to our clients. Because at the level that I was operating at, you know, we did 150 transactions last year, not all sales, some rentals, but it’s impossible to do all that and you know, have an amazing family life and, you know, see your friends and enjoy hobbies, and all those things are really, really important. So just trying to do things a little differently this year.

D.J. Paris 19:16
I think it makes so much sense. You’re right. There are so many teams that currently exist that are really just a bunch of individual agents that get together. They keep doing their individual business, and I’m not here to say there’s anything wrong with that. Not at all. That’s perfectly lovely.

Haley Cutter 19:30
And it worked. It did.

D.J. Paris 19:34
But I really think you know, what you said is so important. I think as a as a society, I think, you know, we used to think things like multitasking worked and being a jack of all trades work. And then the science is now more available to everyone that is really, really clear that it does not work as effectively if you try to do everything well. There’s just a lot of things you’re not going to be good at. And you had talked about, hey, I’m a marketing person. I’m a brand Ending I’m an I’m an advert ad person. I know that side of it. I don’t I’m not a visualizations person, you know, and I, there’s certain your

Haley Cutter 20:09
I understand it. But you know, my time is not best spent doing that.

D.J. Paris 20:13
Right? Yeah. So I almost think, how did you ended up determining what was the best use of your time? Because I know right now that we have a lot of listeners who do everything themselves, and are trying to figure out, I’m not on a team, or a team structured like yours? How might somebody go about thinking, okay, maybe this part of the segment of my business isn’t the best use of my time, and not what I’m best at?

Haley Cutter 20:38
Sure. So I think for a solo agent, that the best opportunity, and the quickest would just be to outsource. So perhaps hiring on somebody to help with your marketing or administration, so start little by little, and those opportunities are available to everyone. And then I’d say if you’re a solo agent, and you’re looking to build a team, or approach it as if you’re building a business, you need a CEO, you need a CFO, you need a marketing person, you need someone who’s going to help out with a public relations, maybe maybe you just have three agents that all they do is sell and they sell really, really well. But if an event needs to be executed to promote the property, you recognize that that’s not their skill set, and you have team members that you can shift and actually in the pay accordingly.

D.J. Paris 21:19
Yeah, makes, again, makes so much sense. I am curious right now being that we’re in a shifting market, in particular, we know everyone listening, you know, pretty much everywhere in the country, here, at least the United States, we’re dealing with, of course, raising rising interest rates. So buyers price points are shifting, oftentimes not for the better. We have, of course, inventory issues, not as much on the market. And right now I imagine. There’s just a lot of client management that has to be done and expectation management and helping somebody understand the turbulence of what’s what’s happening. I’m curious on how you think about having those conversations and what you’re, you know, what you’re doing, you know, with your clients, when there’s the buyer clients, for example, which I know not isn’t the primary part of your personal business, but you know, still something you have to service and what are how are you talking to clients about gosh, guys, there’s just not much out right now. How are you educating your clients about the current conditions? So

Haley Cutter 22:25
when it comes to the buyer side, we are constantly speaking to the mortgage lenders, the banks and saying, what’s it as well as the listing agents? What’s making a difference? Why is client a getting the home over client B. And the way that offers are presented now have changed significantly in the last 12 months in the last six months, there are new vehicles and tools available to certain mortgage lenders where rather than just having a pre approval letter, you could submit an offer that’s completely gone through the underwriting process. So that did not exist, at least I’m sure Massachusetts in the pre COVID market. So it’s pretty amazing when you just look in, really these banks and these brokerages, they’re trying to figure out ways to make their clients shine and in winter homes, they know how important it is to them. So we do we stay on on top of our game, and we’re in contact with the mortgage brokers with the banks. Sometimes we’ve even asked not sometimes across the board, if we know that our clients are in a competitive situation right now, when we’re submitting the offer, we’re submitting a letter from the mortgage broker that is explaining, you know, client a has already gone completely through our underwriting process, their funds are strong, they’re putting down less, or they have more means and they’re even putting down so if something happens, and there’s an appraisal gap, so what an appraisal gap is right is if if a home right now is selling for a million, but the comps in the area really only support an $800,000 sale, then when a bank appraiser comes in he might only appraise it for $800,000. So it’s now up to the buyer to cover that difference. So we’re assuring the sellers that our clients are able to do that.

D.J. Paris 24:08
appraisal, appraisal Gap coverage is huge right now. Very common.

Haley Cutter 24:13
Absolutely. And we’re we’re setting the expectation for the buyers that this is what you need to do and right now we are in a market that in the HUD suburbs unfortunately, you’re waiving the inspection, and that’s a little scary if you don’t have any knowledge you’re not a contractor I’m not I go into home and I don’t know what’s in working order and what’s not of course, if I turn on the light and it doesn’t turn on I know it’s broken. But you know what’s going on between the walls so you know what an open house is actually the perfect opportunity if you would like to bring in an inspector your own Ah, that’s brilliant. I never thought ever it may be there’s nothing wrong with doing that. At least not here in Massachusetts. I’m sure every market is different. So I have seen in in our clients, our team members have physically brought inspectors. They’ve paid them for the day. Hey, we’re gonna go to open houses today. Please come with us. You know, no If there’s if there’s anything major, right, if it’s what’s going to nickel and dime right now, but But is this home structurally sound? Do I know what I’m getting into? Those are all really, really important questions for a buyer to ask. And they have the right to know that.

D.J. Paris 25:14
That’s a really great boy I have we’ve done almost 400 episodes, nobody has ever given that specific tip. And I want to just say it again, for anyone that might have not heard it, which was so, so smart, which is if you are in a situation where you’re having to waive the appraisal, or the inspection, you can if there’s an open house opportunity, you can just bring someone with you, do you ever get pushback from the listing agent, or, or as the listing agent and or whoever’s running the open house maybe not even aware, do you sort of do it on the quiet or

Haley Cutter 25:47
they think that they are aware, it’s not something that’s hidden. I know if we’re on the other side, we welcome it. And if I’m on the listing side, it’s not that I have a problem with an inspection, I want a buyer to go in with their eyes wide open. But the problem is, is that if you have six seven plus offers, sometimes 20 offers to wait the day or two, for the inspector to come in to get the inspection report some of those buyers, they’re going to find other places you’ve already lost them. So it really comes down to timing, the sellers just want to move fast. They want to know if it’s priced appropriately in the suburbs right now that if they go to market on a Friday, and they do open houses Friday, Saturday, Sunday, they’ll have an accepted offer, you know, early in the week, and they can they can make their next move, they can figure out where they’re going next.

D.J. Paris 26:33
It’s really interesting. Now what happens in a situation? And when I say what happens, I’m saying how do you, I would think a big fear as an agent would be when you aren’t able to bring an inspector and appraiser to an open house, maybe there just isn’t an open house opportunity. And you’re not able to get someone in there to really look but you do have to make that concession on on the offer, because you’re competing with other people that have already made that concession. So if that comes up, does that ever come up? And if so, how would you talk to the client, because now the client might have some additional fear about gosh, now I’m really not going to know what I’m getting into?

Haley Cutter 27:10
Sure. So maybe at that point, just go in with your eyes extremely wide open. If this is an older home, you know, look in the basement, look for signs of water damage, look for signs of termites, for any kind of you know, rodents, bugs, etc. Take pictures, open the bulkhead. If it’s a newer home, you know constructed here in the last 10 years, I worry less about that. But once again, just go in with your eyes wide open and look less at the shiny fixtures, the lights, the appliances, but but really the structure of the home, you want to make sure that the property that you’re purchasing is structurally sound. And if it’s not that you have a good understanding of the cost that it’s going to take to get it there.

D.J. Paris 27:51
Yeah, and I also think too, I’m curious to get your thoughts that if you’re a solo practitioner, and you’re not yet super familiar with what inspectors and appraisers actually look at, structurally, go, go hang out with one for a day or spend some time with them or pay them for their time and say, Hey, in case I can’t get a hold of you, or I need to just you know, if I’m not able to bring you here somewhere, what are like 10 things I should be looking for every time I go into a home. And I imagine that would be a great little just series of things that every agent should learn?

Haley Cutter 28:21
Of course, yeah, that’s a good question. You know, what I’m gonna call Lenny Lucario. To be sure and ask him he’s the best right now is, you could if you wanted to hire inspector to go out with you for a few hours on a Saturday morning, they have time right now, it was interesting, at the beginning of COVID, you could not book an inspector, they were just so booked. But now with everybody waiving the inspection, they are available, they would be more than happy to spend a morning you know, an evening going to some open houses with a potential buyer.

D.J. Paris 28:48
I mean, I would pay somebody $500 for a few hours of their time to do that, because it would it’ll end up it’ll end up just differentiating myself from all the other agents that exist. I want to talk about balance because you had mentioned this earlier. So we’re gonna I’m gonna change topics because so many of I, you know, I don’t have children, I don’t I have a girlfriend who lives with me. But that’s the extent of my account my complicated family life. But of course, you have children, you have a husband, you have a career not only as an agent, but as a as an as a managing broker, as a team leader. And then of course, your own individual business. How do you what what do you do to stay balanced so that you’re not burning the candle at both ends? And you know, being that you want to be there of course, for your family and for your team? And for your clients? How do you figure out how to how to structure all of that? Sure. So

Haley Cutter 29:41
no one’s perfect. And this is definitely an area that that I I worked at, I work every single day, but I do get up really early. I take time for myself in the morning. So I tend to rise about five o’clock and if I’m not going to work out Pilates or yoga then I’m just taking a nice walk in in my neighborhood and clearing my head so that when my children get up and really start their day, and they’re running, and they’re crazy, and they’re active, because they’re nine and 11, then I have the the energy and the mindset to welcome that. Whereas if I was just waking up at the same time as them, I wouldn’t have a chance to reset and refresh.

D.J. Paris 30:18
That’s a good point. So you’re like a big fan. For anyone listening? There’s a great book that a lot of realtors have read called the Miracle Morning. It’s not a specifically a real estate related book, but it is about how to take those first hours of the day for yourself. And, and, and do that before the chaos all begins. I’m curious about boundaries. And when I mean boundaries, I don’t mean personal boundaries more about work boundaries. So for you only because this question comes up so often, you know, if you get a text from a client late in the evening, do you have do you have special rules around? You know, if it’s after a certain time I, you know, I don’t worry about it, or are you Uh, hey, no matter if I’m awake, I’m responding. You know, what are your thoughts about

Haley Cutter 31:01
it, I’ll respond, but I also go to bed really early. And my team members know that. So sometimes, if they’re texting at 9pm, I might be up. But by 930, I’m asleep. And I’m up really early in the morning, I have a lot of responsibilities. And I don’t feel guilty about that.

D.J. Paris 31:16
No, and nor should you, I just think it can be very difficult for agents sometimes to feel like it’s okay to tell their clients, hey, I’m available from, you know, usually from this time to this time, if I’m up, I’ll certainly respond after that, if I’m not first thing in the morning. But so many agents have a hard time setting those boundaries with their clients. Do you feel that that’s appropriate to, to set expectations early on with the client so that they’re so that their expectations are, are in alignment with what you’re able to provide? Thank you.

Haley Cutter 31:47
And I know a lot of brokers that will say I’m available between x and x time. And if you set that if you set the framework in the beginning, then I don’t foresee any problems with a client. Yeah. That’s what I think I could get better at. And I noticed that sometimes people say like, oh, I respond to emails between X and X hours. I like the idea of it practically, I have not been able to find a way to make it work. But who knows, maybe one day

D.J. Paris 32:12
I I’m laughing because I have the same problem. I’m like, I know I shouldn’t be checking my emails all day long. I know, it’s not good use of my time. But it’s it’s addictive. And it feels good to immediately respond.

Haley Cutter 32:24
I don’t want to call these nines, like when I fall behind that gets overwhelming. Yeah, if I can just keep up throughout the course of the day, and it’s okay.

D.J. Paris 32:33
Well, I have a question I’m going to ask. And then before you answer, I want to I have to do a quick sponsorship read. But my question is about team members now. And I know you have a large team. And when you think about adding a team member, I’m curious to know what qualities and somebody you’re looking for not so much their skills, because obviously you’re going to you pick people with very specific skills. I’m more interested in qualities, because I am sure so many agents want to work with your team want to join your team, you guys are one of the most successful teams in all of Massachusetts. So I’m curious on what you look for, because I think that’ll help. And again, you’re you’re one team and there’s millions of teams that look for different things. But I’m curious on the qualities you look for in a in somebody that you’re considering to join your team. And I think that will help our audience understand what somebody at your level might be interested in. But before we do that, I want to take pause for a quick moment to talk about our episode sponsor. It’s one of my favorite companies out there in the real estate tech space, which is called follow up boss. And after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors all over the country for this podcast, the CRM that is talked about by more of our guests than any other Believe it or not, it is 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 with less effort and don’t take my word for it. Robert slack who runs the number one team in the United States for real estate agents use his follow up boss and he has built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss also integrates with 250 existing external systems. So if you’re already using other pieces of technology for your real estate business, no problem follow up boss integrates with them you keep those tools too. But here’s the best part. Follow up boss has seven day a week support. We know real estate happens at nights and weekends right so they are available so you’ll get the help you need when you need it. Get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM and for a limited time, they are offering keeping it real podcast listeners a 30 day free trial which is twice as much time as they give everybody else. So oh and by the way, no credit card required. So they are so confident you’re going to keep using their systems and you will once you try it that you’ve they’re gonna give you 30 free days and then they’re going to ask for payment if you want to keep going but only if you visit the special link which is follow up boss.com forward slash real file 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 question. So when you’re looking to expand your team, what qualities do you look for in an agent?

Haley Cutter 35:16
So first and foremost is character, because if I’m bringing somebody onto my team, then they are indirectly but also directly linked to me. So that that is the number one trait that I am looking for in an agent. We want people who are go getters and are gonna go the extra mile, roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty, it’s not all what you see on selling sunset and the stiletto heels and walking around and pointing out the attributes of a condo, we’ve sold nine and a half million dollar condos, they’re beautiful, that’s great. But that probably is 1% of what we’re doing on any given day. So sometimes we’re moving furniture, and we might be moving furniture up the stairs. So it’s, it’s not all glitz and glam. And you have to work really, really hard and be willing to put your time in. Also, our team, we are large right now. And it’s extremely important to me that any new team member that we bring on has compatible. It really is competitive with our team has complementary skill sets isn’t directly competing with anybody. And it’s going to fit in and feel welcome. So something that we’ve done in this didn’t exist initially. But now if anybody does want to join our team, and initially I’ll have a conversation and interview, if you will. And if I think that the person would be a good fit for our team, our next step is that they come in and they attend one of our team meetings. So we meet at 11 o’clock every Wednesday on Newbury Street, it’s the one time that I’m in the Boston office, because otherwise I’m just running around home to home, showing and selling and everything else. So it’s a good opportunity. And we roundtable it’s really fun. Wednesday is my favorite day of the week. And, you know, first is just, you know, observe, see what’s going on? Like, does this seem too crazy for you? Or is it like these people? I like them that are my tribe, you know, where do you feel? And then after that the team, we as a team, not just me, but it’s Hey, you know, Sarah came in? And what does everybody think? Do we think that she’d be a fit? And the Fit goes two ways, too, right? So if we feel you’re a fit, like you also have to feel that you’re fit. And then we’re taking it even a step further. And until we formally onboard anyone, we’ll have a trial. So based on what’s going on, if someone’s traveling, maybe it’s a little extended, if they’re going to spend a lot of time with us, maybe it’s long. But that’s an opportunity for you to come in to go to our events shadow me or any of the team members on listings to help out and and then feel like is does this feel right for you? Because it’s so important right now that the team members we’re bringing in, we need we need the team to be strong. We’re currently strong. And we just want to make sure that if we’re adding it’s the right person, and it’s the right fit. We’re not putting on a team member just to get your ear, you know, you’re, what $10 million in sales that that’s, that’s irrelevant.

D.J. Paris 38:14
It’s irrelevant, and it doesn’t help the team necessarily,

Haley Cutter 38:17
it doesn’t. Do you have a skill that you can offer that we do not have? So when Catherine came in, and she could speak Cantonese, and Mandarin, and she has an amazing background, and she’s posting things on WeChat, that’s something that I can’t contribute. But that alone would not have got Katherine on our team, the fact that she fit in and everybody felt that are comfortable with her that she was willing to do anything like that’s what got her hired.

D.J. Paris 38:43
Yeah, it’s everything you said, just makes so much sense. And it’s a really great education for our listeners who are thinking about approaching a team and saying, Hey, I would like to, to work with you, I, I love this idea of you know, once they sort of get the initial Hey, we like this person, then it’s like, Okay, we’re gonna try, we’re gonna do a trial period. And that probably weeds out a lot of people as well, because there’s just not as many agents that are willing to do that. And I think that’s a really smart way to make sure that you have somebody who’s committed serious, coachable, because you’re doing your you’re making sure that that those people best represent Luxe living.

Haley Cutter 39:24
And probably the final step to as if somebody shadowed for a month plus whatever we feel is appropriate, if I’ll sit down with them, and I’m not just asking them what their goals and expectations are. I’m asking them what the goals and expectations are for me and for the team. Because I do not want to be bringing anybody on that I’m not meeting their goals and expectations. And I think that that’s a really important question that often is not asked. And I don’t even know if the agents Give It Thought until you ask. Because if somebody was expectation of me is that every morning, you know, we’re going to have a phone call for An hour, and then we’re going to recap for an hour in the evening. I apologize that I just don’t have time for that. Right? Right. But if it’s like once a week, we want to sit down, you want to do goal setting, if they want the opportunity to shadow, great, I’ll let you know. But but sometimes somebody might come in and they think in their head that their goals and expectations are going to be met by you, as a team lead or by other team members. And I just want to be sure that we’re all on the same page. You know, we take the professional photos, we have the ads and all the publications, the last thing I want is to put something out there, and then somebody’s you know, no, no longer part of the team.

D.J. Paris 40:34
Sure. I think you said something really, also really important, which is agents, you can ask those team leaders, hey, here’s what I’m looking to accomplish. You know, can you help me get there, as opposed to saying, here’s why I’d be a great fit for your team, which of course, you shouldn’t say as well, but also say, here’s what I’m looking for. And I’m really looking to accomplish this. Can you help me do XY and Z, and I imagine, you know, you get calls from from agents who are just looking for lead source and are unable to do that on their own. And so they’re like, Well, if I join a team, I might get some leads. But until you understand what that person really needs, and you you might not be willing or able to do that. But a lot of times you’re right, the agent doesn’t say, here’s what I need, right? There needs to be a fit. I think that’s really important is ask for what you need. And in you know, it’s okay. If the I mean, it’s like I, we get these calls, too, because I handle people who are interested in joining our firm, and we get that question a lot. I always say what are you looking for? What do you want in a firm? And if they immediately it’s like, Oh, I really need a lot of leads. I’m like, we are not the right fit. I wish we I wish we could do that. But the truth is, we don’t. And I’d rather you know that right now. And then otherwise join us. And then you know, photos, all the all of the things and then you’re like, oh, that person isn’t happy here and they leave or we’re not happy with them. And I would love to talk with the last thing I want to talk about is something you said earlier, which is about your referral. 70% of your business is referral repeat, you know, a business. What are you doing? This is what I’m always interested in, after the sale. What are you and your team doing to stay in touch with? With clients? Maybe they just bought a home and you’re like this person and this is their forever home? Or this? They’re going to be there for a long time? What are you doing to still stay, at least in the back of someone’s mind as they progress when they’re not needing your services right away?

Haley Cutter 42:33
Sure. So for us, it’s always relationship, not a transaction. So when the home has closed for still, we’re going to call we’re going to send cards, we do a weekly newsletter. And that’s just an opportunity for us to be top of mind. And sometimes if a client purchases in downtown Boston, they might not know that we have two new listings coming on and dentists on Cape Cod, but when they get our newsletter, they’re like, oh my gosh, really? I didn’t know that you service that. And you know what? My brother? He’s thinking of buying a house on the cake? Can you help him? So it’s little things like that. So some of it is just putting them on the newsletter list. And of course, if somebody wants to unsubscribe, it’s their right to do so. Please, by all means do but most people say how much they enjoy it. Yeah, and just if you were calling them, you know, every day, you’re not going to call them every day. But you know, maybe pick up the phone every few months. Or if you know that somebody really enjoys baseball, when the season starts, they like oh my gosh, you want on the baseball game? Like let’s meet up. Just keep it real. And don’t be fake about it.

D.J. Paris 43:34
I think that’s right. I think people can sniff out in authenticity, or non authenticity. I’m not sure what’s the proper way to say it. But But yes, I think being authentic and being gracious and also thoughtful, like in your case, every week sending them what Brian Buffini value,

Haley Cutter 43:55
they probably you know, they’re busy. They don’t want to hear from you every week. But every now and then, well, I’ve got a funny story. So go ahead. We have a client who has become a friend. But when we were initially looking for properties, and she must have purchased in Beacon Hill about five years ago now, we were touring some spectacular homes for five $6 million plus and for whatever reason in the Back Bay. A lot of the homes we went into, they were just staged a little funny. So there was this one that there was actual stuffed cats arranged on every bed with a cup fake milk in front of it. Oh, no. So she was like, oh my goodness, Haley, like, you gotta get me out of this house now like she’s flipping. He’s like, no, no, no, no, no. And they also had creepy dolls. So to this day, if she goes into a gift shop and there’s like a cat joke, like she’ll take a picture and send it to me and I’ll take a picture and send it to her. So it’s just that’s authentic. That’s real.

D.J. Paris 44:49
It is. It is funny. Realtors get to sort of see how the other half live sub dives do right. We’re like, wow, that person painted a sky on their ceiling with clouds and Okay. Hey, are there taxidermy? Yeah, it was, it was bizarre. But those those experiences really bite bind you to other people, right? Because you share that sort of intimate, funny experience. And then it becomes kind of a like a lifetime, a lifelong joke, right? Yeah.

Haley Cutter 45:18
Gifts to like, it’s not just me giving them to her, she’s giving them to me. Shared commonality,

D.J. Paris 45:25
I think it’s a great, great place to wrap up being authentic and, and having fun with with your clients and just being being yourself. And, above all, you know, you demonstrate and your team demonstrates professionalism. And I think that is, at the end of the day, what seals the deal with keeps everyone happy and wanting to work with you. Because I know there’s a lot of people I really like and I’m connected to, but I don’t trust their skill set. Right. And you guys do everything, you’re authentic. You’re a well oiled team, and you have really strong, not just you, but everyone on your team is really, really skilled. And I think I think that’s just an incredible combination. Obviously, you’re having incredible success as a result.

Haley Cutter 46:11
We also have a lot of fun along the way.

D.J. Paris 46:14
Yes, yeah, I get that as well. I totally, totally believe it. Just even looking at some of the photos, everyone in your in your staff, you can tell when people smile just for Team photos, but maybe not that way. You can see it in the photos, your photos, everyone looks legitimately happy. And you just said hanging out with everybody on Wednesdays when their team meeting. That’s a really, that’s your most fun thing to do. So, you know, boy seems like a wonderful environment. I want to to wrap up by saying if anyone out there if any of our listeners have have clients who may be vacation out in Massachusetts, of course, take QA there’s lots of wonderful places on the East Coast. Or if you have clients that are relocating to Boston or anywhere in Massachusetts, Haley and her team would love the opportunity to chat with you. Or if you just happen to be a listener and you’re not a realtor, but you live in that in the in the Massachusetts area. Or if you’re moving there, definitely check with with Qatar Lux living, they would love the opportunity to chat with you see if you’d be a good fit. And if they would be a good fit. And the best way to reach them. Obviously, you can go right to their website, which is Qatar lux.com. And that’s Lux with an E at the end Qatar lux.com. With compass in in Massachusetts. And Hailey is if anyone else is wants to reach out to you, is there a better way they should touch base? Oh, so

Haley Cutter 47:31
Haley dot cutter is my handle on Instagram as well as Facebook and or [email protected].

D.J. Paris 47:37
Wonderful. And we will have links to Haley’s Instagram and Facebook in our show notes. If you’re listening on a podcast app, just look in the show notes. And you can follow her on social and contact her that way. Haley, thank you so much. We are so grateful for your time we know how busy oh my gosh, you guys are so busy. And you took the time to really help our audience improve their business. And we are so grateful for you for that. So on behalf of the audience, we say thank you. On behalf of Haley and myself, this is actually Memorial Day weekend when we’re recording. So Haley, I want to hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend. Also hope all of our audience enjoys the holiday. By the time most of you here this Memorial Day be long gone. But I hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend and we will see everybody on the next episode. Oh, one last thing please tell a friend about this episode. Think of one other agent that in your office that you know that could benefit from hearing this great conversation with Haley send them a link to it. You know there’s a million ways to do that. So please let them know about our show. Haley, thank you so so much and we will say thank you so grateful to have you and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks anyway. Thank you bye guys.