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

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

In this episode Joel talks about rates and the importance of understanding of where the rates were, where they are and where they’re going. Joel also discusses how agents should talk to their buyers about rates and where should agents go to get information on the lending world. Last, Joel and DJ discuss the weekly newsletter Joel sends out and how you can also do something similar.

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.

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Joel Schaub at guaranteed rate. As a realtor it’s important to partner with only the most trusted name in mortgage lending. Joel has 1000s of satisfied clients and gives $1,500 of his commission. Back to your buyers on every closing. He is known for his ability to close even complex deals start to finish in only 14 days to learn what 1000s of others already know. Make a note to call Joel at 773-654-2049 or email [email protected] Guaranteed Rate is an equal housing lender licensed in all 50 States Consumer Access Number 2611. And now on with the show.

Welcome to another episode of the largest podcast they buy real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show today once again, is our monthly series called Learn with a lender with our favorite lender, Joel Schaub with guaranteed rate. Now Joel is the vice president of lending at guaranteed rate. He’s been doing loans at a very high level since 2003. And he’s got to that level because of what he does specifically for agents, which is that he gives back part of his commission to the buyer on every transaction now last year alone, and then we’re now in 2022. So in 2021, Joe gave back over $400,000 in closing costs to buyers who worked with him and that put Joe’s volume in the top 1/10 of 1% of lenders nationwide. out of 400,000 loan officers in the country. Joel is ranked number 137. Last year he did 611 transactions, just to let you know what a jump that was the year prior he did 535. So he did 611 transactions last year help that many families his highest amount ever for one year and it was just shy of $250 million. Now if you’re looking for a loan officer, we cannot more highly recommend Joel he’s the very best we’ve ever worked with. Joel can be reached at his email, which is Joel J [email protected]. So [email protected] Or you can shoot him a text message or call him at 773-654-2049. Also, as a reminder, guaranteed rate is licensed in all 50 states they can help you no matter where your your client is, let’s say hello to the biggest Cubs fan. I know Joel shop. Hey, Joel. Hey,

Joel Schaub 2:41
thanks so much DJ, when I hear those numbers. It even surprises me but none of the accolades really matter. I really like coming on giving back and really having a good conversation with you and helping agents all across the country, understand mortgages and understand what their clients are going through, when they go speak to their banks, and how they can help them just get one transaction done easier.

D.J. Paris 3:06
It is it is such an important part of the job. And I think real estate agents, lenders or loan officers. You know, all of this can be done without talking to a human, right, there are real estate companies where you can buy real estate without ever talking to an agent, or you can certainly get loans without ever talking to an actual person. But it’s such a complicated and complex process, especially emotionally. So intellectually, there’s a lot to know. But then emotionally, there’s just a lot to navigate. And so, you know, I think what separates you from from all the other loan officers that I’ve had experience with in the past is you really take the time to to educate the client to make sure that the agent knows what’s going on. And, and again, I’m sure that if coming on this show, you’re now doing it nationwide to you know, 10s of 1000s of people are going to hear this. So I really love the fact that you come on because anyone can go look up rates, anyone could go look up real estate, but to talk to somebody who’s knowledgeable that can educate you is more rare than it should be. But it is really, really important. So we appreciate it.

Joel Schaub 4:16
A lot of buyers you’re exactly right. I’m glad you said that. They go online and they can shop around and most buyers DJ, they think, you know, 90% of buyers think they fit right into the box, they have a good job and their income is right. So they can go to an all online mortgage lender. Right? When in fact 90% of files don’t fit in the box. Okay. 90% of them actually need a human touching somebody to actually teach help and educate them so that it does go smooth, because when it is all online and it is all technologically driven. There’s nobody there on the other end so agents know this, the letters that are being presented with somebody who’s actually local in their market. It really works a lot better for an Office perspective, than if it’s just a big mega bank from somebody out in state. And buyers feel the same way

D.J. Paris 5:09
too. Yeah, it is, it is interesting. I know I’ve even over the years when I’ve owned property, whenever I thought to refinance, I would sometimes fill out some of those online forms, just to sort of see what would come back. And rarely did I get a phone call, sometimes, you know, I would get emails and maybe one phone call, but But it was amazing how hard it was sometimes to to even get to a human. So I really I know that your clients appreciate how accessible you are, and and how you can really help guide somebody you guided me through through my loan, which was amazing and really helped me understand. And I’m in the industry, and I needed help. And so I imagine all of the all of the rest of us who have clients need that exact same help. So let’s let’s talk about, we don’t talk a lot about rates, which is really interesting, because of course, when I first when we first started working together, I thought, Oh, we’re going to have this conversation always about rates, which of course, is interesting. But you tend to focus on more business building activities, which I think is is probably even more valuable. But today, we do want to talk about rates specifically, because we have seen a slight uptick in the in the average 30 year rate. So can you talk a little bit about what’s going on in the market, what agents need to know and maybe what they need to talk to their buyers and maybe even sellers about

Joel Schaub 6:27
headlines, if you look at it right now, say mortgage rates have surged, using the word surge right there saying that mortgage rates have jumped, mortgage rates have skyrocketed all these terms, right that you’re seeing when you go to CNBC and CNN and they’re not wrong, but we need to take a step back and get an understanding of where they were, where they are, and where they’re going. Okay, in terms of rates, so on average, right now, your 30 year fixed rate is hovering around three and a half percent, for a great client putting down a good sized downpayment, or they’re still rates below 3%. Of course, they come with shorter terms or adjustable rate periods, of course, in the future will rate to be above this most likely. Okay, so let’s just get an idea right now as to where they were, so that we know where we are. And if I’m an agent, I can speak with some confidence, right? Last year, we know that mortgage rates were in the twos It was great. Okay. Now that the New Year is here, what we’ve seen is mortgage rates move up to that three and a half percent range. And agents are asking me, they said, well, the Feds haven’t raised rates yet. Wire rates up already. Right? You’ve seen agents ask this. Yep. And it’s not when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates? Do they call all the mortgage companies and say, Hey, reminder, raise your rates today, we just raised ours. When the Fed speaks, and they say that they’re going to raise rates, the markets react right away. And that’s what we saw this year, DJ in the beginning of the year, we saw six consecutive days where the mortgage rates grinded higher, from just over 3.1 to five to almost three and a half percent.

D.J. Paris 8:17
But keeping in perspective, it’s still I mean, the idea of even having a three and a half percent loan is incredible, in credible still, and something to keep in perspective, because inflation, the most recent numbers was that, you know, inflation rose about 7%. Last year, which is amazing. I mean, that is a huge number that is a big number. But to go from three to three and a half is still pretty, pretty reasonable for for buyers, correct.

Joel Schaub 8:51
For most payments that we’re looking at, on your average, maybe it changes the payment on a $300,000 place by $60, or $70. Once you start getting up into the clients that are borrowing north of a million dollars, yes, this will have an impact of 100 or $200, every single month. But if 100 or $200, makes or breaks you you shouldn’t be buying a $1.8 billion home. Okay, where are rates gonna go? So we know where we were, we know where we’re at. And this is the takeaway right now, for agents. The biggest increases are already here. Okay, we’ve seen the big run up. So for the rest of the year, on average, this is about where we’re going to be. Maybe it goes a little bit higher. But I’ll tell you right now, mark my words, we won’t see rates go up as much as they already have later this year. Okay, so we’ve seen almost a half a point increase for almost the entire year. Our prediction on the floor here is that rates are going to be in the threes and we don’t have a big risk that rates get to four, four and quarter, four and a half percent. But there is some fear. Buyers are seeing this right. And so what are we seeing right now DJ buyers flocking to the market to go buy something before rates do hit those numbers that other people are telling them about?

D.J. Paris 10:15
Sure. So what would you recommend to a an agent who has a buyer who said, wow, I’ve seen the rates go up half a half, you know, half a percentage in the last month? What should I be doing? You know, and again, you just sort of explained why that why that matters, but also keeping it in perspective of how much it matters. But what what should an agent be telling their buyers right now,

Joel Schaub 10:44
it should be confident and you should be educating them and you should not be selling fear. They are not just talking to one agent, we know this, a lot of times a buyer is talking to multiple agents. And those other agents are the ones that are hungry for a commission, and they’re pushing these buyers and saying You better hurry up because rates are gonna skyrocket. Don’t be that agent. Don’t be the person that’s so focused on getting a commission just lead with education and honesty, okay, rates aren’t going to spike up to four or 5%. So when the other agent is selling fear, and you can be the voice of reason and teach them and help them. Not only are you going to win the business, but you’re going to win repeat business. Okay. So a lot of people out there trying to sell fear. And that’s not the way we as a good agents want to go out and approach the business.

D.J. Paris 11:39
I’m curious too, because I’ve always heard that sales people should be reading what their clients read. And we know that that buyers aren’t probably going to mortgage news daily.com. They’re not that invested in lending rates. But they are seeing some of these stories, as you mentioned by the traditional big media outlets, you know, the CNBC is of the world. So how should an agent B, because there’s probably you know, there are listeners of ours who are hearing you talk about rates right now and are thinking, Gosh, I, I really didn’t even know rates went up. And and that’s a bit of a problem. Because if you’re an agent, you don’t need to know as much as Joel knows about about lending and where things are day to day. But you need to have a pretty good idea of what your clients know. So that you can of course provide, you know, a reasonable answer to a reasonable question, which is, Hey, I saw rates going up. Is there any news that sort of news services or just, you know, anything that you recommend, so that agents can just stay abreast of what’s going on in the lending world so that they’re not caught off guard? If a client asks them a question, and they’re like, Oh, I didn’t realize that was happening?

Joel Schaub 12:54
Well, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, do a weekly survey. And so these are the rates that are usually posted, they do say where the average 30 year fixed rate, excuse me where they’re at on a weekly basis. And those are on all the news outlets, right. But you mentioned a site. And if I’m an agent, right now, I’m taking this down, and it’s called mortgage News Daily. And it’s an insider publication that literally, without the sales pitches, explains right what’s going on to the fact in terms of on a day to day basis where the mortgage rates move to so this is, this is one of those things where there’s a reason why on a Monday, this week, I got nine signed contracts on one day on a Monday, early in January. buyers know this. If you’re getting ready to buy a home, buyers know where rates are at, and they’ve seen rates move up, and they’re afraid they’re gonna continue to move up. So I’m here to say for the entire year, we’re going to be at rates in the threes the biggest move up has already happened. It’s not when the Feds raise rates, that rates go up for mortgages. It’s the anticipation that they’re going to do it. And it’s well choreographed, nothing the Fed does is a surprise to the markets. They timed this. They put out briefings, they explained well in advance. And so that’s why this start of the year, we’ve seen rates move up consistently from the low threes or below to that mid three range. That’s where we’re going to be for the next six to nine months.

D.J. Paris 14:29
Yeah, I think that’s reasonable. So right now you just got an education, all of our listeners and viewers about what to say to your clients just you know, borrow some of Joe’s language there in and educate your customers before they find themselves at you know, CNBC or maybe they stumble across mortgage news daily.com And they asked you a question and you don’t want to be blindsided by that and I also want to put a feather in Joel’s cap. I didn’t mention this to Joel ahead of time, so it’d be a little bit of a surprise, but I was thinking about Gosh, if I were an agent, maybe what news sources would I read other than mortgage News Daily. And I thought, Oh, I don’t have to do that, because Joel and his team send a market update to and I don’t know who all is on your list if it’s just agents or who. But Joel sends out a concise email once a week, exactly about what’s going on in the mortgage world in the lending world. And I think that is a hallmark. By the way, it is the only newsletter, it’s not even a newsletter, Joel and his team put it together specifically, and they email it out. It’s the only one I receive. And a lot of because we have about 800 realtors that are at the company I work at here in Chicago, we get a lot of phone calls, especially to me, because I’m the marketing guy who’s from lenders going, I want to get in front of your agents. And none of them send me a month, a weekly market update our monthly market update or any market update, Joel and his team are the only ones that do that. And so I think that is another great way to find a loan officer in your area that can and will is wanting to help you in your business, because that gives me all the bullet points, I need to be able to then have conversations with clients. So really consider if you don’t have an elbow, a loan officer in your area that is able to provide that sort of assistance to maybe consider exploring, you know, other ellos to see who can provide that because I just remember Joel that you do that every week. And it is so valuable. I read it every time. In fact, I think you just sent it out yesterday. So it’s amazing. And something that really consider for all the agents out there going well, gosh, I don’t I don’t want to read mortgage News Daily, that’s really difficult, I got a million other things to do. It’s like fine Anello that’ll keep you in the loop.

Joel Schaub 16:46
Our team helps agents close more deals, we teach them, we educate them. And we give them those few talking points so that when they are up against another realtor in their market, they know what the hell’s going on. Okay, you don’t need to know everything, you don’t need to spend hours. So what we do on a weekly basis, is digested in real talking points so that you understand what’s going on. And I have agents all the time, say I actually print this out and I share it with all the agents in my office. Yep, I’m so happy that you do this. And those are one of the things that I love to see when somebody says they’ve gotten a new buyer under contract because of something our team helped with. So testimony right now, if you’re listening, you can make a note in a reminder, to email us just [email protected] it’s, it’s that easy. And simply say, add me to your list. You can unsubscribe at any time, but it’ll allow you to see what we’re doing for our agents. And maybe you’ll just get one more deal because of

D.J. Paris 17:50
it. Yeah, and it’s all about getting one more deal, right, always getting one more deal. And there are ways to do that. But you have to work smarter and efficient. And that’s where you need a good partner. And Joel has proven himself to everyone that I’ve ever referred to him as a buyer. He’s, he’s proven it to me as a client of his. And he is production speaks for itself. It doesn’t happen by accident, which is really the message of this entire show that we do here at keeping it real is that and basically everyone we’ve ever interviewed, while pretty much has always said to me privately, anybody could do this, if they just do the work. And they and they build partnerships with with you know, these ancillary partners, like a loan officer, like Joel. So it’s one of those things that this is we are hammering this message over and over again, is you need somebody like Joel in your life, if you’re an agent, you need somebody like him. And if it’s not him, find somebody just like him, who can help you educate your clients and who can help you more importantly, get that next transaction. So like Joel said, if you want to be on his mailing list, just reach out [email protected]. Also, Joel, if anyone out there is looking for an elbow that maybe they’re not getting the service they need from from the the loan officers in their immediate area, or they’re just want to see what else is out there. What’s What’s another way that they can reach you for your telephone number, for example?

Joel Schaub 19:21
Well, directly and this happens a lot DJ, we’ve done this for a couple of years now. And each week after the show, there are a dozen or more people that either reach out they say they’ve heard me and I schedule actual calls. So try me. Everyone thinks there’s probably like 10 of me but it’s just me and it’s just staying consistent and doing it and it’s 773-654-2049 that’ll get me direct and either all answer you’ll give a voicemail and we’ll return the phone call and set up a time to talk but you bring home a good point. If you’re a realtor out there right now that partnerships this year are going to matter. Okay. And it’s not just me, there are hundreds of really good loan officers that focus on education, okay. And there’s a lot of loan officers that focus on rates and being the cheapest, okay? We don’t want those, you don’t want to be the cheapest realtor out there. You want somebody that can teach and educate, that knows what they’re doing. And that wants to contribute money. So this is where it gets, I get all the loan officers hating me for this, and I love this, okay? If you’re a realtor right now, and you have all these lenders that kind of know you, and ask them to partner with you, ask them to put their money where their mouth is, and say, Hey, I’m doing an event coming up? Would you like to co sponsor it, and see which agents to which loan officers, I should say, if you’re an agent, want to spend the money to actually mark it with you? Those are the people that I send my clients to, if I’m a realtor, do I want to send it to the mortgage guy that calls me all the time asking, or the mortgage guy all the time that’s giving to find the people that want to give partner with those people, and you’ll get up to the numbers like I’m doing where every single month we’re closing 50 or 60 families, because we sit there and we’re finding ways to give back to the agents and those agents know it. And those are the agents that have seen a real value by partnering with a loan officer. So that’s my challenge to you, sorry, loan officers that want to be cheap out there. There are there are a lot of lenders that are going to be calling you now saying, Hey, do you want to sponsor something with me, and I love that DJ, let’s do it.

D.J. Paris 21:37
Yeah, and it’s it’s really everyone wins when you find someone to partner with who is wanting to grow your business, because of course, that’ll help grow their business. So everyone wins. And that’s the it’s the win win win. They call it the Win Win Win is what you’re searching for. And so with a with a loan officer that can take good care of you, you’ll hit that that triple win. So wins for you wins for the loan officer and of course, your client. So reach out to Joel he would be a great partner. I know he’s a great partner because I have seen it in action. And everyone here in Chicago knows Joel we have 40 some 1000 Real estate agents in the Chicagoland area. Probably most of them have heard of Joel and by the way, there’s 1000s of loan officers in Chicago. So Joel has gone out of his way to and he says this a lot on our show is givers get, he is a giver. He doesn’t have time to do these podcasts, quite honestly. But he’s very nice. And he finds time to do it. And as a result, his numbers keep going up. And not just because of our show, of course, it’s a very tiny part of what Joel does, it is entire life. It’s this little tiny percentage of the time, but his time is very valuable, and he still spends it with us to give. So we honor Joel for continuing to be on our show. We thank him on behalf of the audience. And on behalf of Joel and myself, we thank you, the listeners and the viewers for continuing to support our show. It’s now 2020 to another year of podcasts, our numbers keep growing Joel’s numbers keep growing. Hopefully everyone out there who’s listening. Their numbers keep growing as well. Keep listening to our show. Keep supporting us by telling another realtor or anyone else who could benefit from hearing this great conversation with Joel tell them about our show, send him over to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done can be streamed there, or just pull up a podcast app and make sure you’ve hit the subscribe button to our show. And also please leave us a review whatever sort of podcast platform you might be listening to us on whether it’s iTunes, Google Play Spotify, Pandora, oh, gosh, there’s so many leave us a review. Tell us what you like about the show and tell us what you don’t like we want to keep improving. So anyway, on behalf of everyone, Joel, thank you so much for being on the show yet again. You’ve been an amazing partner to us. We’re honored to have you. And so, so proud that you had another amazing year, no surprise to us with the amount that you give back. And we will see everybody on the next next episode. Thanks, Joel.

Joel Schaub 24:00
So literally before I go remember, if you’re an agent right now, the best thing we can do is just educate our clients that with this move up in rates. We’re okay. Okay. If you’re renting a home right now you’re paying a lot more in interest than where the interest rates are at. So this will help people get off the fence, lead with education. And this is going to be a big year. There’s a lot of opportunities. So thanks for having me on again.

Kirsten Evans, Agent K, with Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group talks about the beginning of her career in real estate and how she grew her brand in the business. She attributes her success in changing her attitude and getting involved in the community and giving back. Kirsten also discusses the mistakes that agents make when getting started in the business and how you can avoid them. Kirsten also describes how she structures her day day in order to stay efficient. Last, Kirsten discusses how to set boundaries for yourself/clients in order not to burnout.

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

Kirsten Evans can be reached at (309) 824-1001.

D.J. Paris 0:00
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the largest podcast paid 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 Kyrsten Evans. Before we get to Kiersten couple of quick reminders, please tell a friend about our show. The best way you can thank us for enjoying this content is by telling other agents about keeping it real. And there’s couple ways to do that. You can of course send them right over to our website where they can listen to every episode we’ve ever done right from the browser, which is our website is keeping it real pod.com. And also leave us a review. Whether you’re listening on iTunes, Google Play Spotify, Pandora, anywhere you’re listening to this podcast, let us know what you think of the show. Leave us a review. Tell us what you like. Also let us know what we can do to improve. And last if you have a guest that you want to hear interviewed and 2022 it could be you too. It doesn’t have to be someone else. But if there’s someone whether it’s you or another top producer in your market that you want to hear us talk to let us know you can just message us through our website or through Facebook. And you can also follow us right on [email protected] forward slash keeping it real pod But enough about all those announcements. Let’s get to the main event. In my interview with Kyrsten Evans.

Today on the show, we have produced an epic Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group in Bloomington, Illinois, which is, by the way very close to where I grew up about maybe 35 minutes away in Peoria, Illinois. This is very exciting for me because I feel like Kiersten and I have this connection. But it goes actually beyond where she lives now, because we’re actually born in the same town and well as well, which I’ll get to in a moment. But before we talk about me, let’s talk about Kyrsten. So she has been licensed for four years in Illinois. In addition, she worked as a real estate assistant for a real estate mogul for two years in the suburbs of Milwaukee while attending grad school. Now something no one knows about her is that she was adopted. She was born and raised in Arlington Heights me me as well. Not adopted but but born and raised in Arlington Heights. We probably were born at the same hospital and she was given us Yeah, we she was given a second chance at life overcoming many setbacks and obstacles. And she attributes this life event to her success and can do attitude every day. And her burning desire is to change people’s perception of the average real average realtor. She is known for giving fabled service that people believe is unheard of. And she tries to train change perspectives that Realtors don’t work hard and are not full time positions. Now her secret and key to success is very simple. She works hard. She is strong, direct, upfront and honest, she is not lucky. And I love that too. She is not lucky she is always seeking out and taking advantage of opportunities that come her way and working really, really hard by putting her client’s needs above her own. Now in addition to being a top producer, she was also a Coldwell Banker national 30 under 30 winner in 2020. And in 2019, she was she was given a as for her realtor association was called the mid Illinois realtor Association. She was KRISTIN I’m so sorry. I don’t have it in front of me. What was the award you won? It’s a Rising Star Award. Which makes perfect sense because of course she is. Which is why we have her on the show. My apologies for getting that wrong. So 2019 She’s the mid Illinois realtor Association rising star, but you can follow her and find her on the web, please visit her website, which is sell with K That’s the letter gay sell with k.com. Kirsten, thank you so much for being on the show.

Kirsten Evans 4:29
Thank you, I’m so excited to be here. Really excited to

D.J. Paris 4:33
talk to you. So when you and I were born in the same town, and then we ended up being sort of raised very, very close to one another. So I love that that you and I have a lot of sort of things that we know because of where we grew up. But I would love to start all the way at the beginning, which I know is not a long time ago for you. But you know, tell us sort of you know, you went to grad school. You know why? Why did you get into real estate? What was the impetus there and Then how did you get started?

Kirsten Evans 5:01
That’s a great question. So I went to school for clinical exercise science for my undergrad at Illinois State University. My dad had a heart attack Christmas Day, actually when I was in high school. So that was my mission in life was to help people. When I went to grad school, I needed to pay for it. So I got a job working for a real estate mogul Richard Newman. He built the vice president of Harley Davidsons house and was on the Parade of Homes. So that’s his claim to fame. In addition, yeah, he owned his own real estate brokerage. And he had investment properties all over the Milwaukee area. So since it was a private brokerage, I learned so much from him. Right off the bat, I was literally his executive assistant. So I learned a lot. I never thought I’d use any of the information since I was working in a cardiac field. But when I finished my undergrad, sorry, my stepsons coming home. So anyways, when I finished my undergrad, I was my masters back up, I moved back to Bloomington where I went to school and met my husband. And there was no jobs for me down here. And I wasn’t going to sell for like a $40,000 job. There was absolutely no way not with working that hard. So I’m with my real estate knowledge. I’m like, Screw it, I’m gonna get my real estate license and never looked back. I mean, most of the realtors I met in central Illinois, it was a by chance transaction, right? They went to school with someone it was a family member. Bloomington Normal, if you’ve never visited, it’s like the biggest smallest town you’ve ever seen in your life. And so everyone knows everybody. So being new, was it was really crazy.

D.J. Paris 6:48
Yeah, it makes sense, because I’m from Peoria. So I can absolutely relate to this idea that everyone knows everyone. And it is something that but you’re right. There’s so many realtors who get their license, because they have a few people in their life. That’ll probably use them because friends family, but they don’t really turn it into a full time business. Right? And yeah, and you can tell yes. And my

Kirsten Evans 7:13
mission was I can do better.

D.J. Paris 7:16
Yeah, well, let’s talk about how you got started. So. So yes, you did have a sphere of influence, or at least you had, you know, a good contact list from you know, where you grew up. But how did you start sort of letting people know that you now can help them buy sell rent, invest? What was sort of how did you get your name out there and sort of curious. So

Kirsten Evans 7:36
that’s a great question. And actually going back moving to Bloomington Normal. I didn’t have any family here. I just went to school here. And like, Oh, I’m

D.J. Paris 7:43
sorry. You’re right.

Kirsten Evans 7:45
So I only the only person I knew is my husband. And most of the people he knows weren’t moving or selling, right. And I was such a rookie, that they weren’t going to hire me.

D.J. Paris 7:54
And you know, this is really important too. Because like I’m from I’m from Peoria where I was raised, and I’m thinking it was me, and I don’t practice real estate myself. But if I did, and if I lived in Peoria, and I, and again, I know a lot of people that are because I grew up, I actually don’t know how easy it would be for me because a lot of the realtors in in those, you know, sort of midsize cities or even maybe they’re considered small cities now. You know, the people that are really dominant in the real estate industry have been dominant forever. They’re, you know, it’s like, oh, we know those, we know that the 10 realtors that that are just you know, kick kick, you know, killing it. I imagine Bloomington is absolutely the same way. So so it didn’t have

Kirsten Evans 8:35
the spirit paper intimidating. So literally my first year in real estate, I joined a team because I’m like, I don’t know people and they’re gonna feed me leads. They don’t. I sold two homes. And I figured out within four months that the team was just not for me. So I left I went over to Coldwell Banker. And the second year it was pretty much just my attitude. I changed my attitude. I started getting involved in the community. I went from selling two homes to 38 comps. My second year in real estate that’s,

D.J. Paris 9:03
that is incredible. Two homes. How did you how did you do it? So so it was it getting involved? Was that sort of the the big reason?

Kirsten Evans 9:13
Yeah, no, it was just getting involved in the community. So I joined Lions Club, my dad’s ally, and my grandpa was a lion. So that kind of helped just to give back. But they did tell me they’re like don’t join for business because we’re not giving it to you. Right? They have now but I also joined the Chamber of Commerce. So if you don’t know a lot of people, I think that’s a really great one to join. I was scared and intimidated because of all the realtors, but honestly, they’re not all there. Wanted to get into. We have something in town a chapter for BNI networking. So that’s for sure. Yeah. And that’s pretty much about it just started meeting people. And just being genuine and nice and doing the things I like to do and not just doing things to do things because you’ll waste your time. Yeah, and I

D.J. Paris 9:58
think it’s really important. So you talked about giving back. So all of the associations or organizations you just mentioned are philanthropic. And, and not only does that, of course, you know, give you a sense of pride and, and sort of, you know, just accomplishment and, and, and helping others, which of course, is wonderful for your own personal sort of satisfaction. But it also does demonstrate to other people that you’re willing to help. And I think, you know, that is it’s, I cannot tell you how many people we’ve interviewed on the show that have very similar story where maybe they didn’t have a large sphere of influence. It wasn’t like anyone handed them deals. So they didn’t know what else to do. So they were like, I better just get involved in your case. You’re also you’re part of the the Illinois Association as well.

Kirsten Evans 10:49
You’re serving on a state level, and I’m co chair of our PAC. Yeah, so get involved with your local association, too. I think that’s probably the smartest thing I did when I was a new agent. So I’m happy you brought that up. When you first joined, that’s how people are gonna know your name, and you send them an offer. Now I’m sure Chicago’s a little bit different, right with like, more people, but Bloomington Normal is still pretty big. And we have over 500 agents here. So the fact that when I send offers people know who I am, that’s what’s nice. Well,

D.J. Paris 11:19
it’s funny, you ask that like is Chicago. So we have about 46,000 agents here. But yeah, but which sounds like a lot, I guess it is a lot. But I will tell you to your point, I interviewed somebody from our from here in Chicago, who is very active in our local association. And he said that 30% of his business, and he did not get involved with the Association, so that he could get business because there’s probably no real direct way to get business there. But he just wanted to help. And he was part of the YPN, the Young Professionals Network. And he did some other things on other committees. And he told me that now 30, and he’s probably, let’s say three years in the business, he says 30% of his business now comes from other people who just happen to know that he’s involved, like his name got out there simply because he was part of the association. You know, the, the leadership and yeah, so I’m really, really applaud the fact that you do that, because number one, it’s just doing a lot of good work for all realtors. But also, it does get your name out there. And that was really, really, really smart.

Kirsten Evans 12:31
While you’re young and have the energy, I don’t want to be doing this. Like when I’m older. Yeah.

D.J. Paris 12:37
Well, let’s talk about mistakes. Because I know that you have some thoughts about what mistakes do agents make when they’re, you know, getting started? Or maybe they’re trying to get to the next level? And they’re just maybe they’re just getting in their own way. So what what do you see out there as mistakes that agents make?

Kirsten Evans 12:56
One wouldn’t be stopped learning. Like they get their real estate license, they don’t keep up with like, the market and trends. So yeah, never stop learning. Another one is you don’t have to spend gobs and gobs and gobs of money on advertising. I think the best advertisement that you have is yourself. And like I said, being part of those groups, I’m literally advertising myself every day. I also think Another mistake that people make is not getting involved in your association. I think that’s really played a key in getting my offers accepted and playing nice in the sandbox with other

D.J. Paris 13:35
people know people know you. Yeah, other agents know who you are. And they probably Oh, she’s the one who does all the different committee stuff. Yeah,

Kirsten Evans 13:43
right. I think another myth is I know, there’s great teams out there, don’t get me wrong, there’s, there’s not a problem with teams, I just joined a one. But the fact that leads are just gonna come to anyone that promises you that like run away,

D.J. Paris 13:57
run, run the other ways, really quickly. Either way, I

Kirsten Evans 14:00
think we’ve all been there. I don’t care how seasoned you are, if you hear that, you’re gonna get a bunch of leads. It sounds exciting, and I don’t think that ever pans out and I don’t think you should have to pay for business that you can easily get just by being out in the community and being yourself.

D.J. Paris 14:15
Yeah, I agree with that. It would be very, very difficult for a team or even a broker. I mean, brokerages are probably the worst at at promising things like leads, teams have now kind of, you know, started to do that, too. And, and it’s possible, I guess, but I mean, I’ve been here 11 years, and I’ve never met an agent that really got enough leads by joining a team or a brokerage. Again, it’s I guess it’s possible, but I’d like to see it. And and, and the reality of why that doesn’t work so well. Is is really, it’s a very simple reason. It’s that the vast majority of buyers and you already know this. I’m not speaking to you, but to our audience, but the vast majority who they probably know this already, too, but it’s a good reminder, the vast majority of buyers and sellers choose somebody they know I choose somebody they know is their agent. Yeah. And so they’re just, you know, if you’re buying Zillow leads, for example, if you can convert 5% of those leads, you’re a superstar. And that’s, you know, so out of 100 people, you’re going to only convert five, because they don’t really know like, or trust you at that point. And so, you know, when if you can work your sphere of influence and meet people, and you’re doing that through all you know, your BNI group, you guys are sharing referrals and doing all and by the way, we should, that’s a nice little plug for BNI rarely gets, it rarely gets brought up on our show. And and I do encourage for everyone that’s like, what is I think it’s called business networking. International. Yeah, you got it. Yeah. So so look for your local BNI chapter. And basically, how it works is they put you in with, you know, like a financial advisor or mortgage person or an attorney. And then you basically are just there to say, Hey, does anyone do you guys have clients that need help? And I know it’s more than that. But you meet in the mornings and, and you get to do that once a week, or whatever it is. Yeah. And it’s just a really great way to meet people and you know, start to talk to

Kirsten Evans 16:04
it right? When you start to that’s another thing. I know, people who are like, Oh, I joined BNI. And I can anything, I don’t think maybe I got like one lead my first year in BNI. Again, like Bloomington Normal, being a tight knit community, you can join a group, that doesn’t mean you’re just gonna get business from it. And honestly, there’s a few people might be in a group that I don’t know if it’s, I don’t know if I’d send them business. So people’s trust, that’s for sure.

D.J. Paris 16:28
Yeah, well, let’s talk. Okay, so those, those are a few mistakes people make not not getting involved not treating it like a real job. But the fact is, this is hard to sort of treat like a real job for a lot of people. Because, you know, like, I know, for me, I go into my office every day, because if I work from home, it doesn’t work that well, for me, structure or structure is important for me, and real estate’s really a business as a realtor that there isn’t always structure. And your days change, of course, all the time. I’m curious, how did you How do you think about structuring your day so that you stay like efficient?

Kirsten Evans 17:05
I don’t know if this is a good example. I don’t know if it’s gonna show up on here. But I color code the crap out of my calendar. I don’t know if anyone else does that. But

D.J. Paris 17:14
I love it. Yeah. So what are the what are those colors represent? Sure. So

Kirsten Evans 17:19
I have an email that my selling clients that’s like aging KSL with k.com. And then I have an email for like, at FBI with k.com. So that when I set appointments, I know what they’re for. There’s like very little taking time for me, which I could be better about that in the new year. That’s what colors up. I think it’s purple.

D.J. Paris 17:42
I don’t see that’s. So that right there tells you you need to take more time because I use purple for my own private stuff. Because you don’t take enough time for yourself. But you don’t

Kirsten Evans 17:55
have to follow my lead that way. I know people who time block out, you know, money making activities, which would be networking, you know, and so forth. But I think having a structured schedule, so you can look at it. And it’s not just a jar of hoopla. I think that would help you. Another way that I’m structured is keeping clients top of mind. I mean, how often have you not talked to a client, and then you see a house and you’re like, oh, this would be perfect for him. But you haven’t talked to him for six months? Or something like that?

D.J. Paris 18:23
Well, let’s, let’s talk. I want to pause out there because I think that’s a great, and maybe one of the biggest missed opportunities is staying in touch. And so So okay, so you see a house for somebody? How do you make sure that it hasn’t been six months? Or if it has been six months, since you’ve last talked to them? You’ve sort of dropped the ball on you know, staying in touch, you know, how do you reach rekindle that sort of, you know, connection,

Kirsten Evans 18:48
I’m gonna keep going back and preach to like all the new agents or people just starting out, or maybe starting up again, please don’t spend lots of money on software and things you don’t need for lead generation. The real estate mogul I worked for in Milwaukee, he had the system that I used to make fun of it was just pen and paper and a few different like pen colors that all met something. And so on my wall, I’d love to share it with you if you ever want to see it on my office, I have a hot and I have a warm sheet. And they’re literally just strips of paper that I made with timeline, all their information, what they look for, and I go through it on a weekly basis, my warm, I’ll probably go through like every two and a half weeks, but

D.J. Paris 19:29
you have a bit like that. I think that’s like there’s a Japanese word for that called Kanban where you’re seeing this visual sort of display of an

Kirsten Evans 19:40
end, nice little sheet of paper blank on the back so that I have them in my car. I have them in my office. I have them here in my home office, but you just put that baby out and then I add it with others and I go through it on a weekly basis.

D.J. Paris 19:56
Now what about if once the transaction closes So somebody buys or sells and yeah, then what do you do?

Kirsten Evans 20:04
I have an Excel sheet. Our company actually, it’s really nice. Everything’s set up there to where I can just export it. Just say that right? Okay. I don’t know why that standard funky. But anyways, I afford it and I go through everyone, I probably touch them about four times a year past clients. And the best way to do this is set up what your touch dates are going to be like in December, right? So the calendar, reach out Yeah, and the new year and just let them know that I’m here if they ever need help with a, you know what affiliate or contractor, one I did was a client appreciation party, which was super fun. They really liked that instead of like going out and dropping off gifts. Once you get to a certain amount of clients. You can’t you can’t do that. Don’t do that to yourself. So I had a client appreciation party where it was catered drinks are provided, it was really fun. And I did that by Thanksgiving, not by Christmas, since everyone has a Christmas. Yeah. Just curiosity letters on the market two other times a year and that’s it.

D.J. Paris 21:08
So newsletters twice a year client appreciation event, once a year or so. And then you’re calling them what quarterly? Or just checking in how’s everything going about you? What about like, anniversary dates for like the buyer. So

Kirsten Evans 21:24
that’s another that’s another good one. So with my Excel sheet I have the year and the month that they bought. So I just organized it by month and I write the cards out the beginning of the month and send them out.

D.J. Paris 21:36
I love that. And it’s it’s great because it really again, it’s a very low tech solution, right? Like what you’re doing. And there’s lots of great tech providers, and some of them are nice enough to sponsor our show. We love our partners, but I know a lot of top producers that literally use an Excel spreadsheet for everything. That’s their entire CRM,

Kirsten Evans 21:56
and don’t spend a ton of money until then you don’t need to spend a ton of money.

D.J. Paris 22:00
Yeah, and odds are you’re whoever you work for Coldwell Banker, of course, has amazing technology, because of how large they are. But odds are the I mean, I know, you know, we we have a moderately large firm here in Chicago, and the technology that we provide to our agents, they don’t use most of the doesn’t get used. So you. Yeah, so you probably don’t have to spend too much just make sure that, that six months don’t go by where you haven’t talked to somebody, especially somebody who’s looking but but it may be even more importantly, somebody who was a client in the past because, you know, I think I forget what the statistic is. But a good percentage of people forget their Realtors name after like, we’re

Kirsten Evans 22:45
so bad. It’s so bad. I think if you live by the motto like I do every day, you get up and work hard, you’re going to make an impact. You’re going to be sincere and just stay in touch with people be ethical and moral and you shouldn’t have any problems.

D.J. Paris 23:00
And also, the playing nice thing is really important too. And I think there’s a gender. There’s a gender conversation there. And I’m not the right person to have it because as a as a man, I can’t really relate to what is but I talked to so many women who are top producers, who are nice, lovely people, and they say You wouldn’t believe how the way other realtors speak to me. Oh, and I’m

Kirsten Evans 23:23
terrible. It’s terrible. It’s terrible. And I never want to be one of those people now.

D.J. Paris 23:29
Yeah, it’s and it’s not just men being mean to women, but it is one of those things where it’s like it is a cooperative Commission. It is cooperative. So we can all win

Kirsten Evans 23:39
here, please. Yes, please.

D.J. Paris 23:44
So it sounds like for you, if I’m hearing correctly, you just have processes for everything. So you wake up and you you know what you’re doing every day. And you know, when your day starts and what’s really cool about the color coding thing, because for those listening, you wouldn’t see but her calendar each day it has, you know, different events that are color coded. And the reason she does that as she knows, okay, I’ve got a buyer thing tomorrow, here’s my all my buyer stuff, here’s all my seller stuff. You know, I don’t know if rentals are big in Bloomington, but maybe some rentals or investment stuff. But she knows by looking at her calendar, how much time she’s putting into her business. And she knows that every one of her clients is going to get called a certain you know, amount of time per year and and it’s again you’re treating it like it’s an actual job because of course it is and but yeah, let’s um I would love to talk a little bit more about you know, you’re you’re in a community where there has to be agents. Look, you know, Bloomington Illinois is not a destination where people necessarily go you know, I’m when I grow up. I’m going to live there, right i right out of college, I lived in St. Louis, a much bigger city. Not too far from Bloomington. And people. People don’t do that in St. Louis either they don’t they don’t go. I mean, I happen to but I was, I mean, everyone else was born and raised there. And so you are in a really tough environment because you didn’t grow up in Bloomington. Everybody already knows the top Realtors in Bloomington by the time you’re there. And it’s not like it, there’s this huge influx of young people who are moving to Bloomington. So you know, you’re very modest about how you, you know how you grew your business. But you really had to work hard. Like I was saying, if I went back

Kirsten Evans 25:31
really hard. So that’s why I said earlier, the luck thing I don’t like when people tell me I’m lucky, I’m not lucky, I work really hard. A lot of people tell you that. But also, I think a lot of it’s your mindset, right? Like my first year, I think part of only selling two homes was my mindset was, I don’t know anybody you know, what I’m doing is real estate for me, like I didn’t really have a purpose. And honestly, that’s when I really didn’t have a plan, the moment I felt I had a purpose, and I was gonna get a plan in state, that’s when everything kind of took off, I could either stay here and say, I’m not from here, I’m never gonna get business, or I could use it to my advantage. Since it’s a small town, if you look at it on the opposite way, if everyone knows each other, they don’t want you to know their financial situation. Worse, or I feel like here everyone knows, like 1015 20 realtors. So to be like, that’s easy pick me, you don’t have to pick between, you know, your your other contacts in town. So I really just tried to focus on what I could control and how I could switch it to make it work in my favor.

D.J. Paris 26:38
I want to back up for a moment because you just said something really profound that would not have occurred to me, if I were in your position. When you started, which was talking about changing your mindset, you said two things that I think are really, really important, especially being in in a smaller community. Because you’re absolutely right. I have a friend who’s a financial advisor in Peoria, and he’s he’s one of the you know, I don’t know if he’s the biggest one there. But he’s certainly as a lot. And I bet even though of course, you know, he would never disclose anyone’s financial situation. There is something about oh, that’s my friend, or I don’t really maybe not me personally, but but I know that he runs into this where it’s like, maybe he was, you know, somebody who he’s known since he was five years old. They might not go in and I don’t you know, you’re right. So this idea of them going with somebody they don’t know, is, in some ways, maybe an easier proposition, because there’s no baggage associated with that. And so that’s really interesting. How did you? And then the so how did you come up with that? Did that just occur to you? Or did someone give you that sort of insight, because I’ve never heard anybody say that before. And I think that’s brilliant.

Kirsten Evans 27:53
No, I was just, I was sick of feeling like I was in a rut. Right. And I feel like when you get backed into a corner, you’re either gonna figure it out, or you’re not like, something that’s always been a pet peeve of mine, is when people complain and do nothing about it. Yeah. And then I literally found myself doing that. I was being a big hypocrite. And so I needed to change that I really did. And that’s when I had kind of my aha moment. I feel like everyone’s had one of those.

D.J. Paris 28:20
It’s a big aha moment. That is a huge one, because now all of a sudden, it’s an old. So there’s this old marketing. My background is in marketing. There’s this old bat marketing philosophy, which I think is still applicable today, which is said if you can’t fix it, feature it. And so that’s exactly what you just did. You couldn’t fix the fact that you didn’t grow up there. You’re not on every billboard in town when you’re first starting out. Everyone already knows all the top realtors and they’re all friends with each other. So you’re right there is like, oh god if I go with so and so then the other person is going to be upset. I know my parents. If they were buying or selling in Peoria, they know all the top Realtors they’re all friends with them your exact situation, they’d be like, Oh my god, somebody’s gonna get upset. And you know, I don’t know what they would end up choosing to do. But there is sort of a I love the idea that, hey, you know, you go with me. At least

Kirsten Evans 29:13
not forget real estate is sales. Sometimes I feel like people forget it’s sales, it’s cutthroat. So when you’re in that situation, like work it, like, show your value of why they should hire you and not someone that they just went to school with, you know, part of your job.

D.J. Paris 29:29
So let’s talk about that. So, so I think what you’re talking about is having some sort of presentation, whether it’s, you know, an actual PowerPoint slide, Slide thing or whether it’s just, hey, I’m talking to you one on one and I’m going to tell you everything I’m doing or you know, you have, you know, some other material you might be presenting, but how do you approach that so you’re going to meet with a buyer or seller, you you maybe they haven’t worked with you before, they already know all the other top Realtors in town who had been doing it 3040 years. So what do you do? that you think helps when you that business,

Kirsten Evans 30:02
I think the best thing that I’ve done was really getting to open houses. And just being in front of people, I think I’m pretty good on the phone. But in person, I feel like it can really capture us. Right? And it gives you a good practice to. I’ve even had people where they said, you know, they didn’t really want to tell you if they’re working with a realtor or not, you know, those types of people are open houses. And so when I opened the door, I made sure that I said, you know, hey, welcome, come on in. You know, if you could give me some feedback at the end, that’d be great. But I’m not going to be a helicopter agent. Right? And

D.J. Paris 30:38
right, nobody wants that you they were like,

Kirsten Evans 30:42
right. And so at the end, I would try, because they would actually come back to me, then I didn’t have to be like, Hey, can you fill this out, and they wanted to learn more. So I mean, just by that statement, take it, use it, whatever. But it draws people to you, because they don’t want to be sold. And then right there, I felt like you kind of captivated them. Like, every other agent who’s like

D.J. Paris 31:07
most people do not want to be sold, there’s a small percentage that do but that’s a small percentage. And I’ll tell you the win. Sometimes, we have a lot of agents in our firm. And my job is to recruit agents. And so I talked to agents who are at other firms all day long. And the first thing I say, exactly is what you were talking about, as I say, I’m not going to try to persuade you to join us, I mean, I’m just want to tell you everything about our firm, because you’re an adult, you’ll be able to figure out if we’re the right fit for you. But you can hear it in their voice. When I say, Look, I’m legitimately not going to try to persuade you, but I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me. And I’ll I hopefully, you know, give you all the info and you can make the right decision for yourself. And you can hear this audible like, Oh, thank God, you know, because people don’t like it’s like when you go into a retail store, and the salesperson comes running over and you’re like, I don’t even know what I want yet. And they’re very nice. But you’re like, just get away from me for a while. That’s the same thing with open houses. And for people that think open houses don’t work? Well. So do like what, what? So they don’t necessarily work to sell the home, although I guess it could happen. But they’re wonderful opportunities to meet other buyers. Do you? Did you? And do you continue to literally how

Kirsten Evans 32:23
I got started. Just that one year when I wanted to act more on purpose. Even if no one came to the open house or a couple of those? I’m sure we’ve all been there. Sure. I wanted to start getting in the houses and learning something that I didn’t mention earlier, as you know, with the non helicopter agent, at the end, I’d say something like, direct the conversation. So it’s not a question, right? And so I’d say look, I don’t know if you’re working with an agent or not. But here’s what I have to offer you boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then I just Yeah. And that’s it, because then I’m not asking yes or no. So they kind of don’t want to know. So I’m just like, look, I don’t know if you’re working with an agent or not. But here’s the services, I can provide, you know, call me if I can do anything. And then you don’t know,

D.J. Paris 33:08
I used to work with a finance. I used to be a financial advisor a million years ago, and one of the top financial advisors in our office used to say, if you have to ask for the business, you’re doing it wrong. And so Kristin Kyrsten really just said essentially the same thing, which is, if you ask somebody a yes or no question number one, you probably may or may not want to hear the answer to they might not want to give you the answer because you’re not putting them on the spot. And it’s like they just came in to look at a house, right? And so but you can say, hey, so you what you just said was so elegant. Can you say that again? So I don’t know, if you’re working with an agent? Could you repeat that?

Kirsten Evans 33:45
Like no, oh my God, who actually say, I say, Look, I don’t know if you’re working with an agent or not insert value proposition. You know, here’s my card, call me if you need anything.

D.J. Paris 33:54
Yeah, it’s, it’s and again, people will relax. They won’t feel like they’re being sold because they’re not. And you are trying to provide value to them. And it’s it’s huge. It’s so huge. But what you just said was was so like this idea of don’t ask questions before you need to I guess at some point, you’ll have to ask why.

Kirsten Evans 34:17
I’m happy to share all this stuff, by the way is because when I first started, I felt like nobody wanted to share information. It was like they had a mind of scarcity. If I share something with you, then you’re gonna take it and be more successful than me. It was horrible. And so I feel like now that I’ve gotten to a spot in real estate, it’s my duty to give back and help people have a good start. Because if I would have been around different people who could help me change some of my mindset and what I was doing wrong, I think I would have sold more than two houses my first year easily.

D.J. Paris 34:51
That’s a really, really good point. And

Kirsten Evans 34:55
go around. We don’t have so much. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 34:58
I used to I’m the same firm, where it’s all about financial advisor, there was another guy who was the top guy in the office, and he would say, I’m going to tell we were all like 2022 23 years old, he wants me to tell you exactly what I do every day. And you can do that. And you can have the same success I have, none of you are going to do it. But I’m gonna tell you everything. Yeah, and he was right. None of us did all the work that he was willing to do. We didn’t have the success that he had. But he was it again, even if you’re in a super, super small community, there is plenty of business because there’s a number of people that are going, you know, with a discount broker, or maybe they’re going there for sale by owner. And that’s doesn’t work for most people. And so there even if it’s not, you know, you, you just have to get creative, and

Kirsten Evans 35:48
personalities, right. Like, I’m a person, like, that’s just who I am. I love when I have clients who are those two, so you can’t win them all. And you’re not going to we could give the same pitch. And it’s going to have a different delivery. If you’re being sincere with your personality, like my dad’s an electrical engineer, and he’s like, I don’t even know if he could sell me on it. You know? And yeah, you know, and there’s literally a place for everybody in this industry, for sure.

D.J. Paris 36:16
Let’s talk about because you are so incredibly busy. I was asking Kirsten before, if she went to the NAR conference, and because she’s so involved in the community, or in the real estate industry. And she goes, Oh, my gosh, I don’t have time. So I am curious, which I definitely can feel for you there. I’m curious on what what you are doing to set boundaries for yourself or for your clients. So that you you do you aren’t going to burn out and I’m not suggesting you are going to burn out. But for our listeners who might feel like oh my god, I’m responding to at 12am taxed for from one of my clients, you know, I can’t seem to escape it, you know how to use try to maintain that balance?

Kirsten Evans 36:55
That’s a great question. So my rule for last year was that if I sense like a little bit of Crazy, right? Obviously, we have to do our due diligence, and there’s ethics involved with real estate, and you have to help people. But when they’re also not respecting you, as a realtor, as a person, it’s time to just be smart about it, why not refer them to an agent who’s new and has like nothing to do, I’d get a 25% referral fee, you know, or just, what I would do to protect yourself is I have a buyer console and a seller console, and I let them know the services that I provide the times that I’m available, which for the most part, I’m pretty amicable about it. And the minute they don’t respect that, I’d be like, Look, remember when we talked about this, and if they’re not going to respect it, like let them go. So I’d rather be making no money sitting on my couch hanging out with my dog than being like in a vicious cycle with someone that’s like going nowhere, who doesn’t respect me? Like that? Yeah, time for that, like, go read a real estate book on how to be successful? Like, I can think of no, it’s nothing to do.

D.J. Paris 38:01
It’s funny, because you just said something really profound. And I want to make sure the audience heard it, which was she tells her clients, here’s what I’m available, here are the services I provide. Here’s what I’m available. And that is so smart, because she is setting the correct

Kirsten Evans 38:18
expectation. Yes. My favorite one, I had a lady real quick. One of the services when I go on a listing appointment, I let him know, flat out open house probably isn’t going to sell your house, right? Like we do want to show that we’re motivated. So we always do an open house when we list it. And if we do a price drop, otherwise, I’m not going to keep kicking you out or house or an open house. And I have an initial it at the bottom. And she was like, Well, why aren’t you here doing it open house blah. I was like, hey, remember that she from our initial conversation that we spoke about? I mean, all this stuff protects you shows your professional and keeps your people in line. So if you’re ever at a point in a transaction, where they’re asking a lot of questions, you might want to turn around and ask yourself, like, Did I not do a good job of setting the expectations? Because I feel like if you set them, you’re not going to run into a lot of those headaches later.

D.J. Paris 39:10
Yeah, it’s so gosh, it’s so important. And having people sign off on the expectations is is a great idea. Because it again, it’s not to rub it in their face when they need something and you’re like it’s outside of it. I’m just not going to do it. It’s more about just reminding them, you know, here’s what I do. Here’s what I can do. I don’t want to disappoint you. And so I want to make sure that you understand this is what I’m capable of doing. And

Kirsten Evans 39:38
on your listing appointment, they’re going to be so impressed with you not even just impressed. So you have a plan.

D.J. Paris 39:45
You have a plan and also you’re dispelling myths you’re saying here’s the deal with open houses. Really what they’re great for is for me to get more leads to sell more homes to people and maybe we’d get lucky and somebody might buy this property actually just about it

Kirsten Evans 39:59
shows that it no Have a few as a seller, because then you can still do them and they don’t seem off.

D.J. Paris 40:04
Yes, I was I was saying it in a way that you shouldn’t say, but but the point is, is that you should be explaining to people, Hey, if you’re meeting with other agents, and they’re promising, you know, they’re going to do an open house every Sunday. That’s great. And I respect that. But the reality of it is, is there’s probably a less than 1% chance that we’re going to sell a home that your home that way, we do want to show the community that we’re engaged, like you were saying, we want to we want to do these, but we want to make sure the expectation is set correctly. And I love it. I love it just you have processes for everything. And I could see do you anticipate in the future like building a team? I could see you doing that? I don’t know if that’s what you want to do or not. But I’m just curious what’s next for

Kirsten Evans 40:46
you? Maybe one, I’d love to just write a book on how to motivate people, I think coming from my adoption, we all come from different experiences, um, either write a book or do some mentoring. And I just I love that sincerely. Yeah. And it really does line with what I went to school for, like, I’m not helping people with their hearts, I’m helping them with their home. So I do have that sense of altruism, right, naturally. But yeah, I mean, just being sincere.

D.J. Paris 41:15
And I didn’t really get into to giving back until maybe 15 years ago in my life. And I’m just curious, this is not a real estate necessarily related question. But I can honestly say that that was a significant shift for me, was realizing how much joy I would receive

Kirsten Evans 41:37
from so good, it feels so good. It is the

D.J. Paris 41:40
surest way to increase that I found it to increase one’s self esteem. By just going you know, I’m not gonna make it about me right now, for the next hour, I’m gonna go help next, or I’m gonna go serve on this committee or, you know, whatever it might be. And so even if it doesn’t give you business, because in my, in my instance, all the things I’m with have nothing to do with real estate. So they don’t help you know, my business. But boy, they help they make me feel good about myself, and, and if nothing else that is worth doing. Even Yes, helping other people is really the goal, but you are gonna feel so incredibly good. And odds are it probably will help your business. Oh, yeah, you’re totally right. Well, Kristen, Kristen, this was an awesome conversation. I know how busy you are. So I want everybody to check out Pearson’s website. And by the way, reach out to Kyrsten. Tell her, she is so nice and sweet and generous. But visit her website, which is sell with k.com. It’s a great brand. By the way, I was telling Pearson ahead of time. What a great brand I love that sell with Kay, that’s an easy,

Kirsten Evans 42:46
first name. And for anyone wondering, yes, it’s here like beer. So yeah, Kirstie did that. And if I can help you in any way, send me an inquiry, and I’d love to connect.

D.J. Paris 42:56
And by the way, you know, she has lots of clients that are that retire and move away. And so, you know, if you wanted to, you know, work with her on some of those referrals. She’s not licensed in every state. So that’s another great reason to reach out.

Kirsten Evans 43:12
Again, yeah, I actually send a lot of referrals out, especially having StateFarm here, too, and referrals coming in. So yes, I’d love to collaborate and pay a referral fee as well. And I apologize towards the beginning when I got lost in my words and translation. It was like dragging the recycling bin. And it was really loud and slammed. Well, I have about that towards the end,

D.J. Paris 43:36
no, nothing, nothing to apologize for. You did great. And we are just so thrilled to have you on our show. And we’ll love to have you back in the

Kirsten Evans 43:44
future as well. I’d love to do this again, so much fun. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

D.J. Paris 43:49
Oh, you’re so welcome. So on behalf of our audience, you want to thank Kyrsten for being just an amazing younger agent. Although it’s so funny you don’t seem young in the way you’re presenting yourself which is even more impressive. Because just how incredibly professional you are. So really, really impressed with with her everyone should be following Kiersten check her out at cell with k.com and by the way, if you live in the Bloomington Normal area in central Illinois, essentially. And if you are looking to work with one of the top Realtors in the area, I know that’s how I would choose. So you know for for everyone out there who might be listening who’s looking for an agent, reach out to Kiersten she’d love the opportunity to earn your business. And on behalf of Kiersten and myself, we want to say thank you to our audience, because you guys are the reason we can keep doing these shows. So thank you, thank you for continuing to listen and the best way that everyone listening can help support us is to tell a friend think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing this great conversation with Kiersten send them a link to our podcast. The best way to do that just sending to our website which is keeping it real pod.com Or if they’re already a podcast kind of person. They just have them pull up a podcast app on their phone and searched for keeping it real and hit the subscribe button and Oh and one last thing. If you are listening on iTunes or Spotify or Pandora or any of the other places you might be listening to this podcast. Leave us a review let us know what you think of the show that helps us improve and also tells us what you like. So anyway, Kiersten thank you so much. We are honored to have you I love talking to young superstar agents because you just yourself You guys are so full of energy and you’re just crushing it. And you know, your mission about wanting the public to see professional, responsible Realtors is obviously coming through for you and I love that so keep up the great work and Kiersten is going to keep also volunteering and possibly even wanting to be in leadership for the state of Illinois with wheelchair stuff. So we are excited to watch and your continued growth there. So thank you so much for being on our show.

Kirsten Evans 45:55
Thank you have a blessed new year everyone.

Krista Mashore with Krista Mashore Coaching talks about the beginning of her career in real estate. She emphasizes the importance of following your competitors and investing in yourself in order to stand out. Next, Krista talks extensively about videos and how she uses videos to explain statistics to her clients. Krista also describes how agents can use video to build and grow their business. Last, Krista discusses how to build relationships using videos.

Please check out Krista’s video by clicking here.

Subscribe to F.I.R.E.D UP with Krista Mashore here.

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

Krista Mashore can be reached by clicking here.

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by gogos bootcamp Are you a real estate agent looking for the very best media training program on the planet. Gogo Beth key is considered the top Instagram Realtor in the country. And her step by step training program will take your social media game to the next level, keeping it real listeners receive a special discount. So please visit Gogo podcast.com That’s Gee oh gee Oh podcast.com for your special discount, and now on with the show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents. And for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through the show and in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top producer, author and coach Krista mature. But before we get to Krista, just a couple of quick announcements. Number one, please tell a friend about our show. The best way you can help us continue to grow is by telling other agents about what we do here. So easiest way to do that. Tell them about our podcast and have them go to our website, keeping it real pod.com where they can sample and listen to every episode we’ve ever done right from their browser, or if they’re a podcast listener have searched for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. And also, please leave us a review. Whether you’re listening on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Google Play Anywhere, feel free to leave us a review. Let us know what you like about the show and what you feel that we could improve that really helps us. And as always, thank you for continuing to listen and support us. We appreciate it. We’re so excited to continue to provide these to you in 2022. We have more episodes that were ever we’ve ever done before that we’re doing this year and we have some big announcements that are coming so please stay tuned. But enough about that. Let’s get on to our interview with Christina shore.

Today on the show we have Christina shore from Christina short coaching. Let me tell you about Kristin now Chris has been in the top 1% of Realtors nationwide for 20 years selling over 2300 homes. She is also in the top 1% of coaches nationwide. Now Christina is the author of four best selling books and focusing on digital marketing and was named Yahoo. finance’s number one digital marketer to watch in 2021 and she has been featured in Forbes Inman News, The Wall Street Journal NBC Fox and many more Krystal recently went from zero to $30 million in just under four years. Now Krista has a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction. She’s always been a teacher at heart and loves serving people and has turned her attention to sharing the secrets of her successes by coaching agents and professionals across the country through through her coaching teaching, speaking and training Krista is revolutionizing the way agents and professionals market themselves online. She offers an innovative step by step approach on how agents and entrepreneurs can gain a massive digital footprint. She is also the host of the podcast fired up where she discusses digital marketing strategies to help you dominate your industry. Her podcast is available anywhere podcasts are serving and it is called Fire fired up with Krista mature we will have a link to that in the podcast notes. Also, please visit her website we have a special link just for keeping it real podcast listeners which is Christa mature I’m going to spell that for you. That’s K R I S TA mature is M A S H O R E So Christina shore.com forward slash bootcamp podcast so Krista short.com forward slash boot camp podcast. Krista Welcome to the show.

Krista Mashore 4:02
Oh my God I need to lower that. That is the way too long of an intro I was like

D.J. Paris 4:07
hey, you know what you’ve done a lot and we are so excited. I was just joking with crystal earlier I said this is a going to be a light lifting day for me as the host because Krista host is hosting her own show and also coaches agents. So this is a perfect, perfect fit for us in this is. I don’t know when this will be released. But this is we are recording. Krista and I are both recording our very first podcast of 2020. Do we are very excited about that. So Krista, again, thank you for being our first guest for the New Year, which we greatly appreciate. But tell us a little bit I always like to start at the very beginning because I always think our audience loves to hear someone’s origin story. So you tell us about how you got into real estate when what that was like and then eventually the shift to coaching which is so perfect for what we do here. So tell us about

Krista Mashore 4:58
it. DJ, thank you so much. We’re having me and congratulations on your podcasts being like in the top 20 of podcasts, Apple, which is freaking awesome shows. I mean, that’s hard to do less, I think.

D.J. Paris 5:10
Yeah, thank you for saying our silly little show gets gets get some listeners we appreciate it by the way, just as a quick plug for myself since I never do this, please leave us a review in iTunes or whatever pod and do it for, for Krista to again her podcast is fired up you go subscribe to it right now. And make sure to leave us both the review it really really helps us reach more people and also tells us what you like and what you don’t like about the show. And that helps us improve. So anyway, Krista, I was stealing your thunder. So back to you.

Krista Mashore 5:37
No, no, you’re great. Okay, so I got into real estate, I used to be a teacher. And I taught third grade for six years, and my daughter got really sick. And so I’m like really, really sick, they told me she was probably going to die. Of course she didn’t she’s she’s 20 Now, but she got sick, and she got spinal meningitis and had kidney failure and strokes and all these things. And so I left teaching to be to be a stay at home mom, because they told me that she probably was gonna have a lot of developmental problems. And so I thought, well, I need to be home. So I left teaching to be a stay at home mom and then I thought I’ll just play real estate at the same time. And, um, but what happened was my I found out really quickly that my husband at the time was having an affair, so I had to like jump into real estate. So I sold 69 houses my first year, in real estate,

D.J. Paris 6:22
well, let’s I’m just gonna let that sink in for everyone listening. Crystal just will repeat it just in case it slid right by you. Krista sold 69 homes in her first year and and I will just quantify that by saying we have about 800 agents in our company. Now one person has ever done that at our company in their first year. That is and everyone listening is in shock and awe. So we will get back to that. But I just wanted to pause because that is an incredible achievement that probably less than 1/10 of 1% of new agents do in their first year. So congratulations. Just in that alone.

Krista Mashore 6:55
I thank you when you know when your back is behind a wall, anything is possible. I was talking about anything’s possible. Like when you have to do like we had just bought a new house. And all of a sudden my videos were drained. And we had a new home. I love my job. And I was like, Oh crap, I gotta make this work. So I just jumped all in and you know, not look amazing. Two years later, here I am.

D.J. Paris 7:12
It’s amazing. Yeah. So I’m sorry, before I move forward, just because I’m so interested in this. And again, I know this is 20 years ago, and people will say, well, things are different. And maybe things were a little different. But how did you actually start that? You know, how did you find those clients? And I apologize for breaking your momentum here. But I’m now I’m so interested in how you did this.

Krista Mashore 7:34
It’s so funny on party doesn’t remember. I know that sounds crazy. I’m like, How did I do it? I I will say one thing that I that I did do early on in real estate. And that was I was studying what my competitors were doing. And I tried to always do things completely differently or better. So like, for example, back when people were you were doing, you know, one page black and white flyers back, you know, I would do four page color brochures and take like the CD and put the CD on the sign with like 50 pictures on the sign. Smart Things like that. I remember I marketed myself I was on the buses. I marketed myself I invested in myself, right? I marketed myself on TV commercials back in the day at the movie theater, I did ads, so I just tried to like what other people weren’t willing to do I did it just you know, completely and that’s how I approach real estate. Now I approach everything I try to make sure that anything that I do, I’m doing things differently and more innovative and standing out. And it’s so important because like agents are I mean not to be rude but there are commodity they’re a dime a dozen everybody knows. Like, I mean, it’s you know, what’s the craziest thing is it takes 135 hours for real estate agent to get their pre licensing in California, but it takes 1600 hours feature cosmetology license and 600 hours get your esthetician license but a realtor and most important thing 135 hours that’s crazy, you know that is crazy. So um I just you know I like to be different and so if I can give any advice to a new agent or anyone listening in that is is to an you should know your competition you should be looking at their websites looking at the ads they run seeing what they’re doing, looking at their marketing and seeing where the gaps are, how can you improve upon what they’re doing? How can you how can you make what they’re doing even better? How can you really really truly have your unique selling proposition your value add what makes you different? And if you can’t answer that question, you are a commodity you are replaceable and the only thing you have to differentiate yourself as priced right which means you’re going to constantly be lowering your price leaving your commission and I want to encourage you not to do that but increase your value right increase your level of perceived value.

D.J. Paris 9:40
Yeah, I was gonna I was gonna just break in with with I could not agree more with you and I understand there are instances where people feel that they should discount their fee to you know, when a particular deal and fine if you want to do that. I guess that’s okay. But if you’re able to, you should know why you charge what you charge and you should be able to defend that. And it should be pretty good. Because if it’s done correctly, fees really shouldn’t play into it most of the time. If you’re able to have that conversation and be able to say, I want to, you know, and if it was me, if I was a practicing agent, it might almost it maybe I wouldn’t do this as much with buyers. But on the seller side, I would sit down and say, I want to talk about fees before it even ever comes up. Or, you know, at some point during the conversation, I would say, now, it’s the point where I talk about what I charge, why I charge it and how it benefits you. And and if you don’t, if you aren’t doing that, I know if I was a seller, I’d be thinking the whole time, what is this going to cost me? What is somebody else down the street do it for and so that’s just my little my little two cents there. But I could not agree with you more that you should not discount your fees simply because Redfin charges, you know, 1% to a seller or buyer or, you know, how are some of these discount places work, you don’t have to do that if you have incredible value that you’re providing.

Krista Mashore 11:00
So true. And unfortunately, most agents are never taught how to how to provide value, right? They’re told to do open houses into door knock and cold call and put it in the MLS and do brokers tour. And so what we do is we go in there and tell people why broke worker stores don’t work and why open houses are ineffective and completely like what everyone else is saying. We’re saying the exact opposite and why you shouldn’t do it. I’ll give you an example. today. I just got done recording a video. So before the year ended, I did 2022 market forecasts, right, we did like six video series like talk going over the market in 2021, explaining what our forecast is going to be. Yesterday, I spent literally eight hours. I know it sounds like a lot. But I spent eight hours because I wanted this video to be really good where I I analyzed the numbers of like the 2021 listings and I compared so the question was, does hiring a discount or flat fee broker make a difference? Does proper marketing and make a difference? And then I showed like all the numbers and let me tell you, it’s gonna be about an eight minute video, which I know seems like a lot. But I can show that okay, in one city, in this price range, right from homes that are all single family homes in Brentwood, in 2021, that had lot sizes under an acre. And I explained why I didn’t include an acre because that’s like, you know, changes the numbers of add that we were able to sell our home our homes an average of anywhere from 14 to 22%. Higher on like every like our $166,000 or more. It wasn’t we just didn’t sell one home. Like we sold 29 homes in that city. 20 of them were in those parameters. And then we compare the same parameters to everybody else and what their stats were. And then we showed who it was. And then we compare a discount brokers. Here’s a broker, right? They say their one percenter or flat fee. And by using the one percenter you are losing $122,000. So yes, it makes a difference of who you hire. So now when I talked to me, before I go on a listing appointment, we always we said I this whole process that I do, which we get every listing, but we send a 17 minute pre listing marketing video. Now we’re going to add that video to it as well and say, Hey, if you want to see why, you know what this what I just showed you what it makes a difference in your money. Watch this next video. And so it’s like doing the selling for me, I get there, all I have to do is they’re like, We don’t care Christina about commission like we want you where do we sign I’ve already won before I arrived. Does it make sense?

D.J. Paris 13:20
It, it makes perfect sense. And I want to I want to break that down a little bit. Because you just said a lot and a lot of all really really awesome things that many of the guests that we’ve had on the show have not talked about. So I’m going to just go back a moment. And Chris, we Chris and I were talking about objections, right? We’re talking about the idea that you know, what you charge might come up as a sticking point. Well, one of the really brilliant ways, Krista even. So I said, Well, you should sit down and talk to people and explain it. And yes, you should definitely have that ready, Krista goes one step further and says, I don’t even want that to get to that point. I want to go over that ahead of time. And I want to use data and actual research, not just charisma, and hey, I’m a cool, nice guy. And you’re going to want to give me more because you like me. Of course that would be great too. But this idea of we’re going to take a look at all of the discount brokers in the area. And we’re going to see what their average price point was in my particular community. And by the way, this is such a brilliant strategy because she said at the very beginning Christmas said something really important, know your competition. And it’s not just in advertising and in the digital marketing, it’s also in presentation. And this is a great way because if you do charge, you know maybe he charged 7% to your listeners or whatever fee you want to charge or maybe it’s more or less but you can pre you can already pre clear those hurdles that might be coming up by sending them information of some say hey, watch this video. Now whether they watch or not, of course you don’t really know but but eventually you

Krista Mashore 14:51
do we track it and let me tell you, everybody watches the video and you know why? Because it’s their most valued asset and I say Hey, promise You’re gonna watch the video because it’s really important is your most valued assets. So I have your commitment, you’re gonna watch a video yes, Christian, watch the video. I’m not kidding you, did you? If I go on 100 listing appointments, and I have 98 of them watch the video like they all watched it, I can track it to see that they haven’t they watch it and, and so the thing is, is that and this whole video is I mean, imagine a 17 minute long video where you’re like, Okay, this is why you don’t do open houses because Korea, the National Association of Realtors, less than 3% of homes sold with an open house. However 67% of buyers will walk through a home that they see online according to Nar. So look at these numbers, see these 10 homes I just sold this one had 600 hours of watch time this one had 13,000 You know, comments, this one had, you know, 186,000 people that reach and I show them over and over again, all these stats about why they want to utilize s to market their homes. And I explained the whole marketing process and what makes us different. And you know, they’re being told to do this, but why that’s wrong. I’m being so prolific and people are like, I didn’t want to do an open house anyways, because they suck I’m like, and it’s dangerous. And they’re like, Thank you for being honest. And like we all know that broker store doesn’t work for the, for the seller, it works for the broker, because you’re you’re calling your friend saying please show up to the house like, can you show up? Remember, we all know that they know it too. But they especially if they meet with an agent that’s really, really honest about it. But they can, again, through data and facts show show not tell why why it’s important. Commission does not come up people like that’s all you charge. I’m like, yeah, here you go, it doesn’t even come on.

D.J. Paris 16:31
And this idea of the open house, I don’t want to spend too much time on it. But I do just want to make a quick point, because Kristen just said something really important about open houses, you can explain in maybe your explainer video, which we’re talking about creating some explainer videos before you get to the listing presentation, or a buyer presentation, I guess. But you could also talk about what an open house really does. And what it really does is it makes the seller think the agents doing something. And the other thing does is it was a great possible great lead source for that agent to sell other homes, to the people that walk in because nobody buys a very few people ever buy a home through through an open house. So just explaining that alone, most of the competition is not going to explain that they’re gonna say we’re going to do open houses, it’s going to be great. And you’re gonna say, you know, we can do that for you. But here’s why it’s not that important for you that we do an open house. And I guess if somebody says we really want you to do one, you can probably figure out a way to do it. But you this is not going to help you sell the home. And here’s why. I mean, think about it. You’re dispelling myths, you’re you’re you’re overcoming objections before they even come up. Brilliant. Absolutely. You’re

Krista Mashore 17:39
telling the truth, like you’re telling the truth. Yeah. And I’d love to show you like, just if we have time, like two and a half minutes of the 17 minute long video, because I know, it’ll blow your mind number one, but you’ll be like, holy crap, I totally get it. And now imagine, so if we have time, I can share my screen, and I’ll show it to you. But it just gives people an example. So the more that you can position yourself is different, right? And my coach always used to tell me, Kristin be as prolific as possible, right? If everyone else is saying do open houses, you say don’t do open houses, everyone else is saying, like you’re you have got to like, and that’s the truth. And people they know it. They’re smart, they understand that the reason why most agents aren’t doing these things they have not been taught and they’re not investing in it. So it’s just fun, like, you know, so what we do is we use video to get our community to get to know us to like us and trust us. But the key is we properly distribute the video. So if you’re creating video content, and here’s the thing about video content, is that when you create video content, number one, as long as people are seeing it, but you need to properly do it. And we teach people how to do that. But then what’s happening is your community is getting to know you, you’re positioning yourself as the expert, you’re you’re showing that you’re the authority, you’re breaking down their barriers, they’re developing a relationship with you, it’s actually called a parasocial relationship, which means that people like TV character, you know, you like cheer for them, you cry for them, you yell for them. It’s the same thing that happens with with video with with people. And so now when I walk into the door, they already feel like they know me, right? And so the more the more that I could break down their barriers and let them see that I am the expert. I’m winning before I arrive, I have my conversions just increase. So so so high, right? Yeah, um, and it’s like it’s, you know, research shows that you work with someone that you know, like and trust. So I’ve already I’ve already you know, we help with that. So we take the videos, we figure out what’s happening in the market, like what problems are happening, and how we can become the solution. So remember, in order for you to be considered a solution, you must be solving a problem. So what problems are people having, then we create content around that we target people through social media on Facebook, and then we can retarget people and retarget people which means so like DJ, if I write a video on selling and like five secrets when selling your house, or you know three reasons why homes don’t sell or the five biggest mistakes sellers make when selling if I can not if we can see people are watching this video then we target more information. About selling right? So now we’re bringing them down a funnel. And then at the end, it’s like, Hey, would you like a market analysis of your home? So that one strategy, people raising their hand and saying yes, so like a market analysis, we closed way more than this, but 48 transactions resulting in seven or $40,000 of commissions just from doing that. And but here’s the key, because we know that they’re thinking about selling. So now that I know that they’ve watched these videos about selling, they’re raising their hand asking for a market analysis. So here’s what we do, which is crazy. Now, I have in hand deliver the the market analysis as well as email it, we do if we knock on the door? If they don’t answer we do a little bomb on video and say, hey, check your check your porch I just dropped off at market analysis Mart. Yeah. And oh, by the way, we also did a customized video review of a market analysis for you. So check your email. So we actually go and do we do a video analysis on Zoom like this share our screen, I drop off a book that I wrote called savvy seller, along with my marketing plan. And then I direct them to the 17 Minute marketing video. They see all of that just because they requested and people are like you you do all that stuff. Well, yeah, I got 48 transactions from it that resulted in 740 plus $1,000. Because I know they’re interested in selling, okay. Now at this point, if they’re interviewing other people, no one else sent a marketing video, no one else did a marketing plan. Nobody else wrote a book. Nobody else sent them to their seller funnel with 15 videos on it. And all those things also are getting now. I’m digitally sent to them. And then I’m now also retargeting them testimonial videos from past clients and showing them marketing like how I market my properties and targeting them that. And I’m also now sending them more videos about my community, more videos about education about real estate. So now it’s like, there’s this Omni presence that I remember because I am and I’m doing what no one else is doing. So this is the kind of thing that if agents can do, this is how you take an agent that’s that’s never sold the house before it was brand new in the industry or brand new to an area. And within 12 months, they will be beating top producers and I see it happen every single day.

D.J. Paris 22:04
Yeah, it’s it is it is incredible. And gosh, you just said so much. It was I want to talk about the retargeting, because for those of us that might have heard that and aren’t familiar with that term. What Krista is referring to is when someone visits a particular web page or website, there’s a pixel on there. And if you’re doing ads on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, the different Facebook owned or meta now own properties. You can Facebook can pay attention to when people visit your website. And then when they go back to either Facebook, Instagram or even some of the other properties where Facebook advertises they now Chris’s Facebook will now serve up to those same people testimonial video. So if they already hit a certain part of the funnel, then Christa knows that they’re going to be sent very specific, sort of next step funnel videos that will help them get to that close. So her digital marketing is doing a good majority of the work that she’s still showing up knocking on the door handle livering stuff, which by the way, even if you just did that with no digital marketing, that would be above and beyond what everyone else does. I mean, maybe there’s one or two other realtors that might do that. But pretty much even that in and of itself is completely amazing. And above and beyond. But she’s also I mean, you have your whole entire system completely streamlined. And I’m not saying it’s easy, and it certainly isn’t easy, but it is streamlined and it’s efficient. And it works.

Krista Mashore 23:29
Totally works. Yeah, it positions you as being different, right. And so someone says, oh my gosh, you’re the only agent that did all these things. And I can say, hey, my job is to get a five star review from you. And you can only imagine if I did all this before you even hired me what its gonna look like when you actually hire me and are paying me. Let’s get started. I mean, it’s just like, and, you know, when they tell you I’m interviewing multiple people, as soon as you do all these things, they canceled the interviews of their people, they it’s like, they’re just like, they don’t ask you about commission. They’re just like, what’s this gonna? That’s it, you’re gonna do all that I’m like, yeah, all this stuff. And when you can show the reasoning behind why you’re doing it right. And based upon stat, you know, data and analysis and really kind of show how unique you are. And that’s what agents need to do now. Like I saw Zillow is coming after our jobs, right? Zillow wants us they want there’s so many different from ibuyer and all these different things happening we have to be different. What used to work is not going to work anymore. And I’m not know if you’ve done any research about 2022. But if you thought 2021 was hard look in the mirror, you’re gonna have the exact same thing coming ahead of you. The research shows that inventory is not going to be going up, it’s going to be still be the hardest possible to get loans. Rates are still going to be incredibly low, not as low as they were but still very, very low. And you have got to be different and unique. If people are not thinking about you prior to making the move prior to making the decision, you’re too late you they they need to be thinking about you seeing you top of mind months before they’re ready to make a decision so that when it’s time to make a decision, they’ve already made the decision and it’s you

D.J. Paris 24:59
you There’s here’s a really low tech example of this. And this one is for a lot of our listeners, they’re gonna say, well, it’s going to be very costly. And so I’m just going to use this as an example of ways that you can find your own way through this. But there we have 46,000 agents in the Chicagoland area here. There is one agent, one agent who has all of the in the grocery stores, those dividers where they sell advertising on the dividers. He has every single grocery store. There’s a big chain here called Mariano’s, as every single Mariano’s, where so now you think, Okay, well, so what? And normally, I would say, okay, yeah, I’m sort of with you a lot of these print ads, stuff doesn’t really work. Except if you’re going to the grocery store every week, and somebody in your family is there touching it, they’re seeing it. And he’s the only guy doing that. And he’s also in every shopping cart as well. And as silly as it is. And as low tech as it is. It absolutely works for him. And there’s a he’s not a smart, he’s not a dumb guy. And he’s actually a really good digital marketer too. But even if you’re doing a lower tech solution, think about think outside the box, that is actually a really smart thing, because people are going there and seeing it every single week most likely. So you can but I love the idea of the fully automated system as well. So tell us a little bit because you actually teach agents how to do this.

Krista Mashore 26:18
Yes. Yes. So okay, so we teach agents how to create video content, which I know most people want to rather eat dog crap and think about having to record a video like that it scares people or and they say things like, well, Krista, you do it a video because you’re cute. And because you have a good personality. And I’m like, Hey, listen, doesn’t matter what you look like how young you are, how old you are, how new you are in the business, how big your city is, how small your city is, it’ll work if you will work. It’s just a matter of training yourself. And anything can be taught anything can be coached, anything can be trained, right to learn to kind of just do things differently, and getting over that fear. That’s what you look like. That’s what you sound like, that’s you and you can’t put a bag over your head when you’re going to meet a seller or buyer. Right. So getting this content in front of people, we teach them how to do that. And then we teach them how to actually get it seen, because people will create video content, but if nobody’s seeing it, and like for example, you know, this DJ, on social media platforms, the only people that are seeing your content are your friends, your family, your grandma, your dog pepper, and only

D.J. Paris 27:13
maybe like less than 10% of those people are even seeing Yes, totally exactly where percent or something crazy and eat together

Krista Mashore 27:21
to get a video to go viral. It’s it’s zero to 2% of videos go viral is like because there’s like a billion hours of video every month every day, I’m sorry, like uploaded onto YouTube and everywhere else. So if we teach them how to take this content, so it’s getting seen by their whole entire community, and their friends and family, but by everyone, and they see it, they’re seen over and over and over again, there’s a lot of research about people being seen the frequency of it, and that helps conversions. And that helps what they call pre suasion, right, sure, helps convert and all this kind of stuff. So now, you’re developing a relationship with your community, you’re positioning yourself as an expert, you’re being seen, you’re not being forgotten. And then now if you learn to do that with yourself, imagine you can also do that with your properties. And you can show how that type of marketing then can help the seller. So it all kind of goes because I’m focusing on sellers, right? We don’t want buyers are impossible to show like 87 homes. 57 offers, nobody wants to do that. So focusing on sellers. And so now the sudden you start, you start to control the market. So we teach them how to how to number one, get visibility, how to get massive exposure. So they start attracting business and not chasing it kind of like I gave you the example of people raising their hand and saying, Hey, I’d like a market analysis. Most people start with that, would you like to go to my seller seminar? Would you like to go to bar it was like you go to my thing, download this download that. That’s not the case. You want to start with developing a relationship, identifying who you’re going after what they want. And then once you’ve given them that, then send them to give you their information. And yes, go to my seminar, you know, but don’t start there. Most agents start there, we teach them not to start there, but to in there, and then continuing to show Top of Mind. So when you do this, it’s just it just things just become so much easier. And it’s kind of like, like if I saw you DJ, or you called me and said, Chris, you want to have lunch? I’d be like, Heck yeah. I love your podcast. I’m like keepin it real? Yeah, let’s do it. Because I feel like I know you because I listened to you. Right? And you you experience. I don’t know where you’re from? I’m sure we do. Yeah, yes. Well add video to it. And it’s the exact same thing. People start talking to you in the grocery store, like your best friends and they think they know you and they’re having conversations and and then it’s just it’s like, all the hard stuff goes away. So we teach people how to do that. And then we teach them how to, you know, create, like massive marketing materials to convert, for example, how to, you know, be a co author with manna book and how to write this beautiful marketing plan, how to do this 17 minute listing presentation video and how to every month create content that will help them convert and position themselves as the expert. And it’s just this like, kind of a business in a box that we give them. But it’s teaching them to do things completely contradictory to what they were taught to do. We don’t they can do open houses. Cold Calling all that stuff. And in fact, when they do, they’re, they’re even more successful at it because they’re there like people know them. But it’s not like you get into real estate you want to have more time and freedom just to realize you have none right like, you know, you’re working every weekend nights like sucks. So we teach them how to get their life back and enjoy what they’re doing again and how to just come dominate in a totally non traditional ways.

D.J. Paris 30:20
And and just something that occurred to me that I forgot to mention, guess what happens when someone gets put into Chris’s sales funnel, watch his videos is interested in but all of a sudden isn’t in her service area. Maybe it’s in another state or another part of LA or, or wherever, where you’re just like, I just don’t I don’t know that area. I don’t go there. I’m not licensed in that state. Krista then finds an agent in that state and says, How would you like a referral, Mr. And Mrs. Broker? And of course, everyone says, yes, she earns a referral commission. And she is now earning money without having to do much of anything except attract people through her content.

Krista Mashore 30:56
Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So on the podcast Do you want if you don’t me share my screen, I can show you

D.J. Paris 31:02
if you’re let’s not do it here only because, but I can leave. You can. Yeah, I can add it in because 99% of our audience doesn’t watch us they listen. But but I’m going to I’m going to put a link to it in the show notes. And so for everyone listening, if you’re listening through an audio app for podcasts, look in the show notes, you’ll see a link to it. But also while while you’re there, please please subscribe to Christmas podcast, which is called fired up. So just look at any podcast app you don’t look for fired up with Krista KR, I sta you’ll and hit the subscribe button. But Krista talk and also please visit her website. So go to Krista mature.com, forward slash that was boot camp podcast. So once again, Christina shore.com, forward slash bootcamp podcast. But anyway, Chris, let’s I am I would like to ask you about content because you, you have a you have a very professional and elegant look to you. Not everyone has that same look. And so for people that are watching you going, oh my gosh, I don’t look like her. Can I still become successful? Because you talked about it doesn’t matter what you look like? Let’s talk about that. How important is it? That, that we’re that we use professional videographers when we’re shooting our content? How important is it that we have with our hair and our makeup done? Is that important? Or are there things that are more important?

Krista Mashore 32:26
Okay, so that research shows that the quality of the content is more important than the quality of the video graphics and all that kind of thing, right? I, when I’m creating a video that I’m specifically putting in front of a seller, before I go on a listing presentation, I make sure that I have eye makeup on and and the video is conveying professionalism, okay, but there’s plenty of times like people will use that as as an excuse. And I understand, you know, people will say I’ve had a lot of accents, and they’re afraid that people aren’t gonna like their accent, which is so bizarre to me, because I love listening to accents, right. And I’ve heard that so many times for my students, but we we’ve we’ve taught people that are, you know, very grossly overweight, let’s say or that are in their 70s To do this, and it’s a matter of you attract the right people. And we teach them, you know, sometimes you’re gonna, you’re gonna, you’re creating content and you’re dressed up like this, right? Sometimes you’re creating content, when you’re looking like a hot mess, and you’re in your kitchen, you’re just using your cell phone, all you need is a cell phone, you don’t need any fancy equipment, you just need a cell phone, you just need to start and peep, you’re going to start developing a relationship with your community. And as you start to get, you can learn to get better. But the idea is just to start, every single person has a cell phone, we all do. And every of those cell phones are in many cases better than a lot of the cameras out there. So just don’t worry about the graphics and the effects. Just just start and see what happens, right? And maybe

D.J. Paris 33:50
and maybe first start thinking about problems that you can solve. And and that could be as simple as think about all your client experiences, what questions come up? Where do people get really stressed? Where do they freak out. And when you’re someone’s buying possibly the largest asset of their financial life, or selling their largest asset or one of their largest assets, they’re going to be freaked out there going to be emotional. So even if you just talked about the emotional part of how challenging it is to buy or sell something, that alone everybody can relate to who’s ever bought or sold something. So so there’s there’s lots of content, but you said something really important the beginning was, know what your client’s problems are. And that doesn’t have to be all the content because it could be Hey, guys, here’s what I’m doing today. Here’s kind of a cool little insight into my life. But let’s talk about that. So how much of the content that you post on social media is here’s what’s going on in my life versus here is content to help solve a problem that the audience might be having.

Krista Mashore 34:49
I tried to mix it up big time right. So like we’ll we’ll do Hey, this is a great tip that I learned, you know, one of the things we teach is to be a reporter. So people are always worried about what they should say or talk about on on You know, write on social media. And when I say is be a reporter like, for example, today I had, I had a free accelerator, right taught people just to get comfortable with video. And I showed them this, this, this little trick called Stop, snap and switch. And what that is, is it’s like, basically we have a negative thought, whether it’s I’m too heavy, I’m too old, I’m too young, I’m tired. You notice that negative thought you snap the bracelet and then move it over to the other hand, and you rephrase that negative statement into a positive one, right, stop, snap and switch. So I said, Hey, talk and go teach that today teach people about the stop snapping switch trick. Tell them why it’s important. My thoughts become things and you know, your thoughts streams in your actions, turn drive and go teach that if you listen to a good podcast, you read a good book, you find a good tip or trick you eat it a great restaurant, you have, you know, the best Happy Hour drink and of your life, like be like, Oh my god, I’m at you know, you know, Zephyr right now we just have the best martinis and they are on sale like 50% off every day from five to six. So come down here and make sure you say hi, if you run into me, and just start creating content like that, and then you’re also going to be talking about oh, my gosh, the real estate market is so crazy. Right now, there’s only 34 active homes on the market right now in Brentwood, which is historically low. I’ve never seen it in 20 years. What does this mean? That means that it’s going to look just like 2021. Right? There’s it you mix it up, you mix it up. And you just what I would say is that first, just to get comfortable using video, one strategy that I teach my students and we’ve been able to track that on average will pick up two new listings a month, two new buyers or sellers a month is taking your cell phone, going through your contact list or going on social media, seeing something that someone who does have so for example, okay, DJ, it’s like, I’m on social media today. I see DJ, I see this awesome podcast that you did. And so it’s like, hey, DJ, it’s Kristin. I just wanted to let you know I saw that you did it keeping it real podcast. Oh, it was so awesome. Just thinking about you wanted to say hi, hope you’re having a great day. Send write don’t ask for business. Don’t ask for referrals. Don’t tell him how great you are. Do 10 of those a day video text messages it’s gonna do. Oh my god, the massive results like massive I one of my students. She said, Krista, I made more money this month, over $30,000 This month, and I made all of last year and every single one of them came from video text messages. So it’s like just a great way people love it. They feel happy. You’re not asking for business, even if it’s like, hey, DJ, I’m so sorry. I haven’t given context in the past five years.

D.J. Paris 37:21
Yeah, you can just apologize. I am I’m gonna do a better job in 2022. And I just wanted to say I was thinking about you. I hope you’re safe. Hope you’re happy. Please let me know if anything’s changed for you. But I just wanted to say I hope you have a great year. Yes. Easy.

Krista Mashore 37:36
Yes. And then what happens? Oh my gosh, I was just thinking of selling oh my gosh, I just talked to someone yesterday, and they forgot about you. This helps remind you keeps you top of mind. It’s a great way to learn to get comfortable on video. And then I love it. You said Right. Right DJ, identify what are the major and if you’ve never sold a house before, talk to your broker interview the top producer in there ask them like what is this? What is like some of the biggest mistakes that you think buyers make are the biggest concerns buyers have or what’s the, you know, what’s the best thing you’ve ever done? As you know, as a seller to you know, what’s your best advice to a seller and interview them and then go do a video on it. Right? Like yeah, I’m what happens is is that perception is reality. So when people see you over and over again, remember they’re continuing to develop that relationship with you. It’s perception is oh my gosh, DJ is doing a lot of business. It’s so funny. I have an agent Her name was Sula Favi she got voted best agent in her city okay, this is the crazy thing she didn’t like you know people they say vote for me vote for me. She did not ever sold the house yet. She got voted best agent in her swear that she had never sold the house yet but she was creating all this content and she was like I saw I did a podcast about her and she actually reached out to me on Facebook and she’s like I was cracking up I heard your you know your reference to me winning Rochester best agent of the year. She was I just had my first six figure quarter. Right? Yes, amazing. Amazing.

D.J. Paris 39:00
I love all of that. And And here’s another just quick idea just to tag on to all the other great ideas you mentioned. If you’re wondering if you don’t have that knowledge or the content that you that right now that you want to put out there. One of the things you could do it Krista sort of said this I’m just gonna expound a bit is right now who who is suffering especially during COVID Right? We have retail right retail suffering and you live in a community and we know real estate’s hyperlocal and you’re personally your your reputation is probably hyperlocal to go around to some of those businesses that you really like and you want to help succeed and just do a little Facebook Live or Instagram Live or even just record the video ahead of time. And I mean, ask the owner and say I just want to come in and help maybe promote your business a little bit. And then you could go in and say tell me about such and such clothing shop or restaurant or whatever. And that could be a two minute video where you’re just like, oh my god, I love it. I love to eat at your place or buy my clothes there. And even if that’s all you did, peep what’s the message people are gonna see Wow, Crystal really cares about her commute. Did he look at her trying to help this business? She’s not asking for business for her real estate. But but it is the perception is oh my gosh, she’s really going above and beyond. And guess what? You’re giving free advertising to the retailer, they are going to be thrilled. And back to your question about how often do you do we at our podcast, and we’ve had over I think over 150,000 agents have listened to one of our episodes. Which which is not meant to brag, because who cares? But this is the important part I think I’ve received. I know what’s happened at least once, I’m gonna say it’s probably happened twice. And probably it’s only happened once. But just because my memory is awful, I will say twice, maybe two times of I have gotten video videos from people said, I just want to let you know, I’m a big fan, we get emails, and we get messages and stuff. But videos maybe twice and the like, and only remember one, but that person who I can remember, we booked her immediately. Even though she wasn’t a top producer. I was like that’s the kind of person I want on the show. Not just because I want people to praise me, but I just thought that shows initiative, that person is going to be a superstar. And I said I want to talk to that person on the way up. So Krista is absolutely right, it made me feel good to know that somebody would took time out of their day to do that for me. And you can do that for anybody you know, whether it’s somebody who you know, sells, you know, in your in your community that you want to support or just your friends who checking in and see how they’re doing right now, because everyone’s struggling. Everyone’s getting sick right now, this is a great time. And it’s the new year to say how is your holiday season? How’s everyone doing? I’m thinking about you how you know? And that’s all you have to do?

Krista Mashore 41:34
Yes, and what you’re saying we do that all the time we interview, we just we literally I have, we just go and help people, right when COVID first hit, we did like, every single week I interviewed, I would look up like 10 Different I do a zoom like this. And I would interview 10 different local businesses and they’d come in and talk about how people can still work with them during COVID. And it, it helps people so much, and then they want to refer you and then the community sees that you’re doing you’re doing that right and just about you’re getting out there. And being in front of people helping people talking about the local community talking about what’s happening, people assume that you’re doing business and it just attracts. It’s such an attraction based marketing piece. And it works. So well.

D.J. Paris 42:19
Well, let’s talk about your, you know, the bootcamp that you do offer. So everyone who’s listening, please go to Crystal ashore.com forward slash boot camp podcast link for that also in the notes, but tell us what the boot camp is.

Krista Mashore 42:34
Yeah, so it’s a three day virtual live event. And we have it every single month. It’s coming up this month, on the 17th I believe, but it’s again, it’s every single month, so this month, to 17th 18th and 19th. And it’s literally eight hours each day online, where I could teach people about video content how to how to create videos that people watch what to say how to say it, when to say we teach them about marketing, how to have a unique value proposition how to position themselves differently teach them about marketing, we like marketer first, top producer second, right? You want to be top producer, you got to be a marketer. First we teach them how to utilize different types of marketing strategies to position themselves as the go to authority in real estate. So they’re not chasing business. We don’t teach things like open houses and cold calling and door knocking. It’s completely contradictory to what they’ve been taught originally, we teach them a very new innovative approach to really becoming that go to community market leader in their area.

D.J. Paris 43:30
I love it and you can sign up for it by visiting Christo mature.com forward slash bootcamp podcast, everything Krista does is right on that website.

Krista Mashore 43:41
I think we’re giving him a discount because it’s because of you DJ. So it’s like half price. I’m pretty darn sure right now.

D.J. Paris 43:47
You know it is I just saw that and it is half price. It is 40 Sup guys, three days of content for $47, I would pay probably 10 I would have paid 10 times that now that I think I paid more than 10 times now for three days worth of content. That is the cheapest three days of content you can get. And this is from somebody who has sold 2300 homes. She’s a top producer for over 20 years. She knows her stuff. She’s not a coach who has never practice which unfortunately, there’s a lot of coaches in this industry that fall into that category. But that’s not her and she’s in a ultra competitive area. By the way the Brentwood market if you are not familiar with Los Angeles is one of the most exclusive places to live and own property.

Krista Mashore 44:27
I’m in the other written by San Francisco but still, I am sorry. No completely massively competitive everywhere. It’s competitive, right? Well, here’s the thing which is crazy DJ this year we sold I think 56 million in real estate. We it’s like we did around 1.41 point 5 million in gross commissions earned and I only work on the real estate business five hours a month I create the video content I properly distributed. Now my brother goes in his me and they see they see our videos, they see our content they they they’re hiring our process. So we’re doing that, you know without even I’m coming gi coach 97% of the time so it’s so doable for you I know some of these things we will hear and they go That sounds impossible. Krista can only do it because you know she’s hyper no any and we have taught your normal Joe Blow total opposite personality of me how to do this because you will attract the right type of people and you will detract the people that are not not you know, interested in work with because I don’t like your personality, which makes it better because then you end up working with people that you like and love. And you enjoy your life again. So and I love what you said to it is so true. Like we’ve done this right Do you Do you own a broker? Do you have like 100 agents working for you? You’ve seen it all. You know, it’s like who do you go to to learn something, somebody who’s done it. And right now, digital marketing is essential in your business and I we’ve mastered it, but we’ve we’ve mastered on marketing. So can

D.J. Paris 45:48
everyone listening first, go to Christina shore.com forward slash bootcamp podcast to get that half off on her three day podcasts or bootcamp, which is just $47 and also subscribe to her a podcast which is called fired up, you can find that anywhere podcasts are served. You can also subscribe to it right from our website, Krista misure.com. So please, everyone could do that. And I would love to have Krista back on the show. I’m sure everyone listening would love that as well. So let us know in the comments. The best way you can help us is tell us what you like about the show and also where we can improve. And the best way to do that is

Krista Mashore 46:23
given the five star review on on Apple for his wonderful time. This is my favorite podcast that I’ve done in forever. The best house we have the best personality and it was so collaborative. And thank you so much DJ for having me. I’m honored to be here.

D.J. Paris 46:38
We’re super grateful. So everyone, leave us both reviews. And if you want to leave five star reviews, we’d be super honored. But let us know what you like and dislike about the show. But the best way to help us continue to grow and also help Krista tell a friend think of one other agent that can benefit from hearing this great conversation with Krista send them a link to our show. Easiest way to do that if the person isn’t a podcast listener, go to keeping it real pod.com and they can stream every episode we’ve ever done there. And also Christina shore.com. You can stream every episode right from her website as well. So listen to her show. Listen to my show, as well, as you already are telephoned. And thanks for helping us continue to Krista on behalf of the audience. We want to say thank you, you were an unbelievably great guest. We’d love to have you back. And everyone please go subscribe to her podcast and check out her bootcamp because it is awesome. And it’s only $47 I know I’m going to check it out. And on behalf of Kristen myself, we want to thank our listeners and our viewers for continuing to support our show and of course her show as well. So thank you, Krista. It was a pleasure and we will see everyone next time

In our December episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @properties talks about how she built her business and brand in real estate. She gives credit to the way she was raised for her two characteristics: patience and accountability. She emphasizes how important it is for her that her clients get the feeling of trust, credibility and easy communication out of her brand. Last, Carrie and D.J. discuss the importance of saying “thank you” to your clients/partners.

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

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

Please follow Carrie on Instagram by clicking here.

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Joel Schaub at guaranteed rate. As a realtor it’s important to partner with only the most trusted name in mortgage lending. Joel has 1000s of satisfied clients and gives $1,500 of his commission back to your buyers on every closing. He is known for his ability to close even complex deals start to finish in only 14 days to learn what 1000s of others already know. Make a note to call Joel at 773-654-2049 or email [email protected] Guaranteed Rate is an equal housing lender licensed in all 50 States Consumer Access Number 2611 And now on with the Show

All right welcome to keeping it real the largest podcast for real estate agents and by real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris I am your guide and host through this show and today is our monthly series called The Monday market minute with Carrie McCormick from the Carey McCormack Real Estate Group here in Chicago with at properties. Now Carrie is a top 1% producer in Chicago with over 20 years of experience helping buyers, sellers and investors. In fact, in the past 12 months out of 46,000 real estate agents here in Chicago, Carrie is currently ranked a number 14 Actually maybe even lower than that lower meaning higher in the rank. But as of last time I checked, she’s was in the top 15 And always is She’s a true superstar and an expert in everything from first time homebuyers, veteran investors and luxury properties. She also works a lot of developers and is often chosen to represent their high end developments. Now please visit Carrie McCormick at her website, which is Carrie McCormick r e.com. But also absolutely follow her on Instagram. We’re actually going to be talking to Carrie today about branding. And she there’s no better example of an amazing branding. A realtor who does branding, then Carrie, so follow her on Instagram, which is at Carey McCormick real estate. There’s also a link to that in our show notes. So at Carey McCormack, and McCormack has to cease at Carey McCormick real estate Carrie, welcome once again to the show.

Carrie McCormick 2:21
Thank you, thank you love being here with you.

D.J. Paris 2:25
love having you. And we’re going to do something a little different today. We were Carrie and I were talking and the first time I met Carrie, she was actually a guest on our show this is many years ago. And then she decided to come on monthly. And we’re so grateful to have her as a partner comes on to talk about what’s going on in the market. And we’re now in the latter part of December, we’re on you know, wrapping up the year. And we thought we’d go back and revisit something that I think we did talk about on their very first time we mentioned but that was cash like three or four years ago. Yeah, so we want to talk about how Carrie grew her business. And we’ll give an abbreviated version of that, because we do have that full interview from from years ago, which which we’ll link to, but specifically branding, right, I think branding is really so much of a realtors for perception, or how people perceive realtors in the industry. And it really is difficult because there’s all sorts of different ways that realtors can brand themselves from the ones who do extraordinarily silly kind of, you know, marketing efforts to people that are ultra serious and professional. And then of course, everything in between and realtors are given a wide berth to really build their brand. So you have built your brand, I would say for you the words that come to mind when I think about your brand would be professionalism, elegance, just but but also like kind of cutting edge too. So even though you know you’ve been in the business 20 years, you are, you know, all of your branding looks fresh up to date on trend. So you must keep adapting that with the times. And I’m so curious to know how you keep your branding looking so remarkably current as sort of things, you know, our tastes evolve and change. But let’s let’s start kind of at the beginning of how you got in real estate.

Carrie McCormick 4:19
Well, that’s thank you for all of that. That was very kind and, you know, I truly love what I do. And I think when people do love what they do, it just kind of shines through and it’s it’s authentic, and it’s organic, and you’re able to be who you want to be. And that’s kind of where this all was born from. And just to kind of take a step back. As I was mentioning someone I’ve been getting a little bit more of like the questions of, you know, tell me a little bit about, you know, how you grew up and you know, tell me about your childhood or tell me about you know, whatever it is going way back when I’m like you know it doesn’t really matter and a lot of people don’t really care but as I’ve thought through A little bit of it, you know, I wanted to share with you and then with the audience, just how I did build that brand. And it really, if I look back into my life as a young child, like just 789 years old, you know, my natural state back then as a young child was very entrepreneurial. At 12 years of age, I got my first job.

D.J. Paris 5:23
What was your first job?

Carrie McCormick 5:25
So I worked at a catering company, well, this, you guys will laugh, I was a golf cart driver on a golf course, sure, they did catering then and apparently, way back when you didn’t matter how old you were. So I drove a golf cart on the golf course, and served refreshments as a 12 year old. So but I was very rebel spirited back then. And I didn’t follow the rules. I wanted things done my way. And it was really not kind of being out of being stubborn. But it was truly because I felt there was a better way to do things or to better experience things. My mom didn’t like it very much that I was, you know, had that kind of attitude. But again, it didn’t, it wasn’t born out of, you know, I’m, I’m going to break rules or not follow rules. Because of that, because of I didn’t want to it was, hey, this could be done better. You know, so let’s do it this way. So I would bend the rules. But I was raised by a single mom, she was a working mom. And she always put people first. And she was kind of that Martha Stewart, us kind of person. And, you know, because, you know, I was raised by a single mom that worked very hard, and, you know, was very authentic to what she did. I kind of got my drive and my work ethic from her. So, you know, you fast forward, you know how I grew up into a young adult, I started to learn patience and accountability, which those two lessons along with, like my drive, and my grit, definitely propelled my career.

D.J. Paris 7:08
When you say patience, can you get a little bit more specific? Do you mean, the patience to have the sort of the ability to wait for something to happen as long as you keep moving forward? Or is patients around something else?

Carrie McCormick 7:23
Well, it was. And I think we live in a world now where everything is so fast paced, and we want what we want. But you know, early in my career, things were a little bit slower. And, you know, I knew I wanted to be successful. I knew I wanted to sell luxury real estate early on, I knew what I wanted. But you know, you just couldn’t snap your fingers. And it was there. So the patience became something that I learned because I had to work hard. You know, I mean, I had to build, I had to do all that grinding work of, you know, again, way back when, you know, I would knock on people’s doors, you know, I would cold call, there’s all that stuff, that when you’re in the thick of it, you think, you know, I’ll never make it. But you know, it’s being persistent. It’s having the patience, it’s having the drive, it’s all the things that we know that we need to have, you know, to have our success. So, you know, again, how did this young like rebel spirit, bring me into real estate, you know, and then I say, Well, I think real estate actually came to me. And actually, I’ll tell you guys a very quick story of how I got into real estate. So again, a couple decades ago, I was in advertising. And I had a really beautiful office, it was looking over millennium, well, what is now Millennium Park. And I’m not sure what happened on that specific day, but I just remember, something didn’t go my way, whatever it was, and I’m like, I’m gonna go out for a walk. So I left the office and again, this is by Millennium Park. And I started walking and you know, as you’re kind of your mind is going and walk in and just kind of huffing and puffing along and I ended up in the west loop. And again, this is wow, that’s that’s quite quite a walk. This is I must have been really angry. So this is back in the late 90s. In the West, what is obviously now the west loop, which wasn’t what it is now. So when I got to the it was on Monroe Street was Monroe, or Madison, I should know this, but was on Monroe and Madison. There was a sales trailer or like a trailer home, sitting there and there was construction going on, there was a big digger there. And I stopped and I looked and some gentleman came out of the door, his of the sales trailer, the trailer, and he says, you know, you can’t be on the site, you know, you need to get off. It’s an act of construction site. And you know, I’m just looking around, like, what are they doing? I mean, it was just the weirdest thing to me. And he came out and he talked to me and he said, you know, what are you doing here? And I said, Well, I’m just curious, like, what’s going on? And what are they building? Here’s like, oh, you know, let me tell you, we’re gonna build Have a condo building on this site, you know, and we’re going to have X amount of units and blah, blah, blah. And I said, Who’s going to live in this neighborhood? Right? And he’s like, Well, you know, we’re thinking professionals, and you know, it’s so close to that. And he’s like, giving me like the sales pitch, because he probably thought I might be a good buyer for him. And I just started telling him what I thought. And I’m like, Well, this is what I, you know, why would you do that? And, you know, it’s funny. He says to me, he looks at me goes, Are you in real estate? And I’m like, Well, yes, I am. I’ve been, of course I wasn’t. And he said, I want to talk to you, you’ve got some really good ideas. I kind of like the way that you think, meet me at my office next, whatever, next Thursday. So I’m like, great. So I leave, I walk back to my office, I get on the computer, how do I get my real estate license? You know, it was, you know, like a week’s Crash Course. Sign up for the real estate class, which of course, didn’t start till the following week, I met with Tom at his office, and I told him the truth. They said, you know, with all due respect, you know, I, I signed up for the course, I’m not licensed. But I signed up for the course and I will have my license by x date. And he was completely fine with it. He thought it was kind of funny. And he was thankful that I told the truth. But he hired me. He said, You know, I like that you push the rules with me. I like that you didn’t agree with everything I said, I liked you know, your energy and your enthusiasm. And he hired me. And that’s how I started my career in real estate.

D.J. Paris 11:41
Oh, yeah, that’s, it’s really interesting. I think, oftentimes, especially for, you know, bosses or employers, they’re often looking more for quality, or qualities or personality types than they are experience. I’m in the process, right now I get to be part of this group of investors and makes me sound more important than I am, it’s not a big deal. But there’s about 50 of us. And we’re going to be finding a technology company in Las Vegas of all places, like a startup that is, you know, need some seed money. And so we’re all, you know, pooling a little tiny bit of money together to help these, this company, we’re all get to decide on which company and there’s a bunch of them, that one that are competing for the money. And so we’re I’m in the process of now looking at businesses that I have no experience with, and probably wouldn’t be able to have the eagle eye to go, oh, that’s the one that’s going to succeed. So it’s a total gamble on our end, because it’s not a real estate related, all the companies, none of them are real estate related. So what I’m like, Well, I don’t know enough about any of these technology sectors to make a really good decision on who’s got the best business plan. So I have to just go with the qualities that I see in these, the these owners, the startup founders, and that’s the only thing I get to go on. And so I I’m in the process of doing that now. And I’m like, well, this person seems like they, they have a great personality, and I never quit attitude. So you know, and I think probably a lot of people get into professions, because someone saw something in them that, you know, that they thought, oh, once they learn the skills of being part of this particular industry, they already have the personality. So they’re gonna You just have to, like, just wind them up and push them in the right direction. So I suspect that’s exactly what happened to you.

Carrie McCormick 13:36
Yeah, well, I feel like I got lucky. I feel like I got lucky. So, again, that’s how I started in the business. And then you fast forward into, you know, one of your questions was about branding, and, you know, building a brand. And what I’ve learned through the last couple of years is that the word you know, to define the word branding or brand, it’s not a logo, it’s not marketing or advertising, I like to say that a brand is your reputation and how someone feels about you. Right? You know, and just like you said, You’ve you had some really nice comments about my brand. And, you know, I didn’t set out and say, you know, Carrie McCormack, you know, this is what I am, it’s just, it’s a feeling that somebody gets, you know, when they see my name or see my marketing or see anything that I do, and I think it’s important for all of us when you’re when you have your own business is to be your own brand, Ambassador and have your own identity. You know, I’ve seen some folks, you know, and I think it is flattering when someone takes like a social media post or something and they just duplicate it or they copy it and you know, I think they say it’s, it’s flattery, you know, but it’s it’s not them, right you know, like if You take my post and repost it and put your face on it. It’s just, it’s not you, it’s not authentic. So, you know, I’ve spent quite a bit of time just figuring out what’s important to me. And you know, what’s my style and my reputation. And you know, how I want others to feel when they’re around me. And I think it’s important. Also, when you’re building a team, or you know, you have people working for you, is to those people that, that are there that they have the same identity for you, meaning, if my, if my assistants are in front of my clients, I want my clients to feel there. You know, that it supports my brand, and how I want to treat people. So it’s the energy that you put out there and it creates that brand just kind of becomes its its own.

D.J. Paris 15:48
Yeah, let us I’m curious on if you were to think about what feelings you want your clients to have, you know, after the transactions completed, they’ve either bought their home sold, the home moved in rented, you know, whatever the transaction is, and they think back to their experience, you know, what are some of those feelings that you want them to, to have in the weight as they think back about, you know, your performance as their realtor?

Carrie McCormick 16:16
Yeah, you know, everyone listening, who’s a realtor, we all work so hard. And when we just do it, you know, sometimes it may we make it look easy that what we do, but, you know, I want my clients to feel like they number one, that they can trust me, because I always always have my clients, best interests, and I’m a fiduciary, you know, so I have to protect my clients, and I want them to feel like that they are protected, the decisions and advice that I give them, is for them, you know, it’s not for me, it’s not for my company, or any it’s all about them. So I want them to feel like they’re in good hands. I want them to feel that, you know, they I trust that they can trust me. Absolutely. Communication, I also think is important, I want them to feel like if they have a question, they can call me anytime, and I’m gonna pick up the phone, so that I’m there for them. So that’s, and I feel like because that is truly how I feel about what I do, again, that my clients can 100% Trust me, I’m always there for me, they can pick up the phone, I will make the best decisions, possibly for them and their property. It’s grown my business, because it’s authentic. And it’s truly how I feel.

D.J. Paris 17:40
And, you know, it’s it’s so interesting, because I suspect a lot of realtors who haven’t had the experience is that you’ve had and the length of time in the industry, you know, something a lot of people struggle with is, is yes, I want to do a good job. But they don’t maybe forward think and say when this transaction is over, what do I want my clients to actually feel about me, and you just very elegantly sum that up. And I think, then it’s like, okay, I want them to know that I put their best interest in front of my own, that I have a fiduciary, which by the way that in and of itself is a really important thing for all of our listeners to understand about your business as a real estate agent, as Yes, you are. And you can have that conversation with your clients about what that means and what responsibility that you take to do that. But at the end of the day, you have a list of things that you want your clients to feel after a transaction. And then comes the hard part, like you said, being able to contact you at any time, the hard part is now you have to live up to to all of those expectations that that you want your clients to, you know, to feel that that you’ve met. So but it also probably drives all of your behavior, I imagine. Because you know, I know, like, example here at the firm I work at is we have just about 800 agents. And when I started we had just a couple of agents. And so we’ve grown a lot, but we always have thought of ourselves as a small little mom and pop family company. And even though we’re not so small anymore, that’s still kind of our identity. So I have to make sure when I’m talking to agents who are thinking about joining the company, I work for that I say just just so you know, we still think of ourselves that is our brand is we are this little mom and pop company. We try to treat our agents, you know, as best as we possibly can. But you know, if I say oh, we have 800 agents, somebody might think, Oh, I’m just another number, you know, or there’s firms that have 1000s of agents, you know, and there’s small and bigger firms, but our brand is actually where this little tiny company that just happens to be bigger than when we started but so so I always make sure that you know and when I tell agents who joined our firm, I’m like we’re our job is to make sure that you never say I don’t really like it here. But in order to do that, you know we have to treat agents and again, I don’t work with buyers sellers. You know, I work with realtors. And so I have to make sure our Realtors feel the same way your clients feel about you. And so but But you’re right, it’s it really governs all of our behavior at our company is how do we take such good care of people that they don’t want to leave and go somewhere else at the same with you. And but that there, there it is the hard work. Because if we do get a phone call from one of our agents that you know, 10pm at night saying, oh my god, I’m gonna lose this transaction, this deal is gonna fall through. Oftentimes, we have to step up and do that, even though we’re like when we really started, you know, at five o’clock, we all go home. But we really have to have to be there. So I can appreciate the the sort of how specific you are with wanting that. And then I can also appreciate how difficult it is to meet to meet those needs. But that’s where all the reward happens. So you’re you are somebody who is hot, I mean, nothing was handed to you, which is I’m always so impressed with people who, you know, are able to be to excel in this industry without really any specific hand help or handouts, obviously, you’ve got help along the way. And you consider yourself lucky for having to walk by that developer at the time. But the end of the day, like probably 1000 Other people walked by that developer that same day, right, and you had the you really had no business talking to them, because you don’t know anything about that business that that industry, and yet you did. And that demonstrates an impressive quality, you know, to anyone that’s looking to employ somebody, I once I once hired, I was like trying to hire an assistant. And we, this is back when Craigslist was like the place to put your job posting. And we probably got 100 responses. And it was just for this menial position. It wasn’t even a high paying position, it was embarrassingly, like maybe it was maybe we must have just been paying, you know, minimum wage or something. And so we got all these, you know, really earnest responses people wanting to, to be the assistant. And, and it was just like, oh my god, there’s 100 of these to go through. And then a woman just walks in, she was in her 20s. And she goes, I wanted to like hand my resume in person, because I know you’re probably getting a lot of those. And we just kind of looked at each other, my boss and I and we’re like you’re hired. Like if you’re gonna come all the way down here just to walk into our like crummy little office for, you know, a crummy job that you’re probably not going to want in three or four months. No, no, no, no, she she is that still there? But, but but not, but because she went on to bigger and better things? Because of course she did. Because that’s the kind of person that is going to go on to bigger and better things. And so that’s exactly what happened with you. And you and I’m not in any way suggesting, you know, you were a professional. You had a good career as before that we’re just

Carrie McCormick 22:51
very fortunate. Yeah, no, that’s exactly it. So you know, it’s, it’s taking chances, and it’s, you know, really is all about hard work. And you know, sometimes too, it’s being in the right place at the right time.

D.J. Paris 23:06
Apps, it’s so much of being in the right place at the right time. The good news is, if you just go to a lot of different places, and you you you put yourself out there at some point, someone’s going to be like, Wow, that’s impressive. And it’s happened to me, it’s it, you know, and it is what I will tell you, though, back to the branding thing, because I’m really curious if you agree with this. So I was thinking as you were talking about the feelings you want your clients to have about you. And when I was also mentioning, we want our agents to think about our company the same way your clients feel about you. And I was thinking that, and again, it really does become like our North Star. And it certainly is your North Star. Because if you don’t fulfill those obligations, those commitments you’ve made, which are really your own personal sort of values to your client, if you don’t honor those, almost perfectly, if not perfectly, you run the risk of the client thinking well, she didn’t really deliver on that, or, you know, it was a lot of just marketing, whatever. But it probably governs your behavior, I imagine, right? Like, you know, although that’s my North Star, I want everyone to go wow, she worked really hard for me, she had my best interests in mind. I could contact her she was knowledgeable, she always got back to me or she was available. And that probably in some ways frees up some anxiety you have about like, you know what to do so that people feel that way?

Carrie McCormick 24:29
I do. But it is interesting that you know, every there’s so many different personalities out there. And you know, a lot of people comment that, you know, we could be psychologists and all that stuff. And it is there’s one client in particular. I mean, I went above and beyond in the amount of work that I did for this client, but it’s all because it’s what I do, right. And we got the deal closed and again, it was for this year. It was one of the hardest deals, but it was severence it was it was everything you could possibly think of. I didn’t get a thank you, you know, but it’s not about that, you know, but I was just thinking like, I mean, I did the best that I could but you know, someone, you know, their expectations was, of course, she’s going to do that, you know, but sometimes a little thank you goes along.

D.J. Paris 25:20
Yeah, I think it’s a really good time as a marketing tip as well to remember to say thank you to your clients not carry, of course carry does this, but carries saying, Gosh, it would be nice for this person to recognize all the work I did. It’s a great really reminder for all of us to recognize all of the work that we are all the help that we get as well. So if there are people in your life, friends, family, co workers, maybe a mentor, or just people you admire in the in this industry, or just in life in general, reach out to them and tell them, even if it’s somebody you’ve never met, you know, we’re lucky to get some of our listeners write us and say things about how we helped their business, we would really never know that if we didn’t get that feedback. I mean, we assume we’re helping people. But unless people tell us, we honestly don’t really know. And so I would encourage everyone is your marketing tip. Even if it’s somebody you sold a home to four years ago, pick up the phone and wish them a happy holidays and say I just you know, especially if you really liked them, say I just want to tell you four years ago, I remember closing in your home, wasn’t that a fun time? Or? Or wasn’t that a difficult time or whatever the experience was, and just say I just want to thank you for being my customer four years ago. You know, very few people ever do that. And I think that’s a great opportunity. Definitely. This is the, the time of year where we we all you know, try to give thanks. And, and really a lot of a lot of times we think people know that we appreciate them. But they probably don’t is because you say it in your head all the time about how much you appreciate somebody. I know I deal with this in my primary relationship with my girlfriend is I think I must be complimenting her all the time. Because in my head, I do that. And then I’ll find out oh, I didn’t say anything out loud. I just I’m always thinking about how great she is. Am I telling her how great she is? As often as I should? Well, no, I’m probably not. And you know, that’s that’s something to consider is think about. Gratitude gets you a lot of just

Carrie McCormick 27:23
you just say it to everyone, everyone wants to hear it. Right? No matter what you do who you are, everyone wants to hear it.

D.J. Paris 27:30
And people I have found in my life when you are really authentically grateful to people, then they they will they will be by your side forever. Everybody wants to feel appreciated. So we appreciate Carrie for coming on our show for years and years. And continuing to do that she does not have the time really to do this. One of literally one of the top producing realtors in Chicago and the Chicago and hola Chicagoland area, not just the city. And so we appreciate you. So on behalf of all our listeners, we say thank you for being consistent Carrie is never missed. I think there are one or two times we had to reschedule because you know, just things got busy. But Carrie has not missed. She’s continues to be on the show and really helps our audience learn what it’s like to be a top producer, and what every one of our agents can do to kind of get to where you are now. So on behalf of everyone we say thank you. And on behalf of carrier You’re welcome. On behalf of Carrie and myself. We also say thank you to all of our audience for continuing to listen and support us. Thank you for another great year carry. This was a Gosh, three or four years now together. And we are so honored to have you. And just as a quick thing before we go please everyone follow Carrie on Instagram, go to her website or I’m sorry, we’ll go to our website too. But before you do that, follow her on Instagram this is really if you want to see branding in action authentic branding and action that looks brand new, every single post she does looks new, it looks hip, it’s hip, his Gosh, I’m dating myself, but but it does it look it’s on brand. And I always say that you are right on on trend for everything that’s cool and going on. And as a marketer, I can really appreciate what you do. So follow her on Instagram, which is at Carey McCormick real estate. Again, McCormick is with two C’s. So Terry McCormick real estate and also go to her website, which is Carrie McCormick r e.com. And before you sign off, I know you’re ready to hit the end button or the fast forward to the new next podcast episode. But please tell a friend think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing from Carrie about branding and send them a link to our episode. And please leave us a review on whatever podcast app you might be using, whether it’s Apple podcasts, or it’s what used to be iTunes or Google Play or Pandora or Spotify or wherever. Leave us a review that lets us know what we’re doing right and what we can do to improve so thank you Carry for another great year and we will see you in 2022. Thank you

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

Chris Linsell from TheClose.com and D.J. discuss the importance of empathic communication – discussing the layoffs at better.com and the importance of working with lenders you trust. Chris reveals real estate statistics based on surveys conducted by The Close during 2021. They also talk about doing a “tech audit” to make sure the tools you’re using are still the best for your business. Last, Chris talks about what The Close Pro offers.

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

Chris Linsell can be reached at [email protected].

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by gogos bootcamp Are you a real estate agent looking for the very best media training program on the planet? Gogo Beth key is considered the top Instagram Realtor in the country and her step by step training program will take your social media game to the next level. Keeping it real listeners receive a special discount, so please visit Gogo podcast.com That’s Gee oh gee Oh podcast.com for your special discount and now on with the show.

Welcome, keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through the show and today is our monthly series called closing time with Chris Lindh sell from the close. Now this is a partnership between keeping it real and the closed.com Let me tell you about the clothes the clothes.com is the kind of real estate website designed to give agents, teams and brokerages actionable strategic insight from industry professionals. They cover real estate marketing, lead generation technology, and team building strategies from the perspective of working agents and brokers who want to take their business to the next level, please visit the closed.com That’s th e c l o s e.com And subscribe to their newsletters so you can get notified every time they publish an article now with us as always is crystallin Sal, he is a staff writer and real estate coach for the close. Chris is the closes resident expert on real estate topics ranging from marketing lead gen 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. When he isn’t writing, you’ll find Chris fly fishing or performing on the stages of his community theaters production local community theaters production. I Chris, welcome once again. It is December. We are excited to have you close out the rest of the year. And welcome to the show. Hey, thanks

Chris Linsell 2:15
for having me. DJ. Great to be back. Yeah, it has been a crazy month, a crazy year. Good to be here. Glad to talk to you. And frankly, there’s there’s a lot going on right now. So we got some stuff to talk about here,

D.J. Paris 2:28
my friend. We do. And I apologize to anyone if my voice is a little shaky. I’m working on working on a cold and also living with a COVID Positive partner who I am trying to stay six feet away from so I do not infect myself or she doesn’t infect me. But I hope everyone out there before we get started is enjoying the holidays. Please remember to get your booster shots and be safe. Yeah, so let’s talk about the big sort of national news that happened on the lending side recently, which was better.com, which I had not heard of that company prior to the news that most of our listeners probably have been exposed to, which was there was mass layoff. That happened I think 900 employees were laid off from better.com, which is a an online lending institution, and they were laid off in unceremoniously sort of ethical way, I guess it’s not gonna be the best way to say,

Chris Linsell 3:36
Yeah, I think unceremonious is like, I think that’s putting it pretty politely frankly. You haven’t seen it there. There is definitely some crazy video on the internet. And it won’t take much just go you know, head to Google and type in better.com layoffs. And you’re gonna get hit with a lot of video that you know, actually first went viral on Tiktok of some some layoffs that happened. And here’s the here’s the thing, actually, I want to just kind of back up and say I’ve got stuff to say about this relative to the mortgage and lending industry and the real estate industry as a whole. But this is like a people problem. That doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. You know, you’re the leader of your organization is tasked with making sure you’ve got the right team in place to execute on the company’s goals and the reality is sometimes that means that you got to lay people off you got to fire people, you got to hire people you got to bring people on. So it’s it’s a leaders task to make sure that’s done effectively. This really was a swing and a miss as far as that effectiveness elements. So a separate from the real estate and lending components here. Let’s just call a spade a spade here. This was a Human Resources debacle on the highest level, I think.

D.J. Paris 5:04
So essentially what happened is they laid off 900 people simultaneously and about a three minute Zoom meeting that the people who were being fired or laid off, I’m not sure if which one it was, but were unaware. So they thought they were attending a regular meeting. And they were notified just before the holidays. So bad timing, bad presentation, or bad execution. And everyone got notified at the same time within about a three minute period. And then they were subsequently locked out of their emails. And I think there’s a couple of points that we could we could talk about outside of the outrageous pneus of firing somebody via zoom, or firing 900 people via zoom simultaneously, which I think we could all we all would sort of appropriately shutter at and maybe sneer at somebody who would consider doing that. But aside from saying, What a bad what a bad guy, for the person who was the CEO. Aside from that, I think that the conversation Could it really could lend now to talk about culture? And how do we, how do we bring people into our organization? What is our culture? Like, once somebody is part of the organization? How do we exit? How do we move people out of the organization? How do we do that in a way that respects someone’s dignity? And is that is that even important? Or is this guy a genius in the sense that he efficiently let go of 900 people all at once my, you know, I don’t believe that, that that was an appropriate way to do that. Maybe there would be some efficiency experts that that would disagree, but seems like just from a human being perspective, and just being a good citizen of the world, that that was probably not the best way to achieve that unfortunate outcome.

Chris Linsell 7:13
Yeah, I think I think you’re right in that in. And I think this points out a couple of interesting things to me. And I want to just go back, because for those of you who don’t know, I enjoy watching movies and television. I’m a little I wouldn’t call myself a cinephile. But I certainly have. I’ve seen my fair share of movies. And I am reminded right in this moment, of the Michael Lewis adaptation movie, The Big Short. And, and one of the things that is, if you haven’t seen this movie, spoiler alert, we had a housing crash in 2009. So if you hadn’t seen it, I just ruined it for you. So sorry about that. But one of the things, one of the reasons why Michael Lewis’s first was brilliant book, if you haven’t read it, and then the movie, the adaptation, one of the reasons why this plot was so compelling to people was that real estate, and specifically, both both real estate and the financing for residential real estate, were thought to be these rock solid businesses with extraordinarily low volatility. And this is both when it comes to the movement of the markets themselves, as well as kind of the health and well being of the companies that operate within that space. And so, you know, 25 years ago, it would have been a real shock, I mean, practically unheard of, for a company within the, like the mortgage space to lay off 900 people all at once, unless there was some sort of insane scandal or something that had happened with their, the industry is just too stable for that to happen. And I think it’s worth pointing out the difference between 2000 to, you know, 1999 1998, and today and 2021, relative to the volatility that we see both in markets and within companies, because we are seeing more players pop up in both real estate brokerage and, you know, kind of sales operation side, as well as the FinTech like the the financing end of things. We’re seeing more companies pop up faster, get acquired, get dissolved, then than we ever have had in our industry. And it really demonstrates the difference that we have right now as far as a climate for the developer. have meant, and ultimately, in some cases, the dissolution of some of these players, and it’s kind of turned in some of the what we think of this industry a bit on its head right now.

D.J. Paris 10:13
Yeah, I think it’s important for our listeners to start to really be, you know, in the know of what’s going on with your preferred lenders, for example, yeah, so if you are working with a particular lending institution that you tend to send your your buyers to, this would be a great time to just have a quick conversation with that ello, to discuss, Hey, how are things going at the company? You know, I would assume, and again, I am not an economist or a real estate journalist, but I would assume that we will see some layoffs from lending institutions in the next 24 months, strictly based on the fact that rates were at near historic lows, and, you know, rates are going to eventually bounce back, they are starting to climb back up. And, you know, just like any other type of business when they need to scale to take advantage of a tactical situation, which is low interest rate environment, where now people can refinance, they can purchase more. And then as the Fed starts to bump those rates up, we’re going to see less people, less homeowners maybe refinancing and buying. If that happens, then some of these institutions are going to be laying off some of their work the workforce, and as a result, what the agent needs to know is how is that going to affect workflow? Is that, you know, what, what is our, you know, from contract to close? What are we seeing out there right now, and I think now is a great time to partner with a lending institution that is, you know, to whatever degree, we call stable, find those bedrock companies, because those are the ones that are going to get your clients through, you know, through the contract. Yeah, I

Chris Linsell 12:05
completely agree. In fact, I want to even take it a step further. And just, actually, before I say this, I just want to say full disclosure, I don’t have any, you know, bought in loyalty to any of these, you know, bedrock, financial institutions. But frankly, in the moment, it might be a good idea to have relationships with the, you know, the mortgage broker, the loan officers, you know, at Chase at Bank of America, at Wells Fargo at these places where it would take really an asteroid crashing into the city of New York, City of New York or Chicago to wipe one of these banks off the map. That’s that’s not going to happen. But frankly, there are a number of mortgage options out there. And I can attest to this personally, because I spent both, you know, I spent time both in Atlantic City at triple play. And in San Diego at Norwalk walking the expo, there are tons of mortgage brokers out there, right now, mortgage companies that are offering a lot of flash and dash to try and get real estate agents plugged into their system. And the the long and the short of it is there were people at I’m confident there were people that were working in support of the efforts of better.com, and their booth at the National Association of Realtors Conference that are no longer at that company. And so if you’ve got a loan that needs to go through, you might not be working with the same person, you might have a different process than you did before. So it’s time to shore up your options. And make sure that your process as a real estate agent or broker has your clients smooth transition from one end to the other front and center. Because right now is it’s you know, it’s a good time to re re evaluating those things anyway, but especially when there’s volatility in the space, it’s a double good time to make sure you’ve got some backup.

D.J. Paris 14:11
Yeah, I would love to also talk about some of the stats that you’ve seen recently. With respect to we’re now towards the we’re at the very end of the year 2021. We have agents who are now reevaluating where they want to be. We were just talking about evaluating some of your partners including loan officers, but also your own agency. You know, are you happy at your current firm? Are you exploring other options to someone else down the street, have a brokerage with a better split, more training, more leads, more support more tools? This is the time of year which as somebody who this is my job is essentially to recruit realtors, this is the time of year that is busiest for or not just the holiday season activities, but also for agents looking to say, where do I want to hang my hat? You know, 2022? And, of course, we know there are lots of options, even in even in rural areas, there’s lots of opportunities. So could you tell us a little bit about what you’re seeing out there?

Chris Linsell 15:20
Absolutely. So I’ll say two things. One, the close has a running all the time, we’ve got some quizzes and some surveys that people can take on different articles that give us some insights into the mindset of readers of particular content. And we’ve got a little survey on our article about the choosing the right real estate brokerage or company to work for. And in that survey, we’ve got a couple of questions that are pretty telling. Just to give a little context, in so far in the year 2021. We’re recording this on December 20. So nearly the end of the year, we’ve had over 10,000 people complete this survey. And we asked him basically, we asked him a few questions, but the two that really matter here are Why are you looking for a new brokerage? And what are the values that you are most looking for in a new brokerage? So why are you considering leaving? And what are you looking for basically? And here’s a couple of interesting things. When asked people when we’re asking people, why are you considering leaving? Less than 3%? less than 3% of people responded, saying I’m dissatisfied with my brokerages brand in less than 3%, I want

D.J. Paris 16:55
to I want to just take that job. So it’s less than three. So that’s interesting to me, I wouldn’t have guessed the hat, right. Because the branding, which largely is a visual component, which I would, I would have thought that would have been a much higher number. So that’s good to know, interest. Yeah.

Chris Linsell 17:16
So I would have thought it would be a little bit higher, too. But then, you know, I started talking to some agents about it. And I came to an interesting conclusion, which is, for most agents, especially middle of the road to high performing agents, their brand is their name, it’s the writer on top of the sign more than it is the placard of the sign itself. So whether or not they’re dropping their name writer on top of a century 21 Or a Coldwell Banker or a compass. That doesn’t matter as much to them because their brand is in their name. So that to me, tells me two things. The first is if you’re a real estate broker, you should not be dropping a million dollars or a managing broker, you should not be dropping millions of dollars into your company branding, you should be setting up company branding that then facilitates and accelerates your agents, individual Brandon, because that’s where the money is for them. So that’s the first interesting tidbit. The second interesting tidbit was and this one is fascinating to me. less than 15% of people who said they were considering a new brokerage, less than 15% of these people said it was because they were dissatisfied with their brokerages, commission structures. So that is very surprising. I thought so too.

D.J. Paris 18:41
So, so. So now we’ve we’ve basically, we’ve removed the the, the opposite, what we’ve done is we’ve removed two things, we’ve removed the branding, and we’ve also removed compensation. So what has been more important than

Chris Linsell 19:03
so the things that were most important to people, in fact, overwhelming nearly 84% of people chose either that they wanted better company culture or they wanted more growth opportunities within within their company to grow as a leader to be mentored and to gain better skills and have better professional development. It’s so clear that people were leaving brokerages are considering leaving brokerages. In fact, nearly I mean more than eight out of 10 people were considering this move because they didn’t feel like they had a place in the company. They didn’t feel like they had a valued spot. And I tell you what, I’ve been working as a remote worker for many years now. priek many, much before COVID hit. I was working at home and honestly, I at the close I feel like an incredibly valued member of my team, and I see these people in person. During non COVID years, I see these people in person like maybe three times, four times a year at the most. And I have a, I have a place within the company, I’m a place within the team, your agents and brokers can have a place within your team as well. And if they don’t feel like that, if they feel isolated, that they feel like they’re on an island, like they have no path to grow and get better, they’re going to look for somewhere else to be.

D.J. Paris 20:30
Yeah, I think that’s really important. Retention is really what we’re talking about. And and I think that when we we know that, thankfully that the commission is so for everyone listening who may be thinking, well, there’s a better commission split out there. Yes, there is. Of course, there is there’s there are firms that will pay you more, though firms will pay less. What i It seems to not be the deciding the majority deciding factor. But this idea of being appreciated or being having opportunity, I think is really, really critical and really speaks to what I think is the brokerages job, which is to not only provide all the tools, the skills, the training and the support that an agent needs, so that they can build the business that they want. But then also to make sure that that agent is appreciated in the way that they recognize appreciation. And so, you know, it’s it goes back to like being in a relationship with somebody, we probably all of our listeners have heard of love languages, which is, you know, there’s various ways in which we experience love. And most of us have a predominant modality or predominant way that we like to experience love, it might be verbal praise, it might be acts of service, it might be physical touch, might be gifts. And what I would encourage all of us to do, who are listening to this, this episode, whether you’re a brokerage owner, or whether you’re just a broker, and you can apply the same principle to your clients, would be to really think about how do the people that you value whether they’re your your, if your manager, your brokers, or your agents, or if it’s your clients? How do you recognize them? How do you acknowledge them, and you know, make sure that they feel appreciated, whether they’re your client, or they’re your co worker, I think that is, is a huge opportunity for broker just to retain, and each person has their own unique style. So you almost have to, in our opinion, in my opinion, create, you know, sort of a CRM of sorts of here’s, you know, here’s what my, the, for example, we have almost 800 Realtors at our company, we have a list of all of course of all those realtors, and what we know about them and how they like to be rewarded and appreciated. And even though with our company where we pay very high commission splits, that is not usually the most important thing to any of those agents have a few of them it is but for the vast majority of them, they really appreciate when when we call them and congratulate them. So I think this is a great opportunity for for anyone listening to realize that you get to now have a deeper emotional connection with your co workers or your clients by understanding what makes them tick. And then serving them up that love language that best suits them.

Chris Linsell 23:42
Yeah. So this is some next level podcast hosted and frankly, that you tie this back to Gary Chapman’s book about love languages. Yeah, this is like so onpoint. So if you haven’t read it, it’s called The Five Love Languages by a guy named Gary Chapman. And in fact, I’m gonna give you two book reports. As we got the holidays coming up guys got plenty of time to read, you should read Gary Chapman’s original, The Five Love Languages, because this is like an invaluable book about personal relationships. But there’s also a new edition called the five languages of appreciation in the workplace that is geared specifically towards business. And guys, if you are if you own a brokerage or a managing broker, or if you’re just an agent or broker working with your clients, I’m telling you this, it’s like it’s those moments where like you read something or you hear something to say how did I not think of this? This is the sort of the sort of kind of Next Level analysis of those of those relationship specific businesses like real estate that I’m telling you, it’s gonna mean a lot to you. So check it out Gary Chapman, five love languages and the five languages of appreciation in the workplace. And it does it ties back into the second question that we’re asking people on the survey which is, what are the most important things that you’re Looking for in your new brokerage. And again, an overwhelming percent here guys like it was 40 49% of people wanted strong industry leadership and company culture. And then training and professional development was 30% of that. So between strong leadership, company culture, and training and professional development, we’re making up nearly 80% of of the of the total first priorities for people. So again, think about, if you’re an agent, you know, think about where are your buckets being filled. I’m not trying to borrow too much from Gary Chapman here. But if you read the second book here, you will talk about, you know, we all have these professional buckets that need to get filled. And you may be looking for for appreciation, and encouragement and engagement in your workplace. Are you getting your bucket filled? And if you are managing broker, are you filling the buckets of your agents, because frankly, tying it back together with better.com, what was totally lacking in the better.com layoff fiasco, was a connection between the needs of the employees who, frankly, it wasn’t a bad business move to lay these people off. I’m not trying to be cold hearted here. But the company needed to position itself with a balance sheet that had less liabilities. In order to achieve their goals. It sucks, because these are people involved. This is not just numbers on a spreadsheet, these are human beings who have Christmas shopping to do and mortgages to pay, and medical bills. And I recognize all of that, but you can’t fault a business for also being thoughtful about making sure it’s a self sustaining entity. But what this guy did totally wrong was disconnect with the people and their needs in the way that this message was communicated. And this just harkens back to the value of the companies that we work with and for connecting with our needs, both as professionals and as consumers. So you should expect more from your brokerage. And honestly, your clients should expect more from you. So make yourself better, and do so by also making your brokerage better, it really is a win win for everybody.

D.J. Paris 27:36
It is a win win. And it’s nice to know for those who are listening, who have team members, who may be you, you’re listening, and you run a team, and you’re worried that your top producer is going to leave and go off on their own, or maybe switch brokerages or you know, create their own team or, you know, in, you know, of course, all of those things can always happen. But the data in Chris’s data that he shared with us earlier, is very consistent with other data that I’ve seen over the years, which has to do with people typically leave because they feel unappreciated. People typically will leave a brokerage because they know they’re not getting what they need. Do you know what your brokers need? Does your manager know what you need? Right? If you’re an agent, now’s a great time to have those conversations. And, you know, hold the manager, if you’re an agent, hold your managers feet to the fire and say, here’s what I would like to do. And 2022 Here are the skills I need to develop. Here are the tools I might need here are the resources that would be helpful. can you assist me with this? Because sure, somebody down the street might be able to give you a better commission split. But that’s really what you want is you want your needs met. And if your need is that you need a higher commission split, well, there you go. But if you need professional development, if you need, you know, additional leadership, you know, or you need better business planning or skill development, this is the time to go to your manager and say, hey, I want to crank this thing up and 2022 What can you what can we do together to help me get there? That is their job and for managers listening that is your job. And it is my job here at my company to make sure that all of the agents we have go hey, why would I ever leave? These guys take wonderful care of me and they appreciate me and you know, they’re they’re giving me what I need. But the only way that that happens is through communication. Everybody is so unique and different. Please do not be afraid to go to your manager and say I want to work on my business plan with you. Can you spare some time with me to chart a path For us in 2022? And if they sort of give you the Yeah, yeah, well, you know, look, there’s there’s no, I would encourage you to to consider other options, right. I mean, there’s other firms out there that are that we would love to help you with that

Chris Linsell 30:16
100% 100%. One of the things that, for better or worse, we are, there is a reality in our market right now is choice, at least from a professional like, where do you hang your license? Who do you work with, as far as vendors, there’s a lot of competition in that space right now. So you can make choices. But frankly, the kind of the start and end of this conversation, for me, as far as choices go, is whatever choices you’re make, you’re making, make sure that those are being made in pursuit of providing the best experience possible for your clients. So if you are making choices between brokerages, which one is going to give you the tools you need in order to level up your client experience. Because at the end of the day, your clients certainly deserve that. And you’re going to make more money and be more successful. If you are positioning yourself to build a business around creating the best experience possible for your clients. If you were putting other things first, you might zoom out ahead, temporarily, but honestly, you’re that’s that is that is a temporary win relative to the agents and brokers who are positioning their clients best interests and a superior experience first. So you know, as you’re going into 2020, to think to yourself, you know, what am I doing every day, every week, every month, every quarter, to level up my clients experience within the real estate space. And if you are not being provided with the tools, and the training, and the opportunity to get that done, might be time to make a change, whether that’s in a brokerage, or whether that’s with a lender, or an inspector or an appraiser or whoever it is. If you right now you’ve got some choices. So it’s it’s a good time to make them. And also

D.J. Paris 32:07
a great time to evaluate or technology partners as well. So if you have services that you’re using signature platform CRMs website, front ends, this is a great time to you know, as things slow down to evaluate, reevaluate, are you getting what you need are your tools in alignment with your goals. And you know, there thankfully, there are a lot of partners out there that would love to get your business and will compete for that business. So wow, what a what a great conversation, Chris. I’m really, I was really enjoyed. I enjoyed hearing some of those statistics, because it was nice to hear that the human element is ultimately sort of the trump card in I guess, maybe I shouldn’t use the word Trump anymore. That’s got a minute. For a lot of us a negative connotation. But but sort of that, that, you know, that high ace, I guess, is the human connection. And if you can just continue to connect with your clients, with your co workers, with your team members, checking in with them, how are you doing? What’s going on, all of that really helps with retention, and keeping everyone you know, front of mind. But now, now’s the time, you know, if we’re now in the last, you know, 10 days or so of the month, if you haven’t already reached out to all of your customers, your clients, your colleagues, wishing them a happy holiday season, wishing them a happy new year. That’s the easiest way that you can do what you can do right now just to you know, make them feel appreciated and supported. But yeah, this is the time to really evaluate, what are you getting? What are you giving? And what are you going to do in 2022?

Chris Linsell 33:57
That’s the truth. That’s the truth in 2022. Honestly, it’s not going to be a calm and quiet year. It is going to be volatile, and crazy, and exciting, and heartbreaking and victorious. I’m sure we’re gonna have elements of all of that. So I can’t wait to keep talking through with you. There’s going to be a lot on the horizon this year. I have a feeling.

D.J. Paris 34:19
I agree. Tell us a little bit about the close pro before we wrap up.

Chris Linsell 34:22
Yeah. So if you are looking for a way to level up your real estate business, first and foremost, check out the clubs.com 99% of what we have there is totally free. You don’t even need an email address. Just come read about how you can make your business better. And we’ve got everything from long form strategy guides like real estate farming, or creating a better CMA or choosing a paid lead generation provider. All the way to fun stuff like real estate memes and the best real estate jokes your clients haven’t heard. I mean everything that you need To get a better real estate business we’ve got on the close. And if you want to go to the next level, you can join us on the clothes pro the clothes Pro is our premium subscription based service. It is where you can get exclusive courses taught by myself and other close pro instructors. Things like six simple systems to transform your real estate business, Facebook and Instagram Crash Course for agents or for low cost hidden listing Goldmine sources, these are all courses in just a few of what we offer on the close Pro, we also offer an extensive resource library and boot camps, a boot camp collection full of things like you know, dozens of scripts and templates, and all the different pieces components that you need to build a successful real estate strategy. Close Pro is 35 bucks a month, or you can get it for $199. For the year, we’ve got a lot of cool stuff that I can’t even I mean, just kind of scratching the surface here. But this is really, if you want to go beyond googling your answer and get an authoritative source with with resources, the sorts of resources that your brokerage should provide. But isn’t the closed pros a great option for that. So come check us out. The clothes.com is our website, you can find the clothes pro there, and come check out what we can do for your business because we’re helping a lot of folks and we’d love to help you too.

D.J. Paris 36:33
We love the clothes.com everyone who is listening or watching please go visit the clothes.com it should be your primary source for marketing journalism. I guess, I don’t know if that’s an actual term. But it’s where I go for all of my good ideas for this business. So the clothes.com th e c l o s e.com. Sign up for the clothes Pro, give it a shot 35 bucks a month. Absolutely reasonable. And before you do that, you can read almost everything they have for free, as well. Chris, on behalf of the listeners, as always, we thank you for closing out another year with us. 2021 has been a or 20. Yeah, 2021 has been a crazy year. But it’s been a very interesting year. And I hope in 2022 We’ll have even more to talk about. And we’re also going to be expanding this show as well. So be on the lookout for for all of our listeners for some some big news are very excited to to be releasing shortly. And on behalf of Chris and myself want to thank the listeners and the audience, the viewers for continuing to support our show, please tell a friend think of one other agent that you know that could benefit from hearing this great conversation that we just had with Chris and send them a link to our website the best way you can reach us send them right over to keeping it real pod.com Or over to our Facebook page which is facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod every episode we’ve ever done is all on Facebook as well as on our website or just pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real. Hit that subscribe button. Alright Chris. Happy holidays. Happy New Year. We will see you in 2022

Chris Linsell 38:18
Can’t wait. Let’s get back into it and have a good one everybody. Thanks

Stan Ponte is the second highest producing real estate agent in New York City! He’s a Senior Global Real Estate Advisor and Associate Broker at Sotheby’s International Realty East Side Manhattan brokerage. During our conversation, Stan talks about how his acting aspirations transitioned into real estate. Stan gives his daily workflow and how that’s been the cornerstone for his success. Last, Stan discusses the 5 steps to successfully grow your sphere of influence.

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

Stan Ponte can be reached at +1 646.489.3066.

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by gogos bootcamp Are you a real estate agent looking for the very best media training program on the planet? Gogo Beth key is considered the top Instagram Realtor in the country. And her step by step training program will take your social media game to the next level, keeping it real listeners receive a special discount. So please visit Gogo podcast.com That’s Gee oh gee Oh podcast.com for your special discount, and now on with the show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents. And for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide, and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with the number two Top Producing Realtor in New York City, Stan Ponte of Sotheby’s International, and we’re super excited to talk to Stan. But before we get to Stan, just a couple of quick reminders. Please tell a friend you know it is not everyday that we get to talk to super high end producers like Stan, please let other agents in your office know about this show. Send them a link to our website, keeping it real pod.com or have them pull up any podcast app search for keeping it real, hit that subscribe button. While we’re at it. If you could leave us a review on whichever platform you listen to our show, whether it’s Apple podcast, Google Play, Spotify, Pandora, etc. We would love that it helps us get more visibility so that we can reach more realtors, but it also helps us know what you like and what you don’t like about the show so we can keep improving. So please leave us a review and please tell a friend but enough of me. Let’s get on to our main guest now Stan Ponte

today on the show we have Stan Ponte from Sotheby’s International Realty in New York City. Let me tell you a little bit about Stan. Stan Ponte is a senior global real estate adviser and Associate Broker at Sotheby’s International Realty East Side in Manhattan. Stan has been named and this is beyond incredible. We’re so honored to have them and Stan has been named the number two agent in Manhattan by sales volume for his work in 2020, achieving 144 million in sales. According to both the Wall Street Journal and real trends. As a realtor in New York City for the past 21 years. Stan’s client lists range from first time homebuyers to CEOs, philanthropists, hedge fund managers, tech world and innovators and also entertainers. He is known for his extraordinary level of care integrity, and the absolute discretion he provides to his clients. I want everybody if you’re driving a car, don’t do this, maybe pull over first. But if you are passively listening, go to his website at Stan ponte.com. That’s p o n t e. So Stan, p o n t.com. For all things, Stan said, Thank you so much for being on our show. Welcome.

Stan Ponte 3:17
Wow, thank you so much. That’s some introduction. Well, it’s

D.J. Paris 3:20
not it’s not every day that we get to talk to somebody who is in one of the most challenging real estate markets in the country, or certainly the most, one of the most expensive real estate markets, and also thriving, and just doing well. And we are honored to have you here. I always like to start at the very beginning of the story only because our audience tends to love to hear how our guests got into real estate. So if you don’t mind sharing with us that story from 21 years ago, about how why you got into real estate and how that sort of evolved for you.

Stan Ponte 3:56
Yeah, you know, I do tell the story, even though it’s painful to keep reliving it. You know, I, when I read your bio, one of the things that struck me was you’re talking about mentorship. And I really do see mentorship as being willing to share the stories of our lives, you know, what has gotten us where we are, and sort of when it happened. And for me, I came to New York City from a small town in Massachusetts, and I was going to be a big Broadway star. That was my goal. Oh, kidding. Absolutely. I went to so were

D.J. Paris 4:35
you were you a song and dance man. Or?

Stan Ponte 4:38
Well, you know, I still think I’m the song and dance man. But the real answer is I can’t sing. I can’t dance. But I can but I can sell a song. And I can sell apartments but yeah, you know, it’s hard. You come to New York City, went to school of the arts studied at a really famous conservatory called the Stella Adler Conservatory.

D.J. Paris 4:59
That is Beyond famous still out there, my goodness,

Stan Ponte 5:02
Shakespeare and Ibsen and, you know, important stuff. And while I was doing these important things, I started hosting a shopping channel on satellite television, when people had big like, 12 Yeah, like dishes. So 7 million homes all over the country had the satellite dishes. And every day, I would leave NYU at 7pm and go to the Empire State Building. And from the 82nd floor, I would broadcast live this shopping show. But this is shopping shows before there were shopping shows this was like, the producer would get like 500 spiral hands, especially at this time of year, and basically sit live with my buddy from NYU film school on the camera, and I would just sit there eating this spiral ham, you know, piece by piece slowly seeing Oh, we sold 10 We sold 30 we you know, and the producers yelling at me in my ear, we have 480 spiral lambs keep eating, you know, I did a spiral ham is really good. But two and a half hours later that that that sugar coding relates, right? Get to you. Anyway, that’s a good example of why my acting career didn’t work. I was classically trained and hocking stuff on TV. And not even big TV like QVC, or home shopping network. This was on satellite TV. So it’s just all of it didn’t work. And so there I was, you know, literally couch surfing, living on a friend’s couch in Greenwich Village in New York, and waiting tables and doing all the stuff you already see your starving actors doing. And my good good friend who was my pizza buddy, because the best thing you can eat in New York City is pizza slices, because you get four C slices and a Diet Coke and like $1.99 at the time, and we would go and share, et cetera. So one day, he calls me or probably I probably didn’t, I didn’t have a phone and he came to the apartment, like buzzed the apartment, on the third floor walk up and off we go. And he’s like, You know what, tonight I’m treating you to dinner. I’m like, oh, okay, big spender, you know, dollar 99. And next thing you know, we’re sitting in this amazing steak restaurant, in the village in the Meatpacking District, actually, and treats me to this beautiful big dinner. And I’m like, well, that’s going on here. And it turns out that he had just gotten his real estate license and started doing deals in real estate, and didn’t want to tell me until he turned to have a month or so. under his belt. I’m like, you make money in real estate in less than a month doing? He’s like, Yeah, I do rentals, people like call the office. And I just go and do as they pay 15% of the first year’s rent. Mike has never even heard of that. So I laid in bed and been in the couch. Over macdougal street while people are like. For some reason the Village People throw the garbage cans make noise just because they’re having a good time. So the garbage cans wake me up at four in the morning and I stand in the ceiling. I’m like, I gotta do something with my life. And so I went to real estate school that morning. And two and a half weeks later, I had my license. And two weeks after that I had my first commission checks. And I just said 21 or 22 years later now 22 I guess as we head into 2022 Here I am.

D.J. Paris 8:45
What? Wow. Well, there’s a lot that happened in those in those 22 years. But I also just want to tell our audience because you New York City is very unique with with terms of rentals that is different from almost every other major city. I think Boston also sort of does it this way. But Chicago definitely doesn’t and most other markets don’t. And what I’m about to say, I don’t know how often it’s still in place today, but it used to be in Stan will tell me tell us but it used to be that the tenant would oftentimes pay that 15% commission so it’s an even tougher job than it sounds because it’s not just hey, I’ve got this great apartment for you. Oh, by the way, Mr. or Mrs. tenant, if you’re going to be cutting me a check for you know, several $1,000 On top of whatever the security deposit first month’s rent you might be doing. That is a tough ask. And I understand that is just how it’s done there. But, boy, that is tough. And so I honor you for for doing that because that is not an easy ask.

Stan Ponte 9:44
It was starting at the bottom of the beginning of the bottom. And it was tough, but you know, it was a chance. And I think you know, one of the hard things about coming from acting was I just felt like no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t even really get a chance, you know, I couldn’t get it an opportunity to succeed and with real estate, and I understand that a lot of the people that listen to your podcast and go watch the podcast, however, it may be our are maybe in the beginning parts of their career to some extent. And that’s what I always want to say is, you know what, every single day in real estate is a chance. And if you can grab the chance, if you can learn how to increase your odds, then you get a new chance every single morning. And the longer you do it, and the harder you work and the smarter you work, you increase the odds that not only will you have a chance, but you’ll have a success. So I am grateful to the real estate profession, because it’s an even playing field, anyone can do it, you need a high school education, you have to be 18 years old and a real estate license. And God save America and the Queen, it is possible to create a life to support yourself support a family, and and find a path to being a part of a part of the community where you can give back and participate and be a full, thriving person.

D.J. Paris 11:18
Yeah, it’s such an important point that you just made, I want to I want to step on it a little bit, because I think that, you know, being that also, you’re a New York guy. And somebody who really, you know, wanted to be in entertainment. You know, and you studied with Stella Adler, you went to the Stella Adler school, and that is a very, very well known and well respected sort of process to being an actor. And yet not everyone even gets an opportunity to do like a David Mamet play, or, or any of the great Broadway shows, because there’s a million other people vying for those very few finite positions that, you know, of course, New York, your your competition with the top people from entire world all come to New York for that profession. And then yet, you said something, also, which is in real estate, you know, anyone can really do it, we can all get our license. And New York City is certainly one of the most difficult maybe the most difficult place to build your business in real estate strictly because of the finances involved. And also, just just how, you know, it’s New York City, and everything’s tough. But, but the fact that anyone can do it, and it is a level playing field is a really important point and what you said about if you just keep trying to increase your odds of success, and the good news is that people before us have laid the foundation and we know what the fundamentals are I was talking to, I was doing an interview yesterday with an agent from Fargo, North Dakota, who has 10% of the market share in Fargo, which is incredible, like, like if Fargo is a small, you know, a smaller market, but but he said, you know, he was telling that he was saying that, you know, it’s not if your issue is leads, if you don’t have enough leads, then you’re just not staying in contact with with your sphere of influence enough. He said, lead should never ever be your issue. Because we know, everyone’s got to live somewhere, most people are going to choose a real estate agent. And if you stay front of mind, for the people that know like and trust you and you know, you should be able to increase the odds of getting those deals. But I want to start at the beginning. So you got your license, and you started doing rentals. Tell us how that worked. You know, what was it? Like? How did you sort of learn how to become a great realtor? What worked for you back then? And also what how do you advise agents today? who are who are newer, what maybe what they should be doing be there in your in your market?

Stan Ponte 13:55
Yeah, you know, first off, what I would say is it was it was a different job when I started, right. I mean, I didn’t even have a cell phone, you were sitting at your desk waiting for the phone to ring from someone reading an advertisement in a print newspaper. And you know, I’m 50 years old, I’m not 100 I know I sound 100 When I talk about things like print advertising and phones or anything. But there’s one thing that hasn’t changed. And that is the willingness to put in the time and the work and the ability to wake up every morning and then do it all again, even in the face of either success or failure. So when I was starting out at this tiny little real estate company, I showed up every day, seven days a week, I was the first one in the office and the last one in the office and when it was Labor Day, I wasn’t at the beach. I was in the office because guess what, there was no one else there to answer the phones. So I sat open the door there was a risk factionist desk right at the entrance, I just sat right down to the receptionist desk, I didn’t have to wait for the call to go to the receptionist, then to go to the manager, so he could, you know, meet out the leads, I just answered the phones, myself. And no one else is there. And you know what, if you’re calling on Labor Day, or Memorial Day or Valentine’s Day, or even Thanksgiving Day, you’re probably going to rent an apartment that day or the next day. Right and and that hasn’t changed. So I do have this great opportunity now to mentor brokers when they come into Sotheby’s because we have a mentorship program. And that’s the one thing that hasn’t changed, when a mentee comes in, and they are ready to work seven hours, 10 hours, 12 hours a day, seven days a week, while everyone else is on vacation. The next thing you know, they start bringing in all their own business and succeeding. So you know, it’s, it’s not exactly It’s like a It’s a terrible diet pill. Because it’s not one of those diet pills that you can just take one and lose weight. I’ve tried that. This is the get on the treadmill workout and burn more calories than you eat. And that’s what this is this is work harder, smarter, more, and the business will follow.

D.J. Paris 16:22
Yeah, I wish there were some, you know, we’ve done 300 And probably close to 30 330 episodes, roughly. And I am still waiting for a guest to say no, there’s this little secret that no one else knows about. And it, you know, does all the work for you. And I’ve yet to hear anyone give me that that secret because it likely doesn’t exist. Or if it does, those people aren’t coming on my show. But I have some of the most successful agents of the country like yourself on here, and so far haven’t heard it. But it is all about fundamentals. And it’s about getting up every day and saying and I love the fact that you said this in this way. And in all the interviews I’ve done, I don’t believe anyone has used this this sort of phrasing which is increasing your odds, I remember I was doing a top producer panel, or hosting a top producer panel for our local association here in Chicago. And we had these three big producers on stage. And we were asked taking questions from the audience. And, and this one, this, this very courageous, young realtor raises their hand and says, I’m really embarrassed, but I wanted to ask the panel, but what happens when your best friend chooses another realtor over you? And everyone laughed, because I’m sure everybody’s had that experience with somebody that was close to them deciding to use somebody else. And somebody from the panel said, Well, you know, you probably had an assumption that this person was going to use you. And but were you telling them that when they’re ready to use you that you want their business? Or were you staying in touch with them and reminding them what you do, and whether it’s, you know, really in a salesy way or, or in a in a more sort of subtle way. And and you know, and then that she said, Well, not really I just assumed she would work with me and, and the person on the panel said something to the effect of you need to learn how to increase your, your opportunity percentage, you know, here. And so you really just said that. And I just think that is such a smart thing to say. Can you talk a little bit about what you do specifically to increase your, you know, your not your close rate, but but just the chance that people in your sphere will will come to you and they need real estate help?

Stan Ponte 18:35
Well, I can and I think it starts with something I’ve practiced because I was taught it early on. And it works. So I keep doing it. And that is making sure that I’m reaching out to at least five people from my circle of influence every single day, every day, five a day, five a day, every single day. And the way I do that is I start my day, as I’m sure all of your listeners do. And I’m sure as you do, I’m reading every real estate blog and the papers that are important to me, the magazines are important to me, I’m looking at every new listing, every price drop, every contract signed, every closing, I’m reading all the dirt about what building is going to be torn down, what building is going to be a new high rise what the zoning law changes are going to be. So as I’m doing all of that which is which is the education that I need to be able to do a good job for the rest of the day. By doing that, I have found that individuals who I know who I deem is my circle of influence people who I know know people who are going to buy or sell or lease real estate if not them, they know someone within their sphere. People pop into my head because it has to do with them. If it’s a zoning issue in Soho on a street where I sold a pen Taos four years ago, I now make a little note to myself, reach out to this person and say, Wow, I was reading about this zoning that’s going on. I wonder how that might affect the apartment. Or I remember a good friend of mine, his wife, Heather has a cookie company. And she was opening up a cookie store in Madison Avenue. And I read it in one of the newspapers, that was a reason to reach out to him. So by the time I’m done with my homework, which is my morning work, I’ve got my list of five people, whether it’s text, phone, or email, because everyone has a different way of wanting to communicate. I mean, I’ve I’ve had clients that I’ve worked with for 510 years I’ve never even spoken with basically, they’re texters right? Is es GTM. And I know we have a deal. It sounds good to me. I didn’t even know what that meant. I love that I did my first deal. And it was best GTM and I turned to the person I was with, I’m like, What does that even mean? They’re like, Oh, my God, you did the deal. Sounds good to me. And like, I’ve got to learn how people are communicating differently. So it doesn’t mean you know, old fashioned dialing for dollars with the phone only. It does mean communicating. And if you do five a day, right, that’s a lot of contacts as the weeks and months and year progress. And that’s a, that’s, that’s where you can start to count on a flow of leads coming in. Because you’re making contact got to make contact.

D.J. Paris 21:31
It’s funny too, because it is really, I always say it’s simple but difficult, right? It’s like a pushup, it’s like, it’s a simple exercise, but it’s a really good one. It’s not a lot of fun to do there, there’s certainly some some pain associated with picking up the phone or doing the push up. That you know, there’s resistance there that that exists for every human. But, but if you have a reason to pick the so what I what I love about what you’re thinking your process is, I need to reach out to five people in my in my sphere, and I need to come up with a reason to reach out to them. So I’m going to see what’s going on in the in the real estate market. You know, maybe also, for agents that are in areas where maybe there isn’t so much news, maybe in a more rural area where real estate news isn’t isn’t as prevalent as it would be for New York. You know, go to social media, see what your clients are up to, you know, oh, they just got back from a vacation. Actually, Stan is on his way to a vacation. And we’re so honored by the way just as a quick pulling back the curtain on our podcast, Stan is getting ready to leave for a an amazing vacation. And he did he took time to find us to find time to help us out. So we’re so grateful because we know how busy Stan is. But again, if you were wanting to prospect Stan, for example, and he coming back from his vacation, and you’re following him on social media, that’s, that’s a phone call to Hey, I saw you just went to you know, X, and how was it telling me about it and it but the idea is finding a reason to call your clients and provide some sort of value, whether it’s real estate related or just hey, it’s the holiday season, how’s everything going? What’s up, you know, how’s everyone safe with COVID? You know, there’s lots of reasons to reach out and said, I’m curious, because obviously, you’re an ultra competitive market with I mean, New York City is known for their competitiveness. There’s some of the sharpest minds in the country, and most talented individuals among all industries flocked in New York to make it. And so you are in an extremely competitive environment. However, I’m curious, I wonder how many realtors are picking up the phone calling five people a day, every single day? I bet you it’s less than 1% of agents. And I don’t mean working your existing clients, the people you have to reply to to close out a deal. I’m talking about what you’re doing, which is finding a unique reason to call somebody who isn’t yet working with you. And saying hello and giving them so I suspect that is a very, very powerful tool for

Stan Ponte 24:08
now it is but it also matches me and you’re a bigger expert than I am when it comes to a macro look at brokers right? Because I’m just a real estate agent. You have a you have. I was talking to you right before we went live up to 800 agents that you’re working with that the firm that you created, right? So you’re looking around at these 800 people and I’m gonna say that from my perspective, you can agree or disagree that the people that succeed, of course have all these great tools. They’ve got ways of doing things, but in my opinion, the common thread is that they are their best selves. They are the most standard Ponte ish standard Ponting that’s ever been a standard pantum because there is no other person like me, which is I think a good thing It never has been, never will be. And that’s the same for every single human being on this planet. We are all gifted with individuality, which allows us to attract people to us. If we can manifest ourselves as fully as possible, that self actualization, that being yourself, right? Because listen, you say, oh, there’s all these brokers in New York City, it’s so competitive. If you were to put the top 50, New York City Real Estate Brokers on the stage, you would not be able to find one thing necessarily in common. You know, if we put 50, I won’t pick on any banking firm, because I have too many clients at all of those bankers, I shouldn’t even say that I’m in trouble. Let’s say we put 50 Somebody’s will stick with bankers, let them not hire me. 50 bankers on the stage, they’re going to be similarly dressed step. Dialed, there’ll be a tone, there’ll be there’ll be an approach, there’ll be something that side, well, if I want to do this, if I look sound do that’s not real estate, there are people who sell much more real estate than I am. And I wouldn’t want to be in a room with them for more than two minutes. They make me crazy. And then there’s others who are the nicest people ever. They’re super competitive people, super loving people, super everything. But what they all are, is there themselves totally. And that, to me is the real success, that that that self knowledge because you need it. Otherwise, this business can really get in your head, because you think you’re winning or losing every deal on your own merits. And although it’s always good to do a post mortem, especially when a deal doesn’t go, well, it’s also good to do post mortems when they go well. So you can identify parts of your business that are going particularly effectively. But the real answer is find your heart and align it with your mind. And not just business comes, but the world comes to you.

D.J. Paris 27:13
Yeah, it’s, it’s so well said, I want to pause for a moment to kind of let that sink in. And really, what I think we’re talking about is getting out of your own way. And the way to do that is to get to know yourself better and realize that we’re so fortunate to be in an industry where individuality is not always welcomed. Of course, there’s examples of that the Asian American realtor community had a very difficult time in the last few years because of, you know, just, you know, certain sentiment in our country and certain individuals have certainly more advantages than others. That being said, it’s I’m always amazed at the, at the individuality of these top producers that are also unique and different and come on our show, and have, you know, different backgrounds, different stories, and the ones that rise to the top. Obviously, like our guests, Stan, a tend to be really comfortable with themselves. And so I encourage everyone out there, if you are newer to the industry, or if you haven’t quite found your niche, that’s okay. And that’s normal. But if you can just keep plodding along and really learning about you and learning about the industry, your personality will start to emerge and stand in I’m I don’t have to say this, but I will because it’s so obvious. The reason I’m, I’m saying it, everyone’s already thought it but I’m going to say what everyone’s been thinking, it is clear that Stan is fully present. Even for this interview, he’s fully present, he’s fully he is himself. The self actualization that he mentioned is is it comes through in every syllable as he speaks. That is powerful. And it what it does as a listener, or as a client potential client of Stan’s is makes me realize this person is all in and I think clients want their service provider whether it’s an attorney, financial planner, investment banker, or realtor to be an all in you know person and and Stan I can feel that coming through. I know our audience can and the fact that you articulated it much better than I did is really an important lesson and there’s no shortcut to it probably either. But it is cool to watch agents who look totally different from one another. still go on and you’re right though like on the invest in the investor banking side investment banking side, there tends to be a template That that is very consistent. And maybe it’s better now than it used to be, but I understand what you’re saying. But in real estate, it really kind of anything goes. And I love that. And we’re so lucky to be in an industry where you can be yourself and largely be rewarded for that.

Stan Ponte 30:16
I know that an investment banking firm would not want me around, I’m really pretty, too loud, you know, I just not but not their stick.

D.J. Paris 30:27
Well, tell us a little bit I would love. So Stan is such an amazing producer and such a wonderful guy. And we are, we’re thrilled that he’s here, I would like to talk about, you know, how you decided to move from, you know, and I’m sure rentals are still part of your business, although I actually don’t know if they still aren’t, I’m happy to talk about that. But also that shift into luxury, because every realtor, or at least every realtor has had the thought, at some point, boy, if I could only get into luxury, that would, that would really be what I want. And of course, luxury is not for everyone. But it obviously has worked out well for you. So we’d love to hear the journey about how you were able to make the shift into luxury.

Stan Ponte 31:12
Well, you know, what comes to my mind is in New York City, when a studio is a million dollars. I think it’s basically all luxury, right? I mean, anyone, anyone living on the island of Manhattan, is, has either made their own money or is spending someone else’s, right. This is not, this is not a cheap Island to live on, by any stretch of the imagination. Honestly, I think that luxury, is another way of talking about in integrity of service. That applies regardless of the price. So when you say I don’t know, if you do rentals anymore, I don’t do a lot of rentals. But if it’s an important client to me, and a friend of a friend, I will certainly be a part of it, I might ask an Associate Broker that I work with to take the lead. I’m not wandering around looking at $2,000 rentals, in the afternoon, because it wouldn’t work for my business model. But I would certainly you know, pop by and make sure the ceilings are falling in or that I don’t know something wrong with the building before someone fancy, especially if they’re a friend of or clients, you know, son or daughter or grandchild or whatever it may be. So I don’t mean to sidestep the question of luxury. But I do think that sometimes people believe real estate brokers believe that there’s a difference. And having gone from the, you know, $1,200 a month, apartments near NYU, next to the water boiler, you know, steam room, all the way up to, you know, the most expensive real estate on the planet. I’ve had the benefit of doing deals in all of those places. I don’t know, maybe I’m missing something. I don’t think there’s a big big difference. You’ve got someone who needs a home. And I think a home a bed, a pillow safety, heat, water, electricity, right? Once you get past that, it’s just more, but the core of it is safety, where your mind can feel that you’re okay. And that luxury is the biggest luxury, especially when we think of a planet where only a small percentage of the people on the planet have that even those basics. So I, I could go on and on about, you know, every $10 million plus apartment or $30 million, plus how we micro target, how we have specific ways of reaching those buyers, all of that. But I think what’s more important is the integrity of the deal and the individual. The rest, I believe follows and it’s not just because I’ve lived it. It’s because I’ve watched so many other brokers through my career. Approach it in that way. And the next thing you know, you know, they’re like, Stan, you always told me I was gonna sell a $40 million townhouse. I just sold my first $40 million townhouse. I’m like, Of course you did. You were acting as if you were selling $40 million townhouses. When it was a $4,000 a month rental. You were working hard. There was integrity. You ran the comps. You showed up you were on time you did all the things you need to do. So if you want to break into luxury, just do a good job. And the zeros it’s a zero is zeros. It’s all like all of us every day. Is it $1 Is it $10 Is 100,000 It’s zero. Zeros have nothing to do with whether or not you did it

with zest to do a good job. And I’ll add one other tiny piece here. I think that as there are more zeros, one thing maybe that we could define as a difference with luxury, is that the client very much appreciate when you approach the transaction with a in a mentality of being the principal. So yes, you’re an agent, yes, you’re acting as the agent of the principle. But if you can, for the principle, also have that owners or sellers hat on, not just your broker hat. Yeah. And by the time you bring it the next step of the deal to the person you’re working for, you haven’t just processed it as an agent, you’ve processed it through their lens as well. So that you can mix the two together and bring the best possible options and information. You know, if we do this, these two or three things might happen. If we take this path, your risk may go up, but your risk reward might go up. And all of those things that sellers, and buyers really do love to hear. I think if you can do both put on that broker hat, and that principle hat, that may be one way to define being able to work in luxury real estate. That is

D.J. Paris 36:33
such a powerful statement. I want to I want to revisit that right now. Because I want to I don’t want to move past it just yet. Because what Stan just said is is incredibly nuanced, but important and what he said at least what I heard him saying, Stan, please correct me, or extrapolate if I am getting off target. But what I heard was, and I just went through this myself, so I haven’t I’m technically an agent, I don’t practice real estate myself, I’ve never gone out and and have worked with clients I’ve only ever bought and sold my own stuff. So I know very little about being a realtor, other than with the interviews I do, and the realtors here at our company. So embarrassingly, I’m not in the trenches with with, with Stan and all of our listeners. That being said, I am in the industry. And I just recently went through a purchase myself, and it wasn’t my first purchase, it was a primary residence. So I’ve been through this before I’m in the industry, it shouldn’t freak me out. And as I went through it, I was completely the process of buying a condo. And this is not. I mean, it was a major decision for me with financing and everything. It was just, we know how stressful it is. It was even stressful for me. And I was probably, you know, I’m a little bit more accustomed to it than maybe somebody who is. And I thankfully, I had a boss, my boss who was able to mitigate a lot of the stuff for me. But I was thinking, gosh, if I’m this stressed out about buying a condo, every single person who’s not in the industry has got to be most of most of them have to be even more stressed. And so what Stan just said was so important, because what he essentially said was, he’s identifying, you know, issues that come up and thinking about it not just from his own vantage point as the as the agent, as the guy who’s going to be receiving the commission when this thing closes, but also from the perspective of his client. And that is such an important thing. If you can be the agent that goes, Okay, here’s what’s coming in your head, you know, you’re sitting down thinking about, Okay, I have to communicate this piece of information to this client, here’s a couple of ways they might respond. And here’s what I’m how I’m going to handle each one of these responses. You are prepared that is professional, and you have done something that is incredibly important, which is you have thought about your client and their needs before just showering them with information waiting to hear what they say and then doing this reactivity thing. You’re very proactive, Stan, and I know I’m sort of making this little tiny point into a big thing. But I bet you that is so important to your success is almost predicting different scenarios that may happen and then being able to solve those problems in advance so that when you sit down with a client say, Okay, this just came up, here’s how we’re going to handle it. And that sort of thing.

Stan Ponte 39:41
Yeah, listen, I mean, you know, it’s, it is rough. Being in a real estate deal. It’s, you know, it’s a lot like sitting on a plane, which I’ll be doing in less than 24 hours, God willing. You know, you’re you’re sitting on the plane, and there’s a pilot and the pilot has As the instruments and knows what’s coming and knows, if there’s weather ahead, they’re adjusting the route of the flight to avoid the clouds, if they’re going to hit the clouds, before you hit the clouds, ideally, the captain comes on and says, you know, it’s gonna be a little rough guys, but rather than adding an hour to the trip, we’re gonna go a little higher, and it’s going to be a little bumpy. So, finish your drink, buckle up, and you know, the flight attendants are going to be seated. That’s what we want, when we’re sitting in the back of the plane. And when you’re buying or selling in a real estate transaction, you’re you’re, you are in the back of the plane, at some level, you will, you have to trust that all those conversations going on, from even the initial showing, right, here’s the home, you’ve put your love your joy your money into. And now you hire someone you’ve never met, give them the keys to your house, and hope that when they walk someone through, they can represent it with enthusiasm and truth and, and be able to convey to the buyer that this could be their home in a way that gets them to buy the home. So it ain’t easy being a client, I gotta say, you know, and the other thing I’m gonna say, because we talked a little theater, is, if you don’t know the story of Jacqueline Hyde, and you’re a real estate broker, then you know, the story of Jekyll and Hyde, because the most rational, nicest, most congenial person in the world, all of a sudden turns, because they’re, you know, they told the deal that you’re working on with them to three people, those three people gave them three different versions of what they think it might be, and they start to panic, which is why I always answered the phone. I really try from 7am till about 11pm, seven days a week, not to be too attached. But to be aware that if a client reaches out, Stan, can you call me? If it’s humanly possible? I do it. Because every moment that happens after someone has reached out to say, Can you call me if you don’t call them back? They keep calling people. Yeah. And person after person gives the wrong, terrible advice. And for the hour that I could have just sat on the couch or sat with my friends at dinner, and said, I’ll call that client later, it’s so much better to say I have to, I need a moment. And I’ll go, because if I let them talk to other people for an hour, I’ll be on the phone with them for five hours unwinding when I could have done it in three minutes. So I kind of went off on a tangent there. But

D.J. Paris 42:44
it No, it’s an important, it was a great tangent, it wasn’t a tangent at all, because it was absolutely, you know, apt for our conversation. Can you share with us your five steps for real estate brokers to successfully grow their sphere of influence their center of influence, I know, this is very important to you. And we’d love to get your your take on that?

Stan Ponte 43:07
Well, we did a little bit of it already. In fact, what we did was sort of steps three through five, which is that doing your morning work, I don’t like to call it homework, because that’s the end of the day, at least in my own mind, doing your morning prep work, and then making those five calls a day. But before that, I think in terms of the first two steps, is to have a kind of honest conversation with yourself, and understand who in your life is your friend, because you love them, and you want to hang out with them

that hopefully the rest of your lives together and who directly influence if your friend doesn’t know anyone who’s going to buy, sell or rent real estate, and you spend every night with your friend sitting and talking for four hours a night, you may not see the kind of leads that you’d like to see coming in. If you can find people that you have common interests with and share values and have fun with and like N just happen to know people who are buying and selling real estate. Now you’ve got a sphere or circle of influence. There’s a lot of ways to talk about it. It is so crucial to make sure that you can understand the difference between I’m having a casual moment and the difference between I’m having a casual genuine moment with someone who can help me do better in my career, especially at the beginning. You know when I started in this business, so it’s a lot of nights in bars with the IRS and pool tables like that was kind of my life. I wasn’t going to Gallas and, you know co chairing thing I didn’t even know it co chairing was you know As you learn, and you live, and you learn, and you continue to make sure that you’re balanced in your life, but balancing means acknowledging who’s who, what’s what. And a circle of influence person, a sphere of influence person is someone who can be a cheerleader for you, someone who is willing to introduce you around to include you in their world, whether it’s their nonprofit endeavors, or their work or their private life. It is, it is really these five steps, which I’m happy to share and are available online, are all about carefully constructing a world, which is generating contacts. There’s one goal, when people anywhere in the world say, Do you know a good broker in New York City? That I’m at least one of them? Yeah, I can’t do every deal. And I’m not necessarily the best broker in New York City. I’m the only knee. Yeah, that doesn’t mean I’m the best. But as long as that hand goes up, you’re in Chicago, when people think of who can I call and I’m moving to Chicago at dinner, someone says to a friend, the friend should say, Well, I know exactly who you can call. Yeah, that is what creates a sustainable business.

D.J. Paris 46:30
And that’s in a position that is earned. Right. And so I think that’s an important thing, for every one of our audience to understand is, you have to earn that’s that slot. And the way to earn it is professionalism is through going the extra mile is picking up the phone and calling everyone your sphere. As as Stan does his five calls every day, and continuing to grow and learn about the business. And just treating this running it like a business continuing to improve every single day. They Japanese call it Kaizen, which is just this constant little improvement. Day to day there is Scott Peck. I think it was Scott Peck wrote it’s never crowded along the extra mile. I think that was one of his, one of his books. And it’s it’s kind of funny, but it’s, it’s sort of a silly cheesy saying, you know, okay, yeah, it’s never crowded along the extra mile. But it’s actually true. And I’m, you know, standing, we’re talking about when you started, and you would show up early and leave late, and it wasn’t, you know, you weren’t putting in, you know, 100 hours a week, you were putting in more than 40. But But you were crushing yourself. And here you are 21 years later, and fundamentals, it sounds like are just win the game. I’ve always felt that way. And, you know, and you also mentioned, there’s really no difference if you treat the $1,200 rental, the same as you might treat a $12 million penthouse purchaser or seller, if you treat them the same. You will attract both of those kinds of clients because they both want the experience of somebody’s taking care of this with me or for me. And I like them. I know them and I trust them.

Stan Ponte 48:29
Yeah, absolutely.

D.J. Paris 48:32
And Stan is in he’s almost on vacation mode. So I’m just going to ask him just one or two more questions, and then we’re going to let him go let him go enjoy the end of his year that he has just desperately earned. And, again, we’re so honored to have you. What advice do you have for any of our agents or agents, our listeners who are agents, who might be you know, struggling around this time of the year so this time of the year is tricky, right? Because it’s the December holidays. Hanukkah is over this point. But Christmas is coming up Kwanzaa is coming up. I actually don’t I’m not even sure when Kwanzaa is right now, but we got a lot going on. There’s a lot of family stuff there. The market slows down a bit. What do you recommend to agents to do from now, you know, for the next several weeks,

Stan Ponte 49:25
you know, show the love, show the love. This is this is not just the holidays this year. This is like round four of a global pandemic, which is so hard. This is the perfect time to do those extra outreach calls. Those extra moments. You know, I was on the phone today with a beautiful, beautiful soul. She’s you know, I don’t know how old she is. She could be any age. She’s not young and You know, she’s got some questions around the apartment that she’s living in now that I put her in after I sold her previous apartment. And I just wanted to make sure that before I went on this vacation, if there were any extra questions, if there was anything that might come up while I was gone, and she had no, I’m still around, there’s no fee involved in that there’s nothing she just treated me like gold when we work together. And this is the time of year to remember that. From a real estate standpoint, it’s the best excuse to touch people call people. Some people do gifts, I’ve written around with real estate brokers who make, you know, a gingerbread house like a big one for every person they’ve ever sold a house to, and they drive around these gingerbread houses. I hosted a sing along every Friday night at eight o’clock. And again, can’t sing and dance. We started the program with that. But I can sing Christmas songs because everyone can sing Christmas songs and Hanukkah songs. And so I did that. And you know, that’s a way to stay in touch to, to show that you’re a real person. The other thing, though, that also caught my ear, when you talked about the holidays, was this is also the time of year where business can slow down, because people are traveling. And even if they’re not traveling, they’re focused on their families. And I think that goes to business planning. And making sure that your pipeline of income is never dependent on the next month, where the next two months or the next quarter, or even the next year. Yeah. And that’s hard to do. And I know I certainly didn’t start the business, I was I was hoping the deal would go through so I could pay my own rent. And that’s real. For a lot of real estate brokers. Yes, the key to success is to get out of that cycle. And to save and to spend as little as possible, pay your taxes quarterly, have a business meeting with yourself with your manager with someone you trust every quarter and annually. Get someone to be a financial advisor for you early so that you have things like disability insurance. So you have health insurance, so that you know when you get a commission check that how much of that is likely to have to be paid in taxes. Because if you’re approaching the end of the year, and a big tax bill, and it’s the holidays, and your phone’s not ringing, that’s not a good look. For Christmas, what you want to be doing is going on vacation and you want to be celebrating, and also recharging those batteries. And if the batteries are always running on low, whether it’s physically, mentally, emotionally, or just dollars and cents, it draining. It is raining and it starts to show and it does not attract real estate business people’s you know spidey sense kick in, and they start to realize, is this person doing this to get this commission? Did they just give me the very best advice they could have? Or is this bedient advice to close this deal? And you know what you might be able to get away with a few expedient close deals short term, but I don’t think and listen, I don’t I don’t know what other people do, because I do my own thing. But I know for me, that didn’t that didn’t work. And it was a rare moment anyway, because I just doesn’t read right for me, they’re trying to fast forward. But I certainly remember waiting for permission checks and being late for my rent. And that is that’s just not where you want to be. And you don’t have to be there. If you treat it and this is from your from your mouth. It’s not for mine. You treat it like a business. You understand your cash flow, you understand the busy times of the year and the slow times the year and when you need to take a break and when the market is going to take a break anyway. And you plan your plan and you plan and you plan like any business owner would.

D.J. Paris 54:23
And how how awesome is it that virtually every family in this country uses a realtor when they buy a home? Not everyone but like 90% of people when they purchase or sell a home use a realtor 90 something percent. So this is something that every almost everyone uses. And how fortunate you know if we were in other industries, there isn’t really many other industries of things that were universally are needed. So you talked about safety at the beginning and maybe that’s where we’ll wrap up is just making I’m sure that you as an agent, understand that this is not only one of the biggest financial, maybe the biggest financial decisions somebody could be making, you know, next to maybe their children, if they have children, their their education, or maybe their own retirement, you know, this is a major financial decision purchasing or selling a home, it you are a fiduciary as well. So you have an obligation to treat it with the proper level of respect that that it entails. And then also, just to continue to care, and give back to your customer base. Be professional, right. And obviously, this is an industry where the barrier to entry is actually quite low. You know, it’s, it’s anyone you know, can go get the license and pass the test. But if you can consistently, you know, just run your business, as if every client was the most important client, which they are, then you here we are now 21 years later, 22 years later, and Stan’s case, and he has now, did you ever think that you would be at the level that you’re at? Was that ever at as an aspiration of yours? Or did it just naturally happen? And from the results of doing what you do every day?

Stan Ponte 56:30
I remember, when I had no idea what I was doing that was new. There were certain names in the New York City Real Estate world that other agents would say, in our office, where I’d be out doing showings, and someone would bring up a name. And everyone would be like, Oh, yeah. And I would always think to myself, wouldn’t it be so cool if people knew who Stan Ponte was in New York City Real Estate? So that was my manifestation? The ranking? You know, you started the show with the rankings and the volume of business. I tiny bit of me cringes around it, because the real answer is one to 1050 75. Are you happy? Are you financially secure? Do you have time in your life to be love, loved and love other people and get people’s homes? For them? You know, rankings are today it’s a it’s a slice. It’s good for marketing, though, right? It’s good to put in the bio, nothing wrong with it. But it distills us all into this competitiveness. Yeah. And if there’s one additional thing I don’t want to forget to say before, before we end is that your best friends in the business are your colleagues in the business. So it is competitive, and we don’t sort of work together in the same way that maybe some other industries due there is a competitive nature. But I’ll tell you what, if that broker likes you, you’re going to have a better chance of getting that deal done, or getting your foot in the door when it’s a competitive environment. And there’s 25 appointments on the first Sunday. If they like you, they’ll make a room for appointment. 26 If they don’t, they won’t. And that relationship that not stepping on people, as you succeed that lifting other people up mentoring, taking those breakfasts and lunches, when people just starting in the business, who say, Can I buy you breakfast and ask you what you did? And can you give me some advice? That is the difference, I think, between feeling good about yourself, having other people feel good about you, and being able to face a challenging world, which we are living in and we cannot escape that in today’s environment. And doing it with some peace of mind and smile and hope for tomorrow.

D.J. Paris 59:07
Wow, with that is so wonderfully said and I concur with everything Stan just mentioned. So I would encourage everyone even to replay the last several minutes to really have that hit home. Because it is maybe the most important part of of being a real estate agent is understanding what the feelings that your clients are going through what what they need from you, and how you can bring peace to a very tumultuous sort of process and you can bring and including being cooperative with other agents we sometimes forget this is a cooperative business and Stan is absolutely right on Make friends in this industry be nice to other agents because there are going to be times when you know you may want to your offer to or showing to to get a little extra attention. And I have a top producer on my show every she comes on every month here in the Chicago area. And she talks she’s been doing this for 20 Some years and she says DJ you would not believe she said she goes I’m gonna write a book one day and I’m just going to scream i She’s collecting screenshots for all of these awful texts and voicemails, texts and voicemails she’s received from other agents that are just rude. I mean, she goes you would not believe the way that Realtors speak to me now the good ones are very polite and nice and sweet. But she’s it is it is not a given. So everyone out there you know build relationships not just of course with your clients but with other agents, you know, right whatever they say a rising tide raises all ships right. So let’s let’s raise each other let’s let’s let’s work together. It’s time it’s holiday season two. So a great way a great way to add and stand on behalf of all of our entire audience and we we absolutely are so thrilled that you took time just before your vacation to spend here with us on behalf of the audience. And myself. We want to say thank you for being on our show. We want to also tell everybody, please please go visit Stan on his website that is Stan ponte.com sta n p o n t.com Stan, if you are a renter, a buyer or a seller and an investor and you’re looking to work with one of the very best realtors in New York, Stan and his team would love to chat with you. So please reach out to him visit Stan and Stan ponte.com With Sotheby’s International Realty. And on behalf of Stan and myself, we want to thank our audience for continuing to listen and support our show. The best way you can help us grow is to please tell a friend think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing this exact conversation with Stan and send them a link to this episode. The best way to do that send them right over to our website keeping it real pod.com and or just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. Stan, wonderful conversation with you. We are so honored to have had you on the show. And what a what a great way to wrap up the year so thank you and we wish you continued success.

Stan Ponte 1:02:35
Thank you so much keepin it real pod.com Love it. Thank you so much.

D.J. Paris 1:02:41
Right

Erik Hatch with Hatch Realty in Fargo in North Dakota describes how he went into real estate business to fund his gambling addiction. Erik also discusses his personal and professional struggles that brought him to the success he is experiencing right now. Erik breaks down why he thinks every new agent should join a team. He also provides a blueprint of how to make hires and how to start and build a successful team. Last, Erik talks about his coaching business.

Please check the services Hatch Coaching offers by clicking here.

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

Erik Hatch can be reached at  701-369-4839 and [email protected].

D.J. Paris 0:00
On this episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Joel Schaub at guaranteed rate. As a realtor it’s important to partner with only the most trusted name in mortgage lending. Joel has 1000s of satisfied clients and gives $1,500 of his commission. Back to your buyers on every closing. He is known for his ability to close even complex deals start to finish in only 14 days to learn what 1000s of others already know. Make a note to call Joel at 773-654-2049 or email [email protected] Guaranteed Rate is an equal housing lender licensed in all 50 States Consumer Access Number 2611 And now on with the show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents. And for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show and in just a moment we’re going to be speaking with top producer Eric hatch from Fargo, North Dakota. And what’s really amazing about Eric among lots of other accolades as he and his team have about 10% of the local market in Fargo and the surrounding areas. So we want to learn how we did that and how you can develop more market share yourself. But before we get to Eric, just a couple of quick reminders please please please tell a friend think of one other real estate agent that could benefit from hearing from top producers like Eric send them a link to our website. Also follow us on Facebook we [email protected] forward slash keeping it real pod and every single day we find an article online specifically designed to help you grow your business and we post it there so again facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod and last, please review our podcast whatever podcast app you might be using. Please let us put a review and let us know what you think of the show that helps us get more visibility and also helps us know what we need to do to keep our show improving to better meet your needs. So leave us a review or shoot us an email let us know what you think of the show. As always, we say thank you for continuing to support us but now enough from me. Let’s talk to Eric hatch.

Right today on the show we have Eric catch from catch Realty in Fargo, North Dakota. Let me tell you about Eric Eric Hatch has sold nearly 6000 homes in little old Fargo, North Dakota within the last decade. He is one of the industry’s top coaches. He’s helped rainmakers and teams across the country via hatch coaching. Now the hatch team has mastered the ISA model, the showing partner model and a crazy amount of agents success and retention, which we are going to be talking about in just a moment. This fall. Eric and his team just joined real to continue to make an impact in the real estate industry. Learn more about Eric at hatch coaching. That’s H A tch coaching.com. Eric, welcome to the show.

Erik Hatch 3:17
Oh my gosh, it’s good to be here. A beautiful day in paradise. And I’m also in Fargo and it’s okay today. Yeah.

D.J. Paris 3:25
Well, that’s the best you can hope for in I would think at this time of year is it not being miserable. I know. And we’re here in Chicago and for some reason unseasonably warm, I’m guessing due to the storms that are happening. And so we’re thankfully I don’t think we’ve we’re getting any of the any of the major issues that other parts of the Midwest are getting, but we are we are participating in the warmth. So I don’t know, who knows, maybe it all come crashing down tomorrow here. But yes, it’s a nice day. For both of us. It sounds like well, I am really excited to chat with you. Because we I’m always I always really want to talk to coaches. But so few coaches out there either run brokerages or even practice anymore. And that becomes you know, their full time business and that’s perfectly fine. But I always love talking to coaches who are still also actively producing or, or managing teams that actively produce because really keeps I think they’re just sort of understanding of what’s going on out there in the trenches, you know, sort of active and, and I’m excited to chat with you. But I would love to go all the way back to the beginning of your real estate career. So could you tell us a little bit about why real estate how you got started and what that looked like.

Erik Hatch 4:35
I’m betting I’m it’s funny that he used that phrase, I’m betting I’m the only person who has a background quite like this. I was in ministry before I got in into real estate. And I was also a professional gambler. So oh my gosh. So when I said I’m betting on the other one I’m like yeah, I still got it

D.J. Paris 4:54
and integrate pong with the betting so

Erik Hatch 4:58
So I work attach my home congregation my church, I was doing youth ministry and worship leading and love. But it was in a way to pay all the bills when I was 21. My mom who’s my only parents passed away from a cancer battle. And so it was orphan. I paid off all my student loans with life insurance that I had bought all my sisters portion of the little town house that my mom owned. And then I had, like 20 grand leftover. And so I tucked away like 15,000 of it. And then I spent five just frivolously including starting to play a lot of cards. And I took some of that cash and all of a sudden, I got really good at cards. And I turned myself into a professional poker player. So I graduated college, I’m full time in the ministry, but I have this hidden career of gambling. All right, I doubt that maybe there are other people who walk this weird life. But in 2006, my, my gambling started to switch I went from playing slow and steady and winning constantly. So I was playing the rush and I was playing higher stakes. And I was playing much faster poker was my game. And I just started to lose a bunch of money

D.J. Paris 6:04
is that normal for poker players to transition from playing more conservatively and slower to as their skill starts to build? Or maybe there’s a rush that they’re looking for, or just, you know, trying to hit that big win, you know, what’s sort of the mentality of because I don’t get the chance to talk to too many former professional gamblers. So I’m, it’s very fascinating to me,

Erik Hatch 6:26
I’m still a professional gambler, I just don’t do it at the poker table anymore, right? Like, is a professional gambler. And here are a few characteristics. You go, stubbornness, arrogance, lack of taking advice from other people, right? Like these are, these are a recipe for a lot of us. And for me, I just started playing faster and turned out that I had a gambling addiction. So I’ve been cleaning up since 2008. And thank you, my, my wife was kind enough not to divorce me, and and everything else. And so I got into real estate because I was trying to fund my addictions. That’s really wow. Yeah, so I make sense. And I was so full time ministry, I was selling real estate all the time. And then I started to get pretty good at it. Next thing I knew it was 2009 2009 and 2010. I probably made and netted 40 and $80,000 each of those years. And my full time profession I was I was eight years of professional in the ministry, I was making 35 or 40,000 bucks a year. So my part time job was paying me a lot more. And I used it to rid myself of debt I had I had racked up over $70,000 in credit card debt. And that’s all out like a 22% interest rate. So and So real estate was this vehicle to rid myself of debt, but I never wanted to be in real estate. It was just a vehicle for me to channel my gambling and for me to try to play high stakes and one other way. And then my wife and I were trying to get pregnant, which was really fun to do. But then thank you for catching that little subtle, yeah, joke. But then we couldn’t get pregnant. And so we went with a sec schedule. And that is way less fun than you think it would be right? If 21 year old Eric heard this guy complaining about a sec schedule right now. But that didn’t work. And so then we went with IUI it’s like giving all these shots to your spouse and use all our medical insurance at this time. And we still are pregnant. And so I had to make a choice. It was a continuing the ministry which I love and sell real estate on the side and just try to scramble or I need to go and full into real estate to fund being a debt. I was with Keller Williams Realty at the time, so much love and respect for that company. And I I went full time in 2011 and found some great successful 52 houses in my first year on my sphere and what Whoa,

D.J. Paris 8:55
let’s just let’s just pause and let that sink in. You sold 52 houses in your first

Erik Hatch 9:00
year. Full time first year. Yep.

D.J. Paris 9:04
Yeah, I can Okay, I don’t I don’t want to stop your momentum because because it’s but I just wanted to pause and let everybody collectively gasp and feel jealous. So okay, so please continue.

Erik Hatch 9:15
Here’s the trick people will say how did i How did I do that? Because I have spent my entire life capturing mindshare to be front of mind for people. mindshare will lead to market share and I don’t I don’t ever like any aggressive sales tactics. I don’t ever I never lead gender traditional day in my life, almost 6000 sales under my belt in my team’s belt. And I’ve never lead gender traditional day in my life. It’s always been about relationships. How do I remember my background is in the ministry so I developed for eight years a reputation and hopefully taking care of people and and meeting them where they were at and I’ve continued to do that. I just use vehicles like social media and my involvement of the community and now try to scale my coaching clients and my team to do the same. So I was As a product of this community, people say, Well, how can you sell that many homes in Fargo? And I’ll say, Well, how can you sell that many homes in Chicago? Because I hear I have a nine or 10% market share for my teams. Right? So it’s incredible. So the average Joe on the streets probably recognizes the name hatch in one way, shape, or form, they maybe don’t know who I am, but they at least know my brand. In Chicago, I’d be one of 50,000 agents, right. And it’s pretty easy to get lost in that shuffle. So I’m at an advantage there, but then I also have just a limited amount of homes that I can actually sell. So I’m at a disadvantage. So no matter what it was, I was just going to make the best of the situation I had. And so in 2011, I went full time. I’ll fast forward through the details. My my wife and I continued to try to get pregnant three miscarriages and ectopic pregnancy. Some of the most painful stuff in our life. I built a team, it all came crashing down, I got kicked out of Keller Williams at the same time, I was dealing with all of these miscarriages. All of this pain I was I was the idiot I was the one who messed up. My whole team except for two people quit and left me. And I started over completely at a rebound girlfriend brokerage that I went to for nine months while I worked on opening up my own brand and getting my broker’s license, I made a bad business move with that broker that cost me 120,000 bucks. By the time that was all done in January of 2014, I opened up hatch Realty, I had restarted my team, I was selling at that point about 250 homes a year but I was 150 of the 250 Well, I guess my wife got pregnant, we now have two kids ages seven and five. I am I’ve never lived a better life than the life I get to live today. And it was real messy before it got real smooth. And it’s not without its bumps now. But we’ve been through the wringer. So from a gambling addiction to massive infertility to getting kicked out almost filing bankruptcy. I’ve been there and I’ve done that.

D.J. Paris 11:57
Wow. Well, you know, I think desperation. And I mean that in I don’t mean that in a pejorative way, I just mean in, you know, times when when things are difficult, really, really can be the greatest opportunities for growth. And really, it’s maybe the only time you can make these massive shifts in growth, when you have some sort of limitation that’s really present and urgent. And you certainly I was gonna make a joke and say, well, at least you haven’t had struggle. But But, but of course, of course you have and the fact that that has brought you to where you are, I suspect I know the answer to this question. But if you were to go back and change, you know, you know, some of those, you know, tough moments, you, I would assume you’d say no, I’m glad we went through it. Obviously, you know, nobody wants to experience pain for themselves or their loved ones. But, but here’s where it brought you and what you might not be where you are today, you know, you might still be caught up in the gambling slash real estate sort of lifestyle, because you’re good at you’re good at being a you know, a poker player. And you might be able to continue funding that for a while, but you might lose things along the way too, especially with addiction. So I have tremendous respect for for for number one for the honesty of that. And also just the fact that he kept persevering and, and congratulations on all that success that is really quite quite a story.

Erik Hatch 13:22
Well, it’s been a tumultuous ride. But I feel like and you even lead with this, as you know, there are those who are coaching and influencing. But maybe they haven’t gone down the path of running a team running a brokerage, and they certainly have insight. You’re not like Bill Belichick wasn’t this amazing NFL player and looking at the greatest coach in the history of the game. And so you don’t have to have that experience. But man, I have a pretty unique perspective having been in the fire where a lot of folks are going I still I still lead hatch Realty as CEO, I spend about a day and a half a week there. But then I spend the rest of my time coaching and it’s been really good for both organizations for me to be able to help rise the tide on either sides.

D.J. Paris 14:03
Yeah, well, let’s let’s talk about I know, Eric has a very specific point of view around team building. And of course, the trying to think if I look, if I think back to our, our listeners on the show, who sent us a tremendous amount of feedback, I’d say out of the top three topics they asked us to discuss, especially for this upcoming year, teams are on everyone’s mind. So the it seems like at least here in Chicago, and also with a lot of the guests we have that teams are really prominent and there’s a lot of logic to why that makes sense. Certainly to a buyer or seller, you can present this, you know, this this united front of you’re getting all these people and all these skills and you know, we’re charging you know, maybe 1% More than the single person down the street might charge or maybe they’re charging even the same. But I would love to get your perspective on team building because I know a lot of our listeners are thinking should I join a team and 2022 Should I start a team? Should I keep my team if I already have one, and I would love to get your perspective of somebody who runs a brokerage. Also coaches, a lot of individuals and teams just love to get your thoughts.

Erik Hatch 15:11
I have a lot of thoughts on this. My team currently we are in five markets total, Fargo be in our main hub and I’m in for expansion markets from Minneapolis to Grand Forks, North Dakota, to Bismarck, North Dakota to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. So we’re spread out in total about 450 miles from end to end. Chicago, you can I gotta go where the people are in North Dakota, there’s a total of 750,000 people in the state of North Dakota. And yeah, that’s, that’s it. So I gotta, I gotta spread out quite a bit. In order to find similar opportunity. I’ll say that if you are a solo agent, or somebody starting out, the greatest chance at your success would be to join a team. A team should provide three things. And we can speak of a brokerage in the same accord but a team and or a brokerage should provide three things depending on the split that you’re getting. We have leads, leadership and leverage. Okay, the leads portion, we have isas inside sales agents, and so are our agents don’t ever touch a lead, they don’t have to convert a pay per click lead or a zillo lead or a sign call. Those all go to a skilled set of people. And I will tell you that if you aren’t willing to grow a large team getting expertise is so important not just to have a bunch of generalists, but to have specialists. But the first is to say,

D.J. Paris 16:35
let’s, let’s talk I’m sorry, let me I’m gonna pause you just to make sure that people understand our listeners understand isa Eric defined it, it’s inside sales agent, let’s just get for anyone who’s unfamiliar with that term, Eric, just let’s talk let’s define that for the audience real

Erik Hatch 16:49
quick. You bet. And Isa is going to be the person who takes any company purchase lead, and converts it and hands it off to an agent for the appointments. And so in its purest form, they are a database manager. Here’s, here’s some true numbers for our team. If we take like a zillo lead, that’s going to convert on average from the time in which they’re in appointments until a close transaction that’s between 120 and 180 days. We have some that’ll take years to convert, but others will convert on the first day. So an average is 120 to 180 days, four to six months, right? No Pay Per Click lead, which is the fraction of the price of a zillo lead or realtor.com lead that’s going to convert on average from the time in which it hits our inbox until it closes 630 days on average.

D.J. Paris 17:44
No kidding. Wow, I would not have guessed that. So of all of

Erik Hatch 17:48
all, your pay per click leads, they should convert 1% should convert the first year. Two additional percent should convert the second year and years three and beyond the final 1%. Most people get a one to 2% conversion on Pay Per Click leads we get almost a 4% because we nurture and isas set up these people on campaigns. And they stay in constant touch and contact with them because an agent should be client facing, not always database facing. So we separate those. That’s that’s what we’re doing with our isas.

D.J. Paris 18:20
I love that and isas, you know, for for anyone who still isn’t quite understanding an ISA is basically taking the lead, doing the intake and staying on top of that lead pounding the phones, trying to get them on the phone, trying to qualify them, you know, making them feel comfortable trying to schedule an appointment or, or passing them off. So the agent does not receive that lead directly from the consumer, it’s going through an another party whose sole job is to convert that lead into an appointment.

Erik Hatch 18:49
Yeah, and there’s a couple of factors that matter an awful lot speed to lead, how quickly you can actually jump on that lead. And then your speed to respond. Most of the communication effective or 70% of communication with leads now is text. Yeah, and if you’re not jumping on that and responding on a quick, there’s some AI that can help you with that. In fact, we built an entire campaign of things within a seer interactive and follow up Boston shine that people can have all of our messaging and all of our tags, and everything else so that you’ll have an assisted department for you. You can check that out and hatch christian.com was a handsome little plug. But nonetheless, if you’re going to be joining a team and I recommend any new agent doing so the first thing they’re going to do is they’re going to get you leads and or appointments as the first. The second thing that they’re going to get you as leadership, training, development, accountability, somebody to walk alongside you, if you were to ask me, Eric, how many people work for you? I’d say I don’t know anybody that works for me. But I go to work for 70 people every day. Companies right. And that’s my job as the leader is to show up and to help them achieve their goals. You Zig Ziglar says you can have everything in life you want. But if you help enough others, you’ll get exactly what you want. And that’s what I’m, that’s what I’m striving to do. And that’s what I think a great team should do. And the third piece is leverage, you should be able to get assistance with transaction coordinating, listing, coordinating, marketing, runner responsibilities, all these things. And so if you’re starting out in real estate, I think a team is the best way unless you have this huge, massive database. And you’ve done it part time for a number of years and can actually jump in. Here’s, here’s the asinine thing of this. Here’s who can jump into real estate full time, and be full commission. And let’s say on day one, you get a buyer, it’s not going to happen. But let’s say on day one, you get a buyer, the average buyer looks for 10 to 12 weeks, and then that’s going to sit in escrow for four to six weeks. So you have to go for months without a paycheck. So here’s who qualifies for that. Number one is somebody with a sugar daddy or sugar mama. Number two, is somebody with a trust fund. Number three is somebody with a part time job. Number four, is somebody with with terrible financial habits, and they’re just loading themselves in debt. Or number five is somebody who saved up six months worth of livable income so they can actually get in real estate. And that my gang is the biggest flaw in our industry right now is we’re letting people come in without great motivation, or with a broken system, and we expect them to be successful. It’s why 87% of people fail after the first five years. It’s just, it’s just such a bad move. Real estate is a broken system of how it’s set up. And I think that those that have a team or those that are thinking about having a team, I can give you the exact blueprint effective writing a book right now called the perfect real estate agent blueprints. And what I have is a step by step. Here’s who you hire, here’s when you hire them. Here’s why you hire them. And we’re going to turn this upside down. So I’m about to go on a rabbit hole we ready to go digging, let’s do it. Alright, so hire number one, when you have been yourself doing 24 to 36 transactions in a year two to three deals a month, you should look to make your first hire. And that first hire is not an agent, it’s an admin. The first admin that you hire is on a salary in Fargo, North Dakota 35 to 40,000 bucks, maybe a little bit more. In Chicago, Illinois, my guess is 50 to 60,000. Give or take. But this is somebody who is going to take everything off your plate. They’re going to help you to breathe. In my mind. I remember 2011 halfway through my year when I sold 52 houses in my first year, I made my first hire. Her name was Mariah, in fact, her name still is Mariah.

She was one of my former youth group kids who I saw at a graduation open house and over taco in a bag. We were talking and I’m like man, Ryan, I’m really looking for somebody this summer. I’m home from Iowa State I don’t have a job right now. You’re Hired stupidest idea ever memorize a great gal. But I did not vet her. I did not set her up for success. But I was scared to death of how am I going to pay for $11 An hour and 20 hours a week, that’s $220 a week, that’s $880 a month. What if I don’t sell any houses. So before you ever make the decision to make a hire, you have to have at least four months of that person’s salary saved up. And you have to have four months of your living expenses saved up because we’re going to think of ourselves as business people and not realtors who are running around. So let’s make sure we cover those metrics 24 to 36 deals a year is what you’re doing. You got to have four months of cash in the bank to cover somebody’s salary. And then you have to be committed to giving them work instead of just expecting them to find it. You have to show up as a leader, it’s so important. And so when you make that first hire, do not hire part time, hire full time only. And they should be your transaction coordinator. They should be your listing coordinator. They should be taking all of the minutia, killing drowning things off of your plates, from running to the dry cleaners, to picking up some groceries to getting your oil changed in your vehicle. They are not just a professional assistant, they are a personal assistant as well. Yeah, so long as you frame this in the beginning, their job is to let you breathe, because if you’re doing 36 transactions a year, you’re probably working 60 or 70 hours a week. Let’s help you to breathe. Let’s help you to take a breath. And my guess is they’re going to free you up of time and then use that for income producing activities such as lead generation and actual sales.

D.J. Paris 24:36
I just yeah, thank you for that breakdown that is so incredibly helpful and insightful. I was thinking, too, I recently hired somebody I don’t practice real estate myself. I sit at a desk all day and I don’t have the stress that our our agents have with respect to building their business. But I’ve always stressed and I have we have about 800 agents here at our firm. So There’s always a lot to do to help them. However, I hired somebody to help me. And at first, I thought, well, I’m going to have them work on my work tasks, however, and I imagine, this would be an interesting question I’d like to ask you, but you know, clients are still texting the realtor directly, right. So in a lot of communication, now, of course, is over SMS, as you were saying, with the leads that come in via the isas. So knowing that you as the agent, even if you have a virtual or personal assistant, Virtual Assistant, you’re still having to do that client facing interaction, which might come at 11 o’clock at night, and, and you know, depending on on, you know, what sort of communications strategies you’ve created, or, or boundaries you’ve created, you’re going to be still doing that. But it frees up the time for the, for the, or for the personal system can do some of those home based activities that go into the dry cleaner, the groceries, I actually have a virtual assistant, she does things like tells me what’s going on in Chicago, on the weekends, helps me plan my date nights with my girlfriend, she helps me with, with my budgeting for my personal finances, a lot of things that that I wouldn’t, you know, I unfortunately, she doesn’t live here and can’t do my grocery shopping for me. But she would be doing that if she lived here. So So when you’re thinking about hiring somebody, those are the tasks you can have them do. And for sure

Erik Hatch 26:22
that from the very beginning, you’re doing what I call framing, you’re setting it up, my personal assistant has gone and picked up dog poop at my house to bring it to the vet because my dog was sick. But before we ever started, like, you’re going to do some weird stuff, there’s going to be some odd jobs you’re going to have to do and you’re going to be an extension of my personal and my professional life. And so I joke about it all the time. She’s like, I knew what I was getting myself into. And make sure that you don’t just like promise this great landscape, and then ask them to go pick up dog poop, you got to instead frame it to say, there’s going to be weird times where you’re going to have to run errands and maybe pick up dog poop. And if they never pick up dog poop dog poop, there’ll be delightfully surprised.

D.J. Paris 27:02
So now you’ve made your first hire, they are a personal assistant, you’re doing 24 to 36 transactions a year you are, you’re you’re maybe you’re getting 10 to 15 hours back a week. I actually I’m just guessing at that. But hiring a personal assistant gives you some breathing room. And what next, what do we do at that point.

Erik Hatch 27:23
So people are so anxious to hire an agent. They want to they want to start giving business, they want to start buying business, I think you’re mostly earning business. So at this point, you may be buying some leads, but the second hire is another admin. And in fact, this this is the same first couple of steps is what Gary Keller advises a Millionaire Real Estate Agent book, your first hires and admin, your second iris and admin. And I agree completely, the first person was to help you breathe, the second person is to help to help you to grow. And so you’re not giving this person your honey that you’re not giving the first person your honey do list of all the tasks you wanted to get to but didn’t have the time to your second person is helping you to grow your database, and they’re helping you to market they’re helping you to do your social media, on a better level they’re getting in front of all your past clients making sure that they feel nurtured and cared for because that is a gaping hole in most people’s businesses is they tend to drop off and not care for any past clients. This person is your growth person, they become a two headed monster and people right now are saying, oh my gosh, $80,000 in salaries, why would I ever consider doing that? Well, let’s say the average commission in Chicago What 10 or 12 grand?

D.J. Paris 28:34
Yeah, let’s say 350,000, average price point two and a half percent, I can’t do that.

Erik Hatch 28:42
That’s 10 grand 10 grand for simple math. Great. If that first admin helps me to get back 15 or 20 hours a week, I think I can go on, I can sell 10 more houses. And if I sell 10 If I sell 10 more houses and make $100,000 and I pay them 40. So I just bought back time I took all that crap off my plate I didn’t like to do. And now I’m cash ahead 60,000 bucks while my clients get a better service while my my admin gets better service and I have a better life. And you’re not you’re not burnt out. That’s the important part. Right? The mistakes so many people make is they want to go and buy all their business now. They’re gonna go buy really expensive lead sources. And as they go to try to buy those really expensive lead sources. They all of a sudden, like Oh, I’m still making good money, but you’re, you’re paying your agent split into your into your main pots, and you’re funding way too much of all these lead sources. And so the best thing you can do is to try to grow your sphere and your reach of people that are already in your database and the second hires that person to do so. This is not an ISA. This is an admin who is working on projects and is working on client connection and it gives you the runway so at this point when you’re that three person team, I see you doing anywhere from 50 to 75 transactions.

D.J. Paris 30:01
And it’s still just you practicing with these two assistants,

Erik Hatch 30:05
while you’re your client facing for sales, but they’re also touching that all the time and doing the servicing. And you’ll be amazed at how far you can go.

D.J. Paris 30:14
And and that’s a heck of a lot cheaper. I mean, there’s obviously exceptions, then hiring an agent to get to that same level. Really it is,

Erik Hatch 30:22
let’s get there right now, because I’ve seen far too many people make their first through 10th Hire as agents, because here’s what we hear. And that $10,000 Commission sounds really sweet. Yeah, but if I can get somebody in here, I can set them up with five quality appointments, or five quality leads, and they’re going to close all five of them. And I’m gonna make 25 grand, and they’re gonna make 25 grand. Sure. That is basic idiot realtor math. And I did that for a lot of years, not because people are dumb, but because they’re just naive to what’s actually there. Sure. The third hire should be a showing partner, a licensed salaried agent, they are the nurse to your doctor. And this is where most people shouldn’t grow big teams. I have a friend His name is Hank Hank, a bank. It’s a hard name to say but a fun guy to hang out with. Hank is a coach and he’s done great things with his career. He used to be my gold coach back in 2012. And Hank, has really, he said, most people shouldn’t have big teams, because it’s a leadership game. It’s not a sales game. Those are two very different skills. And the margin that happens, the teams that I coach, any team that’s doing 300 Plus transactions outside of a couple of oddities, they’re profiting 15%. Maybe it’s give or take there, they have a bigger pie, but it’s a very small slice of that bigger pie. And they’re having to do so much work. And they’re risking so much. And I live in that right now. The mistake I made I didn’t discover until last year. And the mistake was I grew a big team when I should have grown a small micro team allow me to articulate this small micro team is a micro team for the lead producer for the lead agent for the Rainmaker for the team owner. Before you ever hand off those five appointments to a random agents on your team, you keep those but you bring alongside a nurse, you grow a micro team of a salaried agent, and to salaried admin. Let’s say that’s $100,000 in total for salaries. But I can take those five out of five at bats, and instead of giving them to a new agent, and let’s be honest, that new agents not going to close five out of five, or they know they’re going to close three out of five, maybe but probably two out of five. So I could have made 25 grand than that. But I made 10 Because they’re making 10. And I’m making 10. And that’s my gross, that’s not my net. Right now the flip it on its head, I should be the one as the lead agents. And this is where everybody should go with their teams, I swear to you, of all the people I coach, people are making money out of their ears, and they’re giving everybody a better life, because they’re no longer trying to grow big, massive teams are growing these micro teams, I’m gonna hang on to those five at bats. I’m gonna pay this showing partner 2500 to $3,000 a month. And let’s say it takes two months to close these. I now am a net of $44,000. While I paid that showing partner 6000 bucks, right three grand a month, I paid him three grand a month, I’m a net positive of 44,000 bucks. But that person probably was a barista, or a server or a bartender or working in retail or working an office job that they hated. And they couldn’t get into real estate because they didn’t have the savings account. Right didn’t have the sugar daddy or sugar mama, they didn’t have the trust fund. They didn’t want to have the massive financial bad habits and they hadn’t saved up enough. And so this is their only ticket to get into real estate and you have a simple philosophy of everything is earned and nothing is given. Yeah, let me let me talk for a moment of those people that have big teams. Here’s what happens is we have all of our people sitting at the table all of our agents and they expect a certain piece of the pie and they expect a certain amount of the attention from the leaders. The minute you bring on other agents and you seat them at the same table you’ve created infighting these agents that have stuck around become flight risks because dad just had another kid he doesn’t last much there’s not enough food to go around anymore. And and our season people who are our best converters and our best predictable income these people become flight risk because we just hired competition for them.

D.J. Paris 34:46
Yeah. And and they may think either justified or unjustified. Hey, I’m not. I haven’t gotten to leave in a while or where does it wonder where those leads are really going and it just becomes problematic. Yeah.

Erik Hatch 34:59
And then We as the leaders, we give all of our attention to the new kids, don’t we? Right? There’s a book called The Pumpkin Plan by Mike McCalla. It’s he’s best known for writing profit first. But he writes all these awesome entrepreneurial books and the Pumpkin Plan is my favorite of his. And he talks about seven steps to grow these County Fair Blue Ribbon winning pumpkins and everybody wants to take their picture with ya. And he uses his as a book in which to get more clients and to retain your top your top folks but I read it as a leadership book. And step number six of the Pumpkin Plan says Give all your attention to your big pumpkins. And so for me, what I do at hatch Realty, 12 hours a week is I’m giving all my time to my top agents that turn people because what I’ve done is when I’ve hired I have all my top agents right here. I’ve hired people underneath them. I’ve hired showing partners I’ve I’ve scaled leadership, right? Jesus had 12, and none of us are Jesus. So we shouldn’t have, like the sales managers are destined to fail in most organizations, because they have so many people they’re caring for. And we have leadership issues. We have connection issues, we have proximity issues, people feel invisible on teams and brokerages, and it is eroding our profit, It’s eroding our team satisfaction. And this micro team model solves all of it. You’ll profit more that person now who’s your showing partner gets their MBA in real estate? Yeah, direct extension of you. Here here this step because this is shocking. My first year agents who don’t start off as a showing partner, convert 16% of the company appointments to closings 60%. Wow. My first year agents that first started as a showing partner they spent one or two years as a showing partner now graduated up are converting 32% of those st out that’s

D.J. Paris 36:42
twice as much. So although this success, because they went through a slower process to learn and master the business, they got a paycheck along the way. It wasn’t a huge paycheck, but it was their MBA, as you said, and now they’re going to be able to double the conversion rate and make you know, a lot better money.

Erik Hatch 37:03
So let’s break this down. If I have a showing partner, and two administrators, I think I’m going to be doing 80 deals a year. That’s $800,000 of his 10k per that’s $800,000. I’m going to spend 100 grand on salaries. I’m going to spend maybe another 100 grand on leads and some office and paying my brokerage. Am I really making $600,000 with AD transactions? Yeah, incredible. I mean, if I run a team, my profit margin that I’m writing a book on my design, profit margin for teams is 25%. So if that’s the case, and you don’t grow this micro team, you have 80 transactions that are done by your team, you’re maybe making money as a producer as well, you should make an a salary for what you do. But your actual team profit shouldn’t be $200,000. But if you do the girl micro team, if you change the way this industry is done, you give somebody a better chance you get better leverage and admin support. Because you actually have money in the bank and you’re functioning as a business, you’re gonna make $600,000

D.J. Paris 38:14
Which, by the way, which by the way, it’s so much money and for anyone, it’s so much money, and it might actually just be enough, right? So sometimes agents go, you know, I don’t, I don’t need to earn seven figures a year. But boy, I would think most for most people 600,000 would be an incredible year, certainly for a lot of our listeners. And you know, you don’t have to, you don’t have to keep growing you what you have to do is build a lifestyle based around running this practice as an actual business because oh, by the way, you are a business owner. So so that that’s, that’s I’m so glad we’re going over these numbers. Yeah, I don’t want to stop your flow, keep going.

Erik Hatch 38:55
So we saw this offline. But if you do have a big team, you don’t have to blow it up to grow it up. Okay, you don’t have to go all the way back down to just four of you to figure this out. The purpose of all this is you as the Rainmaker, you as the lead agent, you should be doing this to grow your own micro team. Now, socially, your top agents, that’s the thing is, I used to be in a mastermind used to be coached by somebody who have a lot of love and respect for, but I heard them say, every chance they got once an agent hits about 24 transactions on a team, they’re gonna leave you. And I’m like, Ah, I don’t want that like I want I want these people to be with me for a long period of time and I’m investing my heart soul into that, and I don’t want them to like just use me and then leave our jobs. And our way to retain unbelievable people are two key elements. It’s proximity. That’s the time you spend with your big pumpkins with your top people. Have proximity with your people, and then customization that you build for them a business that continues to have a glass ceiling that doesn’t exist. Right? So in 2010, I was on a real estate team was part time. But I was on a real estate team. I was out selling all the full time agents, and I was doing about 75% of the business from my own sphere. And so I went to the owners, I’m like, Hey, you’re like, hey, hey, can I get a bigger split? Or can I start working listings like I’m doing really well. But yeah, that’s not how we’re built. I left a month later, because of course, I hit my glass ceilings. And so many teams out there right now, I think glass ceilings, and agents are just leaving because they run out of runway. And our job is to provide massive revenue in these micro teams. These showing partners allow businesses within businesses, teams within teams to be creative. So you don’t have to blow it up to grow it up. It’s creating these micro teams and watch retention go through the roof of my 58 people and all my teams I’ve lost to this year. That’s incredible. In the last three years, I’ve lost three producers.

Unknown Speaker 41:04
It’s amazing. And so

Erik Hatch 41:07
you’re either going into chaos or coming out of cast. So I know there’s some hell ahead. And I get that because it’s never rainbows and butterflies. But I’ve had some really tough years. And the longer we put this energy into growing these big pumpkins and, and letting everybody earn their spot, instead of being given their spot. We don’t have the infighting like other places do. My top agent this year, is going to sell 140 houses. And seven of them are from his spirit. That’s not his team. That’s his own personal production. And he’s doing that with a showing partner. And then we have an admin that he hires full time as well. But 140 transactions, his team and total is going to do 300 All under my tutelage, we’re going to do over 1000 transactions this year as a team. And I got these little micro teams and and so I’m not trying to manage everybody, I’m just leaving a few people. And so I know I’m starting to ramble here, I want to make sure that this hits home is that your greatest success for profitability for longevity. And to change the way this game is done is to think small. If you want to go big start thinking small, a micro team of a couple of admin, and then a showing partner or two or three, I have a coaching client in Seattle, he has three soon to be four showing partners on his micro team. Just as micro team, he will net over a million dollars. He doesn’t leave the office, he has an ISA that sets his appointments for him, he just does consults in the office all day long and negotiates from his house and then meets with his needs of the showing partners, a micro team. Now the huge team of micro team is making them seven figures. And our Chicago example, you should be netting five to $600,000 by doing 80 transactions. I don’t know anybody else is doing 80 transactions making that kind of cash without trying to go wide. So the main point I’m trying to iterate here is go deep, don’t go wide. Get a micro team, you can go wide too. But when you find your talents go deep with them as well.

D.J. Paris 43:00
Yeah, I heard Barbara Corcoran say one time on Shark Tank, because of course, she’s on there. I think she’s still on there. And she was talking. Yeah. And she was talking about the you know, there was somebody pitching a whatever company had nothing to do with real estate. And the the person who was the owner of the company seemed like kind of a troublemaker, somebody that was combative and difficult. And bar and he could tell it was sort of turning the rest of the panel off about wanting to fund her business. And Barbara said, you know, I have a different opinion. People who who are difficult, oftentimes become the best producers. And she’s like, my job is to give those people all the attention and that they need because they end up being and of course she runs, you know, or ran Corcoran real estate for a long, long time. And one of the biggest real estate companies in the country, independent firms. You know, she said, I love those people that because I have to spend my time with them. They make me the most money so that that spend your time with the largest pumpkin pumpkins is makes it and same thing with referrals too, right? Like whoever your biggest referral sources are to your clients. Those are the people that you really need to be spending a lot of time with, even if it’s just thank you, thank you, thank you constant thank yous, because those are the people that will continue to of course, refer additional business. So the same principle applies to your team.

Erik Hatch 44:18
Yeah, it really does. It really does. And we are emphatic as a coaching company on trying to redefine how this industry treats people, not only clients but also team members. And we think that we’re onto something here because we’re seeing people have happier careers. They’re not having to deal with the headaches that they usually do. They’re making more money. People stick around for longer. I feel like we’ve we’ve cracked the code here.

D.J. Paris 44:42
It’s really exciting. I would love to talk about your coaching business as well. Which by the way, another plug, please everyone must you’re driving wait a few moments or pull over but if you’re not driving head over to hatch coaching.com to learn all about the different coaching options that Eric and his team have. They do in person and events they do online events, there’s courses tell us all about hopscotching.

Erik Hatch 45:05
You bet house coaching has been around now for almost six years. And we have two major elements, we have a service based on the product base. So our product base is we’re helping people to convert leads at a really, really high level, as well as train people up. And so we have a whole bunch of courses and we have things that add on and bolt on to why Lobo chime follow up boss and see are interactive, some different CRMs that are out there. And we’re continuing to add to that. And so we’re, we’re essentially an extension of your isa or lead conversion department. And it’s just, it’s making people some huge money hand over fist, or those are monthly subscription based products, where we jump in. And we really help to manage your database and do great things with that. The other side of what we have is we do we do coaching, so there’s live coaching with a few of us, there’s events that we do. And we’ve really gotten a great bit of momentum with our virtual events that we’ve been doing lately. And so if you’re at house coaching.com, you can see the right hand corner, there’s a little drop down menu, there’s something called boot camps, we’re just finishing up a boot camp right now. And that is all about lead conversion and spin awesome, you can still sign up for that and catch the last couple and we’ll send you the recordings of the first ones. Otherwise, in early 2022, we’re doing a boot camp about how to grow a team how to kind of grow and scale a team really well. And so everything we talked about today would be maybe a bit of a teaser for where we’re going, and you want to sign up for that. So go to hash coaching.com get on our mailing list and sign up for that boot camp, it’s gonna be pretty great.

D.J. Paris 46:34
Yeah, and boy, you have proven yourself as as a coach here on our show with some really practical advice. And I would love to ask you, let’s say you are so for our audience who is just an individual practitioner, who now has heard, okay, I get it. Once I get to a certain level, I can start to build my own team. But maybe somebody isn’t, you know, quite their their full time. They’re squeaking by maybe they’re doing a few million dollars a year in production, not really earning much of a living, but they’re getting through what what would you how would you coach them? What would you tell them to do? And obviously I know there’s there’s no right real specifically right answer. But I know there’s a lot of people in that in that space sort of feeling like, gosh, I don’t really know how to get to that next level where I can afford an assistant, I don’t really want to join a team, or just feels like I’d be starting over curious on what your thoughts might be.

Erik Hatch 47:29
So I had a friend once say that there would be no need for coaches if people actually honored what was on their schedule. And I thought, huh, dang it, you’re right. You need to know what should be on your schedule. And then once you know what’s on your schedule, actually honoring it. So we talk about the perfect and ideal schedule, it looks like this. Your day starts at 8am in the office. Now there’s a lot of personal care things you should be doing. Hal Elrod has some great things called the Miracle Morning. Awesome Things to do to start off your day. So I’m talking when you actually get to the office, you should get to the office by age with all intensive your day starting with intention and intensity at 830. Your first 30 minutes is prep time. You’re getting caught up on some things and you’re teeing up that golf ball for you to make a great hits. From 830 to 11. You are a slave to your business. And that sounds aggressive. I’ve heard people talk you know, you should lead gen for three or four hours a day. But man, most people, good luck. Most people aren’t in Marathon shape, you know, run for three or four hours a day. Hell no. I’m gonna do it one time. In fact, there’s an episode of How I Met Your Mother, where Barney Stinson goes and runs a marathon because he dared himself to do it runs the actual New York City Marathon but then gets on the subway to go home. And when it comes to his stop, he can’t get off the train because his body is physically shut down. And that’s what people do when they try to lead generate for three or four hours a day. It’s just it’s not effective. So I’d rather you be intentional and intense with your time. No more than 90 minutes of lead gen but it doesn’t start with lead gen it actually starts with role playing and training. So 830 till 915 You should be role playing and practicing. You should be working on honing your craft and getting better 915 till 1045 You should be lead generating this is not lead follow up lead follow up is for business that you’ve already earned or have already started massaging. Lead Generation is business for future business. This is for business that has not yet bore any fruit. And so you need to work on future business before you work on current business. And that’s where most people mess up. It’s why everybody rides the roller coaster of real estate right big sales and then drives big sales and then droughts. So 939 15 till 1045 90 minutes of intentional lead generation, then 1045 to 11. It’s a daily huddle. It’s celebrating your wins. It’s reporting your numbers. It’s your accountability time. And then at 1101 Your day starts for showings. For lead, follow up and for everything else, that’s a busy work of a realtor, if you honor that schedule, and actually, don’t spend your 90 minutes of lead generation time farting around on your phone and perusing through social media, and you actually call, email, text, sent handwritten letters, visit people, and you do that repeatedly, you’re going to find yourself with a ton of business. It’s just going to be time over task over time.

D.J. Paris 50:26
Yeah, leads are really never the issue. Right? It’s all about effort. Yeah. And by the way, if you didn’t hear Eric, he just said never as soon as I said, leads are never the issue. Never ever, ever, if leads, if leads are your issue. Let’s I’m just going to have you answer this question. If right now you’re saying if I just had more if our listeners and we and again, everyone’s everyone’s been there. We all think if I just had more leads, I would do more production. Tell us what’s wrong with with with that mentality.

Erik Hatch 50:55
So I remember as a Keller Williams agent hearing Ben Kenny, say that an agent begged him for a list of people to call and so he finally gave no less than the guy set three appointments in a day. And he’s like, Ben, how do I get more of this? Like I just pulled the name from the phonebook. Right? So I think there was a farcical answer, but I’m gonna, I’m gonna let people in on one of my favorite insider tricks. And that is that your greatest CRM is Facebook. Of course, these are people who are already in some sort of connected relationship with you. And you don’t need to buy any leads, you just need to know what to do with the people who are already in front of you. And your goal should be to make them feel heard, seen, valued and cared for, you need not be the most entertaining person, you need to instead be the most engaged person in other people’s lives. I’ll give you an example is my birthday is March 1, I expect everybody to send me lots of gifts on March 1, but nonetheless, my 5000, Facebook, Facebook, err, quote, friends, all message me on my wall, I get 510% or so of Happy Birthday generic things, I can’t tell you the name of a single person that did that. Then I’ll get like 30 direct messages and 30 text messages. But I count. I got two handwritten notes. Wow. And I got three phone calls. I can tell you who it was for, for those five as well. Because that is remarkable to me. Think of the roots of remarkable right? That you live a life that people will remark about you. Yeah, and if you want to be remarkable to your CRM, which is Facebook, or whatever social media channel you use, you need to go above and beyond and not just wish somebody, Hey, my thoughts and prayers are with you. But instead show up with a damn hot dish or a casserole. When times are tough. Go visit them, go spend time with them, celebrate their life get on the phone, the purpose of social media is not to interact online, but it’s to take things offline and to connect. And when you can do that. It is never about the leads, it’s always about the effort you put in.

D.J. Paris 52:55
And it gives you every possible reason to reach out so so a lot of times we think, you know, I don’t really want to bother my spear. I don’t know when they’re moving and when they need me and I don’t want to be that pushy sales guy going, Hey, thinking about making a move anytime soon. With social media. Now you don’t ever have to talk about that unless it comes up and you want to talk about it. Because now you can say you can pick up that phone someone’s birthday or just go Hey, I saw you were just on vacation in wherever Mexico like that looked awesome. I just called to say that was really cool. I hope you guys had a great time. Talk to you later. Even that alone, nobody else is making that call except maybe their friends, their close friends and family, you can demonstrate that you’re paying attention and that you you care.

Erik Hatch 53:37
Now while I while I never did a single lick of regular lead generation where it would be oh man, who am I going to call today from my my CRM. My social media was my CRM and i i every day for about two hours I would like you’re either networking or not working on on social, I love that I made sure to be networking.

D.J. Paris 54:00
Yeah, it’s such a great way and I also want to make it quick I say this all the time and I just want to think repetition is the mother of skill. So I’m just going to make this point LinkedIn does a really cool thing that that really no other social media platforms do and I encourage you to connect with all of your sphere in LinkedIn for even just for this one reason it will tell you if they have their information updated when something interesting happens to them maybe they get a promotion they update their their position at their company maybe they change companies maybe they have a work anniversary course their birthdays as well. Those are things that even their closest friends might not know and that’s another reason like hey man just saw you got a promotion like that’s amazing so proud of you keep up the great work or just saw something cool happened at your company. LinkedIn is great for that stuff. It’s it’s not necessarily the hey check out my vacation I just went on but it allows you to celebrate the personal or the private or sorry the professional successes of those those fears. So don’t neglect LinkedIn. I know we all want to do Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram because it’s more fun but LinkedIn has some cool stuff, some cool reasons and you can actually just go to your feed your Newt your forgot that notification feed. And it literally just has every one of these reasons to pick up the phone or text somebody or shoot them a, you know, some sort of handwritten note. I mean, I know if somebody got a promotion, the first thing I would do is write a handwritten note or maybe even a little congratulatory gift. And you’re going to be the only person who’s doing that and their entire life outside of maybe their parents and their spouse.

Erik Hatch 55:26
Yeah, and no matter the social media platform, it’s about taking it offline. Yeah, it gives you all the information online, your job is to take it offline.

D.J. Paris 55:34
Yeah, don’t just write Happy Birthday on their wall when it’s their birthday. Because like Eric said, you get about 100 or more of those, in his case, 500. You don’t even notice them, that all bleeds together. It’s not special. It’s like sending a holiday card. It’s there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a nice gesture, it’s better than doing nothing. But you’re one of 20 other cards that are also getting sent by other professional service people. And you know, maybe it’s not as unique. But even if you just hand wrote your holiday card, you’d probably be the only handwritten one they got. So that that would be advice. But yeah, social media. Think of it guys. I know. So many of our listeners are like, what do I promote? How To what do I what do I post what content? Think of it more? Yes, you should be posting content. But we haven’t even talked about that. We’re talking about just participating in other people’s lives. And then, as Eric said, so elegantly and so perfectly, taking what’s online, and then pulling it offline, because we know that social media actually makes us feel more disconnected. It does not, the research does not shows very clearly that it does not really bring people closer together. But it is a great research and development tool so that you can take it offline and actually build that relationship, one, you know, belly to belly face to face or text to text or voice to voice. So thank you, Mark, that is such a, if you get nothing else from this, this this episode, which of course you will, and you have that is you will never suffer a lack of leads. But you have to earn them just like Eric was saying, his team members have to earn their place on the team, you have to earn your place and in your clients team, as well. So your client has a team of people that they employ accountants, you know, maybe an attorney, financial advisor, etc. To earn that spot as a real estate agent you got to do you got to just care more, and you got to be more proactive in their life. Absolutely. Well, Eric, this has been awesome. And I definitely want to continue to have you come on the show from time to time going forward. Because this is so actionable. I know our audience is going to love this as much as I did. And so I want everybody again to go visit hatch coaching.com. Check out the courses, they have virtual events. And just lots of lots of great and by the way, most of the information on there is free. So check it out hatch coaching.com. Also, if you happen to be a realtor in the Fargo area, actually, Minneapolis, you mentioned what were the other areas that your team

Erik Hatch 57:58
Detroit Lakes, Minnesota Grand Forks, North Dakota in Bismarck, North Dakota, as well as Minneapolis.

D.J. Paris 58:03
I know if I was an agent in that area, I would like to work for a team that captures one out of every 1010 deals in that in that area. And certainly check out hatch real its hatch real estate, and the website there if you want it to hatch Realty rather, you can go to hatch realty.com. And you can reach out to Eric and his team. Boy, that’s a team I would join him in a heartbeat. And you get to you get to experience as you get you get not only an MBA and how to grow a business, you get to bypass all of the mistakes that Eric already made to get to where he is. And oh my god, you’re saving yourself years, literally years. And so I couldn’t agree more. Eric obviously is amazing. He’s he’s written a book, you can. He’s got coaching products. And he’s got this incredible team, which captures a huge percentage of the real estate market in his area. So please, everyone, go visit hatch coaching.com. And Eric, if there is anyone that wants to reach out to you directly, you know, who wants coaching specifically, or maybe wants to join the team who might be in the area? How should they reach out to you?

Erik Hatch 59:08
Yeah, just got to have scotian.com Easiest spot, and you’ll get to see this handsome.

D.J. Paris 59:13
Awesome. Well, everyone, thank you for continuing to listen and support our show. On behalf of Eric and myself. We want to say thank you to the audience and the best way that you can help us grow and help Eric continue to grow of course, visit hatch coaching.com. And then for our podcast, tell a friend think of one other real estate agent that needs to hear what Eric just talked about today, which was so there was no fat it was all meat right? This is an amazing episode, send them a link. Easiest way to do that. If they’re not a podcast person, just have them visit our website keeping it real pod.com or search for keeping it real podcasts will pop up. Or if they are a podcast person, or you’re a podcast person. Then just grab your podcast app on your mobile device. Do a search for keeping it real hit that subscribe button that helps us continue and also please Just leave us a review, especially if you’re an Apple user. But for any any service, you might be listening to us through Spotify, Pandora, Google Play, whatever, please leave us a review. It lets us know what you think of the show and helps us continue to improve. So on behalf of the audience and myself, we thank Eric for his time. And on behalf of Eric and myself, we say thank you to everyone listening and watching and we will see you on the next episode. Thank you. Err, hey, thank you.

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

In this episode Joel talks about the situation in the lending market at the moment. Joel and DJ emphasize the importance of educating your clients about the rates and what that means for their own finances. Joel describes what he and his team do to give back to their clients and how this has grown over the years. Joel also discusses how he built his team building and grew it.

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.

D.J. Paris 0:00
On this episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Joel Schaub at guaranteed rate. As a realtor it’s important to partner with only the most trusted name in mortgage lending. Joel has 1000s of satisfied clients and gives $1,500 of his commission. Back to your buyers on every closing. He is known for his ability to close even complex deals start to finish in only 14 days to learn what 1000s of others already know. Make a note to call Joel at 773-654-2049 or email [email protected] Guaranteed Rate is an equal housing lender licensed in all 50 States Consumer Access Number 2611 And now on with the show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast a buy real estate agents and also for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show. And today, once again is our monthly series titled 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 back part of his commission to the buyer on every transaction. Now last year alone, Joel gave back just under $300,000 In closing costs to buyers who worked with them. And that actually put Joe’s volume in the top 1/10 of 1% of all lenders nationwide. out of 400,000 loan officers in the United States. Joel is ranked number 137. Now last year, he closed 535 transactions, his highest amount ever for 195 million in loans this year, he smashed that record. So this is actually his biggest year ever. And it’s not over yet. But he’s already done here in December 590 transactions last year 535. This year 594 $238 million in loans. Now if you’re looking for a loan officer, we cannot highly more highly recommend Joel he’s the very best we’ve ever worked with. Joel can be reached at his email, which is Joel J [email protected]. Again [email protected] Or shoot him a text message or call him at his phone number which is 773-654-2049. Let’s say Hello once again to the biggest Cubs fan. I know Joel Schaub welcome.

Joel Schaub 2:35
Hey, thanks so much for having me on. And when I hear those accolades, and those numbers, none of it matters. I’m so happy to be here each and every month to just give back. These are some of the best times when you and I get together.

D.J. Paris 2:47
It is a lot of fun. And I know just how busy you are. And the fact that you can find time to talk to me when you’re doing more than one closing a day, on average. And if you do business days, it’s more probably more like two to trend two closings at least on average a day. So we know how busy you and your team are. So thank you for for taking a few minutes to chat with us. So I wanted to ask before we’ve sort of got started I. And again, it’s always funny to watch the news because you know, if you’ve, if all you did is read the news, you think, wow, everything is just doing, everything’s going going to pot or everything’s going in the wrong direction. Because that’s what people are interested in reading some negative stuff sells. And and I started seeing in the last couple of weeks, like mortgage rates are starting to climb, time to freak out and time to get scared and just wanted to get your take on on a lot of those news stories that agents and maybe even their clients might be seeing.

Joel Schaub 3:47
I’m glad you asked that right out of the gate DJ because when rates are going up, it’s just important to put it into perspective, right? When we hear braids have spiked, tenure, treasury yields are up over six months, where do we actually stand in terms of long term interest rates? And what does it truly mean for the buyer? Okay, so yes, on average rates right now are north of 3%. But they’re in the low threes. And there are definitely options to get rates below 3%. But just think about what we’re talking about here for a second. We just said rates are up to just over 3% in the business is what we’re getting at right?

D.J. Paris 4:32
Yeah, it’s a great time for rates to go up quite honestly, if they’re gonna go up. Let’s do it in an environment where they were at historic lows and like yeah, perspective, because when my parents got their first loan, they got lucky because they were able to to grab a loan that someone else or rather I’m sorry, they were able to get a loan at a low price but or low rate but other people were getting double digit. This is in like the late 70s early early 80s inflation was out of control was it was like 12%. And and now we’re at 3%.

Joel Schaub 5:05
Yeah, the loans today are not assumable. Right. So when parents were able to get that property, it was a real bargain because somebody that had the mortgage before went to a bank, and that

D.J. Paris 5:14
bank either made a mistake, yeah, they made a mistake.

Joel Schaub 5:18
So banks don’t make mistakes. These days, they learned from 2008 2009, that old mistake. But guys, there’s an opportunity right now when rates are going up. And I want to talk about the two things that I wouldn’t be doing if I were an agent. In this market, where rates are going up, it means that buyers are seeing it on social media, the news, etc. And it’s about having an honest conversation with the buyers that are already pre approved if they’re right at the edge of their limits. Okay. And what I mean by that DJ is, everybody thinks because I am closing two or three transactions every single day, right? That I must work with million dollar buyers left and right. And that’s just not the case. A good majority are just first time buyers, or move up buyers that need advice, speed, guidance, okay. And these are people buying ranges anywhere from $150,000. And up. And a lot of times, they aren’t big time transactions. The big thing here is that buyers are usually limited to how much they can afford. And if rates do go up. Now, instead of being able to go out and buy that $300,000 home, they might have to go and find a home that’s only 265,000. So as an agent, is to actually educate your clients right now that it is the time, if you can get out and find a property before rates really do go up in the next year or two, to get out and buy a property.

D.J. Paris 6:47
I think that’s really important. Because we see, you know, I also just think the average consumer doesn’t, it doesn’t really know what when rates are when they say rates are going up, they’re not able to translate that into easily into real dollars unless they do an online calculation of sorts. And so that’s where I think you’re right. And as an agent, or any loan officers who might be listening, you can provide a lot of value by, you know, resetting that expectation and understanding of what the news actually is, and gives you a great reason to call your clients and say, hey, just so you know, you might have seen some some new stuff, you know, I don’t want you to freak out, but let it let’s talk about your next move. And what you know, what are you in, we also we also know that pricing for homes is has, you know, obviously gone up. And it’s starting to sort of settle a bit, I guess, but but still great time to have a conversation and just let people know, here’s where we’re at. And, you know, if it’s time to start looking. You know, it’s always a good time.

Joel Schaub 7:46
Guys, here’s the point, if a borrower is right now able to go up to 300,000, because rates are about 3%, that exact same borrower might only be able to afford 250 or 265, in a year or two when rates are at four and a half percent. So it doesn’t seem like a major difference from low threes to four and a half percent. But it really is it lowers their purchasing power by quite a bit. And for those borrowers that are first time or on a fixed income, every dollar counts and making sure that they lock into historically low rates is one of your big keys about teaching and educating the clients that you’re working with.

D.J. Paris 8:25
Yeah, it’s a great, a great time to reach out. And wish somebody a happy December holidays, if they celebrate those holidays for your clients. That’s another great reason to pick up the phone and and say hi, before the end of the year, wish them happy new year. And oh, by the way, you know, what are the plans next year? And are you thinking about upgrading or maybe moving from renting to buying or you know, investing even in another property? I would love to talk because this is one thing that I think you do so incredibly well. Maybe better than certainly better than any other loan officer I’ve ever met. But maybe even better than just about anyone I’ve ever met in any industry, which is your generosity. And I know this is gonna sound like I’m just giving you platitudes and trying to go and compliment. But but it is it is actually I think, a learning point for our agents or for our listeners rather who most of them are agents to talk about what you do for the people in your sphere of influence, which I think could be similar thing can be done for all of our with our all of our listeners as well. But can you talk a little bit about sort of gifting and why that’s important to you in your business?

Joel Schaub 9:37
I wanted to be different, right? I realized that givers gain and the more you give, the more you’re going to get in as hokey as it sounds. It’s really paid dividends for me. It started with really small things right? But this time recently this year for Thanksgiving, I’ll just tell you what we did. Next year whoever’s listening copied, just copied. We did to hundreds of hand packed boxes, and it was movie night. So I created custom pieces and filled an entire box one with a large, really nice blanket. Who doesn’t love a blank? We all have blankets, but you wash it once or twice they get dingy, right? Yep, I went and bought the nicest blankets that we could afford for the box budget, then we also filled it with a homemade cookie mix so that people could cook in their homes right along with a spatula, and a hot pad. And it was one of these things where we’re all staying at home more and more. So we did hundreds of boxes, and we filled up an entire FedEx truck and just ship them to past clients, referral partners, and people in our community just to put joy in their faces. And yeah, we spent money on it. But each and every year, it comes back to us.

D.J. Paris 11:00
i It’s funny, I It’s funny, because i we i was lucky enough to be on the list and I got the same package Joel and, and boy, you know, I don’t, I really don’t get many gifts outside of friends and family, I really get nine other than I think from you. And it really was, was was a great gift. Because all of those things are usable. And in your right. Like we are able to create a movie night out of it or, or just a night alone or romantic night. And I think it’s funny too, because they’re all things that that are usable, and especially the blankets is such a great gift. But I was talking to an agent on my show not too long ago, and and he said when he would first started out, and he had no money or very little money to spend to give, you know, give back to his clients what he did. And so, you know, of course, you can put together these amazing gifts, like what Joel does, what this guy did is he just bought one box of Girl Scout cookies for each one of his clients. And he hand delivered it for dollars, or whatever it is $5 may be a box which, you know, you’re supporting the Girl Scouts, which is a good thing. And, you know, you show up with about who doesn’t like a box of Girl Scout cookies. So if you’re listening and thinking, Well, geez, you know, I have a lot of people my database, but maybe I don’t have as much income to build something, you know, create something really, you know, extravagant. It’s like, Girl Scout cookies are a perfectly wonderful gift too. And, you know, that’s a that’s just as valid. So, so whatever your economic situation is, I think, you know, doing something for your client. And if you can’t afford that, given somebody a call and saying I’m thinking about you, I hope you have a great holiday is that’s a great thing to do, too. There’s lots of ways you can give. And Joel does it in a lot of different ways. Joel is very generous, and he’s very involved in the community as well. Especially with with charity and, and just different organizations that he supports. And, and I think that is it. You know, everybody knows that about you hear in the local Chicago community. And I think, Boy, that’s that is a great thing to be known for. And I know that’s not the reason you do it, you do it because you want to and you feel like that’s, you know, you’re obligated to support the community. And I think that’s a wonderful thing to do. But it’s also a nice thing to be known for doing. And the only way anyone’s ever going to think that way about you is if you if you get get involved, right.

Joel Schaub 13:25
You got to get involved and one of the keys is just doing them off holidays, everybody gets a birthday gift. So sending out somebody a birthday gift or a $5 Starbucks on their birthday. Not special. Right? Honestly, I’m telling you now, hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that’s not special. Doing it on a day where nobody else is getting anything. Right. Nobody sends out Thanksgiving gifts. Right? That’s unique and different. I do St Patrick’s Day gifts. And I’ve even gotten in trouble doing Valentine’s Day gifts because my gifts are better than the husband’s gifts sometimes.

D.J. Paris 14:00
Yeah, don’t put me on the Valentine’s Day list because I usually set the scramble for that one, or I could take your gift and then you know, repurpose it and claim that it was my own and remove any branding that might be there. But But But seriously, it is really a nice thing for to receive that unexpected on an off holiday like obviously Thanksgiving and and it just it’s just whatever the gift that you want to provide to your clients. You know, regardless of the expense like figure out a way to to give back and say thank you and and boy it just brings a lot of holiday cheer. There’s there’s really no downside except a little hit to your pocketbook, I guess would you do it? But you know, that just keeps keeps the the good, the good vibes flowing and certainly hopefully would result in more and more transactions down the road. I would also like to also ask you about you have exploded this while you’ve exploded basically Every year you’ve been practicing, but the last couple years have really been outstanding in your production. And I know you’ve added a lot of team members in the last year or two. Can you talk a little bit about how that how that works for you and how that’s structured?

Joel Schaub 15:14
Well, it’s a fallacy, right? So many people look at somebody ahead of them and say, well, he must just have a bunch of loan officers that work for him. There’s no way that he’s doing all that business. And I am, it’s literally the staff that I’ve created, supports the brand and the business. Okay. So right now, we’re at 17 members on the staff. And the big thing that really made the jump I was talking to you before the show about this was bringing in my wonderful wife, Christine. And I know there’s a lot of people that have husband and wife teams, but she’s literally blown it out of the park in terms of the marketing, and growing, okay, because I’m a numbers guy, you know, I’m actually kind of shy, you wouldn’t notice this, right. But she’s the one that makes these connections for me, and I ended up out working on the actual day to day of the business. And what we’ve done is we’ve grown from just having three people on the job shop team, to a staff of 17, that helps with marketing, gift giving for realtors, okay, so we partner with agents all across the United States, and teach them in detail the things that we talk about here, how to go out and duplicate what we’re doing for their database, they get a list of friends, family members, and co workers, and create unique things that are perfect for them. And we help with the costs.

D.J. Paris 16:42
I love that. And I am always surprised at how little of that, as a homeowner in Chicago hear that I receive from other loan officers, I get none of it, quite honestly. And I’m in a newer building a brand new building really. And so maybe we’re not on everyone’s address list yet. But I don’t think there’s a whole lot of competition in that space, like this is a great time to partner with a loan officer and say, hey, I want to start doing some, you know, whether it’s mailers, or flyers or brochures or whatever, and being able to really create, and I’m almost wondering if loan officers have just been so busy this last year that they’re like, I don’t need to do a lot of that right now. Because I’m so busy. But I know you do a lot of it you partner with agents and you say how can we both work together to build your business? The agent? And then of course, that ultimately ends up helping your business too. But I don’t I don’t receive a lot of that. I don’t It’s funny, I you think you would with the number of loan officers out there. So the road is not that well traveled. And it’s a great opportunity to choose somebody like Joel to to build a relationship with and say, Hey, it’s 2022, almost what can we do together to really knock this thing out of the park. And, and a lot of loan officers are very hungry. Still, Joel obviously, is still super engaged, that I just wanted to go back to something very quickly that you had said about, you know, now that you have the staff of 17, you know, it would be not unnatural to think Oh, Joe gets to now wake up at 1010 in the morning, and he’s done by two and and that is not your life at all, you were working just as hard as you ever have. And that’s the secret to your success. It’s it’s, it doesn’t necessarily get easier or less time, right? It’s just you now have more help. So that you can do more in that same time.

Joel Schaub 18:37
We got to be very forward thinking in this business. And if you’re a realtor, you get loan officers left and right reaching out to you saying our rates are so low us us, right? What are they doing for you? Right? So take some of these people. And I know I’m gonna get flack in the lending community for saying this. But if you’re a realtor, right now reach back out to these agents that are these mortgage agents that are reaching out to you asking you for business and saying what are you going to do for me? Right, good loan officers will through RESPA compliant ways, give funds up to 50% for marketing events and giving Okay, and partner with somebody that you like, okay, that’s going to actually take care of your clients that has the behind the scenes, similar to what we have to actually close transactions in a fast amount of time. Because the secret is, most banks out there have the same rates DJ, everybody thinks that there might be some secret someplace if they search the dark web to find this lowest interest rate. That’s not the case, go with somebody that you know, like and trust, okay, and work with them and see if you’re an agent, which loan officer is actually going to help you grow your business. Okay, and that’s what’s the focus right now, going into 2022. There’s going to be a lot of lenders as rates do start to go up that are just going to be calling and we’re way ahead of the game on all of that. This is year round for We are reaching out, we don’t reach out, just when times get slow. Yes, everybody is busy. Every single week, we’re scheduling appointments, and you just wait when rates do go out, but there’s going to be a lot of people leaving the business because they didn’t do the planning. So if you’re on this call here today, or you’re listening or watching, I know, we’ve reviewed some of this before, but it’s another action step to take steps forward to just do gift giving, create your database and start giving back.

D.J. Paris 20:29
Yeah, and start talking to lenders, if you’re one of our listeners, who is things are slowing down, it’s the end of the year, you got clients that are not as present, because they’re, you know, dealing with holiday stuff. Great time to start talking to lenders, lenders are probably slightly less busy as well, or the loan officers, you know, probably winding down a bit. Except for Joel, which is still you’re cranking it out just like you always do, but there’s a lot of loan officers that are probably have a little bit more time right now. And if you, you know, wanted to partner with somebody in your local community, reach out to three or four of them and say, hey, I want to talk I here’s what here’s what I want to do next year, can you can you help me, you know, what can you do. And of course, if anyone out there does not have a great relationship with a loan officer, we would encourage you to reach out to Joel. Joel is an amazing partner. I know of many, many agents for many firms who Joel works with here in the Chicagoland area. But guaranteed rate is licensed, of course, in all 50 states, they have incredible agents, credible loan officers, and but Joel, if somebody did want to reach out to you specifically to talk about, you know, helping them with their 2022, or even just general questions, or maybe you could help point them in the right direction. What’s the best way they should reach out to you

Joel Schaub 21:41
invariably, after these podcasts, I get north of a dozen phone calls or emails, somebody just saying I really was inspired by what you said here? Do you have a few minutes and I actually take the time to answer the phone. And I do reply to emails personally. So test me, okay. Joel JO [email protected]. It’s the short email for guaranteed rate, and then 773-654-2049. And it would be one of the things where if you are an agent, and you are spending on something, we’re happy to contribute, we really want to partner with agents that are investing in themselves, okay. And on the higher end, I know not everyone can be at this level. But if you are an agent that’s spending over $10,000 a year on something that you are doing for marketing and advertising, reach out to me, I absolutely have ways in 2022, that you could get the freight costs on those types of things in real RESPA compliant ways. So let’s have a conversation.

D.J. Paris 22:41
And you know, we’re starting to see there was some news earlier this week for an online lending institution that that had to do a massive number of layoffs. And I really think if you, if anyone you know is paying attention to those sorts of news, that that is a great reason to have a conversation with your clients about lenders. And why you have that you would, you know, I don’t wanna use the word steer, but that you would suggest to your clients, I’ve got a great relationship with someone, I would like you to talk to them, because some of these online mortgage lending institutions, which doesn’t, doesn’t really have the ability to have a personal one on one interaction between the client and the loan officer, some of them just are starting to crumble a bit, I think, and, you know, these relationships, these one to one relationships are just so critical. And like you said, rates are not that important, because everyone’s really got the same rates, but the relationship is because I know that if I refer someone to draw, it’s gonna get closed, I don’t have to think about that. And that is a real nice thing to be able to say to a client is, you know, let’s, let’s go, let’s try my my person. And so let’s good time to develop those relationships. And again, it’s your fiduciary to your clients, not Joel, of course, I’m talking to directly to our audience, you are a fiduciary, you have a financial obligation to give them good advice. And, you know, building a relationship with a loan officer in 2022, if you don’t have one, is a good opportunity to really be able to provide more value to your customers and say, Oh, no, you know, not that you don’t shouldn’t go here. But here’s somebody else that we really want you to talk to, and, and the level of experience is just different. I know, when I was recently purchasing a home, and I actually went with Joel, of course, and I tried a couple of these online things just to sort of see what would happen. I was curious the experience I would get, and it was very poor. And immediately, you know, I wasn’t really going to go with him anyway. But I was shocked at the level that the really difference. Whereas Joel, got on the phone with me had a great conversation that was quite quite lengthy about I want to educate you on the process, you know what you’re doing, and none of the other places were I mean, they didn’t even call me back really, which was surprising. So this is a great opportunity. Need to build these relationships with really good loan officers like Joel and and really, you know, help get your clients the help they need so that they’re not stressed about this large, sometimes largest financial decision they may ever make.

Joel Schaub 25:14
I’m glad that you said that, because it’s really true. It’s about having that relationship. And if you’re a realtor, it doesn’t have to be me go back to the lenders that you absolutely know and see if they’re open to helping you on any of those types of things. Because good lenders absolutely would welcome that phone call. Why wouldn’t they, you’re referring them transactions. And you want to make sure that you’re working with somebody who has a team behind them, the online lenders, they might somehow be a little bit cheaper on the surface, it looks to be that way. It’s hard to get offers accepted when you’re working with somebody like that. So there’s some pros and cons to everything, find out what’s best for you, but no, coming right from the horse’s mouth here that loan officers that are successful want to partner with you and spend money, so don’t be afraid to ask.

D.J. Paris 26:04
Yeah, it’s a great opera, great opportunity here for the end of the year for our listeners. And of course, reach out to Joel, if you would like to see what he could do with you. He would love to have that conversation with you. And Joel, we wish you a happy December holiday season, as well as the Happy New Year that is coming up and excited to have you back again for another year here on the show. And, of course, as always, on behalf of the audience, we thank you for your time, you’re always have great wisdom. And it is exactly the same steps you do with your own business. So it isn’t even unique specifically to real estate, it obviously applies to to a lot of different occupations, and you’re doing the same thing that you’re telling our audience to do. So walking, the talk is so, so rare these days. And it’s wonderful to have somebody on the show who really does that. So thank you. And then of course, on behalf of Joel and myself, we want to thank the audience, you know, you guys have been with us some of you since the very beginning, which was four or five years ago. And we appreciate it we’re I don’t know 300 And maybe 30 episodes in now. And so we are grateful wouldn’t wouldn’t be able to keep making these without the support from our, our listeners and our viewers. So please help us continue to grow. Just tell one friend, think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing this great conversation with Joel and send him a link to our our website, which is keeping it real pod.com We have links to all the different podcasts apps on there, or just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real, hit the subscribe button. And also, please leave us a review if you’re specifically if you’re whatever app you might be using to listen to our show, whether it’s Apple podcasts or Google Play, or Spotify or wherever. Leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show. It helps us get more visibility and also helps lets us know what we’re doing right and how we can also improve. So please also do that, Joel, thank you once again. Wow, amazing year you’ve had and also you’ve never missed one of our shows. That’s how impressed that’s even more impressive that would I know how busy you are. So thank you on behalf of all of us at the show. And we will see everybody we’ll see Joel and 2022 and we’ll see everyone else on the next episode. So thanks, Joel. Thank you, DJ

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

Ryan discusses what’s happening in the lending world at the moment and emphasizes the importance of the loan officer in the process of home-buying. Ryan gives tips on what agents can do to finish the month (and this year) strong. Ryan and DJ discuss the importance of keeping in touch with people around and building relationships.

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

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

This episode is brought to you by iGuide.

D.J. Paris 0:00
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Welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Barris, I am your guide and host through the show and today is our monthly coaching moments with Ryan de April. Now if you’re not familiar with Ryan, or if you’re new to our show, Ryan comes on every month to give our listeners and our viewers a coaching moment and a coaching session. Well, let me tell you about Ryan Ryan de abril is a progressive thought leader focused on providing for his agents and staff at Table Properties. His strengths are his motivational skills, his coaching style and his dedication to training. He has 14 offices throughout Chicagoland also offices in Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan with hundreds and hundreds of top real estate producers. Dr. Paul properties is also a coaching company with eight strategic coaches who work week in and week out with each agent individually focused on business planning, coaching and accountability. Now, if you’d like to take your career to the next level, or if you’re just not getting the attention you need from your existing firm, check out D APR properties, visit D APR that’s da p r i l e properties.com. We can do properties. Like we should also mention, Ryan also owns a lending company called Midwest lending. So if you have any lending needs, or you’re looking to build a relationship with a great loan officer, you can always check out Midwest lending, and also Midwest title for looking for a good title company. So it’s got a lot of businesses and we are thrilled to have him on the show. Welcome again, Ryan.

Ryan D’Aprile 2:36
Thanks for having me, DJ, so good to talk to you again. And you got me in a car again. So no, no FaceTime video there. Sorry about that.

D.J. Paris 2:43
No problem. Well, Ryan, and I were just talking just before the show, because I just saw this headline. And my first reaction was, I have never heard of this company. yet. I thought it would be just a neat way to start off our show. Just to get your perspective on this as somebody who owns a lending company. So I just saw better.com, which apparently isn’t, I believe an online mortgage lender just announced they were laying off 900 employees here in one swoop. So it’s making the news because of the size of that cut. And just curious as somebody who is involved in that business, you know, sort of your thoughts about what’s going on in the mortgage industry?

Ryan D’Aprile 3:24
Well, you know, you’re seeing across the board, mortgage companies starting to cut down on staff I, there’s a little bit more to this story, right with how they did it, which is horrendous. It sounds like you and I are chatting about it. We’ll talk about that in a second. The approach that you did, because you know, these are human beings. But there is you know, 2020 20 and 21 was borderline noxious how busy it was in the morgue journey. And it was a fight for talent and, and people that were in, you know, certain roles and a certain amount of money were being offered double the to be taken away and go somewhere else. And it happened and companies are struggling looking for people because they had so much business. And unfortunately now you know, 18 months later, you hear you ever hear about mass layoffs, because business just isn’t there. And you know, supply and demand is, you know, it’s real, right? And when the demands out there. They start to really start to layoff these people know how this company did it. better.com I believe is the name right? Yep. You’re telling me they did on a zoom call?

D.J. Paris 4:38
Yeah, they did it to all 900 employees simultaneously, which is now that part of the story is really being focused on in the news, which it is upsetting. Yeah.

Ryan D’Aprile 4:51
Yeah, that’s you know, you got it. You should be thinking these things through but you know, yeah, that’s That’s too bad. And you know, Whew, you know, it’s, that’s the lot of emotion runs through me when I hear something like that. And being in, you know, our type of roles where, you know, you eat what you kill, and also being an industry, right real estate mortgage lending, there’s a ton of emotion, that, that, that that comes into this and, you know, that will just kind of just take you to a whole other level, that’s why I try to always coach, you know, allos agents and whatnot, and the importance of network and networking. And, and, you know, I’m online leads Consumer Direct, you know, it’s, it’s good at a certain time and a certain place, it’s not a bad complement to your business. But you don’t want to be the core of your business. Because, you know, when somebody gives us, somebody can taketh away, and you’re better off, you know, relying on yourself and the power of your network and, and focusing on activities to make your network attractive to you, so that they come for you for that advice. But it’s, it’s, it’s tragic. It’s very, too bad. And it’s going around and, you know, some of the biggest mortgage companies out there, you know, your, you know, maybe not in the news, but in the industry news that we see where they’re reporting massive layoffs that are happening out there. And that’s tough.

D.J. Paris 6:19
And I almost almost wonder if there’s a good sort of action step for our listeners, who are agents, mostly, who maybe see news like this, they start thinking, well, it’s gonna make sense there were business was so busy, and so they had to staff up and maybe now, the lending world has has, you know, dropped in popularity just in the immediate moment, or it’s the holidays, and people are, you know, refinancing or purchasing as much but, or it’s just the market slowed down. So use, you mentioned, supply and demand. And I’m wondering if there is an action step. So an agent might say, Well, gosh, I don’t want this to happen to my clients. Because, you know, I don’t know, maybe it’s a good time to have a conversation with your loan officer, just to see, how’s the company doing? You know, what company you work with?

Ryan D’Aprile 7:09
Yeah, you know, so a lot of our real estate agents, right, and I, I really have my finger on the pulse of this, because I, I own a mortgage company, but then I see my agents, and they’re on the other side, the listing side, or whatnot. And they’re working with lenders from all over the place. And they really cringe when you get these Consumer Direct companies on the other end. Yeah, and you know, your real estate agents want to have a relationship with a lender, I coach loan officers. And, you know, it is one of the most scalable businesses, I believe, I think real estate’s difficult to scale, they, they have these models of scaling it, and we I don’t want to get in that conversation. We could talk about that later. But you know, real estate is a high relationship type business, which makes a little bit more difficult to scale, you could really scale lending. Without having to multiply yourself. And one of the reason being is, is there’s always two real estate agents on a deal. Yeah. And I coach our loan officers and like, if you are not calling an agent, twice a week, both agents twice a week, you are missing the lowest hanging fruit in this business. And they appreciate it so much, even if they don’t call you back. And I see and I’m not going to name, I’m going to bite my tongue here, I’m not going to name any companies. But I see large mortgage companies out there. And our agents just saying please avoid these people as much as you can. And they’re actually talking their clients out of having to use them because their call centers and you know, they are in mortgage lending is not simple. It’s not a manufacturing process. It’s it’s, it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s a job or, you know, everything almost.

D.J. Paris 9:02
And whatever documentation that your client may have needed to provide to the loan, the lending institution loan officer at the beginning of the transaction, even though that’s what was needed for the pre qualification letter, and even whatever, you know, once the contracts accepted, there’s going to be a wrinkle in it at some point down the road before the closing, where all of a sudden there there will be some sort of scramble for paperwork, and I think that’s where it’s like, okay, thank God, I have a great loan officer on top of this, because there’s some sort of wrinkle

Ryan D’Aprile 9:33
there is and that’s one of the reasons why loan officers have to stay on every deal and communicate because not only that, it’s you know, you have to first you know, dispatch just pick dates December 1, we’re going to go under contract and we’re gonna close December 30. Great. Right now, everybody attorney wants to order title, you know, when they’re going to order title a week before closing. Wait a minute. We have clear to close. We need that now. out, the borrower get the fifth key one that they have, but they’ll get it four days before closing, okay, but we’re not clear to close. So, you know, a lender is so dependent on so many different parties, and they are the scapegoat, have the experience totally. But you have the appraiser, you have the FHA inspector, you have the title company, you have the seller’s attorney, you have the borrower, you have the borrower’s HR department for verification of employment. So much that goes on condo associations, they have to give you condo questionnaires that, you know, you’re the bottom rung and then your processor will call, but nobody’s returning processor calls or return the loan officers call. And it’s, it’s complicated. And you know, and people have tried automating what the Automate with the Automate is online lead client acquisition, right? You know, when you’re going to mortgage company.com, you’re not cutting out a middleman because that mortgage company is spending hundreds of 1000s of dollars on billboards and commercials to drive consumers that mortgage.com company where you’re gonna get somebody on a headset, I’d rather the acquisition expense, right, the client acquisition expense, being a loan officer commission, because then they’re going to nurture it and take care of it. And you’re not gonna see a difference in rate as a consumer. It’s just a different. Yeah. Right. So that in product,

D.J. Paris 11:38
that’s a really, really strong point for all of our listeners to understand is that that a lot of these companies, what they really are our lead generation companies, and they’re spending the money they would be spending to pay the commission, a lot of their loan officers, a lot of them are actually salaried. And so they’re on a headset there. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But how motivated are they to close a deal? When they’re not really? Yeah, they have no relationship with the end user.

Ryan D’Aprile 12:07
And and in, that’s quite the opposite to the point of that it’s not cheaper for the consumer, right? Those commercials costs money, those billboards cost money to drive the consumer to that website, those headsets, those cost centers, and those salaries cost money. And in fact, they cost more in basis points, and a loan officers basis points, High Commission, in most cases, and so you’re not going to see any savings, and you’re gonna see a lot more frustration, because this is not like, you know, you know, hey, you’re 35 and five foot five. So here’s your interest rate. And that’s it, it’s you employed, are you self employed? How many K ones do you have? We need verification? Boy, I’ll even employ What’s your credit score, where does it fall, how much you borrow, and what’s your loan to, you know, your and then they gotta go sell that in secondary markets, it’s very complicated, you need a loan officer that is competent, that can handle all of these tricky things. And then, most importantly, be the person who’s going to move the whole process along. Hey, seller’s agent, we have not gotten titled back to the attorney in need to get a hold of them. If you guys want this to close, in the next two weeks, hey, we have not heard from your insurance company, and we don’t have the declaration we need, we need to know that they got proof of insurance, or we’re not gonna be able to give them the more, hey, we have not gotten the condo association back. Gotta do it. And that’s what a lot of loan officers good loan officers are doing. And that’s why that Consumer Direct portion is online, you know, call centers, you know, they’ll take an application, but automating that stuff, it’s, it gets ignored by all the other parties that are supposed to send the documentation into you. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 13:49
that’s a good point. And also, we’re now just moving on, because I think you’ve just set it all there. So So anyway, I or just maybe to put a to put a bow on that, a great opportunity to remember as the agent, you are especially working with the buyer, you are the the knowledge source, you are the person that has information. So you need to be having those conversations with your buyers, before they get their pre qualification letter, or suggesting to them why they may want to talk to so and so from, you know, the loan, the the lending institution that you have a relationship with, because you you know, these are things that as a consumer consumers don’t understand that a loan officer in person or one locally, might be able to better serve them that then you know, you know, like you said a mortgage.com type of online lead that they’re not going to know that so this is where the real estate agent will come in. Because if you think about it, you know, I shop for bank rates sometimes because sometimes I just have some cash and I don’t really need anything special done with it and I just want to see which banks giving me the best rate because it’s such a simple Will and no brainer transaction. And I can literally just search best bank rates for, you know, money market or whatever. And I can make that decision without talking to a banker. And it’s so easy and it’s no big deal that can be done. And so a lot of us are just sort of, we’re always thinking about searching online for the best rate or the best whatever. When it comes to mortgages, I don’t think the average consumer understands, even though they’ve been through it maybe multiple times, they don’t understand how complicated that whole entire processes, so find a good lender, loan officer, and we should probably this great place to plug Midwest lending. So tell us, tell us a little bit about Midwest lending.

Ryan D’Aprile 15:37
No Midwest signings a mortgage bank, we’re in Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Florida. Um, and we pride ourselves on communicating with our borrowers, and our agents and every agent on the deal. And doing it multiple times a week and keeping everybody apprised of what’s going on, and how everybody can participate. And help out on the journey to get in the closing table. Because I’m going to tell you, whatever mortgage company has, we’re going to need everybody to participate. And again, that’s the attorneys, that’s the agents, borrowers, the borrower’s employees, and whatnot. And the more the agent is informed of what’s going on the process, the more they can help out and make a phone call, say we need this documentation. So we’re gonna get our cleric close. So go ahead and schedule a closing. So Midwest lending is a great organization. You know, we have a number of loan officers in multiple states, and we work with real estate agents all over the country. And yeah, that’s about us. And you know, what? How about, I was just thinking of something. And thank you for letting me plug Midwest funding, I appreciate it greatly. How about we transition since we’re moving in the last half hour, it’s sprinkling a little coaching for our listeners here,

D.J. Paris 16:47
I’d love that. And this is we are now at the time we’re recording this, it’ll probably come out in a week or so. But we are in December, early December at the time of this recording. And it is very easy. Even I have to sort of force myself to not get too caught up in the fun of the holiday to where it’s I’m cutting corners at work, or I’m spending less hours, it’s very easy to do that. There’s so much responsibility, we have the family and friends and and just you know, getting holiday cards out or whatever all the little activities we’re doing. And it is easy to and it’s also a great time of year to take it easier if you wanted to, because it’s probably probably less busy. You’re probably getting less of those client calls. But But what can agents do to really finish the end of this month strong? What could they start doing so that sure you don’t lose that momentum?

Ryan D’Aprile 17:43
So I was thinking about this over the weekend, and I was watching Michigan play Iowa. I don’t know if you saw that game or not. And my friend’s son is the freshman quarterback JJ McCarthy. And you know, he’s behind the starter, why don’t we have the starter as the root for JJ gets put in, like, you know, once every eight plays so terrific. Watch out for that name. You’ll you’ll see him in the NFL. And as watching hardball, you know, and as watching hardball coach, and and really getting in these kids? And I thought to myself, what is it that a coach provides somebody? What is it that a manager provides somebody that’s going to the next level? What would you guess it would be DJ?

D.J. Paris 18:27
So things that come to mind would be motivation. I actually would I guess I would have said that before I got my own physical personal trainer for at the gym. And what I used to think was, Oh, she’s going to tell me what to do. And she’s going to keep me on target. And yes, she does those things. But that’s not really for me the value the value for me is when in particular with having a personal trainer is the is knowing to do the correct form. And and the fundamentals and knowing like, Oh, yes, anyone can do a deadlift, but are you doing it correctly. And I got injured. When I used a personal trainer many years ago who wasn’t very skilled. Now I have somebody that’s skilled and cost a lot more. But boy, it’s it’s in the fundamentals and the foundation for me.

Ryan D’Aprile 19:14
When I was watching hardball, it clicked to me and I was thinking to myself, I said the best of the best. And those are that were worthy of receiving the best and best are open to receiving this is my opinion. It’s discipline and structure. Yeah. And motivation is great. And people say them very motivating, and appreciate it’s a compliment. But it’s also you know, it sinks in a cliche, I’ve heard it before, you know, motivations, like a bath, it’s going to wear off. And, you know, there are people that are coachable and are people that just they’re not coachable. And you got to really look in the mirror, especially during this time and say, am I going to keep my foot on the gas? And if there’s somebody that’s going to be doing that and helping me am I coachable? to really hear the cold, hard truth, and be willing to accept discipline and structure, so I can take myself to the next level, right. And I, there’s certain amount of people that I love and I care about, but they’re not worthy of my discipline structure, because they’re not going to take it. And the truth is, is us individuals, we hold so many people to a high level, our UPS delivery person, right? The water delivery, the pizza guy did the pizza delivery come in there, you know, did it take, you know, 45 minutes or 55 minutes, I’ve heard people yell by how it’s taken so long for the pizza to comment all their stuff in the best of the best hold themselves accountable to that level. And this is a time where I tell everybody, it’s the end of the year, don’t be looking at the results, stop looking at the results. And stop tracking the results right now, the year is over, you need to be looking at your activities, you need to be looking at your actions, your you need to have your blinders on. And the only thing you are focused on is your actions. And that’s got to be like this for the next 60 days. If you want to catch that mid February, spring market, there’s always time, right? And they were they it’s the expression, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, and the next best time is right now. Right right now, right now is where you need to say I’m gonna start, I gotta look at my actions and my activities, stop looking at my results, get focused on my activities. And day by day, am I taking the right steps and reaching out to the right individuals, and connecting with all the people in my network systematically, being habitual about it. And then the results are simple byproduct of those activities. And I think that is what everybody should be doing right now. Especially when the majority of us, which we may call our competition is not doing it.

D.J. Paris 22:04
Yeah, this is a time where even the busiest especially the busiest agents are, maybe they are taking a bit of a break, simply because this might be the only break they get into here. And so they might be taking a well, a well deserved break. But for those of us that aren’t, go ahead,

Ryan D’Aprile 22:21
I was gonna cut you off. But listen, you guys, discipline is structure, it’s going to give you all the free time in the world. I want I just came back from a week’s vacation. You know, we all need a break, we all need to, you know, we all need to unwind and stop it. But if your discipline is structured, in your one hour a day, one hour a day? You know, that’s not a lot. No, it really is not a lot but added over. And over 52 weeks. It’s a ton. And it didn’t feel like a lot. But your results? Right? Your results are gonna put you at the pinnacle of your industry, because you did not a lot one hour, a lot throughout the year. If that makes any sense what I just said,

D.J. Paris 23:09
yeah, it makes perfect sense. Because I know that, you know if I could take this month off from exercising? Sure, I certainly would like to. But what’s that going to look like for me in January, when I come back? What’s what’s what kind of pain am I going to be putting myself through to get back in shape? Just because I took two weeks off? Can I can I take two weeks off? Sure. Is that a good idea for me when I’m going to have to go back to the gym, and it’s going to be more painful. And so I caution everyone to think about sure you can take it easy this this December, and maybe you deserve it. And that’s fine, if it’s intentional, and if it’s, you know, scheduled, but if you can also continue to do. But like Ryan says putting the blinders on and sort of almost forgetting that it’s the December holidays at the end of the year. And things are slow. If you can just remove those from your mind and go, Well, I still have to work out today or in this case, I still have to make my phone calls and check in with my clients. And also, by the way, great time to do that, since it is the December holidays, even if you’re just calling them to say, Hey, I just hope you’re having a great rest of the year. And I was thinking about you. If that’s all you did to everyone in your database. I bet that’s more than they would expect.

Ryan D’Aprile 24:22
Yeah, and if you’re one of those individuals and aren’t logging your database once a week or once a day, right, and you’re doing it you know, once a month, you’re flying blind. Yeah, you’re just you’re absolutely flying mind. And, you know, I was telling him as coaches that you could be in this business for 10 years and an econ actually a decent living, right. But you’re not going to be at the top you’re not going to be and what I mean by that top like yeah, you know, are you success? Are you are you gonna be happy at the top? No. But you know, that’s what we’re talking about when we’re coaching. And also like, don’t be afraid of success, because it’s not going to take more time. You In fact, success gives you more time. And it gives you a lot more freedom.

D.J. Paris 25:04
And a lot more a bit. Yeah, the freedom comes to in learning how to scale a business as well and getting help when when you get to a level where you can we can push through to that. Find other people to assist you. And but yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, I think you and I are, are the same in the sense of, I always like Coach John Wooden. He’s like the only coach I even know, in sports, but he was the UCLA guy. And if you don’t know who coach John Wooden is just google him. But I think he won seven NCAA Tournaments championships in a row, I think it was literally seven in a row in the 60s, and I think maybe the early 70s, and then went on to win I think 11 out of 13, or something like that. He’s the winningest coach in NCAA history. Anyway, he never looked at the scoreboard. And when I say he never looked at the scoreboard, he absolutely will tell you he never looked at the scoreboard because he said, that doesn’t indicate to me whether we’re winning or losing. And it’s like, well, how do you how does that happen, and it’s not just a cute catchy thing. He said, he said, I just told every player, you’ll walk off the court at the end of the game, and whatever the scoreboard says, you’ll either know you did your best, or you’ll know you’re dead. And you won’t feel good, even if we win if you didn’t do your best. And so I think that is such a great lesson is just put the blinders on and do the fundamentals, do the things that you know, six months from now, we’re going to pay off because it is going to be six months from now, six months from now. And you know, like me, if I if I put the blinders on and just keep at the gym and keep doing the things at work that I’m supposed to do, we’re going to keep growing our business here, and I’m going to keep getting stronger in the gym, and I, I won’t have to go back in a month and go, I should have worked out this last month and didn’t and now it’s going to suck for a couple of weeks. Don’t Don’t let Don’t Don’t let that happen.

Ryan D’Aprile 26:47
Now, and tracking everything is is important, right? So we have in our dashboard, we have a snapshot and it tracks you know, your cuckolds and warms it tracks, it tracks your active clients. So your prospects are great, cool, cold and warm volumes next to them. And there’s timing next to them, then your your actives, right, and the type of actives you have then your pending, and then your sales, we also have another bar chart that’s called the forecast, which essentially takes your warm only not your coolers and colds, adds them with your actives and adds them with your pending, and then add some of your close, they’ll give you a forecast for what your year is going to look like. So with a lot of people now we’re goal setting again. And and we’re going to look at those, those snapshots that we have in their in their dashboards. And, you know, we’re going to talk about it for a few minutes. Right? And say, hey, look, you know, you have, you know, $7 million of cold cold means closing next calendar year. That’s fantastic. And look at you have another $4 million that are already active that you know they transact is probably transacting in late December or January. So you’re already looking at $11 million a year. And then we look at okay, where did the majority of this comes from that is coming from purchase web leads? are these coming from your, your network? are these coming from your network referring you and and then most of us see that 80 to 90% of it comes either from the network or the network referring them. And then you’re able to parlay that into a lesson be like Alright, great. Now let’s get to work. Get back to your network tab. Let’s look at these 385 people that are in here. Let’s go to the filter. And let’s see who hasn’t heard from you this quarter? Who has not heard from you? Since you know, September 30. All right, there’s 100 people a great, it’s 100 people that you have not talked to in three months 16% of them are going to transact next year at 16 potential transactions, not to mention that each one of those 100 people that you haven’t talked to in a quarter, no four people they’re going to buy or sell. That’s another potential 400 referrals. So how much are you missing out on by not being aware of those statistics and not being aware of your activities? Okay, great. It’s December 6, because right now it is December 6 I know there’ll be less than a week from now. But you know, you’ve got basically 20 days 20 days to reach out to those 100 people you know

D.J. Paris 29:16
and you have you have a lot of you have a lot of things to say when you talk to these people now it’s it’s the December holidays. By the way, if you don’t know what holiday your sphere of influence each person in your contact list your CRM celebrates or doesn’t celebrate. You should know that because Hanukkah I think just wrapped up a couple days ago. I have one of my closest friends celebrate Hanukkah he in his family, and so I don’t celebrate Hanukkah, but I reached out to him on day five and just as a funny thing I said Hey, happy day five. We’ve been friends forever and I just thought it would be funny on day five to say Happy Hanukkah but but I also wanted to wish them happy Hanukkah because like oh my god, I forgot to wish Justin Happy Hanukkah. So on day five I sent him a message And I said, and he laughed, laughed back and said, Hey, thanks for remembering. And I and then I said, Hey, just out of curiosity, how many people who are not Jewish, you know, I’m not Jewish, and I said, How many people who don’t celebrate Hanukkah reached out to you aside from your family and whatever anyone, you know, really close to you how many friends or whatever reached out and said Happy Hanukkah and he goes, You’re the only one. And and so I thought, boy, you know, what a great opportunity for for our listeners to know, you know, do your clients celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas Kwanzaa, any of the December holidays? Do they not celebrate those? And if they don’t, and if they have, you know, different beliefs, then what are you doing to acknowledge you know, them, and you don’t have to get that you don’t have to be afraid. But you should know this information or Hey, rates are creeping up on the lending world, is this a great time to talk to, to our homeowners about, you know, maybe we should talk have a conversation about where rates are headed. Now, it doesn’t mean that you that that has to drive the conversation, but it’s certainly a reason to pick up the phone and start a conversation. Yeah, well,

Ryan D’Aprile 31:01
I mean, let’s break it down. Let’s look at look what we’re just talking about with that particular agent, right? Who’s got 4 million active buyers and sellers currently and $7 million of cool prospects, right? And forget the amount of money that they got pending this closing in January, just $11 million right there. And you look at their, their their dashboard, they have 285, but 100 of them have not heard from them since the third quarter, right? Because it gives you all that data. And there’s 20 more days in the month late, because I’m taking out a couple of days for Christmas and New Years and all that short stuff, right? So there’s 20 more days in the month, while 120 It’s five, it’s only five a day. I mean, it’s not a lot. So it’s only five a day. And then yeah, guess what Facebook, and Instagram is going to tell you what to talk to about people are posting once a week on there, and all you got to do is just comment on whatever they said, don’t write on their wall. So I’m a direct messenger tax, how you doing be their friend, that’s their job, because people want a real estate agent and a loan officer, that’s their friend, because that’s who they trust. And then you’re gonna take them to the process. All right, but you’re not going to take into the process. If you’re not friends with you, they may say, Oh, he was a buddy of mine share. I’ve been talking for three years, I’m not gonna call him, I’m gonna talk to this other real estate agent, I see their billboard, I get their postcards, I don’t have a relationship with them, but I trust them, because they’re doing their marketing. Where, I don’t know, I think the market is incredibly important. But you know, what, if I’m doing my life flow with you, and you’re here for me, once a month, I’m gonna beat on a billboard any postcard any online lead, because I’m your friend. And that’s what we’re going to hire. And they have not been able to prove that wrong. All the billions of dollars going to online lead acquisitions, and everything else, what they’ve been able to do as to prove most real estate agents won’t put in the time and effort to take care of those relationships. And therefore, that online purchase business does have a room in our industry, should it has a room industry, because the lack of activities most agents spend doing the right activities, if that makes

D.J. Paris 33:04
sense. I mean, you’re so right. And I’m just thinking back to the these fundamentals, it’s we always come back to fundamentals, it’s like if all you did was somehow communicate with everyone in your sphere once a month, it doesn’t have to be a phone call, as Ryan said, could be a text, it could be, you know, an email, it could be a direct message, it could be a PAMP a flyer or whatever just they’re hearing from you in some capacity that they’re seeing once a month. That’s going above and beyond probably 90, I don’t know, I’m just making this number up 95% of all other agents out there, probably like 99%. So if that’s all you decide to do, boy, I’d be sure I’d be I’d love to have somebody call after doing that for a year. Having not done that in their previous years and hearing the results. Well, I mean, this is all you

Ryan D’Aprile 33:54
let’s talk about. That’s and that’s what I tell everybody, you know, be be most critical about your activities, not about yourself, right. I mean, we’re all hard on ourselves as it is. I mean, gosh, I was watching. flying home yesterday is watching that. Yeah, Anthony Bourdain, a documentary if you saw it or not, but it’s no I haven’t got it’s moving. Right. And it’s, it’s really reminds me of the real human struggle that we all battle with, right? The feelings of inadequacy and all that stuff that we have to acknowledge is out there and that’s real. Okay. However, you know, talking about that 1% Right, we’re joking. You know, probably more than 98% 99% of the real estate agents do it. It’s true. And if you look at the discrepancy between the haves and the have nots, not just in realty, real estate, but the industry below, it comes down to the activities and the consciousness that people are how where are they are themselves and as Robin Sharma says are you busy being busy? Are you busy being productive? 99% of us are just busy being busy. 1% Choose To be busy being productive, and that’s what we’re talking about. And that’s why every time I come in coach, I’m gonna be talking about the same shit over and over again, because that’s what will happen. Right it is there is no new triple Lindy backflip, you know, cartwheels social media video that’s going to capture all this new business for you. It’s relationships, people, it’s having multiple relationships. And having multiple relationships is a job. It’s a work, it’s a, it’s a work in progress. And you need to track your activities you needed him doing daily. And then you could get to all the business busy stuff after you’ve set some time aside to do that stuff, which is creating relationships that’s working on your business. And that’s what’s going to give you your freedom and flexibility in the future. Because you’ll have more clients, and you know what to do with quite honestly.

D.J. Paris 35:52
Yeah, it’s always activity over results, because results almost always come as a result of activity. And well,

Ryan D’Aprile 36:00
yeah, it is. Angela Duckworth also said this, which I love. I’ll take effort over talent any day of the week. I see talented people all the time. But you know, the efforts just not there. And actually people that don’t have the talents, but man, they got the effort. And guess what there that 1%?

D.J. Paris 36:20
I am. It’s always funny, to me, is a moment that happens on most of the episodes. Maybe not most, but but I would say, you know, I don’t know, somewhere in the 50% range. But where I’m talking to it could actually happen in the pre interview. So the audience wouldn’t necessarily see this, but it happens a lot on the show, where we’ll be talking and I’ll say well, what do you think makes you different? You know, you mister or missus top producer versus, you know, other people that struggle or lead the industry. And usually it’s a pause and a look of confusion. Because they want to come up with something that’s that’s quite profound or maybe hasn’t been said before. And and I say, well, and then I sometimes have to keep going, because they might go well, I don’t really know what I do. That’s so different. Because to them, they’re just running the business as they see fit. But a lot of times I’ll you know, they’ll say something about intelligence, they’ll say, Well, I’ll tell you what, I’m not smarter, that then my cohort, my my peers, my competitors. And most of the brokers I talked to seem to have that belief that they are not inherently more skilled at being a realtor in the sense of treating the client well, and taking them through the transaction. They don’t seem to be geniuses at being a realtor, they seem to be very hardworking discipline, consistent individuals. And that, that seems it’s kind of the boring message that everybody I interview pretty much says, but there’s a reason why everybody says it.

Ryan D’Aprile 37:45
I heard this, I’ve never met Mario Graco in my life, right? Um, and I’ve never seen him speak or anything. But one agent said to me, seven years ago, they went and saw him speak at like a Chicago car. thing. And he’s got a team, right? He’s got a huge team, I believe, again, I don’t know the man. All right. But here’s what I heard an agent tell me that she heard him say, refers his clients out to his team, and he has buyer’s agents, and they buyer’s agents work with clients. And they close the deal. And then he has he has in his system that after they close, he makes sure he calls them every two weeks for six months in a row to see if they’re happy how the houses whatever else. And that generates more leads for him that he then goes out to the buyer agents to go around work with the buyer’s agents, and he stays back at the house or at the office, making the relationship calls as it can. Brilliant, brilliant, that is brilliant. And that’s how it’s done.

D.J. Paris 38:51
And it’s also it’s how it’s done. And it’s actually very simple, right? It’s not that complicated. What you would need to do to build that structure is obviously a calendar, you and you would just all you would need to do if you’re like, Well, what do I say every every two weeks? Go online and say what do homebuyers need to know after they’ve moved in? And that’ll give you a list of talking points. And even if it’s just you don’t have a talking point, just checking in? It’s been a month congratulations. It’s been 30 days, how’s everything still going? You know?

Ryan D’Aprile 39:22
It’s the D word. It takes discipline. It takes discipline, it takes self discipline, you know, and you know, for I think, for us, it may be closing and listeners here. It’s like, you know, anybody here who wants it can have it. Are you willing to be conscious? At least one to two hours a day? What’s important to you? And then are you willing to do it and when you don’t want to do it and you’re getting busy just doing busy work? Are you honest with yourself that you’re just neglecting? What is the most important thing to your business to keep you either in business or keep you on top? Because it just comes down? To all of us being self aware and self discipline and what we have to do, because the activities and actions are simple, they’re so simple. I’m almost embarrassed that I’m repeating them over and over again, like, gosh, TJ, do I have better material for you? I don’t feel I’m worthy for this coaching call. But it’s, the actions aren’t that earth shattering, it just got to be consistent.

D.J. Paris 40:20
Well, I just got back from the gym. And I’ve been with my trainer for a year and a half now. And we do the same 20 exercises a week that we rotate, and we try once in a while, get to a level where she’s like, Okay, we got to do something new. But it’s really all just variations of the exact same thing. And I Yes, is it boring? Well, sure. Parts of it can be but but thank goodness, it’s not complicated. It’s still hard. But it’s not complicated. And if all you did, like you were saying, with that individual as 100 people to contact between now and the end of the year, five calls a day, that’s real doable. That is very, very, this whole business is very doable. If you just break it down into the daily activities. And you know, that’s the one best thing I ever heard from Brian Buffini is win the day, how do I win the day? Well, I talked to five people and I, I you know, it wasn’t I closed a deal. It was I talked to five people, I took care of the clients that I already have, and you know, whatever else, but you just need to know what is it? What do you need to win the day? And it’s usually outreach, it’s almost always outreach. That’s exactly right. Awesome. Well, what a great place to wrap up, we should also make a quick mention that if you are in and I forgot that Ryan is now in Florida, or Ryan’s companies are now in Florida, as well. But if you are in Illinois, let’s see Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Florida. missing any are those the

Ryan D’Aprile 41:50
No, I’m actually heading down to our holiday party next week to Florida. So I’m excited excited for that,

D.J. Paris 41:54
as well. So if you are an agent, or if you’re a lender, a loan officer in those areas, and you’re looking maybe to find a firm that is going to offer you actual coaching, deeper promises, that’s what they do, what’s the best way they should reach out?

Ryan D’Aprile 42:10
You know, they could log on, they go to our website, April properties.com. You know, you could give me a phone call, I’m actually working with agents that just pick up the phone, they Googled me and they called my cell phone and I’m, I’m incredibly accessible. So you know, if you want to just have a dialogue, pick up the phone and give me a call to talk about it.

D.J. Paris 42:30
Awesome. Well, everyone, please go visit D APR properties.com. That’s D A p r i l e properties.com. And as always, we want to thank Ryan on behalf of all of our audience for continuing to listen, support our show, and also just staying with us every month. We appreciate Ryan your time. And on behalf of Ryan and myself. Also a big thank you to the audience for continuing to tell a friend, just think of one other agent that’ll be that’ll be your holiday gift to us think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing this coaching moment with Ryan, and send a link to this episode from this episode to your friend. And we can always just send them right over to our website, keeping it real pod.com or have them pull up whatever app they’re using for podcast and do a search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. Really appreciate it. Ryan, we will see you in 2022. Boy, that’s That’s amazing. Time goes by so quick. Yeah. Oh, I got I got things I need to get. I needed to not take my foot off the gas on the show and in my business the rest of the year. So this was a great reminder to me to not cut corners right now, when everyone else probably is starting to think to do that. So great reminder. All right. Thank you have a Happy New Year. Thank you as well. And we’re excited to have Ryan on as well in 2022. So thanks Ryan and everyone else who’s on the listing on the show. Thank you so much and we’ll see you next time.

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

Chris Linsell from TheClose.com discusses topics he’ll be covering at upcoming live presentation. Chris provides tips on how to stay on top of supply chain issues and how these concerns have affected the real estate market. Chris and DJ also chat about best practices for agent-client relationship. Last, Chris discusses a NAR statistics for the real estate market he found interesting this year.

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 iGuide.

D.J. Paris 0:00
Today’s episode is brought to you by eye guide agents you already know you need professional photography for your listings. But do you know what else you need that is equally important but overlooked by the majority of Realtors, 3d tours and accurate floor plans. National Association of REALTORS has found that buyers rate floor plans as the third most important part of a listing even more important than neighborhood information. Also 20% of buyers will ignore listings that do not contain floor plans. I guide has the most accurate floor plans and best virtual tour technology in the industry. Visit go i guide.com. To find a local photographer for your next listing. top producers know the value of floor plans and virtual tours. Take your business to the next level by visiting go i guide.com. That’s go the letter i guide.com. And now onto our show

Welcome to keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris I am your guide and host through the show and today is our monthly series called closing time with Chris Lin sell from the closed.com. Now this is a partnership between keeping it real and the closed.com. And let me tell you about the close. Now the close.com is the kind of real estate website designed to give agents teams and brokerages actionable strategic insight from industry professionals. They cover real estate marketing, lead generation technology and team building strategies from the perspective of working agents and brokers who want to take their business to the next level. Please visit the clothes.com T eight that’s th e c l o s e.com to see their amazing articles, and also subscribe to their newsletter so you get notified each time they publish an article with us as always is crystallin Sal, he is a staff writer and real estate coach for the close. Chris is the closes resident expert on real estate topics ranging from marketing lead gen transactional best practices and everything in between. He’s a licensed agent in the state of Michigan. Chris has also been part of hundreds of transactions from modest rural starter homes to massive waterside compounds. And when he isn’t writing or speaking, you’ll find Chris fly fishing or performing on the stage of his community theaters production. Chris Welcome once again to keeping it real, we’re excited to have you

Chris Linsell 2:43
DJ great to be back. Glad to glad to be sitting inside I don’t know if it’s cold and snowy where you are. But I’m watching the snowfall outside. It’s got me in the mode to talk about real estate. You know, from the comfort of indoors, I’m not really doing any walkthroughs to the

D.J. Paris 3:00
way we hear we’re not too far away from each other. Um, thankfully it is sunny and relatively warm 45 degrees Fahrenheit today here in Chicago, so do not have the snow yet. So imagine it’s coming,

Chris Linsell 3:14
it’s coming, it’s coming buddy.

D.J. Paris 3:16
And we you and I got a chance to meet in person at the National Association of Realtors Conference just a few weeks ago in San Diego and that was very exciting and fun.

Chris Linsell 3:26
Oh man so much fun. It was great to get to chat with you to talk shop a little bit to just connect us as human beings to you know, real estate. This is a human being business so always taken an opportunity to meet a virtual and now in real life friend who’s also in the biz here. And man, a lot has happened in real estate this year a lot already, you know, still happening in real estate this year. So, you know a lot was going on at NAR and man, you know, my my news feeds are continuing to blow up right now about big things that are happening in the world that are affecting our industry.

D.J. Paris 4:09
And we should also mention I Chris did a presentation at NAR he was one of the featured speakers. And he did his five bold tech predictions for 2022 which was incredible. And the audience seemed to really enjoy it. I know I did. And he had a packed house there. I imagine you will, you’ll be speaking at NASCAR, you know, hopefully every year going forward because it was it was it was controversial at times but it was really well explained. And I think it’s it’s a discussion that or a lecture so to speak, that really all of our listeners need to hear. And so I believe you might still be able to get access to that, that discussion or that that you know your your talk. If I’m not sure if that’s still the case with an hour. But if you look at the nar 2021 options to hear the recorded sessions, certainly you can do that. But you are also speaking here. Well, I guess by the time this, this goes live, it will have already been. But for anyone who is listening now watching us live, do you mind sharing where you’re going to be speaking?

Chris Linsell 5:24
Yeah, you betcha. So I’m going to be at the triple play conference in Atlantic City, fabulous Atlantic City, New Jersey, in in this month in December. And there’s going to be also some other upcoming things that can’t quite talk about just yet. But those of you out in California. Keep an eye out for Chris, in your professional news feeds, I think we’re going to have some some big stuff coming up for California specific associations here in a little while. And also, you can always find me on the clothes.com If you’re not out in California, or if you’re not attending an in person conference, I am writing making videos, starting arguments on social media on a regular basis via the close. So you can always visit me at the close.com if you just can’t get enough.

D.J. Paris 6:17
And if you’d like to attend the triple play 2021 That would probably be people who are in the New Jersey area. Also New York, Pennsylvania. You know, just go to realtors, that’s Realtors plural triple play.com. And you can see it’s really an impressive conference. I have not been to it, but it looks really cool.

Chris Linsell 6:37
Yeah, it’s gonna be it’s gonna be a good time. And and for the first time, the close is actually going to have a booth on the expo floor. So not only can you, you know, talk to the weirdest beard in real estate. Chris, we can also talk to all the incredibly smart and thoughtful people on my team that are a part of, you know, making these messages making making making these messages happen. So yeah, if you’re in New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania, come to AAA in Atlantic City. love to chat with you there.

D.J. Paris 7:09
Yeah, and you can go do some gambling while you’re in and walk the boardwalk. That’s right. That’s famous, famous New Jersey Boardwalk.

Chris Linsell 7:16
Let’s get on the slot machines.

D.J. Paris 7:19
Wonderful. Well, what would we like to talk about today?

Chris Linsell 7:21
You know, DJ, I’ve got two things that are really interesting to me that I’d love to chat with you about love to get your take on? And to just start some conversations on. The first one is it’s about supply chain. Now. I know that we’ve been hearing a lot about supply chain issues in the United States. Pursuant to, you know, it’s been a kind of a crazy last couple of years, frankly, at this point supply chain has been a challenge. You know, just getting stuff into the United States and other countries, frankly, in North America has been a challenge over the last little bit. And you know, the real estate industry, a lot of folks, I think incorrectly assume that the real estate industry is insulated from these challenges. But we aren’t and we’re starting to see some real time effects on this is not just talking about the effects that builders and the new construction industry are having, or hey, we’re seeing some major effects in the real estate industry, relative to things like washers and dryers to refrigerators, to the somewhat durable goods that we purchase, as often as a part of a refinance or home equity loan for renovation purposes. And the reason I bring this up is right now, we are kind of at a crossroads for a lot of homeowners who are deciding, okay, I’ve got more equity in my home than I’ve ever had before. My home is worth more on the open market. I don’t really know if I want to sell it. But what should I do with this equity? Well, for a lot of homeowners, they say this is going to be the time I’m going to refinance, I’m going to pull out some equity, I’m going to do a big renovation to get the kitchen or the bathroom or the laundry room of my dreams. Well, because of the supply chain issues that’s getting harder and harder to do. And so you are finding homeowners who are at a crossroads right now saying I’d like to use my equity to benefit me right now. But with the supply chain issues, I can’t get the I can’t even get the appliances, much less the kitchen tile or the flooring, or even the paint that I need to do the renovation so maybe I should sell right now. So the supply chain issues are starting to creep into the residential real state space and the conversations that Realtors should be having with their clients need to need to keep this in mind right now.

D.J. Paris 10:07
Yeah, I know that probably most of our listeners are aware of this statistic, and I might not have it exactly perfect. But it was something to the extent of I think it was in 2020. Also, in this year that the rising lumber prices, I believe, of like a single family home was, on average, it was costing developers an extra, I believe, around $30,000, just in lumber that they weren’t paying prior to some of the supply chain shortages. So I think we’ve probably heard and heard that, but maybe we’re not so much thinking about furniture and appliances. And so as an agent, what might you suggest to our listeners to sort of stay on top of it or get in front of that, to which which could affect their business? Well,

Chris Linsell 11:02
I would say there’s two things that agents and brokers should be considering right now. The first is, and you know what this is even This is advice that’s relative to folks, even outside of the supply chain issue, you should be thinking about this, no matter what for your clients. If you have people in your sphere of influence, that are homeowners, especially if these are people that you helped purchase the home that they’re in, you need to have a almost top of your mind knowledge of the status of their home pretty much at all times. And I know that that gets difficult, when you have a really broad client base, when you’ve got hundreds of people, if you found that level of success, kudos to you, that’s great, you might not be able to keep the status of all of your past clients homes at the top of your mind. But this is when you employ great tools like a CRM to help you keep this knowledge. But the reason I bring this up is, as a real estate professional who is serving your clients, you can only best serve them, if you have the opportunities presented to them via their home ownership at at the ready to present to them whenever possible. And so I say this to say listen, if you’ve got clients who own a home in your market, and that client has not reached out to you in the last six to 12 months to say, you know, what’s my home worth right now in this crazy market, if they haven’t done that, you need to be reaching out to him right now. With a complimentary Hey, I was thinking about just CMA. And say this is how much your home is worth on today’s market. If you don’t want to sell, that’s great. But as your agent you deserve, I need it’s my obligation to be sharing that information with you. So you can use that information to better your financial position, your homeownership position. So that’s the first piece of advice.

D.J. Paris 13:15
I want to pop in for just a quick sec. Sorry, sorry to interrupt really low because that that really spoke to me and I was thinking about, you know, we, we talk a lot about this is the time of year where agents are going through their their CRM, looking at their contact list their sphere, and determining, you know, Hey, am I going to send out a holiday card? Am I going to maybe send a holiday gift? What am I going to do to make sure my clients are thinking about me. And one thing that you can add to that, especially if finances are tighter for you as the agent this year hand delivering the CMA is really that is really going above and beyond and I think that would be really pretty well received now I think you should announce Hey, I’m swinging by I just wanted to drop something off to let you know I was doing some doing some work on as well I think really this speaks to being a fiduciary which of course real estate agents are and this idea of of saying you know, I was I was thinking about your home and I was thinking about its value and I just thought it would be important for me to drop off this report to give you some idea of kind of where we’re at. I think that is a great sort of pop by I know Brian would would say you pop by with a cute little gift but this is a free gift you can I mean it’s free it’s of course takes your time to put it together but boy I would be so impressed if an agent came and dropped that off even an agent I didn’t know how to you know pop by and said hey, I don’t know if you’ve looked at your home value and and if you know if you’re only looking on Zillow, you know that might not be the most accurate representation of what your house is worth. But I ran some numbers and I just want you to have this. I think that would boy that would be impressive.

Chris Linsell 15:07
You know you’re you’re bang on on that and I actually want to, I want to let me let me go a level deeper on their advice here on agents. Think about what the value of a pop by gift and this is, you know no skin off the nose of Brian Buffini I love his strategies here. But popping by with a cute little gift, like, what is going to be more valuable to your clients and in the long run popping by with, you know, a pumpkin pie for the holidays are popping by with a tool that could end up netting your clients 10s of 1000s of dollars, that’s a lot of pumpkin pie here. So go with the go with usable tool here. And if you need if you’re feeling nervous about that pop by, here’s an arrow in your quiver that you can use to to knock out those nerves right away. The just about everyone unless you’ve been living in or under a rock with terrible Wi Fi service. And just about everyone has been fought has heard about Zelos woes in the market and the last, you know, the three, three months here. This is an opportunity for you to pop by and say listen, the market has just proven that Zillow isn’t as good at estimating the value of homes as we thought they were and certainly not as good as they thought they were right. I’m a local expert, and I know your home inside and out because we work together to get it for you. I put together this personalized valuation for you. Regardless of what you do with this, you deserve to have this because I am your fiduciary. So I work this up. Let me know if there’s any questions or anything I can do to help you use this tool. That using that Zillow as a conversation starter approach is a great way to break the ice. And it really gets people talking and thinking about how much their home is worth. Great. So so let’s let’s kind of get back into the supply chain conversation here. So you know, independent of supply chain issues, we should all be having these conversations with our clients about how much their home is worth in the current market, whether it’s for sale purposes, whether it’s for financing purposes, or just to be a good fiduciary to have make sure that your clients are keeping up to date on their investment. So how should we be thinking about this in the context of the supply chain issues? Well, if you go to your clients, and you say, Listen, your your home has picked up $40,000 in equity in the last 18 months. Right now you have this equity, but you might not have this equity two years from now or even 12 months from now as the markets shift. So what can you do to take advantage of this, one thing you could do is a cheap refinance or an equity cash out home loan. And you could do some renovations, you know, you know your clients, you talk to them about the things that they wanted in their home, maybe their kitchen wasn’t the kitchen that they wanted, they have the cash to do that. Now, if they wanted to do that. On the other hand, they might not have the opportunity to complete that renovation because they might not be able to get the materials necessary to do it. So this can be a vehicle then to have the next conversation, which is listen, you’ve got this extra equity. Have you considered if you can’t do the renovation for one reason or another? Should we be looking right now? Should we be looking to capitalize on the advantages that your home has acquired over the last 18 months? Is there a better option out there for you? The supply chain kind of trouble that we’re experiencing right now can be a vehicle towards home sales, if it’s positioned correctly. And of course, all of this conversation happens through the lens of what’s best for my clients. You know, this isn’t necessarily a drive to get more transactions, but it is drive to offer your clients options. And one of those options just has to be selling if you’re if you’re going to be considering the full picture.

D.J. Paris 19:32
And two, I think there since we had this first wave during sort of locked down where employers were starting to allow their employees to work remotely and you had people start to move and start to say, Oh, I’m not tethered to this geographic areas I once were and so I think we had the first wave of people have done that. And I think now we’re will probably if rates continued to stay low and And if employers tend to will, will continue to be flexible around that, I think we’ll now have a second wave of people who go, Well, you know, yeah, I could I could sell my home, it’s appreciated in value could sell my home locally today, but then I’m buying something else in my local area that may have also appreciated to the same degree, and that that may be a wash. But I wondering if if it’s going to prompt people to go, you know, our home here is appreciated, we’ve been kind of looking for an exit point. And now, you know, now we can start to look elsewhere in other geographic locations. And I think, regardless of what the client decides, telling them, oh, by the way, you have an extra 40,000, or whatever it is, in equity, might be something that they don’t know. And that might prompt them to make these bigger decisions. Like you were saying, whether it’s, you know, just selling and staying local, or maybe going to another, another city in other cities.

Chris Linsell 20:56
Yeah, 100% 100%. You know, we have, as real estate professionals, we have an obligation to provide our clients with the options that they need, in order to make the best decisions for their financial and homeownership well being. And I think a lot of agents, certainly agents that I speak to, they get a little squirrely and there’s almost a shyness, that happens, because we don’t want to feel like we are prodding for a sale. Right, which I think is a natural kind of hesitancy. You know, we don’t want to feel like we are pushing people into a sale that they’re not necessarily interested in or initiating. But that’s not what all of this is about. This is about providing information we have, for better or worse, through our experience, through our licensure and through our access to market data. We have a we, as real estate professionals are the gatekeepers of a lot of these options. And so simply by providing options to our clients, you are not pushing your clients into anything, you’re simply informing them. And we live in a culture in a world now where information is, is the currency, you want your clients to be rich. So keep providing them with as much information, let them make their own decisions and offer guidance when they ask for it.

D.J. Paris 22:34
And I’ll just mention one other quick thing I was in a relationship many, many years ago. And this is probably almost 10 years ago now. And I was visiting my partner at the time, and she received a packet in the mail. And it said, it was from somebody she didn’t know as a realtor. And it said something to the effect of, hey, you might not have known this. But there were three homes sold in a within a few blocks of you here in Chicago, within the last three months or something to that effect. And here’s what here’s, they’re similar to what you currently have very there. She was like a was a four flat. And they said here were some units that were similar to yours and other four, four flats. And it said, hey, just so you know, I looked up your records, it looks like you’ve purchased for about this amount, this amount, I actually think it’s worth about this amount without even seeing it. And if you ever want me to come by and do a more thorough analysis, boy, I would love to do that and introduce myself and I went, that is some of the best that is the best one of the best mailers I’ve ever seen. It was personalized, it was specific, and it offered immediate value to the homeowner. And she ended up not participating with it because she has a good relationship with it with it with her realtor. But I thought boy, that I would not want my client to get that lead. And I’m not practicing agent. But if I were I wouldn’t want my client to get that letter, I’d want to be the one sending that letter.

Chris Linsell 23:53
Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s and that’s a great example of the sort of, you know, the service approach to this industry, you are not selling you’re serving. And if you can kind of keep that approach as the lens that you see your business through. All of a sudden, the the outreach, the lead generation, the kind of maintaining and nurturing of relationships gets a heck of a lot easier because you’re serving people you’re not selling them. I’d

D.J. Paris 24:27
love to have a conversation with you sometime about how I think one of the challenges with agents sort of thinking about their business from a consultancy perspective is how they’re compensated and if financial advisors did this, which we don’t even refer to them as stockbrokers, which is what the title used to be, you know, 2030 years ago because they were paid mostly via commission and now that whole model for being a financial planner is now moved to a typically you you you’re charged He’s based on the assets under management typically, as a function of a percentage, and you get that annual fee, maybe it’s 1% 2%, whatever that financial advisor may charge. And so they truly are really a life long consultancy, to their client. And I think one of the, it’d be very interesting to see one day if the real estate industry can can move away from transactional Commission’s which I don’t know maybe that that that’s not going to happen. But I certainly think that would help agents if they were to be paid an annual fee from their client. And I don’t know if that’s ever going to be possible. But if it were, I think that would help facilitate some of this idea of treat treat your client as a consultant, or rather for as a consultant relationship, where you’re just giving them information. And obviously, you’re not going to get paid until the next transaction happens. But but certainly you do get paid in other ways, referrals and and you know that so

Chris Linsell 25:57
yeah, it’s fascinating. There’s a lot of conversation happening right now, around alternative Commission’s models. I too, and watching that very closely.

D.J. Paris 26:06
But let’s talk about some some statistics to that. Yeah, I know you’ve put together you’re working on an article for the close about some interesting cool dinar stats.

Chris Linsell 26:16
Yeah. So there’s a lot of cool statistics, like, like you said, I’m working on an update the 2022 edition of the real estate statistics article that I’ve got on the clothes.com. And so, yeah, let’s just let me just kind of give you a kind of some rapid fire interesting stat. I’d love to hear your your take on some of this. So okay, so, first step, in 2021, more than 20% of first time homebuyers were single females and less than 10% of first time homebuyers. Were single males. Pretty interesting.

D.J. Paris 26:57
And that, I believe you said that as basically flip flopped from 20 years ago, correct? Yeah,

Chris Linsell 27:03
20 years ago, it was almost it was orders of magnitude in the other direction, it was something like three or four times as many first time homebuyers were single males versus single females. And, you know, there’s a lot of you can speculate till the cows come home about the causes behind this. But you know, the fact is, women are in the economy, studies show that women are better educated than than men on the on the on the whole even more, something like 65, almost 70% of valedictorian, high school valedictorians for the last 15 years have been women, more women graduate from college from men, more women graduated from college, on time than men, more women are entering the workforce at above, a an entry level position than men. The fact is women have more command over their housing choices than they’ve ever had before. A lot of that is a function of you know, the access to information. And, frankly, the gatekeepers who have decided in a lot for a long time about who gets a mortgage, who doesn’t get a mortgage, who gets access to information about homes for sale, who doesn’t. All of those gates are coming down right now. And it’s you know, women are starting to exercise their financial rights. And we’re seeing that happening in the homeownership space.

D.J. Paris 28:33
Yeah, that’s very interesting. I’ve always heard the sort of the general stereotype with between a married couple, which is the women really make the majority of the buying decisions. And I guess there are some statistics to back that up. But it’s nice to it’s very interesting to see that, that single women in particular are also doing more than single men right now, with respect to homeownership. That’s, that’s particularly interesting. And I guess, you know, one of the takeaways is, if you’re an agent that, you know, is thinking, Well, you know, this, this idea that, that women are sort of secondary to, you know, as single people secondary to those kinds of big decisions, whereas, you know, men traditionally dominated the business, you know, business world and of course, thankfully that’s now changing and, and certainly with education, men dominated as well. And that’s amazingly changed. And I guess, you know, starting to just realize that, that those single women who may may or may not at some point, develop a partnership and a marriage are making these kinds of decisions. They’re not waiting, I guess, you know, until and men maybe the men are waiting. I’m not sure what’s going on with men, but I guess the takeaway that I can think of is just make sure you’re talking to everybody about homeownership. because I know the way I learned about it was I Googled it. And of course, that’s not a gender exclusive sort of situation. Anybody can can do that. And so that’s the only way I was renting. And I was too embarrassed to ask them. But if how homeownership worked, I really didn’t understand how loans worked. I just knew I didn’t have $350,000 in the bank, and I went, Well, I guess I’m not moving into a house. And then I went, Oh, maybe there’s a different way. And then I, I mean, and I was a smart person. And I definitely just didn’t know I was in my late 20s. So I think there’s a lot of people who are very career focused or just busy, and aren’t, you know, maybe they’re renting now. And they need to have those conversations with with a professional or else they’re just gonna go to Google and learn everything on their own. And then maybe they end up with a discount brokerage, feeling like I don’t really need a realtor. I can I’ve done this all myself.

Chris Linsell 30:52
Sure. Well, you know, it’s, it’s interesting, I, to some degree, I’m not surprised that this is happening in the real estate industry. Another interesting stat, women gained another percentage point, a full 65% of women make up the association membership for the National Association of REALTORS now. So it is a industry that is led by women, it makes sense that women are connecting more with homeownership opportunities. Frankly, this is a long time coming. And I you know, to some degree, I’m unqualified to talk about the benefits of, of these continued moves in our industry and in our space. And I’m excited to dialogue with those who have more firsthand knowledge and experience in that in that because I, you know, I’ll be I’ll be honest with you, I’m the daughter, excuse me, I’m the father of two young daughters, and I know I have an acute awareness of wanting to make sure that they have every opportunity in the world, regardless of their gender, and I’m excited to see these these shifts continue to happen.

D.J. Paris 32:04
And just a quick plug for the Women’s Council of Realtors, WC, our, they have chapters all over the country and internationally as well. And if you are an agent, you can don’t have to be a female to be part of the Women’s Council of realtors. But that is an incredibly supportive environment for agents who are who are women and men to I guess, really, it’s not exclusively for women. But but you know, I always thought when I first heard about Women’s Council is there a men’s Council, and I don’t believe there is and I always said it, maybe women are just smarter, and they know they need to support each other better than us men. But, but that is a great organization. And they were very, they were very, they were very prominent at the National Association of REALTORS as well. So if you’re not affiliated with Women’s Council of Realtors, boy get involved, it is a great organization and it will help your business

Chris Linsell 32:55
100%. So you know speaking of, of, of the statistics on buying another interesting statistic that came out in 2021 is that generation X has overtaken baby boomers as the largest cohort of real estate buyers in 2021. More than one out of every four homes in 2021 has been purchased by someone in the Gen X cohort, which is I believe that the the cutoff is like like early seven born early 70s to or excuse me, late 60s to early 80s, something like that. I don’t remember the exact years. But you know, those baby the baby boomer generation has dominated this space for a long time Gen Xers are here. People in their 40s and 50s. Right now are making more real estate purchases than any other group. I mean, more than one out of four homes. I mean, that’s it, that’s a massive percentage.

D.J. Paris 34:01
It is and also remember to for our listeners that Gen X I’m in the Gen X category. Also have parents who are likely either retiring or near possibly nearing retirement and are also might be considering a retirement move. So I think there’s a lot of opportunity here to focus on the Gen X client and really develop that relationship and then find out what’s going on with with their parents. Yeah, if their parents are of course still still around because, boy, there’s a lot of movement on the baby boomers are are there they’re, you know, they’re sunsetting

Chris Linsell 34:37
90%. So, yeah, actually, that reminds me of another statistic in 2021 11% of homes purchased had some form of multigenerational ownership in mind that this means having aging parents move back in this means having children over who are over the age of 18 living with them For more than one out of every 10 homes had some sort of multi generational dynamic to it. So you know, this is certainly something that we are seeing is not going to go away. In fact, it’s I would bet that in 2022, that’s just because going to be even higher, as you mentioned, as baby boomers are making decisions about, you know, where they will be living in these families are making decisions about you know, who’s going to be, you know, the homeowners who’s going to be staying with whom these are all decisions that are going to happen on mass, pretty soon, I bet you that 11% number is going to be closer to 14%, or even 15%, at the end of 2022. Yeah, that

D.J. Paris 35:45
makes sense, it’s a great opportunity to have the conversation with your client, about their family, because since so many homes stay in the family or transferred or the wealth may be transferred, this is a great opportunity to really get a deeper connection to the overall family structure, and to also possibly get introductions to the financial advisors for those families, because they are the ones that that maybe really have a full understanding of all all of the the total net worth. And so if you as an agent can say, you know, I would love the opportunity to talk to your family’s financial planner and say, here’s where I can provide value to you, Mr. or Mrs. Financial Planner, for the Smith family, where I can be sending you regular, you know, CMAs about the homes that this family? I mean, that is a tremendous opportunity. I know, I used to be a financial advisor, I never once had a real estate professional call me and say, hey, I want to be part of the process here for this family that you’re you’re helping with their investments.

Chris Linsell 36:53
Yeah. So if you make great points here in my last one, this is a quick one, but but potent here. In 2021. A reported 3% of home purchases were made by 3% of the home purchases made were made by active duty military members. And the reason I bring this up is 3% might not seem like a lot. In fact, I mean, I guess relative it isn’t, but what it does bring up is the absolute power of VA loans and, and the positioning of VA Veterans Affairs. For for loans for both active and retired military folks. These are extraordinarily powerful loan types. And I can tell you from personal experience, realtors who offer some sort of specialization in VA loans, you know, there’s really not much to do other than to know how the dynamic of that loan product works. And to have a specific connection with a mortgage broker who provides that service, you can become a referral source that is going to net you a ton of business, and it’s going to offer you a chance to serve a community that really deserves to have some dedicated service provided to it. You know, that 3% of homebuyers that number could be higher. So real estate agents, if you’ve got a military presence in your community, you know, be thoughtful about, you know how you can service those folks by being a thoughtful member of that process.

D.J. Paris 38:32
Yeah, talk to the talk to lenders that specialize in those types of loans, get enough information and to be able to have a brief intro conversation. And then of course, you know that that’s certainly the like, like you’ve found to say, and the more arrows you have in your quiver, you know, likely the better off you’ll be with with with all of your clients. So this is a great, great place to wrap up Chris and I could end up we could end up talking for another hour but Chris is busy on the speaking circuit and also the writing circuit Chris writes for the clothes.com and very quickly Chris, just tell us give us a little plug for the the clothes Yeah, come come a you know not not much to plug here the clothes speaks for itself. Go visit us at www dot the clothes.com you’ll check out you’ll see there you’ll see hundreds of fantastic articles, links to our social media including our YouTube our Facebook group. And if you want to take your your close readership to the next level, consider the close pro it’s our premium membership. 35 bucks a month gets you access to next level strategy guides really awesome courses coaching the whole works. It’s it’s a pretty fantastic community. We serve real estate agents, teams and brokers and if you want to level up your real estate business, come check it out the closed Yeah, everyone go visit the clothes.com they have the best articles for helping you build your business and 95% and maybe 98% of it is totally free. And it’s just exceptional writing. So everyone go visit the clothes.com. Chris, as always, thank you. We will see you in December. Although by the time this is released, it’ll will be a December but we will see you again in December for our year wrap up. So everyone, on behalf of our listeners, Thank you, Chris, for your time. And on behalf of Chris and myself, thank you to everyone listening, please tell a friend about our show, and we will see you next time. Thanks everybody.