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

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

In this episode, Gogo and DJ discuss closing gifts and how you should aim for usable products that are also marketing for you. Next, Gogo discusses the importance of having your brand in your client’s home and how to stay in front of your client. Gogo also talks about her vendor list and how to build your own list. Last, Gogo talks about Gogo’s Bootcamp and the benefits you will get by purchasing it.

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

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

For more information on Gogo’s Agent Attraction Bootcamp, click here!

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

This episode is brought to you by Follow Up Boss. Get your 30 day trial 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.

Welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Harris. I am your guide and host through the show, and today is our monthly series called Social bootcamp with gogo Beth key. Let me tell you about gogo, now gogo came to the United States in 2003. To build her American dream. She was broke, she had no real estate experience no sphere of influence barely spoke English and only $6 to her name. So that left her with nothing else other than you guessed it social media to help build her business, which is what she did and where she started and she created gogos real estate began her real estate career. Now with the power of social media gogo has sold over I think it’s about 100 million probably more in real estate. She shares the good, the bad and the ugly of real estate. In her honest snippets in her daily life have earned her 10s of 1000s of followers on social media. And in the real estate community. She has earned the title queen of social media now app she presents at various conferences and speaks with realtors. And so over time, she decided to build her own social media Bootcamp for realtors called gogos bootcamp. Today, she has a team of almost 700 agents nationwide. I’m gonna pause for a second and just say how impressive this is. I recruit Realtors all day long. That’s my job. And we only have 800 and I’ve been doing this 10 years gogo has been recruiting Realtors for like a year or two. And now she has almost 700 bats, and she does it all through attraction, which we’re going to talk about as well. But her goal is to help as many agents as possible make a name for themselves in real estate utilizing social media. And by the way, that’s how she recruits people for her team to they find her now if she can do it. This girl from Transylvania, Romania with no formal education, no sphere of influence, no money, no experience and an accent than anyone that can do it as well. Please, please, please follow gogo on social media on Instagram at gogos. That’s Gee, oh, gee, Oh, s real estate. So at gogos real estate. And also, please consider investing in her social media bootcamp. It’s unbelievable. It’s the very best product we found for social media mastery for realtors. And we have special pricing for keeping it real listeners, all you have to do is go to a browser and type in Gogo podcast.com. Go go podcast.com and buy it. It’s the best investment you’ll make for your 2022 marketing initiatives, which is also something we’re going to be speaking about today. So that was a very long intro, gogo, welcome once again, to the show. Hopefully, you didn’t fall asleep.

Gogo Bethke 3:17
Well, I’m here. I’m here. Thank you for having me.

D.J. Paris 3:19
I did so much talking. There I go, Oh, my gosh, my guest might she might go. When is he going to stop talking? So thank you, for being Chicago has been with us since the very beginning, by the way, just about the very beginning. And we have now done about 300 episodes. She is an amazing partner and always brings it every month. But I know we wanted to talk about something I don’t think we’ve talked about before, which is closing gifts.

Gogo Bethke 3:44
Yeah. And I figure since we are heading into q4, right where we are, I guess technically in q4. This is the time when you plan your next year. I know this is also the time when you want to go out with a bank right in 2021. And make sure you causing the You’re right. But at the same time, you also have to use this time to plan your next year so you can be prepared. I used to be one of those agents right myself that running or like chicken had cut off an hour before closing right running to my final walkthrough. And then from the vine between the final walkthrough, and the closing table somewhere in the middle, I would hit a grocery store for a bottle of wine, right? What do what I like trying to think for a bouquet of flowers and what am I going to get them as a closing gift right? And I don’t recommend for you to do that learn from my mistakes. It took me quite a few years to figure out that I’m not doing it right. So what we do today, actually the pre order of our closing Yep. So if you know let’s say this, you closed 30 transactions, right? And so assume you’re going to close 40 or whatever your goal is for next year. This is the time when you want to figure out okay, what is that nice universal gift that you can get for everyone, but be that it’s also marketing, right? Like you want to make sure that people are actually going to use it. Then every time they use it. It’s parks who sold my house right? Or who got me this house right? So what do you do? If you have A company that we partnered with quite quite a long time ago now, and the order all of our branded material from them and think of it this way, as long as your company logo is on there, it’s considered marketing, for your business. And if it’s marketing, it’s 100%. Right off, I know, CPA, this is my disclosure, go talk to your CPA, whatever state that you’re located in, right. But that’s what we do. So here’s one of the marketing items that we do, every single closing gift has a cutting board so they can use it for their short coterie wardrobe. Whatever, that’s I love it, I can’t pronounce the fancy word may have them in all different sizes. This is the smallest one, they have four different front designs, but the back is the most important in my opinion, because that’s where you get to personalize it. So this one shows logos real estate team, it shows my brokerage and it also shows team gogo, because those are the things that people know me for. And then it says with smaller rise there it was, it was a pleasure working with you, right, so it is branded. Now imagine they had a party, right? They have their cheese and grapes and whatever out and now they’re gonna have to do the dishes. When they’re doing it. They’re gonna flick it over. Go Go, Coco goddess this right? So your goal is to have your brand in your clients home. Did you know that within two years, helping someone buy yourself a home 80% Of the people forget who the realtor was?

D.J. Paris 6:20
That, you know, it’s shocking, but not surprising, I guess in a way. It’s like it shouldn’t be. But it makes sense. Because realtors, you know, it’s a transactional business. And we oftentimes move on to our next client, and we forget about the person we just helped. You know, maybe we don’t forget about them the day after their closing, but maybe two years after their closing. We’re like, Oh, God, well, when did that person close? So yeah. So how do you how do you help. So by the way, I want to back up just a moment because gogo said something really, really important with respect to closing gifts. She was, and this is really funny, because I, it’s so and so I So couldn’t agree with you more, because I could I do most of the cooking in my relationship, although my girlfriend loves to cook, but I’m kind of a control freak. So I end up doing most of the cooking. But that means I am spending a lot of time on a cutting board every single time I cook I use a cutting board, because you know, I can’t cut right down onto my you know, nice new countertops. So, right everyone does, right, we all use cutting boards, we all use knives, right? You can get knives that are branded that have you know, something cute on it, you get cutting boards, and what go goes is great, because she didn’t put and for those of you listening what you didn’t see, if you’re not watching the end, you’re just listening. The back of hers had her brand on it the back of the cutting board. And that was probably by design because maybe we want something and on the front of it. She had like a cute little saying like Home Sweet Home, things like that. On the back of it, it had the design, you might think well, if it’s on the back, no one’s gonna see it. But absolutely, they’re gonna see it, when as she said, they turn around and wash it. So you don’t have to necessarily put your name front and center so that they’re cutting on it because you know, let’s face it, maybe we don’t really want to see our Realtors name on our cutting board staring at us while we’re cutting. But they still will see it if it’s on the backside. Is that why you did it that way? I was just curious why you did. I mean,

Gogo Bethke 8:07
same thing. You know, like, even on my social media stuff, I don’t shove down people’s throat what I do for a living, right? Like I don’t fit on my personal face to be like, Hey guys, who wants to sell houses, he wants to buy a house with me like I’ve never done that if you followed me and I’ve been in social media for over 11 years now, you’ve probably never seen me as someone for business. So I don’t do that. But in the same time it is my job to make sure that you know what I do for a living right? So it’s very subtle. You don’t feel like I’m selling you anything but in the end of the day you will remember who I am and what I do for a living because when you flip it over towards the other side, it’s gonna connect Oh yeah, that’s right. Google got us this right yeah, where

D.J. Paris 8:43
did I get this? Yeah, that is

Gogo Bethke 8:45
Yeah,

D.J. Paris 8:46
anything that is used daily. If you can get somebody something that they use regularly in their home and it somehow just jogs their memory that you provide. Everyone’s got a favorite knife that they cut with everyone’s got a favorite. You know things in their kitchen they have favorite things other parts of their home, if you can get them something that’s important to them. So if you know your clients into cooking, perfect, get them something cooking. Okay?

Gogo Bethke 9:14
Very quick to that. So we ordered these and we have a big box of them and I’m good for the year right? So every time a closing happened we already have the three branded bags. And for that all you need to do guys is go on like a Walmart or whatever website order one color bag so ours is usually red. Order a nice red bag or black or whatever your you will call a branded color s then go on like Vistaprint order your logos, right like just just a simple sticker. And then you buy the bags you stick the logos on there you put the cutting board under you good to go. And then you can take it from there and personalize it. So if you would like to put in a I don’t know peanut butter cake or if you would like to put a bottle of wine or champagne or something else in there, but at least you have a gift that’s always going to stay there. They’re not going to consume this right they can consume my cutting board, they can consume the bottle of wine and then it’s gone, right? But the cardboard is going to say on the counter. This one is actually you guys can see us and I’m going to describe it for you very quick. This one is actually like a decor piece. Like I have it in my kitchen right next to the stove. And in front of it, I have the salt and pepper in the case of the butter, right. So it’s going to stay up there as a decor piece. But you can also use it as a shortcut to boycott your vegetables, whatever. So it’s a used item, but it’s always under on my kitchen counter. And I can see right it right next to my stove. So we have these for every single biocidal listing side. But here’s a good one that I love. We used to do this and every single by side, but then we got carried away a little bit. So if you have some more time than we have on Google’s real estate team, then the other amazing closing gifts and our clients love it, where they literally call us back when it’s faded. They want to order another one is doormats, personalized formats. So for buyers, we got doormats every time and they would say you know through the transaction, you get to know your buyer. And let’s say you figure out that they love you or them right. Or they love golf or they love they have a bulldog, you know, so let’s say they had a bulldog right, we set a stamp, we say the bat keys, the name of the house and I say so it says in big letters in the middle, the bass case then I have a bulldog on the top right, what cute little bulldog face. Then I have some puppy paws in here. And it says established 2021 Though the bottom again. So it’s not my brand, right? I don’t want everybody to see it on top. But on the bottom it has the Google’s real estate team logo, the phone number and all that. Now after they want people come to their door, they gonna put it out right because they’re like, this is our first house together like people have this in 2022 there’s so excited 2022 2021 Right. There’s so excited they have the doormat people going to start using it right? People come and go they wipe their feet, it’s going to start fading and they’re like, oh my gosh, you’d love our doorman. Can we have another one? Well, guess what just met what guests what just happened? They called you right? Because they know that they got it from you. That’s your job. Your job is for them to remember you and remember how to get a hold of you. Because if they can get a hold of you for a doormat, can they get a hold of you to sell that house when they’re having a baby inside big enough anymore.

D.J. Paris 12:08
And also you can tell them to Hey, by the way, if this ever fades and restarts looking crappy, let me know and I’ll replace it.

Gogo Bethke 12:15
Exactly. So you will stay in front of them all the time. Now Christy my right hand used to make these because she has a cricket and she used to make it if you have a cricket and you’re good with this kind of DFI kind of stuff, you can make your own closing gifts, right, it’s not gonna cost you anything, go buy something, put in a cricket printed, roll it up, put a big red bow on it and go to the closing table. But because Christie is now running multiple businesses, because she’s, she’s grown with me, she doesn’t have the time anymore. And we didn’t find a local company who can do that. But I’m sure if you put some time and effort into it, you can find a local company or buy your own cricket, and just design your own closing gaps and the the doormats are just a huge hit every time.

D.J. Paris 12:52
Quick question you had said earlier that 80% of people forget who their realtor is within a couple of years. And by the way that happened to my parents, they had an investment property, really a vacation home on the East Coast, took them years to sell it because it was just bad timing in the market. Eventually it sold and they were they had gone through like four or five Realtors over like five years to try to sell this place. Eventually it sold. And I said to my dad, hey, who is that person you used out there? And he goes, I’d have to look it up. I don’t remember. Isn’t that amazing? And, and this? And my parents liked this person. They liked this person. It wasn’t they didn’t go Oh, that guy I don’t know. You know, they were like, No, we really love that guy sold the home, no idea what his name was.

Gogo Bethke 13:33
And then you don’t even have to ask your people. So this is where social media comes in. Right? You’re going to stay in front of them for the rest of their life as long as they follow you. So when it comes to the social media portion of it, let’s say it’s a buyer, right? Let’s say they don’t know of your existence, somehow they found a way to you and are you working together during the showings and stuff? You’re going to want to take a picture together or whatever. And then you’re going to post that picture, right? I’m showing calm. So Jessica and Jane’s right over here, right? And then when I’m about to post it, I asked Jessica Hey, is this okay? If I just posted you let me tell you, and then just because they Oh yeah, we would love to and then you turn Jessica, guess what’s going to happen? Jessica’s going to get notified that you tagged them, and then Jessica is going to follow your page. And she’s also going to share it now all of Jessica friends see it. But since she followed your page, is she going to be able to see everything you do between now and the next time? They need a realtor?

D.J. Paris 14:20
No, I mean, will she get she she can for sure.

Gogo Bethke 14:24
She will see you from now until forever until she unfollowed you. Hopefully she doesn’t, right. So your job is to stay in front of them. If you can stay in front of them and constantly remind them of your existence. When they are ready next time to buy yourself which people in average move every seven years in the US. They’re gonna call you.

D.J. Paris 14:43
Everything you can do to and Facebook sometimes does this, although I don’t think they do it perfectly. And this is why we’re saying no earlier because I was thinking about this other thing, which is something that you can do and it’s fun. So this just happened to me. Just to pull back the curtain a little bit I was married previously and Um, I, my ex wife was is a veterinarian. And so she was the one who now is the reason why I have the dog that I have. And we still have, we’re still very amicable, but we don’t really communicate much. But Facebook reminded me 13 years ago that when my ex wife brought the dog home, and so I sent it to my ex wife saying, Hey, do you remember when this happened? I thought it was kind of a cute memory. And she goes, Oh, my gosh, that’s amazing. So it got me to think what you were saying about taking pictures, when you’re showing somebody, maybe they’re buying in the process of buying or selling, take some pictures, and then you you don’t have to wait for Facebook to do it. Facebook doesn’t always do it, it doesn’t seem but sometimes it’ll say, hey, remember, a year ago, you were doing this memory with so and so you can also just say, Hey, I was going through my photos. And I found this picture of us member when we were out doing the you know, we went and saw that property, we didn’t like it at all. Or remember the first time we saw the property, they ended up buying either a picture of that, like take pictures of it posted on social media and say, Hey, I was just going through, I found this picture from 2019 that I was showing, you know, we ended up buying the home. I mean, that’s content for social media, and you can send it to the client and

Gogo Bethke 16:06
out again, right, so you’re gonna reach out with that screenshot. It’s like, oh, my gosh, it was three years ago. How’s the home treating you? Yes. Do you have a need for a painter? Here’s our preferred vendors list. If you need absolutely anything, if there’s any way that I can help you, please don’t hesitate to reach out, I hope, the whole mystery of treating you well, right. It’s just another reason to keep reaching back out and keep giving right so I just gave you an our preferred vendors list and under preferred vendors list. I have painters and dog walkers and lenders and maybe want to refinance right now. Right? I have my preferred lender Xander, pick one. Maybe you have a real estate question, call me. Just stay in front of them.

D.J. Paris 16:41
Yeah, it’s it’s, you know, I think we all spend so much time on social media thinking about how do I create the perfect post, when really what we want to do is just elicit emotion is

Gogo Bethke 16:52
not something out there. Just put something out there

D.J. Paris 16:55
that’s authentic. Especially it you know, if you have like document things, when you go out with somebody, take a few pictures and say, Hey, there’s going to be a time where we’re going to be at a closing table, and you’re going to forget about all these homes that we saw. So I might snap a few pictures along the way. And to you know, just to sort of down the road, maybe remind you of the experience, or maybe you create a little video of of that process, right? You know, there’s tools to do that. But if there’s a good reason to do that, and then you know, sending people that stuff over the years after the transaction is is just going to drum up all those great memories. I would love to have seen, you know, a couple pictures of when I bought my first condo like I would love to have seen my reaction as I walked in, because I knew we all know that buyers oftentimes when they walk in and they just know within 10 seconds are like this is it, or they at least think that it might be it. And wouldn’t it have been cool to have somebody capture a little snapshot Now obviously, not everyone wants their picture taken like that. But if you have pictures like that,

Gogo Bethke 18:02
one of our closing gifts, one of our best closing gifts, I thought that was most personalized, right? And was these clients and Christie actually helped me out and she was showing the house to them because I was out of out of town. And they are in the front of the house. The two of them are facing the house was there back to Christie, right? She’s behind them. And so she just snapped a quick little photo. This is the first time they fell in love with the home, they end up buying and it’s their first home together, right? So the two of them are just standing together his arms around her they’re just staring at the house from the outside Christy shadow quick photo. And that was our closing gift. We blew that up. Awesome, nice frame. And they were like, Oh my gosh, that’s the first time we saw this home. And that’s awesome to home. And it was just so personal. So if you have that moment, grab it. And that can be your closing gift.

D.J. Paris 18:49
Oh my gosh, what a what a good, amazing gift. And they are going to look at that and feel good every time. It’s when it’s hanging on their

Gogo Bethke 18:56
wall. And don’t show it right on to the closing table. So don’t

D.J. Paris 19:00
even don’t even let them know. Yeah, don’t even let him

Gogo Bethke 19:04
snap a photo every time you’re showing them a house right? You don’t know which one they’re gonna fall in love that. You don’t know which one is going to be the one that you actually win right now even if they fall in love of mine, I think that actually gonna get it right. How crazy the market is. But if you just get into the habit of like snapping those moments of your clients, and then when you’re closing if that’s the one you have the closing gift for them and it’s personalized.

D.J. Paris 19:25
I love that and just you know, to the cool thing about memories is memories can be revisited. And you can you know, make sure that you’re odd your clients can revisit those memories by you sending them these pictures once your Hey, remember a year ago when you saw this, you know, yes, it’s a closing gift. Yes, it’s also memory, take photos, document things. And then you don’t have to worry about providing as much knowledge value where you’re, you know, talking about facts and figures on social media, which you can totally do as well. That’s all great stuff. But what people probably want more than that is they want to be reminded of the great experiences they’ve had with you. And then they’re just never gonna go anywhere else. You’re gonna work with another.

Gogo Bethke 20:09
People remember the feeling that you made them feel? Yeah.

D.J. Paris 20:14
Yeah, so everything, everything you should do should be to invoke feeling and and then oh, let’s talk about your vendor list, by the way, because I think this is important, this is a really good action step for every agent should have their own vendor list. So talk about yours and how you created it.

Gogo Bethke 20:32
So I can’t take credit for this one. This is actually my husband’s doing. He’s a licensed Realtor now too. And it was his idea in the first place. But here’s the big question and answering this question, honestly, do you expect this is to the listeners, right? I know your answer, DJ, but let’s ask the listeners. Do you expect your friends and family to use you as the realtor?

D.J. Paris 20:55
gonna pause for one second, as you’re going to answer yes. Before we I have to do a quick sponsor break. So bear with me. So the question and by the way, I’m gonna throw a statistic on top of this before, before we come back, which is 16% of the people you know, friends and family 16% of the people you know are going to need a realtor in the next 12 months. But before we get to that, I want to talk about our amazing sponsor which is follow up boss we love love, love follow up boss. After interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country, do you know which CRM is used more often by the guests on this podcast? Follow up boss let’s face it. Following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time with less effort. But don’t take my word for it. Robert slack who runs the number one team in the United States use his follow up boss and he built a one and a half billion dollar real estate business within six years. Follow up boss integrates with 250 different systems so you can keep your current tools and lead sources. They also have seven day a week support. So you’ll get the help you need and get this follow up boss is so sure you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time, they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial that’s twice as much time as they give everybody else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. But only if you use a special link, visit follow up boss.com forward slash real that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. Okay, back to our show. Go go. Yes. Let’s talk about Yes, I do expect? And I expect our listeners are going Yes, I expect my friends and family to use me as a realtor. Sure.

Gogo Bethke 22:37
Right. So now answer me this question. So since you expecting them to know what you do for a living and use you for those services, right? Do you use them?

D.J. Paris 22:47
Good question. Reciprocity,

Gogo Bethke 22:50
right? Do you know what your friends and family your Facebook friends? If they have a side business? Do you know what they do for a living? Do you know how you can support them and feed their family? Because you’re expecting them to feed your family? Do you feed others? And that’s when it occurred to me then hold on a minute, if I’m expecting all these people to know that I’m a realtor, and most importantly, use me as their realtor. Right, then I should certainly use Joe Schmo as my friend when I need somebody to lay hardwood floors, I should use Joe small as my friend when I need somebody to paint my house, I should use Joe Schmo when I need to refinish my deck and a plumber, and this and that. And absolutely anything that I can I need not only personally but all of the listings, right? Like, if you need a plumber, who do you use you just use it call a local company? Or do you actually go into the effort of figuring out if you have a friend who’s a plumber? Yeah. Go ahead.

D.J. Paris 23:40
No, please.

Gogo Bethke 23:41
That’s how the preferred vendors list started with the idea of Hold on a minute, who do I know? And what do they do for a living? And is there a way for me to support them? Do I need their services through the process of listing or selling the home or even my own personal needs? So the preferred vendors list, it’s a Google document that we created it kind of like an old Excel sheet, right? It has the name, email address, phone number, the address of the property, what they do, how we can get a hold of them, and if they’re a discount that they’re giving to the Google Real Estate Team clients. So we have lenders, we have title companies, anything stagers moving companies, plumbers, electricians, dog, walkers, churches, you name it, whatever you could possibly need that you can put on there. And also think of it this way, there’s a thing in real estate called steering, right? So you don’t want to sorry, I’m keep having this thing pop up on my screen. You don’t want to get caught steering. So if you’re referring a plumber, you’re going to refer three if you’re in a pinch, you know, for three, same with lenders, title companies, you name it. So you should have multiple options on there. And of course, I only refer the ones that I personally worked with and I trust and I know they’re going to show up right and do a good job. Because what’s going to happen when you refer someone, can they ruin your reputation? 100% Yeah, so you want to be very, very selective of who you allow to be on your preferred vendors list. Ideally, are the people that you already worked with and you trust them and they did work for you right and they did a good job, and then they’re going to be able to come command that preferred vendors list and that is the document that goes out as the very first email to everybody that’s thinking about working with us. So it could be buyer seller renter, name it as the very first email as we are introducing ourselves and our team and who’s working on by side with and we’re listing side of what it looks like to do a transaction with us. That email goes out as the first email and we explain the preferred vendors list is attached to the process, you’re going to need different companies and different services they can possibly get to the closing table without their services, right? Like title companies, lenders, all of those things. Whoever you need through the process will freeze for you to do your own judgment, right, interview them, choose the one that fits your needs best. But here’s the list of the ones that we have worked with in the past. And we love and they did a great job, and we recommend, but you can use whoever you want. And then now you’re referring Joe Schmo as a painter, right? So Jojo is your friend. And suddenly, just this month alone, four leads came from you, and now he’s painting for people’s homes, getting him ready for the market, right? Or maybe they just moved in, they need to have the home painted. Now Joe is like, oh my gosh, Coco sent me four clients this week, right? And then Joe is going to go to a party. And they’re in the kitchen over the kitchen island. And somebody talks about oh, my gosh, you have to sell our house, we just got a new job in Ohio, and we have to move. And then Joe is gonna say I have the perfect realtor for you. Because now Joe owes me right? Doesn’t really owe me No, he doesn’t. But he feels like he does, because I felt his family four times this month read, right now he’s gonna want to make sure to feed mine. So you always give before you take, right? So you give give give to people, eventually, they’re going to give give back to you. So that’s how the preferred vendors are starting in the first place. It was my husband’s idea. He created the whole document. We use it day in and day out every single client gets it. And not only that, but it gives you content too. So let’s say you don’t have it built out yet, right? You only have one lender out there, then this Tuesday, you’re going to make a post and you’re going to say Hey guys, I’m building out my preferred vendors list. I only have one lender at the moment, I’m looking for two awesome lenders in our area. Maybe you’re looking for somebody who does new construction, because your previous lender doesn’t maybe looking for someone in give you a loan for vacant land. Because your previous lender doesn’t. Maybe you’re looking for someone who can do role development, because your previous lender does. And maybe you’re looking for someone who can do doctors loan because your previous lender does and right. So now you’re building out not only your own portfolio, so now you can just get anybody pre approved. But you’re also now building out all of these referring partners, because when you send three leads this week alone to the lender over there now they’re going to be like, I better send lead to go go.

D.J. Paris 27:32
Yeah, yeah. And it’s great too, because you can and it’s a good idea to reach out to these services. Like let’s say you’re looking for a plumber, and you want to find, you know, call three or four plumbers and say, Hey, I’m a realtor, I deal with a lot of plumbing issues. My clients are always in the room. Right? Pretty much every home has some sort of plumbing issue is obviously you know, I would love to start referring business to you. You know, and then are you accepting new clients? And of course, the question, the answer is always gonna be Yes, yes. Yes. say great, I’d love to add you to my preferred vendor list. I’d also like to maybe come and meet with you and do like a fun little we could do like a little interview about here’s some things that home first time homebuyers don’t know when they’re checking when they’re buying a property, about plumbing, here’s some things to look out for. It’ll help your business, it’ll help my business, we’ll both push it out on social media. I know gogo, you were just going to say all those things. So I just, I decided to say them for you. Oh, yeah,

Gogo Bethke 28:29
that is amazing. That creates content, right? So if you’re not busy cleaning houses today, well then create yourself something to do that is going to market your business, visit that plumber, right? and interview them and say, Hey, what is a new homebuyer need to know about buying the home. So in our our area, when someone does a water testing, arsenic is not a part of the water test. So that is my job to let them know that, hey, that you have a 5050 chance that there’s arsenic in your water. And it’s they’re not even testing for it in the regular water test. So if that’s important to you, and then maybe this plumber now can explain it to the people how to get a reverse osmosis system installed, and what is that thing cost? And can you do it yourself? Or maybe they can just call him and he installs it for them? Right? So now you can simply give him content, you helping them out with something they don’t know anything about? It makes you an expert, right? Because now you know something they don’t know. It automatically makes you an expert gives you content. That becomes your next client.

D.J. Paris 29:20
Yeah, it’s funny. I’m in the process right now. I’m a as a guy, I have big giant speakers that sit on the floor there. They’re like almost five feet tall. They’re massive. They’re just massive speakers. I’ve got four of them. Two in the front, two in the back. My girlfriend wants to kill me, because she does not want big giant. What’s that? Yeah, well, I tried to keep the I tried to keep the volume down. But I just love big speakers because I’m a guy. Well, not everybody loves big speakers. So my girlfriend said, Well, what if we could at least remove two of the rear speakers and maybe we’ll come up with little smaller ones and have them hanging from the wall or something and, and so anyway, so now I’m in This process is trying to figure this out. And what I did, and I said, Oh, maybe I’ll get in wall speakers where speakers are built into the wall at the ceiling or on the wall for my rear surround speakers, which will, will are, aesthetically probably a lot more appeasing to my, to my girlfriend. So my point is, is I don’t know anything about this. So I am now searching all over online trying to figure out what the cost of this How does it work? And is this something that people do think about when they’re moving? Of course, they think about, especially if they have a guy like me who’s into music or sound, they’re going to want to figure out how, what am I going to do with my speakers? And they’re going to want to know, how easy is it to install something into a wall? Well, that’s a video call up a speaker guy and say, Hey, I’m a realtor. And some of my clients want to know about speaker stuff. So can we talk about that I can interview you. So that’s another just quick idea. And I’m now in the process. And by the way, guys, how did I How did I actually do my research? We have a Facebook group for our building just for our the owners, and I said, Has anyone done in in home speaker stuff? Or in in wall? Speaker? If so, can you send me a referral, I’m doing the same thing that your clients are going to do. But you want them to contact you. You don’t want them to contact random people on Facebook?

Gogo Bethke 31:13
Exactly. You got it. So preferred vendors list. It’s amazing. Because you are going to have to reach out to your to these people, right? So you’re going to reach out to high school friend and be like, Oh my gosh, Jimmy, I see that you live in our area. I haven’t seen you in 14 years, just calling to see what do you do for a living trying to see if I can support your family, right. And in return Jimmy’s gonna say what do you do for a living? Right, next thing you know, Jimmy knows I’m a realtor. But at the same time, maybe Jimmy installed speakers, and now I’m gonna add him to my preferred vendors list.

D.J. Paris 31:40
I love it. And let’s, let’s finish up talking about gogos bootcamp. Because this is, this is really such an important investment that I think every one of our listeners should make, I cannot more highly recommend this product. In fact, it’s about the only product we do recommend on the entire show, outside of our wonderful sponsors. This is an incredible way to grow your business and improve your branding around social media and give you an actual structure and strategy to get not only more followers, but more engagement. And to just have people remember that this is what you do. You’re a realtor, and but you need a structure and you need to learn the skills. Tell us about Go Go’s boot camp.

Gogo Bethke 32:26
So Google’s boot camp started with the idea of you know, I was kind of forcing to figure out social media, right, I had no sphere, I had no money to market myself. I had a weird name, I had an accent. So I was forced to figure out social media so I can make it in real estate. And through the years, it went from like that chick is weird, because she’s taking selfies all the time. And fast forward a few years becoming a Top Producing agent locally and nationwide became like, why do you do that Google? How do you do that? Tell me more about Facebook business page. How do I integrate something with Zapier? What how do I hire a virtual assistant? When do I hire an assistant, you know, all of those things, and then everything in my case, it ties back to social media, we turned into a course where we have hundreds and hundreds of hours, where I literally explain anything that you possibly need everything that I do today, through the years, I explained step by step, and then all of the links, how you can get access to that track, or how you can watch a video about that. Furthermore, it’s in the core. So think of it this way, anything that I have learned in the 11 years of my career, it’s in that course when it comes to social media, and not just social media, right? Like social media, if you’re good at lead generation, eventually going to have to build a team. So then we talk about team building, right? Like how would you do that? When do you hire first assistant? What is the transaction coordinator? You know where to find them? What is a VA? How do you hire VA? What’s your job description? How much do you pay? Where do you find them? All of those things that I have today is inside of the bootcamp. And it’s called What was bootcamp Social Media course, we also have another one that’s agent attraction course. So we have two different courses, depending what is important to you. If you if you want to build a brand and lead generate with that brand, that would be the Social Media course, if you want to have everything that I have, from team building, to from the basics all the way to team building, making multiple, seven digits passively. It’s in a social media course. If you want to know how to build a team and Agent attract, not recruit because I don’t recruit I haven’t called anyone they call me. Then we have an agent attraction course, which is different from social media. So those are the two things they are both video based. You can watch it on your own time, and pretty much implement everything as you learn and get to have everything that I have since like your social media house, right? I help you build it from foundation.

D.J. Paris 34:35
Yeah, it’s just an all in one encompassing platform for really branding and marketing yourself through social media and also other ancillary parts of the businesses, like gogo was saying is like, hey, when is the time to get an assistant? When is it time to to build a team and how do I do that? What are some best practices and you get access to her entire community of realtors who are already part of this Since sharing best practices with each other, so go to Gogo podcast.com, check it out, purchase it, I promise you, it’ll be an incredible investment that will pay itself over pretty quickly. By multiples. I mean, it’s just it by 100 times, you know, within a half

Gogo Bethke 35:18
a transaction, a half a transaction will pay for a course.

D.J. Paris 35:23
Yeah, that’s a that’s a pretty good return on investment. I would love to give somebody something and have them return, you know, that kind of that kind of income. So, guys, it’d be even if it only ever did one transaction, it would more than pay for itself. But it will, it will certainly give you way more than that. So go to go go podcast.com. Go go. I think this is a great place to wrap up and Go Go’s all over the place are you are you going to be speaking anywhere wreath in the before the end of the year that our audience should know about?

Gogo Bethke 35:59
I literally just came back from Arizona, I spoke four times in three days, I think my head is spinning and I’m still recovering from last week, but I don’t know if I have now. I haven’t checked my events calendar to be honest with you. Now that I have Marianna as my right hand, she just plugs the stuff in there for me and I was supposed to speak in Vegas, and I didn’t find out in time, and I double booked myself. So now I can’t go to Vegas, which was the first week of November. But other than that, I guess just go to my name, go go back ke.com. And on my events tab, you can see all of my upcoming events. And also the preferred vendors list it’s on my links. So if you just go to mining that com Go go back to that calm. When you go to links, you can get the exact copy of the preferred vendors list and download it for yourself and just kind of start building your

D.J. Paris 36:45
own. I love it for everyone. Also check out her her boot camp Go Go’s boot camp, which is Gogo podcast.com for special pricing for keeping it real listeners. Gogo thank you once again for being on our show. We love having you on every month you provide so much incredible value. And by the way, if you want to join gogos team or learn more about what she offers agents, what’s the best way that agents should reach out to you.

Gogo Bethke 37:11
So Instagram is the only platform that you get me personally, every other platform, I have virtual assistants so you can go to Instagram and Google’s real estate or just go to my name.com. So Google back to.com There is a button that’s called partner with me. And you can watch videos, see who I am how we work, I do not take a cut. So we pretty much just become business partners, and I’ll help you with anything that I can possibly help you with.

D.J. Paris 37:33
Love it. Well on behalf of gogo and myself. We want to thank our audience for continuing to listen and support our show. Thanks to our sponsor, follow up boss thanks to go go our great guest as always. And as usual, please tell a friend think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing this great conversation with gogo with all sorts of actionable strategies and send them a link to our podcast, send them over to keeping it real pod.com, which is where all of our episodes live, and they can stream it right there from their browser. Sorry, no, go ahead.

Gogo Bethke 38:06
I forgot to mention these cutting boards. If you want them. There’s also a link. So if you go just go to my name, google wlky.com and go to links, you’re going to find a team Google Store. Even though that’s branded to my name, you can change out my brand to your team’s brand, right or your brokerages or your personal brand. And you can order these if you like at a 10% discount.

D.J. Paris 38:25
Awesome. So go to go go Beth key that.com That’s GOGOBETHK e.com Go Go Beth key.com. We’ll put that in the show notes as well. Get those cutting boards for your clients. They will use them several times a week and think about you go go we will see you on the next episode. Thank you.

Gogo Bethke 38:44
Thank you so much for having me.

Jesse Dau and Jackson Wilkey, the Channel Junkies describe how they started their YouTube Channel and how they decided to step out of production. Jesse and Jackson continue discussing how to build a symbiotic relations that works and will bring you success. They also how discuss how they figured out in which direction their services should be headed. Jesse describes step-by-step how they built their business together with Jackson. Last, Jesse and Jackson talk about Channel Junkies and what they teach in there.

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

Please check Jesse and Jackson’s channel on YouTube by clicking here.

This episode is brought to you by Follow Up Boss. Get your 30 day trial by clicking here.

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

In this episode Joel explains what are the new conforming loan limits for next year. Joel emphasizes the importance of meticulously building your brand which will represent you in the future. Last, Joel talks extensively about the pre-payment requirements for a second home loan and how families can benefit from this program.

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

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

This episode is brought to you by Follow Up Boss. Get your 30 day trial 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.

Welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris, I am your guide and host through the show. And today once again is our monthly series learn with a lender with Joel Schaub from guaranteed rate. Now, Joel is the vice president of lending a guaranteed rate and he’s been doing loans at a high level since 2003. And has gotten 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. And last year alone, Joel gave back over $291,000 in closing costs to buyers who worked with him and that put Joe’s volume in the top 1/10 of 1% of all lenders nationwide. In fact, out of 400,000 loan officers in the country Joel is currently ranked number one 137. Last year, he closed 535 transactions for 195 million already this year. He’s closed 511 track transactions for 204 million already eclipsing his best year last year. So amazing job there, Joel but 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 Joel sorry, His email address is [email protected]. Again, [email protected]. Or you can shoot him a text message or call him at 773-654-2049. Let’s say hello to the biggest Cubs fan. I know Joel shop Joel, welcome once again. Hey,

Joel Schaub 2:30
thanks so much for having me and all those Appalachians and the numbers. It’s wonderful to hear. But I really like being on because we give back. And we really teach and educate people that are tuning in. And this is always the best time of the month when I’m here with you, DJ.

D.J. Paris 2:48
Well, thanks. It’s it’s a real honor for us to because this is a part of the business that I feel oftentimes agents don’t know much about, you know, yes, they work with loan officers hopefully have great relationships with one if they don’t, they should reach out to you and your team. But it’s just something that agents are focused on the real estate side and aren’t always up to date. And I know we don’t only talk about what’s going on with lending, but but we do provide a lot of great news that’s going on with lending, in addition to, you know, sort of just the strategies and tactics you’ve used personally, and you’ve seen other successful agencies, but we’re really grateful to have you and you know, we always get great feedback on these episodes.

Joel Schaub 3:26
Usually when we’re on we’re talking about strategies that I’ve been, you know, invoked to help me grow to the level where we’re doing 50 and 60 closings month in and month out, and we come up with strategies. And that’s all great. But this time, we’re really going to focus and get down to some business on mortgage numbers, what’s happening in the industry, and some big changes that if you tune in all the way through the show, you’ll actually be able to pick up an additional buyer or pick up additional seller based on what we’re going to review today. Right?

D.J. Paris 3:59
Let’s talk about it. Let’s jump

Joel Schaub 4:01
right in, right let’s do it. Let’s talk some mortgage stuff because I’m a nerd for this type of thing. Okay, when it comes to reading guidelines and being up to date on the most recent changes, this is where we talk about educate and elevate. Okay, and the big thing that just came out last week is the announcement from both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac about the new conforming loan limits that are going to be in place for next year. And before we get into all this, what what is the conforming loan limit? Why does that matter to me, and and what was the change and so the change was going forward. The base loan amount for a conforming loan limit just went up DJ to $625,000. And that is the largest year over year increase to that conforming loan limit that we’ve ever seen. It’s up $77,000

D.J. Paris 4:56
And this means that in the past those low those loans at that level would likely be a jumbo loan. And now they are not considered Jumbo. Is that correct?

Joel Schaub 5:08
It’s exactly right. That means now that if you’re at 625 or below, you’re not with the extra criteria that it takes to get a jumbo underwrite to have the larger downpayment requirements, and to have the higher credit scores needed to get approved for a jumbo. So really, you’re able to go out and buy a home, that’s a really a jumbo sized house, but not have a jumbo mortgage, which really has three big takeaways. Okay. So if you’re taking notes here, what does this mean? Because I was telling this to an agent two days ago, and the story said, Well, why does this matter to me, borrowers have always been able to borrow over 625 Joel. So why do I care? Here’s why as an agent, you care up to 625. Now, the big thing is that a borrower could buy with 5% down. Okay, before, if you’re at 625, you weren’t getting many jumbo lenders allowing you to put just 5% down. So that’s TAKEAWAY NUMBER ONE. Takeaway number two is that you could literally go up to 625, and have a credit score as low as 620. Wow, a major difference, okay, the conforming loan limit before was 548,000. That means we can go up an additional almost $77,000. And if you were above it before, good luck getting a loan approval with your bank, if you didn’t have a 700 credit score, or a 720, or a 740. So this really lowers the bar to entry. Now, you still have to have good income, you still do need that downpayment. But it allows for a lot of first time buyers to get in at a higher price point.

D.J. Paris 6:52
Wow, it’s really incredible. I mean, I’m just thinking from an agent perspective, there’s so much you can do with this and look to really start your clients thinking about their next their next move.

Joel Schaub 7:07
You’re exactly right. So I named two of the three. And the last one that’s really important here is that now that it’s a conforming loan size, all of the downpayment could be a gift from a family member, okay, whereas a jumbo loan, you had to have your own money, okay, so this is all about ease of homeownership and how you can go out. And if you’re in a market where clients are spending really high money in rent, three to $4,000, a month is not uncommon here in Chicago for a place downtown. A lot of buyers can afford the monthly payment DJ, but they don’t have 100 or 200 grand to put down. Right, right. So now this allows them to buy a home in that 600,000 range, which is 5% down, which means if you had $30,000, you’re now in versus before you have have to have $120,000 Just to get into the same transaction.

D.J. Paris 8:03
That’s incredible. I mean, that is a major, major shift. And and I have to admit, embarrassingly, I was unfamiliar with this. And so I am grateful, because we have lots of agents here at our firm that I need to make sure that they know about this as well. Because if I were a practicing agent, the very first thing I would do, and again, this is just one idea. I’m sure you would have even other ideas, but I would call everyone who, who maybe has a property that is lower price than that already own owning and say, Hey, are you thinking of upgrading? Are you working from home these days? Do you need more space? Do you are you moving to a different area? And you know, now you might be able to do some things you couldn’t do a year before? And you’re going to look like a hero to these people? Because I don’t know about Joel, you know, I you probably do this, but I would assume most loan officers are just so busy. They don’t, which is I don’t know if loan officers are calling people to tell them about this as much. I mean, obviously, you’re talking about it right now. But I don’t know that everyone’s going to know about this. So what a great opportunity for agents to reach out and be this knowledge source.

Joel Schaub 9:09
You want to be the knowledge source, you literally want to lead with education, okay, especially right now, when everybody can get into the business. The barrier of entry is really low. Right? And so how are you going to differentiate yourself and build a brand and build a business? The number one thing that I’ve seen successful agents do is educate. You gotta do got,

D.J. Paris 9:34
I would think to I mean, just get yourself familiar with this, find some resources online that explain it. And then if it was me, and I wanted if I was trying to promote myself on social media, I think the best way to create content that people care about is to make it as Joel said, educational valuable. I turn my phone around, I’d hit that record button and I do a one or two minute video on just like Joel said, What is this? Why should you care and what can you do about it? This is an amazing opportunity for all realtors to think about, you know, providing this kind of level instead of just, hey, here’s me at the gym, which is fine. And here’s me at a closing. And all of that is fine. How about posting some some comments or some some content like this, it’s great for

Joel Schaub 10:16
you at the gym is fine me at the gym would not be good. You look good every day. I see. That’s not even just blowing smoke, but No, literally no, do this. If you’re an agent right now. It’s so funny. But if you’re an agent, right now reach out to that mortgage professional that you’ve built the relationship with, and ask them will you do a quick video with me on social media to talk about it, any mortgage professional right now knows what’s going on. Okay, they would love to do just a two or three minute video where you’re both side by side. And it doesn’t have to be perfect, it has to just go out. Okay, so this hesitation to post on social media or to wait until it’s perfect. You’re never going to have it perfect. But half of the stuff that I do is far from perfect. But our social media is out every single day with educational pieces mixed in with fun lifestyle pieces. And the big mistake people make is, well, I need it to be perfect or I don’t know, exactly. Bring somebody in, bring in a mortgage professional that you work with and just say, Hey, I heard about the increase in loan limits do want to shoot a quick video with me. It’d be great.

D.J. Paris 11:27
Yeah, and yeah, leverage, leverage the people in your professional network. And you know, you could do you could do this, if I was an agent, this would be something where like, we have Joel on our show every single month, you can have some version of this for social media, with your lending professional. To help you with some of this content, you can also do it with an attorney, you could do it with, you know, a contractor, you could do it with all sorts of people where you don’t have to, just like me, I don’t know about a lot of this stuff Joel does. And I just asked him questions, and he is great. You know, we’re honored that he’s willing to share his information with our audience. So guys, think about that, from a branding perspective is you don’t have to know everything. But you just have to connect with people find people like Joel, who want to who want or Joel himself. I mean, Joel is everywhere. He’s constantly educating people. And, you know, he will tell you, Hey, does he always have the lowest possible rate? Well, of course, not just like a bank does a bank you work out always, or that you put your money and always have the best interest rate, probably not, there’s always a better rate or a cheaper price or, but what what I think people care about more than anything is, is education and just getting things done and knowing that I’ve got somebody who knows what they’re doing. And so you know, Joel, talk a little bit about your team, because your team has grown substantially. And we never really talked about you and your business, because you’re too humble too. But I really I want to, I want to sort of just make sure everybody knows how how large you guys have become because it is really truly impressive. And I just want our audience to get a sense of because our audience really likes you. And I just want them to know what’s going on. And you’ve you’ve added a lot of new team members.

Joel Schaub 13:05
Well, the team is really great. But it literally all still stems from the job brand. So I the big fallacy is everyone thinks that since I’m closing 20 or $30 million every month that I must have a lot of loan officers underneath me getting business and that it all rolls up to me. And that’s simply not the case, I literally am speaking to almost every single one of the clients, I have a processing staff that’s second to none, that allows us to get deals done in under 10 days. So agents can be benefited by having one of our pre approval letters because in our market at least and you know, it happens to be Chicago where we’re at. agents on the listing side know that a letter from us means it’s as almost as good as cash because I don’t put my name on the letter, unless we’ve actually verified all the documents up front. Because it’s really easy just to get a bank to give you a letter, but is it really worth the paper it’s written on. So the education piece is helping agents know that when the Joel team takes on a file, that I do have 17 staff members from start to finish that can get deals done in a way that most banks just can’t do. But that’s not the point. It’s not about me, I want to give you guys one more thing, okay. I want to talk about the different downpayment requirements so that you know what it takes to do a primary residence, a second home, an investment property, etc. Do you think that would be educational for those that are listening

D.J. Paris 14:37
100% And is that for for right now or for 2022?

Joel Schaub 14:41
So right now, the conforming loan limit DJ, I’m glad you asked went up for 2022. But our company as well as most of the big lenders out there, have already adopted it. So if you’re calling today to write a loan, that new loan limit in our eyes is already set because by the time I’m we close. And we sell and securitize it to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it will be 2022. So for the purpose of this conversation, we’re using six, it’s already in place, okay? $625,000. For a conforming loan limit, if you’re buying a primary residence, you can put down 5%. So that means you could go all the way up to 657, or $658,000 for a purchase price. And just put down 5%, which is about 33,000 bucks. Amazing. And not that $33,000 isn’t a small amount of money. That’s a very sizable downpayment. But before for a jumbo loan, in that case, you’d be hard pressed to get the rates that you would get unless you had 10 or 20%. Down, okay? Second homes, if you’re buying a home, that’s just going to be for your purposes that you’re not going to live in, don’t have the bank tell you, you need to have 20% down, because the real guidelines for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are 10% for a second home. Let’s say you go buy a home in Florida, California, up in Michigan, or Wisconsin, wherever it would be a true second home for you. That’s not a vacation rental sort of situation, sort

D.J. Paris 16:18
of not an investment property where you’re renting out units, this would be just to live in, got

Joel Schaub 16:23
it, yeah, it’d be a second home, it’d be a true second home for you to get away to, you don’t need 20% down, you could still get rates in the low threes with just 10% down investment properties, there’s a fallacy that you need 20% down, but you only need 20% down on investment properties when you’re buying multifamily. So if you’re buying a single family home, you can finance up to 85% of an on a conventional mortgage. If you’re buying a two to four unit building that you don’t live in, that’s when you need to step it up to 20 and 25%. Down. So basic things, okay, here’s the big opportunity. If you’re buying a home for a son or daughter who’s in an undergraduate program, or a secondary degree, you could buy that home with 5% down. So let me repeat that this is an opportunity for you guys to go out and educate buyers that you could buy technically an investment property, right, instead of paying

D.J. Paris 17:19
anyone who’s listening any one of your clients who has children in college, this is Hey, and I know where I went to school, I didn’t know of one person whose father did this. And in fact, I was in a relationship with somebody after college, whose whose father did this as well. So I think we all know somebody whose parents did this. And what a great opportunity to educate. I’m sorry, Joe, go right ahead.

Joel Schaub 17:44
Well, you’ve nailed it here in Chicago, you know how much it costs for dorms at those schools. And so the idea here is that condos and that neighborhoods around college that are expensive to okay. But if you can buy a property with 5% down, that’s a lot better than having to come in and put 20% down because you’re not going to live in it. It’s called The Family opportunity loan. And it allows for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, allow you to put a property under contract and get 95% financing, as long as the person living in the property is going to school, and that you qualify without collecting rents. That’s important. You need to be able to afford the payments and most of the borrowers is a big niche for me with agents here in my market, to educate them on this specific program.

D.J. Paris 18:35
Yeah, it’s a great opportunity. And again, it’s something that most parents as they’re sending their children off to school, you know, maybe freshman year they live in a dorm or they’re required to but once they get beyond that freshman year, most schools say hey, live wherever you want, and you know, you’re either paying rent to someone else, or you can purchase something that might you know, increase in value or just you know, give you some tax benefit for your for you know, your investment. But yeah, I think that’s a that’s great to know, again, everyone listening, think about how you can introduce this. Another great video opportunity right now. Oh, hey, everyone’s back in school. Let’s talk about something you probably haven’t thought about. And that’s, that’s a good another great one.

Joel Schaub 19:18
I had one last year where a son and daughter they were both going to undergrad together. They literally live together and they rented out the other two rooms. So the parents were actually literally paying for this property in the children didn’t have to pay any dorm fees. And now they have an asset that’s going to go up in value. Okay, so that’s the family opportunity loan for parents buying for children. That the big caveat which we’re seeing a lot more of DJ before I go is children buying for an elderly parent. Okay, the exact same program you can put 5% down and we literally treat this as another primary residence and this is different than a second home or an end estimate property, you technically it’s true, you can buy a second primary residence as long as you’re putting a mother or father in who could not otherwise afford the payment. And a lot of people are doing this because they want childcare a lot closer to home.

D.J. Paris 20:16
Wow, that’s really interesting. So you have, and that boy, gosh, that is so interesting. I’m just thinking about people in my own life, who I want to tell this to who, you know, support their their parents through their living situation and trying to figure out, you know, where to place the parent at this point, this is a great opportunity to have, you know, put them in in an asset that they quote that that you qualify for, and that you get some some tax benefit. And some, you know, obviously, all the benefits of homeownership, I had no idea you could buy a secondary property as a primary for an elderly parent, you get

Joel Schaub 20:57
the same rates as a primary residence, you only need to put down 5%, you could put down more if you want. But the big, big benefit here is that a lot of people are already paying for housing either for their children or for their parents, okay, they’re paying rent someplace. The idea is, I can afford that payment. But I don’t want to go buy a place for 400,000 and put down 80 or 100. Grand, right, but I could buy a place DJ for $400,000 and put down 20 grand and cover the payments. This is the opportunity. This is what you can go out and effectively advertise it as we have the ability to do an investment property with 5% down, because that’s really what it is you’re investing in yourself, but it’s not investment in terms of collecting rents. So it’s a really great opportunity. If anybody has questions on this, just email me, Joel app rate.com, you’ll be surprised that you actually get a real reply from me test me. I do it a lot.

D.J. Paris 21:57
Yeah, it is amazing Joel with his team. And he has a large team. But ultimately, he’s still the guy who responds to just about everything. And it’s incredible. But again, I just love this idea of educating customers and your clients. Because we all know of people that do first time homebuyer seminars and webinars, and those are great. But certainly they are they have been done, they are being done. There’s lots of agents doing them. I don’t know of any agent that’s having the conversation about where to place family members, kids in college, or elderly parents, this is a really a huge way to separate yourself from the pack, give your your clients some additional value. And boy, Joel, that you just gave us, you gave us so much value on this show by providing this, I hope everyone’s you know, wheels are spinning with opportunity here. So Joel, I will also want to tell everyone, if you do not have a relationship with a lending or with a loan officer, we would always encourage you to reach out to Joel’s team, truly an amazing team. Joel himself is is incredible. Obviously, he’s been on our show for years now and provides this kind of value. This is exactly who he is outside of this show as well. I’ve used him personally with my own loan. And he’s exactly the same way. He’s all about education. And he also he and his team will partner with agents to help them grow their business. So if there are any agents out there that are looking to work, and by the way, we should mention that guaranteed rate is licensed in all 50 states. So Joel and I are here locally in Chicago, but guaranteed rate can assist all over the place. So if there’s any agents out there listeners who do want to connect with you, what is the best way they should reach out and you mentioned your your, let’s give your your email and phone one more time.

Joel Schaub 23:50
Well, they have the email, but the best thing to do is literally pick up the phone and you can call just like the billboard say just call Joel You can 773-654-2049 is the direct line. And we answer Friday, Saturdays all around the weekends, nights evenings. And for buyers that come over as a referral source. I do give a $1,500 commission credit right on the Closing Disclosure. So I’ve been able to give back last year over $200,000 of commissions to help buyers just get over the edge. And what we realized is we can’t always control rates, but we can absolutely as professionals control the costs and the fees. So I try to help out on each of those transactions. And we’re happy to partner with you guys and we’re happy to be on the show. Because this is what you’ve done for so long and you have multiple guests and you have sponsors and you guys continue to do it in a really great way.

D.J. Paris 24:52
Speaking of sponsors very quickly before we go I almost forgot to talk about our one of our sponsors, which is follow up boss So real quickly. Let’s after after I’ve been interviewed now I’ve interviewed rather over 300 Top realtors in the country and the most common response to Hey, what CRM do you guys use is follow up boss, and so we’re so honored to have them as one of our sponsors. Let’s face it. Following up is the key to taking your business to the next level. Follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort, don’t take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the United States uses follow up boss and he’s built a one and a half billion dollar business. Within six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 different systems so you can keep your current lead sources. Also, they have seven day a week support so you’ll get the help that you need and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM for a limited time they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial. Now that’s twice as much time as they give everyone else. And oh yeah, no credit card required, but only if you use this special link. So visit, follow up boss.com forward slash real. Once again, that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with a follow up boss. Joel, thank you so much. We love guaranteed rate. We love you, you come on every month. You’re just amazing. And every one of our listeners, I want you to reach out to Joel if you don’t have a great relationship with a loan officer or you just want to see what other loan officers can do to help you grow your business. Reach out to Joel give him a phone call shoot him an email. He and his team are incredible I use I’ve used them I’ve referred many friends and everybody loves Joel. So just call Joel. And please send this show to every other realtor that you know that isn’t already a listener of ours, or at least just one person that could benefit from all this great information that Joel shared, send them a link to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com You can actually scroll all the way down and you can listen to all the Joel episodes, we have them categorized out so you can actually see them there. Or just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. Joel thanks once again, for being on the show. On behalf of our listeners. We’re so grateful to have you. And on behalf of Joel and myself. We want to thank the listeners and for continuing to be a part of the show and support us and our sponsors. So Joel, thanks so much. We’ll see you next time.

Joel Schaub 27:26
Thanks so much for having me on DJ we covered a lot today. It was really great. And remember, educate and elevate. This is what we’re doing. If we’re agents out there, go spread the word. continue to grow, and I’ll see you next month.

D.J. Paris 27:39
Awesome. Thank you Joe.

Matt Kuchar the founder of Showami goes back to the beginning of his career in real estate and what was it like to start a career in this field in early 2000s. Matt describes how he came up with the idea for Showami and what Showami is. Next, Matt talks about the importance of showings and what agents can learn from that experience. Last, DJ and Matt discuss how much technology has changed in the last couple of decades and where do they see it heading.

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

Matt Kuchar can be reached at (303) 710-3810.

This episode is brought to you by Follow Up Boss. Get your 30 day trial by clicking here.

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by show Ami. Show AMI is the fastest, easiest and most reliable way to get buyers into homes without you being the one to show it. Now we’ve all had situations where clients wanted to see properties at the most inconvenient time or in a location that was difficult for us to show. Now there’s an easy way to find another licensed agent who will show the home on your behalf for a small fee. You keep the client you keep the commission, you keep your commitments. Now show AMI is truly the Uber for realtors connecting busy Realtors with local agents who have time to show your clients the properties they want without taking any part of your commission. And if you’d like to be one of show armies featured agents that realtors can hire to have you help with their showings, you can sign up on their website at no cost. So whether you’re an agent who wants some help with showings, or you’re an agent that wants to make some money helping doing showings, show AMI is the app to use install show AMI on Apple or Android devices or simply visit their website at show ami.com That’s sh O W A mi.com SHOW a mi.com to learn more. And now on to our episode.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents. And for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris, and I am your guide and host through the show and in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with Matt Kutcher from show Ami. Before we get to Matt, just a couple of quick reminders first, as always, we say thank you to our listeners and viewers for continuing to support our show. And please not only support our show, but support our sponsors who help keep the show going. And if you want to help keep the show going. The best way you can help us is by telling a friend I think of one other realtor that you know that could benefit from hearing from top producers and industry disruptors like Matt Kutcher and send them a link to our show, you can send them right over to our website, keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done, can be streamed and if you’re part of our Facebook page, which is facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. Now every single episode we’ve ever produced is in its own category. Right at the top of the page, you’ll see a navigation menu that says episodes if you click on that you can go through all 300 episodes we’ve ever done and listen to them right inside of Facebook as well. So again, you can find us on [email protected] forward slash keeping it real pod. If you are heading to the National Association of Realtors Conference this fall in San Diego, I will be there walking around attending, so let me know and I’d always be happy to meet one of our listener and I guess we don’t shake hands anymore. We could elbow bump or fist bump or air high five but I will be there walking around saying hello so please let us know if you if you’re gonna be there and we’ll say hi. All right now on to our episode an interview with Matt Kutcher.

Today on the show we have Matthew char which is he’s the founder of show AMI, which is an on demand service that hires agents to do your showings when you’re not available without having to give up any part of your commission. But first, let me tell you about Matt. Matt has been a licensed real estate broker since 2000. He has also been responsible for over 700 residential real estate transactions. He’s also managed offices and real estate teams throughout his years and has his GRI certification. Let me tell you about a few of his accomplishments. He was named Keller Williams executives top producing agent 2011. He’s also been listed in the top 100 agents in Colorado by volume in 2015. And he founded show AMI in 2016. Now please everyone listening go visit Swamis online at their website show ami.com And I’m going to spell that it’s s h OWAMI. Again, s howami.com To learn more about their agent showing service and we’re gonna be talking about it today. Anyway, but Matt, welcome to the show.

Matt Kuchar 4:39
Oh, thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

D.J. Paris 4:43
We are really excited to have you Matt and I were talking just beforehand about you know, sort of what we’d be discussing today. And I just love people that come along and build a better mousetrap and I will just before we get to your whole story, I just want to the reason I got so excited added is here at our company, we have just under 800 agents here in Chicago, which sounds like a lot, I guess it is technically. But we run into this exact issue all the time, which is, hey, I’m going out of town can one of the other agents do a showing, and I’ll give them, you know, X amount of dollars to do that. And we actually do all of that through we have like a private Facebook group for our brokers. But you guys have a whole platform built to exactly solve this exact issue. So I’m super excited to talk about that, because we’re gonna use it because we need it for our company as well. But before we get to that, Matt, tell us a little bit about you know, you’ve been in the business now 22 years, or 21 or 22 years. I’d love to hear about how you got started and why real estate and then why show AMI and just talk tell us that you tell us your

Matt Kuchar 5:46
story? Sure, sure. I like to tell people I got into real estate by cheating on a test.

My father in law was selling manufactured homes for this big conglomerate. And so he got me this interview. So I go to this, this office, and they give you this personality test, right that says, you know, you know, all these different questions, and I’m in this room all by myself, no one and no one in me. And I started answering the questions, and I look over one table over and I see this, I don’t know, what do you call it, the guide, you know, the thing, they score the sheet on, round to the right to left, no one’s in there. So you know, again, I’m I’m like 19 years old. So please forgive me, this is not who I am today. But I grabbed that thing and stuck it underneath my piece of paper. And I on every one I scored as high as I could possibly score stuff back under, you know, did my interview and went home. And when I got back to my, you know, my home at that time they had, you know, the answering machines in there was like, please give us a call. You know, it’s like, oh my god, this is just amazing candidate we’ve at first, this guy’s got to hire this guy that guy did. That’s what he said. He’s like no one has ever scored so high on the on this test. And so we’ve got to give you the job. And of course, my father in law was already working for the company. So I kind of had an in. But that’s how I launched my real estate career. I cheated on a test. I love it. I love that. And so, you know, back in the early 2000s, when you started it was kind of a best of times. And then kind of a worst of times scenario. I mean, the markets just about to crash in 2000. Right? And so yep, and then one then of course, and then there was like interest only loans. And so then people started buying places like crazy. And and so to talk a little bit about that, what was it like to start back in 2000? I mean, we were using classified ads. So the first thing that I did was I like you know, and you could get him for like five bucks. So you could, you know, you could do a bunch of classified ads, like and I would borrow everybody’s listings, Hey, can I tell people about your home? So I just started marketing right from the get go and, and people would call me and I’d go out, you know, and they’re like, you’re a real estate agent. You’re like, 19 years old, you know. But, you know, that’s kind of how I got started. And eventually, it just kind of snowballed. And, you know, you’re talking about the, you know, at that time how the market was totally changing.

You know, we had not gotten into short sales, yet the market was just going up like 35% a year, you know, we’re like, oh, my gosh, I’d never seen anything but real estate appreciate. I didn’t know it could go down, right? It only goes in one direction. You buy real estate, it goes up in value. And I remember, you know, that was kind of what it was like it was this it was Florida. So it was retirement. A lot of people were coming down here. So yeah, it was it was a great time.

D.J. Paris 8:43
And, and so classified ads. Wow. That’s you know, but But that’s really, people are doing versions of that today with social media. I mean, that was the social media in a sense for back then. And people did, you know, peruse the classifieds? And so that makes sense. It’s so funny how, you know, then sort of Craigslist took that and put it online and I feel like I must be old because I was now I moved to sell a couple pieces of furniture because I just replaced some things and and I said well, I guess I’ll put it on Facebook and my girlfriend’s like, nobody looks at Facebook, you know? So I said, Well, we’ll put it on there anyway, she’s like, we can put it on but you won’t get it she’s like, we have to go to Facebook marketplace. You know, it’s just funny how things how things shift. And now agents of course, are promoting all their stuff on Facebook marketplace as well and everywhere else online. But let’s let’s really I want to really dive into this company that you created show on me because I think what you guys are doing is really, really important and such a cool service and not just because it’s convenient. And it’s easy and it works but because I think it helps agents really shift their their thought process about how do I and I know this is a part of the reason why you’re so passionate about it, is that it really helps people to Think about this more as a business owner. You know, this is my real estate business, and I need to work in the business. But I also need to work on the business. And I think this is a really cool solution to working on your business, to maybe give you some more time that realtors are always complaining about not having enough of so tell us about what show AMI is.

Matt Kuchar 10:22
Yes. So maybe I can start by telling you how I came up with the idea. Yeah. So I was busy agent in Denver, doing about 60 to 70 deals a year. And I was doing them on myself. Like I at one point, I had a big team. But I also felt responsible for all of those members of the team, right? I’m like, I’m making sure that they all have their they’re supporting their families. And I actually grew it to the point where, like, I wasn’t making any money. So eventually, I let everybody go went down to be a single agent with a transaction coordinator, and just started to automate as much as I could. So but at that point, I was also burned out 60 to 70 deals a year. So a lot. I’m like, Ah, so I take a day and I go skiing right now me and my buddy Ed were up on the slopes. And I literally was about to get on the gondola and a past client call and says, Hey, this home in this neighborhood downtown just came available, we gotta go see it. I’m like, Really, I’m out on the slopes. And they’re like, I’m like, here, let me call some agents. I’ll I’ll get somebody to show you the home. So I did what any other agent would do. I was at Keller Williams at the time, and I started calling all my fellow Keller Williams agents and texting and stuff like that. And it took it took about half hour 45 minutes. And Laura finally kind of, you know, said, Hey, you know, I could do it, you know, and it was a big ask, right? It was five o’clock on a Friday, who wants to go to downtown Denver at five o’clock on a Friday, you’re looking at an hour one way in, which is normally a half an hour drive. So anyway, she sees she agrees. But then we had this awkward conversation like, am I paying you right trading off? are we sharing the client? Or do I get a part of the commission? What if they buy what they don’t? I mean, it was like, and so I was like, Hey, why don’t I just give you 100 bucks. And, you know, she’s like, great, no problem. And I would do the same thing for her. You know, if it were in Highlands Ranch, we wouldn’t have you been charged each other. So anyway, I later I was having a beer with Ed and I’m like, we got to come up with a better way. So you know, you always hear about those stories of the people in the bar with a napkin, we were literally in a bar with a napkin, you know, drawing the Uber for real estate, and and, you know, hired a developer. And, you know, it’s like anything, when you when you start something, you’re like, This is the greatest idea, like it’s the new sliced bread. And, you know, you launch it, and nothing happens, right? Nobody uses it. They’re all like, Oh, that’s a good idea. I’m not really sure I get it. And then, you know, it just slowly trickle that, you know, pretty soon we were five transactions a month, and we got to 20. And we’re like, oh, we’re rockstars you know, and but it took forever to grow until like Ari Colorado, which was the big MLS picked us up and they said, hey, we’ll promote you. So like, within a day, we had 150 new agents that were on. And then over time, you know, people started telling each other and the word of mouth really spread. And you know, now we’re up to over 20,000 agents throughout the United States. And, you know, we’re doing 1000s of transactions a month.

D.J. Paris 13:37
It’s incredible. And it’s really something that every one of our listeners could use and probably have been in a situation where they either have to tell the client Sorry, can’t do it. Because maybe they don’t have a network like you had, you know, when you’re maybe they’re new to the maybe they’re new and they go well call my managing broker and the manager brokers out because it’s Friday at five o’clock, and and just not available. And they’re like, I don’t even know who to call and, and then they freak out. And they have to tell their clients. Sorry, we’ll have to do it at another time. And especially in this market right now. You know, those Those minutes are real precious with, oh, they

Matt Kuchar 14:14
miss out on one. They’re mad, like, hey, we didn’t get in there. And that thing went pending. You’re rude. They’re like, Oh, that’s that’s not good. You know. And I think that it’s something we’ve always done, right? Agents have always helped each other out when they were unavailable. I’ve I’ve done this for hundreds of other agents, and they’ve done it for me, but it’s often inefficient, right? There’s no clear terms like, am I gonna get paid? Am I not gonna get paid or we share in the community? You know, the end, it’s never equal, right? There’s always one guy who does more showings than the other guy, you know, who’s always needs the help. It’s just it’s the nature of the business that that’s how it works. And you know, and it’s asking somebody who’s in one area of town to go Oh, to a different area of town, it’s, again, it’s, it would be better to have somebody in downtown Denver show that home than my guy that was out in in Highlands Ranch. It just was. So there’s a lot of efficiencies. And also it’s just faster, easier. It’s more reliable, you know? So, yeah, and

D.J. Paris 15:19
let’s talk about what show me. So you call you had called it just a few minutes ago, the Uber of real estate, right. And I hadn’t thought of that. And it’s absolutely like a perfect analogy, because essentially, what it is, is a live network of agents who say, Hey, I’m free, I can do this. Or, or maybe, you know, I’ll take a look and see if I’m available at that time. But people who say I want to help out, I’m willing to do it for a fixed price. But But tell me tell me more about about what you want me actually is?

Matt Kuchar 15:47
Yeah, sure. I kind of tell you how it works. So at this point, it’s just real estate agents. It’s a real estate agent to real estate agent, right. And you would go on create a profile, we verify that you’re actively license. And then you could enter in the date time location of the home that you need shown the buyer name. And then that goes out to those agents in that area, in the first one to pick it up, much like Uber is the one who gets it. So like the average pickup time is two minutes. It’s pretty efficient. Yeah, like you’re gonna know really quickly, you know, and that’s the average, the one in a major metro areas that get picked up in a minute or less. In the more rural areas where you’ve got maybe fewer agents, it’s a little bit more of a challenge to get picked up, or it’s not as fast as it is. But that

D.J. Paris 16:40
same same thing with Uber in rural areas. Yeah, I think we all can understand. Yeah. And also, as your user base continues to grow, you know, that will those those times will come down, even in those rural areas.

Matt Kuchar 16:51
Yep. So then that agent gets the information, and you have their number, and they have yours. And either they will schedule the showing, there’s a box in there that says I already have the code, you know, here, here’s the information, Go show the home. Or if you need them to show it, there’s a box that you check in, they will actually go schedule the showing through showing time or the listing agent, whatever. And then they’ll there’s a confirmation. So you schedule it, somebody accepts it, then they confirm it, once we got permission from the seller to show, they meet the client out there show the home, you then have the option to give them a tip, you can write reviews, we do peer reviews, peer to peer, and that agent gets paid to show the home and you just paid that money, but they do a procuring cause waiver. So and they agree not to steal the client or solicit them or talk to the age the the buyer after the showing is over with. And that’s kind of how it works. And what happens is, once you start doing this a few times, you build up the people you trust and you know, right, so you can, you can ask for your preferred agent over and over again, you know, and they build these relationships, it’s it real estate’s a relationship business, and this just kind of facilitates that.

D.J. Paris 18:08
It sure does. And it also really like this idea of building relationships with these, some of these, we’ll call them, you know, almost gig economy sort of work. And by the way, you know, gig economy stuff is so prevalent right now in our sort of business world, because everything’s global. And what I mean by that is, I now have an assistant, who isn’t like a traditional assistant, but she’s helping me with my daily to dues personal and work. And I pay her hourly, she lives in the Philippines, and she manages that part of my business, and I pay her, you know, a specific amount of money for that. And it’s very reasonable. And the service you offer is similar, where it’s like, Hey, there’s this one thing that either I can’t do, because I’m on the slopes and about to hit a black diamond or something, or I just don’t, it’s not, it doesn’t work with my schedule right now, or I’m just busy, or I just don’t want to do it. And I think I’m curious on what your thoughts are about the client experience. So I imagine, you know, I think we understand how the app works. You go on, say, I need to showing people you know, you people bid for that or not bid for that, but they say they’re available. You maybe look at reviews, if you don’t know the people see who you like, obviously, you just send it over to them. What do you recommend as far as making sure the customer knows, or telling the the agent who should be doing the showing? Or can’t do the showing? How should they be communicating with their client to say, Hey, by the way, I’ve got someone else helping out on this one.

Matt Kuchar 19:41
Yeah, so that’s a it’s a good hit. You got to hand off to some extent, and you just say, Look, I have a team of showing agents that occasionally. It’s it’s part of your interview process right from the get go with your clients. You know, it’s great. I I instead of it going like I’m not always gonna be there, you know? always get me, you got to say, you know, I have invested in a team of showing agents that when I’m not available, we’re still going to get you in the home when you want to on your schedule. And you know, if I’m not available, they’re going to do it on my behalf. So they’re just an extension of you to some extent, just to open the door. And I love

D.J. Paris 20:22
I love saying that upfront, too. That’s such a smart idea. Because then you’re not really blindsiding the customer with it. That’s such a such a smart thing is to say at the beginning, hey, especially if our if everyone who’s listening, the people, our listeners are thinking, Well, I do most of my showings. So that would be a great conversation to have, say, hey, great, I am likely going to be available for most of our showings, but there may be times where I have other obligations, and I guarantee I have a team in place, I’m going to you know, make sure that you know, you get in, like you said to the property. And that way, when you know that comes up, you can just make a quick call to the client. I love that. And and also the peer to peer review is really important. And this comes up to a lot with with referrals. Right? So, you know, I have, let’s say you have a client that’s retiring to another. In your case, you’re you’re down in Fort Myers, Florida right now. And of course, a lot of people go down there and retire. And, you know, it would it would certainly would behoove anyone who has customers who retire down to Florida to start thinking about, Oh, where do my clients move to? And retire to? And then I should probably build some relationships with those agents, and you know, in that area, and you’re just doing it in a more localized sort of way. And I bet it, I bet it, it also probably helps establish those relationships with other agents. And you might find out that the person who did the showing for you for this nominal price might be a really good agent. And also you could start develop, like actual referrals. I bet that happens all the time on your system.

Matt Kuchar 21:55
It does, it does and we’re at that’s in development is a referral network, you know, that you can you can look at their ratings, you can kind of, hey, I’d love to refer to this person. But let me let me give you another scenario that I didn’t even you know, it’s funny, you create something and you don’t think of all the uses up front, in one was in in Denver, I would, you know, I’d work anything in the Denver Metro area, right? But Fort Collins or Colorado Springs, were there about an hour and 15 minutes away, and I would consistently get referrals to those areas. Well, now instead of referring them, I just show AMI it, they’re in my state, I can see everything. And I just paid for the fee, you know, the the showing fee, 3944 $49 a piece. And I still I write the the contract, I do everything. And we all have the tools, right? You can market analysis, it’s good to get appraised Anyway, you’ve got your inspectors, you got everything. You can ye refer that out, keep it.

D.J. Paris 23:03
Boy, you know, it’s funny, you said that didn’t occur to you when you were building it, that didn’t occur to me until you just said it either. And that is absolutely true. So what Matt just said, is quite quite profound, which is, you know, instead of thinking, Well, I don’t service that area, or it’s too far for me to travel. But it’s still within my you know, my local market or my close enough market, I can still do everything. I just don’t want to drive an hour and a half each way. Or I don’t you know, it’s just not really my I don’t really know those neighborhoods as well. So it’s probably better to have someone who can actually navigate those those neighborhoods. And probably you can even scheduled multiple showings with either that same person or your team, if there’s other people, and why that is so smart. And then you’re not paying that referral fee. So

Matt Kuchar 23:52
well. It’s like the guy who was at that was on your podcast a couple of weeks ago that he he never leaves his house, and he sells like all these homes. I was like I was listening on like, I liked that guy. He’s like, he’s pretty smart. You know, he’s

D.J. Paris 24:05
he. So what he’s referring to as an agent that was is licensed in Texas and sort of figured out like thinking about this from a business owner perspective, which is exactly how Matt is encouraging everyone to think about their real estate business, which of course it is a business. So you should think of it that way. And this guy said, you know, I’m moving to Colorado because I like to ski and hike and do fun things. And there’s not as much of that in Texas as there is in Colorado. And so he said, How can I continue to do my Texas business? I don’t even I’m not even sure if he’s licensed in Colorado. That’s the funny part. And because he’s like, I never want to leave my house I other than to go do these fun things. And so he essentially is doing exactly what what Matt has mentioned, which is to say that he doesn’t even live in his local market anymore. He does zoom meetings to have first appointment meetings, which everyone’s already used to doing by now with, certainly with how you know COVID has made us more or webinar friendly. But now He just has a team of people in Texas that does everything for him. And I can’t remember if he pays them a nominal fee or how it all works. But but it’s basically the same idea. And so that’s a really smart play. Let’s talk about you mentioned the cost. So how does it work? Just to real quickly, kind of explain how that works for our audience.

Matt Kuchar 25:18
Yes. So the average showing is $44. And of that, show me keeps 16 and pays out 28. So that’s, that’s the Our business model is we make a little bit of money on every transaction, we don’t charge setup fees, we’re not charging annual fees, it’s just a pay as you go get paid as you show type thing. And so the showing agent, you know, one of the things that the agents have realized is that there’s more than just the payment, right, they get showing experience, they build a network of agents, a lot of them will go out. And while they’re showing the homes, it’s not their client, necessarily. They don’t show the client, but they take picture of themselves to put on Instagram, hey, out showing homes today. Oh, that’s another good point. So they’re sitting there, you know, it looks like they’re busy looking busy. For a new agent, it doesn’t have a lot of clients or, you know, things might be a little bit slower. The more you get out there in our in your market, you’re learning your market, you’re telling people you’re out in the market, I’m in real estate, I’m in real estate, the more successful you’re going to be, you know, as

D.J. Paris 26:25
I was here for a second, you’re also going to be making money as you’re doing it. Yes. Right. So so it’s not going to make you rich, but hey, at least you’re getting out and you’re doing I mean, I guess if you do enough of them, it could but but this idea of I’m getting normally what people do is they you know, join a team and say, Can I please do some of your showings, they do totally for free, because there’s no payment usually in there, but the experience is worth it. So what Matt is saying is we’ll give you the experience, and we’ll also give a throw a few bucks your way and to make it you know, pay for the gas and, and your time. And you just said again, this idea of being able to show if you are promoting yourself on Instagram, Facebook, wherever you now have some cool video or pictures to take. And again, appear that you’re in. But beyond just appearances, you are actually learning about how to do showings. Point I love that. How often do you think the I mean, assuming it’s an agent and into an agent that maybe just aren’t familiar with each other? You know, the the agent who is who is needs the showing is is just looking maybe at reviews and says hey, that wasn’t that person looks great. I don’t know them personally, how often are they communicating? How often does it happen where that person says, hey, just so you know, I’m going to tell you a little bit about this client, just so you have a little bit of an understanding. I imagine that happens quite a bit.

Matt Kuchar 27:46
Yeah, absolutely. And they can message through the through the app through you know, so we have a you know, you can send your messages through it. Or a lot of them just pick up the phone and call the most successful transactions and showings are the ones where the buyer’s agent and the showing agent are in great communication. You know, it doesn’t really work to just click it and forget it. Yeah, you got to be able to communicate, you got to communicate with your client communicate with the showing agent that even the listing agent, hey, my person was there, you know, and Sally showed it for me, you know, just be professional. It’s, it’s as simple as that for sure.

D.J. Paris 28:29
Yeah, it’s such a cool service. Actually, I’m going to pause for just a quick moment to talk about our episode sponsor. And then I want to talk to Matt more about how we can think about treating this like a business and how this frees up time. Because, you know, there’s so many inefficiencies in this business where we’re really transactional. I mean, it’s we know, we’re transactional, we’re trading hours for dollars. And this really helps, you know, create an additional stream of income, you know, for somebody who’s starting out but also frees up that time for the person who’s like, Oh, my God, I’m like you were doing 60 to 70 deals a year, which is incredible, but also, you know, sacrificing a lot of your free time. But before we get to that, I want to pause for a moment talk about our sponsor, our awesome sponsor that we love so much follow up boss. After interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast. You know what CRM is used more than any other by our guests, or at least the ones that they tell me it of course is follow a boss and let’s face it, following up is the key to taking your business to the next level. Follow up boss will help drive more leads to you in less time with less effort. Don’t take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one real estate team in the United States uses follow up boss and he’s built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. ballot box integrates with over 250 different systems so you can keep your current tools. You can keep your current lead sources. They have seven day a week support so you’ll get the help you need when you need it. Get this follow up boss is so sure you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial that’s twice as much time as they give everyone else. And oh yet no credit card required. But only if you use the special link which is follow up boss.com forward slash real, that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss, man, let’s, let’s talk about just the idea of where you know how technology has really changed, you know, over the last 21 years and and sort of where you see it heading to help make, you know, these kinds of things efficient, you’re talking about, you know, adding referral option to, to show AMI as well. So obviously, you see that as something that that will be more and more important. I imagine, as we’ve seen with with coat with the COVID crisis, a lot of people are still working remotely, a lot of them are now, you know, realizing I can work wherever I want to, I can maybe I’ll move. And now that that agent agent sort of referral network is probably more important than it’s ever been.

Matt Kuchar 31:16
Yep. I think one of the biggest things that we’ve seen grow both on our platform, and just in general, our virtual showings the two reasons One is, well, more than two one is, there’s a certain urgency, right. So I could even if I can’t be there, what we’re seeing even on Chawanmushi is agents hiring other agents to go out to do a virtual showing. So now what they’re just they’re walking through with the video camera. And they’ve got both the agent and the buyer on the phone. And they’re just kind of zooming through, and they’re telling them what to do. So I think virtual showings and think about the reasons the urgency is one, we’re seeing a lot of people transitioning from different areas. You know, if I’m in California, and I’m looking for a home in Chicago, I might not be in Chicago, I have to look at this thing virtually. And people are not afraid to write an offer by home without physically going into the home anymore. It’s it’s a common place. When I first got into real estate, I remember I had a guy from Hawaii call me and say, hey, you know, and remember how you would send pictures through email, or they’re taking pictures. And I’m emailing him, like, you know, so people bought homes, they’ve always bought homes without physically seeing them. And this guy’s you know, came back love to my home, it’s on the water. It was great. You know, now, that’s commonplace, you know, so you’re in and there’s also the people because of COVID. They’re, they’re afraid to meet in person, they would rather you be virtual. So I think that’s one area of technology in and I’ll kind of go through this. I mean, if you think about showing time, I was around when showing time kind of got started before showing time. Every agent, either called their listing their listing and said, hey, you know, Sally’s gonna come see the home tomorrow at three is that okay? You know, or they had somebody in their office that was doing it. And I can remember the fear at that time. Well, if I don’t call my client, I’m gonna lose connection, right? I’m not, they’re not gonna like me anymore. They’re gonna think I’m lazy. But now we don’t none of us call our clients and go, Hey, you got to show up at three o’clock. I mean, unless you got I mean, I won’t say nobody. But it’s, it’s their right come up with an automated way to do it. I when I first got into the business, only teams had TCS or transaction coordinators, right? The bigger super busy agents are, and they would take care of four or five different agents. But now like, I couldn’t imagine doing a transaction without a transaction coordinator. When when I my business used to be like this, it was I would sell four or five homes and a month, six homes, and then the next month it would crash because I’m trying to close those things, right? Oh,

D.J. Paris 34:09
I don’t think signatures Yeah, all of that.

Matt Kuchar 34:14
It’s inefficient, you know. So now you can hire a transaction coordinator. And they take that stuff. So you can keep marketing, you can keep networking, doing the things that you like to do the parts of your business that are effective, and you’ve offloaded that. I mean, how many of us take our own professional photos? Nobody. Everything is kind of segmented out inspections, all of that stuff. That’s one of the other things that we’re looking at is even having agents some companies are starting to there’s a company called inspect to fire the relatively new but they’re using agents to get the access to the homes for the inspector. You know, sense it makes sense. What is that the best use of your time to go sit there at a house. And, you know, in fact, I was talking with an agent today who said their broker told them, they are not to be at the inspection. Because the liability, you could say something that could get us into trouble hot smart mix. That was that was their broker. You No, but

D.J. Paris 35:19
I understand that that that philosophy is is not unsound. Yeah,

Matt Kuchar 35:23
yep, yep. So an open houses, we’re working on an open house to where you could hire an agent to do an open house, you don’t have to necessarily be there. I think there’s, the business is becoming more and more segmented, you’re right. And we can take the bits and pieces that we like, and work to our strengths. And the parts that we’re not necessarily good at or are inefficient. We have other other people do that for us.

D.J. Paris 35:51
When I’m just thinking to back to what you said of everything you said I loved. But I was really thinking about from a customer perspective, how great it would have been for me now I’m I’m a broker, I don’t practice real estate myself. But I represented myself on a transaction recently. And I just got very lucky with the first place, I saw that I purchased a place, it just happened to be the right place. So I got very, very lucky. But I would have been even though I should be excited to go see 20 Homes And Get, I would have been like, Oh my God, I don’t have time, I don’t want to do that. I just My first thought is go to the virtual, or go to the, you know, the take a look at the photos, look at the video, see, you know, see if there is a mater port or something where I can, you know, do a little video tour. But I just thought you know, wow, how awesome would that be? I would think most and I don’t know, I get I don’t have any data to back this up. But I would think a good percentage of the public because you talked about doing virtual showings. I mean, I’m thinking if I’m an agent, and I’m working with buyers, and I can hire somebody for you know what, under $50, let’s say or $50, at most, to another agent to go do a virtual showing and save my client the time to say, hey, I want you to just take a quick look, maybe they scheduled five of those. So what that’d be like $250. Think about what your time is worth per hour. And that might think God $250, I’m already, you know, having to spend other money for other, it’s like, that’s a good use of money, in my opinion. And you know that people love looking at virtual tours. And so the idea that they’re going to be doing it live, you know, via FaceTime, or zoom, they go in, they immediately they’re going to know within five minutes, you’ve saved them time. And they’re gonna go, Hey, I do want to go see that. And that case, the agent goes, Great, I’ll get you back to your agent, he’ll take care of it, you know, or maybe that person will do the real showing later, whatever. So I wonder how I bet you have some agents who use your platform to just schedule a bunch of virtual showings and say, let me know. And it’s, it’s so worth it. To spend that money just like it’s worth it to spend a few $100 on professional photography, sure, you could do it yourself, and maybe you’re good at it. But it’s certainly going to take you a couple an hour or two. And then you have to edit photos. And maybe it’s or transaction coordinator that’s, you know, I don’t know, three $400? Well, gosh, you know, I would sure not like to have to chase you know, that kind of stuff, Chase paperwork. So you’re really onto something huge. And you’ve been around for some time. And I love the fact that it’s gaining momentum and steam. I’m a big, big fan of this, this platform. So I do want to ask because I always forget to do this. We always ask our guests to, you know, send us some like interesting stories they’ve had in real estate that are kind of unrelated to what we’re talking about. But just to sort of break up, you know, and have some fun. You got to tell me the story. And I know this is kind of a big, long story, but it’s a good one. I want to hear about the sort of the fraudulent scenario that that’s why this is an amazing story. Please share it if you’re willing to.

Matt Kuchar 39:04
Sure, sure. So I was my I was doing a lot of advertising and in Florida, and the lady who was selling me the advertising came to me one day and said, Hey, I’ve got three homes for you to sell. Like oh, great. She’s like, the only thing is that are there underwater. I’m like, okay, you know, she’s like, Yeah, I just bought them. And she kind of told me the story that this this this guy had come to her as a mortgage broker investor, and he found six for sale by owners. He he basically sold her this package where she bought all six homes. And you know, he padded in the downpayment, this was back when we had no money down and stuff like that interest only loans. Yeah, he fished them to six different lenders he closed the he had the closing scheduled between Christmas and New Years. So there was there wasn’t going to be any, you know, big oversight or, you know, upper level management really watching these things. So what this lady had done is, you know, she got kind of caught up what I thought she got caught up in this scam. And so he in each one, and I was able to look at them later. Well, what he Well, let me tell you what He had promised her, I’ll manage these, I’m gonna put renters in them, you’re gonna make lots of money and all this stuff. And so he he she closed on all four during all six of them during that time. And repped both sides of the deal. He ran both sides of the deal. No other real estate agents were involved at all. They were for sale by owner and it was, you know, this lady, right? So totally. Nobody knew what this guy was doing. Then what he does is he gets renters in there, it gets their security deposits, they start paying rent, he never pays the mortgage or does anything he keeps all of the money keeps the rent keeps their security deposit. And six months later, he basically skips out of town. And all of a sudden she could she never made a single payment. And they’re all foreclosing otter. So I felt bad for the group. I’m like, Oh my gosh, this is terrible. You totally got scammed and all this stuff. And so we were able to short sale three of them and the other three ended up getting foreclosed. Dude, like a year later, I see her picture in the newspaper where she had been arrested for fraud. She was part of the deal the whole time. I mean, I was like line and sinker thinking like I’m helping this poor lady out and you know, and all this stuff. She was part of it.

D.J. Paris 41:42
Wow, that’s yeah, they were they were in cahoots. But you but you. There’s one part that Matt didn’t mention, but he had written us to it. I just want to mention this. This is even crazier. So solar six homes, Matt figured out, because he was a mortgage broker. And he was representing, you know, the real estate transaction on both sides. It was about $60,000 of commission on each sale.

Matt Kuchar 42:06
On every single one. He had fees he had the mortgage was maxed the real estate commissions were like 15%. I mean, it was

Unknown Speaker 42:14
oh my gosh, that is saying, wow, it had just passed only it probably,

D.J. Paris 42:21
you know, she wasn’t paying that. Well, she was in on it, I guess to some degree as well. But that is oh my gosh, that is an unbelievable story. Yeah. Well, those, hopefully those days are long over where? And you said What’s great is I guess not great. But what’s what’s sort of smart about it is he did it between Christmas and New Year where there isn’t as much oversight. And he did it with what six different lenders. So the lenders, they didn’t know what was going on at the

Matt Kuchar 42:49
no, none of the sellers knew each other. Right? They’re all different sellers. the only the only the buyer was one buyer, right? And that’s probably what kicked off the FBI, you know, that she was in on it. You know, it’s like, okay, but I mean, there was there was a time when you could buy five homes down here for $5,000. You know, put $1,000 down on each one and you’d own a million dollars worth of real estate. Oh, is. That’s why it crashed in 2006. You know, it was

D.J. Paris 43:17
it was? What what? So she ended up? Did they ever catch him? And then did she ever end up going to okay, they

Matt Kuchar 43:24
caught you went to jail? I don’t think she got as much time as he did. He went to like, big, big boy prison. But I would imagine, I think she just got like a year or something like that and off on probation and six months. But yeah, I saw that. And I’m like, Oh, okay. But yeah, I had no idea. I’m just helping this lady short sale, some homes, but it was it was mortgage fraud. And at a big scale. That’s it. And he and well, he had he had done this not only in Fort Myers, but he had done it in Tampa he had Oh sure, like four or five other places. So he banked a couple million dollars, but in the end, he paid for it.

D.J. Paris 44:00
Yeah, if you’re gonna if you’re gonna run that kind of scam, I think you gotta like just leave the country, change your identity, and never say, you know, basically say goodbye to your family and say, I’m just gonna live somewhere in a foreign country that you’ll never know where and but that is, that is an unbelievable story. Well, I’m glad that that, that that didn’t, you know, in any way reflect on you, of course, because you wouldn’t have known anything. And it’s funny too, because agents do get, you know, those kinds of scenarios happen where all of a sudden, you know, like the other agent will run off with the earnest money or, I mean, it happens and it’s so bizarre and you think gosh, I mean, maybe with this guy you sort of understand why he banked a couple million dollars I guess, you know, not a bad score. If you’re if you’re a thief, but if you’re just you know, pulling 10 grand out if someone’s you know, earnest money and running away it’s like that’s, that seems like a really bad decision for a little bit of money. But But yeah, back to back to show me not not to end on such a To goofy note, but, but Xiaomi is such a cool service. So for anyone out there who’s listening, who maybe wants some more experience, doing showings and make a few dollars along the way, like, this is a great opportunity and not just gave you a bunch of good reasons to sign up. And the money, of course, is nice, but also just being able to get experience and also be able to create content for social media, and just learn how to talk to people and learn how to listen to them, especially as they’re going through and, and I think it is such a great opportunity. So if there are agents that want to either sign up to be, you know, the show, or or, or the person who wants to hire these kinds of agents, where do they go just show on me.com? Or they can download also the app on the App Store, the Apple App Store as well as Google Play?

Matt Kuchar 45:51
Yep, it’s on all it’s on all three. And we have a lot of agents who do both that yeah, sometimes they need help. Sometimes they help others. You know, it’s, it’s, I mean, that’s how I am like, I still will dabble and do a couple of deals with friends and relatives, and people at church. But that’s, you know, that’s what I do. I’ll I’ll sometimes I’ll still pick up a shot, because I want I want to experience what everybody else is going through, right? I want to know, the glitches, I want to know the bugs, you know, and but no, it’s it’s been, it’s been wonderful. It’s been the growth has been incredible. And so we’re really, really encouraged. And it’s mostly word of mouth. And when we do a little bit of advertising, but, you know, it’s mostly one agent going like, Hey, why are you posting this on our Facebook page? What just go to mommy, you know,

D.J. Paris 46:39
yeah, it’s really great. And I encourage all of our listeners, this is a perfect thing to do on a day off, too, when you’re just like, you know, I have nothing going on today, I’m going to, you know, check show up, I’m going to sign up and make sure I’m available and and check to see if there’s anyone that needs my help. Because, gosh, you know, we know in this business, when you’re not working, you’re probably not earning income. And so this is a great way to earn some income, get experience, and just stay busy. staying busy is so important. So I absolutely am a huge fan. And I really support you guys. And I’m excited to watch you continue to grow. And I’m going to introduce it to our 800 agents who absolutely need it, because we’re doing it through a pretty inefficient way as well, which is agent goes to our Facebook group, which is just for our brokers and says, Hey, I need a blah, blah, blah, I need a showing. And here’s what I’m willing to pay. And, and yeah, people do respond usually. But you know, it might take a couple hours, it might take a few moments, a few minutes. It’s not predictable. And it’s not really all that reliable. Because how many people are really going in and checking a certain Facebook group all day every day. I mean, I don’t even check our Facebook group several times a day, and I’m one of the administrators on it. And so I know if I’m not doing it, our agents are living and dying by our Facebook group either. But that’s the best way they know to communicate with our agents right now. And so this is a really a great alternative that allows you just more flexibility, you can get things done faster. And for a really super reasonable price. I love it. So everyone got

Matt Kuchar 48:10
it, we got a brokerage solution, too. So what basically the brokerage solution within it is we created a group write much like you have your Facebook group, and all the requests go to people within that group, before it would go out to the general public. So we give them a 10 minute lead, before it would go out to any other agents. And if somebody’s like, hey, I want to keep mine just totally closed, we can do that. But it works best. We’ve got some really big brokerages that are doing this in Denver down in Miami, in Tennessee, that, you know, their whole office has signed up on it. And you know, it makes it a little bit more efficient. But if nobody picks it up, it still gets picked up by somebody. And that’s really what you want. And that’s

D.J. Paris 48:53
really smart too. Because if you did say, Well, I want you know, I want to find somebody that will do the showing. But ideally, it would be somebody from my own office, which just helps with continuity and makes a little bit easier to explain to a customer. So there are brokerage solutions. And so if you are a managing broker, or if you have a firm, and you have a lot of agents where this stuff comes up, and if you have more than I would say 50 agents, this is something that you probably need, or maybe even less than that I just picked that number out of random but I know we have 800 and agents and we definitely need it so we’ll be reaching out to to learn that it’s free everyone, it’s

Matt Kuchar 49:28
gonna charge you anything for it. Yes.

D.J. Paris 49:32
Wonderful. Well, we know we’re big, we’re big fans and and so everyone go out and check out show me that’s sh o w ami.com. We support it. We love it. We love anything that you basically you build a better mousetrap. And I love people who go out and do that. And you know this. This is an industry where there’s a million different technology providers all competing in various spaces, and I haven’t yet seen this particular solution and I I always love seeing people, innovators who come up with like a really cool idea. It’s something that I wish I would have come up with. But you did. And I applaud you for it. So everyone, go visit Swami. And I want to thank our Matt on behalf of our audience for spending time with us today, talking about Swami and just sort of how to think about your real estate business as a business. Think of it as a CEO. Because you’re, you’re a worker bee most of the time in this business, and that’s okay. But you know, think about how do I remove some of the worker bee status from my my official title so that I can do more with the business and show me a good good help with that. So thanks, Matt. And on behalf of Matt and myself, we want to thank our audience for continuing to listen and support our show. Easiest way to help us continue to grow. Just tell one friend think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing from this, but interviews like the one we just did, right when we just did with Matt, and send them a link to our website. best, easiest way to listen to our show. It’s keeping it real pod.com. This is anyone who’s maybe not even a podcast listener, they can stream every episode right there. Or if they are a podcast listener, just have them pull up a podcast app and search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. Matt, thank you so so much, and we will see everybody on the next episode.

Jonathan Spears with Scenic, Sotheby’s International Realty and DJ discuss the value of teams and how being a part of a team brings value. Jonathan emphasizes the importance of providing value to your clients in their path to a $1B business. Next, Jonathan talks about being passionate and finding your niche are your pathways to success. Last, Jonathan discusses how he built relationships with developers and also how to establish a presence in your market.

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

Jonathan Spears can be reached at 850.974.1761.

If you’d like to listen to Jonathan’s previous interview with us, click here.

This episode is brought to you by Follow Up Boss. Get your 30 day trial by clicking here.

D.J. Paris 0:00
Today’s episode is brought to you by thumbs up. Here’s a cool fact 50% of consumers rely on their social network to help them make purchasing decisions. So let me ask you, how many more referrals and great leads would your business receive if all your happy customers took the time to post their experiences and endorse your business on social media to all their connections? Well, I’ve got great news thumbs up does just that. Thumbs up is a referral system designed to help businesses leverage their customers social media with almost no hassle. With thumbs up, you can create a personalized post for your customer, allowing them in two easy clicks to celebrate their new purchase or service while endorsing your business to all their connections. Your post becomes their post and all of their friends and family can see your hard work through your customers eyes. And even better thumbs up is offering keeping it real listeners 50% off for your first two months visit, get a thumbs up.com forward slash keeping it real and the offer code will automatically be applied at checkout. Again, that’s good a thumbs up.com forward slash keeping it real thumbs up referrals without asking. And now onto our show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show. And today we have a returning guest, Jonathan Spears coming back to the show to announce a major very impressive milestone that he and his group, just a hit and he wants to talk about it and how he got there so that you can hopefully do the same. So in just a moment, we’ll be speaking with Jonathan. But before we get to him, just a couple of quick reminders. Number one, please tell a friend about our show, the best way you can help us is to tell someone else. So let them know about what we do here, especially if they’re a realtor looking to grow their business. And also if you have a few moments and you’re listening to us on iTunes, leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show. It helps our rankings and just helps us know what’s working and also what we can do to improve. But let’s enough about that. Let’s get to the main man here, Jonathan spears.

Today on the show, we have a returning guest. In fact, I think our only returning interview guest we’ve had since we started the show and we’re now over 300 episodes, but this is pretty exciting for us. Because we have Jonathan spears of the spears group coming back to the show with Scenic Sotheby’s International Realty he is in his group is in Northwest Florida. Let me tell you about Jonathan, if you don’t remember from our first episode, and by the way, if you haven’t heard the first episode, we’ll post a link to it in the show notes. But you should go back and listen because we we thought Jonathan and his brother Caleb are such amazing guests that we wanted to bring them back. So Jonathan’s with us today, but let me tell you about Jonathan. He’s an entrepreneur at heart, and he considers his greatest achievement to deliver exemplary service and keen expertise, as Jonathan helps his customers achieve their real estate goals. Motivated by a strong work ethic and a true passion for the real estate business. He has developed an extensive knowledge of the Northwest Florida real estate market, and he puts that knowledge to work for his customers securing the best deal for his buyers and highest sales price for customers selling their luxury properties. To date, he has closed over 1 billion in career sales. And the spirits group was well actually I was gonna have him read these but I’m gonna read them for him because they’re part of part of the reason that he’s here is to really highlight how successful his team has become, but they are now the spirits group was just recently named the number one medium sized real estate team in Florida, and the number 11 in the group in the United States as published by The Wall Street Journal, and Jonathan graduated from Florida State University at 19, which is also amazing. With a bachelor’s in business administration. He devotes the same uncompromising dedication and work ethic to his customers in every transaction, please visit the spirits group on their website which is Spears group fl.com. Again, Spears Group F l.com. And also follow them on Instagram. There’s two places you can find them on Instagram. The first is at spirits group. The second is Jonathan’s personal one, which is at Jonathan M as in Mary Jonathan M. Spears, follow them on Instagram Jonathan, welcome once again and I took away Some of your your thunder, and I know you’re a super humble guy anyway. But that is super exciting. So congratulations on those milestones.

Jonathan Spears 5:07
Yeah, I know. Thank you so much. Um, first of all, I’m honored, I didn’t realize one of the very few people who’s been invited back. So

D.J. Paris 5:15
you’re the only one that’s had a we have we have regular guests on the show, who are part of regular segments. But we’ve never had a guest come back for our second a second appearance. So we’re really excited to have you. And so thank you. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.

Jonathan Spears 5:32
No, no, not at all. No. Well, first of all, I’m honored. And you know, very glad to be here. Always a good time. We were just talking, you know, pre interview just how much fun it is to get on here and just have a conversation. So thank you for having me. And yes, yeah, no, we’re super excited. I think Inman actually dropped the news about our team, surpassing $1 billion in sales volume. And that’s over the last five years, which I’m immensely proud, I think, you know, 29, I turned 30. So I’m starting to like, there’s no midlife crisis happening. But I had these very specific goals, you know, going into my 30th year of life, and that was, I wanted to hit a billion dollars in career sales. And not only do we hit it, we hit it about mid year, but we’ve already surpassed it by 150 million. So we’re almost at $1.2 billion in sales and counting. And we’re just so thankful to serve not only Northwest Florida market, but you know, second home markets around the country. And, you know, I’ve got an incredible team incredible, you know, folks around me that have not only been so supportive, but you know, integral in this success. So anyways, I’m very glad to be here and excited to talk about it.

D.J. Paris 6:49
Yeah, I want to just talk a little bit, say something that Jonathan said, again, this is pre pre interview, where we were just chatting before we went on and, and he said something, and I remember him saying this, I believe the first time we had him on, which I think is really indicative of his that the fact that he is this become the successful, so young, he said something that not all of our guests say, and I’m not here to criticize any we love all of our guests, but he said something that I love. And when guests do ask this particular question, I always get excited, because it’s no surprise to me that he asked this, but I’m grateful that he did, which was he said, Hey, before we get on, what could I say? That would be the what can I talk about that would be of the most value to your audience. And I think that is a reflection, you know, on how you most likely treat your customers and clients as well. Because, you know, you want to provide value. And there’s, this is something you’re doing as a way of giving back to the community. I imagine you treat your clients, you know, with that same attitude. So I just wanted to honor you for even asking that question. And again, you know, really, really great. And so I think, you know, if I were to answer that on behalf of our audience, which I hope I’m asking the right question, which is a very simple one, but probably a complicated one to answer a simple question with a complicated answer, which is, how did you do that? How did you get to a billion in sales? And I think maybe what we can sort of break that down into components, but maybe we could start here, and I’m sort of throwing this at you without adding no bringing, let’s talk about teams, because I know that every realtor probably has had this thought they’ve had this sort of, should I join a team? Should I be my own solo practitioner? Can we talk a little bit about the value of teams and how you think that positions, your spirit group, and maybe how that helps you win business versus people who are doing it just individually? And not to criticize those media? Of course, but but maybe the value of of what a team brings? And and how that just assists you guys?

Jonathan Spears 9:01
Yeah, most definitely will. First of all, thank you for, for sharing that. And, you know, when we were having our discussion before we hit live as well. I had said something about there’s no magic pill to equal success, right? Like, you know, there’s no get rich quick, there’s no, you know, overnight, sell a billion dollars, I mean, that,

D.J. Paris 9:23
well, then this is over and we have no no Right.

Jonathan Spears 9:29
Right. To sit here and say, you know, there’s an app, you can download it, it’s instant. It’s easy, it’s to go, you know, but the reality is, is I’ve spent, you know, 11 years of my life on this thing, you know, I’ve I’ve, I’ve really put in so much time and effort to create systems and processes and really found and when we talk about team structure, I’ve found people that not only compliment me, but I’m able to compliment them. So it always goes back to how are we Providing value whether we’re selling real estate, whether we’re in healthcare sales, whether we are, you know, serving someone to Chick fil A Right? Like it in any industry in any business. First of all, what’s your experience? How am I making you feel? And then what type of value am I providing? I was literally in our team meeting today. And, you know, we’ve got such an incredible team, I’ve got a total agents that work alongside me, and we’re discussing, how do we prospect right, like, if we’re picking up the phone or calling different neighborhoods or, you know, we’re calling a seller or, you know, maybe we’re just reaching out and saying, Hey, we just sold a significant property, want to make sure you know about it? Anyway, we reach out to somebody, it needs to be in an effort to provide value not in an effort to, you know, let me hurry up and get your number. Let me let me get your email. So I can put you on an email list that provides zero value to you. Now, how are we most relevant and positioning ourselves to assist our customers and when we assist people at a high level, and there’s so many wonderful agents I know, that are a 100% referral based business and we’ll kind of dig into my business. And you know, how we’ve grown it to a billion dollar company. But, you know, all of that is predicated on what type of value am I bringing to the table and, you know, in this age of of Zillow, and realtor.com, and what I call real estate transparency, meaning there’s so much transparency, not only about what’s available, but also what’s sold in most markets. You know, it used to be like, let’s say, pre Oh, seven before we had smartphones, right? When we thought blackberries and palm pilots were the smartest thing out there. We didn’t have this access to information like we have today. And I say we as a consumer, if I go into your market in Chicago, I’m going to be able to get a lot of information right here, more so than you know, has ever been available before. Why do I need a real estate agent? You know, why not go through an eye buying process? You know, what, what are we doing is is agents that create value. And, you know, from my team standpoint, we really focused on becoming advisors, you know, knowing our market knowing the nuances at lunch right before this, I was talking to an absolute superstar agent in my office. Her name’s Lita Broxson. And she was explaining to me how a customer called her and asked her Hey, where do I take my recycling? Like, I’m a, we work in second home markets. I’m a second home buyer. I’ve been here two days, and I literally the plastics like, you know, flowing out of my trash can, what do I do? And just being able to have that answer have that, you know, great restaurant recommendation have that, you know, this is the best school and this is you need to call for your kids to get in and you know, to interview. I mean, those types of things are value adds, you know, there are reasons that people work with us. So, I know I’ve given you a very long winded answer. But when we talk about building a billion dollar business, it’s predicated on value. And I think everything we do needs to be a value added needs to be about creating value with somebody else and not about, you know, how do we get further? How do we propel further?

D.J. Paris 13:07
I think that it’s such a good answer. And it’s really a question. And it’s an answer, that’s a question that can be repeatedly asked, all the way through a transaction with a client. And it’s probably the best question at least in from, that I can think of. So I appreciate you sharing it, that at every step of the process, buying, selling, renting whatever real estate transaction, you are constantly saying how am I providing value? And I think that is is a question. I’m curious, do you ever check in with your buyers, sellers, you know, your client to make sure that they’re receiving value? And you maybe you don’t say those words to them? Or maybe you do? But how do you sort of calibrate that to make sure that the client is in fact getting the value that they want? Are you guys really intentional about talking to them and finding out? Obviously, you’re going to know what they want to buy or sell, but the emotional part of it? Or how are you checking in with them to make sure that you’re giving them what they need?

Jonathan Spears 14:11
Yeah. So I think first of all, making sure that you get feedback from a customer after transaction is everything right? Like sometimes you get good, bad and ugly, and really is the ugly, where we learn the most, you know, the good is great, we want to see the good, but if there’s something that we’re doing that we can get better at, we always reach out to our customers later and we say hey, you know, tell us about your experience, and most of them are, you know, they’re raving fans, right? Like that’s our goal is to create the raving fan, but for me, and especially in our businesses spirit group, typically we’ve got 42% of our customers that come back and purchase so almost one out of every two is either referral based business or you know, it’s it’s repeat and I think When I was early on in my career, I sought out customers that were doing repeat business, whether that’s developers or, you know, families that like to buy and sell. I call them Mom and Pop developers, because at some point, their business models, right high frequency, a transaction is typically an investor mindset. And so one way that we’ve built, the multi multi multi million dollar business that we have today is by doing a high frequency of transactions with the same people, the only way to achieve that for somebody to to, you know, be willing to give you that vote of confidence, is by delivering not only excellent service, but you know, that high value proposition and how are you able to take, let’s just say, an investor group that, let’s call it $10 million, they want to deploy in your market, how are we able to take that 10 million and turn it into more, and I think, you know, markets move so quickly, in every market so nuanced, and is on a micro basis, you really kind of have to peel back the layers and, you know, get good at new development. And for me, like, that’s my specialty, it’s a forte, it’s something that I I love, I fall asleep at night designing floor plans in my mind, just because I love it. And not that it puts me to sleep, I usually have to, you know, add to get that out. But for, for us and for my team, we realized very quickly that in order to achieve the goals that we wanted, we had to do something different. And part of that was creating in tooling, a business model that worked best for us. And, you know, I’m really proud, you know, year to date, we’ve closed just over $360 million in business, you know, we’re on track to eclipse 400, here in mid q4, and then some so you know, we’re just, we’re beyond excited, you know, very honored and humbled to get to work with incredible individuals across this market and beyond. And so being in that advisor role has really opened up opportunities to not only advise here in Northwest Florida, we’re doing business outside in other states, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

D.J. Paris 17:09
Yeah, you talk about working with developers. And I think that’s sort of a neat place to sort of have a conversation because I know here in the Chicagoland market, and we have about 44,000 or so Realtors here in our market. And it seems to be an I am somewhat ignorant to all of the real estate developments that are going up, of course, but I know some of them and I certainly drive past some of them. And it seems to be that when I can see a realtors name attached to a project if it’s on like the Coming Soon sign and it lists the development group and you know, the various sort of partners that are going to make that happen. And then it might even say represented by and it has the realtors name, it tends to be like the same dozen or so Realtors here in the Chicagoland area. Now I’m sure there’s more than that. But it seems to be there’s a small chunk of them that really built a name for themselves. And what you said was very smart, too, which is, hey, we work with investors and developers, because of course, there’s a repeat business there. And that’s a really intelligent way to think about how do I prospect because of course, we know that buyers and sellers transact What is it on average about maybe every seven years, you know, for a, you know, a person who has multiple homes, you know, for somebody who just has one primary residence. So I was just curious that I was thinking, and I know there isn’t, again, a magic bullet answer to this. But how did you start to develop relationships with develop? I’m sorry, for the sake develop twice. But how did you find developers? And what was that value that that you started providing to them?

Jonathan Spears 18:47
Yeah, so really, it’s passion, right? Like, you know, even as a young kid, right? My parents would always get mad at me, we go to a restaurant and I wanted steak and lobster. And they’re like, you’re not i you need to first of all, you need to look at the kids menu. Second of all, chicken fingers sounds a lot better. And you know, what are you doing? And I just, I gravitated towards the finer things. And for me, it’s just because I love it. Right? I love a beautiful watch. I love a beautiful vehicle and real estate and architecture is something that I kind of gravitate towards. And really, it’s the high quality aspects. So when I first started prospecting developers, I was gravitating towards the highest quality developer. And you know, of course, that sounds so cliche, because everybody in the market wants to work with the best developer, but not everybody in the market can realize, you know, what, who in the market is developing at the highest level and how can I add value to that individual? You know, one of my first and still to this day best I call him, he’s a business partner. He didn’t start out that way, but I gravitated towards this endeavor. if you will, because I saw a business model that was so incredible and fantastic that I had to share it. Like I just wanted to talk to everybody that I met about this incredible business model, an amazing way to not only Park money but to invest money. And, you know, he designed and built these beautiful, beautiful houses where you see one of his homes, and it just stood out so clearly in the market. And, you know, I don’t know that he had great representation at the time, there were two new homes that were being built. And I just crawled up and on, you know, of course, us real estate agents, we’ve got keys to everything, right, like, we don’t need anything other than a business card to go and trespass. So I did, I did a little trespassing and got a warm introduction, it wasn’t a complete cold call, and just started a conversation and let them know how much I appreciate it, what he was doing, being able to articulate the details of what he was doing. And it was interesting, like, as somebody in that positions starts to survey, okay, I’m getting close to completion on a great product, I need to go ahead and, you know, either plan to list this, or whatever I’m going to do with it, I need to have a plan for when you get in front of that individual, and you’re able to get them excited about their own product. I think that that’s, you know, not only a gift, but it’s birthed out of passion. So that’s how I first started prospecting developers, I was just genuinely passionate about the product. I don’t know that I really had an agenda when I was there originally other than just to chat about, hey, you just built the most incredible pool I’ve ever seen. You know, I’ve never seen anything like that. And I don’t think anybody in the market has and not just this market, but the Florida market. You know, tell me why? What made you do this, you know, let’s, let’s get you talking about the product that you’ve just put blood sweat and tears in. And make sure that you know that I empathize and appreciate what you’ve done. And I think that that’s a really, really good springboard for anybody listening. If you’ve got products in your market that you know you love, let’s, let’s say it’s not new development, maybe it’s a specific neighborhood or a specific corridor. And truly like you eat at those restaurants all the time that are in that neighborhood, you know, you know, the best yoga class to go to, and maybe it’s a great CrossFit gym, or you know, all the details that make that area so special, I would gravitate towards it, if you love it go after it. It doesn’t have to be, you know, the multi multimillion dollar house, maybe it is. But maybe it’s a mid level neighborhood or you’re serving military veterans, and you’ve got an incredible niche to serve the military. And you know, these guys, they really need somebody who understands the market because they’re only there for a short amount of time. And just being able to find a niche in the market is so important. And for me, it was new development, it was luxury homes, but you could replicate that specific business model, in any aspect at any level of the market. And really one that meets your personal interests. And if you’re not, if you’re going after it just for money, like hey, I just want to make the most money. Like that’s all I care about. You’re gonna first of all, find it’s very empty, it’s not satisfying. And you’re gonna start breathing what I call commission breath, and I can tell you, thanks, it’s NASA do it.

D.J. Paris 23:14
I love that that is so that it’s so funny commission breath. We we used to call that back when I was a financial advisor a million years ago, tie touching people that would walk around and nervously touch their tie with their hands because we all wear suits back then. Because all they wanted was to close the sale. And that was just how they Yeah, or you know, but but passion going back to passion. It’s so it’s so interesting. I if finding your niche is the best advice. And again, I’m not a producing agent myself. So I probably the last person to give advice from bout everyone we’ve interviewed on the show. Passion is, is is universal, it seems I have yet to interview somebody. And again, maybe it’s people who reach out to us who want to be on the show have passion to begin with. But there seems to be a strong positive correlation between passion and success. And I think what you said was so profound, which is so simple, but it’s this idea of appreciation that whatever you’re into, in particular like with with being in the real estate market, and maybe it’s luxury, maybe it’s starter homes, maybe it’s people getting away from renting and buying or maybe it’s people who have a primary residence who now you want to talk about passive income and maybe it’s time to invest into multifamily and, you know, and just whatever it is that’s or maybe it’s renting, maybe you’re passionate about renting, that’s okay too, whatever it is. I think I think that’s you’re so right is and then getting curious about the people that are successful in that space and showing that appreciation to those people and going How did you think to do that and what why and and how and, and I think I just saw a I should post this on our Facebook page and I will Hopefully, if I remember to, but I just saw an agent here in our local market does not work for me, works for a big, big, larger company. And it was the very best YouTube ad I’ve ever seen for realtor wanting business, and it was just and I’m a marketer, that’s what I Yeah. So I saw this and I was like, Holy crap, that is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. And usually I’m very critical of, and I’m sure you’re critical of luxury properties and the things you’re into. So you have a very discerning eye. And whenever you see something that’s really impressive, you know it and you know, the person they know, too. Yeah. And so I sent this to this guy who I’ve never met and, and look, I’m a recruiter, I recruit realtors, and I didn’t want him to think I was recruiting because he’s never gonna come over here. He’s he could go anywhere he wants, he’s happy where he is. But I wanted to show him the appreciation. And so I just sent him a quick email like, Hey, you, I don’t know if you know me or not, but I just saw your YouTube ad. I don’t know if anyone’s commented on it. But because there hadn’t been any comments on the YouTube thing itself. And I said, I just want to tell you as a marketer, that’s the very best thing I’ve ever seen. And I just love good marketing. And I just wanted to tell you that whoever you hired to do that, Oh, my God, that’s incredible. And he wrote me back a really nice message. He was like, Thanks, you’re the first person to comment on it. And it really means a lot to me, you know? And again, is that going to transfer to any business for me? No, absolutely not. Who knows, you know, you never know what’s going to happen. But showing that appreciation, at the very least, is goodwill that’s generated. But oftentimes, you know, same thing, if you go to a good restaurant, you know, talk to the owner and say, I just want to let you know that was in or send them an email, or write them a nice review or or whatever. But you’re so right, that finding something you’re passionate about, I know, Joe Nago, who, if for those of you that are Brian Buffini people, Brian and Joe have been sort of business partners. And everyone knows Brian Buffini. But Joe Diego is somebody who speaks at a lot of his events. And Joe was an ex NBA player, I believe, at or college player at the least. And he he was into like, modest starter homes. That was his niche, and he became insanely successful. Because, yeah, that’s what that was, he was into his, like, his average home was like $115,000, or something. And that’s what he loved. And he became that guy. And he became, you know, crazy successful. So I think that is such a great tip. And I apologize, I want to go back to groups and teams, because I keep getting away from that. Ya know, I want to ask about how somebody may want to think about selecting a team, if you’re an individual, real estate realtor, and you’re not working with a team, and you’re like, Oh, I’m thinking about doing that. What would you advise somebody to do as far as how to find the right fit? And even if they should be doing that,

Jonathan Spears 27:44
right? Well, again, passion for certain segments of the market creates curiosity, like you said earlier, when you become curious about certain segments of the market, you may start finding market leaders, and you had mentioned on new development in Chicago, I keep seeing the same 10 to 12 names. Yeah, it’s because you know, the top 10% of agents do 90% of the business and you want to you want to if you’re if there’s 10 agents who are doing 90% of the business, there’s a certain market segment and share that you may be going after, that’s where I would start, you know, and then I’d find beyond that, where’s my cultural alignment. So then you may have an intense passion for giving back to the community and great charitable giving and on top of your business, like that’s where your heart is. And there may be an agent that aligns with you there or you know, there may be a specific company like Sotheby’s International Realty and you want to plug into that company, you feel like that’s maybe, you know, the best platform for you. That’s opportunity for you. Those are the avenues that I would start at and really kind of back into who do I want to be. So if I’m business planning right now, you what you should be if everybody who’s on this call has not already started thinking about 2022, it is q4, this year is about to wrap up, and we are looking ahead to the next year. But I would be looking at, you know, who am I going to fit in well with and where can I create value for somebody else? See, when I started I started basically in the mailroom, you know, I worked for a foreclosure factory in 2010. I was 18 years old, had just gotten licensed. I know that there’s an oil spill going on in California, so it’s a little touchy. But we had an oil spill here along the Gulf Coast, which then it was devastating. Like we were already down on the ground from the Great Recession. And you know, we were getting another kick in the chest from a natural disaster that nobody had control over. So, you know, I really started kind of like in the bowels of real estate and I would not change that for the world. I feel like it was the most incredible and it was still a paid education even though I was working 80 hours a week for a fixed salary of $400 I was glad to do it. I was learning so much and I was Getting to do something that I really loved. And, you know, I wouldn’t be afraid to roll my sleeves up and, and really kind of dig in, like I meet a lot of people who they may pride themselves on, hey, I don’t write my own contracts, or, you know, my assistant does all of that. And that’s great if you’ve gotten to a level where, and you can hear me speak about this on other podcasts. But, you know, being able to find partners that come alongside you that complement areas of your business that you’re not great at. And you know, that that’s not the most productive use of your time, you become a master delegator, and you delegate those things out, that’s amazing. But when you’re starting out in this business, you want to be a sponge and absorb as much as you possibly can. So maybe I start out as an assistant, like, I’d love to, you know, get an intern into this business and learn as much as I can. One of the best ways to do that is, is work as an executive assistant for somebody. And you may not even be ready to do that, because like, my executive assistant has been licensed in the business for almost eight years. She is just as knowledgeable as I am, and is literally like my right hand. And she doesn’t even live here. She lives in Kansas City. But she operates our business remotely, and it’s phenomenal. But being able to enter into a great team may not look like I’m immediately a licensed agent. So I should be able to go sell, start working on contracts Nestle up to that market leader and you know, provide as much value as you can to them so that you can learn in return. And you may find yourself in an incredible position to grow on a team. That’s another thing I would I would really encourage is if you pick a team, and you’re going this team route, which I’m obviously a huge advocate of, find a team that you can grow in, you know, find a team where your input matters, where you’re bringing value to the table. And you know, there’s a share of voice that, that that’s not just one sided, you know, there’s a symbiotic relationship there. And, you know, make sure you plug in with people that you will enjoy. I spend more time on my team members and I get to spend with my family. You know, inevitably our work day is just all consuming. And so if these guys who are on my right and left weren’t like family to me, and weren’t the people that you know, I chose and want to be around, I certainly wouldn’t be as successful as I am today. So find people that sharpen you find those that are going to increase you in terms of your business, both in your personal life and in your business.

D.J. Paris 32:25
Yeah, I want to pause for just a quick bone because I have some thoughts about that. Before we get to those thoughts. I want to pause to talk just briefly about our wonderful, amazing sponsor follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country on the show, do you know what CRM is used more than any other by our amazing guests? Well, you guessed it is follow up boss, let’s face it. Following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time. With less effort. Don’t take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the US use this follow up boss and he’s built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years, I am sure Jonathan is hot on their tail. But follow up boss integrates with over 250 different systems. So you can keep your current tools and lead sources. Also, they have seven day a week support. So you’ll get the help that you need and get this follow up boss is so sure you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time, they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial, which is twice as much time as they give everyone else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. That’s how confident they are that you’re going to keep using them. But only if you use this special link, which is visit follow up boss.com forward slash real that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial follow up like a boss with follow up boss. Jonathan, I wanted to I had a thought about that. And I wanted to get your opinion on it. Because we’re talking about passion and also trying to find your way within teams. And I my girlfriend recently got licensed and she was said, What company? Should I join and, and I and you know, where should I join a team? And I said well, my advice would be start paying attention to on social media in particular. Because that’s what’s just easiest for her when she has other other responsibilities. I start looking at the realtors on there that you really admire. She listens to the show, we interview some Chicago people, I say, you know if anyone is somebody that you’re like, wow, that person is really cool. Or if you’re out in the field and you’re doing the showing and you meet another agent that’s part of a team or just the agent themselves is really awesome. I go write them a letter or you know, an email or a text or a call and just say, Gosh, I really admire you or maybe there’s somebody that’s, you know, at the very top of the food chain that you don’t even know but but you’re like, wow, that person is amazing. You could always write them a message and say, hey, could I you know, take you out for a cup of coffee. I just want to pick your brain. I’m trying to figure out you know What where, what team? Or what group? Or what firm? Or should I just be on my own? And you You’re, you’re just a real inspiration to me. And I would bet you at least five out of 10 of those people would be honored to take a few minutes to chat with you. So even if, and and, you know, my guess is they’re probably not getting a lot of those kinds of emails or calls, even though you think they are? Probably not. And so I would say that’s too because that, that way you, you avoid a lot of the trial and error because people who have been around long enough, they’re going to say, you know, based on what you’ve told me about yourself, here’s like a couple of good, and let me let me pick up the phone and call some people for you and see if they have openings on their team. So just another little suggested, I’m curious, uh, your, your take on that?

Jonathan Spears 35:45
Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s interesting, you’re right. Like, the the mindset is, oh, my gosh, I’m sure somebody is inundated with any go to coffee with me, Hey, you, you know you do this. So well, that’s so well. You know, it’s funny, I remember I sent I was going to New York City. And I sent Ryan Serhan, an email and I said, Hey, this is who I am, I just I literally had just finished his book, sell it like serhant, which was excellent. And just basically said, if there’s an opportunity to get together, let me know, within about 15 seconds, I had an email back that said, great to hear from you, you know, I’m going to be hosting this event, why don’t you come by, and I highly doubt it was Ryan, I’m sure he’s got somebody scanning for those emails and responding. But I ended up going to the event, meeting him had a great conversation. And you know, those opportunities wouldn’t have happened without what proactively going after it. So don’t be afraid to proactively go after somebody, especially in the real estate world. We are all so busy. And I think we’re we’re kind of customer focused all the time. But what I always tell my team is our customers are not just our clients that we work with day in and day out. But even more, so the CO broker community, and the community at large. So make sure you pay attention. The other advice I would give is maybe when you’re trying to enter into, you know, a brokerage, or you like to, you know, start interviewing certain people, you may start with their CEO, or their CFO, in the company itself. And I can tell you, when my CEO or CFO comes to me and said, Hey, I just had the most amazing meeting with literally somebody who’s gonna blow your socks off, like their their ability to connect, and just let me just tell you all about them, which is rare. But it does happen, my attention span becomes laser focused, because I know that I’ve got wonderful people on my executive team that, you know, they’re paying attention. And if you can get a hold of somebody’s executive team, especially if you’re trying to start at a very high level, that’s really one of the most phenomenal ideas. I’ve got an agent who in spirits group does not hire new agents. You know, we’re looking more for seasoned professionals in our business model. However, last year, we had an agent who reached out to our coo coo said, I’ve got this phenomenal, enthusiastic young guy, you’ve got to meet him, like, he’s, he’s incredible. And, you know, for me, when somebody says, Hey, pay attention that I trust, I’m paying attention. And I ended up meeting this guy. And I just, I was really impressed. And really, to the point where it’s like, okay, I want to take this person under my wing, you know, I really want to, I want to be able to, like, provide value to them, because I think they’re gonna provide an immense amount of value to me, and I’d love to see their career grow very mutual and in the way that we connect it. And, you know, today, that individual is one of the top members of my team and, you know, producing it at levels that I’ve got team members who have been licensed for 20 years out producing them, you know, and they’ve been in the business for what 18 months. So it’s, it’s phenomenal. And, you know, that would be my advice on how to not just prospect but prospect with a purpose.

D.J. Paris 39:11
And also, let’s say you absolutely just couldn’t have taken on that agent because it didn’t maybe fit with where your business was at that time. Let’s say God, as much as I’d love to have that person I just, I just can’t at this point. I bet that you would have known where to send that person to and I bet you would have had some great advice for them. It’s like Hey, I can’t do it. I’d love to have you but it’s just not possible right now. But I want you go over here you need to talk to this guy because I bet you know everyone in your market that that leads you know effective teams as well.

Jonathan Spears 39:42
Absolutely. Yeah. And what that’s the amazing thing right like when you get to a level in real estate where you’re very comfortable with yourself right like you should you should be living with open hands. You know, we don’t I don’t rule spirit group with this closed fist. I’ve got all this proprietary info You know, like, I want to be a giver. And I think when, you know, when you reach out to somebody, and they respond in that very giving manner, you know, you’ve connected with a high quality individual and really an individual that I would continue pursuing to try to work with, because those are the types of opportunities that you’ll be able to take in and hopefully grow and multiply.

D.J. Paris 40:21
Yeah, I, gosh, I think I think you’re so right. So I guess, you know, we’re sort of just to recap, some, some of what we’ve talked about so far is, number one, find your your niche, your niche. And that may be that’s going to be through a lot of trial and error. So I always encourage, you know, agents who are still trying to figure out what they like and what they don’t like, you’re not going to know if you like or dislike rentals, you know, residential rentals or commercial rentals until you try one or two. And see, if you like it, see, if you don’t like it, you know, talk to a bunch of teams, if you’re thinking about joining a team and and talk to some of those their team members and say, Hey, what’s it like, you know, how does it work. And the more curious I think you get, the more you’ve determined, like you were saying, who you are, and what your identity is in this business. And that’s when you start to laser in on Hey, I am a I like being on a team, or I don’t like being on a team, or I like doing luxury, or I like doing commercial or whatever it might be, I like working in the city versus, you know, more rural areas. And in your case, you just talked about relationships, and it’s not just the relationships with the customers that you represent. It is also the relationship with the other agents, also their customers too. So and I know for you, it’s incredibly important because you play in that luxury space, to have amazing relationships with realtors all over the country. Because you where you live oftentimes is a popular, you know, second, third, fourth home for somebody who is a high net worth individual. So you have to have incredible relationships with other agents so that they go, Oh, you you’re interested in Northwest Florida for you know, a vacation property. I got the guy for you, I got the team for you. So can you talk a little bit about how you have developed those relationships with agents from all over the country? And sort of what your thought processes of staying top of mind for those people?

Jonathan Spears 42:15
Yeah, no, definitely. Well, there’s that’s a two fold answer. So one, developing the relationship. I think, when you get to a point of becoming a market leader, you become a lot more visible in general, I’ve had folks call me and say, Hey, I just Googled top agent, and you know, Destin, Florida or top agent on 30 day, and your name popped up. So I just want to call I looked at your bio, and I looked at it. So that’s, that’s kind of like more of an established presence. But what do you do when your presence isn’t yet established. And a part of the joining a team is you can leverage like anybody on my team can leverage all of my sales, I can leverage, you know, other team members sales, that’s kind of the beauty of, you know, a team dynamic for for an early part of my career. And even today, I prospected, out of town agents specifically at the beginning with Sotheby’s International Realty because I, I’ve got the business card, right, it’s so easy to call and say, Hey, I’m a southern East Asian, this market, I really want to connect, I’ve been getting so many folks, let’s say I’m calling Dallas, I’ve been getting so many folks from Dallas that are coming into the market. And I just want to try to establish relationship because I know that I’m going to have a referral opportunity. And when you reach out proactively, and I know myself as an agent, if I get a call from an agent out of market, I’m I’m excited. Like that’s just as good as getting a call from any customer. You know, it’s even interesting when the pandemic started in. So I knew a lot of people in certain markets where they saw Exodus, right? Like, if I’m in New York, I’m flying down to Florida, right? I’m going where my clients are gone, really trying to follow, you know, where, what geography is going to really benefit me and what I’m positioned for now. And I was able to take that timeframe and really talk to agents and metropolitan markets, those customers were, were, for lack of a better word, invading our area. And you know, we were welcoming them with open arms. But it was, it was very interesting at that timeframe where we’re doing so much business and agents in larger markets or in metropolitan markets, were seeing a decline in their business because their customers were now buying elsewhere in second home markets, you know, how can I really add value to them? And by the way, we’re having conversations with the same people, you know, how can I really help them shape opportunities in their market? So it again becomes very symbiotic in terms of relationship but it all goes back to very proactive and purposeful prospecting. Who are you talking to? If you’re prospecting an hour a day and you’re calling you know, like we talked about earlier farming a specific neighborhood. Why don’t you Farm agents you believe and other markets can be great referral sources for you, and you could be a great referral source for them. As for me being in a second home market is very easy to do. But if you’re in a primary market, like let’s just say you’re sitting here, you’re watching from Nashville, pick up the phone and call me. I’ve got a huge customer base in Nashville or if you’re in Birmingham, Alabama, or if you’re in Atlanta, Georgia, or if you’re in, you know, Los Angeles, California, we’re getting a huge influx from LA here now, you know, find somebody in a second home market, maybe it’s a market that you’d like to go and frequent. Maybe you’re out in Telluride, skiing, or you’re in Vail or Aspen, you know, connect with an agent in those markets, you’re gonna start finding a lot of similarities and you know, develop that relationship cultivate it, you never know where it will go.

D.J. Paris 45:35
Yeah, like I know, here, and we’re in Chicago, and are just talking about my parents who live in Peoria, Illinois, which is like Central Illinois, although they are originally from from the Chicagoland area. But but in Illinois, if you are lucky enough to be able to move in retirement or have a second home pre retirement, it’s probably going to be in Florida, that’s seems to be the the predominant that that people from here, you know, some some people go out to Phoenix or Arizona, Phoenix Tucson, as well. And but it doesn’t, I don’t we don’t hear I don’t hear a lot of him retiring in California. Not that I love California. But that just it seems to be Florida. And there’s tax reasons why people do that. And it just seems to be you know, when when somebody goes, a lot of times their friends end up coming along as well in retirement. And so if I were an agent here, and I was working with people who are nearing that retirement age, that would be conversations I would be having with my customer says, hey, you know, 10 years from now, you know, are you thinking of retirement? And if so, where do you think you want to go, and if it’s like, oh, we’re talking about somewhere in Florida, then I would start like you were saying, I might even fly down to a bunch of those key areas like Naples or wherever you are Northwest Florida, you know, any of those those areas where people you know, may consider, you know, having a vacation place or retirement home, and start to go around and talk to some of those Realtors there and say, Hey, I got some people in, you know, within a few years that are probably going to be looking to move to this area, I want to develop a relationship with you right now. And I’m curious for you, how often do you get a call like that from an agent? Like, for example, maybe there’s people in Chicago or New York? Who have, you know, high net worth individuals? And I know you’re talking about specifically finding those agents in other markets, but how often do Do people ever just pick up the phone and call you and say, Hey, I’ve got some people that are, are thinking about doing this? Is that a common call? Or is it not as common as as one might think?

Jonathan Spears 47:33
Okay, so I get calls like that very often. And, and even for me, and we’ll kind of go back to how we’ve kind of built a mousetrap. But even down the road, like maybe, you know, two hours, or an hour and a half west in Florida agents who don’t want to drive this far, we’ll call and, you know, refer a client over, because folks will start in our area, and they may start a little further down and migrate this direction based on the inventory. And so really like positioning yourself, for me in a second home market, but even in Chicago and a primary or you know, any primary market, selling a lifestyle is so important. And in today’s world where we’ve got tick tock, and we’ve got Instagram, and we’ve got Facebook, we’ve got all these outlets for instant gratification, instant entertainment, that’s your best go to resource. You know how if you got on my Instagram, you’re gonna see stuff about Colorado, you’re gonna see beautiful beaches here in Destin, you’re gonna see my favorite restaurants, I like to go eat and it’s really focused on like, what lifestyle Are we living? And how do we make somebody a part of that? How do we bring them in? And what from referral sources and other areas, I’ve oftentimes I’ve connected through social media first. So one of my very, very, very best friends in, in real estate and just in general is based in Washington, DC, my parallel to Washington DC is is very minimal. And anytime we get an opportunity to send each other referral, you know, we’re jumping up and down, but we met on Instagram. And his name is Daniel Hyder Daniels, one of the most followed real estate agents on the planet. And when I met him, he had never had a listing, right, like, you know, we just hit it off because we both were in Vail and we noticed each other and, you know, it’s just, it’s really an incredible platform for connection and not just connection. You know, from afar, it’s, it’s immediate, and it can be very personal. And, you know, you’re able to kind of showcase what, how are we living? And what is that lifestyle look like in that market? I’ve got a buddy Ryan Pruitt, who is with Sotheby’s International Realty in Chicago, and I always see his post of downtown Chicago and I’m thinking oh my gosh, it looks so beautiful, especially when the sun shining and he’s, you know, highlighting the lake views and I sent a message as I’m like, man, it looks so warm and beautiful. And he’s like, hey, it’s like 42 and it’s easy. And I’m like, well, it doesn’t look like that. You know, you would have fooled me. But that’s all Marketing, it’s all lifestyle. And it’s authentic. I think that’s another opportunity that we have with social media is we can be authentic, we can really, you know, show something in real time, it’s not doctored, some of the stuff is, you know, you can mass produce. But I think, for me and what’s resonated with my customer base is just remaining authentic and showing yourself in that way across multiple platforms. And that’s not only going to be a great way to connect with agents on the markets, but also be a great way to ultimately connect with the customers you’re going to be buying and selling in your market.

D.J. Paris 50:35
Well, I think that is an amazing place to wrap up, you’ve provided so much incredible value, and I know how much free time you actually have to do this, which is none. So the fact that we got you for an hour is is a very, very big deal to us. We are so appreciative to celebrate your successes with you and your passion and enthusiasm and just willingness to to give you talked about being a giver. I mean, this is, you know, sort of evidence of that and we are honored to have you on the show and I very excited to talk to you when you hit another major milestone, which I am sure is not far away. But for everyone listening I want you to visit the spirits Group website, which is Spears Group F l.com. And also follow them on Instagram which is at speaking about lifestyle check out what they’re all about at Spears group that’s Instagram at spirits group and also follow Jonathan specifically on Instagram, at Jonathan M. Spears, I think your positivity, your attitude, and just the amount of success you’ve had so young is is really so impressive to our audience. And we of course hope to have you on over and over and over again as as you as you get older and even more successful. Well, we are grateful. And on behalf of the audience again, we thank Jonathan for his time, and his effort and his passion and it just comes through and he just he gives himself he gives of himself to this this industry and you know, it’s it’s infectious and hopefully inspire some of you to take some action and and you know, do a few things that that maybe you needed that motivation today to do. And on behalf of Jonathan and myself, we are all eternally grateful to everyone who is watching or listening. And we are just honored to have you on part of the show part of our listening family. And also we want to remind everyone to please support our incredible sponsor, follow up boss just visit follow up boss.com forward slash real try out their CRM, it’s incredible it really is and to get a free 30 day trial. And lastly, please tell one friend about our show. Just think of one other agent out there that could benefit from hearing from Jonathan. Everyone you know who’s a real estate agent could benefit from hearing Jonathan on this episode. So send at least one personal link to our show. And the easiest way to do that find us on our website, which is keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done can be streamed immediately there, and very cool Facebook. I know they were just down yesterday, although by the time this was released, people might have forgotten but it was a big, big thing Jonathan ware and I were talking about before our show, but Facebook is back up if you’re watching this in real time. And of course, he would know that because you’re watching it in real time. But we they just added a new feature to our page, we got to beta test, a new feature for podcast. So if you go to facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod, which is our podcast page, every episode we’ve ever done is listed there in chronological order, right you’ll see a tab for I think it says episodes, and you can stream everything from inside of Facebook as well. So please tell a friend Jonathan, thank you once again for being on the show. You’re our only repeat guests so far and we are thrilled to have you. Thank you and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Jonathan.

Jonathan Spears 54:00
Thank you guys.

Kyle Whissel from The Whissel Realty Group with eXp talks about the beginning of his career in real estate business and his transition from commercial to residential real estate. Kyle discusses the mistakes agents do with their videos and why agents should not try to be viral and instead provide value. Next, Kyle describes how he decides what content to share. Last, Kyle describes how to use videos to introduce yourself to your prospecting clients.

Learn how to grow in your real estate career through systems, structure, and support by clicking here!

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

Kyle Whissel can be reached at 619-618-7997 and [email protected]

This episode is brought to you by Follow Up Boss. Get your 30 day trial by clicking here.

D.J. Paris 0:00
Today’s episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by follow up boss. The best of the best know that outstanding follow up is essential for a thriving real estate business. And more than ever, they’re using follow up boss the leading CRM for real estate to make it happen. Follow up boss helps you convert more leads Robert slack founder of the number one real estate team the United States uses it in his $1.5 billion business. Deborah Beagle uses it to guarantee that agents who join our team get two homes under contract in their first 90 days, and Barry Jenkins uses it to automate everything to run his $200 million team on a 25 hour work week to reclaim his work life balance and for a limited time follow up boss is doubling their free trial for keeping it real podcast listeners go to follow up boss.com forward slash real for 30 days of unlimited access, no credit card required. That’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for a 30 day free trial. And now on to our show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show and in just a moment we’re going to be speaking with Kyle whistle for exp but before we get to Kyle, just a few quick reminders first, as always, we say thank you for continuing to listen and support our show, the best way you can help us is by telling a friend think of one other real estate professional that you know that could benefit from hearing from top producers like Kyle and send them a link to our website that’s keeping it real pod.com Or if the person you’re referring to us is a podcast person just haven’t pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. And also if you are an iTunes user, we would love it if you’d leave us a review it helps us grow helps us learn what our audience likes and dislikes about our show. So feel free to leave us a review we really appreciate it. But now on to our interview with Kyle whistle. Day on the show we have Kyle Whistle, whistle Realty Group and exp in San Diego. Now let me tell you about Kyle Kyle leads the whistle Realty Group which is brokered by exp Realty and they are currently ranked number one in San Diego County for the seventh year in a row and number three in California buy real trends as advertised in the Wall Street Journal. Kyle was also named in this is beyond amazing if that wasn’t amazing enough. He’s also named the number one video influencer in North America by bom bom. His team has closed over 3000 transactions with over 2 billion in sales volume. And he’s a husband and he’s a proud father a beautiful daughter and he has two pet pigs. And in 2014, Kyle’s wife and he founded Penelope his purpose which is a nonprofit pot bellied pig rescue. Kyle is also a sought after speaker at various conferences, where he reveals his sales and marketing strategies that has taken his team to the top. He is also the author of the media Mayor mastermind video training course, which is where he teaches Realtors best practices for shooting, editing and distributing video content so that you can get more leads and clients to learn more about Kyle and everything that he’s all about. Go to his website, which is the whistle way.com. And that’s whistle is w h i s s e elegant the whistle way.com Welcome, Kyle.

Kyle Whissel 3:53
Thank you, man. I appreciate the introduction. That was a good read.

D.J. Paris 3:56
Well, thanks I am. It’s it’s fun. I always love learning about our guests. And you are somebody that I am so excited to have on the show. You’re you know, I’ve always whenever I’ve looked at your content, I’ve been really impressed because I know you’ve spoken you’ve you’ve been at conferences, you’ve spoken with Tom Ferry, you’ve spoken at Tom Ferry events, and you’re super dynamic and exciting. And I’m a marketing guy. So I love great marketing. And obviously you’re a great real real estate firm as a real estate team as well. But I just love great marketing, and that’s what you’re all about. So before we get into all the cool stuff that you do, I’d love to hear about you know how you got into real estate.

Kyle Whissel 4:38
Yeah, so growing up, I despised real estate. My dad and my mom moved to San Diego from Buffalo, New York in 1979. And luckily they moved before they had me so didn’t have to grow up in Buffalo. Great place to visit I could not imagine growing up there. And my dad was in real estate from the day I was born. And let’s just say sometimes real estate took precedent over me. So my dad was just, you know, constantly working constantly on the phone, all of those things. So just growing up, I was never a huge fan of real estate. Because I kind of associated real estate with that. That’s not what I want it to be. So I kind of hated real estate growing up. While I was in college, didn’t really know what I wanted to do. But I was like, whatever, go to college, because that’s just what you’re supposed to do. And while I was there, my dad kept pushing me he’s like, you gotta buy something, you got to buy something. This was in 2002. And just kept pushing me you gotta buy you gotta buy, you gotta buy. And I was like, I’m a college student that sells popcorn at the movie theater, like, I can’t afford a house. And he’s like, just, you have good credit, sign this thing, and they’ll give you a house. And so I bought a house for like, half a million dollars while I was 20 years old. And college

D.J. Paris 5:53
was this was this back in the days of like, the interest only loans and, and that sort of tie. Yeah,

Kyle Whissel 5:58
yeah, they pretty much are under my nose, I fog the mirror and they gave me half a million bucks. It was great. I sold that property three months later, and I made $17,000, which, when you’re just got a nickel an hour raise for scooping popcorn, and then you got a $17,000 check. I was just like, all right. I know I’ve despised real estate my whole life. But we should probably talk. And so yeah, I worked with my dad on the commercial side of it, because that’s where he specialized in mostly multifamily apartment buildings and retail. And so I did that with him for about six years, and then transitioned over to the residential side on my own. Around 2008. And you have just been a top performing team here in San Diego ever since.

D.J. Paris 6:46
Wow. 2008. Two, that’s a that’s an interesting time to get into the residential market. As for those of us that are old enough to remember what happened around that time, it’s a particularly difficult time for I would say established agents. But I guess, you sort of starting in the residential space, I wonder if it was almost a great sort of training ground because so many people were exiting the business and were frustrated, I imagine, you probably just learned how to do it in the worst possible environment, which probably makes it when it’s better. Like when the markets, you know, obviously, it’s up now, it’s probably makes it so much easier when things are better.

Kyle Whissel 7:25
Yeah, I mean, the reason I moved from Commercial to Residential, one, the commercial side was drying up, because we were selling apartment buildings to people who would then cut them and convert them into individual condos and then sell them off individually. And then the city of San Diego and all the other surrounding cities pretty much put an end to that because literally every apartment building in town was getting converted, and they were running out of rentals. So the city shut that down. And so now all my investors had nothing to buy anymore. And they’re like, Well, I can’t buy these apartments if I can’t convert them to condos. So what else can I buy? And I wasn’t I started looking around and I was like, you could buy one of these like foreclosed houses. And then I’d look and be like, holy crap, like this girl’s got 300 of these listings. And then I’d be like, Oh, you could buy one of these short sales. And this guy’s got 500 short sales. And I was like, That’s freaking crazy. Like, you know, commercial, I was closing like a deal every two or three months, big checks, which is cool. But in your early 20s, big checks are not necessarily the best thing because you just blow the money. So I saw kind of an opportunity one to get out from under my dad’s, you know, wing, and then to to get something that would be a little bit more stable and consistent on the income side of it. And so I jumped over, I started out initially doing a lot of short sales, because I could just run direct mail marketing campaigns and sharp people out that were in trouble. And that was very rewarding and helping a lot of people. And then at the same time, I was really working on like the relationship side of things with the banks to you know, get the properties assigned to me once they were foreclosed on. And eventually those you know, those efforts started to pay off. And eventually I landed accounts with Fannie Mae, direct HUD direct, and then Bank of America and chase and it was Wachovia at the time and a bunch of other banks. So I mean, it was a really fun, we did a ton of business back then. And that’s kind of taught me early in my career to not just think about, like, how do I go from one listing to the next to the next, like, how do I establish a relationship that’s going to get me streams of business? And so that was a good way for me to get into it. And that’s just kind of how we’ve always thought since then.

D.J. Paris 9:37
Yeah, it’s really a smart strategy. I sort of remember those those days. I don’t practice real estate myself, but I was around around during that time. And I remember I remember I would get calls all the time from agents, you know, who were interested in joining our firm and, and they would say things like, hey, what kind of relationships do you have with banks? And are you getting these these listings, you know, assigned to you? And I was like, No, that’s, that’s really what you would have have to do, you’d have to go out and build those relationships. And it’s tough to do and because everybody wants those listings and very, very difficult, but it’s amazing that you you got through and, and have built this incredible business since and how big is your team now? Now you have it’s not just you you have a pretty good sized team there.

Kyle Whissel 10:18
Yeah, I mean, we started the year with 25 agents, and we’re now north of 60 agents. So we’ve had a massive growth this year. Last year, we finished at 267 million this year, we’ll finish near to 400 million and volume.

D.J. Paris 10:34
Unbelievable. That’s really, really we have 44,000 agents here in Chicago and try to think of what the top agent does probably about about 400 million. And so I mean, it just absolutely incredible what what your team is published. It is. It’s it’s incredible. I would love to talk about Well, first, we should mention, by the way, that if you are an agent and are looking to join up with a team in particular, if you’re in the San Diego area, and you’re looking to join, I would want to join the number one team that would seem like that would be a good idea for me if I was an agent there. But do you also have agents not just in the San Diego area? Is that correct?

Kyle Whissel 11:12
Yeah, I mean, so locally, within whistle Realty Group were, you know, in massive growth mode, I think we have six agents starting next week. So we’re definitely growing locally. We’ve literally got more leads than we can handle right now. And we utilize isas to take those leads and turn them into appointments for our agents. So our A our isas teed up over 150 appointments for our agents just this month alone. And these are high quality appointments. This isn’t like you’re Oh, hey, Kyle, you got a call with this guy tomorrow at three good luck. Like I’m talking you’ve got like paragraphs of notes, you know, their motivation, you know, their DISC profile, you know, where they want to go when they want to get there, where they’re at financially, like super high quality appointments. So yeah, if you’re local in San Diego, and you’re looking for something where a lot of the work is done for you, and you can focus on the fun stuff of meeting clients and showing properties and doing deals, we should talk and whether you’re you know, in the States or really internationally at this point, we also have the EXP side of our business where we do a ton of collaboration with all of the top teams around the country. Within our group, we call it fast forward movement, we’ve got over 100 agents or teams doing 50 million plus in our group. So super high level masterminding with all of the best teams are really across the world at this point. And really helping people grow from you know, wherever they’re at, we took one of our guys from 8 million to 200 million in three years and one of our girls from six transactions to 60 in two years. So wherever you are in your business, if you want to grow, we can definitely link up whether you’re you know, in San Diego or or anywhere in the world at this point.

D.J. Paris 12:49
Yeah, definitely reach out to Kyle and he is a master marketer, in particular with video although among a lot of other mediums as well. But I love you know, we’ve done about a cash about 300 episodes and really done really a couple of episodes with people who talk video and so I’m really excited to do that with you. Tell us a little bit about how you know how you think about using video maybe what Realtors actually what I’d love to do first is talk about mistakes that Realtors make when producing video content, whether it’s on social media, Facebook, Instagram, whether it’s on YouTube Tiktok Of course, you know what are Realtors doing in your opinion that you see and you’re kind of go that’s that’s not really working or that doesn’t really help you you know, improve your brand or get more leads?

Kyle Whissel 13:37
Yeah, I think the the original tic tock style of like doing the dance videos and like pointing at things like that’s played out, you don’t need to do that anymore. There’s a few like I follow Tristan, who Mata and Glenda Baker, those are two of the people that I really like watch what they’re doing. And I think they’re doing it the right way. They’re being true real estate professionals, and they’re providing valuable content and they’re getting a lot of engagement on that content. So I look up to what they’re doing. I think they’re doing it the right way. I think the people that are trying to make like trying to be viral. You shouldn’t try to be viral. I think you just look like an idiot like I literally see some of these videos and just literally facepalm when I watch these because it’s just so painful. And you know they’re spending so much time trying to shoot these dumbass videos just focus on adding value and it’s gonna be far more successful for you than like trying like watching a you know a Jake Paul video and trying to copy what he does or somebody you know, some one of these Tiktok influencers like this is so stupid. Really focus on adding value. Because the way that I look at video, is that right? I could do a lot of different things when it comes to marketing. I could you know sit and you know, circle prospect or call expireds or call fizz bows Right? Or I could go door knocking Here, I could do a lot of these things. The problem with those things is that the second I stopped calling, it’s over, right? The second I stop door knocking, it’s over your training, or, yeah, where if I could put out good quality video, that video is working for me 24 hours a day, seven days a week, like, I just went back through some of my old videos today. And I got videos from like, eight, nine years ago, that are still getting views today. So there’s this compound effect, where every time you create a video, right, and you go from you shoot one video a week, which it’s one video working for you cool, by the time the year is over, you got 52 videos that are all out there working for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to where theoretically, you could stop shooting video and still get business from those. I can’t stop calling expireds and still get business from, I can’t stop door knocking and still get business from it. Where video once I created, that content keeps working for me whether I’m awake, or I’m asleep, whether I’m in town or out of town, those videos are working for me all day long. And so that’s the way that I like to work is trying to find ways to duplicate myself and be in, you know, multiple places at once. I mean, while we’re shooting this podcast, I’ve got, you know, 100 other podcasts I’ve been on that are on video that are all working for me right now. Can’t do that with a lot of other marketing messages and methods out there.

D.J. Paris 16:20
It’s a really strong point, it’s it’s nice, sort of the old idea that it’s not an old idea, but it’s an important idea that you know, real estate is such a transactional business. It’s so hey, you know, I like you were saying for from business acquisition. So I’m cold calling or I’m door knocking, or I’m sending out mailers or whatever I’m doing. And, you know, I get some sort of result from that, hopefully, but the moment I stop or go on vacation, those leads most likely are going to stop as well. So creating content that can live indefinitely. But then the question becomes how do you create content that people care about? And the that’s, that’s, of course, the challenge, to create content that’s so insanely valuable, that people are going to find it, share it, you know, engage with it. So I’d love to talk about how you start to think about what type of content to create, you know, what, what is your thought process for where you want to go with your video marketing?

Kyle Whissel 17:15
For sure. So the thing that we teach in the media mer Mastermind course is, the foundational thing is to get two videos a month out to your database. So before I ever worry about trying to generate any new business, I want to focus on, right if you’ve never, you know, read acres of diamonds story, like most of us are literally sitting on acres of diamond. But yes, we search all over the place trying to find diamonds, when in reality, they’re right underneath us right now. And in reality, when I say underneath us, they’re sitting in inside of this thing. Yeah. So a lot of us screw it up, I constantly, you know, I was just that one conference this week, I’m going to be at another conference next week. And every time I go, somebody tells me about like the hot new lead source. So right now what do I do? I’m like, Oh, I gotta get on this. so and so said, this one’s working so and so. So that one’s working. And that’s what most of us Realtors do. And meanwhile, we’re neglecting this fricking thing that has hundreds, if not 1000s of people that we already know inside of it. Why are we going and chasing new people all the time, when we already have people we know that in order for somebody to do business with us, I gotta know like, and trust us. Odds are everybody who’s in your phonebook, knows, likes and trusts you otherwise they probably wouldn’t give you their phone number. They wouldn’t be in your phone, right. So before we worry about anything new, let’s focus on what we already have. And let’s do that by staying engaged with those people via video content. So we’d like to get two videos a month out to our database. And that’s at a minimum or up to four videos a month for us. But for most people starting out two videos a month is a really good place to start. We love to get market update videos, people really do appreciate getting a market update video, they want to know what’s going on in the market. So we get one of those out each month. And the key when you do a market update videos, you don’t want to go too heavy on the data. Because in all reality, like people have the data, they can go on Redfin, they can go on Zillow, the data exist, the value that we provide, is interpreting that data and helping people understand what does it means to them. Alright, so anytime we do a video, we keep it three, maybe four data points, Max, don’t go into 10 data points. And then most importantly, when you shoot these videos, and you guys can, you know, pull up any of our market update videos on YouTube will always finish the video and say, if you’re watching this video, and you’re thinking about buying a home, here’s what this means to you. And if you’re thinking about selling a home, here’s what this means to you, right? You got to help people understand, like, if I’m watching this and I’m thinking about buying like, Okay, that’s cool. You just told me all this information, but like, what does that mean to me, right with what’s in it for me? So you got to make sure that you do that in those market update videos. Don’t just give a bunch of data and be like, Alright, cool, good to see you later. Like,

D.J. Paris 19:54
you know, pause, because that is that is such an important point. And he just says Something incredibly profound that will really help with conversion. So what Kyle just said is huge. And I’m just going to walk it back just for a moment. Because it’s really a such an amazing tip that I don’t know that anyone’s ever given on our show before, which is, hey, create some content, for example, market update stuff, give a few data points don’t overwhelm the audience with with too much content. Just give them a couple of things that they might be interested in learning. And then, in addition to that, say, here’s what this means for you, or here’s what this could mean for you. If you’re thinking about buying or selling, you know, x. And I’m sorry, to to stop your flow there. But that was such an important and critical point. I just wanted to put a sort of hammer in a bit because it’s so critical. I’m sorry, go right ahead.

Kyle Whissel 20:43
Yeah, no. And the other thing that in I don’t even know if you realized it, when you were saying it or now is thing is, when we shoot these videos, I’m not saying hey, all you San Diegans Hey, everybody out there, like I’m talking to you, right? If you are watching this video, and you are thinking about buying a home, here’s what it means to you, right? Talk to the individual, especially when you’re using those words, when you’re saying you, like look at the camera, like make eye contact, pretend like you’re literally staring at somebody’s eyes when you say these things. If people want to feel connected, and when they feel like you’re talking directly to them, they’re going to feel a lot better connection. But when you’re sitting there talking about Hey, everyone, well, if any of you people out there like nobody’s watching in a group, nobody watches YouTube videos like, Hey, guys, we all kind of watch this video, let’s huddle up, like they’re watching it on their phone, right? Or they’re maybe watching it on their computer, but they’re watching it by themselves. So talk to that one person who’s watching it by themselves, you’ll make a much deeper connection with them. So market update videos, we think those are super crucial, especially because we’re in a, you know, a wild market right now. You know, and it’s it’s volatile, which people are actually craving that information more, when we have a market that is shifting like it is today. people crave that content even more. So that’s a big part of it. And then we’d like to do we recommend you do one FAQ video a month FAQ Frequently asked question. So something I learned early in my career, is it if there’s any question you’ve been asked three times, you’re gonna get asked it 300 times over the course of your career. So you might as well shoot a video about it. And the cool thing is, you can shoot that video one. So you can when a client asks a question you can like, Oh, that’s a great question. Actually just shot a video on that. And you could send that. But again, think about if people are asking you this question, guess what they’re doing? They’re going on Google. And they’re Googling that question too. Well, guess who owns Google? Or I guess who owns YouTube is Google. And so when somebody Google’s a question, a lot of time, what pulls up is a YouTube video response. So if you know the questions that people are asking in your market, you should probably shoot videos answering those questions, because now what will happen is people will find your video answering the exact question that they had, like, Oh, this guy knows what he’s talking about, like we should call him. So one you can generate leads from that by answering questions people have that their existing realtor is not able to answer so they’re seeking out the answer online. In addition, when you have people who are thinking about working with you, you start to become a valuable resource, because now you’re sending them content answering the questions like How did he know I was wondering about that? What because all of my clients keep asking me the same question. So I might as well shoot a video and answer it not just for that client, but for everybody. So those videos those are the really the two foundational videos that we recommend people get out every single month. And there’s different ways to do it. Right. We I’m big on layering things because I understand some people are you know, in my shoes where I’m extremely busy, and I have no time, but we’re selling a lot of homes so I have more money. So I’m willing to pay more money because I don’t have the time so I use a service like viral marketing. Vy Ral so I use those guys and I pay them money but they take a lot of the work off my plate they shoot the video they do the editing, they do the copywriting the distribution they send the reporting like they do all the work Cool. Well maybe you have no money maybe you’re brand new and you’re you literally can’t rub two nickels together cool there’s there’s free solutions right there’s free ways to do this with something like soap box which is video distribution service and it’s free. So you could use something like soap box and I think MailChimp has like a free option so you could record your video and soap box use the free version of MailChimp and you could do it that way and then there’s the middle action which is like a bom bom bom bom is a new kind of an all in one solution so you can record the videos you can you know build your email list you could do it all in there so regardless of where you’re at whether you’re on you know you’ve got tons of check equity and don’t have any time for sweat equity Cool, let’s do it with viral or you’re on the other end where you have no check equity but you got time so you put that sweat equity in and do soap box and MailChimp or you’re somewhere in the middle and maybe Bom Bom is your solution. But no matter what there’s no excuse is to not do it. Because, you know, Chet blacks, one of my coaches and one of the things he always talks about is like my shitty video regardless of how good your videos my shitty video will outperform your nonexisting video every day of the week, it’s a really good don’t obsess over how good your video is. Just get the damn videos out there.

D.J. Paris 25:18
Yeah, and and our phones now are so sophisticated with the cameras that most of us have, that, you know, turning the camera, turning the phone around, and hitting the record button is probably still going to produce a pretty watchable image. And the audience too. I’d love to talk to you about expectation from audience because I know a lot of our listeners and viewers are probably, you know, a little fearful about putting themselves on video. What if I say the wrong thing? What if I stumble over my words? What if, and the reality of it is is it probably endears you more to your audience when you make mistakes and when you don’t look perfect? Because guess what, nobody’s perfect anyway. So this idea that we have to have perfect lighting, although certainly would be awesome to have that. But I think people relate more to the imperfections. So I’m curious to get your thoughts on imperfect video versus, you know, well shot, edited and polished video.

Kyle Whissel 26:13
For sure. Yeah, I’m a huge fan of Facebook Live. For the reason being that one it is like the questions we get asked all the time, what camera what lens? What microphone? What editing software, like, it’s this right? This is my camera. This is my lens. This is my microphone. This is my edit Facebook Lives my editing software. Yeah, because all I do is I go on there and I hit the Live button. And it’s just record. And the beauty of Facebook Live is that there is zero expectation of perfection on a Facebook Live. Like if somehow somebody is a Facebook Live and everything is perfect. It’s almost weird. You’re almost like, the hell is this all like staged like this, right? This looks odd, that’s expected that it’s not gonna you’re not going to have the best audio, the cameras gonna be shaky, it’s probably going to you’re going to be holding it yourself. So it’s gonna be like two feet from your face. So all they’re going to see is like, just your face. You know. And so I love Facebook Live, I think it’s a great way to go. Because it’s just going to be very real, very authentic. And the bar is very low as far as what people expect in a Facebook live video. So I think it’s a really good way to go. I’m the kind of person where like, if you’re scared of heights, you go skydiving, if you’re scared of the ocean, you go shark diving. And if you’re scared of video, you go Facebook Live die thing, like just dive into it and just hit the download button and talk. You’d be amazed what happens when you just go live. And honestly live is better. Because what I see people do when they do want to shoot a video. I see people post screenshots sometimes and you look at their like photo gallery. And you could see the like 25 times they tried to shoot the video and didn’t like it and rerecord it and rerecord it, reassure it, don’t do that,

D.J. Paris 27:48
guys to do that, too, when when I would shoot video for a different industry I was in I had to I had to be perfect in my mind. And I ended up doing 25 takes. And then I realized nobody cares. Really, they just care about the quality of the content. And that’s and so you said something really profound earlier, I just want to really quickly circle back to that to make sure our audience heard it. Kyle just said something really, really critical, which when I was we were asking about what kind of content he thinks about. And if you are if you like if you’re taking Kyle’s advice and you’re doing two to four videos a month, which you absolutely can and should do. And you have this great phone that can take a decent shot. And you go okay, now what what kind of content should I be providing? Well just think about questions you could ask on a regular basis. I mean, that will give you an unlimited amount of content. So you will never have to worry about oh my gosh, what do I talk about these days. So I just wanted to really just circle back to that for a second. Because that will solve the content problem for you. If if you have nothing else to talk about. Just think about your last three questions from clients.

Kyle Whissel 28:48
Yeah, and I mean, just put whether you have like a notepad or, you know, whatever system you use to keep notes, like every time an idea pops in your head, just put it on that you know, task list or that notepad or whatever it is that you use. Because if you’re like, Oh, I got a great idea for video, and then you don’t write it down the next day, like, what was that thing I was thinking about and you can’t remember it. So like, anytime an idea pops in your head, just throw it on that list, just throw it on there, throw it in the notepad, throw it on your task list, so that you have this kind of like depository of where you put these ideas. And then you can make withdrawals from that you know that bank whenever you need to when you have a video idea, and if you can’t come up with a video idea, just post on Facebook and say, Hey, friends, what questions do you have about the real estate industry or the real estate market and let your friends on? You know, Facebook and Instagram tell you what to do videos about?

D.J. Paris 29:38
Yeah, I also want to talk about podcasting because obviously we’re on a podcast and you have a podcast as well. I’d love to talk about where you see the opportunity there for realtors because a lot of people can can sort of understand a lot of realtors can think well I can understand turning my phone around shooting a Facebook Live which is scary because I’m working without a net or I’m pre recording something with my phone and posting it to Instagram or Facebook. So I can sort of wrap my mind around that, because I’ve done that before most of us have probably done something like that. But starting a podcast might seem particularly daunting or overwhelming or challenging, or, Hey, I’m not a broadcaster, I can’t do that, or I don’t know how to do that, or so I’m curious on your thoughts about, you know, what your opinion is about agents starting podcasts and, and you know what the opportunity is?

Kyle Whissel 30:27
Yeah. So I mean, obviously, we’re on a podcast, we run a podcast, some big podcast fan. As far as doing a podcast locally, for your local community, I think it’s tough. I’ll just be honest, I’ve, I’ve racked my brain trying to figure out how do I run a local podcast that’s truly going to get engagement, I don’t know that it’s the easiest thing.

D.J. Paris 30:49
The greatest idea that’s hard to execute it. And what Kyle’s really talking about is, if you live in, in a particular area, creating a podcast specific to, you know, you know, whatever is going on in that area is in theory, an awesome idea. And you could, for example, just start interviewing local businesses and doing that. And in theory, it’s amazing. But boy, is it hard to get people to pay attention?

Kyle Whissel 31:12
Yeah, I think that’s hard on the local level. That’s why we’re big on the video side of it. I mean, the thing that we’re most known for is going out and creating videos with local businesses and restaurants much better. And doing that all via video. I mean, that’s what’s really, you know, put us on the map and got us the recognition we have, we’ve shot hundreds of episodes of local businesses and restaurants. And that gets a lot of traction. I think it’s hard without the visual element on that. Which is why I think that’s got to be done on video. But if you’re, you know, running something, obviously, like we’re at exp, we want to attract agents all around the country. So if I can do things to pour in and add value to other agents lives, and they find that attractive, and maybe they’re attracted to join me. Or if I’m running other business owners, other businesses, or I have courses that I sell, or, you know things where I’m trying to reach a more broad, large audience, then I think you can really dive into the podcast. And I mean, at the end of the day, a podcast just has to add value for the listener. So you know, one of the things we teach is like this whole acronym for scripting videos, and part of it applies, whether it’s video podcast, or really any marketing thing out there. The whole acronym is called great ass. But the Ask part of it is, every time you’re creating a piece of content, you need to have assets in mind. So we came up with something, it’s kind of catchy, it’s hard to forget it. So A is for audience. So anytime I’m creating a piece of content. So let’s say it’s a podcast and this example, like, I have to know, who is the audience? Who do I want to actually consume this content? So first, I gotta have an audience. Second, I got to determine what is the situation that that audience is facing? So let’s just say, you know, a really good situation right now is people’s forbearance is ending on their mortgage. Like that’s, that’s a situation a lot of people are facing, and then I gotta have what’s the solution for that situation they’re facing. And so you know, that whether it’s a podcast episode or a video, right, doing something that’s geared towards homeowners who have their forbearance, it’s ending, and you’re gonna provide the solutions to help them avoid foreclosure. Like that’s a killer freakin video topic right now. You know, and again, if you’re doing a podcast, whether you’re doing it for yourself locally, or you want to share some of those solutions with other agents, so that they can then go and implement that in their market. I think that that’s a killer topic. So that would be an example of like, how you come up with that ass acronym is audience situation and solution. And the same thing goes, if it’s a postcard, you should be thinking about that. If it’s a podcast, if it’s a video, you know, if it’s a flyer that you’re delivering anything that you do, you should always have those three things in mind.

D.J. Paris 33:53
Yeah, that’s really important. Let’s just go over that one more time. The sort of the, the acronym so you if you don’t mind, give us the ass acronym once more. Yeah, so

Kyle Whissel 34:02
ask this audience. Who is this content for? situation? What’s the situation that the audience is facing? And then the solution to their situation? So audience situation solution.

D.J. Paris 34:15
I love it. And before I’m going to ask Kyle in just a moment about going viral and the importance of, of virality of creating content that is accepted by the masses or not worrying about that but before we do that, I want to just pause and mention our sponsor for this episode, which is follow up boss after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this show. You know what CRM is used by more than any other for by our amazing guests. Of course it’s follow up boss let’s face it. Follow up is the key. Excuse me to taking your business to the next level. Follow up boss will help you drive more leads and less time with less effort. Don’t take my word for it. Robert slack who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a $1.5 billion business in Six years follow up boss integrates with over 250 different systems, you can keep your current tools and lead sources. And they have seven day a week support. So you’ll get the help you need and get this follow up boss is so sure you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time they’re offering and keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial that’s twice as much time as they give everyone else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. But only if you use the special link, which is follow up boss.com forward slash real, that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss. With follow up, boss. Okay, Kyle, thank you for indulging me there. Let’s talk about the I’m gonna call it the myth of going viral. I’ll tell a story. Real, real quick story. I used to be a blogger, not not in the real estate, I wrote humor and I had a somewhat moderately successful following with with my dopey little, little website. And I wrote a story. I went to a Tony Robbins event many many years ago and sort of wrote a fun take on on my experience there. And I didn’t think anything of it. But whoever runs Tony Robbins is sort of PR side of his business must have somehow gotten alert that there was a, you know, a blog post that that was seen by people. And they retweeted this, that my story. And Tony himself retweeted it, which back when Twitter was a lot more important than it is today. This was incredible for me, because at the time, I was probably averaging about 1000 hits a day, which was still pretty substantial for just, you know, bozo like me. But when he when he when he retweeted it to his, I don’t know, several million followers, I got an instant, about 30,000 people hit my website within about 10 minutes, which was very exciting. But also what I noticed, and I’m curious if you, you know, have a sort of similar thought about it. But what happened about two days later, was that my traffic went right back down to where it was pre pre Tony Robbins sending out my tweet. So unless I were just to create amazing content that he would tweet out every day, which of course never happened again. I was like, oh, and again, I 30,000 views maybe isn’t doesn’t doesn’t seem like a lot. But back then it was a lot for me. And I realized, Okay, I’m back to normal now. And I’m curious on what your thoughts are about views, because I know a lot of our listeners might also be thinking, well, what if no one watches my stuff? What if I’m not getting engagement? And how do you sort of help them through that? Or what do you tell them when when they’re worried about, you know, view count and things like that?

Kyle Whissel 37:36
Yeah, I mean, those are just vanity metrics. I couldn’t care less about those. I just want to be consistent, because you never know, like, what piece of content is going to connect with somebody. The best example I could give is the first video series we did was called Santy, Saturdays, Santis that one of the communities we work in here in San Diego, and we interviewed like every different type of business under the sun. And we did 100 episodes, and I ended up landing a $4 million listing and it was from one of the least watched videos of the entire series because it was on like a senior community. And it was just not an exciting interview in any way shape or form. Like the people who were interviewing weren’t, you know, lively people. The people who live in senior communities aren’t exactly on social media and YouTube to watch the content so like the view count was ridiculously low. But all it took was one person watching it had a $4 million home and there you go, right so it’s, it’s not I mean, we’ve had a video with 3 million views on it this maybe had 3000 views like you know, a fraction of what we’ve seen on other videos, but it connected with the right person at the right time with the right message and here we go, you know, monster six figure commission coming in. So that’s the thing that that’s the part of the best example I can get personally having been through it is it’s not about every video being a banger, as we call them, like you’re gonna have some that are, you know, not gonna get much traction at all, and that’s fine. But don’t just stop like, I mean, most of us have been in a relationship in our life like if we stopped the first time somebody rejected us like nobody would ever get married. No, we did ever have kids right? Like, we don’t stop because you have like one bad video you don’t stop because you get turned down one time in your life like you keep going. And so that’s, that’s the best advice I could give. And in all honesty, like what I’m actually more obsessed with today is less I don’t even want 3000 video views on a video I just want one. And I’m shooting a lot more one to one video right now, which would be a video from me directly to you, not to anybody else. Nobody’s ever going to see it. That one to one video, I would argue is more important right now than my 3 million view video. Because if I can connect with you with the right message right time, like you know, we do videos for people’s birthdays because What does everybody else do on people’s birthdays? They send like a happy birthday, dude. HBD because we’re freaking lazy, like all I’m worth is three letters to you on a Facebook post, like, you know, but what if you actually just go through Facebook every day it tells you whose birthday it is shoot each person a personalized video?

D.J. Paris 40:16
Well, what is what does that take? 20 seconds, 30 seconds.

Kyle Whissel 40:20
30 seconds max is the limit on Facebook. So like, what if you just shot everybody, every day that had a birthday, a quick video message. And it could be the exact same video five times in a row, they don’t know the difference. But just shoot them a personal video, they’re gonna remember it. Because if you’re watching this podcast right now, if you’ve got a video message, which most of you never didn’t get one on your last birthday, but let’s assume you did get one on your last birthday. I bet you within a split second, you could tell me who it was who sent you that video. Like you would remember it instantaneously. And you don’t remember the revenue Did you don’t remember the 500 HBD messages you got or the

D.J. Paris 40:59
500 holiday cards you’re about to get this this this winter. You’re you’re going? Yeah, and so that the idea of the video messages is brilliant. Because literally Yeah, you might have got one I’ve never received any ever. And I have a pretty healthy following. So most people have never received that ever. And so that’s a such a great point. I want to also mention, just just you just triggered something in me to remind our audience that LinkedIn really does a cool thing. If you go into LinkedIn, and you go to your notifications, and it really just is, what it does is it really tells you about four things it tells you when somebody’s birthday is so Facebook does that too. So not a big deal there. But LinkedIn, you might have different connections there. So it tells you the birthday not such a great thing because everybody wishes you Happy Birthday via you know, LinkedIn on your birthday. It just gets lost in the shuffle. But there’s also work anniversaries. There’s when somebody starts a new job. And there’s also when someone gets a promotion, right. So like, those are great reasons. Now you don’t have to do it on LinkedIn. Right? If you want to send somebody hey, man, I just saw you got a promotion, you could do that on Facebook, you could do that on a text message. But that’s another great reason to do a one to 100%

Kyle Whissel 42:11
Yeah, we love doing it for that. Obviously, you know, we all know plenty of people who are getting COVID. So shooting them a message because anybody who’s had COVID knows it sucks. You feel like super freaking isolated. You can’t go anywhere really publicly, nobody can come hang out with you. So like shooting people a heartfelt message when they’re in that like isolation. That can be huge. When people have you know, big accomplishments, like you mentioned, shoot them a message for that. Congratulations type messages. And then also like, one of the guys in my office his dad passed away recently. And it’s like, I could you know, what do you send them prayer hands or send them like our condolences. If you need anything, I’m here for you. Like, what if you actually shot a heartfelt video in that moment, right, like that’s going to have such an impact for that person that they will never ever forget it. Plus, you could show your true emotion in that video. Because when you just get the like, condolences sorry for your loss, rest in peace got to be like whatever. Like those, those messages are so meaningless. You don’t even remember a single one of them, but the person who sends you a heartfelt message. And you know, in a difficult time in your life, you are going to remember that.

D.J. Paris 43:25
And it’s going to endear you I mean, we’re now we’re talking about intimacy. And Kyle just really shifted from, you know, talking about creating videos for the masses creating content that would be seen by a wide variety of people and his HSS method to sort of create that content. And now he’s also saying in addition to that, let’s work on one on one to one and we’ve all been conditioned in the last two years to do one on one to one video. So this isn’t even weird anymore. There’s nothing weird about it. Everybody’s on Zoom. Everybody’s been doing this no matter what industry they’re in, or even if it’s just talking to family members that couldn’t see other through them through video screens. There is never been a better time to start getting comfortable having these one to ones

Kyle Whissel 44:07
Yeah, I mean the one that’s really that I think about a lot right in this this world that we live in today’s mental health is a serious freakin thing, right? I mean, there’s how many stories? Are there people who took their own lives or took other people’s lives like because of mental health? Like when you see people who are posting things where you could tell like, hey, something’s a little bit out of character for that person. I don’t know about that like one call them but people in those moments a lot of times won’t answer the phone. They don’t want to talk to anybody. That’s that’s like I’ve studied a lot of psychology in school. People don’t want to talk to people when they’re in those those moments. But what if you could shoot them a video? Like what if you could shoot some like, Hey, man, I know you’re going through some difficult times right now. Like I just want to let you know I’m here for you. I freaking love you. I’ve known you for so long. You’ve been an amazing friend to me. You mean the world to me and to my family and and I just want to let you know I’m here for you. I love you. If you need to get out, you need to talk, you want to grab a beer, you want to, you know, go do some drugs, whatever you’re into, man, I’m here for you. Like, I just want to let you know that and just shoot that message. Like, that message could literally save somebody’s life. If you could send that message, right moment. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 45:15
yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s funny, it’s like intimacy, the scariest thing for most of us is vulnerability, because it opens us up to rejection to getting hurt. You know, we’re bearing, you know, some, some tender parts of us that people can take advantage of, or people can dismiss. But the irony is, most people don’t, when you’re, when you have the courage to be vulnerable. They, you know, that’s, that’s what they’re craving as well. And that’s what intimacy is actually built on his vulnerability. So Kyle just said something worth its weight in gold, in business, and just in your personal life, is that having the courage is really all you need to to be authentic and to care about someone, especially now, when people are still pretty isolated, you know, whether they’re sick or just, you know, worried about the Delta variant, and, you know, just not able to get out as much. This is a great time to really deepen those relationships with with with your prospect list your customers or clients just go to Hey, man, how’s everything going? Like? Are you back in the office? Are you still working at home? Like, what’s going on? Are you handling the kids? Are they back in school? I mean, these are all things that that realtors, oftentimes just Do you know, you do that with your close friends, but you don’t maybe think to do that with the people that are in your prospect list. And maybe maybe no one else is reaching out to them. And that like you were setting it, at its most extreme, it could save a life. But even at its at its least less extreme, it could just deepen the relationship. Think like, Wow, that guy cares about me. That’s huge. And when you care about somebody, they’re never going to work with another realtor.

Kyle Whissel 46:46
Exactly. And it’s got to come from the heart. So don’t just do this be like, Oh, I watched podcast cost to do this someday. Hey, what’s up Happy Birthday haven’t gotten by, like, you know, what, put some effort into this and actually mean it. But yeah, it’s never that’s the thing, too, is never assume like, oh, well, everybody else is doing it. So I don’t need to like, Oh, they’re not, they’re gonna get a bunch of these. They’re gonna get a bunch of like, HPDs on their birthday. They’re not gonna get a bunch of personalized videos on their birthday. So just do it. If you’re even thinking like, should I send this person? Yes, that’s the answer. Always just short little videos. 1015 20 seconds. That’s it. You don’t need to sit here and go on like a monologue just just to check in with people. It goes such a long way. You know, and same thing when you get a new lead, like shoot him a frickin video. Like, Hey, what’s up, it’s Kyle whistle. I just wanted to shoot a video. So you have a face to put with the name. Zillow just connected us. I’ll be reaching out on the phone real soon. But it just wanted to let you know I’m a real human and I’m here. I’m here to help you. I’ll call you soon. Like, shoot that video. Or you have an appointment with somebody like that you only talk to on the phone like Hey, what’s up Kyle whistle just wants you to video facebook with the name we’re gonna be meeting tomorrow at four o’clock. Just want to know the sooner look for a drive away car. I’ll see you there like to shoot them that you’re you humanize yourself, you become like a real person. Because I’ve literally only one of my agents told me a story one time where like he set an appointment to go show a property to somebody. And he shows up like at the set appointment time. And people are walking out of the house. And he’s like standing around waiting, waiting. Nobody’s showing up and people walk out of the house. And then they’re like, Hey, are you Jared? And he’s like, yeah, and they’re walking out with the other realtor, because they didn’t even know who to look for. Like they don’t even know Jared was they went through with the realtor who just finished showing it doesn’t even know who to frickin look for, like, you might want to send people a picture, at least hopefully a video of your face. So when you’re meeting them for the first time, you don’t have that awkward like is that her Is that am I don’t know, like, don’t do that.

D.J. Paris 48:36
And that is awkward. And it’s so easy that you can literally just do that the night before an appointment and say, Hey, I’m super excited to meet with you tomorrow. I just wanted to let you know what I look like so that you know you’re not scanning the coffee shop looking for somebody that looks like a realtor. But boy, you know, and I want everyone to pause for a second. I’m going to pause the podcast flow for a moment. And I want you to think about how do we how are you thinking about Kyle right now as as a as a person, right. And I want to make this really important point because Kyle has done something extraordinary in this conversation that most of our guests have never done which is he just talked about something that was really important to him and he got vulnerable and he talked about the importance of mental health and you could hear how sincere he was and how important it was to him to talking about reaching out to people when you see that you suspect they might be struggling and I want you to think about what you now how you now view Kyle it because I guarantee that most of you feel very, very positive and warm towards Colin it was not a some sort of calculated move. He was speaking from the heart. And if you can learn how to put more of your heart into your communication like Kyle does. And this is just who Kyle is right so Kyle is probably like well, that’s just who I am. But but that’s how and why he is part of the number one team in San Diego because he is who he is and he’s not afraid to talk about some of those those things, and he puts that stuff into his content. And that is a significant thing. So Kyle, I apologize for taking over the conversation from all but I just wanted to honor you for that, because that is a substantial thing. And and I really appreciate your courage there.

Kyle Whissel 50:15
Yeah, I appreciate it, man. Yeah, I think this being real and authentic. I mean, that’s, that’s where we’re going here with video two is, don’t try to like emulate somebody else. Don’t try to talk the way I do. Or you do or, or anybody else does, like, just be real be super freakin authentic. I’m from San Diego. Like I say, Dude, I say, bro, I say what’s up, like, that’s how I talk here. You know, and somebody who’s from the Bronx is going to talk totally differently. And that’s fine. Like, talk, however you talk in person in your videos, because the person they see in the video should be the same person they meet with is if they’re not, and there’s a misalignment, there’s not going to be business, it’s done. So stay true to who you are. Like the best analogy I can give in this world today is like, no matter who flies the red flag in a couple years, everybody who flies a blue flag is not going to like that. And vice versa, right? Like that’s the society we’re in today, like 50% of people are not going to like somebody just because they fly the Blue Flag and or the red flag. That’s just the way that it is today. So the sooner you accept that no matter what you do, 50% of people aren’t going to like you, the better off you’re going to be. Because the 50% of people that do like you are going to be truly endear to who you are. And that’s the kind of person that they want to work with. So stay true to who you are, in the videos, show emotions show passion, if that’s how you are, if you are completely monotone, and, and very soft spoken than that, then be that because there’s people that are going to love that too. Not everybody wants the big flamboyant person. Some people want that just a very slow measured person, because that’s how they are. And well that guy over there is too much for me. But this girl over here is nice and quiet. Like, this is how I roll. That’s the kind of person I want to work with. Cool, that’s fine, be you stay true to who you are.

D.J. Paris 52:01
That’s really smart, too. And the algorithms from the social media companies who are serving up this content to their audience, you know, the public will say are selecting content that their algorithms are smart enough to know are going to more than likely than not resonate with that person. So you don’t really like as I was saying, don’t have to worry about who’s not going to be interested. Because odds are the systems in place are going to self select those people out they’re not even going to see your gods at most, most likely anyway. So the people are gonna get hooked on your stuff. I mean, people who listen to this show our audience people listening right now. They like what we put together the people that I’m sure the tons of people listened. And they’re like, that’s not very valuable. I’m tuning out. And yeah, I wish everyone loved it. Because you know, I would love to have everybody in the country listening. But that’s not realistic. And it’s okay, that people who like it really like it. And don’t worry about who doesn’t like it. And the people who don’t like it aren’t just aren’t, they’re not going to watch it. They’re going to watch it for 10 seconds, and they’re never gonna watch it again. But I want to I want to wrap up because Kyle is absolutely insanely busy, I could talk to him all night. But that wouldn’t be fair to him and his team because he is the number one team in San Diego. And they are busy. They’ve done 1000s and 1000s of transactions. So if anyone is looking to work with a realtor, maybe you’re listening to this show, and you’re not a real estate agent, but you’re just looking to work with a good agent, the best agent may be in San Diego, Kyle and his team would love the opportunity to work with you. So he you know whether you’re an investor or you’re just a regular person buying their first home or you know, you your realtor just isn’t doing a great job for you. And you want to work with a great team, Kyle whistle, and his team would love the opportunity to chat with you. But for most of our audience, you are realtors. And if you want to work with somebody like Kyle, and I know if I was practicing real estate in San Diego, he would be my first call because he understands branding, marketing. He’s Uh, he’s a great guy, as you can tell through this. And he’s just got great systems that he’s willing to teach that to you. So definitely reach out to him if you’re not getting the attention you need from your current firm. And oh, how about this he actually gets leads and provides them to his agents. Nobody does that. Very few people do that. Very few firms do that our firm doesn’t do that his his group does. That is amazing. So definitely check him out as well. And also we want to talk about his his his service that he provides to anyone which is called the the media Mayor mastermind. This is a video training course. Kyle, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Kyle Whissel 54:35
Yeah, so I’ve had a full time videographer. Now for seven years, we’ve created 1000s of videos that have had millions of views. We’ve done tons and tons of business from these and it’s helped establish us as the number one agent in our county and number one video influencer in North America. So we decided like hey, let’s take all the things we’ve learned over the last seven years and let’s share that and we put it all into a digital course. You can go to the whistle way dot Calm, and you can check that course out. But it’s literally everything we’ve learned how to prepare for the videos, how to shoot the videos, how to distribute the videos, how to get leads, from the videos, all different types of videos, whether it be one to one videos, community videos, you know, talking head videos, email videos, all of the different types of videos as well as podcasting. So we want to get into that as well really teaching you how to add a media wing to your business. Because like I said, the content you create this content is working for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. So creating content is one of the best ways to really grow your business. So if you want to go deeper on creating more media, we’d love to have you be a part of the course. One of the really cool things we talked about, you need to get, you know, two videos out a month well we actually give you four videos every single month, we’ll give you the video that we’ve shot that we’ve distributed on our team so you have an example the follow plus will give you the outline that we use when we created that video. So you can now do that exact same video in your own words in your own way and distributed that out to your database so love to have you guys be a part of it. The whistle way.com

D.J. Paris 56:08
And we should also mention that you know, anyone can put a video course together but not anyone is going to be named the number one video influencer in North America by bom bom. If you’re not familiar with Bom, bom, that is what they do. They are that is all they do is video marketing. And for them to name Kyle as their number one sort of representative of how it should be done is a huge, huge feather in his cap. So go to the whistle way.com, I couldn’t more strongly encourage all of our agents to if you’re looking to step up your video game or just looking to get into video, and you absolutely should, because you are missing out on the existing leads, as Kyle started out by saying there are people in your database that you don’t even realize are going to transact in real estate in the next 12 months. And if you don’t consistently get your content in front of them, they may just forget that you’re there that you’re a realtor. So this is a great way to stay in touch in a very soft way. Or you can do the one on one stuff, as we mentioned, as well. So check out the whistle way.com. And Kyle will teach you all of his strategies and secrets about video, video marketing. Uh, Kyle, thank you so much for being on the show. I know how busy you are. And I know that this was we went a bit long, so I appreciate your time. On behalf of Kyle and myself, we want to thank our audience. We appreciate everyone for sticking around listening to this great interview. And we ask that you just do one quick thing. Tell a friend think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing this amazing conversation with Kyle and send them a link to our show. Easiest way to do that, send them right over to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done can be streamed right there. Or if they are a podcast person, and you know that about them, have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button, Kyle, and on behalf of our audience, we want to thank Kyle for being on our show and sharing all these unbelievable secrets. We’ll have to have Kyle back because we could I could talk to you all night. But I know you’re busy. And I really wanted to get into your pot belly rescue. But let’s plug the nonprofit that you founded which is called Penelope is purpose do you mind sharing just a quick moment of exactly what that is? Because it’s so interesting.

Kyle Whissel 58:18
Yeah, my wife and I, we got our first pig like eight years ago, we got one of these little like micro teacup pigs that we’ve all like seen on TV with perisylvian and Miley Cyrus. And the reality is there’s no such thing as a mini pig or a teacup pig. So those tiny little pigs that you see on TV, they just conveniently forget to show you that those end up being like two or 300 pound pigs. So a lot of people don’t realize that when they get them their pig ends up being huge, they can’t have it anymore. They don’t realize pigs need a lot more attention than a dog or a cat. So don’t give them attention. They can be destructive. And a lot of people are just stupid and get a pig without checking their zoning. And then they ended up getting popped by code compliance. So we founded a nonprofit to help rescue rehabilitate and rehome these pigs and find them new permanent homes. And so that’s been a passion project for my wife and I it’s full 501 C three and that’s what we like to do and kind of give back and that’s our way of doing it.

D.J. Paris 59:11
So well. We applaud you for your service there. I have a dog underneath my desk right now who has got a coat on he was recovering from an eye illness. So I have a particular soft spot for anything related to and she was a rescue as well. So anyway, check out Penelope has purpose which is their pot bellied pig rescue. Kyle, thank you so much for being on the show. Really appreciate your time. And we will see everyone on the next episode. Thanks ca See you

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

Chris Linsell from TheClose.com and DJ discuss a viral TikTok video about Zillow’s iBuyer program. The conversation continues about anti-competitive measures and market manipulations. Next, they discuss the control of the information shared in various social media platforms between groups of real estate agents. Last, Chris shares some legal questions you may be asked by your clients and that you should be able to answer.

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 Follow Up Boss. Get your 30 day trial by clicking here.

D.J. Paris 0:00
Today’s episode is brought to you by thumbs up. Here’s a cool fact 50% of consumers rely on their social network to help them make purchasing decisions. So let me ask you, how many more referrals and great leads would your business receive if all your happy customers took the time to post their experiences and endorse your business on social media to all their connections? Well, I’ve got great news thumbs up does just that. Thumbs up is a referral system designed to help businesses leverage their customers social media with almost no hassle. With thumbs up, you can create a personalized post for your customer, allowing them in two easy clicks to celebrate their new purchase or service while endorsing your business to all their connections. Your post becomes their post and all of their friends and family can see your hard work through your customers eyes. And even better thumbs up as offering keeping it real listeners 50% off for your first two months visit get a thumbs up.com forward slash keeping it real and the offer code will automatically be applied at checkout. Again, that’s good a thumbs up.com forward slash keeping it real thumbs up referrals without asking. And now on to our show.

Right Welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I am your guide and host through the show today is our monthly series called closing time with Chris Lindh sell from the closed.com. 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 clothes.com That’s th e c l o e s e.com And subscribe to their newsletter so you get notified every time they publish an article with us as always is crystallin sell he is a senior staff writer and real estate coach for the clothes. Chris is the closest resident expert on real estate topics ranging from marketing lead generation transactional best practices and everything in between. He’s a licensed agent in the state of Michigan. Chris has been part of hundreds of transactions from modest rural starter homes to massive waterside compounds. When he isn’t writing, you’ll find Chris fly fishing or performing on the stage of his communities Theater’s production. Chris, welcome once again to keeping it real. We’re excited to have

Chris Linsell 2:52
you here today. So glad to be back. It’s the end of September when we’re recording this. So maybe happy October when people are listening to this. It’s fall either way. The Fall is here by

D.J. Paris 3:04
the Fall is here and I am in Chicago, you’re in Michigan. It is here. Today is the 27th of September although the episode won’t go live for people listening now are probably in October, but it is still 80 degrees outside today. And he in Chicago. I don’t know what it’s like in Michigan must be a nice day up there as well.

Chris Linsell 3:22
Beautiful. I’m not complaining at all. I’m complaining a little bit because I’m sitting in my office working outside goofing around. Got a lot of important things to talk about a lot happening in the real estate world. So I was excited to jump on a chat today.

D.J. Paris 3:36
Yeah, let’s talk first about this viral Tiktok video that’s making the rounds that came up a couple couple of days ago. This was a a realtor basically posted a video about Zillow and some concerns about their eye buying practices.

Chris Linsell 3:55
Yeah, so i i Follow Zillow news very closely. And in fact, I think a lot of realtors should, in part because they are such a dominant force in our industry. But I was even I as somebody who follows them pretty closely was surprised and interested to see this. So if you haven’t seen this you should. You should you should do a little Googling and check out Zelos anti competitive practices. What what people are saying about that? Here’s the gist of a realtor who made a tic tac realtor out of Las Vegas. Here’s what they suggested. They suggested that Zillow as a function of their eye buying program has the opportunity and often the occasion to engage in market manipulation via the purchase and sale prices of the homes that they’re buying in their eye buying program. And I know that sounds a little dense so Let me break it down a little bit, let’s say that you’ve got an entity that has a virtually unlimited buying power. And as a part of an AI buying program, they buy 10 homes in a neighborhood. Now, if you’re talking

D.J. Paris 5:12
about possibly a company with the amount of data that Zillow has coming in and saying, Hey, we we are going to come in and make offers to the sellers.

Chris Linsell 5:23
That’s right, yeah. And as a part of I bind, you often exchange, you get a faster sale, you get a smoother transaction, you get less or no negotiating. So it’s a it’s a, it’s often a smoother experience. But in exchange for that smoother experience, you sacrifice some of your profits. So it’s not uncommon for ibuying. purchase prices to be anywhere from five up to 15%, below the typical market value. So that is understandable considering you’re making a trade for convenience, money for convenience. So let’s say like, for

D.J. Paris 6:03
example, it could start interrupted it could be i by people who are prone to being I buyers, or rather, the clients of I buyers would be maybe somebody who inherits a home from a from a relative that passes away, or somebody that just needs to exit a home very quickly. Maybe they’re being transferred, or they’re leaving the state or that the immediate area.

Chris Linsell 6:28
That’s right, yep. In fact, those were the clients that were first kind of identified as the potential best fits for AI buyers. But numbers have shown that there are more and more people who are willing to trade some of their money for convenience. And this kind of makes sense, when you think about this in the greater landscape of business. I mean, how many times have we paid a few extra bucks for our food to be delivered to our doorstep rather than getting in the car and driving 10 minutes down the road to the restaurant that we got the takeout from? This is what Uber Eats and DoorDash are all based on is this idea that we’re willing to trade some of our money for convenience. So if you put this in the context of I buy, and let’s say this company has bought in a neighborhood, they purchased 10 homes under market value by 15%. And then the 11th. Home they purchase, they purchase it 10% above market value. And I might You might be asking, why would they do that? Well, now they have the latest comps in the neighborhood is 20, effectively 20% higher than the other homes that they own. And so now they can turn around and sell those other homes at the higher using the latest comp as kind of the North Star for the CMAS that are done for the listing prices. Now, there’s a lot that goes into why this isn’t actually an effective strategy. Like there’s a lot of reasons why this wouldn’t work. But what it really does for me, what this conversation really does is it brings up how important the the issue of anti competitive behavior in real estate is, how pervasive it is, how easy it could be for that to happen. And it really starts us down the trail of thinking, where else do we face this problem in our industry? And what can we do about it? Yeah, it

D.J. Paris 8:23
reminds me of it in Chicago, here we have, we have we have a lot of traders, this is a big trading city, we have the Board of Trade here. And whenever I would meet a trader, because I never, maybe I’m not smart enough to really understand how trading truly works. But I would ask, you know, I would meet somebody who was a trader, and I would say, Well, what do you do? And they’d say, Well, I trade interest rates. And I would say, Well, I don’t know what that means. And they would say all we care about is movement. As long as there’s movement, we make money. And I said well do you care if the market goes up, or if interest rates go up or down, they’re like not really, we just care about movement, because the algorithms that they used to sort of predict the trades that would be most profitable to them, were already sort of figured out by whoever the the egg heads were behind the scenes. And so all they really had to do was get some volatility going in the market and they were able to manipulate certain sectors of in this case, in the example I gave like interest rates, just to get some movement going and then they could find some margin in those in that movement and figure out which way they want to bet. And it’s just super talking about a sort of a similar strategy here that you know, it would be whether or not Zillow will or has done this is one question the other the other question is, could anybody do this? And the answer of course is yes. Because anyone could go into a neighborhood and purchase homes under market value and then take so I guess the question becomes around comps is how do we is there a way to streamline whomps comps, you know, we all know is like an art and a science? Is there a way to more methodically define what a good comp looks like so that the manipulation isn’t as easy to pull off? I guess?

Chris Linsell 10:16
That’s a great question. I mean, ultimately, this is something that I talked to agents back, I’m going to be doing a session at the triple play conference in Atlantic City, this December speaking session about how to produce a bulletproof comparative market analysis. And one of the things that I talk to folks about in sessions like that is when you’re pulling comps, you have to recognize that there is no silver bullet, there is no specific apply to all formula that is going to yield you an effective comparison. Just like real estate comps are local comps are specific to the circumstance. And so in the same way that you can’t peg a comp in Lincoln Park to the Gold Coast in Chicago, you can’t, you know, you may have some similarities there. But it’s really going to be neighborhood to neighborhood even building to building sometimes. So that’s the first golden rule here is to not get too tied to a particular comp before investigating how applicable, it is to your actual scenario. The other thing that I think is important to remember when you are thinking about comps, in the context of this conversation about potentially anti competitive behavior, is we engage in market manipulation subtly all the time. I mean, if you don’t think that you as a realtor engaged in this, tell me that you’ve never had a conversation with a client said, Well, if we list in June, we’ll probably get a higher price than if we list in, in February. That’s

D.J. Paris 11:57
it’s the last week. You know, it’s the second week in December, let’s not list right now, because everyone is not paying attention to the market. We’re all doing our December holiday stuff.

Chris Linsell 12:09
That’s 100%. Right? Guess what, if you listed that property in the second week of December, that would change the inventory levels, those inventory levels would balance against the the demand at that current time it would affect prices, you are making subtle market manipulation decisions based on that. And there’s nothing wrong with that, right. Like this is part of fundamental strategy for offering our clients the best experience possible. But we have to decide whether or not there’s a line to be drawn? And if there is who gets to draw it and where is it?

D.J. Paris 12:42
Yeah, that’s really the question because technology is going to perfect this sort of system, because it’s just math really. So ultimately, you know, the the the systems will be figured out technology is advanced beyond beyond regulation at this point in a lot of different industries, not not only real estate, but now real estate starting to get a sense of Oh, wow. So what market manipulation in the equities market in the stock market has been more present for quite some time. And I think there’s a whole regulatory boards, making sure that there aren’t people out there that are obviously manipulating the market in a way that they deem is illegal or unethical. But there are guidelines for securities, we you know, there are there are things that you can and can’t do. If your wife is a C suite executive for a massive public company, and she goes, Hey, our earnings report, which is going to come out next Thursday, is going to be very bad. Let’s dump all of our shares, then that is that is most likely going to be an illegal activity because you have inside information, you’re you’re you’re manipulating the market for your own benefit. So I guess it’d be very interesting to see how how the National Association of Realtors and how the government attempts to sort of regulate this because they’re going to have to, I think,

Chris Linsell 14:09
yeah, I agree with you. And I think you since you mentioned them, I was I was hesitant to pull this card out of the deck just yet. But since you mentioned their name, I’m just gonna throw this out here. The National Association of REALTORS has not been immune to conversations regarding anti competitive behavior. It’s in a different context. But there are a lot of people who have a bit of a bee in their bonnet, so to speak about the fact that it is really difficult to be a full time functional real estate professional in this country without belonging to and I’m just going to call it what it is a professional organization that is on its face voluntary, but I can tell you from personal experience, I can’t belong to my local organization without belonging to the National Association of Realtors. And so is this a is this anti competitive? Would there be rises of other professional organizations for our, our industry if Gnar wasn’t positioned the way they are? I don’t know exactly. I’ve honestly never known a world without the position of NAR in the way that it is right now. But the idea of anti competitive behavior in real estate, this is not new. And these conversations are going to continue to come up

D.J. Paris 15:29
my, one of my favorite questions when I talk to a newly licensed broker, or somebody who just passes their exam, and they are deciding what firm they want to work at. And so they might be talking to me about our firm. And after discussing all the things we offer, I’ll say, Oh, by the way, part of the the sort of way that it works here is you have to join a local association. In this case, there’s, well, there’s lots of several of them here in the Chicagoland area, you have to join one of them, we belong to all of them. So you get to choose which one but you have to join one. And that will pay for your MLS access as well as your local state and national dues. And then oftentimes they’ll say, Well, what if I don’t want to do that? And I say, Well, unfortunately, the way that it’s set up is that you have to not because we expect you to or we require it, but that the local association requires it. And they would say, Well, that seems a bit unfair. And I don’t always have I never have an answer to whether that’s fair or unfair. It just sort of simply is what it is. Although that’s that’s not a good question of why is it that way? But it begs the question of of, yeah, it’d be very interesting to see how the National Association of REALTORS talks about things like this, when they themselves, of course, have, you know, some, some consideration with with their own practices, which isn’t in no way, of course, meant to disparage the National Association of Realtors. But this is just a complicated problem that any massive industry has to face and create some rules around

Chris Linsell 17:09
AI 100% agree. And I actually I want to go on record as saying, I agree with you. Now, if you’re listening, this is not an indictment of you and your your practices on this. In fact, I have appreciated your leadership on this particular. Yeah, I do think that being said, with that, with that caveat in mind, I do think that this is a position, an opportunity for positional leadership to because in the same way that it is so important that you you know, you mentioned the the financial regulations of, you know, let’s say my wife is a C suite executive at a fortune 500 company and I have via her insider information about the stock performance or forecasted performance, in the same way that that is a clearly important place to have regulation, the idea that an industry in which the vast majority of Americans the fundamental component of their wealth is at stake here. I mean, more Americans, their their wealth is tied to their the equity in their home than anything else. I mean, by a longshot. You would think that with something that is as important as that, that we would have thoughtful, assertive and vocal leadership on issues like this so that there is no confusion about where the organization that is designed to protect our professional interests in the same way that we’re designed to protect the fiduciary interests of our clients. Nar needs to have a leadership stake in this conversation and not just being an observer because frankly, this is just too important otherwise,

D.J. Paris 18:58
I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast. Do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests? Of course it is a follow up boss and let’s face it following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort. Do not take my word for it. Robert slack who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 systems so you can keep your current tools and lead sources also the best part they have seven day a week support so you’ll get the help that you need when you need it and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial which is twice as much time as they give everyone else and oh yeah, no credit card required. hired. So you can try it risk free, but only if you use this special link visit, follow up boss.com forward slash real, that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. Be very interesting to see how they continue to respond. And it yeah, I’m excited for it, I think there’s good people that seem to be tackling these types of issues as best as I can tell, at those levels, so I’m excited to see and I, I think I just believe that that there’s, there’s a lot of good that can happen with understanding that transparency is really critical. And understanding that now that we have technology in place, to an industry that that’s really not as technologically advanced, I mean, realtors are still in person, most of the time they’re doing face to face kind of or old sales, sort of strategy and approach. And that’s there’s nothing wrong with that, that’s tends to be how things are done. But now we have technology that that can manipulate data, and then not manipulate it in evil way. But just find opportunity there that maybe a human brain couldn’t, couldn’t quite do as as quickly. So there has to be some sort of some sort of rules in place about fair play. And I don’t know what that looks like. And I, I, I’m not a poli sci major. So I’m not smart enough to to understand what the role of government is, and where, where they should step in, and where, where they would be overreaching?

Chris Linsell 21:47
Well, you know, the interesting thing about this is in, in the same for the same reasons that I am grateful for, for on a lot to say it kind of Federalist business style where we, you know, there’s so much value and emphasis put on a state’s right to kind of create their own rules and regulations. I think that that’s a really valuable thing, especially in real estate, because just like I was talking about before, like this is a this is a local business, you know, real estate is it occurs on the streets in the neighborhoods, it doesn’t occur on the state or national level. And so local places have to be able to make their own rules about their own markets. That being said, that does open us up to some significant challenges when it comes to creating regulation about these broad spectrum issues. And a great example of this, I’ll share a specific example, in my local market, there are rules that are written into my local associations, bylaws, about not creating exclusive groups within the Board of Realtors, for access to information, there’s basically just like any MLS, if you are a member of the MLS, you get access to all the information on the MLS, there isn’t a section of the MLS that you have to pay an extra set of fees to get into if I see a listing, everybody sees a listing, if I see a comp, everybody sees a comp. Well, what happens when you form these private Facebook groups with 20 realtors who you share listings with before they go live, and all of a sudden, you’re not breaking any NAR rules your mate, maybe it’s hard to say exactly. And that made me breaking any state rules. But maybe you’re breaking a local rule. But are you because the rules were written before Facebook was a thing. All of a sudden you have this antitrust situation where you’ve got 20 People who have access to information that the rest of us don’t. And now we have again, an example of anti competitive problems in the real estate industry. So you know, it doesn’t happen just on these major international kind of billion dollar company, business levels. It happens on the street level, it’s really easy for us to forget that equal and open access to all of the information whether it’s market information or customer information or whatever it is. This is a bedrock for which we build our business models on and you know, anything that jeopardizes that sort of access to information is anti competitive and may require regulation.

D.J. Paris 24:35
Same same sort of idea for a brokerage who may be has a dominant market share in a particular area where they have maybe the most number of Realtors, let’s just make it really simple. So let’s say there’s in most areas, there’s probably one firm that has more market share more agents, more more transactions, they are going to have more information about Coming stuff. And is it okay for a realtor at that particular firm to share with all the realtors within that firm? Hey, guys, just so you know, I’ve got a listing coming up on X date, if you’re interested, but ahead of time tell your clients and you know that is that yeah, that’s a great question is how do we how do you how does that get regulated or enforced it, you know, social media groups where like share groups on Facebook or other different social avenues, where you could share this kind of information, you know, you could put a pretty strong, easy sort of rule in place saying, Hey, we just don’t do that. But what about, you know, hanging out at the watercooler at this big office that has access to all of this stuff, and no one else outside of that those walls might might hear it? It’s very interesting. It’s very curious to see if if the, you know, who would regulate something like that, how it would be regulated? Gosh, it’s very interesting, really opens up a lot of conversation.

Chris Linsell 26:04
It is a real brain Bender, and you know, I regularly get into these rabbit hole conversations with people about this sort of thing. But you know, one truth that I come back to on a regular basis is we can we can pretty much answer the first level of any question around these sorts of conversations with answering, is this good for my clients? Is this the best is am I am I fulfilling my first responsibility as a realtor and protect protecting the fiduciary? well being of my clients, if the answer is yes, if the answer is yes, I’m doing that and I am doing it so legally, morally, and ethically, then, then that’s, that’s really the first test that needs to get passed. If you’re you answer that question, you’re like, I think I am, then there is the I think that that that kind of opens up the next level of, well, if you’re not sure that this is in the best interest of your clients, then it’s in the best interest of somebody else. And that’s when we need to start being worried about this. And I think there’s a lot of people coming back to the original conversation. There’s a lot of people who look at the Zillow scenario, and they say, this is a systemic if this were true, if Zillow was manipulating the market on a larger scale basis, and doing it across many, many transactions, and in potentially many markets, that clearly is not for the best interest of the clients at at hand. It’s not for the best interest of the sellers. It’s not for the best interest of the buyers. It’s clearly for their own best interests, and businesses have the ability or the right to create business models that, you know, can generate profit for them, but not at the expense of their clients here.

D.J. Paris 27:58
Yeah. Interesting. And we will continue to talk about this as more more conversations happen in the sort of the public sphere from leadership, because this will be very interesting to continue to monitor. I would like I know that you are working on a I suspect an article, although I don’t know if it’s something for the close. But I know you were you were talking to me beforehand about some to leave our audience with some some actionable sort of information that you can use in a little bit of a different way. But but but somewhat related to what we were talking about, which is some legal questions that you get asked by clients, and that you should have a ready to go answer for

Chris Linsell 28:41
absolutely, yeah, this this, to me is one of what what we’re talking about here is one of those sticky legal questions that every realtor should should know the answers to, right. So you’re gonna get asked questions that are either by your clients or by other people who look to you as a thought leader in the industry. And this is one of those things that maybe you should have an answer to. There are a handful of other questions that I think every realtor should have an answer to. And they get asked because you’re gonna get asked about this. So we’re not going to go through all of these really quickly. But I just want to plant a couple of seeds in your head. If you’re listening. Here are some questions you should know some answers to and I’m going to point you towards the right direction as far as starting to investigate these. The first question is, can I get a referral fee? If I’m not a licensed real estate agent or broker? How often do we have clients are like, Oh, I’ll send you my brother he wants to buy. Can I get a little piece of that? You know, like, maybe it doesn’t. It’s not phrased in exactly like that, that that way. But we have these kinds of questions and real estate agents, again, to the to their credit. We’re always looking for new lead generation. Strategies and utilizing our sphere is one of those strategies. So ask yourself can I had a referral? Can I pay a referral fee to somebody if they don’t have a license? The short answer to this is no. But it’s complicated. So go on to the close, we have an article all about referral fees, you can figure out specifically, what the legal ins and outs are for your state. So that’s the first question referral fees. The second question is, am I adhering to fair housing practices? This is a big question. And there’s a lot to this. But I’m just going to start you with one question is, is my print marketing, adhering to fair housing? Okay. Just your print marketing, just the things that people will see on a piece of paper? This is hard and fast. There are rules NAR has had rules about this fair housing has rules about this going back 50 years. Okay. So this is the question you should ask yourself, Am I adhering? Just right there? And then the last one, we’ll just leave you with with one or the last one is, am I negotiating legally? And here’s what i Here’s? Here’s, here’s a question to kind of spur this conversation. Did you know that there are certain things that you can’t legally negotiate using like, like certain terms, or certain elements of a contract that you can’t negotiate for, like, you can’t necessarily negotiate a real estate transaction based on like, ease of transaction as a product of familial status, oh, this is my guys, my guys single this will be an easy transaction, he doesn’t have to, you know, you won’t have to set up a whole bunch of moving just just him. Guess what, that’s actually that’s, that’s fair housing right there. If you bring fair housing, if you bring somebody’s familial status into negotiations, you are violating Fair Housing statute.

D.J. Paris 31:50
That’s a great example. Because it is such an easy, accidental thing to say, because there’s, there’s a bit of logic to it. And it’s not necessarily, you’re not doing it with a nefarious sort of reason behind it, you’re just saying, Hey, by the way, my guy here is single, this should go really smooth. Which would be a very easy off the cuff comment to make without realizing that you’ve just violated fair housing.

Chris Linsell 32:19
Totally, totally. So. So here’s, here’s this is what I want to challenge folks on is, take a look at your print marketing. Are you adhering to fair housing rules and regs if you’re if you have questions about this, go to the NAR code of ethics, it’s available for free on their website, they have a whole section about print marketing, and fair housing, just do a quick double check, see how you’re doing on that. Think about your referrals? Are you paying referrals legally? Or is everything getting paid through your brokerage? Or is your lead generation strategies? Are they all on the up and up? You know, is there anything that you’re like? Well, it’s maybe a little a little shady, maybe I shouldn’t be throwing money or gift certificates or, you know, visits to restaurants. All that stuff is kind of part of the course of business for a lot of agents. And it’s not on the up and up. So double check yourself on that. And then the last thing is negotiation are you negotiating legally and ethically, and a great way to double check on this is make yourself a negotiation playbook. Even if you’re the only person that ever sees it. Take take 10 minutes and write down the different ways that you negotiate on behalf of your clients. Just seeing them on a piece of paper puts in pretty stark contrast how you’re going about this where you’re finding success. It’s always great to double check your own strategies to make sure that you’re coloring within the lines,

D.J. Paris 33:45
great suggestions and advice. And if you want to review that entire piece, you would you can go check that out at the closed.com I’m not sure if it’s up yet or if you’re working still working on it.

Chris Linsell 33:58
Yeah, we’re still working on that one. So we don’t have the specific things about legal questions up there just yet, but we have articles about referrals and the legality of referrals. We’ve got articles about negotiation in fact, we’ve got a great section a great course the close pro about negotiation, negotiation tactics and and and how to stay on the up and up and still providing the best service possible. And I love talking about fair housing, especially in marketing. So I’m just about every marketing specific article I’ve done on a close, there’s going to be some sort of element of fair housing to that too.

D.J. Paris 34:38
Well, and the clothes we should remind everyone if you’re not already a regular reader of the clothes, most of their in their articles, almost all of their articles are entirely free of charge. They do have a premium subscription model as well. Do you mind sharing, it’s called the closed Pro. Do you mind sharing a little bit about what the closed Pro is?

Chris Linsell 34:57
Yeah, absolutely. So the close pro Like you said, it is our premium subscription service, you can get just about anything you want on the clothes. But if you want to upgrade your clothes experience, you can go to the clothes Pro, it’s 35 bucks a month. If you want to sign up for the monthly, or, you know, $25 a month, or the equivalent of $25 a month, if you want to sign up for the annual pass. When you go to the close pro, you get access to our courses library, we just had a fantastic course called the Facebook and Instagram Crash Course for agents just just ran this course live. Last week, it’s in replay now and we’ve gotten some really great response to it. If you want to figure out what Facebook and Instagram is for your real estate business, this is just an absolute banger way to do it. We’ve got bootcamps all about marketing and lead generation and business development and team building. And I mean honestly, the list goes on and on. Plus a crazy huge library full of strategy guides and templates and training modules and video content. It really just is a premium opportunity to upgrade your business, you can get so much on the clothes, you can get even more on the clothes Pro. Like I said it’s 25 bucks a month, if you want to go for the annual membership or 35. If you just want to try it out for a month, come on over, we would love to see it and you really wouldn’t see us because I interact with a live with close pro members every week. We do Q and A’s we do master classes, we do boot camps. So if you want to get more Chris, you know where to find

D.J. Paris 36:44
a check out the clothes pro by visiting the clothes.com. Also, if you want to get more of Chris, you can, Chris, where are you going to be speaking you have a bunch of speaking engagements coming up.

Chris Linsell 36:54
Yeah, so you can check me out. I’m going to be on the stage at the National Association of Realtors Conference in San Diego this November. If you’re an East Coast realtor, part of Pennsylvania, New York or New Jersey, I’m going to be on the stage at triple play this year. And then I’m headed out to Las Vegas, the end of October as an attendee and someone who’s going to be covering the Inman Connect conference, and going to be meeting up with a whole bunch of readers and listeners and industry leaders there to take in the presentations to chat about real estate. So if you are headed to Inman Connect, I’m not trying to take the wind out of the inland sales by any means. But the close is going to be there. So come find me. Hit me up on LinkedIn or Twitter, send me a message I’d love to meet up and meet meet folks and chat about real estate and your business and and hear how things are going because this has really been an unprecedented year. And I would love to connect with folks and and hear from hear from them firsthand about their experiences and what’s happening in our world.

D.J. Paris 38:02
Amazing. Well, Chris, thank you once again, for coming on. Every month, Chris has been one of our most loyal guest guest hosts for years now. And he always provides incredible value. We’re so thrilled that he is here representing the clothes for everyone. Before you sign off, please ask ask yourself, Do I know another realtor? Who could benefit from this information? The answer is yes, of course you do. Send them a link to this show. If they’re not familiar with it. Easiest way to do that, just introduce them to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com. Or if they are already a podcast listener for other shows, they can just pull up whatever podcast app they use search for keeping it real, and hit that subscribe button. And also, please visit the clothes.com it’s the very best website we’ve ever found for real estate agents to learn about how to grow their business and get actionable strategic insight about their day to day lives. And from a marketing perspective. I mean, all of their articles are really well researched. They’re long form articles, they’re not, you know, top five ways to, you know, improve your showing this weekend, which is the five things you already know these, these are going to in depth articles. They’re well researched and written by journalists who know what they’re doing. And I promise you, it’ll help grow your business, or at the very least it’ll grow your knowledge center, so that you can be more effective with your clients. So visit the clothes.com Chris, thanks for being on the show yet again. We want to thank all of our listeners and viewers on behalf of Chris and myself. And on behalf of the listeners and viewers. I want to thank Chris for coming on. He’s a busy guy, and he shows up here and please go visit him if you’re if you’re attending any of those conferences. Go check him out. He’s a wonderful, great human being that we love to have on the show and he would love to say hi You’re in person. So, Chris, thanks and we’ll see you next month. Looking forward to today.

Jeff Lottmann with Dielmann Sotheby’s talks about the beginning of his career in real estate and continues to describe how he got involved in the luxury real estate market. Next, Jeff and DJ discuss the state of the luxury real estate market in the last couple of years. Jeff shares how he stays in touch with his past clients. Last, Jeff emphasizes the importance of knowing the story of the property you’re helping your clients buy.

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

Jeff Lottmann can be reached at (314) 725-0009 and [email protected]

This episode is brought to you by Follow Up Boss. Get your 30 day trial by clicking here.

D.J. Paris 0:00
Today’s episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by follow up boss. The best of the best know that outstanding follow up is essential for a thriving real estate business. And more than ever, they’re using follow up boss the leading CRM for real estate to make it happen. Follow up boss helps you convert more leads. Robert slack, founder of the number one real estate team in United States uses it in his $1.5 billion business. Deborah Beagle uses it to guarantee that agents who join our team get two homes under contract in their first 90 days, and Barry Jenkins uses it to automate everything to run his $200 million team on a 25 hour work week to reclaim his work life balance. Now for a limited time follow up boss is doubling their free trial for keeping it real podcast listeners go to follow up boss.com forward slash real for 30 days of unlimited access, no credit card required. That’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for a 30 day free trial. And now on to our show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with Jeff lotman, his top producer from St. Louis. Before we get to Jeff, I would like to of course thank you as always for continuing to listen and support our show. By the way, if any of our listeners or viewers out there are going to be at the National Association of Realtors Conference this November in San Diego I will be there. So if you would like to say hello, shoot us a message visit our website and you can send us a contact form message right from keeping it real pod.com which is also the place you can go to listen to every episode we’ve ever done. And please continue to help us grow by telling a friend and just think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing from top producers like Jeff send them a link to that website. Also follow us on Facebook we’re at facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod every single day we find an article online to help agents grow their business and post it there. And now on to our interview with Jeff Lawton.

Right today on the show, we have Jeff Lockman, from the Jeff lotman group with Dieleman. Sotheby’s in St. Louis, Missouri place I used to live a million years ago. But let me tell you about Jeff Now Jeff lotman has applied his business insight is networking ability and his talent for sales to multiple endeavors over the course of his professional career. As Vice President of Sales for a medical care company. He worked with high net worth individuals interacted directly with C suite executives and increase the company’s clients exponentially and in 2002, he turned his passion for real estate into a profession, founding the lotman Realty Group. The firm based in St. Louis focuses on high net worth individuals and luxury properties. With Jeff at the helm talented staff and gross sales of over 300 million. The Jeff lotman group has become the high end real estate firm of choice for hundreds of families and luxury real estate investors in the St. Louis area and beyond. Please learn more about Jeff at his website, which is Jeff lachman.com. And allotment is spelled l o t t m a n n again, Jeff lot T m a n n.com. Jeff, welcome to the show.

Jeff Lottmann 3:45
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

D.J. Paris 3:47
Well, we are really thrilled to have you because the number one question that our listeners send to us is, hey, ask your guests how to break into the luxury market because everybody wants to work luxury. And I know that that is not an easy task to do. Not an easy thing, endeavor. But everyone starts somewhere. So we would love to go all the way back to the beginning of your career and learn about why you got into real estate and how you did?

Jeff Lottmann 4:18
Well, you know, it’s interesting. You mentioned I was a VP of a medical company in post 911 I was kind of forced to make a move because what happened is we manage the emergency departments and our medical malpractice carrier, we had to renew on 10, one of 2001. So at that point, it was an utter turmoil turmoil. So our medical malpractice went up about 2,000% Oh, so unfortunately, we could not the company couldn’t sustain even a day longer. So I was I was literally forced to do that. And it was it was good because I had a couple rental homes Night, I love the real estate, there’s just so many avenues as you’ve talked about in the intros that you can, you can make money and you can enjoy it. So being forced to get in, I literally just went both feet in the deep end. And here we are 20 years later,

D.J. Paris 5:18
was it a big shift going from working in a more traditional corporate environment? With all of the layers that that, you know, enterprise level companies sort of deal with to then being in business, essentially, for yourself? Was that a big shift for you? Or was that a pretty seamless transition?

Jeff Lottmann 5:36
No, it’s incredibly difficult, you know, you when you’re in the corporate world, your your day is fairly structured. So when you become the entrepreneurial in the real estate, you’re like, Oh, my God, what am I going to do? And I don’t sell anything, I’m not gonna get paid. So Oh, my gosh, what do I do now? So it’s a, it took a while it took it took guts was a tremendous leap of faith. And luckily, it paid off.

D.J. Paris 6:01
So how did you go about finding clients, when you first got started being that everybody knew you as a different type of businessman? And now you’re, you know, now you’re now again, you do have you did have the experience with your own rental properties, which I am sure was invaluable to helping your clients but just in the, how to market yourself and how you got clients? Do you mind sharing sort of what worked for you back then?

Jeff Lottmann 6:25
Well, it wasn’t easy. You know, it’s when you’re new, everybody’s they hate to take a chance on you know, what, what I did is I literally started with a friends and family. And I really, since I was building my own brand, I went to a lot of networking events. And every day I was somewhere, whether it be a local health club, and, and passing out cards, and it truly was just a relentless pursuit of business. Because when you’re, I mean, literally, I didn’t have an income coming in anymore. So I had to generate one. And it’s not easy. It’s not easy at all. But when you’re building your own brand, it’s fun. So you know, it’s meeting face to face, it’s asking for help. And that’s the, that’s the key is everybody is willing to help. But when you’re new, it’s like, well, he’s new, he can’t do this. But he can do that. So I got, I got fortunate that several good friends gave me an opportunity right off the bat. And, and luckily, I had some help from experienced agents to kindly lead me down a successful path.

D.J. Paris 7:31
Yeah, I’ve always thought it. I understand when newer agents are reluctant to want to work with friends and family, because of course, they feel maybe their inexperience might screw up the deal, or maybe they just don’t feel as confident and they don’t want to be embarrassed or with these people that are closest to them. And I understand that, that thought and I’ve always said, on the flip side, your friends and family are most likely to forgive you if there is a mistake as well. So I’m not sure what if there’s a right or wrong way to do that. But But I would encourage all of our all of our listeners who may be in that part where maybe you’re newer to the business to at least remind everybody that you know that you are looking for business. But what Jeff did, you know, is so important, and it’s so simple, and it seems so obvious. But it is sort of something that I think the vast majority of us who are practicing real estate probably struggle with which is business development, which would mean going out, talking to people passing out your card, getting their information, adding people to your database, which again, is a tedious task, and it is not easy, and it takes guts. But but you really just said it exactly as almost every other person I’ve ever interviewed on the show said as I went out and talked to a lot of different people and tried to, you know, remind them that this is now what I do.

Jeff Lottmann 8:59
And you know, I always said yes. So it was crazy, kind of early on how the path led me but one of my early clients was looking for large multifamily. And he’s like, can you do that? I said, yes. But I’m like, Oh my gosh, I gotta go find somebody who deals with telling me what to do. But it was interesting, because he was a California buyer that was buying in St. Louis, because the the cap rates were so much better here. And you know what, I partnered with a guy that knew what he was doing, and I faked it until we made it and he ended up buying 600 units. So the key is say yes, because even if you’re not comfortable with there’s somebody in your company or one of your friends that has already experienced this and they could partner with you and and together as a team, you’re going to be you’re going to be dynamite. So that’s the key is say yes. If anybody asks, Can you do it? Yes, I can.

D.J. Paris 9:49
Boy, better advice I don’t think has ever been shared. I couldn’t agree with you more and even if you really truly can’t assist that client as Jeff at all I sort of alluded to, there’s someone in your in your area that can and maybe they even work at a different company. And you can say, hey, you know, I’m going to pass this over to a colleague of mine at such and such firm or at my own firm, and I’m going to be part of the transaction. But this is this person’s specialty. And I’m going to pay it, you know, that’s okay to do as well. And obviously, Jeff’s advice is basically that, but yes, mentorship partnering, boy, don’t worry about what you don’t know, because someone else that you can partner up with already has that information, and it will just make your life a lot easier. And trying to figure it all out yourself. I would love to talk about this idea of luxury, because I know that there’s such a fantasy. And I don’t mean this in a negative way. But so many people think if I could only get those million dollar listings, that would solve all of my problems, I can only get those buyers that, you know, are in that high net worth sort of bracket. And I’m not saying that that isn’t a great thing. Of course, it’s a wonderful thing, if that’s where your passion is. But can you talk about what drew you to the luxury market and how you went about starting to infiltrate sort of that space?

Jeff Lottmann 11:12
Well, I think it takes a lot of confidence, especially if you’re younger, because it is intimidating to deal with the C suite people and high net worth people. But guess what, you’re the expert, and they need your help. And as you move up into the luxury market, it’s much more of a business decision than an emotional one. So I just kind of took the what was at the time, 15 years of sales, business, C suite interaction and was not afraid to deal with them. You know, they I wasn’t intimidated by him, I approached them. And I felt like I brought a whole business marketing that was a little bit different than the old days of just putting the sign in the yard and doing nothing. And, and I asked for the business. So it’s confidence. It’s like, yeah, I can do this. Yes, I can do this. Yeah, we do this. And then the other thing I think is excellent is to get with one of your local luxury builders in the area, and learn how the houses are built, learn if it’s, uh, you know, learn what they do. What’s what’s different in this area? You know, is it a green builder? Is the energy efficient builder? I mean, what, what are people buying? What do they like? What do they want, and then you can kind of use that because there’s a good chance that when you go in the luxury market, you’re going to sell one of these builders homes, and you already know what his stick is or her stick and what the advantages are of that home, and then you’re going to be able to sell it even even beyond the wall. So you’re going to know what he put in the house? Is it? Is it energy efficient, as I mentioned, is it you know, there’s they have radiant heat? So I think it’s I think it makes all the sense in the world is to talk to luxury builders and and they’ll they’ll flip you a lead here to if they can’t find somebody for a potential lot, or if they’re the budgets a little bit higher than they want. And they’ll call you and say, Hey, Jeff, I’ve got a buyer for you, can you help them out? So I think that’s a good way to start.

D.J. Paris 13:12
It’s a really great suggestion I we’ve done about 300 episodes, and I don’t think anyone has actually given that particular piece of advice, which is such a great advice is if you want to work in the luxury market, start talking to the services that service luxury clients like luxury builders and say, hey, I want to learn what you do. So that I can relay that information. And oh, by the way, when my client wants to build something, I would want to pass that over to you as well, Mr. Luxury or Mrs. Luxury builder. But I also just want some good talking points about you know, these types of properties and what I should be telling my clients and and of course, that those those referrals go both ways. So what what I can’t imagine how much business you have probably provided to some of those builders, just by sheer fact of you being connected to that high net worth individual.

Jeff Lottmann 14:02
Well, you’re exactly right, it does go both ways. And here’s the thing, so builders always reach out to the real estate community to find lots, because in today’s market, if a lot hits the market, it most of them don’t, especially where they want so they’re gonna they’re gonna look at you, as Hey, a source to try to find them lots so they can build. So to answer your question, sure that on the one particular one had was an energy efficient builder, and I didn’t know anything about it. So I talked to him, he gave me a tour of his home. He showed me two or three other homes. And then I’ve given him four clients totaling over $20 million of revenue to him. So yeah, I mean, he’s he and I become good friends for I imagine. Yes. But you know what he calls me if he gets leads on his website, and he’ll say, Hey, Jeff, these these people aren’t in my range. But here you go, Can you can you help them? And again, I think, I mean, that’s a source that I got lucky with But just from talking to people, but if you’re not, if you’ve not engaging in the luxury builder market, I think you’re missing an opportunity to get some significant business.

D.J. Paris 15:10
Yeah, I also wonder, too, by the way, it’s such a great strategy. And I also wonder what percentage of Realtors would even think to contact a builder and say, I want to learn about your business, so that I can service clients that use your services, it’s such a smart thing to do that maybe isn’t as obvious as well, I want to study the luxury market and look at the MLS and really understand those properties. And all the data that the MLS might reflect. But going beyond the data into the actual structure of the home, and understanding, you know, what, what those clients look for, from a builders perspective is really, really I know, I’m, I’m hammering this point hard, but I think it is such a great idea. So that in and of itself is an amazing, amazing tip. I also wanted to ask your opinion about this, because it is just was you reminded me of a conversation I had, maybe 10 years ago or so with a not on this podcast, because we didn’t exist back then. But with somebody who was a realtor in Texas, and they were thinking of moving here to Chicago, and they were thinking maybe joining our firm, and he had been in the business, this gentleman in the biz about 30 years, and I said, Oh my gosh, this is before his pockets go, you have to tell me what what do what can I tell our hundreds of we have hundreds of Realtors in our firm. I said I didn’t want to know what a 30 year veteran in the business knows that maybe our younger agents don’t. And he goes, it was the funniest thing. And he said, and it’s this isn’t always true. But he said, he goes, I’ve learned that it takes just as much work to sell a $300,000 home, as it does a $3 million home. He said it really isn’t. As far as the workload. He goes, it isn’t really any different. It’s different strategies, and we do different things. But he goes, it’s the same amount of work. And I’m curious, I don’t know that that’s always true. But I’m curious if you have found that to be a similar experience, or if if it just or not.

Jeff Lottmann 17:10
So I would say I think the luxury market, they demand a little bit more sure. But in a weird way, it’s easier because they know exactly what they want. And again, I go back to it’s a business decision. It’s not an emotional decision. But I think I think what we’ve got to try to do is treat both the same. Because you know, especially at a Sotheby’s, it is about the luxury experience. And no matter if you’re a first time homebuyer or you’re a seasoned investor, or if you’re buying your palatial estate, it’s about treating everybody the same. And the good news is, is that the 300,000, our client might buy two or three or four or five more homes from you, the $5 million client, this might be as whole their home for the rest of their life. So it’s about providing a luxury experience and talking the luxury game. No matter what level because think of the doctors, the doctors will buy five homes in their life. So if he or she is in residency, they start out with a starter home say it’s 100,000 Well, as soon as they get out of that, and they get their offer letter, all of a sudden, they’re making three 400,000 And now they’re buying a half million dollar home, well then they’re gonna buy a move up home, they’re, they’re gonna buy a family home and a vacation home. So the reality is, as you move up in the net worth clients, you’ve got to you’ve got to kind of look globally because they they will buy two or three homes, so you have to have a wide range network. And for some of these, that’s it’s a no brainer, I mean, I just sent one to Palm Springs and I just sent one to Hilton Head and these are a couple million bucks so you know you’re you’ve got to just expand your search view when you’re dealing with high net worth clients is they have multiple things and that does include multiple houses.

D.J. Paris 19:01
Yeah, and I also like what you said about treating everybody as if they are a high net worth client as well and so the B’s of course for it for those of us that maybe don’t have a son the B’s real estate office in our in our location we all know the brand and the name and we know it’s associated with luxury and there is nothing that feels better to a maybe a true non luxury client than getting a luxury experience that I mean of course luxury clients are going to expect that experience and you have to deliver but if you can deliver that experience to the person buying the first time home or you know whether they’re a Doctor Who will you know, down the road maybe be buying a million dollar plus properties or even just a first time homebuyer who this is their you know if you can treat them as if they’re luxury. Boy, that is not a very common experience that non high net worth individuals get to get to experience and I’ll tell a quick story. I this is the funniest example I can think of, but it really, really, it meant a lot to me, it impacted me I was renting a storage space. And you know how cheap storage spaces probably are all of us can relate like 30 bucks a month for a little garage thing. And, you know, the same ones you see on Storage Wars and, and I was just here in the city here in Chicago and I had to store some stuff for a few months. And I walked in, and it was like, I think it was $27. And you would have thought that I was their number one client, and I am sure I was the lowest paying client they had. And they will I walked in, they were so thrilled to see me afterwards. They’re like, we are so grateful you came in we and this is a successful business. It’s not like I was their first customer. And I went home and I went, I just got treated like a king for a $27 a month rental. And I go, that was the smartest thing those people ever did. Because I immediately told everybody I knew about that experience. I said, this is kind of funny, but it was also made me feel really special. And so anyway, I just wanted to share that. But But Jeff’s right, treat everyone as if they are a high net worth individual and a luxury client. Because that could lead of course, to additional luxury clients because they aren’t going to expect that experience.

Jeff Lottmann 21:16
Oh, you’re right, you just hit it on the head, actually, I mean, think about how many people you told. And guess what, this is a referral business. And you’re building your own brand. So I mean, it goes back to you know, treat, treat people how you want to be treated. But I say treat people better than how you want to be treated. Because you absolutely have no idea who’s watching or who they know, or what they’re going to say. And trust me, especially with social media these days, if somebody has a bad experience, guess what, they’re gonna blast it all over everywhere. So, you know, and I just, I think it’s better to, to err on the side of the luxury experience and treating everybody the same then than that.

D.J. Paris 21:58
I couldn’t agree more. I want to pause for just a moment and talk about our sponsor for the episode. So our sponsor is a follow up boss after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast. Do you know which CRM is used by more than any other of our amazing guests. Of course, it’s follow up boss, let’s face it. Following up is the key to taking your business to the next level and follow up boss will help you drive more leads. In less time with less effort. Do not take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss. And he’s built a $1.5 billion business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 different systems so you can keep your current tools and lead sources. They also have seven day a week sports you’ll get the help that you need and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time, they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial. That’s twice as much as they give any everyone else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. But only if you use this special link, visit follow up boss.com forward slash real that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. Jeff, I would love to also talk to you about the state of the luxury market. What is going on in luxury these days? How have things changed? Or are things that things have been relatively consistent in the last couple of years?

Jeff Lottmann 23:32
I think they have been consistent I think, actually, I would say they’ve grown considerably. I think that the amount of luxury homes that have been built in this area and the luxury buyers are it’s just continuing to grow. I mean, I think especially the last two years, I think a lot of people are putting more money in their home and their family. So instead of taking you know 12 You know, wherever a nice vacation, what they’re doing is they’re saying hey, have all the family come home. So crazily, you see a lot of empty nesters that are building their dream home these these really big homes so they can accommodate all their, their kids and their grandkids and everybody when they come home. So I think the luxury market is exceptionally exceptionally strong. And I mean you see it all over the country. It’s it’s it’s truly it’s continuing to grow.

D.J. Paris 24:22
I would look I know that your your group, you guys have just expanded out west. So St. Louis, you predominantly were focused in certain areas of St. Louis. Although certainly you know, doing a lot of different love. St. Louis is a big city. But also you started expanding out west and I’d love to hear strategically, you know how you decided to start increasing your sort of geographic service area because I know for you it’s really critical for you to understand those markets before jumping in. So can you talk a little bit about why you decided to expand Beyond your existing sort of area?

Jeff Lottmann 25:03
Well, I think it goes to I think that’s where you do have to bring in some data and kind of get an idea of where the people are going. And, and what the builders again, you’re more track builders and luxury home builders where they’re building. So for us, it just made sense St. Louis can only grow really one place, and that’s west. So as you see, kind of, we’re in Clayton and have been for years. And now, you know, Chesterfield in town and country, some of these other fluent areas, it just, it just made absolutely perfect sense to, for us to move our Grow, put another office that was which will be you know, just go to town and country because that’s, I mean, that’s another hub of, of, of wealth. And, and I think opportunity. I mean, there’s, there’s, there’s building galore. And, and, and I think it just made perfect sense.

D.J. Paris 25:55
curious on how you stay in touch with your customers after a transaction, because I always feel that and again, you know, as a real estate agent, we’re really we wear many different hats. Most of us are solo practitioners, or we may have a group or a team. But we’re doing a lot of the work ourselves. And it’s easy to lose track of our previous clients, because we’re on to the new and the next, the next deal. But I’m curious, I know that for you. Having those relationships stay consistent and strong, even after the sale, of course, is critical. And I’m just curious if you have any tips or advice for for our listeners about things that have worked for you to keep your name and you’re in the back of the minds of the people that you’ve helped in the past?

Jeff Lottmann 26:48
Well, I would say that’s probably my weakness, because you know, it’s it’s very much a hunting mentality. It’s, you’re on to the next one. But sure, you know, over time, I’ve tried different things. But there’s a company in St. Louis, that will they send random gifts, and at any point in time, so I give them all my client list. And literally, if it’s if it’s green frog day, they’ll send a bill send something that’s green frog day to a client. So it’s not necessarily on their anniversary of the house or on their birthday. It’s like some random thing. It’s like, like, this is Hispanic month. So you know what, maybe they’ll send something Hispanic to them and say, Hey, happy Hispanic month, and it just keeps them on their toes. And they’re like, where did this come from? So I mean, I would like to say that I would do that I did would do that better. But I think if if I need to improve on something, I think that’s that’s where I need to prove improve on. So well, if you’re, if you’re new to the business, for gosh sakes, start. Start loading your Well, you said it earlier, start loading your CRM and your funnel and just build that because that’s, that’s gold right there.

D.J. Paris 27:53
Boy, that’s such a I, you know, I we’re gonna have to find a sponsor for our podcast that does those random gifts, because that is an unbelievably brilliant idea. I, I love the idea of random gifts outside of the major holidays, because of course, there’s nothing wrong with sending a, you know, a December holiday card and a gift because of course, you know, that’s the time of the year that people sort of would expect something to that, but they’re gonna get a lot of that stuff. Anyway, I like the idea of, you know, something getting something on Arbor Day or green frog day. It they’re not getting anything else on on green frog, except your gift. And guess what, they’re gonna smile. And it doesn’t even have to be inexpensive yet. It could be a $5 item.

Jeff Lottmann 28:39
That’s exactly what they are. They’re cheap. I mean, they’re, they’re nothing but it’s like so random. They’re like, thanks. But you know what they always they’ll text your colleague, it’d be like, Hey, thanks for the, for the bobblehead. You know, I’m like, Well, what was it national bobblehead day? I mean, it’s, it gets some it’s great. It’s, I mean, think about it, if you have 500 clients, or let’s say you have, and you whittle that down to your top 50 clients. So on Thanksgiving, if you try to put 50 pumpkin pies, I mean, it takes an absorbent amount of time and energy. And it’s expensive, too. But, you know, we did that one year where we hand deliver them and you gotta catch them at home. And if you don’t set it on the porch, and you know, it’s just, we were lucky to find this. It was, it was it’s a brilliant idea. I agree with you. I wish I had stock in it.

D.J. Paris 29:26
Well, I love that and and for those of us who are newer, you know, and maybe you’ll have to do this yourself because maybe you’re at a stage where you can’t afford to to hire a company to do this. Just look up, you know, interesting, little known holidays or little known, you know, days and you can come up with some really cute and fun ideas. And I love that back back to the luxury market for just a moment because again, you are a luxury agent, and I definitely want to continue to talk about this. How important is it for you when you’re working with a buyer or For a seller, I guess it really doesn’t matter. But understanding sort of the story of the house you’re either selling or that you’re visiting, for your buyer understanding, you know, this goes back to, of course, understanding the build quality and all of the features and benefits. But I would imagine luxury clients really want to hear a story. And I don’t mean, you know, once upon a time sort of story, but understanding the really, I’m curious on how you describe homes as you’re walking through? Or do you mostly stay back and let this the home sort of tell the story for itself?

Jeff Lottmann 30:37
Well, that’s interesting. You said that, because, in my opinion, every single home has a story. And in some of these, I mean, if you think about if you go to kind of the older communities where the turn of the century homes and they had these mansions? Well, there’s a story. I mean, there’s essentially 100 years story. And even where there’s new construction, there’s a farm that used to belong to, you know, somebody’s family way back then. So, it’s interesting, you said that, because I always talk about that, that there’s a home to every story. And then I tend to sit back a little bit and let, especially on the luxury market, I like to kind of follow the clients leads when I’m showing the home. But and then kind of work in, depending on depending on what how you can read the buyers, you have to read your buyers, but I’m not one that’s out in front, like you see on selling LA or anything like that, you know, it’s like I like tend to like be a little bit more low key and low pressure and, and then but you do get it, you do absolutely have to know the story of the house in the surrounding area and the farm that it was built on or the farm across the street, or where the ground came from. But it makes for it actually helps you to sell it for sure.

D.J. Paris 31:52
So if your thank you, and I’m, I’m glad to hear that. And and I’m no surprise, of course. But for our listeners, if you’re working with a buyer, and it’s not your listing, of course. Or maybe it could be I guess but but let’s assume it isn’t. And you don’t know the story of the home? How are you learning that? Are you contacting the listing agent? Because sometimes, of course listing agents are there to do the showing? And sometimes they aren’t. It depends on, you know, rules and regulations and sort of the norms of how Realtors operate in your area. But how do you learn the story? Of what it’s not your own listing?

Jeff Lottmann 32:28
Well, that’s a good question, too. I mean, it’s it. If it’s an older home, you Google the address, because that’s a plethora of information. But then of course, yes, I rely on the listing agent you want to build rapport with with with them. And just to ask them say, what, what is the story of the home, they had to give me some things to help with the buyer, you know, if there’s a fountain Outback, or there’s an interesting piece in the driveway, then get the story of that. Because every home I go back to this every home has a story, it really does. And the more you know, is just going to help you sell the house. And to bring value to both yourself, the buyers and in the house.

D.J. Paris 33:10
I wonder what percentage of agents whether it’s a luxury property or a starter property or a distressed property even I wonder how what percentage of Realtors do contact the listing agent and say, Hey, give me give me some talking points or, you know, in a polite way, hey, I’d love to help sell this home. Tell me what’s going on with this property. Tell me the story. I bet it’s a very low percentage of agents who are willing to make that call, especially now that we can schedule appointments. Of course without talking to agents, the listing agent directly we most of us have automated services that do that. So we can schedule it without ever speaking to the agent. But, but making that extra step and saying hey, I’m going to go see your property on you know, on Tuesday, I want every bit of information so that I can sell this home for you. I imagine most agents probably just don’t think to do it or feel that it’s they’re too busy. But that’s just so important, isn’t it?

Jeff Lottmann 34:10
Yeah, I think you have to do that especially since we’re talking luxury I think in the luxury you have to realize it that you you’re in this together the whole idea is to try to get a favorable outcome and a favorable sale and and the listing agent is an important part of this because they have the home listed so they’ve already done all the research hopefully. So if you build rapport and you find the story of the house, then I think it only helps I mean we’re not we’re not enemies here we’re on the same team. We’re literally trying to help sell the house and you know get it get a mutual beneficial outcome.

D.J. Paris 34:46
And it is called a cooperative commissions. It’s exactly yeah, it’s that per other person is not the enemy although sometimes may feel that way. But you guys can always work together. other of course, and I never get to these questions. And I’m Jeff, Jeff was nice enough to sort of pulling back the curtain on how we do things here on the show. We always ask a few questions to tee up for these episodes, and I’m so scatterbrained that I never get to them. So I my promise for the next year is that I won’t skip these. But these are great, too. I would love to hear about just because I could absolutely see this happening. And have a lot of our listeners have probably had a similar experience. But do you mind sharing the your story about hiring a cleaning company to do a final clean out of property and sort of what what happened? What went wrong?

Jeff Lottmann 35:41
This was almost it was almost a disaster. So I had two listings. And there was one in the middle and I had two listings on either side. Well, one was sold. And the final cleaning company was supposed to go to the one that’s sold in granite. This was 630 in the morning. But they went they went to the other home that was still listed and literally walked into their home at like 630 in the morning. And that Mr. Seller standing there in the kitchen going, what are you doing? They’re like, Oh my god, I’m at the wrong home. So it was like, I mean, they’re lucky that number one, I couldn’t believe that the house that we had listed, the door was open. And number two, because I told him just go the back door. It’s open. There’s no key and there’s that key in the lock. So sure enough, they go the backdoor the wrong home and it’s open. It’s like who would ever think that but it was? We’re lucky that? Yeah, we got lucky. But they didn’t think was funny at the time. But I think it’s it’s pretty, it’s pretty darn.

D.J. Paris 36:46
It’s pretty darn funny. And then I love this this other story that Jeff sent us which which is funny, because to me after doing so many of these episodes, when we often ask agents like What What’s your most unusual real estate experiences? Because we think it’s fun to ask that question. And we usually get one of a couple of similar experiences, which is, oh, my gosh, I walked into this one room in the house that it was very adult themed, or there was something more risque that was out, or there were people who were in the room doing adult things. So we’ve heard that one a lot. But Jeff has has a different version of that. But to tell him I’m sharing the story about what you went, you were showing a home to some buyers, and and there were people in the room. Do you mind sharing sort of what happened there?

Jeff Lottmann 37:37
No, it was very similar to what you said, you know, it’s like we opened the door and it was about 10am. And you could tell there was they had a party or something the night before. And we’re like, you know, where you get that odd feeling that you know someone’s in the house. But you don’t know where right. So we’re just going through it. And then we open up of course the master and there is the Mr. And Mrs. Or the homeowners, they’re in bed and they’re like, Hey, don’t mind us. We had a long night. Just let me know if you have any questions. We’re like, okay. All right, you know, so I just knocked on the door. And I said, Hey, we’re leaving. Thanks.

D.J. Paris 38:13
I love that like, Oh, hey, don’t mind us. And by the way, I’m here to answer. We’re here to answer all your questions. Because usually the story is I walked in on a couple and they were engaged in right, you know, amorous thing, and we immediately left. And this case, they were like, no, no, we’re good. We’re just sleeping. I know, we want to sell this house. Oh, I love that. I love that. Well, Jeff, for any of our listeners, who may be, for example, maybe have clients that are moving to St. Louis, who are in that luxury space who are looking to partner up with an agent like yourself there or if one of our listeners is a luxury buyer or a seller investor. Jeff is the guy in the luxury market. They’re in St. Louis and West County. Jeff, what’s the best way that someone can either reach out to you to refer business to you or to learn more about what your team offers?

Jeff Lottmann 39:08
I just go to the website. That’s easy. It has all my contact information on there. And it’s Geoff lawton.com Just my name.com Jeff lotman.com. And yes, I mean I deal with with people all over the country, and it’s great to get to know other other realtors across the country. And like I said, we’re all in this together. So yeah, I’ll take care of anybody. Provide them a luxury experience. And of course I expect that in return from anybody that I would, I would send but it’s, I love it. I love what I do. I’m glad I fell into this. It’s a wonderful profession.

D.J. Paris 39:43
Well, you can really hear if you’re some of us might be watching this and others are listening but but even if you’re just listening, you can definitely hear Jeff’s the comfort and ease and confidence that he has and he is definitely a great resource for anyone that is either moving to that area or is interested in referring business to an agent. So visit his website, Jeff lotman, I’m going to spell that for you. It’s, of course, Jeff je FF and then lotman is two T’s and two ends. So Jeff lot T M A, N n.com, you can actually you can contact him very easily through his website. And he, Jeff is obviously one of the top agents in the St. Louis area. And of course, he is always happy to talk with any of our listeners who might need his services. So please reach out to him if you have anyone easier move into that area, or if you yourself, are interested in speaking to his team. Jeff, thank you so much for being on the show today. This was a real honor for us. I was a St. Louis native or resident, not a native. And we can next time, if we have you on we can talk about Ted Drewes ice cream, we could talk about emos, pizza, and the Hill, which is where all the best Italian restaurants are in St. Louis. And Jeff and I we actually talked about I used to work for a company that he got a job offer for the same company. And so we have a fun little history there. But maybe we’ll touch on that next time. But Jeff, thank you on behalf of our audience, we really appreciate your time we know how busy you are, and that you don’t really even have time to do this sort of thing. And you found time to do it. And we were grateful for that. On behalf of Jeff and myself, we want to say thank you as well to the listeners and the viewers. And to remind everybody just to do two quick things. Number one, the best way that you can help our show is telling a friend think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing this great conversation with Jeff. I mean so many great tips he provided in this hour and send them a link to our websites easiest way that anyone can listen to our show. Even if they’re not a podcast person, go to keeping it real pod.com They can stream every episode we’ve ever done there. Or if they are a podcast person, just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button and second, please support our sponsor follow up boss again remember 30 day free trial no credit card required best CRM in the industry which is follow up boss.com forward slash real Jeff, thank you so much for being on our show and we will see everyone on the next episode.

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

In this episode Joel emphasizes once more the importance of consistency in building your business. Joel and DJ focus the discussion on building a brand and also the importance of giving back to your clients and the society. Last, as per usual Joel talks about the rates and what the lending market looks like at the moment.

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, everyone to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show. And today once again is our monthly series called Learn with a lender with Joel shop from guaranteed rate. Now Joel is the vice president of lending at guaranteed rate, and he’s been doing loans at a high level since 2003. has 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. Last year alone Joe gave Joel gave back over $291,000 in closing costs to buyers who worked with him which put Joe’s volume in the top 1/10 of 1% of all lenders nationwide. In fact, out of 400,000 loan officers in the country Joel is currently ranked number one 137. Last year, he closed over close to 535 transactions, his highest amount ever, which was totaling 195 million in loans. Already this year, Joel has closed 468 transactions for 189 million. So he’s just about to surpass his last year’s goals. Now if you are 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 via email at [email protected]. Again, [email protected]. Or you can shoot him a text message or call him at 773-654-2049 Guaranteed Rate is available in all 50 states. So let’s say hello to the biggest Cubs fan. I know Joel shot, Joel Hey, DJ,

Joel Schaub 2:36
thanks so much for having me on. It’s good to be here. And you’re right. I mean those numbers when I hear them, it always it even shocks me. But it’s not about that. It’s always the times that we get to come on here and give back and actually come up with real strategic ways for agents to grow their business.

D.J. Paris 2:55
Yeah, it’s so funny, I was thinking about this, we hit a milestone with the podcast recently, I think by the time this airs, we would have crossed over 300 episodes. And if somebody would have asked me and worried about a million downloads, and if somebody would have asked me or if I would have thought about at the beginning when I started the podcast will what would it take to create 300 episodes and to get that kind of listenership I would have my head would have exploded. And I would have said it’s not possible. And and it’s not that I achieved anything that was impossible. It’s definitely possible because here we are. And you are also an example of that. But it’s just about being consistent and doing the daily activities. And you are maybe the best example of all of our guests, because every single day you are your head is down, you are working. And here you are now what 18 years later, basically, from when you started, and you’re just crushing it. And so, you know, we bring Joel out every single month to talk about, yes, of course rates and what’s going on in the lending world. But also, the exact strategies Joel used to become one of the top loan officers in the country is the same strategies you can use to be a top realtor or a top salesperson in other fields. So Joel, I’m sorry, I sort of took over there at the beginning but but I love having you on because you are you are the the prime example of the kind of person that we bring on our show, whether you’re a lender or a real estate agent, you’re you’re doing the work.

Joel Schaub 4:26
Now listeners, I want DJs words to really stick with you. He said something that he said consistency, right? How do you get to that level? Everybody thinks they can go StartUp podcast these days. And maybe they’re true. But it’s something to be said about somebody that can do it consistently. And so agents come to me a lot. And they say, I’d be happy just to get to 50 transactions a year and you’re doing 50 transactions every single month. What is it? What’s the secret? You There isn’t one it’s about staying consistent and having this game plan going forward that you know You are and we talk about branding. And we talk about planning, right? And that’s what we’re going to talk about here today. If you’re an agent, now you can already, if you’re not already looking ahead to 2022, this is the time we’re just finishing up q3. So our team and our strategies aren’t for what are we going to do in the next couple of days? Weeks? It’s what are we doing next year, right. And that’s how we laid the foundation for where we’re at this year, making sure that we actually have a consistent brand. And then we had planning for different events.

D.J. Paris 5:34
Let’s talk about branding a little bit. So I know I went through recently, I, I volunteer with an organization outside of real estate. And we went through a branding exercise actually took us six months to go through it. And we started to talk about Well, ultimately, after all the six months of discussion, we came up with a series of about five buzzwords, and these buzzwords were actual feelings that we wanted people to think or feel rather, when they thought about us. So this organization I was involved in, we now were able to narrow it down to sort of five key feelings, or experiences that we wanted somebody to have. And it was so valuable to me, because what it enabled us to do was now we had our Northstar, which was these five key things, and all of our branding and marketing now is based around, are we getting people to experience these five things. And I’m curious to sort of get your take on, on how you’ve done that, because you have done that exceptionally well all over Chicago,

Joel Schaub 6:36
we create a brand. And usually the biggest mistake I see people make is they come up with a brand or something that isn’t authentic to them. Yeah. And it’s not something that they’re passionate about. Okay, so DJ, if, if you’re talking every single day, people really respond to stories and things that are real, right. And if you can find something that you’re actually truly passionate about, that’s authentic, everything that you do can go around that. So for me, it was just something simple. And it was our love for the Chicago Cubs. Okay. And just pretty simple when they won the World Series, right. For years, that might have been a very bad planning, right, like, the lovable losers, right? As we most

D.J. Paris 7:17
of the Cubs history. That was not something you could wrap around. But but but but here we are thinking times have changed

Joel Schaub 7:24
in your right. But I would argue that it doesn’t matter whether they’re winning or losing. It’s certainly right, you could speak to authentically so that you had a vision, right. And so for us, it’s all about picking an area of the city that we could dominate and really see penetration in terms of branding and marketing so that when anybody thought about the columns, they would see our name, right. Whenever they were going through the neighborhoods, they would see our billboards. Whenever there were listings, there were banners below it that said, just call Joel. Right. So it was you can’t be something to everybody, the city’s big. But we took a neighborhood. And we started to build that. And so something that was really easy for me, I didn’t pick cat lovers or you know, something that wasn’t you know, nothing wrong with cats. I was thinking something opposite of dogs, because we love our dogs. But it’s about a plan and somebody that you can speak to authentically so I challenge you as an agent. It’s all about a brand, right? What can you do that’s authentic to you that you can go out and market and we’re talking about in person. And in social media, which is really big right now. DJ.

D.J. Paris 8:31
It is. And it’s so what I’ve always so impressed Joe with you going back to the authentic sort of part of branding is it’s everything’s got to start from authenticity, because not only will it make things smoother for you, as the agent to be able to do certain activities and campaigns around around authenticity, but it will also the public will see through anything that is inauthentic. And they do see through it oftentimes. And so any you’re a great example because for authenticity, because when I know during during the pandemic, and of course, we’re still in the pandemic. But when we were right in the middle of the most difficult part of it, you and you’ve been doing this prior to the pandemic, you were really focused on giving. And so you were able to to demonstrate giving, during a time when when a lot of other people were hunkering down, you reached out and wanted to help other organizations. And that, of course, is who you are. And it just of course, if that is who you are authentically, you’re able to sort of promote that and show that the public, here’s what I do, here’s who I am. And obviously they responded well to that.

Joel Schaub 9:44
So if you’re a real estate agent, right, and you are looking forward, like what can I do? There’s so much competition, right? Same with lending, right? Every loan officer says we have the lowest rates, and you don’t really talk and hear me say much about rates at all. We have a good program, we understand our guidelines, I’m a dork for all of the different changes. So when it comes down to something, we get things done, we understand guidelines and how to do transactions. But at the end of the day, most people don’t remember the rate that they got, they remember the service and whether it got done correctly. And then the referrals come based on a brand and something that people can rely on. So the big thing here is if you’re an agent, what is it? That’s passionate? Is it a children’s group where your kids go to school? Is it a dog Association? Is it one of these things that you can really tie yourself to and be in that community and be a giver? Okay, so everyone thinks you have to wait to you get to give. And once you actually start giving, why does it come back to you?

D.J. Paris 10:50
Yeah, I have found that to be so incredibly true. I, I wish I would have if I could have talked to my younger self, when I was in my early 20s, where I was more self focused, I’m still pretty self focused, but not as self focused as I was, when I was starting out in the business world. And I really didn’t give as much of myself to, you know, passion projects of mine are ways I could give back. And I suffered for that, in the sense of, I didn’t get to experience a lot of that joy. And also, I didn’t, people didn’t get to see me giving back also. So I would encourage everyone to to think about, you know, a particular organization or community event that that is really important to you, whether it’s, you know, the park down the street needs to be cleaned up, or as Joel said, you know, whatever your passions are dogs, you know, government, whatever it may be, you can, you can make a difference. And by doing that, boy, people are so attracted. It’s funny I whenever I go to, and I do not consider myself a film, a philanthropist, a philanthropy type style pricing, although I certainly am involved in several of those. But whenever people ask me about that, they’re always very impressed. And in the sense, because I think all of us deep down want to give more, but we you know, we’re busy, we have other things going on. So you really have to carve out time to do it. And when when people hear that you are giving back boy, their their impression of you is certainly going to skew towards the even more positive than it might have been before.

Joel Schaub 12:27
So we talked about this a lot, right? We talked about having a database of your clients, and what can you do to give to them and so so many people, they go, this is the year that I’m going to send out cards, right? I’m gonna do all my Christmas cards this year. Okay. And if, if that’s the plan, I say that’s better than not doing something. Sure. Okay. But what if we didn’t fall into the mix, where you’re just one of 50 other cards that somebody’s got,

D.J. Paris 12:52
you get this big pile of holiday cards, you know, around the second or third week of December. And and as nice as it is, and as appreciative of it is, things can get lost in the shuffle for sure.

Joel Schaub 13:03
So for years pre pandemic, what we would do is we would do something right around Thanksgiving, and we would do pumpkins, right, we would do a pumpkin patch, and we would have people out. Or we would send Thanksgiving gifts, right? And we would say we’re so thankful for clients like you Happy Thanksgiving. But we avoided the major holidays, it really helped us build our brand because nobody gets a Thanksgiving garden sends out a gift for Halloween. Nobody does. But if you’re an agent, you have a database of people and find something that’s even small that you can send out to people or do a pop by with pies. Do it on the days that other people aren’t expecting anything and it goes a long way. So each year we do a Thanksgiving gift and we do a Valentine’s Day gift. And you gotta watch out because I’ve gotten some mad men that said Joel’s gift to my wife was better than the gift that I gave her.

D.J. Paris 14:01
Yeah, I that is so true. It is it’s always it’s always the little things too that clients appreciate. Of course the big things are important too. But we all know in relationships with friends family or our partners. You know the little things are important and so Joel saying is really important to think about. Yes, of course you can you can send a holiday card if you’d like but think about something else that’s a little bit outside of of the what everyone else is doing. And and just you know think about how you can make someone smile like if I received a Halloween gift which I probably won’t this year from anyone you will it’s coming from you from you I might it will be the only Halloween gift I get. Well I remember that you bet I will. Well I remember the 17th holiday card I get and I’m not again, not to disparage anyone from selling the sending holiday cards. It is a lovely gesture. But will I remember that one as much as I remember the Halloween gift that was The only one I got probably not right. So make yourself known and, and it’s really fun to because then whatever you’re passionate about, if you’re a Halloween person, and you love Halloween, then make that your thing. And think of how fun that is to like, drop those gifts in the mail or drop them, as Joel said, as a pop by, say, Hey, here’s a little Halloween fun decoration for your home. You know, that’s fun to do. And it’s just good feelings all around, right? It’s a win all the way around. And it wouldn’t

Joel Schaub 15:33
be a keeping it real if we didn’t talk about mortgages and rates and some of the planning here so that we understand exactly what’s going on in the market, because that’s one of the questions I get asked the most. And as agents ago, what’s going on with rates? Right? Where do you think they are? And they say, get your crystal ball? Or they usually say I don’t think you have a crystal ball? And I say, but I do. Mortgage rates right now, when we talk about rates, we’re always talking 30 year fixed for unconventional borrower with good credit, and 20% down, right, that’s the go to whenever the websites are quoting these out. And they’re still below 3%. We know this, you can get rates at 2.6 2.72829. All of those are available, depending on the credit scores and the income of the borrowers which you look back last year, they were a little bit above that the year before quite a bit above that. Okay. Right now, we are probably just above the all time lows that we’ve ever seen when we were in the throes of the pandemic. So is it the lowest it’s ever been? No, there were some weeks in the middle of 2020, where it was marginally lower. But those rates today are still available with clients that are paying points and things like that. So the strategy here is understanding where we could be in the future, so that you can speak intelligently to buyers? And I’ll tell you here, they’re not going up. Okay, the Federal Reserve is keeping rates low until 2023. Okay.

D.J. Paris 17:12
It’s really, it’s really impressive. I mean, we are in such a really unprecedented time with respect to lending rates. And I want to remind all of our listeners and our viewers that the, you know, the average, home owner, or or even person renting, so we’ll say anyone who’s not in the industry, who either owns a home or who is renting a home probably isn’t paying attention to the rates we do because we’re in the industry, we know what’s going on. But do we think that those people are getting called by lenders, if they’re a homeowner is their lender calling them to say, hey, great time to maybe consider refinancing or maybe upgrading to another home are renters being called prospected, you know, by lenders saying, hey, may be a great time to buy, they’re probably not. So this is a great opportunity, as I see it, to pick up the phone and call everybody you know, because everybody needs to live somewhere and start to talk about, hey, we are still in amazing times with respect to lending rates. And have you had a conversation around, you know, where you want to live, you know, right now and of course, with with people being more remote, obviously, remote working is is not going away anytime soon. People are moving, this is such a great time. So as an agent, I know agents are always thinking about well, why should I call somebody? You know, what should I say? We just here’s a perfect example. Call them and talk about you don’t have to talk about rates itself, but talk about what’s going on with rates. Joe, what do you think about that?

Joel Schaub 18:48
Well, one of the things that you hit on that’s perfect, there is just being educational to your people, right. And so many people do it the wrong way. Now listen, I know people want to say we want to buy right away because rates could be going up, right? We have that instinctual thing where we would like to close more business today than in the future. But I always feel like if you lead with fear, it’s not the best way to create a long term business plan. And so we do the exact opposite. We educate and we say whether you might right now or six months from now, you’re going to be fine, because rates are going to stay low. Okay? And that’s true. Okay, at least for the end of 2021 into 22. But so many agents do the opposite. And it might work for them. They might say, Guys, we got to get you out to look at homes right now, because rates are gonna go up. That’s not really true. That’s not necessarily the case. So I always want to be honest, you want to lead with advice that’s truthful. And right now you’re hearing it from me, the feds are not going to raise rates until 2023. Does that mean that it’s going to stay this low? Maybe not. It could be a little bit higher a little bit. lower. But what we’re worried about is, are these rates going to go back up to four or five or 6%? And here’s my hot take, no, we will see rates all of this year and even next year that have either a two or a three handle on them. So a little bit below three, a little bit above three, even if rates leveled out at the end of next year, on three and a half percent for a 30 year fixed. It’s still lower than 98% of all mortgages that were created before 2018.

D.J. Paris 20:32
Unbelievable. Isn’t that something? Now, for everyone listening? What if you just listened back to what Joel just said, and you took some notes? And you called everybody you know, and said, Hey, I was just listening to a podcast with a lender, who was giving some suggestions about how to think about rates that are coming up, and have a very, you know, informational conversation and say, I just wanted to give you an update on on what I’m hearing in the industry, that imagine if if your buyer or your seller got that phone call. They say hey, I was just calling. I was just listening. I wanted to give you guys an update on rates, here’s what’s going on. Would they find that interesting? Maybe or maybe not, but at the very least, they’d be appreciative that you thought about them. You’re not asking for a sale, you’re not asking for a referral, you’re giving information? You’re so right, DJ. Oh, yeah. I mean, if I was an if I was a producing agent, I would literally just take notes from everything you just said. And I would call everybody I know and say, hey, just a quick little market update, just want to let you know what’s going on with rates lending update, rather, and just was thinking about you have a great day, that’s all I would do. And it would, it would be so well received, because nobody’s doing that.

Joel Schaub 21:46
And to add one more thing to that here to wrap up on this is that most of your competition is doing it differently. They’re selling fear, they’re they don’t know, they’re not taking the time to tune into great podcasts like yours, DJ that bring on information and experts to talk. So when they call, what they’re focused on is getting that deal done right now. And if that’s you right now, that’s okay. But to really build it to that next level, you don’t necessarily care where your clients buying in six weeks or six months, they’re gonna come back to you because you were honest, and you were helpful, and you weren’t pushy, and you are creating value and you are educating them, versus the other people that are trying to push and push just to get the sale done, will take the sales when they come and those will result in a lot more referrals. So not just closing a transaction, you guys closing it with empathy and education so that they want to go and tell people, I got the agent, I know that there’s a lot of agents that you might know, call my guy or girl, she really took care of me. And that’s the difference.

D.J. Paris 22:52
For everyone listening, I want you to think about the lender, if you’re a real estate agent that you’re currently working with, are they giving you that the same sort of information, and the same sort of encouragement and long term vision and strategy that Joel is providing? And if the answer is not really, you know, we don’t really have that kind of relationship, you may want to consider partnering up with Joel, because he is, of course, able to do this with lots of different agents out there. And also anyone who’s interested in buying a home of course, Joel and his team would love to speak to them as well. But Joel does partner with agents and the information he’s giving us is the same information he gives all the agency works with, this is what he does, this is no different than how he spends the rest of his day. I know because I am also a client of jewels. This is the exact conversation I had with Joel without microphones when I was buying my condo earlier this year. And guess what, how awesome is that? Do you want somebody who can provide that sort of education? The answer, of course is yes. And if you’re not currently getting that, and you do want to look at a lender who’s able to give you that level of service, Joel, what’s the best way someone should reach out to you?

Joel Schaub 24:06
Yeah, and it happens quite a bit. DJ people will actually call directly 773-654-2049 You can even test me on weekends. Guy. The idea here and you don’t know this yet. But before we go this week, we had a client closing hear from somebody who tuned into the podcast back in February was a realtor who is moving out of state and just this week closed and they were so thankful that they got connected and so they were out of state and now they moved to our state. And it’s one of those things where you’re really truly giving back and adding value. Yeah, we’re absolutely I help agents, not just with their own clients but on their own transactions.

D.J. Paris 24:50
Well, that is I am I did not know that. So thank you for sharing that. It really warms my heart to think that I was able to through the magic of this this little show that we do was able to connect you with with another agent who needed your services. So for everyone else out there, if you’re not getting that attention from the lender that you partner with, consider working with Joel and guaranteed rate, you’re probably familiar with guaranteed rate. They’re amazing. They’re great. I have used them and I have referred many clients to Joel and he has just always taken unbelievable care of them, which is no surprise because of how successful he is. So definitely reach out to him, you can reach him on email, which is [email protected], or via his phone, text or email, sorry, text or calling, which is 773-654-2049. Joel, thank you once again for being on the show. As always, guys, you’ve been with us for years and years, always providing great value always telling our audience what they need to hear and what and, and showing up consistently like like you do for all of your clients. We’re so thrilled to have you as a partner. I want to ask everyone before you sign off, just please do help us do one thing, which is tell a friend think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing this kind of information about branding from Joel and send them a link to our podcasts and then over to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com Or just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. And Joel thank you so much once again and we will see everybody on the next episode.

Joel Schaub 26:28
Remember to be authentic and remember to be passionate. Go out there and get it everybody. Thanks DJ. Appreciate you

Rudy Lira Kusuma from Your Home Sold Guaranteed Realty in California, talks about how he got involved in real estate in the first place. Rudy explains why he thinks that you should marry your “why” and change your “how” whenever you need, in order to be successful in life. Next, Rudy talks about the 5 core values he believes in and works by. Last, Rudy talks about teams and explains why he thinks the future of real estate is in teams.

You can buy Rudy’s book “Death of the Traditional Real Estate Agent: Rise of the Super-Profitable Real Estate Sales Team” by clicking here.

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

Rudy Lira Kusuma can be reached at 626-789-0159.

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by thumbs up. Here’s a cool fact 50% of consumers rely on their social network to help them make purchasing decisions. So let me ask you how many more referrals and great leads would your business receive if all your happy customers took the time to post their experience and endorsed your business on social media? While I’ve got great news, thumbs up does just that. Thumbs Up is designed to help businesses create great social media posts, with pictures and personalized quotes that customers can easily share with their social media friends in just two clicks. These personalized posts help your customers celebrate their new purchases or service like the dream home that you just helped them buy or their shiny remodeled kitchen while simultaneously endorsing your business to all their connections. Check them out at get a thumbs up.com Again, that’s good a thumbs up.com Thumbs up referrals without asking. And now on to our show.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment we’re going to be speaking with Rudy Kazuma from California. Before we get to Rudy, just a couple of quick reminders to our audience first. While before a reminder, we want to remind us to thank you for continuing to listen and support our show from all of us here at the podcast as well as on behalf of our guests. We thank you for continuing to listen. And I also want to remind you to please tell a friend think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing from top producers like Rudy, that you’re about to hear and send them a link to our show easiest way to do that have them find our website which is keeping it real pod att.com They can stream every episode we’ve ever done right from the website and also please follow us on Facebook facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. Facebook has a new feature where every single one of our episodes is actually on that page so you can stream and listen to every episode inside of Facebook. So there’s a little tab there you’ll see that says episodes it’s brand new, and we were able to beta test it and our anyone who was on our page can listen to every episode we’ve done so again that’s facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our conversation with Rudy Kazuma.

Today on the show we have Rudy Kazuma. From your home sold guaranteed Realty in Los Angeles. Now Rudy and the your home sold guaranteed Realty Team have sold and this is beyond impressive. Five over 5000 homes totaling over 1 billion in real estate transactions. Rudy is known as the Millionaire Real Estate Agent maker at your home sold guaranteed Realty his passion is to help real estate agents and brokers 10x their income with no cold calling, no prospecting and no door knocking. Those are like the three things that nobody wants to do. Right or Rudy is all about that. He has been featured on ABC CBS Fox News rismedia named him as the 2020 real estate news maker and excellent magazine also named Rudy as a top 10 Most Admired business leaders in 2021. Now as the CEO of your home sold guaranteed Realty in California, Rudy led his company to be recognized as an inc 5000 fastest growing private company in America. Rudy is also the author of death of the traditional real estate agent Rise of the super profitable Real Estate Sales Team, which is available on Amazon. Look in the show notes for this podcast for a link to purchase the book. Also, I want every one of our listeners to check out Rudy’s website, which you can find at top agents freedom.com. That’s top agents plural freedom.com. Rudy, welcome to the show.

Rudy Kusuma 4:17
Pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me here today.

D.J. Paris 4:22
Really, I think you might be one of the most smart it for those of you who are listening and not watching you can’t see but Rudy has the biggest smile. And he has just that he is exploding with Energy. And we are so excited. We just found out that I found out that Rudy is Indonesian. And so I had been to Bali many years ago, sadly, not in recent time about about 615 years ago now at this point. And we were reminiscing about about Indonesia and how much I love that culture. So I will be coming back to Bali because I had such a wonderful experience but before enough about me. Let’s talk about you You ready? But before it’s sort of, and you are really well respected in the industry, as someone who is a bit of a visionary and really is able to see current trends or future trends. But before we get to all of that, I’d love to hear about how you got involved in real estate to start with.

Rudy Kusuma 5:17
Well, like you said, DJ, I came here as a student college student, I went to Santa Monica College, I went to University of Wisconsin. My goal, my dream was to get a job in NASA. And then my major was mathematics. But then when I was about to go to my graduate school, someone gave me a book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, give me your book. Robert Kiyosaki said the number one skill in life, it’s sales. And when I was in high school, I grew up in a family, we never talk about money, we never talk about business. We’ve never talked about sales, right? In fact, those words are taboo. So when I was in high school, my dad who’s a high paid employees, he got fired, right when he was like when I was in high school, so that that left a little bit traumatic experience for me. So when I came across that book, The Rich Dad, Poor Dad, he talks about, the number one skill in life is sales. So I really want to, I really want to improve. I mean, I really want to learn, my family never talked about it. So what I did, I dropped out of my graduate school, and I start selling stuff in swapmeet, right selling door to door, I want to expose myself to sales. And one of the things that I sell, I was selling promotional products. So I was selling promotional products door to door, and one of my customers was real estate brokerage. And so the real estate brokers told me, I encourage me to get my license for two years. And finally, I get my license. And the moment I get my license in 2007, then I quickly realized that this business has a big, the big problem, which is one person as a real estate agent, you have to do we have to do everything all by ourselves. My broker asked me to call Hall, I wasn’t really good. I read actually, it’s kind of depressing people like cursing at you on the telephone. And so I went to my broker as you progress. I think this call howling is not my thing. Maybe they don’t like my accent. They don’t like my voice or something. And so the brokers say, okay, Rudy, why don’t you do the pull the door knocking, maybe, maybe cold calling is not your thing. So I did my door knocking. But then after two weeks, you’re knocked 1000s of doors, I went back to my broker as they progress. This door knocking is a kind of like cold calling is just now they’re cursing at me on my face. So that’s kind of my first exposure in the business. And that gets me thinking on how to then kind of be a better way to lead generate. So that’s kind of my story. DJ, how I get started as a real estate agent.

D.J. Paris 7:54
So the cold calling, which nobody wants to do didn’t didn’t work for you. The door knocking is even more depressing because most people don’t want to, you know, talk to someone, of course, and right now with COVID. Of course, that’s even, that’s probably not even a thing that you can do. But back then, so you didn’t have those two options that just didn’t work for you. How did you go about growing your business?

Rudy Kusuma 8:20
Well, so I came across. So I came across this game called the cashflow game, so I started hosting a cash flow game in the office. So people actually came to my office. That’s why I host the cash flow game three times a week on Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, right? So people can tell office, we host the cashflow game, which is a game based on the rich that book. So at the end of the game, I always ask how many of you guys want to do this in real life. So every week I picked up at least 10 to 15 brand new clients, buyers ready to I pre approved them on the spot. And so I start, so that’s how I get started. And then if you remember 2007 2008, the end of 2007 the whole market collapsed. So most real estate agents exit the business, they quit the business, but that’s what I learned DJ, if you want to be successful, we got to do what most people are not willing to do. So in 2008 Most people quit the business because they say short sales is hard. But me as a brand new agent, I was like I have nothing to do. So I get all these free listings. The other agents in my office actually they give it to me, right they look at me they feel sorry, right as this brand new agent. So my first listing was a short sale, and then in the entire 2008 2009 I did all short sale. So that’s that’s how I get I get started in the business doing what everybody else who refuse to do.

D.J. Paris 9:51
It’s amazing. And I’m sure that you’ve been in this business for gosh, what 17 years or so now, or however many many years it is and you have tried everything or you’ve tried a lot and and I would I’m curious to get your thoughts on the willingness to try anything right to keep trying and in this case door knocking didn’t work cold calling didn’t work and all of a sudden hosting a game night at the office with you know basic based on Robert Kiyosaki is cashflow you know sort of principles was really the impetus to start your business that I’ve we’ve interviewed. By the time this airs, you’ll be our like our 300 and second interview or something like that. Nobody has ever told me that they got clients through hosting game night. I just think that is so impressive. How did you get the idea to do that?

Rudy Kusuma 10:47
Well, um, I that’s like, you are being forced to find a way to so I so actually, definitely, I stumbled upon now we call it reverse prospecting. Right? But back then, I didn’t know what it’s called. All I know, is I wasn’t good at cold calling. Because literally the broker gave me a yellow page. Right. Right. So I couldn’t do that. I wasn’t good at prospecting. But I know I have to get the results. So I think the mission right we got a we got to focus What’s your mission? What’s your vision for me? My I was driven by have to make sure I’m successful. I got married, right there was I just got married I the why with kids. So I have to make money to to bring income right for the family. So so I know I have to get it, but how to do it. So. So the conclusion is we get a man what I learned throughout this years is that we get to marry our mission. But we get the date the model. So this is what I meant by that the mission is, what’s your vision? Well, why are you doing this? Well, for me in 2007, I simply want to make $50,000 Just enough to feed my family, right? The mission is just to feed my family. That’s a simple mission. I’m not trying to change the world. But the model is how to how to fulfill that. But I’d have to prove it. So did the model, we have no attachment on the model. Most real estate agents DJ, I think as technology evolve in our business here, because most real estate agents, they they marry the model. And so when the time change as technology becoming more advanced, they keep on cleaning on this old traditional model just because people just because you’ve been doing it all these years, doesn’t mean you got to do it. So to answer your question more directly, I think you marry your mission. And you did your model and be flexible that did the model means you can always change the model. Right? You made it official Remember why you’re doing this. But don’t get so much attachment on the how to do it. So

D.J. Paris 12:56
like Mary, Mary, your why change your how really is what is what Rudy saying. And boy, that is so well said. And for those of you who aren’t watching us, Rudy has a giant board behind him. It’s very professional board is not really the right word, but a giant placard behind him with his five core values. Because that is how important your mission is to you. And your values. And and you’re absolutely so right by saying the techniques change all the time, everything that changes, but knowing your why knowing your why you’re getting up in the morning, what you’re shooting for. And then the details about how to get there and your case, when you first started it was game night. Well, you tried a bunch of other things, game nights, what worked, but your mission never changed. So do you mind only because I am staring at your five core values? And I’m really so impressed with them. Do you mind sharing your core values with our audience?

Rudy Kusuma 13:55
Yeah, as you continue, as you continue building as you continue building your team, you got to have as you have more and more people right before it’s just me and one or two people, as you have more and more people joining your team, how can you continue to grow? And at the same time, don’t destroy the core of the team, right? Because no, no one person no one person can build a team. But one person can destroy your team. So if you are so I believe TGM. The future of real estate is that either you join a team or you build your own team. But if you start when you start going down that pathway of building a team, you get to know like, well what’s the value or what is core values? What values means how you behave, how you is like, like you every family, have our own core values, what you tolerate in that core value. So I’ll give you an example. In our team when it’s just me and my wife, we believe in second mile surface for example, what is second mile service? Second mile surface means if you have Hear me to do if this is my job description, if you hire me to do A, B, and C, for example, then that’s my first mile. That’s my job description. If you hire me to sell your house, getting your home sold is my job, right? That’s my first mile. Now second round is going above and beyond and my job description. So I truly believe that second mile surface means going above and beyond what you are being hired to do, number one, number two, you never cut corners. Right? You never cut corners. Just like just like my experience with you today DJ like I believe you you believe whether you know it, I experienced as a second mile surface like you could have just interviewed but you actually go deeper than just the strategy to sell a house, you want to understand the philosophy behind it. So that’s one of our values number one second mile service. That’s what my wife and I believe. So we just share it with everybody. The second one is, we believe to empower and inspire others to achieve more. One of the reasons why TJ I started this team, and it’s really passionate, my passion to build a team because when I was a solo agent in 2007, I was hungry and cold and broke. I actually pray to God, I pray I promise that God you helped me, show me away. But because I always looking for a mentor, I’m looking for a coach. But as you know, this industry, everybody’s like very secretive, right? And even if people in your office share information, but it’s very superficial, it’s like on a surface. So I remember as a brand new agent, I always want to learn how to I was just trying to make 50,000 I’m not trying to change the world. I’m just trying to fit my teacher, right. But then everybody seems secretive. But then, so I prayed God and I promised that God showed me away, right? Show me a pathway connect me with the right people, give me give me give me direction. And if one day, if I figured out how to do this, right, do these means be successful making money and stuff like that. And my promise is that I want to my commitment is to help over 1000 Other people like me, I was 2124 2137 something that does happen here. So all these people that’s trying to figure out oh, my promise is to make 1000 to help 1000 People like me, I feel like I want to be a mentor that I was looking for back then. So that’s our core values number to empower and inspire others to achieve more, because I was looking for bad guy before, right? I was looking for somebody to to equip me, you know. So and then that’s my, that’s our core values. Number two DJ, our core values. Number three is results driven.

As you know, in this business, everybody talks. But then at the end of the day, if there is no results, and nothing accomplished, you’re cheating, you’re cheating the consumers, you are tearing your own families. I remember in 2007 When I went into a coma with my first brokerage office, the agents always hang out at the coffee, you know, by the coffee machine. And they are talking about how bad the market is, the whole thing is crashing down. And I was there as a new agent. I was like, how does it help you? How does it help you complaining about the market? How does it help you complaining about the situations? Right? So our core values, number three DJ results driven produce, like, at the end of the day, what’s the results, but you when you show up? You guys, most of real estate agents you work every day, if you if you want to work anyway, when you bring home you might as well bring the results, right? Otherwise don’t work. It’s like what’s the point going to the gym, if you don’t produce the result, then might as well just sleep at home. Same thing, my mindset if I if I decided to show up to work, then I might as well do the best I can be and to produce the results. So that’s our core values. Number three, results driven or values. Number four, is value value relationship by openly expressing gratitude meaning, you know, when people because in this business, it seems cutthroat, right? The traditional model, everybody’s very secretive. So we want to make sure when we build a team, we want to build a team that empowering each other of value each other, appreciate each other because I think the strength of the team, we we need somebody to encourage you right and so when people start when you are on the high up, the team needs you because now you can be the encourager, right but then life cycle right up and down. When you are on a down low, then you need the team because the team will lift you up. So that’s our core values. Number four, always value value relationship. And then last, the last one I’ve taught values number five is embrace. Continuous improve For once because TJ you know, this business or life in general, right? It’s like riding a bicycle, meaning if you are not improving, right, if you are not if you think you know it all, then then then you die basically. So I believe, always continue to improve even today, even back then DJ when I had no money in 2007, even if I have $50, the $50 I used that $50 I remember my first sales trainers is six figures. Sure I bought in 2005. And if I have to make a decision $50 Should I spend the $50 for lunch money, or have to do in fact, in Zig Ziglar I remember I bought Zig Ziglar cassette tape, and then Brian Tracy, those are my Tom Hopkins shirts, I’m like my first tremors and everyday, everyday I build today until today, I always set aside 10% of whatever revenue whatever income you have set aside 10% of that, to always to improve yourself, because Because technology, I mean, because life change, you know, it’s like you, Africa was the thing, DJ, if you are green, if you’re green, you’re growing, right. But if you think you are right, then you are rotten. So look at our five core values to the second month surface, empower, inspire others results driven value relationship by. And then lastly is embrace continuous improvement. So as we continue to grow, as we bring more and more, remember to partner up with us, we are looking for people that has these core values. In fact, I believe the skill is secondary, because I can always teach any agent the skill, right? The skill is easy. But the attitude, I cannot teach your attitude, I cannot teach your mindset. I cannot teach you to work hard for example, right? Like I like you’re 30 years old now. It’s already too late. Like I’m not your mom. Right? So so. So if you’re if you’re if you didn’t have that attitude to work hard to serve, right now, I don’t know I don’t know what to do with you. But I can teach you the skill I can I can teach you. I can our buyer presentation listing presentation there, I can teach you the core values. I cannot tell that’s why did you I’m glad you you caught that back. backdrop here is because the five core values that we continue to grow the team. That is important because no one person can build a team, but one person can destroy a team. So if you if you really believe that your team is doing a good service to your community, then you just have to be very careful, very intentional, as you continue to grow. So that’s the story behind the core values.

D.J. Paris 22:47
No, I love it. And I just wanted to share with our audience, the your fifth core value, which was constant, never ending improvement, which Japanese might call Kaizen is there’s not an English word, unfortunately, that that translates. But But I’ll tell you a funny, sort of a silly story. But but one that’s that I think, you know, our audience can relate to and you can relate to I’m sure. So I was just on this fantastic vacation where I was gone for three weeks with my girlfriend, and we were traveling in Europe, and we just had a marvelous time. And we were pretty physically active. We were hiking a little bit we were walking all over the place. But we were also enjoying ourselves on beaches. And anyway, it was a lot of fun. I wasn’t, you know, just, you know, eating and sitting. I was walking, I walked in one one day, we walked like 10 Miles anyway. So I was somewhat active. However, the previous year and a half prior to that vacation, I had been working out with a trainer three days a week. And and when I got to that year and a half mark, I was able to look at myself in the mirror and say, Wow, look at that I have some muscles. That’s kind of neat. From all this hard work I have done. And then for three weeks, I said well, I’m just going to take it easy all work out a little bit. But why ended up really not working out at all during that vacation because I was on vacation. And when I came back and I knew that my trainer, you know, I’d be starting back up. And I thought, Well, gosh, I’m not going to lose too much muscle in three weeks. Oh no, I lost a lot of muscle in only three weeks. And again, this isn’t a fitness podcast, of course. But for those of us thinking about our business, or our relationships, or our clients, or our prospecting or any part of our lives, our relationship with spirituality or money or food or whatever it might be if you’re not staying on top of those things. By knowing what your why is knowing what your purpose is just three weeks away, really kind of I mean, look if it didn’t, you know, I’m back in the gym now and I’m recovering that strength but I was so amazed at how how quickly that strength went away. Even my girlfriend had said, Boy, it looks like you’ve lost some muscle in those three weeks. And she was right I sure had. And so this idea of of, you know, taking a break is perfectly fine. Everyone should be taking breaks, but realizing just how important it is to stay consistent. And that’s really what your your fifth value was. And I just think it’s so important is, if you even if you just do it’s not I don’t live at the gym, by the way, I’m only there three hours a week, it’s only three hours a week, I’m not somebody who is like, you know, there all the time. But even just removing those three hours a week for three weeks, really, I was shocking. And so I would encourage everyone who’s listening, obviously, like Rudy said, know why you are doing what you’re doing, what is your, what is your mission? What is your you know, your purpose, and then realize that all the tactics to get there, they’re always going to change. That’s, like Rudy said, that that part’s kind of the easy part. Because, you know, there’s lots of people that will teach you lots of wonderful techniques. I mean, this podcast is all about techniques and how to achieve your real estate goals. But what Rudy, you know, mindset, you were saying and attitude is so important. But I want to switch gears for a moment because I want to talk about teams, because a lot of the people listening on our show our individual realtors, they aren’t on teams, some obviously some teams, many teams listen to our show as well. What is What is your thought about teams? How important are teams now and into the future? I know that you have very strong opinions about this.

Rudy Kusuma 26:36
Yes. Did you ask you know how the industry has evolved so much. And I think real estate is the last one that disruption, right. But right now there’s all this disruption going on. I truly believe that in the near future, if you realize that agents want to be not just surviving but thriving in the in the near future is that either you join a team or you build your own team. And the reason I say that DJ is the reason is is twofold. Number one, who are you competing against now? Right now your your competition is not the other agents down the road? Your competition is now a multibillion dollars technology company. Right? That’s number one. How are you going to be able to compete against multibillion dollar technology company and the consumers now because in the past, when people are thinking of buying and selling a house, they’re gonna go to you because we looked at agents, we were the gatekeepers of information. However, today, today is an information age era. That means information is readily available. Anybody and

D.J. Paris 27:41
it’s great. It’s free and easy. Anyone get access to everything? Yeah,

Rudy Kusuma 27:46
yes. So people can just go online DGS, you know, just Google and they can see all the homes that’s available online. So what’s the value? So that’s number one. Reason number one technology. The second reason is mega team, no matter where you’re listening to this now, there’s always a mega team in your area, how are you able to compete with those guys that has a so for example, in my team, our marketing budget is like over seven figures. Right? So when so as a solo agent, when I do my my kids, my cute casual games, I just pay for my pizza or whatever, a couple $100. But how are you able to compete with the mega team now. So that’s because of that. We really here at your home sold guaranteed Realty, my passion now is to help. How do I help other people other agents to be successful, is either you join an existing team, so that way, we can just generate buyers and listing appointments for you. Right? That’s what your team leaders role, when you join an existing team, you just focus on one thing, just go to a buyer and listing appointments, because what your team leaders supposed to do. A good team is the one that has an infrastructure, each individual person has a specific role. So that way, you just go to a price and listing appointments, or the second option if you are ambitious, and you have the resources, then just build your own team. Right so that’s that’s that I think, the future of real estate. And and I think the and then the last one right now to do it. Easy they speak. I think Tony Robbins is the one that says whatever you want in life, somebody else have done it. So find somebody who have done it. And you model you model their behavior. It’s called modeling. Right? So like, like you mentioned just now, you hire you hire a personal trainers, like why would you hire personal trainers, you could have gone team yourself, right? Sure. We both know, I can go to the gym myself. I can stay at the gym for five hours, nothing will happen because I’m doing all the wrong stuff. But when we have a coach when we have our personal trainers, I couldn’t be at the gym for 30 minutes but my 30 minutes has more results than when my five ours hanging out by myself.

D.J. Paris 30:02
And, you know, for me, the personal trainer, which I had never really worked with a personal trainer before, I was doing exercises all wrong, and I was actually really hurting putting additional stress on my body that was completely unnecessary and would have resulted in injury. And that’s what a good coach, whether it’s a business coach or a fitness coach, they’ll do is maybe more than anything that will help you avoid the pitfalls, they’ll help you, you know, do do those push ups correctly, or your business pushups correctly, knowing the form and the structure, like Rudy said, I will teach you how to do this, this is not that, you know, it’s a skill that I can teach. And same thing with my trainer, my trainer is like, it’s a really simple exercise. And I you know, I do a deadlift, and I live and I, you know, it’s not that complicated. But if I don’t do it correctly, I will completely screw up my back, or in the case of a realtor, you know, maybe lose that listing presentation, or lose that buyer client. And so having a mentor or coach or a team leader, who can you can go to, and I think agents are starting to realize that oftentimes, they’re managing broker, you know, the managing brokers, I think, have, it’s very difficult to be a managing broker. I think today, because managing brokers at most firms are expected to sort of be everything, they’re expected to do everything. And of course, they can’t do everything, because, you know, they’re only one person, or maybe there’s a few people. And, and so it’s, it’s tough, it’s tough. And if you don’t have a team, then you, you know, you might be lucky, and you have a managing broker that is super supportive and helpful and always available. But if you have a large office, that’s not so easy to find. And so finding a team or partnering up with somebody who can complement your strengths, or help you where you’re weak, is really, really critical. How how do you suggest people should go out about either building? Or? Well, let’s let’s start with joining a team. There are so many teams out there. And you were very specific by saying your your opinion is that teams really should have team members should be have an individual single focus. So if I’m an individual, if I’m an agent, and I’m looking to join a team, you know, what should I be looking for in a team?

Rudy Kusuma 32:24
Yeah, that’s a really good question, did you because right now, the word team has been abused, right? Everybody claim, oh, this is my team. So. So this is a quick interview session, when you are interviewing looking for a team, you ask the team leaders, what is my role as a team member here, because a real team, or at least the way I define a team here is that each individual has a specific role. That means we have one person or one department that focus on lead generation, we have one department that focus on App admin, we have one department that focus on follow up with inside sales team that follow up to make sure that check the timing, and motivation to see if the clients are ready to buy and sell now. And then we have you that the members, the agents here, we call it our outside sales agent, which the focus is just one thing literally just go to a bias and listing appointments. And then we have our transaction coordinators, we just focus on the paperwork, right? So that’s a legit real thing is where each individual person have one specialization just like when you work in a normal company. Did you have before I realize that I used to sell this stationery pens for example, right? There’s a person who just one thing just like any normal business, only in real estate, and person doing the job of 20 people and then I realized that agents at the according to the National Association of Realtors, the average real estate agent in us, this is the richest country on the planet, the the average real estate agents income less than 30 $40,000 Gross commission income a year. And this takes a while for real estate agents with less than two years of experience is less than $9,000 a year like how are you even survive? And like I don’t even know how exactly what happened. So that should not happen in the richest country on the planet. And that’s an easy, the easiest problem. The easy way to solve their problems is just have each individual person specialized in one thing. So if you’re a solo agent, and you’re thinking of joining a team that that’s an easy way to interview the team leaders you ask them what do you mean as a team because that’s a real team now there’s a team want to be a team want to be is this? Okay? DJ, you join my team, and you do all your yourself but I’ll be I’ll be acting like your father figure. I don’t know but oh RP, my role is to motivate you, if you need if you’re a real estate agent, this is your own business, and you need somebody to motivate you. Why not just get a job. You have to be selling, if you’re not a self driven person, if you need some be on the outs to motivate you, then I don’t think this is the right profession. But so the role of a team leader is not just to motivate you to give you pep talk, right? The role of a team leader is to create this infrastructure to create a space. So you can be successful without doing all the opposite way. You can make more money, you have more time. And you enjoy what what is it you do in life, right? If you like to go hiking, you like to go vacation, just like any normal people.

D.J. Paris 35:52
You’re so right. And I think all of our audience can really resonate with that. And understanding, we can all sit and think about our real estate practice and think what’s the part of my business that I’m not very good at, or I don’t like to do, or I just, it’s just a real struggle for me and I find myself not doing it or not doing a very good job. That’s the stuff where you have to you look, you can beat yourself up about not being good at something, or you can get somebody to help with that. Which case could be a virtual assistant or a team member. And, and you don’t have to do everything because you can’t do everything. Just like managing brokers can’t do everything. Either, you as an individual solo practitioner are going to struggle, because there’s going to be some part of your business that you’re just you don’t enjoy doing, but you need to get it done. And that’s where a team and I couldn’t agree more. That’s where team infrastructure is really important that the team leader could say, Hey, you’re really great at this particular, you know, sort of part of the business, maybe it’s a listing presentation, or doing the comps or doing customer service, or prospecting or whatever, or managing finances, whatever it might be. If you can hyper focus on that. And then you have a team, you know, other team members to do the things that that you’re not particularly strong at. Boy, you’re a powerhouse. And you get to tell your client, you don’t just get me because I’m really going to be mostly focused on this one task. I’ve got five or you know, three to five or 10 other members of my team that’s going to fill in the gaps for everything. I’m going to be the person that’s just staying in touch with you and but I got a whole army behind me to make sure that this goes smoothly. That is a very impressive sales presentation to to a buyer or seller.

Rudy Kusuma 37:45
Yeah. And that’s called leverage. Think about it. Right? That’s leverage because let me tell you a story brand new agent joining my team 20 years old, TJ 20 years old, never sell anything in our life, right? First year in the business making over 70 income second year on the business 50,000. Now this is third or fourth year, always making over 202 50 250,000. net net income income. The reason I say net take home income because as a team members, you just have to focus on one thing. And additional expenses, right? Because the team leaders already created this space. So for me DJ, that’s called leverage. Right? So where else cannot 20 years old, within her first less than five years in the business already? Over 500,000 basically right? Within the first four years now, where else can we do that, but the only way you can do something like that. She the new team members that 20 years old her name is Misha, to leverage the two models. He leverages the team system C leverage everything that I’ve done your team, whatever your team leaders have done, you leverage that. So you can just focus on one thing, and I like what you said TJ, like, instead of focusing on your weakness, instead of trying to improve what you’re weak on, if you’re not be successful, focus on your strength, develop your God given talent, because every single one of us, we all have this, God given talent, right? This but then if you don’t practice, you don’t develop your God given talent. It’s useless. Just because you know how to, I don’t know, just because you think you’re looking at every athletes or anybody that successful in their fields. Do you think they’re born like that they practice every single day. But they practice on the one thing, the problem with real estate agents DJ, they try to practice on the staff that like 20 different stuff. So now they become average in everything.

D.J. Paris 39:49
It’s a great point. And this we are so fortunate to live in the current time we have where teams are plentiful, assistance are plentiful. Well, you can find assistants from all over the world that can help you with with with all these sorts of tasks. But what what I what I’d like to say in wrapping up this conversation is, you know, look, I’m inspired by Rudy and his success is truly impressive 5000 homes over a billion sold in real estate, his team is incredibly impressive. And if there is anyone out there listening who is in California, who’s an agent that is looking to maybe find a team, or join Rudy’s team, or, you know, really go under his, his tutelage as, as, as a mentor, what’s the best way that an agent should reach out to you, Rudy,

Rudy Kusuma 40:45
we have to we have two opportunities, TJ either either you can join my team, where I just supply you with buyers and listing appointments, or here at your home sold guaranteed, we actually help you to grow and develop your own team. So it’s, it’s up to you. But if you want to learn more about how our team system works, go to WWE top agents free.com. And I will actually do a quick tutorial sharing with you how the team system actually works.

D.J. Paris 41:20
Yeah, and once again, that’s top agents and agents is plural top agents freedom.com. And that will tell you everything you’d like to know about Rudy and his system. He’s also the author of an amazing book, which is called Death of the traditional real estate agent Rise of the super profitable Real Estate Sales Team available on Amazon, which you can find in the show notes a link right there, which you can purchase. Rudy, thank you so much for being on our show. You are wonderful guest I love your attitude, you certainly have an incredible mindset. And I like that your team structure is so well defined. And it hopefully will serve as a model for the rest of our audience as they continue to think about how their business may develop in the coming years. If you’re a solo practitioner, you really should be thinking about, you know, in the next couple of years, do you want to partner up with someone? Do you want to be able to offer more? I once asked, I’ll leave with this one question. Or this one anecdote. I once interviewed a team it was a two, two person team, two women. And I asked them when we weren’t on the air because I didn’t want to embarrass them or have them reveal any this on the air. But I asked them, I’ll keep them anonymous. So I can I can tell the story. But I said just out of curiosity, because you’re two people. Do you charge more for your listing for your listings? I said, What do you charge? Because here in the Chicagoland area, the average listing commission is probably 5%. That’s probably the average. And they go, Oh, we charge 7%. And I said really? I said that’s, that’s that’s a lot more, right. I don’t know what percentage more that is, but it’s substantial. And I said, if you’re in competition with other people who are charging 5%, or even 6%, how do you do 7%. And they looked at me like, we don’t have any problem with we have no problem selling the 7%. And I said, Well, how do you do that? Don’t people ask about it? And they said, No, because we explained that we’re two people, you’re getting two of us. And it’s only 2% more. And I said, Oh wow. And they both had their own skill sets. And they were different. And I said, Well, that’s how they do it. That makes perfect sense to me. And so we’re talking leverage. And that’s, of course, what Rudy is all about is creating a team so you can leverage all of the strengths of those team members to be able to if you want to increase your fees, that’s probably about the only way you can do it really is by doing adding more services. And that’s by adding more team members. So Rudy, what a great idea. So if anyone out there is in the California area as an agent, and you’re looking to see what other teams and offices offer, visit top agents freedom.com. Rudy, thank you so much for being on our show. This was a real pleasure, your absolute joy to interview and your energy is definitely, boy, it’s it’s it’s just so so much fun. And I’m sure our audience enjoyed it. So on behalf of our audience, we want to thank Rudy for spending time he is incredibly busy, but taking time out of his day to speak with us. And also on behalf of Rudy and myself. We want to thank our audience for continuing to listen and watch and support our show the best way that you can help us grow, telephoned, think of one other real estate agent that could benefit from hearing this great conversation with Rudy and send them a link to our show. The easiest way to do that, go right to our website, keeping it real pod.com. Again, keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done, can be streamed right there or just pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real. Hit that subscribe button. Rudy, thank you so much. It was a pleasure. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Rudy. Good to be here. Thank you DJ