Real Estate Survival Guide

Business update

The luxury listing that you guys have heard about multiple times settled in mid-June on the 16th.

May and June had nine different deals settled, and what happened in June was basically a year's worth of work. Through the end of June, I made 95% of what I made last year. A huge lesson here has been aces in their places: having the best people in the best spot.

On the home front

On June 21st we paid off our house, and I shared the news with my mastermind and listeners.

My cousin bought a house and that settled on the 27th.

Coming up

Vincent and Elizabeth Pugliesi and the amazing Total Life Freedom community, and Inspire Business community have been a huge part of my success. Entrepreneurs and Realtors are lonely and depressed and frustrated. I want you to have a community where you can ask questions. The Real Estate Survival Guide Community is doing our soft launch before a public launch in September! Our first call will be on July 5th at 7:00 PM eastern. If that is something you are interested in reach out to me. It's going to be small, invite only.

Show notes and blog posts are brought to you by HarshmanServices and RealtorEmails.

John Schuchman is a licensed REALTOR® in Lancaster, PA, with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homesale Realty and a part of the Andrew Welk Group. The opinions shared on this show represent the opinions & values of John Schuchman and do not necessarily represent the opinions & values of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homesale Realty. The opinions & ideas shared in this podcast do not guarantee or promise any results of success to the listener. 

Who is Raymond Sjolseth?

Raymond Shoujeth has had the privilege of founding over 45 companies with 40 failures and five successful, eight-figure businesses. The majority of these companies were founded through real estate while not being in the industry at all. He is also the host of The Agent podcast, which caters to real estate professionals, and The Chicago podcast, which caters to his local community.

He and his wife operate in Chicagoland. They have five kids, two of which have special needs, and the family has three dogs.

As an investor of 30 years, Raymond has had many single-family homes across seven states.

Quotations from Raymond Sjolseth:

“I don't have all the answers, but I have amazing support around me that can help me build a roadmap that works for what we need for our family.”

“Most people will stay down when they get knocked down. They won't get back up. And I think that's what I attribute the most to is the ability just to begin again. Sometimes I have to begin again every day.”

“I have problems and challenges, bad days and good days. And I have to make the decision to work hard. If I choose to be optimistic—not ignorant, not naïve—but optimistic, and focus forward, the chances of me having success are going to be much greater than being in a bad mood and sticking my head in the sand.”

Find out the following and more:  

• Which Chinese proverb Raymond loves
• How you can maintain a positive attitude and focus on what's actually coming and what you're creating         
• Whether he plans first or just jumps off the bridge        
• What you need to do to have complete time freedom      
• How long it took him to go from zero to 18 million

Resources

https://www.raymondsjolseth.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymond-sjolseth-0515476/

Show notes and blog posts are brought to you by HarshmanServices and RealtorEmails.

John Schuchman is a licensed REALTOR® in Lancaster, PA, with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homesale Realty and a part of the Andrew Welk Group. The opinions shared on this show represent the opinions & values of John Schuchman and do not necessarily represent the opinions & values of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homesale Realty. The opinions & ideas shared in this podcast do not guarantee or promise any results of success to the listener. 

Failure to plan is planning to fail. I am sure this is not the first time you have heard this phrase. I've definitely heard it hundreds of times, but I don't think we pay enough attention and realize as realtors that we are setting ourselves up for failure. If we do not plan. And I want to share a story with you. I don't like sharing negative stories about other agents because I don't want to criticize. I will follow my friend Vincent’s great advice that if it's good news, I'll tell you their name, and if it's bad news, I will let it be anonymous. I want to talk to you about an anonymous agent who called me a few weeks ago and had an immense amount of audacity to ask me to do something that would have put my license in jeopardy, all because they didn't plan.

The agent even went so far as to try to make me feel bad for not being able to do what they asked. “Look, I really need your help. I would help you. " And I thought to myself and I did kind of say, “How did you not plan on this?”

They weren't really interested in hearing what I had to say, but I thought to myself, Wow, failure to plan is planning to fail. I looked up some things about this agent, and it wasn't shocking to me that, as long as they've been a realtor, they have done only one transaction.

This is why I say, if you can answer your phone and have good communication, you are better than 90% of the realtors out there. I don't know how it went with this agent and their client, but I can't imagine it going well.

Join me to find out what really important thing that agent failed to plan.

Show notes and blog posts are brought to you by HarshmanServices and RealtorEmails.

John Schuchman is a licensed REALTOR® in Lancaster, PA, with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homesale Realty and a part of the Andrew Welk Group. The opinions shared on this show represent the opinions & values of John Schuchman and do not necessarily represent the opinions & values of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homesale Realty. The opinions & ideas shared in this podcast do not guarantee or promise any results of success to the listener. 

Summary

This episode is about cutting off what is dead in your business and personal life.

A few weeks ago, when I was away on vacation at the lake, my wife and I were sitting lakeside while our kids played in the water. A dead branch fell off a tree, and I kept looking at that tree and thinking about how the tree just loses its dead branches. Sometimes that happens naturally like it did in front of me there at the lake, and sometimes the branches are pruned by a person.

That's what this episode is all about.

You have an opportunity to become healthier and better at what you do by cutting off the dead limbs. Which dead limbs do you need to remove that you're holding on to?

Pruning and shaping your life will make you healthier and you will be able to bear fruit and reach your full potential.

Join us to find out more.

Show notes and blog posts are brought to you by HarshmanServices and RealtorEmails.

John Schuchman is a licensed REALTOR® in Lancaster, PA, with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homesale Realty and a part of the Andrew Welk Group. The opinions shared on this show represent the opinions & values of John Schuchman and do not necessarily represent the opinions & values of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homesale Realty. The opinions & ideas shared in this podcast do not guarantee or promise any results of success to the listener. 

I'm thrilled to be bringing you this episode and to talk to you about a little more of our financial journey. I’ve shared about how being debt-free made me a better realtor. What I didn't tell you was that episode was probably actually recorded months ago.

I recorded that after we had paid off all our consumer debt, the day before our son turned one. We've always been motivated by big goals. What I didn't tell you was what was also coming. I've kind of hinted at it this year on the episodes a few different times.

As you can see from this episode's title, we have officially paid off our house. We did it yesterday, and the first people I told about it were the members of my mastermind community that's been a huge part of helping me grow in my business and in every single area of my life. I had the honor of sharing with them yesterday morning that we paid off our house, and they've been on the journey, supporting us as we pushed to pay off the house. We knew that it was going to happen here in June. Except for the mastermind group, you are the first people to hear this. And I hope, in all of this, that you can see the journey.

We hit our goal of paying off our house by my 34th birthday, which is tomorrow. This is all crazy. I can't say enough how thankful I am for how God has blessed my business. We went from $70,000 just in consumer debt, and we paid that off by the time Kaiden turned one. Now we're completely debt-free, including our mortgage.

Now we get to really do what we want to do, which is work less and not be running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I want to enjoy time with our kids. I want to really pour into them. I want to watch them grow up.

You know that you have the ability to do this now, right? Maybe for you, paying off your house seems way too lofty. And maybe you don't think that that's a good goal to have. That's fine. Some people don't pay off their house because their interest rate is so low. But for us we felt like, especially in real estate with an inconsistent income, we just felt that that was what God wanted us to do.

Show notes and blog posts are brought to you by HarshmanServices and RealtorEmails.

John Schuchman is a licensed REALTOR® in Lancaster, PA, with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homesale Realty and a part of the Andrew Welk Group. The opinions shared on this show represent the opinions & values of John Schuchman and do not necessarily represent the opinions & values of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homesale Realty. The opinions & ideas shared in this podcast do not guarantee or promise any results of success to the listener. 

Summary:

On today's episode, we're talking about the fact that being debt-free has made me a better realtor.

Sneak peeks:

“At some point, I need to get the real expert and the brains of our family operation on here: my wife. She’s good with money and probably the only reason we have a dime to our name. We followed Dave Ramsey's principles and plans, even during the hard few months that I've shared about previously when I only made a few thousand dollars.”

“When you're struggling financially or not making it, there's this pressure that you feel. And I think it almost comes out of you, even if you don't want it to. Like, ‘Oh my goodness, you need to buy a house.’”

Learn all of this and more:

• The stress I was under and how my wife was (is) a superstar
• How we survived at the beginning, making only a few thousand dollars
• How long it took before business picked up
• The plan we followed
• What being debt-free did to my interactions with clients
• The amount of debt we paid off and how fast
• How close we were to losing our house
• Milestones we passed on our journey
• The exact path you can follow to become debt-free
• What financial pressure does to you as a Realtor
• Why being debt-free relieves pressure on you as an agent
• The difference this shift makes in your interactions
• What it’s like to have the freedom millions covet
• What’s coming next for the podcast

Resources:

Dave Ramsey Solutions

Penny Hoarder

Shoestring Cottage

50+ Resources for Living a Rich Life on a Budget

Show notes and blog posts are brought to you by HarshmanServices and RealtorEmails.

John Schuchman is a licensed REALTOR® in Lancaster, PA, with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homesale Realty and a part of the Andrew Welk Group. The opinions shared on this show represent the opinions & values of John Schuchman and do not necessarily represent the opinions & values of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homesale Realty. The opinions & ideas shared in this podcast do not guarantee or promise any results of success to the listener. 

This episode is kind of cheating. Technically, Google is not a social media platform. It's a search engine, but the way you can use it works just like a social media platform. So I'm including it in our series on using social media to grow your business.

In this episode, I share with you a couple minutes of an interview I did with Sean Cochran. Sean is an amazing realtor in Chicago. I interviewed him in the fall of 2021. Sean has a huge business going on in Chicago through what he is doing on Google and with Google maps, etc. He really built it all through his platform on TikTok where he now has almost 325,000 followers. He's using Google in way that is game changing.

Quotation:

"You'll start to become known as the man around town or the woman around town. You're everywhere. And when people Google these businesses locally, they're gonna see Sean Cochran broker realtor’s review. I got almost 17 million views on my pictures around my house. I'm ranked the number-one highest realtor around here, and I don't pay for it.”

Learn all of this and more:

• What will make you want to post photos with reviews on Google
• How many agents have found him through a Google search
• Why Sean Cochran pops up first on Google searches (and how you can, too)
• How to get thousands of dollars a month in free advertising
• Why Google Maps is one of the best tools for your branding
• How many times a week you should post
• Whether or not to post negative reviews—and why

Resources:

The episode titled The Cowboy Realtor, an interview with Sean Cochran

The Cowboy Realtor on TikTok

How to set up a Google My Business page

Show notes and blog posts are brought to you by HarshmanServices and RealtorEmails.

John Schuchman is a licensed REALTOR® in Lancaster, PA, with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homesale Realty and a part of the Andrew Welk Group. The opinions shared on this show represent the opinions & values of John Schuchman and do not necessarily represent the opinions & values of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homesale Realty. The opinions & ideas shared in this podcast do not guarantee or promise any results of success to the listener. 

Who is Gina Talarico?

Gina Talarico is a social media marketing guru who is so much fun to talk to. She was on my amazing friend Matt Pete's podcast talking about social media marketing, and I knew I had to have her come on our show so you could benefit from her knowledge and experience.

Gina lives in British Columbia, Canada and has been working online since 2018. She went through an ordeal when she lost her Instagram account, and she talks about what she did after that.

Her goal is to get you comfortable promoting what you offer and recycling your content using multiple platforms so that you can appear in front of more people and effortlessly as possible.

Quotations:

“I'm a millennial, so grew up with a phone in my hand, grew up with social media. I was helping a friend of mine who was my mother’s age. She was in multilevel marketing and sick of hosting parties. She asked me for help, so I just set her up on social media, and she started making sales. After that, I realized this is a huge business opportunity.”

Regarding the early days of struggle we all go through: “It's almost like you forget those things, the sacrifices that you make and the things that you do to get you where you are. Hindsight's always easier, right?”

Learn all of this and more:

• Why Gina spent a few months sleeping in a recliner in a basement as an adult
• The best way to find the right platform for you
• What's going to bring people to your page
• What's going to make them want to stick around
• How to take the stress out of promoting on social media
• How to do videos without needing to appear on camera—or lip sync or dance
• How her Instagram account got hacked (it wasn’t anything she clicked on)
• What caused her to pivot
• What to do if you get creator’s block
• Why you should feature people from the neighborhood
• How to capitalize on the fact that people are nosy
• Why she turns away when she plays someone else’s video
• What she was referring to when she said, “People are gonna judge you either way.”

Resources:

Gina Talarico's Instagram account

Her LinkedIn profile

Her website

Join us to hear Tina spill the tea.

Summary:

This is part three of our series about how to improve on social media. This episode is about making sure you are on and using multiple platforms and not using social media as your end-all, be-all for communication with your clients. You might be thinking “Well, wait a second, John. We've been talking about how important social media is and how great it is for my business. Why are you now telling me not to make it my everything?”

I had an issue on April 1. I woke up to what felt like a terrible April fool's joke. My Facebook account was shut down along with 3,500 Facebook friends and connections I had built over a period of 15 years. Gone instantly. The good news was that it turned out to just be a huge glitch. There was a New York Post article that said many Facebook accounts were disabled for no apparent reason. But at the time, I thought my account was completely gone. So I learned in that moment that one social media platform cannot be the only place you store your information. I had clients I didn't even have phone numbers for, because we would just message on Facebook Messenger all the time.

Lessons learned

• Yes, use the social media platforms, but do not depend on them.
• Facebook cannot be the only place your content and contacts are stored. Get client phone numbers, email addresses, and keep them somewhere off of social media.
• You can download your entire Facebook account history (all your friends, pictures, uploads, everything you've ever put on the platform). Do it now just in case, God forbid, you ever lose your account.
• Facebook and other platforms can and do shut people down for no reason. It can happen to you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
• When people search for a Realtor, the more that you have showing up in Google search results, the better. You want people to find your business even if your social media accounts were to disappear. That's why I've started doing a better job with that and having a website created and blog posts written.
• It was a huge lesson for me to stop putting all my eggs in one basket.

I hope this is helpful for you. Think about this in your business. Yes, social media is great. It's amazing, but it cannot be everything. One social media platform cannot be the only thing you use to grow and promote your business. Diversify.

Show notes and blog posts brought to you by Harshman Services and Realtor Emails.

Summary:

On today's episode, we are continuing our series talking about how you can improve your social media skills to help your real estate business.

On our first episode of this series, we talked about just posting and interacting and talked about how our team and I have all created a successful real estate business.

• We don't pay for leads.
• We don't buy leads on Zillow.
• We don't pay for ads.
• We just use organic social media growth to grow our business.

I want to help you as well. I'll briefly describe what stories are. A story is basically a post that you put up that disappears in 24 hours. You can save some in certain categories you can create. Here is the great part about stories. People can interact with you in the story without it being public. When I talk to Realtors out there, a lot of the pushback I get is they get worried that people won't engage, and then they believe they kind of look like an idiot.

Lessons learned

• You have to work through some fears and anxieties and just put yourself out there.
• If you don't want to put yourself out there, use stories.
• I've gotten many clients through Facebook stories.
• This is is a huge way to build your business for free.
• If you are not using stories, you definitely should start because they're free and there's so much potential.
• When you share a story, even if it's one that disappears in 24 hours, you can see who is viewing. Maybe you see that they look at your story, and right from there, you can message them privately and have a conversation.

Shining example of this

Wendy Norman of Savannah Elopement Package uses reels and stories to promote her photography business and her affordable packages in Savannah, Georgia. Maybe she has friends who are wanting to get married or thinking about eloping and didn't even know the options available to them. They see a story, message her, and it starts a conversation.

I hope that this helps you and you can think about even this small win using stories on Instagram and Facebook to grow your real estate business.