Real Estate Survival Guide

Who Is Wendy Norman?

Wendy is an award-winning photographer living in the Savannah, Georgia area. She spent the last 12 years photographing joy-filled whimsical wedding days through her business, Apartment B Photography. She’s a single mom to a pug and a rescue cat.

In 2020, she shifted her business to focus on intimate weddings and elopements with the creation of the Savannah Elopement Package, and she recently opened the second branch of the package down in St. Pete, Florida. Wendy is an amazing photographer and business owner. I've really enjoyed watching her journey.

We met through the Total Life Freedom community, and we are in the mastermind on Tuesdays together. She does an amazing job of using social media to grow her business by building and connecting with clients.

What I love hearing about Wendy is when she meets clients, they'll say, “Oh, I feel like I already know you because I follow the stuff you're doing on Instagram or TikTok.”

Quotations

“I know I can take good pictures, but what I've learned is that being a wedding photographer is so much more than that. We're a dime a dozen; it's a commodity at this point. There's so many wedding photographers, and there's so many talented ones. So what really sets you apart is your personality and the way you interact with your clients, how much your clients trust you. Really, you spend the most time with a couple on their wedding day than anybody else does. I'm with the bride before she sees her husband on her wedding day, you know?”

Learn all of this and more:

• How Wendy built a business she loves while she had a full-time job
• The best piece of advice she received, and from a surprising source
• What she does to create a great client experience
• Which five vendors are essential to the Savannah Elopement Package
• How photographers are like Realtors
• What solved the burned-out photographer problem she had
• How social media lets you build a relationship with someone before you meet
• Why you should pick five interests to mention on social media
• How to work successfully with your Enneagram type
• The only way to set yourself apart from your competition

Enjoy a conversation with Wendy and John, who fight—and love each other—like siblings.

Resources:

Savannah Elopement Package

Free Enneagram test

Summary

We are going to start a series where we talk about social media improvement and how to use social media differently. We’ll have some interviews with a few people I really trust in the social media realm who have done an amazing job of building their business and creating success through social media. I basically built my entire business through social media. I don't buy ads. I don't pay Zillow. I don't pay for leads. I don't do anything except use organic growth through social media.

Two clients recently, one I had not spoken to in 15 years, and one I had not spoken to in eight years, reached out to me to buy a home.

Megan continued to see my stuff on social media. She reached out to me and said, hey, my fiancé and I would like to see this house. We want to buy it.

Here's the thing I need you guys to hear and understand. She had not spoken to me in 15 years. Megan never liked any of my stuff. She just followed me on social media.

Lessons learned

• The Facebook algorithm is set up so that you people see you and you see other people when you interact with their posts, so just post and interact on there.
• Go through the birthdays on Facebook every day and shoot someone a message. I try to be genuine, ask how they're doing if I haven't talked to them in a while, etc., but you want people to remember you, right?
• You never know who's looking for a Realtor. You never know who may have had a bad experience with a previous agent. You have to be willing to reach out to these people. They'll be like, oh, I kind of forgot John existed. How's he doing? Oh, he's a Realtor now.
• You will have more success in the real estate business by using social media. Think about this and apply this to your business.

Business Update

I am just very thankful for all the ways that God has blessed my business and for you guys who listen to the show and support it. In May, we had our 12th consecutive month of podcast growth.

About this time last year, I was kind of stressed about the podcast. Had a lot going on in my business and at home. And it was a big stressor in my marriage because I would often be doing podcast episodes at the last minute,  on a Monday night for an episode on Tuesday. It was very stressful. I finally got my butt in gear, thanks to some amazing people within Total Life Freedom and Inspire business community, where people said, look, you just need to get ahead. Once I started doing it consistently and really had a plan, I ended up sometimes being a month or six weeks ahead. It gave me so much margin.

It gave me time to not only focus on my real estate business and things I do for the team, but it also gave me time to promote the show and start to do other things like coaching and helping Realtors. June of last year was almost triple the average of the downloads in the previous five months. A lot of that was due to reaching out to people, sharing the podcast, being ahead of it, having a plan, and structuring things differently so that it released right at midnight and was one of the first episodes people saw in their iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or wherever they listened.

That's a big piece of what's helped it grow. Whether you found me a year ago or longer, or found me last week, I'm very thankful that you listen. I want to somehow encourage people in the real estate industry. I want to be able to encourage people and help people continue growing the show.

This past week I was in Orlando at Podfest for my first time there, and I learned so much.

Normally I feel like I'm grinding and working all the time, and it's kind of cool and crazy because I don't have a ton going on right now. It's a nice little lull. I definitely needed it a few weeks ago when I was on vacation. And then with Podfest, I basically was gone 17 days in May.

It’s been a really good month between Podfest, vacation, time to get away, and a lot of learning. I’m super excited about that and excited to share some lessons with you over the next few weeks and months in terms of real estate business.

I often say ACEs in their places. I learned that at Chick-fil-A, where we talked about having the best people in the best positions at the best times. I've never been great at details. I've never been good at paperwork. We talk about sales, relationship, sales, relationships, paperwork, and the backend stuff is definitely not my gift. It is Cara’s.

I outsource my show notes and my blog posts for my website. I outsource my podcast editing, and I really needed somebody to do paperwork on the backend for my business.

On the Home Front

My wife flew down to Florida on Sunday, and she was with me from Sunday to Wednesday of this week. And that was absolutely amazing. It was so nice to spend time with her. It was great to get away with her in Orlando. We don't really get time like that without the kids. We also went on vacation earlier in May and had some time as a family with her family and with my extended family.

Coming Up

June's about to be crazy with five settlements. I’m very excited about it.

Thank you guys again for all the success over the past year in my real estate business, but also here on the podcast. Thank you for the support and encouragement. It would not be possible. And the growth of the podcast would not be possible if it were not for amazing people like you, who listen to the show and share it and review it.

Christian husband, father, and member of the Total Life Freedom community, Ken is an amazing friend and mentor. He owns Carfagno Commercial Cleaning, and he also runs an amazing podcast, the Smart Cleaning School. Ken also has a community for cleaners. He does a lot of amazing things and knows the real estate industry very well from his cleaning days.

Quotations from Ken

“I said, John, look at this, look at where you were. I know you're feeling like you're not far along. Zoom out. Look at the trend line. Look where you were a year ago, look at where your life was, what your podcast was, look at where your family was.”

“So Realtors out there, I highly encourage you to keep a journal. I mean, John has his in podcast format, as do I keep a journal. Write some notes. What's going on in your life right now? What was happening a year ago? You'll find that you have improved in some way, shape or form, and that will bring encouragement to you.”

How to manage home life and work

What Ken believes about owning a business

Why he left his former life as an engineer at GE

Key decisions that should be made early on in a marriage

Which elements in their family vision are key

How he took his family on a month-long vacation to Florida in the winter

When a police officer pulled a gun on him while Ken was cleaning

Why he moved and built a new business from scratch

What prompted him to start a podcast

How he inspired John Schuchman

The Holy Bible

Chapter a Day Bible podcast

Smart Cleaning School podcast

Dave Ramsey

Michael Gerber's book, E-Myth Revisited

Total Life Freedom community

Journal and pen set

Summary

This came up recently during a TLF call with a bunch of people including my friend Melissa Bloom.

I think I was sharing something that was stressful in my business.

Melissa said, “That goes in your God box or your inactive box.”

And I asked her, “What in the world do you mean?”

She went on to tell me, “When I'm coaching people or in my business, or I get stressed about something in my life, I think about if I can do anything about it. And if I can't, it goes in my inactive box or my God box. So, John, for you, those things in your business that you can't control, that you can't really do anything about go in your God box, where you just give it to God and let him handle it and don't let that stress you out.”

Many things happen in the real estate business that we could stress out about, but how many of those are things we can actually do something about? I would say very few.

So much different stuff has been going on in my real estate business the last few months. A few clients listed a home with me; a bunch more are under contract to buy homes with me. I think at one point, there were six or seven deals all going at the same time.

What you can control in your business

For all of those deals, there are some things I can control:    

• Sending paperwork by the day it was due         
• Obtaining information when the client asked
• Getting back to people promptly and within the agreed-upon time frame

If you're doing those, that's the best you can do. The other stuff you can't do anything about.

I can only control the things that I can control.

Letting God handle it

Anything I can’t control has to go in my God box or inactive box where I just give it to God and let it go. Because the only thing I can really do is stress about it and get frustrated. I get anxious, and it really holds me back from doing the things that I need to be doing.

Within the last few weeks, there have been multiple inspections per week and multiple appraisals per week.

If I just stress about all those things, that takes up capacity in my brain and heart.

The other interesting point about all this is even if I could control it, do you know what happens when I think about it? Are my primary thoughts positive or negative?

What are you doing with the things you can't control in your business? Are you stressing about them and letting them hold you back from the things you need to be doing, or you putting them in your God box or your inactive box where you know that there's nothing that you can do about them and they just have to happen?

Thank you for listening. Hope this was helpful, and I'll see you on our next episode.

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:

Something just happened in my business that if you had told me a year ago would happen so soon, I would have told you that you were crazy. You'll have to listen to the episode to find out what it is.

But take a moment and consider this.

• What if your dreams are closer than you could ever imagine?
• What if you could reach out and touch them and feel them and know that they're tangible?
• What if you just need to trust God and walk through the open doors to get there?

That's the lesson I've really been learning and applying in my life.

I hope that this can encourage you because if you would've told me a year and a half ago that this would have happened now, I would have never believed you. I would have laughed you out the door. I simply did not think it was possible.

What are the dreams that you don't think are possible that might just be right in front of you, closer than you think, and more attainable than you have imagined so far?

Who is Ken Hannaman?

Ken is an executive with a nationwide fast food chain with the responsibility of 700 plus restaurants. He is also a coach to thousands of people, dog dad to two chihuahuas, and husband to one: his best friend Crystal, with whom he has spent more than 20 years and navigated life in untraditional ways. Author of Ungraduated: Finding your why and dropping out of outdated belief systems, published by Harshman House Publishing, Ken helps people like you change their ways of thinking so they can lead fuller, freer lives.

He is a member of Total Life Freedom and a couple other masterminds, and he is one of the kindest people you could ever hope to meet, and he asks great questions.

“What stories do you want told after you're no longer here or after you move on from your place of business? And if you can, really carve out and be purposeful with your time. You're going to find that flow state to where you can knock out a couple hours of something that you probably would have spent mindlessly scrolling Facebook or Twitter or Instagram.”

“I help people realize what a life they can have if they want to go after it. I'll tie this together from the real estate world is you can look at it as a transaction. You could look at it as get them all done, make money, take care of my family and that's it. But what if during every single deal that you're making, you realize you're impacting people's lives, you're setting them up for the next chapter of their life? Whenever you can, correlate and draw in that relatability to who you are, why it matters to you, and what stories you're going to help people tell as they carve out their new homes and make moves.”

Find out all of this and more:

• How Ken went from facing prison to being a trusted mentor
• The realizations he came to regarding education and other systems
• Which beliefs you can change to get results quickly
• What Ken says instead of “I’m busy”
• Ken’s reason for being
• How fast food work relates to real estate
• What we are not doing enough of in our businesses

Resources

Ungraduated: Finding your why and dropping out of outdated belief systems

Ungraduated podcast

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

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 podcast episode was inspired by an awesome post in the Total Life Freedom community by our amazing leader, Vincent Pugliese. He shared an interview, from Paul Stanley, the lead singer and creator of the band Kiss.

In the interview, Paul said that they had gone to rock concerts for years and spent all this money and sort of felt cheated out of a great experience. And so when they created the band Kiss, they wanted to be the band that they had never seen before.

Creating a better experience

The minute I saw this, I knew that I could apply it to my real estate business and share it with you, my wonderful audience, to help you in your real estate career. It's so interesting: being the band they never saw. Paul wanted Kiss to create an experience unlike any that anyone had ever seen.

I personally am not a fan of Kiss. I couldn't tell you one of their songs. That's not my type of music, and that's okay. That doesn't change the fact that Kiss has probably been one of the most influential and remembered rock bands in history. With the makeup and the acts they put on, they create an experience that people want to recreate and tell others about. When we think about being the band we never saw and that Kiss was created because people felt cheated at concerts, how can we apply this to our real estate business?

Take out the word band and put Realtor in there. Be the realtor that no one has ever seen yet.

Lessons Learned

It's hard to create relationships with people and just be the person they who answers their phone, who gets back to them when they promise to. And in that way, I want to be that Realtor that they've never seen before.

When I say I'm going to get back to them, I do my best to make sure that it happens. Like Paul Stanley, who created Kiss so that people could see the band they never saw, I want our real estate businesses to be one where we show people a different side of Realtors aside that they have never seen before. And we do it with honor integrity and honesty, really caring about our clients and the relationships.

Operate your business with character and integrity and treating your clients the right way so that they say, “Wow, I got so much value out of that. When I have another real estate transaction or when a friend is looking for a Realtor, when it's their turn to buy or sell, I'm going to think of John,” or insert your name here.

I hope this is helpful to you, and I will see you guys on our next episode.

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

We are not talking about a monkey. We’re talking about a phrase that was created by Ron Rivera, who used to be head coach of the Carolina Panthers in the NFL and is now head coach of the Washington Commanders.

He says to control your inner A.P.E. And that stands for your attitude, preparation, and effort.

You may or may not know Ron Rivera’s story, but I share it in this episode. It's very applicable and can help you in your real estate career.

What you can learn about real estate from a sports coach

Ron’s team didn't let anyone doubt them. I feel like they outworked many more teams, even in their division, that were more talented than them. The Washington football team probably had the least amount of raw talent in the division.

Ron Rivera did amazing things all while undergoing major medical treatment.

He could've complained. He could have really felt bad for himself. But he controlled his APE. No one was going to outwork him. And no one did. That team made the playoffs when they literally had no business being in the playoffs.

I absolutely love this phrase. It relates so much to what we do as Realtors. I know a few weeks ago, I talked to you about controlling what you can control. This phrase really impacted me and my career, and I hope you find it applicable to yours as well.

Lessons Learned

I love how Ron Rivera says to control your attitude, preparation, and effort. You're not always going to be the best Realtor or the agent making the most money or the one that everyone wants to work with, but what can you control?

You can control your attitude about it and how you see it. Are you going to be a glass half empty person and doom and gloom about your real estate career? Or are you going to have a positive outlook? Are you going to put in the work and prepare? Are you going to put in full effort, or are you going to slack off and let others outwork you?

One of the things that I have found in my real estate career is that I am going to not let any agent outwork me. I mentioned previously about how some clients did video testimonials for me to use on social media. The most amazing thing a client ever said was that I would outwork every other agent that you've ever dealt with.

This was a game changer for me, to have people who not only believe great things about me and let me borrow their confidence, but who also were willing to say it publicly, to put me over, because they want to help promote my business.

How can we as realtors control our A.P.E.? How can we control our attitude, preparation and effort? Well, if you control those things, you are in a much better spot than many Realtors out there. No, that doesn't mean you're always going to win, but at least you know that you did everything you could by maintaining your attitude, preparing well, and putting that effort in for your clients.

I hope this encourages you. And with that, I will see you on the next episode.

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 Christopher Daub?

Chris has been a mortgage loan officer for about five years now and works for Geneva Financial. He has helped many clients with their financial situation over his career. He has a passion for helping people achieve their dream of home ownership. Chris is also involved in the community, and he plays clarinet for the Lampeter Strasburg community band. He lives in East Calico Township in Lancaster County. And Chris also recently joined Total Life Freedom, which we talk about all the time on this show.

We have been on quite a journey together since my real estate career started. We've been on similar paths where our business grew at like similar volumes where we doubled or tripled our volume. We've both been really blessed.

“I think the biggest thing that you and I have done working together is we have a similar philosophy on how we handle our business and the big portion of that is building relationships.”

“I don't want to be transactional where it's all about the transaction, because if it's about the transaction and if it's not about the service, then we're looking at price. And when it comes to interest rates, it's very competitive, especially in a market like this right now. And if I'm not the lowest, for whatever reason, you know, I need to be able to do something to make myself stand out and services where I can help make up for that difference.”

Learn all of this and more:

• How he’s created success as a lender and how that can relate to Realtors
• What Mortgage Mondays did to his business
• How he went from being unable to give to his church to happily writing a full tithe check
• Things others aren’t doing that Chris is doing
• How a lender and a Realtor can be a great team

Resources

https://www.genevafi.com/

Show notes and blog posts are brought to you by HarshmanServices.com and RealtorEmails.com Grow your business on autopilot.

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.