Think Bigger Real Estate

Justin Stoddart  
Hey, welcome back to The Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host, Justin Stoddart, and I'm excited about today's episode because it's going to help you as a real estate agent. And even you, as a lender, put more deals together deals that you were missing opportunities missed that maybe you didn't even realize that you could capitalize on. Before we get into that, let me just remind you that the purpose of this show is to help you to think bigger. My mission personally, is to help you like wake up and realize the potential that's inside of you, and then to live a life in pursuit of that potential. So I have with me today, two good friends of mine, people who are experts really in the lending space, and the alternative lending space. Again, we're going to talk more about what that is. But let me first thank and introduce Kody Wilde and Morgan Smith with direct portfolio lending.

Kody Wilde  
Thanks, Justin. 

Morgan Smith  
 Pleasure to be here.

Justin Stoddart  
Yeah, thanks for being here. Thanks for coming on the show. You know, it's interesting. We were having a conversation prior to the show here, that in the early 2000s, obviously banks had more options, right. They had more lending options than they do today. Some of that's beneficial However, we've realized that there are, there's also a challenge with that right in that in that as credit tightened as options went off the table, there were good people that were in unique situations that needed lending, that all of a sudden the traditional banking institutions cannot help. Is that true?

Morgan Smtih  
Absolutely true. So, you know, Justin, prior to the crash, a majority of the real estate lending for home builders, private contractors, small time inv estors was handled by, you know, the local thrips your community savings banks, institutions like that, where's the big boys, you know, pretty much dealt with large banks and Wall Street. When the financial collapse happened, those banks basically got out of that business and have never really emerged. And so that's really what's opened up the space of of alternative lending. Some people would call like the shadow banking industry, but its investors trying to fill that demand that was basically lost.

Justin Stoddart  
Those who know my story well know that I was a home builder. Right. So I obviously had experienced the downturn of 2007,8,9. Yeah, wasn't a very fun time. Those of us that were in the industry, you know, had some hair on our chest at that point. And, you know, I was actually listening to Gary Keller recently speak about how there was a, because of that period, there were over a million homes that weren't built. And we were having that conversation about how there's just this, this shortage of inventory that will never really catch up to least in the foreseeable future, in part because that those lending options to smaller builders went away. Right?

Morgan Smtih  
 Absolutely. Right. You're absolutely right. So again, large publicly traded home builders have bonded debt and the largest institutional financing. Everybody else has basically been relegated to private or, you know, portfolio type of financing which is just which is what we do.

Justin Stoddart  
Let's talk a little bit about one of the maybe options or maybe some of the opportunities missed. Right, the real estate agents have in front of them, they say, you can't get financing and they walk away from it. Yeah. What would you say? Maybe nice and loud, you're you're kind of a quiet spoken guy, although got amazing things to say. So we're gonna tell us like, what are some those opportunities you see agents missing, that they don't necessarily need to be passing on?

Morgan Smtih  
Good question, Justin. You know, I would kind of frame it like this, the way we the way we do the lending opportunities, that direct portfolio is really an that of a partnership. So I'll give you a quick example if you went out and found a piece of real estate In Lake Oswego. Let's say you had a you got a really good deal on it. You called me up. You said hey, Morgan, I want to buy this piece of real estate I want to buy it for 300 grand, put 50 grand into I think we can sell for 500 grand. That sounds great. Just that's that's that's fantastic. And so you want me to put up all the money and you're going to do the work. It's your deal this, okay, so it will be reasonable for me to say I'll take half the profits, that would seem like a reasonable transaction. Today, what we do in the lending space is we partner with investors, home builders, folks that are looking to acquire those types of property. And we just do it a little differently. We do it in a what we call it portfolio loan. So instead of paying the 50% of your profits, you're going to pay a percentage of your loan.

Justin Stoddart  
Okay? More like a traditional financing option, right?

Morgan Smtih  
More like a traditional financing option. So the rates and fees will be higher than your bank transaction, but they're not going to be that of like equity. So it's really kind of a middle ground, where you can find the financing that you need. You know, on the thing, big concept, I always I always kind of want to put this this point out, there are more deals out there then there are more capital available than there are deals. So if you have the ability to bring a deal to the table, relative to an investor, if it's truly a good deal, there will be capital to fund it . And that's, I think that's part of your think big concept .

Justin Stoddart  
Yeah. Yeah, the people. That's really interesting, because sometimes people think like, there's, like, if I had the money, I could do the deals. That's right. Right. And what you're saying is that you don't have to say that anymore. There's always the money, especially now, right? Bringing direct portfolio lending, bringing great partners like this that will help you see opportunities that that maybe you couldn't see before, right? 

Morgan Smtih  
It's absolutely right. So we manage about 25 million bucks of private capital, Justin. And we are always looking for transactions to finance always looking for deals. And so I just, I harp on that point, because most young investors don't understand it. If you can get out there, you could beat the streets. If you can find a transaction. If you can find a rate of return that's going to work. There will be capital that will come in and partner with you to just that transaction. And I think that's really powerful to see for you. Younger investors. Yeah, and different folks. Yeah. The other concept that I would bring out, kind of pertinent to your question is there is always a little Under willing to make a transaction that the risk component is fine. So, lower loan to value bigger down payment. There are situations where maybe you have a borrower roller has a borrower's got some, possibly some, you know, difficult credit, or had some trouble in the past, with the right down payment, we can make a deal like that happen. So, you know, ultimately we're in the business of doing deals that make sense for our investors. Does that make sense for our realtors and our owners,

Justin Stoddart  
and really the only the biggest opportunity cost is sitting on the sidelines, right? 

Morgan Smtih  
That's right, 

Justin Stoddart  
like you might give up a little more of the margin in order to make it happen. But the opportunity cost is there's zero margin because you're sitting on the sidelines thinking that there is no option. 

Morgan Smtih  
That's right. And you know, maybe the first deal you're not going to get as great of terms as you would get on a second and the th...

Justin Stoddart  
Hey welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I am your host Justin Stoddart and absolutely thrilled to be back together with a good friend of mine. I had the privilege a few weeks ago to be in his office in Flower Mound, Texas and see behind the scenes of how he puts his clients first. For those that are curious to know who this man is. That's got a got a smile and a southern hospitality that makes everybody smile. His name's Jay marks Jay, thank you for coming on the show today. Super excited to spend more time with you today. You bet but where's the barbecue? It's in Texas. That's what I learned. It's not in Oregon or you know, we're gonna have no even though we invented the Traeger. We have no idea how to barbecue compared to your friends that you took me to go see that was incredible. 

Jay Marks  
That was fun, wasn't it? 

Justin Stoddart  
We had such a fun evening together. I was down for a big convention in Dallas, Texas had some time to spend with Jay in the evening and he he took me to the best barbecue place in Texas. It was it was truly amazing. I've still got thinking about how good that tasted? 

Jay Marks  
No, seriously. I'm a friend of mine owns a restaurant and as you know, because I do a lot of work with local and restaurants part of my business, and I went and told him, I said that this guy is from Oregon, I need to show him what's going on. And he put together a plate literally three and a half pounds of meat of ribs, pork, chicken, turkey, brisket, it was just yeah, 

Justin Stoddart  
It was it was perfect for a guy who spends time around a lot of vegans right here in Oregon. We get vegetarians vegans. Not that nice. It compensated for all of that. Yeah. It's so much fun. Let me just remind everybody that's that's tuning in. If this may be your first time listening to Think Bigger Real Estate Show, let me tell you what my mission is, which then tells you what the purpose of this show is my mission is to help is to wake people up to help them recognize the potential that's inside of them. And then my mission is to inspire them and help them to live in pursuit of that mission. The show is an extension of that and I reach out purposefully to big thinkers, people who are doing amazing things in business and in real estate to help all of us think a little bit bigger and have a better chance of fulfilling our potential. So, Jay has been again, hand picked for that. Jay, you've been in the business for several decades now. 26 years ago, I had the opportunity to go behind the scenes at Jay's office as I mentioned, he has an in house videographer tell us Jay, why is that important for you and for your customers? 

Jay Marks  
Well, first of all, marketing is a video first marketing concept. Now that is exactly what everyone expects. People want to be able to get on their smartphones or their iPads or their home computer and take a tour of a home. They want to be able to see and experience the the instrument sorry about a scene experience of property before they go look at it. And photographs will do it but video really does it. They say a picture's worth 1000 words. I say a video is worth a novel.

Justin Stoddart  
I love that. 

Jay Marks  
It's so having our team videographer is a very important part of the staff. Yeah. 

Justin Stoddart  
And you guys have done something very cool as well, that really gives back to the community which is Foodie Friday. Right. Tell us a little bit about foodie Friday for those that might not know about it. And again, how does that help really your customers probably a nucleus of a lot of people, you actually drove me around the area and showed me how many companies had moved there specifically from California and other places, because Texas is very business friendly. And you've got all these people moving to Flower Mound, Texas to Dallas area, you know, Dallas Fort Worth, and you've put together an episode a weekly episode called Foodie Friday, that really helps people get familiar with the area. Right. Talk to us a little bit about that and maybe how that helps your customers. 

Jay Marks  
Well, first of all, we did as a part of our overall outreach, you know, every Monday morning we'll do a Monday morning Monday market update. Tuesday's we talked about something to do with the real estate market or what's happening with man, I'm sorry, my nose is there. Hey, man. It's your nose a live podcast before it met Wednesdays we talked about the community and, and and Friday we're looking for a topic. Well, we're at a restaurant six years ago and we want foodie Friday. So we look at local owned restaurants, we don't go to your Chili's and Applebee's and Outback Steakhouse we don't do any of the national chains whatsoever. We go to local owned businesses, and we do two things with that. Number one, we tell the story of the local owned restaurant and what they serve and what they're about and what their concept is. And then we find out about the owner, tell us about your sacrifice. Tell us about what brought you here to inspire people to shop local, eat local and be a part of the community and you and I both know when you go out to eat, there's nothing better than a local dive. You know throw the food's really good or someone's in the back kitchen has got their whole financial life on the line cooking like it matters. And those meals are phenomenal. You know, just to we do something else to we also talk about local charities. So how it helps our clients is this.

We want people to come to J marks real estate calm and click on our blog or go to our Facebook page, and we want them to be able to have the full experience. Here's where you can learn about your community. Here's where you can find great restaurants, here's local charities that are sponsoring things in the area and where you may be can volunteer your time or donate money. And you can see great real estate homes you can see houses and tours and find out what's going on in the market. 

Justin Stoddart  
You know, really what I hear you saying Jay is it which I'm a strong proponent of is that oftentimes I think marketing in real estate is all about these little boxes that we all live in called houses. And at the end of the day, the box doesn't matter as much as the lifestyle the life that you get to live by living inside that box and your your website and your approach seems to be a lot more about lifestyle about giving back about you know, the local food scene or you know, food scene. Again, I think you guys get it that for the customer. Again, it's not about the box, the city you live in, but what how's my life going to be better by living in that particular area?

Jay Marks  
Yeah, exactly. And we also want to be known as local experts to I mean, if you call on us, we will say, hey tell you what? Justin, come visit me. And let me take you to a couple wonderful restaurants at the same time. Let me show you the area. And that's why I did even though you and I are friends and I know you and I wanted to host you. What I did, honestly, was I took you on a first time buyer visit tour of the area, just like we do, all of our clients actually picked out a few houses. And if you remember, and then Jay told me those homes go for seven or 8 million I was like he not Yes, million.

Oh, that neighborhood yeah. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Texas a little bit more affordable in other parts of the country. Yeah. There are a couple you had your eye on. It was we're cruising through Highland Park. That part is like yeah, you can have one of those that was perfect.

Justin Stoddart  
But no, that's interesting. Jake's I didn't realize that but that's really how you do real estate, isn't it that it's, again, i...

Justin Stoddart  
Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart, very excited to be back with a very good friend of mine, somebody who has proven to be not only a very productive high producing real estate agent for years and years, but also somebody who's now become an influencer on a topic around database. And that's gonna be our topic today is how to when a recession, or a downturn or even an adjustment is on the horizon? How you recession proof your business. So before we get into that, and be fully introduce today's guest, let me remind you the purpose of this show, and really, my mission is to wake you up to the potential that's inside of you and help you then live and help you to live in pursuit of that potential. That's what the mission of the bigger real estate show is all about. And Nick Krautter, very good friend of mine, Nick, thanks for coming on the show today. excited to have you here. 

Nick Krautter  
Thanks, man. Always great talking with you. 

Justin Stoddart  
Yeah, likewise. So for those that don't know, Nick, Nick, you started your real estate career when? 

Nick Krautter  
I started in 2006. Right before the big crash. I started actually April 2006. I was 27 years old, and, you know, just kind of jumped in and learned  to work with buyers when it was multiple offers on everything. And as soon as I started getting listings, that's when the market started going down. So in a way, I feel grateful that I kind of cut my teeth in hard times, and, and at a time to when I had the bandwidth to work 14 hour days and didn't have a ton of overhead. That definitely set me up for the success I've had since then. 

Justin Stoddart  
Yeah, love it, man. And then fast forward from that point, built a team built a brokerage and wrote a best selling book, The Golden Handoff, which for those that don't know, it teaches real estate agents, how to buy and sell another real estate agents, business or their own business. So that's been quite the journey as well. I know you're getting ready to release a workbook that not only teaches agents, what to do, but very specifically how to do it a hands on manual. I've been through it. I love it. I think that's what agents need. I think there is a whole group of agents that probably would have retired sometime after 2008 that have not yet because they experienced a significant downturn in their net worth. And now they're looking at potentially some sort of even pause in the market, you know, even some some hesitation, they're gonna be like, Mamba out, right. I'm out. Like, I don't want to go through this again. And they're going to essentially, kind of just walk away from their database, correct? 

Nick Krautter  
Yeah, I mean, 99% of realtors when they retire, they just ride off into the sunset. And what we're going to talk about today is just when you are in real estate, you build relationships and you build trust with just a ton of people and the best realtors with the biggest businesses typically, if you're repeating referral base, is because you know, a lot of people you stay engaged and they when they have a question or need that they trust you to help them more than anyone else. I mean, in Portland, Oregon, where we are, there's 8500 realtors, in any market, a small portion of those do most of the business. And what we're going to talk about today is how to be one of those people and how to build a database so that you can get through that recession. And the book, The Golden handoff never would have been written if there wasn't the Great Recession, because that happened because people were getting out of the real estate business when it crashed last time, so a lot of realtors decided to exit the business because it got so much harder to do the work. And it wasn't like, it wasn't fun conversations, you had to have hard conversations every single day. And for a lot of people, it was just the emotional toll of that was too much. And the book, The Golden handoff happened because of people that were exiting the business. And I approached them and said, Hey, you have you have a database, you have all these people that know and trust you. And basically I would love to help them since you're not going to anymore. And I would love for you to endorse them to work with me. And that's the basically that's the seat of that book. The book goes into a lot more depth and then the workbook you mentioned I'm really excited to be doing this now. A couple years after the books come out. It's really meant to like step by step with checklist worksheets, interview questions help the retirement agent and the adopted native through the whole process. 

Justin Stoddart  
Powerful man, I think that's really where people are needing to have leadership, it's not just the information anymore, it's really a how to here, let me take you by the hand and walk you through how to do this, I love the fact that you've taken a concept that is so highly relevant that's so highly needed in the real estate space. And now you're adding additional layers of help to offer to people to again, help those that want to exit the business and get something for other years of work actually be able to do that. And then have these these agents that are maybe newer in the business that would be the like, not even new or just maybe experienced in the business to be able to say, I'm going to adopt that book of business, I'm going to take on that database and treat them like you have treated them and, you know, therefore projecting, you know, putting their career on a on a path that they never would have been able to recreate in such a short period of time. You know, it's it's, it's a powerful concept. So thank you for spending the time to do that. I know that's kind of a labor of love. If you will, for the industry and the agents that you see wanting to retire, and those that want to grow quickly, so kudos to you for doing that. It's awesome stuff. And obviously, in that process you became proficient at or highly proficient at helping, like really identifying what matters in a database, right? Like what matters in relationships, because, again, you've purchased a number of books of business yourself, you've helped other people purchase books of business and you know, like, what matters when it comes down, when you sit down at the table to evaluate somebody's business, you know, what information matters and, and, and the stuff that when it's not there, it's really detrimental to being able to not only have a relationship with that direct agent, but especially with when you're passing that when you're handing off that book of business, somebody else. What are a few of those things, Nick, that you would say, absolutely need to be in somebody's, not just their database, but in a relationship for a client to be able to really have a strong business. 

Nick Krautter  
I think the core most important thing is how many people know you and trust you and and so there's two components to that. The first one is, you know, what is your competence? And what is your character? And I would say your character just is what it is. Do you do the right thing do you do what you say you're going to do? A competence is understanding the market, understanding the process and being able to help advise clients in a good market, you know, and obviously, good or bad, I'd say like a market is going up a market that's going down or a market that's flat, how to succeed in that market, whether you're buying or selling. And that's our job. I think a lot of realtors internalize. They take credit when the market goes up, and they take responsibility when it goes do wn. And both of those are wrong. We don't affect the market. In a macro sense. We certainly can affect the transaction, we can affect each...

Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I am your host, Justin Stoddart, and really honored to have these two back. If you had been watching my show for any period of time, you realize last year, Tonya Eberhart and Michael Carr, and I'm gonna explain to you who they are and why that matters to you here in just a minute, but they were on and they were loved by me and by anybody that watched the show. So let me just remind you before I, again, make this great introduction of these amazing two people that are really going to delve into branding, the things that you need to know about branding, that, that my personal mission is to is to wake you up to help you recognize the potential that's inside of you, and then inspire and help you live a life in pursuit of that. That's what I'm all about. This show is a function of that. And I go out and find amazing people like Tanya and Michael, to bring to you to, again to help you be in pursuit of that life. So that's what this is all about. And again, I want to thank Tonya & Michael, let me before I do a full intro. Let me just thank you two for coming on the show today. That's such a pleasure, actually. I love spending time with you guys. Let me do a kind of a brief intro here. Tonya is the founder of Brand Face and branding agent to the business stars. She's authored four books on personal branding if that doesn't say enough, her start wasn't maybe in like with the stars, right? It was actually out selling vacuum cleaners right? She hustles and then she's had jobs in radio kind of all the way top to bottom. How do you go from prospecting like door to door sales all the way to where people are coming at you because of your brand. I think that's an amazing transition that everybody that I work with, wants to know How do I stop having to go to people and have them start coming to me? Next to her and handsome gentlemen on the right there is Michael Carr. He's America's top selling real estate auctioneer, and the abundant life broker. I think anybody that's been in real estate auction knows Michael Carr's name. Michael, you've done, been involved in over 74,000 transactions. You know, it as many as 27 states that's a pretty impressive resume and pretty cool and your story, right is that you sought out Tonya's help for branding and realized what a magician she was, and at that point, you're like, why don't we partner up? I think you can do I can even help you scale this further and became testimonial number one and now a key partner in helping to expand this branding movement across the country. Is that true?
That is true. Yes, it but when I had met her I had done around 65,000 transactions and we've done another we've added another 10 - 11 on those. Since we came on board, we moved from auctions to arm's length transactions with just regular brokerage and, and now we're working on a third location for Michael Carr and associates all using the brand base principles.
I'm thrilled to have you guys on here. Thank you for taking the time. I know I've I've had the privilege to do this once. So excited to do it again. Let's jump into kind of what the audience is here for, which is to really get clear on branding. We've promised them kind of six critical categories for the becoming like a branding expert. And so let's just jump right into that. Tonya, I'm going to have you kind of lead us point number one is differentiation. Would you talk to us about why differentiation is important and what people need to do to differentiate
You got it. So we developed a program called Brand Face score. So if you don't really know whether you've got a super strong well defined or developed personal brand, you'll go to Band Face score.com and that'll take you through a certain system so you can find out whether your brand is strong. When we look at whether a brand is well developed and defined, so that it can help you stand out we look at six different major categories and differentiation is the first one of those and that means is it immediately apparent what sets you apart you know what makes you different. As we might have talked about the last time we were on your show, Justin, it's better is subjective, different is inarguable, and so you never really want to say I'm better at this time. I'm better at that, because that's all subjective, right? You want to express how you're different from everybody else in your arena. And that is exactly what that differentiation means. What sets you apart?
That's powerful. You right? I don't know if it was you guys that coined this, but but the sea of sameness was that you that
It was actually yeah, it was in that and that is that was something that just kept coming up. And we came up with the term one day, but it just kept coming up to us because all the agents that were coming to us and were telling us, everybody starts to look the same. The business cars, the websites, everything looks the same is like oh, well yeah, because that's now we've created this sea of sameness and now we've got to break out of that sea of sameness.
And hey I gotta add this and I can't help but add it in. There's there's major brokerages national worldwide brokerages that are making that sea of sameness worse, they're they're touting their brand, and now the individual agents are going away. So there's been been a shift in the disruptors to even make the sea of sameness worse.
That's a great point, Michael. You know, it's interesting. I see kind of the best brokerages out there ones that are more platforms, you see some that really try and dominate the brand and be all over the like be the brand. I think there's there's value for the brokers. But my question is, is there value for the agent? Right? Maybe it's a question. Because to the consumer, it's, I can't tell why you're different than that that person pretty soon you start to wonder what the differences between thatagent and some of these discount brokers and tech platforms that are coming in offering to do with a lower cost. So I think it's pretty powerful to have that viewpoint number one, so let's go ahead and move on, man. So point number two.
Yeah. Number two is your message, right? So you want to be sure that your message is more than just on the surface, right? You want your message and how you are different to that particular ideal client to be equal across all of your platforms, right and it needs to dig a little bit deeper. They need to know why you're better for them in all of your messaging. So number two is very important once you differentiate now you got to get that message out there clearly and deeper than just, you know, a picture on a sign.
I can see why two follows one right in this scenario is that they'll never care that you're better unless they really identify that you're different, right? Different almost makes them say, Okay, I need to listen then, this is this is apples to oranges. What makes an orange and orange right what point you can really delve into what's the value proposition? what's what's, why is being different better for them am I understandin g that right? 
That's exactly right. Because that message will tell what stand for what your niche is, what your expertise is. And we all have it. Even if you've just started in real estate, you got a point of differentiation and you've got a message of your entire experience and life experiences led you to that point. And there were people out there seeking to work with that particular message and in that's where you start. You stop going out there and screaming and you start attracting.
That's great stuff you guys. Let's move on to ideal customers. I think this is a key one right? Everyone tries to be kind of to serve everybody right to not want to lose any money right? You don't want to say no to people you don't want to turn people down for fear that that might be a great a great commission opportunity or a great you ...

Justin Stoddart  
Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host, Justin Stoddart, excited to bring you today a couple of what I like to call icons. Somebody would say legends, guys who've done some amazing things in the digital media space when it comes to lending when it comes to real estate agents, really acting as a lighthouse, lighthouse to those of us in this industry saying what's coming? And where should we be going? Where should we be moving our business so that all of us can continue to create profitable niches within our industry. So before I get into introducing who these characters are, who you're going to love, it just really, really almost household names when it comes to this space. The purpose of my show, again, is to help you think bigger, most of the problems we face in life or because we're not thinking big enough, as we think bigger as as we start to do that our activities change, our results follow and our impact follows that part of thinking bigger is surrounding yourself with people that are thinking bigger than we are. And the purpose of this show is to put you in contact with people that are doing exactly that. That can help you think bigger. So I want to welcome onto the think bigger real estate show, Ryan Hills and RC of the art of resource show. Is that right guys did I butcher that, or, I'm sorry, 

Ryan Hills  
We are called the resource, the RE Source, just Whatever, man. I'm Ryan. And that's RC. So thanks for having us on Justin. 

Justin Stoddart  
I love it the resource, you can find them at the RE Source. So the resource.tv that's where their show is hosted. They've been putting out again content for a decade. Yeah, they could see this thing coming. I mean, if that's not an indicator in and of itself, as to how far ahead of the curve these guys are. 10 years ago, nobody was doing this stuff. Righ? Now there's a lot more people that are doing it. It's still not enough. And we're going to talk about that today. 10 years ago, you guys saw you where this industry needed to go and you started leading the way so kudos to you guys for being pioneers. For for really teaching all of us the importance of standing out and really being a thought leader, right, which is, I think part of the future of being of remaining well paid to this industry. Would you guys agree? 

Ryan Hills  
I appreciate that man. And I love I love your mission and what you're doing in your space as well. So it's awesome to see that, as you said earlier, you know, I'd love and I think you would, too, for more people to kind of follow that model in real estate lending and title. appraisers, like even small business owners is crazy to me that 10 years later, I remember telling rc 10 years ago, like, Hey, we got to be quick, we got to be fast, because people are going to catch on. And a decade later, it's still not being leveraged as much as it should. So that's part of our mission is to continue to go out there and challenge realtors, lenders, entrepreneurs to leverage social, leverage video, because it's such an awesome platform and you never been able to reach so many people so quick, and it's actually relatively inexpensive now, versus kind of the old method. So, love what you're doing, man. Thanks. Thanks for having us on again. Absolutely. Yes. 

Justin Stoddart  
Yeah, no, it's my pleasure again I am. If there's anything I do well, it's because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants like you guys that saw this coming a long time ago. And you know, and probably similar to what you guys just described. At first, I was like, I gotta hurry like, I gotta get this out. Everyone's got a copy of the reality is most people don't and most people should right? Let's talk about that, like why having an interesting that everybody needs to do their own show, right? But having a very strong presence in digital media, why do you think that matters now more than ever before? 

Ryan Hills  
Well, I mean, presence and brand to me like kind of same thing. And we're going to talk about that at the OMBA coming up. And I don't want to give away too much of what we're going to talk about because I'd love to see you guys there. There's only 75 spots, it's going to fill up really, really quick. I told Justin before the before we started shooting, like I'd love to fill that up with realtors at a mortgage event. I just think that would be funny. So if you're like listening, realtors make sure you you sign up real quick. I'm sure we'll throw something in the comment section as far as the link to sign up, but we're gonna we're going to address that. Why is it important to have a brand? For us? Our origin story 10 years ago was just that like, great recession hit, we were young in the business, you know, we didn't have gigantic databases or referral partners. How do we become relevant? How do we build a brand? That's where we started 10 years ago. So we're going to give 10 years of our lessons on building that brand becoming relevant. We're just not going to give it today because I want to build desire. So I can see you guys in Oregon in a few weeks. 

RC  
Something that stops a lot of people, which is why I'm interested in coming on the show, is it's a mental thing, right? And so fear plays a really big role in building a brand. Why me? Why does someone want to pay attention to me? There's so many other people just killing it. So it starts, you know, starts in your head as far as answering like, Oh, I am good enough to do video. It doesn't matter. I look what I look like I sound way sound like and I do have things inside of me that I need to share with people to make an impact positively. And that leverage of always adding value is where the influence begins. And so I think it's a mind shift, not caring about yourself but realizing you have an obligation to serve your customers and your talk to your customers. 

Ryan Hills  
How did you say before we started? Because I think you, you got to the answer, and we'll get to all of the How to stuff at our talk. But how did you say what was your phrase about having real estate in their head? 

Justin Stoddart  
Yeah, no, I appreciate asking. So I'm a firm believer that that you need to own a piece of real estate and people's brain, which can also be described as mindshare, right? You like to read that concept but it's definitely what it is. It's it's you own real estate someone's brain. If you own zero real estate, in someone's brain, there's zero percent chance they will use you on the real estate transaction because they've forgotten about you. mean Case in point the first home My wife and I went to sell. I had a very good friend who would help me in my general contracting business, we'd moved out of state that turned our primary residence into a rental. We're now moving back to Oregon. We're from and we decided to sell the rental Wish I wouldn't have looked at it what that homes worth nevertheless, My wife looks at me and says, Justin, Who should we use for real estate? I was like, like no names came to mind. I'd been out of the state for six months. Nobody really stayed in contact with me. But you know, I was a builder, right? I worked with agents. And so finally a name came to mind. It was a gentleman named John, John had put me on some really, in my opinion, terrible drip campaigns, but he's the only guy communicated with me now owned, terrible real estate, my brain, but he was the only one that owned real estate in my brain, so I gave the listing to John. Within probably a few hours, my heart just sank. And I thought, what about my friend Craig? Oh, crap. I would have loved to have given this listing to Craig. Craig again, had added value to me as a builder. He was a friend of mine from college. Nevertheless, I had to make that uncomfort...

Mike Ciorrocco  
Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart I'm fired up excited today about our guest, Mike Ciorrocco. He's also known as Mikey, see, he's a big time player in the lending space out of South Florida does some incredible things. You're going to love what this man does not only in the mortgage space, but in helping helping people see and pursue their own potential. There's a lot in common between me and Mike. So let me just remind you the Pat, that purpose and passion of this show is to help you think bigger as you do your activities change and as your activities change, and your results start to follow. And then you could have a bigger impact on the world. My My passion is on helping people tap into that untapped potential. I believe that the greatest untapped natural resource out there is human potential. And Mike and I today are going to help you tap into that, which you're missing out on that untapped human potential inside of you. Let me give you a little background on Mike "C-Roc" as he's known, he's a motivator of facilitator, dynamic public speaker to fierce friend and coach at his core. He's a grinder that gets after it. I hear him on mentoring calls. He and I both have been mentored by Grant Cardone, and I hear him light a fire, not only in his own business, but also on the mentoring calls it's really fun to see. He that actually has led him to inspire others to see the greatness inside of themselves and the sound totally similar to like what I'm all about. I love it. Mike is a manager at Nations Lending and residential mortgage company, he and his three best friends have built one of the most profitable divisions within Nations Lending from the ground up helping their clients find the ability from a financial standpoint to purchase their dream homes. Now, in addition to that, he speaks to, you know, thousands of real estate agents. He's a thought leader, as you can see from the studio behind him and on his hat you're at he's asking the question, What are you made of? So Mike C I want to welcome you to the think bigger real estate show today. appreciate you taking the time. I'm really excited about we're going to talk about today. 

Let's go Justin. Let's make it happen. Man, good. Glad to be here. Glad you invited me on your show. And et's blow this thing up, man. Let's provide some great content. 

Justin Stoddart  
Let's do it. I'm excited. So let's, let's start off by talking about the mentorship with Grant Cardone was not inexpensive, right? Tell me why you decided to invest in yourself and your own business, specifically in the 10 X Mentor Program. 

Mike Ciorrocco  
Well, first of all, let me let me we got I got to correct you, but and that's part of us having one on one like each of us accountability hold each other accountable. It's not a lot of money. It was that I think it was a 997 right. It's not a lot of money, dude. Because Listen, the thing is, is that when people see $997 1000 bucks, they're thinking small, right? So that's one of the biggest things that since I've been following grant for about two years now. One of the biggest things that he's taught me is that I'm thinking too small, he thought too small, and that's why he shared it with everyone else. And so I started thinking of myself, okay, that 997 like, for example, with this Mentor Program 997, right? What does it get in me? If I don't do it? What does it cost to me? And what I found out, by the way, the mentor, there's a lot of stuff that goes along with it that we found out once we got in there. But prior to knowing what it was all involved in the network, and all the benefits from it, I thought to myself, what does it cost me not to be in this? And so I switched my thinking. Right? And, yeah, so so but the thing is, is that one of the lessons that we learned is that when you go to a mentoring program, you spend money on something or if you have a big goal, you go share it with someone, and then you see the reaction. Right? Remember, I'm going over that, and Hey, listen, I have mentoring by Grant Cardone, it's 997. And I'm learning a lot this night Just shut up. And then you see, yeah, you see the response. And then you can figure out where people's heads really are and whether you want to be around those people that much. Because the people that say, Wow, man, really tell me more about it or hope you do. With those are the people you want to be around. But the people that said what you did what thousand bucks for what I meant, come on, man, get them out. Remove that. That's what I always talk about removing all obstacles. I have goals in mind for myself that are big. And if I shared it with you guys, you might you might think I'm crazy might laugh because a lot of people do laugh at my goals. And those are the people that aren't going to ride on my plane when I get a plane. That's what I always say to myself. So sharing your goals with people is one of the things we learned and then removing the obstacles because people are obstacles most of the time. It's the people that are closest to you that are obstacles. So these are some of the things that I learned in it. But uh, yeah, I mean, I was in it and and the thing is, we get to network in before the call and after the call, and that's how we met.

Justin Stoddart  
It's true. You know, I want to I want to capital, I put up an explanation point, what you just said there is that you're right, everybody looks at like how much does it cost you to do something where as you said, we're It cost me not to do it. I've a coach, you said, What's the cost of the cost? actually had somebody at one point point this out? He said, How much did you make last year? And then he said, Take a million dollars a year and subtract that from what you made, subtract what you made last year from a million dollars. And he said, Okay, let's say just for, you know, easy routing purposes, let's say it was $200,000. He said, it costs you $800,000 last year to not know how to make a million dollars. Not a great way to look at it. It's absolutely man, like that thousand dollar mentoring program all of a sudden, is that expensive when you start to realize like, what, like, how, how much is it costing me to not know how to make more money? And I think for you know, real estate agents, which are our common audience, right? There's sometimes a lack of wanting to invest in in themselves, right? Is that I can't like it's, it's, it's like hyper focus on the bottom line, as opposed to what grant teaches which is like, look at the top line. I'm focused on the top line.

How do I drive the revenue. And then you start looking at investments as opposed to savings, you start looking at, you know, spending money, not saving money, but spending money, that's going to get a great return. That's something that's really showing you this. 

Mike Ciorrocco  
Well, you hear the same back in the day, it takes money to make money, right? So when you don't know something, and Grant says this one too, when you have no of something you don't know something. So when you have no of something, you don't k n o w something. And it's so true. If you don't have any money, you don't know something about money. So you need to figure out how to get money and you need to learn and figure it out. And the Mentor Program, what it does is it speeds things up. So the way I looked at this, Justin is I can do things on my own, which I have in the past. You know, I started a mortgage branch in a division and I did it on my own without hardly any mentoring, which I didn't, I didn't k n o w, right, I didn't know better. So what happened is, is that it took me a lot of time and money to get us to where we are today. Way, way, way, way more than 997 so you're going to spend money on a mentoring program or being with a mentor or lea...

Justin Stoddart  
Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart, excited to be here today and have an absolute superstar, both in business and in life, who has become a very good friend of mine, here in the Think Bigger Studio. Haris, total pleasure, we're thinking big today aren't we?

Haris Hadziselimovic  
We're thinking big. I'm right here. 

Justin Stoddart  
For those of you who don't know who Haris is, he's a top resale agent in Southwest Washington has an enormous brand presence and that today we're going to debunk some myths. But before... In fact, here's the here's the myths that we're going to debunk which are this, which is, is it possible to have a really big business that sells a lot of homes, and at the same time, have very personal relationships with your clients. Many think that the two are exclusive, you can't you can't have one or the other. And Haris is here today to debunk that myth because that's exactly how he's built a big business. So, before we get into further introducing Haris, let me just say that remind you that the purpose of this show is to help you to think bigger. I know that when you start thinking bigger your activity starts to follow, you start to believe that there's something new and possible for you and as you do the different activities, you get different results, which then enables you to have a life of tremendous impact. And that's what we're all about here. And so again, thank you, Haris. I'm going to have the courage to pronounce Haris's name... which sounds so smooth when it comes out of your mouth. I'll practice it. But the next time we do this episode, I'm going to nail that sucker. So um, Haris, tell us a little bit about you. You're out of Vancouver, Washington. Last year you guys sold how many homes? 

Haris Hadziselimovic  
Yeah, out of Vancouver, Washington. Last year, we sold 172 homes, which is pretty awesome. That was great. Killer year. Yeah, that comes down to selling a home but every 2.1 days, which is incredible, something I really wasn't sure how be possible or achievable. And then we went for it and we did it. 

Justin Stoddart  
Man, that's impressive feat. Let's even touch on maybe before we go delve into how in the world did you do that? Something that you're even, you've prioritized much higher than business, take care of your clients is taking care of your beautiful bride, and beautiful little girl. Tell us about kind of what that's done for you in life and just kind of the pride of being a dad. 

Haris Hadziselimovic  
Yeah, it's incredible. So a little Eva, now's one years old. It's awesome. And it's so crazy to think how much energy and love you just want to give, give, give, give, give, and what you get really good at is being prioritize doing stuff that matters. And and it just transformed really the life and business you get great at saying yes and great at saying no. And it actually in the funnest part of the journey has also been to share even with the world, you know, have her be present on social media, how people see her. I can't even tell you how many clients reached out event friends and said, Hey, we love that you had or tell us more or Let's reschedule that appointment. You're a new dad and spend your time with her. So it's been really cool just to see that support and I think part of that is just being being a business that being human, and then actually seeing people see you for who you are. So it just opened up a whole new world and we're just tickled. We're just thrilled. He's such a good dad. It's It's It's fun to watch him. I know, having your you and your wife having a child didn't come easy for you guys. Right? There was some challenge there. Yeah, absolutely. It was it was a long road, a year trial, a trial run, and then successfully without an embryo and ended up being surrogacy situation and everything worked out. And now we have a beautiful little girl and life is amazing. 

Justin Stoddart  
So cool. And I would say probably anything really good at life rarely comes really easily. And I think that's probably true both in in personal things, right. Having a great marriage, being a great dad and building a great business. It's not like you just were born to do this stuff. You had to become this right? 

Haris Hadziselimovic  
Sure. You know, I think part of it is some learned behaviors, some of is your environment. Others is just, you know, maybe who you are a little bit starts to creep up into the business world and it keeps expanding. And then that turns into just having a large business and being connected to a lot of people. So but definitely a lot of learned behaviors that summer, I would say natural and others are more learned talents. Now, I know. I think the last time we spoke we went deep into this. We will go deep in it today. But your background, you come from Bosnia, yes. And your childhood looked a lot different than probably most of us that are listening to this today. And that remember the story of you guys playing outside with football helmets on not because you're afraid of getting tackled, but because of why? Oh, yeah. So there was definitely times where we had we had helmets on and then we were friends with like the UN people to that were there and there's a time I had like the bulletproof vest on. It just life is different life is different here than it is someplace else. And there's certainly other countries that go through something similar I think us is a little bit of unrealized potential and opportunity. And I think it's somewhat normal that people wake up and they just wake up, they brush their teeth, they got water, they got just see they go to work, everything's normal. And maybe we just don't often realize that not everybody has that. And in their situation, so it's cool to realize that we're really great country with a lot of opportunity. 

Justin Stoddart  
Yeah, yeah. That's you've really helped me to see that even more clearly Harris is the fact just hearing your story. I spent a couple years in Brazil and know firsthand, not as well as you do. But But we live in it in a country in a time in an era of unlimited opportunity. Very much so. And if we're, if we don't yet have the life that we want, either we're furiously working on it, or we just maybe are missing the fact of how, how ripe success is for the picking here. Right? Not that it's easy, but it's available. 

Haris Hadziselimovic  
Yeah, it's available. It's up to you to decide if you want to take it so and and I have a lot of friends in the business and out of the business that have always asked for advice on what to do next. And sometimes you have to step back and realize that somebody may want to ask for it but not willing to do it. Yeah. And others will just doing it, but then maybe don't ask him for help yet. So you offer healthy, but it's definitely a place for everything's possible. There's just are you going to do the work? Yeah, yeah, we actually had this conversation a day or so ago, about when people reach out to be mentored, like a filter, sometimes you have to use is, is this person going to do anything with it, because last thing you want to do is, is be that escape for them that they're looking for, which is to continue learning instead of actually doing? It's a very natural, I think it's a good feel for them to say, Hey, I talked to so and so I got some advice. And then they can kind of say I did this today, and they move on with their day, but not really get productive. So you have to be careful of, I would say enabling that. Yes. Sometimes you tell people, let's talk about let's do this. They feel good about the phone call, but they don't actually have any action plans afterwards. 

Justin Stoddart  
Yeah, yeah. I...

Justin Stoddart  
Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show I am your host, Justin Stoddart and fired up about today's episode as it's one that I know is very pertinent to top agents and aspiring top agents. And it's how to recruit, listening to this show, you're going to learn principles from a master recruiter, they're going to help you attract the talent that you need to get your business to the next level. Let me just remind you that the purpose of this show is to help you think bigger. I know that as you do, as you start to think bigger, your actions start to change, and your outcome starts to change. And ultimately, you're able to go on to live a life of great impact, which is what my mission and passion are all about. So I'm excited to put you in front of people who are big thinkers. Just like today's guest, his name is Connor Schwab. So first and foremost, Connor, thank you for coming on the show today. excited to have you here.

Connor Schwab  
Appreciate it, Justin. It's a it's an absolute pleasure.

Justin Stoddart  
Yeah, good stuff, man. So Connor and I have not known each other very long, but I learned really quickly. He's a master recruiter his back and let me tell you a little bit about his background. He worked for years. recruiting scientists into the biotech space. He lived in a Silicon Valley area at the time, and that we all know how competitive it is to for computer engineers, right? You've got Google, you've got Facebook, you've got all these massive companies like Apple, etc, that are trying to recruit talent. Well, the, the biotech space is similarly extremely competitive. And so he worked for a recruiting company, not only worked for them, but he was actually the top 20 out of 2500 recruiters. So the guy did this all day long and was masterful at it. In addition to that, he's since got his MBA from a university that maybe some of you are familiar with. If not, it's you'll want to be familiar with it. It's called actin a CT when he walked me through what the curriculum look like. And it was honestly probably the answer to all of the things that I thought were wrong with a university education like it was very much in action, doing work, working with real companies, helping them get to the next level. So his education and his work experiences is super legit. So I'm excited. to have you here, Connor on the show today to teach all of us how to be better recruiters.

Connor Schwab  
Absolutely can't wait.

Justin Stoddart  
Let's get into it, man, let's get into it. So let's talk a little bit about maybe give us three principles, three principles that you feel like if people did these things. They would be better recruiters. Now, keep in mind that some of the people are listening to this, and they're a solo real estate agent. And they are saying to themselves, I'm ready to hire my first assistant, I can't do it all myself, right. I've got a transaction coordinator, but it's still I need more help. Right? And they're at that spot in their business. There are others that already have a very full team, right? And they're trying to attract talented real estate producing agents to their team, or maybe they want a brokerage and they looking to attract talented teammates to their brokerage, right. So I would imagine that these principles would be applicable to all three of those scenarios. Would you agree?

Connor Schwab  
Absolutely. That's Yeah, and so the three principles would be the first is, you know, start today, and that is start to build your talent bench right away. The second is more getting into kind of the interviewing and the vetting process. And that is different ways of interviewing. It's called behavioral versus hypothetical. And the last one is kind of doing your background check. So you know, who you hire on your team. And once they're hired, you know, you're, you're, you're in a committed relationship. So you want to make absolutely sure that the person is going to be type person you need before you kind of pull the trigger and bring them on board.

Justin Stoddart  
I love it. Three great points. Let's get into the first kind of building your bench, right Talk to us a little bit about what that is, and then what it looks like on the ground for a real estate agent.

Connor Schwab  
Absolutely. So this can be used for solo agents, but it's also extremely applicable to someone who's building a team on a large scale. That is you. Anytime you come into contact with someone who you think kind of has the right stuff to be on your team or shares qualities that you share or you admire, that you could see on your team, you want to have some sort of lists going and you have, you know, you start with the number one, the perfect person that would be perfect on your team, and just kind of build it from there. And these can be people that you're meeting out of dinner friends at an open house, you know, maybe you see a listing that they have that you think's excellent. Anything like that, and you start to build it. And the reason why this is important is because sometimes a recruiting effort for a top agent can take three years. And you know, you want to start having those conversations early and being warm and being inviting and building that relationship so that when the timing is just like selling a house, so when the timing on their side is good, maybe maybe their kids graduate and go to college and they're looking for something new or they You know, have a disagreement with their boss or their company changes, then all of a sudden, you know, your your invite to come onto their team as a Top Producing agent is all of a sudden very realistic.

Justin Stoddart  
Yeah, I love this point, Connor for a couple of reasons. One, I think is that relationships take time when people are going to make a commitment to go to work for somebody, they're simply putting their entire entire family and livelihood in the hands of that person with whom they're going to work. And that doesn't happen overnight. Right? It takes time to develop those relationships. And maybe like a simplified version of what I hear you saying is you need to dig your well before you're thirsty. Like if you're, if you're going to find somebody at the moment you need them, it's too late because it's going to take time to build that trust and get them to really believe the fact that they can, that they can come work with you and that their situation in life is going to get better. That Is that a fair way to put it?

Connor Schwab  
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

Justin Stoddart  
Great stuff. Okay, so would you say then that somebody should even if they don't have the need right now, let's say that they're new agent, they're like, I have no need for an assistant yet or my team's perfect. I've got all the right players, all the right producers, I don't need to recruit. You probably see better than I do the mistake in that thought, right? Is it like I'm not in recruiting mode right now.

Connor Schwab  
Life happens, you know, you might have the perfect team setup. And then life happens, you know, someone might move their spouse they might have to move or some something less fortunate happens in their lives with all sudden they can't work anymore. They have to make an arrangement or or they get headhunted to another opportunity themselves. So that's why having that bench is so important. So that if all of a sudden you find yourself kind of up the creek without a paddle, you you have a plan, you have a place that you can go right away to your bench to your list, and you can start calling people right away.

Justin Stoddart  
I love it. That's that's super profound. And I think there's probably some people that are saying like, I don't ever want to have an employee, I don't ever wan...

Justin Stoddart  
Hey, welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart fired up to be back with you after a big business planning workshop yesterday. And we're following up with some amazing value today that is going to help you maximize the amount of money that you're putting out in sponsorships, and as real estate agents, you're oftentimes getting hit up like, hey, put your money here, put your money here and how do you maximize that? How do you get the best use of that money? I have with me an expert, a dear friend and an expert on this topic. He's been doing it for for a long, long time, we're going to get into that. But before I do, I want to remind you the mission of this show, which is very similar to mine, which is to help you think bigger. I know that as you begin to think bigger, your possibilities start to expand, you start to take different actions, you start to see things that have always been there, you just didn't see them before. And I know that one of the best ways to help you think bigger is to put you around other big thinkers, people that are doing great things that will inspire you to again expand your possibilities. So with that being said I'm a estatic today to have with me one of my longest term friends somebody who was actually a college roommate, since that time, he's done some very impressive things--built an amazing family. In addition to that, he has a really impressive background all about sponsorships and he's been on the... Jason let me welcome to the show first and foremost you come on to Think Bigger Real Estate Show.

Jason Smith  
Hey, I've got crazy stories about you being roomates and we'll keep it will keep it clean here.

Justin Stoddart  
Sounds like a little bit blackmail folks. Listen. Yeah, we'll keep it we'll keep it will keep it clean. Keep in mind we went to BYU, right? So the stories aren't that crazy, but they probably at least caused me to blush. But Jason, tell us a little bit about your background, what you what you're doing now and kind of what led to that so we can kind of get a get a picture of kind of where you're speaking from when it comes to helping real estate agents be really good at maximizing their money when it comes to sponsorships.

Jason Smith  
Yeah, so as you mentioned, went to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah and had the pleasure of being your roommate,

Justin Stoddart  
Is that on your resume, you put that?

Jason Smith  
Right at the top. No, went to BYU and got my, my degree in advertising communications there and after that, well during my time at at BYU, I was I was interning with the Utah Jazz and helping with some game operation promotional type of experience there and and work and from there, build some relationships and and had a little quick stint in Denver where I was working for the Denver newspaper agency for a little bit. But always my love was if I could combine sports and advertising You know, it was that's what I wanted to do right and, and so kept in touch with the jazz and there's a full time position that came up and after a year of being in Denver came back and sold. corporate sponsorship sponsorships for For mountain America, or excuse me for the Utah Jazz, and then after, after a few years of that there I went down to back to BYU in the athletic department. They had a third party rights holder that was managing their sponsorships for them for the athletic department. And it called IMG college and worked for them for about seven years or so and then went from the sponsorship sell side and selling sponsorships and helping brands activate their sponsorships and these different venues and, and I came on the brand side and the corporate side with mountain America, as I mentioned before, and and so I've been doing that for about six years now where we're, I now go to the BYU us or the Utah Jazz or the Real Salt Lake so the Boise State's and and work with them on maximizing the value And the exposure for mountain America credit union, which is a regional credit union based in Utah.

Justin Stoddart  
Awesome stuff. So again, you've worked with some of the biggest brands in the Intermountain West, I should say some of the biggest teams, those that have loyal followings, right? Yeah, I know. IMG for those that aren't familiar with with that group. They run advertising and promotions. They are an outsourced kind of arm to help sell promotions and advertising for hundreds of universities, including the University of Oregon, and countless others, right? They really just have a great system. And your job there, Jason, as I as you stated, but just to kind of reiterate how this is going to tie into today's conversation, is that you would go out and meet knee to knee businesses and say, How much money do you have to advertise? Let's maximize that. Right let's get the most amount of exposure, the most amount of reach, the most amount of results for this amount of money that you said you have advertise. Is that true?

Jason Smith  
Yes, absolutely.

Justin Stoddart  
No. So now you find yourself on the other side of the table. You're part of a regional credit union that is looking to maximize its money whether you're putting it at Boise State, whether you're putting it, you tie it BYU at the Utah Jazz, these other places where there are sports marketing happening, you're trying to say, okay, where can we get the best bang for our buck with all of these different audiences? Right?

Jason Smith  
Yeah, yeah. And it's it's tricky because there's a lot of there's a lot of noise that can happen in a lot of these venues. You've been to, you know, Portland Trail Blazers, games, or Oregon games or Oregon State games, you know, there and in Portland, that there's a there's a lot of noise that can take place there. So you got to be really strategic on how you separate yourself.

Justin Stoddart  
Yeah. And I think, you know, for the real estate agents that are watching this again, I know I've got an audience that extends beyond residential real estate agents. Let me bring us back here. So for them, it's probably more like their local high school right? They're high school is coming to them. And they're saying, Hey, you know, we're selling advertising at games, you can put up a banner in the outfield, you can put a banner up in the gym, you can put a banner out along the fence at the football games, you can put advertising inside of the, you know, inside of the roster, right? There's all these different places where you can put money. A lot of us see posters around town and have a picture of like the baseball team, and there's different sponsors around the edges, right? Lots of demands on people's money again, going back to the business planning workshop that I taught yesterday, according to the millionaire real estate agent, book, which is a great textbook on how to build a really successful business. Again, not just be a successful salesperson, but to actually build a sales business. They talk about having 10% of your marketing or 10% of your of your gross commission. Go back towards marketing and you might think like, that's a lot of money like fun. Let's say it's $300,000 gross commission. It's $30,000 a year and again, me being a guy that's That's very referral based. I think a lot of people spend a lot of money in areas where they maybe shouldn't, where they could take that money and actually pour it back in to the biggest advocates of their business actually getting a chance to go have meals with them, maybe intimate client client events, I think, if you're looking at, okay, if I'm going to really dedicate 10% of my gross commission this year, I'm going to first and foremost, I'm gonna put on the list of like, I'm going to take care of the people that are taking care of my business, bu...