Why Brokerages Are Unlikely To Save You • Close-ing Time • Chris Linsell

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

Chris Linsell from TheClose.com and D.J discuss lay-offs by a lot of technology companies and how it’s affecting the market. Chris and D.J. also talk about the value of personal brand vs the brokerage and discuss extensively the importance of building your own brand. Next, they talk about what should agents expect from brokerages they join. Last, they discuss what can agents do to improve their services to their clients.

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

Chris Linsell can be reached at chris@theclose.com.

This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks, Reblie and FollowUpBoss.

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00
As a realtor, what should you be expecting from your brokerage in 2022 and 2023? Well, the answers may surprise you. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this next year? And do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads into interested buyers? And are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? We’ll find out why agents across the country come to real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering Realtors a real estate sales and marketing solution to generate more business. Real geeks is easy to use. Their websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for the end user. Real geeks is mobile friendly delivering an excellent user experience on the go. Real geeks includes an easy to use CRM. So once your leads sign up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up triggers. Real geeks is loaded with tons of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase your brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod. This episode is also brought to you by readly Aerial maps. An aerial retail map can sell a commercial listing before it investor ever sees the property. But creating retail maps takes hours robbing you of time you could spend selling real estate. And if you’re tired of spending late nights scouring the internet for retailer logos to populate your commercial real estate map or you’re tired of paying a designer hundreds of dollars to do it for you. While you’ll love rapidly. Now readily is a real estate map generator that lets you create custom designed professional aerial retail maps for your commercial sales buyers and listing appointments in minutes not hours. Simply enter the subjects property address, auto populate nearby retailer logos with the click of a button and download your aerial retail map readily turns the headache of creating commercial property maps into a quick five minute task so you can spend less time making maps more time making money. So get your first aerial retail map for free today by visiting readily.com. That’s REBL i e.com. And sign up for an account no credit card required. And now on to our show.

Welcome to keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ parricide. Your Guide and host through the show and today is our monthly series called closing time with Chris Lin sell from the close. Now this is a partnership between keeping it real and the clothes.com. And actually, let me tell you about the clothes. The clothes.com is the kind of real estate website designed to give agents teams and brokerages actionable strategic insight from industry professionals that they cover real estate marketing, lead generation technology reviews, team building strategies from the perspective of working agents and brokers who want to take their business to the next level. Now please visit the closed.com you can browse all of their articles they write incredible, long form deep dive, well researched articles about everything from how to grow your business to what tools you may want to consider which we might even talk about a little bit today. They just are absolutely it’s the some of the best content I have found in the real estate industry again, the clothes.com. And with us as always, as Chris Lynn Sal. He is a staff writer and real estate coach for the close. And Chris is the closest resident expert on real estate topics ranging from marketing, lead gen transactional best practices and everything in between. He’s also a licensed agent in the state of Michigan, and has been part of hundreds of real estate transactions from modest world starter homes to massive waterside compounds. And when he isn’t writing, you’ll find Chris flyfishing are performing on the stage of his community theaters production. Also he’s a he’s a busy father as well. And husband. So Chris, welcome once. Oh, and by the way, everyone before we bring Chris on, although he’s already here, please visit the clothes.com Make that before you go to bed tonight. If you’re driving, go to the close read one of their articles. And trust me you will be hooked. Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris Linsell 4:42
DJ, thanks for having me. And I appreciate the fanfare here. It’s good to come back to come back to keeping it real because you’re welcome. So Flattery will get me everywhere. It really will get you in a lot of doors. I’ll be honest with you know, your real estate pawn there but that will opened a number of doors.

D.J. Paris 5:01
You know, it’s it’s funny, I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, but I was I was thinking a lot, I have a friend, this is funny, I’ll just mention this for a moment, I have a friend whose father retired he worked at, I won’t mention right word, but he worked at a traditional big fortune 500 company for for his whole career. And now he’s working just for fun at like a Home Depot kind of helping people find things because he’s really into using his hands. And, again, high level business executive now just kind of more having fun doing this, this thing in retirement, and he mentioned to one of the one of the co workers who happen to be female, he said, Oh, hey, if you smiled at customers more, you probably get, like more, you know, some sort of accolades, or people would talk about you more and, and I said, Oh, you have to tell your dad, you cannot say that you cannot, you cannot, cannot encourage people, but it is one of those things as real estate agents, I think about where I would never tell somebody, make sure you smile, because of course, you know, that’s not really the job. But being professional and being conscious of body language and how you’re communicating with your clients is really important. And so much of communication is nonverbal. Not to say that you should smile when you don’t feel like smiling, that’s actually disingenuous, and probably a really bad idea. But this idea of noticing, you know, if you are faced, we are face to face, again, at least most of us, you know, it’s really important to sort of, you know, practice in the mirror, have a good awareness of, of what your posture and you know, and your different mannerisms so that you can connect more easily with CLI. Anyway, that was my little soapbox.

Chris Linsell 6:39
I totally agree, though. I mean, frankly, like, the the mandate to smile more, you’re right is a little outdated. But I think it’s true, it holds true in the real estate space, there is a mandate to create an environment where your clients will connect with you. Because, you know, I’ll say this, that’s not a requirement to have a real estate license. But it’s very often a requirement for a successful real estate business, to have a demeanor and an environment where your clients feel like they have the opportunity to connect with you. So smile, frown, laugh, cry, whatever you feel like is providing the environment for for your clients to connect with you. I don’t really care. Just be genuine about it.

D.J. Paris 7:28
Yeah, yeah. Being genuine. And you know, we’re, I thought there would be a great Instagram account. I don’t know if anyone’s ever done this. And they should, I would love to see the the makeup lists real estate agent or the an unretouched photo real estate agent Instagram feed, where it’s literally just people as they are without all the you know, sort of bells and whistles. That technology allows us all to sort of be blemish free and perfect. And I think that people oftentimes, you know, don’t connect as well to that as they do just sort of genuine intimacy. And I agree that could be as just a matter of being yourself really, what’s what’s going on in in real estate right now you’re really well connected. You have a you have a good pulse about the industry and sort of what’s happening.

Chris Linsell 8:20
I’ll tell you why there’s a lot happening, you know, we could talk about a number of different things. And here’s what I’m not going to talk about today. I’m not going to talk about interest rates, I’m not going to talk about the the the, you know, average sale price across the United States or in specific kinds of influential markets. I’m not going to talk about that stuff. I’m actually going to talk I’d like to talk to you about what I consider a second order effect of all of that other stuff. We’ll let all of that other stuff the guineas will leave that to the you know, pundits on CNBC and and an NPR and the like, let’s talk about the second order effects of all of that stuff. Specifically. The second order effect that I’m seeing a lot of which is we’re seeing a lot of real estate companies, specifically real estate brokerages and, and firms that are centered in their use of technology, and getting out in front of business and the way the transaction is conducted. We’re seeing a lot of these companies, laying people off. We’re seeing a lot of these companies, a lot of these firms, contracting, tightening their belt, you can there’s 100 Different euphemisms for it. But the long and the short of it is we’re seeing a lot of companies who are reducing their headcount and rethinking their strategy, and I think it is a valuable thing to point out and I’d love to get your insight on this. That a lot of the companies that What are leading the headlines for this sort of activity? Were the ones that just 18 months ago, were also in the headlines, but for very different reasons. They were there because they were a disruptive technology forward business. They were changing the way the real estate transaction was conducted. They were offering agents and brokers in teams, something they have never gotten anywhere else before. Those are the same companies that are now laying people off. You’re not seeing a lot of Coldwell Banker, a lot of REMAX a lot of century 20 ones in the news because they have to cut their technology staffed by 20%. Pretty interesting.

D.J. Paris 10:39
It is interesting, and I sort of, you know, it makes logical sense to me, why that’s happening, why these layoffs are happening, you have a tech heavy sort of, you know, player, whether it’s a brokerage, or a tech provider, selling individual services directly to agents, or to brokerages, who, you know, probably saw a huge boon in their business over the last, you know, 18 to 24 months. Of course, you know, we all remember, you know, what things looked like when rates were lower and inventory was was tighter, it was definitely still really difficult to be an agent, but firms flourished during that time. I know our firm did we were worried that gosh, we maybe we would have to go out of business, nobody really knew what was going to happen. And that’s like, oh, wait, all of a sudden, brokerages did really well. Individual agents were stressed out and, and they had a lot more work on their plate, but they typically did well, too. And now, of course, you’re having companies that, that maybe entered the market a little bit later with it and putting massive sort of, you know, capital behind some of this technology or the staffing. Now, mortgage companies are a perfect example. So they all staffed up because they had to, in order to fulfill orders during the boom, and then now are, you know, are now struggling and having to layoff people and firms are doing similar things. But yeah, you’re right, I don’t hear news. And maybe it’s maybe it’s just better kept quiet, or it’s actually just not happening, although wouldn’t be kept quiet. Some of those companies are public, and that information would come out in earnings reports. But this idea of not hearing it from the traditional brokerages that they’re they’re doing much much cost cutting measures at all.

Chris Linsell 12:28
It’s interesting too, because, you know, one has to kind of stop and wonder whether or not the reason that is, is that these you know, the more traditional brokerage models have less of their resources tied up in what would be considered more of these kind of forward bleeding edge sort of efforts. I think that that’s a reasonable take in this situation. But I do think it’s worth pointing out that one of the challenges with companies exploding onto the scene in the time of a boom, is that we know as real estate professionals, this market is cyclical, it doesn’t matter what’s going on in the world, there’s always going to be natural cycles. And if you buy in on the upswing, there’s going to be a downswing. It just is the natural course of the market and of the economics of the real estate industry in general. So, you know, one thing I’m telling agents, as we kind of talked through this sort of analysis, and people are asking me questions about this. You know, a lot of people are asking me, like, is the is the compass model? Dead? Like, are they are they doomed for failure? And the answer here is no, I think it’s unequivocally No. But what agents should be thoughtful about in this is that the compassed model, this idea of providing agents with a whole heck of a lot of technology and marketing and branding resources, as a component of your package, rather than outsourcing those things, Agent by agent. That is the v1 of that, that plan, and they’re going through a contraction right now they’re learning what did not work. They are retooling. And when the market bottoms out and scoops back up, there’s going to be a v2 there. I mean, if you think that Apple was offering the iPhone in the 1980s, had the finely tuned machine figured out, you’re crazy. They went through a number of market cycles before they really figured out exactly how to put their foot on the gas. We’re going to see that in the real estate tech and the real estate brokerage space too.

D.J. Paris 14:51
And I also think, too with a company like compass and I’m I’m at least here locally in Chicago. I’m connected to a lot of Compass agents. I’ve asked them like, hey, the news about some of this layoff and reducing staff by whatever the percentage was, I think around 25% of the back office staff maybe and please forgive me, compass people if I have that wrong. I, I, I’m not here to celebrate any sort of layoffs at all. Because I actually think that that’s not not good for, of course, those people in the company, but but I don’t hear people I know, having much concern about about the compass agents I know, in particular, are don’t seem to have much concern. And I, and I’m wondering if that’s because their individual business has not seen, you know, any sort of change the the tools that were promised, seem to still being being able to be delivered. Now. Now, you were saying, you know, maybe that will change, right? Maybe they’re the compasses ability to deliver on some of those promises may change, and they will adapt. But it doesn’t seem to have trickled down in that one specific companies instance, at least here locally in Chicago, I have not heard agents go. Agents might say, Well, I’m a little worried about what’s happening at the company. But I haven’t heard Oh, it’s affected my production. So I imagine maybe that’s part of the reason to why we’re seeing a lot of headlines, but maybe we’re not hearing a lot from Compass agents about it.

Chris Linsell 16:20
Yeah, I think that that’s, that’s probably on the nose here. And you know, one other element to kind of add to that particular point in the conversation is I speak to a lot of agents who they talk about their personal brand, versus their brokerage brand, and how those two things interplay. And the reason that this is kind of off the top of my head right now is I recently just published the 20 end of 2022. update to the best real estate companies to work for article. And in doing so in interviewing a whole bunch of agents across the United States to kind of get their take on their brokerage and on their brokerage brand. The emerges this trend of agents saying a brokerage and its brand and its offerings are all very important to me. But for most agents, their book of business is not based on the artwork on their sign placard, it’s based on the name on the rider their name on the writers, so whether or not they are a century 21, or a compass, or a side or a, you know, any of the major players in the company, or in the in the brokerage space. Regardless of what the artwork is on the sign placard, as long as their name is on the writer on top of the sign, their book of business is relatively stable. And so keeping that in mind, what’s most important to their clients is their relationship with them, like we were talking about earlier, I mean, it is about the relationship that they have with their buyers and with their sellers. And so, though, tools like an automated, you know, technology, forward listing presentation offered by compass or complete, you know, social media branding, offered by, you know, different exp teams, even though those are things that kind of grease the skids of building your business, that isn’t where transactions are won and lost most of the time, you may be reducing or increasing your conversations early on, you know, maybe as a part of that process, but at the end of the day, it’s not the tech tools that are winning new listings, it’s you that’s winning the listings.

D.J. Paris 18:44
Yeah, I agree. And obviously, this is evidenced by all the transitions that agents make, you know, in every market, this idea of moving from from company, you know, to a different company, a different firm because of whatever particular reason. I think you’re right, I think I think that’s becoming more evident to agents as well, that the Hey, our, our brand logo and our our local sort of brand. Yes, it can, of course make a huge difference, especially in smaller communities, maybe, you know, certain certain communities, maybe vacation communities that that comes up more. So yes, of course, someone’s brokerage brand can and will make a difference. But then there’s a lot of agents that self sponsor, and it’s just them and that’s the best sort of example I have of, you know, people are able to do it with zero with not not zero resources, but with just literally their own resources are able to build a successful business and many of the top agents I know have done exactly that. And it’s not because the other firms haven’t come calling saying please join our company and maybe the splits aren’t quite high enough. I’m gonna build my own thing no the splits are high enough you know brokerages right now I’m we’re seeing I don’t know what it’s if you’re noticing this with the people you you coach or or in your local market, but boy, there’s a lot of recruiting going on right now it is just constant which makes sense. But as as the, you know, business has slowed a little bit by missing a lot of recruiting.

Chris Linsell 20:21
Well, it’s so interesting you say that too, because I’m seeing the same thing. You know, agents that I talked to, I mean, are getting, I mean, it’s it is not uncommon to get multiple calls, from, you know, from different brokers entities. And one of the interesting things that kind of comes about this is that it does point out that the most successful brokerage models in our industry are not necessarily the ones that offer the best tools, but are the ones that offer the best environments for agents to build the business that they want. Like those are the brokerages that hang on to the agents that are the top performing in their markets, it is not a matter of like who’s got the flashiest listing presentation, or who has the best branding. It’s interesting, because some of that stuff does correlate, but I think it’s coincidental, but it correlates it is it is primarily in my opinion about who offers the best environment. And that’s for agents to build the business that they want to operate because that everyone else is just chasing that if you’re building, if you’re setting an environment that is not cohesive or conducive, excuse me to building you know, allowing agents to build a business that they’re actually satisfied with your your time is limited, you’re you’re you’re going to expire eventually because agents are going to find those places. And to that to that end, I think it’s important to kind of call out here. If you find yourself spooked, by like reducing of the headcount at maybe maybe you’re a part one of these brokerages, that’s cutting back on resources. Keep in mind, it is about finding that environment that is going to allow you to build your business. And so if you’re the brokerage you that you’re in right now is not offering you that environment, it’s time to answer those recruiter calls. But it’s also time to think about the fact that maybe this environment actually already exists. Maybe what you need here isn’t somebody to hand you a silver platter full of all the food that you’ve ever wanted to eat in your entire life. But maybe it’s just like this brokerage is just handing you the keys to the kitchen and saying like, listen, we got an open, open, open slate here, build whatever you feel like building, we’ll do what we can to provide the resources necessary to give you the opportunities that you want. We’re not going to build it for you. But we’re going to give you the opportunity to build it yourself. That is a very empowering feeling for agents. So be thoughtful about the fact that just because the tools maybe aren’t there in the short run doesn’t mean that they don’t exist, you just might have to build them yourself.

D.J. Paris 23:05
Yeah, or the company that you join or that you’re currently a member of or maybe even going to consider maybe they don’t have a particular tool that another company has. Well guess what there are? If not, while there’s certainly dozens, if not hundreds of pretty prominent tech firms offering those tools that you can piecemeal or ala carte order on your own. So if your business is down and individual production, if you’re enrolled in a virtual production is struggling right now, along with a lot of other people, I would encourage you like Chris said, if you’re exploring other options, I would look less for bullet points of things they’re offering versus having a conversation about so how can you help me get back on track? That how can you help me get to the next level? Not? Hey, we’re gonna you know, and then also understanding that recruiters are people who do recruiting oftentimes are, you know, these are salesy type people, and they’re going to want to persuade you to join. My advice is always randomly don’t ask the recruiter for names, randomly call three or four people at that brokerage and say, Hey, I was thinking of joining I just had a great conversation with so and so. I really wanted to, could I get just a few minutes, can I take you out for a cup of coffee and in fact, you probably already know people at those firms, saying, you know, do you think this is a good fit for me, typically, that person will have no real incentive to persuade you to join their company. But they if you have people that you trust and this goes back to having great relationships with other you know, people, other broker or other realtors in your area, you can actually have those conversations and you might find that, you know, certain offices have certain managing brokers that are more attentive. that have, you know, different types of meetings or different types of skill based training? I think anything that skill training is something that that is not as common. There’s not a lot of skill training that I find from brokerages and boy, the ones that offer it, you know, you can basically beat a, it’s hard to beat a path to their door because there’s so many people wanting to get in. So for me, my advice is look for skill focus training, versus the coolest and newest tech, I’m a tech guy, I love the coolest, the newest tech, that’s what I would be drawn to. But I wouldn’t know at the end, it’s kind of like when you go shopping for a TV and you are sorry, I when I go shopping for a TV, which happens like once every 10 or 15 years, and I do all this research and I want to buy the absolute best TV and then i i spend months researching, I buy the TV, wait for it to be on sale. And then I get it a week later, it’s just my TV, it’s just the exact same. I’m watching content as I was watching before and a slightly newer model with slightly more bells and whistles. I use none of the bells and whistles. But I just, you know, need to watch something I need to watch through a device. And so I think being aware that sometimes the bells and whistles up here are a lot more important than they actually are is something to keep in mind.

Chris Linsell 26:12
Yeah, I agree completely. And at the end of the day, also, there is this, I think the equivalent version of that that experience you just had in the real estate space, to me is a lot about agents realizing it doesn’t matter nearly as much as they thought it did. The the kind of the new, the new labels on things like the new label on the CRM or the new, the new graphic on my side placard, those things matter a lot less, if you are not transforming the way that you are operating your business. When you are switching firms or changing teams or you know, though making those level changes. And I guess that like the the moral of that story is just like DJs TV problem here. It would be a transformative experience if DJ went from he’s he’s watching us consuming his content on his TV, to consuming his content on say, a laptop. Yes, the screen is a different size, but all sudden he has a keyboard and he can have create these all of these relatively interactive experiences for consuming content that he would not have in a very passive, you know, exposure experience watching TV. The same can be said for your real estate business. Maybe it’s time frankly, I hope maybe this is a mandate for someone listening right now, maybe it’s time to turn off the business TV and turn open the business laptop as it were, maybe it’s time to stop being passive and expect your business to be built based on the tools of your brokerage, even if that brokerage is a really tech forward bleeding edge like we’re top of the line with all of our bells and whistles, sort of options. At the end of the day, all of that stuff is just a remote control with a volume knob and a channel in a channel changer. If you want to go to the next level, you got to go to a laptop or something with a keyboard and a mouse where you can start having interactive experiences and building the business that you actually want to be operating using the tools at your disposal because at the end of the day, a passive experience it doesn’t matter what the brand is, whether it’s Sony or Samsung or Coldwell Banker or REMAX a passive experience is going to get you the same basically the same result. It’s the interactive kind of active experience where things are really going to start to change.

D.J. Paris 28:50
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Chris Linsell 33:09
you’re like right on the right on the numbers there. Like, I’m sure I’m not in the automotive space either. So I don’t I don’t know the details here. But I’m confident there is a wealth of knowledge around what the typical Buck car buying cadence is. And, man, it just does not it’s not a stretch to understand that people’s experience with buying something like a car is so colored based on the professional that they work with. It is it is the same it is it is the same in real estate. There’s just no two ways about it. And so creating systems that give you the opportunity to build that relationship to build that success, like I mean, I know we started this conversation talking about, you know, layoffs in tech in the in the tech space and like, what the bleeding edge of real estate looks like next and whether or not you know, it’s a market that supports all that stuff. Frankly, you know, this conversation is actually about the fact that it doesn’t matter what the bleeding edge looks like, as if that has nothing to do with the relationship that you’re building. Yeah, that’s right. If the tools that are either available or not available, will drastically affect your ability to build relationships, then yeah, you should be paying attention to that stuff. If those things don’t drastically affect your ability to build those relationships. Then those may be just distractions and things that are preventing you from that interactive business and keeping you trapped in the passive.

D.J. Paris 34:47
Yeah, I guess. I guess the message is brokerages are unlikely to save you that being said, can they complement can they add or subtract? Obviously they can and and Joining the right brokerage is something that is very important for everyone listening to consider, but also to realize that there’s just a lot of smoke and mirrors in the marketing or recruiting of agents in this industry, just like there aren’t any any recruiting industry. So realize that most brokerages are always hiring. That’s another thing to keep in mind. So whether they tell you or not most brokerages, certainly the larger ones are. And, you know, there’s i, if it was me, and I was out there producing and wanting to find the right brokerage First, I would figure out what my brand is myself. Here’s what I want my clients to think and feel about me, here’s what I’ve built already. And then I would take that brand to other brokerages and say, Does this fit, how can you help add to my brand? And and those are great questions, and I’m a recruiter. I’ve been doing this a long time. Nobody ever brings that to me. They really don’t. I wish they did. Because in a way, it’s easier that they don’t because it’s a tougher question to answer. But it’s, it is the best one of the best possible questions you can ask. When you’re meeting with another firm is saying, Here’s my brand. What can you offer? Or how can you help me grow my brand? And not just well, we’re going to give you some leads and rehab this great tech? Yes, yes. But how does that specifically help my brand? What can you do? And maybe it’s, Hey, it you should also know what your weaknesses are? In other words, as an individual agent, are you the person that goes, you know, I’m a I’m a Brian Buffini longtime fan. And I know I’m supposed to write personal notes, because that’s part of the Buffini method, and it works, but I just don’t do it. Okay, fair enough. Why not take that to a brokerage and say, Look, I understand your maybe you can’t write individual personal notes for me, maybe they can. But this is something that I’m not good at is do you have a solution for me, that can help me get these out because it will grow my business and really bring being more active in the conversations versus passive, the recruiters gonna lay out all the bells and whistles and it’s every firm you go to is going to sound like this is the greatest firm I’ve ever talked to, because that’s what recruiters do. But bringing, saying, Hey, here’s, here’s some of my weaknesses. Here’s some of my strengths. This is what I need from a brokerage. Because I just talked to my clients. And here’s what they told me they wanted. And I need some help with X, Y, and Z. And then can we write that up in any sort of agreement? Can we actually put that on paper so that we’re both on the same page, I have a clear expectation of what what you what I need, and you have a clear expectation of what you need from me.

Chris Linsell 37:42
No 100% right on the nose was right on the nose, that the business that people want to build is within your grasp. It is just a matter of identifying what levers actually will create that opportunity for you and which ones are distractions.

D.J. Paris 37:58
We should mention, too, that the close has a lot of resources around brand building around even, you know, as Chris said, they every year update their best brokerages to work for by the way, that would be the first place I would go because it’s important to understand the close is not funded, or or I apologize, Chris, if I’m speaking out of turn, but they are not influenced in any way. They are an independent, sort of, you know, content provider, they’re not influenced by the firm’s that they write about. In fact, if they were, you know, they wouldn’t have the loyal readership they they would have, because that would be evident that their content is being manipulated or, or or changed. They are independent sort of journalists and writers who do a deep dive and are willing to say, here’s what we think. And so that would be really honestly the first place I would look because it is a trusted source of independent, you know, individually thought out opinions and reviews. So, you know, that would be a great place to start to if you are exploring other options.

Chris Linsell 39:04
Yeah, I agree. Come visit us. close.com we got tons of stuff on here that will level up your real estate business. I guarantee it.

D.J. Paris 39:12
Yeah, I do as well. I’m a huge fan. And I think it’s a great place for us to sort of wrap for for this time. So this is this is really I think, for everyone out there struggling I get it our agents, we have about 800 agents at our firm here. Everyone’s a little freaked out. It’s it’s normal. It’s not trying to say it doesn’t, you know, don’t don’t worry, because of course everyone worries and and now’s the time though to realize you can be more proactive and you can actually take some some bigger steps forward. But talk to your clients see what they need. That’s the job. Right? So so do as much of that as you can and you’re going to weather the storm just fine. But yes, the clothes.com This is a great, great place, please make it bookmark it Make it something you check a couple times a week look for their content. It’s just good it’s really good. So anyway, on behalf of our audience want to thank Chris for coming on as he does every month for years now we just amazing content every single time really really thoughtful intelligent stuff and Chris is a writer at the close and he also does coaching with them and so Jeff check out the clothes.com for all things a Chris as well as just all things from that the other wonderful members of the staff there write and produce. And on behalf of Chris and myself always thank you for making it to the end of this episode. We really appreciate it we hope this has been helpful for you please give us feedback we need to know what you want so we can better meet your needs. So let us know and the best couple of ways to do that. Number one, I actually one way to do it, leave us a review. Just go to whatever podcast app you might be listening to or if you’re watching this on YouTube, let us know in the comments. But just let us know what you like and what you’d like to see different or changed it’s okay we can take it we want the criticism and we want to always improve because that it just improves our listenership. So it all everybody wins. Let us know what you think of the show. That’s that’s all I got for this week. Chris, any final thoughts?

Chris Linsell 41:16
Go out there, be active and be be a part of your success. Don’t be don’t be on the sidelines of your own business here. This is your game to win.

D.J. Paris 41:27
I couldn’t I couldn’t have said that anywhere near as well as you did. So that will be the final word. Chris, thank you so much. And we will see everybody on the next episode.

Thanks