Matt and Garrett welcome special guest, Tara Tooley, to the show today. Tara has been a Ninja in Fort Collins, Colorado, for over six years, and she has an incredible ability to take every system we work with and completely own it to create a unique and highly successful experience for her clients. She breaks down her process for Matt and Garrett step-by-step, and tells them about integrating a "Ninja Filter" in everything she does. She begins with the "Magic Wand" conversation, then begins the funnel process by opening a broad search for her clients to make sure they don't miss any important options. Tara's only motivation is to help her clients find a home and make their dreams come true. She explains that she doesn't stop until she sees the "happy dance" from her clients, and this no-pressure approach instantly builds trust and shows clients that you're on their team.

Tara chats about setting clients up to be the "smartest buyer out there," the importance of guiding them to a trusted, local lender versus impersonal online options, and how a solid pre-qualification empowers clients with the coolest idea ever - a "shopping license." She goes into the recasting loan, a huge secret weapon, in great detail, as well as her "magic" tip to help clients recalibrate if they haven't found a house that makes them do the happy dance yet. You'll hear about Tara's approach to step back and let buyers find their own potential home, her "dance with the other broker" and building relationships before even visiting a house, using the online feedback form to give her buyers a competitive edge in the sellers' eyes, and how investing in clarity of process shortens her timeline significantly.

Tara offers these, and so many other great takeaways as we begin to take a closer look at how actual Ninjas are using the 10-Step Process and applying it in practice. We can learn so much from Tara's "Super-Size-It" attitude and proven track record, and her fascinating insights highlight the many ways you can make the Ninja process work for you in a way that feels fun and authentic, so you can help bring your clients' dreams into reality as well.

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Episode Highlights:

Tara Tooley has been a Ninja for about six years
She works at the group in Fort Collins, Colorado
The advice based on her marketplace can work in any area
She has an incredible ability to put her own unique spin on the 10-Step Buyer Process, and has used it to create an extraordinary buyer process for her clients
She puts everything she does through a "Ninja Filter"
When people first reach out to her, they have already thought about this decision for a long time and they're ready to make their move
She asks them a series of questions and has the "Magic Wand" conversation
She begins with a very broad search so that her clients don't miss any options (one of the biggest buyer fears), then narrows the focus from there
This is the funnel process
She includes homes in a higher price range as many sellers begin too aggressively and may lower their prices later
She sets her clients up to become "the smartest person in the market" as they watch for these prices to drop
Her mindset is laser-focused on helping her clients find a house
Her only goal is to help make people's dreams come true and see their "happy dance"
Setting her clients up with a trusted local lender versus online lenders who typically don't care and will not go to bat for them
Being pre-qualified with a solid lender empowers clients with a "shopping license"
Tara is not afraid to tell people she can't move forward with them, if she feels they are not a good fit
Bridge loans and recasting
When clients have not yet found the home that makes them do the happy dance, she gives them an actual magical wand to help them recalibrate and shift their mindset
Most of the time, her clients find the home themselves - she is there to help them get that house once they've found it
Her "dance with the other broker" and creating a relationship with them before they even view the house
The importance of broker-to-broker relationships
The buyer who drags you around to house after house does not know what they want, but maintaining a positive relationship with them can still lead to referrals
Success is taking care of the client
The 10-Step Buyer Process often happens in the house
There is no such thing as the perfect house - the goal is to be happy with 85%
Tara is a huge believer in expert coaching and learning from the professionals
She's very transparent about her process with clients
Garrett's name for Tara is "Super-Size-It Tara" because she takes every idea to a new level and isn't afraid to make this business fun and authentic

Quotes:

"Tara is an agent that takes every system I've ever worked with her on, and she goes, I'm going to make this mine. And she owns it."

"I consider myself a Ninja 1,000%. I put everything I do through what I call a Ninja Filter."

"We have that quick little conversation. I'm like, Well, What are you thinking? Tell me, if you wave the magic wand, what might happen? What kind of - how big of a house? Why are you moving? And I go through some of the questions. How many bedrooms? What price range are you thinking? What town are you thinking?"

"I always take notes. I never talk without a pen in my hand."

"You're going to become, what I call, the smartest person in the market. You're going to watch those prices - that overpriced person come down maybe into your price range if they sit on the market, because not everything sells if it's overpriced."

"I had a buyer call me on a Friday.... She said, Well, we're going to be buying somewhere between now, three months, six months, nine months. We're not really in a hurry. And...we're under contract six days later. Their first offer."

"My mindset is - my only goal is to help these people's dreams come true. That's it. That's where it ends."

"If there's no happy dance, I'm like, Hey, I think we need to keep looking."

"When you put people into a position where they really want to buy, yes, you are a great salesperson. Because you didn't have to sell them on anything. You just put all the pieces together, and all of a sudden they're buying. As far as I'm concerned, that's about as Ninja as you can be."

"I'm like, This house, I don't see it. And then I'm like, Aren't I a great salesperson? They just laugh. And then all of a sudden, that trust level just goes out the roof, because they're like, Oh, she's on our team. She's not trying to sell us anything. She's trying to help our dreams come true."

"Your lender is going to be your most valuable player, maybe even more important sometimes than I am in this process. If we don't have a lender that can go to bat for you, literally seven days a week, that's trusted in our local market, I'm not sure I can get you a house and be competitive on your offers. Because what's been happening is these online lenders, they just don't care."

"I had a 45-minute conversation with an older guy that was qualified with his big national bank. And I'm like, Dude, I can't win a house for you in this market with that as your lender… He finally succumbed. And sure enough, three days later, we got the deal because of that lender."

"What we really need is a really good shopping license. If you don't have a good shopping license, it doesn't make a lot of sense to even go look at houses, because we don't really even know what you can buy. And so your lender will give you a pre-qualification, which I consider your shopping license."

"The shopping license is the most powerful if you don't have to sell your house before you buy."

"There's a product out there called recasting loans, a recasting product, and that's how I get most of my people from A to B without a contingent offer."

"If you talk to your lender, and they don't know what recasting is, you need to go dial the phone and find a lender that does, because that is a huge secret weapon in this market."

"I find it very interesting when you hand those magic wands out, sometimes the game completely changes, and they buy something that feels to me, as a realtor, 100% different than what they told me."

"I don't look at houses online. I don't think I've ever, maybe one or two times actually, been the one that found the house. The buyer finds the house. And they're like, Let's go look at it."

"I feel like the buyers are the smartest people in the entire market. Realtors think they're all smart and everything. It's not their money that's buying the house."

"I'm starting what I call, the dance with the other broker, because that's one of the most important dances of the whole deal in a competitive market. So I start the dance before I ever get to the house."

"That feedback was so powerful and so emotional, that literally the sellers fell in love with the hope that these buyers would buy the house."

"It's really important to me that I follow the leader of success. And Ninja is the most successful life a realtor could ever ask for, and being able to serve the world with our expertise as realtors."

"I believe wholeheartedly, if you're going to be successful at whatever you want to be successful at, you need a coach… And I tell people, Go find the very best coach you can find. And I didn't say the very best coach you can afford, I say the very best coach you can find."

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