Keeping It Real Podcast • Secrets Of Top 1% REALTORS ® • Interviews With Real Estate Brokers & Agents

Jessica Burton with Indyquest Properties talks about what brought her to real estate and how she built her business while having another full-time job. Jess discusses 3 lead gen sources she uses and how she utilizes social media and video. Jess also talks about the the importance of exercise and how it positively impacts her business. Jess discusses current market and describes how is she staying busy and motivated. Last, Jess talks about her processes that help her keep organized and in touch with her clients. Please follow Jess in Instagram. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Jessica Burton can be reached at 281.704.2061 and jessica@indyquest.net. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Lead Generation is everything and we’re going to talk about your three main lead generation sources today. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase 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. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top producer Jessica Burton. Before we get to Jessica, just a couple of quick reminders. Actually, I’m gonna use Jessica as an example. We are always looking for guests. And we’re very lucky that we get pitched by PR agencies every almost every day with guest ideas. But if you’re somebody that maybe doesn’t have a PR team and thinks you have a story to tell, well reach out to us, Jessica did this. And we are having her on her show today. And she is amazing. And we wouldn’t have found her unless she wrote into us. So please let us know if you think you would be a good guest or maybe you know somebody in your office, that would be a good guest, you could just go to our website, keeping it real pod.com. And there’s a little Contact Us form and let us know if we should talk to you or maybe somebody you know, so think of the hero in your area, your local market that you’d love to know how they did this and we’ll reach out and try to get the interview. Also, please tell a friend about the show. And also leave us a review wherever you’re listening to us there. All right, let’s get to the main event my conversation with Jessica burden. Today on the show, our guest is Jessica Burton from indie quest properties in Houston, Texas. Let me tell you more about Jessica. Jessica Burton is an award winning realtor and continuous top producer she was licensed in 2016. That’s when she got licensed and Jessica draws from years of experience as a communications and marketing specialist and has created a reputation for her friendly client care, negotiation prowess and relentless dedication. She continues to use these professional skills to help her real estate clients find and sell their homes. Jessica is equipped with a deep rooted knowledge of the Houston real estate market always prepared with a local market perspective. And if you ask her what her business is built on, she will proclaim communication and care and dedication to her clients needs and goals. I want everybody to follow Jess on her website which sorry on Instagram, which is at just Kay Burton just GSSKBR to end just like its sounds and that’s Instagram and you can also find her on her indie quest website we will have a link to that on the show notes and by the way before we get started before just comes on or before she starts talking. She is in the process of looking for some assistance so if you are a possibly in real estate in the Houston area or if you are somebody that is looking for maybe an additional source of work while you’re building your business, reach out to Jessica because she may be a good fit for you Jess, welcome to the show. Jessica Burton 4:24Hi, I’m so happy to be here. D.J. Paris 4:26Can I call you Jess? Is that okay? Jessica Burton 4:27That’s what my friends call me so awesome. Well D.J. Paris 4:31I am super excited to to have you Jess is one of our listener of ours that has now is on our show and we couldn’t be happier that’s nothing brings me more pleasure than having somebody who has been a listener on the show. It’s really the most fun types of interviews I do so thank you for being a listener number one and thank you for taking time out of your busy busy week and and your mom and your your wife and your got a million other things going on. So thank you yeah, let’s I want To learn about you so and I want our audience to know about you. So let’s start at the beginning. I know you got your license in 2016, what brought you to real estate? Jessica Burton 5:07Yes. So, about 10 years ago, I started working in the legal field. So I was working with litigation attorneys in a marketing position. And honestly, a lot happened that year. So I ended up starting with this position was really excited about it had pivoted over from a fortune 500 company so much larger to a much smaller company, I’ve always been more comfortable with smaller companies, and ended up basically, you know, having a good start to it. But realizing really quickly, you know, there was no really upward growth for me, you know, I, it was a family owned business. And, you know, where I was, was, was basically the best that I was going to, you know, to do with the company, so, and that year, I actually, my, my dad passed away unexpectedly, and we were really, really tight. And, you know, it really gave me a lot of, I had a lot of introspection, you know, just about life, and, you know, what I the path I was going down, and you know, just just wanted just had a lot of, you know, insight and time to think about them. So, I had always really liked real estate and found it really interesting. So my sister is actually a broker in Austin. Oh, wow. And, you know, if for years, she would tell me about it, and I was just so fascinated by the stories and the people. I mean, as all of the real estate agents out there know, like, working with people, you just come across all sorts of, you know, exciting and interesting, people and stories. So, so for years, I was like, well, that’s her thing, you know, I need to go find my thing. So I avoided real estate, but then, you know, she encouraged me, she said, Just get your license, you know, I thought more about it was like, Okay, what’s a little bit of extra income, you know, on the side. And just, I started with Keller Williams in their coaching program for about a year and got a lot out of it, while I was still working in my marketing position in the legal field. Wow, yes. And D.J. Paris 7:16a lot to manage, and to things like that at once. Jessica Burton 7:19Well, I realized how much I loved real estate. So I was working, honestly, two full time jobs, you know, taking really trying to build my business with real estate, doing open houses on the weekends, really, you know, leveraging my my relationships with the my client attorneys who then turned into real estate attorney, excuse me, real estate clients. And, you know, just really realizing how much I loved this business. I mean, I love everything from design architecture, you know, the financial side of it. And then I feel like, you know, on the other side of that, working in the legal field, I really understood the importance about understanding, you know, the contracts, and, you know, the liability that goes along with that. So I was really, I made sure that I was very educated and, you know, knew exactly what was in those contracts. So I could explain that to my clients. And, you know, I was working with attorneys, so they, they have a certain way of thinking and, you know, a certain, I guess, you know, bar that they’re setting and their expectations of who they work with. So, you know, I was trying to keep up with that. And so I, I basically stayed with my, with the marketing position, until 2021. And I was doing around that time, I was doing probably, you know, closer to seven to 10 10 million. And this is all while working in D.J. Paris 8:52the two jobs. That’s amazing. And Jessica Burton 8:55I got pregnant with my daughter. And this was COVID, too. So I just realized I was like, I do not want to keep doing this. I was nervous about taking that next step. You know, as you know, there’s the security there with the health insurance, the salary, and you know, I just I wanted to, you know, make sure I was gonna be taking care of myself, but I also was ready to take that leap of faith. So I took that leap of faith to dove in 100% real estate in April 2021. ended up doing my best year ever that year, which a lot of people did. And I also was awarded one of the top 20 under 40 Real estate agents in Houston that year. So I think it was a little bit of a god wink like, hey, you know, you, you made the right decision. And yeah, and I was I was like working in the delivery room. I was out at showings three days after I delivered my daughter. So yeah, D.J. Paris 9:59Yeah, I Jessica Burton 10:00got a wild ride. D.J. Paris 10:02I really, it’s really an impressive story. And I think that, you know, as you were saying that I was thinking, we have probably a lot of listeners who have been in that similar situation where they were doing this maybe part time or in your case, you have two full time jobs. But even if you’re doing another job full time and real estate part time, at some point, making that that leap requires a tremendous amount of courage, and sort of willingness to cut that cord of like the salary and all of the benefits of the sort of more stable position that isn’t as risky, as far as you know, jumping off without a net, and you basically cut the net. And I wanted to just honor all of our listeners who have made that journey. And pretty much anyone who gets into real estate essentially goes on a similar journey, but especially if you’re coming from this secure and stable environment, where things are very predictable at least financially, and making that leap. So everybody who’s gone through that I we just built just Can I honor you, but I honor you as well for doing that. I think that again, it’s it’s something we don’t we don’t congratulate ourselves enough for making big steps. I think, you know, that’s sometimes the first step is the hardest, but it’s also the most important one. So congrats on that. Yeah, so I want to know how you grew your business. Because you know, you’re a we’ll call you a younger realtor, I don’t know if you feel young. But I consider you a younger realtor, you’re you’re still new ish in the business, even though you’ve been doing this for seven years now. But you also were 40 under 40. So I would love to know, like how you started marketing, you talked about, you know, hate my previous position, I had access to attorneys. So that, you know, led me I heard that correctly led me to some real estate attorneys and I sort of had some connections, there are just other attorneys maybe you worked with, but how did you build your business? Jessica Burton 11:52Sure. Well, I love being around people, I always have since I was a child, I am involved in a lot of different organizations. So always been drawn to just philanthropy and volunteerism. So if there’s an organization out there, I’ve probably been a part of it. And, you know, really, that was me, just I really liked to be a part of my Houston community. So you know, I’m part of the Junior League in Houston, part of the Houston rodeo, try to join my we have a civic association in my neighborhood. So try to get involved there. I’m not a gardener, but I’m in the garden club. And, you know, really what I what I’ve learned over the years, and I really think it takes so much grit in this business. I mean, you really, you have to reinvent yourself, and you have to pivot. And what I’ve determined that works, that has worked best for me is really having three lead generation sources at once. And of course, you know, we’re we’re in a industry that ebb and flows. So you know, just being able to evolve and adapt is is very important. So really, it’s I focus right now and have for a while on when I got started. I’m sorry. That’s what we’re talking about. When I got started. It was mostly open houses. I mean, that was really that was where I got so good with scripting, you know, so good with just talking to people about real estate. D.J. Paris 13:31And did you have at the time listings to do open houses for or were you asking other agents in your office? Jessica Burton 13:39Yes, so, so about a year into my real estate career, I moved over to a smaller brokerage. And this our brokerage, I’m still there, I’ve been there about six years is we are led by a wonderful broker and his wife, they’re, they’re just a dream team. And he, Creston is my broker, he is a wonderful, just influence and mentor. And, you know, he was willing to allow, you know, agents and myself to go and host these open houses. So, you know, when I first got started, I was really buyer heavy, as a lot of agents are so, you know, I didn’t have the opportunity to have many of my own listings at for sure. So of course, that’s changed through the years. But the open houses and then of course, you know, my CRM has been a really important tool so I actually use follow up boss and I love it. I love I’ve used a few others that one just seems to work best for me. There’s a lot of great tools in it. And you know, really just pivoting with advertising, figuring out you know, when it is tangible, you know how I can how I can use that but I’m also I use social media a little bit more in the big I mean, but I’m really utilizing it now. And so I’ll talk more about that as well. D.J. Paris 15:04So your three sources? I hear it, was his philanthropy one of one of your sources, or is that more? Anyway? What are your three? Your three marketing sources? Mine Jessica Burton 15:14are open houses, advertising, and then social media at this time? D.J. Paris 15:21What kind of advertising are you doing? Just out of curiosity? Jessica Burton 15:25So, you know, it really depends on I think there was a show recently, and someone was talking about, you know, understanding your demographics and how they get information. So, I usually I actually send postcards to, you know, the, the older demographic that really appreciates us and doesn’t throw away the mail. Because as we know, you know, the younger generation doesn’t really, you know, appreciate that as much. And, and then advertising in local newsletters, newspapers, some web uses me websites, and really, you know, it’s something that I track for about I try it for about a year. And if I don’t have any tangible return, I’ll usually pivot to something else. But what I’ve realized is that it’s important to be consistent. D.J. Paris 16:18Yeah, you’re right, it especially with some of the outgoing mailers, or phone calls, or emailing whatever the out sort of outbound activity is, it seems to, you know, it seems to take a lot of well, this, this podcast is, you know, just something I, I’ve done every, every, you know, few days for the last six years, it doesn’t make me special, but it just makes me somebody that’s done it for six years. And as a result, here we are, you know, talking with you and 500 episodes later, and it’s just about, you know, staying staying on target, but also measuring those metrics. How do you measure? So it is trickier when you’re doing website? You know, what website advertising? Or postcards? How are like, when you do get a client? Are you like, Hey, how did you hear about me? Or Is that how you’re measuring? Or how are you knowing if those those outbound sort of marketing things are working? Yep, Jessica Burton 17:11I usually do ask them, you know, how did you hear about me, or they’ll let me know, you know, a lot of people are pretty forthcoming with that information, like I saw you. And, you know, this sounds this advertisement, and I really liked it or, you know, some kind of feedback. And, you know, I’ve been stopped at grocery stores and in public before. So it’s really funny, because I, you know, especially like having after having my children, like you’re a tired mom, and you would run to the grocery store, and every single time you run into someone who knows. So I try to like, I put myself together a little bit more now when I go out because I, you know, have grown my reputation and my community and know a lot more people, as well. So, so really, it’s it’s sometimes not so tangible, but And that’s like social media, you know, sometimes people will see you continuously, but they may not say like, Okay, well, you’ve been showing up in front of me for a couple years on, you know, Instagram or whatever. You know, and that’s been ingrained in my mind, you know, but it’s, I usually try to think about the person. And if I do know them, usually, you know, how I’ve interacted with them. D.J. Paris 18:19Tell me, let’s talk about social media, because there’s so many different approaches to it. I’m curious of what works for you, and what social channels you focus on, and like what types of content you focus on? Sure. Jessica Burton 18:35Um, so I actually, I just took or I shouldn’t say, Jess was a couple months ago, I took Kim Berg’s video bootcamp and plug D.J. Paris 18:46that plug for. She is awesome. She’s one of our partners, she does episodes for us specifically on social media. She is amazing. She’s the real deal. And I’m so glad that you attended her course. Go ahead. No, I’m sorry. She’s Jessica Burton 19:00so great. I’m actually doing her poaching, of course, now. And that’s been wonderful. But she so I have a social media manager. And for probably two years, she kept saying, Jessica, you need to get on video, you know, these carousel picture. Posts, the algorithm doesn’t like it, you know, you really got to, you know, you’ve really got to amp it up, and she would give me these ideas and, you know, try to encourage me and then it really didn’t register until I had a person reach out to me through social media who’d said hey, I’ve been following you for years. I’d really like to purchase this home. I would love to hire you as my realtor. And that was a you know, $17,000 commission. So I thought to myself, like I can put out a few more reels I can, you know, I can do this. So that’s when I really got more serious about it and it first it was really really, you know, I was just not natural, I was just really hard on myself, I’m really in my head about it. And then I was led to Kim’s class and Ken within, like, a couple of days helped me and everyone else in the class, you know, just become more comfortable getting on video, you know, I stopped taking myself so serious and just started to have fun with it. And realize, like, you know, there, people on social media want to engage and connect, like, that’s the whole point of it. And I was doing it all wrong, like I would scroll, I wasn’t really engaging or commenting as much. And she, you know, gave me basically like an Instagram audit, and gave me the tools and courage, you know, encouragement, excuse me to just put myself out there. So, you know, I really I focus a lot on videos, reels. I also, you know, Eric, I’m engaging with a lot more people out there. D.J. Paris 20:56Yeah, I want to pause on that, because I want to make sure I get real, real clarity for our audience, when, when you say, engaging you were talking about as a consumer of social media, you would sort of do the infinite scroll, the more entertained by it in what I what I’m guessing. As far as increasing engagement, was you engaging with other people’s posts? Is that my understanding? Yes, Jessica Burton 21:19so that, so really commenting on people’s posts, because they’re putting them out there, and, you know, I would like them and move on. I also have been creating more polls, and realizing how much people people love to give their opinion. And I love seeing people’s opinions. So you know, you’re Mindlessly scrolling, and then you’re stopped with a poll, and a lot of times, people will, you know, they’ll tell me what they think or, you know, vote on it. So there’s just a lot more engagement that way. And, and then, you know, I was also I’ve also narrow down the kind of content I’m providing. So I’m a little bit more mindful, you know, trying to educate, but also entertain and, and just, you know, enjoy myself a little bit more. D.J. Paris 22:03So let’s talk about your video content. Because you’re right video is everything as as a as a writer, I’m I’m sort of at heart mostly more a writer than anything, and nothing is less sort of exciting for me than people moving away from writing, but I get it, it’s just where we are. So video is super, super important. Um, what kind of video content are you working on? And what do you put out there, I’m, what I’m curious about is, what percentage of it would be real estate focused, versus here’s, here’s what’s going on in my life outside of real estate. Yeah, Jessica Burton 22:37so I try to break it down a little bit. Because I did decide to do a, I have a business account, but I also mix in my personal life and there so I really broke it down in like four sectors. And so it’s Family, Occupation, relationships, and dreams. So I try to do 25% Family 25% occupation, you know, my real estate, business 25% relationships, so that’s gonna be like, you know, relationships with the community, or philanthropy or, you know, you know, just family friends a little bit more of, you know, that’s also tying into family, but just a little bit heavier on that side. And then dreams is also going to be a little bit more about, you know, how design or anything I’m really interested in. And that’s, you know, really isn’t mixed up from time to time. But I do, D.J. Paris 23:31you sort of alternate them, you’re, like, you know, you’re doing, you know, how many videos a week are you doing these days, roughly, Jessica Burton 23:38oh, gosh, I try to focus on like two reels a week, and then stories every day, but what we my social media person and I have organized is a calendar. So we have the calendar of posts of what we’re going to do for the next two months. And of course, that can change depending on if I get a new listing or need to, you know, market something, you know, we revisit that every two weeks and discuss what’s going on in the market. But it’s really that’s my goal, of course, you know, and, but that also comes down to you know, I have to backup and schedule a content, you know, afternoon to make sure that I do have, you know, these videos done so I’ve learned about and it’s so funny because I it makes me sound like I’m like a dinosaur or something. But, you know, like batching has become more popular. So I’ve been doing more batching because I D.J. Paris 24:29would let’s define batching for our audience. So batching is Jessica Burton 24:33when you actually just take a bunch of videos at once and that you can, you know, schedule for a different time. So it’s going to be as many as you’d like. So you would do like three separate videos that would you would span over two weeks. Got it. So that’s been really helpful because I was literally getting up and getting dressed and tried to do videos every single day and it was stressing me out. And you know, sometimes you wake up You do not want to be on camera. So I would just define, you know, a day a week, you know, for three hours, I’m gonna do videos. And here’s what I have in mind. And then planning ahead and having that, you know, I guess the plan and be mindful about it really helped me. D.J. Paris 25:14Curious, do you ever share and there isn’t a right or wrong answer here. I’m just curious, how do you ever share failures or mistakes, or I’m in a rough mood today, or this happened in my life? Obviously, everyone has personal boundaries. And those are everyone’s personal decision. But I’m just curious, I’ve started to notice a bit of a trend, at least here in our local market where I’m seeing Realtors start to talk a little bit more about, hey, this didn’t go my way today. And and there’s like a lesson that can be learned from that. It’s not just I’m complaining because it’s raining, and I wanted it to be sunny. But but you know, are you are you thinking about? I don’t know, do you share some of the some of the harder parts? Or is it? Is it more about all like, the fun stuff? Because people I think, like to see both? Yeah, Jessica Burton 26:00they do. So I think I share more of family life, you know, and sort of the Juggle juggling act, D.J. Paris 26:09or there’s lots of challenges. Jessica Burton 26:11Yes. So you know, I’ve done some, like days in the life of a realtor what people really like, and I’m like, you know, at first I was like, Who wants to see this, you know, who’s interested in this, but people really do want to connect with you that way. So I know, I kind of, I’m pretty light. You know, as far as like, the videos that I do, I’ll make jokes about like, you know, I mean, every realtor out there has probably experienced this where you can’t find like a key, you know, because it’s like the, the listing agent put it like two houses down, like behind a tree or something, you know, or you can’t unlock the door. And, you know, I’ve I’ve made jokes about that. But as far as like, you know, talking about the current state of the market, or, you know, being a little bit more vulnerable, I’m working on it, because I do think that it’s it’s good content, and it’s, it’s honest. D.J. Paris 27:03It is it’s it’s always to me, I’m always so impressed when somebody’s willing to share a difficult part of their life. And again, it’s not for everybody, for sure. And of course, we need to keep our privacy’s and, and things but I always encourage our audience to, you know, and again, I don’t think people ever want to hear you complain about stuff. But But sharing like this is, this has been a challenge today, because this this, and this happened, I think that would be really cool. A lot of times for audiences to know, like, Oh, these are the challenges Realtors face do, because of course, we know just how challenging it is. But I will say this, this is funny, I wanted to mention this, we were talking about video, we’re talking about video, and we’re talking about social media. And I was at a Zillow conference in the last few months, and they did a presentation and one of their presentations was like a two day thing. And they said, the headshot is dead. And I was like, Oh, I gotta go to this presentation. Because that sounds cool. So the headshot is dead. And what they were explaining is based on all their data, and they have more data about home buyers than anybody, of course. And they what they found is that with people who advertise on their site, meaning realtors who pay for leads, and that kind of thing, that if the headshot is if all things are kind of equal, meaning like the realtor is kind of about the same number of reviews. And you know, they’re looking at like three or four agents on a page when they’re looking at a listing, and they have to click one to ultimately decide on who the lead is going to go to. A lot of times, they said they have a 30% chance higher of being clicked. If it’s not a headshot, if it’s an action shot, I was like what’s an action shot, which basically just means the camera catches somebody doing something that’s not necessarily like staring at a camera looking perfect. And everyone’s you know, all filtered up. So this would be like catching you laughing or catching, you know, somebody smiling or, you know, whatever, making a grimace or some sort of silly thing, but when they’re not looking at the camera, so just a little tip there for everyone that just came to my book, but this is what we’re talking about sharing your life, right? Like the perfect headshot, nobody cares. But what people do like is they want to see the real person, you know, the real person behind it. So that’s where you can get videos of our real stories, that is such a great Jessica Burton 29:10funny because, you know, my corporate training really programmed me to try to be perfect and have it together and look, you know, look a certain way. And that’s, you know, I have fun, I bonded so much more with my clients and the people I’ve met when I’ve been vulnerable and real. You know, I mean, it’s not always sunshine and butterflies and you know, so it’s it that’s how you know I’ve also bonded with other realtors and you know, it’s beneficial for sure. D.J. Paris 29:42Yeah, I agree people connect to to imperfection and and challenge a lot more than they do to perfection because none of us can really connect with perfection. Unless we’re narcissist. If we’re narcissist then we think everything we do is perfect. So if that’s the case, you should go get help. But if you’re not if you’re a non narcissist This, what you find is you connect more with with people’s challenges. So anyway, I want to switch gears because there’s so much more to talk about. And I want to talk about how do we, you know, so we’re talking about, you know, building a brand, utilizing video and social media and other things that you’re doing. But you aren’t getting leads, leads coming in. And you know, what we know is getting generating leads is challenge number one, challenge number two is, oh, I have leads now, what do I actually do so that they don’t fall through the cracks? And then I don’t sort of, you know, not give that them the attention I need. So how are you staying on top of leads? Jessica Burton 30:35Yes. So I am really big on processes. I think that that was something that I realized early on, because I had both jobs, I didn’t have time to, you know, to go in and try to, you know, get organized every single day. I mean, I really, a CRM was something that I invested in early, because I knew that I needed to keep information in one place, I knew that I needed to figure out processes, and I couldn’t just like, you know, fly from the seat of my pants, which I did do for, you know, the first year. And, you know, so I am really big on processes, I follow the, like effective time management. So I think Rob Dyrdek is, is a big advocate of that. And so basically, what that is, is, is defining what you’re going to be doing basically every hour of your day. So it’s easier said than done, especially with having a family, especially with being in real estate, because you could have an email come in, or a call or anything that just, you know, steers your day in a different direction. So D.J. Paris 31:43you have to, you have two little ones that are, which you’ve said earlier, but we should also say are under the age of two. So you have you have a two year old and a nine month old. So you are you are crazy. This is like peak mom time right now fair to say Jessica Burton 31:57I have mastered the art of delegation, I mean, that has just like, that has been a game changer for me. So, you know, we have you know, I’ve thankfully, and I have a very supportive husband, I mean, he’s just, he’s wonderful. So that, you know, that helps so much. But, but really, you know, getting, making sure that my processor processes are in place. So, you know, I start I know, we were not talking about data, you know, the hours of every day, but something I do want to mention is, you know, we’ve got to have a lot of energy in this business, you know, we’ve having big energy, you know, and making sure that people know that we are prepared, and we can keep up, and we’re going to be there to, you know, provide the knowledge and, you know, make sure that we’re on top of, especially in the last couple of years, when things were moving so quickly. So I try to start every single day by working out before my kids get up. And then and that’s, that’s a, you know, hard and its own, but, but also, you know, trying to take a few minutes to have quiet time, like meditation time, I don’t want to call it meditation, because sometimes I can’t get out of my own head. But, you know, at least so I can set my day up and you know, have a clearer mind. So I can go into it, you know, really concentrating on work. So staying in front of clients is you know, been about my processes, but it’s going in, I try to contact at least two, two of my sphere, my that can be past clients, or, you know, clients I’m currently working with, and just just anyone that’s in my database, and I try to connect with them through a text message. I’ve actually since I took Kim’s class, I’ve been doing videos, like video text, sure. And people love it, you know, it’s really as something as easy as, like, Hey, I’ve been thinking about you and just wanted to say hi, or, Hey, like, I saw this, and, you know, I just wanted to see how everything was going or even, you know, if something has happened in someone’s life, that may not be so great, you know, you can give, you know, a nice message that way as well. So really trying to stay in front of people that way. But until I defined that I was going to actually follow up with two people a day, I would say and made sure as part of my processes, I would say I would do it but I wouldn’t do it. So now you know understanding from nine to 10am I’m following up with people D.J. Paris 34:29time blocking got you to actually complete the task correct. And, and and setting up your day before the day starts. Jessica Burton 34:38Yes. So I spend the last hour of my work day and I usually am in the office like nine to five I get home around 530 And of course you know, I try to devote that time when I get home to my kids but as we all know that doesn’t always work out. But at least you know have those couple hours before they go to bed. So if I know I’ve really concentrated and really put my head down at work and gotten through what I need to get through makes me feel so much better, you know, getting home, D.J. Paris 35:09how I want to go back to exercise for saying, We never talked about this on the show, and I just want to get your take on this, obviously everybody knows they need to act they should exercise for, you know, just for all sorts of reasons that are beneficial that I don’t need to go over. I’m curious on how important exercise whether it’s strength training, or cardio or accommodation, it’s, I’m curious, have you talked about needing the energy to do the job and we know this is a high energy job, how critical and you’re busy mom, you’ve got two little ones, you’ve running a business, you’re also running a household with your husband, you’re busy, yet you’re making time for this. And a lot of for a lot of us, exercise is going to be the thing that first goes when we get busy, because number one, it’s painful and hard. And you know, sweating is no fun. And but how important is that so that you can do all of your time blocking? In other words, I’m curious to know just how critical it is for you. Because I suspect it’s it’s obviously so important that you’re putting at the very front of every day. Yeah. Jessica Burton 36:12Well, it’s for me, you know, when, when I am exercising, it’s helping me create more energy because I’m in better shape. I you know, in addition to exercising, that’s also trying to eat clean. I definitely love my occasional glass of wine or a beer. So, you know, everything in moderation, right. But, you know, just trying to live a healthier lifestyle, so that, you know, it really helps me clear my mind. I mean, and I also, you know, after you have, I guess going back to having children, you know, they just they suck the nutrients out of your body. And you’re kind of weak for a while. And I noticed that. So even before I had children, I was like, you know, running half marathons. I did a half Ironman. But so and I’ve always been in when I was growing up, I was a competitive speedskater Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. So So physical D.J. Paris 37:11fitness is is always been important to me. Yeah, you’re very humble about it. But you’re clearly this has been a big part of your life. It Jessica Burton 37:19has been. But I also realize how you know, it helps with your endorphins. And it helps it has so many positive stress release. Yep. So and I feel like I mean, I so I’m a runner. So I usually run like three times a week, and then do like strength training two days a week. But I have just, that’s my, I call it my church, like, that’s when I can go out, I don’t have to think about the stresses of my day, or you know what I have going on, I can and sometimes I do, of course, but I can just really be out there and just be with myself and have some quiet time because you really don’t get that quiet time with kids or being in real estate. And usually my phone doesn’t start ringing until seven, you know, on most days. So it’s really, it’s been very important and impactful. So I still am a goal setter. So I’m still like setting goals, you know, to look forward to. And it’s another way to bond with people too, you know, trying to get into golf, my husband loves golf. And I found that that’s another you know, anything that I can that I have made. And I’m interested in a lot of different things. But I also feel like there’s a benefit to it. Because you know, you’ll be able to get out there be with people relate to someone, and just have a good time. When D.J. Paris 38:35also you have that athlete background. So this competition part is is sort of hardwired into you. It’s clearly, you know, works for your business as well. But yeah, I agree. I really would encourage everyone if you’re not currently exercising, we all struggle wanting to exercise. Nobody really wants to x at least I’ve ever met. Actually, I’ve met a few people that like exercising, but I certainly don’t. But if you can just force yourself to do it. If there’s other there’s lots of ways to force yourself. And I hate to even say force yourself because your personal trainer, I do have a purse. Yeah, I just actually came from her right before I come here. So sadly, I the only thing that works for me is the most expensive way to do it. But to do it, so whatever exactly Jessica Burton 39:16whatever works for you. I mean, I’m not the thing. Like there’s so many different ways to exercise like dancing. And, you know, I mean, we’re exercising every day. I remember when I was pregnant, I was like walking up four flights of stairs, and I was like God, I’m glad I’m exercising because I would have never made this. D.J. Paris 39:33What I will tell people is if you do nothing else in your business, if you change nothing else about what you’re doing, but you just get in physical shape. And I mean working out to a maximum intensity of about a seven out of 1010 being oh my god, I just collapsed. You don’t have to do that. But if you can get in. Look, I’m no expert, but I’m just telling you what I’ve heard. If you can do a seven out of 10 three times a week for you know, however much, many minutes it makes sense for you to do that. I bet you your business will increase because your energy will increase, your stress will decrease, you’ll have more time to put on your business. And just try it. And let me know if it doesn’t work for you. But it is it is a hard path. That’s the challenge with with with exercises is, of course it, I think it’s Jessica Burton 40:16really you can relate it to your business too, because you know, everyone started somewhere. So everyone was at the beginning of you know, their fitness journey, or their real estate journey. And then, you know, if you look at it that way, like it’s not going to be, you’re not going to go from zero to 100 in one day, like set those small goals. And then you’ll just get you’ll improve over time. I mean, that’s, it’s helpful to look at it that way. I D.J. Paris 40:41had to do earlier today, I had to do push ups until I collapsed three different times. Yeah, now, we don’t always do that. But, but I will tell you, that never gets easy. That’s never fun. It’s always super painful and brutal. But you know what, it’s a it’s a good idea. So if anything, we just encourage you to get physically fit for all the other reasons that you should, but it will help your business, I want to talk about delegation. And then I want to get into managing the roller coaster that we’re currently on. Right, we’re maybe we’re down in a dip at this point with rates and inventory. But before that, let’s talk about how you delegate because you’ve had amazing success once you started delegating. And let’s first define like delegating means taking some, you know, some activities off of our plate that we think could be better suited for someone else, maybe because we’re either not very good at it, or we don’t like doing it or takes up too much of our time. But something that if we didn’t have to do it ourselves, but still needed to get done, that we could pay somebody or or maybe team up with somebody to do so let’s talk about what are some of those tasks that you decided to delegate? And then how did you delegate them? Jessica Burton 41:47Sure. So I currently have a virtual assistant, she is so wonderful, I’m so in. There’s a company in Texas that actually trains these virtual assistants, she’s in the Philippines, on Texas real estate contracts. So this was like, you know, I had wanted an assistant for a couple years, I actually got her in 2021 as well. And she’s wonderful. And I wanted an assistant but I wasn’t ready to commit to, you know, the cost of having one, you know, I was worried that maybe I would get this assistant in, my business wouldn’t do as well. And of course, when I was ready to take the leap of faith, but hadn’t, but when I did, it was just a wonderful decision. So she handles everything from, you know, all the admin responsibilities, communicating with clients through email, setting up meetings, who does personal stuff for me, you know, personal stuff for, like, needs for my family. And, and then I also realized, I mean, it was taking me like two hours to do like a social media post. And I just didn’t love it. I, I was I mean in the generation of tech, but I just, I was in my head too much about it. So I, that was the, that was actually the first thing I delegated. I’m now that I’m thinking about it. And that was a godsend as well. So what I realized, like going through this, and having the time that I’ve gotten back, is that I want to delegate everything, you know, everything other than being in front of clients, because that’s what my strong suit is. I do love the marketing side too. So I really, you know, doing some of that as well. But that is time consuming, but really been out there, you know, lead generating and having client, you know, being in front of my clients. That’s what I really want to focus on. So I was able, when I really when I implemented both the Social Media Manager and the VA assistant, I grew my business about 30%. And it was, you know, I wish I would have done it sooner. So that’s why I’m currently looking for someone in person because I still have, you know, I do drop offs for clients, quarterly. So I hire like high schoolers in my neighborhood to go and do this. And that’s been you know, they go off to college. So you have to find, you know, new people every few years. I also, you know, have someone who puts out open science, Open House signs for me, you know, people who go and put suprise and these are all people that I have found, you know, and so having, I would really like to have an in person assistant who I can ask to do all of these things. If you’re D.J. Paris 44:38in the Houston area and you’re looking to also learn from somebody, maybe you’re a realtor and you’re newer to the business or you’re just looking for some additional work, but you want to learn from somebody who’s crushing it, reach out, reach out to Jessica and we’ll give her contact information will be in the show notes. We’ll give it out at the end as well. I’m curious about one another question about delegation. So you talked about a lot of times that the objection to that will be, oh, I can’t afford it. It’s too expensive. And I’m certainly not going to ask you what you spend on that. However, what I’m curious about is how long it took you before you broke even with your, in other words, you know, you have somebody as an assistant, that you’re paying them, whatever, whatever you’re paying them at point, you know, where you’re like, This is now working, and I’m actually making money more money, because you increased revenue by 30%. Did it take a long time for that 30% to kick in? Or was it was it pretty quick, or in the middle? It Jessica Burton 45:36was very, it was very quick. I mean, I’d say within a matter of months, wow. D.J. Paris 45:40It’s a pretty amazing return. Actually, if we think about think about, like, if you could get 30% return on your money in a couple of months, that would, that’s probably not exactly what happened for you. But whatever, 10%, even in a couple of months, you’re like, a financial genius. So this is clearly the numbers make sense. And thank goodness for virtual assistants, for people that agents that are listening that maybe, you know, can’t afford to pay somebody, you know, locally, maybe the, you know, the salary will just be too high. There are virtual assistants, Philippines is a huge source of that. So you certainly can find people and you’re going to be giving work to people who want work, and they are going to tell you what they would like to be paid. It’s not like you’re deciding, they are going to tell you, and then you can determine if that makes sense. But you can find people for really inexpensive. Well, and Jessica Burton 46:30I’ll add to that, too, because I came up with every excuse, you know, there was I was like, Oh, God, it’s gonna take me so long to train someone, and I just don’t have the capacity for this. And yes, there definitely was, you know, that the couple of months that we had to, you know, get adjusted, but, you know, she was the, the benefit that she gave to me and, you know, to my business was was well worth it. And, you know, she’s come up with other ideas for the business and have has continued to help threads. So it was a great decision. That’s D.J. Paris 47:06awesome. Let’s talk about where we are currently in the market. So well, we know where we’re are for listening. This is 2023 October, we’re getting towards the end of the year, we know what kind of year this was for most agents, and it wasn’t the easiest year for most agents. So how are you staying motivated? How are you staying? Busy? Are you changing any of your activities? Did you change activities this year to kind of meet the market? Or was it I’m just going to put the blinders on and do what I always have done? Because that that continues to work for you? You Jessica Burton 47:37know, yeah, there’s definitely been a shift, I think it’s something like 80,000 agents have left the industry this year. And I mean, the Houston market has just been saturated with realtors the last couple of years, which, you know, I’m sure that’s the same story elsewhere. But, um, but really, it’s made me focus more on my processes, and, you know, really try to be in front of people. So delegating even more responsibility for, you know, administrative work to my assistant so that I can go and, you know, have more lunches, or more coffees or stop, you know, drop bys to my clients. So, in addition to calling two clients a day, I’ve increased that, you know, some days it’s four, sometimes it’s five. But I’ve really, I have, you know, I’d make sure I’ve and I’ve had this in place for years, I’ve made sure that I send you know, handwritten birthday cards and handwritten notes. I every Thursday from 10 to 11. I do that. And, and then really just, you know, scanning social media see if or LinkedIn to see if there’s anything exciting happening in the clients life, so I can congratulate them. I think, you know, I mentioned the drop offs as well. So gearing up for my, you know, Halloween drop offs and Christmas. I also do a breakfast with Santa, then this will be my fifth annual. And it’s really grown. I mean, we are we I should, it’s my team. But me, I’m the person that puts it on, I just have a team that helps me to organize it. But it started during COVID and 2020. And, you know, we had like 20 families who came on like time blocks because we didn’t want to, you know, expose people. And now it’s like 200 or 250 people. And it’s become like a, you know, I’ve seen these kids take pictures with Santa through the years. So I’m like a big grown up with me. And I’ve just, I really, I think that there’s a lot of myths. There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what’s happening in the market. So I’m making sure to research and educate myself. So when I talk to a client, for instance, I have a client who has been they’ve been looking for a house they have two small children. They outgrew their three, two and they want to move to for three, we just found the perfect house yesterday, it’s gorgeous, it’s priced well, and there are multiple offers on it already, because that’s still what we’re seeing in some of the markets in Houston, because inventory is still so low. And they just, you know, they just like everyone else there, they refinance the last couple years. And they said that they’re nervous, and, you know, don’t know if this is the right time, and what do they do, they think the prices are going to come down. And, you know, it’s just me, calming them down and explaining to them like, you know, we have the higher mortgage rates right now, but there are a lot of people who are on the fence and waiting, and you know, when those mortgage rates come down, it’s going to open the floodgates. And, you know, it may not be, you know, that may not be the best time to buy your, you know, it’s economics, you’re not going to be in a low mortgage, you know, low price point market at the same time. So it’s, for me, it’s just really, in social media has helped with that, too. So me just making sure people know, hey, I’m still in real estate, I’m still here to help you. And then trying to just make sure that I’m in front of people more than ever, and showing, you know, I’ve really, I think something else that set me apart, as a realtor is just really showing people that I care. I mean, these are people that I meet I, my clients become friends for life, because I genuinely do care about, you know, where they are in their life and this exciting milestone. But really, I’m just, I’m continuing and being consistent with what I’m doing. Because I know, you know, oftentimes, when people get nervous or theirs, they can feel a shift, a lot of people go into themselves, and they don’t stay consistent. So you know, more than ever, I’m just making sure that I’m on top of, you know, what I need to do and taking care of people. D.J. Paris 51:56And let’s talk about encouragement. Because you this is a business that is a sort of, it’s funny, because it’s an interpersonal business, we’re doing face to face interactions, at least thankfully, we’re able to do that, currently. And, but we oftentimes work alone, and we work in a silo, most of our day is spent, you know, maybe working from home, and we’re not as maybe connected, real estate offices are emptier than as technologies improved. It’s just people don’t have to go in as much. And so it’s it’s created a lot of I think, a lot of isolation. And I’m curious on you know, isolation is good, but it can be challenging when it’s a harder time, like maybe now and it’s easy to, to just, you know, not feel the best. And so how do you set up encouragement to? How do you like, what is your support system look like? So that you’re getting the encouragement you need, when times are maybe more challenging? Jessica Burton 52:54Well, um, you know, it’s, I think it’s about community in a way. So like, I go into my office every day. I mean, I really can’t work from home, because of the kids. But yeah, a lot of loud dogs. So, so I go in the office. So I’m there, you know, with some of my, my team members. And, you know, I think everyone has downside, so I make sure that I’m working out because I know that’s gonna help me and I listened to your podcast religiously, you know, in other podcasts, like, I think another person mentioned, Ed, my let love him. He’s just very encouraging. And, and that’s the thing I, I tried to, you know, surround myself with positive people, you know, people that are like, feeling like, it’s doomsday. I don’t want to hear that. I don’t want that to come into my space. Because, you know, that’s what you think is, is usually, you know, what is the expression like how your reality is. So I just really try to stay positive. And I also tried to get creative, you know, this is the time, like, who cares? You know, try something out. You know, try to make sure that I’m staying within my budget, but, you know, it doesn’t hurt to just, you know, try different things out or get creative or brainstorm with other people. So, you know, I also have a good team in my office, like I mentioned, my broker’s super encouraging, and, you know, I have a group of other realtors in the office that we, we just all sort of are there for one another. And also, my sister is wonderful. But really, it’s just, you know, making sure that I’m taking care of myself and staying consistent, like I mentioned. D.J. Paris 54:42I like that. You know, one thing you also had mentioned your husband earlier is obviously being an incredible amount of support. It was one of the first things you said earlier in the episode. And you know, for those of us that don’t have a partner who you know, is either is supportive or we don’t have a partner at all, this Here’s where it becomes really important if you do work from home, to have a support system and have people like you were mentioning your sister, co workers, etc, that, you know, if you are somebody that you know gets bummed out working at home, then find find someone, a realtor, Jessica Burton 55:14I will talk to you, and encourage you. I mean, we’re all you know, that it ebbs and flows. And sometimes we have good days, and sometimes we have bad days. But I mean, it makes such a difference when you like, whenever I’m in a down mood, and I call a friend who I know is gonna be in a down mood, like, nothing is good, nothing good comes from that conversation. D.J. Paris 55:34Very, very true. Yeah. So find, find people that that of course, share your worldview. And, and we all we all need support, that’s another thing. So if you don’t have a good support system, make 20 the rest of this year, the way that you find your support your tribe, find the people that are like you that that will encourage you that you can encourage, and you’ll help each other kind of that’s that, you know, rising tide raises all ships kind of kind of analogy. This has been really, really interesting, I want to just also talk, I want to end with just a little bit about process, because I know you’re a process person. So tell us a little bit about what process means to you. And maybe if you could share one or two of your processes that are really important for you. I know, we talked about time blocking, obviously, that’s one, but we’d love to hear any others. Jessica Burton 56:22Sure. So you know, I’ll concentrate on marketing a little bit. So I make sure that whenever I’m gearing up for you know, my client interaction that I stay in front of my people at least once every two months, and that’s really dependent on the tier. So follow up boss again, going back to that, I have broken out my people into different tiers. So this is going to be you know, my referral partners, there’s a great function like you can add tags to your people. So in that can group them in their different categories. So, for instance, I’ve got, you know, my people, my million dollar plus clients, you know, or in one tear, and then I’ve got my referral group or, you know, which is like my top 20 People who refer to business to me, or clients who, you know, have been past buyers, and, you know, did it’s really broken down into, like the price point segment. But having that there, because that also includes their birthdays, so I know that you know, I can see when their birthdays come up, so I can make sure that that card is sent out and they know that they’re cared for. I also am collecting information throughout the month to put into my monthly newsletter. So a new the newsletter, I’ve actually done this the cheaper way, I use MailChimp. So it’s like $10 a month. And and then I go to a website called lighter side of real estate, lighter side of real estate, they have all of these really helpful, like articles and like memes. And, you know, and if you cute and funny based, yes, yes. But it also has a lot of, you know, home related articles, or just like, you know, even like mortgage, what’s going on with just homes in general, like the market. And so I will build my newsletter throughout the month out any Houston happenings. And then make sure that, you know, each day, I’m really trying to focus on what’s happening in my clients lives or what’s happening, you know, throughout a process. So every Tuesday and Thursday, I do check ins with my active clients, just just, you know, even if I had nothing to say to them, I usually just say, you know, here’s what’s going on, here’s what we have to look forward to. I also have a timeline that is sent out to them whenever a transaction begins. So that’s going to tell them the important dates. So I’ll go back, I’ll reference that when we’re talking on the phone. A lot of these people, you know, are busy professionals. So I’m texting with them a lot. And that’s when also I’ll do a quick video and just say, hey, here’s where we are, just so they know that I’m there. And I haven’t just disappeared, even if nothing’s going on. So really, those are some of the processes. I don’t know if there was anything specific. No, no. D.J. Paris 59:20No, of course. Of course you can. No, that is that is I think incredibly helpful. I mean, we did we did a lot this is we’re coming up on an hour and we did a lot I mean we I could talk to you all day, and I would but then you wouldn’t get any you then your time blocking would really really get screwed up and I don’t I don’t want that in my conscious as affecting your day in that way. So you have been amazing and I will absolutely love to bring you back because justice is on. She’s on the rise. I mean she’s been doing this seven years but she is consistently growing her business year over year even in these tough markets. So she is in the process of looking for some for an assistant so In person, a local assistant, just what are you looking for just for any of our audience who is might be considering wanting to work with you, I’m Jessica Burton 1:00:06sure. So I’m someone who is comfortable with administrative work. So you know, there’s a lot of compliance documents and contracts. So if you have real estate experience, that would be helpful, if you’re licensed, that would be even better. But I’m also happy to help with that. And then someone that is comfortable with client interfacing, and communications, someone that also has marketing experience, social media, I mean, just to, you know, well rounded, but also, if you don’t, if you aren’t strong in one of these areas, I’m also really open to mentorship and just helping you grow. I truly believe that if someone is a rat, round me, I want to see them succeed. And you know, want to help you and you know, whatever capacity that I can, so, you know, it’s kind of a, I also just want someone who can keep up with me. D.J. Paris 1:01:04Well, if anyone out there feels like this could be a possible fit, what’s the best way they should reach out to you? Jessica Burton 1:01:10Sure. So um, I’m on Instagram at Jess K. Burton. Or you can call me at 281-704-2061 or email me at Jessica at Indie quest dotnet. D.J. Paris 1:01:26Awesome. Well, also, everybody should follow Jess at just k Burton on Instagram. And you can find her on all the other social channels as well. But she talked a lot about what she does for social media. So if you would like to see what somebody who’s got a pretty good handle on social media, what they do on a regular basis, follow her on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, see what she’s doing. And guess what you can, you know, inspiration, you can take her inspiration and actually duplicate hopefully some of her success. And she’s just a heck of a nice person. So let her know that you appreciate it are coming out on the show reach out to her we are I just had a guest. No, I never tell her audience to do this. But we just had a guest reach out. She said, I just was on your show. And I got over 100 emails. So and obviously. Yeah, I don’t want I don’t want to bombard you with our audience emails. But if you did appreciate just in the show, let her know she she said something very kind to me, which reminded me to do this. Before we started, she had said something that that was very impactful to me. And so please let her know how much you appreciate her being on the show. So on behalf of the audience, this is a great place to wrap up. Thank you. We appreciate you Jesse are a wonderful person. You could tell it comes through in the way that you communicate and obviously your great realtor as well. And you’re so generous and willing to share exactly how you grow your business. So we will definitely want to have you back on you know when when things are even more crazy and impressive for you because of course they will be. And so on behalf of the audience thanks Jess. And on behalf of Justin myself, we do this because everyone who is listening to our words just in my words right now, this is all for you. So thank you for taking time out of your day to listen and try to improve some part of your business I hope you got some value here I know I did. So again let just know that you appreciated it follow on social shoot or a quick message she’d she’d appreciate it too. And again, thank you for listening. We just asked our audience please tell a friend just was telling me she does this with realtors that for this podcast which Thank you just for that. Please do the same. We appreciate it. let someone else know especially there’s so many great things that just said to do practical things that you could do just by listening to this particular episode. So shoot a link over we would appreciate it and we will see em Thanks, Jess. We will see everybody on the next podcast episode and Thanks, Jess. Thank you

In our October episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @properties and Christie’s International shares tips that have worked for her while negotiating in creating a win-win situation for everyone. Carrie emphasizes the importance of knowing what your client wants but also paying attention to the desires of the other side of the negotiation. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Carrie can be reached at carrie@atproperties.com or by phone at 312.961.4612. Please follow Carrie on Instagram by clicking here. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today we’re going to be speaking with one of the top Realtors in the country about exactly how she negotiates for her clients. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase 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 and now on to our show. Welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast made for real estate agents and by real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show today, as always, is our monthly series called The Monday market minute with Carrie McCormick from the Carey McCormick Real Estate Group with AP properties here in Chicago. She Carrie is a top top one she’s more than a tough 1% Pretty she’s a top point 00 1% producer in Chicago with over 20 years of experience helping buyers sellers and investors. And just to show you how much production she does. There’s about 47,000 realtors in the Chicagoland area Carrie is often ranked in literally the top 15 Sometimes the top 10 sometimes higher than that. So she is an amazing superstar. And she is an expert in everything from first time homebuyers, veteran investors, and luxury properties. She also works with a lot of developers and is often chosen to represent their high end developments. Please visit Kerry at our website, Kerry McCormick rt.com. And also please follow her on Instagram, Carrie McCormack real estate, we will have a link to that in the show notes and want it by the way, Kerry’s Instagram, or social media in general is so effective, that she was just recently nominated for Best real, it’s the best realtor social media in Chicago. And you can actually vote for her by going to the link in our show notes for Chicago agent magazine. So if you’d like Carrie and loved listening to her episodes, please consider voting for her in she’s actually social media influencer of the year. So check, check that out and vote for her please. All right, Carrie, welcome once again to the show. Carrie McCormick 3:16Thank you. Thank you. And I’m just trying to think how long have I been on your show? D.J. Paris 3:21Five or six? Well, ever since the beginning. So I think it’s been at least five years thinks six years. Carrie McCormick 3:26I just I think back to the beginning. So thanks for having me. And I love being part of it and sharing my knowledge and listening to all of your guests as well. I think it’s a great community to be part of. So thank you. D.J. Paris 3:39Well, whenever I run into You’re welcome. And thank you. And whenever I run into agents here locally in the Chicagoland market, they always reference your episodes, in particular, because you are so well respected and regarded in Chicago, and you know, of course elsewhere, but it is it is always fun. You know, because we don’t I don’t do so many Chicago episodes anymore. And so it’s nice to when I run into people, they’re like, oh, my gosh, I can’t believe you have carry on the show every every month, like you’re very much looked up to in this industry. So what would you like to talk about today? Carrie McCormick 4:12Well, we’re in the fall market here in Chicago. And you know, we’re in q3. And I feel like negotiations on deals have been changing a little bit. So, you know, there’s all different types of negotiation strategies. And as everyone knows, each deal is different. We have a lot of different personalities in the deal. You know, the sellers, the buyers, the brokers getting obviously are involved. Families sometimes get involved. So there’s just a lot of personalities and I just wanted to share some tips that I have in that have been successful for me in negotiating in creating a win win for both. I mean, I think that’s a common term that people say is you know, everyone feels like they want When are both sides are upset, you know, you’ve got a great negotiation going. But you know, there’s ways to strategize and get to the finish line. So I thought it’d be helpful to share what I know. And the first one is to figure out what the other side wants, and what drives them to be making these decisions. So in our industry, obviously, it’s buying and selling a home. So think about your first showing with the person, that’s your time to really interact with that buyer, or the seller and the broker to ask questions, obviously, we’re there to sell the home. But throughout that process, you know, we can ask questions that are about, you know, where do you live? Where are you currently living? Now? What do you not like about your house? Is it too small? Is it too big, and obviously, don’t ask it the way I’m asking them now. But you know, you you learn about their family, you learn if they’re renting, this is going to help formulate, if they are to make an offer on your listing is now you’ve got a little bit of background on them. Right. And again, it’s not it. It’s about leveraging your position, but it’s also the point of it is figuring out what they want, and what drives them. Right. So if they’re renting, Oregon, if they’re in a house in the neighborhood, and they’re having a child and schools are important to them, they really want to play room, you know, again, asking the right questions is going to lead to understanding your position when shooting, and you learn what’s personally important to them. Right? I also think it’s a good idea to not only understand what the buyer’s or seller’s want, but also you’re in front of their representative their broker. So you know, learn a little bit about that broker, what’s their negotiating style? Like? What is their track record? Have they sold in the neighborhood? Do they understand the cups? You know, maybe that broker doesn’t really know, the Linkin Park, single family home market, you know, so you can be an advocate to them and say, Hey, listen, I know that you haven’t sold a lot of homes and Linkin Park. So I went ahead and I prepared the CMA for you, Mr. Broker, you know, this might help just kind of show you what the last six months have looked like here. D.J. Paris 7:16Wow. So I just want to pause for a second because that is a very, very interesting, I’m curious. So basically, you have a buyer, and you’re bringing them to a listing, and then you can do some due diligence on the listing agent. And you can actually see if they’ve sold homes via the MLS in that market before, if you don’t recognize the name, or if it’s somebody that hasn’t doesn’t have a track record, you then will reach out and say, Hey, I know you may be new to this area, or you know, not as familiar with it, here’s some information that might help you. And is that usually well received? Because I could see agents getting offended. But that but I guess it’s all in how you present it. Carrie McCormick 7:55And it’s the delivery of the information, right? You know, and yes, I’m sure some people would get offended by that. But it’s not in a it’s just more of an educational, but I really don’t go that route. And unless I know my clients interested in the home, you know, I’m not gonna go do do all that due diligence. But sure, you know, and again, you the showing process is kind of like an interview process, right? Because especially if I’m with a buyer, and well, let me just reverse it, I’ve had buyers come into my listing, and they’re very difficult, right, they just they rip apart the home, like, Oh, my God, look at the way that this looks, this person hasn’t taken care of the home, and you can just tell with the personality, you know, they don’t like it or you know, they’re not there, they’re going to be difficult or you know, so you just kind of need to observe and understand. You know, what is the buyer, maybe the buyer wants to get the kitchen, you know, so I know now that when they come in with an offer, it’s going to be lower, because they need to factor in their costs. So again, during the showing process, of course, our job is to sell the home and highlight everything, but be observant, ask the right questions. So if that person was to make an offer on your home, you do have a little more information of what’s important to them, what drives them, and how to successfully get to a reasonable price when they make the offer. The other one is which I think is very important. I I’m primarily what we call a seller’s broker, I represent sellers, right. So understanding what my leverage is, right? So if I have a listing that’s on a wide lot, modern finishes in a great school district and there is nothing else on the market like that in Lincoln Park. I’m just making up a story. I know what my leverage is in this market, right? So when I’m there presenting the home, again, I can point out all of these facts and my cost per square foot. You know the age of the home the attributes that my home has that no other home has it it, if my home has everything every other home has, I’m not going to bring it up, I don’t have any leverage because there’s 10 other homes in the market that have the Sub Zero fridge up, right. But if my home is the only home that has x, I am definitely going to make sure I point that out and pointed out that I am the only home that has x. That’s my leverage, right. So again, understanding what that buyer wants. And then knowing what my leverage points are, make sure that I highlight those during my showing. And these are all very done, obviously, professionally and in good spirit. But again, the underlying message is preparing for that negotiation and preparing to get this house sold. The other one I wanted to mention is I love this one is agree on when you get an offer, agree on the easy stuff at the beginning. And what I mean by that, obviously, price is always going to be the contentious point of a negotiation, but agree on the small stuff, whether it’s a closing date with that not that small stuff, but you know, closing date or their pre approval letter or I don’t know, whatever it is, if there’s small stuff that they’re negotiating, just agree on that stuff. It just sets the tone for a nice negotiation. Two examples that I just had recently is we were kind of in the standoff of $100,000 apart on a deal. I’m on the seller side, you know, the natural thing is to meet in the middle, right? And that’s kind of everyone’s Oh, just let’s meet in the middle. When when. And so I prepped my seller for that. I said, Listen, we’re $100,000 apart on a multi million dollar deal. It’s it’s peanuts at this point, I’m the buyer is going to come back and split the difference, right? And he’s like, okay, a typical negotiation, right? The buyer came back with 60,000, instead of splitting the difference. And, and the broker said, We’re doing this to show good faith, that we’re a good buyer, and we want to get it done. And I thought, What a great move, he just made art. You know, it was $10,000. But what that did was my seller was so happy with this buyer. And said, let’s take it I mean it was done deal, sealed and delivered. Now we’re gonna go into negotiations of inspection items. Well, what did that seller just or the buyer just do? Sorry. He set himself up that if anything comes up in negotiations, my seller now thinks he’s $10,000. Ahead of that split in the middle thing he may give into it. But anyways, I just thought it was D.J. Paris 12:43Oh, that’s easy. I didn’t think about that. That’s yeah, that’s great as well. Yeah, Carrie McCormick 12:48that guy’s brilliant. Listening, he did a brilliant move. Another thing that just happened, which I also thought was brilliant, which came from me, so I have to take credit is I did a showing, and the client fell in love with a chair. Love this chair, you know, and so when they made the offer right out the gate, we said, you know, thank you for the offer. You know, we understand how much you love that chair, we just want to give you the chair, if you get if you buy the house, we want to give you Yeah, and the buyer was so happy. And we set that tone of that negotiation. In a good spirit. The buyer was so we thought that was so thoughtful. The broker came back to me said, Okay, now what do you guys want. And I said, nothing. We don’t want anything. I mean, obviously, we’re going to negotiate. But that was just a good gesture. My client knew how much you guys love that chair there, it’s not going to fit into their new home. If we come to an agreement, no strings attached, we want you to have the chair. D.J. Paris 13:49And that really requires you as the listing agent paying attention to the buyer and noticing Ooh, there’s something we could maybe we could do something for them. Because it’s probably not that common that somebody walks by or walks in and goes, oh my god, I gotta have that chair. Because they’re obviously thinking, you know, they’re gonna probably replace all the stuff that’s movable anyway. But I guess when you hear that, that’s an opportunity for you to come back because people get so emotionally tied to things. And yeah, and that is a great way. Especially furniture, I mean, furniture is a thing we just get, we get really excited about when we see a piece that really is like that would look cool in my place. So yeah, that’s a great, so those are two unbelievably good suggestions. Carrie McCormick 14:34So writing from a place of goodwill, right. So, and understanding again, in the beginning of a negotiation, you know, what is your purpose? What is your leverage, what the buyer wants, what the seller wants, and you can convey all of that and be strategic. And of course, at the end of the day, you know, you want to get the we’re fiduciaries to our client we want to get you know the best deal possible, but there’s ways to kind of maneuver that where everyone comes Out of the negotiation, feeling good about it. And that’s what we want. We want everyone to feel like they won. D.J. Paris 15:07And do you often if you don’t, maybe often, if you don’t know what the other side wants, I guess this is where good relationships come in where you could talk to the to the, you know, the buyers broker and have those conversations of yes, okay, well fit well with negotiating the price. But what are there any little things that we can agree upon now? To get them out of the way? I love that? Yeah, Carrie McCormick 15:30no, it’s easy. And my last tip to you this one, I say, exercise with caution with severe caution is, sometimes we need to put the decision makers in a room together, not physically, but maybe sometimes over the phone, I have done it in the past physically, which worked out really well. But you do have to be careful. And when I say the decision makers, I mean, the buyers and the sellers, because sometimes the agents, you know, there’s a lot on tag, right, that happens through the negotiation process. Sometimes there’s a lot of things that get misinterpreted based on an email tone, or text tone, or voicemail tone, or whatever it is. So I’ve had some negotiations that I’ve just put the buyer and seller together with us present, of course, on a phone call together, you know, and like I said, I’ve had them face to face as well. Sometimes when you have the decision makers together, you have a very successful outcome. I’d say every time I’ve done it, I’ve had a very successful outcome where, you know, like, they’re friends now. And it just especially when you’re dealing with certain personalities, it does work. But you that’s where you have to know your client, and you have to understand and know the know if it’s a good idea. So that’s why I say exercise with caution. But if you feel you’re at a point with good personalities you feels can be done, you know, getting the decision makers in the room. D.J. Paris 16:59It’s a great idea because we humans are wired for connection. And so we’re wired to get along mostly. So when you get two people who are in kind of an adversarial position, you know, competing against each other negotiating against each other, and you’re able to bring them into a room and it’s not a contentious environment, hopefully, then they actually like you said they actually bond closer together, they end up probably liking each other a little bit more at least, than they did before. And they end up wanting to work together and get the deal close. So I think those are all Wow, this is a great episode. We’re let’s cap it there because those were those were three amazing things in Karis. Gotta go more. Go ahead. No, you do. Okay. Well, that’s enough. Because that will save it will save other things for for next episodes. And boy that those are three amazing tips of great negotiation tips there for for our audience, please consider using that Carrie uses these herself and she is incredibly successful. So it would be behoove everyone to consider implementing some of these into their process. And please a couple of things to please remember to follow Carrie on Instagram. So you can find her at Kerry McCormick real estate, we’ll have a link to that in the show notes or websites Carrie McCormack RT. And if you are an agent in a another part of the country, Carrie works the Chicagoland area. But maybe you have clients that move to Chicago, she would love the opportunity to partner with you. And also she has clients that move out of Chicago. So if you are an agent that would like to maybe connect with Carrie, you can do that. Fine, you know, hit her up on Instagram or you can, you can email her she’s super easy to find just Google Carrie Carrie McCormick. And also, if you are an agent’s know Carrie has a team and if you think you would be a good addition to Karis team, certainly feel free to reach out. And you know if she has any openings or any opportunities, she will let you know. But and also, let’s remember to vote for her for influencer of the year with Chicago, I will have a link to that in the show notes. So even if you are not a Chicago broker, you can still vote. So we will have a link to that in the show notes. So please do that support our guests and our our fellow hosts like Carrie. And guys, let us also know what you would like Carrie to talk about on future episodes, she is going to be giving away you know her processes. So she is incredibly high producing agents. So let’s let us know what you would like to see from her hear from her. And on behalf of the audience. Thank you Carrie. As per usual, she has been with us since the very beginning. We love having her on and she is just a part of the show. So we’re so grateful for you on behalf of the audience. Thank you. And on behalf of Carrie and myself thanks to the audience. And please remember to tell a friend think of just one other agent everybody that could benefit from maybe somebody who needs some negotiation help send them a link to this episode and you know, just any Podcast Directory has our our links or you can send them to our website keeping it real pod.com By the way, we just crossed over 3 million downloads. So thank you to everybody for listening to You want to support our show, please also support our sponsors. They’re the reason we can keep doing these. So anyway, we will see everybody on the next episode. Thank you Carrie. Thank you

Welcome to Breaking Down Ali’s Systems mini-series with Ali Garced. In this mini-series Ali will be explaining how she built her systems both for buyers and for sellers. In the third episode, Ali continues where she left on her Trello checklist during episode 2 and also continues to cover the entire homebuyer checklist. Please follow Ali on Instagram here. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Ali Garced can be reached at ali@garcedrealty.com and (914) 318-4918. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today our friend Aligarh SID is going to share with you her exact buyer checklist that has netted her hundreds of real estate transactions. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solutions so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase 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. And now on to our show. Ali Garced 1:30Welcome back to part three of the buyer series checklist. Again, this is what my group does. We love our checklists, we put everything in the checklist so that way we never forget anything. We can sleep easy at night and not wake up in the middle of the night thinking oh my gosh, did I do this? No. We’re gonna reference the checklist. Anything that you do more than twice should be part of a checklist. So welcome back. Aligarh said ally, the agent on all social media. If you have been enjoying this series so far, please go ahead and give DJ and keeping it real a review five star review on whatever platform you’re listening to this on, whether it’s YouTube, or Apple or Spotify, please go ahead and do that DJ does a lot for bettering this industry. And I love that. So if you are catching this on part three, and you have not yet watched part one or part two, I advise that you go to part one. And you watch that on YouTube, as opposed to listening to it. Because as much as I’m trying to vocalize exactly what I’m doing, it’s better if you follow along on the computer and can see and create your own checklist. If you don’t want to ask me for the checklist here, you can create your own checklists, just following along because I’m sharing my screen on everything. So otherwise, if you want the copy of my checklist, I am giving these away for free, just meet with me first text 520-341-2552. Or you could just find me on social media. Again, that’s ally, the agent, I have been meeting with a couple of you and it’s so nice that just being able to share a checklist and help other agents out. I love it. I’m here for this. So text me I’ve got a lot of reach outs on here for you. So let’s get started on the Trello checklist, where I left off at the end of part two of the series was the inspection period and the appraisal period. So assuming that the appraisal comes back and you know buyer and seller agree, or it comes back right at the purchase price. Excellent. The next step is or the next section rather is the before closing checklist. So first item on this checklist is to email clients the before closing checklist aka buyer email number five. And again, when you when you meet with me you get all these emails as well. So what does buyer email number five say? Well, what a good question. I’m so glad you asked. Okay, the first thing again, on every single one of my emails is a video so few people do this. Again, people this is not only another touch that a lot of other realtors aren’t doing. It’s a one time video that you create for all of your clients. And they get to see you and hear you again and you know, it’s almost as if you’re right there with them telling them hey, these are the next steps. So what does this three minute video say I pretty much just relay everything of what’s already in the body of the email and the text. Because again, if I were to just send this portion here if you’re looking along it’s just words and it’s so lengthy and it’s so boring who wants to read this even I don’t want to read it so therefore even though I made it you know bullet bullet format you know, no paragraphs or a few paragraphs it’s boring so make it as easy for them as possible to follow along. Boom they can click on this it goes straight to my bom bom which I pay for 23 bucks a month for the unlimited. I highly suggest you do the same you can also do loom as well. So, the next steps, what does this What the What does the text of buyer email number five say? It says number one, transfer all your utilities over to your personal name on and your credit card your checking account starting at the closing date. In Arizona, the date of closing or close of Escrow belongs to the buyer, it could be different in your state, definitely check with your team lead your broker, your you know, your state leaders. Also, along with what so essentially, what does the utilities entail the water sewer trash, the electric, the gas, etc. You also want to make sure that the solar lease or the solar loan, if that applies in this case, is transferred over. So in that way, the seller doesn’t have that anymore, and the buyer can take over the the loan or the lease whatever may apply. Number two, so important, schedule a locksmith to change the locks on your property the day of closing once you record. So again, it depends on you know, it might be different in other states, so so definitely check with your broker, I have had a personal scare with this where on my second closing ever, I was representing buyers, and they purchase a house from a bigger company. And it about two days later, they had not yet scheduled the lock the locks to be changed. And around midnight, this big company goes into their house barges into their house and tries to get them to move out of the house claiming that they were squatters. It was a whole thing. They said that there are no emergencies in real estate, that was actually an emergency. That was so scary. So even if you have never had any bad issues with this, please use my example to tell your buyers the importance of changing the locks as soon as the property records as soon as you can in your state. Number three, of course, schedule internet and cable because internet, at least in my area takes a long time to schedule. So you want to make sure that they are ahead of the game, the earlier they can do that the better. Again, this is this goes out about a week before closing. So it gives them enough time. And any other subscriptions or people that they’ll need, for example, if they have a pool scheduled the pool company, schedule the past the weeds. You know, I’m trying to think of other other things, but it’s all pretty much that we have here. And what happens as you scroll down in this email, then I say it’s been great working with you. I’ve loved helping you through this home purchasing journey. Again, I repeat that also in the video as well. And the bottom of this email, I say Can I ask you for a favor? Do you know if anyone else was looking to buy or to sell. And this can be in any state not just in, you know, enter your city and state? Because from there, you can get referrals. And I’ve gotten referrals this way. It’s been great, actually, not from this email, but from me doing this also in a text. And I’ll explain more of that in a bit. And if they do have someone you know, can you start a group chat and introduce me to them, instead of them. Passing on your phone number, what you want is for them to start a group chat with that potential buyer with that potential seller with you on it that way. It’s a warm handoff, and it’s a better conversion rate after that. And then I explain what what referrals mean, because a lot of people don’t realize I don’t really know what that means. You know, my business runs off referrals. Clients don’t know what that means, especially if they’ve never been in a business owner. So I explained that to them. So boom, I sent by your email number five to the all buyer parties and heading back to this Trello checklist now. Then I asked them to write a review. Again, this is about a week before closing check the checklist there. So sometimes buyers aren’t comfortable yet. They want to make sure that they close, that’s totally fine too. I do reiterate to them, that the review is just based off of me as a person so far in their experience, so they don’t have to wait until closing. But if they prefer to wait till closing totally fine. I’m here for it. Thank you so much. So of course Zillow is once you actually have a closings, but Google doesn’t have to be so you can ask for several reviews from the same clients throughout the process. And that’s exactly what’s next after that is to do it on all of the review platforms. Google Zillow, realtor, Facebook business page if you have that, YouTube, whatever it might be. After that, complete the final walkthrough with the buyer or if the final walkthrough waiver applies then make sure that all the parties sign and it’s sent over to the brokers for the review. If you’re at the final walkthrough, take the keys out of the super box and put them in a General Contractor lockbox because sometimes you know listing agents of course coordinate with the listing agent, they’ll want to use that super box and, you know, immediately push it on to the next listing that they have. So definitely don’t want to keep your keep the keys in there. And you definitely want to confirm with the listing agent, that it’s okay that you remove those keys. So of course, just talk to them and figure out a spot to where the keys are safe. And not yet in the buyers control before you know recording, never do that. So just over communicate with the listening agent and work something out there. Then top again teleclasses scheduled locksmith to be to be done after closing, or do the closing gift I just started on with client giant and I love it. I personally am so bad at thinking of closing gifts. Oh, it is. so rough. I it’s just a blank sheet of paper when I think of what to give a glide for closing. So I signed up for client giant, I’m liking it so far, it’s actually pretty good price. Like for example, VIP clients are like 100 bucks for the year for gifts a year. So it’s 25 bucks. And I don’t have to think about it. Yes, please. So reach out to them. In case you also are like me and are a terrible gift giver. Otherwise, if you already have clients client gifts, you know that you already know what to do, I have made the mistake of ordering them too early like before appraisal because I wanted it to be done on time. And I wanted to give it to the client right at closing, like when they’re signing or when we meet at the house and I give them the keys. But as you know, 25% of all contracts fall out of escrow. So sometimes you’re left holding the bag, and sometimes you’ll give it to them anyway, it’s kind of awkward, you know, whatever. So you want to make sure that all the contingencies are removed before you order a gift. Don’t learn from my mistakes, please. So then, again, at the bottom here, as we continue scrolling through the checklist, just confirm that the clients and the spouses or even adult kids so that you’ve received a review on whatever platforms you’re looking for, again, with Google, it could be character. So hey, Ali was a funny realtor. That’s that counts. You know, whatever it might be. It helps. So you definitely want to definitely want to increase your Google presence because Google is the number one website in the world, followed by YouTube, which is the number two, Google owns YouTube, you need to be on both. So if anything, focus on YouTube, Google reviews with your Google business page and YouTube. But I have a whole a whole bunch of other videos on on YouTube, I’m definitely increasing my presence there. So day of closing, if the sellers are in town, oops, I meant to say if the buyers are in town, if the buyer, let me fix this right here. If the buyers are in town because the buyer checklist are in coordinated with them go to the closing, go to the signing, make sure that title tells you when when the signing is sometimes there’s a lot of lost communication, there’s have to stay on title to make sure that they tell you when the closing is asked me how I know. Bring your sold key or any sort of additional, you know, something that you want in social media for the clients to post on their pages as well as you to post on yours and your website. If the buyers are out of town, then go ahead and congratulate them call them and FaceTime them. Good phone calls are what people like. So definitely anytime you have good news, call them, don’t waste it on a text. So it’s like people love hearing good news. Then if buyers, again, being that I work with mainly military, a lot of all military have access to bass. And a lot of times the title companies will waive the notary fee, because the buyers or the sellers, whatever military clients that you have, have access to the base and they can avoid paying that $200 mobile notary fee. And they instead they could just go to base and sign there. This helps a lot when your clients are coming out from out of country stay say they’re stationed in Japan or Korea right now they can go on base there, you know have have the closing documents faxed over to the legal base on there, they coordinate with legal and they can sign there and then fax it back. It saves them 200 bucks. There’s no buyers will have to go anywhere to travel. It’s it’s super, super easy. I really liked that a lot. But of course if they don’t have access, if they’re not military, then you can just disregard that. That checklist or that check. Then next title is going to be asking you for the information that’s needed to get you paid, of course, very important Dante. So this goes specifically more into exp stuff where we have sky slope and it tells you you know what buttons to click here to make sure that you get paid. Again, if you’re in a different brokerage, then ask the other, ask other agents around you how to make sure. And then right before closing, call the buyers again with the new saying, hey, so far, so good. Just wanted to say that we are on track. Do you have any questions? And then as this is a perfect opportunity to ask for more referrals. So do you know of anyone else that is that’s looking to buy right now? Or do you know anyone was looking to sell? And then usually, again, because a lot of clients don’t know how our business works? Or what referrals even mean? They’re usually like, No, I’m the only one I know, moving to Aurora, Colorado. And that’s when you can say, I actually can work in any state I can. Do you know, if anyone else is looking to move in any state, I would love to help them find an agent that’s right for their needs. And usually, at that point, you know, what’s the most what’s the most common responses? No, I don’t. And then I find that that that’s a great opportunity for you to really drill in to what to, like activate their memory is specific examples. Usually, what I find is when people are looking to buy or sell is any life changes, like maybe someone you know that my that is pregnant now looking to maybe increase in, you know, upgrade their house, or maybe some parents whose like, kids just went away for college, that might be looking to downsize into something smaller? Do you have anybody like that, or maybe somebody that got a job promotion, and then just stay solid for a little bit and see, give them the opportunity to think about it? They might, they might have somebody. And if they do, again, tell them, this is the perfect time to train your your clients? If you do or when you do. Instead of you passing on my phone number, I would love if you do me a huge favor, and instead of just passing my phone number, if you could introduce me in a group chat. That would be that would mean a lot to me. And they’re usually like, oh, yeah, too easy. Yeah, I’ll introduce you to my friend, whenever I you know, find if someone find out about somebody moving. And that usually increases the conversion rate by a lot. So then the last section here on this before closing checklist is clearly a lesson learned for me. So I added it on here, make sure that the lead base disclosure has been signed by the buyer, and that they’re given the pamphlet, this almost became a quote, this was a close call for us. So if they don’t have it, ask your TC to do it immediately. Because the fine is big, and you’ll be the one paying for it. So that’s another foolproof measure to make sure that all of your paperwork is good to go. Then we have the after closing checklist. And what’s the first thing here buyer email number six, which essentially is asking for a review again, in case they haven’t yet reviewed, reviewed you. So let’s take you over to buyer email number six. By your email number six here subject line, can you can you leave me a review. And here I say there are 1000s of Realtors in you know x city and you chose to work with me for that I am so so thankful. Can you let me know what I could have done to make it an even better experience? And what do I have for after that, of course, eight video, it’s two minutes long. It describes everything on here that I’m asking for review. And then I’m thanking them for the opportunity that they gave me to work with them. So And here again, after we meet together and you get these checklists, you’ll be you’ll see what the video exactly says. After that scrolling down the email here, can you make a video review of how I helped you? This, I usually do also when I’m on the phone with them. And when I’m giving the keys, that’s the perfect opportunity to take to snap a quick video doesn’t have to be long, 30 seconds. And the only thing that I asked them to do my Hey, would you mind if I take a quick video of you? And they’re usually like, yeah, of course, you know, they’re excited. You just have them buy a house. And they’re like, Yeah, cool. Of course, sometimes they’re nervous, but that’s natural. Not everyone is okay in front of a camera. So the highest level of testimonials are videos. So if you can get that, you know, the more you can get that and add that to your website to your Google business page, the more you’re going to rank so definitely ask them and you can it doesn’t have to be long. The only question they really have to ask or answer is what was it like working with Ally so they can start the sentence off that way working with Ally was and then just let them say whatever they want to say. And then you know, the longer the better of course. But anyway, I’m drilling off a little bit here. So back back to buyer email number six. This is where I asked them for a video review. And I also ask them to start off the the written review with the following like IPCs to Davis Monthan Air Force base with an Aligarh I said helped me buy or sell a home in XYZ city. And working with Ali was blank. I have this because these are key words. Again, SEO is so so important when it comes to getting reviews and getting ranked and therefore getting more clients clients reaching out to you. So I being that my meat and potatoes are working with military clients, I want the keywords PCs, I want the keyword Davis Monthan Air Force Base, of course, you’re also going to want to have your name and city, those, having those keywords will rank you. So you know, for example, say you live in, you know, I don’t I don’t know any other city just plug and play this exact beginning into your buyer email number six. And I also give some examples to some examples. If you were a buyer, how long did we work together that will show other people how impatient I am? What type of loan did you have, because the more that they can share that the more other people reading those reviews will say, Oh man, I also have an FHA loan. Great, it looks like she’s done this before. And maybe I want to work with her. Then the next is if you were remote, during the home buying process, if my team helped you with like during FaceTime, or sending you videos with the properties from afar. This is what we do for 90% of our clients. majority of them have not been in Tucson even until after closing. So and then negotiations, how do the negotiations work? How much under did we get the did we get the property? How much did you already have an instant equity because of our negotiation skills that you were able to close with with and immediately grow your net worth? How many other offers were on the table, and when the sellers chose your offer. And if there weren’t any how far under was the original list price, what were able to get it under contract for and was my team helpful in providing guidance. These are just some examples of what they can or you know, of course, they don’t have to use these. But I’m using these to trigger their memory from the very, very beginning of when we met all of the good you know, all the all the good times that we shared. And then of course, I have the link to Zillow and Google. I also have an example of a previous buyer review. So this, so go through your buyer reviews, find the one that you liked the best find like the one that just stands out and put that review in your template for this email. So in that way, other buyers can start to subliminally see, oh, this is like what she expects this is going to be okay, a really beefy, you know, testimonial, a really beefy review. So I do that. And then also at the bottom here, my business runs on referrals, meaning I rely on the on your word of mouth and telling other buyers and sellers to continue making a living, this is what I do to make a living. So if you know of anywhere of anyone moving anywhere in any state, please connect me, I can connect them to a few, a few realtors that will help them every step of the way. Thank you so much, then we’ll signature block, boom, and then I send it. Now that is buyer email number six. And that is the last of the official emails within the buyer process. But we’re not done with a checklist. So after that, of course, you get the keys from seller. And if it’s an eye buyer, make sure or a pretty much if it has like a programming. If it has a if the house has a keypad, you want to make sure that you have the instructions on how to erase all of the old codes and re program it or maybe just buy a whole new one in case you don’t have that. Again, changing your changing keys. As you know it’s it’s not a cheap at all locksmiths make pretty good money. So make sure what your buyers know about how much to expect to change out all the locks. Then in bold here in all of my checklists on my Trello anything in bold is what I have my assistant do so the assistant will add the client photo, the Client Testimonial to my website to social media and to post this is also a great way on specifically on Instagram for you to invite the client as a collaborator, because that way it’s that same post and it not only shows up in front of your audience, but now you’re showing up in front of their audience. Even if their audience is 100 people it doesn’t matter how few of their followers are you get in front of a whole new audience so now they’re their friends can say oh my gosh, wow, actually close with ally who is this ally person? They’re showing up on my on my feed because I’m friends with client actually, but realtor ally seems pretty cool. Maybe I’ll follow her maybe it’ll become a relationship later on. And then add them to home bot in case you’re using home bot. Home bot also was a it’s a great way to to get an insights goop on, if your clients are looking into the valuation of their home, how reliant they are with accurate information, that’s another story, it might be really good in your area, it might not. A lot of lenders do pay for this already, because it’s a great way for them to see if the buyers want to refinance. So they’re always keeping an eye on this. So reach out to a couple of lenders and see if they already have home bought, they usually have I think, like between eight to 10 slots available for them to give to agents. So reach out. And then one day after that, I reconfirmed that the clients have reviewed me on all the platforms. And it’s a lot of platforms, right? Like you want to be everywhere. So to make this as simple as possible, I tell them, Hey, I know it’s a lot, but you only have to put effort into one review. And then you can just copy and paste into everything else. So and I want to catch that early, I do it one day after, just to make sure because otherwise, if I’m doing it, you know, two months later, when I remember, later on down the road, they’re not gonna want to do it, the honeymoon phase is over, they’re there hi from purchasing a house is gone. So catch it early. And then of course, find out find out the status of the closing gift in case you’re using client joint or anything else like that, make sure that, that that’s being worked on. And again, the next two items are ways to or reminders to review the other the cross agent, of course, if they’re good, like I’m not a fan of leaving bad reviews, but so if the cross agent was exceptional, you liked working with them, and you truly want to work with them again, write them a business review on Google help their business out, because it’s such a small world, and the amount of agents that help other agents is very small, I’m finding so anything that we can do to help each other out, it will come back to you, you know, like so leave them a review, like and this was I have an example here. I’m another agent in this same marketplace. But if but this message is to every other agent, if you ever have a chance to work with the Sydney your Consider yourself lucky. They know what they’re doing for their client, we help them close or we work together on XYZ transaction like from Aligarh said realtor blah, blah, blah. That helps them out so much. And guess what, next time they have a listing, and you’re the buyer, guess who they’re going to want to work with you. So and then the same thing here, right at the bottom after this is invite them to any sort of annual parties events, or really any event, just keep that relationship going. I also have inside this bullet here is to let them know that it’s not a recruiting event. Again, I work with exp so therefore, oh, we have to like explain ourselves like no, we’re actually here to work. Like we’re not here to recruit. So, yeah, so I have that in the script here. In case you aren’t exp. Like I mentioned before, I think if it was in my first video with this one or my my interview with DJ, but whenever I call an agent from a different brokerage, I literally have to say, hey, it’s Aligarh said, I’m a local realtor here with exp Realty. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to recruit you. And then I leave a little bit of a pause because they’re usually like, oh, they laugh or they’re like, Oh, thank goodness, you know, I’ve already gotten 1015 calls a day. And I’m like, No, I’m actually representing a buyer and we’re interested in 123 Main Street, you know, when can I do it? So I definitely in other exp agents now they definitely have to like be on the defense like, hey, no, we’re not trying to recruit. We’re just trying to be friends. Okay, anyway, carrying on. Then after you add all the photos and the videos taken with the client at the closing or presenting the closing gift, or at their house, put it in your Google business page. Anything you can do at least once a week to ramp up your Google business page, do it, especially if they leave a video testimonial. Ooh, that is perfect. Throw it on your on your YouTube through on your business page and watch yourself rank on page one. So also, if in case you want to do this, I know this is like a whole nother thing on its own. But you can also add that address of the property to a Google page that you own site stock google.com You can create a website there and where you can have like a lot of different pinpoints of hey, these are all the homes that I’ve sold. So in case you’re ever you ever need to you know, prove yourself pretty much to a buyer or seller. You can say hey, these are all the homes that I’ve sold in the last year or ever. Zillow does this too, but sometimes I feel like they don’t capture everything. So this is a good way for you to pinpoint and show buyer’s or seller’s in your listing presentation or your buyer consultation. Then the next section that we have here is following up one month after closing, I have realized that a lot of a agents are scared to reach out to their clients. Because as you know, as I know, something always breaks, right? Especially if it’s a first time homebuyer, something is going to break within the first three months, it’s just inevitable. So therefore, a lot of agents are scared to make that call. And they’re like, oh my gosh, I know that that like, you know, maybe the AC was a little bit old or, or, you know, something, they’re scared of actually following up and saying, Hey, is everything going, okay? But the clients want that the clients need that from you. Instead, what a lot of agents do is close, you know, they post their their stuff on social media, and then they call it a day they boom, they disappear. Right? When that client might actually need them the most like, oh, my gosh, my water heater just broke or, you know, something, they need a contractor they need to, they need an introduction to somebody that you know, but you didn’t ask them. Sometimes the clients don’t feel comfortable reaching out to you, they might think you’re too busy, they might think you’re that’s not your scope of work anymore. And although legally it’s not, it’s a way to even further develop that relationship. So one month after closing or you know, even one week out, but definitely one month one after as well reach out to them, saying hey, how are things going with your home? Like, honestly, how are things going and let them tell you, they might say oh my gosh, we freaking love it. I you know, that’s it like all all butterflies and roses, or been I’d say actually the roof caved in yours you know, something like worst case scenario, you can connect them to a real estate attorney or a contractor or landscaping person because they’re weeds are now out of control. Whatever it is just be a resource for them. They want that from you. And that’s another perfect opportunity to to see if they are looking if they know of anybody yet if they ever found remembered somebody that had a job promotion, et cetera, Cetera for a referral. And then after that, about five months after closing, that’s when I mail out the six month gift, like happy six months of being in your home, I we mail them a candle, small candle, branded and a card. And then about 11 months after right before their one year home. aversary we mail them a bottle of wine. Of course, if they don’t drink we mail or something else with our logo and a card as well. A lot of times people will keep this card, especially if you got them a killer deal like hey, I’m so I’m so happy that we work together and you were able to increase your net worth by $17,000. Just by closing on this house. That is something that they that they will keep keep on their fridge for a long time. And whenever they have guests over, they’re going to say oh my gosh, wow, you made $17,000 You add that to your net worth by purchasing this house, and whose name or they’re going to read it the bottom their alley, the agent. So don’t don’t sleep on on cards. They’re, they’re amazing. And then every three months again, if you have access to that home bot, you can log in, see if they see if they’ve logged in at all they made they may they may have not. They may have not they may have not why does that sound weird? Anyway, carrying on sending holiday cards around the holidays. Always good to do again, staying in touch with them. And sending birthday cards to the buyer or if they’re also married the spouses, the kids, whichever, you know the best way that you that you increase your relationship with them. So just stay top of mind and do it genuinely. So if you’re you know driving by the area, or maybe even if you’re not say Hey, call me I was just thinking about you hope you’re having a great day. And that’s it. Again, people like positive phone calls you do you don’t want to correlate your phone calls to mean bad news, which sidenote is what a lot of property managers do. So it’s nice to flip that on its head. Then keep sending the review me email that buyer email number six for the reviews if they haven’t already done it and ask for a video review just in case they haven’t done it yet. And when they do review actually respond. Google sees if you’re responding to your Google reviews, and the way that you respond is everything. So make sure that you’re professional, make sure that you’re you know whatever your brand is if you’re funny if you’re loud, if you’re sarcastic whatever it is, respond to the review. And when they do review blast it on on all of our social media on your Instagram, your Tick Tock, your YouTube your website everywhere and every year send a CMA I would probably actually even do this month six, so month six, and then probably every year after that send a CMA again another touch point to stay in front of them because you never know. You never know when they might be looking to sell when they might If you’re looking to purchase another property, so they could, you know, refinance or you know, pull money out of that one purchase another one you want them to become forever clients. And this was something that I learned from the Tom Ferry summit that I went to a couple of months ago that I’m recording this right now and 2023. They said, to stop calling these clients past clients, eliminate the term past clients from your vocabulary, they should be forever clients, just like you should be there forever realtor. So that doesn’t mean one transaction and they never hear from you, again, continue always furthering that relationship. And you’ll find that a couple years down the road, your business really will run on only referrals, your outbound prospecting will have you know, you won’t have to do as much outbound prospecting. So that starts with CMAs. Hey, as a, what I do is I have one of my teammates here are partners here with exp since we’re not on a formal team, there are no team splits, I have one of my partners here, send out all of the CMAS to everyone in my past clients, hey, as a service of working with Ali, I am working with Ali as well. We want to give you an update whether or not you if you if you’re interested or not. You don’t have to open this but just wanted to let you know we’ve done the research for for you. This is what Zillow says is is what your property is worth. But these this is what the what your actual property is worth based off of data. And this is why if you have any questions, please feel free to reach back out. This is our phone number look forward to hearing from you. And that’s it doesn’t have to be long at all. Then the last section of this follow up checklist is to send them the shred method link. Shred method, I made a video about this as well. It’s a it’s a company where you can utilize a line of credit in order to pay down or shred your mortgage is super, super fast. I am a big proponent because I personally have used it myself. Before I even told you before I even told anyone about this about this company, I love it. And it’s a great way for especially for your investor clients, but really helps anyone out to eliminate, like take take a 30 year mortgage. And instead of paying it over those three decades, you could pay it in months or even or years or even months, I paid off all my mortgages in four months doing this, but this is not about that. So anyway, look into it in case you have investor clients or somebody that wants to get rid of their mortgage, which don’t we all at the bottom section here is red flags. investors, investors trying to get owner occupied loans without already living in the area. That is a red flag. And again, I have this on my Trello checklist. So if somebody touches this red flag, I know I don’t want to work with them. You do not have to work with everyone, you are your own business owner, you can choose who and who you work with, and more importantly, who you don’t. So if an investor is trying to say that they want to get an owner occupied loan, which I’ve had before, and they’re like, oh, yeah, but I still want to get you know, a VA loan or FHA loan? No, that’s not for me, I’m not doing that I will not go to jail for you. So next. So I add that to the red flag, and just my own personal notes here, which maybe, I don’t know, I should or should not be sharing. But either way, you’re gonna get this when you get a copy of this. If, if a client cannot respond to yes or no questions, it might be too early in the game for them. So again, there’s a power there’s the power of asking three questions in a row like three deep why? But if they can’t answer simple yes or no questions, it’s gonna be a difficult transaction. So at that point, I wouldn’t want to work with a client. And then the next thing here is if of course, the buyer doesn’t give you the pre approval letter or refuses to meet with any lender. Then at that point, again, it might be too early in the process for them. They might not be serious buyers yet. And a lot of scams are so many scams are happening right now where I’m sure you’re getting this to buyers, or suppose it buyers texting you saying hey, are you a real estate in your real estate agent in your state? Like yes. And then they try to get you to talk to them over WhatsApp. I’m not really sure how that scam actually ends up playing out. But I don’t do that. So just be careful. There’s so much scam, so many scams going on in this industry right now, especially for real estate agents. Be careful what emails you you know, click on to the same thing that you tell your clients that you’re warning your clients about. Keep that in mind for yourself. So that is everything. I’ve covered the entire homebuyer checklist. Again, these are giving away these checklists. Just you just have to meet with me first. Calendly I’ll send you my Calendly link you can text 520-341-2552 Text the word checklist and that’ll automatically send you the link to it only text the word checklist. One word, no emojis, otherwise it doesn’t work. But if you have any questions, I’m Ally to agent. Again, if this has helped at all, please give keeping it real a five star review. We love hearing from you. And we’re here for the seller checklist. That’ll be starting potentially next week. So thank you so much for tuning in. And we’ll see you on the next one.

Rachel Adams Lee with the Rachel Adams Lee Group in Northern California talks about how she got into real estate. Rachel discusses how in her first year she knocked 200 doors and held 3 open houses every week but sold no homes for 4 months. Rachel describes how she built a business model around social media and discusses the biggest mistakes real estate agents make in social media. Next, Rachel discusses how to convert a follower into a client and how to do lead generation on social media. Last, Rachel talks about her programs focusing on social media and how to build presence there. To get 20 Hooks to go viral click here. Sign up for Rachel’s coaching on social media here, or sign up for video reels and posts here. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Rachel Adams Lee can be reached at 916-226-1601 and rachel@racheladamsleegroup.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today we’ll be talking with somebody that generated 131 referrals in the last 12 months, all from social media and she’s going to tell you exactly how you can do the same. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents they pride themselves I’m delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase 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. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with Rachel Adams Lee. But before we get to Rachel, just a couple of reminders. Please, as always tell a friend about this podcast. Think of another realtor that maybe could use some encouragement or new strategy or new skill and turn them on to this podcast. We appreciate it. Also, leave us a review let us know what you think of the show. So whatever app you might be listening to us on let us know we read every review and always are here to make changes to better suit your needs. Alright guys, that’s it. Let’s get to the main event my conversation with Rachel Adams Lee. Okay, today on the show, our guest is Rachel Adams Lee from the Rachel Adams lead group in Northern California. Let me tell you more about Rachel. Now Rachel Adams Lee is just a small town girl Making Moves. She has a top 1000 agent in the US. She is also a multi passionate entrepreneur and mother of three boys by the way, all under four years old at this point. This is a busy woman. Also, if that is not enough, she also runs for six and seven figure businesses with their hub husband and lives life on their terms she loves helping others tap into their true potential and build the business of their dreams. Couple of fun facts positivity is her jam. You can find her snuggled on the couch in yoga pants, hair and a messy bun with her laptop. She is five feet tall and loves all things social media obsessed with having a healthy marriage what a great thing to be obsessed about and thinks Nutella should be its own food group. I might disagree. But I think Nutella is a I think Nutella is somehow hardwired for females more so than males in my experience, but I do like it as well. I got a couple of things I want to share with you guys. As far as things to check out. If you are an agent in Northern California, you’re not, you’re going to want to do this even if you’re happy at your current firm because what Rachel does is really really cool. Her team is expanding. Check out what they offer Rachel Adams Lee group.com link to that in the show notes. And we’re going to be talking about a couple of our businesses today. One is called Hello social coaching if you want good coaching for social media, hello, social coaching.com And also, if you would like somebody to help you with your videos, get social leverage.com We’re gonna be talking about that as well. So again, hello, social coaching.com Get social leverage.com Don’t worry about remembering those. Just go into the show notes and click. Alright Rachel excited to have you. Rachel Adams Lee 4:24Thank you. I’m stoked to be here. Send you guys all the vibes from Northern California. D.J. Paris 4:30Well, that’s what Californians are good at vibes. You don’t you know, I’m in the Midwest. We don’t have that word. We don’t even know how to interpret that word here. But we but we do love California vibes. Of course everyone does. Let’s start before we get into all the cool social stuff and by the way, the stuff I’m when Rachel starts telling her story about the success she’s been having and our team has been having with social, you are absolutely going to want to hear this. It’s shot thinking I’ve been doing this for six years, and I’ve had countless people on here who have social strategies. Rachael strategy is really, really awesome. So hang tight for that. But Rachel, let’s start at the beginning. How did you get into real estate? Rachel Adams Lee 5:12Oh, let’s go back. Okay, so, real estate in 2012. So my grandma was a realtor. My dad was a broker for 42 years. And I always said, I would never ever go into real estate, D.J. Paris 5:23by the way, by everybody who has parents that are in real estate say the exact same thing. My boss, same thing. But honestly, Rachel Adams Lee 5:30though, I feel like the reason was because like no one talked about work life balance back then, like my dad, I had an awesome childhood, but my dad would like miss dinner sometimes because he was doing showings and stuff like that. And I just was like, I never want to have that, you know. And I found myself in 2012, working at a real estate office, and I was unlicensed, and I was in a really unhealthy marriage. At that point in my life. My ex husband was 80%, disabled, but 50% was PTSD for the Marine Corps. So I spent my days at the office, like you’re gonna get your offer accepted, you got this, and I got my spent my nights like crying myself to sleep because I was just in a really dark spot. And I knew I wanted my life to change, but I didn’t know what that looked like. And I remember seeing all these paychecks coming through the realtors. And I was like, gosh, there’s so much more money than I was making. But I was making $15 That I could count on every you know. And so it was like, okay, stability versus instability, the thing I’d never done is like bet on myself. So I decided that I would do an accelerated program, I got my license in 90 days, and I jumped into real estate when I jumped into real estate. I want to say it was with both feet, because literally, my first year, DJ, I’m knocking 200 doors a week and doing three open houses every week. So knocking 200 doors, doing three open houses, and I didn’t sell any homes for the first four months. So like, rejection you face and the amount of like, but also the grit you get and like what I always said to people, like how do you keep doing that, like that’s four months with nothing. And I was like my why, like, why I was doing this was bigger than any excuse that I would could come up with, like I had to change my life. So it didn’t sell any homes for the first four months, but I ended up selling 39 homes that first year. And then 100 D.J. Paris 7:09I want to pause for dramatic effect. We’re gonna we’re gonna do what’s called a pregnant pause 39 homes in your first year with really not a Trump, I’m assuming not a tremendous sphere of influence, or Oh, no, Rachel Adams Lee 7:24I’d never even looked at a listing presentation buyer presentation. Because like I was in all different industries. Before that, I was like a small a teepee taught people how to do food and wine pairing like I did, you know, was in restaurants, like I didn’t do the real estate stuff. And so it took me some time to get traction going. But what I did during those those first four months, and really that first year, like I wrote my listing presentation 100 times for 100 days, every day for 100 days, I mastered script practice, like I wanted to overcome every objection. So when it came, I wasn’t nervous. So if I didn’t have the clients, I pretended that I did. So I was like a really a student of the game. So I sold 39 homes that first year, then 109, the next year. And then 123. So three years in, I hit Wall Street Journal’s top 1000 agents in the country. We still have that today. And I, you know, I really I wanted to, I wanted to make an impact on my community. I wanted to be in a healthy marriage, I wanted to have kids, I wanted to be a mom, like, all these things were important to me. And so I knew that like I love doing the door knocking in the open houses, the thing is, you can have one conversation with one person at a time. So the belly to belly is really important. But I also wanted like more. And so I decided I would really start to like focus on social media. Because if I did social media, I would choose when I respond to people I choose when I post like I could make a business model around social media. And I never heard of anyone doing that. And I’m a Systems girl. That’s the only way I can survive having a four year old a year and nine month old and a nine month old. So I have to have systems in my world. And so I created a business model around social media and like the first year we had 17 referrals come in, then it was like 30 than 50 but last year we had 131 referrals come through social and that’s through Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. So life looks very different. Now I’m a real estate coach I love I love teaching people how to build their businesses. I I travel all over the country speaking I travel with my family. So whenever I’m in a conference, I bring my littles and my nanny and my husband and it’s wild but it’s really fun. D.J. Paris 9:36If you’re wondering if you’re noticing that Rachel speaks quickly that’s because she has to because she has three little ones to attend to and for businesses to run. But guys, how great is this? This Rachel ed i don’t I’m not saying just speak slowly. Rachel Adams Lee 9:52You’re got a lot to do in capable of it and I’m told hanging out with me is like taking a shot of espresso. So good morning, everybody. D.J. Paris 9:58No, I I love it. I love it. I’m kind of the same way I have to do, I have to remind myself to slow down. But everything you’re saying is so gold golden, I want you to get as much in as possible through this episode. So let’s talk about social media. You know, what I’d like to maybe start with is what do most agents not understand about social media are what are they go wrong? Rachel Adams Lee 10:19That’s a great question. So I think the thing with most Realtors I’ll try to slow down a little bit because I get really excited. Oh, no, no, don’t D.J. Paris 10:26do not slow down. You’re perfect. I just love how fast you talk. Rachel Adams Lee 10:30So I think one of the biggest mistakes Realtors make is they make their social media all about them and all about real estate. And they think that like if look at his house, I just sold look at my new listing. Look at this order, god, look at me Look at me. And what you don’t realize is that people might find you because you’re in real estate, but they stick around because of who you are and how you make them feel. So you know, one of the biggest mistakes Realtors make is just talking about real estate. So when I’m talking to people with social, I say you need to make your social media like an 8020 principle 80% of what you post is actually going to be you who you are, what you’re doing, what you’re reading, what you’re eating, you know, like, why what makes you tick, why somebody would hang out with you on the weekend. And 20% is only going to be real estate 20% real estate, but you know what you could do, you could be watching or listening to this podcast right now, take all these notes. And then you’re gonna have the business model by the end of this for how to build a business through social media, then you as a realtor, go on your social media, and you make a post and say, you know, I was just hanging out with DJ Paris, and he interviewed a top 1000 agent in the country about how she got 131 referrals last year, I would love to share those notes with you, if you want a copy of my notes, leave your email below. You, as a realtor, if you can be the person who’s always adding value to others, when they need to buy or sell, or they have a referral for your location, they’re going to think of you. So what I do in my world is I think, okay, how can every single day when I woke up, I was like, How can I add value to others? How can I add value to others, my clients in my community, so like being the local expert, so it’s October, right? So I’m sharing where to look at the local Pumpkin Patch locations. Right, I’m doing a pie giveaway, if it’s December, I’m sharing, you know where to see the the local Christmas tree light locations, like you can Google this stuff for free, then go on Canva, get a free account and make it look a graphic. And the thing is, if you’re always adding value to people, then your platform becomes a place they want to hang out. And, you know, the algorithm is like this weird tricky place. But the simplest way to think of the algorithm because you hear that word thrown a lot around a lot. It is it is you’re impacting your influence you have on social media, it’s like whatever you’re looking at the goal of Facebook, Instagram, tik, Tok, snapchat all of them, the goal is to keep you on the platform as long as possible. So if you’re looking at a specific niche, they’re gonna give you more of that to keep you on it. The trick is, how are you as a realtor? The person that they want to be in front of? And that’s what my model goes through? D.J. Paris 12:59Yeah, it’s no, you just said so much there. And I want to I want to go back to some of the non real estate stuff like community focused stuff. So this, I feel is one of the biggest missed opportunities for realtors. Because if we think about like, if your whatever you’re into maybe you know, you’re a mom with with little ones. So you could create content specific to mothers who are working, maybe you have children, and you could do stuff about, hey, I have some resources for moms who are trying to do it all. It could be totally unrelated to real estate, or it could be hey, here’s some really cool events that are going on in our area for moms with little kids, or here’s some you know, Mom meetups or it can be here’s what’s going on for Labor Day, if you don’t have plans do that. It. i This now we’re talking about value. And we and what you said is so important is you have to think what do my you know, look, when somebody’s ready to buy or sell a home? Yes, they want some of that real estate content. But in between five to seven years of them not buying or selling a home, you probably don’t care that much about you selling a doing a listing. I mean, it’s cool, it’s good, but we want to you want to get them hooked on your content is what I’m hearing from you. Rachel Adams Lee 14:03Yes, absolutely. Yeah, you really want to so with social media, you’re either doing one of two things, you’re either educating people or you’re entertaining. You’re either educating or entertaining. And if you’re really doing social media high level you do to balance of both and I think people get so caught up because they’re like, I don’t even know what to post about. No one cares about the fact that like my you know, I sit in my office with my dog at my feet. Yes, they freakin do. They love it. Right? And so like when I if you’re going to build a business through social media, I want you to write down one through five, you’re literally 212345. Number one, you’re going to write down real estate because that’s the industry that we’re all in. But then two through five, you’re going to make it personal to you. What makes you tick, if you were in an elevator and someone said, Okay, tell me about yourself. What are some things you like? That’s your five things. That’s the other four. So like real for me, I do real estate and being an entrepreneur, I talk about being a wife and a mom, because that’s my number one, right? I talk about personal growth because I’m always on a journey to be like the best ever For myself, I talk about positive body image because it’s something that I struggle with and after having three kids, and the last would be in an emergency C section. Like my I, my body has changed a lot. And I had fertility and we’ve had four losses. And like I’ve really had this like journey to become a mom. And, you know, it is something I talked about, I wasn’t going to talk about it on social media, but I found myself like silently struggling, and I was like, Man, I have a super killer support system. And I’m struggling. D.J. Paris 15:29There, imagine what everyone else who doesn’t have that support. And by the way, what percentage of women struggle with what percentage of humans certainly women, I mean, this is 99% of women struggle with body image because of how we, as a society project, what women are supposed to look like. And obviously it’s very, we all know how tough women have it. So that’s a great, great thing to talk about. Yeah. Rachel Adams Lee 15:50And I just think like, you know, it can be a cool thing, too, is your four passions can change before I had kids, that was not something I talked about. But after I had kids like positive body image became one of my focal points of my life. So it’s something that I want to talk about with others. And so you come up with these different things that help you define who you are as a person. And then remember, people will find you because you’re in real estate, but they stick around because of who you are, and how you make them feel. And so you get really intentional on going through these and like if you go on my Instagram, and you’ll look at like the grid, right? Like the little pictures, you’ll literally see me go through these topics. And, you know, if if you join my real estate team today, you actually have to sign a social media addendum that says you’ll post at least three times a week, three times. Wow, D.J. Paris 16:32it’s part it’s part of the agreement to work with you. I love it. Oh, Rachel Adams Lee 16:36absolutely. Because if you’re not doing social media, as a realtor, now, you’re going to get left behind. And you know, one of the big things that we really are focusing on now is video. Yeah. You D.J. Paris 16:47know, it’s funny, I want to pause for a sec, because I wanted to get your take on this. I’m curious to get I have an opinion about this. But I’ll wait to hear your opinion first, although maybe I’ll be leading. leading you on this one. I’ll try not to what do you think the role of websites personal websites are going to be going forward? Are they going to be less important, more important, neutral, meaning an agent with their own website? Rachel Adams Lee 17:11Yeah. I think that you’re what you need to have a website because it can be linked to your MLS right for IDX. So like your search portals, and if you’re doing ads and stuff like that, but otherwise, your social media is your website on? Yes, D.J. Paris 17:25your web, stop working on your websites, everybody. First of all, your, your SEO, you’re not going to compete with the other people who are already locked in that those SEO results for top, you know, to one to three searches on or one to three positions on the search of Google anything under one to three no one clicks on it anyway. So don’t try to play that game. Because, again, have a nice looking website, like you said, have an IDX search built in so people can search instead of going to Zillow or Redfin, they’re going to maybe use your site, but realize that not people are gonna hang out on your website, one Rachel Adams Lee 17:55thing that I want you to look at, so go, you can do it right now. Sorry. And that’s a real what I was just doing this morning. Okay, so if you go to my Instagram right now, so you go to Rachel Adams Lee, what you’re gonna see is like the first line, so you want to be really intentional. So this is like a class for you guys on editing your bios, you want when somebody goes to your social media, you want it to be within one second, they know exactly what they’re looking at. So first, your profile has to be public, you cannot build a social media presence with a private profile. Because if you click on my page, and I’m Private, then you accept you add for me to be your friend or whatever follow by the time that I accept you, you forgot who I am, because you’ve done 15 things that day. So what the very first line you see is Rachel Adams Lee, top 1000. Realtor and business coach. The next thing you see is social media experts. So my credibility, right. And where I serve California realtors, you’ve got to say your realtor on your social media. And you have to say the area you serve, because if you want referrals, so think about this, I had 131 referrals come through last year, a huge portion of those are agents around the country. The rest are client and community, right. But you want to make sure that you always say the areas that you serve, because then it gives people to know where they can give you referrals, and they’re constantly meeting coming to your profile and getting value and laughing and connecting and feeling and cue you’re there buddy. And then by the way, you happen to serve that area, and then you continue moving on. And so the third line down is really where I do credibility. So you can see how many houses you sold or if you haven’t, if you don’t have the credibility behind you yet, you know, you’re with a top brokerage, like whatever you want to say there. And then my fourth line down is my personal stuff. So I my wife and I are working mama with three boys. And then the line after that is a call to action. So if you your call to action could be like click your to find out how much your home is worth. But you always want to have something for them to do. You’ll notice like if you go on my social media and let’s talk about reels for a minute let’s talk about video because it is the number one thing the algorithm favors above all else Right now, I spent a lot of time working on reels and doing video. And we have something we can talk about a little bit for you guys that will help. And what you’ll notice is if you go look at the reels, and you click on them, and you literally go over just to look at the reels, you’re gonna see what is called a hook. So what people don’t realize is when people select scrolling on social, you actually only have two seconds to frickin seconds to stop the scroll and see if what you’re posting about is something they want. So your hook that so what you do is when you create your video, you have the hook on the screen, literally for two seconds. When you use editing apps, like I use one called InShot. You can keep it on there for two seconds, and then you move forward. So like one says, How I gained 6000 followers in three months. Another one says how I got a $1.7 million buyer for mineral penthouse check out my system, how to hack the algorithm, best recording equipment for your videos to go viral. How to Lose 10 pounds with Chad GPT, right? Like, these are hooks. These are things that literally are going to stop people and they’re gonna say, oh, I want to learn about that. But if I don’t have an eye catching something on there, then they scroll past so many realtors, like one of the big mistakes they do DJ is they’ll be like, Hey, guys, my name is Rachel and today gone lost him. Who cares? My name is what am I going to talk about? That’s what you have to have. The second I D.J. Paris 21:20want to make two two quick points that I’d for clarifying. So when she’s talking about a hook, what we’re really thinking about is, when we’re scrolling on YouTube, let’s think about YouTube for a second, the videos that tend to perform the best have have sort of title cards. So what we’re really talking about with Rachael saying is we’re creating sort of title cards within a reel. So the first so that way, when they’re when they’re listed, as you she was saying to scroll through you literally without even having to click on the video, you can see exactly what the video is. That is huge. And I believe, Rachel, you may have to correct me on this, I believe, once you upload a reel into Instagram, I don’t believe you can edit or add a cover after the fact I may be wrong. Yes. So So I’ve made this mistake a million times where I’ve uploaded reels, they don’t have a title card, or the first few seconds that show what we’re going to do with written out. And you’re right, nobody knows what. Yeah, Rachel Adams Lee 22:13yeah. So you, you really need to have that done ahead of time and the title card, like he’s saying, so the cover page like that is important for when that’s important for when you are like creating a real for your page and someone’s scrolling on your content. But if they’re not on your page, and you get to the Explore page where I’m at a lot, that’s where you need to have the two for the the hook on there for the two seconds, because that’s where you’re gonna grab them. Now, D.J. Paris 22:42quick, quick questions. So I’ve got about, I don’t know, maybe 50 reels for this podcast, we grab little, we just started grabbing moments and doing our 62nd videos. Yeah, we did not think about title cards. So would it make sense to pull all of those down, add title cards, re upload them as as new post, just because it would probably get more visibility or moving Rachel Adams Lee 23:05forward? No, because that’s like deleting all your social media and starting fresh. It’s like when’s the best time to plant a tree? Right, plant the seed. Yeah. So Yeah, yesterday, can’t do it today. So you just start moving forward. So your next title card will be here. And you just again, you want to pull the hooks and I have what I can do for your listeners. Actually, I have a website that I’ll give you where if you go to I think it’s called Rachel’s freebies, yeah, go to Rachel’s freebies.com that will give them 20 Free hooks. So we’ll give them 20 They can use right now on their social media, which you guys can put that in the show notes. But if you go to Rachel’s freebies, that’ll give them 20 hooks they can use right now on their social media. D.J. Paris 23:46I also wanted to make one point, this is just a little aside that I noticed when I was searching for you on Instagram, and I want everybody not, don’t just go directly to Rachel’s Instagram, go to Google search, Rachel Adams Lee, Instagram, and I want you to notice the font that comes up on on Google when it shows the result it is a unique font because Rachel was very smart and realize that when you use a unique font, on Instagram, it actually pulls that into the Google snippet when people are searching on Google and it is so unique. It drew my eye immediately to it. I was like Whoa, did Google change their fonts all of a sudden? No just for Rachel because it and when you go to her Instagram page you will see her name is in a unique font. That is not by accident. That is not a mistake. That is notice how your eyes go straight to that a little little tiny thing I noticed but Rachel Adams Lee 24:37fancy font if you guys to free app, you can download it. It’s called fancy font. And so like whenever I’m writing emails, whenever like when I do captions on social media, I use a lot if I want you to see something, I capitalize it and I bold it because I want it to grab your attention because it grabs mine and I’m going a million miles a minute so like I have to have stuff that’s like stop. This is important. Read this. Yeah, I don’t Did you know this story you and I talked about before we went live about how so I was telling him about how I got a phone call today from someone who is going through a divorce. And she was saying she needs to find a realtor. And she said she was talking to her daughter at the gym about how she needs a realtor and her 17 year old daughter was like, I follow this girl on Instagram. Why don’t you call her? She found me because of a real you guys, the reels are the number one thing that algorithm favors and it will push you above other people in the feed. And so but the reason I brought it up as well, we’re talking, my phone rang and it was the attorney. And so I’m like, Oh, it’s so hard. I’m like, can I just pause this so I can go get that piece of business? Nope, I’m time blocked. This is the one thing I will tell you that makes you state guys, time blocking. Like my number one focus right now is doing this podcast with DJ because I committed to it, I’m time blocked for it. As soon as I’m done with him, I’m going to call back that attorney and I’m going to post a reel that I was editing right before I got on here. So like my whole life is time blocked. But you can do you can build this business you can have the kids you can do the things you want to do if you time block. When I did the door knocking the open houses, I time blocked for it, I would I would door knock two hours a day. And I could hit about 75 doors in those two hours. With social media. I’ll give you guys a system for how you can lead generate through social media for two hours. All my lead generation is in two hours because that’s like as long as my attention span can last before I’m like it’s not good. But you know, that’s that’s a success. If you can master time blocking as a realtor like you can do this. Yeah, D.J. Paris 26:33and it’s we’re talking about turn the phone off or put it facedown and don’t because things are going to be flying at you. As we all know, things fly at you all day long. And it’s easy. If you’re like me, you just get distracted by any shiny object. So good idea now. So let’s talk about content again. So we understand the importance of reels and what a reel is, at least an Instagram I believe is 90 seconds, Max, I can’t remember if it’s 60 or 90 short Rachel Adams Lee 27:00form video, it can be 90 seconds or less. But I’ll be totally transparent with you like the easiest reels that go trending and viral are like 10 seconds or less, and even seven seconds because you what you do. So a reel will play twice in a row. For someone who’s watching it. It’s called looping, it will play twice in a row for someone that’s watching it. And so what you do is the way you want to think about reals, like the strategy behind it is in this kind of content a little overwhelming, but I’ll give you something at the end, that will make it easy. So you’re going to record your video, okay, and you’re going to come up with your topic, you’re going to know what you’re going to do. So you’re going to record your video for let’s like my best ones are like seven seconds long, no joke. So seven seconds long your recall, you literally can record you typing at a computer and smiling for seven seconds, then you’re going to come up with your hook. So whatever the video is going to be about, and you’re going to put it on the top of the screen for two seconds, then you’re going to have two more things you’re going to share with them. And then you can be like see caption. What I will tell you is the real is to is to entertain them where you educate them. And you position yourself as the expert is in the caption below. Because what you’re going to notice on all of my reels like I have one that I put up earlier this week, and it talks about I think I was like at 60,000 views like as of this morning, and it talks it talks about how things that depreciate in value as soon as you buy them. And I said your car, your designer purse, Asa evils, like I made it kind of funny. And then I was like things that don’t real estate, and it is a five second video you guys, all I’m doing is walking towards the camera for five seconds. And then in the caption, I educate. And I’m like, let’s talk about why real estate is important to build wealth. And so I positioned myself as the expert in the caption, but in that I’m using 30, hashtags, six or geo hashtags. So people are like the hashtags matter, they do matter. They’re not going to make or break your content, but they do help. And if you can get more followers, why the heck not. So hashtags, I want to think of hashtags like Google. So if someone’s looking for a realtor, like a top luxury realtor, they can type in luxury realtor, and 1000s hundreds of 1000s of realtors have used that hashtag, but if it’s like Sacramento, luxury real estate Sacramento, there’s gonna be a lot fewer that are gonna pop up and my reels are good, so they’re gonna grab them. So with hashtags, like the the video, like the the system, I would say for video is like you’re gonna record it, you’re going to edit it and I use InShot. Like I said, you’re going to put your words on the screen, I do want you to put words on the screen because 80% of people are watching your videos without the sound on because they’re watching them at work when they should be working. And so you want to make sure you tell them what it’s going to be about on the screen. And then also this is like super heavy, but like the algorithm, it’s called alternative text and keywords. They’re watching the words you put on the screen, and that is going to be fed to the people out there that are looking in your genre. And then trending audio is the other piece. So the trending audio makes a massive difference on your reel and you just look for that little arrow in the bottom left screen that’s going up. And that is how you find the trending audio. D.J. Paris 30:12And let’s explain what trending audio is. Okay, so trending Rachel Adams Lee 30:16audio is the music that you hear on a reel that has a certain amount of uses that is catching into the algorithm. So it’s going to push it out in front of more people. So I only post reels with trending audio, because I want I know the system and the how to make it go, you know, have a better chance of going viral and getting in front of more people. But again, I’m targeting realtors, because I want referrals from Realtors around the country. And I’m targeting buyers and sellers in my local community, because I want them to position me as a local expert. D.J. Paris 30:44And do your reels. Are they ever more than let’s say 10 seconds or so? Or are they usually within that seven second Rachel Adams Lee 30:51are so like I when I’m educating when I’m teaching about something, I they’re a little bit longer, I have one that I was like not sure how it would do because it’s like, I think it was like 84 seconds or something. But I was teaching people about this rule that I call the five by five, which is how you wake up the algorithm when you make a post so they get more eyes on your content. So I was teaching them about it says like how to hack the algorithm and get more eyes on your content. That’s my hook. And then I’m teaching them an idea about the rule of 555. And so that is definitely a little bit of a longer one. And I want and you also you test it out, because my audience is different than your audience. So what works for me, the short reels where you entertain them and educate work for everybody. But like, my audience knows that I’m going to teach them how to build a business as well. So like, I’m going to educate if you don’t do that you you might do on where you say why it’s important to get a home inspection, like and that’s your hook. Right? Why it’s important to get a home inspection. And then or like three mistakes every buyer makes when not getting a home inspection to not getting approved for a loan, like you know what I mean? And then you educate them below. Anyone can do that. D.J. Paris 32:03Question about hashtags. So you said something that struck me as interesting, because I have heard, I’ve heard a lot of different opinions on on hashtags. So I have heard that Instagram prefers keeping the number of hashtags under six, you use 30. So can you speak a little bit to and I know you’ve tested at all, so is that sort of an old wives tale that only keep a few hashtags per post. So Rachel Adams Lee 32:27the algorithm is always changing, always changing the most you can have as 30 The least you could have as one, but you don’t get penalized for having 30. So I, I, again, I’m a Systems person, I’m not like what are the number six that I need to do? Screw that I have 30 my six are in there, pick the six you want. You know what I mean? Like I don’t you’re not getting you don’t get like, you don’t get hurt for having more hashtags. Got D.J. Paris 32:52it? Because it’s I know, at some point in social media, there was like what we would call a keyword stuffing. And people would just inflate but I guess the point is, Instagram doesn’t really care how many how many hashtags you have, if the content is keeping people engaged for that amount of time that they’re watching. They they don’t care. If you have crappy content, and you just have all these keywords and or hashtags, then yeah, maybe they would downvote that. But you’re absolutely right. It’s all about the quality of the content. Rachel Adams Lee 33:20Yeah, for sure. Okay, go ahead, I want to talk about so one thing I can we can talk about is how they can convert a follower into a client, because I think that’s important conversation. Huge. Okay, so you’re gonna have all these people following you. And what you don’t realize is right now only seven to 10% of your friends are seeing what you’re doing seven to 10% of your friend, by D.J. Paris 33:44the way, at best, it might it might even be like 3% Yeah, yeah, Rachel Adams Lee 33:48like think about all the people you have in your on your social media. But you see the same stories, the same post the same feed. And the rule is, if you’re not seeing them, they’re not seeing you. So every single month, all my social media clients, what we do is we take pen to paper, and we write down 25 names of people that we’re already friends with on social but we’re not seeing their content anymore. So you could pick your 25, it could be 25 local business owners, it could be 25 Realtors from around the country, it could be 25 past clients, it could be 25 people from your church. But each month you’re gonna pick 25 people. And then this is the way that you get in front of the people who you’re already friends with, but they’re not seeing your content. So it’s called My rule of 555. So five minutes before you make a post. you comment on five people’s post? A comment a five words or more. D.J. Paris 34:39Okay, hold on, let’s go on a backup. So here’s here’s what we’re talking about. I just want to make sure this is really clear, because this is absolutely an idea that not one person has ever shared. And the six years and 500 episodes, we’ve done this. So here’s what here’s what, here’s what Rachel is saying. So she’s saying one thing to know is that very few, a very small percentage of your followers on social are actually going to see your posts organically? Under 10%, for sure, so how do we get in front of that additional 90 plus percent. What she does is before she a while, when we first start out is the other thing she said was one way to sort of see who might be seeing your stuff and who might not is it’s this one to one relationship, if you are seeing their reels, their posts, odds are, they are probably seeing yours as well. But since we know most aren’t, you can take a look. And you can make an assumption that if you’re not seeing theirs, they’re not seeing yours, you’re gonna make a list of those people. And then five minutes before you actually post your Go ahead. Yeah, so Rachel Adams Lee 35:33five minutes before you make a post, you comment on five of those people’s posts, a comment of five words or more, and then what that does. So there are people who like you who love you who actually want to refer business to you, but you’re not top of mind for them. Right, like, and so the way you stay top of mind is being in front of them. And then once they start to engage with your stuff, you’re in there, and you’re not talking about real estate. So they’re not like, Oh, my God shut up. They’re like, wow, she’s doing this with her kids, oh, she went on this vacation, she read this book, she’s going through this with her body like, and they start to have things in common with me. And then they’re like, oh, and then when they’re in the grocery store, and five aisles down, they hear someone talking about selling a house, they’re like, oh, my gosh, Rachel, I got to run down and tell her you know what I mean. And so that works really well. The other thing you guys are going to do, and this is to help you turn a new follower into a client. So what happens a lot of times is like say that I have a post and my husband and I go to Tahoe, right, and we have our anniversary, when you do a birthday or anniversary post you get tons of people with like Happy anniversary, happy birthday. And everybody is like usually people do one blanket, thank you, like thank you for all the love and the messages. What what I want you to do is like when I tell my agents, we’re going to lead generate for two hours on social media, what you’re doing is you’re setting a two hour block. And you’re gonna go to a higher producing post that you have. Now your comments, you should respond to all your comments, because the point of social media is to have interaction. So just as a given if you people are commenting on your social comment back to them. But that missing link, this like magic piece that people don’t realize are your likes, your Likes are literally this, this list of people going, Hey, I’m watching, I’m right here, I see what you’re doing. But it’s usually a vanity metric people like I got 100 likes on that post. D.J. Paris 37:12It makes us feel good because we’re like people like us. But those people Rachel Adams Lee 37:15get no interaction. So what I do when I’m doing lead generation for social media, is I go on my computer, I don’t do it on my cell phone because I need to be able to like click on my with my mouse and stuff. So I go on my computer, I click on the likes, I scroll over the likes, I copy them and paste them into a Word doc. And then you guys I go one by one I literally go through. And what I would do is when so so say that Jessica comments on my posts, and she’s like Happy anniversary. I’m like, Thanks, girl. We had a great time. And then DJ likes my post. What I’m gonna do is I’m gonna go proactively to DJs page. So he likes my post. I go look at his social I see something happening in his world. What’s What’s something that just happened for you and your family recently? Like, um, I D.J. Paris 37:55just went to the US Open for tennis a couple weeks ago. Rachel Adams Lee 38:00Okay, perfect. So he likes my post for my anniversary, I would send them a private message. I’d be like, hey, DJ, thanks so much for connecting with me on my anniversary post. We had the best time in Tahoe. Oh my gosh, I saw you guys just wanted to US Open. That’s always been a bucket list for me. How was it? D.J. Paris 38:14So we’re now we’re talking about direct message. So now so your direct messaging why Rachel Adams Lee 38:19I sent him a DM. Okay. And I mentioned something super specific about DJ, I don’t say anything about the fact that he’s in Chicago, right? Yeah, I don’t say anything about Chicago, because it has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. And I’m gonna ask him about the US Open and then he’s gonna come back and you say, oh, my gosh, I saw Hayden like just started teething. That’s so crazy. Like, you’re getting sleep. And we’re gonna go back and forth, back and forth. Just talking personal life. Eventually, when I think the transition feels good and natural, maybe it’s same day, maybe it’s same week, maybe it’s a month, whenever it feels natural key word here. I say something to DJ of the effect of, hey, DJ, I really love getting to know you on a personal level, which makes me think we probably aligned in our business lives as well. I don’t have a great referral partner in Chicago. Do you have one in Northern California? You guys 131 referrals. This is how this conversation happens. Because I want to lead with the relationship. I always want to get to know the person first. And then we talk about the business. And it works. It works really, really well. And D.J. Paris 39:19we’re predominantly talking Instagram right now. I’m guessing right? Because or I guess, Rachel Adams Lee 39:25Facebook, I’m sorry. Facebook to me, I still get most of my business comes from Facebook still. I’m Facebook, D.J. Paris 39:30I see. Well, I’m just thinking of like, I’m thinking of a Facebook real. So let’s get really specific. So you have a Facebook page where you’re posting your reels, that’s public, anyone can access that. When somebody on Facebook likes it, do you you do have to be friends with them then to go back and message or you can well you could message with Rachel Adams Lee 39:50less human being friends. Yeah, you because I haven’t kept an eye on you only have 5000 followers on Facebook and I have like 20 what I have now but like I kept a long time ago. So For D.J. Paris 40:00me, you’re not saying friend them necessarily, you’re saying send them a direct message, Rachel Adams Lee 40:04you don’t have the friend or if you have the availability, but I just send them a private message. Gotcha. Yeah. And then again, this is where it is really important to have that public profile. Because if you have a private profile, and I go to say something to you, I can’t see what anything happened in your life. And the other thing too, is like, with social media, it can be this like beautiful, empowering positive place, it can also suck the life out of you. So you have to be really intentional. So like, if I’m going through, and I go to click on someone’s page, and I get that, like, oh, I would never be friends with this person in real life, right there. And then I block them. I’m out. Because I’m like, you get to choose who you have in your feed who you have in your life. Same thing on social, I want my social media to make me feel good, and inspire me and empower me. And if it makes me feel the opposite, those people don’t belong in my world anymore. D.J. Paris 40:48I love that. Yeah. Boundaries. It’s about boundaries. That’s really great. So okay, let’s let’s go back through those steps. So before you do your real, you are going to find people that have that you are that you are not seeing their content, they are not seeing seeing five minutes before we also stress Rachel Adams Lee 41:06people out, I feel like it’s just a post when I’m doing my lead generation. I’m not doing it on reels, I’m doing it on posts. So I do like a picture post that I’ve made. I could do it for reals. But when I’m doing my lead generation, its posts and you have to remember most of our audience probably are doing more posts than reels. So So do it with a post guys, like D.J. Paris 41:26how many how many posts versus reels would you recommend on a daily weekly basis? Rachel Adams Lee 41:32Great question. I think you need to be doing at least one reel a week, at least one reel a week, if not more, I think you should be posting at least three times a week. Now you could do just a picture post, you could do a carousel post, which is multiple pictures. So you can choose what that looks like. But you do want to make sure you’re doing the the reels and can I share with them that get social leverage what that is yes. Okay, so a lot of realtors come to me and they’re like, Rachel, I want to do video. But I don’t know how I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to record it. I don’t know what equipment I need. I don’t know, you know, all the things. So I really felt this question coming up a lot to me. And it was stressing a lot of people out. So I said, How can I fill that void for our industry. So I created something called the weekly real system. So we have hundreds of agents doing this around the country. And what we do is every week I find a trending real and real estate, I shoot the raw footage. Then on Monday, you get an email that comes to you and it says hey, your reel is ready to create. All you have to do is you go on this private website that we have. And it will say like for example, it will say film yourself smiling and typing on your camera for seven seconds. You send that into my team, then we’re going to edit it for you put the captions the hook, I will write the hook for you put it on the screen, I write the actual post for you. I give you your hashtags, your geo hashtags, and I find the trending audio that trending that week in real estate, and through Instagram. And so literally, it’s all done for you. It’s 97 bucks a month. So it’s super inexpensive. You get a real every single week. And what’s super cool is it is your fastest conversion that you will see for your platform. Because we have people that are doing it. And like one of our girls, she posted a reel and she got four leads from it. Another one her daughter was in preschool and her all of a sudden her reel came in to her preschool teachers algorithm and she was like, I need to sell my house, I had no idea you were in real estate. We have people whose social media is up, I get messages all the time. 415% 445% for engagement, like this is the fastest thing you can do to build your presence on social media and we can handle the entire thing for you. If you go to get social leverage, and you click on the weekly reels, it’s 97 bucks a month and it’s like a no brainer. D.J. Paris 43:45I love that and you guys are doing all the heavy lifting. All we’re doing is doing a quick little shot of us you guys do the editing, and then we just posted it. Do you recommend a post? Do you what about cross posting? What do we think about now maybe that’s sort of a little bit further ahead for a lot of our listeners, but Phase two would be considering dropping those into tick tock I guess YouTube shorts things like that. Do you do cross posting in different channels? Rachel Adams Lee 44:12Yeah, so when I make a real I posted on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube shorts and tick tock I don’t tick tock is literally just there because I post on it I don’t do anything through tick tock I don’t I’ve never got a referral through tick tock. I just do it to like get the overall why not? Yeah. And really I don’t post it my assistant posts it for me there. But Facebook and Instagram is my jam. That’s like where my main focus comes from. I have a YouTube channel my YouTube channel has like hours and hours of free coaching content. You guys are welcome to go binge it. We talked about like how I got in the luxury market. I just shared my whole open house system because we had a $1.7 million buyer walk into our open house and it has been converted and in contract seven days later. And so I get my whole open house system. I believe in our industry and just like sharing and giving and it always comes back around and So that’s why I do all these different things for free, because it’s like, why not? People did it for me? D.J. Paris 45:06Yeah, and it does people get hooked on content, and then you have this ability to market to them forever. And that’s the beauty of of, you’re creating really great content. Let’s talk about your coaching as well. Okay. Rachel Adams Lee 45:19So yeah, I have so a lot of people are like, Rachel, I feel like you’re my style. I love the ideas you’re doing. I would like more. So two things. One, I have a mastermind group, it’s 29 bucks a month. That one if you were to Rachel’s coaching crew, sorry for that tell you about that one, but it’s 29 bucks a month. And I go in there twice a month, and I coach for 45 minutes. This last week, we talked all about listing. So I went over my listing presentation with them. I’ve talked about how I broke into the luxury market, when you hire your first admin, hey, I did this Instagram posting, I got no traction. So it’s really cool because I go in my coach for 45 minutes, but there’s also q&a. So we’ve have 81 referrals already passed out in that group. It’s you have a membership library where you can watch all the coaching later. So literally for $126 a month, you could have your weekly real covered and you can be in a coaching mastermind group, game changer. The other thing is if you really want to do a deep dive on social if you’re like, you know what 2024 is the year that I’m really going to focus on social media at a high level. I have an eight week social media masterclass where I do deep dives into Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. And I teach you like what to post how to post when to post, how to beat the algorithm, I give you a content calendar, it really just kind of helps you get some insight into like, really, if you’re doing social media at a high level, and it’s a place you’re going to focus on for lead generation. It helps. D.J. Paris 46:44I love it, I would cache we have covered so much. Let’s recap, let’s recap some of the different offerings because you’re giving away a lot of great content to our audience. So let’s what was the freebies link as well for people to check out Rachel’s Rachel Adams Lee 46:59freebies.com That’s gonna give them the 20 hooks to go viral. So Rachel, awesome. D.J. Paris 47:06And then we also have Hello social coaching. So if you’re looking to get some social coaching, that is.com That is the website, hello, social coaching, we’ll have links to all of this in the show notes and get social leverage as well. That is, that is the video reels that are done for you that you’ve just basically, and I want to talk to you off air about what I could be doing with my content. Because I have a we have a little bit of a different aim. But essentially same sort of thing. And I want to I want to get some ideas from Rachel as well. So I’m going to be signing up and I want everybody Rachel Adams Lee 47:38to about real estate guys is like you can have the life you want. You can build this business of your dreams. But real estate gives you the platform to do that. So like all of these amazing people I have in my world, I met them through real estate, and I’m a multi passionate entrepreneur, like I have a you know, like, I have four different streams of income for how I do run my life. But real estate is the foundation of everything. And so all the people that I’m in contact with all my main like, genre is still real estate. And we can build, you can do whatever you want. Like it’s it really is so fun. And so now like I get to be a working mom, I get to you know, like create these coaching courses and, you know, make six and seven figures and do all these things and still make an impact on my community and you guys have the exact same opportunity in front of you. It’s just what you choose to plug into. D.J. Paris 48:25Alright guys, this is a great place to wrap up because there’s a lot of to do’s here a lot of calls to action. So if you’re an agent in Northern California, I would probably want to work with Rachel at her Keller Williams team. She is the Rachel Adams elite group, you can visit Rachel Adams League group.com and learn all about what they offer their agents and team members. This is the year that people are moving. So moving meaning moving around offices not as much moving with homes. But certainly moving offices, this is a great opportunity. If you’re not getting the attention you need to consider maybe joining Rachel’s team. Also we have a lot of fun if you’re not in the Northern California area, not looking to switch firms. Lots of lots of cool opportunities to work with Rachel she’s got she’s got her reels system that she’ll do for you for what was it $29 A month 97 Rachel Adams Lee 49:15A month for the weekly real service and then 29 bucks for the mastermind group, which if you check with weekly reals, it’ll ask you do you want to join the mastermind group and you can just D.J. Paris 49:24Yeah, I mean that is that is both as somebody who pays to get reals done, I know how inexpensive what you’re offering is and coaching for $29 a month we know guys that is the cheapest coaching price you will ever find for pretty much any type of coach ever. So definitely check that out as well. And we will have links to I and Rachel’s freebies.com too. We were gonna give you just all of these links. Guys, all I want you to do the way that you can help think Rachel is obviously Check out all her stuff consider investing in her courses. She’s obviously the real deal. Please do it. It’s inexpensive. It’s kind of a no brainer, but The way that you can help both of us to is Tell a friend about this episode, think of one, just one other agent that needs to get their social media health improved and send them this this interview, please, please, please, you can send them to send them right over to our website, keeping it real pod.com Or the or any podcast app, they listened to search for keeping it real, hit that subscribe button, but send them a link to this particular episode, you are going to be doing a lot of good for your co workers and also helping us in that same time. On behalf of our audience. I want to thank Rachel, busy mother, busy entrepreneur, and just a heck of a nice person. And think about all the content she gave us away for free today, all of the help, she literally just is like this is exactly how I do it. So we need to thank her. So I’m on behalf of the audience thanking you for that. On behalf of Rachel and myself, we got to thank our listeners. You guys are the reason we’re here and making it all the way to the end of the episode. That’s awesome. Thank you for that. So uh, please tell a friend. We We love you. We’re gonna keep producing these episodes. Of course, let us know what you think of the show. Also, if you have an extra few moments, leave us a review. Let us know what on whatever podcast app you’re listening. Let us know what you think of the show. We read those and we we’re here to serve you. So tell us what we could do differently and better. And again, please tell a friend. Again, Rachel, thank you so much. This was awesome. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Rachel. Rachel Adams Lee 51:23Thanks so much.

Welcome to another episode of Video Boot Camp for Real Estate Professionals with Kim Rittberg. Wondering how to sell more homes? Award-winning Real Estate Video Coach Kim Rittberg brings you 3 ways to get yourself on camera today – to sell more homes! Kim has VIDEO BOOT CAMP starting in just a few short weeks! Apply here through her website. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Make sure to follow Kim on social media on Instagram. Don’t forget to grab Kim’s Free Download – 10 Tips to Amazing Video <here>  and follow her on Instagram. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today’s social media expert Kim rip berg is going to give you three ways to get yourself on camera today to help you sell more homes. Stay tuned this episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solutions so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase 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 and now on to our show. Kim Rittberg 1:29They keep me real listeners. I’m Kim Rydberg I’m really excited to be with you today to talk about how to get yourself on camera. today. I’m an award winning Digital Marketer. I spent 20 years in media in TV news, writing and producing scripts and getting people ready for camera. And then I launched the video unit for Us Weekly magazine, a celebrity magazine where I did what you need to do, which is to turn an empty conference room into a video studio. And so now I teach real estate agents and founders across the country about how to grow with video, I spoke at the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices convention last year, and I’ve taught hundreds of agents my methods. And I’m really excited to talk to you today about how to be confident on camera and how to get yourself on camera. I want to break through and say first of all, you have to realize it is really important to be on camera. I know it’s it’s a push it you have to break through the wall of saying I feel weird or like I don’t look good on camera. I don’t like my voice on camera. It is really important. And I want to share a couple of wins recently to really drive it home. So I run this program called Video bootcamp, which by the way you can apply right now there isn’t a mid October cohort, I only run it a few times a year. It is a seven week live coaching program where I get you confident on camera, and I get you off the hamster wheel of making content for social that just doesn’t have results. And I teach you a strategy. I get you on camera, and I give you processes. So you can consistently create good content without burnout. So I had an agent, her name is Tiffany, she was in my last video bootcamp. And she was not showing up. So I had met her at the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices convention and she heard my get confident on camera. She came over to me after and said, I do want to show up on camera. I know I should. She ended up taking video bootcamp where we really get on camera, we get a strategy together of what we’re posting, we post it together as a team. She showed up on camera. And she got three calls from one video. And I cannot understate that this is not an outlier. Once you start showing up, people start hearing you like people can’t hear you if you’re not talking. So it’s really, really important to break through whatever your reasons are. And whatever your demons are, that are telling you not to show up on camera, it’s really, really important to break through those. And then once you’re on camera, we put the strategy together where say, okay, what are we making together? How do we optimize it to get more people seeing it. So I like to share that anecdote because I think it’s really, really important to remember how it how it can and how it will help you once you start showing up. And okay, so I’m gonna jump right into the ways to get on camera. So first of all, I talked a little bit about the importance of being on camera. But I do want to reiterate, I have a framework that I call get out of supermodel mode and get into teacher mode. Before going on camera, a lot of the work is behind the scenes. It’s not just what do I wear? How do I sit where to put the camera? It’s the mindset work of saying, I should be on camera. No one’s gonna mock me, my voice doesn’t sound that bad. You have to start telling yourself those positive things and fight back the negative voices because we all hear them. Even though I am a video expert and I was a TV producer for 10 years I’ve even done local on camera work. I didn’t want to show up on camera to promote my business, but I have a business and I need to promote my business. So we have to remember that showing up on camera is an integral part of our marketing. And secondly, we have to show up and think about the message we’re putting across. You need to be more focused on the message in the video rather than thinking about how you look and how you feel so I call it like get out of supermodel mode. So supermodel mode is when everyone’s looking at you and look at your hair and your outfit and judging your voice and teacher mode, we’re thinking more about the message more about the education that you’re putting in the video and how you’re connecting to your ideal client. And in my video bootcamp program, we talk a lot about that, like, Who’s your ideal client? And how are you reaching them? I think a lot of us feel like, Why does somebody want to watch this video of me riding a bike or something, make it connect to your plan, we build a strategy, and then it makes sense, it starts to make sense, and it starts to bring in leads. And I think until you have a strategy, and until you’re showing up on camera, it doesn’t really make sense. And it’s hard to cut through the self consciousness of being on camera. Alright, so the the number one thing is the importance of being on camera. So I really want to hammer home, you have to get on camera. Because if you don’t believe that you should be on camera, you’re always going to find a reason not to be, there’s a million other things we need to do in our business. Generally, when we’re running our business, we do the things we like to do. First, we do the things we don’t like to do last. And last, if we’re lucky, often we shove them off. But it is super duper important to show up and do this. And I apologize have a little bit of a cold, but I still like to show up for you giving your listeners there are easy ways to start showing up on camera. So number one, the first really, really easy way is to start showing up on Instagram stories. So Instagram Stories, if you don’t know, is the part of Instagram, where it’s just for 24 hours. So you show up, you post a video and it expires. So this is like a lower stress way to just start showing up. And again, it’s all about practice. If you start showing up today, your video might be okay, maybe a little maybe you feel a little awkward. But tomorrow will be easier. The next day is easier. It is like anything else. I know this from all of my clients, I prepare to be on camera, every time gets easier, every time gets better. Do you have to start showing up. So Instagram Stories is a great way to start showing up with low pressure. That’s one of the things I do in video bootcamp, I force us all to get on camera. Because I do think it’s important to work that muscle, just like you’re working any other muscle, right? You can’t get strong. Unless you go to the gym, you can’t just read a book about getting stronger, you have to go to the gym, it’s the same thing with being on camera. So Instagram Stories is a great way to just get out, you know, shake off the cobwebs and start putting yourself on camera. And another thing is, you know, I have this agent in California that I work with, and I love her she’s so fantastic. And she’s like, I don’t love like talking to the camera. It feels like a little weird. And one of the things that reminded her is you can start by being on camera, you could put the camera further from you and just do some work. So if I put my camera in the corner, and then I’m typing on my computer, you’re seeing me and I’m not necessarily talking to camera. So if that’s not like your main thing that you love doing, you can do that. Additionally, if you have an assistant or a friend or a spouse or whatever, who can ask you a question, and then you’re answering it to camera or answering it to them and recording. That’s also a way to get yourself on camera in just a little lower stress way. I liken that to if you ever watched like 60 minutes or a documentary, often the person is is answering someone like just a little bit away from the camera lens. This is what I did. By the way, the reason why I know all this is I was a TV producer. So I was the person next to the camera lens to I would say, answer these questions to me not to the camera. So that way you’re actually talking to someone and it feels more conversational. Not everybody loves talking straight to camera, it’s definitely a skill you need to practice. So that’s another way to do it. If you have someone around you have them ask you one question. So one question, what’s going on with the market? How are the interest rates? Should I buy now or something like that? Or like? What’s your biggest tip for someone looking to buy a home right now? And just have them ask you one question and ask that an answer that one question. And that’s you on camera, you could put that in Instagram stories, or you could turn it you know, you could put it up as a video. And the reason why I talk about Instagram Stories, there are a lot of platforms you could post your content on. I do love the idea that it’s a great way to practice stories is a great way to practice. But you could put your content on tick tock Youtube, Instagram doesn’t matter. You have to start showing up. And then the other thing I want to flag you know, there’s so much talk about AI and automation. And I’m psyched about that, like, of course we all want to make more content with less so great. Can we use automation? Can we use AI? When I see people putting AI photos and quotes on their feed? It doesn’t do much like you’re showing up on camera to build those relationships, why people are trusting you with a huge investment. And it’s really such a personal relationship. You know that right? You all of these clients, you stay in touch with them, they work with you because they like you they trust you. It’s really hard to show and build that trust with a sort of robotic quote and a photo of a tree and And I’m being a little funny here. But it’s really hard to build that. And if you think about this, let’s say you’re put yourself in the shoes of a buyer, and you have agent a, posting a headshot and a little caption two sentences. And then you have agent B, who’s on video, and really teaching you something about the market or about how to sell your home about how to buy a home, and you feel their passion, you’re hearing their voice and maybe, like, maybe they have like a little cat crawls on them in the middle. So you know, they’re human, who are you going to work with, from a buyer standpoint, which person are you gonna work with. So remember that showing up on video really drives those relationships. And on the back end, all the social platforms are promoting video more. So the more you do video, the more your contents going to be seen. So don’t give up that opportunity. It’s really, really, really important. The last, the last tip I wanted to advise is do an interview. So I sometimes some of my clients, they prefer this style versus others. I think this is great and fun. One thing you can do is you can do an interview to show up on camera, what I mean by that, set up your camera, have someone talk with you in an interview setting, and film that and have that be social content. I will advise if you’re doing that, make sure the interview is really planned out. Because if you kind of meander, and it becomes sort of like a tangent of talking, that’s kind of boring for video, and people won’t want to watch that. But if someone’s asking you a question, and you’re answering it, and you’re cutting that up and putting it on camera, that’s great. Again, whatever is more comfortable for you, because I know that we all make excuses in our head about why we’re not going to do something. So I’m giving you different ways that you can do it because it’s not one size fits all right when I work with my agents, everyone has a different personality. You know, like I have some agents who really struggle with showing up on camera and then we were like, alright, let’s let’s have you be a guest on a podcast or let’s have you be a an interviewee and interview guest instead of talking to camera, and how do we show up and make that happen? I do like to say it’s really worth it to break through though I had one, my one client, he lives in Los Angeles. And he is such a killer. He’s amazing. He’s such a good agent really did not love showing up on camera. But I forced him to force him to I don’t force anyone I encouraged him to I supported him through it. And I interviewed him asking him his favorite spots in LA. That video got six times the viewership than any of his other videos. Just him talking on camera, no crazy visuals really just like, you know, just really him answering. People like to hear from people. And people like to know that you’re that local expert. So he gave his opinions on what were the favorite restaurants in the area. What were some amazing clothing stores in the area. What was his favorite coffee in the area? Short video, him showing up on camera showing up as the local expert bringing his opinions. That video got five times six times I forget six times the viewership and engagement. So he got seen by potential clients leads other restaurants people who would refer him other store owners. So showing up on camera is worth it. I mean, his other videos like the home tours, that’s fine. They were getting seen, you know, like 100 times, and this video is getting seen several 1000 times, you have to really understand the power of showing your face the power it can have for your business. To me, I get it and I get I get why we aren’t on camera, but it is worth it to push through. And then once you’re getting on camera, then we talk about okay, let’s talk about your strategy. What are the videos we’re going to do? How do we make the videos you’re doing even better, and make them drive even more, more traction, getting more leads, I think that’s really, really important to say no matter where you are. I love I love saying this, like when I work with my clients and video bootcamp, the live coaching program, whether you’re not showing up on camera, I will get you on camera and get you started. But if you’ve already been making content for years, but you’re not seeing those results, and you’re churning out content, let’s get your strategy in place. It means something’s happening behind the scenes that’s not connecting. So let’s get you a strategy in place. And let’s get you to the next level. One actually one of my agents, she was really like comfortable on camera making lots of reels. She has a good sense of humor. So she was leaning into some of those trending reels with lip sync stuff. She took video bootcamp. And she told me in her testimonial, she’s like, I thought I was good at video. But man, Kim really taught me so much strategy, and I was able to use it and I ended up getting a referral. So she got a referral directly from the video. And she had been making like content like really putting out videos before that. But she hadn’t seen that return on investment yet. She hadn’t really seen it pay off. And once you understand how to make the video what to make, how to get it to your clients, how to get it to those leads. That’s the part of it that really starts working and we all are putting in, you know, between like 20 minutes and four hours a week for social media that adds up. You know, time is money. If you’re not showing up and you’re not having a strategy in place, it tends to be wasted time so you really want to be clear Make sure that you’re showing up on camera and having a really strong strategy. So so that those are, those are some of my tips, I have a couple of bonus ways because people always ask me I get the same like struggles from my different clients that about showing up and other person is very interesting. Another woman I worked with, she lives in Iowa, I was gonna say, Idaho, Iowa, and she is an agent in Iowa. And she’s a real estate agent coach, too. And she wasn’t showing up on camera. And if you want to be coaching other people, you want to be teaching other people, you need to show up on camera, you need to show them your personality, you need to make them like you and trust you. And I encouraged her to start showing up and she’s sent a video, sorry, she posted a video in Instagram Stories, a bit of education on what she was doing that day or her point of view on something in the neighborhood. She messages me, she’s like Kim, I got a message from someone about this video. And I thought they were going to be making fun of me. And actually they said, What a great point. So she realized that all of the worries of someone coming over and judging her were totally in her head and they’re not real. So I’m gonna go over a couple of different ways that we can be showing up on camera and I’ll wrap it up in a second. And as I mentioned before, my video bootcamp, seven week live coaching, you can apply now the cohort starts in mid October. So definitely apply now. So we can hold a spot for you. It does fill up every single time it fills up. And it is seven weeks of live coaching and get you on camera get you off the hamster wheel of making content that’s not performing. I give you downloads, templates, scripts, a system and a process. We used to brainstorm better. That’s all in video bootcamp. And it’s live coaching and also a curriculum that you can save and use forever. And lots of feedback directly from me. I will look at your content. I will give you direct feedback. I love teaching and I’m as you can tell I’m very high energy. It’s really, really fun. So they’re going to link it out in the show notes. But my name is Kim Rydberg r i t t b e r g, and it’s kinrick Berg’s video bootcamp. So I’d love to see your application for that. And I’m going to also give you one more tip for being on camera. So we talked about number one, the biggest thing is a mindset shift. Go from supermodel mode to teacher mode. That is the biggest biggest change because 75% of my video bootcamp students and my clients struggle with even getting on camera. And then once you’re there, aim for the easiest ways to do it. Instagram Stories, shoot a video, answer a question that you get asked a lot. Think about a question that a lot of buyers or sellers ask you put that onto video posted on Instagram stories. If you really are having struggle struggling with it, put your camera in the corner, start doing some work. And then you have some footage of you working and you can write some words on it like hard at work, getting a house ready for ready for sale. They’re ready for showing. And then last one, you answer a question. So have someone sit right next to the phone? And have them ask you that question and answer to camera. They can ask you why you got started. What what’s a funny real estate story that you had, from your experiences, all of those sorts of things. And then the last one is have someone interview you. So sit down and have somebody could be in the office. It could be I’ve seen I’ve seen these for my clients that have been good as one was in the office like during sort of like a meeting. You could also do it like at one of your showings. So you could have like your assistant or another agent just like have a little like q&a. And then also you can both post it so that way you’re getting more eyeballs on it. And so that’s another really really good way and the interview should be really specific. It should be really focused on one topic. So it shouldn’t just be like about real estate it should be like you know, the changing interest rate how we’re addressing it or the thing you should never do before you state your house like one specific thing that makes it really someone who understands what they’re getting and it’s a better hook to hook them in to grab them to make them want to watch it. Alright, I hope you enjoyed it I always love teaching the keeping it real listeners don’t forget to follow me on Instagram. i If you know if you know Alba listeners already know follow me on like friends, friends, social friends IRL, no virtual friends with all the keeping real listeners. And I am Kim Rydberg and I love helping you grow your business with video, getting on camera, getting confident and really understanding what to make to actually drive your clients drive your revenue growth. It’s really fun for me, I teach agents across the country and apply for my video bootcamp. The link will be in the show notes and until then, show up on camera because hiding from the camera means hiding from clients. I’m Kim rybrook. Have a great day.

Alex Wolking with Keller Williams in Chicago talks about how he started his journey into real estate at the age of 12. Alex describes how he still makes business the old-fashioned way and how important open-houses have been to his career. Next, Alex discusses how he built his business the second time around after moving back to Chicago. Alex also discusses the importance of knowing your market in details and shares tips for new agents on how to start studying the market they want to work in. Please follow Alex on Instagram here. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Alex Wolking can be reached at (312) 343-1039 and alex@alexwolking.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today we’re going to speak to an agent who built a top producing real estate business by the age of 19. Then he gave it all up, moved to a new city and did it all over again. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase 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. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show and in just a moment, I’m going to be speaking with top producer Alex Woking. Before we get to Alex just a couple of reminders. The best way that you can help our show is really two things. Number one support our sponsors, they pay the freight and they make it possible for us to do these episodes. So please check out their products and services and consider investing in them. And second thing is to tell a friend just tell one other realtor about this episode. I promise by the end of this one, you will want to share it it’s that good. So please tell everybody you know about this podcast. It helps me helps us get in front of more agents and helps us do more episodes. So thanks guys really appreciate all the support by the way we did just crossed over 3 million downloads a few weeks ago, which is a huge milestone for us. So I thank you for sharing it telling a friend and continuing to listen but let’s get to the main event my conversation with Alex walking. cake today on the show our guest is Alex woking with Keller Williams one here in Chicago. And let me tell you more about Alex. He is a second generation broker and real estate was all he has is all he has ever known at 12 years old, he began working for his father, who’s a real estate veteran in the Quad Cities region of Illinois and Iowa and 2011 at 19 years old woking earned his Iowa real estate license and was awarded Rookie of the Year in 2012. Amazing walking small town roots taught him the importance of building strong relationships while maintaining discretion. And while approaching negotiations with discernment. woking spent time away from Chicago after graduating from DePaul, which is here in Chicago before returning to Chicago in 2016. Probably rebuilding his referral based network from scratch walking has since received numerous accolades, including recognition as a top producer by the Chicago Association of Realtors since 2019 2021 National Association of REALTORS 30 under 30 honoree and regarded by real trends as the top 1.5% agent in America on the real trends 1000 list for 2020 to please everyone, check out Alex on his website, Alex woking.com. It’s a la XWOL que i ng.com link for that in the show notes and follow him on Instagram, Alex, Alex woking, we will have a link to that in the show notes as well. Alex, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. DJ, good to finally meet you. I am yeah, I am super excited to meet you. Alex is a little bit of a celebrity here in the Chicago real estate. I would say a rising star but I feel like your star has already risen. But it’s still continuing to rise. And I am so excited to get to talk to you because I’m always it’s to me it’s always impressive when people who are who are younger. And you have Gosh, you started so, so young. You know, we’re able to find success so so quickly. And I know it’s through tremendous, tremendous hard work, but we would love to hear a little bit of your story. So let’s go back to the beginning. Tell us how you got into real estate. Alex Wolking 4:56Yeah. So when I was told Well, my I’ll never forget, I always tell the story. My dad, as you know, and was a real estate broker in the Quad Cities. And actually back in March of this year, it was 30 a year in business. And I was 12. He called me and he was like, hey, I need you to log into this website and print this thing out for me. Well, it was the MLS and he wanted a listing sheet printed out because he was driving by on his way to a showing. I didn’t know what he did. But I was so fascinated by the system, I started diving through it, and I just thought it was so cool. And then later that week, he went to go meet with a single mom first time homebuyer, she had two daughters that were about my age. And again, I had never seen what my dad did for a living. And we’re, we went looked at this house, and he we went across the street, there’s a Wendy’s across the street. And we’re sitting there. And actually, the listing sheet that I printed was for this house. And I saw, we sat down and my dad just became this other person that was so cool. I saw him, like this woman was so nervous and scared. And her two daughters were about me and my brother’s age. And so we’re sitting there, eating our burgers or whatever. And watching my dad helped us woman navigate buying a house and putting her at ease. And then later hearing a phone call of when he called and said you got the house and you could hear her like scream with excitement over the phone. That was when I saw the whole arc of what my dad did. And I thought it was the coolest thing ever. And I just became obsessed. And I was so obsessed at 12 years old, I got on my bike and went to open houses because my mom wouldn’t take me. I just wanted to help data, I thought it was the coolest thing. I wanted to help them do more of that. So I started doing going to open houses on my bike to learn the market and help them out. I went to you know, when I turned 16, I went to 229 open houses that year. I got to know the whole real estate community and other agents would call my dad be like, your son came through my open house today. D.J. Paris 7:14He took some of the some of the cookies. They did. Alex Wolking 7:17So they but you know what helped though was I would go into other agents, there were some agents, I would make a point to go to their open houses because I would hear how they would talk to clients that came through, I would hear how they worked. I could suss out who’s a good agent who wasn’t and I could, there were some agents, I would just go and they liked me so much that sometimes I would just go sit there open houses with them. Just watch them work and listen to them. And that’s all I got. You know, by the time I was 19 and got licensed I already I have already graduated real estate High School. D.J. Paris 7:53That is assessed. That is an incredible story. And, you know, we’ve done about 500 episodes. And that is one of the more unique stories that I have heard I love it. And it’s a good reminder for everyone listening that open houses are, are the way they are the way I Alex Wolking 8:12always joke. I mean, I was taught the old school way DJ I mean, I you know so many agents today that get into the business are taught social media and marketing yourself in video. I learned the old school old fashioned way eyeball to eyeball belly to belly toe to toe and I was you know, open houses door knocking I mean, the handwritten notes we had such a small town Midwest thing. And that’s really ultimately but I still build my business and have credited a lot of my success to today. And I had I had great teachers too. I had great teachers growing up. Yeah, my dad never I have to say this. My dad never ran real estate down my throat. I think a lot of real estate agents want their kids to get in business. They want their spouse to get in. He always let me discover on my own and he never pushed it. I think that’s part of the reason why I liked it so much because it was never forced on me. Well, D.J. Paris 9:03you got your license at 19. So you were in college, I guess at that time. And you were in college here in Chicago, and you got your license and in the sorry in Iowa, which is not super convenient. But so tell us about that. Alex Wolking 9:16Yeah. So I went to I went I did not have a traditional college career. I got licensed halfway through my freshman year and I got so I went home on weekends I went home every summer I went home on spring break I went home for a holiday break because you know, to Paul’s off from Thanksgiving to New Year’s I went home that whole time. I didn’t have my first Chicago summer until I moved back in 2016 or 2017 really because I just wanted to work but by the time I graduated, I had already had a book of business and clients that I was working with. So I graduated from DePaul and I moved back home to the Quad Cities the next day. And I graduated from the reason I went to DePaul in the first place was because they had In their College of Commerce, they actually had a degree in real estate. And that was what my training was in was more commercial focus, finance development, you know, that sort of thing had nothing to do with brokerage or sales, but I could go sell commercial real estate tomorrow if I wanted to, but I don’t want to D.J. Paris 10:19you know, people sell commercial I have the utmost respect for because it seems just like, I don’t think I’d like to do it. It’s, it’s a lot, a lot of stress. But, but anyway, um, so what’s so amazing about your story is, is you would think, you know, hey, Dad’s got this incredible business back home, he’s he’s established, He’s respected, I have my license, maybe I partner up with dad, or maybe I build my own brand there. But certainly the name is a name people may know. And so that would obviously be a huge leg up, you’ve already sent hundreds of open houses, you know, the good realtors, you’ve already established yourself, and you have a book of business there. So you would assume that that’s where you ended up. But you didn’t. And you decided to come here. And I want to make sure that people know that even though Alex said, Hey, during college, he went to school in Chicago, he would go home on the weekends. It’s not like we’re that close to the Quad Cities. It’s what at least two hours, maybe three and a half to three hours. Yeah. So I grew up in Peoria, Illinois, about three hours away from Chicago as well. And the I didn’t go to school in Peoria. But the idea of traveling like that on the weekends would have just driven me nuts. But regardless, you were really set up to build your business in Iowa, or you’re right in the Quad Cities, which is Iowa and Illinois, but not Chicago at all. And then you’re like, I’m going to come back to Chicago, and you had to start completely over. So how did you do that? Alex Wolking 11:36So this is where one Mr. Phil Byers comes into play. So Phil Byers, who is now with Compass. When I was 18 years old, my dad was a team leader for the Quad Cities office and Keller Williams, Quad Cities office and the in. So I was moving up here to go to Paul. And my dad reached out to Phil, who was the team leader at the time. And he said, You know, I’ve got this son, he’s going to DePaul, he loves real estate, you have anything for him to do. And sales like yeah, I’m sure we can find something for me do and my dad’s like, Alex is Alex is a, he’s a neat kid hangs up the phone. And that Phil will tell you that story like it was yesterday. And so I come barreling into Phil’s office, I had an hour long meeting with them. And he just looked at me and he’s like, I will help you do whatever you want to do. So when I want it at the end of 2015, I was 23 years old. I was number three in the Quad Cities office and I said the top 50 agents on the Board of Realtors there. And I had helped ranked my dad that year. Which I’m sure he was both proud of and disappointed. But at the end of 2015, you know, I did really well. And I had built up a book of business of just unique homes. That was my niche was hard to sell stuff. And but I knew it as a 23 year old single gay man. The Quad Cities was not the place for me. D.J. Paris 13:17Oh, that is all of our phones are going off right now. This is the second time ever, that they are testing. I learned about this the other day the Emergency Broadcast System. So that’s what you might have just heard. Mine will be coming in the next few seconds. So I will I will deal with that. So Alex has just got it. No big deal. We will we will cut that up. Alex Wolking 13:38So anyway, as a young 23 year old single gay man, I knew that the Quad Cities, especially after I had been there, it was not the place for me to be at that time of my life anyway. And I knew especially after having lived in Chicago, I mean, the greatest cities actually just voted one of the best cities in America for the seventh year in a row. I knew that I wanted more for myself. And I knew I would regret it if I didn’t move back to Chicago. So I agree. I was terrified. And I worked for Phil in college. I was an intern on his team when he was at properties at the time. So I went back and he and at the at the end of my internship, he said well, you know, if you ever decide to come back, your job will always be here. And I was like, Okay, great. So I filed that away. Cut to January of 2020 or 2016. I messaged him late on a Thursday night and I said I think I’m thinking about coming back to Chicago. Can I talk to you about taking my old job back on Firestone team, and he and I was coming up to I wasn’t planning on coming up to the city that weekend. But he said Saturday morning 9am My office bring coffee. I was like, okay, so I got my car and I drove up, you know, Friday night. I walk into his office. It’s Saturday morning and he’s like, see you want to come back? I said Yeah, I want to come at you How can I come work as a buyer’s agent for you on buyers home team, he’s like, What? Know what, you’ll be fine on your own. You see that empty desk across the hallway, Sit your ass over there, you’ll be just fine without me. You don’t need a team. You don’t need me, you know anybody else. You will be fine on your own. Just get your ass here was like, Oh, okay. It’s like when’s your slowest time there was like, right around September. He’s like, great. Start telling everybody that you know that you’re moving to Chicago in September, figure out the plan later, but just tell everybody that you’re moving. Okay. At that time, I was 24. And so I started telling people I’m really mad to Chicago, and people like what it was like, I don’t know, I’m gonna figure it out. Well, let me hold. I signed a lease September 1 of 2016. And I came back and then I transitioned my business for about two years 2017 2018 I partnered with an agent, the Quad Cities to kind of take over my business there. And then so I still was like, part time here my first two years, but I didn’t go full time here until January 1 of 2019. Wow. And D.J. Paris 16:07how did you build the business here? When you had such a strong foothold there? I’m sure there may be a little bit of overlap maybe people moving but but but usually people the Quad City stay in the Quad Cities. Same with Peoria where I’m from. So it’s not like oh, this is an easy transition. No, it’s It’s you are literally starting over. So how did you do it? Alex Wolking 16:28Oh, man, you know, DJ, I’m still figuring that. I think you know, I’ve just always been born with the gift of unbridled tenacity. And I’ve never there’s not a conversation I’ve strayed away from there’s not a you know, I’m I have no problem picking up the phone. But it really did it. When I first came back to Keller Williams came in really handy as an international brand. Because for years, I’ve gone to all the conferences, I’ve made a bunch of friends and built relationships with other agents around the country. They didn’t know anybody in Davenport, Iowa or Moline, Illinois. But when I moved to Chicago and made the big announcement, everybody knew somebody in Chicago. So my first four years 70% of my business was agent referrals. And that was that was a huge part of my business. Yeah, up until about 2020 2021. Really? And then it just of course, then it snowballed, right, I mean, you got I sent out just sold postcards ever around every property I sold like my first year here in 2017, I closed 10 properties for like 2.7 million. And then in 2018, I did 13 units for like 5 million. And then in 2019, I sold 28 homes for 15 million. So just it snowballed. It literally doubled year over year. And then I hired Kevin, my assistant director of operations now. And then from 2020, we went from 28 closed units and 15 and a half million to 52 units for 26 million. So that’s just I mean, that’s kind of where I’ve hovered the last two years is around that 25 $30 million. Mark. And it’s, you know, that’s, you know, it’s as they say, take the leap of faith and trust in that will catch you in it sure did. D.J. Paris 18:28Yeah, it’s it’s so funny because you, you know, you in your early in your teen years really did a lot of the heavy lifting, that people even when they get their license oftentimes don’t do and and look, I mean, you know, it’s it’s never too late to get in shape. It’s never too late to start building skills. It’s never too late for for anything. In life. If you put the effort in and you had obviously, you probably saw I’m sure your father worked extremely hard as as an A successful agent, every successful agent does. And so you saw his work ethic, and then you were able to also participate without really being in the industry for for some time. And boy, you know, reminds me of a story. So here in Chicago, one of the top agents we and by the way, Alex is mentioning Phil buyers, we have an episode we’ve done with Phil Byers, he is an exceptional person to listen to he’s he’s trained and coached numerous agents. He’s with Compass, you can go back through our archives and find Phil’s episode. It’s a he’s just such a wonderful human. One of our one of my favorite people. And I was thinking about another episode that I’ve done here in Chicago that your story reminded me of. So for people in Chicago who are listening, you’ll know this name, but everyone else might not. His name is Matt Lehrer sees one of the big producers one of the biggest actually have about 46,000 agents in Chicago and he’s one or two or three he’s always at the top. And what when I had him on the show millions of years ago, he he told me that his first five have yours in the business. I think he only sold, I can’t remember exactly 12 homes total in five years. And I said, he didn’t, he goes, Well, I was living at home, so I’d have to pay for rent he goes, but I considered it going to college. Like you were saying, by the time you were 19, you’re like, I’ve already put in my, you know, not maybe 10,000 hours, but I put in a lot of hours. And he would just get up every day and walk around River North, which is where he wanted to specialize. And he went to every building, and he just learned the inventory. And he goes, You know, I was poor. For five years, I made no money, I was a little it was a little embarrassing. But now he’s, you know, at the very, very top of the mountain. So it’s, you know, you have a similar story there. And I just I’m so impressed with people that put in that amount of work, because it’s discipline. And it’s not easy. Well, Alex Wolking 20:44and you know, in addition to that to DJ, as I learned very early on, and I think so many agents, they get success really quickly, and they just blow through every dollar they make. Where I mean, my first year in the business was 2011. That was the bottom of the market. Tough, tough, tough year, I didn’t sell anything, I got licensed April 2011. My first closing was until February 2012. And so man, I went a whole year without selling anything. And I almost got out of business. And my first listing was actually for sale by owner that I had converted from door knocking. And my second listing was a short sale. And that was I mean, I got in a very difficult market. So I’ve always been very cautious with how I spent my money, my marketing dollars and how I were referrals come from like in markets like this year that have been challenging. A lot of agents are freaked out and scrambling. I’m not because that I’ve been through that. And I watched my dad go through 2007 through 2010. And I, you know, I’ve watched, you know, having grown up and then I’ve been through market cycles before, and how you adapt and change in those markets. But what I wanted to say was right, as I was actually making copies of my license at the copier ready to go there we go. Okay, I was actually so in December 2011, I was about to drop my license, I was gonna go hang out. I was making copies of my license. I was going to the Quad City or realtor association to turn it in. I had an appointment and everything. And the number one agent in the office at the time, Deb Houseman, she she saw what I was doing. She’s like, What are you doing? I was like, I’m hanging my license. She’s like, you’re not gonna be in real estate anymore. I was like, Yeah, I think I’m just gonna finish my degree. And I’ll get in real estate after that. And she’s like, really. So I’m just like, I think you should give that some time. Like, give it a few days, but don’t do it today. I was like, alright, so I canceled my appointment. I went to dinner with my mom and I got a ping on my phone back in the day when I had a Blackberry. And I had a, I got an email from her. And this was by this point, I was at home and it was probably like 11 o’clock at night, which is unlike Deb she’s Miss I’m in bed by 830 every night. It was an email from her saying I couldn’t sleep thinking about you getting out of the business. If it’s not hard, it’s not worth having. You need to go network more. And I was like networking, what’s never gonna she’s like, Alex, go make friends. And I was like, she’s like, You need to go make friends. So I’m in business today because of Deb Houseman and I built my business on her advice. The best advice I ever got in the industry was go make friends, that if I if I write a book someday about all my successes and adventures and my memoirs, the name of the book is gonna be called Go make friends. You D.J. Paris 23:51know, you’re absolutely so so right on. You know, we are wired for community, we’re wired for connection, we want to support our friends, we want to help them with their endeavors. We oftentimes, you know, use our not use our friends in a negative way. But we utilize our friends to Hey, who’s your doctor who’s your you know, who’s your hairstylist, who’s your accountant, and who’s your realtor. And so, it is you know, being being likable is such an important and I don’t mean changing who you are to fit someone else’s needs. I just mean being somebody who’s approachable, somebody who you whether you’re introverted or extroverted, you can learn skills to you know, be a likable person. And I always think that being you know, being likable is one of the key tenants of being in real estate. It’s being being somebody that can people can talk to and they can bring their challenges and there’s stress and and all of the ups and downs of a of a transaction. I mean it is every transaction stressful at some point, sometimes many times during it and the clients are stressing out just Like, you know, you would expect and being somebody that they can come to, and you’re making this massive decision with, you know, financially, and you get to be the one who’s who’s really guiding them is is really it’s almost, you know, blessing may be a little bit of a strong word. But it’s really, we’re very fortunate to be in this kind of profession where we’re literally guiding somebody through one of the more stressful parts of life is buying and selling homes. Alex Wolking 25:26Yes, yes. And that that advice of go make friends was literally how I always approached my business. And not only that, that was that was the mindset, the mentality I had when I moved back here to Chicago, and just starting over again, was I don’t have to go make friends. And then that was that was it. D.J. Paris 25:44It’s, it’s just incredible that that you’ve built basically two businesses before the age of 30. in two different locations, basically, starting from scratch, maybe you could argue, in the Quad Cities, maybe you had some additional resources there, but you still put in the work, you still rode your bike to all of those open houses. What what do you say to agents today who are starting out who maybe don’t have the guidance that that you were fortunate enough to have, you know, from your father and from from Deb, once you got started? And obviously Keller Williams, one Chicago here is a really, really well respected brand. here locally, I mean, obviously, nationally, internationally, too. But you have a lot of great people at your firm, and also people that like compass Phil buyers, a lot of people are in your corner. But you asked you went out and made those connections yourself. But let’s talk I want to talk about open houses just for a moment, because I think it is you were saying, you know, social media wasn’t really the main driver for your business. But, you know, making friends and also sitting hundreds of open houses, is really like, can you talk a little bit about what skills you learned by watching other realtors do? Alex Wolking 26:54Oh my god. So I don’t even know where to begin with that. Because there’s I’m an observer, you know, I’ve always been a lifelong learner, I love being a student. And a lot of what I learned was what to do and what not to do. You watch how a lot you remember, if anything, I wasn’t necessarily watching the agent, I was watching the buyers and the consumers coming through, and what their reactions were to what the agent was saying or doing. And what I found doing that is that people like the element of surprise, and I think one of the biggest things I took away was never rob a buyer from the element of surprise, you know, instead of saying, you know, this kitchen has an amazing pantry, let them discover that, you know, let them go and find that. When it came to converting and like just having a normal conversation with people just ask them. Oh, you guys, where do you guys go to brunch today? Have you been to this place around the corner? You know, there’s just so many things like that just being real, it just be real with people. And it’s so easy to say, Oh, well, you know, be yourself? Well, it’s hard to do, and you don’t know who you are. But there’s a I think that was the where I saw the greatest response from consumers at open houses was when agents were real, and relatable. And it instantly takes the guard down for a lot of consumers. So I mean, I used to dress up for open houses and I’d wear you know, the suit and tie and brown shoes and all of that. And what I found is that my conversion went up when I ditched the suit. Interesting. And, you know, Mr. Clerici, will have you believing otherwise. But anyway, you know that that’s, that’s authentically him. No, that’s not me. And, you know, I was I had to look at what markets I was serving. You know, the Quad Cities is a very kind of blue collar area. And, you know, I always was more drawn to areas that just felt real. So for me, the vast majority of my business is, you know, Lakeview uptown Edgewater Ravenswood Lincoln Square, and I don’t do I sold in 2022. I sold 51 homes, and only two of them were in Lincoln Park. And both of them were in the same building. So it wasn’t, you know, that’s just not my vibe. It’s not my energy. I just love where I can be real. And you know, the fact that I mean, if I went to a $2 million listing appointment in Ravenswood, and I showed up in a blue suit and brown shoes, they throw me off the front porch, because they like who are you? Did you come from downtown? Do you work this neighborhood? That’s, I had to find areas and markets that served the vibe and energy that I just liked. And I also had to find how I approach the business as well. You know, for me, I’m brutally honest, like blunt force trauma. If, but I am authentic and I, I know, to a granular level, my market block by block, which that’s a level of expertise that takes years to refine. And when I came back to Chicago, I started that whole Open House cycle all over again. If I wasn’t doing open houses, I was going to open houses. I was going to every broker’s open. Some of my greatest mentors in the business have come from that because they kept showing up over and over again. I mean, aside from Phil Byers one of my other great mentors has been Millie Rosenbloom. Oh, sure. What am I have a great story about Millie. One of my other biggest mentors spend Marlin granite key with REMAX do you talk about somebody who knows the market forwards and backwards side to side and knows the knows what year the furnace was replaced in a house? Because she sold it three times? I mean, that woman knows her inventory. I mean, that’s, that’s, those are the kinds of agents I learned from growing up. And, you know, I see through here in Chicago, I think a lot of agents just want to want the glamour of the business and the glamour of the listing. But they don’t know how to actually do the job, and they don’t know how to how to navigate with ease and finesse. I think that’s, you see, it’s so much with the newer agents coming in. But, you know, true expertise that’s really missing. And that’s something that you know, I valued as a small town real estate agent, you have to have that. I carried a lot of that small town mentality with me everywhere. John, D.J. Paris 31:32how do you recommend that an agent who is newer to the business start to learn the market? Obviously, some obvious things come to mind go to the open houses go to the broker opens if you’re if your area where you’re working has those, you know, obviously immerse yourself in out in the market, but when you’re also you know, studying the MLS like how do you how would you advise somebody to get started so that they can specialize in a particular area? Yeah, Alex Wolking 31:58that’s a great question. So what I did was I took a few small areas that I wanted to work in. And, you know, for me, I looked in Buena Park, I looked in if I wanted to do single family homes north of Irving Park Road. So I wanted to do point a park Grayson West Ravenswood castle with terrorists, you know, Edgewater, Glen, Glen, Lakewood, Balmoral, and I took each of those areas in a very granular level. And I went back 10 years, I went back just to see, you know, how many homes turned over every year what the price appreciation growth was, who are the agents that were doing most of the deals there, then I went to their open houses, and I learned who they are. And I learned, okay, what makes them what makes that agent so unique for this area. The other thing I found, too, is some agents is, you know, massive foothold in a market. And a lot of times, what you find out is they don’t, and they tout themselves as the number one agent for the area. And there, they done like three deals. But you know, perception is reality. So a lot of that I would find, okay, if I’m going to work in this neighborhood, what’s my angle, but what I did in the Quad Cities, and what served me extremely well here was I started to identify markets that had a gaping hole in them where no one was working them, or the agents who were working them were not doing anything to innovate. They had no market share. So I just went after the markets that really weren’t underserved. And that’s where I started. I went first. And that was, that was how I ended up working in my own neighborhood. My own backyard and Buena Park was I looked at all the single family homes on Hutchinson Street and junior terrorists. And around that were packing on Kassala terrace. Nobody was working in that market. Nobody was and having come from the Quad Cities and having my neck and my skill set my eye for selling really weird, funky, unique historic homes that just that fit into an interest of mine and a skillset of mine. So I was like the I’m the perfect agent to fit the role of this neighborhood. And then I just started attacking it. I give I give architecture tours every summer, you know, three times a summer every summer for the last seven years. I’m on the board of directors from Planet Park neighbors. I’m on the real estate development partners committee for the Uptown Chamber of Commerce. I’m on the board for the Uptown Chicago commission. Okay, and then I actually here’s what happened with one of the things that put me on map for that neighborhood early on back in 2018. I was walking on Hutchinson street one day and I saw all these homes that were for sale and it drove me nuts. I didn’t have the listing on any of them. But I thought to myself, You know what, I can’t find a buyer. So what I did I researched you know Historic Preservation groups and shipping and landmarks Illinois came up. And landmarks Illinois, I reached out to them because this is what I used to do in the Quad Cities. Every time I had an old mansion listed I called the Scott County Historic Preservation Society, did a private open house for them brought their members in and I used I sold one or two of my listings from that, and I got listings from it, too. So I called landmarks Illinois, and I said, Hey, you don’t know who I am. I’m a young real estate agent. I live in Buena Park, there’s a bunch of really cool mansions for sale on the Hutchinson street Historic District. If I organized a tour for your highest donors would would that be of interest to you? Because these are people that have money that understand historic preservation? And they said, Absolutely, we don’t know who you are. We just sniff you out first. But if you can organize that, yeah, we’ll totally we’re always looking for ways to get in front of our top donors. So I reached out to all the listing agents that had you know, listings on the street, every single one of them said yes. And I saw I said, Okay, this day, this time, you got I just need you listing agents to open up your property. I already have all the history on your house. I’ve done the research. I give tours of the neighborhood already. And then I’m going to bring all the people. So then I reached out to the Ottomans office, which was James Kappelman at the time, and I call this Tressa fair, who was her who was the chief of staff. I said, Hey, I’m doing a private tour invite only on Hutchinson Street for the homes that are for sale. I’m inviting landmarks Illinois, does the aldermen want FaceTime on this group? Because he can certainly come and join. She said, absolutely. I have 10 to 15 people that would show up to this tour. I had 41 people show up to this tour. And so I gave my very high spirited, you know, tour like I normally do. The aldermen showed up. Well, I gotten to know one of the neighbors on column Avenue. And he was a developer, and he had a really cool backyard. And I am the reservoir, which is a restaurant in the neighborhood I called. There’s a lender that I brought in that does construction loans and financing for rehab projects. So I called him he sponsored dinner and cocktails, you know, brought in from reservoir and reservoir came in and catered it at this developer’s house because I needed a cool place to have a cocktail hour at the end of the tour. The tour went off without a hitch. One of the properties on the tour did sell because of the tour. I wasn’t involved, but it did sell. And after that I had all of those residents who found out about the tour and how successful it was they started calling me and they started spending our agent didn’t sell the property if you want to bring a buyer will pay you you know a bonus or whatever. And then over the years this property is turned over. I got to know the neighbors and then I them during the pandemic because I gotten to know so many of them. They’re in my database and I thought to myself, well I have a database, I could just export this list of contacts into an Excel spreadsheet and voila, now I have a neighborhood roster that I can share with the neighbors. They ate it up. And because everybody knows summer 2020 when everybody was bored and had nothing to do we started doing what are called Black tails where everybody on the block got together every Friday 537 30 And BYOB bring a mask and we just got you know drunk in someone’s front porch backyard patio, their driveway whatever. And of course I was the only realtor there and from there on out you know it’s rare when I don’t get called for a listing on the street and if I don’t get the listing I was definitely competing for it and then I’ve had some sellers that have called and said hey, we’re listing with our friend we totally would have listed with you but we wanted to tell you first before it went on the market D.J. Paris 38:52so and by the way that’s like the greatest compliment even though it didn’t call your way you get it it makes sense. Alex Wolking 38:57And I got I’ve gotten probably four of those calls and and just this past month I closed to Amman Hutchinson so it’s a you know truly built my castle and built a moat around and I’m the fire breathing dragon up my castle but it’s but it’s bled over into other neighborhoods. And now I’m getting calls from buyers who are saying, hey, we want to be in this neighborhood. What do you have coming? So and I did the same thing in the Quad Cities it worked that was I found a an underserved market met the needs of the people that lived there and just became the face of it. And it’s not it wasn’t the end of this. This is a an area that really wanted community and actually backing up a little bit. When I started doing my initial canvassing. I did it door to door I knocked on everyone’s doors. I went down Hutchinson and I started asking people, I’m a new agent in the neighborhood. What do you want to what you know trying to learn more about the community and everything. Not one person slammed the door in my face. Everybody had a story to tell. And I told them, I just had a couple of questions. Not one person spent less than 45 minutes with me. I one person I spent two hours with. And they started introducing me to the other neighbors, right. And I just ask them, How long have you been here? Where did you live here before? What do you like most about living here? And what I heard from one woman that Glaser she was in her 80s. And she said, You know, I’ve been here since 1965. And when people started putting their gates up, I feel like the Gates divided us was like, Really, and I kept hearing over and over again, people wanted connection, they wanted to know their neighbors. There was one person I knew that lived in their house for 20 years, they’ve never met the person across the street from them. And so I brought this to one of the other neighbors and I said, Hey, we’ve got a need here. All that I’m keep hearing this over and over again, people want to get together and I got all the contact information now. And he’s like, I’ll make a phone call. So we call Vicki down the street who’s got this massive property? You know, it’s actually on the market right now. Suzanne gentleman has it listed 76 single family homes in the neighborhood. So we through we’ve sent out invitations to everybody. Of the seven like throwing a poor throwing a block party at Vicki’s house, she’s got this massive yard Come on out, if you live in the neighborhood, you know, come on out of the 76 single family homes, 58 of them showed up. That’s incredible. That was incredible. And Jonathan, God bless him. He had a sign in table, everybody had to sign in, or we had to get their badge and with their name and their address and where they lived. And Jonathan, let me work the sign in D.J. Paris 41:43table. So that’s the key. That’s the key table. Alex Wolking 41:47That was how I got to know everybody. And plus they saw my name. And I had been sending out mail once a month, I sent out a letter once a month, here’s some market updates. And here’s what’s going on in your neighborhood. So people saw my name like, Oh, you’re the one that’s been sending me those market reports. And that was it. So that was that was how it all got started. D.J. Paris 42:05Well, that is an incredible story. And I’m just digesting it myself. But what I was thinking of is what were the sort of crucial elements of of what you did there. And I couple things stuck out to me. I mean, aside from just the brilliance of, of, you know, reaching out to the landmark organization, and but but really what what you did was something that really anybody could do is get immersed in a particular community and find out, talk to the residents find out what they need, find out what’s not happening that they wish were to happen, and then come up with solutions. But and you’re so right. I mean, look, I mean, how many realtors who have tried to penetrate that particular market? Ever thought to ask, you know, the residents? Hey, well, you know, what, what if you were to if we were to change something what, you know, what, what could what could be changed? Or what would you like to see different? You don’t usually hear Realtors talking about that. They might say, hey, how long have you lived here? What are you thinking of moving and you know, the traditional sales kind of stuff. But you didn’t approach it from that at all. You’re like, I want to have all the knowledge of this of this area. So I can be a tour guide. And I can also be of service to the residents. And you just kept going from there. And it was all about being of service. And that obviously, look, you’re on all of these boards and committees. And we should also mention too, I know, this may have gotten lost in all of the things I was talking about all the accolades you’ve accomplished. But Alex is a 30 under 30 NAR National Association Realtors honoree, that is a very big deal. And so you know, what the National Association of REALTORS does every year as they take a look at, you know, the 1000s and 1000s of agents, oh, gosh, probably 10s of 1000s of agents who are under 30, maybe even 100,000 or more. And, you know, they look at people who are doing exceptional things. So, you know, that was that’s a huge accolade and a huge thing under your belt. But I love the ideas. You just seem like you want to build community. And I think that that is boy, what a smart What a smart and also fulfilling thing, but it’s fun. I imagine it’s all fun. Alex Wolking 44:08It’s a fun business. It’s a and people ask me about my business all the time. Like Mike got all these cool listings, you always got this unique stuff. And, you know, it’s not only getting to represent those properties, it’s getting to sell them to I mean, it’s fun getting to tell their story. And I always said the other part is of how I built my business. So you mentioned you’re fostering the community but then I had a bunch of resources because sitting on all those boards gives me incredible access to information. And also because I’m now on so landmarks Illinois came back to me a year and a half later and asked me to be on the board of landmark D.J. Paris 44:39I imagined they would they and I’m Alex Wolking 44:42still the youngest serving board member I’ve been on for four years now. I’m still the youngest serving one that they saw. I have, you know, tremendous opportunity there for for property for homeowners that have a landmark property. So I’ve got a lot information there. But the third piece of this is the A I mentioned earlier whenever these are not easy properties to sell, and they are not the ones you put on the market got multiple offers, these are ones that sit for a while. Even in this market, they still sit. And I’ve done the craziest, most outlandish, absurd stuff to sell these properties. I you know, I haven’t mentioned listed on Astor street where at Phil and I had that CO listed actually where we put that one up for auction that was in the middle of the pandemic and summer of 2020 I had Brian or lacquers house listed and we marketed that as a summer escape from the city of furnished rental finally sold that to somebody that tore it down because they wanted the land. I’ve sold properties that are you know, funky earthborn homes I’ve sold you know, they’re just really out of the box ways of selling it so not only is it getting in the door of these properties, it’s having the resources to help them and the out of the box creativity to sell them so it’s a it’s a three prong approach that you know for me I would so much rather have a difficult listing than another two bed two bath condo and Lakeview like that’s nice pays the bills but it doesn’t get you out of bed in the morning. D.J. Paris 46:18Yeah, you will you like a challenge? I do. And it’s it’s fulfilling because it what the challenge, you know, really activates within you as I see it is creativity. All of a sudden your creative sparks. You know, Lakeview is a very popular neighborhood here in Chicago for those who aren’t familiar and, and it’s great neighborhood, lovely neighborhood wonderful, not difficult to sell, it may be difficult to get market share. But what if you get a listing there, it’s probably going to sell. And it’s going to sell pretty easily because it’s so desirable. Buena Park is less known and not less desirable for certain types of people more desirable for others. But again, I love that you went to the to the part that like, I’ve never heard anybody in Chicago, I want to I want to be the Buena Park guy. Now I’m sure there are people that do but But 90% of the people I hear who are working in the city are like, I want to be the Linkin Park guy. I want to be the North guy. These are the sort of glitzy fun areas, Gold Coast, etc. And I love that you went the other way, because and the reason why you did is you did the research and you go, there’s a lot of opportunity here and it sort of meets my needs. I kind of liked these funky homes. And now I got to figure out how to connect with the community. And you did what what an incredible story. And I know there’s so much more to talk about. But I think this is a great place to wrap up. I’m gonna give a recommendation to our audience, I want you if you can, if you were so inspired by Alex’s story here about how he penetrated this community, I want you to go back and listen to the steps that he took. Because I really wanted to interrupt him every step of the way. Be like, okay, cool, how’d you do that. And I didn’t want to interrupt his flow. But I want you guys to listen to it again, because you will pick up exactly his thought process how he did it. And boy, please go out and do what he did, you will have a if nothing else, you’ll have a really enjoyable career, and you will have probably a very successful one. as well. I also would like to mention that if you are a realtor in the Chicagoland area, and maybe you feel you’re not getting the attention you need at your current firm, or you’re looking you know, this is the year where the market is down, people are looking to maybe switch firms, check out other teams, Alex’s Alex’s team is growing. So if you think you could be an asset to him, or if you’d like to learn from him, and you think you might be a good fit, reach out to him, you can find him on his website, Alex woking.com, as well as Instagram and all the other social platforms he’s on. So reach out to him, if you think he might be a good fit, I know I would want to work with him if I was practicing. So definitely reach out, I am so impressed. And also, for everyone else who doesn’t live in Chicago, you might have clients that move to Chicago. And you know, one of the coolest things about doing the show, I wish I could participate in the financial part of it. But even so it’s so rewarding that almost every time we do an episode for anywhere in the country, that person ends up calling us later and goes, I just got a listing from one of your listeners who you know, has somebody who’s coming in to buy or sell. And so please, if you are looking for a Chicago agent just to even partner up with boy Alex would be a good one to partner up with. So reach out to him. If and by the way, Alex has people that leave Chicago too. And he needs to refer business to other places. So maybe he doesn’t have somebody in your market that he can be the referral for a referral to you for so reach out to him. He’s a wonderful guy, and certainly doing all of the right things. And he’s somebody certainly to follow on social as well to see how he’s marketing himself. And he’s not a really big social guy. But when he does his social stuff, it’s actually really really impressive and excellent. So anyway, everyone check out Alex, Alex woking.com link to all of his stuff in the show notes. And on behalf of the audience. Alex, thank you so much for being on our show. We couldn’t appreciate you more, or I couldn’t appreciate you more You are exactly the kind of person. The reason I do this show is because of people like you. So thank you for being willing to be on the show. And I can’t imagine, I know our audience got a lot of value out of this. And on behalf of Alex and myself, let’s thank the people who make the show possible you the audience. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for making it all the way to the end of this episode. You guys are the reason we do this. And please help us by telling a friend I think of just one other agent that needs some encouragement right now. Maybe their business is down, guess what? Almost everyone’s business is down. This is a time to share information, send this podcast over to anyone who could use a boost or just anyone that’s interested in learning. Because guess what, there’s always more to learn and we would thank you that helps us get in front of more people and helps us in every possible way. So thank you for that. Alex. Thanks again, and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Alex. Thank you

Scott Harris the Founder of The Harris Residential Team goes back to the beginning of his journey into real estate business. Scott talks about what he a his team are doing to have their best year ever. Scott also discusses the importance of believing in your clients and also the visionary brokerage and its four pillars. Next, Scott discusses mindset, competition and how he approaches it and positivity. Last, Scott talks about how he celebrates with clients after closing. Make sure to follow Scott on LinkedIn. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Scott Harris can be reached at +1 646-302-5710 and sharris@bhsusa.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today we’re going to be speaking with a billion dollar producer and he’s going to share exactly how he runs his business. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase 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. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show. And before I ever talk about our guest, I just want to say thank you, to our audience, everyone listening because we just hit a major milestone, we just crossed over 3 million downloads, audio downloads, by the way. And it’s all because of you. So thank you, thank you. Thank you. I know on every episode, I’m like, tell a friend, tell a friend, you guys are doing it. And I couldn’t thank you more. Please keep doing it. That really is the best way you can help us also support our sponsors. They’re the ones who pay the bills. We love them. So let let them know how much you love them. Check out their services and products, consider buying them in fact, just go ahead and buy them I promise. Our sponsors are awesome. They’ll all help your business. But today we have a great conversation with a billion dollar producer Scott Harris so let’s just get to the main event guys. Congrats again for all of us 3 million downloads big deal for me. Really appreciate it. But let’s get to the main event MY CONVERSATION WITH THE GREAT SCOTT Harris. All right. Today our guest is Scott Harris with Harris presidential team of Brown Harris Stevens in New York City. His team covers Manhattan and Brooklyn. But let me tell you more about Scott. Now since 2003. Scott Harris has been involved in the marketing and sales of nearly a billion dollars of New York City residential property. It’s a really impressive number. He has been ranked among the top 250 agents in the nation and sales volume by The Wall Street Journal real trends top 1000 list. He and his team Harris residential team are regularly among the top point zero 2% of Realtors nationwide, with a focus on people first and a philosophy of visionary brokerage, they are passionate about helping their clients uncover what is next for them in their lives, identifying and securing opportunities in cooperative apartments, landmark townhouses, and condominiums please, to learn more about Scott and his team, visit Harris residential.com, we will have a link to that in the show notes and also follow him on Linked in and just search for Scott Harris. Because he posts a lot of amazing contents, we will have a link to that as well, in the show notes Scott gets has a tremendous following on LinkedIn. And he’s always publishing good content that you should check out Scott, welcome to the show. DJ, Scott Harris 4:15thanks for having me. And hello from New York. D.J. Paris 4:18Hello from Chicago and hello to all of all of our listeners from all over. Scott really excited to chat with you I love when I get to talk to somebody who has, you know, approaching the billion dollar mark or I think you guys have exceeded that you’re having an amazing year we were talking offline. And Scott and his team is having their best year ever. This is 2023 I want to just make sure in case somebody’s listening to this at a different time. This is a tough year for most agents but Scott and his team are crushing it so we’re excited to find out maybe what they’re doing and what you know our listeners can learn from Scott but Scott, I’d love to really start at the beginning of your journey into real estate so What brought you to real estate? Well, Scott Harris 5:01I grew up in, in New Orleans and my family, my father was had warehouses, he still runs a wholesale hardware business. So I spent a lot of sick days or summer vacation days in his warehouse doing running around doing stuff. My best friend and I were like riding bikes, in the wharves on the Mississippi River down by the French Quarter if you’ve ever been down there or and my mom ended up in high school being the marketing director for a Merrill Lynch affiliate. So there’s like a lot of commercial and residential real estate in my background. And for me, it was all about the architecture and design, I loved. All the old Spanish and French architecture, the French Quarter, my very best friend was there, and I’m sort of steeped in it, and, and then did nothing with real estate. For years, I was Toro touring musician, for the better part of my 20s, doing sales on one side booking bands. And then on the other side, being on the road. And when I finally decided I needed to make a move, I was in Boston at the time, I moved to New York, and my stepmother. And as you may have people in your lives, you know, you better than you know, yourself, they’re like Scott, I think you would be a great real estate agent. And it’s not something that I ever thought about. I actually found my college application recently, and it said, I think I want to get into something to do with architecture, you know, and I was like, Huh, that’s pretty funny. So I ended up I ended up here. And sure enough, that first year real estate when I moved to New York, I had no you know, no job, no place to live, no girlfriend, nothing, and just kind of contacts and a real passion wanting to be successful. And it was like a duck to water. Real estate was just I got my license started doing rentals, which is something you can really dive into in New York, because it’s so much of the business, so much of what people live in here. And it’s just been brick by brick building the business over 20 years. It’s D.J. Paris 7:05amazing. As a musician, so tell us about about a musician, what instrument instruments did you play? Scott Harris 7:13So if you know, like Pentatonix you know some of those acapella Sure, I was like a it was like a boy band for acapella in the late 90s, we used to open for bands like, and sync and 98 degrees and amazing, crazy and ridiculous and we were you know, wearing all, you know, you can just imagine what we were wearing and all of that it was a lot of fun. I think I had blue hair for a while. It was hilarious. And so as a singer, D.J. Paris 7:42that was that was basic. And singer a dancer, I’m guessing a lot of can move a Scott Harris 7:48little bit, I would say the dancing is like, I don’t know how much of a threat I’m going to be on anybody’s dance floor. But I definitely had a lot of time, a lot of fun jumping around, that’s for sure a lot of that’s D.J. Paris 7:59amazing. I love that. So I really want to sort of dive in, you know, maybe we’ll just dive into to, you know, the success you guys have been having this year because I’m always impressed with success. And, and, you know, I think our whole purpose of our podcast is to talk about people who are successful anyway, that of course, you are having a great year you and your team. By the way, I want to mention real quickly before we get started, I usually say this to the end and then I forget to do it often. But if you are an agent in the New York City area, if you’re working Manhattan, maybe Brooklyn, you know really anywhere in New York and you are interested in maybe looking to see what other teams have what they have to offer. Maybe you’re not getting the right attention or training or support from your existing firm, Brown hair. Stevens of course is a absolutely super reputable firm one of the one of the big, big firms in the country. But Scott Harris and his team would love the opportunity to chat with you so just keep that in mind as we’re talking because Scott this team is doing really well this year and they’re expanding so keep it in mind but But Scott yet let’s talk about what what how are you guys having such a great year? What do you think you’re doing? That is that is paying off right now? Scott Harris 9:11Well, first I think it’s it in terms of how we think about the business. Big picture, it’s all about helping and it’s all about service to our clients. So in a moment where that you may not be doing as many transactions I never think about your saying oh they’re doing great this year. All of the all of that is just the last the only thing you can see at the end it’s the lag they call it like lag measures right? That’s exactly right. Right. We measures are how are we adding value to clients and so if you’re every person listening, you have something special about you. You have some you come from you know whether you’re whatever you did before, I found like school teachers who become real estate agents are the most Amazing, they’re so patient, and they can really create good boundaries and like be good listeners. And so that’s just one example actors, singers, you know, performers, that’s one side of it. They’re great salespeople, but who are, you know, therapists, we’re like therapists and real estate is just the vehicle, right? It’s a, it’s a people business. And so what we’ve been doing for 20 years is developing relationships across every imaginable industry. And so when I sit down with my client, I’m just listening, what are the things they need? How can I help them across the board? And I’ve just found that the more value you add for your client, I want to introduce you to this person, I want to introduce you this person with absolutely no expectations of what it’s going to turn into. Has, I know that that is the bed, that’s the foundation for our success. And it just, it’s like an evergreen thing. You know, you start January 1, oh, I have I have to do this whole thing again. But what you’ve already done, is just connect to your clients and be that person that they call for everything. Yeah. And how does that relate to like a very specific, you know, we’re helping someone sell an apartment helping someone buy, we really take an A to Z approach. It’s like Danny Meyer, setting the table above and beyond, I mean, anything you need, you can be based in Asia, or in the Middle East, or Europe, or wherever you are, we can take care of every single thing to do with the preparation of your home above and beyond in terms of communication. Our our team is 11. But our extended team is 50 100 200 trusted people that we can go to and make sure that we get things done, right. So it’s, it’s a combination of the actual dealmaking where we really are focused on taking care of everything. And that just establishes this huge amount of trust. But I think it’s also big picture, how can we serve our clients, even when they’re not clients? Everybody, every, it’s not about, hey, do you have a referral from me, because you hear that thing all the time. That’s the best compliment, you can give blah, blah, blah. Because that’s what they mean. And it’s great advice. For anybody who’s ever read the million dollar real estate agent that is a great source of language, like to think about how you can you know how you can cultivate referrals. But it’s much easier than that, just get into conversation with lots of people, and ultimately, you’re going to help them in some way, and then they’re going to, they’re never going to forget you. Maybe that’s too generic. I mean, I can get I can get more detailed about how it’s helped this year. D.J. Paris 12:38I always think the fundamentals win the game. So what you’re talking about is really consistent with almost everyone I’ve ever had on the show who are all top 1% producers in the country. So is it unique? No. But success usually isn’t unique. It’s usually the the the action that is taken, you know, consistently and obviously, you guys are doing that. And I do want to dive into it a little deeper, because I’m curious, you mentioned, you know, providing value even when someone’s not a client. So this, this is for our listeners, this could be, you know, before they’re ready to use you, they’ve never used you before, but you want to start building that trust and building that, that relationship, or they have already used you. And they’re you know, in between transactions, and that may be 710 years, whatever it is in your local market. And, and I suspect Scott, you guys have an approach to handle both of those scenarios, when you meet somebody first, and then after a transaction, you know, sort of how you stay in touch. So I’d love to hear more about how you guys continue to add value. Scott Harris 13:45Well, I would say it’s like chicken or the egg, right? If you’re starting if you’re newer in the business, what can you do you want to make a list? Who are the 50 people in your life that are your biggest fans, right? And start just being consistent? It doesn’t have to be 50 calls a day. But can it be five? Can it be five, reach outreaches at two every single day, it’s the consistency. It’s just like going to the gym, it’s like any kind of consistency you can build in your calendar just to reach out I mean yesterday, right? And it can be very intuitive. You have this list in front of you. It can be very old school looking at the list, who are the five people that pop out of that list. When you look at it. I reached out to five people yesterday, one person told me his somebody in his family passed away and they’re gonna hire me to sell their place in you know, in the spring. I haven’t talked to him in probably a year and I just hey, how are you? I was in your old building. I was thinking about you. And that was just my connection point. Somebody else I hadn’t spoken to in a year he popped out of a list. I said, let me reach out to so and so. And he said, Oh, I’m looking to buy and flip something in the city. We ran out. We’re finished our projects in Connecticut. We’re ready to come back in the city. There are opportunities and that’s just yesterday. So you have your top 15 people you reach out to them. And just listen, I think the most important thing you can do is, is just the agenda is I want to connect with this person, I care about this person they care about me, it’s, it’s so much more fundamentally about the people. And if you really just focus on that something good comes out of it, you’re gonna find a way to be of service to them. I mean, my fundamental, for those of you who might be in like a networking group, like a BNI, or any kind of networking group across the country, they’re amazing. It’s all about giving, with no expectation, and then knowing that it’s going to come back from everywhere. And that’s, that has been, that’s just how I am I want to help people out, I want to listen for ways to help them, but it’s just doing that on a consistent basis will ultimately get the ball rolling. Yeah, D.J. Paris 15:51I agree. And I think it’s kind of the most fun part of the job for a lot of agents, which is I get to help people first, and I’m doing that for free. And it might look different to each particular contact, or client, maybe I’m connecting somebody with somebody who does roofing, or I’m connecting somebody with a dentist or helping somebody, you know, start to think about where their next home might be because of schooling and they have children, you know, or whatever, just, it could be anything, but maybe the transaction isn’t today. But providing that kind of guidance. And assistance is really what every person in this in this world once we want people to come with ideas to us and people to listen to, to our challenges. And there aren’t many professions, other than therapists, maybe attorneys, doctors, I guess, who really get to know their clients. And I think real estate is one of those professions where you really get a deep dive into somebody, and that, that allows you to build more intimate relationships with people but like, like Scott was saying, you really have to go first. And you have to pick up the phone. And you know, I love the fact that we have social media now to help us give us those those contact points. Like as Scott was saying, you know, he’s just calling Hey, how’s it going? I was in your building. LinkedIn is a great place to find out what’s going on with someone’s professional life. You can see if there’s any news about their company, you can see if they’ve had a promotion, you can even see when their birthday is that kind of thing. And you can just pick up the phone, say, Hey, I was on LinkedIn, I saw you just got a promotion like that. That’s a contact point, right? So there’s so much opportunity to pick up the phone and call and talk with people. And I want to talk to Scott, I want to pivot a little bit to talking about believing in your clients. I know that’s a big thing for you. So sort of walk us through what does that mean to you? And how do you? How do you create the sort of safe place for them to be able to share their lives with you. Scott Harris 17:46So I want to give a shout out, I listened to a lot of a guy named Ed my lead who has this wonderful podcast, he’s just terrific. And, and I’m not krimpet cribbing from him, but he said something recently, which I think is just it’s how we run our business. It’s, I see the potential in people. And I see and and more than that, when I sit down with someone and we talk or get on the phone or even zoom, right, that I’m listening to what their dreams are. I’m like a like an eight year old kid listening to his parents. If the parent says, Hey, I’m writing a book, or hey, I’m starting a business, hey, I’m opening a restaurant. Little Johnny doesn’t say, Well, what if the, you know, what if he can’t, I can’t raise the money? And what if, you know, I can’t work out a deal with the landlord. And you know, what if I don’t know what I’m doing? Little Johnny just believes that his parents or you know, his, his dad or mom is starting this business. And then they just it’s going to happen. It is already real. Right? So what I don’t know how I’ve maintained this sort of innocent belief in people. But I It is that simple. Someone says I want to do this, I’m like it’s happening. We’re going to make it happen. I don’t know how. And I’m not worried about how I have 20 years of experience, we will figure out how along the way, but it’s going to happen because you’ve we’ve created a space where I really hear what it is you want. And they’re things you might say they’re things you might not say I’m listening for both. And we’re starting to create this vision for what buyers are looking for sellers, what’s next for them? And it’s sort of you know, I have four pillars of what I call visionary brokerage. The first one is understanding like, who are you? It’s not about your property. It’s just who are you? What made you fall in love with where you live? What are you looking to do? And it’s because it’s this fundamental belief in people that they can that we can help them do it is like the most important and then we add wisdom on top. That’s our second pillar. And then we can have all these insights. You know, the way we run the business is create this system. You know, all of the I have an amazing operations person out give a shout out to Karen who does. She’s incredible and a transaction coordinator who’s Brooke and she’s incredible. So we have the system, the structure in place. But it allows for all this intuition where we can just have this crazy idea of like, hey, maybe we should you want to look on the west side of Manhattan, we have this idea of what about this thing over here. And we just have to trust, honor that like that intuition that sort of comes out of nowhere, because we’ve created the space where it happens. And I can pause there, but it’s, some people say it sounds a little woowoo, you know, a little, you know, but I really think it’s about having the structure in place. So that magic happens. Really, you are D.J. Paris 20:45you are so 100%, right? And it’s not it’s not woowoo, it’s, it’s just harder to measure. Right? So intuition is hard to sort of understand, but we all have had experiences. And it’s been my experience throughout life, that my intuition is usually right. I won’t say it’s 100%. Right. But it’s usually right, maybe 80%, maybe not, maybe it’s higher than that. And if that’s true, then I have a really valuable resource inside of me, however, I have to get quiet enough to allow or create a a container, where that intuition is free to spring forth, right. And so Scott is talking about doing this themselves, because he’s right, there are times where, you know, gosh, there’s nothing on the east side, but we have this other thing over there. And it sort of feels like it might be a fit for them. And even though it’s not really what they’re looking for, it feels like it might be so you know, those are kind of ideas that spring forth. It’s reminds me of that old saying, as a musician, you’ll appreciate this. It’s not the the notes that make the music. It’s the space between the notes. Actually, the silence between the notes that creates sound, otherwise would just be one blaring sound. So what we’re doing is what Scott’s really talking about is creating an environment where intuition can can can thrive. And and that is yes, maybe it sounds a little new agey, but it boy, is it powerful. And just about every realtor, I’ve talked to talks about their intuition, they trust their gut. Scott Harris 22:14Well, I think the part that people forget is, it’s your job to create, like, I think of us is like, we’re the captains of the ship. Right? We’re steering it. And they’re, you just forget, it lets you put yourself through it every now and then just how stressful This is. Right? Think about the most stressful things in people’s lives are losing a loved one getting divorced, and moving. Right, maybe you know, the new job losing your job, but like we we encounter people at their most stressed? Yes, job. One is to like really be calm, and be the space when they come, they come in contact with you. Everything swirling around, you’re like in the middle and like, it’s all good, right? It’s like you have to however you get there, yoga, Zumba, meditation, whatever it takes go running. I don’t you know, I do a few of those different things. But whatever it gets you so that when people come in contact with you, they’re like, okay, this person knows what they’re doing. And, and I trust them. Because when things are crazy, they just settle in like, oh, wait, we can find a solution here. And D.J. Paris 23:28yeah, the idea of the power, you don’t Scott Harris 23:30get sucked into the drama. And so many agents do. And of course, I mean, I’ve been Have I ever, ever yelled probably this week at somebody, right? Maybe not. But it’s just so easy to lose your temper when when the stress levels high, and you really want to close this deal. Oh my god, it’s like every everything is weighing on getting this one deal close, especially in a harder market. But you have to be like, wait a minute, like that it’s going to happen the way it’s gonna happen. It’s gonna it’s not this one. It’ll be the next one. But it’s like, how can I just stay calm? D.J. Paris 24:01Right, you’re so so absolutely right, I really want to step on this point. Because as real estate professionals, we forget, oftentimes what it’s like for the consumer and the consumer isn’t always sharing how stressed they are. Because there is it’s a vulnerable thing sometimes to say to a real estate agent, maybe you’re working with for the very first time and you’re going through a transaction. And you know, the consumer is stressed about a particular bump in the road along the way. And, you know, maybe they’re sharing it with their agent, or maybe they’re trying to just tough it out going, you know, but realistically, we know that, you know, real estate transactions are stressful, and it doesn’t help if the real estate agent that you’re employing is also feeling that same level of stress. Right, the real estate agent is there to calm the situation. Reduce the activation help solve those problems. It’s so you’re so right is whatever you need to do to reduce your activation staying out of the drama, you know, processing whatever, you know, negative stuff is flowing through you. And it flows through all of us it happens, like you were saying, you know, we all get angry, sad, scared, and learning how to manage those emotions more effectively. So we can show up and be that for our clients who are going to need at the boats, can Scott Harris 25:20I give you an example of something that just happened, please. So yesterday, we’ve got a I mean, it’s the scale, I think it’s like, if it gets overwhelming to you, if you’re listening, it’s like, just remove a zero, right? This is like a three and a half million dollar deal. And, and the, in the buyers, I’ve stressed already, you know, this is gonna be such a big deal. It’s like, okay, and the buyer came to us. And we were asking all these concessions. It’s a new building. And the buyer said, I want you to give us, we already given a small concession our commission to get to just finalize the deal. And they asked for, they were they wasn’t enough, they want us to give another few $1,000. And they were texting with a woman on my team. And she’s texting me, we have to say something, we have to do something and I said, You know what we need to do nothing. Like we are going to do nothing today. I’m not making this decision on the back foot when everything is swirling, let it sleep on it, go exercise, go get a drink, whatever you need to do tonight, we’re going to touch this tomorrow morning, and the buyer calm down. And his attorney reached out to us and said, Look, we just need to do something. And this is and it was very concrete. And we were like, That’s fine. Right? But it solved itself. And the best. And sometimes you just have to not respond to that email, doing one thing today is doing something. Right. It’s like, if you are like, oh my god freaking out, just put the phone down, put it in another room, go have dinner, I know, it may not be the best, most fun dinner. But like, try to distract yourself with something positive. And I that’s we focus on it all the time. Because that solutions come to you. People say OH, Sleep on it, and whatever, it’s actually a thing. You wake up a little with a little different perspective. And D.J. Paris 27:05maybe you’ve processed some of that stress while you’re sleeping or whatever activity, you know, it’s so funny, Scott, I was, I just learned this, I’m 47. I wish I would have learned this much, much earlier in life. But I was doing a meditation class. It was actually taught by LeBron James of all people. And so it was kind of funny. And I was like, Okay, I don’t, I would love to know what LeBron James does is one of the great greatest of all time. And he said, it’s critical for him to be mindful of his emotions, because it’s really stressful, you know, times on the court, he can’t allow himself to get angry, or scared or sad, because it impedes his ability to do his job. And he actually has less access to his all his resources when he’s stressed. And we know that the sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight response kicks in when we’re stressed. And you just if you do just any a cursory dive into what happens biologically, we are limited in our resources, our brain has limited resources, our body is literally trying to survive at that moment. So it’s not the time to make any sort of really impactful decision. Unless you’re in a literally life or death situation. That’s why those resources are there. So being that that’s not probably what’s happening, it’s not the time to make decisions. And he talked about that in this meditation course. And he’s like, I have to be called the court because if I get upset, I lose he goes, I actually will perform worse. And this is the number one guy you know, maybe of all time, saying that are certainly one of them. So I am right on the same page with you. And there are ways to learn how to, you know, man better manage your emotions, or like Scott says, you know, hey, even if it’s just go, go take a walk, go have dinner, sleep on it could not agree with you more, that is such a wise tip. Scott Harris 28:57There’s, I’m just thinking, you asked him, you know, how are we being successful this year? And people accuse me of being an optimist, okay? And I will gladly say like, Yes, I am an optimist. And I think to be a good agent, you have to believe in your clients and you have to believe in being successful for them. Right. But you also there are so much noise there’s so much negativity in the news and and on social media in places right. And I would encourage people to take a look at what they’re consuming and reading and and even the people they’re around. You know, there are agents who are doing great and even if there’s they’re having a tougher year, like be around the people that are positive. Be around surround yourself with some positivity. People who have ideas, how are they going to actually move forward? Don’t the people who are not who are complaining about what’s going on but are like, Hey, let me try something new to get this sold. Let me try this If this isn’t working, let me try this. Okay. It’s not always it could be just price, you know, but there’s always something to do. But I think the bigger picture is maybe stop looking at the news, right? Maybe of subtract some of the stuff that just leaves you permanently stressed out all the time. There are so many agents who said to me, yeah, you know, there’s no inventory in my town. And and we talked through it, you know, like, Okay, well, how do you if ask a different question, right? How can I create some inventory? You know, ask it, and then maybe you’ll have an idea that just comes out of nowhere, like, maybe you want to host a dinner, or maybe you want to have people over to your home, and just, you know, talk about the successes you’re having, and something might unlock something might, you know, if you do if that results in one more deal this year, wouldn’t that be great? As opposed to, D.J. Paris 30:50you know, it’s, you know, just sitting, that is such a great ask a different question. That is such great advice. So Scott just said, you know, you’re let’s say you work with a buyer, there’s no inventory. And it’s frustrating, of course, it’s frustrating, especially for the buyer, it’s frustrating for the agent. And Scott said, Okay, well, let’s ask a different question. We can’t fix that. That that is, you know, what is? Is that old Zen saying, what are people say? I don’t know how they say it a different way. What is, it is what it is? Yeah, I learned it a different way. What is is what, what is the same thing? But what is is and if you push against reality, you’re you’re just going to tire yourself out, and you’re not going to affect it. But if you pivot and ask a different question, how can I create inventory? Well, that solves a lot of problems, right? And, and ultimately, that’s, that’s the job of the agent is to creative problem solving. And I could not agree with you more, change the questions, change the notice how you feel, when you’re watching, and absorbing information, news, social media, whatever, if it makes you feel good, good. If it doesn’t make you feel good, be mindful of that. And limit, because that is limit the amount of exposure you have to it is going to influence how you feel. It just does. It’s just the way it works. And social media and news media in particular, are very skilled at creating emotion, emotional intensity with their viewers, their audience, that’s their job, that is how they get paid. So it’s not that it’s not important information to hear. It’s just you have to realize that the way they keep you attuned to their channel or their their website, is by by creating such an emotional, intense environment that that sort of tap captivates you. And you have to be careful, because that’s going to influence how you feel. Scott Harris 32:44Indeed, yeah. So I was just, I was thinking about the one thing that we do, we have a stand up meeting three days a week as a team. And I mean, I meet with the members of the team every other week on a one to one and we talk about their business and how I can help them grow their business. So we brainstorm. And we come up with the really important thing that you can start a meeting with is going around the room and talking about what one thing you’re grateful for one thing you’re proud of, I learned that from an amazing business coach that I work with a guy named John Mark Shaw, who I’ve been working with for a bunch of years, He’s based in New York, give a shout out to John love him, he’s amazing. And that alone, just shifts the whole conference, the whole room, people might be having a bad day, or you know, they woke up, you just don’t know, if people are showing up with, you know, they may not have slept well, because they’re, they have a baby, and it’s, you know, they are up all night or their dog is sick or who knows, right. And like just focusing on one thing you’re grateful for one thing you’re proud of, can totally change your energy. And then when you get on that phone with the next call, not so you know, and you had a setback, there’s like a pause, and all of a sudden, you know, don’t bring that bad with you for the next call. You know, it’s D.J. Paris 33:58so important. And I know we’re spending a lot of time on this. But I really think it is one of the most important skills for agents to learn is how to, you know, set themselves up for success. You know, people call it mindset, or whatever you want to call it, just being able to prime yourself so that you’re in the best possible place to serve your clients and serve your your your own business as well. So I could not, I could not agree with you more. And it’s the reason this podcast existed for that exact same reason is I want people to realize agents who are struggling that this path is possible and, you know, 500 episodes later, thankfully, people are listening. And we appreciate that and and so we’re so grateful to people like Scott because, you know, a lot of times too, I think it’s easy to sort of forget that top producers still are doing a lot of the same activities that a brand new agent will be doing. They have more experience, they’re able to do it at a different scale. Hail. But I suspect Scott, I bet a lot of the same things you do today are things you did 20 years ago. Scott Harris 35:06And by the way, yes, yes. Like I think, you know, if there’s some simple thing I do, when I think of someone, I send them a text when I see something, and I’m like, Oh, I think of that person, I just do it. I don’t, there’s no, like, make a list and then do it. Like, if it takes two seconds, I do it. And that’s the way I’ve always been. I mean, I am I do have ADHD, it’s like, oh, I have an idea. Let’s do it. But if it’s simple, I do it. But I want to say something. Because if you’re out there, you’re like, Oh, this guy, you know, sold a bunch of real estate. And you know, he’s really got it figured out, I am stressed out, I make mistakes left, right and center, you know, I plenty of deals that die, that fall apart. And I make you know, I say the wrong thing all the time. And I call myself out in front of the team as much as I can. Because they need to know that it it continues, you know, you have a bad day, you think, Oh, I’m not good enough to get this piece of this, this listing and you talk yourself into some all of those things, the self talk, the negative self talk, it just continues, you have to really be aware of it and work through it. But the same things that you know, that you might struggle with, if you’re a newer agent. Everyone does it. And everyone continues to make mistakes. And it’s like, the more you just own it. And the team appreciates when I talk about my mistakes. Oh, I screwed this up. Sure. Oh, my God, I screwed this up. We launched a listing with the wrong price recently, I was like, Oh, God, like I can’t believe I did that. Just just stuff that you you have to call yourself out. Because it it makes people feel like they can they can be successful, and they don’t have to be perfect. You know, and that’s such a relief. Such a relief, like you’re a human, you make mistakes. I get it. I do it too. Right. And that’s the team is held to account, but not, but not held to perfection. D.J. Paris 36:53Yeah, I actually think successful people fail more than non successful people, I really do. Because I think once when I say fail, I mean making a mistake and error. You know, whatever that looks like, because it’s the only way we actually learn, we learn via mistake. You know, when we do something that we already know how to do that just sort of, you know, just validates what we already know, we don’t have much of a learning opportunity. But when we make a mistake, that’s where wisdom comes in. And that’s where Scott has 20 years of making mistakes. Which, and again, I say that in the most respectful way possible. I mean, Scott, we look at his his track record and his team’s track record, you know, billion dollars sold, these guys know what they’re doing. And they’re, they make lots of mistakes along the way, but they keep going and they keep learning. And that’s that’s the thing is I will just think if you can learn to get excited about making mistakes, then you’ll be in a little bit of a better position because they won’t be so devastating when they happen. You know, I make we have 800 agents here I make mistakes every single day terrible mistakes terrible mistakes and yet And yet yet here we are. And you know, our brokerage continues to grow Scott’s is as well. So, you know, it’s not about not making mistakes, as Scott said, you know, nobody’s perfect. But realizing that the mistake is actually the opportunity to then you know, correct something for the future. So it’s actually get excited about your, your errors, your mistakes, listeners, because that’s where the real growth happens. Yeah, Scott Harris 38:32there’s lots to learn. I mean, whenever we have a deal die, or like, we lose a bidding war, or whatever you want to consider, you can either consider it like, this is the fail, right? Something that happened, like, wait a minute, like, what did I learn through that? You know, we have I mean, and there’s so much out of your control anyway, you lose a pitch. Okay, what was there, it’ll be learned there, you know, we, if you bet 50% on your pitches, you’re doing incredibly well. We’re going you know, it’s, you’re gonna win some sometimes somebody has a relationship with the cousin and they’re gonna win the listing, no matter how they’re like, We love you. But if I hire you, my wife’s gonna divorce me. Like, that’s just the way it goes, you know? And you’re like, Okay, I get it. And is that a fail? No, it’s like, you just, you chalk it up, and maybe there’s going to be an opportunity where they refer you somewhere else. D.J. Paris 39:21Yeah, there, there’s, there’s always other opportunities, because of course, with real estate, everyone’s got to live somewhere. Right? So this idea of, you know, there isn’t a finite pie really, in this in this business, there’s so much opportunity, but you do have to sort of, you know, have the correct questions that you might be asking yourself or questions that will lead you into opportunity. And, and that’s really what Scott’s talking about is being super mindful of your thoughts. You know, what’s coming in, what you’re saying to yourself, how you’re treating yourself. And then of course, you know, how you’re, you know, interacting with clients as well. Scott, let’s I want to talk about client winning business. Because I think, you know, at your level, you know, you’re you’re dealing with, certainly, you know, you’re working in the most arguably the most difficult market in the country. And there’s lots of competition, lots of great agents in New York City, you being one of them. But there being lots of other really fantastic agents. I’ve had a lot of them even from Brown, Harris Stevens on my show. So I know how the competition is out there. How do you think about competition? And when you’re maybe up against, I assume, it happens in listing presentations, maybe you’re up against other agents, maybe even agents? You know, how do you sort of approach that? Because I know that that can be very stressful for for agents? Scott Harris 40:49Well, first, of course, you’re going up against other agents in a lot of situations. That’s just, I mean, I, if I were looking to buy a car, I’m looking at multiple cars, right? I mean, yes, you’re trying different things. So I think any good seller is going to do a little bit of due diligence. I think that’s actually great. I have a couple of answers to this one. And some people are going to, I don’t know how they’re gonna react. But I actually don’t think of everyone as competition. I mean, during COVID, I was putting out video after video to the entire brokerage community about how technology we could use to go and because we were totally shut down for a few months there. And I was like, Oh, you can use this video service to do shoots. And you can do this. And let’s try this. Because it’s like, I believe that a rising tide lifts all boats, you know, the better the more professional we are as a community, the more successful everyone is, okay, so I think of, I want to establish the best relationships across the brokerage community, because we eat 20% of the agents do 80% of the business, that’s just the nature of things. So I just want to be great at what I do, knowing that it’s going to help me as somehow and I want to help them do a good job. So I don’t always think about everyone is competition. Sure, if you flip it and say, Okay, I know I’m I’m there meeting multiple people, right? It’s like, what is how do I really articulate what makes us different and special? And I Okay, first, we have a track record. I’m not trying to pat myself on the back. But if I don’t say something, nobody else will. Right, right. 20 years of experience, lots of sales, and we have a great system to get this sold for you. But more than that we care about you. And I’ve been referred, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been referred to people, Scott, we refer to you because you’re not a jerk. Right. And I mean, I know that may sound like simple, but I actually care about the people and want to see them be successful. And that underpins everything. So the system is to create win win. It’s like I’m not if you’re looking for somebody to rip off, you know, rip off somebody’s face. That’s like a phrase, you know, like, really take advantage and like, you know, kill someone and get the best deal ever. That’s not my approach. Do I? Am I a good negotiator? Yes. Can I get great deals? Can I uncover great deals? Absolutely. But the approach is, how can I make this into a win win situation? Because if you don’t, they’re going to find a way to get you later. I really think like, big picture, if you can try your intention is to create a win win situation. For us a really happy buyer and a happy seller. That’s if i That’s my assumption, how do I do that? Right? How can I offer that, and it’s the intention, which will get you further and we’re going to be super resourceful, we’re going to be incredibly creative. And and in our marketing, we’re branding your property, if we’re representing a seller, you know, with a buyer, we’re selling, we’re selling the buyer, as you know, we’ve had people that we there was no way that we’re getting someone who had a dog in a building that doesn’t allow dogs, okay, pretty open and shut case, right? And we got them approved to buy and bring their little dog Benson into that property. Because we we found the way around it, you know, can they go into the service? I mean, it was they went to the service elevator and the dog couldn’t go out the regular, you know, in the regular entrance and whatever, it got a little crazy. But like, it’s just how can we care enough to really find answers when other people say they can’t be done. And that has served us really well. Right? And we have the track record to prove it. But if you if you are new, and you’re just like I really care, and I’m going to go learn, I’m going to study this inventory like nobody’s business. And I’m going to go I’m going to know every building there is or I’m going to know all the comps that sold I’m going to study the heck out of this. And when things close, I’m going to you know communicate that to people like hey, look at this closing on your block and you’re going to set up searches so that you just no more. You’re already way ahead. D.J. Paris 44:56Wait, what so what you You just gave you basically gave a pretty amazing, it might sound nonspecific, but it’s not not specific, it is entirely specific. You just gave a great plan for anyone who is, you know, learn your inventory, you know, understand the market, you know, increase your skill, set your knowledge and stay in touch with people. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it’s, and most importantly care about them. You know, that’s, that’s the missing piece, I always think, I think caring wins the game most of the time. You know, there’s going to be times where it’s just a strictly a numbers situation. Yeah, those are good happens, I guess. But the vast majority of human beings who are going to employ you to buy or sell a home really want you, they want to feel that you that you care about them. And you can demonstrate that and you can demonstrate that over and over again, empathy, sympathy, checking in on them, making sure they know that you know, what’s going on in their lives, that you know what their goals are. And I know that’s really important for you, as you get really excited. And if you’re not watching this live once, if you’re not watching this visually, you’re listening. Scott got really, really animated earlier when he was talking about, you know, working with his clients dreams, he got really, really excited. Because you because imagine if you have a real estate agent, if you’re not in this business, and you’re you need a real estate agent to buy or sell something, you wouldn’t you want somebody who is really excited, and your dreams, right? So that’s demonstrating care. And, and I think that, you know, Scott, that that it’s just oozes out of you. Scott Harris 46:38It also, if it’s about caring, then it’s your people so often forget, they’re like on the on the same side of the table, they sort of they just forget that they’re working with someone, you know that they’re not working against someone, like everybody, you’re helping someone they so desperately want to sell this thing, they have an idea of what they want to do. And it’s about them. Right? It just make it about them. Like you go to a cocktail party, you can get super nervous because you’re like, oh, you know, I don’t know anybody and whatever. And the second you just get curious about the person you’re talking to all that melts away. It’s like you can’t be fear. You can’t be afraid and curious at the same time. Right? Like, I’ve heard that before. I think it’s very, yeah, that’s true. Like, I want to learn about you. What are you about and, and when you care, there’s so much more forgiveness for little mistakes, you know, I care, I’m gonna figure it out. We’re gonna brand this property, we’re gonna just whatever we do, and it’s now and then it goes perfectly right? You know, people like, Okay, we had this deal. We had an exact strategy, we priced it here, we got a deal done, blah, blah, blah. Vinny Warren’s amazing. And then a lot of the times, especially in markets like this, it takes a little bit longer. A lot of you got very used to and 19 and 2021 to like things selling over asking in one day. Good. Well, that was fun for a minute. You know, I was in Vegas last year, and these la, los angeles agents were like, oh my god, it’s like, I’ve got to hire more people. I’m not sleeping my wife, you know, it’s crazy. My life is a shambles, because it was there just so much business. But now it just comes down, there’s never been a more important time to have a good system to manage this and to manage the people and all the potential, you know, the pitfalls of a market where mortgage rates are slightly higher than they were a year and a half ago. D.J. Paris 48:34Yes, slightly higher. And and that can in that can be a place where people get trapped. Agents can get in that mindset of high interest rates, low inventory, not as much opportunity. Well, okay, yes, maybe. And let’s, let’s let’s shift our focus and start thinking about how do we demonstrate one thing we can do is we could demonstrate care, I could reach out to every single person in my database over the next several months, let them know I’m thinking about them to actually check in see what what’s going on in their lives. You know, see what they’re doing on social media and comment on it and say, Hey, I saw you just got back from a vacation that looked awesome, you know, really excited for you, or whatever. There’s lots of ways you can demonstrate this. And, you know, if I was somebody without a listing today, without any listings today, what I might do is reach out to everybody I know and print out the Zestimate from Zillow and say, hey, if Zillow thinks your home is worth this, I actually think it might be slightly different. But I just wanted to share this with you give me a call, we can chat about it. Right. That’s an opportunity people, there’s always reasons to pick up the phone and call somebody and and connect with them. And that’s what this business is. It’s really, it really is a service business. I mean, it’s more service than it is anything you like you said, we’re on the same side of the table as the client, like how do we how do we always keep that that Uh, that perspective, right? Well, I Scott Harris 50:03wanted there was you were touching on, you know, something you can do is something I don’t think I mentioned yet. In New York, we have buildings. So if somebody buys an apartment in a building, it’s not hard for us to set up a search so that every time price comes available in that building, you can, it’s information you can share with your client, right? It’s like, oh, you know, it’s some of my high end clients, we’ve sold, you know, multimillion dollar properties in the building, it’s very exciting when you see something that’s selling at a higher price. But at the same I’ve had a situation downtown last year, where I’ve sold an apartment to, to a client, and the same apartment came available at a what I thought was an excellent price. And I said, I emailed my friend, I said, Oh, this is such an, it’s so interesting, I can’t wait to see what this sells for. He immediately introduced me to his friend who wanted to buy that unit, I negotiated without ever, I didn’t meet the client until about two months later. And we put a deal together just because I’m sharing that information. With no expectation. I was like, Oh, this will be neat, just because I wanted him to know about it. But the other piece, which I know I haven’t talked about is the idea of telling stories. Right? So if you have even if you one of the great things about having a team is that this team and some of the agents are new, they get to hear every single we’ve sold, maybe I think 80 apartments this year, you’re at 80 deals in New York, you know, that can be a pretty big, you know, volume. Some people sell 300 400 homes, and God bless you for being able to do that. That’s incredible. But every every agent on the team can own those stories as their own. And every you know, every other week, we we take an hour, and we talk about like three different case studies, like what did you do, right that the success and then every other week we do? What are the challenges you overcame? But the ideas that you’ve evolved? What are the stories of things that are happening today, because people love to hear about wins. And it’s like, you’re not bragging, you’re just like, oh, we just helped this client, you know, put a dog in their, you know, in a non in a building where no dogs are allowed. That was so exciting. Or we help someone get a great deal on this building, you know that that sale was a million dollars less than the last one that traded? Whoever that’s like, I want to hear that. Tell me more about that. Scott, you know, so those are, if you have good stories, share the stories, not people. What’s the question at cocktail parties in New York? How’s the market? Well, well, actually, you know, the the prices are up 4%? No, like, tell the story. Just tell the story about something. Well, we were helping this buyer. And you know, they’re, they’re excited about this neighborhood. You know, we got we got a deal done here. And we were having a lot of success in this neighborhood. You know, why do you ask what’s, you know, what are you thinking about? Like, there’s so many ways you can answer without the the boring market data information. D.J. Paris 52:54You know, that is a really great, great tip. Definitely have have stories to share that are authentic to you, that are impactful to you and that you have passionate about so that when you do get asked those questions, because that is the first question that anyone asked when, you know, when somebody says, Oh, I’m in real estate, Oh, how’s the market? Right, that you’re absolutely right, the number most commonly asked question, and and you can answer that with, with whatever facts and figures you have. But Scott has absolutely right, have some personal examples of things that you are currently working on or have done. And this is a great, I think, you know, Scott, you said something also very powerful. Like, after every deal, you guys go through and say, Okay, what went well, what what what were there, were there challenges or opportunities for growth? Or, or, you know, was there a story here that we can we can work with, you know, just basically working through the transaction after it’s done. And finding those those magic moments and maybe the challenging moments, and then learning from the challenging moments, and then really celebrating the magic moments. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s great for marketing, it’s great for keeping the team spirit up. And also just, you know, continuing to service the client. I Scott Harris 54:07love that. Thanks. It’s fun. It’s fun to do that. It’s much more interesting than we just did a webinar with an economist and you know, a mortgage broker and this a wonderful data. And it was we were talking about the market, but like, what really came to life is the stories. What are we seeing in the market, the actual deals? That’s where people can wrap their heads around it? D.J. Paris 54:31Yeah, I could not I could not agree with you more. I 100% a big fan of learn how to tell stories. I actually it’s funny, you just reminded me of a interview I had once with an agent in Florida, who sells mega mega properties like 30 million plus kind of you know, it is just a different sort of whole thing. And and he you know the because when you sell those types of properties, of course, you There’s whole teams that are involved that you have to work with. And there’s a lot more people involved in the transaction, a lot more complication. Usually, however, he said, it was really funny, he goes, Well, it’s all about story selling, meaning, it’s all about, you know, he goes, when I show a prospective buyer this property, I want to know what, what their vision is for the property. And I want to tell them the story of this property and really sell them on it. And that he goes, that’s really all I do, because I tell the story. And I, I unite stories, basically, which I thought was really a smart idea. Scott, one other thing, too. So we talked about providing value. I’m curious, what are you doing to celebrate your clients? You know, after a transaction? How do you stay in touch with people after? Scott Harris 55:52You know, that’s, it’s? It’s a great question. And I think a lot of people don’t think enough about how to celebrate with their clients. And, you know, we, it’s, it’s, there’s no one size fits all gift. Although a gift is nice, you know, it’s it’s an acknowledgement of a milestone, something happened here, that was important enough that we wanted to say thank you for entrusting us for like the biggest transaction probably in your life. Now, in New York, that’s not always true. You know, people are, you know, doing multibillion dollar deals in their jobs. And this is like, a place to live for them. And it happens to be $5 million doesn’t matter. You know, those people, I always you know, that I’m gonna botch the quote from that movie, Notting Hill, but at some point, you’re just a girl standing in front of a boy hoping that you know, he’s gonna love her. D.J. Paris 56:49Right? Yeah. Ask her to like, or whatever. Yeah. And that’s really, Scott Harris 56:52it doesn’t matter what the price is. This is a sacred moment for people. And so what’s the gift? What’s the gift? What is going to touch someone? Maybe it’s a donation to a charity that you know, they support? That’s easy to find, and people don’t we do that somebody is a runner, and they want we want to support the Central Park Conservancy on their behalf. Okay, sometimes, it’s, it’s just some beautiful roses, you know, it’s something simple like that. It’s, it’s certainly not always alcohol, not everybody drinks, right? A bottle of champagne, pretty is pretty boring. Sometimes. Sometimes it’s, it depends on the person. So like, take the moment to, to mastermind with your team, what do we think the best thing for them is? Take them out to lunch and give or take them out to dinner, do something to acknowledge this in banks, they have these celebratory closing dinners. You know, it connect on a personal level. I know it’s sometimes a little bit weird, hey, can we get together after the closing? But do it find a way to connect with people. But we also celebrate every every once a week, we have a meeting as a team and we go through what are our celebrations. And I think that people especially, you know, type A, I can speak for myself, the closing happens and you’re like, you don’t even take five seconds to celebrate it for yourself. Think about what you’re able to do. The people that you help. So celebrate for yourself, celebrate with your team, celebrate with your clients. Give them the room to be happy about what it is. Because it’s like they’ve just achieved something big. Maybe this is like their their lifelong dream, right? There’s a reason they call it a dream house, take a second to to really let that soak in. D.J. Paris 58:33Yeah, and also every year on the anniversary, you can relive that that moment, and you can remind them of that moment. And you can reach out and check in and say, hey, it’s a year, you know, year to the day that you bought that property, how’s it working for you, I just wanted to check in and see how it’s going. If you’re having any problems with anything, let me know I can help you get stuff back. I’m just excited. It’s been a whole year, you know, that sort of excitement and passion that I’m sort of speaking for Scott Scott obviously speaks for himself. But he’s, you can hear the passion in Scott’s voice. So I just love this, this conversation because I think what we’re really talking about is, is yeah, just being into your clients, get into your clients, like be into them, you know, be into what they’re into, you know, get excited about what they’re excited about help support their stuff, and their vision, their dreams and point they’re gonna be with you for life. I mean, that’s all we really want. I Scott Harris 59:34wanted to do something I learned a few years ago, I just never thought about it this way. We all get referrals, right? And we say thank you when they come in. And you know, if we if there’s a referral from another agent, it’s like, my favorite thing to do is write that it’s very easy to celebrate because you’re writing a big check to someone who referred you this client. Thank you so much. It’s amazing. You know, and for those brokers out in the in the rest of the country, it’s like our favorite thing to do. We send so much business it’s like we’ve done 15 deals in Pittsburgh this year for some reason we’ve, you know, referred that much out and Florida and Connecticut and all over the place. But, but if someone thinks enough of you to refer you, I keep them and I keep them in touch. And then, you know, what is that? Thank you that happens at the end of the transaction to them. Sometimes it’s, it’s, I don’t want to put $1 number on it. But is there something special you can do say a letter, a handwritten letter, but the little nuance which I loved was like, Okay, this deal came from here, and what was the what was the parent of that referral? And what was the grandparent? And can you go back how far and say, you know, I saw I did a rental deal in 2003. And that turned into 40, or $50 million of business over time. And I go back and say, you know, I just want to say, thank you, for trusting me, as this new agent who cold called you, when the classified ads were still a thing in the New York Times, because that I just closed another deal because of our relationship from 20 years ago. And I just wanted to say thank you. And it’s like, so I’m so full of gratitude, because I can really trace it back. And if you take a moment for that, like, I’m feeling so grateful right now, just think of John, this artists who hired me years and years ago, I had no experience, I had no business, you know, almost no business doing that deal. But it turned into so much more. And you can go in every direction. And think about all of the different ways that you have gotten to where you’ve gotten and just stand there for a second and say, who should I be? Thank you should I think right now? D.J. Paris 1:01:35Yeah, and boy, I was feeling grateful for the for the gentleman back in 22,003, who took a chance on you as well, because obviously, it’s it’s birth, this this amazing career that you are now in. And that is, it is such a great suggestion. Let’s appreciate the people in our lives and let them know how appreciative we are because are we are to them. That that is really the key is Scott. You know, it’s funny, we were this is a bit of a different kind of episode that we normally do. We’re talking a little bit more about emotional stuff. And but I think this is really what wins the game. And so, you know, care about people tell them how much they mean to you, you know, we know how much homes mean to people. So we want to we want to continue on with this, you know, increase intimacy, I think is the key to this business. And that’s through a lot of effort and caring consideration. Scott, I think it’s a great place for us to wrap up. I want to mention, for anyone listening, who is an agent in Manhattan, also Brooklyn, Scott’s team covers both both Manhattan and Brooklyn. If you are looking to maybe see what other options exist this year, maybe you’re not getting the attention you deserve, or just want to see, you know, what other teams are offering reach out to Scott, it may or may not be a good fit, but he would love the opportunity to say hello, and see if maybe you could be a good addition to the team. Also, if you are an agent elsewhere in the country, and you have clients that come to and from New York City, we We of course know New York City is can be a very transient place, people can go there and then leave. Well, of course, Scott needs people to refer to as well. And he would love to hear meet your referrals as well. So reach out to Scott, the best way to reach him is to visit him on his website, which is Harris residential.com. And then you can also find him on LinkedIn, Scott Harris, let’s definitely follow him. He posts almost daily on LinkedIn with was really great content there. So let’s, let’s follow these kinds of really impressive following there. But on behalf of our audience, Scott, I want to thank you for your time today you are amazing guest. This is the exact kind of conversations I love having. And you’ve really provided a lot of value. So thank you on behalf of the audience. On behalf of Scott and myself, we want to thank the audience as well. Thank you for sticking around to the end of the episode. Thank you for supporting our show, the best way you can help us is by telling a friend I think of one other agent that is maybe struggling this year and maybe just needs a little boost, send them a link to this episode, they will get excited. So send them over to our website if if they’re not a podcast person keeping it real. pod.com is our website. We’re on every podcast platform. Also leave us a review that helps us out knowing how we can continue to improve. So Scott, thank you again. We really appreciate all your time, and really great conversation. And we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks Scott. Scott Harris 1:04:48Thanks so much for having me. It’s been awesome.

Debbi DiMaggio an author, real estate leader and a coach talks about her experience in real estate business. Debbi explains the importance of being an real estate agent and how she loves working with new people. Debbi talks about her coaching program – Foundation for Success. Last Debbi emphasizes the importance of being present and why meeting people in person is the only way to get the real information about clients. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Debbi DiMaggio can be reached at (510) 414-6777 and debbi.dimaggio@corcorangroup.com. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today we’re talking to a top real estate coach about what you can do to finish the year strong. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase 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. And now on to our show. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents. And for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide, and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with top producer, author and real estate coach Debbie DiMaggio. Before we get to Debbie. Just a couple of quick reminders. Please, as always support our sponsors. You hear them at the beginning of the show. And then halfway through the interview. Let them know how much you love them because they help support and keep our show rolling. So check out their products and services. We appreciate that. And also tell a friend about this podcast. Think of one other agent that could benefit from hearing our interviews with top producers and send them a link. You can send them a link to whatever podcast app you might be listening to. Or you can send them right to our website, keeping it real pod.com Where every single episode can be streamed right from a browser. Alright guys, let’s get to the main event my conversation with Debbie Demacia. Today on the show, our guest is Debbie Demacia with Corcoran in San Francisco and LA she’s also leader of the DiMaggio betta group. She’s been practicing real estate for a long time. Also as an author, a coach. Let me tell you more about Daddy. Now who is a top one and a half. Sorry, one and a half. I’m going to start that one over. Debbie DiMaggio is a top 1.5% producer of all agents nationwide. I wanted to make sure I got that right because that is a truly impressive statistic. She has been an author four times over she is a mother of two a wife and a philanthropist. Her love of meeting people travel design and experiencing new cultures has driven her success in real estate and beyond. Debbie aspires to inspire by living her purpose and passion is committed to helping her clients through their first second or third transaction or when mentoring others on their own paths to greatness. She’s also a full time realtor and a partner in a real estate firm Corcoran icon properties and the marketing director and coach for the company’s ad agents. Debbie loves helping others achieve their dreams whether your clients or other agents helping expand her business into coaching she coaches agents, Debbie also will guide you towards achieving your goals while holding yourself accountable, keeping you on track, which is easier said than done. And as I’m thinking about this out loud and reading Debbie’s bio, I can’t think of too many real estate coaches who have been practicing for 35 years on top of coaching. That is really a huge asset. So please welcome Oh, and let’s do let’s get Debbie’s tagline. First follow your passion, live your purpose. I want to give a plug for Debbie’s books before she comes on. By the way we will have links to all of her books. In the show notes. You can find them anywhere books are sold Amazon in particular, but her books are called The Art of real estate. Real estate rules 52 ways to achieve success in real estate contained beauty and during COVID She wrote beauty at any age because age is just an attitude. Follow Debbie at her website, Debbie and that’s D BB I know II Debbie DiMaggio di MAGG io.org Debbie dimaggio.org We will have a link to that in the show notes. Also follow her on Instagram at Debbie Demacia will have a link to that too. Debbie, welcome to the show. Debbi Dimaggio 5:00Thank you. Wow, what an introduction. Thank you so much. Well, D.J. Paris 5:04you have done a lot in your career, and there’s a lot to celebrate there and our audience, I hope they’re impressed because I’m impressed. And I talk to top producers almost every day on this show. And I get so excited when I get to talk to somebody like you, who’s not only a successful agent, but also a successful business owner, mentor, author. And now coach. So I am I’m a huge fan of that. I think they are no and a mother and I taught them and it’s that expression, if you want something done, give it to a busy mom, right? They just get things done. So you’ve gotten a lot done in your career. And now your son is working with you on the team, which is really cool. I think that is really, really neat. But I would like to go all the way back to the beginning of your career because people like to hear the origin story. Where did you come from? How did you get into real estate? Why real estate? So can you walk us through sort of how that happened? Debbi Dimaggio 5:59I can so when I was growing up. People always ask you what do you want to do when you grew up? I had no idea what I wanted to do. I figured one day it would hit me. The only thing I knew I did not want to do was real estate. It my dad was he used to buy and sell he was always on the phone. He was managing his investors very different. I’m a residential sales for over 35 years. And he was it was real estate. Nonetheless, he was on the phone, there was no cell phones at that time, he was always tethered to his phone, he was always working. I didn’t like know that we couldn’t go on proper vacations because he always had it in the works. So I so for as long as I can remember until I was probably 27 when it when I finally started real estate. The only thing I didn’t want to do all my life was real estate. And then I realized when I was working for other people, I worked in magazines and did some different things. Some days, I’d have a job for a week, a day, two weeks, I said this isn’t for me. I know there’s something out there. And that’s why I talk about people living their passion is so important. I kept trying and thankfully I have parents who allowed me to continue to try. And it just I realized I can’t have a boss, I don’t want someone telling me what to do. I like to work really hard. And I don’t want to work really hard and not be compensated for that. So it all kind of populated into real estate, which started out in rent tools in San Francisco. And a friend of mine, Adam and my partner said Debbie would rentals and this is the time before Craig’s List 19. It was 1990 390-490-1990 1990. About there was We’re in San Francisco, there, there was no Craigslist. So you would as a rental agent, you’d call on owners, property managers in San Francisco, these big gorgeous buildings. So you call to get a listing, like one building might have you know, 20 listings, and you continue to call and then you would work with people to get them into rentals. And it was so lucrative and I loved it. But I will tell you when I was 25. And this is where my coaching when I go back and how I’ve written my coaching programs. When I was 25, I was so lost, I was living in LA I loved LA but I wasn’t liking what I was doing. My fiancee at the time says get get your real estate license, which I did, but I hated being home. So I was super depressed. And I wrote out what I like what I like to do, I didn’t know what it was. I said I love working with people. I love meeting new people. I love helping people. I love doing something different every day. I don’t want to be tethered to a desk and I like a beginning, a middle and an end. And so that translate a couple of years later into this call of a friend’s and Debbie should get into rentals with me. And real estate has a middle a beginning, a middle and an end. And I get to meet people all the time. of all different nationalities of all different backgrounds because I’m from a little town called Piedmont California. We’re near Oakland and near Berkeley and it’s only 10,000 people and 4000 home. So I grew up there we raised our kids there. My parents still live there. So when I say meeting other people I get so excited. As soon as someone walks through the open house. I’m like, Oh, where are you from? You know, you know, they’ll say where they’re from now or no or where did you grow up and there’s always some crazy long story and I’m like, I’m from Piedmont. I grew up in Piedmont, I went to Cal and anyway, so that’s kind of where the tip of the iceberg where it started. And I’ve been doing practicing real estate for over 35 years and I still love it and I still get to meet new people every day. D.J. Paris 9:50It’s an incredible story. As as a coach, I think it would be fun to kind of dive right in to what’s going on today and and obviously San Francisco has a unique market as well, that isn’t always tracking the same as as other other markets here in the country. But I suspect it’s happening in San Francisco too. Of course, you’re dealing with, with inventory issues. I mean, San Francisco always has inventory issues. That’s part of the charm of it. But it also makes it incredibly challenging for people to build careers there. But, you know, you you mentor agents, you coach agents, you’ve written books, helping agents, what would what are you telling your clients agents right now? Who are, you know, struggling a bit, maybe they’re not getting as many listings, you know, there’s not as many buyers flooding the market? What are you telling them to do now, just to sort of stay engaged and busy? Yeah, Debbi Dimaggio 10:49sure. So that kind of taps into my coaching program called foundation for success. And it’s, it’s back to it’s just basic things. Okay. First of all, you can’t sit at home, you know, waiting for your phone to ring, you’ve got to be out there engaging and connecting. So you. So the first thing I said, we hire a new agent, I say, you have to be in the office sitting next to Adam Adams very structured, he likes to be behind his desk, he’s there, that’s where he works for me. I’m up in our loft at our house right now I’ll be in the car working, I’ll pull over and work, I’ll be, you know, checking on one of our properties that we’re preparing for market, I’ll just stand outside, I’ll be on the phone. So with the new agents, I sit down in front of Adam, Adam will be talking to ad agents over the time people call him with issues and problems you can hear how he is speaking, and what kinds of problems arise, you will never know until you hear it. And there’s always different kinds of issues that come up. But when you’re sitting there and listening to him. So that’s the first thing be in be present. The other thing is, so when you’re there, and an agent like myself, we carry a lot of listings, we’re very busy, Adam, and I chase very grateful for that. But if you’re there, and I see you’re there, and I get a client, a buyer that for one of my listings, and I don’t want to write it and maybe Adams writing for another person, I’ll say, hey, Dre, I you know, do you want this buyer? I mean, because they’re They’re so mean being present, that is my number one be present. The years D.J. Paris 12:28before, I’m sorry, Debbie, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but it’s so funny. I, before I started this podcast, I’m from a little, not a little town, but a smaller town in Illinois called Peoria. And I interviewed somebody who was like the seventh best realtor there just because he was a friend of a friend, because that’s where I grew up. And so this is all before I had the show, and actually was the impetus for this building the show. And I said to him, Brian is his name. I said, Hey, Brian, why is it that out of the 1000? Realtors in the area? Why or why do you think you’re number seven? He goes, Well, I’m not smarter than than anybody, are everybody. And I’m certainly not more skilled than everybody. But he goes, I show up on time to the office. And he goes, he goes, he goes, you’d be shocked the people that produce. And this is a long time ago, and not everyone works in an office anymore. But But if he would say the people that produce her, they’re like, eight or 9am. And they start working, and they actually start doing things. And I go well, yeah, there’s more to it than that. He was not really you guys. It’s a lot about showing up and just doing the work. And I I know, that’s not always the most exciting thing to do here. But it is the truth. Right? So that’s the Debbi Dimaggio 13:39thing that there’s no science to it. You know, you don’t have to be super smart. You have to be show up, be present, be kind, communicate. I mean, I just did a deal with an agent. He said, Debbie, do you know I’m new? And I said, No. I said, I want to commend you. I know, you have been so communicative. It’s been amazing. We had a few little things, but because we you know, we jumped off of a text off of an email, how to voice to voice conversation, we knew what was happening. We knew the insurance was a problem, you know, with all our fires here in California, so but we talked through it so we you know, we and I said you come to the office, I want to hire you. I mean, he was so good. And there are so many agents who have been around and are not communicative, communicative. And it’s a it’s a bummer because it affects the deal. It affects how you’re feeling. I mean, yes, you’re always stressed with your seller, your buyer because they’re going through a big transition. So we’re supposed to advocate for them and we’re supposed to like, make it work and if you can’t get a hold of someone, it’s so aggravating it’s so it’s, that’s also very important. You have to communicate, it’s I can’t even tell you how important D.J. Paris 14:59you No, I couldn’t agree with you more. And I was just thinking, as you were talking about the texting versus talking, I was thinking, Well, why is it that texting isn’t as effective to deal with frustrations and stuff? It’s because I don’t know why necessarily. But on text, you don’t get to discharge that stress as easily, right? If you get a sort of a message that maybe is a bump in the road in a transaction, or the other side is doing something weird, and you’re like, God, you get all frustrated. And as you said, Hey, let’s chat on the phone. Maybe we can work this out. And you’re able to work with another human and actually talk about the frustrations. That doesn’t translate as well on tech. So I think you’re so right, that moving away from texting, you know, even just with the the co op broker, the other agent on the other side, you know, get on the phone with them talk about what’s happening. Just Debbi Dimaggio 15:49I’ll give you an example of this. Okay, first of all, you need to know, you really need to know who you’re dealing with. Culturally, we’re all different. I’m 100%. Different people have different backgrounds, it’s like, then you know where they’re coming from, right? You have to know who the person is. So you can you understand, so it’s not like a bad thing. It’s just that you know, where they’re coming from, what their upbringing is how they might react. So that’s number one. So we were doing a transaction and the buyer, this girl, she had just come out of a divorce. She had bought homes before. But her but her in the Oakland area, her father lived in LA, completely different markets, Northern and Southern California, completely different. So once said that the agent I was working with wouldn’t get on the phone wouldn’t get on the phone. So I didn’t want to be mean, but I called her broker who was a friend of mine. And I said, Hey, Vanessa, I just, you know, it’s not an issue. I just if I can communicate with her on the we would understand what’s happening. So when the agent finally coming back, she explained her father’s in LA, he’s dictating from behind. He’s trying to protect her. I said, Okay, I get it. I go, I totally get it. I was in LA at the time, we were doing the deal in Oakland, and I was in LA on the phone with her. I remember I remember everywhere I was when I’m talking on the phone, I’m walking down Melrose Place from Alfred’s anyway, I said, Okay, that makes a ton of sense. In LA, they negotiate up in Northern California, we get all the disclosures ahead of time, the home inspection, the roof inspection, as the listing agent, we have everything. So when we present it, they know what they’re buying, well in LA, you go into contract, and then the buyer does all that. And then they renegotiate. So long in the short of it once I understood where they were coming from, we were able to move through it. But you can’t talk about that on a text. D.J. Paris 17:49Right? It’s yeah, there’s too much context. There’s too much nuance. And, and yeah, and there is, you know, it’s how we, it’s how we connect to other people is through face to face or voice to voice communication. And, and a lot of problems get resolved as well, just because two people are wanting to work together to get this deal closed. And so yeah, exactly. That’s so that’s, that’s a great tip. Oh, where else do you see agents struggling today? Like, as far as staying busy staying active, obviously showing up you mentioned, you know, being being communicative? What are some things that agents can do today to make sure they’re staying top of mind in their sphere? So when their sphere is ready to move, obviously, they hopefully choose them? Well, Debbi Dimaggio 18:39let me ask you a question. Where, where do buyers show up? Where do you see buyers? D.J. Paris 18:49Yeah, so where do buyers show up? They show up on Zillow, they show up or digitally, they show up on Zillow, they show up at open houses. Exactly. Debbi Dimaggio 18:57Okay, let’s get their open houses. Why as a new agent or an agent looking to build their business because of a slower market? Why aren’t you creating opportunities for yourself? How hard is it to say Debbie, you’ve got three listings. Can I hold it open? On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, so people love to look at houses. So one of our agents Chris Nava, I love this story. New agent. First thing he did before he started with us. His partner bought him our book, The Art of real estate. He had read the book before he came to us. He said, You tell me what to do. I’m gonna do it. He did it in more. He was a flight attendant full time. He would get home like at midnight on a Friday. He would do one of our open houses on Saturday and one on Sunday and he would show property on Saturday. Was he complaining or was he saying I don’t have things to do? He was so busy. I will tell you he is so successful now and he sat right in front of Adam for probably the first five years, I D.J. Paris 20:02love that. I love that. And you are so right. I love it when I hear. And I don’t hear it as much anymore. But But years ago, I would hear things like open houses don’t work anymore. And I’m like, Well, everyone I ever interview on The Show says they still work. And what else are you doing? It’s such a great opportunity to just learn how to talk to people about real estate, if nothing else, talk to buyers, you know, and learning how to present a property. And so for anyone listening who is like, I don’t have any listings, what you do is you ingratiate yourself with some of the top producers in your office like Debbie, and he called Debbie, please, please, please, please, can I do this? And if you you know, show enough initiative, Debbie’s gonna be like, sure that makes Debbie look good to the seller as well. It also is it’s a win for Debbie. And it’s a win for you. And you get some leads out of it, too. Yeah. Debbi Dimaggio 20:50And you and you. So not only are you meeting potential buyers, you’re meeting people who are just looking because they like everyone loves design. So they might just be in there. And then it might occur to them. Wow, that person was so nice to me. I’m not moving. But I know someone who would really benefit by Debbie service. And then you have the other one sellers. You’re in there. Meeting sellers, one of our agents was doing an open house, she ended up losing the listing because the woman wasn’t she was not her price point was what she wanted too much. But she also wanted to give it to her new son law. So but she lost it after being on the market. But she ended up meeting a seller and now she’s listing another home, if she didn’t give herself the opportunity for people to meet her. And she’s not a Piedmont agent. So there’s no way they would have found her if she wasn’t sitting at her open house. D.J. Paris 21:46It’s incredible. i i We have about 800 agents here at our firm, and I could not bang the drum harder, saying please ask another agent to sit in open house in an area that you want to specialize in. And and you know, they might not be able to say yes, it just kind of depends on the seller, obviously. But most cases, they will say yes. If you’re exposed, Debbi Dimaggio 22:09I mean, you want to expose your home to potential people. The other thing is if when homes, there’s right now in our market, some homes are selling in multiple offers still, and others are taking some time. So we had a house that took a long time to sell. And we had it open. Every weekend, we not only gave opportunity to other agents in our office, because we’re partners, we are partners in our firm, we were able to give our agents opportunities, we were able to meet new people, new agents, new people from the community we might not have met before. Now remember, as a realtor, you’re a kind of a little bit like a celebrity people see you because we market ourselves, you know, you’ve got your photo here and there and everywhere. So you have to give those people the opportunity, the public to see you touch you feel you. And if you’re not there, they don’t, you know, they don’t really know how to, you know, sometimes, yes, yes, they’ll pick up the phone sometimes, but it makes it better if they can find a connection with you by meeting you. D.J. Paris 23:10Yeah, that is such that is such a great a great tip. It’s, it’s amazing. And by the way, we should mention because I always wait till the end. And then not everyone makes it to the end of every episode. So I’m sort of remiss if I don’t do this now. But by the way, if you are a realtor in either the bay area or working in, in Los Angeles, and you are looking to maybe explore what other teams or other firms have to offer, Debbie, I mean, we were ran through her bio at the beginning, it’s really impressive that they are looking to expand their team. There with Corcoran, they’re awesome. 35 years experience top, you know, one and a half percent producer, Debbie and her team are awesome. So if you have interest, you know, the best place to learn about all things, Debbie is you go to our website, Debbie dimarzio.com or.org, rather, will have a link to that in the show notes. But she is also taking on new agents. Perfect. Thank you. And, and by the way, if you are not in those areas, but you want to be coached by somebody who is a 35 year top producer, I think that’s a pretty good idea. So you can also reach out to Debbie too, so anyone listening could benefit, you know, from reaching out to Debbie and you have lots of other programs as well. And books. So check out all things Debbie at our website. So Debbie, I’m curious to have we talked about open houses sitting open houses as a great idea. Let I would love to talk about marketing because I think the landscape of marketing has shifted. Obviously different age groups require different sort of processes. I grew up you know, on the telephone talking to my friends, that has gone away. Nobody does that anymore. But you ya. So, you know, it’s funny, but people have to be marketed to and sort of ever expanding ways. What are you how are you seeing the most success So are where are you seeing opportunities with marketing? And how are you reaching out to find new clients? Debbi Dimaggio 25:04Yeah. So now there’s, there’s all ages, right? You’ve got young people, you’ve got middle, you’ve got older people. So let’s start with the older people, a lot of them aren’t on email to receive a newsletter, they might not. They’re probably probably not on social media a whole lot. So you still have to do some of that postcard marketing. You do have to add that in. Because recently, we did a postcard mailing. We don’t do it often enough. But we did. And someone got that postcard and called me and said, I love the way you marketed that home. So you do have to do that. That’s important too. And maybe you don’t do it quite as every month, maybe you do it every quarter or something. But that’s really important to do postcard marketing. And those older people, I will tell you, they come in with that postcard three of them, they come in, and they’re like, I don’t know who I am. I’m here I got your postcard. D.J. Paris 26:02And so do you recommend for postcard marketing to you know, in an area that you’ve just sold? Maybe also, blanket is that sort of how you’re Are you doing it a different way. Debbi Dimaggio 26:13So I have two areas that I really liked to mark it that I really networked in from so Piedmont is one of them, where I grew up where our kids grew up. So I really like I’m, it’s my, it’s my area. So I really and I know everything about it. So and I know how to connect people, someone needed to get into a preschool out of made a call got him into the preschool they had tried for years and couldn’t get into the preschool. So we’re really hyper connected. Then we moved up to a little community up the hill, two minutes away, I hilar Highlands. And it’s nice because it’s this pretty this community of six HOAs. And we live overlooks San Francisco Bay. And so it’s like a really nice finite area to market. So we’ve had six on our little teeny Street, we’ve had six listings, and we’ve sold some of them two and three times on our streets, not even in the so it makes it a really defined area. But yes, wherever you are, if you’re you know, you’re in Chicago, and you’re like, I’m going to do the gold market to the Gold Coast, or whatever it is. Or, like, if you’re in an area with high rises like Chicago, you know, do one whole building like really try to take advantage of that. So yeah, so postcard marketing, newsletters, through E blast is important, you know, you will get some unsubscribes and I’m sensitive, so it hurts my feelings. But it’s important because then other people will be like, Oh my God, thank you or I missed the last one, who was the dog walker you recommended. So I’m trying to make it I’m really into marketing. And I’m the marketing director as well of our ad agents. So I’m very, like font sensitive, I can’t even watch TV without noticing fonts, I can see your font in the back keeping real podcasts. I mean, I just noticed things like that. Right now I’m working with someone to do a new newsletter with not as detailed because my other ones tended to be too long. So trying to condense it and just make it you know, very clean and fun. So newsletters are very important because people do get those and they do like some of the information. Don’t make it too long. You know, handwritten notes are super important. So what I literally just started doing at my open houses, I have a little card with Chase and Adam and I and then Corcoran on the back and my contact information. So as I was sitting at the open house, I was like, thank you so much, and I don’t put the address, I just thank you so much for stopping by, let me know if you’d like more information on this house or any others in the neighborhood. And then I can send them off with that card. If you know if I instead of giving them my business card, I can give them that and it has a little personal note, but also writing personal notes. Just in general, you know, it could be anything Do you know try to connect with your people past clients, you know, congratulations or it’s been a year Happy Anniversary or there’s a million reasons to you know, send someone a note or I thought you might be interested in this restaurants really fabulous, you know, but just keeping in contact with people. I know I’m talking a lot but you like right now I’m in the midst of putting my top 1000 people and as you go through it you realize God I really do know all these people. But don’t forget it’s not just buyers and sellers or family or friends. It’s the other one my most love ID beloved way to get business. Other agents, any agent listening to this show reach out to me I’d love to pay a 25% referral fee. I love to refer you someone I just wasn’t. I was in the Hamptons. Two weeks ago, referring another Corcoran agent didn’t have to go to make a personal introduction but it’s a friend of mine and she was selling her home. So I went and then I had just met Maula at in Nashville at our conference. We We’re both on the marketing panel. And so I said, I’m coming out, I’m going to introduce you to my friend who’s selling her house in Southampton. So I got to connect them and I’m gonna get a referral V, I got to spend a week in the Hamptons and I got to, you know, really solidify our bond with the agent who I only met briefly when we were in Nashville at our Corcoran conference. So no matter where in the world, a realtor is, I want to know them. Because I, I might have a need to refer someone in Chicago, I can’t even think of an agent I know in Chicago, actually. So D.J. Paris 30:33hear that Chicago agents, opportunity knocks, for too many beat because, you know, look, Debbie works in an area that people move into or move out of, I mean, obviously, there’s people that have lived in, in the Bay Area, their whole life as well. But a lot of people aspire to living in New York, San Francisco, you know, places like that. So not everyone’s from there. And sometimes people don’t always stay there. So and obviously, in the tech space, you know, it’s gonna attract a lot of people moving in and out as well. So yeah, great opportunity there to, to really, you know, so for everyone listening, think about where do the people in your community who aren’t born and raised? Where did they come from? Is there some patterns there that we can start to explore? And where did they leave where maybe once they retire? Where did they go, another opportunity to look for some patterns, and then reach out to other agents. You know, if everyone leaves and goes and retires down in South Florida, well, there you go, start making some introductions, start start making start For start, sorry, start meeting people in South Florida, who, you know, who obviously wouldn’t be happy to get to get those referrals, and you get that, you know, 25% referral fee. So, brilliant idea. That that is really something we don’t talk enough about on the show is referrals in that way from other agents. So I appreciate you saying that. So I guess it also playing nice in the sandbox, I want to talk about, we talked about the importance of that. And meaning, when you’re doing a transaction, even if you’re, you know, working against another agent, you are still cooperating or attempting to cooperate to close the Commission, the deal. You know, how important is that? Debbi Dimaggio 32:14Well, first of all, change the language you’re not working against you’re working with. So when we go into escrow with an agent on the other side, listing agent, selling agent, you’re working together, it’s not about you, it’s about your clients. So you’re working together and collaboration to make it go through as smoothly as possible for everyone, it’s going to be easier on you. And you know, I mean, we get wrapped into every deal emotionally, you can’t help it because you’re helping someone in their stress. So it’s the agents are there to you know, to work. So you want to make sure you’re communicative, you’re kind now, not only when you’re doing the deal, it’s important. But that’s, of course, one very important, but when you’re up against five other agents, and they know that Debbie and Adam are easy to work with, they communicate, they’re going to get the deal done, do you know how many times we’ve won a deal, or got a counter because they didn’t want to work with so and so they wanted to work with us. So that benefits our client, and then it benefits the agent because she knows that he or she is not going to be suffering with another agent who’s not doesn’t have those qualities. D.J. Paris 33:27Yeah, that is that is such an important point is is, you know, really having a reputation of being easy to work with. And you just said it yourself. You know, sometimes highest and best doesn’t win the deal. Because they go oh, that’s a person that is difficult to work with. Maybe it won’t close. I don’t you know, I’ve it again, you want the reputation of Oh, thank God, it’s an offer from daddy. That’s what I that’s what you want to say. Exactly. Debbi Dimaggio 33:54And then the other one is, oh, and then just been working with other realtors. So if other realtors in the community, they will call on you do you have something coming up or I have this coming up, you’ll get leads ahead of time saying oh, I’ve got this property coming up for two and a half million. It hasn’t hit the market yet. And you’ll get these calls. I remember one of our agents said well, I want to be like you guys, I want to be the cream of the crop or I get the call from all the other top agents. So it’s it’s it’s a benefit to your clients by just paying a human being and being kind and communicative. And it really pays pays you back because people want to work with you and it helps your clients get the deal. D.J. Paris 34:44You said something and it was just a language thing, but I think it’s very impactful. You said something very important. I I mistakenly said when you’re working against an agent, I’m glad you corrected me because you didn’t just say you know working on a deal with somebody you said a very specific phrase, you’re working with another agent. So I thinking about this when I talk to other agents and I go, Oh, have you ever done a deal with so and so we talked about it as I did a deal with so and so. But I very rarely hear somebody say I worked with another agent and working with sort of presupposes that there’s some sort of harmony there, and some sort of Team collaborative effort. And even if it’s just a little language thing, I think that wood is really great way to sort of trick the mind into thinking this is a more, you know, easy relationship and friendly relationship by saying, Oh, I’m currently working with so and so at a different firm to help close this deal. I think language really does impact how we feel about things. Oh, Debbi Dimaggio 35:42yeah. I mean, the language and the positivity, I mean, because in your mind is like you’re seeing something go smoothly, as opposed to like, like, if I named an agent that I know is difficult. I’m like, you just go off, it’s going to be so tough, or they’re going to she’s going to come back and renegotiate even though she already signed off. And it’s like, and then you kind of are stuck, and you have to deal with it. Right? So it’s just idea I can’t say enough about just working together. And collaboration is so key. Let me tell you a quick little story and agents, new agents just came to work with us. And, and, and this is just about your intuition and following your gut. So she came in to the office, and she was like, I met this lady the other day. She’s like, 87, and she was so nice. And she’s like, and it’s in, you know, this area, she told me the area, you won’t know it. But anyway, she’s in this area. That’s not so great. She’s like, but she was so nice. And she loved me, you know, we just really hit it off. And she invited me to this event. And I’m like, great, and she’s just really just like so excited. She’s talking about it. And I know because I have an 87 year old friend of Velma. And I call it Driving Miss Velma. And I take her out to lunch and she doesn’t have anyone. And I just I feel so good. Just being with her. She’s leaving to go out of town tomorrow. So when she gets back, we’ll go have lunch. And you know, I’m busy. But I always try to make time for Velma. And I have a good time. And it makes me feel good. And I know it makes her feel good. Sometimes I have her to my open houses just to be around people. Well, anyway, Dre is really excited. She’s sharing the story. And then she says I went home and I told my husband and he said, Why would you want to go out there? Why would you want to do anything out that in that area, I said, Oh my god, I go, I’m gonna cry. I said, stop right there, I don’t need to hear any more. When you were telling me you were lit up, you were so excited. You do not know if she has some other friend who’s going to end up giving you a referral because she’s like talking about how much she loves you and it’s going to be right smack in your neighborhood where you want to sell a house, you have no idea. If the gardener is going to have a referral, you have no idea who is going to have that referral. But that’s not the point. The point is she lit up when you light up and you’re being your authentic self and you’re feeling good. That’s when you start to attract I said it’s not like for like it’s not because if I do this, I’m gonna get this, it’s like because I did this, I just got a listing the other day at the open house because I was so happy and I was radiating and I just attracted that positive energy. So you just do don’t don’t, you know, like for like, it’s just you don’t know where it’s going to come from. That’s how I’ve always done my business. I’ve never, I’ve never like Oh, um, I got this listing, I’m only going to spend $1,000, not $5,000 on the marketing because I don’t, it’s not going to be worth it for this deal. It doesn’t matter when you have a really beautiful listing market the heck out of it, because now you have all those assets for all of your marketing and social media, which we haven’t even touched on and all of that. So you go with your gut and just watching her radiate was just was great. And I knew exactly. D.J. Paris 38:58And, you know, we sort of discard older people in in this in our society here. And we don’t give them the attention that that they need or deserve. And a lot of them are lonely and a lot of them are looking for, you know, some companionship and you know, even if nothing else comes of it but you made somebody smile a little bit and feel a little bit less alone. You’re gonna feel better about that, even if it doesn’t translate into a deal. But odds are I know that I would only refer people that I think care about me in any sort of feel like I would only refer my accountant if I thought my accountant really cares about my finances and cares about me. Otherwise, I don’t want to refer my accountant so you can demonstrate care to people and you’re talking about doing exactly that. Let’s talk social media. So tell tell us what how do you approach social media? Yes, Debbi Dimaggio 39:50so well. The reason I’m actually here with you today is because I hired Kim as a coach because when we started we started our own firm Highland partners in two 2008 2009 during the recession, people said, don’t you know there’s a recession? And why are you starting a company and we said, because we weren’t, we wouldn’t have an opportunity at another time. So we just trudge through. So I knew nothing about social media and oh, 809 and so I took it upon myself to learn everything. So in the process, it was a lot of hit and misses. So I created lots of different accounts and was practicing and so I have too many. And then with my Instagram, I have like five Instagrams, the different personalities, Debbie DiMaggio, storyteller, DiMarzio, better real estate, Debbie DiMarzio la beauty at any age, I have so many. So I was like, I have to work with Kim to hone it down. So I’m really working on getting everything down under Debbie DiMaggio. But we had to do social media, because you we weren’t going to start a company in oh nine with, you know, advertising on a billboard, you know, we weren’t going to be calling people, social media was the way to immediately ignite who we were. So we started on that. And then over the years, I’ve refined and now much better at it. But now it’s just there’s so much that comes after us. But it is super important because everyone’s on it. And they I mean, I was asking my friend the other day I go, you don’t watch TV. She’s like, No, I’m doing to duco. And my husband’s on reels, right. So it’s like, people are on it all the time. And so you have to be where the people are. So and again, that’s that’s one segment, there’s other segments. But you can easily take your instinct, I trade on social media for the agents, of course, and anyone who’s looking to sell a product, business or brand. And then you can share that across LinkedIn, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, you know, you can tick tock, another one I talked about called Alignable. You can take the same post and push to put it on all platforms, because everyone’s on a different platform. Like I go to LinkedIn to verify if someone’s real or not. And if they’re not on LinkedIn, I’m like, huh, I don’t think I’m gonna if it’s an agent, let’s say I’m like, Yeah, you don’t really have a LinkedIn presence. So how could you be serving your listings? Because, you know, you’re not really out there. So, you know, it’s, there’s a lot to it. But yes, social media is super important. You want to be in front of business people, you want to be in front of, you know, potential buyers that are on social media, or realtors, I had someone in Utah, someone said, my boss, my boss said, oh, you should follow Debbie DiMarzio she’s really good at social media. And I don’t even know who the boss was. And somehow I met this woman. And I’m like, Oh, my God, I have no idea. I know that. I mean, and my social media is nowhere near some of the people that you interview, but but it works. You know, it works that people do get to know you, you become familiar in front of them. D.J. Paris 42:46Absolutely. Let’s talk about your coaching program foundation for success. Tell us about that. Yeah, Debbi Dimaggio 42:53so I have five platforms that I coach on, and we’ve touched upon them right now. So the important thing is we want to educate, communicate and inspire. That’s why that’s what we have to do as a realtor. You know, people want to see design. So you might post design and all this different stuff. So the five marketing platforms, social media, get out in front of your audience, email, sphere of influence, eblast, you want to connect with people, newsletters, note cards, postcards, so touch points, you want to touch a minute, you know, more personal way websites, blogs, editorial contributions, so we can educate and inspire. So let me just give you a little example about that. People are like, Well, how do I do that? You know, what do I do? So you want to write a see write a blog, you can post the blog across all social media, then you can put it on your website, and then it’s a place so we just did one where my son was working with some first time homebuyers and the people that the buyers were got so overwhelmed about the process. So I broke it down. And I put it on my website. So now when we have a first time homebuyer, we can go to the link and share the link. So it’s a holding place for all that information that we give time and time again to buyer’s or seller’s well for us sellers, we’re always working with sellers to bring their house to market so I have the from lived in to stage to to sell, and I have just everything we do to get that house ready for market. I even have YouTube videos on that. And then the last one people podcast partnerships, and collaboration. So I’ve done in the past a lot of panel discussions where I bring in maybe five different people maybe a financial planner, a 1031, specialist of Fung Shui expert, and then myself, and then maybe a contractor and then we do like a q&a. And you’re getting in front of people you’re adding value, you’re giving them information, and they get to see you doing what you do best you’re giving back to them and educating them. So those are the five different principles. And I always say, Don’t get overwhelmed, I’ll teach you how to go through all of them. D.J. Paris 45:06And if you are interested in signing up for foundations for success, Debbie’s got an entire coaching program for you, as she just outlined, you can visit Debbie dimaggio.org link to that in the show notes and learn more about that. Yeah, I You said so much there. And I was thinking about this idea of doing these, these panel discussions. And so, you know, I think most of us have heard of first time homebuyer seminars. But what you said was, was really cool, because you could bring in all these experts from different fields, like a financial adviser, maybe, you know, an accountant, maybe, and you know, various tangentially related sort of services, a loan officer, of course, and, you know, appraiser attorney, whatever, and you all share the stage and you invite your clients, they invite their clients, and you sort of cross pollinate a little bit. Debbi Dimaggio 45:59Yeah, so you’re working working with professionals is really wonderful. And that’s another thing that we started called workshop Wednesday, where we have different professionals come in and speak to our agents can come, the community can come, we market it to everyone just to bring people into a room. And it’s a benefit for everyone. And it’s called workshop Wednesday. And that’s one of the ways we started in 2009. By bringing people into the office by offering lunch, and a speaker. D.J. Paris 46:26I love that that is such a great idea. Now, for those of you that don’t work in an office, you can take this idea to accompany. So if you know people that work at a company, bring something like this to them and say, Hey, I have this program I do for businesses, where I bring in experts, all different types of fields, where I can start to do some educational stuff for anyone who wants to sit in maybe you can, you know, let me use the conference room once a month for an hour. These are things you know, if you have an office, you could do them in house, or you can go places and do them. And I think that is a heck of a good idea. Debbi Dimaggio 46:59Yeah, it’s fine. We have one tomorrow. D.J. Paris 47:03Exciting. Well, Debbie, this has been awesome. I want everybody to do a couple of things, I want you to visit Debbie dimaggio.org. And that’s D BBI. And then DiMaggio di m a ggio.org. You can learn about all things, Debbie, her coaching her books, please go to Amazon, we have links to that in the show notes and check out her books, and her various programs and coaching. And if you are an agent in the LA or San Francisco Bay Area, and you’re like, Oh, I’m not really getting the attention I deserve or I need at my firm reach out to Debbie, her team is growing and expanding. And as she said at the very beginning, oh, by the way, you know, maybe she can help you with some of your some of your activity. So reach out to her, go to her website and do that. And also, if you are somebody who has clients that move in and out of LA or the San Francisco Bay Area, reach out to Debbie as well, she would love to partner with you. And you guys could trade clients back and forth. So, Debbie, thank you so so much for being on the show. You’re a fantastic guest I had we learned so much. And really everything you said in this interview was was actionable. So I really applaud you for that. Thank you. And on behalf of Debbie and myself, we want to thank our audience for sticking around to the very end and supporting our show, please tell a friend, tell one other agent about the show, we would really appreciate it everyone listening that will help us get in front of more people. And on behalf of myself and the audience. We want to thank Debbie for all of her time today. She is amazing. She doesn’t have time to do things like this, but she showed up anyway. And we applaud her for that. So please stay in touch with Debbie you can follow her on social media as well. Debbie DiMaggio will have that for all of her social channel stuff in the show notes. Debbie. Thanks again and we will see everybody on the next episode. Thanks, Debbie. Thank Debbi Dimaggio 48:55you so much. Thank you

Welcome to Breaking Down Ali’s Systems mini-series with Ali Garced. In this mini-series Ali will be explaining how she built her systems both for buyers and for sellers. In the second episode, Ali goes over buyer email number 3&4 and also her Trello checklist. Please follow Ali on Instagram here. If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Ali Garced can be reached at ali@garcedrealty.com and (914) 318-4918. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Hello keeping it real podcast listeners. Today is a special episode with one of my great friends in this industry ally, the agent she’s been on the show, and she was nice enough to do a special episode just for you guys about exactly how she works with buyers. This is her buyer checklist part two. If you didn’t listen to part one, don’t worry. Listen to this one. You can always go back to the first one as well. You’re going to want to hear this. So without further ado, my friend Aligarh said this episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solutions so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase 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. And now on to our show. Ali Garced 1:49Welcome back to the mini series on checklists specifically for buyers. Again, this is Aligarh set or ally, the agent on all social media. And I’m looking forward to part two of the buyer series. If you remember from last time, I went over part one of the buyer series when I where I went over email one, which really is part of my Calendly. Now that’s where I have my buyer intake. And I also went over buyer email number two, which is where I send the clients once we decide that we’re working together that we’re committed to each other, that I send them the email with all of the attachments. So that way, they’re educated on all of the steps, and they get their contract, everything like that. So what today’s episode is going to be on is that middle portion. So pretty much like contract to almost close, we’re going to cover buyer, email three and buyer email number four. And of course, the Trello checklist that I use for every single buyer, every single seller, every single referral, every single agent that joins the crew, the onboarding checklist, I won’t be covering that. But so if you want to follow along, I suggest watching this again on YouTube. I also in case you can’t watch us on YouTube right now, I do suggest that you watch this on YouTube as well later on after you listen to this episode. That will probably give you the biggest the best idea of how I you can visualize it better, you know. And also, if you’re interested in these checklists, shoot me a text, my phone number is 520-341-2552 Text the word checklist and we’ll set up a call. And then after that you can receive these checklists, I’m here to give it out no cost. So also, if you’re looking to one day, grow a team or increase your team if you’re already a broker owner, this is a great way for you to leverage and give a you know front to end checklist for how to work with sellers how to work with buyers how to work with investors, referrals that you can give to the agents on your team or you can use as leverage for those agents to to do the work and then know exactly what steps are on what is next. So that way, nothing is left because there’s nothing worse than waking up in the middle of the night. And I know that every realtor has been there, where they’re like, oh my gosh, I forgot to send the due diligence report or you know, whatever it is. There’s you can you can avoid feeling like that. And you can help your team avoid feeling like that when everyone has a checklist of knowing exactly what they have done. What they have checked off what they have not yet. So again, my phone number is 520341 to five five to text a word checklists or if you’re interested in using this to grow your team, message me but anyway, so here is part two. I’m going to vocalize as much as I can Han, for those that are not watching this on YouTube, I do suggest if you find any of this helpful, please give DJ give keeping it real a five star review, or follow them on YouTube comment, any anything would help. And I really want to give back to DJ. So for having such a great podcast. So over here I’m sharing my Trello screen again. And again Trello. For those that have not used, it is a free project management tool free. Where you can create cards or boards and you can list out every single item on a checklist. And you can you share this, as you can see, I share it with my crew, and they can copy and paste it so in that and move it into their own board again, leverage. So you create the template and they can just copy and paste it and include their own address. And then yeah, so let’s go in here, the home buyer checklist part two. So the first time we left off at the end of the first section here, which was the buyer initiation, right? I’m not covering lead gen at this time, although I’m more than happy to do so in the future. And because at one point, I had so many leads, and I know that I know how this sounds, but I’d had so many leads that I had to form a crew, because I wasn’t comfortable. Like referring the leads out to someone in a different brokerage or a different crew where I didn’t know how they would treat my lead. Because the lead was that they’re my personal like friends and family. So I just wanted to make sure that they’re treated very well. So I was like, You know what, let me make this into a checklist. Let me make this into a process. Let me grow the crew. And that way I know, everybody that comes to me is taken care of in the same manner, nothing is left unchecked, literally. So we have sent them via email number two. And now there is a section here the next section, I hope that this was bright enough, let me make this brighter, is Doc’s needed to submit an offer. Of course, this is going to vary state to state. So the first thing on this checklist is when you’re calling the Yeah, when you’re calling the listing agent. You have to establish a good working relationship with them. I always a being that I’m with exp. I always call and you know, I compliment them on their listing. It’s a beautiful listing. And I say oh, by the way, you know, my name is Aligarh said I work with exp Realty, don’t worry, I’m not trying to recruit you. And usually they laugh because what do you know, some exp agents actually do sell. So that usually breaks the ice, but I do everything that I can to butter them up, right, because if they’re going to be working with with me, that does make my offer stand out over others over perhaps a grumpy realtor. It shouldn’t but it does. And just being a genuinely good person. And nice and incorporating some humor in this industry goes a very long way. I’m sure I’m sure you can attest that as well. So I always have it a point to always call the listing agent before you even submit an offer. Because without that relationship, they don’t know who you are. Sometimes they don’t even check their email you as you know, you’re getting tons of emails every single day, emails can get lost, they can go to spam junk the deleted folder, so always call them. Because at that point, you can as you’re over here, step number two in this section is I literally wrote butter them up. So ask what’s most important to the seller, and just let them talk. Sometimes they will say a lot. So that way you can make it a win win for your buyer for the seller. And then that way, hopefully it turns into more of a smooth transaction. So before you submit an offer step number three here is of course to tell the lender there, you don’t want to blind sight though the lender at any point, you want to make sure that the buyers qualify for that. You want to make sure you’re still keeping in contact with that lender throughout the whole transaction. Because what if something happens that the lender knows about although the you know, client had to take had to cut down from 40 hours a week to 30. Now they no longer qualify for that house. So always make sure that you’re keeping the lender up to date, hey, the client we looked at, you know, XYZ homes where we’re thinking of submitting an offer on this specific house. Are they good to go and you get the blessing from the lender. Excellent. So then at that point, of course you want with keeping the lender informed every step of the way. Just communication in general just goes such a long way. Then that way the lender can reach out to the listing agent and say Oh, by the way, my name is pretend on the lender for a second, my name is, you know, Aligarh said I work with XYZ mortgage, I just wanted to let you know that the clients that are about to spin an offer or that just submitted an offer, they are good to go, they’re fully pre approved, they are serious buyers, and I will do whatever it takes to make this a smooth transaction. If your lender is not doing that, ask them to do it, because I’m sure that they want to do that. Because the more that they also talk to listing agents, the more their name gets known. So if you shouldn’t have any issues getting a lender to do that, and there is a big difference between having them do that via email, via text or a phone call, always ask them to do it via a phone call. Because so many people aren’t. And on the listing side of things when whenever I say I get an offer, which is more often than not that that lender is not calling me. So I make it a point. And when I cover my seller checklist, I make it a point it’s on there. For me to reach out to a listing agent, I do not accept any offer until I have spoken to the listing agent until the lender, I make it a point to not accept any offer until I have spoken to the lender directly. And I know do they have to pull credit again, is there any chance of this falling out of contract, and, you know, XYZ. So carrying on here, send an email to the buyer introducing them to the TC because at that point, I hope that you have a TC if not, oh, once you hire one, you will be able you’re getting so much of your time back. So please, please do that. That way that email can say something like this. And we can, of course, plug and play the tea your TCS name. So hey, you know, Alex is my buyer, I want to introduce you to my TC, he or she is going to be taking doing all the paperwork, they do a better than me faster than me, and make sure that everything is in regulation that we’re on track. So add this email to your contacts. And and then of course introducing the TC to the client when you’re ready to submit an offer, and then at that point, this specifically is for my brokerage. So this is how to find within our, our database, which is which is what we call sky slope, that’s where you input the the forms, there is some stuff that you’ll realize, or you might not realize, I know that I actually don’t do so I don’t do any of the paperwork. But my first transaction I did, and that was a mistake. Luckily, you know, nothing, nothing happened there. But um, but it was just such a not the highest and best use of my time. So that is what a TC is, is there for a lot of a lot of people sometimes think oh, you know, I can’t, I don’t have I’m not at the level of production for me for it to warrant me hiring a TC to which I would say if you cannot hire a TC now, there is very little chance of you being able to scale unless your your goal is not to scale, which is totally fine to everyone has different goals in this business. You know, some people only want to do a couple and that’s completely fine. But I would say if you do like doing the paperwork, then I don’t know, maybe maybe just be a TC and scale that business. But anyway. So not everything on here is specifically what I do. But if for some reason you are still doing the paperwork and if you happen to be an ESB and happen to be an Arizona this might help you otherwise you can just ignore that part. Of course, you know, you can delete it after we meet and talk and you get these chocolates, you can just delete that portion of I will say though, you will be given a link to this. So copy and paste it. Please do not edit my checklist that I am sharing for everyone. So hopefully you shouldn’t have access to do that. But just in case, please don’t take this copy and make any edits to it. That’s the one thing that I asked. Okay, so then you send the buyer broker exclusive agreement, in case you haven’t already. And I’m not going to really talk about at what point I do it because everyone likes to do it at different times. Some people only like to do it when they submit the offer. Some people do it before they even like viewing house. A lot of different theories and pros and cons to every to every, you know, decision on that. So at whatever point you want to submit, you want to send and have your buyer exclusive agreement signed, then you can just drag and drop that which is super easy again on Trello. You can just drag and drop it to this card or before or after. Then you send these are the forms here that we have to send to our clients in this state. So again, make sure that that’s appropriate for your state. All of these forms here. And of course, I’m not sending these a TC is because again, that’s not the highest and best use of my time, I’ll tell you my first transaction that I ever did. It took me two, maybe even three hours to even find the paperwork. Three hours, after my first year in the business, I did the math, and I was per hour per client. On average, I was making like 250 to $300 an hour for me to spend three hours looking to even find where these forms are kept. No, thank you, that is not a way to scale. And we’ll never do that again. So I highly suggest hiring a TC because they only get paid at the transaction, they only get paid when you get paid. There are no overhead costs. Anyway, I’m going on a rabbit hole, I’m sure you guys are are with me also. So let me continue going down here, sending the purchase contract. That’s after you know, of course, all the details of what’s going to go in the purchase contract. And that is where I’m going to take you to buyer email number three, which is once you get to that point with your client, have, you know you’ve shown or you’ve hired a showing assistant to show your client houses, and they finally narrowed down one, and they’re ready to go. They’re excited, excellent. This is where I, this is my process. From there, I send this email. And again, I use superhuman, it’s a way to save a lot of time and easily have drafts or templates, like very ready to go. So I send this email to the clients. So obvious, I’ll put them in the To line by or email an email number three is with a subject line drafting the offer. And the next steps. Of course, I’m always adding next steps because that’s what the buyer wants to know. Great. This is what we’re doing now. But what do I expect tomorrow? What do I expect the next what’s next. So of course, like in every single one of my videos I or emails, I have a video, because I love video because it goes so much further. If clients I’m gonna scroll down here, if clients were to just see all of this, by itself with a lot of words, that’s putting a lot of work on them, and you want to make this as smooth as possible for them. So in this video, once again, of this email, I’m pretty much reading this email to them. It’s storytime. Again, I want to make it as easy as possible for them. So I am telling them what exactly we need in order to draft the offer. And you’ll you’ll realize here I have a graph. So on the left side, it’s like the column of of what I’m looking for. So of course, the buyer names of phone numbers, emails, you’ll probably have it already, the address the purchase price, take your contract your your purchase, contract or offer to purchase wherever you’re located. And every single line item that needs to be written written in, turn that into a graph, just two columns, the left side is what you’re looking for the right side is blank, and you send that is template, that’s your buyer email number three. So in that way, I send this out to the buyers and they are the ones filling this out. One that provides them with more clarity, okay, this is exactly what I’m doing. It gives them more ownership. They’re the ones writing it in. And of course, it goes through every single portion of the purchase contract. So at the bottom here, or actually, let me scroll back up. So after my video, which is just a one minute video explaining what is in this email, I also added another video, which is the Purchase Contract Overview. Now they have already received this and buyer email number two, if you remember, because by your email number two has my buyer PDF, which is my video collection of taking the buyer from the very beginning all the way to the very close end of the transaction asking for the review. And so I clicked on this already. And this the buyer Contract Overview is on YouTube. And it could be unlisted. It could be listed if you want. Oops. Here we go. Maybe you heard that maybe you didn’t, but pretty much. That’s how it starts out. Hey, congratulations, you’re under contract, what happens now? And I walk them through what the rest of the contract is going to be like. So very beefy. There’s a lot of information but my clients have never said you know what, I think you offered too much information. So that way they have that available. And then of course so they’re filling in this information that goes into the contract right? Then the bottom section here is the way ahead. So one, I want you to email us back and I say us because it’s me and the TC so in the in the two line it’s the bye areas that are going to be signing, the CC line is the the TC, email us back, I will be looking at over first, of course, you want to make sure that the price is what you spoke about that the numbers make sense that everything is on there. Because ultimately you are responsible for that. So after and then number two is tell your lender of how much you’re offering just again in case in case for some reason the buyer didn’t talk to the lender, they’re the ones reaching out to the lender, as well as you are saying, hey, just confirming again, we’re we’re making an offer on 123 Main Street, this is the price sign number three is for them to sign the offer number four on their list of the way ahead is I will be be presenting this to the listing agent and letting them know it’s in their inbox. Number five is the lender is going to call the listing agent and I’m telling the buyer this right like, Hey, your lender and I are working together to do the most we can for you. It’s a team effort. And then number six, be on the lookout. And for the next email, which should be we’re under contract. And then the attachments here that I have are the buyer advisory. Again, this is state specific, so I won’t open that up. But also, again, I attach the buyer client PDF. Again, this is the whole like video course pretty much on buying in your state. So this of course takes a lot of effort to make but it is so worth it once you make it because it should be evergreen, and it should apply to all buyers. So you send it and they send it back to you saying okay, this is this is what it is if you need to jump on a call saying hey, I thought we spoke about this much earnest money or that you were not going to ask for a home warranty whatever it is at that point. If it warrants a phone call Excellent. If not, you’re ready to go. All you have to do is text your TC saying the email that you were just see seed on the drafting the offer good to go. Can you draft it up? And yeah, so that’s that’s buyer email number three. Going back to the Trello checklist now, let me move this here. So we have sent out the offer. And at this point, they have sent us back to back to it I don’t want to jump too far ahead. Because there again, there are a lot if you’re following along on YouTube. If this has been helpful so far again, please like this video, comment on it saying what portion has been the most the most useful to you. If you’re interested in setting up a call text checklist 520-341-2552. But whatever platform you’re listening to this, whether Spotify Apple, please give keeping it real a five star review because DJ does so much for the agent community and I really appreciate him. Okay, so you take the prequel, of course, you’re going to be submitting the offer with a prequel I don’t, I don’t mean to say of course I want I want this to apply to all agents of all levels. So then, once you have all the documents submitted to the listing agent, follow it up with the highlights. So once that once your TC has sent has drafted the offer the buyers have signed, you’ve already looked at over you’re good to go. Then at that point, it becomes a decision whether you want to send the offer to the listing agent or your TC, I have my TC do it. And specifically in there I have the I write my own blurb of what I want the TC to copy and paste, but they’re the ones submitting it to the listing agent one it takes it save some of my time. And two, it comes from the TC to the listing agent. So in that way the listing agent is seeing Okay, Ali has a TC let me make sure that I keep them in the loop because I’m sure that you have all experienced this where cross agents forget forget to cc the TC and that’s like the most important important person to be seen. So I want the conversations the communication to be from the TC from the start. So then we they know like Hey, she needs to be CC on everything. So in what what am I typing out for the TC to put in the blurb right? Because we never send emails that are just like, hey attaches the offer. Let me know please confirm receipt and then attach the offer. That’s the worst thing you could do. What I do is I make sure that I highlight all of the main points purchase price, earnest money closing date, what we’re asking for seller concessions, every portion of it in bullets. I’m not reading a paragraph. No one wants to read a paragraph. It’s bullet form. We super look forward to you. We look forward to a smooth transaction. I’m the TC I’m working with with Aligarh said and afterward I call the listing agent Hey, just wanted to confirm that you received it. We super I look forward to making this as smooth of a transaction as possible. And I mean that. And so that way, the first time they’re getting an email is not just an offer that they found their junk and you know that you can do so much better. If you want to go above and beyond that, you can jump on bom bom, which is what I’m using right now to share my screen. And you can make a video saying, hey, Leslie, I love your listing, I know that we’ve spoken, I just wanted to add this video to this email, I wanted to introduce you this email is coming actually, from my TC, her name is Laura, you can you know, please add her as a contact in your email. So emails don’t get lost, please see see her and everything this offer is the best one that we could have made. I spoke to my clients and this is what we’re offering, please let me know if you have any questions. And I look forward to working with you. You know, doesn’t have to be long, like 30 seconds max. So that’s if you wanted to go above and beyond I don’t yet do that. So do that. And okay, I spent enough time on that on that section here. Here, this next item on the on the checklist is unfortunate that we have to write this, but it happens not everyone is honest. So screenshot on the MLS, how much that how much the CO broker percentage is going to be essentially how much you’re getting paid. Because it I’ve heard it happen a bunch of times where in the beginning, it’ll save 3%. But then you go under contract, you look at the MLS again, and you you know, you get paid only 2% or something like that. You want to make sure that if they said that they were going to be paying you three that you get paid three, so screenshot from the MLS and save it in your records, save it in a file, you can throw it into the Trello checklists directly as an attachment. However you save it, just make sure that you have a copy of that because it shouldn’t happen. But it happens sometimes. And that’s unfortunate. So and going over here again, before you submit the offer, call the listing agent, I’ve already actually spoken over this spoken about this already. So that way everyone knows the ins and outs of the offer, send the private report or save the private report. Okay, that has the commission split. This is being redundant, but again, it happens, make sure that you do it. And then ensure that the proof of funds or the pre qual letter actually matches the name of the contract. Yes, this is clearly a lesson learned on my end, where somebody, you know, got pre approved with their own personal name and then wanted to buy with an LLC, or they added another party or you know, et cetera, et cetera, just make sure that the numbers match, you know, are we offering 60601, when they’re only qualified for 600. Just because things change, especially at as you work with a buyer that is on a little bit more of an extended timeline, anything can happen, their original pre approval, they may have swayed from that they could be pre approval more, they can be pre approved for less, so just make sure. Then the next category of this Trello checklist is when a buyer is under contract. So at that point, the first thing here is send buyer email number four, let’s take a look at that. Because what’s your email number four, it is the congratulations, we are under contract email. And again, my my buyer emails and my seller emails are one through six. So this is email number four out of six that the buyers will be receiving. What do I started off with? You guessed it a video of me saying woohoo, we’re under contract. Congratulations, I’m so excited for you. And giving let them know what happens. Now what happens next. So I hit them with a to do list. This is your homework, add the transaction coordinator in case you haven’t already to your contacts, they are going to be emailing you all the paperwork, wire the earnest money deposit immediately as soon as you can. Because in it and of course, the state dependent however long your state allows to do that. I know that some states do non refundable, earnest money. And number three is pay for the inspections, we won’t be able to receive a copy of the inspections until you have paid for it. This is about how much to expect for a home inspection. And of course, you know see these I say save these into a digital file. You can take it off your taxes at the end of the year but talk to a CPA to confirm I’m not a CPA. So I tell them more or less what they’re expecting to pay for the inspections at this point. This is nothing new. I’ve already told them this in the buyer initiation so that way they know because in our contract are what I want from them in via email number three is also what inspections do you plan on doing so in that way, it lets me know should we stay should we stick with that 10 day due diligence or do they want to do a lot of inspections where we might need to extend it? So I want to know that upfront. Number four in their homework, the buyer buyers homework to do is talk to the lender, let them know when you want to schedule the appraisal. This was very important a couple of years ago during you know, 2021 2022, where Holmes wanted, homes were just flying off, right. And the sellers wanted the quickest, close as possible. So the quickest, the quicker the buyer could confirm that they were going to close on the house. During the due diligence period, as soon as they realize, yes, I like it, the Home Inspections came in pretty good, let’s order the appraisal. As soon as they could order the appraisal, they would tell tell the lender, the lender orders the appraisal. And then that way, it saves time and you can close faster. So sometimes, and I don’t want to be too state specific here. But at least in Arizona standard is 10 days due diligence period, you know, if inspections come back and they don’t like it, they don’t even like you know how the house whatever the the way the wind blows near the house, they can just cancel. Usually they’ll get their money, their earnest money back because we don’t have non refundable, earnest money. But if they so if they like it during that due diligence period, if they know that they’re going to continue, boom, let’s order the appraisal, let’s do the appraisal sooner rather than later. Again, I explained the risk that in case, if you want to order the appraisal fast, to close faster, there is a risk that you might end up paying for an appraisal that you don’t end up needing, you know, because if the appraisers are booking out two weeks, and we order it now, but then by the time we get all the inspections back in 10 days, and you realize that you don’t want to continue, that appraiser might still be charging you. So it’s up to them whether or not they want to spend around 600 bucks. Sometimes they do. They’re like, yeah, I want to close fast. Sometimes they’re like, You know what, no, let’s wait until all the inspections come back. And we agree on the rehab are the fixes. So number five, is once we have all the inspections back, do not fret. I literally have it here written out all inspections reports are 60 to 70 pages long whether the home was built in the 1800s, or it’s a new build, it will be as lengthy as possible. It’s going to make you feel bad. Don’t freak out. I want to talk to you first. You know, once we get once we get those inspections back because it’s the it’s the inspectors job and explain this to them. It’s the inspectors job to point on every single imperfection. So that’s what they’re getting paid for. They’re not going to say oh man, the condition of this roof is beautiful, great roof, they’re never going to put that in a report. They’re only going to put everything negative. So I let the buyers know that especially for first time homebuyers. And number six if there are major repairs needed, let’s discuss renegotiating renegotiating and so they’re pretty weird. renegotiating. Okay, so whatever may come from the inspections we have to give in this state again, very this is almost when we talk about Arizona, we have to give the seller the opportunity to fix before we can talk about closing costs or you know, seller paying toward closing costs or reducing the price. So I’ll just leave it at that just because I don’t I want this to apply to as many people as possible. And of course seven does apply to everyone. Do not buy any large items until you close on this property. If you have any questions, talk to your lender first, Hey, can I buy this Hey, can I buy that don’t risk losing this property. Number eight is if it’s applicable, call the solar company and start transferring the lease over to your name. Number nine is review the pipe pyre the buyer packet PDF again and watch those videos that apply. And number 10 is if you are getting an appraisal after the inspection period is over. You’re telling your lender to order the appraisal. So that’s kind of like a repeat but it’s it’s very important. Now at the bottom here is I have it written watch this video for extra information. And what is that video? That’s the Oh yeah, I think that’s the over all under contract video. Oops, let’s X out of that. Hopefully you couldn’t hear that. That was an ad. So that’s the under contract video and what a why attach the buyer client PDF. Again, this is from buyer email number two, all the way until the end they are seeing the same PDF because it’s it’s their whole course right the buyer, the buyer the whole overall process. So maybe buyer email number two is where they just watched the first couple of videos but or even email number three so they don’t have to keep digging. Oh yeah, where’s that buyer PDF again, they’re not gonna have saved it’s not their job to. So again, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to work with you and give you a great five star review. And at the bottom of my email, of course, I have the way ahead. Your next to do list email will be your week before closing checklist. And I want to go back to the Trillo. So that’s buyer under escrow. I’m going to finish this section here. And then yeah, let me let me finish this section here. So as soon as you’re under contract, tell the lender, again, this, the lender should have already been kept up to date, because you have a checklist where you’re talking to the lender, and you’re telling the buyer to talk to the lender, and then you’re under contract at this point. They’re happy, they’re excited. Sometimes they’re nervous, of course, with you know, good reason, it’s probably the most expensive purchase of their life, or one of them. Ask for a referral. Hey, I’m so happy that like that you’re so happy, do you is there anyone else that I can also make happy? Do you know of anyone else looking to buy or sell here in insert city. And, you know, that’s a great way to get a great time to get referrals. If I know a lot of agents do this, I personally don’t. But not for any like specific reason. This is also a great way, a great time to get a review. So a Google review, hey, up until this port up and up until this point, this is my agent in this city. And it’s been amazing. So far, we’re super excited, we just went under contract, keep you posted, you know. So you can, you can ask for a review then to with or in lieu of the referral. So of course, you’ve submitted the offer, you’re making sure that the buyer has wired the earnest money, and you want to talk to the title company made sure that they did that or however your state works. If you’re looking at a quick close tell the title to rush, the HOA paperwork that will cause extra, of course have to tell your client that if you are even in an HOA area, that is a lot of what we had to do in 2022. And ask them what type of inspections that they want to have in the property. This has already been done. You’ve already sent the under contract now what email ensure that the seller is going to have a either a contract or lockbox. So this is state dependent to some states allow that the inspectors can just go there without you without an agent, some states don’t. So Arizona, you have to be there with the inspector. So make sure that you know whatever whichever way it is that it applies. They’re staying in the regs, it regulations, sorry, that was like a military term I got used to. So then you confirm the deposit to the escrow or title, you’re looking at the title commitment, look at who’s the seller is the name who you thought it was. And you just want to make sure that you’re you’re you’re you’re probably seeing some overlap here to where like this is, of course, on the on the listing agents responsibility. But you also want to make sure, probably even before you place an offer, that when you’re making an offer, who who it’s to is actually on the county records of who owns who, who owns it. So I hope that explained that correct. In the way that you can understand. So at that point, you confirm that the lender ordered the appraisal, if there is an appraisal, you’ve scheduled the inspections or the TC has, and they just let you know, either you’re going to be out there or another agent, a showing agent can be out there. Again, state dependent, added to your calendar, if you are going to be doing that, and collect the HOA documents, if that’s applicable, remove any contingencies as you’re continuing through the transaction, the home warranty at that point, do finalize a social media post, hey, like we’re under contract, maybe you could share a reel, of course no specifics, but that you’re excited for your client that will generate more more referrals. Schedule a photo with a client’s bring the I have bring the marketing key. And then at that point, you contact the title company and you ask them for the commission instruction form. How you want to get paid, whether you’re picking up a check, which I suggest don’t Don’t, don’t drive to go pick up a check. Just like I don’t suggest you driving to go to your group to go to the grocery store to go grocery shopping go on Instacart. So I’m just like not a fan of driving and think it’s like a really big waste of time unless you’re being driven around and able to work in the backseat. But maybe that’s just how my brain works. So you want to make sure of course when that do when the inspection period ends. You want to know all the timelines you and your TC should have those dates like memorize and it’s well actually maybe instead of even memorizing it, this is what I do in the title scroll all the way up on this checklist. I have it here as as a template for the title PP purchase price close of Escrow earnest money due diligence period. So that way you know exactly what date it ends. Who is this for all of the biggest highlights or if there’s some some big to do, you can add it to the title. So in that way, as you see all of these, you know, as you continue getting more and more buyers under contract, you know, exactly where you’re at in the process. So let me go back in here. Then, where was I? Okay. If during escrow your client messes up the deal, or the client like, or the deal falls through, on your end, send the cross agent, flowers, chocolate champagne candy to their office with a card that says, hey, Lesley, I’m so sorry about what happened in the transaction. You know, even if it wasn’t your fault, if you worked with them, and you liked working with them, send them something of gratitude, it goes such a long way, because agents don’t really show gratitude to each other. So I’m so sorry about what happened with this transaction on 123 Elmo street, I know that you have a backup offer already. And you’re probably are and that you’re under contract with another offer. But again, I just wanted to say I’m so sorry, thank you so much for the time that we did work together, this goes such a long way, even if it was the most terrible, actually, especially if it was most terrible transaction. At least they realize you’re a person you care, you spent time out of your day to send them something, and it’s to their office. So they’re like, oh, man, you got balloons, what for? Oh, a transaction that caught on fire, like what? And they sent you balloons like that’s, you know, just think about that. That’s such a, I don’t know, I love this. I love this so much. Or, like vice versa, if the cross agent just goes above and beyond, or maybe they don’t even need to go above and beyond send them balloons anyway. Some of them a little candy, like lifesavers, candy, and card to their office saying how much you want to thank them for saving the deal, or just for being a great cross agent and ask them for their Google Business Review. Where business page where you can review them. And agent to agent review, I think goes such such a long way. And I love giving agent reviews, agents reviews, you know, of course, if I’ve worked with them, because as people are seeing as people are googling agents near them, and they see oh, this agent has a good reputation amongst other agents. That goes a long way. So it takes about a minute of your time. Okay, how to find signed documents. This is specific again, I hope that you were using a TC to do this. So I’m going to skip over this one. Ask the buyer when they want to order the appraisal. Again, this was already in the checklist. It’s It’s It’s redundant for a reason. So if there’s going to be a post possession, post possessions were very, very common. I’m sure your brokerage has a post possession form. If not, maybe ask the broker for one. Because there they need to have been told to seek legal counsel. Because there’s a lot of variations, a lot of things that could go wrong, you just want to make sure that you are covered. And then once the appraisal comes back, then if it’s at a price or even higher, congratulations, that is a phone call to the buyer saying congratulations. Not only you know, did we get the offer in a we got you under contract at the price you wanted the terms you wanted. But you are getting equity instant equity as soon as you close and this is how much like because sometimes they’ll they’ll receive the appraisal but they don’t know how to read it, you know, so interpret it for them. Don’t be like oh hey, did you see that appraisal? Hey, congrats like you know, you got 15k They might not even know what page to even find that. So of course, read it, baby it as much as you can to them. And the buyers are under contract on a home with a pool, add the again just a pool safety notice in case you need that and tell the title company if the buyer is military because a lot of title companies will have military discounts, police or first responder discounts, educator discounts, just ask the title companies what kind of discounts they offer and make sure that that is applied for the buyer. So the bins are here this other section is is an Arizona specific term but pretty much in Arizona even though it’s like it’s an as is state when the buyer gets the inspections back they have the option to renegotiate. So the seller can so we so we we renegotiate right sometimes say hey can you actually fix this or that those are like pretty major items. The seller can say no. So in this case here I have if the seller decides to reject the buyers benzer that means that the the the form That means the buyer now has five days to decide whether or not they want to proceed. So it’s kind of like another just renegotiation period. Of course, that that applies to only Arizona, that you might have something similar in your state. So that is where I think I’m going to end today’s. Let me see, because the next is going to be the before closing checklist, which is the two weeks out, which correlates to email number five, that is where I will start it next. For the next episode, if you have any questions, again, I am more than happy to reach to talk to you guys about it. I am already like super excited with the amount of like people that I’ve been meeting with and talking to them with these about these checklists. Similar to me, like growing the crew, I don’t want to just like throw everything at you, I want to like talk you through it. Because Trello This is a lot, there’s so much on here. So again, this is a great way for you to leverage and continue growing your crew knowing once you have perfected it and say you’re the team leader. So you’re the broker owner, once you have perfected perfected it with your state your forms that are needed, your you know templates in here. At that point, you can just have the agents on your team copy and paste this and you know, you can share a board with them and see exactly what they have done and what they haven’t done yet. So if they’re stuck on a on a portion of the transaction, then you can check in say, Hey, I see that we haven’t received the appraisal back, you know, or whatever it is you’re able to see have better access and seeing what what step of the process each of your agents is at. So again, if this has been helpful to you at all in the slightest, please give this a like, subscribe to keeping it real on YouTube. If you’re listening to this on Apple on Spotify, give us a five star review. I know DJ does a lot for the community. And if you’re looking to schedule a call to get these checklists, text the word checklist to 520-341-2552. Again, that’s 520-341-2552 My name is Ali. I’m Ally, the agent on social media and we’ll see you later

Welcome to another episode of Video Boot Camp for Real Estate Professionals with Kim Rittberg. Wondering how to get more clients? Making social media content but not seeing impact? Not showing up enough on video? Award-winning Real Estate Video Coach Kim Rittberg has VIDEO BOOT CAMP starting in just a few short weeks! Join the hundreds of real estate professionals who’ve learned how to show up and grow their revenue through video. Apply here through her website. Keeping It Real Listeners get a special bonus when they sign up! If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube! Make sure to follow her on social media on Instagram. Don’t forget to grab Kim’s Free Download – 10 Tips to Amazing Video <here>  and follow her on Instagram. This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks. Transcript D.J. Paris 0:00Today social media expert Kim rip berg is going to share with you five videos you need to make this week to help you get more business. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase 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. And now on to our show. Kim Rittberg 1:32Hello, my friends. I always love being here. And I love getting your feedback on Instagram, LinkedIn, and even through my website as well. Hi everyone, I’m Kim Rydberg, I help real estate agents become the go to agent in their area to boost their revenue, right, grab more clients. That’s what it’s all about. And I’m really excited to teach you today, the five videos that you can make this week to get clients. And you obviously don’t have to make all five. I mean, that’s a little excessive, but I’m giving you videos that you can choose from. So before I start, I wanted to let you know, I have an amazing video bootcamp. I’ve had hundreds, dozens, a lot of real estate agents, I taught hundreds of agents in the past year, my video book can take you from frustrated and overwhelmed to super confident on camera and getting referrals, getting referrals, getting more leads all of those things. So I really remove the overwhelm and just teach you how to get a great system that can be found on Kim ripper.com, our IA TTP RG or you can drop me a line on Instagram at Kim Rydberg. And let’s get started. So when people are designing a real estate agent, you know, they really have to trust you. So what are the five videos that can help build that relationship? So you, as I mentioned before, do not need to do all these videos, but I’m listing all five. So there’s something for everyone because I’m generous like that. So one of the first things I’m going to talk about is authentic videos. So what the actual video is, it could be a variety of things. But the important part is that it’s not super polished, super finished, it has to feel a little more real. So for any of you who are on Instagram, maybe lurkers and not posters to Instagram, they you see people posting stories, the little circles on top that disappear. That’s a great way to open yourself up, be more relatable, have a little more authentic content out there. That isn’t like all super polished real estate content. It really lets people get to know you. And it does really build that trust. It’s interesting. One of the things that I found with my clients, a lot of these real estate agents I work with, they feel a little weird, posting more personal stuff or soliciting engagement. But the ones who are doing it are seeing a ton of engagement. One of my agents, she was from Idaho. No. Yes, I don’t. Anyway, so we were talking about she wasn’t feeling comfortable on camera. But she started showing up. And then this one video, she didn’t want to post and I was like, You got to post it right? You just got to post it very first video, you might feel uncomfortable, but it’s the third, the fifth, the seventh, everyone gets better. She ended up posting this video to her stories. She was like hands over her eyes feeling weird about it. But then she got a response from someone going, Oh, that’s an interesting point about the market. And they weren’t like, oh, what’s wrong with your hair? What’s wrong with your outfit? People are actually interested to hear what you have to say because you are the expert in the field. They do want to know what’s going on in their area. So authentic videos. A good way to do that is go on Instagram stories. Just start talking a little bit about what you’re seeing another one of my my students from awesome, she’s from Florida, and she was telling me about what she was seeing in her neighborhood. I’m like, great, go on your walk and start filming it. And she was talking about seeing more construction and new development and she’s actually taking people along along the ride. She was very hesitant to show up when she started the video bootcamp. But like a few weeks into it, we worked on her confidence and she started showing up and she’s seeing a lot of engagement because she’s talking about what’s happening in the area of You talk show showcasing her expertise in a great way. And it’s very visual, right walking around your neighborhoods very visual, so, and you’re looking to expand your sphere of influence as an agent. So in Instagram Stories, you’re reaching a lot of different people, and you never know who’s gonna respond. So one trick is add, go into the little smiley face sticker area, and hit the word Pol, Pol. And just write a poll in there about whatever it is you’re talking about. Maybe you’re grabbing a cup of coffee, and then you’re saying, Do you like coffee? Would you like tea? Maybe it’s nighttime, and you’re like, Oh, my day is finally over. It’s eight o’clock at night. In your poll, you could say, Are you a night owl, or a morning person? These questions might seem simple, but people are like, zoned out right there. They’re scrolling on Instagram and the abyss, they just want something fun to play with and connect with. And that’s a great way to open those relationships, reopen those relationships, and you will be very surprised who is connecting with you. You never know, it could be your next client, it could be a referrer, it could be coming from 10 years ago. That’s what I see happening all the time to my students and my clients. The second video is a local video. So this is interesting. You know, we talked about being a local expert, that is your role, right? You want people to say, oh, Joe, Jane, they really know this area, I’m going to trust them. I trust that they’re getting me the best place for the best price, their knowledge about the rules. And by really positioning yourself as the expert in the area that pushes that forward, expert in the area. An easy way to do this, is you’re in front of a restaurant or bar or store in your area on your main street. Go with somebody, have them film you. And just answer have them that person asked you. What are your favorite spots in X town? So someone would say, Ken, what are your favorite spots in Brooklyn? And straight to camera, I would say, all right, my favorite spot is there’s a cocktail club called Clover Club on Smith Street. I love the croissants at this new French place in the area. And I love the park because it’s super quiet. And there are birds like chirping in the city, which you would never think. But I do love those spots and and clothing wise, there’s an awesome spot called and article down the street from me, which has great dresses. This might seem like, who cares? That’s not such a crazy video. But I’ll tell you, people have very strong opinions about their favorite spots in their neighbor neighborhood. And they’re very passionate about this. So one of my clients, he’s in California, we sat down and did this video. And it was like, Hey, Josh, talk to me about your favorite favorite la stores, or we picked a certain area. And he just, you know, let off his first his favorite restaurant, his favorite store and his favorite clothing store. What we made sure to do was to tag those stores, and the hashtags that were specifically local. And he got like 5,000% more engagement than his normal posts. So people feel very passionately about their area, and the local stores are going to be psyched to get that publicity, right. And then they’re going to feel more connected to you. And then maybe they’re going to do an event with you. And maybe they’re gonna refer you to people. But maybe it’s just another way to expand your sphere of influence. So you’re trying to position yourself as a local expert, so people trust you and give you money, sell a home with you buy a home with you. So a local video is perfect, you could do my three favorite things in this neighborhood. Let me take you to a new bar. Again, this does not need to be like a really high quality high velocity video, you can shoot it with your iPhone, it can be very casual. And if you want you can just put it in Instagram Stories. Again, they disappear after 24 hours. So if you’re really feeling shy about stuff, that’s fine. Alright, video number three, and authority video. What do I mean by that? You want to position yourself to buyers to sellers as the go to person that people trust, right? They’re giving you a lot of money, they’re investing with you. So if you have awards or accolades, actually, almost all of you do have awards or accolades, remind people of that, yes, you can post that, you know, square Hi, I’m the top 10 teams in my neighborhood. So proud. Thanks to everyone for trusting me. There are other ways to do it. One thing that I did personally, so I got an award for a big video production series that I did. And I was really excited, my kids were excited. And in addition to posting the actual logo, like a square of the award in your social media, or on your blog, and your website, I made a video where my kids sat with me and the word and they were like hugging and kissing me. And, you know, that sort of lets people know who I am what I’m about. I’m a working parent that connects to other people who are working parents. And it’s just another way to also showcase your authority, right? It’s like a way to say, you know, I’m a person who’s serious about what I do. I might be cool might be fun, but like I do this, well I do this right? I take a lot of pride in my job. And so just thinking of different ways to showcase your authority. And don’t forget you can take things from while ago like even if you have something from six months ago or four months ago, people don’t see everything you post only about 10% of people see any given post so Feel free to, you know, recycle it and every few months. Educational Video number four is an educational video. So I’m very bullish on educational videos, I think it’s a great way to actually educate people. But be it’s a great way to show people how knowledgeable you are, like, you do your job, because you will love it. You know what you’re doing, whether you’ve worked for one year or 40 years, you are an expert in your field. There’s nothing that says expert than actually hearing from that person. So allow yourself to be on camera and explaining a little more about the market. And I know some people just feel uncomfortable sort of talking to a phone, I get that it’s not a normal thing. Totally. Right. So one of the ways that you could do that is a you can set up your phone. And instead of it being like right in front of your face, it could just be like right next to someone else. And someone else could ask you those questions. And you know, get an accountability partner, get another agent, they can ask you, you can ask them, it’s a little easier to answer someone’s questions than it is to talk to a blank screen if you’re not used to it. So that’s a good way around that. And again, pick topics that your clients ask you, what clients want to know, that’s a perfect topic for an educational video. And the fifth video that I recommend doing is put your opinion in there. I want to know if the markets up markets down. What do you recommend for buying for selling for renting? What do you think about new development versus versus, you know, all of the things that are happening in your area? What’s your perspective on it? Because really, everyone can get a website, an article, a blog, that’s fine, that information is searchable. But what’s your point of view on it? And when you’re working with someone, like what do you see? When do you think should they wait? Should they buy now? Like should should they rent for a little bit, they’re looking to you as their partner, right their partner in a big purchase a big rental, a big purchase. And it’s important to show your perspective. Otherwise, like why you right and they can just get this information online, they can put it together, they can do it themselves, right? They can be like, Oh, I don’t need an agent. I’m an expert on my own. So start putting that perspective in there. The point of view, you have that and the educational content really helps remind people who you are what you’re doing. All right. Now I want to recap and give a couple of examples of the videos I’ve recommended doing. So we are talking again today about five videos that you can do this week to get clients. And one is authentic videos, we are talking about showing up in a raw and candid way. If you have a pet up, put your pet name amazing. Take a walk in the mountains, take a walk by your lake with the dog, everyone loves a dog. And then don’t forget to add something for engagement. and tag me tag me I love when my agents tag me. And I really, really do. I’m very proud when people are learning from me, it’s really fun for me to get to teach people. So tag me when you post things, a local video, go to a local restaurant, taste that new bail in your neighborhood. Try it on a sweater and then new store, but really be the local expert feature and you don’t even this doesn’t even have to be video, you could just post new happenings in your area. You could post that on your stories you could post on your feed you put that wherever you want. But I recommend putting in your perspective, I think really bringing people into who you are having them hear your voice. So your Cadency Your personality is very powerful. Authority, video, anything, any awards you want any speaking events that you’ve done, any panels you’ve done, recycle those, if you posted it once, put it in a montage. If you posted it a few months ago, post it again, people do not see all your content. So don’t be precious about it. Don’t think oh, I posted this already. They don’t see all your content once an educational video, sit down and teach someone something. Start with the four questions you get asked the most. That is the easiest way to start and the most valuable. If it’s something we get asked a lot. Well it’s something people want to know. So start with that. And lastly, put your opinion somewhere in there. You know your opinion on the market your opinion on whatever it is. But put your perspective in there. People love hearing from you and hearing your opinion. Okay. To wrap it up, I am Kim Rydberg and I love helping you real estate agents become the go to agent in your area to maximize your leads and your revenue. I have an awesome video bootcamp coming up is like really, really fun. We’ve all learned together how to go from Oh, I posted this but nothing’s happening to making awesome videos together, having a great system and really understanding and getting leads and referrals specifically in clients specifically from video from social media. It’s really fun. We have ages from across across the country so you can get referrals you know build that network. And it’s awesome and then you can also grab a free download from me you can grab that on my website at Kim or.com Drop me a line on Instagram make sure to tag me message me say hi as you can tell unfriendly love to talk. Very nice. Cool. Thank you so much for listening on camera Berg and don’t forget to drop me a line